American YouTuber visits Russia searching for nation’s hidden majesty and learns firsthand that you go to jail for calling the Ukraine war an ‘invasion’

Meduza.io

This fall, American travel vlogger Thomas Bird (better known on YouTube as “Sabbatical Tommy”) learned the hard way that U.S. citizens risk the wrath of the police when visiting Russia. In late October, Bird drew the attention of law enforcement when he ventured too close to Russia’s border with China. After a series of meetings with police officers and federal agents, a judge in Birobidzhan convicted him of two misdemeanors: disobeying the police and “discrediting” the Russian armed forces by referring in a YouTube video description to the “special military operation” in Ukraine as an “invasion.” Bird served two weeks in jail and immediately flew to China, where he revealed his Russian ordeal to his 722,000 YouTube subscribers. Meduza summarizes his Russian misadventure.

On October 11, 2024, Thomas Bird posted an hour-long video showing the beginning of his journey across Russia to the Far East. Bird entered the country from Estonia and set out across Eurasia, eager to use his Russian language skills, which he’d been honing for the previous six months. However, it was his use of English that ultimately landed him in jail.

The problems started with the title Bird gave that October 11 video: “You Should Never Visit Russia. But I Did Anyway.” He would later complain that Russian police “clearly don’t understand how YouTube clickbait works.” In fact, Bird’s first YouTube video from Russia is largely sympathetic to the country. He visits clean city squares, speaks to friendly strangers, samples delicious local cuisines, explains Soviet-era monuments, and more. Near the end of the video, Bird stands outside the Central Pavilion of Moscow’s VDNKh (the Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy) and exclaims, “It’s been a lot of fun at the Soviet-Russian Disneyland extravaganza. I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. Definitely worth coming here.”

But Bird’s affection for Russia’s wonders was not apparent to officials in Birobidzhan. By the time the American vlogger reached the administrative center of Russia’s Jewish Autonomous Region, the only things on his YouTube page that mattered were the confusion his recent video’s title caused and — most importantly — his decision to include the phrase “after the invasion began” in the video’s description.

A local court even hired a philologist to analyze Bird’s language to determine if his wording constitutes a conscious attempt to “discredit” Russia’s war against Ukraine (an illegal act of aggression that Meduza denounces as an abominable invasion). The expert’s conclusions were bad news for “Sabbatical Tommy.” Bird’s court records contain the following explanation:

The author uses the word “invasion,” which dictionaries interpret as “to enter forcibly, step into, or burst into a place.” The interpretation of these words includes the components “forcibly” and “burst in,” which lend the word “invasion” a negative character. The content uses words that can be considered negatively charged, as they acquire a negative meaning in the context of the text presented for analysis. The content may create an overall negative impression of the subject of the action referred to by the word “invasion,” in other words, of Russia.

Bird’s court records also indicate that he tried to defend himself by arguing that he “supports Russia and that the purpose of his video is to draw viewers’ attention to videos about Russia, to show that it is a good country, not the one portrayed in Europe and the U.S.” The judge dismissed these claims, sentenced Bird to 15 days in jail for his invasion-related speech, and fined him 50,000 rubles ($480) for allegedly refusing police orders.

In a YouTube video released on December 15, recorded largely in China, Bird said his situation in Russia improved once his family reached the U.S. embassy and “set up a lawyer” who successfully challenged his convictions. However, this merely returned the cases to the lower court, which ultimately ruled against him again.

Bird documented his final tense moments in Khabarovsk before he boarded a plane for China, where he’s lived before and traveled extensively.

Once in China, Bird did not hold back when recounting his ordeal in Russia. Addressing the police officers who harassed him with drug tests and built the false case against him, Bird said, “[You’re] absolute scum. You've disgraced your country. You've disgraced Russia to the point that even China seems like a bastion of freedom by comparison.”

Bird also admonished Russia’s legal system for spoiling a perfectly good publicity opportunity. He said he was “never going to do propaganda” or “support the ridiculous war in Ukraine,” but he nevertheless came to Russia, ready to “show the country in a positive light.” Instead, his trip became a cautionary tale:

For all those people who might have been considering a trip to Russia, now they’re going to see how Russia really treats tourists. All you’ve done is confirm everyone’s worst fears about Russia.

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Story by Kevin Rothrock