His hair, once a thick mop, was so close-cropped he appeared almost bald. But in a dark suit and blue tie, Mikhail Khodorkovsky on Sunday looked more like an executive between meetings than a man who 48 hours earlier had been in a prison colony in the remote forests of northern Russia.
The tie did, however, mark this out as a special occasion. Even when he was a multi-billionaire oil magnate, Mr Khodorkovsky preferred turtleneck sweaters.
Meeting a small group of journalists, including the Financial Times representative, in his first appearance after 10 years behind bars, the man who came to be regarded as Russia’s most famous political prisoner betrayed little anger or desire for revenge against the man whom most Russians believe put him there: President Vladimir Putin.
Composed, magnanimous, softly spoken, he managed a few quips.
“I’m not going to buy a football team,” he said when asked about his plans, in an ironic reference to some of the other “oligarchs” with whom he once bestrode the world of Russian business – before falling out with Mr Putin.
His first public appearance was, however, like his release, heavy with echoes of an earlier era.
After being spirited out of Russia to Berlin on Friday like a Soviet-era dissident being handed over to the west, he was met at the airport by, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the former German foreign minister who once played a prominent role in German reunification. Mr Khodorkovsky appeared on Sunday, first before the small invited group and then at a sometimes rowdy press conference, at the city’s Checkpoint Charlie museum.
Outside the window was a guard post from the one-time crossing point through the Berlin Wall; inside, the walls carried pictures of communist-era political prisoners and victims – and some from Mr Putin’s Russia.
While he would not “fight for power”, Mr Khodorkovsky said, he would devote his time to freeing those modern-day captives.
“I will continue to campaign for the freedom of political prisoners, including those from Yukos,” his former oil company, he said. “How could I act otherwise?”
Yet while Mr Khodorkovsky claimed no formal conditions were attached to his pardon, it became clear that his movements and activities will face important restraints.
He plans not to return to Russia while he still faces a $500m legal claim related to the first of two convictions, in 2005 and 2010, that had been due to keep him behind bars until next August.
I will continue to campaign for the freedom of political prisoners, including those from Yukos. How could I act otherwise?
He would not become a “sponsor of the opposition”, he added, because it would be too dangerous for Russian parties to accept money from him.
It also became clear his release followed a flurry of diplomatic and legal activity – and that the one-time tycoon had faced the real threat of a third set of legal charges. That case might make it too risky for him to return to Russia in the longer term.
One person close to Mr Khodorkovsky said a Russian investigative unit had spent “hundreds of hours” interrogating witnesses for a new case alleging that, from jail, he had paid advisers to lobby for legislative changes favourable to him.
Meanwhile, Mr Genscher, who had earlier asked Mr Putin to pardon the former oligarch, had tried a new approach. “Putin used to get mad. He was very emotional about it,” said the person close to Mr Khodorkovsky. Recently, however, the president had become more receptive to the idea, apparently concerned about Russia’s worsening image.
A deal was struck, enabling Mr Khodorkovsky to seek a pardon without admitting guilt.
They can still demean people, put pressure on people [in the modern ‘Gulag’]. But the hunger, the cold that prisoners spoke about in the past, that doesn’t happen now
On Sunday Mr Khodorkovsky at times played down his imprisonment. Conditions inside Russia’s modern-day “Gulag”, he said, had softened since Soviet days.
“They can still demean people, put pressure on people,” he said. “But the hunger, the cold that prisoners spoke about in the past, that doesn’t happen now.”
But in details omitted from written interviews he gave from prison, Mr Khodorkovsky said “there was a TV camera above my bunk, above my workplace, and above my table in the canteen”, implying these had been fitted specially to monitor him.
In other respects, however, he had been treated like any prisoner. “No one was bringing an extra bowl of balanda [thin prison gruel] to my table,” he said.
Separation from his family, he added, had been most difficult to bear. “I had only four years during this time when I had the opportunity, once every three months, to have three days to see my family,” he said.
Mr Khodorkovsky confirmed the impression he had managed to put away enough funds before his arrest to secure his future, saying that he would not go back into business and would not have to work to support himself. Asked how much money he had left, however, he shrugged. “I really have no idea about my financial situation,” he said.
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