On August 1st, shortly before midnight, a plane carrying three Americans landed at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.

Minutes later, two men and one woman walked down the stairs onto the tarmac where they were

greeted by President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Cheers for Americans who'd been held in Russian prisons then freed in the largest

post-Soviet-era prisoner swap in history.

Paul Wheeling, Evan Gerschkovich, and Alsu Kormashiva, who ran from President Biden's embrace

into the arms of her family.

She's the mother to two teenage girls, her daughter Miriam. of her

daughter Miriam about to celebrate her 13th birthday and here she runs to her

children

moments of joy and relief on a warm summer night after months or for some years of

imprisonment in Vladimir Putin's Russia. For Kormacheva, a Russian American

journalist for radio for Europe, the moments of joy have continued, as she has readjusted to freedom.

Freedom, for example, to resume the family pastime of running.

It was my first run along the National Mall in Washington. It

felt wonderful. It's been three weeks only or already I don't know but it's I'm still on my first you know I still enjoy my eggs and bananas for breakfast

it I've been craving for eggs for 10 months when I was in jail.

She'd been in jail since last fall, October 18th.

There were so many little things she missed.

So many things to readjust to this past month.

My first shower at home and my first night in bed, it felt incredible.

I slept like a baby for a couple of nights and then I started waking up sometimes in a nightmare of living again what was happening to me.

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