Michael Calvey (on being wrongfully imprisoned in Russia)

Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

Armchair Umbrella

Tv & Film, Music, Comedy

4.6 • 68.3K Ratings

🗓️ 18 June 2025

⏱️ 116 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Michael Calvey (Odyssey Moscow: One American's Journey from Russia Optimist to Prisoner of the State) is an investor, businessman, and author. Michael joins the Armchair Expert to discuss how the Soviet Union existed when he climbed the the matterhorn but had fallen by the time he came down, learning that contact lenses freeze inside one’s eyes in Russian temperatures, and being an early tech investor in the Russian during its big recession. Michael and Dax talk about his apartment being deliberately set on fire by rivals, being raided and arrested by armed men in the middle of the night, and feeling betrayed by believing so much in a country that wrongly imprisoned him. Michael explains discovering he had a malignant tumor in his leg while behind bars, what the average Russian citizen thinks of Putin, and why writing this book was both cathartic and cheaper than therapy.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and add free right now.
0:06.5	Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.
0:10.0	Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.
0:14.3	Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert.
0:16.3	Experts on Expert.
0:17.3	I'm Dan Shepard.
0:18.0	I'm joined by Lily Padman.
0:19.8	Hi.
0:24.4	This is a crazy story today. Really crazy.
0:30.4	Crazy story. How often do you talk to a man that was imprisoned in Russia wrongly?
0:45.2	Not that often. Only a couple times. You were up to a couple times. Michael Calvi is an investor and an entrepreneur, and he was in Russia from almost the beginning of their foray into capitalism.
0:48.5	And he was very well established and very, very successful.
0:50.5	And then something went wrong.
0:58.0	And he has a thrilling book called Odyssey Moscow, One American's Journey from Russia Optimist to Prisoner of the State. Wild. There's a nail biter. Please enjoy Michael Calvee.
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