Episode 2: Something Indecent

Sara Bezrukavnikova and Revekka Gershovich describe how they were abused as children by Mark Gondelman.

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Creators & Guests

Host

Nastya Krasilnikova

Nastya Krasilnikova is an investigative journalist and feminist. She covers sexual violence against women and children.

What is The Adults in the Room?

Nastya Krasilnikova is an investigative journalist who covers sexual violence against women and children. A year and a half ago, former students associated with one of Russia’s most prestigious schools approached her with allegations of serial abuse by teachers. Her investigation has uncovered a network of harm and complicity in a tight-knit circle of Russian intelligentsia.

The story spans many years and multiple countries. It asks what happens when a community refuses to atone for the violence of its leaders. As Russia wages a senseless war in Ukraine, that question couldn’t be more pressing.

For additional materials visit our website: https://adultsintheroom.libolibo.me/
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This is a podcast by Libo/Libo

Nastya: 00:04

Before we get started, a content warning. This episode contains descriptions of sexual and emotional abuse. Would you call his actions towards you a felony?

Sara: 00:17

Yep. I would.

Nastya: 00:20

Can you explain why?

Sara: 00:22

Because oral sex is still sex, and it is statutory rape, and I looked up, ages of consent both in Russia and Israel, and what we were doing is was far below that.

Nastya: 00:37

From Libo Libo, you're listening to The Adults in the Room. My name is Nastya Krasilnikova. This is Episode 2: Something Indecent. In 2008, Mark Gondelman was a 22 year old student at Hebrew University in Jerusalem studying Jewish thought. One evening, at a dinner party at his friend's house, he met Sara Bezrukavnikova.

Sara: 01:22

I was, I think, maybe 11 or early 12. It was in Jerusalem, Israel, in our, my family friends' and his acquaintances' house. I think it was maybe a dinner party. And I came there with my parents, or maybe just my dad, and he was there.

Nastya: 01:44

This is Sara. She is 27 now. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts, and she is a research assistant at Harvard University. Before moving to the US in 2013, she and her family lived in Moscow where she attended school 57. Sara and her parents would come to Israel from Moscow once or twice a year to visit friends and relatives.

Nastya: 02:08

So back to the dinner party in 2008.

Sara: 02:11

I didn't super understand what the conversation was about, but I remember it had to do with spiritual philosophy and literature. I remember, you know, that, like, child feeling when adults around you are having, you know, a big adult conversation and you're just there just kind of being, like, in awe of things you don't understand because you don't understand them, that's kind of how I felt.

Nastya: 02:39

I asked Sara what her impression of Mark was when she met him.

Sara: 02:44

I thought that he was eloquent and confident. He had sort of mid length hair. He was kind of curiously dressed. I thought he was good looking. He sort of reminded me of, like, illustrations, in, like, children medieval fairy tales, almost night like, I think because of the hair.

Sara: 03:08

One of us sent the other one an email just sort of acknowledging that it was, you know, pleasure to make to make an acquaintance. I think, actually, maybe he reached out to me first, and he said that I made a good impression. And I honestly don't remember saying much that evening, and I would be surprised if I did because, as I said, I didn't super understand a lot of it. And then we started an on and off email correspondence.

Nastya: 03:40

Sara and her family returned to Israel some months later when she was 12 years old. Mark invited her to grab a coffee on Hebrew University's campus at Mount Scopus.

Sara: 03:52

I remember just feeling very tense because I felt like this was an intellectual challenge for me because I had to support the conversation with this, you know, much older, much smarter guy. And I just remember sort of being very much alert the whole time. We were sitting there and drinking coffee because I really wanted to say the right thing and I really wanted to impress him. And yeah. And I just remember, like, walking away and feeling relieved that it was over.

Sara: 04:21

It almost felt like an exact interview.

Nastya: 04:24

Mark and Sara started exchanging emails. Sara shared with me some of the emails from Mark. They were written in Russian, and we translated them to English and asked our producer Sam to voice a passage from one of them. This email was sent in 2009. Mark writes to Sara

Mark [voiced by Sam]: 04:45

Ever since we started talking, the question of age has been on my mind. It may be a bit awkward to bring up, but this difference, me being 23 and you only 12, really intrigues me. I'm not saying I have any particular thoughts about this, but what I feel is that such a difference, and at our age, it is indeed significant, poses a certain question or challenge. I can't express it more precisely.

Mark [voiced by Sam]: 05:13

I don't remember myself very well at 12. But 12 is a completely different time for a boy. I remember that I was still playing children's games with my brother. Our universe, though already fading, was not yet forgotten. I didn't think about literature or philosophy or anything like that.

Mark [voiced by Sam]: 05:34

I recall that was the time I stopped being an outsider in class and started experiencing some degree of socialization. I lived in what was a charmed, but still essentially childish world. And if you had met me as I was then, we would have had nothing to talk about. We would have been as though from different geological eras. It's amazing to me that we somehow find common ground.

Mark [voiced by Sam]: 05:58

But every once in a while, I wonder, is it really so? Is understanding possible? On the other hand, who am I to question it? Many of my friends and teachers are in their thirties and forties and I have spirited and meaningful relationships with them. The age difference I have with them is even greater than with you and yet is no hindrance at all.

Sara: 06:23

At some point, he invited me to his place, and he invited me to lie down with him. I still remember feeling very, very tense, and I was very uncomfortable, and I knew that something wrong was happening. He asked me first if I've ever done this with anyone before and, you know, I was 12, so I didn't have a lot of experience lying with other people. And I think, again, I was just in this mindset of it all being some sort of, like, test or something. So I was like, yeah.

Sara: 06:57

Yeah. Like, of course. I've done this, like, backwards and forwards and a 100 times. And he was like, okay. Interesting.

Sara: 07:05

I also think that it was flattering that he invited me at the time. So it didn't feel so wrong that he didn't do anything that would have felt completely out of any bounds, but he sort of pushed a line. And I thought that because it felt really challenging, I should go along with it. I should play along. I should pretend that this is what I like and this is what I want.

Sara: 07:30

Like, I felt guilty, because it felt out of normalcy. Like, it didn't I couldn't categorize the situation. I didn't really know what happened, why it happened. It felt unusual, and I didn't really have the vocabulary to talk to anyone about that right after it happened first. I think one of the next times we hung out, he kissed me.

Sara: 08:02

And I think after that, I sort of forced myself to feel more admiration for him. I think I still felt, like, intimidated. And then once he sort of kept pushing that line that didn't feel right, but also didn't feel too wrong, but once he started making these steps, I forced myself to internally grow that awe inspiring, you know, like, trepidation, actually, I think is a good word. That, like, trepidation that I felt for him, I think I nurtured it into a romantic image. I sort of pushed myself to be in love with him a little bit because I thought that that is what should be done.

Nastya: 08:43

Sara lived in Moscow and Mark lived in Jerusalem. They would visit each other, but mostly, their relationship was long distance.

Sara: 08:51

We exchanged a lot of emails. The first email that he sent me when he decided that he wants me to be, whatever, his girlfriend or whatever the fuck, it was titled, "The Questions of Optics". Again, at the time, I had no fucking clue what that can even mean. Of course, now I understand that what he meant is how will people see us? And I was like, you know, I don't remember what I responded, but I think after that, he took bolder steps.

Sara: 09:21

He started touching me more whenever we saw each other, and I never quite got rid of that tense feeling where I didn't know what to do. I was caught off guard permanently. At some point, I think it must have been in Israel, where he forced me to have oral sex with him. It didn't feel like forcing at the time. It didn't feel like anything.

Sara: 09:46

I was just so confused and so tense. That is really what I remember the most, is just feeling constantly very, very tense. And he just kept pushing that line. I think he said, you're good at it. And I wanted to be good at it.

Sara: 10:03

I wanted to, like, see more adult. And I wanted to keep doing what adults do. But that's how it started. It started with him introducing oral sex into the relationship.

Nastya: 10:17

And did you know much about sex at that age?

Sara: 10:20

Yes. He told me about all of his previous experiences. He had a long term girlfriend who was his age, and he told me in, like, vivid detail about their sexual encounters and sort of fostered that comparison in my head between, like, if I want the great honor of being his girlfriend, I should really, like, perform as his girlfriend, and that's what his girlfriends do. He had a great habit of taking naked pictures of women that he had slept with. I was one of them.

Sara: 10:57

He told me to pose naked for him at his apartment, and I think at a conference we went to together. And I don't think he ever sent me those pictures, so I'm sure he still has them somewhere. But he had this almost collectionist approach to them, you know. These are the women that I've been with, and it was almost like a museum of his past conquests.

Nastya: 11:26

I asked Sara, was there anything about being around Mark that she actually enjoyed?

Sara: 11:31

You know, we read, like, Plato's dialogues together, and he'd explain things to me, and that part, I actually enjoyed. And as far as fun goes, he'd bring me to different, like, conferences and parties, and people there were kinda cool sometimes. Again, it was all part of me, I think, wanting to be more grown up. I was drinking with these people who I've heard, like, legends about.

Nastya: 11:58

All those people that surrounded you there, were they okay with a grown up guy with their underage girl on his hand?

Sara: 12:08

That's something that I cannot figure out myself. No one talked to me. People still fond over him, and people still invited him places. And he'd bring me nobody ever was, like, trying to reach out and trying to check-in. But they also weren't trying to get very close to me because I think they were kind of revolted by the situation as they should have been.

Sara: 12:28

So they were kind of, like, avoiding looking at me directly, like something indecent was happening, which it was. But then, yeah, nobody really raised the concern, which was just crazy.

Nastya: 12:42

The parties were attended by people associated with the Sambation summer school, where Mark worked, as well as some teachers from School 57.

Sara: 12:53

He got a lot of intellectual validation from the awe that I think I showed him, and the questions that I was asking. He talked a lot about teachers and students, and how, you know, the knowledge is transferred from one person to another, and he framed our relationship in terms of that as well. Like, he was my teacher.

Nastya: 13:13

Mark would push Sara to write essays about philosophy books he gave her. In one of his emails to her, he writes, "How do you understand the word soul? Please give me a definition". And what was your relative reaction on, your relationship with this man?

Sara: 13:35

They weren't happy. Mentally, I was in a space where I blamed myself for everything that seemed off putting and not okay about that relationship. And I just thought that I'd disappoint them, to be honest, if I told them the whole truth, so I never did. My grandmother, who looked out for me and was really concerned for me, found email chain that was pretty sexual. I think may I was 13 at the time.

Sara: 14:04

She was so angry and sad, and that really sort of made me feel even more guilty. And I just shut in, like, within myself even more. My dad apparently went to a psychologist, and here in my dad lived in the US since, I was 6, and he went to a consultation here. And, basically, what he heard is, you know, if this was America, you would have just gotten a restraining order. But, unfortunately, it wasn't America, and they just didn't know what they could do.

Sara: 14:36

And I think they felt like, you know, every step in either direction would exacerbates the situation. It would make me feel worse. And, Mark, I think a lot of, actually, in my experience, and from what I've heard and read, a lot of people who prey on kids and on younger people, they use this strategy where they frame it as, like, a human rights issue that, you know, yeah. You know, your society considers you young and immature, but I see how great you are. I see how smart you are.

Sara: 15:08

You deserve to do all the things that everyone else does. You deserve to be treated as an adult. So he would use that discourse and make me believe that my family were suppressing my rights as a human being. He knew that my weak point is guilt, that I'm very prone to guilt tripping myself, and he would paint this picture of him being, like, a suffering artist and a tortured soul. And then when I would distance myself, and when I would show inclinations to leave, which I think I started showing pretty quickly, because, as I said, I was not having a good time.

Sara: 15:48

I didn't wanna be there. I was tense. I was nervous. I think I told him that I went out of it, and he made me feel like I'm hurting, like, I'm hurting him, and he's already hurting so much. He actually proposed to me when I was 13.

Sara: 16:03

He made me promise me that I'd never leave and that I'll, like, support him forever, which is fucking crazy. Like, how do you say that to to a child? You know?

Sara: 16:20

But, yeah, that is... that was his main manipulation tool. Just guilt.

Nastya: 16:25

And he proposed you when you were 13, but he knew that you can't marry him because you're too small. So what was the idea?

Sara: 16:34

Well, first of all, he said that, you know, according to Torah, like, the the fucking old testament, I can, actually, because girls become, like, of age at 12 in Judaism. But I think he wanted to marry me as soon as I turned 18.

Nastya: 16:51

Mark gave her a silver ring with garnet gemstones. Sara liked the ring and even wore it for a while. But when she turned 14, she decided to end the relationship.

Sara: 17:03

You know, at that point, just like a person who just, like, complains to me and guilt trips me and forces me to write him essays as a declaration of love, it no longer felt like something I could even entertain. So at some point, I just said goodbye and stopped responding to his letters. And then he called me a bitch. He said that I became a bitch, and that, he's so disappointed, and he can't believe that, you know he called me evil. He also wrote poetry, and he wrote something about my, like, evil, curly head or something, because I have curly hair.

Sara: 17:47

And then I was just like, I do not care. I truly do not can't make myself care anymore about this.

Nastya: 17:54

This is from an email Mark sent to Sara in July of 2011.

Mark [voiced by Sam]: 17:59

You are a wicked little girl who does not understand what it's like to wake up the morning after and know that up until lunch, the one in your heart, whom you wholeheartedly loved, and fucked, and experienced, to her, you were a miserable piece of shit.

Nastya: 18:18

Mark writes in plain words that he fucked Sara. And, yes, we have confirmed that the address that sent these emails belongs to Mark. Did he have any concerns about your age difference at the time you were together?

Sara: 18:35

He never addressed it directly. I think a lot of child molesters, sort of convinced their victims of that I was special and that I was his equal. I just had my doubts, but I never really vocalized them because I I didn't feel comfortable. I didn't feel comfortable saying anything. But then, one of our last conversations that I really, really vividly remember, he said that, you know, there are many truths, Sara.

Sara: 19:04

There is a truth that I'm an asshole, and you're just a little girl, but we don't need that truth. We're gonna get rid of it. And I was like, you can't really get rid of truth, though, can you? And that also was something that really made me, I think, be like, become internally okay with cutting him off. When I turned 22, I remember thinking that this is the age that Mark was having sex with, an 11 year old.

Sara: 19:33

Well, okay. Maybe we didn't have sex when I was 11, but I think we started when I was 12. Not much better. Like, the fact that it was okay in ancient fucking Judea doesn't make it okay in the 21st century. It's disgusting.

Sara: 19:48

It's disgusting to think about the like, to allow your mind to even turn in that direction. It is unfathomable to me. And the only reason why I was okay with that back then is because I saw myself as an adult, and I wanted to be more adult. You know, I cannot imagine what must be going through your head if you're do like, I'm in my mid twenties. Like, how is that on your mind?

Sara: 20:12

Like, what are you doing? What are you doing with your life? What are you doing with yourself? How are you not more ashamed? What is wrong with you?

Sara: 20:20

Like, imagining it as a situation is disgusting, let alone acting on it.

Nastya: 20:29

A year after Sara broke up with Mark, Revekka Gershovich arrived at Sambation, the summer camp for talented Jewish children. It was the summer of 2012. As you'll recall from our first episode, Revekka was 14 years old and considering whether to switch to School 57 in Moscow. Mark was now a 26 year old teacher at Sambation who had a habit of comparing himself to Jesus.

Revekka: 20:58

He was a teacher. At that point, he was doing his masters in the Jerusalem University, in Jewish thought and in philosophy, and he would, read lectures about that.

Nastya: 21:13

One of the places the class visited that summer was the Ukrainian city of Lviv. 1 evening, Revekka wanted to have a walk around the city. She was too young to go alone, so one of the teachers, Mark Gondelman, agreed to accompany her.

Revekka: 21:30

And during that walk, he started reading me poetry and telling me things that were very romantic and very smart and made me feel very unusual, very, you know

Nastya: 21:43

Special.

Revekka: 21:44

Special. Yes, special. And we walked the whole night around Lviv, and it was very very beautiful there. And we sat at some point and he was holding my hand, and I completely was enamored with him.

Revekka: 21:58

And it completely, you know, tallied with all my knowledge of Russian literature and poetry and everything. I felt very romantic. I felt extreme emotions. It's not that I was surprised that he was into it. It was that all of it was directed at me.

Revekka: 22:17

That the poems were love poems and were sighted at me, and kind of about me and him and stuff. And that the walking outside, we were doing together, holding hands, and it was so romantic. I was completely in love. It was my first love. I never felt anything like that before.

Revekka: 22:38

He was, like, opening new worlds to me, opening new horizons and everything.

Nastya: 22:44

But did you think at the point that there was something odd about him being an adult man falling in romantic love with a 14 year old girl?

Revekka: 22:55

I did not think any such thing. I thought that that was normal. I mean, because all of my ideas about relationships were coming from Russian books and, you know, Turgenev, pretty normal to have a young girl and an older male. Tolstoy, same thing. I did not hear anything about how it was inappropriate for older men to be in love with a younger girl.

Revekka: 23:18

And then the day after that, we were walking and he was talking about, with me again. And I remember in that very time, he started telling me about his love story with Sara, who later turned down to be Sarah.

Nastya: 23:33

Sara and Revekka met that autumn at school 57 where Rebecca eventually enrolled. They became friends. When Rebecca told Sarah about her closeness with Mark, Sara gave her a warning.

Sara: 23:47

I told her he's a bastard, and Mark is fucking terrible. Don't I was pushed so much that I never wanted to push others in the same way. But I try to communicate the fact that I think, like, it's pretty black and white. Mark is a piece of shit, and he should just be avoided as such. Like, there's nothing good that can come out of that.

Revekka: 24:13

Sara was definitely telling me about her relationship with Mark, but that was when we were already close and when I was way further along in that relationship. And, namely, she really was trying to get me out of that relationship. She was saying that it was very traumatic and abusive and that Mark is an asshole and that, it's not good for me. And she was, like, offering all sorts of help to get me out of it.

Revekka: 24:42

And I still really appreciate that.

Sara: 24:45

I think Revekka and I were kind of feeling a similar sort of teenage rebelliousness and, again, like, a Russian expression, like "нам море по колено", and, like, translating as the sea is, like, up to our knees, you know, that we're bigger than any obstacle, that we're bigger than anything. And I also I don't know if I've ever actually put this into words, but I had a thought that it is, again, guilt. Right? Like, that it is my fault that he's doing it to her because I allowed him to do it to me. And, yeah, it's not my fault.

Sara: 25:21

It's his fault.

Revekka: 25:25

He lived in Jerusalem, namely on Haam Shalom Street. I remember that very well because I went visit him there. And then later he visited Moscow several times. So he would come to Moscow pretty often. And on top of that, I also went to Israel myself.

Revekka: 25:47

And it was very official that we were together. We talked about it. We talked about infidelity and loyalty and everything in that relationship. And mainly, it applied to me and not to him. The first time that he touched me in a way that was definitely sexual, I think I was 14.

Revekka: 26:06

I might have been 15, but most likely I was 14. When he did more than just touch me through, like, clothes in a way that's definitely sexual, like, when he grinded on me and grinded on my stomach with his penis, That was when I was 15 already.

Nastya: 26:23

Did you have any conversation about this part of your relationship?

Revekka: 26:27

Yeah. So I really didn't want that. And I've been very vocal and adamant about it. I wasn't so vocal and adamant about the touching part. I just was very confused about it and didn't really know what it was and nobody kind of talked about it.

Revekka: 26:41

It was just like, okay, he's touching me. I guess that's normal, you know. He was touching me on the hand and now he's touching me on the boob. Not something we really talked about and not something I really thought about. It was smooth transition that I did not understand it was happening and I was, like, I remember very well-being, like, confused by, for instance, feeling his penis through his underwear and my clothes and being like, I'm not sure what that is.

Revekka: 27:11

It's an interesting thing. It feels weird. I don't know what the fuck it is. And, later on, when he wanted to grind on me, that's when we started having conversations about sex. I remember that he was talking about how he really wants to have sex with me.

Revekka: 27:27

He also was talking about how he really wants to take my virginity. And I was very very opposed to it. So, it happened when I was in Israel and I was visiting him and I was staying with him. And he kept telling me that if you are staying at somebody's house, you cannot deny them sex. And I was, like, I really don't want to have sex with you.

Revekka: 27:49

Please, let's not have sex with you. Let's not have sex. I don't wanna do this. And he kept pressing me and pressing me and pressing me. At some point, he brought me to the Jerusalem Bazaar and there is a place there called Basta Basta.

Revekka: 28:06

He invited his friend Orly there. She also graduated from the same school I graduated from, 57 School. He told her that, well, I, meaning like Rivka, refuses to have sex with me. So, like, kind of, you know, like, here is our relationship problem. And she was like, well, why are you refusing?

Revekka: 28:29

What is going on? And I started explaining to her that, like, I don't want to. And she was, like, well, you stay at the man's house and you live at his place and you expect not to have sex with him? That's wrong. If you live at somebody's house, you are supposed to have sex with them.

Revekka: 28:46

And I was like, well, I guess that's so then. And I'm just wrong about it and I should just let him do what he wants.

Nastya: 28:56

I've talked to Mark's friend, Orly. She didn't want to be interviewed on tape, but she confirmed that she met with Mark and Rebecca in the pasta buster restaurant in Jerusalem. Inna doesn't remember this subject being discussed, and she denies that she ever told Revekka that she had to have sex with Mark.

Revekka: 29:15

I think, like, the same one night we came back and he started grinding on my stomach and coming from that. And I was, like, absolutely disgusted and it was the first time that I was, like, looking at the ceiling and completely disassociating from what was going on around me. I just didn't wanna think about it. I just didn't wanna perceive it, percept it. I wanted to turn off my consciousness at that point.

Revekka: 29:41

So I was looking at the ceiling and thinking that we had plans to go to synagogue later in the day. I think it was Friday. Or maybe the conversation happened Thursday and we were having sex Friday. At any rate, I was looking at the ceiling and thinking, oh, it's so beautiful. The singing in the synagogue is so beautiful.

Revekka: 30:04

And there is a ceiling and there is a little dot on the ceiling. I still remember how his ceiling looks. It's kind of funny. Like, that's the part I remember the best about his apartment. Because I looked at it so much and stared at it so hard.

Revekka: 30:19

He started grinding on me and he came on me and then he didn't want me to remove his scum from my stomach. But, at the end of the day, I did. Or maybe he allowed me to. This is really fuzzy. But, yeah, that's how it was.

Nastya: 30:36

Did you tell him how uncomfortable you were during these interactions?

Revekka: 30:42

I think it was pretty damn obvious, and I think it was pretty damn obvious that I didn't wanna do it again, but he made me do it again. I don't think I said it explicitly to him but I think he very well knew that. He was very well aware of it.

Nastya: 31:01

Mark considered himself an observant Jew. In one of our interviews, Revekka described him as the most Jewish of the Jews. He didn't use electricity on Shabbat and would eat only kosher food.

Revekka: 31:15

So he was a vegetarian and he, was observing kosher rules, and I was neither. I did not observe kosher rules and I was not vegetarian. And at some point he, like, came to my apartment and forced me to, like, make some of the dishes kosher. And then he threw out of my fridge every single thing that was non kosher, and I was so angry about it or, like, every single thing that was non kosher and non vegetarian, which was like almost all of them. It was ridiculous, you know.

Revekka: 31:49

My parents left me stuff and he just threw them out.

Nastya: 31:52

Mark also involved Revekka in his intellectual life, and that felt controlling. I've seen this in dozens of emails from Marc that Rebecca shared with me. A grown man bewildering a young girl and scolding her for failing to keep up.

Revekka: 32:08

He would force me to write letters to him and then he would criticize them to me. He would, like, tell me that I write worse than Sara did or that I was or, like, generally poorly or that I don't understand him, he would also talk to me in a very, very complicated language.

Mark [voiced by Sam]: 32:26

Your words scream of the fact that you are 15 and exude what is called eros. Oh, if flesh were as kind, transparent, and reckless as your text can be. If it's soared in the wind, as the Russian language does. But wise flesh is heavy like a leaden disk. And so, in order to survive, people invent not only Galatian youths, but also morals.

Mark [voiced by Sam]: 32:52

To somehow cope with that master we call the body.

Revekka: 32:56

And for instance, I couldn't distinguish between the sexual terms that he used and the philosophical terms that he used because I didn't know either. And so, at some point, my mom and I were watching the other amazing pedophile, Woody Allen's movie. And in that movie, like, the main character hangs himself and says, oh, I wish I could get a blowjob from my wife, like, after he hangs himself. And in Russian, like, it's a French word, and that, like, is not used in any other context than that. And I had no idea what it meant, but I knew that Mark kept talking to me about минет, минет, минет, like, blowjob, blowjob, blowjob, blowjob, blowjob.

Revekka: 33:38

And I had no idea what it was. And I thought it was a philosophical term, and I must ask my mom, mom, tell me, is that a philosophical term? And my mom was like, what?

Nastya: 33:51

How did, your relationship end?

Revekka: 33:53

I kicked him out of my apartment. I think it was actually after he threw out all my non osher stuff. I was so angry at him that I just said that I don't want him in my apartment again.

Nastya: 34:11

As Sara put it in one of our conversations, both she and Ravek are doing pretty well now. They both live in Boston, they have impressive careers in academia, and they've built healthy relationships. But Sara's and Revekka's journeys to this point were long and difficult. They've done a lot of work to understand how this all happened. I've spent months trying to understand it too.

Nastya: 34:40

Mark's never really spoken to me, but through hours of conversations with people who knew him and by pouring over his writing, I feel like I've gotten inside his head. There's one thing about him I can't wrap my brain around though. In his emails, Mark is shockingly straightforward about the nature of his relationships with these girls. The reference is to how he fucked and loved Sara with all his heart, or to sex with Revekka. He's put evidence of criminal activity in writing to his alleged victims.

Nastya: 35:14

How could he be so careless? I've come to a few possible explanations. One is that he's sincere, sincere in his inappropriate expressions of love to these girls, and sincere in his belief that his Jewish faith justifies sexual relationships with children. Or maybe he just felt confident that Sara and Revekka would never speak out about their experiences, and that even if they did, it wouldn't matter. Sara remembers Mark bringing her to parties of the Sambation and School 57 communities where no one checked in to see whether she was okay.

Nastya: 35:55

Where were the grown ups in all this? Why didn't they see what was happening and stop it? That's on the next episode. The Adults in the Room is produced by Libo Libo Studio. All episodes are out now, so you can play the next one right away.

Nastya: 36:22

This podcast has a website where you can find additional visual materials collected throughout our investigation and contact information for feedback. The link is in the description box. This show is hosted, reported, and written by me, Nastya Krasilnikova. A huge thank you to my colleagues, researcher and fact checker, Vica Lobanova, producers and editors, Nastya Medvedeva, Sam Colbert, and Dasha Cherkudinova, composer and sound designer, Ildar Fattakhov, and the head of Libo Libo, Lika Kremer. Legal support is provided by Michael Sfard and Alon Sapir from Michael Sfard Law Office and Sergey Markov, managing partner of the law firm Markov and Madaminov.

Nastya: 37:10

Thank you for listening.