Sabbatical

Sabbatical is the YouTube channel of Tommy Beard, an American travel creator known to viewers as Tommy. The channel’s description lists travel, history and languages. His videos take him to lesser-known places and lean on his ability to talk with people in their own languages. In late October 2024, while travelling toward Russia’s far east, he was detained in Birobidzhan near the Chinese border. A court convicted him of disobeying police and of discrediting the Russian armed forces, the second charge for using the word invasion in a video description. He served 15 days in jail, was deported to China and went public with the story from there.

His Julian Dorey Podcast episode, an early release, covers the Aztecs, a dark discovery in Argentina and his Russian imprisonment.