Meet Masha Gessen’s Spouses: Lynne Echenberg, Svetlana Generalova, and Darya Oreshkina

Masha Gessen, the Russian American journalist, author, and activist known for incisive reporting on authoritarianism, LGBTQ+ rights, and modern Russian politics, was born on January 13, 1967, in Moscow, then part of the Soviet Union. They are 59 years old as of February 2026.

Gessen grew up in an Ashkenazi Jewish family during a period of entrenched Soviet antisemitism. Their parents, Alexander Gessen and Yelena Gessen, raised four children; Masha is the eldest, with three younger brothers, including Keith Gessen, a writer and editor.

In 1981, when Gessen was 14, the family emigrated to the United States as Jewish refugees, settling in the Boston area. As an adult, Gessen returned to Russia to work as a journalist, later leaving permanently in 2013 amid an increasingly repressive political climate.

They identify culturally and ethnically as Jewish, though religious observance has not been a central feature of their public life.

Gessen is nonbinary and transgender, using they/them pronouns, and publicly came out as nonbinary in 2020.

Their personal life has included three marriages, all to women. They were first married to Svetlana Generalova in 2004 in the United States; the marriage later ended in divorce. Their second marriage was to Darya Oreshkina, whom they married in 2013. In 2024, Gessen married Lynne Echenberg.

They are the parent of three children: an eldest son, born in Russia in 1997 and later adopted; a daughter, Yolka Gessen, born in the United States in 2001; and a younger son, Vova Gessen, born in 2012.

Svetlana Generalova

Svetlana Generalova was Masha Gessen‘s first spouse. They married in 2004 in the United States, during a period when Gessen was actively involved in LGBT activism in both Russia and the U.S. Generalova, a Russian citizen, was also engaged in the LGBT movement in Moscow at the time.

The marriage took place amid Gessen‘s dual life between Russia and the U.S., but the couple later divorced (exact date not publicly specified, but prior to Gessen’s subsequent marriage to Darya Oreshkina by 2013). Some sources note the union overlapped with the early years of raising their family, including the adoption and birth of children during that era.

Darya Oreshkina

Darya Oreshkina was Masha Gessen‘s spouse during a pivotal period in the early 2010s. The couple married sometime before Gessen‘s return to the United States from Russia in December 2013. This period coincided with Gessen‘s prominent role as one of Russia’s leading voices against Vladimir Putin‘s regime and anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.

Oreshkina, a geographer and cartographer by profession, contributed her skills to some of Gessen‘s work, including hand-drawn maps for books such as The Brothers: The Road to an American Tragedy (2015) and illustrations related to Jewish Autonomous Region topics in Where the Jews Aren’t.

Public records and media from the time, including interviews around 2013–2014, referred to Oreshkina as Gessen‘s spouse as the family relocated to New York amid fears that new Russian laws could threaten custody of their children due to anti-gay policies.

The couple shared family life in New York for years, with references to their marriage appearing in profiles as late as the early 2020s in some sources. Their partnership supported Gessen‘s continued activism and writing during a time of personal and political upheaval.

Lynne Echenberg

In 2024, Masha Gessen married Lynne Echenberg in a celebrated ceremony that highlighted love, longtime partnerships, and community among queer couples. The wedding, documented on social media posts throughout Pride Month that year, was described as a beautiful, overflowing celebration of commitment.

Echenberg serves as special counsel for restorative justice in the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office, bringing a background in legal work focused on justice reform. This marriage marks Gessen‘s most recent partnership, as confirmed by updated biographical sources, such as Wikipedia and related profiles from 2024 onward, which list Echenberg as a spouse.

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