The Day my Dream of a Modern Russia Died.
So, I am back again, despite lack of popular demand and with a post that I never wanted to write.
It seems appropriate that the first warning of the catastrophe that was to come came out of the mouth of a xenophobic court jester – one Zhirinovsky. It was sometime in the winter of the previous year when he said something about Russia becoming great again and something about war, and this would start around the 22nd February. The ravings of a moribund loon.
Then in the January of this year American military intelligence were often being quoted in the Western press about an imminent invasion of the Ukraine.
It was easy to shrug this off as panic porn. We had become weary of this since the pandemic years.
Then on February the 24th came the headline news: Russian soldiers and tanks were barging in to a neighboring Slavic sovereign territory – and not just to safeguard Donbass but were heading to Kyiv.
Many Russians (let alone expats) have since insisted that their home country crossed the rubicon on this date and became a different country.
For myself, it felt as though all the background noise of Russian life from the past decade – the national exceptionalism and autocratic authoritarianism – which I had been polite enough to overlook, had all of sudden become the foreground. We had entered Sorokin’s The Day of the Oprichnik.
As Russia ranged itself against the West despite all the all too obvious repercussions, a numbness set in across the land. The day after the news everyday small talk became impossible. In the days that followed people scarcely talked about the new war – and if they did it would be to claim, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, that it would be a short one.
I spent every morning unwilling to get out of bed, scrolling through as many news channels as I could find, with a sinking feeling in my stomach, hoping against hope for some kind of negotiated settlement.
All around us dark rumours swirled like whirlwind ready to suck us in: soon it would be impossible to cross all land borders as martial law would be imposed and the internet would only function within Russia.
These never happened but, then again, many flights out of Russia were no longer available, access to sites such as Facebook became restricted and frightening new rulings were passed making any kind of public discussion of what was happening well-nigh impossible. You could be caged for up to 15 years for even mentioning the war – as opposed to the `Special Military Operation`.
Novoya Gazeta, was subject to threats and had to leave the country. Moscow Ti mes – the voice of liberal America in Russia – took the precaution of making themselves scarce in advance. Radio Doszhd was closed down and Meduza could only be accessed with a VPN. This was not the `developing,` if `managed`, democracy that I had signed up for. Had I been backing a losing horse for the last fifteen years?
With that came the fast forwarding of one unfortunate facet of Russian reality: the brain drain. Many young Russian professionals decamped to nearby C.I.S countries and many of my immigrant colleagues got onto the net and booked journeys out by the nearest exit and disappeared in a cloud of dust.
Mute witness.
I did not join them. I had already invested too much to jettison it all. Meanwhile, I learnt about my own limitations – that I lacked the guts to join in the sporadic protests that began to appear on streets near me. As for this blog, I could think of nothing reasonable to say that would not now be actionable.
I became like any ordinary Russian citizens, keeping my views to myself. Reassuring myself that I had not panicked like so many acquaintances of mine, I doubled down on `Russianness`: I visited the Bolshoi theatre a few times and took in some ballet and I got around to finishing Brothers Karamazov.
But something felt wrong.
Violation.
Now that my gag is off, I can tell you what I think about this `Special Military Operation`. The invasion of the Ukraine represents an arrogant violation of international law. It is an act of imperialism and there is nothing that the people of the Ukraine have done to bring it on.
The grim ordeals of the Ukrainian people – the shelling of peaceful cities, millions of people being made homeless and the executions – have been well documented. Yet it is not only Ukrainians who have been exposed to needless tragedy. If the BBC is to be believed then 3, 052 Russian soldiers had been slaughtered as of May 31st of this year (and this number only includes those whose full names could be confirmed).
Then there has been the inevitable blowback against Russian `soft power` – the very thing that this blog was so bound up with. Tchaikovsky has been removed from the playlists of some Western orchestras, Dostoevsky airbrushed out of the reading lists of certain universities, even the Crufts international dog show disallowed Russian dog breeds and an American mustard museum took out it’d display of Russian mustard. The most egregious aspect of these cancellations is the fact that that from Malevich to Gogol to Vera Brezhneva -many `Russians` are Ukrainians or have Ukrainian ancestry. Trying to separate Russian and Ukrainian cultures is akin to trying to remove the egg yolk from a cake mix. As the French actor, and now Russian citizen, Gerard Depardieu said: `This is a fratricidal war`.
Furthermore, now that the West seems hell bent on supporting one side in this civil war, it is one where there is an all too real possibility that weapons of mass destruction may be flung around. We have entered The Day of the Oprichnik and may well also end up in the world of Metro 2032 and The Slynx as well.
There seems to be two ways that we can wake up from this nightmare. One is for one side to vanquish the other. There are many reasons why the world should not want this outcome.
The other way out is for a negotiated settlement and one which would lead to a long-term ceasefire and a diplomatic peace agreement. This would need a lot of earnestness and grown up statecraft to happen.
I hope and pray for this outcome though and also grieve the many opportunities for such an agreement that have already been chucked away.
Provocations.
My condemnation of the actions of the Kremlin does not mean that I am unaware of the role of the Western military machine in this global disaster too.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation was set up as a response to the perceived threat of the Eastern Bloc back in the late forties. The latter formed the Warsaw Pact as a countermeasure. NATO has now 30 member states under its wing and the Warsaw Pact zero. In 1991 as the Soviet Union folded, and with it the Warsaw Pact, not only did NATO fail to soften its approach, it began to push its boundaries out further to the East, covering an eventual 800 miles.
In March 1999 Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic became a part of this aggressive military bloc.
Then in 2004 Lithuania, Slovenia, Slovakia and Estonia followed suit. (Estonia being only 200 kilometres from Sant Petersburg).
Albania and Croatia joined up in 2019 as had Montenegro in 2017. But it didn’t end there: NATO sent troops to Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Poland.
In 2010 NATO had begun speaking of a `new strategic concept` and this included in its remit `out of area activity`. Ignoring the United Nations Convention on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, around 150 US B61 nuclear bombs had been positioned around Europe by 2012.
The warnings of august diplomats such as Henry Kissinger that this behavior would only lead to further tensions went unheeded.
This looks more and more like a proxy war in which Ukrainian soldiers and civilians are used as cannon fodder in the long-standing desire for NATO to ensure that Russia is humiliated.
Green ribbons.
In the light of all that, we can be grateful that not all Russians have become zombified by `Uncle Vova’s` megaphone which is the state media and press which lays out a diet of bloodthirsty and rash militarism.
As well as the brave rallies which have resulted in sweeping arrests, some of Russia’s Great and Good have made some unexpected contributions. The Georgian heartthrob-crooner Valery Meladze got in early to speak out against the war. He was rewarded by some of his shows getting withdrawn.
On similar lines the bow-tied chat show host Ivan Urgant (think Jonathan Ross) let his feelings be known on this. He too has been taken off air in disputed circumstances and there are unconfirmed rumours that he has since fled to Israel on a permanent basis.
Of the political parties, the disenfranchised liberal club which is Yabloko could be relied on to critique this foolish vainglory. However, there are also reports that the much more loyalist Russian Communist Party has experienced some tumult as its younger members question the official narrative and even talk of `Imperialism`.
In the rock world, there are some acts that we would expect to nail their anti-war colours to the mast and these include D.D.T, Zemfira and, of course, Lumen. Others have simply gone quiet. The hip-hop genre has acquitted itself quite well with one of its prominent exponents – Oxxxymoron becoming something of a tribune for anti-war sentiment.
Many gestures by `ordinary people` have been small but significant. Someone in my local area of VDNKH (Moscow) went around putting up photographs on walls showing scenes of ruined Ukrainian cities after shelling operations. A man in St Petersburg a man called Alexey Lakhov has been filing complaints with various government agencies for their use of `Z! symbols in public places – and has put many of them on the defensive.
New symbols of resistance have gone viral after being promoted by the internet savvy young. Green ribbons have been tied around the bannisters of public buildings and a `new Russian flag` has gained some traction. This consists of the colours `White-Azure-White` and represents an alternative peace-loving Russia.
Evacuation.
For the last four months I have kept the company of people who have buried themselves deep into their daily routines, their work, their families, in hobbies, in food and drink, in books and films and declined to engage with the blood that is spilled in their name on their doorstep. We were revelers on the decks of the Titanic.
I still cherished my life in Russia and could with ease have carried on living the way I was there. What nagged at me was that I was unable to either freely speak my mind in any public arena, let alone this blog, with impunity. Freedom of speech became a concrete issue for me.
So, after investing a lot of my rubles in dentistry and packing the rest away in a portable safe I joined a colleague in taking a fast train to Saint Petersburg. There we whiled a few days away before catching an overnight coach to the small and charming city of Estonia. From there I got a Flight to London Heathrow with no idea of what lay in front of me on the other end, and arrived there in June.
We took our leave without interference from any of the guards who stopped our coach numerous times en route. The Ukrainians and Russians who were with us were not so lucky.
I wish to return to Russia as soon as it is feasible to do so. Meanwhile, the show is not over. I have internet access, some Russian contacts and a backlog of experiences still to draw on.
Lead image: Floridagoodfriday.com
