Tag: russia

Refugees

so… I easily could skip this notification from the NextDoor, but I didn’t. And once I saw the situation the people are in, I could neither just walk away, nor drop some donations and check it done.

After one week of doing my best to help (with moderate success), I have a couple of statements to make:

  • It is awesome that we have so many organizations that help refugees
  • It’s ridiculous, that the refugees are not informed about them, and that there is no centralized agency which would direct them to the right resources
  • This whole system of affidavits is wrong, and I do not know how to make it right
  • Last week, I mentioned on this blog that I wonder why none of my Ukrainian friends ever told me that “I do not understand their situation,” and at the same time, most of my friends in Russia tell me that I do not understand their sufferings. Now, I want to make a similar statement. Why a refugee, who was a poll watcher, received multiple threats, had her friends arrested, and finally fleed Russia, why she is saying: Ukrainian refugees do not want to talk to us, I totally understand, after everything we did… and at the same time, people who are currently in Russia are saying: why the whole world is against us, just based on nationality.

Also, I am exceptionally thankful to Anna, who jumped in and spent a good part of her weekend her helping; to Igor who jumped in on the first day and helped in many ways, and to my next door neighbors, who donated not the things which they wanted to get rid of, but the items which were really needed.

Where Would I Be?

These days, I often think about what would happen to me if I wouldn’t come to the US. Suppose I would decide to stay, either because I won’t have the heart to leave Boris behind or for any other reason. Obviously, my life would be drastically different, but I am thinking more about what would be on my mind. Where would I be, and which side would I take if I stayed in Russia? It’s impossible to tell because all these twenty-six years made me a completely new person. It’s very tempting to say that I would be on the right side of things because of the “three generations of revolutionaries” because I was always a radical and “politically unreliable.”

But all these three generations of revolutionaries truly believed in Communism; they believed that you could “force mankind into happiness with the iron hand of revolution.” And I also believed in the communist ideals and social justice (one could argue that this didn’t change :)), just not so much in favor of the “iron hand.” I do not know where I would be, and that’s scary.
We talked with Boris about how we didn’t feel anything wrong with most of the engineers working for the Ministry of Defence or the Ministry of Defence Manufacturing. How we were very proud of ourselves, not caring how our ideas would be used. As long as the government was willing to pay us, we didn’t care. We were “above all of that.”

Now, when I read about Skolkovo and what projects are used now during the war, and how exactly they are used – why am I surprised? I was no better.

There is propaganda, and then there is this

Today, Russian State Duma changed the penal code to increase penalties for conscripts dodging draft, put in penalties for willingly surrendering to the enemy and reviving Soviet-era penalties against “marauding” (while also adding what would count as extenuating circumstances, which includes participating in the armed conflicts). And there are also supposed to be referenda on joining the Russian Federation in separatist-controlled parts of Donesk and Luhansk oblasti (the self-proclaimed People’s Republics), as well as the Ukrainian territories Russia occupied since the start of the war. The logic seems to be that, if Ukraine continues its advance, they would be attacking Russian territories, which would justify putting the country on war footing and partial mobilization. (As many people, including some pro-war commentators, have pointed out, the Russian Federation simply doesn’t have the infrastructure and the personal for the full-scale, World War II style national mobilization – then again, I can’t entirely rule out the Russian government trying it anyway).

The whole thing is flimsy as hell – but again, so is a lot of the spin coming out of Russian state media.

Continue reading “There is propaganda, and then there is this” →

Sanatorium, part 3

Although most of the pictures from the sanatorium show me hanging out with boys, I mostly remember interactions with girls.

Since the purpose of our stay in the sanatorium was “to get more fresh air, we were outside a lot; almost all the time when it was not raining. When outside, we mostly played role games. We liked to pretend that the group of us was a family with many siblings. Since all the fairy tales were about girls or boys from poor families who would later become princesses or princes, we always played ” a poor family,” where everybody had to work.

As I mentioned earlier, there were two big girls in our group, Lilya was seven and Lyalya was six. Lilya just finished the first grade (she should have been close to eight then). They both, but especially Lilya, tortured us by “playing school.”

Lilya made small notebooks and actually taught a small group of younger kids to write in cursive. We hated it because our letters were coming out clumsy, and Lilya would yell at us (like teachers would do) and mark our work with bad grades. Somehow, I remember being more miserable when she yelled at us than when this would come from our teacher.

My stay at the sanatorium seemed endless, but finally, it was over, and mom and I went “to the South” again.

My historical posts are being published in random order. Please refer to the page Hettie’s timeline to find where exactly each post belongs and what was before and after.

Broken Ties – Andrey Loshak’s Movie

Highly recommend watching this movie to all my friends who ask me “how Russian people feel about what’s going on”. There are English subtitles

Europe Day

Although due to the current situation, the whole world knows what May 9 means to Russians in most countries the calendar is marked with another holiday – Europe Day.

Europe Day held on 9 May every year celebrates peace and unity in Europe. The date marks the anniversary of the historic Schuman Declaration that set out his idea for a new form of political cooperation in Europe, which would make war between Europe’s nations unthinkable.

The Schuman Declaration or Schuman Plan was a proposal by the French foreign minister, Robert Schuman, made on 9 May 1950. It proposed placing French and West German production of coal and steel under a single authority that would later be opened to other European countries. The ultimate goal was to pacify relations, between France and West Germany in particular, through gradual political integration, which would be achieved by creating common interests. Schuman said that “the coming together of the countries of Europe requires the elimination of the age-old opposition of France and Germany…the solidarity in production thus established will make it plain that any war between France and Germany becomes not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible.”

It is so sad to see today, that his hopes didn’t materialize and that the opposite happen, in the most unthinkable way! I hold a strong hope, however, that this time, the European countries won’t stop in the middle of the way and will make sure that nothing like this will ever happen again.

Russia Closed It’s Borders. Quitely.

One thing that Boris nor I realized until today was that Russia closed its borders from the inside. He only found it out when he was boarding the bus – the bus driver checked the passport and the vise and “a reason” that would allow a person to travel. Visa is not enough anymore. It has to be either a working visa, a resident card, or a passport from another country. I was shocked that nobody mentioned it earlier, and I have no idea when it happened because there was nothing like that at the beginning of March. And that’s precisely what I am afraid of – that he won’t be able to get back to Finland one time.

I don’t understand why people say that “the whole world turned away from Russians,” while in reality, the Russian government does worse to their citizens than any other country.

Another thing which we wonder about is the large number of Ukrainians traveling from Russia to Finland. If you are in Russia, it is understandable that Finland is the only way out. But I wonder why so many people with Ukrainian passports are in Russia at the moment. Boris says it was half of the bus, plus two more people boarded at the checkpoint. He says they were asked to go to the border control before everybody else and that everybody was exceptionally respectful toward them. Could they be the people who were “liberated’ by Russians? But then, why and how are they allowed to leave the country?

And once again, about “Moskva.” I heard two interviews, one of the retired US admiral and one of some British expert, and they both second what Boris “decoded” from the official statements. Boris still says that it should have sunk within minutes, and that’s what Ukraine states. I am a little bit afraid to be happy, but I am.

It Sank!

Yes, it did!

That is for the words about the Kursk submarine, which I will never forget and never forgive: it sunk! That’s a payback – it sank, sank, sank! I could not imagine this news would make me so happy.

About a week ago, Boris and I talked, and he said: you should tell your Congressman to send anti-warship missiles to Ukraine! I asked him why, and he explained (Boris is from a navy family, so I trust him with this knowledge). Anna told me that “we send what Ukrainians ask for, and they ask for javelinas.” Just two days later, I first heard that Ukraine asked, and we sent the Neptunes! And then – today! It was so-so literally what Boris said that would happen. When I called him, he sounded very satisfied with the choice of target, and then he asked: why it didn’t sink? It should have. I told him that it was not confirmed yet, and a couple of hours later – hurray!

Dark Ages are Coming

Boris says it feels like you are in the movie about Nazi Germany. He didn’t say precisely that, but he said that the signs of time look horrific, and I asked for details. And when he described to me the advertisements and the signs on the streets with the letter Z made of St. Geroge ribbons, I asked him whether it looked like a WWII movie.

Although I talk with many people from Russia these days, it was the first time I felt this cold horror. I think you need to be somebody like him or like me – somebody who lives abroad but at the same time knows how the streets used to look during different historical periods.
We will have a lot to discuss when he is back in Helsinki on Friday. When he was in Saint Petersburg at the beginning of the war, it felt different; it looks like Nazification was proceeding fast.

I know that many people can’t leave Russia; in fact, there are way more people who can’t than those who can. For them, seeing the Dark Ages coming should be unbearable.

A Picture From St-Petersburg

Boris sent me this picture this morning, and it made me laugh and cry. This shot was taken by the Swedish Consulate in St- Petersburg:

I am imagining the police trying to find a reason to stop it (and yes, I am aware that the colors are wrong).