Tag: war

Friday!

Today was one of these days when I wondered what I would do without Wellness Fridays?! My flight is at 10-30 PM, and I spent the day catching up on everything.

I had to go to Palatine because I finally had my crown ready, and that was my last visit to my wonderful dentist. As much as I love her, going to Palatine for regular dentist visits is non-sustainable.

Since I was already going to Palatine, I also scheduled a haircut before the dentist. I knew I would have almost two hours between the dentist and the train back and thought I should meet up with somebody, and then my Palatine neighbor called.

I do not think she ever called me since I moved; she only texted me from time to time. This time, she called and asked me how I was doing, meaning the situation with the war. It was so good to know she cared; many people around me did not even understand why I should be concerned. Being an emigrant from after-WWII Austria, she understood.

We talked a lot about the war, what was happening, why Putin did what he did, and why many Russians supported him. She asked me how this war could end and what I thought about the best outcome. She told e that in the place where she does her hair, the owner is Ukrainian, and the staff is Russian and Ukrainian, and how everybody is devastated, and how she decided to give them money so that they could send it where it is needed most. It was one of these conversations which brought me hope and reinstated my belief in humanity.
The war highlights the worst in people and the best in people.

***

Now I am sitting at the airport gate waiting for my flight boarding. And just arriving at the busy airport, almost as busy as before the pandemic, and seeing how the boarding procedures got back to where they were before the pandemic – this all felt incredibly optimistic. I remember all the cries of how “it will never be the same,” – I knew even back then, that they were wrong.

The War Is Everywhere

It is indeed everywhere, it’s not like there is nothing but the war on my mind, but whatever I do, whatever other people are doing – the war is in the background, the war is visible, and the news about the war shape the news broadcasts everywhere in the world. 

I mentioned the other day what my neighbor said about Tosca. It turned out that it was not just her or me, but that was the intention. Last Saturday, the opening night of Tosca started from the Ukrainian Anthem, and the cast dedicated that performance to the struggles and courage of the Ukrainian people. 

Yesterday, one of my coworkers mentioned in the speaker’s slack channel that the PG Day Poland was postponed. People started to talk about how it is sad but understandable and started to ask what is the new date. Then another person (the one I respect a lot) said: it’s a little surreal to me that people are being bombed, and we’re talking about it in terms of the impact on our conference schedule. 

This conversation triggered something for me. For the past several days, watching the stream of Ukrainian refugees arriving in Poland and Poles going out of their way to accommodate them, I thought that my “historical Motherland” needed some financial assistance. 

 During that conversation on slack which I mentioned earlier, somebody said: you should reach out to A. to find out the details [about the PG Day Poland]. And then my immediate reaction was: why I never thought about reaching out to her on the subject of donations? 

She was indeed delighted when I reached out and said that Poland is “out of everything,” warned about the fake charities, and gave me a vetted list of trustworthy charities that assist refugees’ resettlement.

For now, I plan to give 2/3 of my donations directly to Ukraine and 1/3 to this Polish resettlement agency I chose. 

Then, I was terrified by the news about the potential peace proposal from this BBC news program. It sounds so evil that I can believe this could happen! President Zelinskiy cares about the Ukrainian people, and he can go a long way to stop the bloodshed. But what will happen if peace in Ukraine is achieved at such a price? Looking at what the Russian government is saying these days, and knowing Putin, you can bet he would announce such peace as Russia’s victory. We wanted to liberate the Russian people in Ukraine, and we did! We wanted to stop NATO expansion, and we did! And we got a Crimea! And things are going our way! If the condition of the peace would be disarmament of Ukraine, it is an insult to the heroic Ukrainian army and all her people, and what will stop Putin from repeating the attack? And most importantly, he would emerge from this war unpunished! And that would be the most unjust thing, and I do not want to let it happen.

Why Did It Happen?

I remember the days of the war in Abkhazia. I followed the news on both American and Russian news sites back then. I remember a video of Putin talking to a group of Russians in Abkhazia. 

He pronounced the word genocide. I remember that the Russian media has probed the word for several days by that time. I guess it was an attempt to make it finally legit and start using it as a justification of involvement in the conflict. I remember the intonation. And I remember that there was no enthusiasm about the word genocide. And the word was dropped from the political language for the time being.

This time, the word was pronounced. And it was pronounced again. And nobody said “no.”

The horror and the guilt will never go away. I know how to keep doing things, and the past week was more productive than the previous one, and I hope the trend will continue. However, the void will never go away. Previously, I could not understand why emigrants who fled Russia after the revolution of 1917 felt displaced till the end of their lives and why they could not find their life balance. Now, I understand, even though I do not live in Russia for 26 years, America is my home, and I am a proud citizen. The question of what I could’ve done to stop this from happening will stay with me forever because I did nothing. 

I Hope Chicago Will Respond

I hope even though it hardly matters. And “so that I could feel better” is a lame excuse for wanting something. Total helplessness. Two comments I left on other social media.

I am contemplating renouncing my Russian citizenship (I am a dual citizen). The only thing which stops me is that the total cost of the formal process is about $1K, and I do not want to give it to the Russian government

In addition to $1K, there are several pieces of documentation that are close to impossible to obtain, so this cry is unfortunately only wishful thinking.

And another on the Instagram:

It was sad to observe yesterday that only the Ukrainian community rallied against the aggression, but I hope that it will change today, and a whole city will rise to condemn the invasion 

There were two horrible comments which I removed and blocked the author. I do not want to write anything on Russian social media.