Tag: war

In The Shadow Of The War

I know that it’s wrong to have your phone on your nightstand and check what has happened while you are asleep the moment you wake up. It might be wrong, but that’s what I do. Before February 22, I first checked whether there was an email from Boris, and starting from February 22, it was the BBC notifications… Last morning, I almost cried when I saw the notification about yet another missile strike. And I said it out loud, although nobody could hear me: they will pay for it. We will make them pay.

As much as I liked the December 26 Time magazine issue, all the articles, and all the photos, and as much as Ukraine is in the news every day, it can’t change the fact that the situation at the front is horrific. Every morning, I wake up hoping for a miracle. And every morning, it’s another missile strike. A miracle can’t help, and I know it. And I know that anti-missile weapons won’t appear miraculously, and I know that the troops need to be trained. Still, every morning…

Sneak Peek

The last issue of Time Magazine 2022 is not on the Time website yet, but since I already have a Kindle version delivered, I could not resist taking a picture of the picture 🙂

All I Want For Christmas…

I am getting more and more disappointed in Russian society. I can’t believe I am saying this. I always used to say that the country has potential and healthy forces. Whenever others told me that nothing good would ever come out of Russia, I would always argue and remind others how much society has changed in 1991/92. I still have a lot of newspaper clippings from that time. I remember how we were hungry but hopeful and open to new ideas. I remember how in 1996, none of us, recent arrivals to the US, planned to stay here forever. We talked about going back and bringing back with us all the knowledge, all the new ways of doing things that we learned. I thought … well, does it matter what I thought back then?! 

I am shocked to find an imperial mindset in many people I thought were completely normal, intelligent, and understanding. The most frustrating thing is that these people do not understand that they have this problem. The level of entitlement is skyrocketing. I am horrified that I never paid enough attention to that and never noticed the level of this ignorance in the people surrounding me. 

Last weekend, Anna and I talked a lot about that. (This recording of Chervona Kalina I posted a couple of days ago was made during our conversation – there was a lot of singing). For many years, I told Anna that most of the Russian political opposition is not that much better than Putin and that being against Putin is not enough to be a decent person. Now she said she realized that. The opposition is continuous frustration and disappointment. Why do they feel OK behaving like a Big Brother when they come to other countries? Why do they believe that opposing Putin entitles them to some special treatment? Anna told me that at the beginning of the war, she thought that although Ukrainians are wholly entitled to say as harsh words about Russians as they want, they are indeed too harsh. But now, she says, she has concluded that the Ukrainians were right from the beginning. And that’s how I feel, as well. 

I can’t believe that even now, many people who once again seemed to be completely normal complain about the inability to travel to Europe as if it’s the worst thing in the world. There are a few of my very long-time friends who are not like this, but so few!

As for us, we feel the weight of collective guilt, and it’s more than just a word for me. There were many facts that I chose to ignore, not pay attention to, and not analyze. I have already said multiple times that I am not sure where I would be if I didn’t immigrate. I was thinking about myself thirty years ago, and I can’t be certain I would be on the right side of history. That’s why the blame is on me, and I can’t imagine people going around with their holiday activities without Ukraine in the background. 

I know that all I want for Christmas is a victory for Ukraine. Not peace, but victory. 

President Zelensky Addresses The US Congress

I know everybody saw it already, at least those who care. But I wanted to make sure that the full video stays here. The most important words from this speech – this is not charity. He said – it’s an investment, but I would make a stronger statement: this is not an investment in the future, it is today’s defense of democracy in the whole world. And for that, the world should be forever thankful for Ukraine.

In Solidarity With Ukraine

Keep Ukraine Moving

Watch their stories here.

About Holiday Lights (And Those Who Don’t Have Them)

On Tuesday, when I walked from my office to the Orchestra Hall, the city was all illuminated. That’s one of my favorite things during the holiday season: I like to walk in the Loop and stare at the office and shop windows at all the Christmas trees and decorations. The weather was very nice, above freezing and no rain, and I had my red coat on and a new small black hat.

I took a couple of pictures, and then suddenly I thought: how lucky we are to have all these lights, and how horrible is it that cities in Ukraine are not only without holiday lights but lights in general, and also without heat and water. And when I thought about it once, I could not go back to blissful ignorance. That is one of the things I was trying to explain last week – the feeling is not precisely Christmas – like.

The Russian Embassy in Berlin

There was no time to walk around Berlin, at least no daylight time. In part, it was my bad planning – after I changed my flight from Chicago to Friday instead of Sunday, I could easily change the flight to Berlin to come earlier on Tuesday and leave later on Saturday. There was just way too many things going on, and I forgot.
Besides the conference, we could do just one thing – walk to the Brandenburg Gates and then a little bit along Unter Der Linden. We also walked to where we had dinners, but these walks were in complete darkness, and we could hardly see anything around.

This morning, we used the only daylight time we had – less than two hours before going to the airport, so we could not go far from the hotel.

First, we saw the word AEROFLOT on the top of the nearby building, then we saw the barricades around it, and then we saw that the barricades continued along the whole block, And only then we figured out what was a setup – the barricades were guarding the Russian Embassy!

I didn’t see the sign that this is the Russian Embassy, only the flag on the top of the buildign

The memorial is located in the middle of Unter der Linden, so that it is clearly visible from the embassy windows:

And there is an incredibly powerful message on the opposite side of the strre, once again, visible from the Embassy:

During the conference, I talked with many people from different countries about the war. I think, the words of my long-term Republican friend from Texas says it all: we are sending guns to Ukraine, and we will keep sending guns. Ukraine is defending all of us. If not for Ukraine, we won’t be in Berlin today.

We always have political arguments with this old friend of mine whenever we meet, but this time, I didn’t even argue with him about the gun laws when he said: we need guns to send them to Ukraine!

***

I feel like I blogged on this topic multiple times, but I want to repeat it.

I do not understand why so many people in Russia do not understand that in Ukraine, “Russians” sound exactly like “Germans” during WWII. Back then, people said “Germans,” and for them, it was the synonym for “the enemy.” This is not “discrimination based on nationality”; this is how life goes. And I do not know why it is so difficult to take in.

I remember how Boris told me exactly that at the very beginning of the war. He recalled how a couple of years before that, he saw a group of young men at the bus stop. One of them had a tube with drawings or something like that, and he was jokingly pointing it toward the others, shouting: puff, puff, I am Russian! Finns will never forget the Winter War, and Ukrainians will never forget this one… does it have a name yet?

… I am thinking about the conversations I had in the Greenleaf Art Center today. One of the visitors said, “Until it will be peace,” and I said – No, no peace! Until victory! And everybody agreed.

The beginning of the week was horrible with all these airstrikes. I have no doubts that those were the snaps of the tail of the wounded dragon, but they still can be lethal…

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.