The journalist Natalia Boronat (Salomó, Tarragona, 1973) arrives at the interview practically straight out of a presentation. It has been on promotion for days. The former Moscow correspondent of the newspapers Ara and The Punt Avui and also a Catalan reader in Saint Petersburg and Moscow just published Muntanya russa (Godall), a book that collects, from a more personal than journalistic perspective, his memories and experiences after a long professional career in Russia. A country that, as he remembers in this interview, is not always easy to approach.
Where did the idea to write this book come from? Why have you chosen a more personal chronicle and not a journalistic one?
“What we transmit from distant countries is reduced to their politics”
It is a book that has been in the making for a long time. I am passionate about journalism, but I also saw some negative things. What we transmit from distant countries is reduced to their politics. The headline remains, which, in the case of Russia, is also rather negative. The idea was to explain Russia through the people. On trains people start chatting, people invite you to their house… The idea was to go beyond the news that we wrote as journalists. Ultimately the book is my personal journey.
How did it get to Russia?
In 1991 I arrived in Barcelona. I am from a very small town. I had studied English and French in Tarragona and when I arrived in Barcelona I wanted to study a much more different language. The time marked me. That time the news of The Vanguardwhich was the newspaper that was in my house, by Rafael Poch about the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Every day news came out, there were CIDOB seminars on the situation, Llibert Ferri’s chronicles… It awakened my interest in Russia and journalism.
The first raid was in 1994 in a work camp in Belarus, as I explain in the book. In 1996 I spent a summer in Moldova and in 1997 I went to Russia for the first time to study. In 1998 I returned and from then on I began to think about how I could return to work, because Russia has a force that traps you.
He met with Aleksandr Lukashenko.
We saw it at the opera. He was running for president, we saw him and the camp hostesses told us: “This man will be the president.” And that 1994 he was effectively elected president.
What vivid memories do you have of that first contact with the country?
I remember perfectly that it was a day in February 1997. The journey to go from Pulkovo airport to the student residence, one of those pleasant winter days, at minus 15 degrees, but with sun. The markets… Saint Petersburg was still a somewhat hostile city. All of us who have been to Russia have noticed that there is something that hooks you. Maybe it’s the contrasts, maybe it’s the intensity… I shared a room with a girl from Altai, who belonged to an ethnic minority in that republic. After a few weeks of sharing a room, I asked him: “When will we stop slipping on the ice on the streets?” I had to learn how to do it and she was very surprised because she came from Siberia.
He has lived in Saint Petersburg and Moscow, two cities that have competed for capital status and have a historical rivalry. What differences do you see between them?
Saint Petersburg is like a second home for me. They welcomed me very warmly. There he was part of the city’s machinery. I find Moscow fascinating, the infinite city… but I kept a certain distance compared to Saint Petersburg, the houses of my friends’ mothers, where they explained stories of the siege to me in the kitchen…
What perception did the Russians have of Catalonia?
I was a Catalan reader in Saint Petersburg from 2001 to 2005. There were already many people who had started traveling to Spain. Before me there had been readers from Catalonia and the Valencian Country, the students knew the reality of the Catalan Countries, but it is also true that it was a very specific audience, who studied Romance Philology, knew Spanish, French. It was a time when there were more academic exchanges and knowing Catalan was a plus for them to be given the scholarship.
How do you assess the evolution from then to now?
“Russians perceive that the years of most stability have been with Putin. The old one was the Russia of shock therapy”
In perspective, whether we like it or not, Russians perceive that the years of most stability have been with Putin. I was not a witness, but what used to be was the Russia of shock therapy, of the mafias, of the oligarchs, in which a small part became very rich and another became very poor. Economically there is a certain well-being under Putin that coincides with high energy prices. But not all these years are homogeneous, because with Dmitri Medvedev relations with the European Union and the United States were softened, and in 2012, with the return of Putin [a la presidencia]changes again and hardens. It is very difficult to summarize or generalize so many years.
What do you think of the coverage that is usually done on Russia? The Caucasus, Iakútia, Calmúquia… ‘Muntanya russa’ captures the plurality of the country. Do you think there is a stereotypical image of Russia?
Journalists apply models from here and this does not always work. Russia is associated with the Russian Government. I like balanced coverage and here we too often see only one part. Chechnya always interested me a lot. The North Caucasus fascinates me. At first, my Russian friends put their hands on their heads. They saw it as dangerous, and there was also a certain disinterest, and even contempt in some cases, on the part of ethnic Russians. Coming from Catalonia, I was always interested in the situation of national minorities in Russia.
Although he finished it before the start of the Russian invasion, Ukraine inevitably also appears in the book. How do you experience the diplomatic conflict between Russia and the European Union?
“It is a shame that Russia has been incapable of creating an international space that surrounding countries want to be part of”
Like a type of mourning. I was convinced that there would be no war. I didn’t expect it. We have to know how to see the other perspective: there is Russia, its imperialist desires; There is Ukraine, which is a sovereign country and can ally with whoever it wants, but there is also NATO and its interests. But the reality is that one day Russia starts bombing Ukraine. It is a shame that Russia has been incapable of creating an international space that surrounding countries want to be part of. The sanctions… in the end the elite will do the same, their children study in European or US schools and universities… All these measures ultimately harm the people, which is what is sad.
#Natàlia #Boronat #journalist #shame #Russia #managed #create #attractive #space #neighbors
