Writers, managers, computer scientists looking for a life abroad. Russian is spoken in Istanbul and Tbilisi. “It’s like in Lenin’s time”
“Where can I escape, now, tomorrow, immediately?” Irina Lobanovskaya answers thousands of these questions every day. She is an IT expert, a citizen of the world for years, since the war began she has been running a chat entitled “Guide to how to relocate from Russia”. Starting with 20 participants, she now has 40,000, and every day another thousand is added. Their goal is only one: to leave Russia, as soon as possible, before the Kremlin closes the borders, before life becomes impossible, before the law on “fake Russian military” begins to operate at full capacity and whoever talks about war or protest against the war risks being sentenced to 15 years in prison. Before their children are sent to die at the front. Before the end of what little remains of individual freedom.
In the immense tragedy of refugees fleeing Russian bombs in Ukraine, the drama of fleeing Russians goes almost unnoticed. But it is an exodus of colossal dimensions. A few days ago, Yerevan airport broke the record of 42 flights arrived from Russia in one day. The border with Georgia was crossed in two days by 20,000 Russian citizens. The train from Petersburg to Finland has been sold out for two weeks. Planes to Istanbul, Dubai, Tbilisi, the few destinations not yet blocked – flights between Russia and Europe were closed almost immediately after the war began – and which do not require a Russian visa, were taken. assault, with ticket prices reaching figures with three zeros. Many did not have a visa, many not even a passport, owned only by 28% of Russians, but after two years of pandemic the globalized middle class of Moscow and Petersburg also had expired documents.
Journalists – in a few days, almost 200 Russian and international big names left Russia to avoid taking risks – tell of restaurants in Tbilisi and Istanbul where Russian is spoken, and where to go and what to do. The planes that land are full of intellectuals, writers, designers, actors, announcing emigration on social networks. “We started for several reasons, but in reality for only one, the criminal war in Ukraine,” writes on Instagram Anton Dolin, the most popular Russian film critic. A large white zeta had appeared on the door of his apartment, the symbol that marks Russian vehicles in Ukraine, a sinister warning to the new “enemies of the people”. Tolerance towards dissent is below zero, working is impossible, paying aid to war victims is a crime, “I’ve already tweeted enough for a trial for high treason,” Lobanovskaya told Meduza, the online opposition newspaper blacked out in Russia .
It is the surreal re-edition of the great escape from the Bolshevik revolution, of the “philosopher’s steamers” that set sail in 1922 from Crimea, carrying what Lenin called “not the brain of the nation, but its shit”. As then, people often run away with what they are wearing: banks and credit cards are under Western sanctions, the ruble has devalued almost by half, and Putin has practically blocked transfers abroad. The oligarchs had equipped themselves with escape routes for years, the intellectuals run away with little cash and a suitcase. A desperate gesture, which many do not have the courage to do, in order not to abandon their parents or children, because they do not have the means to support themselves even in the early days: “Even if the borders were closed, it would not be forever”, is the message which Irina leaves to whoever writes to her terrified of remaining in the prison that Russia has become. In Linkedin chats, computer scientists find job offers on the fly, but intellectuals linked to Russian culture are not in great demand by multinationals. The possibility of being financed by readers / viewers no longer exists: Russian credit cards are blocked, and YouTube has banned Russian channels from monetizing advertising.
It is a glorious escape in fact, while “everything associated with Russia becomes toxic,” regrets the hugely popular writer Boris Akunin. Being Russian has become a shame, and Dolin explains that he too fled “so as not to become an accomplice”: “We will have neither the possibility nor the right to forget. We are branded ». The speech of shame is among the most painful, especially for those who had opposed Putin for twenty years. Memorial Italia has appealed to grant Russian dissidents asylum in Europe as victims of the Putin regime. But the sense of guilt cannot be erased, Dolin says: «The Ukrainians will win, they have already won … We live in a moral catastrophe … Russia no longer exists».
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