“Ukrainians don’t should pay!” I'm making an attempt to purchase three shawarmas in a market in Tbilisi, Georgia, however the road vendor emphatically refuses to take my cash. I attempt to clarify, regardless that I used to be warned to not say this: “I'm sorry, I'm not Ukrainian, I'm Russian.” The seller seems to be on the Ukrainian flag pin on my lapel; he doesn’t consider me.
Earlier than 24 February, I by no means considered what it means to be Russian. Now it’s all I take into consideration.
I used to be born in Moscow and, till just lately, lived there all my life. However “I'm Russian” would actually be the very last thing I might reply to the query, “Who're you?” I'm a father, I'm a artistic govt at a movie firm, a author, a journalist, a podcaster, a buddy … a Russian? Effectively, sure, but it surely’s simply the title on a passport that I've, nothing else.
I grew up within the Nineties and 2000s, when folks of my technology – or no less than the folks I knew – considered themselves as residents of the world. After my first yr at college I hitchhiked throughout Europe. The one time I considered my nationality was after I was needed to apply for visas. I do know, nonetheless, that this was in the end all the way down to privilege. Not like my pals from Dagestan, Buryatia, Yakutia or North Osetia, I may afford not to consider my Russian id. With a Slavic face and a Slavic title, I used to be not topic to the on a regular basis chauvinism that saturates Russian society.
I beloved my nation, however I by no means waved a Russian flag at an indication or publicly expressed my patriotism – it was simply not one thing that folks like me did. We considered patriotism when it comes to politics – if you take care of your nation you attempt to make it higher. So I attempted. For over a decade I went to all of the opposition rallies, I protested in opposition to injustice. Like-minded folks and I attempted our greatest to make our nation a greater place. However I by no means fell for the patriotic mantras about how nice Russia is or how nice it was once and must be once more.
Why ought to I be proud that the Soviet Union was the primary nation to launch a person into area? Yuri Gagarin or Sergei Korolev must be happy with that, it was their achievement, not mine. Why ought to I be proud that the Soviet Union received the nice patriotic conflict? My grandfathers fought in it. The conflict broke them, however they received: they need to be happy with that. I do know they had been. These achievements had been actually by no means a part of my id in the identical means that they're for the “Putin majority”, my compatriots who construct their sense of self on previous victories to which they're related solely by an accident of delivery.
However now these questions do really feel necessary to me. “I'm Russian,” I repeat to the road vendor. “However you're with them?” he asks, nodding within the course of my companions. Maria Belkina and Kirill Zhivoi are the individuals who run Tbilisi Volunteers – a motion that has already helped 1000's of Ukrainian refugees in Georgia. Sure, I'm with them. We had simply completed shopping for a automotive filled with provides – meals and hygiene merchandise to be distributed amongst refugees in one of many Tbilisi Volunteers assist centres. “I'm with them – however I'm Russian.”
The day of the invasion – 24 February – is a day that will likely be without end seared into my reminiscence. The enormity and the irrationality of the conflict was like a bodily blow. In my rigorously constructed social bubble, there wasn’t a single one who supported the conflict. We felt like leaves, scattered by a hurricane. We nonetheless really feel like this.
A few of us left Russia and a few stayed. I left with the movie director Kantemir Balagov. It was previous midnight once we had been sitting within the abandoned meals court docket of Istanbul airport, ready for our flight to Yerevan, Armenia. Nursing a glass of water, Kantemir requested me: do you suppose we must always cease talking in Russian? Do we've got to be ashamed of our language? That's in all probability the one query to which I've an unequivocal reply: “No!”
Let me attempt to clarify. Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskiy each communicate Russian, however their languages couldn't be extra totally different. Zelenskiy’s Russian is passionate, emotional and vibrant – alive. The language of Russian propaganda is lifeless: a mindless pile-up of obscure bureaucratese. The good Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev made a robust movie, Loveless, about an absence of affection in on a regular basis Russian life. The Russian that Putin and his cronies communicate displays this – it's intentionally un-alive. So no, we'll by no means be ashamed of Russian: we communicate a distinct language.
It’s not fairly the identical with our passports. Within the line to the border management in Istanbul, I overheard a dialog between a Ukrainian mom and daughter. They had been standing proper behind me – they had been making an attempt to fly again residence to Kyiv. They left for a vacation in Turkey earlier than the conflict and now they had been going again to a world during which their grandmother was hiding in a bomb shelter and their father and brother had joined the territorial defence forces. I listened to their dialog and felt an overwhelming sense of disgrace. My Russian passport burned like scorching coal in my pocket.
I don’t suppose I can learn any of my favorite Russian books or watch Russian movies or TV reveals that I beloved any time quickly. All of them have has the identical ending now: 24 February and the robotic voice of President Putin saying his “restricted army operation”. Bucha, Irpen, Hostomel, Mariupol … We should write new books and make new movies. And, step-by-step, we'll work out what it means to be Russian now.
Again in Tbilisi, I lastly persuade the seller to take my cash. “You don’t help the conflict, do you?” he asks me suspiciously. No, after all I don’t. How can anybody help this bloody insanity? However whereas I'm very a lot in opposition to the conflict and in opposition to Putin, I'm Russian. For some cause, it will be significant for me to say that. As I'm about to go away, he offers me an additional kebab totally free.
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