Refugees from Kiev. About Russia, Ukraine and hope for the future
“Do not crush the fascias in Russia now, years through 10, you will regret it bitterly! And then either accept the rules of their game, or run away from the country, ”says the family of refugees from Kiev. We present on the pages of "Reedus" an interview with refugees from Ukraine, taken in a train compartment. Both interlocutors asked not to disclose their names - they still hope to return to their homeland.
Maria and Igor got off the Volgograd-St. Petersburg train in Moscow at three in the morning. Mother and son had no idea where they were going. For the past six months, they have crossed the Russian-Ukrainian border.
They still have the same legal time in Russia, and then either become illegal migrants, with all the ensuing consequences, or return to their homeland, which in an instant turned into a stepmother for an employee of the Kiev social service and an environmental engineer. Even before the Kursk railway station went down to the platform, Maria and Igor were on the tape recorder, but on the condition that they did not mention their real names and surnames, as well as the request to “zadvadrat” their faces, told Reedus history.
- Understand, we still have friends and relatives in Kiev, in Chernihiv region - also, there is an apartment there, I don’t want the current Ukrainian authorities to see this interview on the Internet. Really - they should be afraid. This is a real junta, says Igor.
For a journalist, it’s not quite pleasant to write about anonymous characters. This is a sign of lack of professionalism. What was the norm in the 90's press is not welcome now. However, what is happening in Ukraine is exactly the very 90. But, looking ahead, we note that the coordinates of the family, which will be discussed in the article, are in the editorial office. If anyone takes to help them, as they say, welcome.
“We are not Kyiv residents ourselves,” Maria says. - We are from the city of Priluki, Chernihiv region. My son, after graduating from school, went to Kiev, entered the University of Construction and Architecture, I moved after him. It’s just that the salary that was in Chernihiv region was not realistic to teach my son, and I went to the capital, where there is more money and money.
Maria says that she is a pure Ukrainian, but Igor’s father is Russian. So he, you can say half-breed, if this term, of course, applies to one essentially people - Russian and Ukrainians. No one even noticed how and when the section “by blood” occurred, when one nation hated itself. We do not take here the fictions of Ukrainian fomenok and theories about ancient ukrakh, which appeared, according to modern Ukrainian history textbooks, almost to dinosaurs.
“And when did all this Russophobic hysteria and other“ dregs ”begin?” We ask Maria.
- Bleak? This turbidity began after the first Maidan. After the orange revolution of the year 2004 ... And so everything developed gradually. At first there was the first president Kravchuk, the separation was gone, the boundaries appeared, the history slowly began to correspond with what was needed. Indeed, devils wrote in the textbooks. Igorek was in the fifth grade when he was asked to teach a nursery rhyme, about Serko's dog, which is awake and expects that “curse Muscovites” will come to steal. That was the beginning. The year is probably 93.
Since then, according to Maria, the war for the Russian language has been constantly going on. As soon as the elections approached, the question of the Russian language became a bargaining chip. But gradually, the Russian language disappeared from the school curriculum, and everyone came to teaching Russian - no more than an hour a week.
- Russian schools gradually disappeared, becoming purely Ukrainian gymnasiums. New heroes have appeared, such as Bandera and Shukhevych, Maria continues. - In 2004, the section became clear - on those who were behind that Ukraine, ideas about which were implanted from the beginning of 90's, and on those who, say, adhered to traditional views on history, on the political situation. What happened next? For example, in our small town, in Priluki, in August last year, the Jewish cemetery was completely destroyed. In November, people came to Kiev from Western Ukraine, or, as they say now: supporters of European integration gathered, and the people of Kiev accepted them. Began Maidan. But no one even remembers Antimaydan. Not a single TV channel showed Antimaydan.
- So, after all, “titushki”, they brought from the regions, many came for money ...
- Let me, from the other side, not for money, not “titushki” - vice versa ?! Both from the one and the other side there were people “for money”. But, excuse me, many were for the idea, - Maria was outraged a little ...
Then Igor joins the conversation.
“There was practically no information about this anywhere in the press, but at that time a big procession took place in Kiev,” says Igor. There, according to some estimates, there were thousands three hundred. And it was the Orthodox, who protested against the accession to the European Union, which, according to the believers, would have led to rampant sodomy and homosexuality ...
- When the understanding began to come that to live in Kiev, let's say, is not comfortable.
- Around the end of the past - the beginning of this year, - says Maria. - When tires began to burn, barricades appeared ...
“Personally, I began to feel uncomfortable during the events on Bankovskaya Street, when there were fights with the police, clashes with Berkut,” Igor recalls. - And when there was no reaction of the authorities. Here it became really scary, because it was clear: there is no power, there is no law enforcement. At first there was no understanding. Well, Maidan and Maidan, well, protest, maybe even for the cause. But when it all began for real, so to speak, direct action .... Permissiveness, impunity, when police officers could not protect themselves.
- Igor, did you go to Maidan yourself?
- Not. There was also a Bandera den, a three-meter-long portrait of Stepan Bandera was standing ...
- So what is the point? You have been inspired since childhood, it must be that he is a hero ... In general, Ukrainians now tell us Russians that we are victims of propaganda, that there was no fascism during the so-called Maidan on Maidan. It seemed to us, TV presenter Dmitry Kiselyov was brainwashed. As an eyewitness, as a resident of Kiev at that time, what can you say about this - was there fascism, was there Bandera?
“It was,” Igor says confidently. - I now tell you some teznno say: where did the red and black flag come from? This is the flag of Ukrainian nationalists. What is the UPA? What is SS Galicia? Waffen SS? - the names that constantly sounded among those who stood on the Maidan? And the red and black bandages on the sleeves of maydanschikov? And "Glory to Ukraine, glory to the heroes!"? This is Bandera slogan! They don’t like to talk about it openly in Ukraine now, but this slogan has a sequel. It completely sounds like this: "Glory to Ukraine, heroes of glory, glory of the nation, death to the enemies!" ...
- January 1 in Kiev was a procession in honor of the birthday of Stepan Bandera, - continues Maria. - A huge crowd was walking along Khreshchatyk! There were pogroms, they went and smashed shops, various places, they smashed the Premier Palace Hotel.
“Moreover, the children of the nationalists also took part in the march,” says Igor. - Kids, years old 4-5 - they threw a Russian flag under their feet, and they trampled it. There was a traditional “Moskal on knives!”, “Commies on Gilyak!” And the like. But this did not appear with the Maidan! In June or July last year, in Lviv, they (Bandera, - ed.) Reburied the warriors of the SS division Galicia, with honors, being dressed in fascist uniforms. On the Internet there is ...
- Are they renaming the streets ?! - exclaims Maria. - We already here, in Russia, saw the names of the streets - Lenin, Karl Marx, for us it was already wild, we lost the habit! Oh, no, not here we saw these names for the first time, for the first time we saw everything in Ukraine in the Donetsk region. We were shocked. We were generally surprised at how people, miners live in the southeastern regions. Poorly, in the houses of unsightly. We in the center of Ukraine do not have this. But they plow, it’s hard to live very much. But with their opinion is not considered the current Ukrainian government.
- Tell me, here in Russia, we think, or maybe we were inspired by regular TV propagandists that in Kiev some militant citizens can approach a person on the street and test him for knowledge of the hymn. This is true? The fact is that we here in Russia far from all know the national anthem, and out of habit we sing the old Soviet anthem, but no one cleans up our faces for us, but as they say, those who “wash our brains”, in Kiev, for ignorance The anthem of Ukraine can be seriously cut off. It's true?
- It's true! This is not propaganda! I don’t know a hymn, honestly, - admits Maria. But I was not examined by patrols of maydanschikov on the street, but Igor ...
Then Igor says:
- They came up to me on the street and said, looking in the eyes, really examining: “Glory to Ukraine!”. But I said nothing. I say to them: “Guys, politics by politics, but what are we to share with you?”. And at the very heart: “What the hell ?! It is not difficult for me to say the continuation of this slogan, but evil takes it - why did you come here from the West of Ukraine, do not understand who, and believe that you can easily walk up on the street and test certain knowledge of people ?! ” The reaction was such from their side: "Ahhh, yes you are Moskal ....". And it was not anywhere in the center of Kiev, near Maidan, an incident happened to me in general in the Desnyansky district, in the so-called Forest area. Outskirts, sleeping area. And even there they went in droves, with weapons...
“But you could have renounced some kind of inner principles in order to protect yourself somehow.” Answer to “Glory to Ukraine!” - “Heroes of Glory!” - is it difficult?
- Why should I do this? Today I will have to sacrifice one principle, tomorrow another ... My grandfathers and great-grandfathers fought. And they fought in the Red Army. I cannot say glory to some of their “heroes” ...
- Maria, you somehow didn’t bring up Igor in a “untrue way” in Ukrainian ...
- Igor captured his grandfather, the colonel, who really fought, and told him a lot. And then ... He read the correct books in his childhood. So Igor could not shout "Glory!" Hell, he knows what kind of "heroes" ... But Kiev was given to all the "heroes of Maidan," Maria continues. - They walked in crowds, wreaked havoc and confusion. Kiev is like a stop! People began to hide, it was scary to go to the store in the evening. This crowd is coming, and you do not know what to expect from it. In February, they attacked the office of our state institution - this is the Kiev center of social services. They threw bottles on the first floor of a two-story building with Molotva Cocktail, there was a fire. They climbed to the second floor, stole computers, bombed a safe with documentation and workbooks, turned everything upside down, painted the walls with slogans “Glory to Ukraine!” And left. The alarm worked, but no one arrived. In Kiev, there was anarchy. The president betrayed his people, the ministers betrayed, the law-enforcers hid. We were given to the mercy. Our neighbor has settled ten maydanovtsev. But all the neighbors know about each other, who thinks what they say behind the wall. There was no secret about our rejection of this revolution, about our, for the most part, pro-Russian disposition, we were specifically called Muscovites. And those guests from the Maidan constantly burst into our door, shouting, they wanted to talk ...
“I didn’t have a weapon; I couldn’t protect myself or my mother.” “We were quieter than water below the grass,” says Igor already.
- There was another case at the end of January, when the Gifts of the Magi were brought to Kiev. I went to kiss the Gifts at the Lavra, - says Igor. - I get out of the subway along with others, and along the way, I see, they stand, as I call them “maydanutye”. At that time, thank God, they did not stop anyone, but they accompanied everyone with remarks: “What, are you going to bow to the Moscow priests?”
By the way, lately we tried to leave the house less and walk the streets, - continues Igor. - I even have a written order from my superiors about the transfer to home-based work. I was engaged in environmental engineering, in other words, I designed wastewater treatment plants. Do not believe it, but on the streets of Kiev it became not so crowded, even children were less on the grounds, and it was already warm, the spring began ...
- You, citizens of Ukraine, Ukrainians, were hiding?
- Yes, they were forced. Zapadentsy there rule the ball ... - People called on one of the local TV channels, asked why it is so, what kind of crowd go around Kiev? Journalists responded: “This is now local government. This is the self-defense of the Maidan, these are the locals, do not worry. They are for order. While temporarily will be so .... Then they began to say, they say, these units are walking around, revealing "aunts", that is, provocateurs acting on the side of the ousted President Yanukovich. How they identified these “titushki”, as they were distinguished from others - we still do not understand ...
“Hatred of Russia was not born yesterday,” Maria returns to the beginning of the conversation. “Even before Maidan, they were imposed through the press for several years in a row:“ Ukraine is not Russia, ”“ Russia is the aggressor, ”“ They are dictators, they want to have everything. ” For the last couple of years, it has been hammered into my head insistently. Then it became clear that the Ukrainians had to make a choice - in the EU. Bandera apparently came from the West, when the Customs Union began to be outlined. It just torn them apart! “There can be no friendship with Russia! Russia aggressor! Russia is the enemy! ”, They were digging and digging around.
- “Russia has imperial ambitions!”, “Empire, empire!”, - well, the media simply repeated with maniacal persistence, and various speakers, - this is already told by Igor. “I, and probably not only me, asked the question:“ What are the imperial ambitions of Russia? ”,“ What do they manifest? ”, It was not clear.
“True, it didn’t start yesterday when I was in college, for example, when I took the exam, pulled out a ticket, there’s a question in Ukrainian. And if I answer in Russian, I could have been given a "bad", says Igor.
- According to your observations from the inside, so to speak, of the country, did you manage to wash the brains of Ukrainian citizens with anti-Russian rhetoric during this time?
- Yes strong. Thorough! Ukrainian media have done their work. Goebbels would envy. Consciousness of many managed to change completely. To such an extent that even purely Russian, with Russian roots, former Russian citizens and they now blame only Russia for all the troubles of Ukraine! We sometimes communicate on Skype with acquaintances, they say that we are stupid, we don’t understand anything, we believed the Muscovites who chop off the Crimea, and now they are trying to take the Donbass ’... We say that people have made a choice. But no, they do not understand, they call us fools. But before the separation was visible. My mother's sister, my aunt, from Lviv came to visit us, and when they could have a little argument, the Lviv aunt shouted at us: "You are skhidnyaki, you are oriental, you are morons." Why are we Eastern, why are we morons? And the aunt itself comes from here, from Chernihiv region. From the center. But no, she counted herself as a “titular nation.” Here you have an indicator of how people's brains washed out in the west of Ukraine. This is not nationalism, is it not fascism?
- And where did the “Putin slaves”, “quilted jackets”, “Russian drunk consuming glassworms” come from? Is this at all true? Not Kiselevskaya propaganda? Do Ukrainians really think so?
- True! The result of brainwashing, says Igor. - Indeed, the opinion of many that Russian is a drunken man, Russia is a village with crooked huts. Lack of freedom of speech. Wild totalitarianism. Such amazing stamps that have always been used in the Western world about drunken Cossacks eating babies and raping respectable ladies. And Ukraine believed it in record time! Fortunately, not all of Ukraine believed it, but the propaganda machine works further, and those who doubted earlier may now have no doubt about it ...
- Or maybe it was necessary to accept everything as it is, to believe in the bloodthirsty Muscovites, to accept the official ideology and live peacefully in their own country, without losing anything in this life? After all, even many Russians adapted themselves, if only the priest was warm ...
- Sorry, your question is offended. The answer will be short - no, this is impossible for our family. Maybe we really scoops, Muscovites, but anyone, says Maria.
“I can't, I want to remember my grandfathers on 9, I want everyone to appreciate it and not forget it,” says Igor. One of my grandfathers fought; the second, great-grandfather, mother’s grandfather, died in a Nazi concentration camp. And I do not want to watch the marching fascists on the streets of the cities of Ukraine. By the way, do not blame me for wanting to teach Russians how to live, but as you read your press, blogs, media and social networks, I see that here too there are many such manifestations. I want to tell you, Russians - if you don’t crush your Fashes right now, you will regret bitterly through 10. In Ukraine, too, everything began like this, on the sly, gradually, their antics were perceived as something exotic. Until they came and took power. Now you may not take them too seriously here, but if you do not strangle fascism in the bud, then it will be too late - either accept the rules of their game, or run out of the country.
- How do veterans of the Great Patriotic War feel in Kiev?
- They cry. My dad's acquaintance, an old grandfather who fought, took a portrait of Lenin and walked down the street, weeping. It was filmed by the media and shown with such mockery, - says Maria. - What can I say, if we put a monument to the victims of the Soviet occupation. You see, May 9 want to cancel in Ukraine. It becomes the "holiday of the occupiers." Have you heard that Kiev refused the honorary title of Hero City?
- How did the people perceive the withdrawal of the Crimea?
“It was taken hard,” says Igor. - The people say unequivocally: "Russia ottyapala Crimea, with the help of the troops." The referendum in the Crimea, in the minds of the Ukrainians, really took place at the point of the guns ...
- What do you think?
“We rested many times in the Crimea, in different years, but the sentiment of the fact that Crimeans are not Ukrainians, that Crimea is not Ukraine, that everything is alien to them in Ukraine is always felt there,” Maria already says. - They did not transfer Ukrainian power, everything was Russian in them. It hurt me, Ukrainian, sometimes, I could even be offended by the Crimeans. But Ukraine did nothing to make it different in the Crimea. Therefore, no preparation was necessary, the Crimea was ready for the accession of Russia. The events in Kiev simply detonated the situation. Now if there was such unity in Kiev as in the Crimea. If the people of Kiev came out and said to the Westerners: “Get the hell out of here!”, The fact that now in Ukraine would not have happened ...
- And nevertheless, when was that line crossed, when did you decide to leave the country?
- A vivid understanding of the need to leave appeared in mid-February, - says Igor. - But this was preceded by two events - I was beaten. Just, as I said, came up on the street, again, great: "Glory to Ukraine!", I was already annoyed by the answer: "Yes, you go ...!". I remember the first strike, the subsequent ones no longer. Fell, apparently fainted, and good. Because the rest did not feel.
The second is a mobilization announcement. Yes, I do not hide this, I did not want to fight with some imaginary "Putin fighters" with "separatists from the south-east." I saw that everything that the Ukrainian media are saying is propaganda. I speak English quite well - I read the Western press, which is essentially a tracing paper from the Ukrainian media. But I watched the media and Russian on the Internet. And not only officialdom, where there is also enough propaganda, but also opposition publications and saw that opinions are freely different, rallies take place, and very mass ones. “Landings”, if there is one, then single ones, and in Ukraine for the like now they don’t even simply plant, but they can kill. So in Russia there was more restraint and objectivity. And for all this time I have not believed in enemies from Russia. But I was liable for military service, since we had a military department at the university and we are all reserve lieutenants, and we must come to the military enlistment office without even receiving a summons, but in fact announcing mobilization. Let them think about me as much as they want both in Russia and in Ukraine, but I did not want to fight with anyone.
As a result, mother and son moved to the borders of Russia. Igor offered to run and his girlfriend, but she refused to take this step. In Ukraine, they left an apartment, some social benefits, but they exchanged all this for security. However, Mother Russia, as usual, is not always kind to her own children, let alone to the reception rooms and even more. Kievans, of course, no one here was waiting with open arms.
We left at the beginning of March, moving along the route Kharkiv-Belgorod-Rostov, by passing cars.
“In the south-east of Ukraine, such a clear resistance has not yet begun, they thought that it wouldn’t touch them much at all.” Otherwise, perhaps we would have stayed there, and I might have forgotten all of my pacifism. But it was still quiet there, - say Igor. “However, at that moment it was not all clear with the Crimea either. Now there is no way back, I’m surely listed as a deserter in Ukraine.” On the border, they can arrest me ...
The first city to shelter refugees was Taganrog.
- We arrived there in the evening, and went to the local administration. Employees of the city hall saw us, the first questions - who are you, what are you, etc. They were surprised that from Ukraine that they had fled from there, - says Maria. “First of all, the women fed us, from whom it was pulled up, who found half the bread, who had the jam. Refugees from Nikolayev, Donetsk, Lugansk… then pulled. At the same time, we were the first.
We settled first the refugees in the boarding school, then at the recreation center. All the time that they lived in the Rostov region, Maria and Igor wrote letters to various authorities, appealed to the migration service asking for refugee status. But they are not given this status. Local migration services refuse, and are sent to the FMS in Moscow. Nobody wants to take responsibility. Without status, without citizenship, of course, nobody takes them to work. They appealed to regions that participate in the State Program for the voluntary resettlement of compatriots from abroad. But there is no place. Neither places nor vacancies. As evidence, Igor shows on the laptop scans of requests to the administrations of the regions - participants of the State Program. Everywhere - failure. No places, vacancies and opportunities.
“You can of course live in Russia illegally, which, by the way, we have been hinted at, but we don’t want to,” says Maria. - Russia initially stated that it was ready to accept Ukrainian refugees, to help them with status, with simplified citizenship, but in fact there is nothing like that. Of course, we don’t want to blame someone for something, to conflict, with good intentions, and just ask - please help us, dear Russians. We would have temporary housing and work, then, God willing, everything will settle down and we will either return to Ukraine, or somehow solve the issue of selling housing in Chernihiv region and buying here. We love you, Russians, we did not give up on you even under the powerful Ukrainian pressure, carrying the label “Muscovites” that became disgraceful in Ukraine. But we have already heard from some here - they say, they have come, you want to have citizenship on the sly, you decide some kind of questions, the freebies wanted to. Yes, some officials even told us so. But we are not offended. People are different here and in Ukraine.
- Igor, if you were beaten in Kiev, you can seek asylum, with good reason ... Have you recorded a beating?
“The Golden Eagle was killed, burned and shot, and no one came to help them!” - Igor throws in hearts. “I didn’t even think about it at the time, I’m not going to seek asylum in Russia, otherwise I could have asked for help on Maidan,” Igor is already joking.
The family was forced out of the Rostov region by the fact that they were decided to be relocated from a regular home for the elderly and disabled people to a night stay home. Simply put, in a real bomzhatnik, where during the day the homeless wander through the streets and come to spend the night only in the doss house.
“And they offered us to live separately, mother was settled to the bomzhikhs, me - to the homeless,” says Igor. - Of course, it became somehow unpleasant, we refused. Scratching the bottom of the barrel somehow, scoring for tickets to Moscow, and went to look for help. As we were advised, by the ministries and public organizations.
With that, the mother and the son came to the platform of the Kursk railway station at three in the morning. If anyone has a desire to participate in their fate - their coordinates in the editorial.
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