News from Ukraine
A year and a half ago, my phone book lost many dozens of numbers starting with + 38. Ukrainian friends, acquaintances, colleagues and even friends from different cities of Ukraine disappeared from the list of those whom I can call and who can call me. I met one of them regularly during annual and frequent tours. With someone else more often. And with someone sometimes corresponded. But under the general rumble and chorus of curses addressed to me after the text “Neevropeets” and after what I wrote about Odessa, almost all my Ukrainian counterparts disappeared from the field of my communication, friendship and friendship. Someone inflicted palpable spiritual wounds, someone disappeared with resentment. But more were just curses and spits. Moreover, one-sided ... In my address. There are very few, literally about a dozen people with whom relationships have survived, only strengthened and became incredibly careful to each other.
But in general, from the side of Ukraine there was a dead silence.
And suddenly…
Somewhere in the middle of July, I first received one message, then another, and the third ... I began to write from Ukraine, not speaking with each other, people from different cities who did not know each other. I even had to ask someone, they say, who it is, because parting with me more than a year ago, they sent such curses to me that I deleted them from the phone book.
And so to me in the summer began to write ten two people. And their letters were not just peaceful, but of some literally blissful content. And they were written as if we had said goodbye yesterday and agreed to sign off today. As if there were not those most terrible words, threats, insults and heavy curses. Even in these letters, in all, there was no reconciliation ... There was no question of reconciliation. What reconciliation can there be if there is a quarrel? Why apologize if no one offended anyone? ...
The letters contained good stories and reports about how all is well ...
From Odessa they wrote about how beautiful the summer is, how good the weather is, how great they were and they built Arkady, what wonderful concerts they had and how many good girls walk around the city. We were pleased to write about the new governor, praised him. From Kharkov it was reported that they had finished the renovation of the house, and that it was very good to have settled in it, that a very good new bar had opened, and that the mood was wonderful. Photos from the party were sent from Dnepropetrovsk, where everything was scary fun, lots of champagne and all kinds of luxury. From Kiev, too, sent photos from the event - the presentation of the seventh model BMW. And so on, in the same vein from Lviv, Zhytomyr, Zaporozhye.
There is no hint in the letters that, they say, look, you thought that we were going to go out of business and go bankrupt, but we did manage to cope with everything and live it happily. Not! In all the letters there was only one thing: we live very well, everything is in order, we have a full life. I did not see any dirty trick or bragging in these letters.
Of course, I was glad ...
But at the same time, these letters produced some strange impression ... They came from very different people, but they began to come at about the same time and with the same content. I saw in this some kind of tendency, some kind of general impulse. They were written, driven by the same desire ...
The letters were friendly, even friendly in content and form. But there was not a hint of reconciliation, regret about the once uttered curses and cruel evil. I answered all the letters, expressed sincere joy, and did not ask any questions, which, of course, arose by default. And I, of course, did not recall the circumstances and the reasons for our break.
The wave of these letters soon subsided ... And I still thought, what was the reason for them, and what does not bother me?
And then another wave of letters from the same people began. These were letters that contained sincere sympathy ... Well, for example, of this kind: several people wrote to me that they were worried about the terrorist danger that hung over Russia due to the fact that our troops launched an operation in Syria. They wrote me to be careful. I received many sympathetic messages, as well as sympathetic questions about the bankruptcy of Transaero. Like, did it affect me? Like, very sorry for the people. Well, and so on. That is, I saw that my counterparts carefully monitor what is happening in Russia and react to all the big and small troubles.
In connection with the death of our aircraft in Egypt, I received many messages with the most sincere condolences. I responded in the sense that, I believe that I do not need to send condolences, because this is a common tragedy and trouble. Then he received several messages with regrets about the doping scandal around our athletes.
I thought for a long time, what do all these letters remind me of? They remind me very much ... Such letters were already in my life.
And suddenly I understood! I understood and wondered why I did not immediately guess.
This, of course, reminds me of what letters emigrants write. All these messages of my Ukrainian acquaintances demonstrate absolutely emigrant behavior. Yes, I myself remember in myself the same mood and the same desires. I had the experience of trying to emigrate.
Yes, it is the emigrants, that is, those people who leave a certain cultural and geographical historical space, and most importantly, parting with their former way of life, while parting, loudly slam the door ... And before slamming the door, they bile for a long time about the world in which they had to live and have to ... Who leave, leave, fly away forever, which sever all ties with meat ...
It is absolutely necessary for them to be confident in their own rightness, in the correctness of their decision. They are convinced that they are making a step towards a better life, to the life of which other nations, other countries and whole continents live. They can not and do not want to live as they lived. All, without exception, that binds them to their former way of life, makes them disgusted and angry.
They take their step and find themselves in a position that they have not expected at all. The world that seemed to them to be friendly, fair, in which they saw their place and their life, suddenly turns out to be completely different, and most importantly, this world in reality is not at all friendly and not at all glad to see the newcomers. At all!
And the emigrant who has no way back, because he slammed the door too loudly ... But he doesn’t want this way back, he destroyed the way back, he burned the bridges and was happy looking at how these bridges are burning ... He finds himself in rather humiliating, indefinite, unsettled, disenfranchised and very, very prolonged situation without any intelligible way out of it and without even any worthy prospects. Perspectives of justice, prosperity and dignity.
When an immigrant realizes himself in such a situation, he is in a state of surprise for a while. This surprise is replaced by indignation, indignation is replaced by disappointment, and then, like someone, longing comes, or a person begins to adapt to the circumstances, which he himself has arranged.
But the most painful for a person in such a situation is the recollection of how he slammed the door, about what he was driven by what illusions and hopes he parted with his past life, about what he had done, leaving his past life. These memories are tormenting, and the question “for what was it done?” Simply torments. I watched it in many immigrants and watched it in myself when I thought that I left my homeland forever.
And then there comes a strong desire to somehow calm down and somehow live in what he has arranged for himself.
I myself wrote letters about how good I am. And how many letters from many and many of my classmates, classmates, peers and fellow countrymen who went home at the beginning of 90's all over the world!
The more depressing, the more hopeless and hopeless the situation was, the more complacent and cheerful letters were written to me ... But they didn't invite me to visit. Like my Ukrainian counterparts.
The next desire, typical for an emigrant, is to follow the newsthat come from the former world and life. This news is necessary. And the bad news is needed, and better, the terrible news. You need to know that everything is bad there, life is terrible, despotism and lawlessness, that everything is on the verge of a great disaster, and this disaster is about to happen. And all sorts of tragedies and disasters are needed. We need a dying economy, poverty, military defeats, and all sorts of failures from science to sport. It is such news that reassures, convinces of its own right and makes it possible to live in its completely miserable situation, but still, thanks to the news, to feel this situation is much more profitable than the one that remained in the past.
And from such a situation it is very pleasant to write sympathetic words to those who stayed there. Words of sympathy without sympathy.
One of my friends ... I will never call his name, and I will never allow him to communicate with this person, he wrote me a very touching letter immediately after the plane crashed over Sinai. It was so well written that I immediately replied, and we had some kind of correspondence during the day. In the evening, I can say at night I received a message from him that was definitely not addressed to me. He accidentally sent it to my number. Wrong address. The letter read: “Yes, it is clear that they fly on any junk. But I still hope that this plane is overwhelmed. Let them ... ... feel what it is like when ... "well, and so on. I instantly blocked the number of this person. What is it ?! And most importantly, why did I write words of sympathy and compassion, experiencing gloating, in which I did not want to admit even to myself?
The essence and content of the messages from Ukraine in the summer and this fall became clear to me. These are emigre letters.
Just the phenomenon is that the whole country emigrated. She emigrated, of course, remaining within her historical and geographical limits. But she emigrated, that is, she broke away, left, left, flew away. She broke away and found herself in that very incomprehensible, indefinite, unsettled and very humiliating situation in which little depends on her.
But if this is so, and this is so, then all the conversations of our deputies and activists running from one television to another ... Talks and spells that we are fraternal peoples, that there is no one closer and inevitably closer to us and the return of confused and deceived Ukraine - all this is nonsense. Emigrants are not returned.
When they leave, so slamming the door and so burning the bridges - do not return. Relative to the blood remain, but in fact - no.
These letters, these messages, these short messages indicate that one can never restore previous connections. Reconciliation, tranquility will come - it is inevitable, it is the law of life. But the former will not be. Emigrants are not returned.
They can come to visit with pleasure. But only if they succeeded there in a foreign land, everything grew together well, success, prosperity and wealth happened. That's when they gladly come with gifts, smart.
And if, on the contrary, everything is bad or, say, not very good, and certainly not the way it was wanted and dreamed of, then, of course, they will not even look at it. They will watch the bad news, and back, no, no. Why persecute an already tormented soul?
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