'With my people': sketches from the life of the Russian diaspora in Europe

It is always difficult, if you are not used to it, to find some premises in Belgrade. Cultural centers can be hidden on the floors of residential buildings, the entrances of these houses are no different from neighboring ones, and the houses themselves can be hidden on streets that are invisible at first glance. Sometimes traveling theaters find very exotic halls for themselves, similar to factory warehouses, which creates a special feeling of romance.

Photo: IStock

A reading of the play “Crime” is taking place on stage: the beginning of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine through the eyes of a Russian woman who understands everything and writes to her beloved in Kiev - writes, although she knows that he volunteered for the Armed Forces of Ukraine and has not been in touch for several months. Her confused, emotional letters are interspersed with the chronology of the war: messages from chat rooms and news feeds, and rare correspondence with “patriots” and supporters of the “not everything is so simple” theory.

The man sitting at the sound control console is probably not the first time he has heard this emotionally difficult piece. People like him, “unknown heroes,” always remain in the shadows. The audience does not thank them, they are not given flowers, and such people tell their simple but tragic story only to those who directly ask them. The story of this man is short, but in its own way hopeless: he asked for asylum in Montenegro, was refused, began to challenge it, but could not resist, left the country with the theater, did not abandon his family, and now the appeal process was automatically interrupted.

“I don’t know what to do next,” he admits.

“I don’t know what to do next” is a common confession that can be heard in this city. The same words are spoken by a young man in a bar on Prince Michael Street in the very center of Belgrade. He once worked in the North, on a Gazprom tower, but has been wandering around different countries for more than a year. Unlike IT specialists, it is very difficult for a person of his profession to find a job abroad, but he claims that he will not return to Russia.

“Probably everyone who did not return after the first six months will not return, no matter what happens,” he suggests.

- What could happen? – another voice speaks up.

“I don’t know,” the former Gazprom employee honestly admits.

The unknown and uncertainty about the future are constant companions of new Russian emigrants. Unlike most Western countries, where speaking out against war is considered “correct” and honorable, in Serbia they entail a certain risk - certainly not the same as in Russia, but nevertheless. Emigrants say that a lot here depends on luck. For example, if you are unlucky enough to run into local radicals who may turn out to be informants for the security forces, such a conflict may even end in expulsion from the country. At least several people have already been expelled from Serbia as a “threat to national security,” and no one knows the true reasons for this decision.

Nevertheless, people are trying to do at least something - at least, collect raw materials for candles, on which Ukrainians will be able to heat food in the event that the electricity is cut off again. A long, cold winter is expected ahead, and we need to survive it somehow...

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However, a minority of new emigrants are still involved in activism in Serbia, while the majority tries to focus on issues of survival. Actors from the Montenegrin theater emphasized that their task is to make sure that people do not forget about the war. However, it is obvious: those who, because of the war, were forced to leave their home and go to nowhere, are not able to forget about the reason for their decision, even if they try not to mention it out loud.

Silence about the war is a habit that many brought with them from Russia. It’s as if people have secretly agreed to avoid this topic, and are now afraid to break this unofficial taboo. At cultural meetings or business networking they try not to talk about the war, focusing mainly on everyday issues.

- Will you visar? - This is one of these standard questions. Russians have the right to live in Serbia without a visa, but are required to travel outside the country every 30 days. Enterprising Serbs, and the emigrants themselves, have long created special visa tours: both simple crossing of the nearest border and excursions, for example, to the ethno-village Stanisici in Bosnia and Herzegovina. They try to make the monthly ritual educational and enjoyable, but deep down everyone understands: this is a forced trip, like many other things that now have to be done.

Historians who left Russia give lectures on the White emigration, and parallels with modernity suggest themselves. More than a hundred years ago, yesterday's White Guards on overcrowded ships arrived in Constantinople - present-day Istanbul, and from there - to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes - future Yugoslavia. Yesterday's heroes of the tsarist army went to work as loaders and lumberjacks, settled in colonies in the countryside, rented corners behind the curtain in cramped houses and often wore out their army uniform for several years, because there was not enough money for new clothes. Several thousand people died of typhus on the difficult journey.

“We are lucky,” today’s emigrants sigh, comparing themselves with their predecessors.

However, the Serbian state a hundred years ago centrally provided assistance to fugitives. They were given gratuitous loans, and city authorities even regulated housing prices so that newcomers were not asked to pay too much.

“No, we were unlucky,” the “relocants” change their minds.

These people read the news with alarm: both about new repressions and threats against those who left Russia, and about restrictions on Russian citizens from Western countries, realizing that they will be affected by both. A double blow on both sides, since wanderers with a Russian passport do not have their own country and protection from this country.

Didn't leave Russia at the time Anna Akhmatova later wrote: “I was then with my people - where my people, unfortunately, were" It so happened that in my life, in these terrible days, I had the chance to find myself next to these people - albeit not in Russia, but somewhere very close, sharing with them the same pain, anxiety, daily fear and disorder, their textbook “visarans” and household life hacks, searches for apartments, hotels, banks.

You need to see it with your own eyes, you need to feel it from the inside in order to fully understand this small feat of survival. After all, even those who have nothing to fear in Russia, who, having left, lost a lot and do not know what they will do tomorrow, do not want to go back. For them, returning means breaking down and handing over, and many do not want to break down until the last moment.

However, some people still travel to Russia - to visit relatives or on work matters, while others needed, for example, to pick up a sick child from the hospital. Nobody condemns them, and many people, out of habit, still calculate prices here in Russian rubles. Those who come “from home” say that even in pre-New Year’s Moscow, despite all the apparent carefreeness, a high level of stress is very strongly felt. People are angry, nervous, they shout at each other, and almost everyone has friends who have already received a funeral. But every day the gap between them and those who left is growing wider.

The center of Belgrade is already buried in New Year's lights, and at first glance it is impossible to imagine that thousands, or even tens of thousands of human tragedies, divided families, little people capable of only one small, but still important feat are intertwined in this city: survive, don't break, don't come back. They complain that St. Petersburg and Moscow are much more modern, more comfortable and technically advanced than “provincial” Belgrade, and yet this city has become a haven for them in a cold and indifferent world.

They call themselves “Belgrade vagabonds”, and this New Year, like everyone else, they will make wishes that at least some light will appear in their lives, at least some documents - and that the war will end. History repeats itself a hundred years later and, as in the last century, the most conscientious part of the people is the first to begin to suffer for their crimes.

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