(A long read that is well worth your time imho. Article translated with Deepl)
**Many Russians have recently left their country. SPIEGEL reporter Timofey Neshitov, born and raised in Saint Petersburg, visited his compatriots in exile. A personal journey to the origin of evil.**
*(Part 1 of 9)*
The morning the first bombs fell on Kiev, I bought white cabbage in a village shop in Siberia.
I didn’t need cabbage, I was travelling chain-smoking through a country about to start a war of aggression in Europe, trying to capture the mood. At the counter next to me was a woman with a wrinkled face. She looked at the cabbage on the shelf and asked the shop assistant to weigh the smallest head. As she spoke, I saw that she had no teeth. She counted the coins in her hand. Her money was not enough, I paid for her.
On the street, I asked her what she thought of this war. We were standing in front of a man-sized pile of snow, four thousand kilometres east of Moscow, she with her net bag in her hand, me with my iPhone. She said her father had been killed in the war.
Then she asked me, “Or which war do you mean, son, not the one against the fascists in Kiev?”
24 February was a sunny day. I watched her as she walked.
To this day, when I see footage of missile strikes in Ukraine, I see that woman’s bent back, I hear the snow creaking under her galoshes.
That day I thought something irretrievably cursed had happened in Russia, the country where I was born and raised. The people here are not only destitute. They have stopped thinking, I thought. They have stopped feeling.
The people. That was this woman with no teeth for me. That was my own great uncle. He lives in the countryside not far from Saint Petersburg.
A few years ago he started watching TV regularly, in his garage, he escaped there from his wife. My great aunt imagined with age that her husband was cheating every time he left the house. My great-uncle is over 80, she shouted at him: Go to your whores!
My great uncle was born in western Ukraine and married into St Petersburg. Today he believes everything that is on Russian state television. He has lived in Russia for 60 years, he was a private in the army, but never in action. He thinks Putin is ridding Ukraine of fascists.
I have lived in Germany for 18 years. My great uncle used to ask me to bring German razor blades and pumpkin seeds, now he doesn’t want “the Nazi stuff” anymore. My great-aunt has died in the meantime, he watches TV alone in the living room. When I call, he no longer answers.
I used to think there were people like him and people like me, who grew up after the fall of communism, who were cosmopolitan, multilingual and connected. I never trusted Putin. I already left Russia in 2004 after my studies and his first term in office, I was 22 at the time.
I became a journalist in Germany, wrote about gold mines in Congo, theatre in China, the IS in Berlin. Occasionally about Putin, like when he annexed Crimea, but I didn’t warn about Putin like you warn about cancer. He was more like a foot splinter, he was annoying.
Many Russians have emigrated over the years. They preferred to do research somewhere else, to start their companies somewhere else, to raise their children somewhere else.
Since 24 February, I have been asking myself: should I have stayed in Russia?
My brother, who is one and a half years older, told me at the time: One of us has to stay, what will become of us if everyone leaves?
He stayed.
In Russia today, there are not the deluded old people with the cabbage and the smart young people with the iPhone. There is a society that has failed. As it stands, in 2022 we Russians are responsible for the biggest rogue state on earth. A country that fires missiles at hospitals and puts war opponents in prison camps.
The Western view of Russians has never been particularly relaxed. The Russian is coming. Now he is actually coming. And the West is sorting its Russians into two pigeonholes in 2022: The bad Russian murders in his neighbouring country, the good one burns his passport in European marketplaces.
Millions of Russians seem to have fallen silent since the war began. Others have fled. To Tbilisi, Riga, Istanbul, Yerevan, Belgrade, Limassol, Tel Aviv, Berlin. Hundreds of thousands are estimated to have gone into exile. It is a historic exodus, comparable to the wave of migration after the coup d’état of October 1917.
Many of my compatriots whom I have visited in exile on this trip have done in recent years what I have not done. They have stayed in Russia, they have warned against Putin, they have complained against him, they have tried to stop Putin.
I wanted to know from them: How could Butcha and Mariupol happen? Who is to blame? How should it continue?
Thank you, the translation is excellent and very easy to read
> She brought this useless feeling of guilt with her to Yerevan in March. She looked for a boxing club for women, found none, read Hannah Arendt. “Then I understood,” she told me, “there is a difference between guilt and responsibility.”
> Hannah Arendt wrote after the Holocaust that there was no such thing as collective guilt or collective innocence. The concept of guilt only makes sense when applied to individuals.
> What Marijka Semenenko feels now is collective responsibility.
Beautifully said. All Russians are responsible, not all Russians are guilty.
Great article, thank you for the translation.
All Russians are responsible, although not in equal measure.
Not all Russians are guilty.
Not only Russians are responsible for this crime, there are certain Europeans, Americans and even Ukrainians that fed the monster and made business with him.
I would also like to remind that hiding behind a collective guilt is something that the exact certain individuals will try to do when the war ends. The people of good will should not allow these individuals to avoid the deserved punishment.
6 comments
(A long read that is well worth your time imho. Article translated with Deepl)
**Many Russians have recently left their country. SPIEGEL reporter Timofey Neshitov, born and raised in Saint Petersburg, visited his compatriots in exile. A personal journey to the origin of evil.**
*(Part 1 of 9)*
The morning the first bombs fell on Kiev, I bought white cabbage in a village shop in Siberia.
I didn’t need cabbage, I was travelling chain-smoking through a country about to start a war of aggression in Europe, trying to capture the mood. At the counter next to me was a woman with a wrinkled face. She looked at the cabbage on the shelf and asked the shop assistant to weigh the smallest head. As she spoke, I saw that she had no teeth. She counted the coins in her hand. Her money was not enough, I paid for her.
On the street, I asked her what she thought of this war. We were standing in front of a man-sized pile of snow, four thousand kilometres east of Moscow, she with her net bag in her hand, me with my iPhone. She said her father had been killed in the war.
Then she asked me, “Or which war do you mean, son, not the one against the fascists in Kiev?”
24 February was a sunny day. I watched her as she walked.
To this day, when I see footage of missile strikes in Ukraine, I see that woman’s bent back, I hear the snow creaking under her galoshes.
That day I thought something irretrievably cursed had happened in Russia, the country where I was born and raised. The people here are not only destitute. They have stopped thinking, I thought. They have stopped feeling.
The people. That was this woman with no teeth for me. That was my own great uncle. He lives in the countryside not far from Saint Petersburg.
A few years ago he started watching TV regularly, in his garage, he escaped there from his wife. My great aunt imagined with age that her husband was cheating every time he left the house. My great-uncle is over 80, she shouted at him: Go to your whores!
My great uncle was born in western Ukraine and married into St Petersburg. Today he believes everything that is on Russian state television. He has lived in Russia for 60 years, he was a private in the army, but never in action. He thinks Putin is ridding Ukraine of fascists.
I have lived in Germany for 18 years. My great uncle used to ask me to bring German razor blades and pumpkin seeds, now he doesn’t want “the Nazi stuff” anymore. My great-aunt has died in the meantime, he watches TV alone in the living room. When I call, he no longer answers.
I used to think there were people like him and people like me, who grew up after the fall of communism, who were cosmopolitan, multilingual and connected. I never trusted Putin. I already left Russia in 2004 after my studies and his first term in office, I was 22 at the time.
I became a journalist in Germany, wrote about gold mines in Congo, theatre in China, the IS in Berlin. Occasionally about Putin, like when he annexed Crimea, but I didn’t warn about Putin like you warn about cancer. He was more like a foot splinter, he was annoying.
Many Russians have emigrated over the years. They preferred to do research somewhere else, to start their companies somewhere else, to raise their children somewhere else.
Since 24 February, I have been asking myself: should I have stayed in Russia?
My brother, who is one and a half years older, told me at the time: One of us has to stay, what will become of us if everyone leaves?
He stayed.
In Russia today, there are not the deluded old people with the cabbage and the smart young people with the iPhone. There is a society that has failed. As it stands, in 2022 we Russians are responsible for the biggest rogue state on earth. A country that fires missiles at hospitals and puts war opponents in prison camps.
The Western view of Russians has never been particularly relaxed. The Russian is coming. Now he is actually coming. And the West is sorting its Russians into two pigeonholes in 2022: The bad Russian murders in his neighbouring country, the good one burns his passport in European marketplaces.
Millions of Russians seem to have fallen silent since the war began. Others have fled. To Tbilisi, Riga, Istanbul, Yerevan, Belgrade, Limassol, Tel Aviv, Berlin. Hundreds of thousands are estimated to have gone into exile. It is a historic exodus, comparable to the wave of migration after the coup d’état of October 1917.
Many of my compatriots whom I have visited in exile on this trip have done in recent years what I have not done. They have stayed in Russia, they have warned against Putin, they have complained against him, they have tried to stop Putin.
I wanted to know from them: How could Butcha and Mariupol happen? Who is to blame? How should it continue?
Thank you, the translation is excellent and very easy to read
> She brought this useless feeling of guilt with her to Yerevan in March. She looked for a boxing club for women, found none, read Hannah Arendt. “Then I understood,” she told me, “there is a difference between guilt and responsibility.”
> Hannah Arendt wrote after the Holocaust that there was no such thing as collective guilt or collective innocence. The concept of guilt only makes sense when applied to individuals.
> What Marijka Semenenko feels now is collective responsibility.
Beautifully said. All Russians are responsible, not all Russians are guilty.
Great article, thank you for the translation.
All Russians are responsible, although not in equal measure.
Not all Russians are guilty.
Not only Russians are responsible for this crime, there are certain Europeans, Americans and even Ukrainians that fed the monster and made business with him.
I would also like to remind that hiding behind a collective guilt is something that the exact certain individuals will try to do when the war ends. The people of good will should not allow these individuals to avoid the deserved punishment.
Thank you for the translation! Great article