“I want to go to Russia”

There are now more Russian Germans in Germany than in Russia, although it is very difficult for them to adapt. They do not speak the language well; some, especially young people, do not want to learn it on principle. They say our parents took us here by force, and in general we are Russians. At the courses where I teach, one eighteen-year-old guy once came up to me and said: “I won’t go to classes anymore. I want to become a criminal. To be returned to Russia." He stole a car and now lives at home in Omsk.

Russian Germans are indeed more Russian than Germans. There are, of course, grandparents who speak a Russified version of their 18th-century Swabian dialect. At the same time, they are sure that they speak German, but for some reason no one understands them. People in Germany treat “Russian Germans” differently. If people lock themselves into a “reservation”, refuse to adapt, do not want to learn German and behave “like in Siberia,” they naturally begin to be called parasites. There are a lot of unemployed people, and strangers who, without working, get free apartments or furniture at half price, do not inspire sympathy. In some places, locals even tell burgomasters: if you let the Russians in, we won’t elect you again. But they can’t do anything: each land has its own quota for migrants. True, most Germans still treat them with understanding. But there are too many problems in Germany now. And it would be better for Russian Germans to stay at home.

HEINER FLICK, teacher of German language courses for immigrants