Russia that has lost

If I were a Ukrainian, I would certainly tell myself and my loved ones: well, it’s nice that we don’t have more Crimea. Autonomy, which dreamed of a return back, in the USSR, gave the largest percentage of votes against our freedom even then, in the Godin of the "orange" Maidan. And in the last election, the former criminal Yanukovych would not have passed if not for Crimea. And henceforth Crimea would pull us back, to unfreedom, multiplying voices against our desire for democracy, to unity with civilized, peaceful Europe ... Of course, we will feel sorry for the inhabitants of the Crimea, when their aspirations do not justify, dreams will not come true when they block the path to the coast of high fences of the Russian elite residence. Returning not to Russia -ladder, but to real Russia, they will face the arbitrariness and cruelty of power, with greedy corruption, with the misfortune of draft slavery, with the lawlessness of the jailers - and there are many more with what they will encounter. But we can no longer help them, and this will no longer be our fault and care.

But I am not a Ukrainian, and I cannot say such words. I am a citizen of the state that occupied Crimea, and therefore I can not experience my Ukrainians before the burning shame today.

And they tell me that there is no reason for shame, that this is not a conquest, but a return, reunion. But I am even more painful for me from this brazen-east lies. What is the reunion, what is the return? Crimea has never been part of the state education that is called the Russian Federation and which is a little over twenty years old. And the historical fact that nearly two and a half century ago the Russian Empire won Crimea, the slightest right prevents today's Russia to bring the rights to the peninsula, geographically organically adjoining the territory of Ukraine, and not Russia. In 1921, the Autonomous Crimean SSR could have the same success in the Ukrainian Republic with which she entered the RSFSR, and not joining the Ukrainian SSR in 1954 became the poor Crimea, but the loss of the peninsula in 1945 of the status of republican autonomy. The tragedy of the Crimean Tatar people, a mass deportation, associated with mass death, has become a key moment in Soviet history of Crimea. And if we talk about historical justice, then the Russians and Ukrainians need to leave the Crimea to give it to the legal masters - the Crimean Tatars.

I am ashamed of those of my compatriots who rejoice today as if they are now Crimea. I am ashamed of this imperial cargo, for blinding, for this mentally retarded, wild joy of the conqueror. And the dumbfound takes at the thought of how disgusting we look from today from the side.

But no one prevented my compatriots from traveling to Crimea and enjoy its beauty all these 20 years. Crimea met the Russians much more friendly than the Russian Black Sea coast, and even a foreign passport did not need a layman from the Russian hinterland to spend a vacation in Crimea.

Today, Crimea did not come close, but moved away from us. Now it will be more difficult to go there from Russia, and rest in Crimea will become much more expensive, which is important against the backdrop of the impoverishment of Russians. And what will happen to the bandwidth across the border of Russia with Ukraine? It turns out that, supporting the results of a hasty referendum in the situation of military occupation in the Crimea, my fellow citizens not only did not acquire Crimea, but also lost Ukraine. Now they will not be able to go to Ukraine as they went six months ago, and instead of good and peaceful neighborhood, only distrust and cold will meet them there, and not only there.

And how to look in the eyes of Ukrainians today? How to share the bitterness and sadness of that Russia that does not want a war that does not agree with those who have taken possession of the power in the country and made it a non-uzurpator country, a country-winner?

This sadness cannot be conveyed in words. You can only convey to the Ukrainians that there is still it-that Russia, which does not believe the flows of impudent lies with television screens about Ukraine and the Maidan. Which does not accept this shameful Anschlus, who is ashamed today for his country and his fellow citizens. The anti -war actions of the beginning of March in Moscow and throughout Russia showed this. Maybe someday Russia will become free from imperial ambitions, from the permissiveness of power, from all this suffocating "Asian".

In the meantime, we can only rejoice in Ukraine, which managed to free ourselves from its usurpators, and wish it a peaceful sky above my head, freedom and independence, the good opportunity to build a beautiful and friendly state with an unconditional priority of human freedom and human rights.

And although I am not a Ukrainian, but still dare to say that Ukraine loses a little, losing Crimea. But we, Russian citizens, lose more disproportionate. Such moral losses will not be easy to make up for. Such a historical shame will not be easy to get rid of.

But maybe at least a small part of the losses would have returned to us an exclamation: forgive us, our Ukrainian brothers and sisters! Sorry that we did not find the will and the strength to renounce the madmen who dared to violate the boundaries of your state. Sorry that we allowed such people to power in our country.

And those citizens of Russia, whose bitter feelings can express such words today, must still not lose hope that someday Russia will be free.

And therefore-for ours and your freedom, Ukrainian friends!