“Buryats against the war” is the first ethnic anti -war initiative. Interview with her creator, journalist Alexandra Garmazapova

Most of the dead Russian soldiers in Ukraine are from Buryatia. This is evidenced by data from open sources. Against this background, immigrants from this republic founded the international anti -war fund "Free Buryatia Foundation), which sets itself several goals at once. Among them - the cessation of the war, the fight against the Kremlin propaganda and the deliverance of the Buryats from the stigma of the "main defenders of the Russian world." Farida Kurbangaleeva talked with the president of the fund, journalist Alexandra Garmazhapova, why the Buryats are so willing to fight in Ukraine, about chauvinism and xenophobia in Russia and how far the desire of the Buryat activists extend to be free.

- Your project is the first anti -war initiative in Russia created by an ethnic group. Why did such a need arise at all?

- It arose because the Buryats in Ukraine has a negative reputation. When Putin unleashed the war in the Donbass, there, under the guise of the so -called militias and miners, they sent military personnel from Buryatia. The journalist Ilya Barabanov wrote about this situation in 2014, he then worked in Kommersant. Locals showed him to the Buryats and said: "And this is the Donbass Indians."

Then an interview appeared, which the New Gazeta took from the 20-year-old tanker Dorzhi Batomunkuev. This guy received terrible burns in a battle near Debaltseve, and he talked about how the Russian authorities sent the Russian authorities to fight there.

Then the Buryats began to actively write Ukrainian media. They used the formulation of Putin's fighting Buryats. This phrase was very much replicated, memes on this subject appeared. With the beginning of the current invasion, some Ukrainians began to say that they would "fight with Russia to the last Buryat." This is very unpleasant. We have a small people and there is nothing good that such an image has developed around them.

- Judging by the data of the dead, are the Buryats also actively participating in the war in Ukraine?

- Yes, and this is understandable. Buryatia - the region is very poor, and in principle, men have two main ways to earn money. Either the shift method to go to the north, or go to the contract service. When we look at the data of the dead in Ukraine, we see that everyone in the column “place of birth” wrote certain villages. That is, these are the guys from the hinterland who tried, as it seemed to them, to earn. Many signed contracts because this is the only chance to get housing. They could take the so-called military mortgage to buy real estate in Ulan-Ude, which is very expensive for them.

- Are there accurate data about the number of drilling, which are involved in the invasion?

- We do not know the exact numbers, but one way or another, the war covered almost all families. It turned out, for example, that my friend’s second cousin is fighting there, he is wounded now. Other acquaintances also have relatives in this war. Less than a million people live in Buryatia, so the war will not bypass anyone.

- Do you know the number of deaths?

- According to data from open sources, 100 people associated with Buryatia died. This is a very large number. Many now write that Dagestan is the leader in deaths, but you need to understand that there are Buryats living in other regions. First of all, this is the Trans -Baikal Territory and the Irkutsk region, we look at ethnic storms from there. At the same time, in the Irkutsk region, many Buryats are baptized, and they have Russian names. Perhaps we even miss someone. Our analyst Maria Vyushkova believes that in the percentage of the soul of the Buryat population, we are ahead of all in this sad statistics.

- How do you feel about the hypothesis that the Russian authorities deliberately send military personnel from national regions to Ukraine?

- I read about it. Most likely, the Russian authorities proceed from the National National Council can hardly have relatives in Ukraine. While those from Russian regions are just very dense from Russian regions. A second cousin, cousin, aunt, uncle ... Everything is intersecting. But it still seems to me that the key reason is the standard of living. The guys from the poorest regions die. From Moscow, St. Petersburg - almost no one. This means that the standard of living in these regions is such that people have to agree to such a “work”.

- That is, a key criterion is not a national sign, namely life in the poor province?

- Yes, absolutely. But there is another point that we discussed with my colleagues. It would seem, how are the Buryats are ready to fight for the ideas of the “Russian” world, if, living in Russia, they constantly face the manifestations of xenophobia and racism? I don’t know the Buryat, who, being in St. Petersburg or Moscow, did not hear phrases, such as “pour into their China” or “Cobck -eyed” came in. Perhaps the psychological factor is triggered. It seems to the Buryats that participation in the war gives them the opportunity to "rise" to the Russians. They are ready to forget this discrimination so that in the struggle against the "bad Ukrainians" the Russians recognize them equal. I can’t explain this differently.

- As far as I understand, the Russian authorities used the Buryats in the information war against Ukraine?

- Yes, the Network movement (it was the department of the pro -Kremlin movement “ours”) recorded in 2015 the video “The appeal of the fighting Buryats Putin to the frightened people of Ukraine”. There, Irkutsk Buryats told the Ukrainians that their economy “flies into the crotch of Conchita VURST” and so on. This video, unfortunately, gained about a million views.

I can say that many of the guys who starred there were completely apolitical. I contacted one girl not so long ago, she lives in Germany. She honestly admitted that she was ashamed of this video, and now she understands that it was an absolute disgrace. She said that a friend asked her to star in the video. She was then 16 years old, and according to her, she did not understand politics. Only when the video was released, she realized that it was a very big mistake. Now she thinks whether to take her participation in our project. Especially recently, when she sees a huge number of Ukrainian refugees around her.

- The prerequisites for creating your project are understandable, and what served as the starting moment?

-After the outbreak of war, we somehow gathered 10 people in Zum-these were the Buryats living in America, Finland, the Czech Republic, and Great Britain. Honestly, the meeting was more like psychological training. I wanted to pour out my soul, because we were all in a decadent mood. Well, why are we in the image of the main fighters for the “Russian world”? We condemn this war.

I proposed to record the “Buryats against war” video, and they supported all this idea. But I realized that, besides me, none of them have relevant experience, no one created a media product. Among us were programmers, scientists, students ... Therefore, I actively joined this work. The first signing, in fact, were the participants in this zoom.

I sent everyone the terms of reference that three things must sound in the video. Firstly, it was necessary to introduce ourselves so that we would not look like some kind of dummy characters. Secondly, it was necessary to say the phrase “I am drilling” or “I am a drill” or “I come from Buryatia”. And thirdly, it was necessary to pronounce "I am against the war." We immediately decided that we did not need toothless phrases, such as “I am for peace around the world” or “I am against a special operation”. It was necessary to call the war war - this was the main demand.

We have an activist from New York Tuyan Lubsanov. She pulled up, it seems to me that all her family and all her friends are bruised from there. As a result, it turned out that there were 19 people in the first video. We thought that everything would end there, we did not have far -reaching plans. But we suddenly began to write other Buryats living in various countries - from Germany, from Poland, again from America. And we realized that we need to release the video again. We recorded four videos, now we are preparing the fifth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0cti9va

-I saw that among the heroes of the videos were members of mixed Ukrainian-Buryat families. How did you find them?

- Some I knew before this video came out, for example, Tatyana Runnyk from Kyiv. After the Primmnevsky video with the Buryats in 2015, I wrote a column for the Echo of Moscow website. Hundreds of thousands of people read it and reprinted many Ukrainian media. Then we met Tatyana, maintained contact all these years. And when the first conversations began that Russia could attack Ukraine, we also discussed it with it. Both did not believe, considered this script fantastic.

After the start of the war, I asked Tatyana if she wanted to star in our video and did she know other Ukrainian Buryats. Tatyana recommended that he can contact. So we began to get acquainted with new heroes, and they began to spread our videos among their relatives and friends in Ukraine.

For example, Ayuna Morozova from the Kharkov region wrote to us. She herself miraculously survived under the shelling and said: "I support you very much, thanks for what you are doing." Ayuna was part of the Water Polo team, she was the director of the youth and youth sports school for swimming in Kharkov. Buryatka by mother and Ukrainian for her father. Of course, I asked her if she also wanted to star in our video, and she replied that she was happy.

- Have you decided what else you will do, except for recording videos?

- Of course, we have identified several directions. The first is the provision of legal assistance. Because after the first videos, we began to write a lot of mothers, wives and sisters of Buryat contractors who asked: “Here my son, for example, does not want to sign a contract. How can he refuse it? Is it possible to do this if it is already in Ukraine? Will this be considered desertion? " Then we took up an active search for lawyers who understand military law, and we found several such specialists.

The second direction is research. We are preparing a report on losses among ethnic minorities in Ukraine. Accordingly, we need to conduct clear statistics. We check our data with the materials of human rights activists and investigators. For example, we want to understand what happened in Bucha, because information was launched on the Prochrevsky telegram channels that the Slavs could not do so cruelly with the Slavs. And then Arrestovich helped us a little when he said that quite strong Slavic guys were atrocious there.

We do not say: let's dump everything on the Slavs. But we want to fight off the narrative promoted by the Kremlin. And we want to make a full -fledged report on losses that we can distribute through media and provide international instances. We believe that, in addition to the destruction of Ukrainians, Russia also leads the destruction of its population. We want to show these dead. When we hear that one drill died or two were killed, this information does not develop in one large picture. But when a hundred people are completely different. It is as if a terrorist attack occurred in the center of Ulan-Ude and 100 people died. Probably, this will have a stunning reaction. And I believe that we must cause this reaction.

And another third direction. We advocate sanctions against the leadership of Buryatia. We believe that they bear a direct responsibility for what is happening. The function of the head of the region is to protect their citizens. Alexey Tsydenov clearly does not cope with this function. On the contrary, he indulges in ensuring that people die. Accordingly, he is the direct culprit of this tragedy. Therefore, we are now drawing up sanctions lists that will also be provided to international instances.

-Does someone support your fund? Do you have funding?

- While we do not have funding, this is all on a voluntary basis, on a bare enthusiasm. One of our participants has already left the work and is engaged in this project, Fultim, someone is trying to work until the last to work in parallel. But we all, of course, live in a new format, because we need to react to questions constantly - both day and night. Our life has changed.

- Your fund is called "Free Buryatia." This leads to certain thoughts. How far do your plans go?

- We are for strong, democratic, free Buryatia in the framework of the Russian Federation. We are very clearly pronouncing that it is important to us. But at the same time, we believe that all the problems of the republic today are related to the fact that there is no real federation. The real federation is when the regions themselves determine their socio-economic priorities. The state is one, but there are many regions, everyone has different needs and different opportunities.

The regions need more independence, because they should not look in the mouth of Moscow every time and wait for handouts from it.

And yes, if there was a real federation and an effective economy, there would be no so many victims among immigrants from Buryatia. This happens precisely due to poverty, which exists within the Putin vertical of power. Due to the crooked control, which is completely corrupt. And this important agenda concerns everyone, not only drill. We protect the rights and other national minorities.

We also believe that Russia, having declared its goal the denazification of Ukraine, is absolutely contrary to itself, because in Russia itself there is a very high level of chauvinism, racism and Nazism. Now we are in Prague and speak Russian. From the point of view of Russian propaganda, we should already swift us all around. Does this happen? No, it does not happen. Moreover, nowhere in the world we are faced with such a level of chauvinism as in Russia.

- You yourself personally came across xenophobia and chauvinism in Russia?

- Of course, many times. I grew up in St. Petersburg, and for many years St. Petersburg was called the "brown capital of Russia." On the one hand, I was very lucky with my school, university and work colleagues. But there were a lot of manifestations of chauvinism in everyday life.

I began to drive a car at 23 years old, because I did not want to go down in the subway, where they always looked at me hostile. Once I went to the escalator, and a mash formed right in front of the entrance. Some man began to pour me out of line with his shoulder, but I continued to go. Then he sharply pushed me back and said: "Do you have to always let the Russians go forward, understand?" I was stupid, but since I have already learned to answer such attacks, she said to him: “Well, since you are a representative of the highest race, why are you still driving the subway?” After that, he almost pushed me out of anger from the escalator, and then he still waited on the street.

I also remember the case on New Year's Eve 2015/2016. My parents live in the center of St. Petersburg, there are mainly intelligent contingent. We bought a lot of products and got them from cars in front of the house. A woman sat and smoked at the front door. At some point, she stood up sharply and said: “How are you for ***** (tired), Chinese, there is no life from you” and then something is in the same spirit.

I experienced a state of affect, began to scream at it in response. This woman was scared and ran into the house to leave me on the elevator. She did not expect that she could answer in competent Russian, and even swiftly in response. I think for her it was a shock-content. I ran after her, it seemed to me that I was ready to beat her. It was my accumulated rage, because I was worried about this more than once, not two or three. And if you swallowed it many, many times during your life, then at some point it breaks the lid.

But my mother kept me by the jacket, she said: “Leave her, otherwise she will write a statement later, and then you will still find yourself extreme.” Probably, I would really read in Russian media that "visitors from Buryatia beat the indigenous Petersburger." It was on that New Year's Eve that I realized that I no longer want to live in St. Petersburg.

“Are you not afraid that they will begin to be accused of separatism?”

-If we were afraid of something, then we would not start anything. In the current Russian realities, you can be accused of anything. In "Changing the trajectory of movement" as Vladimir Kara-Murzu. Or that you went outside with an empty poster on which nothing is written. If you focus on it, you can do nothing at all.

It surprises me why things appear so easily in Russia for nothing. And at the same time, criminal cases do not appear in cases where there is a real reason for them. Officials transport their dogs with business jackets, buy yachts and palaces. Why are there no things for this total corruption? But there are things to change the price tags in the store.

So what, focus on the fact that they can plant you? This is already pointless, because there are no rules of the game. In addition, people who now control Russia do not have the right to determine these rules.

For me, Putin is not president simply because I remember very well how he “re -elect” in 2012. I then worked on the site as a journalist, saw a lot of different violations, including stuffing. As expected, we sat until the morning. It turned out that Putin was gaining somewhere around 60% of the vote, more precisely, they were “pulled” on him. In principle, this was supposed to arrange him, although Petersburg and Moscow always voted for him poorly, and it was vital for Putin - to triumphantly win in his hometown.

Это был участок, который курировал депутат Виталий Милонов, и всех наблюдателей оттуда просто выкинули. Там остался чудом уцелевший член избирательной комиссии с правом решающего голоса, он адекватный был, и все. Мы говорим соратнику Милонова: «Дайте нам копию протокола, согласно которому у Путина 60% голосов». А он отвечает: «Ой, ну где мы сейчас будем искать принтер в шесть утра. Мы все равно уже все тут сдружились. Путин все равно победил, ну, какая разница?» Мы очень устали и сказали: «Ну ладно».

Просто сил не было уже вообще никаких, мы провели на этом участке 24 часа и подумали, что фальсифицировать там уже нечего. На самом деле, мы ошибались. Когда я на работе открыла систему ГАС «Выборы», то увидела, что по нашему участку у Путина было то ли 83%, то ли 86%. Первая реакция была: так я и знала, что этим жуликам нельзя верить абсолютно!

После того, как я видела все это своими глазами, как я могу считать Путина президентом? Я считаю его нарисованным президентом. И я ни разу, находясь в России, не видела честных выборов, хотя очень много на них работала. Я видела честный подсчет голосов только в посольстве России в Праге и в консульстве в Карловых Варах.

— Уголовного дела не боитесь?

— Я скажу так: я удивлюсь, если его не заведут. От этих ребят можно ждать чего угодно. Но мы указываем им на те вещи, которые они оспорить не могут никак. Они не могут оспорить, что Бурятия живет в нищете. Они не могут оспорить, что языки нацменьшинств уничтожаются. Они не могут оспорить, что ксенофобия цветет в России пышным цветом. Они сами активно поддерживали все эти организации, раскручивали рогозинскую партию «Родина».

Они же организовали международный консервативный форум в Петербурге в 2015 году, где реально собрали ультраправых со всего мира. Я была на этом мероприятии. Потом его организатор по фамилии Любомирский обещал меня повесить. Это было абсолютно нацистское мероприятие. Там были ребята, которые участвовали в войне на Донбассе, с татуировками в виде свастики. Там был такой Алексей Мильчаков, возглавлявший батальон «Русич». В свое время он был судим по статье о живодерстве. Я спрашивала, как он относится к идеям национал-социализма? Он отвечал, что неплохо. Был неонацист по имени Ян Петровский, который говорил, что в идеологии Третьего рейха ему близки «институт семьи и евгеника». Это был форум, организованный властями России! Ну, это чтобы понимать, кто русский мир в Украине защищал.

— Вы большие молодцы, что говорите об этом, но вы же не можете повлиять на то, что в головах у жителей Бурятии. Тем более, находясь за границей.

— Почему не можем? Бурятия маленькая. Если мы убедим кого-то из нашей аудитории, то он будет дальше убеждать остальных. Это потихоньку будет работать, как сарафанное радио. Даже наш ролик «Буряты против войны» — это борьба с пропагандой. В нем украинские буряты говорят, что их никто не притесняет и не надо их защищать.

После того как мы организовали фонд, к нам стало обращаться очень много бурят. Я каждый день получаю от них сообщения и ни разу не видела плохих. Люди пишут: «Я думал, что я один, я так устал от того, что вокруг меня эти буквы Z, спасибо за то, что вы говорите то, что я думаю». Нормальным людям кажется, что их мало, потому что они разрознены, но на самом деле это не так.

За две недели ко мне в инстаграм добавилось 250 человек из Бурятии. Это естественный рост, и я понимаю, почему он происходит. Мы еще и психологически поддерживаем людей, осуждающих эту войну, чтобы они не считали себя какими-то там предателями. А значит, помимо трех направлений работы, у нас есть еще две очень важные функции — объединяющая и поддерживающая.