"Not all Russian cattle and killers." Anti -war rally in Riga

On April 23, the Russian -speaking residents of Latvia reached an anti -war rally for Liberty Square in Riga. In Russian and in Latvia, calls were sounded as soon as possible to stop the war, because "the only thing the Putin army can bring is destruction." The correspondent of the North. Realia talked with the Russians, Latvians and Ukrainians, who together require the complete withdrawal of Russian troops from the territory of Ukraine.

The Russian Voice Against War community unites Russians from several waves of emigration - many moved to Riga after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, others have been here in the last couple of months. Together with people who left Russia for political reasons, Russian -speaking residents of Latvia entered the rally.

The philosophy teacher Andrei Pegashev was born in Pskov, but he has been living in Latvia for many decades-he left here back in the 1990s after marriage. He has a non -citizen status, but he completely suits Andrei. “I can’t imagine how I could live in Putin's Russia,” he says.

“I would like to express the words of support to the people of Ukraine, the President of Ukraine, all Ukrainians, so that they survive to win and that finally the criminal Putin regime in Russia stops,” says Pegashev. - I dream that Russia is again in the family of democratic countries. All the time I make differences between Russia as a country - a beautiful country with a rich history and culture - and the state regime. This is not the same thing, I condemn the current political regime and welcome Russia in every way.

Sasha was born in Latvia, she was Russian and stood on Freedom Square with a poster Putin Rusophobe.

- I am against the war, I believe that now every vote against the war is important. - It seems to me that any normal person should speak out against the war today, so that tomorrow Putin does not have the idea to come here to defend the Russian speakers. The Russians do not want them to be protected. They feel good here, ”says Sasha. - Thank God, we are in NATO. But Ukraine is now defending for all of us.

Evgenia Skvortsova from Arkhangelsk has been living in Riga for the fifth year. She moved here to enter the magistracy for programs that are not in her hometown and which are very difficult to get into universities of large Russian cities. The war, which Russia began against Ukraine on February 24, shocked it. She came to the rally to oppose "against the dictatorship of authoritarianism and patriarchy, who are trying to devour any manifestation of free will."

- I would like to pay tribute to those who, being in the belly of the monster, continues to fight no matter what, tries to break it from the inside and does not lose strength. I think that we must pay tribute to those who protect their country from capture without sparing their own lives, to those who help people evacuate and save the sick and wounded, those who collect certificates of war crimes, and competent, bold journalists who work honestly.

I think that each of us here has a lot of privileges. At least the square on which we stand is whole, and we have where to go after the rally ends. We will not be taken away from here in autozaks, they will not be beaten off, they will not be raped along the way and will not be imprisoned. I think that it is important for each of us to realize where these privileges come from and at whose expense we live the way we live. If you have money, sacrifice it, if you have the strength - build the houses that are destroyed, if you have time - go volunteer, be sympathetic, courteous, do not be afraid of inconvenient truth and avoid smoothed corners, says Eugene.

Documentary Vitaly Mansky, who has been living in Riga since 2014, addressed primarily to his compatriots who left Russia.

- We do not support Putin, we are against aggression, we are against war, but our individual protest is apparently insufficient. We need to stand nearby at some point. We go on stage, but this is an absolutely optional thing. The main thing is that we are here and we stand shoulder to shoulder, we raise these flags and we feel our responsibility for what is happening, ”said Mansky.

He also recalled those Russians who, having lived in Europe for many years, today for some reason support Putin’s policy, although they are in no hurry to return to Russia. Such rallies are needed primarily for these people, Mansky said:

-I hope at the next elections that confirm this Putin's eternity, we will at least tear off the Chechnya from the rating of Putin's approval. 95% among the Russians voting and living in Latvia - well, listen, well, it's just indecent! Let's stand now, say, “Glory to Ukraine, Glory to the Heroes,” we will fulfill all ceremonial things, and then we will return to our lives and in this life we will help those who are captured by the Kremlin propaganda, who are in this lethargic dream. Let's try to return them to life. This is what I call you and myself.

“It seems to me that in Russia there are millions of people who want to know the truth about this war,” Kirill Martynov, editor -in -chief of Novaya Gazeta. Europe, is sure. This project was launched in Latvia after the New Gazeta in Russia suspended its work due to the actual introduction of military censorship. Martynov recalled that the first weeks of the war "New" worked in Russian and Ukrainian:

- We wanted to show that we love and respect all neighbors, we want to live in peaceful Europe, we will never accept this war. To date, in the Russian Federation, the profession of a journalist is actually prohibited. Journalists work anonymously - it is too dangerous to say for which publication you wrote your text. All that is in the Russian Federation is propaganda. Propaganda and Putin sow hatred, they not only destroy the Ukrainian cities, not only kill people in the war, not only unleashed this crazy and most terrible war since the end of World War II. But they sow hatred inside families, inside professional groups, inside simply friendly companies.

It was already eight years ago, when everyone had to swear allegiance to Crimea, and not all Russians agreed with this. Russian society was already split then. For decades, the New Gazeta opposed the wars, it played for Russia as a normal European country, respecting all its neighbors and all the languages that our neighbors speak. We hope to continue this work with your help. We urge everyone who is here and all the Russians who opposed the war to do everything that we can, so that this war ends, so that troops are withdrawn from Ukraine, so that Ukrainians cease to die under the bombs, says Martynov.

The actress of the new Riga Theater, the founder of the Foundation "Give Life" Chulpan Khamatova first performed at a rally. She admitted that she was used to saying strangers on stage, and not her own words:

- I do not know very well and speak my texts. But then I can feel. And today, like many people, I feel incredible pain, and it is impossible to cope with this pain. To imagine what Ukrainians can feel now - it is impossible to either cope or live with it further and pretend that life is ongoing. I understand that the rally “There is no war”, because “Yes the War” - there cannot be a priori. There can be no "yes" alien pain, other people's wounds, other people's troubles. This is some kind of distortion of the reality that my homeland fell into, this cannot be. I know for sure that in Russia there are a fairly large number of people who feel the same way as I am. Those who had such an opportunity left. Others remained, but continue to feel the same grief and the same pain for everything that is happening in Ukraine now, for this inhuman war, which the Russian government began. This is my country, my homeland, I love her very much. I am also part of this country, and I categorically do not accept what my homeland is doing now on my behalf.

Irina stood with a bicycle a little behind the rally. She has blue and yellow ribbons on her jacket. This is not just a sign of solidarity: Irina is Ukrainian. In mid -March, she came to Riga from the Dnieper.

- It so happened that on the night when I left (and it was the largest wave of shoots from the Dnieper), they captured Energodar. We were all very scared, because we all survived Chernobyl and were afraid that we would survive him again. I took the children and left, ”says Irina. - It turned out that the Dnieper did not hurt, Zaporozhye was standing, but at night my sister from Zaporozhye called and said that they hear the explosions: "Urgently collect things and leave." I was already at the station at 6:00, we drove like that for twenty hours.

- Why did you decide to come here to this rally?

- Because ethnically I am Russian. I am the one who came to protect. My grandfather Karl Mikhailovich Berezhnoy went through the whole war, my dad Leonid Karlovich Berezhnoy served in the Soviet troops, he was a border guard, participated in the events preceding Afghanistan and became a terrible pacifist after he saw there. I knew that there should be no war, even before it began. I always loved Russia to some extent, because these are also my roots, I was probably proud of somewhere. And now I do not even want to mention.

- What can you say to those who still believe in the "Russian liberators" and refuse to believe that the Russian army kills civilians, is engaged in looting?

- If you do not believe now, just open the history of Afghanistan, look at the confession of those "officers", in quotation marks that were in Afghanistan, who were in Chechnya, and what are their stories about how they behaved with local people. They do not call them people, they called them "spirits." Just as they do not say now that they are killing Ukrainians. They kill Khokhlov, but Khokhly seems to be not people. They divided us. And as if nothing was happening.

- With surprise, I meet in the media the testimonies of people who have left even from Mariupol, but continue to believe in Russian propaganda. Can this be explained by something?

- Nobody turned off the TV. Do not forget that television has a very huge role, and even here, in Latvia, you can see it-in a country that has long separated from Russia, has long broken economic ties. Not like us - after all, until the last, until 2013 there were powerful economic ties. I am from the Dnieper, our plant worked all my life for Russia. I lived in Dneprodzerzhinsk until twenty-five years old, Muscovites live on my Ural Street, not some mythical Russians, but Muscovites. What, do you think they will watch channels? And in Mariupol, do you think there are few Russians? Sailors almost all worked on which ships - on Russian ones, but we have no fleet. And on TV they watched Russian channels - this is explained by this. And in the same way, not all the Russian cattle and killers, but they also watch all the same channels.

People who lived in Mariupol will not return there, because there is nowhere to return. Those people who are still alive so far, I really hope that they can get out of there. This is probably the whole world, the whole planet. This should not happen. And those who left by the will of the heart to Russia will look further than these channels and continue to believe. This is the only question what you want to accept and what your heart accepts. I am also Russian and, believe me, for a very long time in the 14th year, when we had a revolution, I did not want to accept that we could attack us that Russian troops were in Donetsk. I say in the correspondence that this cannot be, but my friends from Donetsk send me: "Ira, here is the Russian tank."

-What would you like to tell people in Russia - and those who still believe in propaganda and do not want to understand what is actually happening in Ukraine, and those who simply believe that nothing depends on them?

-For some reason, when I talk with such people, I have the feeling that they are a little with some kind of slave thinking, I cannot explain it for myself. The feeling that they do not understand that they are persons, that they have freedom. And do not wait until Ukraine gives it to you. Yes, of course, you can wait until we win, but we won’t go further! We are not invaders and not aggressors, we defended our land, and then you ourselves.