On the border of Russia and Georgia is a real chaos. This is what the Russians who still managed to escape from the military registration and enlistment office look like

Photos "Medusa"

For a week now, thousands of Russians running from mobilization have been in a colossal queue on the border of Russia and Georgia. The Russian authorities pulled out military equipment to the border crossing of the Upper Lars and deployed a mobilization point, but this does not stop people. At the request of Medusa, the photographer Alexander Maharashvili spent on the checkpoint all night on September 27 to make portraits of Russians who were still able to go to the Georgian side. She also recorded their remarks about what was happening on the border.

I am 32 years old, I am a military person. Ekhal with his wife and infantry. We tried to put pressure and explain that we have a child, diapers are running out, there is no water (a stock of four bottles of five liters flew over in two days). But it was useless.

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On the way [Russian], the police at the posts began to demand money. If the spouse is driving, then they just direct her and do not take money, and if I am driving, they demand. On the main highway they have five thousand price tags, on secondary ones - from one to three thousand. The wife shouted at them, they missed, but threatened that they would meet us further. As a result, we rode in a roundabout way through the village and did not meet anyone.

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Some traffic cops take bribes of 10-40 thousand rubles.

I run because I now have relatives in Ukraine, my wife is Ukrainian. I can’t look into my mother -in -law's eyes. Parents of the wife from Western Ukraine. And they are not “Bandera”, but adequate, very kind people. Even when I was not a relative yet, they treated me well.

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There is a fear of being closed inside the same territory. But I would still like to feel like a free person. The employer promises me that he will not allow. That they will not pick up. But I think that the state car will roll up anyone.

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They threw us. They said that they would be taken to the border for 100 thousand rubles. But they did not take the border and squeezed another 140 thousand.

I met men who were in the Donbass. When you see that there was a healthy pumped man who, after the injury, drops to 60 kilograms and becomes like a match ... After that, everything turned upside down. Moreover, that [when I myself was] in the army, I listened to all this [already] - about the "Kyiv junta". But I realized that all this is a lie.

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I served. The wife fell asleep that they would send to fight. And I personally do not understand what to go to fight for. It is one thing to protect when there is a motive to do something. Now I do not understand why go and conquer someone else's land. We already have a lot of land, uninitiated territories.

The wife insisted on the departure to save me. We left. She stands in a traffic jam in Vladikavkaz, she is with a child, and I arrived in Georgia yesterday.

Yesterday [to the border] I went [the Russian] armored personnel carrier with the military, the wife on the nerves turned to Vladikavkaz. I'm waiting for her here. She will break through.

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We grouped a few cars. Conflicts arise in traffic jams - and so easier.

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Our wives remained on the borders with babies. And we went for bicycles to slip faster, because the boil began. I tried to convince my wife, but she insisted that I move faster. I still have a conscience that I left it.

Before the Russian border - fights and quarrels, but there are people who help, local ones.

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Local help. My wife was given shower because the baby is not bathing for two days. They fed her. Another man opened the trunk and offered food. I tried to pay, but he didn’t even take the money.

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In the neutral zone [between Russia and Georgia], which is about 700 meters, people without strength, without water. Sleeping tired right on the stones.

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The days merged. I can’t even remember the date when I left my wife in a traffic jam.

Photos and text: Alexander Makharashvili