"You have to run to stay alive."

The story of a mother who had to leave Russia because of anime on her daughter's phone

The Chechen Republic is a special region of Russia. The laws here work selectively, and the power of the security forces and the approximate of the head of the republic Ramzan Kadyrov is unlimited. Ordinary people are forced to keep their interests or orientation different from the mainstream in a strict secret and pray so that no one will know about it. So it was with Eve Yusupova (the name of the heroine was changed at her request) - a lesbian, the mother of two children. For years, she successfully hid her orientation-until her daughter came across a school with anime-picture: the images raised questions from the mullah, led to the proceedings with the police, it came to threats, and they forced the family to leave Chechnya. "Cold" spoke with Eve and publishes its story.

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I was born in Chechnya. My father is a Chechen, my mother is Russian. In 1999, we left for a while due to the war-we drove throughout the Stavropol Territory, constantly moving from place to place. At the same time, my mother continued to work in Chechnya shifts: she could be there for a month, then come home for two weeks and leave back. In 2006, when I graduated from school, my mother found cancer. The question of my independent life in the Stavropol Territory did not even stand: my mother really did not trust me at this age. It seemed to her that if I am alone, I would hide or stuck. So I returned back to Chechnya.

All her life they inspired me that a woman should be with a man, that a woman should have a husband, and she should be a strong rear. When my mother got sick, she constantly said: “You need someone to look after you after I.” Therefore, I was very quickly married - at the age of 17. For my first husband, I was just a young and beautiful girl, that is, like furniture. I left him in the eighth month of pregnancy. She said that my mother is sick and there is no one to look after her. After that, she never returned. The child was left with me. The daughter had gliosis (a change in brain cells in response to damage to the central nervous system. - approx. "Cold"), and I had to walk with her to the doctors. The first husband did not try to pick up the child and somehow contact him.

After that, I was alone for a long time. In 2016, when I already had access to some information, I began to realize my orientation. Then I met a girl and realized that all this time I lied to myself. For example, when I began to feel feelings for my school friend, it seemed to me that it was some kind of teenage whim. No one told me that another orientation is normal. The girl I met was deep in Islam, and we decided that all this is from the evil one, that all this test that the Almighty gives us. We parted for a while, I covered-put on a hijab.

I inspired myself that now I am healing the life that the Almighty ordered me, and I would be a normal hetero-girl who would build a family in Islam. I got married again and became pregnant with a second child, but I quickly realized that I could not live like that. In the second or third pregnancy, my husband and I parted. I was lucky, he reacted very adequately - apparently, guessed about everything - and did not take the child, as it was fashionable in our Chechnya.

At that moment, I realized that I could not continue to hide behind religion, that you will not go against myself. You just feel that you live not your life. This is scary: constant depression, you are in the rain with yourself, you are trying to fly with it with a patch, but it does not work. I realized that if I continue to live like that, I will be the unhappy and in the end I will either get a pill, or I will choose the life that I want. Let I have lost many years, but I will be in harmony with myself. And I returned back to my girlfriend.

I guess I'm a lesbian, but I just love one woman for a long time. This is some kind of separate orientation. I went to her - she is from another Republic of the North Caucasus - she came to me. It is clear that we created the appearance that we are very good girlfriends. And everything else - behind closed doors, so that the neighbors do not see and do not hear. All this is like a spy film. It is very difficult. In Chechnya, you always hide orientation, because if you are talking about this to someone, you give this person a trump card in your hands. In fact, this person is free to do anything with you. A person can harm you even unconsciously: it can gather it somewhere, and given that related ties are very common, they will take a cordon for this, and after second or third people this information will fall into the hands of those who use it and come for you.

At some point, it seems that you get used to, you think that you can exist. But then, when you look back, you think: “How could I exist in this?” We could not leave together when they began to pursue me, and now we are waiting for the moment when we can reunite without looking at all difficulties.

"My daughter was always focused not on this small republic, but on the world"

My eldest daughter Alina (now she is 15 years old, the name has been changed. - Approx. “ Cold ” ) since childhood there were no questions whether it was normal that there are people of different orientations. When she was very small, she asked me: “How do I understand who I love if I have not yet been in love? Girls or boys? " That is, it was an absolute norm for her. When she became older, we began to say that the main thing was to make her comfortable. I said that as a mother will support her in any case, because it is important for me that she is happy. When my girlfriend came, she saw that I was happy.

But for a long time I could not explain to her why people in the republic did not accept it as a norm - it was harder with this. I said that it was a manner driven by people, that this is an aggressive policy that is broadcast by the authorities.

We constantly discussed what we need to be neat, it was memorized as a mantra. When publications began to emerge that gays were pursuing in Chechnya (for the first time about the mass persecution of gays in Chechnya, it became known in April 2017 from the material of the Novaya Gazeta. - Approx. "Cold") , we set aside the money just in case. I explained to my child that if I was taken away, if I suddenly disappear, then she should contact my girlfriend and leave with her younger sister. She always had a clear plan.

She understood that what they were saying at school was propaganda. When the war in Ukraine began, it was dumbfounded, as possible, and we talked about this at home. I was very lucky that we have always been on a friendly wave. My daughter was always focused not on this small republic, but on the world. She had the courage not to look like everyone else.

From the age of 18, I really wanted to make a piercing and made it only when my daughter went and pierced her eyebrow. After that, I also made myself a piercing: she gave me courage. At the school, the daughter of the daughter had a very violent reaction - they asked him to take it off - but we just found an alternative: she began to glue a patch on an eyebrow. Even to me - at that time I was still covered in a hijab - the uncles on the street came up and tried to convey to me that the piercing should be removed.

One man who was traveling with me in a minibus went out at my stop and said: “Do you know what you can’t? You must be grateful to me that I did not start saying this in the minibus for everyone and you did not publicly disgrace you. ” It is so good and wonderful, although in the religion itself there is no ban on piercing, but people do not know about it. Many times people came up to me in the shopping center where I worked, said: "What will the tourists think about us?" I say: “What? About piercing? Tourists? " I was saved by what I was in a hijab. I stopped wearing it when we left Chechnya. To remove it, being there, I did not have the courage, because I would have encountered condemnation.

"Anime-culture in the Chechen Republic is one of the evils"

In October 2022, Alina - she studied then in the seventh grade - they found pictures with anime on the phone. They decided to check the phone at the school, because the daughter had a conflict, and "good girls cannot conflict . " Anime-boys were depicted there, which hug and kiss. It is clear that for our republic it is nonsense. This means that a teenager, if it does not consist in the LGBT community, then at least he sympathizes with him, and this is already the reason to begin the proceedings in the family.

We were very lucky, because these pictures were not screened out and not photographed on the phone. When the daughter returned from school and told about everything, we managed to clean the phone and somehow prepare morally. The next day we were called to school, there were proceedings. It seems that, as for lack of something on the phone, we were left alone, but put on a pencil. And given that my child looks “inappropriate” for the republic-dresses like a boy, wears a short male haircut, piercing-this all leads the head teacher and confessors to the idea that something is wrong with the child.

Anime was not only interested in my daughter, this is our family. The anime culture itself in Chechnya is one of the evils. There is such a word in the republic - “informals”, those who dress not as we would like, those who watch anime, who are oriented, as they believe, to Western values. It comes to the fact that if the “highly moral guys” come to the boy in a T-shirt with an anime print and want to run into him, no one will condemn them. Because if he is “informal”, it means that the parents did not look.

After this incident, the photographs of my daughter appeared in public and telegram channels “Carthage” and “Ban of Chechnya” with a signature in the spirit: “Atheist and against the authorities, its appearance will disgrace the republic.” I will not be surprised if some adults did it. She was told at school for a very long time that she should look like everyone else. And given that this did not take any action, probably it was such a way to intimidate it.

Then a large -scale trial began: we were called to the Inspectorate for minors at the Ministry of Internal Affairs. We went there with clean phones because we knew that they would be checked. When they realized that they would not find anything in the phones, they asked us to transfer to a school, which is directly under their supervision.

In the inspection, my daughter and I were divided into different rooms. When the daughter was brought into one of the rooms, one of the inspectors asked the other: "Who did you bring?" - And he answered: "I brought you a new wife." Naturally, my child was in a fierce shock after all this. At that moment, I was not so much for myself as for my children, because those people have no idea that this is a child. I was asked in the inspection why I was alone, not with a man, why I broke off relations with the fathers of my daughters. Grape in dirty linen - our everything is for the republic.

We were immediately in the role of people who were to blame. You are not the victim, whose images posted somewhere without your resolution with some kind of text. You will now catch Hayit's huge wave. There no one cares about what a teenager experiences. You initially come there as a guilty and should be justified. It is uninteresting to deal with the one who posted the photos.

On the same evening [after a visit to the inspection], I began to receive calls from an unknown man. I don’t know how, but they found materials about my personal life - that I talked with a girl for a long time - and began to blackmail me. The caller said that all the problems with the child are, in principle, nonsense compared to what they learned about me, so I have to pay him. And what can happen [after such threats], everyone already knows: people are tortured in the cellars of police department for orientation, political views, any departure from the “norm”.

"Why haven't I done this before?"

In early February 2023, three months after this situation happened, we left, and a few days after leaving, the district police officer called me and said that employees were looking for us. I don't know what reason.

I am not a very brave person. I was in panic horror when they told me that they knew that I am communicating with the girl, that she was coming to me. The daughter immediately understood everything. When I started collecting things, she asked: "We are leaving?" And I replied: “Yes. You and I are in danger, and I can’t take risks. ” After that, she began to collect things with me. The youngest daughter, who was four years old, has not said anything. For her, the most important thing is that she is with us.

Now I feel great. When you break out of this, you begin to catch yourself thinking: “Why haven't I done this before? Why did I try to reconcile with these circumstances for so much time? " I feel like a child who is just beginning to know the world. I tune in that I am starting a new life without fear, without any regrets, attempts to suppress myself. This is a great feeling when you begin to feel freedom.

While you have an illusion of comfort, you are afraid to change something, to leave somewhere. But at one moment, the illusion crumble like air castles, and you understand that you have to run in order to stay alive. We do not get in touch with the family. The main thing is that they are not touched, so that they have no problems. And on me and my life, I think, they are on the drum. I think that if relatives found out why I disappeared, they would immediately refuse me.

In Chechnya, I studied at the Faculty of Law - it was my mother’s choice. I have not graduated from the university, but I do not regret it. Already at a conscious age, I realized that I want to try directing. I don’t know if it will work out - now I live a moment and do not look forward - but perhaps I can afford such a luxury. I would like to make a film about a guy from the North Caucasus, whose mother learns about his orientation, accepts him and helps to leave.