“No home. No children. There is no strength for this"

Rita (name changed) is 35 years old. Originally from the Urals. She lived there, working as an illustrator, until the end of 2022. Now she and her husband are in Kazakhstan, and her dad, alone in his opposition to the war, remains in Russia with a pension of 15 thousand rubles. This story is about a lost dream and unbearable separation from a loved one.

- Hello! Thank you for the opportunity to share my feelings.

I used to have two recurring dreams: that “the sky is falling” - I look up, and something immensely huge in the heights is about to cover the ground; and that I watch from afar as the city burns, the whole metropolis is on fire. In both dreams, I just watch what is happening in a daze.

This has been repeated for years, perhaps for the last ten years. But it stopped at some point. And only recently I remembered them and understood why: the sky fell and the city burned down.

My dreams never seemed overly ambitious to me. I wanted to live in a small rural house, which my husband and I would build under the leadership of my father. He independently built several houses during his life. I wanted to live next to him, if possible please him with grandchildren, and for my children to go to a local school, think and speak the same language as me, and spend their childhood in the lap of nature. So that their grandfather teaches them how to make something. Or he read to them something from the classics, Russian history, scientific literature - it seems to me that he knows, if not everything, then a lot, is interested in a lot and can do a lot. And the children would love him and admire him like I do.

A small house, for the construction of which our modest money was enough for us... We even selected a plot in 2021. But it didn’t work out, and now I think it’s for the better. How unbearable it would be to leave such a place.

There was nothing out of the ordinary in my desires. But there is no home. There are no children, and I'm not sure that it will even come to trying. There is no strength for this.

We decided to leave on the first day of the war, but we had to sell the apartment, save money and figure out where to go. We considered Georgia and Armenia. As a result, my husband urgently left at the start of mobilization in September, and I stayed to sell the apartment and came to him only in December.

My husband works in game development (the field of video game development - editor's note). Copes with emigration better than me. He had experience of moving, and most importantly, he is the complete opposite of me in terms of interest in new things: he easily meets people, goes to various sections, and has never suffered from anxiety.

In terms of work and life, almost nothing has changed. We are both remote workers and it’s as if we moved to a neighboring city, where Visa works and there is no need for a VPN, and the multi-million dollar figures on the billboards are car prices, not payments for signing a contract.

What has changed, perhaps, is that those incomes that seemed sufficient for the region of the Russian Federation before the war (700–1300 dollars a month for two) turn out to be insufficient when planning to move almost anywhere else.

Kazakhstan is a quite comfortable country: there is accessible medicine, cheap gasoline, a relatively young population, a lot of children, digitalization at the level of pre-war Russia, in some places, it seems to me, even higher.

I remember that at first in Kazakhstan I had something like PTSD: it seemed to me that I was behind some kind of glass, that I was broken. I was afraid of the locals because they are relaxed and cheerful. It was hard.

We were able to obtain a residence permit and buy an apartment in the regional center, but given our level of involvement in politics, liberal views and position regarding the war in Ukraine, there is a rather high level of restrictions. From the first day of the war, both of us had an urgent need for some kind of action. Here it can only be implemented remotely and very carefully.

Both my husband and I are constantly looking for ways to increase our income in order to expand the range of countries available for relocation and countries that are freer in terms of political expression. Especially me – my earnings are still less stable.

It’s even harder for my father, because our views on the war and everything connected with it are the same, but I left, and he was there. Without a single person with whom you could share all the pain and rage, powerlessness, bitterness.

He's always angry. I'm constantly angry. My body constantly hurts because of this aggressive-defensive posture: shoulders forward, arms apart, heart hidden.

My parents were individual entrepreneurs, but the 2008 crisis greatly damaged their business. Mom died in 2017. Later, dad was busy with construction work. He learned everything on his own, he was very handy, there were a lot of orders. Then he had a hard time with Covid, developed heart failure, and stopped working. Now I’m retired, and this pension is only 15,000, which worries me incredibly.

He is a very proud man, has difficulty accepting his new restrictions and refuses my financial help. Fortunately, he is dating a woman. They live separately, but, in fact, they share life: they have two households for two, they help each other.

His friend is one of those people who, after the start of the war, abstracted themselves and went into “internal emigration”: she doesn’t want to hear anything about what’s happening (although she herself has a conscripted grandson also in forced emigration), doesn’t read the news, and it’s hard for me to imagine what it’s like for my father.

I have one such friend from Moscow, for whom the only significant thing that happened since February 24, 2022 was that Zara left. If it were not for a common area of ​​​​interest, it would be unbearable for me to communicate with her, just as she would not be able to communicate with me.

In the village where my father lives, there is a very active movement in support of the war. Many of his female friends volunteer – weaving camouflage nets or collecting humanitarian aid for the warring forces.

Until recently, I still came to see him, and it seemed to me that he could not talk enough about politics. He read books by Soviet dissidents aloud to me. I think if it weren’t for his woman, he would have left too. But, of course, she doesn’t want to go anywhere. And I understand her perfectly, because she has what I dreamed of: a house, a garden... She doesn’t need to give birth and raise children in that environment.

I am constantly ashamed of myself that with my income I cannot afford some country that would be perceived by my father as a step forward (he is full of hatred for the post-Soviet space). Perhaps, if I had the opportunity to make such a move and provided him with the conditions for this, he would have persuaded his girlfriend more actively.

On the other hand, I am very glad that he is not alone in principle. Before the war, everything was fine with them.

I am angry that I cannot go to my parents’ house, where I was born and where I lived all my life until February 24th. I can’t visit my 90-year-old grandmother, my beloved nephews, friends and my mother’s grave because of the threat of criminal charges. Unfortunately, it is not so ephemeral, although with every year of hated emigration one wants to forget about it more and more.

There doesn't seem to be any persecution yet. But my husband and I participated in rallies in support of Navalny, and the local Center “E” definitely has our photos and videos. They were members of several anti-war chats, in which secret “moles” were subsequently discovered, and participated in anti-war actions.

I worked in Duntsova’s headquarters, then Nadezhdin’s. I came back for this. My husband is a volunteer for an organization that helps avoid conscription. We carried out increasingly risky actions through third parties, so as not to block my opportunity to visit my family.

We also volunteered at the local branch of an organization that was recently declared extremist. After this, my husband doesn’t want to let me go to the Russian Federation anymore. This is killing me.

I understand perfectly why Alexey Navalny returned. Sometimes I think that in some ways it would be morally easier for me in prison, but in my homeland. This, it seems to me, would restore my integrity. But I am also too well aware of how heavy the burden of worries and anxieties falls on the shoulders of the convicted person’s loved ones. Adding grief to my dad and husband is the last thing I would want.

I'm trying to convince myself to learn to move on with my life. Building a new house under a collapsing sky. Look for a place for it. It's hard.

Before leaving in 2022, I had never moved or even actually traveled. The long separation from home, from pets, from activities and hobbies depressed me. It’s hard for me in new places, with new people. And thoughts about new countries worry and anger at the same time.

It seems to me that I myself do not allow myself to adapt, as if it will no longer be me, as if this structure “me + Russia” in my personality is load-bearing.

I have always wanted to create “paradise” around myself, and not look for it somewhere else. I remember reading material about white emigrants, where it was said that many of them lived their lives without dismantling their suitcases. I feel the same way.

And I still feel like I’m “behind glass.” I live in different contexts with the locals. Unfortunately, on my last trip to Russia, in 2025, I felt this “glass” with my loved ones there. They are worried about prices, problems with the Internet, education and security. Worried about the future. Some have been unemployed for months.

And now it’s as if I’m not with them either, because this doesn’t directly concern me. Neither there nor here. “Ours” were reduced to our local emigrant company.

Since purchasing the apartment, I have been distracted by renovations, I try to remember the “advice of the experienced” - that you need to create a house where it comes out, and to the fullest extent possible. And that life goes on, whether I want it or not. In Russia or Kazakhstan, on the way or at the pass.

My husband is worried that so much of my energy is flowing “to Russia.” He understands and accepts everything, but it’s hard for him with me because of this, and I would like to change my mind.

I’m trying to lose hope of returning, to come to terms with the fact that I may remain “homeless” forever. But the Duma elections are coming soon, and I’m mentally in them again.

All these four years, it’s like I’ve been at a low start towards home. I feel like the wife of a husband who has fallen into a coma: there are no forecasts, the dynamics are chaotic, and the years go by, and with each of them the shame from the betrayal of my own life grows. But I sit by his bedside and wait. Because she wanted nothing more in life than to walk through it with him.

There were no alternative scenarios. Sometimes you really want to find them. But mostly I want this “fire” to end and to be able to return at least to the ashes. Reclaim your land under your feet. Mourn everything and everyone. Regroup. Become whole again.