“We are on an island whose shores are crumbling”

Asya (not her real name) is in her early forties. She and her husband are among those who did not leave Russia, although there was an impulse. Asya spoke about how those who remained were saved in her letter.

- Hello!

I stay in Moscow for reasons that actually bubble and rework inside me almost every day. First of all, elderly relatives who do not want to move anywhere. And plus the lack of a good education, and therefore an understanding of how you can realize yourself abroad and be useful, although I am sure that you can always come up with something.

I have a husband and a child, no one in our family supports the war, and so far we have not felt any catastrophic consequences. I mean that nothing came to us, we were not detained, no one died, our medicines did not disappear from pharmacies. But bad things can always happen, and you need to keep this in mind.

Among our distant acquaintances there are already dead people who signed the contract. And there are those who were detained for protests, but now almost all of them are safe. And there are those next to whom there was a terrible bang.

We have not had a single day of peace since the beginning of the great war.

Firstly, many friends and few relatives left, it was sad. They came to say goodbye, left things that they couldn’t take with them, and left (most likely forever). And all the time I felt as if we were on an island whose shores were breaking off and crumbling.

My first desire after February 24, and especially after it became clear that this would not stop, was also to quickly get international passports, grab all the money and leave. And, by the way, probably, then it would have been possible to last a year or a year and a half on some visarans without returning home - and who knows, maybe in the end you’ll come up with something. But…

I decided not to leave. As I think now, I decided this way because of my reluctance to leave my elderly relatives alone. At that time they lived separately, but not far away. And one of them was already at a loss as to how to call an ambulance, for example.

This is a monstrous choice - between the safety of your husband and child and the health of your great-grandmother. As if such a choice should not arise in normal life.

In September 2022, we bought my husband a ticket to a slightly safer country at exorbitant prices, and he, in theory, was supposed to fly away (although he says that he had already figured out that he would go for 3-4 days and return). And the child and I had to leave someone an apartment, leave someone a cat (who did not yet have vaccinations and certificates), get international passports (surprisingly, they still hadn’t been done by that time, and six months had passed since the start of the war) and also go to him.

The day before my husband’s expected flight, my grandmother was admitted to the hospital with acute pain. And when I was riding in the ambulance with her, I also received a letter from work saying that my work was being stopped because everyone there was leaving too (they later returned).

In general, my husband did not fly away. In vain we cried for two hours, thinking that we were saying goodbye forever and the borders would be closed. There was also no way to get the money back for the ticket, but these are minor things.

Then they knocked on our door several times in the morning. It was scary, the adrenaline was pumping. But I didn’t even think about revealing it to strangers.

And then... Then I can’t believe that it’s already been four years of this horror and lawlessness. It seems like yesterday that our children went to kindergarten, but it turns out that all this time, except for the first half of the year, they have been going to kindergarten and studying during the war. That is, most of your social life.

The attack by “patriotism” on their children’s brains is systematically increasing every year, and they have to maneuver between really useful lessons and this so-called extracurricular activity, which is often not even warned about. No, maybe they warn, of course, in some Max, but we don’t have it, and for now I still hope that it won’t.

The parents of the child’s friends, to put it mildly, are not all clear to us either. This introduces dissonance into communication when everyone is walking together. At the same time, there is no desire to somehow hide my anti-war position. I am very surprised that someone does not know what a VPN and other similar things are.

My husband had to leave two acceptable jobs and choose a third, which is often used as a temporary job, but which is addictive due to its availability and autonomy. Employees began receiving summonses for one of their previous jobs, and it became morally impossible to go to the second job (which is a hobby): most of the anti-war team members left, and conversations with the rest stopped going smoothly.

True, here it must be said that there are still people. Even among those who remain in that team. Those who are against war and all lawlessness. They say that working has become very difficult mentally.

When enrolling a child in a section or circle, I am always afraid whether I can trust this place, these people. I don’t want to pay money to quilted jackets or zetniks. I don’t want to have the side effects of militaristic brainwashing of children.

It happens that I pin my hopes on one of the teachers, I think: “Well, he (s) can’t be a quilted jacket,” and I break down painfully. It's better not to get your hopes up. But how then can I discern people who are really on my side?

I won't write about prices. They've grown up, it's hard. But I don’t feel comfortable lamenting this, knowing that someone is under bombing at this moment. No electricity, no heat, no water. Without being able to recover. Left without a home. Can't hug loved ones. Lost loved ones forever.

I know that there are still many anti-war people here. I saw them in some, so to speak, queues (not for bread). Sometimes I meet them on the street or in hospitals, in stores, at clubs again. It seems that this is the only thing that gives me the strength to do anything at all. Well, and some of my friends again.

I miss those who left. I would like to see my relatives more often, and also to come to my friend’s house and chat all day long. I would like to support normal civil initiatives and not be afraid to do so.

And also, in order not to go crazy, I’m writing a book, graphomaniacally recording my experiences, giving them to my heroes in a utopian environment. My girlfriends like it.

And I learn languages ​​with my child.

So far so.