"Everyone should have a chance" “When the war started, I was 14 years old,” writes Karina. In three years, she went from trusting the official version of what was happening to the desire to change the system in which she herself had to work. This letter is about growing up, sports and responsibility to future generations. - Hello. I'm studying in college, getting a profession as a physical education and sports teacher. For me, being a coach is my life's work.

Igor is from Ufa, together with his brother he ran a company in the construction industry. He left Russia at the end of 2022 and now lives in Tbilisi with his wife and two teenage children. In Georgia he continues to engage in construction. The move turned into depression for him. While I was sick, I was eating through my reserves and accumulating debts, but now I am able to provide for my family.

Vadim (name changed) and his girlfriend are 27 years old. Former classmates, engineers by profession. They live separately in Moscow: the girl took out a mortgage on the apartment, Vadim needs to take care of his sick mother. Financial difficulties almost pushed Vadim’s girlfriend to do a crazy thing. He dissuaded her, but now the future of their relationship is in question. – My story is unusual. Some will say that this is nonsense, that this cannot happen, but, unfortunately, it is true.

Oksana Akmaeva : “ They hung a sticker on my door: “ A traitor lives here”” Oksana Akmaeva is from Kaliningrad. He has two educations: music and journalism. She left journalism after 2014. In February 2022, she went to an anti-war rally - it was one of the largest in the country in Kaliningrad. She was detained. Soon a sticker appeared on the door: “A traitor lives here.” After some time, Oksana left Russia.

Mariko Monakhova : “ Russians know that no one will help them with anything ” Mariko Monakhova is the director of Adriatic Novi School in Montenegro. Teacher of natural sciences, geography and the environment. Mariko left Russia with her family, according to her, because with the outbreak of the war, violence was finally “legalized” there. Because I didn’t feel that I could be “effective” in today’s Russia.

Masha Slonim : “ I wanted to shout: this is not my war ” Masha Slonim, journalist , radio host, granddaughter of the Soviet People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Litvinov, twice an emigrant. Lives in England. In Soviet times, she was a dissident, distributed the Chronicle of Current Events, then left, as she thought, forever. She returned to the new Russia. Loved her. And then I fell out of love. And she left again. “That Russia is already gone, it was taken away from me.

Kirill Nabutov : “ The war is returning to the Russian people ” Kirill Nabutov is a famous journalist, TV presenter, and producer. Left Russia after the start of the full-scale invasion, now lives in Latvia. According to Kirill, an important prerequisite for the war is Putin’s vision of history. The story that exists in Putin’s head has no relation to the real one, but affects our present. An important role model for Putin is Stalin.

Natalya Klyuchareva : “ I have nightmares about Russia, where gangs rule ” Natalya Klyuchareva is a writer. Originally from Perm, lived and worked in Moscow and Yaroslavl. The first novel, “Russia is a Common Car,” was published in Novy Mir in 2006. In 2022, she wrote a play about Kurt Reuber, a German doctor, pastor and artist, author of The Stalingrad Madonna, who died in Soviet captivity from typhus in 1944.

Boris Zimin : “ The whole country will need to recognize the blood on its hands ” Boris Zimin is an entrepreneur , philanthropist and public figure. For many years he supported Alexei Navalny. Supports educational projects, research in the natural sciences and Russian media. Persecuted by Russian authorities. Emigrant. We talked with him about war, media and the possibility of change in Russia.

Daniil Kashnitsky : “ The worst has already happened ” Daniil Kashnitsky is a sociologist from Moscow. In April 2022, he and his family left for France. His research before and after the move has one line: the availability of medicine for vulnerable migrant groups. In addition to his main job, he participates in the Melograno project, in which people make sleeping bags for the population of Ukraine.

Konstantin (name changed) lives in the Voronezh region. Trained as a railway worker, he works in an agricultural enterprise. By the age of 24, he had been a member of the youth parliament, served in the army and lost faith in changes for the better in Russia. Now he is preparing to emigrate. – I can be called a representative of that generation that many consider too naive, too optimistic or even idealistic.

“I always feel like I’m being overheard.” Zinaida (name changed) is almost twenty-five years old. She grew up with the feeling that war was part of the past and freedom was the natural state of man. Today she is afraid to talk to friends, cannot engage in creativity as she dreamed, and does not have the opportunity to leave Russia. “I grew up in a feeling of freedom. Parents said: “You live in happy times! No plague, no war! And so... First the plague, then the war. I'll say it again.

Evgeniy (name changed) works in sales in St. Petersburg. As a teenager, he began to detect falsehoods in Russian news about Ukraine. Now, at 30, he is in silent but irreconcilable opposition to the regime, in which only his closest people support him. – When all this began, I was for Russia due to my age. But since 2015, I began to study this conflict more and more and more accept a pro-Ukrainian position.

Alexey Veretennikov: “The mobilized got drunk and shot” Alexey was an ordinary student ; at the very beginning of the war, he posted a photo of Putin in a Nazi uniform against the background of the Russian flag on VK. The FSB came for him. In court, Alexey got off with a fine. He was supposed to defend his thesis, but received a summons to the army. I had to defend myself urgently. He managed to escape from the army. From Russia too. Now he lives in Yerevan. Tell us about yourself.

Alexandra Wagner: “We don’t need to be saved by rockets” Journalist Alexandra Wagner is from Kiev. Now lives in Prague and works for Radio Liberty. In the spring of 2014, I was on a business trip to Donbass and saw with my own eyes the beginning of the war. When armed people, as it later became clear, acting with the support of Russia, tried to take control of the Donetsk airport.