“as long as there is no war’’
no matter what you say, words do not seem to have bodily presence now, they do not make any sense. one cannot verbalize an experience which is beyond words. because war is beyond what makes a word. because such an event is beyond life, beyond any limitations imposed by human thought of what is possible. war is a human product which human power should push beyond any imaginable limitations, reject as unacceptable, implausible. on the third day of the war, my friend called me, and we’d been swearing non-stop for several minutes. we had no other words to say. we don't have them now.
‘’you cannot stand for world peace as long as there is putin in russia’’
on the second day of the war, i was grilling steak and i told my partner that now i was going to grill putin, and then i was eating this steak, picturing putin losing power. can i talk openly about it, give my name? i can. but i don't know if i can come back to russia in the near future after that. because i am afraid of putin. i am afraid of putin as much as of violence, i am so afraid and i cannot do anything to stop feeling afraid. the only thing i can do is to come up with pseudo-shaman rituals in order to help myself somehow in this endless helplessness.
‘’don’t see things in black and white”
the divide between people with different political views had been evident before this war, but it was not that painful. now the abscess has formed. now i don't understand my parents. many of my friends don't understand their parents. if your parents have the same political views as you, you are very lucky. if you can leave russia and have savings, you are very lucky. if you are not in ukraine now, you are very lucky. if you are not in russia, you are very lucky. if you have the energy to start fresh tomorrow, you are very lucky. on february 24, 2022, the world that had been crumbled into endless forms, parts, views, ethnicities, privileges even before the invasion, had simply broken in two.
“deep inside i am broken into pieces’’
on the fourth day of the war, i learned what it felt like to get nausea because of fear. putin can afford to give orders out there and set nuclear weapons ready. and the fear of it makes all people all over the world feel sick. what is so wrong with us that we let a person who sends troops in neighbors’ territories, threatens the entire world with nuclear weapons, live and act so easily? what is wrong not only with russians but with everyone? with all people. putin has occupied ukraine. putin has occupied russia. people die, people become homeless, everyday people fear for their lives and their families’ lives. everyday in horror. life is caught in a moment between sleep and awakening, when consciousness has not yet come to realize that there is no way back to old life.
“minus three, feels like 1937’’
for the first days of war, i didn’t feel ashamed of being russian, the feeling that swept over many friends of mine. for me, my russian ethnicity was always on paper, my passport identity. but i have never felt russian, i have never felt at home in russia, though i had lived there all my life. i have never felt safe in russia, apparently because of the possibility of war as ongoing violence that had always hung thick in the air. now i have lost the opportunity to identify myself as russian forever. now i will be canceling and eliminating my russianness in the upcoming years, peeling off scales of ‘’native’’ mentality. on the seventeenth day of the war, i can understand why they hate russians as a nation. though all downsides of any hatred similar to this one had been ingrained in us. shame is not a feeling that i get to experience. hatred. on the seventeenth day of the war, it is the first time in my life when i hate fiercely and ferociously everyone who is responsible for this war. putin must end. we must keep living. i don't know anything else i could rely on except for the faith in the power of faith, as if faith, unlike words, had some power. maybe, this is because there is nothing else left. on the seventh day of the war, my psychotherapist told me that all of us who witness what is happening are getting the trauma of being a witness. silent helpless trauma.
march 14, 2022 translated by Natasha Vygovskaia