The Russian People are Suffering too

 

I am in Tallinn in Estonia, just a few hours from the Russian border. Standing in the town centre close to a raised platform of an outdoor skating rink, which is occupied by some teenagers and kids buzzing round on ice-skates- doing tricks, laughing, smiling, having the time of their lives. Above them a stereo loudspeaker belts out music. 4 hours’ drive away in St Petersburg, people will be skating too. But they do not have the music they have here- 50s and 60s rockabilly, and pop: happy, and uplifting.

 

You can strongly feel the difference in the air. How different it feels here from St Petersburg. The freedom here, and happiness. Even before the invasion, there was a cynicism, an air of sadness, a gloominess as many of the Russian people were cowed over years by the dictator. I taught those people as part of my job as an English Teacher, and interacted with them in meditation and yoga groups, and in bars, and in football and other sports. I sometimes wish they could gather the courage to rise up and fight. But it is going to be hard. It needs a mass protest. A revolution. The people way outnumber the army. 5 million people in a city cannot all be jailed! But they can be shot. And tortured. And have their careers and lives stolen from them. Just like what happened to the Belarus protesters. And Belarus is almost used as a template state to what could later happen in Russia.

 

I have left many of my best friends behind, feeling guilt as to how come I am able to leave, when so many of them can’t? And most of them are trying- urgently thinking where to go and how to get out. Why did I get so lucky to be born into a free and democratic country, and not into a fascist dictatorship? I worry about them all the time.

 

And many of the sanctions, some Russians argue, will only serve to further isolate the country, and turn it into a North Korea-esque ticking time-bomb. Why take Netflix away?! Why? Why eliminate Russian people’s exposure to different cultures, and different ways of living, and seeing how some things in the west actually are, as opposed to what the dictatorship claims they are like? It makes no sense. There were even calls by some Ukrainian government officials for complete removal of the Russian internet. Already people there are finding it more and more difficult to find the truth amongst so much Russian state propaganda. But that would just make it impossible. The educated, and the middle classes, are the groups most opposed to the dictator and the war. Liberal-minded. English speaking. Western looking. They are fleeing en masse to get out of the country to go anywhere they can. But if they can get out, their Visa and Mastercards are frozen, so many have little or restricted access to money. For so many of those people, and the many who have already fled and are now resident in other countries, it is not fair. And the money they can’t take with them from their Russian accounts, could be simply picked up by the government and used to fund their war machine. Why are they being punished for being against the dictator? They are punished because they are Russian.

 

It is appalling what is happening to the Ukrainians. But I believe the west also has an obligation to help so many of these Russian people who could be cast adrift for the next twenty or thirty years or more. They are by far some of the smartest, most talented, and capable minds I know, even I would say, above any other country I have lived and worked in. They are skilled. They speak multiple languages. If they disagree with the dictator, like we do, then they should also be given the opportunities to move to other countries and live the free lives that they deserve. We owe them that much, as we also owe the Ukrainians our hospitality too. I know, for a fact, that Scotland, would be a much more prosperous and thriving place with them, and I wish that they will be able to come.