Sign at Gorky Park in Moscow: a red star with the letter Z
Image: picture alliance/dpa/TASS
The pain of the national: The fact that Russia is the source of evil unites my compatriots today, regardless of whether they support Putin or are opposed to the war. A guest post by Maria Stepanova.
Mn the middle of March last year, almost all the check-in counters at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport were closed, and only one was checking in for a flight to Istanbul. The queue was long. While we waited, I counted the animal carriers: dogs, cats, several birds – people had no plans to come back any time soon. After passport control I found a smoking cabin. It was narrow and narrow like a doghouse. A man was already inside. He gave me a light and asked: “And where are you escaping from?”
He himself fled from Donetsk, at the moment he was trying to make his way to England via Moscow, to his son. “We got you all fired up,” he said to me in Russian. “We’ll get you ready, you’ll see.”