One Friday evening I got a message from a friend. It has contained five names of people who were declared «foreign agents» by the Ministry of Justice. The term is obscure and vague and if the state wants to create problems for you or to force you to emigrate, it can name you the one.

     Some of  the names sound familiar, one of them is mine. I understand that it is a bad joke, but I still check the ministry's official site. My name  is not there  and I take  a deep brief.  I am not angry. I understand that  it is just kind of black humour, but it is not good day for me in any case.

      

     I know that deep inside me, I have a feeling of fear. I joke, I even do stand-up comedy occasionally, I talk to my friends and loved ones, but I still feel fear.

     

     “The shells are landing nearby,” said another friend as we talked about “foreign agents.” By “bullets,” he didn’t mean the real ones flying in the war between Russia and Ukraine, but rather the fact that some people we both knew had been labeled as “foreign agents.” While the authorities claim that the Russian law is modelled on a U.S. World War II–era law, that is not the case. With that label, you cannot work or live normally — and if you are a known figure, the media will be reluctant to speak to you at all.   

     

     In the past, we used to crack jokes about the Comrade Major who was listening in on our phone calls. However, reality bites. Yes, it is possible to access Youtube videos through the VPN devices, but the authorities are deliberately jamming popular messages like WhatsApp or Telegram. You can text, but it is almost impossible to make calls. They say that they do it to protect people from unwanted calls by scammers, but we all know the truth.  They want us to communicate less.

     

     A Western friend who still resides in Moscow has recently sent me a Zoom link to talk about harmless subject. «I don’t trust anyone and I feel fear», he confessed to me.

All of this is done to give way to the new state messenger called Max, advertised by government officials and even patriotic celebrities. A school girl told her mother that in her class Max messenger was advertised  even during the class. However, after her fellow classmate said jokingly that he would never give up his Telegram the teacher looked angrily and promised to bring him to a school principle.

 

     Of course, in Moscow you can still live the way you want. Or pretend to do so, even the drones sometimes  reach the city.

     

     On a nice sunny day, everything looks bright. Workers in orange uniforms fix the road; a police officer directs traffic; a couple kisses on a park bench. The headline of the local paper shows a giant watermelon — the landmark of the local festival.

 

     “The Russian economy is showing resilience,” a visiting professor from one of the BRICS countries tells me as we stroll around the city. Yes, «resilience» is a good word and while inflation is increasing, construction is slowing and people have stopped buying new cars and fridges, trying to make ends meet while the rich Russians become even richer.  

 

     A recent visit to one of Moscow’s cemeteries revealed a sea of national flags and military insignias. Many of the tombstones bear the faces of young men. I notice a crying woman in her mid-forties standing by her son’s grave. She begins to talk to me about him — “eager to defend his motherland,” yet “thrown into battle without ammunition.” I could have told her that this war is criminal and unjustified but what can I tell to crying young woman?

     

     Travelling to the Eastern Siberia this summer for a research I see the same posters advertising military service like in Moscow, although the payment is lower. A female taxi driver  who gives  me a ride  talks  about local news: bad roads, corruption in the  local  government and  how hard  it is  to make money now.   She mentions the war in passing. A 28-year-old son of her friend wakes up at night with panic attacks. Although in a way he is lucky — he was wounded and cannot return to the front.

     

     Many will never return, and if the war continues for another year, its spirit will be comparable to that of the Great Patriotic War — a different battle in which both Ukrainians and Russians fought against Nazi Germany. But the old war is now being used to justify the new one. I feel this especially as I attend a concert organized by the Belarusian and Russian authorities in Moscow. 

     

     The concert begins with the Russian state official talking about «Kiev junta» and all the propaganda garbage, but I do not pay attention. I listen to the World War II songs, while  watching the images of children in  the Minsk ghetto. Those  images are unbearable to watch.  «Children shouldn’t die in someone else's war, » sings the chorus. 

     

     I leave the hall in the middle of the concert, feeling devastated. “History repeats itself,” someone once said. But maybe it is our fault — that we repeat history just to prove to someone that we are still a great power. A power that cares little about its own people. “People are the new oil,” a political commentator said cynically.

   

     «We have changed during those three years. People began to treat each other more indifferently», said a priest of my local church. I agree, because indifference is worse than evil.

     

     In the meantime, I watch an interview with the legendary Soviet and Russian pop diva Alla Pugacheva, who was forced to leave the country after her husband, the popular comedian Maxim Galkin, was declared a “foreign agent.”

     A woman who once performed for the rescue workers and firefighters in Chernobyl after the nuclear disaster now “sees no evil”. She speaks calmly about both friends and enemies — and about the country she loves. “Patriotism is telling your country when it’s wrong”, she says..

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Editorial note: AVFRI has chosen to protect the author’s identity due to safety concerns.