Opinion: Average Russians are reeling — with dismay, defiance and departures galore — in a world that’s turned upside-down
There is a beautiful old bookstore — Dom Knigi, House of Books — in a historic building on Nevsky Prospekt, the main shopping strip in St. Petersburg, Russia.
The store was greatly changed when I returned last week. There was an end-of-an-era feel around a shop that had opened in 1938 and remained open even during the 872-day Nazi siege of what was then Leningrad. The disbelief inside Russia about what has occurred, and the uncertainty about what fate now awaits Russians as economic sanctions take hold, is great. As a resident of Moscow for the past four years, I can hardly believe it myself.
“He’s frightened and agitated that he’s going to be killed like Gadhafi, like Saddam Hussein. He talks of them all the time,” Felgenhauer said. “That’s what he’s told by his advisers and generals — that they’ll hit you with these missiles before you get airborne.” Another friend, who lives outside of Russia, said he felt shame now to be Russian. Putin’s decision to move forces into Ukraine had tarnished his country’s past and ruined any hopes that remained for the future.
Understanding has only become more difficult in the days since the Russian military action in Ukraine began, thanks to measures taken by Putin’s regime to put the country on a war footing, all while barring people from declaring Russia an instigator or aggressor. “Yeah, hate to be right,” he wrote. “We’re still in Poland waiting for German visas. Hope they still give those to Russians.”
No surprise, then, that in the lead-up to the Russian military operation in Ukraine, Moscow was defiant. Further sanctions would be tough but still manageable, bank presidents and government officials said. But when Russia struck Ukraine, the West struck back with rigour. Clearly no one was ready for the walls that have been erected, for the swift and bloodless severing of Russia and Russians from the world.
Stupino told me one night that few of Moscow’s BMW buyers could actually afford the cars they were driving. Probably 10 per cent, he said. The rest bought with credit and loans, driven by the desire to be seen behind the wheel of a luxury brand. One day after class, he dragged me down the road to Teremok, a traditional Russian fast-food outlet. He handed me a carbonated green beverage and told me to drink. It wasn’t very good, but I appreciated it as an experience and a history lesson. The tarragon-flavoured soft drink, he said, was the Soviet answer to Coke and Pepsi.
In my own group of expat friends and acquaintances, most have also left, recalled by their companies, their business plans abandoned.