Prologue. "Russian reality pushing for changes"

Greetings, everyone!

I would like to ask you to comment on the collection I’ve created. It has been evaluated negatively by the people from the places I used to live in my former country. These are some comments I’ve heard from them: “It’s a hype!”, “It’s nonsense!”, “Nobody is interested in it!”, “You fool!”. Someone stopped communicating after that. I explain you my idea and also tell you how my ex-friends reacted to it later in the text. For now, let's get back to how I ended up here and why I am writing all these things in such details.

I mentioned above that I used to live in Russia. And I lived there my whole life, which is 32 years, in the city called Vladivostok. That's the place where I was born, grew up, had my family and my child. Vladivostok is the city where my parents were born and lived their whole lives. It was my motherland and my home. For plenty of years I felt that way, even though there were always some things I didn't like about this place. I think I just didn't know any other life and whether it was possible to live differently at all.

I want bring one example from my childhood. The Airborne Troops have this tradition to bathe in the fountain once a year. It was obvious that all the paratroopers were getting drunk to death on that day. Our parents warned us that it would be better not to go to public places on that day so nothing bad could happen. Since childhood, I could not understand how people in the military services, our defenders and the ones who should be a role model and cause a feeling of pride, especially, among children, can behave so disgraceful and mean in front of everyone. Moreover, the most incomprehensible thing to me was the question why the adults said that those people could behave this way on such a day, that it was normal dur to their holiday celebration. Maybe that's why I developed some kind of special attitude to holidays. On holidays, I feel some kind of anxiety and I can't relax. Paratroopers used to put up fights, molest ordinary people and, nonetheless, they weren't arrested by the police which didn't pay any specific attention to it. I have another example. Kids used to go and fight in groups with each other - house against house, street against street. That was also considered normal, and everyone turned a blind eye by pretending that there was nothing bad going on. They didn't pay any attention to it, as if nothing was going on at all. Why am I bringing these examples from such topics now? My intention is to show you that Russia is a country of aggression. Aggression has been the norm and approved by society over there since my childhood. Let’s remember this point as it will be useful for us later on. Even back then, I could not accept the fact that this had been normal. Yes, I lived in that environment and lived by those rules because there was no Internet at the time and I just could not see how different other countries or nations lived. There were quite a few other things I didn't like either but it might require a separate thread to list and discuss them. Now I just want you to understand why I have left Russia. Aggression is not even the main reason in this case.

By the age of 30, I formed a fairly clear and frightening picture of the country, taking into account that since being a child, I have already seen and experienced the things that I strongly disliked and could not accept as the norm. I spent a lot of time analyzing people in Russia: their lives, their goals, politics, ongoing events in the country, governmental opinions, promises, and actual actions. Speaking of people's goals, it is worth noting that almost no one has them, except for “the soonest days-off from work”. “This rest from work” means just to get drunk. I have always been interested in what is happening around me (clean streets, people’s attitude to each other and to animals, willingness to help everyone and everything around us for free). All in all, by my 30's, I was completely terrified of most things! When my wife was in the hospital with a baby, there were 6 children with their mothers in a room of 5x2.5 square meters in size. In total, there were 12 people in this room which was initially designed for 2-3 individuals!!! This is the pattern in Russia, the pattern to tolerate such a treatment!!! The ventilation did not work and the walls with ceiling were covered in mold, but the most important thing was that the people who arrived there were fine with it! Nobody complained about it or put the words into actions. That is why this principle (“Do nothing”) has become the basic principle for most Russian population. Absolute lack of participation in all spheres exists in this reality. If you decide to handle something or argue with people who do not do their job properly, they might object with such questions as: "You the smartest in here, aren’t you?” or “You need it more than anyone else, don’t you?” or “Everybody is ok with it so why you're not?”. The saddest thing is that people who ask you the questions use all these things themselves. Simply saying, instead of demanding a proper service, some adequate attitude to themselves, people criticize those who demand it.

It has become the benchmark for them to absolutely ignore the rules, norms and laws, and people even support it, although they receive it all themselves. I can't understand or explain it. After all, they don't even think about it. This has been the picture of my country which I contemplated back then. I lived there, I tried to fight for something. Sometimes I did not try to take some actions, because I understood that I would need help to manage something; sometimes, I simply had no strength for this fight.

With regard to politics, I participated in lots of protests, which took place in Russia. In fact, there weren’t quite a lot of them. I looked at the people and how serious they are over there. From what I had seen, there was no seriousness to defend something at all. When the police came, people were just scurrying away with cheerful shouts while recording the current actions on their smartphones. That's what happened in my city. I’m writing this paper to state one simple thing – Russia doesn’t have a civil society anymore. In my opinion, a citizen is a person, part of this society who fights for his or her rights or for the rights of other ordinary people. This citizen understands that these things are closely interconnected. In Russia, there isn’t almost such a thing, which concludes that there is a civil society or a citizenry: there are just people, not a society. These people are not united by anything, one cares only about his or her own well-being. Those who would like to demand and change something, just don't see the point in it because they understand that there would be no support from other people and they would be left alone with the government, which either puts them in jail under any invented and fabricated article, or just kills them. This is the reality faced by a person in Russia today, a person who does not live in his own small world, but who wants an adequate free country. At least, the country where some rights are observed, where two basic things are carried out. In my opinion, we can define whether it is possible to live in such a country or not - that personal level of comfort and a feeling of safety (level of security). For me, there is neither one nor the other nowadays. Besides that, there is no freedom of speech, no basic principles of law, no constitution apparently thrown to trash long ago, as everything possible has been violated. That is roughly how I saw my country before February 24th , 2022...

The insanity began after this date. Normal people simply could not believe in this mess. This war codenamed "The Special Operation". You might ask what can be more terrible than a war. Well, it’s the fact that the majority of Russians supported it. That was the hardest thing to accept. If you look at everything that has happened in the country over the past 20 years and analyze the actions of the people, of course, this will not surprise you at all, because the patterns of impoverishment and stultification of people are visible. Theory is one thing and practice is another, that’s why it was not easy to believe everything that was going on around us. One of the most frequent and popular phrases that people of my age and I heard from my grandparents was: "Most importantly, not to have a war". The reason for it is that lots of them had witnessed World War II or were born soon after it and knew that war was fear and horror for everyone. What do you think? The elderly people (most of them) who had been repeating that phrase their whole lives supported the war as well!!!! Then, my eyes finally opened, and I clearly realized that I can no longer be among all these people, I just decided to stop tolerating things that are not acceptable to me. I realized that I’m definitely not part of the Russian society as long as my views and beliefs have nothing in common with this Russian society (society is just a collection of people because, as I have written earlier, I would never call it a civil society) and it causes me nothing but resentment and contempt.

Finally, I'm writing this here because I want to collect the opinions and views of other people from other countries. I think other people's views on life can be very different from those of my former friends and compatriots.

People, if you don't agree with something or may think that I am a provocateur who tries to smear Russia, who have twisted everything and none of this is actually true, please leave your feedback. If you want to say that this is absolutely everywhere and it is a regular problem, don’t hesitate to leave a comment as well. This is my first post ever, so I apologize for being misunderstood. I don't mind debating, just back up what you say with facts. I am also happy to argue and prove everything I’ve mentioned.

To summarize, share your thoughts, please. Is it readable? Is there any unnecessary information? Should I add more descriptions or details to my stories? Is it useful and interesting to read? Anyway, I’m waiting for your feedback even if it's a criticism!!! I generally believe that a constructive criticism is the best way to make someone a better person.