Antifascist
Translated by Kristina Rus
[dropcap]I[/dropcap] want to share with you my impressions of a trip to the border of Ukraine and Russia. What immediately catches the eye – hundreds of cars from Western Ukraine, Vinnitsa, Transcarpathia, Volyn, Ternopil, Uzhgorod, Kiev. Buses chock full of people. Going clearly for a long time, bringing children, household items. And all – towards Russia, and not vice versa. For some reason these people did not jump and shout: “Who does not jump, is a Moskal”. They were focused on passing the border.
When I was taking care of documents at the customs, I wanted to ask people some questions and directly asked them: “Why are you going to Russia?”. The answer was a question: “And where should we work and how to survive?”
Almost everyone with one voice said that they have relatives there. I asked a second question: “What about Europe?” To which they replied, that no one wants them there. “But you jumped on the Maidan”. In response – silence… They asked me a question: “So where are you from?” I said – from Kherson.
But most importantly I saw that in every passing car with Ukrainian plates there were Ukrainian national flags with the coat of arms, and no one took them off. Because they know – there is no such savagery in Russia, as in Ukraine. No one breaks cars because of yellow-blue flags. But all over Ukraine they break car windows, if inside there is a Russian flag or a St. George’s ribbon.
I call it bestiality and lawlessness.
When we smoked outside, I asked: “But you fought for independence, jumping on Maidan. What do you think about all the new ministers being foreigners?”. You know, what the answer was? “We were deceived”.
Then they loosened their tongue! You have no idea what they’re now saying about Europe. There were 8 people and no one uttered a good word about today’s government.
When I returned to the question, “But you jumped on Maidan”, one of them Ivan from Volyn said, “If we knew what was going to happen, that blood will spill, and we will be unemployed, then we would buy Yanukovych another Golden loaf of bread” [in reference to the one found at Yanukovych’s lavish residence, which became a symbol of corruption of his government – KR]. And others standing nearby were silent and did not utter a word.
So what can I say? Turns out, Ukraine is slowly getting rid of its population. The grown ups are in search of work, young people are running away from war and destruction. Do you know how painful it was to see that and to understand that a significant portion of them will never return to their homeland. Except to visit. In a couple more years Ukraine will be left without the working age population. May be this is the goal of the new government?
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