The Story of My Emergency Relocation — Make Love Not War (Part 1)

War is a sort of weird thing to post in a tech-related blog, and I would love to avoid it here. Everyone would love to avoid it in their lives, but this shit got into my life without asking.

I could never even think that one day we would seriously discuss how bad war is. Today I was calling my classmate, trying to support him while his uncle with his family is in a bomb shelter.

My Hometown

Rostov-on-Don, my hometown, is located about 150km from the Ukraine border. That's why Ukrainian and Russian people have a lot of interconnections with each other here.

A lot of my friends are Ukrainians or have close relatives in Ukraine. Juliana, my fiancee, has a Ukrainian family name, although she was born here in Rostov.

Suppose you travel 30 minutes by car, closer to the border. In that case, you will notice that people, especially the elderly, are speaking a somewhat mix of a Russian and Ukrainian language, using words from both languages. And if you travel to Ukraine, you will suddenly notice most people speak Russian.

Furthermore, historically we've been a part of a single state at least several times, starting from the ancient ages, and ending with USSR. That's why we are also very close culturally.

We were brought up to treat each other like brothers, that's why the war, that is taking place right now feels so painfully crazy.

Fuck the War

I'm against any war simply because human life is priceless and ordinary people never deserve to suffer from the politicians' choices. In my opinion, politicians are not good enough in what they are doing if they don't prevent wars.

When war breaks out, it's often hard to figure out who's good and evil. It's even harder to figure out what's happening in case of local or civil conflicts involving 3rd parties through their proxies.

It's hard to understand what's going on when you are not in the historical context of the events. And all is happening in another part of the globe.

By contrast, the case of the Ukraine-Russia war is surprisingly clear.

There is no doubt that it was a purposeless invasion of Russia to the territory of an independent Ukraine that broke out in a very barbarian and inhumane form. From my point of view, it's' an unacceptable thing that should never happen in the modern world by all means. I hope that the horrible war crimes will be investigated, and all the guilties will be charged.

Words can hardly help when you lose loved ones or lose your home, or get your life ruined, but still, I would like to express my condolences to all people who suffered from the war. My life got ruined by about 30% because of the war, so we are on the same page here.

Since the first day, it felt like a physical torment, a tearing asunder pursing me every minute. It is a feeling of an incredible shame of being a part of it just as a citizen of Russia. As if it is not a crazy dictatorship that has gone out of control and drowned in blood. As if I'm one of those who participate in it or support it. But I don't, and the majority of Russians don't.

The Russian government is totally divorced from people, and people have literally zero influence on what's going on. It's unbelievable how fast 45 million Ukrainian people became victims, and 140 million Russian people became hostages of a totalitarian state machine.

Things That Cannot Be Fixed

I have no idea what can be done with all this. It's a tragedy that is just irreversible and irreparable.

Even though the destroyed cities could be rebuilt someday, victims, broken families, and lives cannot be restored. However, when all this hell is over Ukraine at least has a chance to recover and prosper with the support of the whole world.

The long 30 years journey from the economically non-competitive USSR to modern Russia has been rolled back in one month.

I may sound pessimistic, but I think that Russia is doomed to sanctions and isolation and has lost all its chances to prosper in the following years. I have no idea how much it might take: a couple of years or decades.

Considering other isolated countries' experiences like Iran or North Korea, those things are never revised fast and tend to get only worse.