“We did not live well.” Sergei Chernyshov on what the Russian people gained and lost because of the war
Sergei Chernyshov is a Siberian historian and educator who has recently been forced to resign from his post as the head of Novokolledzh and Novoshkola, the two teaching institutions he is the founder of, due to having been labelled a “foreign agent” by the Russian government (the “foreign agent law” had been created by Putin in 2012 in order to silence and disable opposition voices in the country). Chernyshov has a solid track record of standing for his anti-war, anti-putinist convictions; this is not the first time he has been punished for expressing his views, having been made to leave other teaching positions in the past. But now, as a “foreign agent”, he has lost his livelihood — his ability to teach legally.
Writing in Сибирь.Реалии (the Siberian-focussed publication by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty), Chernyshov paints a bleaker than bleak picture of the perception of the Ukraine war in the regions of Russia that are remote from the Moscow borders. He and I grew up in the same town, so I remember the districts that he describes; it appears that since my time there, they have remained largely unchanged.
Here is my translation of his article, with added notes and illustrations. I have tried to preserve as much as I could of the source material’s sarcastic, bitter tone.
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For the past twenty years, my parents have been living in a so-called “частный сектор” in a large town. Before writing this article, I spent several days thinking about how to translate this term into other languages (including the Moscow dialect). I realised that it cannot be done. This is not a “private district” as Wikipedia suggests, but a sort of injection of rural life into the fabric of bigger towns. There are no asphalt roads here, no sewage system (although many have bathrooms), telephones have appeared only 15 years ago, and gas energy has been introduced at around the same time. In practice, this means that to light the stove in winter, you don’t need to carry coal in buckets from the barn two or even three times a day. Having gas is good; you don’t get that everywhere. About ten years ago, foreign cars started appearing along the fences. And in the past five years, nothing has changed at all.(1)
(1) My note: these are, essentially, urban slums — their equivalents exist, for example, in India or South Africa. The difference is that in Siberia in winter, -40 Celsius is a typical temperature. Remote Russian villages are also similar.
This summer, I picked up my son from my parents at the end of a weekend. “Come no later than ten a.m.,” my mother instructed me. I actually arrived exactly at ten. At eleven, a funeral was scheduled on a nearby street. At eleven, the nephew of an elder was brought to the street next door. An elder (старший) is the most respected person on the street, like a class leader. His nephew, a deceased “member of the Special Military Operation”(2), ought to be buried with dignity and honour. He was mobilised in the spring, he fought for six months, came home on leave, went to fight again — and on his first day back on the frontline, he was killed. His second return home was in a zinc coffin, even the casket window was painted over. That’s why I had to pick up my child at ten — my mother knew that I would not approve of his taking part in this funeral.
(2) My note: “Special Military Operation” is the official name given by the Russian authorities to the invasion of Ukraine.
Also on this street, in his parents’ house, lives a “war hero”, a former Wagner soldier and a convicted criminal. As long as I can remember, he was constantly in prison for petty theft or robbery. He would be released for a couple of months, get drunk, conduct another robbery, and go back to prison. If during these months, something would disappear from someone’s garden or house, they would assume it was him. Well, now he has a medal and a brand new car. [After his return from the front] he took his parents to the seaside. They cried with pride for their son.
And right across the road, in the house next door, lives my parents’ neighbour. She used to work as a tram conductor; perhaps this is why she swears so loudly. In the past year-and-a-half, she has been telling us that her son-in-law is increasingly talking about volunteering to go to war. After all, his debts won’t repay themselves. Too true; another neighbour drank himself to death because of his debts, his heart gave in. Last spring, the street residents buried him, too.
“As for the Wagner veterans in the neighbourhood — well, these days, where are they not in the neighbourhood?”
I used to live on this street for ten years. My parents still live on this street, because here they have a bathhouse, a garage, and a vegetable garden — not like “in these apartments of yours, where you are on top of each other.” As for the Wagner veterans in the neighbourhood — well, these days, where are they not in the neighbourhood?
Every time I hear the so-called “experts” who talk from their cosy offices in the Netherlands or Israel(3), that the Russian people are suffering under the yoke of Putin’s regime and that they have lost everything because of the war and the sanctions, I think of this street. I think about it even as I watch yet another debate on YouTube between one ‘liberal’ expat and another ‘liberal’ expat. It’s that bit where they say that, due to the unbearable oppression of sanctions, the Russian people will soon understand that Putin’s regime has taken everything from them. That they will understand — and (so they hope) they will rebel. Or maybe not rebel, but at least they will start sabotaging the regime. Or something like that.
(3) My note: Chernyshov is referring to the many Russian dissidents who have left the country to escape Putin’s regime, or to evade mobilisation since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These people remain a contentious voice among the Russian speaking community, reviled by many ‘remainers’ for leaving and for speaking from the safety of being abroad. They are also often accused of their limited understanding of what is really going on in Russia.
“…the “Russian people” did not lose any of this. Because they had none of this in the first place.”
Recently, the prominent psychologist Lyudmila Petranovskaya tried to list all the losses of the Russian people in order to prove to us that “not all Russians are the beneficiaries of this war.” Her list included several items: the collapse of the national currency and the devaluing of property, border closures for tourists, the loss of opportunities for children to study abroad, the curtailment of civil rights and freedoms, the degradation of education, the degradation of culture, the “separation of families due to emigration,” something else. After reading this list, I once again thanked fate that I had not been born in Moscow and had not yet lost touch with reality.
For if two-thirds of the Russian population are the “Russian people,” then the “Russian people” did not lose any of this. Because they had none of this in the first place. The last time they held dollars in their hands was in 1997 — merely for amusement, nothing more. They never went to theatres and did not notice at all how the best theatre directors left Russia and left them, the people. Their children go to the same school that they themselves once went to — perhaps even with the same teacher who is now seventy years old. They, the people, don’t even know that children can be taught without yelling at them and that walking on school lawns can be allowed. Lastly, if there is any “separation of families’’, it is because of prison, mobilisation, or army contract service. No one they know has fled to Georgia or Kazakhstan — none of their relatives have even left their hometown.
Shop prices have increased, and so what? These people have never held much hope for shops anyway. They have potatoes and jars of pickles in their basement that will last them through the winter. They’ll survive somehow.
The people did not lose anything. There was nothing for them to lose.
“But what did they gain? A lot, an awful lot. Firstly, money. So much money.”
But what did they gain? A lot, an awful lot. Firstly, money. So much money. Yes, tens of thousands of Russian soldiers did not return from the frontline, but hundreds of thousands did! And they returned with the millions of rubles they couldn’t hitherto dream of. In my wife’s hometown (smaller than mine and much more industrial), one man returned home with three million rubles(4), which he and his friends spent in ten days. Three hundred thousand rubles per day for the party, including unlimited alcohol and prostitutes. This is the life! And those who have families, go to the seaside, buy apartments, and upgrade their cars.
(4) My note: this is roughly equivalent to $31K or £25K
“Secondly, they gain a sense of belonging to something great.”
Secondly, they gain a sense of belonging to something great. Just as our grandfathers defeated fascism, we are now defeating Nazism (or what is it called now?) in Ukraine. And we are also defeating the gays, the Jews, the entire collective West, the Freemasons and everyone, everyone, everyone. The older generation rejoice at the revival of the Soviet Pioneers, of the military training in schools, of the school uniforms and other attributes of their youth. At last! Else, today’s youth would have gotten completely out of control! And they get all this without trying, often without even getting up from the couch.
What can you offer to the people who, because of this war, got richer and feel grand, like some kind of an Oriental king? Films about palaces of corrupt officials?(5) But ever since the 90s, the people have known that they had been robbed, so there is no news here. Talks about how it’s the people that are to blame (as ‘remainers’) for the crimes of the regime? Debates about democracy and human rights? Tragic stories of the imprisoned Berkovich or Melkonyantz?(6) Who are they, anyway? Nothing was said about them on the TV or on the Internet (for example, on the Komsomolskaya Pravda website).
(5) My note: Chernyshov is referring to the series of videos published by Navalny’s team where they expose the hidden wealth and corruption of Putin and his government. The most watched one, about Putin’s palace, has 128M views on YouTube.
(6) My note: Zhenya Berkovich and Grigory Melkonyantz were both arrested by the Russian authorities earlier this year, charged with bogus, fabricated crimes. Both arrests are viewed by the dissident community as part of deliberate ‘cleansing’ of the Russian intellectual elites, with the aim of stifling and controlling dissenting voices.
“Cash handouts that the people would otherwise never earn in decades, coupled with this sense of belonging to something great, are an explosive mixture.”
Cash handouts that the people would otherwise never earn in decades, coupled with this sense of belonging to something great, are an explosive mixture. If you do not take this seriously, you will keep wondering why in the recent regional elections, it was mainly the villages (and not the large cities) that voted for the appointed governors and the “ruling party” [Putin’s United Russia] — although it was the very same villages that suffered the most human losses from the mobilisation. It is this explosive mixture that encourages the older women to vote, coming as they do to the polling stations in dresses they have bought twenty years ago. They sincerely vote for the government, which they believe is going to build a great country — in spite of its enemies, of course. And it is this mixture that generates the total alienation between the thin layer of those who have really lost everything from this war, and the overwhelming majority who have not lost anything but have gained everything.
As we hold our intellectual conversations, hoping that the nightmare will soon end, we also forget this: the many hundreds of thousands of men and women who have already been through this war and through the process of “claiming new territory”, have millions of children. These children believe that their fathers and mothers are doing heroic things. They sincerely believe that their parents cannot be monsters. These millions of children are putting on their tricolour ties on 1st September, are watching the same TV, are listening to their fathers’ stories about the ‘укропы’(7) and travelling through the destroyed Mariupol for their holidays in Crimea (with their fathers or without).
(7) My note: A derogatory word to describe Ukrainians. Literally, it means, ‘the dills’.
If, after this war ends, we want to start talking about the repentance of the people, we will have to wait until these children grow up, give birth to new children, and then these (not yet born) children can be told that their grandfathers have committed atrocities. It’s somehow easier to hear that about grandfathers than about fathers. Internal, not skin-deep repentance in Germany began in the 1970s — just as the children of the children of the National Socialists grew up.
Then — by the end of the 2040s — it will be possible to talk to the Russian people about the losses that the Russian society has truly suffered from this war. At least some of them will actually listen. Incidentally, by that time, teachers whose careers have begun under Brezhnev will finally stop working in schools.
And for the time being, the Russian people are experiencing perhaps the best period of their lives. Yes, some of them will occasionally return from the war in zinc coffins. But at least they will get a burial from the whole street — a great revival, is it not, of the traditional values?
