Escape from Putin to Germany

Those who wanted and could leave Russia after Vladimir Putin's attack on Ukraine. While the Kremlin rejects exiles, these people have a great desire, says Vladimir Kaminer.

I hear Russian everywhere in German cities. Russian speakers are not the only refugees from eastern Ukraine. No, most of them are my comrades who left Russia. In this respect, Berlin was a particularly desirable destination for these new immigrants. In the last century, many Russians fled to the German capital to escape the October Revolution; Especially cultural workers settled here.

Most of these poets and thinkers settled in Charlottenburg and Tiergarten at that time. Many famous books of Russian authors were written and printed in Berlin at that time. By the 1920s, more books and magazines were being printed in Berlin in Russian than in the language of local readers. My favorite book at the moment is “Zoo. Letters not about love”.

Its author lived in Charlottenburg near the zoo and could not sleep at night because the elephants in their enclosure were snoring so loudly and the nocturnal birds were screaming like crazy. “We are like exotic animals in our Berlin enclosure, we are trapped in a golden cage abroad, but our thoughts are at home,” he wrote, and soon he and many other artists returned to the Soviet Union. Most were arrested. They were kept in camps, tortured and killed.

The author of the story “Zoo” was lucky, he escaped Stalin, he almost escaped the Soviet Union, he was very old. His book on the history of the diaspora turns a hundred years old today – what have we learned from history? That's what Russians ask themselves. Nothing, that's the answer.

Suddenly, the story of forced immigration repeats itself. Thousands of Russians had to flee their homeland in 2022, almost overnight, because they were too dangerous for the authoritarian state. They fled Putin's regime, from retaliation and mobilization. Apart from young students who don't want to join the army, there are political activists, scientists and artists, especially my colleagues, writers.

Almost all Russian best-selling authors are stranded in Europe, some in Berlin. what are you doing These people continue to write books, they publish books and produce magazines, others open bookstores, organize countless readings and conferences, but for them Berlin is a zoo in which they sit in cages like exotic animals. Your thoughts are at home.

Two years of war passed quickly, every day people looked for good news from home, and after every small protest the opposition newspapers – all long protected by foreign countries – headlined Putin's rule at an end. It really looked like this: the fascist Kremlin could not hold out much longer; Either under sanctions or through sabotage, the regime must soon yield. Migrants can go to their hometown.

After all, we know from Hollywood movies that good always triumphs over evil. Sometimes it takes an unbearably long time, but even the longest film ends after three hours. Our “war film” has been going on for over two years now and there is no end in sight. But hope dies last. In this Russian environment in Germany for a long time it was bad form to describe oneself as an “immigrant”. People called themselves “displaced”, and “displaced” was understood as a temporary change of place.

Meanwhile, more and more “displacers” unpack their bags and become immigrants. They look around – trying to make a new beginning, but in their minds they are still in their homeland, and their day begins with news from Russia. They are heartbroken. Last year, 195,500 teachers in Russia resigned and new “educators” were appointed.