Shivering under thick clouds on a beach on the outskirts of Tbilisi, Georgia, a group of Russians in Exile are filming their final scenes for an anti-war music video. The drone operator and video director kept warm in a gray hoodie with the NASA logo on the back, shouting his commands to the group. Marching forward, they sang a chorus of national shame with the tiny drone hovering above them.
“With this song we are trying to show that not all Russians are crazy or pro-war. We want to say “we’re sorry” to the Ukrainians, that we are crying for their parents or friends who are dead or homeless. To say we’re normal, we’re not zombies,” Ilya Denisov, founder of Megatonna, the band that shoots the music video, told the Daily Beast.
Next Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine in FebruaryThousands of Russians have left the country. Many of them went to Georgia, a small mountainous country in the South Caucasus bordering Russia to the north. Denisov was among them, arriving in March. In September, the country saw a large amount of Russians, like President Vladimir Putin call for mass mobilization.
Scores of Russian fugitives have been met with fierce criticism from host countries, both in person and on social media. Some are said to turn back and oppose the Putin regime from within, while others have met anti-Russian protesters on the Georgian border.
When Russia sent a bone wave of missile attacks on Ukrainian civilian targets On October 10, social media was flooded with messages “all Russians are guilty” and “increasingly hated”.
For Denisov, these feelings of hatred and anger are justified.
“If Ukrainians write bad things about us, I understand that. It’s okay if they hate everyone. When your friends or parents are killed, it’s hard to tell the difference between a good Russian and a bad Russian. They have the right to say that,” Denisov said.
He does not see any way to overthrow the Russian regime.
“I participated in the anti-war protests in 2010 or 11. I participated in the Navalny protests, and I oppose changes in the constitution. It doesn’t change anything. For the first three days of the war, we went to our city center to protest. There were about 7-800 people at a time, but the police were twice as many,” Denisov said.
“We were ready to protest, but we discovered that we would end up in prison or on the front lines, and I was not ready to give up my life and live the rest of my life in prison. I’m not as brave as Navalny, but we still want to leave our message: We’re anti-war.”
Russians are reportedly trying to leave their country to avoid a military convocation for the Russo-Ukraine war when queues have formed at the Kazbegi border crossing in the Stepantsminda municipality, Georgia, on the 28th. September 2022.
Davit Kachkachishvili / Anadolu Agency via Getty
Although many Russians have moved to Turkey and Armenia, hostels and hotels in Tbilisi are still overflowing with Russians. One of them, a high school social science teacher, told The Daily Beast he left out of fear that what he said in his class in Russia would get him in trouble. A young couple in their twenties said one of their friends had fought in the war. Of the 270 people their friends left, only 40 returned. Another Russian woman from the Russian Black Sea city of Krasnodar cried after saying good night to her mother during a video call.
The future is uncertain for Russians who have left, but even more so for Russians who have never crossed the border. Denisov said: “Although they do not have to fear missile attacks, no one knows what will happen in Russia. When asked if his song could have any consequences for his family at home, he said “I don’t know.”
“The government is not doing anything for Russia. They are parasites. They are really bad. “
“Nobody knows what will happen. Crazy things and new laws are created daily by our crazy Russian State Duma. Nobody know! But we can’t be silent, can’t pretend like nothing happened.”
On Monday, hundreds of people protested the war in front of the Georgian Parliament in Tbilisi. Among them, some are Russian. One of them is Nikita Zhurenko, a 23-year-old freelancer who has been living in Georgia’s capital for months.
“Since I was a child, I have hated this country and its politics,” he told the Daily Beast.
“The government is not doing anything for Russia. They are parasites. They are really bad. They created a propaganda machine, no more freedom, no more opposition, and then they started the war,” said Zhurenko, asserting that he realized he didn’t like Putin when he was just eight years old. .
Despite the fact that Zhurenko, who says he deeply hates the Putin regime, and other Russian exiles all oppose the war, some Georgians are still tired of the influx of Russian emigrants. One of them was Elene Khoshtari, the leader of the small political party Droa.
“We had a rally against the October 10 bombings in Kyiv, and I said this was a good opportunity for the Russians to protest safely, but I only met two Russians there. . I don’t think the people who fled the campaign were really anti-war, they were just running away for their own personal comfort.”
The Droa Party has very limited faith in Russian migrants, largely stemming from the 2008 war between Georgia and Russia, which ended with Georgia losing its territory to the two “autonomous” and unentitled republics. internationally recognized that Abkhazia and South Ossetia belong to the Russians. control.
“I understand these people. It’s okay. Because Russia started the war in 2008. It’s not really legitimate, but the Russians are just coming out of Russia, they’re not dangerous. They hate Russia. They hate Putin. They hate the Russian system. That’s why they left, and I think we need to support each other,” said Zhurenko.
A volunteer for Migration Action, an NGO that helps Ukrainians get medicine in Tbilisi, Georgia.
Vano Shlamov / AFP via Getty
Zhurenko had just started protesting and did not belong to any official organization. However, there are active Russian diaspora movements in Georgia, including Migration to Action – a group represented by a modified version of the Russian flag, without the color red. Daniel Chubar is one of their co-founders.
Chubar was part of Russia’s first wave of emigration after being fortunately relocated by its owner. Originally, the plan was that he would stay in Georgia for two to four weeks, but his stay was extended several times. Along with other migrants, like Chubar, with civil society backgrounds, he started Migration to Action, a group that helps organize the distribution of aid to Ukrainian refugees.
“Personally, I do not know of any advocates of war. My family and friends are of the same opinion, but some of them just don’t have the resources to leave. They have to stay and live their lives, but I’ve never talked to any Z-patriots. A lot of my friends have clashed with their parents about it, but not for me. There is no such friction in my family.”
