The Extraordinary Story: Among the Russians in exile

From: The Economist IE Sep-15-2024 11:19:am

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September 4th 2022

The Extraordinary Story

Long reads and life from 1843 magazine, delivered every Sunday

Russia

Midnight train to Georgia: among the Russians in exile

Learning how to live in a strange land

Wide awake in the small hours of February 24th, Andrei Loshak was scrolling through Telegram, an encrypted messaging app, when he saw that the invasion of Ukraine had begun. He knew exactly what this meant for independent journalists like him. “Our future has been crossed out,” he posted.

“People in my bubble started to panic,” Loshak told me. Some scrubbed their phones of any evidence of political activity and drove to Finland or Estonia. Seats on flights out of the country were snapped up. On March 2nd Loshak got a message from a friend about a charter flight leaving for Armenia in three hours. Loshak dropped everything and headed to the airport in a taxi.

Loshak is among the tens of thousands of Russian exiles who are learning to live in a strange land. For Loshak, the reality of the situation has not yet set in. “It happened this way when my father died. Only three months after he was gone did I understand that I would never be able to talk to him again.” He added: “Cutting ties with your country is like a death. I hope it is not irreversible.”

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