Where have you been for 8 years?

‘Where have you been for 8 years?’ — Russian propagandists cultivated this question to justify Russia’s aggressive invasion of Ukraine. I left Russia almost immediately when a full-scale war began. I seem to experience this tragedy easier than those opponents of war who had to stay. I didn’t see posters advertising ‘Wagner’ private war company, half-swastikas — the letter Z as a symbol of the Russian invasion — on the facades of houses, and I didn’t hear some Russians repeating the propaganda mantra about 8 years during which the supposed “Ukrnazis” allegedly bombed Donbass.

 

I was born in Moscow, my dad raised me as a Ukrainian, so two identities have always been fighting inside me — a Muscovite and Ukrainian. Why couldn't they coexist peacefully? Russia's war against Ukraine is the answer.

 

In Moscow, I could hardly express my Ukrainianness, as a result I denied it as a child, and at the age of 20 I started to defend it. I was a part of the Russian society when I spoke Russian, but as soon as I switched to Ukrainian I became a foreigner and could face bewilderment, barbs or outright anger. Then I managed to find an environment within which I could express my Ukrainianness. Since 2010, I have been involved in various activist initiatives, and was surrounded by like-minded people for whom diversity was a common core value. But we were as if ‘an island’, which took otherness as the basis, in the middle of the ‘ocean’ of xenophobia, which was and remains typical for the whole Russian society. Unfortunately, this is not a pathetic exaggeration, but a metaphorical reality.

 

On March 3, 2022, a week after the war began, I moved to Yerevan. The first thing my friend from London, who by this time had been living in the capital of Armenia for a year, said was that almost no one was protesting against the war in Ukraine.

 

On March 6, I went to an anti-war protest near the Ukrainian Embassy in Armenia. There were very few people there compared to what I had seen online in other countries. The protest near the embassy reminded me of unpopular demonstrations devoted to human rights defense in Russia, which took place on the 31st of every month, as Article 31 of Russian Constitution assigned human rights to Russian citizens. After attending one of these demonstrations, I found myself in the periphery of public interest, as if human rights were not needed.

 

At the protest near the embassy, several dozen Armenians who protested against the Russian invasion into Ukraine declared important words to me that Ukraine was holding an anti-colonial war against Russia, the former metropolis, and sooner or later Armenia would have to take over the baton.

 

In mid-March 2022, numerous migrants from Russia organized a protest march against the war in the center of Yerevan. We chanted: ‘Putin is a killer’. Locals watched us and disagreed. One woman was so outraged that she used obscenities, shouting: ‘Where have you been for 8 years?’.

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There is a completely different context in Armenia: a war is also on the agenda here, but a different one, in Artsakh. Many Armenians are outraged that their tragedy goes unnoticed as the ‘Western’ world only talks about the war in Ukraine. Despite the fact that the war in Nagorno-Karabakh is a result of Russian-Soviet colonialism, I didn’t pay attention to it when I lived in Moscow. Fled Russia because of one war, I found myself inside another. The once distant war became my own.

 

The Russian authorities, who invaded Ukraine, essentially declared that Ukraine must be Russian, otherwise — there would be death. Ukraine defends its own subjectivity. Russia has exposed its neo-colonial imperialism, against which I had been fighting when I was inside the country, and now I am an involuntary representative.

 

Emotionally I could hardly represent the aggressor country and ex-metropolis in Armenia, a former colony of Russia, which is still dependent on it. Whether I like it or not, I am still a person from the ‘center’, my position is covered by a certain perception — now it has become especially important how I look, speak and where I come from.

 

Despite the fact that locals do not express aggression against me, I still feel uncomfortable being myself. How can I decolonize my attitude, formed in Moscow, albeit within Ukrainian otherness? I looked for the answer all the time I have been living in exile. Lacking ready-made instructions, I learn by myself, reflecting on every word and action.

 

When I am perceived as an alien, influencing the local landscape, the nature of possible rejection or irritation is clear to me. But despite the relative closedness of the Armenian society, it is not common here to express anger at others, only surprise and interest in otherness. Playing the role of the involuntary representative of Russia, I use every possibility for a frank and equal dialogue with the Armenians, often full of pain, at the same time having a therapeutic effect on me, for sure.

 

In Yerevan, I got the opportunity to take part in a three-day discussion between Armenians and Russian migrants. Organizers of the event have been holding similar dialogues between Armenians and Azerbaijanis for more than 10 years, seeking to find a way to a peace process between the two societies still at war. In our case, many Russians came to Armenia because Russia attacked Ukraine. Migration has brought new dynamics into the life of local society. The organizers decided to use a similar methodology, as in the case with Azerbaijanis, to discuss how Russian migrants look at today’s Armenia, what we know about its history and whether we can integrate into Armenian society. We also discussed what especially hurts Armenians in Russian migrants’ attitude. I could be honest to say that, despite the hospitality of the Armenians, I couldn't be totally accepted. I stressed out that it was normal for me as I hardly knew Armenian, and despite the fact that locals speak Russian, the transition to the colonial Russian language was a ‘friend or foe’ marker.

 

When the organizers of the dialogue asked if we wanted to take part in a broader discussion among Armenians, Georgians, Azerbaijanis and Russians and what topics we would like to discuss, I mentioned that the communication issue was crucial to me. How can Russians, as representatives of the former metropolis, communicate with the ex-colonies? In particular, I was not sure about the right to participate on an equal basis with the representatives of these three countries. As Russia has always dominated Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, which, as Soviet republics, stood one step lower in the hierarchy of power. Based on this, I replied that it would be important for me to step on my sore spot and talk about how to design communication strategy correctly. Having privilege, from my point of view, I couldn't pretend that Russian domination had not exist and continued to talk without taking into account the complex colonial past and traumatic present which these states have experienced and now are living through.

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Before entering into a conversation as equals, I, as a representative of the ex-metropolis, somehow have to repent in order to restore balance. It seems impossible to overcome the imperialist thinking, which is a priori characteristic of us, people from the metropolis, simply because we grew up in different circumstances. Actually, I observed this within the frame of discussion between Armenians and Russians. Despite the fact that Russian participants were erudite, I felt that they were not ready to listen to the Armenians, but only wanted to speak, and loudly. They did not want to problematize their role as migrants in Armenia, but, for instance,  sought to help establish peace between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. It seemed to be not reprehensible, but for me it was a ‘white savior’ complex manifestation, which literally meant restoring one's own order everywhere. My Armenian friend Tigran, commenting on numerous initiatives to clean up urban spaces, noted that locals might even be outraged by the desire of Russian migrants to remove their trash from streets of Yerevan. 

 

While we honestly discussed the negative role of Russia in the Nagorno-Karabakh war, my fellow citizens removed themselves from that formula, as if Russia was not the country which we came from. The war in Nagorno-Karabakh was a consequence of Soviet colonial policy, which essentially repeated the Russian imperial project in new ideological outfits, thus we, Russians, were responsible for the past, which we did not choose, but inherited. I was unpleasantly surprised to see how Russian participants did not intend to reflect on their role as heirs of Russian and Soviet colonialism. But at least I was able to say my opinion.

 

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I hardly can accept when Armenians show their dependence on Russia. I don't accept it, but I'm silent. When Armenians reproduce the myth about the eight years, during which ‘the Ukrainian Nazis bombed the Russian population of Donbass’, I restrain myself from starting to argue, imposing my ‘correct’ opinion. Intuitively, I understand that this communication strategy is colonial: first, my supposed ancestors annexed the territories of today’s Armenia to their empire, and now I supposedly have to help Armenia become independent, but in both cases Armenia is deprived of its subjectivity. Although every time I can hardly endure seeing Armenia’s unreflected dependence on Russia, I still choose not to argue.

 

My Instagram follower, whom we have never met with, accused me of hypocrisy: from her point of view, while speaking about Russian colonialism, I manifested it in Armenia, silently observing its dependence on Russia. She said that she left Dagestan for Ukraine, and after the war began she emigrated to the UK; she had never been to Armenia. I tried to explain to her the local context which I saw here and my subsequent choice of communication strategy.
 

Unfortunately, speaking Russian in Armenia is still the norm. Of course, Russian is a colonial language, just like English, in which my Instagram follower suggested I should  communicate in Armenia instead of Russian. The argument that many locals would not be able to understand me because (especially the older generation) did not speak English was considered by her as a  justification for my unwillingness to decolonize myself. I remained to stick to my point of view  that replacing one colonial language with another would not solve the problem, but I would show colonial arrogance if I spoke the language which wasn’t known here, but the one, knowing of which could be considered a privilege in Armenia.

 

I doubt that using English instead of Russian will demonstrate the reflection on the colonial past trauma. It seems to be the physical embodiment of the difference between empires, according to which the Russian colonial is equated with being inferior to the more progressive Western colonial, which has won the competition among empires.

 

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At the flea market in Yerevan, I bought a homemade ‘money tree’, which was created by Arevshat (translates from Armenian as ‘sunlit’). Arevshat combined his love for God and the desire for prosperity in the house in this object, assembling his ‘Frankenstein’ from Soviet-era coins, a used perfume bottle, cross and the Virgin Mary. I chose this object as a metaphor for the postcolonial subject, which looked like a fusion of opposites that not only coexisted within one common body, but also enriched it with new meaning.

 

‘Allahu Akbar’, ‘Glory to Russia’ — at the very beginning of documentary film ‘Chechen’, directed by Beata Bubenets, its main character, a Chechen, shouts as he celebrates the New Year on the Maidan in Kiev during the ‘revolution of dignity’ in 2014. He is a participant. The Chechen went through the Afghan and Abkhaz wars, two Chechen wars, and lost two brothers there. Now he wants to fight with the Russian state, avenging his brothers. And he glorifies Russia, because, according to him, he loves his home. He seems to have a ‘mess in his head’:  he used to fight for an independent Ichkeria, he hates the Russian state, but he considers Russia his home, because Chechnya, his native land, is part of it. But such a ‘mess’ is a norm as a postcolonial person.

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After Maidan, the Chechen goes to the Crimea, and from there to fight in Donbass for Ukraine, against Russia. The film documents the annexation of Crimea, the ‘referendum’ on joining Russia, the formation of the DPR and LPR. The Chechen's voice is deliberately muffled. Although he is always at war, his world seems to be quiet and calm. But the Chechen’s frequent silence and bitter calm screams in pain. At his backstage impersonal crowds scream with a frightening roar: ‘Hurray, Russia!’, burning out the emptiness.

 

I can hardly see the personalities in these crowds, only watching caricatured characters.I can hardly understand these people, their unbridled admiration for Russia and ardent hatred of Ukraine. It is impossible to accept their desire to be part of the ‘Russian world’. Their violence against those who disagree is hard to observe. In any situation — happiness or hatred — they scream. It’s easier to condemn these people by making them invisible, but they are still people who want something, their own, not mine. It's hard to understand, even harder to accept. But it seems to be important to do this work.

 

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Donbass is another war-torn region within the post-Soviet space. When the war ends in Ukraine, what will happen to Donbass, which, of course, is Ukrainian? This is a ‘wild’ mixture of different worlds, which seem not to allow this region to reconcile its opposite parts, which have been killing each other for so long. Once again Russia has torn the poorly healed wounds as the results of Russian-Soviet colonial projects. The blood began to flow again. Donbass was doomed to become another resource colony of Russia, poor and dependent on Moscow.

 

In 2018, a Ukrainian artist shared her thoughts with me that the fate of Donbass reminded her of the fate of the museum of contemporary art in Ukraine — both of them had a ghostly future. She was from a group of artists who saved the Ukrainian Soviet cultural heritage, which the Ukrainian officials intended to dismiss due to Decommunization law. The artists believed that the Soviet was part of their identity, which was important to reveal instead of erasing as something alien. By example, the artist mentioned Severodonetsk, founded in 1934: ‘Thus, according to the law, does the entire city need to be deleted?’, she asked.

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Today, cities in Donbass are being erased by the Russian state instead of the Ukrainian authorities. ‘I gave birth to you, I will kill you’, Russia seems to be citing Gogol’s Taras Bulba, destroying Ukrainian cities built during the Soviet times. Russia is trying on a new role as another empire. It can annex Donbass, completely erasing it, turning it into a pre-industrial ‘Wild Field’. But it won’t come back to the past, but will become the ruins of Donbass in the future. This territory will continue to be a post-colonial subject, searching for its body, within which various worlds and destinies can coexist.

 

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‘Faces of War’ is a mediocre film which I watched at the documentary film festival in Yerevan. The directorial debut of Anton Zharov, who traveled to eastern Ukraine to interview international volunteers helping those Ukrainians who remained living inside the war. The interviews are interspersed with images of ruins left by the war. Tragic music sounds in their background. ‘Anton, you need to know history better — Donbass has been bombed for 8 years’, a woman from the audience commented on the film during a discussion session. An Armenian man, also from the audience, nodded his head in agreement, adding: ‘Donetsk and Lugansk have been bombed for 8 years’.

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Anton, the director of the film, did not seem to expect such a turn in the discussion: arriving from Europe, he most likely did not know what he could be told by the Armenians about the war in Ukraine. In an imposing manner, he told how he learned about Russia's bombing of Ukraine — he was at home, after having sex with his girlfriend he read the news. Anton probably expected to be in a safe place, where the audience would have shared his position on the war.

 

I grinned when I heard another  ‘where have you been for 8 years?’ ‘Definitely, Armenians watch Russian TV, they are fed with propaganda’, I thought to calm down. Then I realized that it was so easy to build associations between Donbass and Artsakh. Both of them were supposed to be inhabited by  ‘mono-ethnic populations’, Russians and Armenians, respectively. Russia was supposed to start a war to protect Russians in Donbass, Armenia — the Armenians of Artsakh from Azerbaijan aggression. The man and woman who mentioned a ‘8 years’ mantra were likely to agree with such a logic, absorbing and reproducing the convenient excuse for military aggression. Although I would never be able to agree with this, it became a little bit easier for me to consider ‘8 years mantra’ not as a mindless repetition of TV propaganda but as looking at another war through their own perspective. Nevertheless, these two wars are linked by a common Soviet imperial past.

 

What I cannot accept in my fellow citizens, namely the support of the narrative “where have you been for 8 years?”, takes on a completely different meaning in Armenia. It’s like another post-colonial hybrid: the metropolis invented and populated the colony with it, which transformed it into something different from the original meaning through the prism of its experience. Therefore, when Armenians say: “Where have you been for 8 years?” - for me this is completely different than when Russians justify Russia’s military neo-colonial aggression against Ukraine. Armenians talk about their pain, projecting it onto another tragedy, which is actually different in nature.