‘s Ukrainian journalist does not hide his own Russian background in Kiev and has not run into any difficulties. There are many kinds of Russianness, and the anti-Russianism of Ukrainians does not affect all of them.
I recently spoke with a young man who was visiting his relatives in a remote village in northern Ukraine when the war began. He got stuck there for a few months as the front line came close.
Due to the gas shortage, they could no longer leave the village and there were no more jobs in their hometown of Kiev. There were reasons to hate Russia and the Russians were found.
I decided not to hide that I was born and raised in St. Petersburg. I told him how things are when he asked. He replied that he had not had time to visit St. Petersburg and would probably no longer visit, and that his grandmother was from the Kaluga region of Russia.
We were already talking about how a lot of typical Russian food was eaten in his Ukrainian family and more Ukrainian and Moldovan food was eaten in my Russian family because my mother’s family is from there.
Before I came to Kiev, I was asked if I was not afraid to go, with a Russian background and in Russian, to a country that Russia is currently attacking. Not scared, because there are many Russians too.
I was sure that my European Russianness would not be a problem in Kiev. There is a bit of Ukrainian origin in my Russianness and a fair touch of love for Ukraine.
Ukraine has always been present in my life, as my mother’s family is from the Odessa region. I spent the childhood summers in the south, and my Russian-speaking family sometimes spoke Ukrainian. I have never felt like a guest in Ukraine, although I cannot call it my homeland.
Before the trip, I was only worried about crossing the border, because Leningrad is marked as the place of birth in my Finnish passport. It became a question at the border, but it was not a barrier to entry but a reason for a short interview.
The Soviet past guarantees that the citizens of many countries will have their place of birth in the territory of present-day Russia, including the citizens of Ukraine.
In Kiev, bilingualism and Russian language are a very natural part of everyday life.
Maxim Fedorov
In just over three weeks, I have not encountered any situation in which my Russian background or Russian language has reacted negatively. Or reacted at all.
In Kiev, bilingualism and Russian language are a very natural part of everyday life. It is not taken into account any more, even though it is clear from my speech that I am not from Ukraine.
Also, the fact that I understand everything that is said to me in Ukrainian does not provoke any reaction. The situation could be different if I came here in Russian as a Russian.
Ukrainians want and try to break away from the common information field: to reduce the use of the Russian language and increase the Ukrainian language in everyday life, but this is a long and challenging process.
Last week, I went to the theater to watch a comedy play called Run Putin Run (a reference to Run Lola!). In the play Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko became cheerleaders in a Ukrainian vaginal village after derailing power.
“We can’t let these monsters speak our beautiful Ukrainian language, so Putin and Lukashenko speak their own language,” viewers were warned at the beginning of the show in Ukrainian.
So the whole play was mixed language. It was noteworthy that most of the spectators in the lobby spoke to each other about Russia.
Ukrainians are now building their own identities with anti-Russianism – in Ukrainian or Russian. But it is not obscene and does not aggressively target anything that has anything to do with Russia.
The greatest tragedy of this war lies in the fact that Ukraine and Russia have been so closely connected at the level of the people. War is now breaking these human connections.
You can discuss the matter here on June 21st. until 11 p.m.