A few months after leaving Russia, I came back to Moscow. We’re still figuring out what to do. We’re considering moving back to Russia because we can’t afford living in Turkey, since the rouble has become much weaker.
But it’s not safe. There could be another mobilisation at any moment, and we worry my husband could be drafted because he has an engineering background.
It is so hard to make all those decisions, when there are so many things you don’t know. I’m really scared of him being drafted, because if they take you, there’s nothing you can do. There are two options: war or jail.
Our goal is to avoid the military registration office by any means. Obviously, [my husband] Dmitriy is scared but it also angry that he can’t live normally in his own country and has to hide somewhere.
To be honest, we missed home a lot. I remember talking to my friends from Ukraine who fled the war and then said they were going back despite having a good setup in another country. Then, I thought they were crazy, but now I have that same feeling. Maybe it’s not fair to compare, but I do understand that now.
I’m very disappointed that a lot of people blame average Russians for not standing up to the government – we never had democracy.
The atmosphere in Moscow is like before [the war], with young people in city centre bars and cafes. But people always say Moscow is not Russia, and even in towns just outside you see Z letter flags.
There are [more] police in the city centre. Another thing is that monuments to famous Ukrainian writers are being used as a place where people who are against the war can show their grief. I went to a monument with flowers but didn’t take photos as there was a police officer standing there.
I’m meant to go back to Alanya [in Turkey] soon, but I keep changing my mind. We just want to stay here. Despite the war, inflation – it’s our home. It’s hard to leave my mum and my friends. My mum misses us a lot. She wants us here but doesn’t want to risk our freedoms, though she says we can hide in her house if there is another mobilisation.
We are looking for a flat to rent in Alanya. It has become extremely expensive. Locals we have met, like our realtor, say rents are much higher since many rich Russians came. I feel like we are doing something bad to Turkish people.
Alanya is a very touristy city and you can find anything you need. The nature is beautiful, the food is beautiful, a lot of people are nice. But I’m not on vacation – I can’t enjoy it. My husband is still being paid by his employer in Russia, but they could stop paying him at any moment and then we’re screwed.
He’s been applying for [other] remote jobs but found nothing – each job says it’s had thousands of applicants. I haven’t managed to find a remote job either, but we’re both doing online IT courses.
Because of sanctions, we can’t use normal credit cards like Mastercard and Visa. We are using cryptocurrencies, transferring money from our Russian account to our crypto wallet, selling them peer to peer on the exchange and buying Turkish lira and getting those transferred to our Turkish bank account.
There is a big Russian community in Alanya – there were a lot of Russians there before the war and some are tourists. I see a lot of Russian and Ukrainian number plates. There are so many Russians that some expect Turkish locals to speak Russian.
There isn’t a sense of a tight-knit community, it feels like we are tiptoeing around each other. Not everyone is here for the same reason or thinks the same way.
I’m in some Alanya Telegram groups with Russian speakers, for buying and selling secondhand things, and sometimes new members join and say that they feel they’ve escaped from the Russian government. They often get a strong response with some, usually women, saying – why aren’t you serving your country you coward, you shouldn’t hide here. It always becomes ugly – some admins now write, please, no politics.
We applied for a temporary permit to stay in Turkey in November, and we have an interview soon. I worry we won’t get one – on Russian news I read they are stopping giving out permits and there are rising rejections to Russians.
If our permit is rejected, we will probably return to Russia. I’m in my thirties. I’m hanging between worlds. I want to have kids but I don’t want to bring a child into the world that looks like this too. I don’t want to wait in some foreign country.
The nice food, nature and weather isn’t enough – I need a sense of security, but I’m not getting that in Russia or Turkey.
Names and some details have been changed.
