Thousands of Russians travel to Georgia to flee their own government: NPR

More than 30,000 Russians have arrived in Georgia since Russia invaded Ukraine. The Russians are not fleeing from the war, they are fleeing from their own government. And they say they can’t go back.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

And I’m Mary Louise Kelly in Tbilisi, Georgia, standing at the bottom of a big hill. The top of this is the statue that greets everyone who arrives here. It’s a huge woman, Mother Georgia. And she holds a cup of wine in her left hand to greet people who arrive here in peace, who arrive as friends. However, in her right hand she holds a sword to greet those who come as enemies. Among those who are now arriving in rainy Tbilisi – Russians, thousands of them. According to the Interior Minister of Georgia, more than 30,000 Russians have arrived here since Russia invaded Ukraine. And while some of them have since moved on, many say they are staying.

Well, this is a very different exodus than the one unfolding from Ukraine. The Russians aren’t fleeing the war, they’re fleeing their own government, and they say they can’t go back, it’s not safe. You can’t work. They are angry at what their country is doing.

We’re going to spend these next few minutes telling the stories of three Russians we met here in Tbilisi, starting with Alexey Voloshinov. He’s the youngest of the people we’re about to meet, just 20, but we’ll start with him because we can tell where his story begins, back in Moscow. This is Alexey walking through the botanical garden — what Russians call the Apothecary Garden — in central Moscow on March 4.

ALEXEY VOLOSHINOV: It feels real, not real. I still can’t believe I’m going to leave my country tomorrow, maybe for the rest of my life. I hope not, but that’s a possible option.

KELLY: He says it wasn’t a voluntary move, that as a young journalist he was afraid to stay in Russia and as a young man he was afraid of being drafted to fight Ukraine.

VOLOSHINOV: Still, I’d really like to go back to the great Russia of the future one day (laughter). Future great Russia, yes.

KELLY: A little over two weeks later we meet up with Alexey in a park, this time here in Tbilisi.

VOLOSHINOV: Hello.

KELLY: Hello, Alexei. Hello.

We go to a café together to escape the rain and I ask if he has picked up much Georgian. I’ve just arrived myself and I find the language and its alphabet beautiful, but hard.

VOLOSHINOV: I know (speaks Georgian).

Kelly: Me too. And that’s it.

This is hello and thank you

VOLOSHINOV: I know (speaks Georgian). That is. And I know (speaks Georgian). That’s no (laughter). Yeah, well…

KELLY: That’s fine. That is a beginning.

VOLOSHINOV: (Laughter) Yes.

KELLY: In the café, over plates of salty Georgian cheese and walnuts, I ask Alexey what happened after he left Moscow.

VOLOSHINOV: Well, the thing is, I didn’t have any plans.

KELLY: First he flew to Armenia where he thought he would stay for a while.

VOLOSHINOV: Then, after only two or three days, my father called me and said that the police in Moscow were looking for me. And that day I decided to leave Armenia and move to Georgia because there is no extradition from here.

KELLY: Did you know anyone in Tbilisi?

VOLOSHINOV: Well, no.

KELLY: He met other Russians here. They went looking for an apartment, which has become very difficult in the last few days. Rents are rising as the market is flooded with Russian home seekers. And there’s the fact that not everyone wants to rent to Russians, given Georgia’s complicated history with its huge neighbor. The first apartment Alexey tried to rent…

WOLOSHINOV: The host asked us if we were Russians. We said yes, and she said that she cannot give us this apartment because the Russian soldiers killed her son in 2008 during the war between Russia and Georgia. So that was really understandable.

KELLY: You finally found a place. Alexey says he’s looking for a job and is starting to feel settled.

VOLOSHINOV: After leaving the country, it was the first time I could sleep and eat normally.

KELLY: So worried?

VOLOSHINOV: Yes.

KELLY: Do you want to go back? Would you like to live in Russia again?

VOLOSHINOV: Of course. Yes, of course. The first possibility, after the Putin regime will fall, I will come back around the next day.

KELLY: We arranged our next interview at a pub called The Black Lion over steaming tea. Like the weapon, Lev Kalashnikov also arrived in Tbilisi from Moscow in early March. He’s already a doer in the exile community here. He’s a tech entrepreneur trying to help other entrepreneurs open businesses and move their businesses here. He says Tbilisi is currently hotter than anywhere else, thanks in part to so many Russians with ambition and money pouring in. But it’s difficult to navigate through bureaucracy, paperwork and everything in a different language. He tells us the story of his second day here. He was standing in a huge line trying to buy a SIM card.

LEV KALASHNIKOV: And there were 50 people in line before me and 50 after me. And I looked around and said, well, I’ve seen that move before. I can share my experience with these people.

KELLY: So he created a channel on the Telegram messaging app that everyone here seems to be using – basically a chat room that people can join by scanning a QR code.

KALASHNIKOV: And start showing it to the people around me.

KELLY: In line.

KALASCHNIKOV: In the row.

KELLY: You – in the line you create this QR code.

Kalashnikov: Yes. When I left this place there were about 30 people chatting. And later that day it was 200. The next day it was 700 people.

KELLY: It kept growing. Around 5,000 people now follow the Telegram channel and exchange tips on all sorts of things.

WOLOSHINOV: Mainly people ask how to transfer money. 15 percent of people ask about schools and kindergartens, many ask how it works at the land border – to cross land.

KELLY: Lev now runs several Telegram channels for Russians coming to Georgia. He says he’s constantly answering questions he’s trying to answer, even when he can’t help, like a recent message he received from a man in Russian-controlled Crimea whose wife is mired in the war in southern Ukraine.

KALASHNIKOV: This guy sends me a message that she has become very ill. And there’s fighting in the streets and the bombs are going off. I don’t know what to do with it. What can I do with it? But for some reason people text me that. And I can’t help.

KELLY: His voice breaks. His eyes fill with tears. He reaches for his tea, takes a deep breath.

KALASHNIKOV: Every single message I get is a tragedy.

KELLY: Our final stop for the evening is a hole-in-the-wall bar in Old Tbilisi. It’s called the Ploho Bar. Ploho means bad in Russian. About a dozen people crowd this tiny space, all speaking Russian, chugging beer and sipping vodka. The walls are scribbled with felt-tip pens – Russian sayings and rough drawings. 23-year-old Nastasya Dubovitskaya left Moscow just a week ago. She’s working behind the bar tonight, pouring beer.

NASTASYA DUBOVITSKAYA: I wanted to go to rallies after the war started, but I knew it would be more dangerous.

KELLY: Nastasya says she was jailed for seven days for attending a rally. She believes that if she had stayed in Russia and continued to protest, she would not have been out so quickly.

DUBOVITSKAYA: I just decided to go here because I knew I could help Ukraine and the Ukrainians better here than from Russia.

KELLY: She’s pointing to a Ukrainian flag that’s hanging on the wall. Next to it a QR code for a website to donate money to the Ukrainian army. Nastasya says she saves money to donate. That’s one of the reasons she works here at the bar. But it’s hard, she says. On her last day in Moscow, she visited her father. He’s still there.

DUBOVITSKAYA: We talked a lot. And I saw him cry for the first time in my life because he was so worried and he said there is no future in Russia. Just run and find something new.

KELLY: No future in Russia, so just run. Find something new. She did – one of tens of thousands of Russians who have fled their country since it invaded Ukraine nearly a month ago.

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