‘Where do you live?’ It was always an awkward question to answer in Ukraine. Because for the past six years, the answer has been Moscow. Then the eyebrows went up. ‘Moscow?!’ Sometimes the relationship of trust with an interlocutor was irreparably damaged afterwards.
But since I was expelled from Russia in November – officially for two administrative offenses from a few years ago – contact with the Ukrainians has been smoother. When the customs officer at the Kiev airport googled me last month for identifying myself as a journalist, a smile appeared on her face. “You were deported from Russia?” I was allowed to walk right away.
In Kazakhstan, I thought it wiser to keep quiet about the deportation. In Georgia, I depended on who I had in front of me.
Thirty years after the end of the Soviet Union, each former Soviet republic has its own etiquette regarding Russia and the people who live there. And you don’t just notice that at the customs gates.
Kazakhstan is asking for the slightest adjustment, though the unpopular Russian military intervention earlier this month could change the mood among the population. In Almati I could go everywhere with my Sputnik vaccination, just like with my Russian. You peep taxis and groceries on it with Yandex, the Russian tech giant that can best be compared to Uber, Amazon and Google in one. And in the Victory Park, I saw a brutalist monument to Kazakh victims of war who, according to the inscription, gave their lives not for Kazakhstan or the Soviet Union, but for ‘Greater Russia’.
Such an image is unimaginable in Georgia. The country has lost a fifth of its territory to separatist republics controlled by Moscow since the end of the Soviet Union. But the Georgian government is trying to limit tensions with Russia, partly because of the masses of Russian tourists who (rightly) see a fantastic holiday destination in Georgia. Especially the older Georgians have no problem with Russia. Before you know it, you’ll be toasting the friendship of peoples with chacha (Georgian grape vodka) in your hand. “To the Russians, but not to Putin,” a man yelled in Mejvriskhevi, a village slowly approached by the Russian army. We listened to Russian rock from the eighties.
You have to watch out for that in Ukraine. A language law stipulates that 90 percent of radio broadcasts must be filled with Ukrainian. Difficult for a country where most people grew up with Russian-language Soviet songs. No Yandex taxis here either, no Sputnik vaccines, no bottles of traditional Crimean shampanskoye.
The annexation of Crimea, the war in the east and the new military threat have left many Ukrainians little of a friendship with Russia, although there are regional differences: in the west of Ukraine people look at Russia with more horror than in the east .
But whether you are a visitor from Moscow in Ukraine, Kazakhstan or Georgia: enter the old Soviet metro there and you are back home.