Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Dmitri Steshin
[KP] "WE SMILE ONLY WITH EMILIES"
If we judge the affairs in the Donbass on Russian television, then the life here turns out to be completely unhappy, one might say - apocalyptic. As my Donetsk friend noted: "We smile only on the Internet, with emoticons."
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And she whinnied so that the whole cafe turned for a second at our table. Last free table on a late Sunday evening. Let's go through the news of the last days with local comments:
"YouTube turned off the republican information channels of the LDNR ..."
- We saw this YouTube in the coffin, we all have Telegrams in our phones, and if anything happens, mom or friends will call and warn. We have been doing this since 2014. (a colleague known from the first months of the war).
"They fired on the Kiev region of Donetsk!"
- Three mines were laid in garages, three cars burned down, everyone is alive and well. Seen more terrible. (a resident of the Tekstilshchiki district, where the war is shown directly from the balcony).
"A sniper is working near Verkhnetoretsk!"
- What kind of worker came to us, well, nothing and they will work him out. (Lieutenant of the People's Militia of the DPR).
"On February 15, the ground will freeze and the offensive will begin!"
- "Calibers" are not afraid of dirt, and this, in our country, spring actually begins in mid-February. (militia, veteran of Slavyansk).
In reality, the inhabitants of Donbass are interested in completely different things. From February 20, those who have not been vaccinated will no longer be allowed to work here, in general. And in order to have time to get vaccinated, they were allowed to open vaccination points anywhere, even at bus stops.
"Anti-vaxers" are indignant, but somehow without a twinkle, calmer than in Russia. War is near.
Transport fares are being raised again. A ticket for a tram, trolleybus and bus will now cost 6 rubles. Not a typo. At the same time, the current fare is objectively not enough for a normal salary for drivers and the maintenance of transport. There is nowhere to go, everyone understands this and is indignant, but restrained.
Donetsk madam, swaggering, drove through a red light and posted a video on Instagram. The public censure was so strong that after paying the fine to the traffic police, she had to ask for forgiveness from her fellow countrymen almost on her knees and again upload it to the damn Instagram. The karmic circle closed, everyone immediately calmed down.
SHAME AND ABUNDANCE
There are several signs that economically the republics have breathed out, just a little bit. Posters "To the Dominican Republic for $1100 per person, flight via Rostov" have not been here since the spring of 2014. It is clear that only a tiny part of the inhabitants of Donbass can afford this. But someone already can, not from millionaires - they are all in Kiev, Moscow or a little further West.
Car dealerships that had been standing for eight years with dusty or broken windows were opened. In the morning and evening, a dense stream, the first traffic jams. As they say in Donetsk: "It's not more people in the city, but cars." A familiar car service owner remarked cynically:
- People have the opportunity to buy their favorite cars with inserts from Turbo gum from the 90s. Cars, by the way, of the same years ... And there is not a lot of money for repairs, they drive to the last.
Customs duties in the republics are scanty, in contrast to Russia. And people have money to earn, thanks to the "simplified procedure for granting citizenship of the Russian Federation."
The owner of the beauty salon complained to me:
- The electrician did the wiring for two months. He works in Russia, and a good electrician makes good money there. He comes to Donetsk for the weekend to see his family, and he did the wiring for me just out of friendship, I wouldn’t do anything else. There are no masters, they left ...
There is another sign of recovery. A familiar realtor said that they began to buy up office space - whole floors. And they, I must say, in Donetsk are such that even in front of Moscow City they are not ashamed. Who is buying?
- Businessmen. No, not Kiev. Kiev sell. People buy shop equipment, office furniture. And the apartments began to leave, before that they had been standing for years.
- And who takes the apartments?
- The usual scheme. He lived in a village, worked in Russia, earned money, bought a house in Donetsk. You won’t believe it, and they take it in Petrovsky, and in Kiev (these areas are shelled - ed.).
And the last thing that finished me off was the local chain supermarket. The parking lot in front of the entrance is all (!) full of cars.
On an internal broadcast, the buyers played the record: "The plant invites workers (list of specialties), salary from 50,000 rubles, social package, delivery by bus."
I was mentally stuck in front of a rack with about five hundred types of ketchup on display. The live fish lazily moved its tail in the aquarium, the sleeping fish was poured from a bucket, with a scoop, ice chips.
In 2014, exactly across the fish rows, there was a plywood partition separating the trading floor, behind it there was darkness and emptiness. In the illuminated space, disgusting aniline lemonades on saccharin, tea that someone had already brewed, and a strange stew - the dogs sniffed it in bewilderment, but were in no hurry to eat, were bored. At the entrance to the store stood a silent line of old men and women. They pretended to sell old books - pride did not allow them to ask for food, and Ukraine stopped paying pensions. Thirty old people died of starvation in the DNR in December 2014.
Now at the entrance, instead of pensioners burning with shame, shkolota hung out, furtively smoking vapes.
"WHEN 'THETER' STARTED TO HATE US?"
I went to visit the owner of a small tattoo parlor, Zhenya Marty. She is a well-known blogger in the Donbass, she is read from both sides of the front line.
At a traffic light, a deaf-mute man shoved a packet of flyers through the window. All on one topic: "Trips to Ukraine, we will pick you up from all cities of the DPR."
An important note: "Through the Russian Federation daily, Wi-Fi on the bus." The hook turns out to be just wild, four customs, and what before the war took an hour - to drive to Slavyansk from Donetsk, now can turn into a day of painful driving and the same waiting.
The entrance where the tattoo studio is located, as from the 90s. The communal fund is inexorably deteriorating, and why should it flourish? But the studio itself is sterile. The main clients are people over 40, they have extra money, and they are closing youth complexes. There are many military men - they mask scars, beat call signs and some of their own mysterious, intra-shop symbols.
Zhenya pours tea for me and says:
- I listen with horror to the speeches of our politicians about the recognition of the DPR and LPR. And everyone is silent about the fact that we are stumps left over from the Greater Donbass, ours also live behind the front line.
- How are they there?
- I will speak for Mariupol. There, Ukrainian military men are afraid to walk the streets in the evenings in uniform, one at a time. The guys who returned to the factories after serving in the Ukrainian army in the Donbass are outcasts, they simply don’t talk to them in the team or ask: "Did you earn a lot of money in the war?" Volunteers who have been fed since the war are hungry, no one gives money or humanitarian aid to the war anymore.
Zhenya does not think that Russia's recognition of the DPR and LPR in their current form is the best option:
- We already have integration going on by itself. And if we are recognized, and even within these boundaries - that's all, we will encapsulate in them, on this stub. And all our relatives, houses, dachas, favorite places - all of them will remain outside our lives forever.
I remark to my interlocutor, they say, "other options will not work without war."
"And we are ready," Zhenya tells me unexpectedly firmly. ready to bite the bullet for the last time, live without water, crawl into basements with children, starve, help the front, but let everything be resolved once and for all!
- Do not believe in a political solution?
- In two generations. Old patriots will die, young people will disperse, everyone else will go about their business and forget where it started. Then - yes, then the politicians will decide everything, but now it is impossible. We don’t even want a war, we’ve seen it and we understand that we can’t do without it ...
In parting, Zhenya says something terrible to me:
- We are here, like beautiful-hearted dogs, ready to look into everyone's eyes, forgive and pity everyone. And THERE, I even find it difficult to remember when the hatred towards us appeared THERE and I cannot say when this hatred will disappear.
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