New Russian resource of Serbia / Lifestyle / Nezavisimaya Gazeta
How emigrants from Russia live in the Balkan country
In Montenegro, 116 thousand citizens of the Russian Federation applied for a residence permit. Reuters photo
It is impossible to learn Russian abroad, you must agree. Young and old, tourists and expats, with children or dogs. For every taste and budget. But no – you can’t hide your look anywhere, rather prickly and incredulous than open and friendly. I don’t know exactly where it comes from with such different people, but it is found cooler than any Olivier and buckwheat.
“Speak softly, ours are sitting over there,” the director of a Russian company asked me at a meeting in a trendy Belgrade restaurant. In fact, with these words, a company approaches the depth, with the taste of people suitable for a Russian actor. My counterpart notices another theater director relocated to Serbia and greets him. They told me that they had recently met in the same way, at neighboring tables in a restaurant. There are a lot of such cases.
Creative bohemians and technical intelligence fled from hostilities, chosen by their own power Belgrade. According to some estimates, there will be about two hundred thousand Russians here. What can we say, if in tiny Montenegro 116 thousand citizens of the Russian Federation applied for a resident. And this is with the official population of 600 thousand people! Every sixth person in the country is Russian.
Now about who is leaving. These are middle-aged and young people who can earn money by their interest, many families with small children. Educated, secured in real life. The same once sought-for individual of the middle class.
February 24 – this is it, dear. In total, up to 2 million people left the country with the ends. Will Russia be orphaned without them? Undoubtedly. But how much the countries of their new observation acquire – no need to spend money on education (already), treatment (yet), just get taxes and the final result! Do little Russian children help straighten out the demographic situation in an endless aging Serbia?
Already in Belgrade and Novi Sad, private kindergartens and schools are appearing, which are indicated by all the infrastructure necessary for compatriots. First of all, there were no serious problems with the traffic of the Serbian authorities. It is physically impossible to ban taxis – there is no harassment of cars. Streets and embankments, cafes and alleys of the meat of Russian speech. No, no, and I didn’t meet anyone I knew who moved in the spring or summer or fled from the mobilization in September.
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The grave of one of the sources of Bely movement, General Pyotr Wrangel, in the church Holy Trinity in Belgrade (built with money the first Russian emigrants). Photo by Vera Tsvetkova |
A few words about the concept of “relocants” – that is, relocated, changed the place of constant observation. Unlike the white emigrations in Paris in the 1920s, a slow return to Russia may yet begin, despite the slightly insane.
Few people escaped with a suitcase, like a “philosophical steamer” that sailed away into the unknown in one end of 1922. The color of Russian philosophy, Ivan Ilyin and Nikolai Berdyaev, the founder of the sociological school, Pitirim Sorokin, and the creator of color television, Vladimir Zworykin, were leaving forever. And their new successors after 100 years – for a while. As they seem, it seems.
Of course, not everyone returns to Serbia, this kind temperamental people will expel someone from themselves, someone will not withstand the Serbian “polako” – a measured lifestyle. But the most important thing, I think, remains. Entrepreneurs in their bulk, they will quickly open Serbian legal entities, take over the economic operations and taxpayers of the country, whose economy has grown at a high rate in Europe over the past three years. This can be done quickly (in three days) and inexpensively (from 500 euros).
It is important to note that in Serbia itself, where a large number of the population supports the supervision of Russia and its president, the attitude towards the “new Russians” is very friendly – the Serbs themselves remember very well, when tens and hundreds of thousands were promoted, their fellow compatriots in the former Yugoslavia from Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, found their shelter there. The sense of empathy is very well developed.
“Where have I met you before? In which Moscow living rooms? At Viktor Feliksovich or Roman Arkadyevich? – the paraphrase of the Parisian sketch of the 20s of the last century is again terribly relevant.
After drinking coffee with a talented writer and screenwriter, who has already managed to seriously settle in Belgrade, I thought that soon Russian cultural centers and emigre publishing houses will appear here, as they once did in Berlin and Prague. And tens, if not hundreds of millions of Russian cultural figures will be published in Russian abroad, in the vast majority of cases, the “Russian world”, their own – widespread – Russia.
And the most important thing here is not to alienate these people. Our people. Smart and educated, enterprising and self-sufficient. In any case, if they leave a part of the Russian world, a part of big Russia, in which the future is always predetermined. It is very important to speed up their return, prevent separation from their unpredictable homeland, and keep them in their orbit. Otherwise, Russia will lose the share of those who will build her beautiful future after.
The “after” time can become as unpredictable as “Z hour” has come – in the early frosty morning. Therefore, those companies that continue to work with those who have relocated of their own free will act far-sightedly. It is now difficult to find such initiative personnel. And to give them for no reason near and far abroad would be the height of stupidity and shortsightedness.