If they received draft notices but refused to go, they would risk a 10-year prison sentence. If they couldn’t avoid the draft, they would risk death in a war they didn’t believe in. The only other alternative was to flee.
They say, if you can’t tolerate the messy present, study the Middle Ages. That’s what I did — I restored old books and focused on the past. For the longest time, my family avoided politics. I hadn’t followed the news, but when I heard that Russia annexed Crimea [in 2014], I thought it was a good thing — I had an imperialist mindset and liked the idea that Russia was strong, and it was getting some of the old territories back. I wish I’d woken up to the reality sooner.
I had heard that there was a long line at the checkpoint I usually travel through to get to Georgia, so I traveled to Vishnevka, a checkpoint in the Volgograd Oblast bordering Kazakhstan. I’ve heard the line there was shorter. I got there on Sept. 25, and it was long. I wasn’t prepared. I didn’t bring winter clothing with me and the night in the line was freezing.
I left Dagestan in 2000 for the army after dropping out of college. My younger brother was drafted for mandatory military service and I decided to sign up as well, so he wouldn’t go alone. The Russian military is notorious for its hazing; racist attitudes toward Dagestanis and other “Black” people only make this terrible tradition even harder for them.
Soon after my release, I moved to St. Petersburg and for a couple of years was involved in local politics and went to protests — against Putin, the local government and anything else I found important. Over time less and less independent media became available. I lost belief in the Russian opposition. I realized what this government was long before Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. Russians split into two groups who believed that Crimea was either Ukrainian or Russian.
There are numerous reports of unlawful mobilization: Recruiters are not filling out draft notices correctly, recruiters are delivering notices to people who are supposed to be excluded from mobilization and people are being drafted even if they are not in the reserves. I’m a student, and my supporters and I tried to explain it to a recruiter outside of the Council of Deputies building where I work as a Mozhaysky District representative.
Catching a cab to Kazakh border, Pavel was lucky enough to spend just an hour waiting to leave Russia. “From the conversations I had with other people in the line, I felt a sense of doom about Russia’s future,” he said. “These were educated and intelligent people — engineers, programmers, students. All of them could have contributed to the growth of the Russian economy, but now each person would be working to make some other country better.
He dropped me and others off a few miles from the border and we walked two hours with our luggage, getting to the line by 4:30 am. That line was about 50 people, and I crossed in an hour. From the conversations I had with other people in the line, I felt a sense of doom about Russia’s future. These were educated and intelligent people — engineers, programmers, students.
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