Some talk about creating a virtual state, where social structures can be built independently of any form of government or even geographical location. “We have learned to live without the state,” says one exile
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskÉmigré hangouts can be depressing places. This one exuded intellectual energy. The event was well structured, attendees were well behaved, and there was almost no drinking. Over the course of two hours a dozen speakers talked about their past and present pursuits. Their subjects ranged from the “pathology of” and cleaning up the streets of Tbilisi to recycling, driverless cars and helping people with psychological trauma.
Back in Russia civic activists such as Ms Kiltau and Ms Melnikova helped monitor elections, volunteered for independent candidates and helpedInfo, a human-rights organisation that assists the victims of Russian state repression. Had they stayed in Russia and publicly protested against the war, they would most likely be in prison.
Although today’s Russia is not embroiled in civil war, its invasion of Ukraine has cut through families. Arguments have split brothers from sisters and children from parents. . Lately a barely detectable, but nevertheless real, tension is rising between those who left Russia and those who stayed, however similar their attitudes to the war. Behind the veneer of composure and energy among émigrés lies the pain of broken lives, a fractured country and homes left in a hurry.
For many years after the fall of communism the modernising elite and the Russian state managed an uneasy cohabitation. In the 1990s and early 2000s the children of the Soviet intelligentsia rejected their parents’ beliefs, mocked anything Soviet and embraced capitalism as they understood it. They did not touch the foundations of the state, but they made Russia more liveable and attractive.
Ms Khananishvili and her contemporaries were never in charge of the state, but they managed to co-exist with it. “We did not touch them and they did not touch us,” says one of her friends, anspecialist. They lived in the folds of the empire, benefiting from Russia’s oil-driven economy but trying to build their own lives apart from a state that was growing increasingly militaristic and repressive.
Instead of fast food, it delivers advice to people who need logistical, psychological or legal help. It also tells the stories of people affected by the war: the dead, the wounded, the refugees and the émigrés. “Our focus is men and women at the time of war whose lives have been uprooted and destroyed whoever they are,” he explains.
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