Sunday news
Today is the 20th of March, 2022. One bothersome thought on illusions and opinion exchange, one news and yesterday's visuals.
Digital collage by Beto Val. Fauna sonora 1. Flamingo.
The morning is serene and fresh in Moscow. It was quite noisy earlier but now, at 10am, the street is calm. Few cars pass. Sun sends spring enthusiastic vibes. News spoils the mood. Light playing with the wind on the walls is a reminder that there’s a long way to the actual hell despite what words say. There’s a lot to lose and a lot to hope for and to work for.
Yesterday I had a discussion in my Direct about the timing and the reasons I have to share refugee information and articles and questions on Instagram. Why now? Why about Ukraine? Why don’t I speak clearly about the side I chose? I reply here so there’s no need to write about it again and again. Maybe you’ll tell me that I live in a complete illusion and Russia is a lost place, should be isolated and so on, because we deserve it. That’s ok. I respect your illusion as much as mine.
So why do I start posting social stories? Because I can. Because I’m Russian. Because I have little information about life in Syria, Palestine, Afghanistan. My skin is white. I can’t call myself privileged when I’m in Europe. But I am privileged when I’m in Moscow. I can’t understand the depth of the injustice and descrimination what colored skin person in the white world feels every day. Though the superficial layer of it I experienced on myself, it’s still not enough to get the full impression. So I write only the background I understand and try to keep it as harmless as possible for my audience that experiences hell in their lives.
Why I post the refugee problems now is obvious. My country is the reason for the crisis, I’m a few steps away from being a refugee myself. I’m not just in a moral debt to the Ukrainians, but I explore my future rights and the rights of the people like me. Plus we, people of my age and older, are formally from the same place. I will try to explain myself here and tell you a story.
When I was in Paris for the interview with Cartier creative director in 2008, I was on my own for the first time. The trip was strange - business class and luxurious press tour from Moscow to Madrid for a Samsonite and Viktor&Rolf event then lowcoster flights to and from Milan then Paris. I had a room in a (should have been 3, in reality) 1 star hotel. It was the beginning of Booking.com, so I made a pretty awful choice. But that’s not the point. The point is I used to order tea with cream. I didn’t know that someone paid attention to my breakfast choices.
Once I went to ask for water and heard the women in the kitchen speaking my language. I stepped in, they looked at me warily, unkindly even. “What the fuck is she doing here?!”- kind of expression. Before they said anything I addressed them in Russian, and you should see the transformation. Suddenly from a disaster I turned into a family member. They were astonished. They thought I’m British, because of my tea. But I was even more surprised because they both were natives from two Baltic countries, preferred to speak Russian and were so happy to talk to me like we were the one happy Soviet nation again.
I wasn’t a refugee, I wasn't an immigrant. I was much younger. And I’m not just Russian, I’m from Moscow and you can hear it when I speak. So it’s even worse. I had a personal interpreter that waited for me at the Cartier Atelier every day, like I was an official delegation from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, not a glossy media journalist playing with the jewellery that cost three such hotels with their staff.
Nevertheless at that moment I was with them in the sad and depressive place in Paris and the common far gone past united us. That was the only bright moment from my short stay in that hole. I still remember it with warmth. You can’t imagine the power of such unexpected recognition.
So when I share the cases of unequal treatment of the refugees at the borders or cases of descrimination, I think first of all of the people I know or met, I think about my own stories. Far from home, lost and insecure, we are all the same - lonely, desperate, sad, angry, depressed, suspicious, anxious, ashamed to be and to ask help, struggling to find our place in the alien reality. When society chooses one group of us and downshifts the others - it’s an example of legalised and publicly approved descrimination. It’s worse than a war, because it’s invisible unless you fall into it and it doesn’t have an end.
I try to attract attention to such problems. They can be solved by the public, by people - right now and every day. They only seem to be smaller than the horrors of bombed cities. You think about those who live in poverty, hidden and exploited because they can’t legalise their life in the hosting country. About 8 million Ukrainians will be settled in Europe only after this month. How many people from Africa and Asia, India and the Far East, both Americas have escaped their countries for the last few years? How many difficulties have they gone through? What treatment do they recieve now?
It’s all under our noses, we just don’t pay attention, because no one tells the stories unless it’s too late to prevent the tragedies. The news is built on scandals, dramas and vanity. But here we need to actually read and pay attention to understand the issues. There’s no slogans, no banners, flags. Maybe a few movies made for Cannes. A few books a hundred people might read. Later. Some day. At the same time when other wars or economical catastrophes will make different nations flee their lands for a hope of a better future.
A digest from my Instagram for March 19th, 2022
7.30am zakharova_kaetano Good morning 🌞 How are you today? #haveagoodday Here’s my #morningmood #morninginspiration@katieohaganart portraits. First is named “Don’t ask”. What do you think? #artasinspiration #beautyofart #contemporaryart#goodmorningart #goodmorningpost
6.30pm zakharova_kaetano #finding lace bracelet by @buccellatimilanfrom @espritjoaillerie #loveit #artofjewellery #beautyofjewellery#jewelleryasinspiration #vintagejewellery
11.50pm zakharova_kaetano #goodnightandsweetdreams #nightmood#fashionportrait #womanportrait #TimWalker photography of #KateBush #artofphotography #fairytaletime #dreaming
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