Russia's unwelcome new exiles
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 14 April 2022
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Hundreds of thousands of Russians have fled abroad since its invasion of Ukraine, afraid of growing repression in their country, and increasing international isolation. Most of the new exiles are young, well-educated professionals – writers, teachers, artists, IT workers – who fear they could be arrested and jailed for expressing opposition to the war, and even drafted into the army. Tens of thousands have escaped to Russia’s neighbour Georgia, where some are involved in humanitarian efforts to help the Ukrainian victims of the war.
But Georgia itself, invaded by the Kremlin in 2008, has a tense relationship with Russia. Tim Whewell travels to Tbilisi, Georgia's capital, to meet some of the new exiles, and finds they’re not universally welcome. They’re accused of arrogance, of raising property prices – and possibly providing a pretext for the Kremlin to intervene again in Georgia.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I was with my wife in our country, |
| 0:04.7 | Helsinki, Moscow. |
| 0:05.7 | I was playing online in Poco with my friends. |
| 0:07.9 | And since the morning, I'm checking the news. |
| 0:11.0 | And that was the word, you just feel paralyzed inside. |
| 0:16.9 | You cannot move. |
| 0:18.8 | Do you realize that it's the biggest catastrophes |
| 0:22.6 | that you have experienced in your life? |
| 0:33.7 | On February the 24th, when Freddie Miputin announced what he called |
| 0:37.7 | a special military operation in Ukraine, |
| 0:40.5 | Moscowites didn't wake to the whale of air raid sirens |
| 0:44.0 | like the people of Kiev did, |
| 0:45.8 | but many hurt a siren in their heads, |
| 0:48.6 | telling them that for Russians too, |
| 0:50.6 | life would never be the same again. |
| 0:52.8 | I had the feeling that something really huge is coming. |
| 0:56.7 | I was surfing the internet the whole night long, |
| 0:59.9 | so that's why I woke up really late. |
| 1:03.0 | And the first thing I saw is the message from my mother. |
| 1:06.3 | It was a curse word. |
| 1:08.1 | On the 23rd, I had a dinner in my first rented flat, |
| 1:12.2 | dinner candles and on the 24th, I woke up by my mom, |
... |
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