乐鱼体育

BY EKATERINA KRONGAUZ

When Vika鈥檚 husband Mark told her on the evening of February 27鈥攖hree days after Russia launched

its invasion of Ukraine鈥攖hat their acquaintances were leaving Russia for Nepal, she got indignant.

鈥淲hy are you telling me this? We can't go anywhere right now. It's not for families like ours. We are

not privileged! We have no savings, we only have children and a mortgage. And no one will help us.鈥�

A week later, Vika (35), a blogger, Mark (37), a photographer, and their children, Hannah (6), and

Joseph (3), landed in Kathmandu.



鈥淲e had been thinking about leaving Russia for several years, but it didn鈥檛 work out,鈥� Vika tells me.

鈥淲e spent most of the pandemic in our small rented apartment in Moscow, and it was very hard. The

borders were closed. By the summer of 2021 we decided that we would buy an apartment in Moscow,

refurbish it, live in it for two years, and then rent it out. With this money we would rent something

somewhere else.鈥�



That鈥檚 what they did. They took out a mortgage and started the renovations. The first contractor Vika

found took a large advance payment but by January of this year told her that he had run through all the

money, had nothing left to pay the workers, and wasn鈥檛 skilled enough to do the work himself. Vika

found another contractor, who estimated the repair work would cost an extra 900,000 rubles ($12,000).

On February 20鈥攆our days before the war鈥攈e began the work.



The new apartment wasn鈥檛 Vika鈥檚 and Mark鈥檚 only financial burden. Earlier in February a block of

snow from the roof of the house fell on their 鈥渇irst and only鈥� family car, severely damaging it. With

COVID-19 on the resurgence, the government was once again talking about introducing QR codes in

restaurants to limit patrons to those who have been vaccinated, and Mark, a food photographer, was

again at risk of being left without income. 鈥淏y the end of February, I had been taking antidepressants

for a month,鈥� says Vika. They helped: 鈥淢y condition somehow stabilized and I began sleeping again.鈥�



I ask if they had read the news about Ukraine in January and February, if it scared them. 鈥淚 read the

news, but experts said there would be no war, that maybe there would be a blitzkrieg, something like

in Crimea in 2014,鈥� Vika says. 鈥淏ut I also followed some small groups on Facebook where people

discussed where to flee if the war started. In a way, I pitied them. I thought: those poor people who

have the opportunity to flee somewhere.鈥� She didn鈥檛 have that option, financially or otherwise, so she

didn鈥檛 even need to worry about it. To her, 鈥渆migration had to be thought through so that the quality of

life would not suffer.鈥�



On February 24鈥攖he morning Putin announced the invasion of Ukraine鈥擬ark woke up at 5 a.m. By

this time Mark was often waking up early and reading the news. 鈥淚 often discussed the news with a

psychotherapist in recent months,鈥� he says. 鈥淯ntil one day the therapist confessed to me that he feels

very lonely, because he alone is for Putin. This worried me and I even thought about ending therapy,

but he had been treating me for two years and we had an excellent connection. So I decided to

continue. We just agreed that we wouldn鈥檛 discuss the news anymore.鈥�



Over the next three days, as Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, Mark had a gig shooting a lot of food

for a catering firm. 鈥淚 couldn't look at the plates,鈥� he says. 鈥淲hat was the purpose of my work right

now? I did not understand what I was doing. I didn鈥檛 understand how to go on living. It鈥檚 as if you are

driving as always but there is no longer a road under you.鈥�



On February 27, Vika went to an antiwar rally. 鈥淚t was the first time in my life that I went to an

unauthorized rally. I took an old baby sheet, because it can be hidden quickly and easily, and wrote on

it: 鈥楴o war.鈥� I took this sheet from my baby鈥檚 crib and wrote these words on it because I wanted my

children to wake up in a different Russia one day,鈥� Vika tells me. 鈥淚 packed a backpack for an

overnight detention: a cellphone charge battery pack, pills, a copy of my passport, a spare t-shirt.鈥�

More than 1,000 people were detained at the rally that day. Crowds of black uniformed special forces

swept through, detaining everyone they could lay their hands on, Vika recalled. 鈥淭hey told me: Girl,

you step aside. I decided that it was a sign for me to go home.鈥� That evening, Mark and Vika met with

their friends鈥攖wo families with children鈥攖o discuss the situation. That was the night Mark told Vika

about friends who had left for Nepal and they had a fight.



On the morning of February 28, Vika woke up and realized that she hadn鈥檛 been able to breathe

normally for a week, that she couldn鈥檛 even cook pasta for the children, and that Mark seemed to be in

a similar state. While Mark helped their son get ready for kindergarten, Vika asked him how much

money he had in his bank account and said she would look for tickets to Nepal.



Why Nepal? I ask Vika. She says, 鈥渂ecause if there is a nuclear war, neither Georgia, nor Armenia,

nor Istanbul鈥濃�攑laces where most Russians have fled to in recent months鈥斺�渋s going to save us. They

are too close. I wanted to go as far as possible. Also, we didn鈥檛 have any visas.鈥�



Vika began to look for tickets and saw the prices rise with every passing minute. It was the day when

the dollar rose sharply. There was a lot of talk about closing the borders. By the time Vika made all the

decisions she needed to make, the only affordable tickets left were for March 6. Vika paid 206,000

rubles (about $1,500) for four tickets. She used the last part of the loan taken out to renovate their new

apartment to make the purchase.



Vika and Mark spent the next three days collecting things from their rented apartment and moving

them to a spare room in Vika鈥檚 grandmother鈥檚 apartment. Vika鈥檚 dad promised to take care of the

renovations. Mark took their cat to his mother. When Vika gave away all 33 of their house plants, six-

year-old Hannah cried and said that though she didn鈥檛 like the rented apartment, now she was ready to

live there, and could they please not give plants away and not go anywhere.



When they moved in with Vika's parents for the last few days before departure, three-year-old Joseph

asked if they could go back home already. 鈥淲e no longer have a home,鈥� Vika told him. 鈥淎ll the days

before departure we were on an anti-anxiety drug,鈥� Vika says.



Mark started to hunt for foreign currency. Every day he checked a map of banks and drove to the ones

whose ATMs showed they had dollars and euros. But each time, he was too late: all the hard currency

had been withdrawn by the time he got there. So he began to travel to ATMs outside of Moscow

before they opened for the day. By the time they left, he had managed to fish out all the money they

had in their accounts.



In Kathmandu, Vika, Mark, and the kids spent several days renting a house for $10 a day, then rented

two rooms in the city of Pokhara. According to Nepal鈥檚 rules, they can spend 90 days in the country.

鈥淲e are surrounded with incredible beauty,鈥� Mark says, 鈥渂ut I can鈥檛 get out of my head a phrase that I

read the other day from someone who, like us now, lives in a beautiful place: 鈥業t鈥檚 hell that looks like

heaven.鈥� Incredible beauty outside and incredible horror inside.鈥�



They are now trying to figure out their next move. 鈥淲e will not go to Europe,鈥� Vika says. 鈥淓urope

will be investing all it has into helping Ukraine and rebuilding it, and rightly so. We are not in such a

dire situation.鈥� Vika and Mark are considering Argentina. They could have a child there. A child born

in Argentina automatically becomes an Argentine citizen. The parents receive a residence permit, and

after two years, it can be converted into citizenship. 鈥淲e wanted to have another child anyway. For

the sake of a new citizenship, we can speed things up,鈥� says Vika and laughs.

The opinions expressed in this article are those solely of the authors and do not reflect the views of the Kennan Institute.