Let's Talk About Life in Russia

Are the people there happy about what's happening?

It’s a gorgeous building. In the winter it almost looks like a Gingerbread House! It’s situated on the Red Square in Moscow, near to the Kremlin. | Photo by Nikita Karimov on Unsplash

One benefit of the modern world is that the borders between maps are no longer barriers to knowledge. Thanks to the internet and our incredible technological infrastructure, we’re able to hold daily conversations with people living all across the planet.

This is unprecedented in history. Our ability to connect, talk, share stories and get to know people is virtually unlimited — even language barriers can be overcome via translation AI. It’s not perfect, but it can get you through the basics.

With the aid of these incredible advancements in global communication, I have gotten to know people from all over the world.

I know people from Ireland who speak fluent Gaeilge. I know people from Lebanon, Pakistan and India. I have friends and in-laws from Portugal and Brazil. New Zealand, China, Somalia, Ethiopia, Germany — I can make friends anywhere!

I married a man who was born in the United States, and we’ve carried on a long-distance relationship over the border — made possible by technology.

I even know people from Russia and Ukraine.

Mentioning those two countries in the same breath almost always brings up mention of the war — which is fair. The destruction in Ukraine is horrific, and the people there are very much the underdogs fighting against an aggressive tyrant in the form of Putin.

His government is a ghoulish collection of wannabe-conquerers who’re backing a psychopathic dictator with a lust for greater power.

With that said, though, no country is a monolith. We tend to demonize countries and their citizens based on the actions of their government, entirely forgetting that in a dictatorial regime like Putin’s Russia, the people likely don’t love what’s happening either.

Do you think all of the people of Israel are in favour of murdering Palestinians? There are protests against the genocide in Israel every day. Do you think the people of North Korea are happy living in terror, fearful of putting a foot wrong and catching a bullet as a consequence? If so, why do so many attempt to flee the country?

We know that many Americans are miserable and terrified as their democracy backslides into fascism before their eyes, so why would anyone assume that all Russians are happy with Putin?

It’s possible that many of them not only hate the war in Ukraine, but they would love to actively revolt and put an end to the conflict. In fact, many have already tried. Putin made protesting the war illegal — there have been mass arrests and media censorship to keep it under wraps.

Just because the government is perpetrating a horrific, uncalled-for war in Ukraine, that doesn’t mean that the average Russian citizen is on board.

It also doesn’t mean that their lives are good back home. In many cases, their situation is pretty dire.

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My stepfather’s late mother gifted a lovely matryoshka doll to my mother some years ago. She had a thing for yard sales, and she bought it from a Russian-Canadian lady near where she lived. | Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash

As a general rule, the average person in a dictatorial regime like Russia can enjoy a relatively normal life.

We often imagine such countries to be dystopian nightmares where people stand in lines for porridge and the streets are full of trash. We imagine grinding poverty and brutal police, people clinging to the shadows to avoid being noticed and praying nobody knocks on their door in the middle of the night.

In reality, daily life under dictatorship is surprisingly banal on the surface.

People go to work, they bring in a paycheck, they buy groceries. They go out to eat, they hang out with their friends, they raise families. Homes have heat, hot water and electricity. People have access to the internet and most people own a television.

It doesn’t look all that different from here.

Under the surface though, they’re missing something fundamental that most of us in North America — at least, some parts of North America — take for granted.

Freedom. The promise of a fair and equitable justice system. The right to make decisions about who you want to marry and live with, without persecution. Freedom of the press, and access to untainted information.

It’s a situation that people in the United States can empathize with, especially now.

The people of Russia are not monsters; they’re just people who didn’t get a choice in where they were born, and who happen to be unable or unwilling to leave their country. And frankly, they shouldn’t have to. It’s horrible to be forced to flee your home.

The ideal is not to be forced to run; it’s for conditions in your country to improve.

Unfortunately, that’s a difficult proposition in a nation like Russia. Unlike more democratic countries elsewhere in the world, there’s no real room for dissent or protest in Russia. There’s very little opportunity for civic engagement or political action that goes against the grain.

It’s not that the people of Russia are in favour of everything Putin is doing, especially in Ukraine. It’s that they simply don’t have the right to express their concerns freely. Like I mentioned before; it’s illegal to protest the war in Ukraine, and the news around protests is heavily censored.

The law is quite strict. To quote the article linked above:

Russia’s war censorship laws, introduced in March 2022, banned people from criticising Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. They branded calls against war crimes by Russian forces as “fakes” or “discrediations” of the Russian Armed Forces. Under the new censorship laws, these actions can be met with a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

The laws led to an exodus of independent media and activists from Russia and a crackdown on any form of anti-war dissent. Even calling the war “a war” instead of a “special military operation” is considered a crime.

People in Russia continue to protest against the war in Ukraine. However, the Russian authorities are determined to shut them down completely. In 2023 the number and length of prison sentences for anti-war posts on social media increased. In 2024, a new law was introduced to allow confiscation of the property of people who were charged under the war censorship laws. — Amnesty International

People in Russia are protesting. And then they’re being arrested, sentenced to prison, and news about them is being surpressed so that people both within and outside of the country have no idea what’s going on.

Those Russians who do know about it are understandably intimidated and many are choosing to keep their heads down and go about their business instead of voicing their concerns.

The consequences for speaking up are quite serious. They don’t want to be targeted by a police force and prison system known for brutality. Death in police custody is extremely common throughout Russia, and there’s very little oversight or investigation.

In a dictatorship, dissent can be a death sentence.

This is why people are protesting so hard in the U.S. They do not want to be living under a system like Russia’s oligarchy. | Photo by Meg on Unsplash

On top of the inability to freely dissent, there are a lot of policy problems in Russia that contribute to a lack of liberty.

For one thing, the laws around LGBTQ+ identities and freedom of expression are atrocious. Currently, openly showing support for LGBTQ+ people — let alone being LGBTQ+ yourself — can be very illegal. Displaying a Pride flag in public, even just through social media posts, can get you a visit from law enforcement and a hefty fine.

Naturally, this has something of a chilling effect. As we know, getting snatched by the police in Russia is a terrifying proposition.

Freedom of the press is also non-existent. Constant censorship, oversight by the state, a lack of independence and even suspected assassinations bury journalists and media companies under stress.

As we know, when the state controls the information you get to hear, it’s very difficult to build any form of collective resistance to authoritarian control.

Combine that with the fear of death or mutilation at the hands of the police, and you have a potent mix. It makes people afraid to speak out.

And to top it off, if you have a family to feed, you really can’t risk getting caught up in anything that can take you away from them. Much like here in North America, Russia has its own economic problems — particularly with the sanctions imposed on it by other countries.

Making ends meet when one of your sources of income is being dragged away to prison is not easy.

Keeping your head down is safer, both for you and your loved ones. I would love to see sustained resistance and an overthrow of the authoritarian regime, but I also can’t judge them for holding back.

This is a true rock-and-a-hard-place situation.

I have to give Russia credit for its architecture. Seriously impressive! | Photo by Victor Malyushev on Unsplash

It’s easy to demonize an entire community when you know very little about them or how they live.

Especially when all of the information you get about said community is viewed through a heavily skewed lens.

Russians are painted as being pro-war, pro-authoritarianism and anti-gay as a whole, as if the nation is a monolith and the people all agree. That’s just plain silly. Humans don’t work like that, and disagreement and discontent is a given.

People in Russia are just like the people of Canada and the United States. There are cultural differences, sure. But they’re as human as any others, with the capacity for empathy and a desire for freedom and justice.

When we criticize a government like Putin’s, we have to be careful not to assume that everyone within the country supports them or wants what they’re doing. It’s incredibly unfair to say that it’s their fault because they didn’t revolt — especially when the act of revolution can literally get you killed.

If we want to be angry at others for lacking compassion, we have to make an effort not to fall into that same pit. Empathy goes both ways.

We don’t empathize with monsters. But we damn sure empathize with people. You can speak out against the war in Ukraine, and say that the Russian people deserve better than what they have.

You can, and should, care about more than one thing.

Solidarity wins.

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