Emigration
We continue to introduce you to young writers—and this time we are talking with Yulya Artsiomova. A writer, feminist, and refugee born in Minsk who today lives in Otwock, Poland, Yulya is the author of the book “I Am the Revolution” and is currently finishing an autofiction novel about emigration and life in Ukraine from 2021–2024—the period when she found herself there due to political persecution.
Six months after she moved, a full-scale war began in the country, and Yulya, along with her family, remained in Ukraine for two years. We are publishing the fifth chapter from her upcoming book.
Chapter 5. So, I Am a Refugee
On one of those difficult days, an old friend wrote to me. A very old friend. One of those old friends who has known me since I was a teenager. We hadn’t spoken for several years and had reconnected just a couple of months before I left Minsk. Old Friend—that’s probably what I’ll call him from now on—knew the story of my forced emigration. He knew about my participation in the protests, about Roma being killed, about the search, about how I crossed the border. And Old Friend writes to me sluggishly every three days just to perform the routine check-in of asking how I’m doing. I answer sparingly: “Everything is fine.” Which, of course, means that everything is not fine, but is it worth dumping my mundane struggles and the heaviness of these days on an innocent person? It’s how you answer your mother when you don’t want to go into details. Old Friend, of course, didn’t write to me to stay updated on my life; he wrote in the hope of an interesting conversation. Before I even have time to send my routine “everything is fine,” he sends me a message several paragraphs long. Look, he says, I’ve read the novel by writer S. that you recommended back when I was physically in Minsk—that is, in a past life, a month ago. Old Friend liked the novel by writer S. so much that he read his other books too—Yulya, you’re right, writer S. is exceptionally good! By the way, have you read his latest novel?
The sun shines mercilessly through the window, a white beam like a shard of glass from a fairy tale hits my eye, responding with a sting, pain, and tears. Through them, I re-read the blurred, dancing letters on the screen several times, trying to find something human in them, but without success. It feels like I was chatting with ChatGPT even before ChatGPT ever existed. I take a deep breath of the stifling July air, dry to the point of cracking, and I write.
Listen, I say. Listen, I write. Listen—though at that moment no one hears me, only Andrei in the next room surely notices how desperately, angrily, rhythmically I drum my fingers on the keys.
listen i write i don’t give a flying fuck about all the books in the world
about all the existential complexities
about all the author’s stylistic flourishes
about the novelties of the literary market
about old novels
about new novels
about writer S.
about writer M.
and even about writer D.
about the unbearable lightness of being about everything you say i don’t give a fuck i’ve completely stopped looking like myself everything that interested me before everything that i was before none of that is left i didn’t take it with me in my little refugee backpack
there was no room in it for books
for being “cultured”
for puffing out my cheeks
for philosophizing
for reflecting
for discussing other people’s little books
“You know,” Old Friend replies almost immediately, “excuse my bluntness, but lately you’ve become so toxic, it’s impossible to discuss anything with you. Did moving change you that much? Everything I say is unimportant to you, boring, you cast it aside like trash. You brush me off like an annoying fly. What are you even interested in? Why should I have to entertain you?”
I spend a long time typing a response, typing and erasing, typing and sending, then immediately deleting it, starting to type again. Sometimes the sun goes behind a cloud for a short while, but its beam still holds me in its crosshairs. I breathe fitfully, as if I’ve been punched in the gut. Here’s the news: it turns out I’m interested in nothing, I’m impossible to talk to, I’ve become some kind of narrow-minded, obsessed philistine! The move changed me! I need to be entertained—so that’s it!
I slam the laptop lid shut—there will be no answer. I’m snapping at a person who isn’t to blame for the fact that I had to flee my home.
You’re damn right, Old Fucking Friend, I’m not interested in anything anymore, my life has been reduced to searching for a home, what the hell do books matter, what the hell do stylistic flourishes matter, what fucking literature, what texts. You’re right, the move changed me—it’s not that I moved, it’s that I was run over by the move.
I open the laptop again. In its black screen, as in an evil mirror, my face is reflected—tear-stained, thin, gray, exhausted, ugly, honest. I look the way I feel—unattractive, dry, squeezed into a ball. Only my body is left of me, like the core left of an apple.
Right now, I desperately want to be beautiful, but I can’t even get enough sleep, I can’t comb my hair with my comfortable brush that I left in Minsk. I remember how a week ago Natasha wrote in the chat that she was looking for a manicure and eyelash master. I laughed then—how stupid, you just arrived, you need to find an apartment, a job, money, discounted pots, and you’re thinking about some stupid eyelashes and nails!
And now I want eyelashes myself, I want a dress, to shave my legs not with a cheap disposable razor that leaves bloody notches on my ankle; I want there to be something non-essential in me, something not so necessary for survival, something beautiful and meaningless.
— So go and buy yourself a damn dress, buy whatever you want! Buy a normal cream, buy a comb, buy bath foam, finally buy a normal razor.
— I don’t have the money.
— You have money!
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— This money isn’t for that, this money is for breathing.
In the side pocket of my backpack is $800; this money is my oxygen tank. I count it every day—the sum doesn’t change, but it feels like it’s constantly running out. I breathe economically because I know—if the money ends, I end too. I’ve never been mercenary, but now I’m only interested in money. I can’t talk about anything else, I can’t think about anything else, I can’t, I don’t want to, I don’t know how. I’m disgusted that I’m so obsessed with prices. Smoked red fish—220 hryvnias, oh my God, in Minsk the same thing cost thirty percent less!
I feel sick from what I’m writing now. Writing about food as something important—didn’t we understand in 2020 what is truly important? We went out for that “important” thing, we were shot at with rubber bullets for it, stun grenades were thrown at us, we were beaten and thrown into cells for that “important” thing. That important thing wasn’t money, or food, or trips to far-off countries, or a beautiful life—that important thing was a naked, immaterial idea. That important thing was dignity. And it was so great to feel like a person of ideas, a person of principles, a person of high, beautiful words. But having fallen from the top step of Maslow’s hierarchy, you stand in a grocery store and sob over a piece of shitty red fish, as if all your notions of a prosperous life were now concentrated in it. “Human”—it has a proud ring to it; “Refugee”—it sounds pathetic and humiliating.
Food—for the body. Clothing—for the body. A comb—for the body. Not a book, goddamn it, not a magazine, not a museum ticket.
This is probably what it means to be a refugee—to stop being yourself, to stop being the person from your past life. Once you could be anyone—smart, talented, ambitious; now you’re just a poor soul with soot smeared across your face. Where the hell did the soot come from? It came from the fact that your house burned down, your past life burned down, your texts, everything turned into dust and ashes. It’s gone. It’s gone and it won’t come back, gone and won’t come back, gone and won’t come back.
Some proud people hide behind the word “relocant.” I even understand them—”refugee” sounds pathetic, and few are ready to manifest their own wretchedness. The only thing that survived the fire, didn’t burn, didn’t disappear, the only thing left of me-the-writer is the ability to choose words precisely, the desire to call things by their names. I didn’t “change my location,” I lost my home. And that means no synonyms, no euphemisms—I am a refugee, a woman with soot on a thin, haggard face. If I hang this word on myself, if I claim it, no one will be able to hurt me with it.
Being hurt right now is all too easy. Friends write various things. But mostly, acquaintances and those not very close write, and they all write that I will surely return—it’s a way of saying “everything will be okay.” The person just wants to get rid of you, even though you aren’t bothering them. But they seem to see it like this: here you are, dumping your pain like a rotting wound; what do you want from them, what answers, what meanings? Just take it away, everything will be fine, you’ll return and I’ll return too. It’s like tossing a coin into the hat of a beggar asking for alms.
Others write:
– Better in emigration than in prison.
That’s true, I won’t even argue there. It’s my only argument in conversations with myself.
I don’t know what I want to hear, I don’t know what words can calm me. None, of course, because I don’t intend to be calmed. I snatch random photos of Minsk from social media—for instance, the courtyards on Novovilenskaya, the fields in Novinki, the Military Cemetery, Komsa. I look at them until my nose begins to sting (it only takes 2–3 seconds). My wound is large and fresh; I don’t let it heal. Every day I tear off the scab that managed to form overnight. I tear it off with conversations, tears, and photographs. I ask a friend who lives in Osmolovka to take a photo of the view from her window for me.
Zhenya says: what if you don’t want to go back?
I will want to; I will want it for the rest of my life.
You won’t be able to live forever with only this desire; you’ll have new friends, new favorite places, new walking routes, Zhenya continues.
Nothing will appear; I won’t let it appear. Just let them try—I’ll weed out those sprouts as soon as they show on the surface. But they won’t try—things appear where there is a void, where the heart is free for a new love, but my heart is occupied.
In response, Zhenya just shakes her head, but I don’t see it: Zhenya is in Minsk, we are talking on the phone.
An acquaintance, D., writes on Facebook: “Three months ago I left for Georgia. Do I miss Minsk? I don’t know, I don’t understand what it means to miss a city: to miss houses, streets, the executive committee building, or the KGB? Then, of course, I don’t miss it. But Minsk to me isn’t houses, parks, trams, or the metro; Minsk is the people, it’s all of you. And I miss you, friends, very much, but I believe we will definitely meet again on this planet.”
“What nonsense!” I think. I don’t miss the people; I miss exactly the houses, yes, even the executive committee building, the places, the way you walk past the Botanical Garden, for example, and remember how when you were eight, your dad took you this way to the swimming pool, and how I hated swimming, but if it was warm, sometimes after class we would go into Chelyuskintsev Park and ride the Super Eight; or another time you remember how you skipped school on Saturdays in that same Botanical Garden, how thousands of flowers bloomed there in May, especially the tulip beds in every shade imaginable; or how Anton and I sat there on a bench until late, until dark, and then a watchman accidentally found us and let us out through the back gate, thinking we were just foolish lovers, and we were foolish and in love.
That’s what I miss, of course—not my dad, not school friends, not Anton (good lord, where is he now? I hope he’s at least not in prison). It’s that possibility—to pass by any place in Minsk and have memory randomly pull a memory from its warm velvet interior—from age five to thirty-five—and you never know which one it will be.
From conversation to conversation, I drag the same thing—it’s for a year and a half or two, we’ll live here for a bit, and then at the first opportunity we’ll return to Minsk. I skillfully maneuver time periods; a year and a half or two sounds long enough (I’m afraid to fall into optimism) but more or less bearable (where do I see myself in five years? As a Minsker). Every newly-minted emigrant operates within their own terms.
I don’t say six months to a year—that’s too naive, stupid, and stupidity in such a serious matter angers me.
I don’t say five years—a round number, but that’s practically the term between two presidential elections, and it’s insanely long. “I’ll return in five years” sounds the same as “I’ll never return.”
I might never return—it sounds like a shiv pushed between the ribs. A sharp, piercing pain, loss of breath, darkness in the eyes. No, no, no, I’ll return of course. I’ll do everything to return.
That, perhaps, is the main thing that distinguishes a refugee. Not the soot on the face, not the clothes from someone else’s shoulder, not the obsession with the petty, earthly, material. It’s this tunnel vision, where you see only your home, only a scene from a movie where you return, walk to the border on foot, cry, kiss the ground, smear it on your face, and, mixing with tears, it turns into clay. And—most importantly—you don’t want any new life, you don’t want to want a new life, a new home. You want to be the one who always strives to return home. Who will always live by this. This is now, perhaps, the most important part of your identity, and you won’t give it up, because that would mean betraying yourself and betraying the idea of your beautiful, triumphant return.
Old Friend will write to me in a couple of weeks.
– So, how are you? Is it easier? – Old Friend will ask.
By then I will already be living in a brown apartment, eating sandwiches with red fish for 220 hryvnias for breakfast, I will have become a little softer—the edges of my new identity will have smoothed out, polished by the insincere sympathy of others.
I’ll answer him something, something sweet and neutral, maybe I’ll even apologize for being a bit sharp.
– You understand, I was going through a difficult period in my life.
– I understand, – Old Friend will answer. – Но is everything okay now?
– No. You don’t understand, – I’ll think, but instead, I’ll write:
– Everything is fine.
Our friendship will have a couple of weeks left at most.
Yulya Artsiomova