Russians from the Caucasus flee to Asia

The goal is to reach Kazakhstan to avoid ending up on the Ukrainian front. They come from all over Russia, especially from Moscow and St. Petersburg. Many flee from Crimea, annexed in 2014. The “queue business” at border crossings.

Moscow () – After the announcement of the military mobilization, the flight of Russian citizens continues despite increasingly strict measures to prevent it. One of the busiest corridors is the passage from the Caucasus to Kazakhstan, the true border between Europe and Asia, where the queues of cars, motorcycles and simple pedestrians already exceed 20 kilometers and two days of waiting. The truth is that there are no guarantees of being able to cross the border, since at all the border crossings there are guards who check the lists of mobilized persons, and the border posts are organizing themselves for recruitment.

In addition, the categories of fugitives are quite defined. A distinction is made between the “uklonisty” (those who refuse), who look for any excuse not to be enlisted: they feign illness, bribe officers and ignore the call; the “otkazniki” (reluctants), who refuse to fight due to their pacifist and anti-militarist convictions; the “dezertiry”, deserters fleeing military installations or offices where they are identified.

According to the UN criteria, all those who refuse to participate in a conflict condemned by the international community have the right to refugee status. But at the border posts these definitions are questioned.

The Krasnodar province, in the Astrakhan region, which borders the Caspian Sea, is packed with cars with license plates from all over Russia, mainly from Moscow and Saint Petersburg, but also from Rostov-on-Don and Belgorod, the closest Russian cities to the war zones. There are many Crimeans who in the eight years since annexation have not fully developed their loyalty to the Russian “motherland”. The journalists of Krym.Realii they tried to learn the stories of these people who, as expected, are quite reluctant to reveal the details.

There are family groups from Donbass and the provinces that have just been annexed to Russia, who are trying to escape from Crimea. A 55-year-old university graduate, who wishes to remain anonymous, says he once did military service in Ukrainian Crimea. He is originally from Donetsk, and now he is supposed to fight against many of his teammates who are on the opposite side, so he tries to get out of everything and leave all borders behind.

Everyone hopes to feel safer in Kazakhstan, a country where everyone feels at ease, despite a thousand mistrusts and difficulties. In addition, the route from Astrakhan is the cheapest. Even in Georgia, the fees and bribes have become unbearable; in the Caspian you can eat “plov” (Asian risotto) for 500 rubles, a tomato-cucumber salad for 100 rubles and buy a bottle of water for 300, because after two or three days of waiting, food runs out . The Crimeans try to take advantage of the Kerch Bridge, a pride of Putin that the Ukrainians promised to destroy and through which they manage to get closer to the steps of freedom.

The inhabitants of Astrakhan try to cross to the other side. “We were foolish not to have thought of this before,” says a local, “when there weren’t all these queues yet, we thought that the proximity of the borders favored us, and now we are all trapped.” Dmitry, from Rostov, explains that “during the queue we take turns sleeping, so we can spot the policemen in time and hide in the woods, leaving only my aunt and the dogs in the car.” There is also the possibility of having guides who accompany people through 4-5 kilometers of forest: the cost is 2,500 rubles per person. A highly coveted option is to buy a place in the queue less than a kilometer from the border, with a good chance of crossing it: it costs 40,000 rubles, just under $1,000.

In general, in front of the business of food and places in the queue there are people who have struggled in Ukraine, like Danijar, 21: “I came back in August and they still haven’t paid me, they say we have to apply all together and not alone, in the meantime I try to survive as best I can”. However, alongside the “queue professionals”, there are also volunteers, mainly from Buddhist Kalmykia, who organize waiting camps with tents, serving food and offering a place to rest, waiting for better times.