Yaroslav is different from most 23-year-olds as he sits at the table and eats chicken soup. Yes, he seems young, but he’s also feeling anxious, like Vladimir Putin is still causing him stress.
Yaroslav used to live a quiet life with his mom and sister in the suburbs of Moscow, working at a store that sells old books. But now he had to start a new life in Georgia, and it hasn’t been easy.
In Russia, students are being pulled out of their classes and dorms, and raids are happening at vegetable warehouses, mosques, and on the streets where young men who are old enough for the military are being taken to sign up for service.
With Putin’s war in Ukraine going on for two winters now, many people like Yaroslav have left to avoid being drafted into the army. Georgia is an easy place for Russians to go because they don’t need a visa to enter or work there.
Many people decide to leave their country and go to another country by plane, train, bus, or car because they are afraid they might be forced to join Putin’s large army.
After eating soup at Shavi Lomi restaurant in Tbilisi, Yaroslav told the media about how he escaped from his home country.
How Yaroslav got away from Russia.
“Many people wanted to leave, so there were long lines at all the borders,” he remembers.
There were about 10 miles of cars waiting at the border with Kazakhstan where I was. The issue was that I couldn’t walk or ride a bike across, and I didn’t have a car.
I met a family from Uzbekistan who let me go with them after a while. I had to give them a lot of money – all of my pay. Around 60,000 Russian Rubles or 750 British Pounds. It took three days to get to the other side.
Yaroslav is half Ukrainian and has lived in Russia his whole life. He was lucky because his boss at the bookstore helped him escape.
He planned everything and he bought all the tickets. Due to the long wait at the border, I missed my plane to Tbilisi. When I finally crossed the border, I had to stay in Kazakhstan for about two weeks.
Yaroslav left Russia soon after they started calling people to join the army, in early October 2022.
He lived near the Kremlin and saw the unhappiness in the city when Putin said he was going to invade.
Talking to his Ukrainian dad, who fought in a long and bloody battle in Donetsk Oblast, helped him understand his political and moral beliefs.
Yaroslav was very mad at the Russian government, so he joined protests against war to show how he felt. But he was arrested right away.
A video showed police pulling him away by his arms and legs and it was shown on Russian state TV and online.
Yaroslav was scared of going to prison or being sent to the frontline, so he decided to leave his family in Moscow.
It took him a long time to stop worrying about Putin’s influence, but he finds it hard to talk about his feelings of leaving his old life and moving to Tbilisi.
“We live close to the train station in Moscow, and I often see soldiers getting on the trains to go to Ukraine,” he says.
“It was really scary and crazy, and it happened during my last few months living in Russia. ”
“I knew they were going to the dangerous place where they could hurt my dad or my friends from Kyiv. ”
‘Maybe I could have put a bomb on the train tracks, but then I would definitely go to jail and the tracks would be fixed and the train would keep going. ‘
Yaroslav says, “Every day I lived in Russia after the invasion started, I wanted to scream. ” I kept my pain a secret. I couldn’t do or say anything in public or express my opinion in any way. It is crazy.
“Because people are scared, you shouldn’t criticize them. ” When I crossed the border, I felt free for the first time. This is when I realized how much stress I was feeling in my life.
I feel protected in Georgia. I’m not scared of the police here. In Russia, I was worried about getting arrested every day.
Living in Georgia.
For the past year, Yaroslav has been living in Tbilisi. He has been missing home and now even misses the winters in Moscow.
“He said it might sound strange because he always disliked the cold in Russia, but he now realized that he misses it. ” “It’s kind of funny what you end up missing. ”
He ran away when the border was easier to cross and the government was still trying to follow the Kremlin’s commands.
Go to the forest, a secret group made at the beginning of the mobilization, helps people like Yaroslav to avoid being forced to join the army, find safety in other countries, and not have to fight in the war in Ukraine.
“We want to help as many people as we can to not use guns,” said the NGO on their website. They also said that they have helped 21,594 people in the past 15 months.
Idite Lesom means “Go by the forest” but it’s used to mean “Go f**k yourself”. Those already sent to the front line are a top priority.
Darya Berg, who leads relief and evacuations, left Russia and now works in Tbilisi. She says, “We offer help to people in danger, but we don’t force them to do anything. ”
For instance, we talked to a man on the frontline who wants to leave but doesn’t know what to do or where to go.
We need to tell him about options, but it’s up to him to choose – like giving up to the Ukrainian military, or hurting himself so he can go to the hospital and go back to Russia.
We are showing him how to leave the area in case of an emergency and getting him a passport from another country because he doesn’t have one.
‘If caught, the punishment is severe – nearly 10 years in jail – and we make sure people know about it. ‘
Not many desertion cases go to court. Usually, men are just sent back to the battlefield.
Trying everything to get away from the war.
Darya says that many soldiers, who she calls “military slaves,” often hurt themselves so they can leave the battle.
“One of the first cases I remember was when an officer called me from a hospital and said that he asked his friend to shoot him,” she remembers.
“They both hurt each other’s legs by shooting. ” I was surprised at first, but now it happens a lot. He is in a secure place in the north part of Russia.
“Joining the military in Russia”
When Putin’s attack didn’t go as planned and he had to increase his army in September, the NGO got a lot of requests for help on their Telegram bot which is run by volunteers.