Staunton, Sept. 16 – The Horizontal Russia portal often tells the stories of non-Russians in the form of comic strips. Its latest traces the life of a 39-year-old Buryat man who did not learn his national language, felt out of place in Buryatia and in Moscow, but then found a home as a Buryat in the United States.
Below is an informal translation of the text of this cartoon strip, but readers are encouraged to go to the original to view the striking illustrations (semnasem.org/articles/2024/09/16/nerusskij-mir-buryat-vladislav-polyubil-oshushenie-inakovosti-tolko-kogda-uehal-iz-rf):
Vladislav values and loves his culture and supports its traditions, but it has turned out that it is simpler to do that abroad than at home. His life in Russia and especially in Moscow was full of fears, for his life, for a roof over his head, for work.
I was born in Ulan-Ude in Buryatiya. I never learned the Buryat language because my mother didn’t teach it to me. When she came from the village to the city and entered a teacher training academy there, they laughed at her because she spoke Russian with an accent. So that I might not have such problems, my mother spoke with me only in Russian.
Even now people in the city don’t speak Buryat. The language remains only in the villages. I studied in an ordinary school where there were no lessons in Buryat. When I left Ulan-Ude, all the signs there were in Russian.
In 2014, I moved to Moscow. I wanted to see something of the bigger world. I had to live somewhere and therefore I agreed to look at a room owned by an elderly woman. When she found out that I was a Buryat, she refused to rent me the room. At that time, there were many signs saying that their owners would rent “only to Slavs.” Then I went to a forum of the Buryat people and rented a room from one of my co-ethnics.
In Moscow you begin to sense your differences from other Muscovites. And this sense is both defensive and frightening. You at any moment unconsciously feel that people may treat you badly just because you are non-Russian and don’t look like a Slav.
I found a job as a dispatcher for Aeroflot at Sheremetyevo. My “non-Russian” appearance constantly led to conflicts with passengers. Often they complained about my looks, and onetime I had an argument with one passenger about baggage and he replied “who are you, some Korean?
At work, I made friends with a Kyrgyz guy. Our boss came and said to us: “What are you doing? You don’t need to organize a landsman group here.” We stayed quiet and didn’t point out to our boss that Buryats and Kyrgyz are different peoples. It was offensive that she didn’t even make a distinction.
Once I was going home from work on the bus. One of the stops was near a football stadium. After a match, a large group of fans got on. I was terrified when they began to shout nationalist slogans. I knew that such football fans could be aggressive and even beat people of other nationalities.
Being aware of my ethnic background became acceptable when I moved to the US in 2017. There is racism in the US, but people struggle with it, and people are afraid to display it openly. In the US, I made friends with Buryats because Buryat culture is very traditional and we try to maintain ties with a very large number of relatives. Even here in another country.
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