A ballerina has confirmed the fact that I will never visit Russia.
Am I bothered? Not overly, although I would have enjoyed seeing the architectural glories of St Petersburg.
Other than that, I view Russia as an evil empire on a par with China, North Korea, and Iran, and they’re not on my bucket list either.
This summer, a Russian court sentenced amateur ballerina Ksenia Karelina to 12 years in a penal colony for treason. Karelina, who has dual American and Russian citizenship, had donated $51.80 (about £39) to a charity that provides humanitarian aid to Ukraine.
As my blog readers know, I was appalled by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine 31 years after it became an independent and sovereign state. And yes, I’ve donated money to support Ukraine many times since then and will continue to do so.
If you think I would be safe as a British citizen, I would reply, ‘Don’t be naive.’ It might not be termed treason, but Russia would happily find another excuse to imprison me or anyone else they viewed as an enemy.
All we can hope for Karelina, who just wanted to visit her family and not cause trouble, is that eventually, she will be released in exchange for some Russian spy. I dread to think what she will suffer in the meantime; Russian prisons are not known for their salubrious conditions.
Russia and its precursor, the Soviet Union, are often in my mind. Partly, it’s because I follow the war in Ukraine daily and feel appalled at the pusillanimous response of the West to their plight. The war could have been over by now if we hadn’t forced the Ukrainians to fight with one hand tied behind their backs. We must give them the right to use the weapons they already possess to stop Russian aggression where it starts, in Russia itself.
There is so much more at stake here than just Ukraine's freedom. If we let Putin win, then we in the West are finished. Every dictator and their allies will know they only have to mention nuclear weapons, and we’ll crawl back down into our hole and let them do what they want. There is a risk in standing up to bullies, but I’m convinced we need to take it.
The other reason for thinking about the Russians is more personal. In No Going Back, I concentrated on my mother’s story and described what her life was like under the Nazis. But let’s not forget that the other half of Poland was invaded by Russia, whose henchmen carried out atrocities every bit as harrowing.
The Russians murdered my grandfather in the forest at Katyn, one of the thousands of Polish intelligentsia who had their hands tied behind them and were shot in the back of the head. In the book, I have my mother tell her interrogator that he was one of three thousand Poles because, at the time, that was the only number she would have known. In fact, the massacre at Katyn numbered 22,000 Poles.
In the book, I also mention my mother’s cousin, Alicja. Although my mother never liked her, after her death, I came to know my aunt a little better, and the story she told me of her arrest and interrogation by the NKVD or Russian secret police during the war would make a fascinating short story.
I’m not a fan of short stories, but seeing this one lost to history would be a shame. What do you think? Shall I go ahead and write it?
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