Have you ever considered emigrating? For as long as I can remember, in the company this question has always been uttered in semitones, as if it was a question of sexual perversion. In response, the most dramatic oil paintings came to us on the same halftones.
For example: “Seraphim says: “I am the wife of a Comrade Minister of Trade. I’m stuck in St. Petersburg, and my husband is already in the Crimea. I run to him. Here are fake documents, and here is a real passport. My last name is Korzukhina1.
Or like this: “Each departing person is entitled to three suitcases. That is the established norm. There is a special order of the ministry.” There was no point in protesting. But I, of course, objected: “Only three suitcases?! What about things? — «For example?» “Like my race car collection?” “Sell,” the official replied without delving into it.2.
Half-mad Bulgakov’s Khludov. Or Dovlatov’s only suitcase allowed for export. The evil eyes of a customs officer. Half-starved writers of Berlin. The ship, hung with passengers, heads for Constantinople. In short, emigration in our tradition is not just a change of place of residence with a container and a family, but some kind of tectonic shift in fate, for which you still have to find a worthy justification — which, in fact, our confused brain is mostly busy with.
- Emigration: what would you say to yourself before leaving?
Of course, we carry all our problems with us from country to country, from marriage to marriage, from office to office — and you should not expect that a change in circumstances will solve them for us. My old friend Lena all the way violently arranged her personal life in her homeland. She continued the same occupation in America, aggravating its drama with local color and language barriers. Next marriages cracked like canyons during a drought! It was worth the move! But we somehow forget that you can emigrate not out of need or out of protest, but for completely innocent reasons. One young Russian IT couple moved to Israel, because, you see… dreadlocks didn’t fit under their hats! And they went to give birth in India, because it is cheaper there. They didn’t have any close relatives abroad, but somehow they found some close and just acquaintances who were ready to help with housing, work and children (there are already three of them). And they (this most desperate couple) — not for a moment forgetting their dear parents, favorite books and everything that we associate with the root system — never felt marginalized. On the contrary, they are immensely free people.
It seemed to me that today, when borders are transparent, the Internet is the head of everything, languages are given from childhood, and food baskets are indistinguishable and mutate only towards kosher, any adventurous citizen can try to live in another country under a different sun. But in our sedentary mentality, lifelong attachment to the native threshold is sacred. Emigration still shines with exile, escapism, almost betrayal — and all this, of course, is above the common denominator of fatal irreversibility.
- «Do not be afraid!» with Anna Arkatova: Don’t be afraid to make mistakes
The European young resident not only does not see this as a problem — moving, looking for work abroad are optionally built into his biography and topography. A man forty years old — he has no plans to buy his own home. What for? Who knows where fate will take? But even middle-aged people, burdened with some housekeeping and obligations, are considering such a zigzag. Grow old in a favorable climate. Move closer to the children. Fully realized in the profession. All of these are worthy reasons for well-known solutions. Of course, money and language freedom give some odds. (Just like money and tongues are a great excuse for not going anywhere.)
Why, then, for some, emigration is one of the aspects of experience, a test of one’s own stability, while for others, stress and nothing more? According to statistics, it takes a person 8 years to get used to a new place. I think, not only to the place — people get used to each other with the same success. incubation period. Not everyone has these 8 years to spare. What is true is true.
But, maybe, if the goal is precisely formulated, then the risks can be assessed in advance?
- Better — where we are not?
1 M. Bulgakov «Running» (Azbuka, 2012).
2 S. Dovlatov «Suitcase» (Azbuka, 2012).