Solyanka 261: A duck friend, social housing for family members, an air purifier, and dirty fun

I haven’t had a chance to sit down at the computer all week, so this “Solyanka” turned out to be quite lengthy — a lot of posts were piling up.

Duck Tale The second episode of the series “Little Stories from Nicole”.

Nicole didn’t want to drink formula from a bottle. She preferred her mother’s milk. However, her doctor uncle said she should drink milk from a bottle too. “But how can I drink it if the formula tastes so bad?!” little Nicole lamented. Her best friend, a duck, came to the rescue. Although she was born a hot-water bottle, she became Nicole’s faithful companion.

The duckling, working with her mom and dad, demonstrated the benefits of bottle-feeding. She drank for a long time, smacking her lips loudly, then quacked contentedly. Afterward, she danced joyfully and sang to the theme music from Walt Disney’s “DuckTales.” After this wonderful mixture, the duckling was simply bursting with energy.

Nicole wisely decided that her best friend wouldn’t give her any bad advice. Following the duck’s example, she began actively drinking formula from the bottle. Then, after refreshing herself, she danced with her best friend to her favorite music. True, Nicole hasn’t yet managed to replicate Michael Jackson’s moonwalk. But the duck promised to teach her.

Entrepreneurial déjà vu

In our case, applying for asylum was the only option. There were many trials and tribulations, but now we’re legally settled in France. But there are some caveats. When applying for asylum, you lose control of a significant part of your life. And it’s very difficult to regain control afterwards.

In our case, this primarily concerns the quality and safety of housing, the neighborhood and city, and the availability of opportunities to realize one’s potential. Solving these problems in the French countryside turned out to be much more difficult than we initially thought. Ultimately, I’m making roughly the same choice as I would in Russia: launching my own project. And, as in Russia, I’m doing it mostly out of desperation.

Because there are no other normal options. Yes, it’s a choice. But it’s a very difficult choice. But I understand that we have no other way to change our lives for the better at this point. With this attitude, you might say, there’s no chance of success! Not at all! I’m not a pessimist. I’m a realist. And a realist with significant experience in various fields. There are some barriers, and I don’t yet know how I’ll overcome them. It’s all very difficult, but we need to try, act, try. Something will definitely work out in the end.

I went to the tax office

Last week I went to the tax office. It was time to file my tax return, and it could only be done online. We didn’t have the seven digits needed to register a personal account, just a fiscal identification number. The tax office staff created a personal account for me, assigning it an email address and phone number.

Overall, they did everything they could to rule out any possibility of anything going wrong. For which I’m very grateful. We’ll be filing our tax return in a few days. This will be our second time doing it in France. And our first time doing it electronically. UPDATE: We filed the return, but not without problems. It took quite a while.

Language barrier and labyrinths of logic

The other day, a man leaving the train station asked me a question in English. I was so surprised to hear English at Bar-le-Duc that I automatically started answering in French. I have another language difficulty: when I’m nervous, I start speaking a mixture of French and English. Moreover, sometimes I pronounce English words with a French accent. But the worst thing is that at the most crucial moments, I simply forget the necessary French words.

Sometimes neighbors or my Facebook followers come up to me to say hello. And in those moments, I’m completely at a loss. I’m terrified of appearing impolite. After all, the French are very polite and welcoming. We’re polite too, but perhaps because we’re nervous about not understanding the language well, we sometimes seem unsociable.

The French lessons are paying off. I’m gradually starting to read and understand some of the dialogue on the radio and TV. But I still haven’t been able to fully communicate. It’s not so much because I lack the words, but more because of the stress of the many complex tasks. My brain is constantly overloaded. We regularly have to sort out various issues that are difficult for even the French to handle.

At the same time, each such operation requires five times more energy than the locals. It’s not just because of the language. We often don’t understand the logic behind a particular system. And sometimes, unfortunately, we realize there’s simply no logic there. Or rather, logic often exists, but no one ever acknowledges its existence. Because this non-public logic violates French law.

It’s okay to want the best for your family!

Members of various associations who leave comments on my blog often resort to the same ploy: “Thousands of people are homeless or living in appalling conditions. How dare you demand special treatment and priority housing allocation.” I’ll answer this immediately and for everyone. I’m not the cause of these people’s misfortunes. And I can’t help them in any way.

However, I can try to help my family. I have a medical diagnosis and a doctor’s certificate confirming the need to relocate. This entitles me to priority relocation to safe housing. If some official considers this approach inappropriate, then I have reason to question their competence.

And in general, blaming someone for trying to pull their family out of poor housing conditions is completely inadequate. I’m willing to bet that the people who accuse me of all sorts of sins themselves live in quite comfortable housing conditions. I don’t think it’s my actions that are at issue here. Or even the quality of the housing. It’s just that to these people, we’re second-class citizens, with no rights whatsoever. And when we start standing up for our rights, they become incredibly outraged.

Social apartments for our own people?!

The social housing situation in Bar-le-Duc is quite interesting. It’s believed there’s a long waiting list for social housing. However, judging by the ads on Leboncoin, there are quite a few empty social apartments. And almost all of them are in the disadvantaged Côte Sainte-Catherine neighborhood, which we’ve been trying to escape for a long time, unsuccessfully. There are also quite a few ads, but far fewer, in another disadvantaged neighborhood, Libération.

But there are other options. Subscribers often write to me: “Sasha, there’s an OPH Meuse apartment at such-and-such an address that’s been vacant for a long time. It’s a great building and neighborhood; it would be perfect for your family.” I write to OPH Meuse and send them links to the listings for these apartments on Leboncoin. Usually, there’s no response. Or we wait an incredibly long time. And if we do receive a response, they make a bunch of excuses. That the listings are published automatically, and these apartments were already available almost an hour before I wrote to them.

But no one has removed the ads for these apartments for rent, even now. And they’ve been up for months. What do you mean? Is the management company deliberately misleading people?! It’s like this all the time. It’s absolutely impossible to count on them being honest. I don’t believe a word this organization says. In my opinion, their apartment allocations show every sign of discrimination. This is my opinion, and I don’t claim to be the absolute truth.

About our endless walking in circles

The apartment we currently live in is constantly plagued by various technical issues that should have been completely eliminated. For example, the pipe compartment is located in the kitchen. It smells like sewerage from the basement. Almost immediately after moving in, I had to thoroughly seal the compartment with sealant to prevent the terrible smell from permeating the kitchen and living areas.

But recently, plumbers came to fix a leak. When they left, they sealed the area with caulk. But they did it in such a way that contaminated air still leaks in. After completing even more urgent work, I’ll have to redo everything again. We live on the top floor, and the area with the pipes creates a strong draft, and sewer smells from the basement are now being drawn into our apartment. To keep the air out, we need to apply several layers of caulk. And then the plumbers will come again, and the same thing will happen.

The same thing happened with the bathtub. It was installed incorrectly, it was loose, and water was leaking onto the floor. We had to call plumbers twice. They reinstalled the bathtub and applied sealant to the joints between the bathtub and the walls. However, they did it in such a way that I had to redo it after them. Otherwise, the water would still leak. I should note that the bathtub is still loose. And it’s held in place by the sealant I applied. I have asthma, and working with smelly sealants has a very negative impact on my health. I was in a pretty bad state for a couple of days afterwards.

When we moved into our apartment, our basement unit was filled with junk. We had to call representatives from OPH Meuse to remove it all. This also clearly demonstrates this company’s approach to home preparation. Unfortunately, our current arrangement doesn’t meet any modern sanitary standards. But at the same time, I doubt I’ll ever be able to prove this to the authorities.

Yes, sooner or later I’ll launch a micro-business and make it profitable. Or I’ll start earning money some other way. But that will take years. It won’t happen any faster in my situation. And the damage to my health is happening here and now. And my health has always been poor. Now I’m worried not about myself, but about my little daughter. I have no doubt that this apartment is dangerous for her health.

So I’m endlessly going in circles. I’m trying to somehow improve the condition of my housing, trying to move into better-quality social housing, looking for private apartments, visiting hospitals. And so it goes on and on. “Out of the kindness of their hearts,” they’ve already tried several times to foist apartments on me with hazardous lead levels and energy ratings of E. The rent for a decent apartment is significantly higher than our budget.

But even if we have the money for decent housing, we’ll be stuck with the requirement to provide a permanent employment contract with an income three times higher than the rent and the lack of physical guarantors. As you can imagine, we don’t have any guarantors. And our microenterprise documents are unlikely to convince landlords of our financial stability. We can’t even find decent housing in Bar-le-Duc. Our chances are even slimmer in larger cities.

Meanwhile, almost everyone around us is absolutely convinced that we live in a perfect paradise. It’s also interesting that the good social apartments in the center are empty. And when I ask our social worker at MDS and representatives of OPH Meuse for help moving into these decent apartments, they simply stop responding to my emails. It seems they are absolutely committed to us living in Côte Sainte-Catherine, the area with the highest concentration of poverty and disadvantage.

The Dirty Fun of an HLM Resident

One day, our kitchen was filled with such a terrible odor that I decided to immediately eliminate the source of the infestation. Otherwise, there would be three fewer refugees in France. The stench was seeping from a compartment containing pipes, including sewer pipes. I sealed the door tightly after moving in, but the plumbers came the other day to fix the leak and removed my protective layer. They even patched it up later, but contaminated air was pouring through the holes, so I had to redo it. The draft there is like a proper ventilation system, and we’re on the top floor.

So I applied several layers of caulk to the cracks. The stench from the compartment stopped. All that remained was the usual musty smell of this apartment. And then it dawned on me. Since there was caulk left, I needed to renew the seams around the bathtub. I’d been applying new layers there after the thin layer the plumbers had left behind. Everything was leaking through it. But since I hadn’t removed the old layer, the seams had darkened in places. So I decided to replace them. But I’d overlooked a few things:

1. Last time, I bought a really good sealant and applied a thick layer. It became incredibly strong. Car bumpers should be made of this kind of material. It took me a long time to get it off.
2. It’s best not to delve into the historical layers of the HLM apartments. Many shocking discoveries could be made. The crevices were a veritable treasure trove for a mycologist.
3. The sealant has already begun to harden.
4. I usually use clear sealant, but this sealant is white.

It ended up looking so terrible that I’m afraid my “masterpiece” will haunt me in my nightmares. I’ll have to redo it. However, I think this sealant will soon turn black too. In the meantime, I’ll pretend this nightmare around the bathtub has nothing to do with me. That’s how I entertain myself from time to time. How was your day?

I’m tired of explaining that not all Russians are supporters of Putin and the war.

In France, I sometimes have unpleasant experiences related to my country of origin. Although right now it’s the only country in the world that I’m completely off the hook for visiting. Mostly, no one cares what country I’m from. They ask mostly out of politeness. But there are people interested in world politics. When they learn I’m from Russia, they’re very surprised. Because there’s a war going on, and here I am, wandering around France.

Some people immediately stop communicating. If we continue communicating, people usually warm up. Because I explain that I’m against the war and Putin, that I received political asylum in France. But the moments when I haven’t explained this yet can be unpleasant. Because at those times, people look at me with great suspicion. I understand this logic and don’t find it strange. I would reason the same way if I were in their place. But I still find it unpleasant to go through these tense moments every time.

In the Balkans, the opposite was often true: people, upon learning I was Russian, warmed to me. But when they learned I was against Putin and the war, their attitudes usually soured. In Turkey, the war in Ukraine is a relatively distant topic. But it seemed to me that people there were rather anti-Western. And almost everywhere I’ve been and lived, people were anti-American.

In Kyrgyzstan, people were very interested in hearing from an independent journalist from Russia. Many asked whether it was worth going to work in Moscow or St. Petersburg. Naturally, I vehemently dissuaded them. Also in Bishkek, many people asked me about life in Turkey, as there are many Kyrgyz there. At the excellent hardware store recommended to me by the landlord of my rental apartment in Antalya, the staff was mostly Kyrgyz. I spoke with them in Russian.

We also often had lunch with new friends at the Kyrgyz café “Bishkek” behind the Mark Antalya shopping center. The food there was quite familiar to us, and we spoke Russian. I had fallen in love with the simple and kind Kyrgyz people back in Turkey, before I arrived in their beautiful mountainous country.

Incidentally, the same thing happened with the French. In Moscow in the early 2000s, I spent quite a lot of time with French people working in the Russian capital. They all worked for various international organizations and spoke Russian quite well. I was interested in their perspectives on Moscow and Russia. They spoke about their Russian experiences with subtle humor.

I loved being part of the free world in my own country. Now all our achievements have been trampled. Trampled by people who wanted to rebuild the empire. I still can’t come to terms with the fact that my country attacked Ukraine, which I loved so dearly. I will never be able to accept that.

Imperial aspirations will most likely lead to the collapse of today’s criminal Russian state. And ordinary people will pay the price, including those who always opposed the war. However, in Russia, we have always been a minority.

I don’t see any point in participating in online battles.

Lately, I’ve been rarely writing on my blog about topics that are sensitive to Russians. There are several reasons for this. First, my French-language Facebook page has gradually become my primary focus. My content is the same for both Russian-speaking and French-speaking subscribers. I write in Russian and translate it into French using digital tools.

But for someone who hasn’t lived in Russia for three and a half years, it seems rather odd to try to write about the Russian agenda for Russians living in the country. Because I’m not well versed in it. The French, for obvious reasons, are still more concerned with topics related to France. If you’re writing about Russia for the French, you need to prepare specialized texts that cover Russian phenomena that aren’t entirely clear to Europeans.

There are, of course, very well-informed people, and quite a few of them. But they’re clearly not so well-informed thanks to my page. I’m unlikely to be able to tell them anything new about the situation in Russia and the war. At the same time, it seems to me that most of my Russian readers, including subscribers who left Russia, seem to have little interest in my posts about the problems we face in France.

You have to be deeply immersed in the nuances and bureaucratic procedures to understand what I’m talking about. I’ve found that posts like these are more relatable to other refugees. That’s why I have a significant following among Ukrainian refugees in France. Russians are, statistically speaking, few among local refugees.

I’ve noticed that both my French and Russian subscribers enjoy it when I write about successes or positive events in our lives. It’s nice when people rejoice with us. However, unfortunately, there are very few reasons for such expressions of joy so far. But I’ll make an effort to increase them.

Everything really is in our hands. But sometimes I feel like these hands are wrapped in two dozen thick canvas mittens, stacked one on top of the other, like Russian nesting dolls. And with these thick mittened hands, like a kitten with paws, I’m trying to somehow keep our lives under control and steer them in the direction we’ve chosen. It’s not working out so far, to be honest. But I hope I’ll get the hang of it with time. A lot of time, energy, and nerves are spent resolving various bureaucratic issues. It’s a real disaster!

A quick recap. I reread the text and realized I neglected to mention one of the key reasons why I don’t write about the Russian agenda. Overall, I have a lot to say. But these discussions are becoming incredibly toxic. For me, the discussions surrounding David Borenstein and Pavel Talankin’s film “Mr. Nobody vs. Putin” were a clear marker.

I wasn’t exactly immersed in these discussions; rather, I heard their echoes. And those echoes were quite eerie. I realized that, regardless of what someone did or didn’t do, for a significant portion of Russian-speaking internet users, they would always be to blame for everything.

This will happen even if you do something absolutely useful and crystal-clear. Which, as you understand, almost never happens in our lives. Because we are living people, not fairy-tale unicorns fluttering among butterflies. Because there will always be someone who defends a different point of view.

But I refuse to understand why we try to reduce everything to a single denominator, to discuss whether this is right or wrong, and aggressively impose a single opinion. As if there can’t be many opinions. If you think about it, everyone whose opinion matters to me is against Putin and the war. And if that’s the case, what difference does it make what details we disagree on?!

If anything, I’ve become disillusioned with the most aggressive form of heated debate. I find it difficult to accept all these cyclopean volumes of baseless accusations and intolerance. At the same time, if I’m not prepared for all these rather toxic discussions, then I probably shouldn’t write about them. This isn’t self-censorship, it’s goal-setting and fatigue.

There are so many difficulties and negativity in our lives right now that I’m not prepared to tolerate attacks on numerous news items, even if they’re very important. At this point, of course, you could say I’m finally giving up being a journalist. But let’s face it — I haven’t worked in the media since 2012. And even then, I rarely wrote, as I was terribly overloaded with management duties. I simply didn’t have the time to write.

We need to somehow manage to start a new life in France. This requires a lot of time and effort. That’s why I’m quite consciously not getting involved in all these online battles. I don’t think they’re unimportant. I just don’t have the energy or time for them. And frankly, I have no desire to get involved in all these endless showdowns either. Simply because there are more important things to do.

My first impressions of using an air purifier

Many subscribers have asked me to tell you about the air purifier I recently purchased. The model is the Levoit Vital 200S, purchased on Amazon for €235. The manufacturer’s description reads: “LEVOIT air purifier for allergy sufferers with a pet mode, CADR 416 m³/h, up to 108 m², for smokers, dual sensor and HEPA filter that protects against 99.97% of pet hair and odors, mold, and pollen.” A disclaimer: this is not a full review, but rather my initial findings.

We live in a 60-square-meter apartment. It seems to me that the air purifier will never be able to clean the entire apartment. However, the device does a pretty good job of purifying the air quickly in turbo mode. Usually, when I was shaving and washing in the bathroom and washing dishes in the kitchen, I’d get violent coughing fits. Apparently, it was because it was so close to the problematic wall. Now I just place the air purifier next to it and turn it on turbo mode. The air is cleaned quite quickly.

The device clearly communicates air quality. Red means things are bad, orange means there are problems, green means there’s still some room for improvement, and blue means excellent. Usually, when I bring the purifier into a room or kitchen and turn it on, the indicator lights up red. The device has four fan speed settings, automatic and night modes, and a pet mode. I usually don’t use the automatic mode; I set the fan speed myself. I wasn’t a big fan of climate control in my car either.

I was very pleased with the night mode. While the purifier isn’t as effective in this mode, it’s completely inaudible, though it does produce a noticeable breeze. The bright indicator lights turn off completely in night mode. The purifier can be connected to a smartphone and controlled via an app. This is very convenient when you’re lying in bed.

I won’t go into technical specifications, filter types, or anything else for now, as I haven’t had time to delve into them in detail. I chose the air purifier based on a combination of three parameters: efficiency (power, air purification quality) / price / quality. I’m happy with the results. Now, whenever I go out for a long time in the apartment, I take the purifier with me. It’s about the size of a microwave standing upright and weighs 6 kg.

This device has a very positive impact on my quality of life. It doesn’t solve the overall air quality issue, of course. However, I can confidently say that this air purifier does a good job of eliminating odors. Since we got the purifier, we’ve almost forgotten about the constant smell of cigarettes, smoking mixtures, and various exotic spices outside.

You can simply live without being depressed by poor health, coughs, and runny noses. I think this is a very good temporary solution. Yes, an air purifier won’t replace fresh air. It won’t solve the problems of poor housing. It won’t cure asthma. But I hope it will help reduce the negative effects on the body. These are my preliminary conclusions.

About the air quality in the apartment

Whenever I move the air purifier around the apartment, its indicator lights immediately start screaming about poor air quality. The ring around the power button glows red at these moments.

The results of the experiment are disappointing.

The other day, while we were out for a walk, we left all five windows of the apartment open, as usual. The windows face different sides of the building, and we usually use a draft to ventilate the apartment. Unfortunately, this usually doesn’t help — the moldy smell lingers. This time, in addition to the windows, we turned on the air purifier. It was running at almost the maximum setting (speed 3).

Unfortunately, the air purifier didn’t do much. When we arrived, the smell was still just as strong. I didn’t notice much of a difference. As usual, we opened all the windows wide after arriving. I doubt the smell went away after that. We just got used to it. Bottom line: the air purifier improves quality of life slightly. And it purifies a relatively small volume of air. That’s at low speeds.

This isn’t a bad solution if you’re sitting right next to the air purifier. The difference in air quality compared to other parts of the apartment is truly noticeable. At maximum speeds, the purifier is much more effective. But at that speed, it gets quite noisy. VERY NOISY! So, I usually use the lowest speed and the night mode while I’m sleeping. When the apartment is noisy, I turn on a higher speed. P.S. Regarding our current apartment, the conclusion remains the same: we need to move immediately. The sooner the better. But we don’t have anywhere to move to yet.

I’ll be publishing a photo report from Saint-Dizier soon.

This week I went to Saint-Dizier to add Nicole to our family register. I also had a wonderful stroll around the city. I’ve been posting photos of the city on social media all these days; I’ll publish the final report a little later.

Emotions from my second visit to the center of Saint-Dizier

I didn’t have much time in Saint-Dizier, but I still managed to wander around a bit. The town impressed me with its diversity, its abundance of modernist architecture, and the spaciousness of its promenades. Compared to Saint-Dizier, Bar-le-Duc looks very uniform and picturesque. But it’s much less convenient. Bar-le-Duc seems to live in the past, while Saint-Dizier is simply timeless. It’s very polarized.

It seemed to me that the people in Saint-Dizier are simpler. It’s hard to judge from isolated moments, but there seems to be less everyday discrimination in Saint-Dizier. Bar-le-Duc seems like an undervalued cultural figure, a little resentful of life and ordinary people. Saint-Dizier, in this regard, seems healthier and fairer. A working man wouldn’t discriminate against the urban poor.

The entire time I was in the city, nimble military planes roared overhead. My conclusion is twofold. I’m not sure I’d want to live here. I wouldn’t make a special trip here. But the walk through Saint-Dizier was stunning, full of surprising discoveries. And in places, the city was reminiscent of the small industrial towns of my homeland. But, unlike them, Saint-Dizier isn’t in ruins. There are many cozy corners here, though in places it’s strikingly deserted.

This is interesting. But I really want to understand why Saint-Dizier is losing population so rapidly. What exactly is causing this? Lack of jobs and prospects? But that’s the situation in many small towns. I’d be grateful if anyone with information on this could share it with me. P.S. I care deeply about this town, as our daughter was born there.

Returning “home”

My response to a subscriber who wrote that she envied me:

We first came to Paris in 2024 on a humanitarian visa to apply for asylum. We waited a very long time for it in third countries. Believe me, there’s nothing to envy in our case. We don’t live in those beautiful neighborhoods in my photos. We live in a disadvantaged area on a hill. There’s a high concentration of poverty here, unintegrated migrants, drug addicts, and so on.

The elevation difference is 100 meters, and there’s not a single road we could use to walk with a stroller to the center. In the evenings, on holidays, and on weekends, there are no buses; we’re trapped in a ghetto. There’s no infrastructure here, either; you have to go downtown for everything. I know it sounds implausible. But you can watch reports from similar places.

I won’t even mention our apartment. The situation here is even worse. And even for the French, it’s incredibly difficult to escape this social day. I see that same city from the photos twice a week when I attend French classes. And then I go to the supermarket and lug two huge bags of groceries to the bus stop.

I wait 30 minutes for the bus, disgustedly enter a dirty courtyard surrounded by prefabricated buildings, enter a building that reeks of smoking mixtures, and go up to the top floor. I enter an apartment that reeks terribly of mold. Where my family lives. And so far, I haven’t been able to drag my wife and daughter out of all this. There’s certainly nothing to envy here.

I couldn’t decide

My comment on the publication of a well-known human rights activist:

Unfortunately, I couldn’t bring myself to emigrate. I had no money, no language skills, and no in-demand profession. Ultimately, I put it off for a long time. I knew that every article on my website was the same “discrediting the army.” But I couldn’t see myself leaving my homeland. Frankly, I was simply afraid to take that step.

Even when, in the fall of 2021, while lying in a St. Petersburg COVID hospital, I read Orwell’s “1984” and seriously considered emigrating for the first time, I didn’t seriously think I’d leave. Then, more and more often, my acquaintances started landing in prison. Friends who had already left the country back in 2014 or in February and March 2022 wrote that I needed to leave immediately.

I hesitated. Until, after the emotional articles about the start of mobilization, I received letters from government agencies with such wording that I realized I couldn’t delay any longer. When I arrived in Turkey, I was terribly confused. Crowds of bewildered Russian men were wandering around Antalya in those days. Many immediately began to feel melancholy.

A feeling of personal security washed over me. I knew that my door wouldn’t be rebuilt with a grinder anymore. And even if they did cut it down, I’d no longer be there. What shocked me was that almost everyone I knew thought I’d be back soon. Those more informed said I’d “already burned all my bridges.” Then Roskomnadzor started blocking my websites and blogs. This is commonplace now. But back then, it was still a significant event. Many independent Russian-language media outlets wrote about the blocking of my websites. It was completely unexpected for me.

Niva

When there’s something familiar in a landscape…

Road landscapes

I took these photos on the way to Saint-Dizier.

Ten minutes of normal air

Yesterday was a very busy day, with various bureaucratic procedures we went through online. So I only got to go outside for about ten minutes in the evening.

My first impressions of the Montenegrin city of Budva

In April 2023, after being denied a residence permit in Turkey, I found myself in Montenegro. I was housed in a shelter for political activists called “Pristanishch” (Refuge). And there I was able to breathe a sigh of relief. During those days, I was in frequent contact with representatives of Reporters Without Borders. They were reviewing my journalistic credentials.

Later, thanks to their support, I received a humanitarian visa to France and refugee status. But back then, I was still thinking about Germany. In my free time, I photographed Budva and felt sad. Its Old Town was very similar to the Old Town of Kotor, where we spent our honeymoon. My wife was in Russia, and I was in the Balkans, unable to return home. And it wasn’t clear when we would see each other again. But I didn’t write about that back then. I simply posted photos of the city and my short notes. Here’s what I wrote three years ago:

[embed]Будва - очень комфортный курортный город! - Гипертаблоид редактора Удикова Реклама от Google Здесь немало самых разнообразных пляжей,, прекрасные виды на горы и классный старый город. В Будве…udikov.com

About the author . My name is Alexander UDIKOV. I am a journalist from Russia who fled my homeland in 2022 due to persecution for articles condemning the attack on Ukraine. In 2024, I received political asylum in France. In this blog, I talk about my new life, sharing my observations and photographs.

Friends! To stay up-to-date with my new publications in Russian, please subscribe to my Facebook (RUS) or Telegram channel (RUS) . The English version of this blog is published on the Medium platform (ENG) .

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