"No one wants war"
Created: 03/07/2022 11:36 am
Mikhail Kaluzhskii, a journalist from Russia, in front of a vegetable shop in Berlin-Friedrichshain.
© Christophe Gateau/dpa
Since Russia has been at war with Ukraine, the pressure on Russians in Germany has been increasing.
The Russian embassy speaks of hundreds of hostilities.
But there is also another side of the story.
Berlin - The atmosphere is relaxed in the "Mix Markt" in Berlin-Marzahn.
English music is playing in the Russian supermarket, customers browse between Pelmeni, Semechki and Krabowie Palozki.
Hardly anyone here wants to talk about the Ukraine war, let alone mention their own names.
"My family and I are scared," says an elderly woman from Russia who lives in Marzahn.
"My daughter said to me that I shouldn't speak Russian on the train." The woman has short dark hair and she too would like to remain anonymous.
Since the Russian attack on Ukraine, hostilities against Russians living in Germany have been reported more and more frequently.
At the weekend, the Russian embassy called on the federal government to send a political signal against increasing threats, hate messages and attacks.
But there is also the other side: Quite a few Russians in Germany take a critical view of President Vladimir Putin and are infinitely relieved to be safe here.
"It's obvious that Putin has gone completely insane," says Russian journalist Mikhail Kaluzhskii, who has lived in Berlin with his family since 2015.
A few weeks ago, dpa spoke to him about his reasons for leaving Russia: nationalism after the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, the pressure on the opposition, hostilities against his work for a theater program in Moscow.
Now, in an interview, Mikhail says he wants to send a clear message to Germany: there are Russians who oppose Putin's line.
Russians are also currently leaving their country
In the past few days, he and his wife have taken in a Ukrainian friend and her son who left Kyiv out of fear shortly before the outbreak of war.
The two have since traveled on, but there are always new inquiries from friends and acquaintances, says Mikhail.
Ukrainians who are fleeing the war, but also Russians who want to get out of Putin's empire.
Since there are now hardly any flights, they travel via Istanbul or Dubai and by train or bus via Finland or the Baltic States.
He is busy around the clock with this war, says the 54-year-old.
He has not yet experienced tensions with Germans or even with Ukrainians in Berlin.
His twelve-year-old son also reported nothing of the sort from school.
But acquaintances said they now refrained from speaking Russian in public.
The concern does not seem entirely unfounded.
According to a survey by the ARD magazine Report Mainz, interior ministries and police headquarters across Germany have registered crimes against Russian-speaking people since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, including isolated attacks and property damage to Russian businesses such as daubed shop windows.
The Russian embassy in Berlin even reported at the weekend that within three days hundreds of compatriots in Germany had complained about threats and hate mail.
Cars with Russian license plates were damaged, there was insults, bullying, physical assaults.
According to the Interfax agency, Ambassador Sergey Nechayev therefore sent a note to the Federal Foreign Office and called for “strong signals from the German government” to the authorities in the federal states, cities and municipalities “to end this discrimination”.
German politicians obviously take the reports seriously.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) criticized hostilities against Russian or Belarusian citizens days ago on Twitter.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) told the German Press Agency: "The appalling war of aggression against Ukraine is Putin's war.
It is not the war of people with Russian roots who live in Germany.” Opposition leader Friedrich Merz (CDU) made a similar statement.
It is to be expected that people will become thinner the longer the war lasts and the more Ukrainian refugees come to Germany.
According to the Federal Statistical Office, a good 235,000 Russian and 135,000 Ukrainian citizens lived in Germany before the war.
In addition, according to statistics, there were 298,000 German-Russian dual nationals in 2020, and 24,000 people had German and Ukrainian citizenship at the same time.
However, the number of Russian-speaking immigrants is much higher - migration experts estimate it at around 2.2 million.
Russian state media as a connection home
Many migrants with Russian roots came as late resettlers or Jewish contingent refugees, others to work.
Some have German citizenship.
So the group is anything but uniform.
In the Berlin district of Marzahn-Hellersdorf, for example, there are thousands of late resettlers, not all of whom are critical of Putin.
Many have kept in touch with their former homeland through Russian state media.
Some just want to stay out of politics.
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"Many think that people in Russia can just take to the streets and do something about it, but that doesn't work there," says a petite blonde woman in her early twenties in front of the "Mix Markt" - she doesn't want to give her name either.
Of course she is against war, but she doesn't want to side with Russia or Ukraine.
"We don't know the whole story, who's right, who's not, or what happened." So far, she says, she hasn't experienced any hostility.
"But I don't want to hide now either."
A woman in her mid-30s puts it this way: "We've lived in Marzahn for over 20 years, but it's always like that, in Russia you're the German and in Germany you're the Russian." She worries about the people in Russia live and get in trouble now, even though they are against the war.
"We also don't know what to think or believe, but nobody wants war." dpa