Dzikan with stories

Hello my Sweethearts!

Dzikan is back with some updates and news.
Our Tao successfully left russian borders, and I asked him how it was. And share what’s happening right now on borders. I think it’ll be interesting story for you to read.

I’ll roughly summarize all information he shared.
At the moment, when we decided, that he’ll leave russia, it was 23rd of September. And of course two days after publication of mobilization law, there almost were no tickets. Or for very high price. Too high. For example, if plane tickets usually cost around 350-420$ to nearby countries, at the date you might found tickets for 2000-5500$. I, personally saw tickets for 5000$.
Since all plane tickets were sold out, there were three options left: train, bus and car.
Train tickets disappeared as fast as plane’s. According to people Tao met during his trip, strangely, amount of tickets on sale were reduced. People were buying last tickets to later find out, that there were free sits. Veeery strange.
We, to our surprise, managed to find bus tickets to Kazakhstan, where the plan was to buy train tickets. I find it mesmerizing, how out of nowhere bus tickets appeared.
Those people, who didn’t find any tickets went to borders by cars.

Situation in airports and land borders remains the same to this day.
In short it is chaos. Sometimes brutal chaos, especially on land borders. From what we know, there are several places where car queue at customs can reach to 15-20 km. People stand in line for several days. Other option that people took was to pass border on foot. Not all customs allowed that, so many guys crossed it on bikes or kick scooters.
At some point, people started to leave their cars in hopes to get closer to the border, by finding new ride for high price. Tao says, people paid thousands of rubles just to ride few hundred meters.
Buses had their own queue, and it was a bit easier to get to the border. But on some other places, like border to enter Georgia, all road lanes were occupied by people desperately trying to cut in line. No wonder, some of them were staying there without any movement for several days and amount of stress is high.
Our Tao luckily crossed border on not so busy customs. But even so, queue was there long enough, so people waited there for 15 hours. What makes it even harder is long trip before, in our case it is 16 hours without passing border time.

“When we were crossing borders, custom officers from both sides, joked a lot about “sudden” increase of “tourists” and “family reunions”. Jokes aside, everyone clearly understands what is happening and trying to pass without any other questions.”

BUT. It’s different, if you were in “mobilization list”. Officers check your Surname, and if you in the list, all your hard road was in vain. From that moment on you can’t leave the country and you’re under watchful eye of military enlistment office. Because you’re chosen and forced to be the part of war no one wanted.

I’m very sorry and thankful for nearby countries who let in people running away from the war. With According to official statistics, around 300000 people already left russia. I assume non-oficial numbers are even higher. These much people need food and housing, which will lead to rapid rise in prices. And it’s disastrous already. Eh…
After Tao crossed the border, he managed to get tickets to train, and in next two days left Kazakhstan border too.

Right now we are trying to resolve issues with accomodations, documents and with working environment.
I’m currently still in Russia right now, because some documents can be done only within the country. Wish me luck to finish everything as fast as possible.

I have a feeling, that this post will be hell to read, because of inconsistency.
But I tried my best.
My next post will be September reward post.
As I wrote in my previous post, your reward will be not our Velma project, but one of our previous projects.

Please, stay safe, eat well and try to take proper care of your mental state!

P.S.: Image you see is famous meme in Russia called "Peter the Piglet". The tractor has become a symbol of emigration and used along with the phrases like “it’s time to steal a tractor and get the f*ck out of Russia”.