5 ms·

'It's like I drew a door and disappeared through it' (2021)

105 points by NaOH 2y ago

metadat 2y ago
Cloudflare-free archive link: https://archive.today/FwIfG https://archive.today/FwIfG
- majke 2y ago
  Do you get captcha or block page?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - M95D 2y ago
    No.
Klaster_1 2y ago
Sweet to see the article on the main page, I enjoyed reading back in 2021. After the full scale invasion started, charities like Nochlezhki (Ночлежка) experienced a severe drop in donations and many of their organizers and supporters were forced out of the country. After the soldiers demobilize, I suspect the situation will get even worse, partly due to poor PTSD treatment, crime rate increase and economic downturn.
- vintagedave 2y ago
  This may be a cultural thing, but as an Aussie when someone says "Sweet" positively, it expresses real positivity (about the topic it refers to, not just an event itself, ie, I'd read this as positivity or approval about the events in the article.) It is not the word I would have used ;) But I agree with you it's good this is on the front page. I am so sorry for these people. I did _not_ enjoy reading. They were horrible stories and very depressing (the worst, for me, was Anna, and I'm not going to describe what happened to her in this comment.)
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
leke 2y ago
Wow, these stories were incredible sad to read. It seems a lot can be prevented by decent law enforcement and justice.
- jajko 2y ago
  Well yes, in theory. But we talk about russia. Its population has been largely kept with servitude mindset for... in fact since they abolished serfdom, which in russia I was told by my history teachers was often same/worse as outright slavery elsewhere. So effectively for very, very long time. Dictators don't like when population thinks they have some universal rights, next thing they will start asking for them en masse and who knows what will be outlandish next, like tackling corruption and oligarchs who stand above the law? Common citizens are an afterthought, state is built to primarily cater to needs and whims of its paranoid greedy leaders. Its important for people like me, who passionately hate war russia is waging on Ukraine and its perpetrator, to be reminded that there are tons of good folks behind that wall of arrogance, stupidity and aggressivity. Pity they mostly feel like they can't change anything so they prefer drowning their despair in vodka and trying to look elsewhere. Maybe more digital age will eventually give them some wake up call, there is always hope even in darkest places and darkest moments.
- PostOnce 2y ago
  How do you get justice when the law enforcement is corrupt? You must first solve the corruption, which is a tough nut to crack.
vasco 2y ago
> “Seriously, your questions are all like, ‘How were you feeling? When was the last time you were at peace?’ If that’s the way I thought about things, I would have killed myself already,” There was something very deep about this. I've had these moments before (from both sides), and while they are rare it's a very deep realisation of how different our internal monologues can be about the same situations.
pvaldes 2y ago
[flagged]
- anovikov 2y ago
  On the flip side, it means crime rate and overall criminality of Russian population is likely going down just because people with criminal intentions or history, go into the meat grinder and never return? I can see quality of life in the deep province improving simply because most of the people who everyone wanted gone from their lives since long, are now indeed gone. One thing to understand about petrostates is that you cannot bring them to the knees by depriving them of working-age population, or talents who might emigrate. For Putin, population is mostly just mouths to feed. He makes money off oil and gas, not people - population is a liability - having fewer people (to a degree of course) can paradoxically make Russia a stronger, more resilient, richer society.
  - actionfromafar 2y ago
    It works until suddenly it doesn't. The lowest will get recruited, but more entrenched, established criminals are probably more likely to find a way to avoid the draft. Also the constant hollowing out of "normal" economy can't end well in the long run.
  - pvaldes 2y ago
    Is unclear. On one side they send deliberately many jailbirds to a certain death, but also lots of young and naive Russians that weren't criminals. On the other side, every Russian soldier that will survive the war has became a hardened war criminal. Just read today about the treat to the Ukranian soldiers captured by Russia and exchanged later. If a tenth of what the Ukranian soldiers say is true (and their body supports the history), the Russian army is broken beyond repair. The relationship between Putin and Russians (or between the government and the Russian army) is an archetypical abuser/victim relationship. This will normally finishes with the victim killed at the end, as a lot of Russian soldiers had discovered too late. The lesson is: psychos don't care and will never care about you or your feelings. In rare cases the victims kill the abuser, normally after a traumatic shock or external forces breaking the spell. If the killed soldiers would have instead turn around and take the Kremlin, their chances to survive in the end would have boosted. Putin was really in danger when Prighozin realized that their expected role was to die in Bahmut. He tried to get himself out of the frypan but failed. Putin's face on video was of somebody mortally afraid those days.
Applejinx 2y ago
Confirmed. I spent a very short time homeless about 30 years ago. I was in Vermont, USA though, so there were social services being invented and I was in the first round of a thing called Shelter Plus Care: they got you a cheap apartment, got you on disability or whatever you could get, and you did therapy. 30 years later I'm a working software dev making a humble living, very much a 'domestic'. Everything in this article rings true. In particular, I inherently refuse to go to the hospital because I only make a humble living and can't handle a medical-scale financial shock, and I resist anything that feels like I could go back to 30 years ago. I'm seeing a doctor at a more crunchy-granola place though, because it vibes differently though she's still a credentialed doctor and it's no different from seeing one at a hospital: Medicaid's got me. But it's less scary to see a real doctor in the trappings of a hippie haven, so that's how I'm able to do it. It wasn't a very long period of homelessness thirty years ago, but it did leave an indelible mark. The article is worth reading even if it too is scary. You guys can be scared of this and I'll be scared of seeing the doctor, and we'll all manage somehow :)

105 points by NaOH 2y ago

metadat 2y ago

Cloudflare-free archive link: https://archive.today/FwIfG https://archive.today/FwIfG

majke 2y ago
Do you get captcha or block page?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- M95D 2y ago
  No.

Klaster_1 2y ago

Sweet to see the article on the main page, I enjoyed reading back in 2021. After the full scale invasion started, charities like Nochlezhki (Ночлежка) experienced a severe drop in donations and many of their organizers and supporters were forced out of the country. After the soldiers demobilize, I suspect the situation will get even worse, partly due to poor PTSD treatment, crime rate increase and economic downturn.

vintagedave 2y ago
This may be a cultural thing, but as an Aussie when someone says "Sweet" positively, it expresses real positivity (about the topic it refers to, not just an event itself, ie, I'd read this as positivity or approval about the events in the article.) It is not the word I would have used ;) But I agree with you it's good this is on the front page. I am so sorry for these people. I did _not_ enjoy reading. They were horrible stories and very depressing (the worst, for me, was Anna, and I'm not going to describe what happened to her in this comment.)

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

leke 2y ago

Wow, these stories were incredible sad to read. It seems a lot can be prevented by decent law enforcement and justice.

jajko 2y ago
Well yes, in theory. But we talk about russia. Its population has been largely kept with servitude mindset for... in fact since they abolished serfdom, which in russia I was told by my history teachers was often same/worse as outright slavery elsewhere. So effectively for very, very long time. Dictators don't like when population thinks they have some universal rights, next thing they will start asking for them en masse and who knows what will be outlandish next, like tackling corruption and oligarchs who stand above the law? Common citizens are an afterthought, state is built to primarily cater to needs and whims of its paranoid greedy leaders. Its important for people like me, who passionately hate war russia is waging on Ukraine and its perpetrator, to be reminded that there are tons of good folks behind that wall of arrogance, stupidity and aggressivity. Pity they mostly feel like they can't change anything so they prefer drowning their despair in vodka and trying to look elsewhere. Maybe more digital age will eventually give them some wake up call, there is always hope even in darkest places and darkest moments.
PostOnce 2y ago
How do you get justice when the law enforcement is corrupt? You must first solve the corruption, which is a tough nut to crack.

vasco 2y ago

> “Seriously, your questions are all like, ‘How were you feeling? When was the last time you were at peace?’ If that’s the way I thought about things, I would have killed myself already,” There was something very deep about this. I've had these moments before (from both sides), and while they are rare it's a very deep realisation of how different our internal monologues can be about the same situations.

pvaldes 2y ago

[flagged]

anovikov 2y ago
On the flip side, it means crime rate and overall criminality of Russian population is likely going down just because people with criminal intentions or history, go into the meat grinder and never return? I can see quality of life in the deep province improving simply because most of the people who everyone wanted gone from their lives since long, are now indeed gone. One thing to understand about petrostates is that you cannot bring them to the knees by depriving them of working-age population, or talents who might emigrate. For Putin, population is mostly just mouths to feed. He makes money off oil and gas, not people - population is a liability - having fewer people (to a degree of course) can paradoxically make Russia a stronger, more resilient, richer society.
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  It works until suddenly it doesn't. The lowest will get recruited, but more entrenched, established criminals are probably more likely to find a way to avoid the draft. Also the constant hollowing out of "normal" economy can't end well in the long run.
- pvaldes 2y ago
  Is unclear. On one side they send deliberately many jailbirds to a certain death, but also lots of young and naive Russians that weren't criminals. On the other side, every Russian soldier that will survive the war has became a hardened war criminal. Just read today about the treat to the Ukranian soldiers captured by Russia and exchanged later. If a tenth of what the Ukranian soldiers say is true (and their body supports the history), the Russian army is broken beyond repair. The relationship between Putin and Russians (or between the government and the Russian army) is an archetypical abuser/victim relationship. This will normally finishes with the victim killed at the end, as a lot of Russian soldiers had discovered too late. The lesson is: psychos don't care and will never care about you or your feelings. In rare cases the victims kill the abuser, normally after a traumatic shock or external forces breaking the spell. If the killed soldiers would have instead turn around and take the Kremlin, their chances to survive in the end would have boosted. Putin was really in danger when Prighozin realized that their expected role was to die in Bahmut. He tried to get himself out of the frypan but failed. Putin's face on video was of somebody mortally afraid those days.

Applejinx 2y ago

Confirmed. I spent a very short time homeless about 30 years ago. I was in Vermont, USA though, so there were social services being invented and I was in the first round of a thing called Shelter Plus Care: they got you a cheap apartment, got you on disability or whatever you could get, and you did therapy. 30 years later I'm a working software dev making a humble living, very much a 'domestic'. Everything in this article rings true. In particular, I inherently refuse to go to the hospital because I only make a humble living and can't handle a medical-scale financial shock, and I resist anything that feels like I could go back to 30 years ago. I'm seeing a doctor at a more crunchy-granola place though, because it vibes differently though she's still a credentialed doctor and it's no different from seeing one at a hospital: Medicaid's got me. But it's less scary to see a real doctor in the trappings of a hippie haven, so that's how I'm able to do it. It wasn't a very long period of homelessness thirty years ago, but it did leave an indelible mark. The article is worth reading even if it too is scary. You guys can be scared of this and I'll be scared of seeing the doctor, and we'll all manage somehow :)