- Steve Rosenberg
- BBC Russian Editor-in-Chief
April 28, 2022
image source,EPA
Z can be seen everywhere on the streets of Moscow, the character has become a symbol of Russia’s “special military operation”
How has Moscow changed since Russia invaded Ukraine? The BBC Russian-speaking editor-in-chief, who has lived in Russia for 30 years, visited the familiar streets and sights of Moscow and felt the “Orwellian” twist there.
In Moscow, the capital of Russia, you don’t see shells going off. You also don’t see foreign troops besieging the city. The day-to-day life of ordinary people in Moscow simply cannot compare to the horrors of war suffered by Ukrainians.
At first glance, life here seems normal. As usual, traffic on Moscow’s Garden Ring Road is still congested. The subway station across from me was still pouring in.
But in reality, there is very little life here that can be described as normal. The so-called normalcy ended on February 24, when President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian forces to invade Ukraine for a “special military operation”.
I’ve been through communist Russia, and I’ve been through post-Soviet Russia. Now the world’s largest country is changing again.
Let me show you the impact of this “special Russian military operation”.
Z is everywhere
image source,Getty Images
Z becomes a symbol of support for the war
I drove to the supermarket. Out of habit, I turned on the radio and tuned to 91.2FM. This used to be the band of Radio Echo of Moscow and my favorite Russian radio station because it’s a reliable source of news and information.
But in recent weeks, all independent Russian news outlets have either been blocked or shut down by the authorities. Now broadcasting on the 91.2 FM band is the state-run satellite radio station Radio Sputnik, which supports Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.
Continuing along the Garden Ring Road, I passed a theater with a huge Latin “Z” on the front door – a symbol of Russia’s “special military operation”; Russian Railways headquarters So too, a letter Z stands up outside the gate;
I passed a truck with the letter Z on the side of the truck; in recent weeks, Kremlin critics have been graffitied with the letter Z on their doorsteps.
Doctors can’t make ends meet
Arrived at the shopping center, business seemed a little deserted. Many of them are international brand stores, which are now closed. Hundreds of foreign companies have suspended operations in Russia since the Russian army invaded Ukraine.
In the supermarket, the shelves are full of goods. A rush in Russia last month caused a sugar shortage, but the problem has been resolved. But the variety of goods seems to be much less than before. And, over the past two months, prices have skyrocketed.
Outside the mall, I had a chat with a female doctor named Nadezhda.
“The prices are so high that I can’t survive on my salary right now,” Nadezhda told me.
image source,EPA
There was no panic buying in the supermarkets that occurred days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“But the hardest thing right now is that you live in a society that doesn’t want to know the truth about what’s going on in Ukraine. People worry all day about how to pay their mortgages, pay off their debts. They’re not interested in what’s going on around them. But I Think what happened in Ukraine is bad. I’m ashamed of being Russian.”
I drove to the Moscow Institute of Engineering. I used to teach English here 30 years ago.
Back in the early 1990s, after the fall of the Communist regime, the students I taught were hopeful of a lasting friendship and partnership between Russia and the West. Look forward to a peaceful and prosperous future.
But it turned out not to be the case.
“We will overcome all odds. After sunset there will always be dawn,” said Denis, a student standing outside the academy wall.
“But I support our military. They are our soldiers. I have an obligation to support my country at all costs.”
Books about Putin in the WWII museum shop
Orwellian twist
My final destination was a massive war museum built to commemorate the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War II – a great victory for the Soviet Union, and paid for Huge casualties. More than 27 million Soviet citizens died in the “Great Patriotic War”.
What disturbs me is how Russia’s “special military operation” against Ukraine finds a place in this museum, how it is honored here.
On the museum’s website, the letter Z is highlighted in the spelling of the word “museum”. In the museum shop, porcelain cups marked with the letter Z and badges marked “Putin is my President (PreZident)” can be purchased.
In badges sold in the WWII museum store, the letter Z replaces the letter S in the word President.
The museum is currently hosting an exhibition on Nazism in Ukraine aimed at reinforcing the Kremlin’s lie that Russian troops are liberating Ukraine from Nazis.
This is the “Russian Special Military Operation” that exists in a parallel universe, showing the characteristics of the dictator’s lies described by Orwell, that invasion is liberation, aggression is self-defense, and critics are traitors.
I have a feeling that the Russia I have known for the past 30 years no longer exists.
