Quote:
Originally Posted by Snuffleupagus
Has anyone heard from Pointman?
I'm starting to fear the worst.
|
Hi, guys!
A little update from me. Long story short, we have made it. Me and my family now have Israeli citizenship and I have a fairly well-paid job in Israel now.
After fleeing to Kazakhstan, I spent a month in a small town Jarkent near Chinese border. I had to book a two-bedroom room in a local motel, because all one-bedroom numbers were booked by other evaders.
Staying in Kazakhstan have significantly affected my view of the war. Apparently, Russian politicians have made several claims about how Kazakhstan is historically a Russian land and is not a real country. Since Kazakhstan is in no way between Russia and NATO, those claims have voided the theory that Ukrainian invasion has anything to do with NATO expansion or with the West in general. The war is merely about Russian centuries-long habit of expanding and conquering neighbors. I don't even think it has much to do with Putin. Russia is just naturally expansive county and it always has been. On top of this, because I had to uproot my family and immigrate in the middle of my life because of Russian actions, I have become considerably more russophobic.
When we arrived in Kazakhstan, me and other Russian evaders were taken to the local police office, where it was spelled it out to us that any imperialistic stuff is not going to be tolerated here, but otherwise we are welcome to stay.
While in Kazakhstan, I was technically on vacation, and my boss tried to keep me in, but eventually told me that he's not allowed to employ me unless I am inside Russia and thus I have no choice but to return or quit my job. I said that I can't return and thus have to quit. To my surprise, I was paid the severance package in full even though the employer was aware that if they don't pay I would be powerless to extract any money from them.
While I was in Kazakhstan, my wife stayed in Moscow and was preparing for immigration. Particularly she managed to rent out our apartment. It was a miracle because not many people need to rent a unit in Moscow, and those few who need it, have abundance of abandoned flats to chose from.
Since I have only allowed to spend 30 days in Kazakhstan, I then flew to Turkey. My wife and our two kids also flew there with all the documents required to proven Israeli bloodline. From there we immediately flew to Israel.
Due to an overwhelming flow of immigrants, waiting lines are very long and we had to wait 1.5 months for our interview. To save funds, we lived in a village near Jordan border, which suddenly proved to be a wonderful place to stay and my children enjoyed it very much.
We have passed our interview where the biggest problem appeared to be the American citizenship of my children. It entailed suspicion that we are not really interested on joining Israel but rather looking to move on to USA soon after. Nonetheless we were given citizenship, perhaps because the optics of forcing US-born children back into Russia was not something Israeli immigration authorities wanted to deal with, particularly with overwhelming evidence that those children are Jewish. After receiving citizenship we were utterly busy settling in and finding a job. We were beginning to run a bit low in money although at no point we were in immediate danger.
After some uncertainty and considerable pressure on our family, I have landed a job in a global company that actually donating millions of dollars to Ukraine. Thus, from now on I am contributing a bit to the Ukrainian side of the war. My contributions are minimal obviously, but there's only so much an ordinary man can do anyway.