Photos of the Russians who managed to flee conscription Chaos on the Russia-Georgia border
Russians fleeing “partial mobilization” in the last week of September formed a huge line at the Russia-Georgia border. Russian authorities have taken military equipment to the border crossing at Verkhny Lars and set up a mobilization point there, but it hasn’t stopped people from crossing. At Meduza’s request, photographer Alexandra Makharashvili spent all night at the border on September 27, snapping portraits of Russians who managed to cross to the Georgian side. She also recorded their remarks about events at the border.
I’m 32, I’m eligible for the draft. I left with my wife and our infant. We tried to push and explain that we have a baby, we’re running out of diapers, there’s no water (our supply of four five-liter bottles was gone in two days). But it didn’t work.
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On the road, [Russian] police wanted money at checkpoints. If my wife is at the wheel, they just wave her through and don’t take money, but if I’m driving, they demand it. On the main route, their price is 5,000 [rubles], and on secondary routes, from 1,000 to 3,000. My wife yelled at them and they let us pass, but they threatened that we’d see them again. So we took a roundabout route through a little village, and saw no one.
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Some traffic cops take bribes of 10,000 to 40,000 rubles.
People on the Georgian side of the border
I’m fleeing because I currently have relatives in Ukraine, my wife is Ukrainian. I can’t look my own mother-in-law in the eye. My wife’s parents are from western Ukraine. And they aren’t any kind of “banderas,” but proper, very kind people. Even before I was a relative they were very good to me.
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I’m scared of winding up stuck inside one territory. Besides that, I wanted to feel that I was a free person. My employer promised that he won’t let me go. That I won’t be taken. But I think the state machine will pick up anyone.
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We were dumped. We were told we’d be taken to the border for 100,000 rubles. But we didn’t make it to the border and they squeezed another 140,000 out of us.
Many have crossed the border on bikes or scooters. The checkpoint at Verkhny Lars is officially an automobile checkpoint, meaning crossings must be in a vehicle (bicycles and scooters are allowed), but after mobilization began requirements loosened and pedestrian crossings were allowed.
I met men who had been in the Donbas. When you see a guy who used to be healthy, strong like a bodybuilder, who got wounded and lost up to 60 kilograms (over 100 pounds) and looks like matchstick… After that, everything turned around for me. Anyway, [when I was] in the army, I [already] heard all about the “Kiev junta.” But I realized that it’s all lies.
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I served. My wife panicked that they’d send me back to fight. And I don’t personally understand why I’d go to war. It’s one thing to defend, when there’s a motive to do something. Now I don’t understand why we’d go and conquer foreign land. We already have so much land, undeveloped territories.
Taxi drivers and relatives of those fleeing mobilization wait on the Georgian side.
My wife insisted on leaving to save me. We left. She’s in a traffic jam in Vladikavkaz, with our child, and I got to Georgia yesterday.
Yesterday a [Russian] armored personnel carrier with soldiers came [to the border], and my wife got nervous and turned toward Vladikavkaz. I’m waiting for her here. She’ll get through.
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We got together a group of several cars. Conflicts arise during traffic jams – it’s just easier that way.
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Our wives stayed at the border with our babies. We took bicycles so we could get through faster, because things were starting to boil over. I tried to argue with my wife but she insisted that I cross faster. It’s eating at my conscience that I left her.
Volunteers at the border
At the Russian border there’s arguing and brawling, but there are also people who help, locals.
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The locals help. They provided a shower for my wife because our baby hadn’t been bathed in two days. They fed her. Another man opened the trunk of his car and offered us food. I tried to pay him, but he wouldn’t take my money.
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In the neutral zone [between Russia and Georgia], which is about 700 meters (less than half a mile), there are people without any strength, without water. If they’re tired they sleep right on the rocks.
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The days blend together. I can’t even remember the exact date that I left my wife in a traffic jam.
Photographs and text by Alexandra Makharashvili
Translation by Emily Laskin