the most depressing Q&A about leaving Russia, life in the Far East, propaganda and Zombie apocalypse

the most depressing Q&A about leaving Russia, life in the Far East, propaganda and Zombie apocalypse

Show Video

Hi guys, welcome to my new Q&A video! Today  I'll answer most of your common questions,   and I'm so glad that I finally can make  this video because I wanted to talk to you   for a long time. So let's begin but first I want to  show you the place where I am now, so I am now in   Spassk, yes, while all the smart people are leaving  Russia, I decided to come to my hometown, but I'm   here just for five days so don't worry about me,  and yeah, yesterday I was walking here, like in my   neighborhood, where I'm supposed to know everything  but I found this really amazing place, it is a car   dump, so there are like many old rusty cars, and I  found it so peaceful, so now I just want to share   this aesthetic with you. And yesterday in the  evening when I was walking here I was scared   that maybe there's some security or big dogs, and  you know what, this place was completely empty,  but there was one tractor with one suspiciously  working gear light, and there was a camera... You see, some tractors, an old  bus, look, just like on my hoodie. So yesterday this thing was working  and you see there's like a camera.  

Yeah the camera that is filming this place. I didn't film it but that man, he's like a guard, he came up to me and said "What are   you doing here?", I said, "I'm just walking,  I like the aesthetics of this place", and   he said, "Well as long as you don't steal anything", and I was like "Thank you!". Let's go. I actually like that I can talk to you  now in such a calm atmosphere, even making friends   with the guard of this area. So guys, most common  question was am I going to move out from Russia.   And the answer is of course, yes. Because I wanted  to do it for a long time, it's like it's not even  

a question for me, and when this all started on  the 24th of February, I was scared that what if   the government closes the borders, there will be  an iron curtain and I will be stuck here forever.   But now I hope that there will be no such a thing,  and since that time, thousands of people already   left Russia, and these are mostly middle class,  IT workers, people who had some valuable skills.   I always wanted to do this and i will tell  you about my next plans a little later.

Another question was "Do we have food shortages here in the  far east?" Our prices raised like 30 percent, some   10 percent, for technologies, phones, laptops,  although I don't see food shortages   because I don't know, I don't go to, you know, big supermarkets, I don't see empty shelves.   And guys, I must say that I'm really privileged  and I had some savings. My situation is different   from situation of millions of Russians, of majority  of Russian people, so I just buy food as usual, but   of course this economical situation is getting to become worse and worse. How are you? Do you feel OK? What about your driving license, thesis, travels do you have any plans? Greetings from Poland. Greetings to Poland, thank you for this  question, and uh, when I see all that videos   and photos, I just cannot express the range of  emotions that I have with just helplessness, it's   just such a big grief. I mean I'm used to it. You are becoming used to some things after a long time.  

And yeah, as for another part of this question, I am  writing my thesis, it's quite hard   it's a very routine work, and it's not easy for me to sit there in one place and just   to do this, but I accepted it as my fate, and I'm  writing it and I hope that i will graduate, finally.   As for my driving license, guys you remember, I even left that possibility, I don't want to do this anymore because for this I had to come here to Spawsk all the time, and it felt   like going to some backward place, dealing with  that people, it was a really unpleasant   experience, so I just decided to not torture myself.  As for travels honestly, I am so tired. I don't want   to travel now. What I want now is just to find a  peaceful safe place, a place where I will be  

surrounded by people who I can trust, when I will do a job that is appreciated, and that is   contributing to something. What is the outcome and  how hard is it to access information outside of   official Russian media right now? Well, the outcome  will not be really good. Russia now is basically   closing up, shutting down, and really bad times,  really dark times are coming to our country.   Of course, our economy and many other industries will deteriorate more and more, and   as for the media, all the TV channels in Russia are  state-owned, so there's no healthy argument,   just one agenda. We have some independent  media outlets online but some of them recently were  

banned and they're closed now,  and some others were considered   as foreign agents, and people still can access  them with VPN. So of course guys, I see all the news,   because I saw people sending me comments with,  like the news, what happened. Maybe people think that   we don't get information at all, but still at least,  YouTube works. Thank you. Maybe they even will not   close YouTube because I heard that one reason of this is that it has a lot of cartoons, and parents show these cartoons to the kids, so it will affect them too much, so thank you Peppa Pig for saving Russian YouTubers.

Yeah okay, the sound is fine, the picture is fine too. This is the new place... But one more thing about Russian media is that  not so many people are reading that independent   sources, only like thinking people, like myself, and  all the others, they're just watching the TV, the   majority of people in Russia watch the TV, they're used to this source of information that's why they believe it. How are your family and friends doing with all that is going on, do they worry about you posting?  Oh okay about my parents so, my dad believes the official agenda, everything   that our TV says, and it is really impossible to  change his opinion because I mean it's a set of   values that developed in a person for  years, and people are comfortable with this.   When you live all your life in a small town and  don't know how life can be, you... As from my mom, she is like the same, but my victory was that I convinced her to read   independent news, but she is still arguing with me and sometimes she's saying such   words that are not even her thoughts, I don't  believe that she could make it up, she heard it   from somewhere, and yeah, it was useless to try  to speak to them, but I tried to do what I can.   And yeah, my mom also was worrying about my  university, she was like "Don't post anything,   don't go to protest or you will be expelled from the university, you'll have problems!". This is the kind of  

fear that all post-Soviet people live with, not  all but the majority of them. As for my friends,   I don't have friends. In Khabarovsk I have just two friends, we go to the cafes and that's it... Most of my friends are online, and they left Russia, and I realized how damaging   it is for my mental health to not communicate with  people in real life, but really what I can do? Like, okay I went to an English club in Khabarovsk, there  we talked in English, there were three other guys,   two of them are also going to move out of Russia.  So I don't know, I just exist. I hope that when I   move out I will be in a new environment and find  new people, guys look what I found on my pants,   when I was going through all these bushes. Do you  have such things in your country? In my childhood   we called it kolyuchka. And the next question: "How  did your family come to live in Eastern Siberia?"  

Well first guys, let me be a little annoying  because we, at least in the Russian language,   we don't call it Eastern Siberia, we call  it the Far East because there are federal   districts: there's a Siberian Federal District  which is like in the middle of Russia, and Far   Eastern Federal district, even though if you look  at this on Wikipedia, it will say that this is   like, a larger Siberia but you know, this term  is very broad but we usually say just far east.   But maybe in Western terminology you can  call it Eastern Siberia. So my ancestors came here   a little more than 100 years ago. So my dad's  parents are Russians and they came to the far east   in the beginning of the 20th century, somewhere  from the Oryol Oblast, this is what I know, and   from my mom's side... so my mom's mom, my  Grandmother, she is Ukrainian, and her mother,   my Grand grandmother was among peasants who came from  Ukraine to populate these territories because in   the beginning of the 20th century, and in the end  of the 19th century, there were programs that, like   gave people land in the far east. They even formed  many towns and villages here with Ukrainian   names, for example, she lived in a village called Красный Кут (Krasny Kut), which is, I believe, in Ukrainian means a   "Beautiful corner", and this village still exists  here, and she spoke Ukrainian in her house   and that's why my grandmother knows some  Ukrainian words. Yeah as for my mom's dad,  

he is Belarusian, and he came to the far east actually not as a peasant seeking for land, but a little later, in the 60s, he was a constructor, a builder and in the Soviet times, there were jobs by distributions, so he was distributed to build houses in Spassk, that's how he settled down here. So resuming this all, I have Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian roots..   but I mean this all is quite close to  each other, I mean genetically, we are all   one branch of Eastern Savic people. Moving on to  the next question: if trade with China increases, do   you think there will be any economic benefit to  your home and region? Well, no. I don't think that   there will be any benefits because guys, China is  not going to help us. They're acting in their own  

interests, I completely understand them, so,  maybe it seems to you that if we live here,   in the far east, we have many connections with them, but how many people who I know traveled to Japan?  Like it's just one hour flight to Japan but maybe like two percent of people living in Primorsky Krai, in Khabarovsk Krai, are able to go there,  because it is so expensive and you need to get   visa which is also really hard. As for China, well, to go to China was a little easier,   when Yuan was just four Rubles, now Yuan is like  twelve rubles, and I mean basically it's just another   undeveloped broke Russian region, so... Maybe  logistically somehow it will help them, you know,   to transfer goods from Vladivostok, but honestly,  I don't know much about this topic.

"A couple of days ago i read about some polls that suggested an increased popularity of approval of the government...   What is your impressions, best wishes, Sebastian." Uh, we have to understand how these polls are   being conducted, so imagine you live in a state  of fear, and an unfamiliar number calls you   and asks your opinion, or what is even better,  comes to your apartment, what would you say?   So another thing is that the organizations that  are making these polls, do you really think that   they are able to make something independently?  Another thing is that concert, that happened in   Moscow recently, you guys were asking me, like how  is it possible? So many people came there? And again,   we have to understand how things work. In russia  there is a public sector, which consists of like   "budgetary institutions" as we call them: schools,  universities, libraries, hospitals, many different   institutions, and often they just are "invited" to  such events, like if you don't go there, you will   have problems with your boss, and you know people  live in the fear, and they came to that concert, just checked in, that they came there, and left as  soon as they could. This is how things are done.   Of course, there are some people who still  believe it, but honestly guys I'm so tired   of trying to figure out, how many people  support this, how many people don't support it... Another question was about how often I see  the Z symbols around Khabarovsk. Well, quite often...  

You can see them on their city buses, you  can see them on the beautiful building   of the scientific library, they put that  billboard, and when i was walking in the   market in Khabarovsk, I even saw T-shirts, I began  filming this, and the saleswoman, she was like, "Do you mind?", and I asked her about these T-shirts,  what does it mean? And this is what she said: And when I see this, I feel so helpless. Do Russians prefer Western media or Russian media in terms of music, video games, movies, shows. Do most Russians know English?  Well, most Russians don't know English, because not many people travel, it's taught in schools not really professionally, Older generation... maybe like five-ten percent know English, among younger generation, it's a little better... So yeah, I think, in terms of music it's 50/50 because there are Russian musicians, they're foreign musicians, and you know, tastes are various for different people, so... The same probably for movies, but... *sigh of indignation* Guys...

RUSSIAN MOVIES... Maybe there are some good directors, there are movie festivals, okay, I cannot say that everything is so bad but the majority... When the industry is not developing, you can see it on many different things that this industry is producing. They're funding MILITARY FILMS. On the average, what I see, Western and foreign movies are more popular, like if you go to a Russian cinema, not anymore because now, I believe, there are no foreign movies at all, but before February 24th, probably 80 percent of films in the cinema were foreign, and the rest is Russian movies. And of course, foreign movies are dubbed into Russian, we used to have all the like...   *birds chirping* We used to have Spotify, Netflix, Hulu, Russia was integrated into the Western, into the global culture so much and now we are closing up. As for video games, I honestly don't know any Russian video game.

Metro 2033? Is it a Russian game? (NO) I don't know, let's discuss it   in the comments, yeah I just need more comments  under this video, and don't forget to put like,   so that YouTube knows that this video is interesting and... promotes my video more. Honestly guys, I'm not... Like, I don't watch movies  at all. Yeah, this is my confession. Am I the only one? I can watch like one movie in in two months,  and even though I like, studied cinema history, I know all this like Lumière brothers... Because I have  some professional deformation... When I watch movies   I begin to analyze all the frames, how this was  shot, basically I do this when I watch any   YouTuber, when I took a break from YouTube two  months ago, I managed to... detach from this, and I   was just enjoying videos. Yeah, I don't watch films,  this is probably a trauma caused by Russian films.  

I don't know what I do in my free time, like watch  TikTok, watch YouTube, read books... sometimes. Wow, hello. What guests we have. The thing is that I don't have a mirror on my camera, on my phone, so   who knows, maybe there were many other things behind my back. Let's go. *funny howling of dogs* Okay, let's try to get into the bus. Oh my god Actually guys, I came here prepared.

Quality content. Dogs... There's just a jar. "On your channel, I always enjoy when you show old derelict buildings, things that are rusty or in a bad state of repair, what is about these things that draws you to them, what makes them interesting to you?" Well, I think that today's location is a   good illustration for this question. I just like  the aesthetics of such rusty places. I'm not a   gamer at all, but I have played some video games  that inspired me, one of them is Dishonored, all   these steampunk aesthetics, rusty things, and  another game is Life is Strange, and particularly   there was an episode called Junkyard, and when I found this place yesterday, I had such a flashback   to that game, and as for the graffiti, also there  was a question why I like graffiti, is that when I was 12, I played a computer game called Mark Ecko's  Getting Up, and it is a game about graffiti, you   have to find different spots there were elements  of parkour, and that game inspired me so much, I just...   After that, I can say that I have like a trained  eye, my eyes are searching for new graffitis, and sometimes it's not really good for me because  this makes me to notice all the city elements   like the Z billboards and so on. But one  important thing I have to say is that maybe I  

created a wrong impression about myself. There was  a comment that "Natasha loves her hometown Spassk, and   is showing it like, with love and she cares about  it", but the thing is that I don't live in Spassk, for five years already, I moved to Khabarovsk when I entered the University there, I lived in Moscow for   a while, I lived in the United States, this is not  what my life is about, like all these rusty places.   It happened because I was often coming to Spassk, and in Spassk I feel so easy to   film, so comfortable, and I know that I will be  really interested myself to film these places,   that's why I'm like yeah, I can film this, I can  film that, and that's how, I showed you all that   like, countryside, my neighborhood, fishing, but in  general, my lifestyle is pretty urbanized, like   I live in Khabarovsk, in the city center, I go to  coffee shops, so this is what my life is about. What will help people in the West better understand  the way people in Russia think and maybe why?   Yeah it is a really good question, and you know, because my channel used to be called Yeah Russia,   and I created it to tell you things about my country, it felt to me that understanding Russia   is my job, but now it became so unbearable for me  to try to understand this. But this is how I see it: Imagine that you was brought up in a broke  post-Soviet dysfunctional traumatized family   and for all your childhood you see just this.  In schools, in universities, polyclinics, in any institutions you are being treated really rudely, and if you're speaking up, people think that you're a freak, because just shut up, nobody ask your opinion.

And if you're smiling and laughing there's something wrong with you because what there is to be happy about? Don't you have a 20 years mortgage for a one room apartment in the outskirts of Khabarovsk? So it feels to me that this feeling of helplessness, of devastation around you, this is what many people, the majority of Russian people grow up with, and there is this idea that nothing can be changed, it's impossible to change anything, so don't even try. My hometown is in Alaska, I've always wondered, how Russian people feel about Alaska and how it was purchased?   Yeah, sometimes there are jokes, like Alaska, go back to your motherland! But you know, these jokes, they have never been like too serious and guys, I'm so happy for you like, I'm so happy  that you live now there on the territory of   the United States because if it wasn't sold many  years ago, your region would look like that  abandoned Soviets north pole cities like Pevek and so on. Good for you. I am happy for you. I envy you. "Is Climate Change discussed in Russia, is it  even a topic, have you noticed anything different   in the environmental climate, is the  weather getting weirder?" Well, I have   not noticed that weather getting weirder. But when  things are deteriorating in the country, when  

all the important issues are hushed up and not  talked about... Of course, there were conversations   about this on the higher level, but if we are  talking about recycling, my favorite recycling,   about like five percent of Russian trash is  being recycled. All the other trash is being just   buried under the ground, or burnt in the special  polygons, and there are many polygons   around all Russian cities, and  this is a big ecological problem for us.   I don't know if the government is going to do  something about this, it's not our... It's not discussed in schools. In some yards in  Moscow, there're these bins where you can leave   trash of different kind, but in Khabarovsk, we have  such a thing, but it's like one thing for the whole   city, well there are several of them, but sometimes  you cannot, for example, recycle some particular   plastic, like number six or number five. In Spassk, there is at all no possibilities to recycle, so  

yeah, people just don't know much about, people  don't even think about this, I was so terrified   when I realized it after going to the United  States where we recycled even in our dormitory. There was a question about how now Russian  YouTubers can get their income, and of course   I'll answer these question. So YouTube  still is monetizing my channel, it only   doesn't show monetized ads to people in Russia,  but most of my audience is foreign, so anyway.  

YouTube still shows ads on my videos but  I cannot access that money yet, because I  have some issues with my Russian bank account, so  I'll access that money but later. The same works   for Patreon, it still accepts your pledges, but I just decided to put it on hold, and it's just been   kept on Patreon. As for PayPal, it doesn't work  in Russia at all now. And I also created a   crypto wallet if you guys want to donate me  in crypto, there is a link under this video.  

And yes this is the end of my video, I hope that  you enjoyed this video it was a long one, I hope   that you liked the aesthetics of this place, please  let me know if you want to see something more like   this, and yeah there were many other questions that  I unfortunately didn't answer today. Maybe I should   make another Q&A video. So thank you for watching,  thank you for all the support that you give me,   I really appreciate this. And I wish you lots of love and have a great day, goodbye, poka-poka!

2022-04-20 13:35

Show Video

Other news