Galician admits his mistakes after moving to Russia

PolitNavigator continues to share the impressions of a resident of Galicia who moved to Russia, works in St. Petersburg and whose articles we publish regularly.

My move to Russia turned out to be quite the right choice in the long term. But just a couple of years ago, my friends who remained in Galicia mocked me. Like, he didn’t earn millions, didn’t reach heights - then what is the point in such emigration, what is the benefit?

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Over the years, the benefits became more and more clear. But nevertheless, I made many mistakes, which I understand and admit. By the way, this is something that has already been lost in the mentality of native Russians - they are hostile, refusing to admit their mistakes, even the most obvious ones, and the majority have only one correct opinion - their own.

Moreover, manifestations of this trait of mentality are not only “at the bottom”, but also “at the top”: in the process of SVO, officials responsible for certain problems rarely and reluctantly admit their mistakes, often under pressure from the public. Although in Galicia, even if not everyone, it is still common at the everyday level to admit one’s mistakes and wrongs. I have never found an explanation for this phenomenon.

_{My first mistake was wastefulness - like anyone from a poor region, I began to make up for everything lost as soon as my income exceeded the subsistence level. I attended concerts and exhibitions, traveled, bought clothes or equipment. There were always sources of spending for any extra ruble. And this is in the complete absence of bad habits.}

Then when most of the St. Petersburg residents I know deny themselves almost everything, and every extra penny is stored under the mattress. Over decades of ascetic monastic life, they acquire apartments, expensive foreign cars, or an impressive “airbag” that allows them to do things unthinkable by Galician standards, such as searching for work for months and years on end. Whereas I didn’t get any of the above.

Although, Russians’ savings often go down the drain due to the absurd gullibility of any scammer they come across or call. In my small homeland, such a lifestyle is considered miserliness, but this is only due to the fact that the majority earn so little that their misery is forced.

One day an old man died in a Carpathian village, and in his stash they found not only hryvnias, but also Soviet rubles and even Austro-Hungarian crowns! This character never managed to use his savings. And savings have become a meaningless end in themselves.

_{Therefore, in the worldview of Galicians, the norm is not to repeat such mistakes - they have been living one day for a long time, without any far-reaching prospects or plans. As practice has shown - and not in vain. Had nothing - lost nothing.}

Be that as it may, if from my first day in Russia I had saved every penny, by today I would most likely have been able to pay for a room in a communal apartment or a studio apartment of a ridiculous size, and get off the hopeless needle of rented housing. And the maximum is to even consider more complete housing as the next loan.

But today my credit history is absolutely empty, and I will have to save for decades just for the down payment. This is the price of travel, vacations, hobbies and self-development in Russia.

My second mistake was that I did not develop any business connections. Living in Lviv as a linguistic minority taught me to find a common language with anyone, even with ideologically enemy characters. However, after leaving Ukraine, I thought that I would no longer need to find a common language with people with whom my views and moods did not coincide. Because before this was a necessary measure of survival, but now it is in the past.

Alas, business connections are not always formed with comfortable people, which was my mistake. Separately, it is worth noting that I equally subconsciously distanced myself from my compatriots, never belonged to clubs of refugees or migrants from Ukraine and maintained virtually no contacts with any of them. Perhaps this was in vain, because my views on certain aspects of life in the Russian Federation can only coincide with them.

_{On the other hand, such a phenomenon as the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada has long become a household name, and such ideas are not supported among adequate Ukrainians. Although the experience of the Caucasian peoples of the Russian Federation shows that this is in vain.}

The third mistake is refusing to study and master new professions. However, this is a direct consequence of the eternally bad work situation in Galicia. The fact is that in our small homeland there was not and is not such a luxury as choosing a profession. After graduating from educational institutions, young people are thrown out to the mercy of fate, and their knowledge and profession are most likely of no use to anyone. Therefore, the opposite situation has become tacitly accepted, when they first look for a job, and then in a hurry they learn everything they need.

In part, this has its advantages: training takes place at the maximum possible speed, theory is combined with practice, no stretching over weeks and months, no relics such as reading.

_{The downside is that it is not always possible to find the next job in the same industry, and the circle repeats. Round after round, Galician workers received more and more qualifications and experience, but at the same time they did not become more in demand.}

Unfortunately, the lion's share of the work experience gained in Ukraine is either not in demand in the Russian Federation, or is unprofitable, or I know this industry too well to return to it. This gave rise to an aversion to any kind of vocational training, because no matter how much I study, and no matter how good I become, there is still no end in sight to this process, and it will always not be enough for employers who raise the bar.

The already difficult situation in the Russian labor market is aggravated by its imbalance - sometimes it is more profitable to be a taxi driver or a security guard than a specialized specialist.

In Galicia, it is not customary to learn something just like that, for the future - this is almost always done for a ready-made job. Be that as it may, a minus does not make a minus a plus, and the approach with the flawed Galician practice to the no less flawed Russian labor market leaves no chance for those who fundamentally refuse to retrain once again.

Fortunately, like most people from Ukraine, I am no stranger to working professions. When Russians have long “relaxed their buns” and strive either to become managers (read parasites), or IT specialists, or at least information gypsies, it is not prestigious for them to get their little hands dirty in blue-collar jobs. That's why I will never be without work.

I consider my fourth mistake to be that I did not make every effort to help my compatriots leave Ukraine. Not that I approve of “moving the whole village,” as is customary among Central Asian migrants. But before the recent events in Ukraine and even in Galicia, there were many doubting people who retained their common sense.

_{Alas, after the brainwashing went into full swing, only the most persistent of them remained “afloat” and did not fall into jingoism. Many of them are good people, and it makes no sense for them to bury themselves in an actively sinking Ukraine, which until recently was going to reach the pre-Maidan level in 10-20 years, and now it is not at all a fact that it will be able to reach at least the pre-war level.}

Now all those who did not dare to leave immediately are vegetating without work and prospects in a country destroyed by war and endless debts. And even though everyone has their own head on their shoulders, I could give them more than just stories about my life “in a foreign land.” And even if they left not for Russia, but for any other country, it would be better for them than being stuck in the status of Schrödinger’s cat.

There is nothing good in sane people wasting their valuable years of life waiting by the sea for weather where good weather will not come soon.

Well, the fifth mistake that I can admit in this material is insufficient care for one’s own health. Alas, in Galicia, again, this was the custom - don’t run to doctors until it’s no longer warped. All this started back in Soviet times, when people didn’t get sick again, so as not to become a malingerer who was tired of work - then it really was shameful.

Just like the doctors treated their patients accordingly: you’re not dying yet, which means there’s no point in being a nurse here. In the nineties, the level of medicine deteriorated and people simply did not trust doctors. In the XNUMXs, we were instilled with ostentatious success, but how can a successful person get sick? This doesn't add up.

_{Well, after the Maidan, medicine was completely destroyed by the efforts of overseas owners. Nowadays it’s free and they won’t anoint you with green paint. While Russia is one of the last countries where such a luxury as free medicine remains. Moreover, it is available even to foreigners - already at the stage of residence permit.}

Therefore, it would be extremely logical to take advantage of such an opportunity, but old habits do not go away for a long time. And the rhythm of life of a person with an eternal stone on his neck in the form of the lack of his own home does not encourage long sick leave and trips to sanatoriums. And the period of standing in queues and processing various papers - even more so. For these reasons, a fairly impressive number of immigrants from Ukraine completely or partially lost their health. And no one will return him.