I rarely write about the Crimea now. Probably, in four years I just got out. All I wanted to say is. I remember how in 2015, in an interview, I was asked about my favorite city. At first he was sorting through the beautiful and landscape, and then he answered: "Simferopol". No, I'm not crazy. I know everything about my hometown. I know that he is small, untidy and inappropriately. But it is he who has a monopoly on my childhood memories. You can live the rest of your life in Bruges, but they will not be there, - writes Pavel Kazarin in the column on "Crimea. Realities ".

I clearly remember the pre-war 2013. On the eve of the Maidan peninsula seemed a forgotten periphery of the former empire. Forgotten and unnecessary, like grandmother's sunset. Probably, the Russian squadron in Bizerte could look like this in the 1930s. Six years have already passed since the recognition of the Soviet government, but it was not yet 1936 when the last ship - the battleship "General Alekseev". Military stamping is still issued to porters in hotels, but tame opera with complex Slavic names are already learning new songs.

Moscow lived a pogrom in Biryulyovo, discussed illegal migration, complained of the dominance of the Caucasus. And Crimea continued to live Soviet myths in their virgin purity. Rallying against NATO, exposing the "Dulles plan", caricatured reasoning about the "friendship of the peoples". It seemed that there was almost nothing left between the last Soviet bastion and the new Russia. And then happened in February 2014, and it turned out that the entire post-perestroika Russia is just a makeover, under which the same old empire hides. The Crimea again landed with Moscow in resonance - it was not she who returned the agenda to the peninsula, it was he who imposed on her his.

I remember the local urban crazy. They walked with red or tri-colored flags and wore portraits of deceased people. They spoke Soviet words and thought with Soviet slogans. Among them were even caricature monarchists. As it should be - anti-Semites. They worked in a local purse newspaper with a Jewish surname, which, incidentally, did not prevent in their free time from talking about "Zionists" and "conspiracy".

These people lived in a cemetery. For them, today's day was only a springboard for a return to yesterday. With them it was boring and dull. In any overseas trip, they were looking for traces of permanent withering. They were stupid, uneducated and undeveloped.

I lived in the Crimea for thirty years, ten of whom worked in journalism. All this time we tried to sew the mainland and the peninsula. Search for intersection points. Find on the maps some other horizons, except those on which the USSR was ending. We wanted to go to tomorrow, and they tried to drag us into yesterday. And it seemed to us that time plays on our side. Just because we are young, and they are not. We were wrong.

Four years ago, all these guys suddenly became mainstream. It turned out that we overestimated Russia. Thought she was smarter, more modern, more progressive. And she found themselves suited to them. Orwell as a new rule.

I held it in Simferopol until the autumn of 2014. From February to November he wrote about what Russia is doing with my house. Sometimes it seemed that you are inside the novel "Island of Crimea" - in the chapter where the empire absorbs the territory of the peninsula. The knife was sent to all that you believed in - independent media, independent people, the right to disagree. By November, even ripples on the water disappeared. It became clear that this is all. I threw things in the trunk and went to Kiev. Today my house has to live across all that I believe in. However, today I do not believe in everything either.

Four years ago I got rid of many illusions. For example, that adults are always able to agree. If you are offered a capitulation as the only option - a dialogue is impossible. The power of the word works where people can hear. And if they can invent "crucified boys" for themselves - there is no point in talking to them. Everything you say will be used against you.

It turned out that life does not put everything in its place. That the time left alone does not necessarily lead us into "tomorrow". It may well lead us all into "yesterday". Generation of fathers wipes the generation of children to take away the future from grandchildren. Facts can lose a lie. The one who speaks the truth is bound by this truth. The one who lies, is not constrained by anything. Adulthood is not a matter of age, but a question of infantilism. If a person is a fool - do not waste beads on him.

I no longer believe that "they will sort themselves out". As soon as a region becomes a reserve of nostalgia - it begins to go to hell. People with heads turned back do not know how. Dante proved.

I do not know if I could agree with myself of the 2013 model. In recent years, I "corrected". Became stiffer. Has ceased to believe in the market of ideas and in rationality of a choice. Moving forward requires you to work hard. Degradation does not require anything. Roll down and into the past - it's easy.

I realized that the motives of people are determined not by reality, but by the perception of this reality. The struggle for a "picture in the minds" is capable of winning wars. Or start them. Proved by Russian TV. I learned this lesson. For four years, I realized that democratic principles should be spread only to those who are ready to recognize them. To play by these rules is only with those who are not going to cancel them after the victory. "I read and agree with the terms of the license agreement," - so, it seems?.

My Crimea occasionally breaks out to me. Flares - like a night's sleep after lunch. On the old photos - those who swore to new flags. Those who have gone into internal emigration. Those who left. I still can not get used to the snowfalls. The change of the seasons marks the transition from Madeira to Cabernet.

The house blows everywhere where on the horizon the mountains are visible. My things are divided into those that are "from there," and those that are already "from here". But least of all I'm determined to call the experience an injury.

There - in my Crimea - there were three decades. And illusions. I do not mind either one or the other.

Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty Join also the TSN group. Blogs on facebook and follow the updates of the section!.