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War

Nightmare Journal

From the first days of the war

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Nikita Petrov
Mar 18, 2022
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I’m typing this from an apartment in Yerevan, Armenia. I’m one of the tens of thousands of Russians who left their country since it started a war with Ukraine. On the day I left, the President seemed to have also declared a war on me and my kind.

I hope I will soon be able to say something useful about our new reality. For now, I want to share some notes from a few weeks ago, when the complete inability to be of any use was one of dominating feelings.

I got this letter from Glenn Loury on the third day of war, Feb 26:

NP:

My wife just made a suggestion with which I agree: We'd like to hear from you on a regular basis -- a brief note, daily if possible, just to be reassured that you are OK!

GL

For the following week, I’ve used this invitation as an excuse to write a kind of a journal. I wouldn’t have been able to write for my own sake, because words seemed worthless and inappropriate. But knowing that Glenn was expecting a note gave me a permission to start typing, and once I did, it was ha…

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