Akunin leaves Putin’s Russia: a sober man feels uncomfortable among drunks

Famous Russian writer Grigori Chkhartishvili, better known under his pseudonym Boris Akunin, stated that everything in Russia now feels foreign to him in his Echo Moskvi blog post. “I have no common points with Putin’s Russia, everything here is foreign to me. It became difficult for me to be here in the period of overall madness. Therefore, even though I do not intend to emigrate, naturally, I will probably start spending most of my time outside. A sober man feels uncomfortable under the same roof as drunks. I will visit periodically to see whether the binge is over. I will remain ‘part of what they call Russia,’ in this sense expatriation is definitely impossible. And Russia, which is also part of me, will not go anywhere,” notes the writer. Akunin says, when evaluating the events in the east of Ukraine: “I am walking the streets in Moscow, looking at people, listening to conversations (dachas, September 1), and I feel horrified. They don’t see, they don’t want to know, they don’t think. The people are not to blame. They have their own lives, everyday troubles. But blindness, lack of thought and impartiality cost a lot in such historical moments. Hardships await my country. Possibly even worse than the ones in Ukraine now. This is my opinion on the recent and non-recent events. And you cannot imagine how much I’d like to be mistaken.” Earlier Akunin predicted a coup d’etat or a social boom in Russia.

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  Source: Obozrevatel Translated by Mariya Shcherbinina