CLEVELAND — Svetlana Stolyarova returned to the United States carrying emotional baggage from a trip home to visit family in Moscow.
“It was such a shocking experience,” Stolyarova said.
She escaped from Russia Thursday after seeing first-hand how the country was changing amid its invasion of Ukraine.
“Inside Russia, the terror is developing,” she described. “[The people] live in fear." Stolyarova said it was a place she no longer wanted to be. “I was lucky because I managed to buy the ticket to the Turkish airline, a plane. Obviously I needed to get out of there as soon as possible."
Stolyarova said she reconnected with family in Cleveland and moved her family from Moscow before the turn of the century.
Thousands of miles away, Stolyarova finds herself in an emotional hard place, but shows support online for Ukraine and tries to help anyway she can.
“I would love to say to the Ukrainian community, it's so painful. We are with you,” Stolyarova said. “Every honest person with a Russian background feels pain and kind of guilt,”
For Stolyarova, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a misrepresentation of what many Russians she knows believe to be moral. “Most of the people who consider themselves to be a part of the Russian community seem to be against the war,” she added.
Stolyarova wants the world to know, especially Ukrainian people, Russian culture is not Russian government. “Russia is not Putin and Putin is not Russia,” she said. “[This war is] stealing from us the history. It’s trying to steal from us the pride.”
Stolyarova said she knows being a Russian could put a target on her back. She offered this advice to the Russian community in Cleveland: Stay united and if there is animosity toward you, show patience and explain that the Russian people are not responsible for what is going on.
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