A letter across the years, miles

When we were journalists, and young

My dear Natasha,

I’ve lost track of you. Most of my Russian friends’ Facebook pages are frozen since the war in Ukraine began three years ago this month. That’s when Vladimir Putin blocked most social media sites, including Facebook, and since has taken down a half million websites.

You are the most courageous of journalists, so of course Putin also took aim squarely at your online newspaper, declaring it a “foreign agent,” a Soviet-era label tantamount to being accused of being a traitor. Within the scope of this law, anyone who works for a “foreign agent,” carries that designation for two years, even after severing ties. That comes with more restrictions on personal freedoms. Your newspaper, once blocked, is online again, but you are no longer the editor and your name is not listed anywhere.

This bothers me most of all because your country needs the kind of kick-ass journalism you once practiced, the kind that Putin won’t tolerate.

We met during journalism exchanges 35 years ago and became instant friends. I thought that America had so much to teach journalists in the then-Soviet Union, and you immediately declared that you would start your own newspaper, one based on the American model of reporting facts. You went home and did just that. I loved your energy. I was sure that just as our democracy would become stronger, your country, in its first shaky steps towards free speech and a free press, would too.

I was naive, of course, and wrong on both parts. These last nine years have taught me how fragile our own democracy is, how it is dependent on two strong political parties and on the willingness of leaders to follow traditions and norms laid down decades, even centuries, before.

The Republican Party is a husk of what it once was, groveling to Donald Trump as he takes a sledgehammer to our government. He is firing thousands, putting utterly incompetent loyalists in charge of departments and lying more often than a heroin addict. He’s pardoned hundreds of thugs, insulted our allies, embraced oligarchs and proved that he will do Russia’s bidding. He’s blackmailing Ukraine, demanding half its minerals, blamed it for the Russian invasion, and presented the country with a bill for aid we gave freely. Shamefully, at the United Nations this week, my country joined with yours to oppose a resolution calling on Russia to withdraw from Ukraine.

If we could be together, brewing tea from the Russian samovar that sits in my office, purchased during my visit so long ago, you would probably ask me what I am doing about all this.

Well. I’m writing, of course. There is a growing opposition movement in America coordinated by various organizations. Some have called for a nationwide boycott on Feb. 28 of companies cutting back on diversity, equity and inclusion policies, encouraging people to just shop at small businesses that day. I support that; anything against our homegrown oligarchs is fine by me. Organizations such as 50/50/1 movement are sponsoring protests in all 50 states - the next one is March 4. Indivisible is another opposition organization with chapters in all 50 states, each sponsoring different activities. This is a good start. But it is early yet. This, I fear, will be a long game, like the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s.

I still have the photo of the two of us, taken when we had just met 35 years ago. You were a member of a journalists’ exchange program between New England and the then-Soviet Union. I was an editorial writer for The Day of New London. I had my daughter with me then; she was just 18-months old. You immediately put your arm around her and she willingly settled in your lap, and said you said something to me that made me laugh. It’s a great photo. Later that week, I gave you a copy, and soon I framed it and put it in my office.

When I visited you a year later at the newspaper you founded, you had the same framed photo on your wall. It still binds us together. Several years ago I messaged you on Facebook with a copy of the photo. I wrote, “We were so young then!” And you responded, “

Yes, remember? We were both journalists, and both so happy!”

Wherever you are, I hope you have found happiness, my friend. I pray for both you and the democratic movements in both our countries. And I promise, I will roll up my sleeves, just as I know you would in my place.