Ilya Kolmanovsky
Evgenia Albats*: Ilya, both you and I are exiles from our country. Both you and I were quite successful in our country, in Russia, in Moscow. And, in general, we were doing well there. Even during all those Putin years, when things were getting worse and worse. And when people close to us started being imprisoned, it was still a place, as they say in English, I belong there. I belong to this place. I grew up in Moscow, I lived my whole life in Moscow, although I traveled a lot around the Soviet Union and Russia. And so we had to leave because the alternative was, basically, prison. And the fact that a proper protest against the war never really formed is, of course, our terrible shame. Nevertheless, I don't know about you, but I... I constantly want to go home. I remember my home, I remember places I know from childhood, I remember smells... And so I ask myself the question—why? What is it, Ilya, nostalgia?
The Mouse Inside Me
Ilya Kolmanovsky: I think a zoologist would suggest we first return to this point you marked as "we were doing well." And let's start with this. Mammals formed in the Mesozoic era during the time of dinosaurs and lived through two-thirds of their history like that. Mammals are contemporaries of dinosaurs. And our niche, because dinosaurs ruled the world, was a nocturnal lifestyle, night, burrows, and small size, small size class. And mainly reliance on smell and touch. Today we can look at such mammals, more than half of the 5-6 thousand mammal species that exist now live approximately like this. We can see how the life of such a creature is arranged, its ecumene, its inhabited cosmos consists of very well-trodden routes. And this fantastically saves resources because this mouse, this shrew has to run kilometers and kilometers. Maybe not in a very large area, but if you unwind this telephone cord, you get kilometers that need to be diligently run every night in search of resources, food, a mate, shelter, to raise offspring, to feed offspring.
Novelty is always costs, it's always some kind of price. The most expensive organ is the brain, it consumes the most calories. And it doesn't spend calories on what is already familiar
All this together requires a lot of resources. And a huge saving of resources for it is the fact that each time this territory is well known. It runs at a huge speed for such a small size over this section. And there is continuous feedback. Mainly it's smell. You mentioned this Proustian marker for a reason. It's a madeleine. The madeleine is actually not so much a taste as an aroma that gets further into the nose through the throat. Under the influence of feedback, the mouse knows that it hasn't run into unfamiliar territory, where it will have to reload the processor and deal with novelty. Novelty is always costs, it's always some kind of price. The most expensive organ is the brain, it consumes the most calories. And it doesn't spend calories on what is already familiar. Therefore, there is a place to which you are assigned. And although man is the crown of nature, has a very large brain, in this sense he hasn't gone very far from the Mesozoic animal, for whom a huge value is that he doesn't have to learn everything anew.
It is clear that man is also a cultural being, but there everything is the same. Imagine how many things the brain has learned in 12 years, 15 years, 20 years. 20 years is a huge period for a mammal. How much has entered your head not only in terms of territory, your territory, your area, where you know every ramp, every sidewalk. I can now ride, jumping ahead, in the place where I now live, from home to the children's school by bicycle 4 kilometers, knowing by heart every place where it's easy to ride, where it's easy to descend, where it's better to cut, because the mouse inside me has now mastered a new territory.
But more important is the social space and the markers you can read in people. Your model has absorbed huge big data during this time and has learned a lot. In this space, I'm not talking about physical space now, but about cultural space, which also changed, we all mastered, we knew how everything was arranged. And we had our expectations from all this. We knew that we lived in the same forest with the enemy, with the Russian state, which for the last 200 years killed everything alive inside and outside. But it's a separate drive, to be able to live next to a deadly predator and to know, to know which paths you run on, and to greatly expand your area. And in the 90s, when they let go a little, opened the window a little, we were able to do a lot. Perhaps you rightly blame us for what we couldn't do. But let's not devalue what we managed to do. On your magazine "New Times," on "Echo of Moscow," a free, unspanked generation grew up.
The pathos of the story of Moses is that this transcendence, going beyond one's ecumene for the sake of freedom, at first glance, is the lot of madmen. But in fact, it is not so
And here we approach a very important moment. You say, we were doing well. And then you add: despite the fact that. And you say: it was getting stuffier, it was getting more dangerous. And here, perhaps, for a zoologist, it's a terribly interesting moment. Because further, when the situation begins to change and in this forest predators begin to multiply more and more, the space begins to become bare, safe areas shrink to islands. The brain must continuously weigh two things on the scales. One is all the advantages of being in a familiar area, on familiar territory. The other is the fact that it is getting dangerous, and ideally, you need to move, go to master another territory, relocate, maybe wait until the predators die out, and then return to this forest.
But then there is the most important moment. The brain is very poorly disposed to such an experiment. There is a very important concept that I first heard from science journalist Ira Yakutenko during the pandemic: inaction bias. All else being equal, if there is a choice of what to do next, the brain considers inaction—the most conservative choice—the safest. It doesn't understand that there can also be a price for this in the future, there can also be costs. And therefore, all else being equal, it highly values the smells of native streets, the space of the native language, all the various circumstances that are its ecumene. And the idea of going beyond this ecumene, deadly dangerous for any animal, is even more dangerous for humans. I have always been struck by the description of the story of Moses, how one madman can convince hundreds of thousands of people with children and the elderly to just go into the desert, where you will die in 12 hours. It seems to me that the pathos of this story is that this transcendence, going beyond one's ecumene for the sake of freedom, at first glance, is the lot of madmen. But in fact, it is not so.
Looking ahead, in all mammal populations there are special creatures, genetically special. And apparently, this was terribly important for people, for our evolutionary history, specifically Homo. These are scouts, these are explorers, whose brains solve this same equation a little differently—that maybe it's worth going on an experiment and mastering some other spaces. But nostalgia, that is, the thought of what price you paid, and the thought of how good it was once, can be very strong due to everything we've been discussing, but it can differ somewhat among different people with different behavior strategies.
Going Beyond
Evgenia Albats: More about scouts, please.
Ilya Kolmanovsky: A scout is an explorer. In groups, conservatives dominate. But everywhere, even where it is deadly dangerous, there are such special explorers. If we focus on the history of the human race, then in the last few decades we have been learning absolutely amazing things exactly about this human trait—the willingness to go beyond the comfort zone. Early humans, short-statured Homo erectus and Pithecanthropus, with brains not much larger than those of chimpanzees, lived in the savannah of East Africa in a very unstable environment with their own set of predators, but with which they learned to deal very well using primitive tools. Until quite recently, it was believed that such a creature—a naked bipedal ape—could not leave its inhabited niche. But it turns out that people left Africa much earlier and went to very inhospitable places, driven by this unbridled curiosity. The man from Dmanisi—a very famous Georgian find, one of the main finds in paleoanthropology at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. Young Georgian anthropologists found such ancient human skulls a couple of hours' drive south of Tbilisi that at first, the whole world didn't believe them. And now it turns out that in these places, in the Caucasus, as they joke, these were the first Europeans who managed to be among completely new predators in a much more temperate climate. And these were not accidental flights, as they say about birds, but it was a purposeful migration. And this year they found a new jaw a little in another place, which suggests that a much wider area was covered. In Romania, there are their own finds, even more ancient, which say that these bipedal creatures were enough with a very primitive stone knife to move on to conquer the world. So they give us a very important example.
Evgenia Albats: So they came from Africa to Europe? Not to the Middle East, but specifically to Europe.
Ilya Kolmanovsky: Through the Middle East, of course, everything went through the place where Israel is now located. But from there it flowed to the Caucasus, towards Greece, the Mediterranean. And also across the ocean, the Arabian Peninsula, and India, where mollusks were the most important resource, and further to Indonesia. Actually, the first Pithecanthropus were found in Indonesia in the 19th century, but that was 500 thousand years ago. And I'm talking about things that are around two million years old now. There is nothing more unpredictable than human history. It is constantly overgrown with new facts. But for me as a migrant, this is a very important example of optimism and readiness to move forward.
Work Needs to Be Done
Evgenia Albats: A recent book by two Yale University scientists came out, which can be translated as "Death by Inaction." In the United States, they asked why life expectancy is declining. And this is a fact. Moreover, it is amazing, it would seem, with the level of medicine here, with the prosperity of life, with the cleanliness of the air, etc. And when they started to look closely at this, it turned out that the decline in life expectancy primarily occurs among people without a college education, whom we would call the working class, primarily white men. And primarily in those regions where there was powerful industrialization, then all the manufacturing moved to China, and a huge number of people lost their jobs. And it turned out that there, because people lost their jobs, life expectancy decreased. I was in such towns in northwestern Pennsylvania, where there are abandoned mines, people there simply have nothing to do. It turns out that doing what you are used to doing is very important for a person.
The most important thing is your belonging to some cultural community. This is formed in the dynamics of relationships with this society. Who am I to it? Who are we to each other? What are we doing together?
Ilya Kolmanovsky: I think this is a very deep observation. We talked for quite a while about how people are similar to a Mesozoic animal running around its area. Let's now talk about how people are not like a Mesozoic animal. You said the key word belonging, a sense of belonging. Of course, there is Maslow's pyramid, in the sense that if you experience strong stress from moving, you will literally, like this animal, be able to make your microdistrict habitable. That is, literally master this first floor: when you settle it, a big piece of stress will pass. But the most essential, the most important, is your belonging to some cultural community. And what does this belonging mean? This is formed in the dynamics of my relationships with this society. Who am I to it? Who are we to each other? What are we doing together?
And here the book sounds extremely interesting, here is the drama of a person who has lost himself. It is well known that this affects the duration and quality of life. Like, for example, the story about family and loved ones. People who have nothing to anchor themselves to here, to cling to, can fall out early, as their work connections, so-called weak ties, very important, will be destroyed. There is such a theory, within which people have strong ties with their nuclear tribe, 200 people, with family, close friends. But terribly important for modern man, modern civilization are weak ties. Which mean that we can live in a big city, and if we are going to do some business and we need more like-minded people, then we have expectations that we can find them and do something together. This is how the ecumene is arranged, but now not for our mortal body, but for our soul, for what our spiritual life consists of. And here is this very belonging you are talking about, and the possibility of falling out. But at the same time, now there is an opportunity to stay, like my grandmother, an outstanding scientist, who, leaving, took her laptop with her and continued to work from Israel, managing her rats, her experiments.
Nostalgia vs. Instinct
Evgenia Albats: A person has a survival instinct. However, it is known that many people who fled from the Bolsheviks suddenly began to return. And they returned to prison, to the GULAG, to the wall. And now we constantly read about how someone from the emigrants returned to bury a loved one or do something at home. They are caught, found in an old phone 500 rubles transfer to FBK or to Ukraine, and they get "state treason" and a sentence. That is, the survival instinct, when it encounters nostalgia, longing for home, goes somewhere.
You can't fit in one head at the same time that emigration is death, I'll return, and there will also be death. To relieve this cognitive dissonance, the brain must tell a story that "I'm out of politics," nothing will happen to me there
Ilya Kolmanovsky: Yes, this is a terribly accurate observation. I think the following happens here. The brain must create some narrative for us, some story that will be quite coherent and non-contradictory. Because there is nothing more costly and complex than uncertainty. Here a person moved somewhere because it was dangerous. But faced with very large costs. With the fact that it is very difficult for him, he is very bad. And then he needs to do something with all this. The story may look like emigration is death. I'm finished here. Leaving was a mistake because the costs are very high. The idea that you have to go through this may gradually be pushed further and further into the background. The brain considers that the costs of this whole adventure, like with a mouse that went beyond the territory, are excessive. And therefore, it needs to come up with some other story. And the main thing that impresses in all the stories of people who decided to "go," is that their brain did not consider the dangers you listed. No one returns under fire. They return to some other narrative. You can't fit in one and the same head that emigration is death, I'm going there now, and there will also be death. It's awkward, it's called cognitive dissonance. To relieve it, the brain must tell a story that "I'm out of politics." And there, maybe, nothing particularly has changed, people live. A bunch of people go back and forth, nothing happens to them. And then a person finds himself in a very bad situation because he falls back into that cauldron, where it's already boiling water. Here you don't have to be neither stupid nor a limited person to get into this story. For this, you just need to have a brain in your head. Then it will do everything itself. Just like it doesn't let you leave for a long time, although everything is already clear, everything screams that Putin is about to attack. I look at the records, at the photos on my phone, that 6 weeks before emigration we are traveling to some countries, leisurely thinking about where it is better to live, but in reality, we are not moving anywhere. In reality, it was still a very rapid escape.
I think that those who left have another task, their brain has the task of explaining to themselves that everything was done correctly. But I think the brain acts with a margin and exaggerates some dangers. We know the example of those who left, who begin to paint everything that was left behind with black paint. This is also, in essence, a naive but bright property of the brain: it must explain to a person that he is definitely right. There is a famous emigrant dream when you find yourself there, from where you left, and in a dream, you realize that a catastrophe threatens you, and you are convinced that you did everything right. This means that the brain additionally makes various efforts, realizing that in reality, it may be difficult to believe. And additionally scares, additionally reminds this scout, this explorer, why he moved beyond the inhabited ecumene.
Evgenia Albats: I catch myself thinking that you speak as if the brain lives a little separately from us. It seems to be inside us, but at the same time, it looks at us as if from the outside.
Ilya Kolmanovsky: I'm afraid that with each passing year, there is less and less of these very "us." With each passing year, the idea of free will in all this neuroscience is experiencing a greater and greater crisis. If you listen to neuroscientists, you see more and more how much the brain does on its own. And how powerful the forces are that need to be reckoned with, at least, and it would be good to know that they are doing this to you. At least it is very useful to understand what your brain is doing to you. At what moment, due to cognitive dissonance, it tries to call black white, at what moment it exaggerates something, at what moment, on the contrary, it underestimates something.
Dominant Civilization
Evgenia Albats: Yaroslav Golovanov wrote that people are just one part of civilization on Earth. That in fact, there were many different ones on Earth and, probably, they remain. For example, there is the civilization of plants with their amazing communicative ability. How did it happen that human civilization became dominant?
Ilya Kolmanovsky: This is a billion-dollar question. Indeed, why didn't a whale civilization arise? Their clans, dialects, some of these dialects are older than Sanskrit, simply because these clans are very ancient, are led by matriarchs, say, among sperm whales. And they have complex cultural traditions that are transmitted not through DNA, but through learning. Why didn't they create their civilization? Why didn't they fly to the Moon? Why did this bipedal bald ape run on the Moon with a backpack and put its flag? There are so many wonderful examples in nature. There are horses with very outstanding intelligence, wolves. There was a whole world of anthropoid apes. There were many species of them. They lived in Eurasia, in Europe, and in quite high latitudes. From tiny to giants weighing like five orangutans. They all died out for their reasons. This is a separate conversation about how anthropoid apes died out even before the appearance of humans. But if we go further within your logic and take Homo, then now every year new and new branches of this tree are being added. There were many very different species of Homo on Earth, and also with quite complexly developed industry, quite complexly developed culture. For some reason, sapiens won, who eventually destroyed all other species, alternative worlds, and alternative civilizations.
Evgenia Albats: What skills did sapiens have that allowed them to become the main ones?
Ilya Kolmanovsky: As an evolutionary zoologist in the past, I am most impressed by the role of chance. And how many times the story of this character, this bald ape, hung by a thread. Many times everything was on the verge of extinction. Many times we went through a bottleneck when only a few dozen individuals survived, for a large mammal with such slow reproduction rates, these are just crumbs. So the role of chance is still huge. I think it's very important always, if we stand on the position of Darwinism, where we don't see predestination, we see how much evolution in nature does a lot on the fly, completely slapdash. And yet it somehow accidentally works, someone survives.
There are very interesting theories about this. We know the most about Neanderthals, many of whom seem to have had a brain volume larger than that of sapiens. Who survived in very harsh conditions, in high latitudes in Europe and Asia, where it was cold and there was little food. They were very unsociable, and in recent years it has become increasingly clear that they had small family groups of about 17-20 individuals, similar to chimpanzees. And they apparently couldn't stand other Neanderthals. They lived quite far from each other and probably had sharp conflicts when they met. About sapiens, they say that there was a very important turn, namely "domestication." And judging by the paleontological record, by archaeological data, after this, the group size immediately grows sharply. Because peaceful and friendly, domesticated sapiens get along well even with unrelated individuals. And the characteristic group size for them is rather 200 people. Then there is an explosion because if you have 200 people simultaneously thinking about how to improve some tool, weapon, then progress goes much faster. And these groups pass like a fiery wall around the world, destroying all Homo they find, including Neanderthals. At their disposal is the nuclear weapon of that time—a spear thrower, such a stick that you can rest a spear on. This greatly increases the force and range of the throw. But the main thing is that there were a lot of them, and their exceptional peacefulness and friendliness towards their own turns into absolute ruthlessness towards strangers, to the bad ones, those who interfere with us being friends, and those who interfere with our children playing under the blue sky. And apparently, this is the story of success. There is a wonderful book by Richard Wrangham, a Harvard anthropologist, called "The Goodness Paradox." On the cover, an angel with an iron sword ready to eradicate evil. The virtue that in these groups ruthlessly cleansed the genes of reactive aggression, sculpted sapiens in his contradictory nature. Where he is simultaneously extremely friendly, creative, peaceful, very inclined to cooperate with those he considers his own. And these can be unrelated and unfamiliar individuals. All those who are now listening to this broadcast, I think these are people who may be unfamiliar with each other, but in fact, they have an important commonality that they feel now because we have gathered here, and this unites us. This is the behavior of sapiens.
People and a few other mammals are characterized by proactive aggression, cold-blooded, planned, unprovoked attack on another group if for some reason this group decided that that group poses some kind of danger or it is pragmatically necessary
Evgenia Albats: So the concept of "us-them" is embedded in evolution?
Ilya Kolmanovsky: It exists in all mammals. But sapiens, apparently, differ sharply in that they, on the one hand, significantly expanded the definition of "us." They are ready to consider their own unrelated individuals with whom some kind of commonality, some important bonds are established. And at the same time, they are ruthless towards strangers, and not in the way it happens with wolves or chimpanzees, where aggression is mostly reactive. That is, two packs met and fought. People and a few other mammals are characterized by proactive aggression, cold-blooded, planned, unprovoked attack on another group if for some reason this group decided that that group poses some kind of danger or it is pragmatically necessary.
Then there is an important stage of dehumanization, some kind of myth about why this group is dangerous and why. It is clear that there may be a real danger, a real need for a preemptive strike. Or if there is already a war, there is a conflict and it goes along some line of the front, then it is clear that both sides may have reasons to plan some additional action in some other area where nothing is happening right now. This is what zoologists call proactive aggression. This is a type of aggression that allows doing something that other mammals cannot do.
Prolonged Childhood
Evgenia Albats: Returning to nostalgia. In Cortázar's stories, memories from childhood often appear, which suddenly seem to materialize. For some reason, I have retained, this is not even a tangible thing, the air in Moscow at the end of August when we returned from a pioneer camp. It's the heat, and at the same time, it's not the same heat that was, for example, in July. I still remember these feelings. And this is one of the parts of nostalgia, which is associated with memories of some smells, childhood sensations, and images. What is this? Is it chemistry or is it purely a social thing?
Ilya Kolmanovsky: Zeitgeist—this is the combination of time and the image of that time, which you just described. You mentioned smells several times for a reason. The sense of smell has very direct outputs not just to memory, but specifically to emotional memory. Memory of what you felt about it. There is a very direct connection, and it is purely topographically arranged in the brain so that everything is very close there.
The neurotic is obsessed with nostalgia and clings to the past because he is afraid of the abyss that separates him from the future, he is afraid to take a step into the future. In place of the neurotic, you can put any of us
In general, memory originally formed to remember where what food is at the bottom of the sea. Our ancient ancestors oriented themselves by smells. This is how, in principle, long-term memory was formed. Memory is a way of orienting in space, to find some resource by smells. The brain constantly creates these casts of reality. And stores them. And in this sense, a person differs from any other animal, probably. In general, it is clear that the past and the future do not exist. This is a construction that exists only in the head. The past has already passed, and the future has not yet come. And the simpler animals are arranged, the more they live in the real moment. As one German philosopher wrote, the neurotic is obsessed with nostalgia and clings to the past because he is afraid of the abyss that separates him from the future, he is afraid to take a step into the future. In place of the neurotic, you can put all of us. But it is clear that this is a very important biological function—to create images of the past, because these are already passed and mastered pieces of time-space, written in one word as it were, which are very important models with which to compare what is happening now. And try to find the good that was, what smelled so delicious, and what was so good.
So goes the imprinting of a potential image of a romantic partner. Perhaps we are further looking for something that will resemble that feeling. And how that very good, safe, glorious, filled with something very interesting life is arranged, needs some references so that the search does not take place in a completely airless space. It happens with reliance on some foundation of the past. But I will emphasize once again that scientists asked to convey that the past is already over.
Evgenia Albats: So these are associations. These are associations with something else, which maybe you no longer remember, but you remember what caused this association. But why is this recorded in your head? Why doesn't it go away?
Ilya Kolmanovsky: First of all, of course, a lot of things go away. And what has gone, you are not aware of. But it is there, you just don't have access to it now. And what so firmly surfaces is related to the fact that the brain is in a very complex situation where it has to come to terms with the new present. And this novelty, maybe, from its point of view, is too much. At all times, people have valued novelty very much. In Rome, people paid a lot of money to go see the Egyptian pyramids. And the travel industry already existed. But this novelty should be the optimal amount. Not too much and not too little. If too little, then boring, bland. If too much, then it's stress, it's painful. For any of us, there will be such a dose of novelty that the brain will groan and say: guys, this is something over the top. And it will return more and more to a safe point, to a safe base, where familiar smells, sounds, sensations are. And this will be its way of therapy, its way of pain relief. Yes, its way to be in a more comfortable point.
Evgenia Albats: To the question of how to get rid of this longing, this nostalgia. We understand that there is one option, that just a generation will pass, our children or our grandchildren do not experience the nostalgia that parents experience. It is clear that emigration, especially forced emigration, is always primarily an investment in children. Children no longer remember.
Ilya Kolmanovsky: Although we all saw, by the way, in this wave, how poorly teenagers and young people move. And this is apparently not accidental. Although in all mammals, it is at this age that they should quarrel with their main group and begin to disperse, look for a place in the sun. And so it happens. But if forced, accelerated emigration occurs, it breaks where it is thin. This person already finds it difficult to cope with the huge flow of novelty in his formation, in his growing up. He is just mastering a new social space where he was born. And without that, the resource is extremely tense, thin. And here they add an unbearable portion of novelty, which cannot be dealt with. And we hear such... a 23-year-old actress, the daughter of a "foreign agent," having the same surname as him, and she is not given roles, the situation is extremely bad and will always be bad, everything is very bad. But she cannot leave because she says: I am a Russian actress, who am I "there" needed. Although it would seem, 23 years old, and she has everything ahead, she can change everything and can still learn a lot. But suddenly it turns out that these young people you mentioned can cling to the well-trodden path, the mastered ecumene with a much more dead grip.
The puberty period now lasts from 9 to 33, as a new Cambridge study says. Childhood now ends not with getting a diploma
Evgenia Albats: You want to say that children perceive novelty more easily before the puberty period. Then in the puberty period, it is very difficult for them.
Ilya Kolmanovsky: And long after it, because the puberty period now lasts from 9 to 33, as a new Cambridge study says. But, as they say, childhood now ends not with getting a diploma. This is bad news for all parents who seem to have to take care of children until 33.
Evgenia Albats: And why is this, by the way? Is it related to technologies?
Ilya Kolmanovsky: With the extension of life expectancy. And all social structures have changed under this. Social maturity comes slower and slower. This is a very difficult time, this whole period. It's like a lost weekend when you try to learn to live for decades, but you still can't do it. You keep looking for yourself. And at this moment you are made this break and everything is sharply changed. We see now in many families that this is extremely difficult.
Evgenia Albats: And how did mammals cope with this? Or for mammals, nostalgic memories are all non-existent?
Ilya Kolmanovsky: Of course, existing. Maybe more important than for us with you. And for social mammals, the main factor of the environment is not snow and not birches, but the social environment. And for rodents, and for canines, and for anyone. This is all terribly important and very difficult to change.
The Past is Past
Evgenia Albats: Well then, those who live now in Berlin or Vilnius, where many have been forced to leave for political reasons, should feel significantly better.
Ilya Kolmanovsky: It varies. In any case, this is a very big break, a very big shift. And everyone there experiences different things. On the one hand, there is life inside the diaspora, and people find some kind of consolation there, it's a way to soften the blow. Someone lives with thoughts of how they will return, and believes that there is reason to hope that something will change there. At the same time, people try to start some kind of life outside this bubble. I read a terribly nice essay about Polina, who lives in the Netherlands, and her way of breaking through this bubble is to walk different people's dogs, she is a dog-sitter. And this is her way of communicating with the international expat crowd in Amsterdam.
And then this begins. For something good to come into life, something previous good must end and give way to the new. And it may turn out that you will love something else. And here, excuse me, I will take off my hat as a science observer and just talk as a person about my experience. It seems to me terribly important not to make sudden movements, not to try to burn the frog skin sharply, curse everything, reject everything. This is both stupid and unsafe. This is your way of reconciling cognitive dissonance, telling yourself that everything was very bad. But this is not true. I think the harmonious path is to cherish, protect memories of the past, but know that it has passed. My problem in these three years was that I liked every city I found myself in too much, and it turned out that I was in a dozen cities. And one could imagine that in our years we would grow a whole piece of life in different languages, in different cities. I started learning a new language, another one. And my very rusty German slightly revived, revived less rusty French. I lived an important piece of life in Tbilisi. And how beautiful it was there, and what wonderful people I met. And all this turned out to be some kind of incredible generosity of fate, which I don't understand why I deserved—the time I spent in Kazakhstan, the time I spent in Armenia, in Israel, in Germany, in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia. And, of course, I really like it now in the UK. I think the path is to see and savor something new slowly, but love it too.
Evgenia Albats: But it's interesting that you insist that the past is gone. That people who find themselves in forced emigration need to learn to cut off this past. Leave it as a read book, which you sometimes return to, but you won't read it five times. That is, learn to live as our beloved dogs live, in the present. But in your interpretation, the future also doesn't exist.
Ilya Kolmanovsky: Yes, it's an important skill, indeed, to live here and now. At the same time, you don't have to cut anything off. At every moment, in every interaction, you are the sum of everything that has happened to you, and maybe you will bring something very good to this point. Something that you have gone through, your unique path. And someone will be very good from this. And in your interactions in this new environment, in the new culture. We see this all the time. People who managed to overcome the barrier, especially this generation that is now quickly filling Europe, America—these people carry something very good with them thanks to their baggage. Just need to realize today, because the past is already past.
Video Version
* Evgenia Albats, Ilya Kolmanovsky in the Russian Federation are declared "foreign agents."
Photo: shownews.ru.