Paragraph logo

Svoboda Blues

12 yearson the run.
November 24, 2023

Safety Third.

Sometimes, I get this feeling, this itch at the back of my consciousness. This hushed voice whispers, "The good times are over, matey". I can't help ...

#escapism#moscow#thelxbook
November 7, 2023

The Human Pyramid

"Hey, boss. We are here." I open my eyes and find myself in the back seat of my father's limousine. I see his driver."Do you know the difference between Stalin and Hitler?" he asks me."All right, Olegych, tell me.""Moustache styling." He bursts into laughter. I smile. Olegych has been with us for mo

#thelxbook#escapism
October 25, 2023

A Sunny Day.

It's the first week of proper spring in Moscow. I find myself daydreaming, admiring the sunshine in my office's window. I am 20, blond, longhaired, tall and thin, wearing a custom-tailored grey suit with a salmon pink shirt. Next to me is our press secretary Damon, in his cheap suit, rocking a goate

#escapism#thelxbook
October 24, 2023

How I met your dog.

Thirteen years on the run. Musings and observations from a quadruple refugee who fled Russia in 2010 never to return. Since then, I've lived in Chisin...

#begi
October 10, 2023

Melancholy is a friend.

I wake up most mornings with an uneasy feeling. It's not a very loud emotion. It lingers there on the edge of my mind. In the last few years, I have d...

October 4, 2023

Moscow Born

Today, I read an outstanding essay by Jon Object - a Ukrainian musician who became a soldier after the war started. Brilliantly, he'd expressed the fe...

#war#russia#ukraine
October 2, 2023

ESCAPISM DOES NOT WORK

In 2008, my family had ”made it”. Between me and my parents, we owned a mean collection of exotic cars. However, wealth is only part of the story in R...

#escapism#naughties#autofiction
September 28, 2023

Every wedding is a battlefield.

Picture an old stone farm on the top of a Sicilian hill that got an Instagram treatment. A lavish table for 300 people is set outside, where horses us...

#social#breakdown#addictions#sex#alcohol
September 27, 2023

Isa - My Chechen Friend

In my childhood, Chechnya was the first real war I had heard of. It was happening as I went to school. Mutilated soldiers were coming home, and we had...

#naughties#moscow#chechnya#deadmocracy
September 18, 2023

Foundation

Imagine you are born in the first years of Soviet Russia. At only three years old, you escape the horror and bloodshed of early empire via a gruelling...

#book review#isaac asimov
12
Next
Twitter
RSS

© 2023 Svoboda Blues