Lyudmila Ulitskaya, acclaimed and award-winning for her books, tried to stay in Moscow for a long time. She openly protested against Putin's regime and showed her support for democratic movements.
The day after the outbreak of war last year, she wrote about the shame and pain she felt before the invasion. A week later, like many cultural figures, she had left her homeland. A decision that is likely to last forever.
"In Russia, people always live dangerously. Throughout my lifetime, one of my friends has always been in prison. Such living conditions are typical for a country where the security services have power, she says.
Exile – a necessity
Since the war began in February, an increasing number of Russian cultural workers and intellectuals have left Russia. But the situation is not new, says author Lyudmila Ulitskaya. Already a hundred years ago, Russians were in exile.
The revolution's own poet Vladimir Mayakovsky himself remained in the country before taking his own life at the age of 36.
"Those who went into exile at least survived. If Ivan Bunin and Vladimir Nabokov had not left, we would have lost a significant part of Russian literature of the 1900s," says Lyudmila Ulitskaya.
Hope for peaceful changes
Now, living in Berlin, she follows from a distance the course of events between the two neighboring countries. She hopes that the situation can strengthen Ukraine as a nation and that a more democratic future awaits her homeland.
"May there be no bloody revolution. May the changes for which the country is ripe be carried out peacefully. And that the country can be run by more constructive professionals – not by former security men. That is what I really want.
The full report about Lyudmila Ulitskaya can be seen in Babel on SVT Play.