Sad Update to 'Notes from Russia's Rear: Part II'

It only took a couple of weeks

A month ago, I wrote about a woman, Anastasia (Nastya), a friend of my wife in St. Petersburg, who was so proudly preparing her husband for the front. Nastya is 37, and her husband is 38. Their two children are 3 and 5.

It only took a week or so and then three more for her to be informed. The letter was dropped into her mailbox on November 22nd. Her husband, the dad of two, will forever remain in Ukraine: He was killed.

It is hard to feel sorrow for him or any dying Russian troops. As we see how Putin and his monsters savagely destroy Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, each Russian death almost seems like a reason to celebrate.

My feelings are mixed for sure. But because my wife knew her and they are from St. Petersburg, a couple that, if not for Putin’s criminal war, might have celebrated Thanksgiving at my house with us the other day, this death becomes more personal.

In the article from last month, I shared a photo she sent my wife of a receipt. Nastya and her soon-to-be-mobilized husband bought hundreds of dollars’ worth of stuff that would make his journey to the front safer and warmer. Nastya purchased a lot of fleece and planned to winterize his things as best she could.

When my wife shared the conversation, she had had with Nastya from last month, I was disgusted. Nastya and her husband regarded the mobilization as their patriotic duty.

They weren’t a couple of uneducated, stricken-with-poverty country bumpkins. They were middle-class professionals raising two wonderful children in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, St. Petersburg, Russia.

These children are now fatherless, and for no good reason. They are fatherless because a sick monster turned the entire nation into a fascist Frankenstein.

I don’t know how he died. One thing I am pretty sure of, though, is that he died alone, freezing, hungry, and leaderless. The military gear he spent nearly $400 on has probably already been resold by some “brave Russian officer.”

Now, some random kid likely to suffer the same fate as Nastya’s husband will see the skilled sewing job she undertook with each purchased item before sending her husband off to defend the “motherland.”

Burying himself as deeply as possible into the sleeping bag he purchased, he will feel the raised letters as he slips off to sleep, dreaming of awakening anywhere but in the freezing, hard ditch the great Russian army has provided for him in Ukraine.

With eyes closed, his fingers will settle on the letters Nastya had sewn into the lip of the warm sleeping bag. He will trace them, then retrace them. He traces again and then retraces the letters. He will whisper to himself as if seeking protection from the afterlife: I wonder who Sergei was? Where is he now?