Observing mainland Russia from the Estonian castle in Narva was like observing the Moon. Why?
It is because there is a very high probability that my foot will never step into mainland Russia (+Kaliningrad Oblast) and the Moon. When my beloved Kamilka and I decided to go to Estonia, we knew we wanted to go to Narva, one of the most Russian cities in the European Union. It is not the only case that the river Narva borders this Estonian city with mainland Russia. Approximately 90% of Narva’s citizens are of the Russian origin. On the river bordering Estonia and Russia, medieval castles are on two sides. Of course, we could only get to one of them on the Estonian side. Once we got to the top of the castle and saw the route that leads straight to St. Petersburg (from Narva, it is closer to St. Petersburg than to the capital of Estonia, Tallinn), I started to cry deeply in my soul.
I realized that my foot would never stomp on the Russian side (like on the Moon) because, from the political point of view, for Poles, it is an aggressive state that wants to conquer its neighbors.
But why did I cry? It was because one of my favorite writers, Fyodor Dostoyevsky (who hated Poles and whose writings, undoubtedly, could be good propaganda writings not only for Ctzars but also for Vladimir Putin), was Russian. When I read almost all of Dostoyevsky’s books in 2013, I dreamed of going to St. Petersburg and Moscow to see what Dostoyevsky’s eyes had seen. When I was on top of the castle, I realized that my quiet dreams would never come true. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in a full-scale war in 2022, I knew who the aggressor and the victim were. Today (I wrote this text on the 3rd of July, 2024), I know I do not want to go to Russia. This realization has significantly altered my perspective on visiting Russia, a country I once longed to explore.
