“Emigration is a rehearsal for death”

Kolia Sulima moved to Berlin in 2022. There are more challenges, but the overall tone of the story is adventurous. Somewhere closer to the end of the book, Kolia will also talk about his previous emigration experience: six years in the USA, a radical change of profession, a return to his homeland…

“Emigration is a rehearsal for death. You leave – and from afar you see that nothing has changed. Lukashenka is vigorous. Trump has lost weight. Putin is fresh. Only the experts who promise the regimes' collapse look bad.”

Yes, this is another emigrant autofiction, or, as it's customary to say at the "Miane Niama" publishing house, which published the book, – postfiction. A new Belarusian subgenre that is not only about personal experience and trauma, but also about the humanitarian catastrophe in our region. It sounds frightening, but it reads buoyantly.

“Germans don't let a foreigner finish speaking; they lack patience. It took half an hour to explain that we've been together for five years but aren't married, that we came from Kyiv but aren't Ukrainians, that Sonya is fourteen, Masha is forty, and I am forty-nine.”

The text is rich in colorful emigrant details. And while Belarusians are no longer surprised by the Polish emigrant experience, the Berlin one will be exotic to many. For example, about the Germans' frugality regarding utilities and their generosity when getting rid of unnecessary things.

You can walk down the street and find good jeans. A dress. Glasses. A wool coat. All marked that you can freely take them if needed. You can furnish an apartment almost without cost. At the same time, you might spend fourteen months attending viewings for social housing, which low-income people can count on, before getting an apartment. It takes a long time to enroll a child in school. You stubbornly and fruitlessly fight against merciless German bureaucracy. But Kolia writes cheerfully, and you're cheerful too.

“Two cherished German words are 'Geduld' and 'Leider.' The first means 'patience,' the second — 'unfortunately.' Like two doves, they hover over the emigrant's hunched shoulders. Did a reply about the apartment come? Well, what's inside. Umlauts, long trains of words, but suddenly 'Geduld' flashed like Engineer Garin's Hyperboloid! And you don't need to read further: no apartment for you.

With 'Leider,' it's even simpler: the impudent word often sticks out at the beginning of a phrase, short and inconspicuous. 'Leider, understanding your needs, we cannot satisfy them. There are many applications, and few places in school, leider. Gather Geduld and go to sleep. Such, leider, is your life today.”

The book features a lot of Berlin — bright, contradictory, interesting. A city that, judging by the description, would probably not suit me, yet it gave the impression of a place ready to accept almost anyone. Provided they have enough persistence, resilience, and zen.

“I love walking from Müller to See (Seestraße – NN), the street just bubbles. It smells of kebabs, old men puff on cigarettes, bloated drunkards sip beer, a Turk has turned on hip-hop, his tiny "smart car" bounces from the bass, a sign "Turkish Sushi" – made of lamb, or what?”

In the end, one could write that any reader has every chance to enjoy the book, and sometimes even laugh out loud. But there's one nuance. Kolia Sulima not only talks about emigrant life. He also reflects on Belarus. And this is precisely where that very Facebook post comes to mind, and it makes you want to argue.

Павялічыць

Kolia Sulima. Photo: kolia.sulima / Facebook

“The further one goes, the clearer it becomes that almost all of Belarus has left today. Now it is a country outside the country. Inside remain those who absolutely cannot leave, and those who never felt themselves to be Belarusians and did not consider themselves such. Call them what you want – Russians, Slavic brothers, Vaisnortsi – they don't care. They are the majority, so I have no illusions about returning. I am an outcast. It wasn't Lukashenka who drove me out of the country, but Belarus and its inhabitants.”

Up until the chapter "We Are People" at the end of the book, I had no general questions for Kolia. But here I wanted to ask: Kolia, are you serious?! On what are such statements based? Is this shortsightedness, lack of empathy, provocation? And even if you truly believe so, then why the hell offend those "who absolutely cannot leave"? The others won't read it anyway.

I assume this opinion is from 2023, when, it seems, Kolia was writing the book. Back then, it might have seemed that if they hadn't left, almost everyone would leave. However, no. 95% of Belarusians live in Belarus.

Therefore, the question arises as to whom the author addresses his book when publishing it in 2024. To emigrants from Belarus, just like him? To all Russian-speaking emigrants?

But I can forgive quite a lot for ironic autofiction.

“If I told my late grandmother that one day I would be escaping from 'heroic Russian weapons' in Berlin, she would reply – nonsense! Lie, but don't overdo it!”

* * *

Kolia Sulima. Velosipednaya street, 51. — Warsaw: Miane Niama, 2024

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