A Potential for Violence

An Embarrassing Thing I Did Not Want to Tell You About

I met Irina the first time I went to the English Club. 

That’s not as posh as it sounds. It’s a weekly gathering in a cafe for people who want to speak or practice English.

Irina and I sat next to each other. She ordered a huge slice of San Sebastien cheesecake, which is the kind thing that makes me warm to a person. She asked about Django, who was doing his usual nervous hover under the table. She said she had a small dog, too. And that she’s a painter. She came to Fethiye only four months ago, from Moscow, with her husband. 

I thought about when I first arrived here. I had my dad here, and a place to live, and knew my way around, having visited many times before. English is my first language. Also, I wasn’t fleeing my country after it had just declared war. 

“Please,” she kept saying. “Have some of this cheesecake.”

Irina Zimina. From the series Dreams About Immigration. 2023. Paper/mixed media.

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Here’s what I don’t want to tell you: up until then, I’d been resenting the Russians.

Not all Russians in the world, and not in a way that I realized I was doing it. But after the war began—that war, since we now have to distinguish them—the Russian population in Fethiye skyrocketed. At one point it was in several thousands, which in a city with a population less than 200,000 is significant. This drove the prices up. Which, like a lot of other foreigners, I complained about. Which is like complaining about traffic from inside your car. 

I wasn’t spreading anti-Russian sentiment, or being unkind to Russians. I just wasn’t… trying. I mean, most of them were extremely well-off, and air-brushed-level attractive. Surely we’d have nothing in common.

Again: I am embarrassed to admit this.

Most of the English Club were from Russia. Irina and I chatted the whole time. We even exchanged phone numbers, which I do not do lightly. I learned that there was a Film Club, which gathered on Thursdays to watch classic films. I joined them the following week to watch The Deer Hunter. We watched it with Russian subtitles. The guy who ran the club paused it every time un-subtitled Russian was spoken, and translated what had been said, just for me.

Irina Zimina. From the series Dreams about immigration. 2023. Paper/mixed media.

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My father is from Lebanon. My mom is from Hungary. Somehow I ended up being born in Canada, and eventually wearing Buddhist robes, trying to pass on teachings I’ve learned that are, ultimately, about peace.

I don’t want to stand on a soapbox and speak for anyone who is living through the mind-bending horror that’s happening to several populations on this earth right now. But I can’t bring myself to think about much else. 

Irina Zimina. Medusa Gorgon, Inquisition. 2021. Canvas, oil.

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Irina and I met up again a couple of weeks later, and took our dogs for a walk. We talked about art and how we both love to travel alone. She told me that she and her husband will have to leave Turkey next April, because if you’re Russian and arrived here after a certain date, they’re no longer allowing you renew your residency permit. They don’t know where they will go. The cost of living is going up in every country that gives visas to Russians. Almost the entire English Club has already left, or are preparing to go. 

I tried to imagine being in that position. 

I tried to consider how few people in the world will probably never have to worry about being in that position.

And how I am one of them.

Irina Zimina. Unity. 2022. Oil on canvas.

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Here are some things I remembered since I started watching movies about war, eating cheesecake, and going for dog walks with Russians. 

1. My last name is Russian.

Told you. Embarrassing AF.

My father’s father was Russian. My grandmother converted to Russian Orthodox Christianity when they got married. I was baptized in a Russian Orthodox church, like the one in The Deer Hunter, but not as ritzy. 

2. The reason my grandparents met in the first place is because my grandfather was a soldier.

It’s not like I just learned any of these facts. I’ve known them since I was old enough to know anything.

I just conveniently left them in the back of my brain.

Until I could no longer think of myself as other.

Irina Zimina. From the series Dreams About Immigration. 2023. Paper/mixed media.

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When you’re from North America, it’s easy to think about war as happening to others.

It’s easy to forget that, at the root of violence, is the idea of “us” and “them”. 

I’m really afraid that isn’t going to change, because I know how hard it is to change. Especially as we all continue to fall more deeply into our constructed “realities” on tiny screens, and to disengage with the real people around us. 

Especially as we continue to think of ourselves as separate from this planet we share.

Thich Nhat Hanh said, "The war stops and starts with you and with me. Every morning when you open your eyes, the potential for violence and war begins. So every morning, when you open your eyes, please, water the seeds of compassion and nonviolence."

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The Deer Hunter is about the Vietnam War—specifically, about a group of second-generation Russians who leave America to go fight in it. It’s the kind of film you watch with your whole body clenched. The kind with moments you can’t shake out of your mind for weeks.

After we watched it, it was suggested that we head to a nearby park to discuss the themes.

I stalled. It’s a 3-hour movie. It was very late. I was very tired. I am at least a decade older than everyone else who was there. 

Then the guy who’d been running the projector said, “I cried more than once throughout this film.”

I went. 

We sat for another hour in the darkness. We talked about violence and trauma, about PTSD, ignorance, nationalism. I remembered how I used to do this, long ago: watch an important film with friends, then talk about it for ages. No tiny screens. No googling. No escaping immediately into something else. 

Also, no one present who had just had to leave their home country behind because of war, and didn’t know if or when they’d ever see it again. 

As the Russians and I said our goodbyes at the park, I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time. It was that feeling when you and a stranger, despite your differences, want to know each other. The feeling of walls being down, and curiosity being up. 

That feeling when we start sharing similarities, rather than looking for differences. 

No matter where we’re from.

Or where we believe that to be.

Irina with Luna (the new love of Django’s life)

You can find Irina and her artwork at https://www.instagram.com/iziminarts/