THE BEGINNING. WHY DID I RUN AWAY?

Hi everyone! My name is Nastya. I was born in the most beautiful city of Russia - Saint-Petersburg (I am not telling that just bc I was born there, but I mean it)!

Anyways, I always knew I would leave the country and move some other place where human rights actually exist, where the freedom of expression is a real thing, and government along with the civil population live by law/constitution.

I knew from a very young age that nothing would change in my home country: there will always be Kremlin's elite, its slaves, and absolutely nothing in between. There's no middle class, no progress, no change, only police brutality, and a complete mockery of the population.

Mr. Putin has been behind the wheel of the biggest country of the Earth for over 20 years now, and he can't get enough. This summer, he has changed the constitution AGAIN so he could rule till the end of his life (which is very doubtful as I'm pretty sure this crap is immortal).

Here are some of the most outrageous things that happen in Russia right now:

1. Electoral fraud (hundreds of fake bulletins are thrown in vote boxes by school teachers who are afraid of losing their jobs).
2. No independent candidates are permitted to participate in elections (they mostly go to prisons or what's worse - get poisoned).
3. No manifestations are allowed - not even peaceful. There's no way left for the civil population to express their opinion. Every time people go in the streets to speak out peacefully - they meet police brutality (usually 5-10 people out of the crowd get sentenced to several years of prison for participation in manifestation).
4. The quality of life is extremely low: education, healthcare, science stuck on the USSR level. The average salary reaches up to 400 euros per month that are actually not that bad for Russa, bc the majority of the population earns even less.
5. Your transparent business can be taken away at the moment you refuse to play by Kremlin's rules.

There are countless problems I could list here. However, the more I write, the sadder I get for: the people close to me who still live there and have no opportunity to run away, for Russian beautiful cities and nature that gets polluted and destroyed faster and faster each year, and finally, for innocent people that suffer trying to make a positive change...

... I personally gave up and ran away