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Part 7: Herzliya
In the final chapter, I describe a family's journey that comes full circle as we settle into our new life in Israel.
At the time, at the start of 2014, I was doing relatively well business-wise: I had a stable small retail business in Moscow and was transitioning to a more prominent and promising venture. At that point, I was trying to stop travelling to China every other month and decided to settle there for a few years.
I was not a stranger to China any more: for a few years prior, I made numerous visits to the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong. I made friends here and there, and I was very much into that new life of mine, being a laowai (a foreigner, same as gaijin or farang, but in Chinese). I rented a flat in the high-rise condo overlooking the river that divides the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong and started my routine: meeting people, visiting various small shops selling electronic parts (that was my primary objective), performing QC in the mornings and doing all Moscow-related tasks in the afternoons.
So, the tower of Babel that I built looked like this: my relocation was dependent on my business's well-being, the business's well-being was dependent on Moscow's prosperity, and its prosperity appeared to be dependent on someone who was my primary driver for getting out of Russia: Putin. At this point, I believed I could perform the stunt. I thought I had years of runtime before I would need to jump off my Russian business and income. Oh, how I was wrong!
I was sitting in a sento (a Japanese and now Asian-wide type of sauna) in Shenzhen with a friend with whom I shared no language but enjoyed the company. He watched TV while I concentrated on moving from one tub of icy water to a tub with hot water on time. He shouted 'K-rim, K-rim, Pu-tin, Pu-tin' and pointed towards the TV. That was not our custom, so I turned my sight and saw Russian marines in the Crimean capital, Simferopol.
That was some weeks after we both witnessed a pyre of tires on the streets of Kyiv on the same screen. However, it still took a while for me to wrap my head around the two: how a revolutionary event in a neighbouring country became the first act of the bloody war between the tightly knit nations.
A month later, on a planned home visit, I witnessed my hometown, Moscow, adopting the ideas of national superiority, unity and immense military strength being put to work, ideas getting vocalised and spreading like a plague.
This was all foreign to me, and I was shocked at how easily the people whom I was part of got infected: occupation and then annexation of Crimea was called reunion, packs of bandits in the Donbas region were called militia and gained the support of the Russian army. National currency lost 50% in value in a couple of months, which was blamed on the evil West. I hadn't seen much of the soviet union before, as I was only 7 when it collapsed, but I saw it being back and gaining strength daily now.
That's when I realised that my Chinese relocation would not happen and that I couldn't rely on any Russian venture: that was not because of some economic crisis or sanctions that were timely imposed by the US allies, but because I got alienated and completely lost sense and the heartbeat of my homeland. After I returned home, I saw a different city with people happy to see their country gain land and waging war on the neighbour.
This was when the idea of moving to Israel came first.
At the start of 2014, I was doing well with my small retail business in Moscow and was transitioning to a more prominent venture. I had been frequently traveling to China, particularly to the city of Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong. During this period, I made many friends and became enamored with life there as a foreigner. I rented a flat overlooking a river that separated two distinct regions and began establishing my routine: networking, visiting shops for electronic parts (my primary business interest), and managing my Moscow business in the afternoons.
My life, at that time, was like a complex puzzle: my relocation was dependent on my business's success, and that success was intertwined with broader economic trends. I had thought I had plenty of time to transition away from my Russian business, but unexpected events soon challenged that belief.
While in Shenzhen, in a local sauna, a friend who spoke no common language with me suddenly drew my attention to a news broadcast. It was a moment that made me realize how rapidly world events could unfold and affect lives, even those seemingly distant from the epicenter of these events.
This realization was deepened during a visit back to Moscow. I noticed a shift in the atmosphere – there was a newfound emphasis on national identity and strength. As someone who had spent significant time abroad, these changes felt jarring and foreign to me.
What struck me most was how these events impacted my perspective on my business and my future plans. I began to feel disconnected from the pulse of my homeland, a sensation that wasn't rooted in any immediate economic crisis or external sanctions, but in a profound sense of alienation.
It was during this period of introspection and change that I first considered relocating to Israel. This thought marked the beginning of a new chapter in my life, one that promised a fresh start and new opportunities, far from the upheavals that had begun to reshape my understanding of home.