You and Meg have spent years moving between countries, dealing with borders, passports and residency requirements. You’ve begun questioning something most people never do: that everyone should belong to one country and have a permanent address. What is it about that expectation that you find so unreasonable?
ELENA: I don’t find the expectation unreasonable. I find unreasonable the fact that you aren’t given an option for any other way of life. Your life belongs to the government/country that claims that land at the moment.
SIMONE: What would you want to be able to do that the present system of countries, citizenship and residency doesn’t allow you to do?
ELENA: I want to go wherever I want whenever I want.
SIMONE: Do you think people should have the right to move freely across national borders, without needing permission from governments?
ELENA: I question national borders. Those are never up to people. And what’s happening within them isn’t up to people.
SIMONE: You’re questioning the idea that governments can divide the world into territories and decide who belongs where. But without national borders, how do you imagine people would organize the places where they live?
ELENA: I question governments too. Who are these people? How did they get that power and why should they? Maybe at the dawn of civilization, having a group of people who “governed” you was a good idea. Today, with millions and billions under the same roof, metaphorically, I don’t see it working. I know I don’t want these people to govern me. And my life isn’t enough time to try to immigrate to each country to find out which one will work for me.
SIMONE: Do you think the problem is government itself, or that we’ve made human societies too large for people to have any meaningful say in how they live?
ELENA: It could be both. But yes, people have no say in what their life will be. And forget the government word. It means simply people who couldn’t care less about you. In other cases, they are just a bunch of bad guys who got to power. Look at Russia or Belarus.
SIMONE: Do you think voting gives people enough control over their lives?
ELENA: Absolutely not. Voting is a ritual. Like having a eulogy.
SIMONE: Why do you compare voting to a eulogy?
ELENA: Because it is a ritual. Besides, how is choosing between two evils improving your life? No. Life can only be improved on the ground, usually by your own hands. The issue is that it’s the system that’s in place that defines how much power over your life you are going to have. How you can get money and how much of it.
SIMONE: What would you like to do with your life that the present system prevents you from doing?
ELENA: I can’t go to places I’d rather be. Or at least visit. Connect to people I may actually want to have in my life.
SIMONE: Are there particular places you’d like to visit now, but can’t?
ELENA: Yes. They are in Europe. Not necessarily continental 😉
SIMONE: And what is stopping you from going there? Your passport, the cost of living, or something else?
ELENA: The passport of course. Affording to be there? It is less of an issue. Because if you are in the place you WANT to be in and are comfortable, your chances of finding what your value to others is are a million times higher.
SIMONE: Do you mean finding work you could do, or finding people who would appreciate what you have to offer?
ELENA: The issue is that one ends up selling oneself. Your hours alive, your life essentially. It is so wrong. And all of it comes from the fact that we are living among others. Millions of others that “need to be governed”. Had we been living as we had in prehistoric times, everyone would be able to take care of themselves and/or their tribe. You go to the bloody woods, you pick berries and roots. You make yourself a shelter, you make clothes. Done. By the end of the evening you have a group of people who share the same life with you. They know you, you know them. They are part of you. Life today is a nightmare one can’t escape.
SIMONE: Do you think it’s still possible today to live in a small group like that, where people know each other and take care of each other?
ELENA: Yes, it is very much possible. Why not? We are the very same animals we’ve been thousands of years ago. What makes it impossible is the so-called governments. They outlaw this kind of activity, I assume. I don’t know. I know in Canada you can’t make a step off a permitted hiking trail. Even if you did, everyone else would consider you to be strange, damaged. I saw a documentary about an old man who lived in the woods by himself in the UK somewhere. But he was totally alone.
SIMONE: Would you want to live in a small community like that yourself, with Meg and a few other people?
ELENA: Of course. That is my dream.
SIMONE: What would an ordinary day in that community look like for you and Meg?
ELENA: Nothing to come up with here. It’s all been done before. We get up, we toil, we share our daily bread. I find joy in the simplest tasks, working with soil, plants, making firewood, building shelters. I might even consider livestock. Though Meg and I have a tough time killing other creatures. We appreciate them alive too much.
SIMONE: Do you think there are many people who would choose that kind of life if they had the chance?
ELENA: It’s not only about having the chance. It’s about thinking beyond what life has become for people. And most never do.
SIMONE: What do you think stops people from questioning the way they live?
ELENA: There is no way they would. They are in the trap from the very beginning. Especially now. With marketing off the scale. There is nothing to life but buying useless things that supposedly give you higher status. Put these people into the wild, they wouldn’t survive. Life has become too comfortable for too many. I just don’t want to be near them. That is my problem really. Not theirs. They think this life makes them happy, I am okay with that.
SIMONE: Do you think other people would be equally willing to let you live as you choose?
ELENA: I don’t think most would. This is why we have society and its dogmas.
SIMONE: Have you met people who objected to the way you and Meg live, or is it mainly society’s rules that make your life difficult?
ELENA: Meg and I are totally alone. And this could be why. We want nothing to do with how people live. We can’t stand it. It would kill us.
SIMONE: Are you and Meg still looking for people you’d want in your lives?
ELENA: You can’t look for the right people. You can only meet them. An active search would produce nothing but agony.
SIMONE: You’ve described a life where people work together, share what they have, and know each other. How many people do you imagine living in a community like that?
ELENA: I’d say thirty. Maybe fifty.
SIMONE: And would you want that community to make decisions together, rather than have someone in charge?
ELENA: I think this is how it was before. Together. I imagine they had older people whose opinion they would listen to. And I see why. If you survived for that long, you know it all. You pass your knowledge on.
SIMONE: What do you think happens when a group of thirty or fifty people grows into hundreds or thousands?
ELENA: Bad things happen. I imagine before farming that wasn’t an issue. People actually couldn’t have many children. The group wouldn’t survive. There was just not enough food.
SIMONE: Do you think people today should question the expectation that everyone ought to have children?
ELENA: Of course. The same way they should question absolutely everything in life. Especially when somebody tells them what’s best for them or what they “should” do.
SIMONE: Do you think most people actually want children, or do many have them simply because that’s what they’re expected to do?
ELENA: The latter. People don’t “want” children. You can’t want something you never had or that doesn’t yet exist. They have been conditioned. If it was fashionable or advantageous to have goats in a particular society, they’d be saying they want to have a goat.
SIMONE: But couldn’t someone genuinely want the experience of raising a child, even if they’ve never had one?
ELENA: They may. But the question is more like why is it that society is obsessed with multiplying humans. Because it is not about the joy of raising a human child. It is just a smokescreen for multiplication of consumers and followers.
SIMONE: Who do you think benefits most from encouraging people to have more children?
ELENA: Religion and corporations. Also anybody who holds power. The more followers you have, the greater your power. It comes down to what people actually do. And what they do is consume/spend money, reproduce and kill.
SIMONE: Are you thinking mainly of wars, or also of how humans treat other living creatures?
ELENA: Mainly of wars.
SIMONE: Do you think wars would be less likely if people lived in small communities rather than enormous countries?
ELENA: No. Wars, conflicts are unavoidable. Though their impact and tragedy can definitely be taught to be avoided. But wars don’t go away. It is incredibly easy to get people involved. To make them believe that here is your enemy and you need to kill them. This is why there is such a word as patriot. And anybody who isn’t one, is our enemy too.
SIMONE: Why do you think it’s so easy to convince people that someone they’ve never met is their enemy?
ELENA: I don’t know. But it is easy to see. Look at Russians hating Ukrainians. And yet just yesterday we were all neighbors or family.
SIMONE: Has the war changed the way you feel about being Russian?
ELENA: No. I don’t consider myself to be a Russian. I don’t believe in nationality. It’s a concept. A category.
SIMONE: When someone asks you where you’re from, what do you tell them?
ELENA: I usually pause. I never want to say anything. I certainly don’t want people to connect me to Russia. Or any other place in fact.
SIMONE: When someone asks where you’re from, do you feel they’re trying to understand who you are through your nationality?
ELENA: No. They are trying to explain me by placing me into a category.
SIMONE: And what do people tend to assume about you once they hear that you were born in Russia?
ELENA: I don’t know. All the wrong things I imagine.
SIMONE: Do you think it’s possible to get to know someone without first putting them into categories?
ELENA: Of course. This is how new encounters should happen. Looking at the person, not what document may be in their pocket.
SIMONE: You said earlier that nobody should be forced to belong to a country. Would you want the option of having no nationality at all, while still being free to travel and live wherever you choose?
ELENA: Yes. I would love to live in a world where you wouldn’t have to be defined by the place you were born.
SIMONE: And what about land? Do you think anyone should have the right to claim a piece of the Earth and decide who is allowed to live on it?
ELENA: That’s not up to me. That’s up to those very wars. Men will always have weapons which they will use. Nothing anybody can do.
SIMONE: So if borders are ultimately enforced by weapons, what would you want to change about how ordinary people are allowed to cross them?
ELENA: Borders are just the visible embodiment of everything else. It’s the whole way of life that I don’t want. I want to be left alone. To not need an address. To not need papers. To not slave for somebody invisible while getting just enough to prolong my suffering. I want something that this world will not give me. But I still want it.
SIMONE: If you and Meg could live that way tomorrow, without papers, an address, what would you most look forward to?
ELENA: To having people in my life who think like me, who appreciate the same things. Who love nature, who don’t hurt animals. Who want a simple life, who would sit by the fire quietly, just thinking, relishing the moment. Who would be taking photos of the wild world, not themselves. Who would be mesmerized by a piece of classical music and what it evokes. Who would notice and admire a wild flower, a rock, a cloud.
SIMONE: Somewhere out there, there must be other people who feel as you do, who long for a simpler life but see no way out of the one they’re living. What would you tell them?
ELENA: I’d tell them to hold on even when it seems like there is no point to. That life is still great. That it is absolutely worth having. That we should stick to what’s right inside, not to somebody else’s plans or ideas for us. That if these doubts happen in us they happen in others. We are more connected and alike than we think. We just need to find each other. And this is the toughest part.