Russian footballer Nadezhda Karpova told how she treats athletes who do not speak out about the war.
Nadezhda Karpova- Can you imagine that individual Russian athletes can oppose the war in order to be able to compete under a neutral flag?
- It depends on the athlete, on his desire, how much he wants to ride. As far as I know, we have tennis player Dasha Kasatkina, the first racket of Russia. In any case, she was her at the moment when she made her anti-war statement. But she does not train in Russia and probably lives too. Therefore, theoretically, this is possible from, for example, a number of tennis players who can afford it.
- Why are Russian athletes overwhelmingly silent about the war? The exception was a few - for example, the same Kasatkina or football player Fedor Smolov.
- For me, the black square of Fyodor Smolov is also not an anti-war statement. How can you, when the Bucha happened, post only a black square (Smolov posted a post on Instagram on February 24, before the coverage of the events in Bucha - approx.)?
For me, this looks like the position of people who say: “I am for peace” and at the same time support Putin. But I don’t want to unleash all the dogs on Smolov, because there are people who didn’t even do that. Well done for posting.
It was also very difficult for me to speak out when I gave a big anti-war interview to the BBC. I thought about it for a long time and figured it out: “Why? Who am I afraid of? At what point did I also become part of this obedient herd?” I didn’t sleep for a long time, I was worried about how and what I would say. In the end, I realized that I could not be silent, and yet I did it. It seems to me that many do not speak out because they cannot understand themselves. They have problems with their "I" - they are blinkered, stuck up and downtrodden. Or they are just dishonest.
I do not want to divide people: athletes, artists, journalists - there is not much difference. We all recently saw the artist Kuchera, who came for an interview with Dud - what a mess he has in his head. And it’s the same with athletes: some are just fools, and others are scoundrels who are content with their material wealth. It is more important for them to buy a bag from Dior than to save people who live on five thousand rubles a month and go to the toilet on the street from propaganda. For this, probably, there must be human qualities, some kind of empathy. When the war began, I was haunted by a feeling of pitch darkness and horror. It's still phoning, so I couldn't do it any other way.
I have many friends who have a lot of followers on social networks. I wrote to them: “Why are we all silent? What's wrong with us? We considered ourselves a progressive young society, but in the end it turned out: “Oh, I can’t, but I have a business, and what if ...” Among my acquaintances there were people who said: “Wait, I’m doing a visa for myself now to France, I’ll leave and I’ll speak out.” Well, nothing in the end. I have no other explanation, except that the dictatorship made fun of everyone and for people some material things became more important than being themselves.
