Prologue

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“To be silent or to speak?”

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It took me years to finally resolve this long-standing dilemma.

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In any well-constructed plot, the hero’s path is always full of obstacles. More often than not, they make mistakes in their chosen goal and in their understanding of what they truly need. It seems a brilliant playwright must have worked on the twists of my fate.

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My journey in France began a little over fourteen years ago. I crossed the border as a loving wife and future mother, with no clear plan and no solid idea of what the future would hold, but with a sincere intention: to build a home in our barely formed family. Simply to live, to love, and to be loved. Such a small thing, and yet so much for this ever-changing world. But what did I know about it at twenty-four?

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A young, ambitious girl who had dedicated a significant part of her childhood and youth to Kyokushin karate at her father’s insistence, with some experience in the music industry and unfinished legal studies in Russia - I began building my life in France, step by step, guided by shaky guesses about myself and the world.

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The issue of work came up during the second year after my son was born. It was hard to find a place that matched my professional profile abroad - language and the lack of a diploma remained serious barriers. So I tried my hand at various projects and initiatives where I could apply my organizational and producing skills. But what I considered work was not always recognized as such by others.

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For a long time, I lived under the imposed belief that being employed was the key to our family’s stability.

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Alas, reality had its own terms, and my attempts to fit into someone else’s frame, even in my own way, ultimately backfired. After the birth of our daughter, the second child, our fragile family fortress could not withstand the pressure of inevitable trials. Its collapse left a long, crooked shadow trailing across my life for many years to come.

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My dream of one day establishing myself in the film industry remained just that, a dream, except for a few rare moments when I managed to reach for my star and touch it, if only briefly.

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I went to great lengths to preserve the image of an all-powerful, unbreakable mother in the face of every hardship and danger. That image became my goal for many years. I chased it stubbornly, year after year. But like any good drama’s heroine, I was wrong about myself.

 

Not long ago, I began to ask myself: why do I keep walking this path under such extreme conditions? In a foreign country, where I have to be heroic every day in a language that isn’t mine and still remain a stranger. What keeps me running in this exhausting race? What trophy am I chasing, if I end up, time and again, as a disposable pawn, convenient to sacrifice?

 

There’s a common belief that people emigrate to France for an easy life on social benefits. I saw my very first benefits only in 2023, after twelve long years of chasing a faint glimmer of hope for myself and my loved ones in this country.

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A year had to pass before the full weight of a chilling realization began to dawn on me: many of the painful events I had to endure in my attempts to preserve some sense of stability in France might never have happened, had I been granted the support legally guaranteed, yet never truly provided. Had I not been judged through clichés, misled by superficial impressions.

 

I accepted it all as truth and found myself, once again, alone, inventing brilliant survival strategies just to keep our ship afloat, long since reduced to drifting wreckage among the grinning reefs of the system.

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This truth brought no relief. On the contrary, the next two years seemed to assemble the full puzzle and reveal the terrifying reality I continue to live in.

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Time and again, I stumbled over my belief that strict adherence to the rules was the surest path to solving any problem. I thought that patience and silence were signs of virtue, and that unconditional forgiveness would guarantee love and peace in the world. Meanwhile, life marched steadily along its own trails, showing me otherwise again and again.

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Now I understand: compassion is not the same as giving up your voice. Love and peace do not mean repeatedly justifying injustice. Some rules must be broken, especially those that have long hardened into absurdity.

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I am fully aware: the odds are not in my favor. Having stepped away from the role of the convenient Wonder Woman in favor of my real self - imperfect, alive - I risk being chewed up and spat out by the many-faced beast of the social machine, without a shred of sentiment.

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And if my life is merely a hollow imitation of existence, with a smile stretched tight and fake, confined in the romanticized illusion of that famous “la vie en rose” - then I do not understand such a life, and I can no longer support its false mask.

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Alas, today, once again, I must set aside my dreams in a distant drawer and leave my family waiting in the next room. All I have left is my voice and these pages. And I must use them to understand how we ended up in this tightening loop, and whether there’s still a way to escape it unharmed.

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To be silent, or to speak - it’s no longer a question. The choice is clear.

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A kind of final turning point, but far from a climax.