Robert Ginzburg

Anyone wanting an insight into the strange atmosphere springing up almost overnight in Russia’s institutions could do a lot worse than consider campaigns held in Russian schools and kindergartens over the past week. There have been numerous photographs published online of infants waving Russian flags and arranging themselves in Z-formation, ‘Z’ being the current war-symbol of choice in Russia. Celebrations of the 2014 annexation of Crimea, and poetry-reading sessions against ‘attempts to ban Russian culture abroad’, have also been held.

In Russia, the lights are going out one by one. Everything one expects from an up-to-date country – cashpoints that work, Apple products, Coca Cola – is vanishing. On Saturday night, at 3am, I ran down totally empty streets searching for the last cashpoint that would work with my British Mastercard. Bank machine after bank machine sent me away empty-handed, until I found one that obviously hadn’t got the memo. I stood there making withdrawal after withdrawal – snatching each 5,000 rouble note as though it would vanish in front of me – until it told me I’d reached my limit for the day. Being cut off completely from money that you know you have is like being separated from a parent as a child. It's terrifying.

One of the most difficult things about being in Russia at the moment is seeing people with whom you never had a problem – even liked – jumping on the war-bandwagon. A secretary at work where I lived in a city in the south of the country – we’ll call her Svetlana, she was probably my favourite person there until this started – has suddenly become a war-fanatic. ‘Ya za Rossii!’ she proclaims: ‘I’m for Russia!’. It’s said so chirpily it’s as if she’s discussing an election or a football match. Seeing my dismay at her war-talk, she misinterprets it. ‘Oh come on!’ she trills. ‘You’re such a pessimist. Everything will be all right! You’ll see!