Preface: my approach

The first five chapters of this book were ready in Zaporozhye (Ukraine). The chapters about the expansion of NATO and the Monroe Doctrine were finished in Przemyśl and Warsaw (Poland) on the long way to Canada where I came with my wife on November 6, 2022.  Thus, most chapters appeared in the neck of the woods of Queensville (East Gwillimbury) – an hour’s drive to the downtown of Toronto.

By this time most of my family – my sons, my grandchildren and great grandchildren – had been living here for years and had accommodated themselves quite successfully to the Canadian way of life.

The easy road to getting assimilated into the Canadian way of life was paved for them by Anglomania that has always reigned supreme in my family and that could rival that described by Turgenev in his novel “Fathers and Sons”. In contrast to Pavel Petrovich, the Russian aristocrat in Turgenev’s book, we couldn’t afford to demonstrate our love for the foggy Albion by means of expensive clothing and little conveniences. We focused on the history, language and literature. 

Most of all Anglomania revealed itself in the priorities that dominated the process of raising my children. The first aim I set before myself in getting my sons educated was immersing them into the English language communication, history and culture. Next in importance followed music, chess, swimming, skiing and boxing.

Canada occupies a special place in my life. In my youth I was working for the Intourist, the primary travel agency for foreign tourists in the Soviet Union. Canadians comprised most of the tourists under my care. Curiously, the first and the last Canadian had the name of Penner: Richard Penner was a ranchman from Alberta, and Glenn Penner was a missionary from Ontario. Richard Penner was the man who inflamed my imagination with stories about majestic lakes, the Niagara Falls, forests with rich wild life, mountains covered with never-melting snows, horse-riding in the wilderness and taking a canoe voyage down the river rapids. I explored the possibility of settling in Canada, but was soon discouraged by the harsh realities of the Iron Curtain.

Ironically, I was to see Canada when I no longer wanted it.

Under the nagging pressures of age and physical weakness I had dumped not only the hope of seeing Canada, the dream of my youth, but travelling to places within easy reach long before my loved ones decided to make me join them in Toronto. I agreed to move to Canada only after a heated debate with my children who were very worried over our security against the backdrop of periodic shelling that my home city of Zaporozhye had come to know after the full-scale war between Russia and Ukraine began on February 24, 2022.

The shelling didn’t worry me much.

For one thing, I am a Russian myself and, as many like-minded compatriots, I look forward to the Russian army liberating my home city and all the Ukraine from the crazy bunch of the Banderites who came to power in an American-paid coup in 2014.

For another thing, I knew that the Russians were hitting only military targets, because they were waging a war against the Kiev impostors, not against the peaceful citizens.

For the third thing, afflicted with age and health problems, I was a poor traveler.

For the fourth thing, I am a fatalist and I believe that when the bell tolls, no amount of wisdom and no security measures will save you from destiny.

Last but not least, I was psychologically ready for the war.

I knew the inevitability of the conflict and warned about it in the article that was published in the May issue of the “New Times” magazine in 1990. At that moment “The Clash of Civilizations” was still in the making, but I am sure that we would have found many similarities with Samuel Huntington who saw the fault-lines dividing Ukraine as the casus belli of the future “clash”.

Still, my wife and I came over from Yelabuga (Russia) to settle in Zaporozhye because our parents were getting old and might need our assistance.  Thus, my University career comprises 20 years of working at the Department of English Phililogy in Russia and 20 years of working for the Department of Translation from English in Ukraine. It took me another 10 years to come to Canada.

Be it as it may, the house of our junior son Vlad became home to my wife and me, and we have been enjoying the care and hospitality of our hosts for nearly two years

Canada offers many privileges to people who live here. Basically, it is the right place for seniors to live in if you look for such benefits as free medical treatment and other social perks. You cannot help appreciating Canadian kind-heartedness, laid-back ways and very peculiar sense of humor that takes you to the Farmstead Boulevard (with no farmstead in view), the Balsdon Hollow (without a hollow nearby), the Seaview Heights (without a sea in the vicinity). A modest village in East Guillimbury, where we live, has a proud name of Queensville. Still, I feel the presence of royalty within my close circle in the personality of Olivia, my beloved granddaughter and the greatest treasure who calls the shots for me now. 

My son Vlad takes trouble all the way to show his love for us. My wife’s room is decorated with flowers and equipped with a TV-set and a tablet computer. My room contains two laptops, a bookcase of meticulously chosen authors and a writing desk. Vlad took care to maintain a steady supply of books through the Amazon. To make me feel completely at home Vlad bought me a piano to play and an exercise bike to keep in shape. Last but not least, I have a personal bar that Vlad keeps his close watch on for it to always contain Scotch (one more bow to Anglomania).

In Queensville I went on working over “The Ukrainian Tragedy” and reading books I happened to come across on the Amazon offering quite a rich collection of research about the Russo-Ukrainian war. From the very beginning I found the English language narrative on the topic badly biased. That’s why I decided to address the native speakers of English, which is full of Russophobic stereotypes that I hoped to dispel. It is for this reason that I rely on the maxims, which are familiar to every native English speaker, as well as on the English language works about Ukraine.