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These are difficult days, everything is gone: our sense of life, of the future I think a lot about the past – how did we allow this to happen? And I realise with great sorrow that I was one of those writers who wrote for my own people, for those who saw it all anyway, and not for the others, the ones who have been sitting in front of their televisions all these years And now these people and I – well, we find ourselves in utterly different realities, each feeling that the other’s position is absurd, lacking all logic    What is happening in Ukraine, to my friends there, makes my own fears and worries seem petty and unimportant – our dangers are simpler, we might lose our livelihoods, be put in prison, become a pariah in our own country (an especially bitter fate) and in the world But they fear for their lives And that alters things If I didn’t have a child perhaps I’d be the Brave Little Tailor from the fairy story, but I do and so I’m afraid   Yesterday there was a meeting of the heads of all the Moscow theatres with a representative of the Presidential Administration All the directors and artistic directors of the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow Arts, the Union of Theatre Workers and others sat there trying to work out whether they would lose their jobs if they didn’t support the government The day before, the Meyerhold Centre was demonstratively closed down for its clear anti-war position The artistic director was fired, the theatre building was given to another theatre This is simply unheard of – nothing like this has ever happened and everyone knew what was meant by it At the meeting there was talk of Russian troops advancing on Ukraine in order to prevent the Ukrainians making a nuclear bomb with America’s help Then it was said that in Europe Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky had been banned – and finally we were shown some kitten memes The talk was illustrated with slides In other words we were shown ‘television’; exactly what the