A Russian teacher who spent two decades living in Australia has decided to return to her home country, citing lasting loneliness and homesickness, according to an interview she gave to Russian broadcaster RT.
Svetlana Danilina moved to Australia at the age of 36 to join the man who would become her husband, and went on to live there for the next 20 years, RT reported. During that time she founded and served as president of a Russian community society and worked as a school teacher, but said she never felt she belonged.
RT, formerly known as Russia Today, is a Russian state-funded international broadcaster that frequently features interviews with Russians living abroad, including those who later decide to return home. Australia has a long-established Russian-speaking community built up over successive waves of migration, with cultural societies of the kind Danilina founded often serving as gathering points for expatriates.
Danilina said she was never able to adjust to life in Australia and explained her decision to return to Russia as being driven by nostalgia for her home country.
A feeling she could not shake
Danilina described the isolation as an unbearable feeling that ate away at her from the inside, saying it was a kind of pain that could not be overcome. She said not everyone who emigrates struggles the way she did, noting that other Russians living in Australia seemed to be doing fine, and that things may simply have been easier for them. She said she herself simply had not managed.
Selling everything before the move
A few months before returning, Danilina and her son had to sell all of their property in Australia. Between them, they managed to save 10,000 dollars, about 843,000 rubles, to fund the move.
While in contact with other Russians preparing to move back in an online chat, Danilina learned that the Pskov region would be the easiest place for her to resettle. Pskov region lies in northwestern Russia along the borders with Estonia and Latvia.
A quick response from Pskov
Danilina said she wrote to a local group asking that she and her son be taken home, and that within two minutes someone called her back and told her not to be afraid of anything. She said the gesture gave her a great deal of emotional strength.
Local contacts went on to meet the pair on arrival, find them an apartment, and help them with banking arrangements, she said.
Another newcomer to the region
RT has previously reported that a resident of Latvia moved to a village in the Pskov region to start a new life after the death of his wife. The man has since begun running a farm, holds activities for children, and plans to build guest houses for tourists, according to that earlier report.
