When Kirill Babkin was younger, he and his siblings were orphaned after his alcoholic mother was stripped of her parental rights. Last spring after his mother was killed in a house fire, Babkin, 19, volunteered to fight in Ukraine, signing a contract that promised lucrative war wages to support his surviving siblings.
In September, he was killed fighting somewhere in Ukraine. He was buried in the village of Yelabuga, in the central Russian region of Tatarstan, on December 11.
When his obituary, and his tragic backstory, was posted on the social media platform VK on December 10, people offered condolences and posted comments to the accompanying chat.
"I feel sorry for his brothers and sisters. He tried for them, to get them back on their feet. It's very painful and sad," wrote one person, who gave their name as Ildus.
"To get his brothers and sisters back on their feet, he had to go to a foreign country with a gun and take someone's life? I don't even know what to say," another person wrote in a related Telegram post.
The condolences, and remembrances, for Babkin offer a small window into the tectonic changes Russian society is undergoing as the third year of the all-out invasion of Ukraine approaches.
President Vladimir Putin's increasingly autocratic rule has stifled dissent, choked off political opposition, and criminalized criticism of the armed forces -- or even open debate about the conduct or wisdom of the war.
The repression has made it difficult for sociologists, opinion pollsters, and journalists to understand sentiments of average Russians, particularly in provinces outside of big cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Over several weeks in December and January, correspondents from RFE/RL's Tatar Bashkir Service spoke to more than a dozen people by encrypted messages and social media chats, mainly in Tatarstan, and other regions like Bashkortostan and Samara, asking about attitudes toward the war and the changes Russian society has undergone.
All spoke on condition their names be changed or partially obscured to prevent retaliation from security services.
"If we talk about the war and its consequences for each of us and for the country as a whole, I would put it this way: 'It's getting more and more terrible," said Irina, a 52-year-old social worker from the city of Ufa.
"The war has become closer, the background horror has become greater," she said. "On the one hand, this is, of course, frightening. On the other, it strengthens the hope that those who have not yet understood the horror of what is happening will finally realize it."
"What can I say? I stopped constantly keeping up with the news, as a kind of defense mechanism," said Alisa, 30, who manages social media accounts for a business in Samara.
Russian officials have not released official casualty figures since the first year of the invasion. Western estimates, however, put the toll at more than 700,000 killed and wounded to date; one British official predicted the tally would hit 1 million by the fall. Tatarstan and Bashkortostan are some of the hardest-hit regions, according to RFE/RL's own estimates.
"The voices of free people, who remained in the country, are increasingly quiet," said Irek, a 55-year-old Ufa resident who said he works for a cultural institution.
"Many people are silent and don't express their thoughts in any way," he said. "There are many cripples walking around in camouflage uniforms on city streets, with crutches or canes or wheelchairs. Cemeteries in cities and villages are full of flags flying over fresh graves."
Chinese Cars, Old Appliances, Iranian Coca-Cola
Russia's economy used to be an engine for modest middle-class prosperity. It's since been retooled into a war engine, with military industrial plants working night and day to churn out tanks, artillery, guns, and ammo. Western sanctions have squeezed industries and entrepreneurs, cutting off supply chains with Europe and shifting trade routes south and east.
Many people with whom RFE/RL spoke complained about more mundane though more immediate concerns: what’s on the shelves in the grocery stores (Coca-Cola from Iran), or a shift in the kinds of cars being sold on the Russian market (mainly Chinese).
Denis, a 45-year-old researcher fellow at an Ufa university, was upbeat about the past year and optimistic about the economy's resilience. He thought the drumbeat of the war had faded into background noise for many people.
"I can't buy clothes from Italy now. I can't fly to Barcelona for the weekend. I can't buy a European car," he said. "Or rather, I can do all of this now, but it has become more expensive and more difficult."
"Instead of Barcelona you can fly, for example, to Bukhara,” he said, referring to the ancient Silk Road city in Uzbekistan. "It's also beautiful and interesting. Although it is strange that tickets to Bukhara are now three times more expensive than tickets to Barcelona used to be."
The explosion of imported Chinese cars -- which have replaced Western brands -- has surprised many Russians, Irek said.
"This is probably a problem that will come back to haunt us in the future: mass breakdowns and overloaded auto repair shops. All the auto mechanics I know, car experts, criticize the quality of Chinese cars, calling them disposable," Irek said, who also complained about buying a Chinese-made smart phone.
One growth industry, he said: is home appliance servicing: "People now repair old appliances more often and buy new ones less often."
Tatarstan and other provinces have been flooded with money in the form of contract-signing bonuses for volunteer soldiers plus high war wages and survivor benefits for relatives. In some regions, the flood has jolted local economies as people splurge on new appliances or major purchases.
'You Can't Leave The Country, Even If You Wanted To'
Some people said that while they weren't falling into poverty, they also weren't prospering. And emigrating or leaving the country entirely isn't an option.
"I can't say that the standard of living has decreased; on the contrary, they even raised the minimum wage," said Larisa, 28, who works in a Samara government office helping theaters and museums plan events. "But overall, with our standard of living, you can't leave the country, even if you wanted to."
For Rustam, a 27-year-old computer programmer from Saratov, the biggest problem last year was authorities blocking or throttling access to YouTube and Discord, a social media platform.
"In 2024, I updated my computer, I recently bought a TV. In fact, we have severe inflation, high interest rates; the currency isn't getting stronger either. This affects the standard of living, but not so much that I'm at the poverty level, starving and all that," he said.
In Samara, like in most towns and cities, billboards and sidewalk bus stop posters advertise signing bonuses for volunteer soldiers, along with appeals to patriotic duty.
"When I see these annoying posters with brave soldiers and the promise of astronomical payments, I can hardly stop from just laughing sarcastically," said Dmitry, a 41-year-old warehouse worker from Samara. "The promised payments have literally doubled in the past two or three months."
"All this tells me our government has completely screwed over the mobilization and is now luring people in a different way," he said, speculating that recruiters don't expect to actually pay out bonuses and wages.
"As I’ve heard from people who’ve been to Ukraine, most of those who go for the money die very quickly," he said.
