Unofficial boycott of all things Russia hits Canada’s Russian speakers

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Elisaveta Ioussoupova didn’t expect any issues when she sent her assistant to the bank to deposit some cheques. It was routine at Ioussoupova’s Winnipeg-based private law practice, where she focuses on wills, immigration and business transactions.

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To Ioussoupova’s surprise, the bank refused the cheques, and instead asked for documents it had never requested before.

“I said, ‘Listen, I’ve been with this bank for so long and I have millions of dollars going through this branch,’” Ioussoupova recalled. (She often uses the branch as a third-party trust for large transactions, such as real-estate.) “We come here every day.”

Later, she sent her assistant to another bank to deposit a cheque on behalf of her clients. “They refused to take it,” she said. Ioussoupova, who is from Tajikistan, became suspicious. “The cheque has my name on it, so you can see it’s a Russian-speaking business,” she said. “Because it happened twice in one week, it was too much of a coincidence.” She phoned the bank and asked the question directly: were they refusing her because she was Russian-speaking? “He said, ‘Yes.’ I thought I was going to explode.”

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Ioussoupova declined to name the bank so as not to jeopardize her business. Nor is she seeking to equate some friction in conducting a routine business transaction with the plight of anyone in Ukraine. Still, it’s an example of what Russian and Russian-speaking business owners have been dealing with since Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion of Ukraine in February, escalating tensions with western democracies such as Canada and the United States.

Canada first implemented economic sanctions against Russia in 2014 in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and has tightened its policies in light of this recent war. Canadians are barred from doing business with Russian politicians and a number of Russian oil businesses including PAO Novatek, PJSC Rosneft Oil Company, and OJSC Surgutneftegas.

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Though not required by the government, Canadian companies have taken the sanctions a step further, distancing themselves from Russia and Putin voluntarily. Montreal-based hockey equipment company Canada Cycle & Motor Co. Ltd., known as CCM Hockey, dropped Russian star Alexander Ovechkin from its global marketing campaigns in March. When asked whether CCM had changed its policy, a spokesperson said, “Seeing as how the situation in Ukraine has not changed, our stance has stayed the same.”

This week, Canada imposed new sanctions on Russian oil, gas and chemical industries. “The Russian invasion of Ukraine has now lasted over 100 days,” Mélanie Joly, Canada’s minister of foreign affairs, said in a press release. “We will continue to relentlessly pursue accountability for Vladimir Putin’s senseless war. Canada will do everything in its power to prevent Putin’s ability to fuel and finance his war machine.”

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Language test

Everyday Canadians are following the example set by the government, but imprecisely, targeting Russian-speaking businesses in a haphazard way. Businesses that are not on the government’s sanctions list find themselves there by default, caught in the crossfire.

Potential clients have called lawyer Toronto-based lawyer Oleksiy Bykov and started off the conversation in Ukrainian, conducting what he assumes is a sort of test. On a number of occasions, potential clients have been more direct, bluntly asking where he was from. “It certainly caught me off guard,” he said. “That question was never asked before: was I Ukrainian or was I Russian?”

Businesses that are not on the government’s sanctions list find themselves there by default, caught in the crossfire

Only when he answered that he was born and raised in Kyiv would the client continue the conversation. Bykov said that he has a feeling that if he had answered incorrectly, the clients would have taken their business elsewhere. “We represent clients from all parts of the former Soviet Union, so everyone speaks (the) Russian language,” he said.

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Citizens of former Soviet states, including Latvia, Estonia, and even Ukraine, speak Russian. In the Soviet period, Russian became the lingua franca for the entire region in order to facilitate inter-ethnic communication. So, Bykov often flips between the Ukrainian and Russian spellings of his name, using, for example, the Russian spelling with an A when he is advertising his services on Russian websites. But it was always a matter of convenience, not politics.

You can feel and see the divide

Oleksiy Bykov

Several of Bykov’s clients want to distance themselves from Russia and have requested to switch from Russian to Ukrainian court interpreters. The lines between two different cultures had always been blurry, but now, something has changed. “You can feel and see the divide,” Bykov said.

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Echo of history

“In the heat of this moment … these high-profile retaliations against anyone and anything Russian may be understandable, but they are far from reasonable,” Kevin M. F. Platt, professor in the department of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote in a recent New York Times essay.

For Bryan Schwartz, professor at the University of Manitoba law school and lawyer at Pitblado Law in Winnipeg, this political moment calls to mind the internment camps of the First World War and the Second World War, when the Canadian government interned 8,500 Germans and Austro-Hungarians, and 24,000 Japanese-Canadians, respectively. Former prime minister Lester Pearson called the episode “a black mark” in Canada’s history.

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“What history teaches,” said Schwartz, “is that you want to be thoughtful, not purely emotional, in how you respond to the federal sanctions regime.”

Ioussoupova said the backlash against Russians and Russian-speakers has been especially hurtful, because she thought Canada was a refuge from war and the nationalistic sentiments it stirs up. She was around 15 years old when civil war broke out in Tajikistan. Her family fled to Russia. After emigrating to Canada, attending law school, and opening her own practice in Manitoba, she felt she had left her troubles behind.

You come here and you feel so free and you feel so equal, and then Wa-bam!

Elisaveta Ioussoupova

“You come here and you feel so free and you feel so equal, and then ‘Wa-bam!’” Ioussoupova said.

Her bank’s conduct may actually infringe on the Manitoba human rights code, which prohibits discrimination on the grounds of ancestry, race, nationality and ethnicity. The bank could argue that it was simply adhering to federal economic sanctions against Russia, but a judge would need to decide whether the institution had gone too far.

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Ukrainian clients reached out to Ioussoupova after the war broke out, saying that they only knew Russian and didn’t know what language to use anymore, since they didn’t speak Ukrainian, having left the country when they were little. “They say, ‘What are we supposed to do now? Are we going to be hated?’” Ioussoupova said.

Hate calls

For some Russian-speaking businesses, the political climate has had devastating implications.

The future of Toronto’s Elite Grande Banquet Hall, which mainly serves the Russian community, hangs in the balance, after a judge handed owner Joe Alessandro a $400,000 fine for non-payment of rent. The government subsidized three quarters of Alessandro’s rent while he was closed during the pandemic, but he couldn’t cover the remaining $5,000. Alessandro is now negotiating with his insurance company to see if they can take on some of the fine, otherwise he will need to declare bankruptcy.

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Alessandro told the judge that he had been discriminated against. While other tenants’ requests for a deferral of rent during the pandemic were accepted, Alessandro said he was denied. “The landlord deferred their rent but not mine,” he said. “It was a Russian banquet hall and only focused on Russians. I think [(the landlords) didn’t want that any more, in their unit,” said Alessandro, who is of Italian heritage.

Alessandro’s landlord, Randall Rochwerg of Humbold Properties, could not be reached for comment in time for the publication of this article.

Alessandro’s troubles didn’t begin with the lawsuit. In the months leading up to the ruling, he found himself fielding negative calls. “I got maybe five hate calls, saying, ‘Oh, you have a Russian restaurant? You guys are assholes. Why don’t you do something to help Ukraine?’” He would tell them that he was against Putin, and was against what he was doing, but the calls continued.

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While unpleasant, these calls don’t necessarily constitute discrimination or harassment under the law. “One person’s harassment is another person’s freedom of expression,” said Schwartz, the University of Manitoba law professor.

Denis Ganshonkov, owner of The Ossington Stop in Toronto, which sells classic Russian and USSR dishes, has resorted to putting a sign in the window that says they do not support the war, and stand behind Ukraine. But they still experienced a drop in business. Most of their clientele is Ukrainian and knew that the business was Russian. Ganshonkov said it “was to be expected and is expected for as long as this war is going on.”

More than business

Just like Russian-speaking businesses, Ukrainian speaking businesses are no longer just places of commerce. They have become sites of cultural memory and conflict.

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Nataliya Malyk, the daughter of the owners of the Dnister Ukrainian store in Toronto’s St. Lawrence Market, said that people often come in to show their support. “People here, they know what’s been happening and they’ve been very supportive,” she said. “They donate and they try to buy a little bit of something to give us more money, because they know we have family there, in Ukraine.”

When it comes to Dnister’s Russian clientele, their perspectives on the war vary. Some come in and express their guilt, while others come in and say that Ukraine deserves it, that they are all fascists, Malyk said.

Angel Zytynsky, owner of Zytynsky’s Deli in Montreal, said, “(Clients) all come in and everyone has their story, and I listen to every one of them. They’re all saddened by this. And now they’re starting to get more emotional, and there’s anger in them now, I feel it.”

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“It’s been very hard. I’m playing psychologist over here and I need a psychologist.”

When Russian customers come into her store, they will use the language, but in a hushed voice. “You hear the quietness,” said Zytynsky.

One can hardly blame Russian speakers for choosing to lay low. Once, one of Ioussopova’s clients had a court date, and the other party in the case came to the client’s house, saying, “I’m going to tell the judge that you’re Russian, and you’re going to lose.”

“That was horrible,” said Ioussoupova. “As far as I know, (the aggressor was) just Canadian and decided to use the situation and threaten my client who speaks Russian.”

Months ago, when the war first broke out, Ioussoupova’s 10-year-old son foresaw the difficulties his family would face. He knew it wouldn’t matter that his mother was Tajik and his father was Ukrainian.

“He (told me), ‘Mom, they’re all going to hate you’,” said Ioussoupova. “Because I speak Russian.”

• Email: mcoulton@postmedia.com | Twitter: marisacoulton