In Germany...

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In Germany, we once bought an apartment in one of the good, expensive, practically central districts of a city with a population of over a million. Back then, it still had good infrastructure and a metro station within walking distance. 
During the 15 years we lived in that district, all the doctors with private practices left, the pharmacy and bank branch closed for good, and all the restaurants and the German takeaway shop shut down. And the pathetic playground, consisting of one slide and a sandbox, was buried because it was unprofitable to maintain.

On the other hand, two shisha bars opened, as well as an African bar where drugs were openly sold, but the police stopped driving down that street. A Moroccan restaurant opened, where bearded men would sit around all day, smoking something or other. On the same street, a makeshift mosque was set up on the ground floor of one building, and every Friday the street began to turn into a “carnival,” a thoroughfare for men in white ankle-length robes walking barefoot on the asphalt. At the end of the street stood a shopping center, which over the years turned into a filthy, vomit-covered something, just like the metro station, where groups of homeless people lay around and the smell of urine wafted from nearly a kilometer away. Public transport was still there, sort of, but it became unreliable, and sometimes you had to wait an hour just to get to work. Oh, yes, exactly two stops from this “wonderful” district, they opened the biggest refugee reception center in the city, and I don’t think I need to tell you what kind of refugees come to Germany, but they are certainly not white Orthodox people.🤷‍♀️

And in the evenings, this whole international community started hanging out near the Netto grocery store, drinking alcohol and taking drugs. When my child and I went to buy bread, my teenager began running around all these marginal groups from a couple of meters away, so as not to get hit by someone’s drug-addled fist. And yes, I started meeting my child after all their evening training sessions, because I don’t have so many children that I can afford to lose them.🤷‍♀️

And now in Russia, we live in the suburbs of Kaliningrad; in fact, it’s a settlement, but it’s just across the road from the city. The settlement is old, very green, with many garden associations and private houses, but there are also a couple of new residential complexes. Right in the center of the settlement is a huge, beautiful school, one of the largest in the region. The school has its own swimming pool, a fitness club, and simply an unimaginable number of clubs. Behind the school is a professional music school and a ballet studio. Opposite the school stands a church of extraordinary beauty, illuminated by floodlights all night. The grounds around the church were landscaped by a landscape designer, with flowers, small thuja trees, and a pond. Our residential complex’s buildings are also lit up at night, and it’s so beautiful🔥 There are lots of playgrounds on the grounds of the complex, and its own enclosed soccer field. There is a private kindergarten with its own playground, as well as a bunch of small shops on the ground floors of the complex, from grocery stores to stationery shops. Since we are opposite the school, the sale of alcohol and cigarettes in our shops is completely prohibited. I’ve seen only one stray dog, but it is well-fed and always lies calmly by one particular shop, where they apparently feed it. Our main form of transport is minibuses, but they run every 10 minutes, and there’s a bus every half hour. And yes, we have a mosque in the settlement too, but I’ve never seen anything like the festivals in Germany here, and I don’t even know when it’s open; everything is so quiet and peaceful. 
Three times a week, our own farmer comes with his stall selling homemade cheeses, milk, and sour cream.

And now my teenage son calmly goes into the city; in fact, he prefers walking through the garden associations and arriving right in the city, and then taking buses, trams, or a scooter. Over two years, my son has learned the city by heart; he knows the entire center, all the lakes, and all the sights.

I absolutely love Kaliningrad in the evening. Everything is lit up here; in the summer, the fountains in the center are running, and there are lots of young people, but they all stroll around nicely in couples. Nobody drinks or smokes in the streets; I’ve never seen a single homeless person. There are lots of military personnel and cadets in the city, and it’s so beautiful when the young cadets walk around in their uniforms🔥 The city is somehow lively, young, beautiful, and incredibly safe. 
Not once in two years have I worried about my son being alone in the city or that something might happen to him; that’s how at ease I feel.