I speak Russian. Below are excerpts of conversations from my Russian community on Facebook, translated into English, when the war with Ukraine broke out on February 24, 2022. Where needed, I’ve inserted brackets ([ ]) for clarification.
“Shame, guilt, impotence, hatred and disgust, terrible pain. One of the worst days of my life.”
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This past Thursday, I woke Polina as usual for her online class. That day it was a European-based all girl comics class taught in Russian. Most of Polina’s classes are taught this way. Each week the teacher presents a theme and the girls use software to illustrate the theme in a comic strip, which they read to the group at the end of class. The other two girls in the class live in Europe. For them, it’s an after school activity. Since their afternoon is our morning, as a homeschooling family, that arrangement works well for us.
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After almost 19 years working for the same company, my husband, Peter, turned in his badge and left his gun-secured building for the last time. (I say gun-secured because a guard with a real gun sits at the reception desk and answers the phones.)
My husband began working for this company in 2003, during the Bush administration. He is leaving under the Biden administration. What, dare you ask, does the president of the United States have to do with my husband turning in his badge? Quite simply, Pete does not want to get the COVID vaccine, and because of that, the leader of the free world deemed he and people like him should be fired from their jobs, or at least that was the edict on September 9, 2021.
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I recently completed a car trip across the US and back. I drove from western Washington to Philadelphia to see my grandmother, who wasn’t doing well health-wise. My trip turned into a period of goodbyes. It was about saying goodbye to my grandmother, who passed away five days after I returned home. It was about saying goodbye to my aunt, whose interaction brought home to me all the harmful subtleties of our relationship, and our family dynamics, throughout my life that I simply ignored, but couldn’t any longer. I said goodbye to my friend David, whom I’ve known since 2009, for similar reasons.
During this trip, I said goodbye to my mother and the relationship I wish I had with her. That relationship will never happen. We had an argument that laid on the table everything she thought about me. It came from her heart, and it wasn’t pretty. The end result is I will not allow myself to expect something from her which she is clearly incapable of providing. My grandmother told me a long time ago that my mother couldn’t provide what I wanted. She told me that once, on the phone, when I was a teenager, crying for what turned out to be a weekly occurrence, and it stuck with me. I now realize that expecting more puts her in a torturous situation, and so I say goodbye and with maturity, mourn that loss.
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My family is Russian, which means Polina is half-Russian. This year, my daughter has been taking an online class in Russian history. Recently, the teacher talked about Alexander Pushkin, considered the greatest writer in Russia.
The impact Pushkin had on Russia cannot be understated. You cannot pass through Russia without passing through Pushkin in one form or another. It is not uncommon for a portrait of Pushkin to hang on a Russian family’s wall. He is the first person most Russians think of when thinking about writers. In fact, in Russia, his name is almost synonymous with writing.
Pushkin’s birthday is coming up June 6. That day is now a celebration of the Russian language.
The teacher explained the circumstances of Pushkin’s premature death at age 37, at the hands of his nemesis, D’Anthès. This is a great tragedy, because how much more would he have written had he lived. The following is an exchange I overheard between the teacher and the class. (The exchange was in Russian, so I translated it.)
Teacher: They met in a duel. Children, ask me what is a duel. Do you all know what is a duel? Kolya knows. Polina, do you know?
Polina: Is it a dance?
Teacher: No, it’s not a dance. They didn’t meet to dance.
And I thought, cleaning the house as I was listening to the class, how the history of Russia would have changed if Pushkin had met D’Anthès to dance.
