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Everything Was Fair and Nothing Hurt

I can almost be counted as a part of the Generation P but not exactly - there were four years of Yeltsin, which I, of course, don't even remember. And there was Medvedev. As I am struggling to explain why I am feeling so devasted, so hopeless...why I am suddenly feeling pain as a result of the event that shouldn't have caught me off guard. I mean...this is Russia - dictatorship, kleptocracy, lacking civil society, and whatever other descriptives my political science books use. So, as I am struggling. I can't help thinking of this trick of Medved. I was in my teens and left the country for the first time - first to study in Malta, then in the US. My President was quite young and hip; he was learning how to use iPhone and loved Led Zeppelin. Medvedev tricked me into believing that Russia's Soviet legacy is a thing of the past, that faces can and will change even though they might all be United Russia's faces. That did not seem too bad. Then came Putin's third - ...
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Never Underestimate the Power of Luck

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A very-very wise man Mick once said: "Never underestimate the power of luck!" Then Christopher Andersen  recorded it in his book...And ever since I read it I was struggling to understand what it meant. You know those moments when you suddenly have the urge to take a pen and write down the quote on the margins of your planner? That. I suddenly have a feeling that I got closer to understanding the meaning of this phrase. Today. I have this new thing - I test my luck every day. I sometimes imagine the ideal,dream-like, the what-seems-like an impossible sequence of events that I wish happened today. And at times it works. For example, "I'll turn the corner and will definitely see X who I haven't seen in ages." Done. At times it doesn't work and the day is more like a sequence of disappointments...other times I feel like I alone could rule the world and solve all of its problems (jk I am a female so of course not). But just today I realized that ...
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Easy Easy Real Talk: why rappers and it-girls are the ones who can save Russian civil society

Part 1: The Rappers                                                                                                                                                         If you were to ask me what Russian rap is just a couple of months ago, I would most definitely refer you to  Timati  (who is striving to be Russian Kanye West is a well-known supporter of Putin and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov) and, perhaps, my favorite band Grybi and their Tayet Lyod (it features squatting Slavs in tracksuits - the most famous and foreign_public_apprecaited Russian cultural reality). Everything, however, has change...
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Thoughts on the Danger of Simplicity

I wouldn't be able to count at this point how many monologs I have listened to. Americans, Europeans, fellow former_soviets. Freinds, acquaintances, passers-by. Political scientists, students, accountants, drivers, construction workers, and many others. But all who took at least 15 minutes of their time to let me know why my passport is covered with innocent blood, why they would never go to that horrible country, and, because I definitely did not know, why Mr.Putin is the #1 dictator of our times. I am silent. Then comes "but you seem to be an adequate Russian!" or "I am sorry if it is unpleasant to hear but that is the truth!" or simply nothing. We go our separate ways. I hold an image of my passport in my mind. Wait. But is it even okay that they don't ask someone who lives in the country for a piece of opinion? Well. The new norm of a globalized world, I guess. With that in mind, I wanted to dedicate this post to one of many things I am tired of heari...
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(Re)discovering Blogging

It was probably about ten years ago or so when I've discovered blogging. It seemed like a very attractive and the only right way of sharing teenage frustrations with the world and living through the pains of first love and first disappointments. My first blog helped to improve my Russian language skills, find several online friends and survive the pains of not being understood by the big and cruel world (a typical teenage problem if you ask me). Soon, however, my life spilled far beyond the borders of my little town in the Urals - I have discovered America, the taste of 140 characters on Twitter, (only) the right angles and filters of Instagram, and increased amount of friends on Facebook with whom I could share incomplete thoughts instantly and (at times) mindlessly. I have now lived (living to me equals living with a host family/working/studying in the country, hotels and sightseeing doesn't count) in six countries and the thought of rediscovering blogging (except for...
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