Discovering the World: the Tatar Way

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...

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...