Author: Hettie D.

My name is Henrietta (Hettie) Dombrovskaya. I was born in Saint-Petersburg, Russian (actually, back then – Leningrad, USSR) in 1963, and immigrated to the United States in 1996. I love Saint Petersburg, the city I was born and raised in, and I think it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. Similarly (but differently) I love Chicago, and can’t imagine myself moving somewhere else in the observable future. I have three children, Igor, Vlad and Anna, all adults living on their own, and one (so far) granddaughter Nadia. I also believe that my children are the best thing that happened in my life. As for my professional life, I am working in the field of Information Technologies. When I was twenty, I’ve declared that the databases are the coolest thing invented and that I want to do them for the rest of my life. Thirty plus years later, I still believe it’s true, and still, believe that the databases are the best. These two statements together imply that I think a person can have it all, and indeed, I think so! Keep reading my journals to find out how I did it.

Roe/Wade Protests And Rallies

While in Europe, I almost entirely missed the new development with the Roe/Wade overturn. Then, I felt guilty that I didn’t pay enough attention and didn’t participate in the protests. I was flying in on May 1, so I missed all May Day things. I got a little bit of the protest last Saturday after I took mom to the Joffrey Appreciation Day, but they were almost done with the rally by then and were preparing to march.

Today, I went escorting and thereby was unable to attend the event in Union Park.
Escorting was definitely more important because antis went wild. What surprises me is that antis are always using the same old tune. They didn’t come up with anything except for the same old “you are murdering the human beings.”Today, I was busy the whole shift, walking the patients to and from their cars, making the human corridors, and making noises so that antis could not be heard.

At some point, a clinic security guard came to stand with us and helped to hold the tarp to cover the anis posters. And he actually yelled at antis because he is not an escort :).

Then, I could not do the later protest today because of the bad planning (I had three other events, and I lined them up in a suboptimal way). I saw a lot of social media posts, and I caught a little bit of the Millennium park event at the very end of it.

The number of antis who appear at the pro-abortion rallies still bothers me. That’s Illinois, that’s Chicago, and I can’t believe it when I see huge groups of antis, so loud and talking the same nonsense. I am so allergic to propaganda after I had it all in the Soviet Union!

And one more thought, When I am asked what the abortion situation in the Soviet Union was, I usually reply that abortion was legal, it was just a very humiliating process, and no anesthetics were allowed unless you illegally paid for them. It was not until recently that I realized that the fact that you could not get an abortion after 12 weeks was an abortion limitation! It just never occurred to me that it could be different!

Last week’s protest – Igor’s photos

It Could Be A Perfect Day…

Yesterday was a perfect day. A perfect first-summer-day, a day when I know why I moved to Rogers Park and what I love here.

It started from the long bike ride, and the sun is now up early enough for me to start biking at 5-15. I entered the Lake Front Trail at 5-35, and it already looked busy with people walking their dogs and talking to each other, joggers, and biking groups.


I had breakfast on my balcony, and then I had a very productive workday. During my lunch break, I went to the beach, lay on the sand, listened to the waves, and walked in the crystal clear water.


And then, my neighbors messaged me that they could help me to pick up the plants, and I got on Uber and went to the nursery and picked the plants.

The evening was balm, and I worked until 9 PM and could plant everything and clean up almost everything. So now my summer life is going to be perfect.

It would be a perfect day, if not for one thing.

In the morning, when I stopped to wait for a green light at the corner of Broadway and Granville, I saw a neatly dressed older man picking in the garbage. When I started crossing, I saw that he had a bun in his hand, and he was hurriedly eating it while crossing.

Joffrey Ballet

Last week was also ballet week. On Thursday, I went to see two short ballets: Balanchine’s “Serenade” and a modern ballet “Of Mice and Men” based on Steinbeck’s book.
I was cautious and skeptical about the latter; I could not imagine this book converted into a ballet, but it was fantastic!!!Below is a long segment about this performance here, which tells it all – I agree with every word of it!

On Saturday, there was a subscriber appreciation day. Subscribers were invited to have a late breakfast at the foyer, and then everybody was invited into the auditorium to see a rehearsal. It lasted an hour and a half, but it didn’t feel boring at all!

I renewed my subscription for the next season, but I decided to get only one ticket. If I have a company for some of the performances, I can always get an extra one. And this season, I had trouble finding anybody who would go with me!

A Year of Living by the Lake

I moved to my new home a year ago. On the one hand, I am still telling people that I “recently moved.” On the other hand, it feels like O already lived here for half of my life.

This week, the weather finally became warmer, and I biked a lot. The sun rises early enough for me to go for long bike rides in the morning.

Today, the temperature suddenly rose up to 89F, and I rushed to the beach as soon as I could get off work. It was way colder by the water, but still, I could lay down on my tarp, not moving, not reading, not thinking, just feeling the lake nearby.

“Seagull” at Steppenwolf

Last Wednesday, I went to see the “Seagull” in the Steppenwolf theater. I had four tickets left on my Black card, and I decided to use them all for this show. I figured that Igor and mom would go, and I will figure out whom else to invite. My neighbor was interested (she even thought about getting tickets herself), and I gladly invited her.

It was not only an all-new “Seagull” but also the first show on the Steppenwolf’s New Stage, and the new stage was fantastic! And actually, everything about this show was great: the translation was nearly perfect, nothing was cut from the play, and the actors seemed to be born to play these roles!


I was also glad that mom liked it. She could not remember the play itself (although it’s a Russian classic taught at school), and she could not understand what was going on on stage, but still, she was captivated by the action.

Vilnius: Lithuanian Comfort Food and Coffee

On this trip, I rediscovered Lithuanian food. I recalled everything I liked many years ago, and we made sure never to eat at the same place twice, and try different foods each time.

On the first day, there were zeppelins and Lithuanian kvass, and this kvass was so incredibly good, that we never skipped it:). The one which we tried in the first place was the best though.

Zemaiciu was another thing I had very fond memories of, as well as other kinds of potatoe-based foods.

I even tried potatoes pancakes with pig ears!
And Boris tried potatoes and pork sausage
Forgot this dessert name
Continue reading “Vilnius: Lithuanian Comfort Food and Coffee” →

Europe Day

Although due to the current situation, the whole world knows what May 9 means to Russians in most countries the calendar is marked with another holiday – Europe Day.

Europe Day held on 9 May every year celebrates peace and unity in Europe. The date marks the anniversary of the historic Schuman Declaration that set out his idea for a new form of political cooperation in Europe, which would make war between Europe’s nations unthinkable.

The Schuman Declaration or Schuman Plan was a proposal by the French foreign minister, Robert Schuman, made on 9 May 1950. It proposed placing French and West German production of coal and steel under a single authority that would later be opened to other European countries. The ultimate goal was to pacify relations, between France and West Germany in particular, through gradual political integration, which would be achieved by creating common interests. Schuman said that “the coming together of the countries of Europe requires the elimination of the age-old opposition of France and Germany…the solidarity in production thus established will make it plain that any war between France and Germany becomes not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible.”

It is so sad to see today, that his hopes didn’t materialize and that the opposite happen, in the most unthinkable way! I hold a strong hope, however, that this time, the European countries won’t stop in the middle of the way and will make sure that nothing like this will ever happen again.

The Victory Over Nazism Day

Vilnius: Streets and Hills

Many historical places in Vilnius are under reconstruction, and the usual routes are often blocked. We tried to get to “Three Crosses” three times (the place was visible from our hotel!) and only got there before our departure. All other times, we ended up on the wrong hills 🙂

Do birds know their numbers?!
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Vilnius Museum of Occupation

We had a list of museums we thought we wanted to visit on Saturday (our flight out was at 6-30 PM, so we had most of the day). The Museum of Occupation was something new on the list of Vilnius museums, and I saw that it was very popular. Since this museum was the furthest from our hotel, we decided to start there and see how much time we had left for other museums. 

But that museum impressed us so much that after spending 2.5 hours there, we realized we could not go anywhere else, so we spent the rest of that day walking along the streets of Old Town and talking about what we saw. 

There is no other museum like this in any of the former Soviet Republics, and I think that if such museums were open in all the Russian cities, maybe, maybe… maybe things would look differently today.

The museum is located in a former Lithuanian KGB building, and the KGB internal prison is still preserved in the basement. Exhibits on the first and second floors present the history of Lithuania’s fight for freedom from 1940 to 1991. 

After leaving the museum, Boris said: I am trying to figure out which parts we didn’t know. We knew most of the facts, but in some cases, we were not aware of the magnitude of the events, and in some, we simply never gave it enough thought, which I am now ashamed of. 

I knew about deportations in 1941, right before the start of the war, but I didn’t know that there were multiple waves of deportations after the war. The number of displaced people might not look so big until you think about the total population of Lithuania and realize that it was more than 10% of the total population.

We knew about the Forest Brothers, but I had no idea that they kept fighting until 1953! I didn’t know how well they were organized, how much support did they have in the country, and I didn’t know about their multiple unsuccessful attempts to get some support from the West. 

Knowing these facts, there is no wonder to see such overwhelming support for Ukraine everywhere in Lithuania! 

The exhibit explains how “a quiet resistance” rolled out after the Forest Brothers were defeated. And once again, it made me think about the time I visited Lithuania when I was a teen and a young adult. I am ashamed of myself now that I think about how we were coming there, the occupants, and how we were oblivious that we were seen as occupants. Also, I know many Russians who moved to Lithuania after the war and after the mass deportations, and they were completely ignorant about their role in the occupation. 

The part of the museum that talks about the labor camps was somewhat less impressive because I knew a lot about them. But the KGB prison left a completely grave impression, even though, theoretically, we knew how the suspects and the prisoners were treated. 

And one of the most impressive parts of the exhibit was the room where they presented the complete organizational chart of the Lithuanian KGB organization, with names and photographs! That’s where I thought – we should have had this for each KGB organization on the territory of the former Soviet Union! Then, maybe… 

I am not sure whether the pictures can add much, but I tried to make them informative. As for the prison, the most horrifying thing is that it is real, and not only real but also very recent.

Continue reading “Vilnius Museum of Occupation” →