On family history, parenting, education, social issues and more
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.
OMG, what a wonderful museum! It was just a block away from our hotel, but we didn’t notice it first because the entrance is hidden behind the heavy gates, and you need to press a buzzer, and they actually ask who are you and whether you really want to enter!
One museum with hand sanitizer everywhere :). Some old toys are behind the glass, but there are copies available for play, and you can touch and try pretty much everything. There were so many families, and kids were having the time of their lives!
And I want to mention, that Boris liked playing with lots of these toys 🙂
I didn’t have time to blog about anything since returning from my trip; there was too much work. I still have a lot of photos from Lithuania, and I do not know when I will have time to sort them. And while I was so preoccupied with my private things and the war, I completely lost the situation with Roe/Wade. Now I blame myself for ignoring most of the protests, not being there, and putting these activities on the backburner. At the same time, I know that participating in Saturday protests completely doesn’t fit into my schedule. Unfortunately, this is not the last protest… not sure which emoji is appropriate here.
I think that it has been at least forty years since I visited Trakai, and all these years I wanted to do it again. Boris was there more recently but he was also surprised by the changes. When we entered the castle, he even said – but that’s a different castle! The castle was the same, it’s just that there was a lot of reconstruction work done in the past years.
I didn’t remember from the first time I visited that there was and still is a large Karaim and Tatar population, our guide told us how they were invited/resettled by Grand Duke Vytautas, and that their culture is still preserved. Since by that time we were already on the road for a while, we started our visit to Trakai with lunch at a Karaim restaurant.
Lunch in Karaim restaurant on the lake – kibinai, traditional Karaites foodGinger teaContinue reading “Trakai”→
On Friday, we took a private tour called “Three Capitals of Lithuania.” It was a pretty good deal: 160 euros for up to four people, with a private tour guide/driver, and it included a walking tour of the Old town, a trip to Kernave, and a trip to Trakai and the tours in both. I jumped on this opportunity because I wanted to visit Trakai – I remembered it since I was there a long time ago, probably forty years if not more.
It ended up being a decent tour. Granted, we had better tour guides in the past, but it was great to have a plan and to be able to visit two historical sites in one trip. I talked with our guide most of the way to get as much additional information about the past and present of the country as possible.
I thought I knew quite a bit about the history of Lithuania, but it turned out it was almost nothing. We knew it was the last European country to be baptized (in 1387). Still, we didn’t realize that the Great Duchy of Lithuania raised to its most might and glory being a pagan state. I am now reading about the history of Lithuania in the 13th and 14th centuries; how it took control over the Kievan Rus, which had already broken into multiple feudal states by that time. And the facts that I am reading about make me wonder who exactly stood against the Golden Hord and shielded the rest of Europe from the Mongols.
Lithuanians are cautious about using the ancient flag; as our guide said, “it was also an ancient Belarussian flag.” I believe that this goes more to whether the Great Duchy of Lithuania should be considered a Lithuanian or a Belarussian state. There was no written Lithuanian language until the end of the 19th century (same as with Finnish and Estonian languages). Our guide mentioned the official documents written in Polish, Latin, German, old Russian, and old Belarussian languages. And I already know that only about 10% of the Grand Duchy population were ethnical Lithuanians. I need to do a lot of reading to better understand that historical period, but at least I noted that I have a lot of blind spots in this area. And now – some pictures.
Most of these photos were taken on our first day in Vilnius after we got down from the Gediminas Castle and walked around the city endlessly until we could not take in any more of its Medieval beauty.
There were signs of support for Ukrain everywhere, and there were refugees everywhere. The unmistakable families, mothers with children, older people, dressed a little bit too warm for the weather. We overheard the conversations, the Facetime calls with the loved ones, the talks about whether somebody should go to Germany. On Friday, our tour guide told us that there are about 50,000 official refugees in Lithuania, and with the family members joining those who worked in Lithuania before there could be twice more. It’s a lot for one-million Vilnius and for three-million Lithuania, but not even close to the load with Poland carries.
Still, the support expressed by everybody is enormous, and after learning more about the history of Lithuania we understand why!
On our first day in Vilnius, we visited the Gediminas Castle Tower. Gediminas was a Great Duke of Lithuania who founded this political entity and wastly expanded its territory, founded Vilnius, and established strong relationships with many European monarchs. The Gediminas Tower is probably the best city viewpoint and a part of the Vilnius National Museum.
From the moment we landed at vilnius Airport, we realized who personally Lithuania takes the war in Ukraine. We hardly saw a Lithuanina flag without Ukrainian flag by it’s side, and lots of Ukrainian flags solo. There are lots of Ukrainian refugees in the city, I mention it know because there was a large group in the Gediminas Tower when we visited. As everywhere, they are mostly women with children. When we bought the tickets to the museum, we could choose a visitor sticker either of Lithuania red color, or yellow and blue.
Interestingly, the current exhibit in the Gediminas Toweris very timely – it is dedicated to the Baltic Way – see the photos below.
I am in Vilnius first time after 33 years. I visited it several times before when I was still in school (the Baltic countries were “affordable West”), and 33 years ago, it was our first romantic getaway with Boris. After that, he visited Vilnius several times for many conferences, but not me.
I was looking forward to DevDays Europe in Vilnius, but then as I mentioned, they moved online. I could cancel the hotel, but as for the plane tickets, I could only move them to a different date. I thought: we talked about going to Vilnius before, so why not now?
I moved a hotel reservation to the end of the week, cut one day off our stay, and moved the plane tickets, so here we are now! The hotel location is perfect; the room is super cozy, the weather is sunny, and the food is great and half-price of what you have in Finland.
The Lithuanian cuisine highlight – the zeppelinFied (“second-day”) zeppelinLithuanian kvass – to die for!!!
Because of my volunteering with homeless individuals, I immediately notice whether the situation there is better or worse than in Chicago each time I visit other cities. And if it is better, I wonder what these cities are doing better and what we could do in Chicago.
I think about this each time I visit Helsinki, but it was even more pronounced this time. I went to clinic escort on Saturday morning, and I had to go to the earliest shift because I was leaving the same day. It was the first time I ever ook the Red Line as early as 5-15 AM, and the first two cars were pretty much “sleeping cars” – I didn’t even try to get in and move to the third car right away. The next day, I read a letter of complaint from some North Side residents about the homeless encampment and how “they have too many defendants, like the Night Ministry…”
I understand people’s frustration, but I also know that, unfortunately, we do not have any solution in Chicago. It’s great, that the homeless problem in Helsinki is almost non-existent, and I wonder whether we will ever be close to that…
As the museum site states, the private art collection gathered by Fanny and Paul Sinebyshoff was bequeathed to the Finnish state in 1921. All I can say is that the collection is really impressive; many of the items are real masterpieces. There are some Early Renaissance and Medieval Italian paintings, Dutch and Flemish art, Russian Icons as old as the 14th century, and many other art pieces. I wish there would be more information available in English and more information in general. Many artworks do not have an artist’s name, the origin, or both, or do not have the art school specified. For example, a 15th-century Russian icon can come from different parts of Russia, or an “anonymous artist” of the 18th century could come from different countries, and I would love to know about that :).
Today, I want to talk about impostors. No, not about impostor syndrome, but impostors. Nowadays, you hear about “impostor syndrome” more often, and even when you start to google “impostor,” the “impostor syndrome” comes first. It looks like a more common situation when somebody feels like an impostor when they are actually not. You often come across a story where a female professional feels that she “does not deserve” a specific position, and others are trying to convince her that she does.
However, we rarely see stories about actual impostors in IT, although I know several people and organizations that fell victim to impostors. The damage ranges from poor people management to data loss to material financial losses. Organizations rarely admit that they made a mistake in hiring an impostor. I recall a situation when a person from the Technical Leadership teamaskedan impostor to find another job. He…
Hettie's Reflections 