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.

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I heard a news story on BBC today about Russians who fled to Georgia and how many Georgians are unhappy with that. I heard a Georgian official explaining that they require any Russian who wants to open a bank account in Georgia to make a written statement that they are against the war with Ukraine, and they understand that Russia occupies parts of both Ukrainian and Georgian territories.

I was shocked to hear some Russian businessmen saying in the interview that this requirement is unfair because “they may be prosecuted for that when they will return to Russia.” I don’t understand how somebody can say things like that. Do they really plan to go back to Russia? To Russia, where would standing against the war and aggression still be a crime? They think about returning, and they can’t do as little as to be grateful to the country that sheltered them?

It Sank!

Yes, it did!

That is for the words about the Kursk submarine, which I will never forget and never forgive: it sunk! That’s a payback – it sank, sank, sank! I could not imagine this news would make me so happy.

About a week ago, Boris and I talked, and he said: you should tell your Congressman to send anti-warship missiles to Ukraine! I asked him why, and he explained (Boris is from a navy family, so I trust him with this knowledge). Anna told me that “we send what Ukrainians ask for, and they ask for javelinas.” Just two days later, I first heard that Ukraine asked, and we sent the Neptunes! And then – today! It was so-so literally what Boris said that would happen. When I called him, he sounded very satisfied with the choice of target, and then he asked: why it didn’t sink? It should have. I told him that it was not confirmed yet, and a couple of hours later – hurray!

Dark Ages are Coming

Boris says it feels like you are in the movie about Nazi Germany. He didn’t say precisely that, but he said that the signs of time look horrific, and I asked for details. And when he described to me the advertisements and the signs on the streets with the letter Z made of St. Geroge ribbons, I asked him whether it looked like a WWII movie.

Although I talk with many people from Russia these days, it was the first time I felt this cold horror. I think you need to be somebody like him or like me – somebody who lives abroad but at the same time knows how the streets used to look during different historical periods.
We will have a lot to discuss when he is back in Helsinki on Friday. When he was in Saint Petersburg at the beginning of the war, it felt different; it looks like Nazification was proceeding fast.

I know that many people can’t leave Russia; in fact, there are way more people who can’t than those who can. For them, seeing the Dark Ages coming should be unbearable.

A Picture From St-Petersburg

Boris sent me this picture this morning, and it made me laugh and cry. This shot was taken by the Swedish Consulate in St- Petersburg:

I am imagining the police trying to find a reason to stop it (and yes, I am aware that the colors are wrong).

Tonight

There was a program change for today’s CSO concert because maestro Muti tested positive and had to quarantine for a week. I didn’t want to return my ticket, but at the same time, I still had a lot to do to get ready for tomorrow’s PUG and needed to have normal sleep. And at the same time, I loved the updated program – several of Mozart’s piano concertos. I was going back and forth, and I decided to go to the first half of the concert at the very last moment.
I had a lot of positive emotions. I love it when a conductor is contacting from the piano, as Mozart himself did, and I love this full of light music, so bright and beautiful, a real celebration of life.
Also, I loved it when I saw that the Ukrainian flag was now permanently displayed on the right side of the stage, and the musicians continued displaying the ribbons in Ukrainian colors.

And I loved that the weather was finally warm, and I felt like Chicago is back.

I decided to take a Brown Line for the half of the way home to look at Chicago from the elevated level. I passed a young man on the planform talking to another waiting passenger: every morning I look outside and see the lake, and I can’t believe I live here! OMG! How much I can relate!!!

… And Other Things In Life

Boris went to Saint-Petersburg to figure out a way to get his money (The answer – no way, except for taking cash within the allowed limits and bringing it to Finland). 

When the Allegro train stopped operating again on March 28, we felt it like “The Last Flight from Casablanca.” But the buses are still running, and with no competition, they even added a couple of extra runs per day. 

 Like everything else, it’s hard to tell how long it will last, so I asked him to buy a return ticket even when he is unsure when he is coming back. I know it does not guarantee anything, but still.  

Although the bus itself is more comfortable than it used to be, the joy of passing the Russian border control and customs on the highway remained the same – the worst possible way of crossing the border. 

***

For the first time since I moved to the city, I felt a sort of resentment: I can’t take in a refugee family. It would be possible in my old house, and it can’t work in the new one. I hate myself when I see that people worse off than me take refugees, and I don’t. And when I see people dropping everything and going to Poland to help while I only entertained the thought: I should drop everything and go to Poland to help. Yes, I know very well that it would be the dumbest thing to do. I know that I won’t be able to help efficiently without knowing any of the local specifics. I know that sending money to Warsaw is the best thing I can do. I know all of the above. 

Still, not being able to do things fills me with frustration, the worst of them not being able to do anything to bring this war to an end. 

And enough of that. I often resent people worrying about the wrong things, and I don’t want to be one of them.

Apple Is A Black Hole, And Nobody Comes Back!

I started using AirTags. First, I resisted the desire to buy a package of four for $100 and bought one for $30, but after that, I already bought two more :). Boris was the first to give me the idea; I didn’t even pay attention when Apple announced the new product.

Buying the tags was not enough; you need to have some case (either a case to attach to a keychain or a case to stick it to something). So I got those, and my first AirTag went to my keys. It’s pretty cool and funny. First, you can find your tagged object using the FindMe app on your iPhone. I practiced it: the tag starts to make a sound, and the phone tells you “14 ft to the right,” and so on, and it displays the arrow on the screen. Second, if you leave this object behind (and take your phone with you), the object will start beeping. You can mark some places “home” so that the tag won’t beep when you leave an object there. The funniest thing was that when I opened the AirTag properties on my iPhone, it showed two homes: mine and Boris’. Boris agrees that your phones know too much about us! In fact, we have already caught them a couple of times communicating without our consent!

Monday And Tuesday In DC

I just realized that I didn’t post my National Gallery post when I wrote it, and that’s probably because I already started to get sick and didn’t pay much attention. I think it’s mostly because I hit the point of not being able to cope with multiple things happening in the world and the way they affect people close to me, also because I had several days in a row with very little sleep. I slept eight hours last night, but it is not enough to compensate. Unfortunately, I have a big project to complete over the weekend, and I have no idea how I will be able to accomplish this.

On a brighter note, a little bit about the past Monday and Tuesday.

These are the days that Vlad has off. He spends them catching up on sleep, but he is alive and awake in the evening, and we spent both evenings at Vlad’s and Dylon’s place. Vlad and Dylon taught us to play mahjong, and everybody, including Nadia, loved it.

Igor found a refuge in the local library
Vlad is showing to us his favorite tree

I also really liked their place; it’s different from what they had in Chicago, but nevertheless.

Continue reading “Monday And Tuesday In DC” →

National Art Gallery

After the afternoon tea, nothing went as planned. First, the weather got sharply colder, and all of us ended up not being appropriately dressed for the weather. Anna and Nadia went to meet with Anna’s friends, and I wanted to go to one of the Art museums, but it turned out I mixed up which of the museums was open late. And then it was super cold, and then Nadia got sick with the same bug as Kira, and we had to cancel several things. Then Anna got sick with the same thing, and the weather turned even worse.

One thing I managed to do on our third day was visit the National Art Gallery.
The sculpture garden:

Since it was impossible to see even a quarter of the museum, I decided to focus on one of my favorites – Italian Medieval art. That was one of the best things I’ve done on that trip – seeing this art brings me immense joy.

St James 13th century
St, John 13th century
Continue reading “National Art Gallery” →

An Afternoon Tea At Mandarin Oriental

Vlad worked at the Mandarin Oriental hotel for the first three months in DC. During his tenure there, he designed the Sakura Pink Empress Afternoon Tea, also cherry-blossom-themed. He could secure only four tickets for Sunday, so he, Anna, Nadia, and I went.

I think that that’s one of the cases when “a picture’s worth a thousand words,” so I am going to show the tea menu (each of us selected their own tea, and Nadia got a kid version of the menu, and she also had a sparkling juice).

Continue reading “An Afternoon Tea At Mandarin Oriental” →