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.

Yellow Beets and Blue Cheese Salad

I spotted yellow beets in the Eurofresh store last week. Previously, I only saw yellow beets in my CSA shares. Even though I didn’t plan to cook anything with beets that week, I bought a bunch.

I baked the beets in foil (40-50 min at 400F) and made this simple salad:

Baby kale, baked beets, blue cheese, pistachios. Dressing: one part of pistachio oil, to parts of Madera balsamic. It feels like a holiday meal :}

Happy and Healthy Unions

I started to write this post yesterday, but when I reached out to Grandfather Google for the exact link, the first thing I saw was Pete Buttigieg announcing that he is dropping out of the race. He was my choice, and with Illinois primaries being so close, I felt incredibly upset and could not bring myself to write this post. 

This morning, I decided it is still worth writing. 

I saw this article published in Tribune last week, and though it was related to Pete Buttigieg, I had similar observations for a long time. Because of Vlad, I had multiple chances to observe not only his relationships but also many other same-sex couples. And I could not agree more with what this article is stating. When people try to tell me something about gender roles in families, and what is “more natural” for a specific gender, I always ask: and what about same-sex couples? I’ve observed it so many times – the fluid roles when it all depends on how busy each of the partners is, who is more stressed or who is sick, who is better in doing particular things. 

Gay and lesbian couples, Coontz found, tend to approach conflicts with more humor and affection, spend less time criticizing and lecturing each other and offer each other more praise and encouragement, compared with their heterosexual counterparts.

“As a marriage historian,” Coontz told me, “it seems to me we’re totally entering uncharted territory. Never before in history have we tried to do marriage in a way that is totally free from dictation by our biology — whether we can or can’t have babies; whether we have to have babies — or by legal assignments that only husbands can do this and only wives can do that. It’s the first time we’ve really tried to build marriages that were not laid out for us by law and hundreds of years of customs.”

Mary Altaffer

I believe that what is emerging now is how our future unions will look like. Indeed, happy and healthy unions.

Getting the First Job After College in the Soviet Union

This is the last post related to the story of higher education in the Soviet Union: how graduates would land on their first jobs.

Since it was happening in the Soviet Union, all colleges and universities were state schools, and there was no concept of the private educational establishment. I’ve already mentioned that the cost of education was zero, which did not mean that students’ life was easy. But there was still a price student had to pay upon graduation. This price was called “a distribution of specialists” or simply “a distribution.”

The Soviet Union had a “planned economy.” That meant that the government planned ahead how much of everything had to be produced in any given year, including the number of graduates of all educational establishments. And all employers: manufacturing plants, research institutions, Department of Defence, schools, hospitals, etc. had to plan how many graduates they need to fill in their positions. Since the Soviet Union did not follow the same educational standards as the rest of the world, we did not have Bachelors’s and Masters’s; everybody had to study for five years (some professions – longer). And everybody would graduate as “specialist,” not B.S. or B.A. or M.S.

The graduates were called “young specialists,” and a couple of months before graduation, they had to be “distributed.” The organizations which wanted to hire somebody had to place their requests with an educational institution. In my case, it was the Leningrad State University. There were about 300 students who would graduate the same year as me from the Department of Mathematics and Mechanics. The University would accept about 300 requests for young specialists, including those who could continue their studies as post-grad students, and including those who will become TAs in the University. 

All students were ordered by class rank, and on the day when the distribution commission was held, they were called into the room in their rank order. 

Continue reading “Getting the First Job After College in the Soviet Union” →

“An American Summer”, and What This Book Means to Me

An American Summer is one of the more recent books by Alex Kotlowitz, and to be honest, I am not sure whether it makes sense to anybody who did not read any of his books before, or didn’t see any of his documentaries. 

I first learned about Kotlowitz when the Interruptors documentary was released. At that time, I was already quite involved in homeless charities, and I knew quite a bit about Chicago schools and existing issues. It just happened that I got tickets for Igor and myself to “Chicago Live!” where the first episode was the meeting with the “Interrupters” team. After the show, we talked to Alex Kotlowitz, the film director Steve James, and with amazing Ameena Matthews. And then we went to see the screening of the movie in the Siskel center, and there was more conversation there. In shots, for me, there is a history behind that book.

This book is just a collection of episodes. No plot. No conclusions. No judgment. But still, it shows, very painfully, how difficult it is to get out of poverty and violence. And how easy it is to fall back. Story after story, different people, the same scenario.

Continue reading ““An American Summer”, and What This Book Means to Me” →

It Feels Better, When Things are Explained

On the topic of doctors’ orders for before/after surgery, I’ve realized that it is extremely difficult to follow the instructions when you have no idea what’s the underlying reason for these do’s and dont’s. I know that sometimes doctors are annoyed with all these questions, but not understanding the reasons produce even ore questions :).

For example, I was given the list of eye drops with a rather complex schedule of how many times a day they should be inserted, depending on what’s the week after surgery. Plus, there were instructions not to exceed the dose and what to do if you miss the dose.

Only when I got the second package from the pharmacy, each of them had a half-page of explanation in large print :), I knew which of them is antibiotic, with is anti-inflammatory, so you can at least get an idea of how important/not important is to keep the schedule. And it was only on Tuesday that my eye doctor explained to me why the anti-inflammation drops dosage has to be reduced gradually.

Or take this no-bend/no-lift over 10 pounds for a week. And what happens after one week? All of a sudden, you can lift as much as you want? What about the bodyweight exercises? How do they count? Or when I asked about yoga, they said – OK. But yoga poses may be so different! Some include mild bending, some – mode bending. What about a shoulder stand? Or a headstand? Also, you need to know what’s the average level of activity of this particular person, because each body would react differently to the same level of physical activity. You need to know what exactly is important for the operated eye to make a better judgment of what you can or can’t do. Otherwise, you would end up asking about each individual move. Or will do something crazy 🙂


So I like it when I can get explanations. My doctor explained to me that vision is changing after the surgery because the inflammation goes down. Which may be obvious, but I didn’t think about it!
Now I am more informed, but now, surgery number two is coming. And it will bring new challenges:)

One the Positive Side

Three people reminded me yesterday about the Fat Tuesday – and I’ve honestly forgotten about it! So made a run to the Eurofresh to get some paczkis (in case people doubt I eat paczkis – I do!)

One with custard, one with prunes

Also, I got to sleep without an eye shield for the first time after the surgery and was able to use the face mask and to apply a hydration cream on my eyelid – first time since the surgery.

Also, since my “no bending” ban is lifted, I could do all of my yoga poses, including a downward-facing dog (and I can tell, I didn’t do it for a whole week!) It is going to be a productive day today!

The State of Mind and Body

Not being able to see as normal people sucks. I thought that the cause of my current frustration (and of me doing everything slowly) is the fact that I can’t see well. But now I believe that the real problem is that each surgery makes me older. Even this short surgery. Even just local anesthesia. I feel that I am tired, I can’t do things fast enough, how I usually do, and I can’t do as many things as I need. And this drives me crazy. All this “you are going to work the next day” does not work for me.

I was at one-week after-surgery follow-up with my eye doctor and asked her a million stupid questions. She replied patiently. And she examined my eye and said everything is fine; the implant is on its place, and everything is healing. It’s always very reassuring when another person can see what you don’t see :)).

We talked for almost an hour; she always explains “why,” which helps tons. I understand how the healing process works, what each of the eye drops is doing, and all other “whys.”

But I am still so tired – it makes me miserable….

More on Summer 1963

I found more pictures form summer 1963, the same summer, the same place, the same people. Just wanted to keep all these old photos at one place. When I was a child, I didn’t think of them more than just “these are my baby pictures, ” but now I view them as historical documents, since they’ve captured so many signs of the epoch 🙂

With Aunt Kima. It strikes me, that she is only 39 years old on these pictures.
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Madeleine Albright. Fascism: A Warning. Book Review

Madeleine Albright was the first Secretary of State I saw in action after I immigrated to the US. From the first time I heard her speaking, I had the deepest admiration of her as a political leader and a person. Somehow I didn’t come across her books earlier, but now I’ve downloaded several, and I am going to listen to all of them.

On the topic of the book “Fascism,” I think Albright has a unique perspective as a person who experienced the fascist’s regimes as a child and later had to interact (or oppose) them as a political leader. Her attitude is personal, and it could not be any other way.

I read a number of good reviews of this book (as always, only after I finished reading), and I am not going to repeat them, just a couple of additional notes. First, I found it very important that Albright speaks of many countries, which demonstrate the signs of fascism in their domestic policies. We often think that the potential threats are the same old North Korea/China/Russia, we might think of Venezuela; we remember the Rwanda genocide, and that’s pretty much it. Albright gives her audience a broader perspective, taking about Chile, Ethiopia, Hungary, and even Poland.

Second, in her definition, “fascism is not an ideology, it’s a method.” And from that perspective, she talks about the governments, which can potentially become fascists, but do not employ any of the fascist’s methods, maybe just yet. This is where I might disagree with her, I think that this approach might open counterproductive arguments.

Overall – I learned a lot of new facts from that book, and it definitely prompted me to think more deeply on the topic.

After-Eye Surgery Development

On Friday, I worked from home, and my neighbor R. took me to my eye doctor. Turned out that the situation is not as bad as I thought. The doctor measured my best correction to be – 2.75, and then started to look for a place where they would make my glasses within 24 hours.  

It turned out that such places are almost non-existent these days, everybody sends their orders to the labs. The staff of the doctor’s office was calling all the places around and finally found Lenz Crafters, where they had such an option – looks like the only one in the Northwest Suburbs:). The staff asked whether they had a lens I needed, and they said – yes, but the technician is not in; he will be there on Saturday. But we could come in and leave the order. 

When we arrived, the store associate started to show us different frames. I said that I need the cheapest one since these glasses are going to be for less than a week. For that, she replied that they have a sale of 50% off designer frames, and then they will also give me 40% off lenses. I was still trying to stay on the cheaper side, and finally picked up the frame, which was originally priced at $173. 

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