Category: reflections

All I Want For Christmas…

I am getting more and more disappointed in Russian society. I can’t believe I am saying this. I always used to say that the country has potential and healthy forces. Whenever others told me that nothing good would ever come out of Russia, I would always argue and remind others how much society has changed in 1991/92. I still have a lot of newspaper clippings from that time. I remember how we were hungry but hopeful and open to new ideas. I remember how in 1996, none of us, recent arrivals to the US, planned to stay here forever. We talked about going back and bringing back with us all the knowledge, all the new ways of doing things that we learned. I thought … well, does it matter what I thought back then?! 

I am shocked to find an imperial mindset in many people I thought were completely normal, intelligent, and understanding. The most frustrating thing is that these people do not understand that they have this problem. The level of entitlement is skyrocketing. I am horrified that I never paid enough attention to that and never noticed the level of this ignorance in the people surrounding me. 

Last weekend, Anna and I talked a lot about that. (This recording of Chervona Kalina I posted a couple of days ago was made during our conversation – there was a lot of singing). For many years, I told Anna that most of the Russian political opposition is not that much better than Putin and that being against Putin is not enough to be a decent person. Now she said she realized that. The opposition is continuous frustration and disappointment. Why do they feel OK behaving like a Big Brother when they come to other countries? Why do they believe that opposing Putin entitles them to some special treatment? Anna told me that at the beginning of the war, she thought that although Ukrainians are wholly entitled to say as harsh words about Russians as they want, they are indeed too harsh. But now, she says, she has concluded that the Ukrainians were right from the beginning. And that’s how I feel, as well. 

I can’t believe that even now, many people who once again seemed to be completely normal complain about the inability to travel to Europe as if it’s the worst thing in the world. There are a few of my very long-time friends who are not like this, but so few!

As for us, we feel the weight of collective guilt, and it’s more than just a word for me. There were many facts that I chose to ignore, not pay attention to, and not analyze. I have already said multiple times that I am not sure where I would be if I didn’t immigrate. I was thinking about myself thirty years ago, and I can’t be certain I would be on the right side of history. That’s why the blame is on me, and I can’t imagine people going around with their holiday activities without Ukraine in the background. 

I know that all I want for Christmas is a victory for Ukraine. Not peace, but victory. 

Keep Ukraine Moving

Watch their stories here.

About Holiday Lights (And Those Who Don’t Have Them)

On Tuesday, when I walked from my office to the Orchestra Hall, the city was all illuminated. That’s one of my favorite things during the holiday season: I like to walk in the Loop and stare at the office and shop windows at all the Christmas trees and decorations. The weather was very nice, above freezing and no rain, and I had my red coat on and a new small black hat.

I took a couple of pictures, and then suddenly I thought: how lucky we are to have all these lights, and how horrible is it that cities in Ukraine are not only without holiday lights but lights in general, and also without heat and water. And when I thought about it once, I could not go back to blissful ignorance. That is one of the things I was trying to explain last week – the feeling is not precisely Christmas – like.

My journey from a flip phone to a smartphone, and back to a (smart) flip phone

My last three phones

As some of the people reading know, I had a flip phone (a Kyocera DuraXTP, to be precise) until late December 2021.

I was, and still am, on a family phone plan. When the rest of my family switched to smartphones, I went with a flip phone because smartphones were much more expensive and I was poor. But after a while, as cheap(er) smartphones became available, it became sort of a combination of wanting to see just how long I can survive with a flip phone in an increasingly smartphone-orientated world, being leery of just how easy it is to get drawn into social media/internet when you have a browser in your pocket. And, in recent years, I also grew leery of participating in the certain aspects of smartphone-centric world. For example, rideshare platforms like Uber and Lyft are built on labor exploitation and investor subsidies, and I could neatly avoid all the moral quandaries that come with using apps by having a phone that didn’t support them. I liked having my transit passes on physical cards and buying (or printing out) physical tickets. And, like I said, I just didn’t like the thought of being connected to the Internet all the time. It may seem counterintuitive, given that I’m a journalist, but I appreciated the fact that, when took the ‘L’ train, the lack of onboard wi-fi forced me to disconnect and gave me a respite from work concerns, even if for less than an hour.

Now, in a bit that’s going to be a recurring motif in this post, I should mention that my mom got less and less amused by my choice the longer this went on. She would never go so far as to tell me to get a smartphone already, in those exact words, but she made her displeasure known. In 2018, when my phone screen suddenly stopped working and I had to get a new phone, I was almost resigned to getting a smartphone. But my mom kept gloating how I would “finally be joining the 21st century,” and I ended up getting a flip phone out of sheer spite. Which is how I got the Kyocera.

Continue reading “My journey from a flip phone to a smartphone, and back to a (smart) flip phone” →

A Revelation

I came home after visiting my mom, deep in thought. I think I understood something about her that I didn’t realize before.

Many things have been going on with her in the past two months. It started with arthritis in her knees, which she rapidly developed. It was a hard hit on her because she used to be able to move around very fast, and she does not like and can’t adjust to the current situation. Then there was a wrist injury, and now I am not even sure what exactly happened with her hands. Still, for a couple of days, she could not do anything with her left hand, and I could not get a doctor’s appointment for her (I could only schedule for the end of November). I was very busy figuring out how to deal with this situation and didn’t even want to write anything about it. I was just trying to make sure she won’t fall inside her apartment or something like that.

At the same time, I had my own local “refugee crisis,” trying to help one family who fled from Russia. They were looking for somebody with whom they could talk in Russian, and I introduced them (actually, just the daughter) to my mom. She (the daughter) was very excited to meet somebody new, and she genuinely liked mom and wanted to help (again, it was in the midst of the disability crisis). When I came to see mom, she told me something like: why is N asking whether she can help me? I can manage. Besides, if she is helping me, I need to pay her something. I was shocked by this suggestion but asked N to stop suggesting help to let mom cool down.

Today, mom told me that “N stopped emailing her, and she knows why.” When I asked her why she thinks it is so, she said: her hours at work were reduced, so she makes less money. She was hoping I would give her some work and would pay her, but when she realized I was not going to, she decided to stop emailing me. I was so shocked that I started to yell at mom, asking why she always thinks badly about people. She replied that she was not implying that the person was bad. And that was it.

I know it sounds unbelievable that I have known my mom for almost sixty years, and only now am I realizing such a fundamental thing about her, but that’s true. It was the first time that I understood that when she says something like “I gave her a thing I didn’t need,” or “I didn’t pay attention to what she said,” or that the store cashier purposely cheated rather than made a genuine mistake – all these times she indeed didn’t think she was saying bad things about people. She truly believes that thinking about their profit is the most natural thing for any human, and everybody should watch up to ensure that nobody takes advantage at their expense.

One of these revelations made you go back and re-evaluate a lot of your past thoughts. Now so many things are making sense! I admit I was wrong in thinking she wanted to hurt people (including me) when she accused others of taking advantage of her. She does not. She indeed believes it’s in human nature and wants to look out for herself.
Remembering my paternal grandfather, I think she took it from him. He had a lot of what is called “the cunning peasant,” somebody who does not believe in charity, altruism, and free stuff.

Well, not like it is going to change anything in what we are doing, but it explains a lot!

Post-Pandemic

I go to the office most days, take Metra, and the cars are almost full; I can never sit alone anymore. There are many people on the streets during rush hour. In the morning, I am not going with the crowd because my office is right by the train station, but when I go to a concert or other activity after work, I walk against the stream of people. In the office, we stop by each other’s desks and have quick sync. We sit together at lunch in the cafeteria and talk about kids and current events.

I finally had a live Postgres User Group meetup, and we had pizza and beer, and I hugged my former colleagues. The CSO is close to full each time I go to the concert, and they have refreshments again.

I look at all of this, and I can’t help but recall all the people who grimly predicted that our world would never be the same and humans have changed forever during the pandemic. Where are these people now? Of course, there are other horrible things in the world, but the pandemic didn’t change human nature. And I think that war is not changing human nature either; it just makes it more evident.

***

I feel like I blogged on this topic multiple times, but I want to repeat it.

I do not understand why so many people in Russia do not understand that in Ukraine, “Russians” sound exactly like “Germans” during WWII. Back then, people said “Germans,” and for them, it was the synonym for “the enemy.” This is not “discrimination based on nationality”; this is how life goes. And I do not know why it is so difficult to take in.

I remember how Boris told me exactly that at the very beginning of the war. He recalled how a couple of years before that, he saw a group of young men at the bus stop. One of them had a tube with drawings or something like that, and he was jokingly pointing it toward the others, shouting: puff, puff, I am Russian! Finns will never forget the Winter War, and Ukrainians will never forget this one… does it have a name yet?

… I am thinking about the conversations I had in the Greenleaf Art Center today. One of the visitors said, “Until it will be peace,” and I said – No, no peace! Until victory! And everybody agreed.

The beginning of the week was horrible with all these airstrikes. I have no doubts that those were the snaps of the tail of the wounded dragon, but they still can be lethal…

Where Would I Be?

These days, I often think about what would happen to me if I wouldn’t come to the US. Suppose I would decide to stay, either because I won’t have the heart to leave Boris behind or for any other reason. Obviously, my life would be drastically different, but I am thinking more about what would be on my mind. Where would I be, and which side would I take if I stayed in Russia? It’s impossible to tell because all these twenty-six years made me a completely new person. It’s very tempting to say that I would be on the right side of things because of the “three generations of revolutionaries” because I was always a radical and “politically unreliable.”

But all these three generations of revolutionaries truly believed in Communism; they believed that you could “force mankind into happiness with the iron hand of revolution.” And I also believed in the communist ideals and social justice (one could argue that this didn’t change :)), just not so much in favor of the “iron hand.” I do not know where I would be, and that’s scary.
We talked with Boris about how we didn’t feel anything wrong with most of the engineers working for the Ministry of Defence or the Ministry of Defence Manufacturing. How we were very proud of ourselves, not caring how our ideas would be used. As long as the government was willing to pay us, we didn’t care. We were “above all of that.”

Now, when I read about Skolkovo and what projects are used now during the war, and how exactly they are used – why am I surprised? I was no better.

“You Have Everything In Your Life!”

That’s what I was told yesterday: you have everything in your life! I know that I am incredibly fortunate, that everything is going my way, and yea, from any imaginable angle, I am lucky. But I always add: now, the only thing I need for my life to be complete is a victory in Ukraine.

I spent three hours on the phone and other means of communication tonight, completely unplanned. Trying to explain to some people that there is a war in the world, listening to others saying that I do not understand their sufferings. Do you know what I am wondering? None of my Ukrainian friends ever told me I do not understand their suffering!

Also, mom had a dental emergency (she does not have a dentist since we moved). Igor was a hero and found a place where they took her Medicaid and had an opening today. On top of that, and all the calls, and a working session with a coauthor of one of my PG Conf EU talks, it’s a miracle I was able to do actual work.

What I am trying to say to myself is that I have no right to be unhappy, and I have no right to be upset. All problems which I have in my life are solvable. And I have enough energy to help others in solving their problems. I will try to stick to it 🙂

I Don’t Know Why

For a while, I was trying to write something which would make sense, but it did not work. Several times, I started writing something like, “I can’t understand why some people think.” But there are too many things that I can’t understand. I am very sorry for all my friends in Russia who lived in an emotional hell for many years but especially for the past seven months. But for those who were saying that “it’s not so straightforward,” or for those who all this time pretended that “life goes as usual,” I do not have any words of sorrow. Why just now? Why all these cries about “not letting them go”?

I am not talking about those who decided “to defend the Motherland.” I still do not understand why these people think that their country is equal to the current government, and there are many other things I do not understand.

It was a very difficult day for me because I lost it at some point and allowed myself to worry about the situation, about how many lives would have to be lost until we see the blue sky again. My presentation went well, but I was hiding for most of the day from other social activities.

I will try to be social for this night, though. Most of my peers do not understand how I feel. And they are under no obligations. I know there are many sorrows in the world.