I hate when Americans find out where I live. And I hate when people in Russia ask where I’m from. Because the inevitable question always follows: Why?
The answer is decidely long, complex, and truth be told, I’m not actually 100% sure of the answer. I spent my formative years in a small suburb of Chicago with a population of 20,000. Conservative, Catholic. I dreamed of becoming the first female President of the United States. My knowledge of geography was…elementary, to put it mildly. (For most of my life I was convinced that Chicago was located to the far west of Illinois, hence, I was very confused as to how Lake Michigan bordered the city). Of course I knew that Russia was a country, but I certainly never had any inkling that I would build my life there.
Comprehending the full trajectory of events that led me here, having spent all my adult life in Russia, requires further exploration, but there are two moments that definitively shaped my future decisions—one personal and one intellectual.
My parents divorced when I was just 8, and not long after, my mother remarried my stepfather, Tom. Tom grew up in Roger’s Park with his four siblings in a two-bedroom apartment. I met all of them as a child, but his oldest brother Jack was the most memorable. He would storm into town for a few days at random intervals, carrying just a backpack, sleeping on the couch, and freeing our freezers and cupboards of any untouched Dilly Bars or chips. Even in his 70s, he worked out every day, refused to wash his clothes, and didn’t believe in marriage or owning private property. He followed the strict doctrine that “Your property owns you.” Jack had been a Green Beret in the army, put himself through college and law school, and worked for many years as a Federal Defender in San Diego. To this day I’m not quite clear on how or why, but he decided to learn Russian and spent significant periods of time at Moscow State University teaching criminal justice law and bringing his students back to California for classes in the United States. When I was growing up, and my mother announced that Jack would be paying a visit, he was never alone. He always had at least one Russian in tow. Their visits were always pleasant, even though, I don’t clearly remember them. My family was even in possession, at one point, of an errant shoe—just one shoe—for many years. One visitor in particular, firmly nested herself in my long-term memory. I can’t even recall what she looked liked, but her nickname was Ta-Ta. One day, Ta-Ta decided to go shopping at the outlet mall off of Route 88 (because, what else do you do when visiting American suburbia?). The only problem was that Ta-Ta didn’t have a car or particularly good English. Her solution was, in the Russian fashion, to hitchhike the entire 30-40 minute drive to the outlet mall, where, after several hours of shopping, a store clerk assisted her in calling my Uncle Jack to tell him it was time to pick her up. Jack, who I guess hadn’t realized she was missing, was shocked when he received the phone call, and my family had to sort out how Jack, who also didn’t have a car (and no, there was no Uber) would get her and bring her back.
My family was equal parts astonished and entertained by the whole incident, more befuddled by Jack’s lack of attention than Ta-Ta’s decision-making process. For whatever reason, even years later, the word “Russian” was never far from my mind. I would fondly recall the adventures of Ta-Ta and my Uncle Jack (I lived in a very small, uneventful town…). In fact, when I began my freshman year at Northwestern University and was deciding which new language I wanted to learn, I immediately thought of Ta-Ta, the other Russians my uncle would bring to visit, and my stepbrother’s visit to Moscow complete with two weeks of no hot water. So, I chose Russian.
The intellectual part came later, when I was a sophomore in high school. That year I was taking AP European History, a rigorous college-level course extensively covering European history from the Renaissance to the present day. Palmer’s “A History of Europe in the Modern World” was my bible, and I spent hours a day taking “notes” (really, I transcribed the book). I found the course utterly fascinating, and it was a large part of the reason I decided to major in history in college. Traditionally, my historical fascination had always laid with Elizabeth the Great and British history in general. Then, in the middle of the late 1600s and the Enlightenment, there were several chapters on Peter the Great, a man with a dream to modernize Russia. I still have mixed feelings about him as a ruler, but he was, without a doubt, one of the most compelling historical figures I had ever studied. Here was this man who came to power, and said, “You know what? I want a new capitol that will be a window to the West, so I’m going to force my nobles to move North where it’s cold and the sun never shines and have them build expansive, elaborate houses designed by French architects. And where will this new capitol be? A swamp. A swamp where 20000-40000 peasants will be needed for its construction and many of them will die there. And then, more will die every year as a result of the floods because, again, it is built on a swamp.”
This story left me baffled. It was crazy! Where was the logic? What was Peter’s thought process? (I know that he did have his reasons for choosing St. Petersburg, but I still find his choice patently odd.) Furthermore, where else on Earth would this happen? I have always been drawn to the unusual and the peculiar, and it was when I first learned about Peter the Great that I discovered that, in so many ways, Russia is unlike any other country. People often ask me why I find Russian history so fascinating, especially since I have never been particularly interested in the Soviet period. When asked, I often recall the construction of St. Petersburg and say, with a smile, “Because Russia doesn’t make sense.” My desire to learn more about Russian history drove me to sign up for the History of Imperial Russia my freshman year of university. There I met my future mentor: Professor Bushnell. And the rest, as they say, is history.