If you’re an immigrant, what do you miss about your home country?

I’m Russian.

I’ve lived in the US for more than eight years and before that, I had traveled a lot for education and work. I studied for many years in England and started my career in London. I then worked in Moscow, my home city, and interrupted my career with a two-year MBA degree in the US. I then worked in Moscow again. In 2013 we left Russia and have been in the US ever since. There’s no doubt that we left Russia for good. I’m wary of adding political colors to my stories but with every passing year, Russia feels more and more remote for all kinds of reasons. It’s not where we can imagine our kids building their lives, especially after they’ve become so “Americanized”. One can argue endlessly about what the latter means — the good and the bad — but there is no escape from the fact that America is our kids’ home.

I used to love Russia and that’s an understatement. As a student in England in the 1990s and early 2000s, I was constantly homesick and by that I mean I missed Moscow, I missed my country. I was patriotic. Whenever I landed in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, I was the happiest person on earth, even it was the roughest day of the winter.

I had big plans for my love for Russia. I wanted to contribute to its development, its future, its destiny.

Well, things have turned out different.

Anyway, I’ll reserve soul searching for a different story. In this one, I wanted to talk about a few…