My Mom‘s farewell to Russia

A disclaimer: I write a lot about Russia these days (for obvious reasons) and I don’t want to appear self-centered, in light of the terrible suffering of the Ukranian people. I hope some of my stories are interesting to the extent all of our life stories are interesting, especially when their script gets impacted by important historic events.

So, my Mom has been very stubborn on the topic of moving to America and “stubborn” is an understatement.

In her political views, she’s of an extreme kind — she has loathed Putin from the day she saw him on TV for the first time, back in 1999. Putin then made quite a name for himself when he announced that he’ll wipe out the terrorists even in the outhouse. It was his specific choice of words that she kept recalling with disgust year after year. Indeed, Putin has stuck with his tough-guy-street-jargon style throughout his reign, frequently referring to sewage, genitalia, animals and using various other slangs to describe taking tough action against someone. There is now an entire generation that’s very used to that style. Many enjoy it actually. Hint: while the entire world is struggling for words observing the terrible tragedy unfolding in Ukraine, many in Russia are actually enjoying the action. It’s consistent with Putin’s decades-long macho posturing.

Forgive me for degrading my compatriots. My ex compatriots, I should say.

Anyway, in this note, I want to tell more of a personal story. If you want to read in a little more detail, I wrote here.