My Russian identity — firm, fake, fleeting

I haven’t written any stories about Russia in months. Why would I? I have no thoughts or feelings to share. The shock of the war in Ukraine is gone, the significance of Prigozhin’s mutiny turned out to be overstated, and it’s now been more than ten years since I left the country with my family. My Mom — I got her out of Russia right after the war started — still approaches me several times a day to share the news she finds on the internet. As I’m writing this right now in the living room of our home, she’s starting to read some news about Russia’s famous filmmaker-turned-hardcore-patriot Nikita Mikhalkov.

My Mom doesn’t understand how little I care these days. My wife and I discussed several times how my Mom is a little “off” mentally still following Russia so obsessively even though it will soon be two years since she left the country. We are respectful and empathetic, but sometimes it’s too much. Mom loathes the country’s regime, and she can’t imagine being back. So why spend so much time picking the news and the commentary, some credible and some fake, coming out of Russia?

Oh, well, dictators rob you of identity.

And what about myself? I do sometimes ask myself where I stand in the evolution of my identity against the backdrop of so many years spent away from the country and the recent historical events that made everyone revisit their relationship with Russia, whether they stayed or not.

I am not sure.