Liankacreations

  Today, thanks to the internet and advances in cell phone technology, I had a conversation with a friend. My friend Olya lives in Gelendzhik, in southern Russia, on the Black Sea. I live in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Seven hours in differences in time and  the entire Atlantic Ocean  between us. Because of the current circumstances, Olya has internet access only at home, not when she is outside. The stars have to align for us to talk. Luckily, today they did. We talked about many things: recipes and workouts, menopause and hormones, children and grandchildren — my grandchildren, since she doesn't have hers yet. And then, when we decided that I probably don’t sleep well because of hormones, she told me that she doesn’t sleep well because of the sirens warning about drone attacks. Lately, it has been happening almost every night. She said something like: "We live close to the mountains, so we don't have drones flying directly above us — but we can see them flying closer to...

  Today I got a bill from the doctor. The doctor I saw last July. Really? I stared at it for a minute, trying to remember what that visit was even for. And then I laughed, in that tired way you laugh when something is absurd but also just... normal here. Because this is the United States, and this is how healthcare works. You go to the doctor, you think you're done, and then months later, an envelope shows up asking for money you didn't budget for, for a visit you'd already half-forgotten. It made me think, again, about how different this all feels from where I grew up. I grew up in Russia, where healthcare was a public service. You were assigned to a hospital based on where you lived, and that was that. Everyone had the same rights — except, of course, people in positions of power (there's always an exception, isn't there?). The system wasn't perfect. It had plenty of its own problems. But one thing people didn't have to do was lie awake wondering whether t...

  It all started innocently enough. I was doing something around the house, and something reminded me of Russia — and then, as they say in the famous Russian novel by Ilf and Petrov*, "Ostap was carried away." One thought led to another, and before I knew it, I was lost in memories. My husband's words came back to me, or maybe it was a quote from a movie: "You have to be who you are. Life is what you make out of it." Many years ago, in what feels like another life, I was a good seamstress — no formal training, just an ordinary hand-operated sewing machine and a natural feel for it. I should have gone to sewing school, studied to become a fashion designer or at least a pattern maker. But my mother had other plans. In her view, once you finished high school, you went to work — preferably at the factory where she herself had worked for about 25 years. There was no room in that plan for three more years of school. But I was never simple, and maybe not always smart e...

  I don’t know what happened to all my free time. A couple of months ago, I thought I was doing just fine. I was managing work, school, house chores, the dog, and even a little bit of knitting. Somehow, I was keeping everything under control. Now it’s August, and I feel like a big mess. I blame the news. Nothing good in the news lately. Smart people say, “Don’t stress about things you cannot control.” But for me, it’s not the lack of control that stresses me. It’s the “worrying” about things that stresses me. And there is plenty to worry about.  Russia is getting ready for the election, if you can call the process of facilitating the election. Putin suddenly started traveling around the country, heading mostly toward the eastern part of the country farther away from Moscow and the danger. Apparently, he is trying to communicate that everything is fine and that he is still the president of this wonderful country. On Tuesday, he visited the “Microfocus” research station. The sta...

  I haven’t written here forever, though I probably should have. When you live under constant stress, it becomes difficult to write. Sometimes, it feels difficult even to live. I think every single one of us is stressed for one reason or another. Is it a new reality? I don’t like being stressed, although I know stress can sometimes be helpful. In my case,  stress stopped being useful and became overwhelming. I have been deeply worried about my relatives in Russia since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war. I know all their news before them. Today I spoke with my best friend, Olya, my best friend who owns an apartment in Gelendzhik, Russia, on the Black Sea. She told me they don’t have gasoline in Gelendzhik. Well, I already knew that—I watch every possible news source on YouTube. My other friend, Marina, who often sends me photos from Russia, just went on vacation to Khakassia by car. Before their trip I warned Marina about the gasoline shortage, but th...

  May 22, and it is snowing in Tomsk. You could say "still" or "again"—both would sound right. And yet, the cool May weather hasn't slowed down the mosquitoes. According to a report by RIA Tomsk, cold weather doesn't kill off the larvae of these blood-sucking insects. The early-spring species have already taken flight "to hunt," and a mass emergence is expected by late May when warmer weather finally arrives. I wish I could say that we don't have mosquito problems here, but we do. I think a lot of it depends on neighbors who keep containers or pools of stagnant water in their backyards, where mosquitoes happily breed and multiply. My husband already got his first bite of the season. Let’s hope for the best this summer. For now, though, Tomichi (Tomsk citizens) aren't too worried about mosquitoes; their real problem, now and always, is ticks. Tomsk had a few warm days earlier this spring, and the ticks became active immediately. Every sprin...

  Sunday proved rich in events: Easter, the flooding of villages, Cosmonautics Day, and the election of a new Hungarian prime minister. The ice breakup on the Tom River reached the Tomsk Region on April 10, and on the 11th, ice movement began within the city of Tomsk itself. However, due to several ice jams, the river eventually “froze up” again, and water levels began to rise. On the night of April 12, the water level near the Kommunalny Bridge—which I wrote about some time ago—exceeded the danger threshold of 890 centimeters, according to official local reports. Water spilled over the roadway beneath the bridge and began flowing into the Sennaya Kurya, a small river in Tomsk. That same night, floodwaters reached several villages in the Tomsk District. Because of ice jams on the Tom River during the spring thaw, water rose quickly, inundating fields and several streets. Approximately 100 people were evacuated. One resident said that before 2010, these villages did not flood. The r...

     Marina's photo of Spring Tomsk Today I showed my husband an Instagram video of a young woman cleaning windows by literally stepping outside… on the fifth floor. Well, it’s actually a well-known tradition to clean your home in Spring. And Easter is almost like a due date. There’s also a specific day - Clean Thursday—the Thursday before Easter. I don’t know the full history behind it, but the idea is simple: you clean and wash as much as you can on that day. For some families, washing windows is an obsession: regularly in spring and autumn; it doesn't  matter on what floor your apartment is. Of course, not every woman does this, but many still do—I was one of them. I lived on the 8th floor, and I used to make sure to lock my apartment door with a key, not just a bolt (in case I wouldn’t be able to open it from the inside). To be honest, I did this for about 5–6 years. Then we installed modern plastic windows that open inward, which made the whole proc...