Tomsk oblast, Siberia At the age of 17, I was a cheerful green-eyed girl dreaming of my own family and a cozy home. I thought my whole life was ahead of me. At 18, I got married with the firm belief that my husband is older, and therefore smarter. At the age of 19, I realized what Mtsyri (in Georgian, Novice in English) meant when he said: “Oh, I would be happy to hug with the storm like a brother”. I stopped being afraid of the thunder. It became the personification of freedom for me. The Novice (Mtsyri, in Georgian, Мцыри in Russian) is a poem by Mikhail Lermontov written in 1839 and first published in 1840, hailed as “one of the last examples of the classic Russian romantic poetry,” according to the Lermontov Encyclopedia. Also, I stopped smiling. I was always serious and focused – all the chores around a house were mine. I had to learn to plan much in advance, make lists, and analyze. I also learned how to cheat, flatter, and even read minds. And despite all that, I wa...
Everyday American life of a city girl from Siberia