childhood

My grandfather and his siblings as a Red Army soldier at the outset of WWII, in approximately 1941.

Looking to the Soviet past to understand Remembrance Day

Personal Essay, Soviet-Jewish History /

I properly met my maternal grandparents for the first time shortly before my 10th birthday. Until then, they had been photographs and letters I couldn’t read and Russian storybooks that arrived periodically in the mail. They were the sound of my parents shouting down the telephone line, because in the long ago 1980s people sounded as far away as they really were and did not […]

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Russian bukvhar - alphabet book - showing Kremlin

12 things I learned about Soviet childhood from my Bukvar

Immigrant Experience, Soviet Life /

After my last post, one of my cousins got nostalgic for her old Bukvar and thought she’d try to buy one online. She found one on Amazon, to the tune of $2,450. My heart is breaking that I didn’t have the fortitude to do anything more useful with mine than mark it all up for a future blog post. I thought I’d share some of

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Russian bukvhar from 1970s

Russian Bukvar for beginners – How I almost didn’t learn Russian

Immigrant Experience, Soviet Life /

I wrote a bit last time about one of my ‘immigrant identity crisis’ vignettes that I shared at the Limmud retreat. But it started with an assignment, to bring an artifact, or object, from home about our Russian-Jewish heritage. When you and your childhood home are separated by over 3,000km, digging up an acceptable artifact – Was it interesting enough? Too trite? Russian enough? Too

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Vyertolyet - or wooden helicopter toy - a word I often forget in English

Apparently, there are words I still don’t know in English. Like apron.

Immigrant Experience, Personal Essay /

I forgot the word for helicopter the other day. For the rotor, actually. And I didn’t forget so much as remember it in the wrong language. My brain froze up and then offered me nothing but a very Russian “vyertolyot“. The end result is that I have a toddler who will never know what those non-airplane things in the sky are called. I actually have

Apparently, there are words I still don’t know in English. Like apron. Continue Reading

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