The place in which I was born does not exist anymore. The buildings still stand, the views are not much different, but that world has changed forever. Now, even among my family, I must constantly struggle to keep a sense of where I really belong. Wherever I am always feels a little strange. Wherever I am, I am always a visitor, a guest in someone else's home. The idea of "home" always sounds a little foreign to me.
Mary Crow Dog, writing about her life as a "Lakota Woman," says, "It is not the big, dramatic things so much that get us down, but just . . . trying to hang on to our way of life, language, and values while being surrounded by an alien, more powerful culture" (35). I survived some big, dramatic things, but I still have more trouble remembering the value of a story my grandmother told me or a word in Russian that means something slightly different from anything it could be translated into in English than I do remembering the history I was able to see firsthand.
I was born in Vitebsk, in northern Belorussia, when it was still part of the U.S.S.R. All my relatives are from that area of the world. My family moved to Riga, in Latvia, when I was 6, and we were living there when communism ended in 1991 and everyone in my whole world had to figure out new ways to live. Belorussia became a different place when communism ended. It was not the place in which I was born, even though it looked a lot like it.
I have always thought of myself as Russian, which meant that I was part of the minority even before we left Belorussia. We Russians have our own history, our own language, our own way of looking at the world. We have what Mary Crow Dog calls "the little spark of our ancient beliefs and pride" (36) that make us separate from the Belorussians. Our holidays, the occasions that mark dates that are important to us, are different. My family settled in Belorussia, but we have a different heritage from the majority...