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Born in the Soviet Union, 12 September 1980. To a mother. Russian/Latvian. Resident of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Female. No siblings. Graduated from Harvard in June 2002, with BA in Economics and History. Grad student. Stateless. Born in the Soviet Union When I was issued a birth certificate, a hung-over clerk at the records office misspelled my name, replacing an ‘o’ in my mother’s last name with an ‘a’ in mine. I don’t know why my parents did not take an issue with that at the time. Maybe they simply didn’t notice. But my mother and I still have different names. ----- At a tender age of eight Soviet children were enrolled into their first Communist organization – the Octobrists (or Children of October). They got to wear cute star-shaped badges with a baby Lenin in the middle and take an Octobrist pledge, promising to work and study hard, obey elders, and help the weak (old ladies crossing roads, that sort of thing). I was ecstatic over the badge, and wrote in my journal: “I can’t believe I’m already an Octobrist! Soon I’ll become a Young Pioneer, and a member of the Komsomol, and then a Communist!” I did manage to become a Young Pioneer, but by the time I was the right age to enter the Komsomol, it no longer existed. 12 September 1980 1980 was the year of Moscow Olympics. My mothers’ friend and our next door neighbor in a five-story apartment building gave birth to her son in July, while the Games were still in progress. As soon as we were both old enough to talk, he started taunting me with the fact that I was born too late and missed it. Only years later did I realize that being a tiny screaming bundle in a hospital hundreds of miles away from Moscow, he missed it too. But by that time we were no longer friends. To a mother My mother was in college when I was born, and had very little time for me. When she studied for exams and wanted me to keep quiet, she would give me a 96-page notebook and a pen, and I would put a little mark on every page – a tick or a squiggle. When I reached the last page she would turn the notebook over, and I would start all over again, on reverse sides. I am still easily amused. ----- I don’t remember my father. My parents divorced when I was very young, and didn’t stay in touch. But apparently I look a lot like him. Russian I am two-quarters ethnically Russian. But I was brought up on Pushkin, Chekhov, and Lermontov, and until the age of 14 or so I sincerely believed that Russia was the most beautiful, heroic, powerful country in the world. I still love Russian literature, but the rest of it is now more complicated. Latvian My family officially moved to Riga in January 1991, when it was still a Soviet republic. The apartment we got was a complete mess, and the physical move was only completed in August 1991, when it was already an independent country. I am not a Latvian citizen, and, as far as I know, I have not a drop of Latvian blood in me. But I do not want to be Russian on any level beyond the cultural. I am more comfortable identifying myself with a small, oppressed nation than with a large, oppressive one. ----- About five years ago, when I replied "Latvia" to the "Where are you from?" question, a likely response was "Oh, you mean Russia?" Now people just look blank. Being part of an evil empire at least guaranteed some recognition. Resident of Cambridge, Massachusetts I cannot begin to describe what Cambridge means to me. It’s home. So I’ll just do a string of happy associations: TW, Toscanini’s, Harvard Yard, Lowell House, shiny wet pavement at 6 in the morning, Bags and Wood, snowball fights, Not the Beatles, the band that sings “Knocking on Heaven’s door,” Tealuxe, Harvard Book Store, Adam at SBI, smell of photo chemicals wafting from Ferranti Dege, the Brattle Theater, staggering out of the Science Center at 8am after 30 hours of HFE layout, 9am Friday sections with Patrice at CES, Widener stacks (in more than one way), HRSFA Milk and Cookies, mushroom-cloud muffins… Female When I was five or six, a bunch of neighborhood kids decided to organize a huge snowball fight, boys against girls. There were ten of us, and only four boys, and while everyone agreed that it wasn’t fair, none of the girls were willing to join the boys’ team. In the end, my sense of justice proved stronger than my fear of cooties. We won. Since then, most of my friends were boys. No siblings First I wanted an older brother, but that was impossible. Then I wanted a younger brother, but my parents got me a dog. In the end, I think, it was for the better. Graduated from Harvard in June 2002 I got my A-levels in a British boarding school, and really wanted to go to Oxford or Cambridge. I did not need to do much research, however, to find out that I had no chance of getting financial aid at either of these fine institutions. I have no idea why I applied to Harvard - probably because it was the only American university I had heard of. It was the only application I submitted, until my advisor freaked out and begged me to apply to some safety schools. None of those offered me a place. with BA in Economics and History My initial interest in economics was, perhaps, the result
of parental pressure - they saw economics as the closest field to "business"
(which is the way many economics students at Harvard treat it as well), and
"business" was neat, not to mention potentially lucrative. It was sustained
through A-levels by my teachers: Mr. Rimmington, who was tall and blond and
wore a burgundy jacket, and on whom I had a huge crush; Miss Colton, my housemistress,
a young, strong, good-looking Irish woman, who talked very fast, had a sharp
sense of humor, and who quickly became my one female role model; Mr. Parfitt,
also my advisor - short, Welsh, a tough grader; I once guessed his age wrong
(overestimating it by 7 years) and he teased me mercilessly ever since; he
was the only person at the school who made me feel insecure about my intellectual
abilities, and I adored him. To-be grad student I can't think of anything to put here right now, and the empty space makes me feel guilty. So I cringe and post my personal statement - it's proabably as good an explanation of reasons as I can come up with now. Stateless I have to go through this every time I meet someone new. Hell, with some people I have to go through it more than once - whenever they catch a glimpse of my passport, actually. It's an alien's passport, see. The script of the conversation that follows is usually this: [other person] Alien? huh? A boring discussion of Latvian politics and my rights and obligations as an alien ensues. The most annoying part is that many consulates have no idea what a Latvian alien is either, which is a problem, since I have to get visas to go pretty much anywhere (notable exceptions being Lithuania, Estonia, Denmark, Andorra, and, most recently, Singapore. Thank you!). This has got to end. |