l_sylvanas

Ok as I got to run to karate in 15 min I'll try to explain briefly. Russia really never wanted ME to feel that it was my home. No, sure we all were brainwashed "rodina rodina", yet if you're aware of the 6th paragraph and all that it entailed - never quite did... I was a kid when I was growing up and Petersburg was one of the better cities to live as far as that perspective went - yet I felt it very subtly all through my school years. My parents felt it much less subtly, when my dad was explicitly denied a high ranking job for which he was more than qualified based on 6th paragraph. My brother in 10th grade, was getting straight A's and a B was forged into his grades to prevent him getting a gold medal. He also was told in very explicit terms that he should not try to apply to a certain university as they had their quota of Jews. Then my parents left ;) as he was nearing that army age. How do I put it - i did not feel it in daily life, yet you always felt a bit different. Then leaving russia itself - in 1988, we were not allowed to take any books, so although my parents also had rather a good library - nothing of that was taken. Gave away to friends and family. Same for most of personal possessions. They had a small limit on jewelry you were allowed to take, and I think $100 a person ;) Let's see.. citizenship was also taken, had to formally give away passports, so actually I am not citizen of russia and never been as never reached 16 years while there. I think that in general though, where you are born doesn't mean your home, at least not always. Just like people are born to certain families and never feel quite right and leave their parents as soon as humanly possible. So I'm failing to understand why am I somehow obligated to feel loyalty to the place that never really quite wanted me - certainly never gave the same rights to me as a citizen as to anyone else born there - and I know this is past and mb things are different now but we're talking the times i was there. I feel kind of neutral towards it -do not wish it harm because I do have friends there, because I know I cannot judge everyone by the same measure, and so on. But to me it is just a country, like any other one, with only difference that I understand all the subtelties of the language and can interact freely.