Sincerely About Us. Искренне о нас
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Finally, what I will always owe you is my love for photography. It all began with my curiosity for the mystery and magic unfolding in our tiny bathroom when you entered it without turning on the lights and asked everyone not to disturb you in there. Though your photos may not have been artistic or sophisticated, they hold an immense value allowing me to relive some of the important childhood moments. Hardly any families we knew back then had photo cameras. It’s truly remarkable that we did, considering the fact that my early years coincided with the extreme scarcity of even the most essential goods in our country. Anyway, you meticulously documented many of my dance studio performances, all my birthday parties, our family picnics in the park, as well as my teachers, classmates, and various school events. As I entered high school, you bought me my first easy-to-use automatic film photo camera! I put it to very good use, assuming the role you had once held. Later, just before I went traveling on my own, and this old camera had broken, understanding the importance of tangible memories, you got me another compact camera, a digital one this time. It became my constant companion which I treasured dearly and kept by my side at all times: on the table during meals, next to my bed at night as I browsed through the day’s photos before falling asleep, and always tucked safely in my backpack during the day. Those photos have much lower resolution than modern ones but the mere fact of having them transcends their technical quality. Each image allows me to relive some of the most cherished memories of my young adult life. I can’t thank you enough for this gift.
Even though, just like you, I haven’t become a professional mountaineer or photographer, these are my all-time favorite hobbies, even passions, and they are rooted in you, Dad. Love you!
Chapter 1. My Sweet Cousin
You’re the only family member I’ve ever felt truly connected to. We met in the summer after my first year of school. You were about 14 at the time. What was remarkable about you is that you were a teenager who genuinely enjoyed spending time with your family: parents, grandparents, younger brothers, pets, as well as cousins.
When we arrived at your place, I vividly remember being showered with immense hospitality and warmth, something that I had never experienced before…
The entire time we spent with you, I felt cozy and snug. It was a new and very pleasant sensation for me. You would braid my hair and read bedtime stories to me in the attic of your countryside house. When I woke up in the morning, playful sun rays would greet me, and I would immediately rush downstairs to see you. I still have a couple of photos where I’m not looking at the camera but rather at you, with utmost admiration. They never fail to make me smile and be grateful to have you as my only female cousin.
We savored juicy watermelons and delicious river fish full of the tiniest bones, played happily with your dog, swam in huge pools of warm muddy water left on the riverbed after the Lena, this magnificent Siberian river, had partially dried up during the July drought, and then screamed at the top of our lungs as the adults attempted to rinse the mud off us with the icy cold river water.
Those three weeks were by far the brightest and most wonderful time I had ever spent with my family, albeit my extended one. As we were about to leave, I realized for the first time ever that I really wanted your mom to adopt me so that I could stay with you a little longer. I cried my eyes out at the airport before our flight, holding onto you tightly as if hoping it would change anything.
The kindness and warmth you radiated set the bar very high for the type of people I wanted to have more in my life. But I’m glad you did because thanks to you I learned that such people actually exist, that I might meet them and experience more beautiful human connections.
Chapter 2. My Only Uncle
You were my mom’s younger brother whom she adored. She never said that explicitly but I could see it in the smile that appeared in her eyes when she was talking about you. And I could definitely see where this admiration came from. Mom had moved out of your parents’ place when you were still in elementary school, so she was happy to see the man you had grown up to be.
You were a loving husband, an awesome dad to your two boys, and a very hardworking, energetic man with entrepreneurial spirit during the times when everyone tried to be mostly discreet. But above all, I remember you as someone with an easy-going, light-hearted, and simply larger-than-life personality.
You took us swimming and gave us a ride in a canoe, let us run in your garden, hide behind berry bushes, play in a small garden pool, climb trees, and eat wild berries from their branches. You always had a joke up your sleeve and a broad smile on your face, even when your eyes showed how tired you were.
Mom said you were in a rush all the time: in a rush to live, to work, to spend time with your loved ones, to enjoy as much of this life, of its big and little moments as possible – as if you knew you didn’t have much of it ahead of you.
You were gone way too early for such an amazing man, but I will never forget how much you loved your family and how much you loved life.
Chapter 3. My French Teacher
When I first entered your classroom at the tender age of 10, my classmates and I were welcomed by the most radiant person I had seen at school so far. That alone seemed like a promising start to tackling this new unknown “monster” in my schedule called French.
Surprisingly enough, after I’d been placed into the French one third of my class, my parents didn’t object to the school’s decision. They must have believed it was way better than studying German, while also planning for me to learn English, which was becoming more and more popular, as an extracurricular class. For me, it was all the same at first as I didn’t understand the importance of one foreign language over another. However, it soon became clear, even to my young self, that I’d ended up in the right group: ours was much smaller than the English one, so we received a lot of individual attention, and we actually had consistency in this class while English teachers came and went, often leaving their students rather confused about what they were trying to learn.
I often looked forward to your lessons. You were always gentle and had the kindest and most charming of smiles. I didn’t consciously realize it, but I could definitely feel that you had a deep love for your subject, you were immersed in the French spirit and, most importantly, eager to share it all with us. And it WAS contagious. Although memorizing those endless verb endings and noun genders was sometimes very difficult, I was inspired to go on by the immense happiness I saw in your big brown eyes.
One of the most fun things you did was match our Russian names to their French equivalents. I became Claire, of course. This was the first time in my life that I had been called a version of my name that sounded unusual, allowing me to show a slightly different side of myself. The biggest challenge for me was the French R sound. I just couldn’t – or didn’t want to? – get it right for several months. However, you were always very patient with me and never pushed or pressured me. And so then, one day, it finally happened. Not only did I learn to pronounce the R correctly, but I also felt like something else changed inside me; I guess, in that moment, I shifted from learning the language analytically to acquiring it with all my being: feeling and sensing it rather than thinking. That’s why, even to this day, I consider sound and speech imitation to be crucial steps toward mastering any language.