Russia and Me: Here. We. Go. Again.
I’m sure I was not the only one who responded to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine with the thought, here we go again. Yet each one of those four words started to raise its own question in my mind. This essay is an attempt to articulate just what the heck has been happening in my head all my life regarding Russia. This thing between Russia and me — it goes deep.
Here
I’ve been fascinated by Russia for as long as I can remember. In elementary school in the 1980s, we got introduced to national flags. The flag of the Soviet Union stood out — the shockingly bold red, the strength of the hammer and sharpness of the sickle, the solitary yellow star expressing a navigational unity. At that time, around age 5, I don’t remember being taught that this was the flag of the enemy of the USA, but I do remember ascertaining the adversarial relationship between “us” and the Russians by age 10. One of the first movies I saw on our brand new VCR was The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming. I think I was between 8 and 10 years old.
In 1980s cartoons, or dumb action movies, the Russians were the enemy. No one explained what was so wrong with the Russians, although clearly, they lacked something because I heard about people wanting to leave Russia and hardly ever heard of Americans wanting to move there. When my parents would drive my…
