Hard Times

Year 1991. It was like a big thunderstorm was laid on our motherland USSR. People didn't know wat was going on. Everybody was in panic; TV wasn't enertaining anymore, streets were empty; no people, no dogs and cats on, like everything was asleep. First of all, our home, like the whole country turned into a cemetery. In front of TV people were witnessing their own end, as a murederer witnessing his own death penalty. On TV the General Secretary of the Central Committy of the Communist Party Mikhail Gorbachev, was the first who excluded his own membership from the Party. Everyone was dissappointed of that event. Meanwhile, the eceonomy went down, inflation was at a high level. For the first time in my lifetime i saw an American dollar. Before it was forbidden for us. At the same time markets and shops were empty. There was nothing to buy and eat. We were lucky to have our own land and livestock; cows, sheep and chicken. We were planting tomatoes, potatoes and other kind of vegetables. We really didn't need to go shopping, but for those who were living in city it was difficult. They were coming to my neighbors to buy eggs, milk vegetables. We didn't sell, but if we had moor my father was giving it to them for free. On the other hand, in political aspects all 15 republics annaunced their independence. Furthermore, these "independent" countries immidiately started building relationships with the Western capitalist world. Everything was privatizing; shops, manufactures, cinema, theatres, even buses and taxis.

Year 1993. Now my father found God and was very happy, so was I. For the first time in my life I saw an advertisement. It was big poster of Coca-Cola. I could hear the sound of steps of Capitalism. I should've known it. Moreover I was interrupted in high school and was sent to the eastern wing of the western world, Turkey, to "wash" my communist brain. My dear teacher Galina Ivanovna told me that I have to become contemporary and modern. I was confused because as I knew the Soviet people were the most modern, intelligent and contemporary people in the whole world. Probably I was wrong. My family and I wanted our previous life back. But everything was changing so fast that everyday we were farther and farther from the hope. During those hard times I learned how to survive and live by myself. I was becoming more realistic and didn't expect anything from anybody, except myself.

Year 1996. By the time I graduated from the high school in the capital city of Turkey, I learned that the Soviet Union was utopia and I was in a dream. The words in my mind like "proletariat", working calss, Marxism, Socialism, Leninism were changed by words like democracy, human rights, political parties and elections.

Thus I have had variation time in my life. I was always feeling like an orphan who didn't know where to go and what to believe. But know I am very happy that all happened. Otherwise I would be like a chick that couldn't break the shell. So I am not really looking back to my past, because it is like dreaming and never waking up.

Written on 11/17/2003