This has haunted me since I can remember my first interactions with other kids. "Hey, Kuba!" They'd call me. My last name was Kubeeva and my nickname somehow became the synonym for Cuba. I would look up from whatever it was I was doing and wonder what I missed. Often some mischief would've happen already, like my school bag would be stolen or, in one particular case, a group of girls told me to hide and wait for them, while they took off. I'd be so far gone into my head that to dismay of my petty tormentors I didn't even understand that they were making fun of me or hoped to somehow wreck my day. Which, of course, irritated them even more. Most of my memories consist of bewilderment. Something would happen and I would miss it. Often something important.

I thought now that I'm an adult, I'm over this. Not so.

This was supposed to be a post on the art of sarcasm, but after reading this morning's news about Putin approving the use of the military force in Ukraine I simply can't not write about it, and I can't write about anything else. As I'm writing this, I'm shaking. I've been posting my thoughts on Twitter about the book I'm working on right now, IRKADURA, fueled by my experiences growing up in Soviet Union, and how it relates to what's happening in the glorious country of my origin this very moment and somebody said to me, speak up, people look up to those who are from Russia to understand this better, and also to writers because we have a voice and we know how to use it. And you're right. I need to speak up more. I'm learning this. It is my responsibility as a writer, to get out there in public, to strip naked and to show the whole world what I feel, and it's fucking scary, because I know I will be pelted with stones to death. But so be it. This is my faith. I chose it, I stand by it. I will speak.

Growing up in Soviet Union (I was born in 1976) has been a strange experience for me because of the circumstances surrounding my childhood. I was abused, neglected, and at the same time introduced to the finest art of Russia, poetry, literature, paintings, through my father who is a writer and through my mother who is a fashion designer and made dresses for me that won me the envy and the hate of other girls in school because their parents simply couldn't buy stuff like that in stores. Beautiful things didn't exist. Everything was hopeless, dreary, dismal, soul-drenching, and that's what everybody got, from shoes to TV's to cars to fucking uncomfortable ugly cotton bras that I still hate to this day.

On the pain of being aloof

On Russia, Ukraine, and the tyranny of one