Mission "Marathon" Accomplished

Race: Adirondack Marathon
Location: Schroon Lake, NY
Gun Time: 4:18:21
Nettime: 4:18:11
Average Pace: 9:51
Place: 113 out of 192

PS: Elevation Map of the Race Course

At Fort Warren, Georges Island

Today I took a trip out to Georges Island, one of the Boston Harbor Islands, together with my coworkers--this was our team outing. The ferry ride from Boston was most pleasant. The weather was perfect, sunny and cool. As I stood at the head of the boat with the salty ocean breeze in my face, I felt utter joy.

Strawberry Jam

You might think that those are some sad looking strawberries, but in fact they are very happy strawberries that have been cooked into a jam. You might say that it does not look very much like jam. True. It was my second attempt at making strawberry jam according to my grandmother's recipe. Since the first attempt a month or two ago was mostly a failure, I only made a small batch of the above substance on my second attempt. The results are not yet perfect but very promising this time around.

The real jam making efforts went into making a more traditional strawberry jam for my bake sale. I followed the recipe in the Better Homes and Gardens book, and it turned out quite well. Having acquired 3 boxes of strawberries at Haymarket at a bargain price, I made 3 batches of jam. Jam was so plentiful that weekend (this was a couple weeks ago) that it filled all 24 8-oz jars I had bought for the occasion, and overflowed into some of my tupperware.

The Privilege of Citizenship

Recently while talking to a friend a subject of emigration from Russia came up. My friend knew some people who moved to US in their late teens with their parents, but who returned to Russia once they became adults. I have previously known of a few cases where people were extremely unhappy in this country and have returned to their native land, but I have never heard of a group of virtually unrelated people going back to Russia permanently. I was shocked.

I questioned the possibility of moving back to one’s mother country without proper working documents. I had forgotten that people emigrating from Russia in the mid 1990’s and later did not have to give up their renounce their citizenship like I did. Today former Russian citizens are able to get their citizenship reinstated. In fact, Russian immigrants, now American citizens, who travel back to Russia a lot, find it convenient to get their Russian citizenship reinstated so that they do not have to get a visa to enter Russia every time.

The US government highly discourages dual citizenship due to the problems that may arise when the laws of the two countries conflict. A US citizen who automatically qualifies and is granted another country’s citizenship stands no risk of losing the US citizenship. However, a US citizen who deliberately applies for the citizenship of another country may lose his or her US citizenship.

When I moved to the United States, I could not wait to receive my US passport. Coming to America has given me a lot of freedom and choice-- freedom to choose what to study and what educational institution to enter, freedom to follow the traditions of my ancestors, freedoms I did not have in Russia. Receiving the US citizenship also provided me with the freedom to travel as well as the safety of being under the protection of the US government.

The US government does not guarantee protection to its citizen in the country of their birth, which is logical given that a person can have legitimate claims to that country’s citizenship. This policy is unfortunate for the US citizen who explicitly renounced the citizenship of their mother countries. Thus when traveling to Russia, I cannot rely on the help of US government in case Russian authorities decide to detain me regardless of which passport or passports I held.

If I wanted to move back to Russia, or if I wanted to make my travel to Moscow only a matter of purchasing a ticket, I could pay some money, fill out a few forms, and get my Russian passport. Obtaining the Russian citizenship would also give me the opportunity to move back to Russia.

Would I like to spend some time in Russia? Yes. Would I like to move to Moscow for a year or two and live alongside my friends like an ordinary Russian? Yes, there is no doubt about it. I have never lived in Russia as an adult, and I would very much like to experience it. If today someone offered me a Russian work visa and a job, I might very well accept. The time I have lived in Russia now represents less then half of my life. Yet the effects of growing up in the Soviet Union are not wearing off. I miss my friends, and I long to know better the city I grew up in. I have always felt at home when I went back.

If I had a Russian passport, all I would have to do is find a job, and I would be ready to move. Yet I am not rushing off to get my Russian citizenship reinstated. In fact I would never accept the Russian citizenship, even if paid to do so. It might mean that I would never live in Moscow again, but I already had to face that reality when we were leaving the Soviet Union. In accepting the Russian citizenship I would be acting against my principles.

When moving to the United States my parents left their well established lives, their friends and elderly parents behind so that I would never know the discrimination with which the Soviet Union treated its Jewish population. My parents made the sacrifice of their own comfort so that I would feel safe to live my life however I chose to.

Moving back to Russia would erase everything they have done and struggled for. By accepting the Russian citizenship I would accept all the injustice inflicted upon my parents and my grandparents as due course. I could never do so. Moreover, it would break the trust that the United States has extended to me when allowing me to become the US citizen. I spent six years being a citizen of no country at all. I was born in Russia, but I am proud to be a citizen of the United States of America.

A Few Days in New York City

A couple weeks ago I spent the weekend in New York City. I went down there to spend time with an old friend from Moscow, who was in the city for just a few days. It has been 5 years since we last saw each other. My friend has visited New York once before, but it was over a decade ago--I was still living in Russia then. This time around she had a little bit more time to devote to this city. We did a lot of walking around Brooklyn and lower Manhattan. We even took a ride on the Staten Island Ferry. I feel both happy and sad about the time we spent together. It was great to see my friend, but the meeting also made me acutely aware of how little we see each other and how short our time together was.

Office Notes

Lunch time. A crowd has gathered in the kitchen waiting for the microwaves. A voice from the crowd, "Come on, you little chicken!"

My Winnie the Pooh Quilt

While in the midst of sewing bags, I got the idea of making a baby quilt for a friend of mine who was expecting a baby girl at the time. That was back in April. I have set out to make a quilt twice before, but have never finished either one. Now, three and a half months later, and after my friend had her baby girl (on July 7th) I have finally finished this quilt, my third attempt.


I am posting photos of it before it goes through the laundry, because I am not too confident that it will remain quite the same afterwards. We'll just have to wait and see.

P.S. I have washed the quilt and it has survived.