Feel like loving home

For many people in the world loving home is a natural thing. This was not my case. I was raised in a small town near the sea that never benefited from any development of the Russian society as it was too far from the capital, 10.000 km is really a huge distance and at the same time did not give that cozy homey feeling that usually small towns would give.

All because of the huge port right in the center. Sailors and traders, getting back from their travels around the world, used to spread the idea that my hometown is the most undeveloped place in the world and so are the people. By the time I graduated form the University I was sure that not only it is necessary to leave home, but that I have to change myself, that as I was, I was not good enough to live.

Travelling around the world, all I was doing was to compare myself to people from different countries, looking to prove that they knew better how to live, they had the right to be themselves, while I did not. Today I am grateful for that feeling as it developed my senses, the ability to observe, analyze and …loving myself. It did not happen at once. There was a long long way of personality crises, deaths and rebirths.

I found what I was looking for – I live in a different town, one of the biggest in the world and I changed. But the journey made a cycle and my heart bends to home. I love home. I feel like loving it. This is my own decision that was tested many times and proved to be the only right one.

My home is the distance between Moscow and Vladivostok. All this huge land is the home I feel like loving. People, who do not have to be perfect and right to be loved, culture that does not have to be beautiful to exist, religion that does not have to be easy and simple to be followed. This is what makes my home MINE, loved and accepted.

Half of the year I spend in Moscow. The city bears the atmosphere of all tragedies that happened to take place here from the moment it was established, till nowadays. It is ugly and breathtakingly beautiful like any other capital city. It has many quiet streets right in the center. Every region here has its own life and sometimes it looks rather touching how people organize their free time to spend it together – ice skating in the winter, kids concerts in summer. I have never seen it in any other cities in the world. People color their cement city life by these activities.

The other half of the year I spend in Vladivostok. The place is so different from Moscow that it is hard to believe that the two are in the same country.

We have our own favorite food. There is a confectionary company here, a local company that produces and sells their products only in Vladivostok and the nearby towns. They produce one type of chocolates that comes in boxes and have three different fillings – lemon, vanilla and chocolate. Everyone in the town likes the vanilla the most and dislikes the lemon one. Everyone! The lemon ones are good too but in every family they last the longest in the boxes. Interesting to note that the foreigners from Asia do not like these chocolates and they keep asking what is so special about them. We cannot answer this question, we are a one big family and we just like them, that is all that comes to mind.

I love this little special thing about my town. We also have an interesting hilly landscape that one would not find anywhere else in Russia. We like hiking and having walks at the sea. The town has a lot of ugly things too but this is something for us to change and I hope that one day we will.

One day I woke up and decided to love my home. I am sure I am not the only one.

From Russia with love.

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This personal and heartfelt story was written by Tanya (Tatiana) Vasenko.

Tatiana Vasenko was born and grew up in Vladivostok, her story is unique as she travelled the world with her work and has experienced the comforts of the western world. There have been countries she could relate more to than others but her loving home will forever remain the rough and somewhat poorer far east Russia…