Both of my parents were gone for about the week after the tragedy struck on December 7, 1988. Both were in the disaster area: my dad with a shovel, digging; my mom with the relief workers. While both saw a lot of pain in that one week, the story that has not left me since was something that I overheard my mom recounting ( Read more... )

One of my earlier memories from the good old Soviet days is how we used to line up in front of the old TV (one of these giant dinosaurs, complete with legs and rabbit ear antennae, everything) to watch either Kashpirovski stare at us from the screen or hear Gorbachev wax on about perestroika or the cold war. The distortion of the picture on the TV ( Read more... )