Some family history
I changed my mind about not liking Igor's art. He showed me some of his works, and explained to me what are they about and what are his influences and now i really like them. His works are... kind. Warm. Very fairy-tale like.
http://www.igorfilippov.com
My dad's grandfather was latvian. His name was Yan Trubinsh. The "sh" got cut off to suit the last name to the russian style. Arvid, my grandfather, was an officer in the Soviet army and he was afraid of revealing the truth about his father, thus he hid and erased things on many documents, thus we don't know for sure if Yan was working for the russians (my dad has heard stories that Yan was a guard in Kremlin, and maybe even had direct access to Lenin), or maybe it was the opposite - he was on the other side during the war, fighting against the Soviets. Yan himself came from the Swedish latvians. Sweden and Latvia have had blurred boundaries back then for a while. So, i have some Swedish-latvian roots.
My dad's mother was married for the first time to a man and had a son with him - my uncle Gena. Gena's dad died soon from tuberculosis. My grandfather (Arvid) then married Alexandra, my dad's mom. He adopted Gena and they had my dad. Alexandra's side of the family was a bunch of russian peasants who mostly died from complications related to alcoholism. Gena was a drug addict. He robbed a pharmacy to get money and drugs. He was sentenced to a prison term and served it. After that, he and his drug buddies robbed some homosexual man. They put a bag on his head and threatened to kill him, even though they didn't really intend to do it - they just wanted to scare him so that he will give them the money. They got the money they wanted, but it turned out that that gay guy had connections to some top notch party members (aka provided them with sexual services), which Gena and the gang didn't know about. The homo's patrons made sure that the junkies got prosecuted properly and he got another 10 years sentence which he served somewhere in Siberia. Over there, he met Katya and later on had a son with her - Philip, my cousin. Philip is 17 years old right now, living in Perm, studing to become a pharmacist. He writes me e-mails every once in a while. I only saw him once, when he was 3 and had a VERY runny nose, and i was 6 or 7 or something.
Gena died in 1995 and we're not sure of what. Katya and Philip lost touch with him. He probably got killed over some drugs or something.
Some of this i knew from before, some of it my dad told me today and said that i should remember this, because it's where i come from. So, i thought i'll right it out while it's still fresh in my head.
I ate way too much cake and cookies during dessert and at some point was completely losing it. But it's over now. I'm going to drive back soon, and this shall be behind me.
http://www.igorfilippov.com
My dad's grandfather was latvian. His name was Yan Trubinsh. The "sh" got cut off to suit the last name to the russian style. Arvid, my grandfather, was an officer in the Soviet army and he was afraid of revealing the truth about his father, thus he hid and erased things on many documents, thus we don't know for sure if Yan was working for the russians (my dad has heard stories that Yan was a guard in Kremlin, and maybe even had direct access to Lenin), or maybe it was the opposite - he was on the other side during the war, fighting against the Soviets. Yan himself came from the Swedish latvians. Sweden and Latvia have had blurred boundaries back then for a while. So, i have some Swedish-latvian roots.
My dad's mother was married for the first time to a man and had a son with him - my uncle Gena. Gena's dad died soon from tuberculosis. My grandfather (Arvid) then married Alexandra, my dad's mom. He adopted Gena and they had my dad. Alexandra's side of the family was a bunch of russian peasants who mostly died from complications related to alcoholism. Gena was a drug addict. He robbed a pharmacy to get money and drugs. He was sentenced to a prison term and served it. After that, he and his drug buddies robbed some homosexual man. They put a bag on his head and threatened to kill him, even though they didn't really intend to do it - they just wanted to scare him so that he will give them the money. They got the money they wanted, but it turned out that that gay guy had connections to some top notch party members (aka provided them with sexual services), which Gena and the gang didn't know about. The homo's patrons made sure that the junkies got prosecuted properly and he got another 10 years sentence which he served somewhere in Siberia. Over there, he met Katya and later on had a son with her - Philip, my cousin. Philip is 17 years old right now, living in Perm, studing to become a pharmacist. He writes me e-mails every once in a while. I only saw him once, when he was 3 and had a VERY runny nose, and i was 6 or 7 or something.
Gena died in 1995 and we're not sure of what. Katya and Philip lost touch with him. He probably got killed over some drugs or something.
Some of this i knew from before, some of it my dad told me today and said that i should remember this, because it's where i come from. So, i thought i'll right it out while it's still fresh in my head.
I ate way too much cake and cookies during dessert and at some point was completely losing it. But it's over now. I'm going to drive back soon, and this shall be behind me.