My impressions of life in Russia are more like vignettes. It would be impossible to sum them all up in one brief composition. Life here seems equally good and bad. It is multi-textured and widely varied.
    Russia is warm and inviting. Russian friends are much more than merely friends. They are family in every sense of the word. They will take you in to their homes and treat you like royalty. You will never feel more at ease or more welcome than in the home of a Russian. They smother you with generosity and attention. They will also scold you for not writing, check up on you when you are not home on time, and worry every minute you are out of their sight. Someone is always thinking of you.
    Russia is cold and unforgiving. Old women beg in the Metro stations of Moscow. They stand there with their canes and hunched backs freezing for a few kopeks from some kind-hearted strangers’ pocket. I imagine who that grandmother once was - maybe a teacher, maybe a dancer, and maybe just someone’s granny, who knows? Is there no one to take care of her as she must have once taken care of others? I never give money to beggars in the US. There, they are mostly men and under 50. I honestly think they can find a job if they want to. Here I find myself digging for all the change I have and hoping that others do the same.
    Russians like Americans. As soon as I open my mouth and people hear my strong accent and atrocious grammar, I am peppered with questions - some about politics, some about things in movies, etc. People want to know all about where I come from, what I’m doing here and what I think of Russia. I don’t sense any jealousy or coldness from them. In Pechory, a local museum worker who had to be in his 70s was nearly moved to tears by meeting me. He said he had never dreamed that he, a Russian man, would be walking with an American.
    Russia is not black and white. Life here makes you grow up quickly. I have been forced to question all of my beliefs and principles and have found that most of what I hold to be evident is based on oversimplifications of real life. Maybe I have been sheltered by my family or by the ease of American life. It is, after all, much easier. Maybe I have been blissfully unaware of reality. I am lucky to be who I am and where I am.