This was supposed to be a post on the art of sarcasm, but after reading this morning's news about Putin approving the use of the military force in Ukraine I simply can't not write about it, and I can't write about anything else. As I'm writing this, I'm shaking. I've been posting my thoughts on Twitter about the book I'm working on right now, IRKADURA, fueled by my experiences growing up in Soviet Union, and how it relates to what's happening in the glorious country of my origin this very moment and somebody said to me, speak up, people look up to those who are from Russia to understand this better, and also to writers because we have a voice and we know how to use it. And you're right. I need to speak up more. I'm learning this. It is my responsibility as a writer, to get out there in public, to strip naked and to show the whole world what I feel, and it's fucking scary, because I know I will be pelted with stones to death. But so be it. This is my faith. I chose it, I stand by it. I will speak.

Growing up in Soviet Union (I was born in 1976) has been a strange experience for me because of the circumstances surrounding my childhood. I was abused, neglected, and at the same time introduced to the finest art of Russia, poetry, literature, paintings, through my father who is a writer and through my mother who is a fashion designer and made dresses for me that won me the envy and the hate of other girls in school because their parents simply couldn't buy stuff like that in stores. Beautiful things didn't exist. Everything was hopeless, dreary, dismal, soul-drenching, and that's what everybody got, from shoes to TV's to cars to fucking uncomfortable ugly cotton bras that I still hate to this day.