Thread by @kvitkanadiia

🧵I lived in Moscow between ages 5-8 and completed 1st grade in a Russian public school.

Some things I remember & was taught, much to the horror of my parents - a thread to illustrate the kind of “mundane militarism” environment present in Russia some 15+ years ago. (1/?)

Looking back at pictures of me starting school, you would’ve thought they were taken pre-USSR collapse.

My school had a plaque on it commemorating the memory of the alumni-Heroes of the Soviet Union. Hammer and sickles casually featured in most school posters in hallways. (3/?)

Aged 6, I was taught that World War 2 was actually the “Great Patriotic War”, and it started in 1941, not 1939 - a useful omission of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. To this day, it’s widely accepted the war started in 1941. (4/?)

On May 9, “Victory Day”, children in first grade (my grade then) were split into pairs and had to take turns standing side by side next to a bigger plaque with names of all alumni-Red Army soldiers with a miniature version of the eternal flame lit between them. (5/?)

Turns lasted 15 mins each, and there was a schedule of shifts during classes and breaks. We were told we had to stand in silence and “think about the sacrifices they made”. The infamous ribbon of St George was also a must.

I so wish I was making this up. (6/?)

The pinnacle of all this was how it made an impression on me. My parents told me they made the unequivocal decision to leave Moscow immediately after I came home from school and told my mum that Russia is the world’s greatest country and the liberator of Europe. (7/?)

Little did I know that in my home, Ukraine, one occupation was simply replaced by another in 1945.

Little did I know my grandfather’s family, members of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, had been sent away to the Russian Far East after NKVD came to their home one night. (8/?)

To think that the scenes from Luzhniki Stadium yesterday are an incredible one-off show of support and a recent development is foolish. This cult of Russian imperialism has always been present. Now, in 2014, in 2008, all the years in between and before. (9/?)

What we’re seeing is a maniacal personification of the nostalgia for Russia’s perceived historical “greatness”. As always, at the expense of other people’s lives and rights. At the expense of Ukraine, the Baltics, Moldova, Georgia, and so many others. (10/10)