A Letter From Svetlana (Svetlana's Backstory)

[Inuyasha]

Friends of Inuyasha,
For those of you who don't know me already, my name is SvetlanaYerchenko. I am 24 years old and I am originally from Rostov-on-Don, Russia. I have lived in Vladivostok for the last several years while I worked on my B.A. in Oriental Studies at Far Eastern National University. I also studied Japanese and English while there. I spent a semester in Japan while studying and got a chance to live in the city of Sapporo on the island of Hokkaido. I am telling you these things, so you can learn how I ended up here.

I mentioned that I spent some time studying in Japan. While I was living there, I began to enjoy anime. Several months ago, I bumped into a guy who goes by the name Inuyasha via a post in an amine fan site's guest book. He said something that I thought was kind of insightful about a favorite character of mine, so I wrote him about it. Well, we kept writing back and forth and chatting online. We found we had a lot more than anime in common. We held some similar political views, and an interest in history and current events. We hit it off quite well it turns out. Of course we both joke that the CIA, and the successor to the KGB, the SVR are reading our mail. Technically, they read everybody's anyway. One thing that impressed me about him, is he actually had read Tolstoy's "War and Peace" cover to cover for fun. I haven't met many Americans that have read a Russian novel for fun. The Americans I met in college had usually read the Cliff Notes, or only read it because it was required for a college class.

For those who don't know much about Vladivostok it is on Russia's Pacific coast. It is a 12 hour plane flight or 150 hour train ride from Moscow. It is Noon in Vladivostok when it is 5AM in Moscow. I have read many travel guides that compare Vladivostok to San Francisco because they have a similar climate and they are both coastal cities that crowd a bay. I have never been to San Francisco or the US for that matter, so I can't really say how accurate that is. I can say that I hope San Francisco is a lot cleaner than Vladivostok is. Vladivostok is the home of the Russian Pacific Fleet, and has all of the leftover environmental issues of such a military presence during the Cold War.

Like much of Russia, there are lingering environmental consequences from the Cold War that Russia is still coming to grips with how to clean up let alone pay for. Still, Vladivostok can be a really beautiful city. It isn't as warm and sunny as my native Rostov-on-Don, but the summers can be nice and the winters are a lot milder than other places in inland Russia. Vladivostok has benefitted quite a bit due to its proximity to Asian markets and capital over the last several years, but like most of Russia it still suffers from the lingering effects of Communism and the corruption and organized crime that stepped in filling the power vaccuum. Slowly things are improving, but it is hard going. The city is becoming increasingly Asian in focus, and I wonder sometimes whether eventually its distance from Moscow and growing alignment with Asia will strain its ties to Russia.

I don't have much family. I was an only child. My father died when I was very little, so I don't remember him. He was an officer in the Soviet Navy's Black Sea Fleet and died in an accident at sea (He got swept overboard during a storm). My mother did a good job raising me though. She was a professor of chemistry at a local university. She never remarried. It is hard to find good men in Russia. Good jobs are hard to come by and many have trouble with alchohol, so you have to be very choosy. My father was a pretty good man according to my mom. Shortly after I moved to Vladivostok for college she emigrated to Budapest, Hungary for a much better job teaching at a university there.

One of the sad things about Russia is that so many of the best and brightest are leaving for jobs overseas due to such a lack of opportunities at home. It's hard to build a new economy and political system with such a brain drain. I can't blame people for leaving though. I think if I got offered a good job overseas in Japan, or Australia, or the US, I would go in a heartbeat. Maybe I would return to Russia one day, but it is hard to say. Some of my English speaking friends that have emigrated to Canada as Russian translators say there is no way they would ever come back after living abroad. I don't know though, I think a part of me will always be in Russia.

I was pretty young when the Berlin Wall fell. I remember it, since I was about 9 years old at the time, but I didn't really understand its significance. I remember my mom and some of her fellow professors at the university gathering at our home and discussing what this meant to the Soviet Union. Some were happy about what they viewed as the beginning of the end of Communism, and some were very scared by it. Of course just a few years later, the Soviet Union fell apart. I remember how nervous my mom was at the time, because everyone was worried about what would happen if the coup d'etat succeeded in Moscow. Of course we all know it didn't, but that didn't make it any less scary. I guess I am kind of fortunate that I didn't grow up in the shadow of the Cold War. Of course, there was some security under the old Soviet system that was nice. Yes, your freedoms were limited, but you knew you probably wouldn't starve or not have shelter. I feel very sorry for the pensioners that were already retired when the system collapsed and now struggle to get by on government stipends that aren't sufficient to cover the free market prices for food, housing, and utilities.

Inuyasha often tells me about growing up wondering when Soviet tanks might roll into West Germany or that a conflict in the Middle East might get out of control and bring the US and the Soviets to nuclear blows. It sounds so far-fetched in a way, but I know that the Cold War was a scary time for many people. He sent me a very funny movie one time as a joke. It was a film called "Red Dawn" and was about a a Soviet invasion of the United States. The movie is funny today, because it is so obviously preposterous. The Soviet Union was never capable of launching such a conventional offensive as described in the movie. We may have been led to believe that, but we could have never supplied a field army in North America and Europe. Our economy would have collapsed. It would have been like 1917 all over again. It is a funny movie though..."Wolverines"...lol. My English speaking friends got a lot of laughs out of the scene where the Russian conscript who reads English is making up a story on the fly while he reads a historical road marker in a National Forest. Those of us who speak English always get a laugh out of how you can spread lies and rumors about other nations so easily to people that don't speak that language. We could all see ourselves making up an outlandish story for friends who don't speak the language and seeing if they buy it.

Sometimes I chuckle a bit, because Inuyasha is 12 years older than I am. He jokes that while I was in 3rd grade watching my mom and her friends debate about the fall of the Berlin Wall, he and a bunch of his college fraternity brothers stopped the music at a party they were at, and announced over the P.A. that the Berlin Wall was falling and that East Germans were poring into West Berlin. A lot of the partygoers didn't care and wanted the music back on (I won't tell you what he has to say about such folks, since we aren't supposed to go into politics here, but suffice it to say he thinks that such people not caring about such important moments in history are part of the problem with America and many other nations today). Still he and a few of his history buff friends got drunk and celebrated the fall of Communism while watching CNN. I joke with him that is a classic example of why he doesn't have a girlfriend. He is sitting in a room with a bunch of history majors watching CNN, toasting the fall of communism, while others are downstair trying to pick up on young ladies and caring less about the world's troubles.

When I was in high school, I became interested in East Asia, so I decided to go study in Vladivostok at a school that was well located for studying East Asia. The University is a very good one by Russian standards and well recognized for its Asian Studies programs internationally. Fortunately, I was able to pay for college through some money my mother had saved, by doing some freelance English and Japanese translating for local businesses, and doing some modeling as well. I did some local/regional swimsuit calendars, spokesmodel work at various events, and some fashion modeling for local clothing stores. It took me about 6 years to earn my degree, but I managed to get out of school debt free.

Unfortunately, good jobs are hard to find in Russia, even when you have good skills. Since I got out, I have continued doing some modeling, and my freelance translation work, but mainly I work as a secretary at a local bank. I hope with time to work my way up into a position where I can make better use of my language skills, and the bank helps me make contacts in the local business community for translation services. At least I have a job, even if it isn't what I expected to do. I have a lot of friends from college that are struggling a lot more than I am.

For a number of years, I thought about visiting America on a vacation. Well, recently I decided to go meet Inuyasha while I visit the US for a few weeks. It is an expensive trip, but I am kind of interested in meeting this Inuyasha and seeing a little of the US as well.

Well, soon I will be arriving in the US and visiting Inuyasha for a bit. I'll have Inuyasha document my visit to share with his friends here. I am looking forward to my trip.

До скорой встречи (See you later),
Светалана (Svetlana)

[Raingirl]

Hi Svetlana,

Welcome to the Forum. I'm glad you're here. Your story is very interesting. I had an American friend who worked in St. Petersburg for 10 years teaching elementary students. She married a Russian man & speaks Russian and English fluently. She told me a lot about Russia. She now lives in the U.S.

I hope you enjoy your stay in the U.S. with Inuyasha and that we hear more about you. Come to think of it, I might tell you my story about the young college girl we will have coming to live with us, Melissa. I'm just as excited about getting to know her better as Inuyasha is getting to know you better!

Rainy