When I was 17 at the Soviet 6-m

When I was 17 I was a student astronomer at the 6-m telescope in the Caucus mountains in the USSR. It was one of those peacekeeping student exchange things where Soviet teens were at Harvard-Smithsonian at the same time. I left a few weeks before the coup.

A lot of the places around the maps we’re seeing to today are places I visited: Krasnadar, Sochi, Novorossiysk.

I know these places.

And I saw them with Ukrainian, and Moldovian, and Belarussian teachers and astronomers. Mostly Ukrainian.

The thing that always amused me was how many of the astronomers were Ukranian. And I was grateful because they had borscht that was way spicer and I liked it better. But — they were just people. People with spicy awesome borscht studying the stars.

When you are 17 & witness an empire collapsing it f’s you up. I was not ok when the coup happened. It took me a long time to start to be ok, & there are still moments when everything goes back to the lack of everything & the violence mixed with so much yearning & beauty.

Over the years — decades now — I have had students from Ukraine, Moldova, & so many places. Students that laughed at my poor Russian accent while being amused/pleased at my effort. I could listen in on their jokes and hear they were just kids like all the other students.

People everywhere are really the same. They want their kids to succeed. They want a little more than their parents had. They want to laugh…