Eastern European Roots

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Like anyone else, I have always aspired to live somewhere in the West. However, now that I am, I find myself going back to Eastern Europe and being inspired by places I did not pay much attention when I was a child. Despite the same wearing immobility of life I encounter every time I go back, my roots are there- in the post-soviet Republic of Moldova. Usually, what the world has seen and heard about Eastern Europe, are only dramatic and symbolic images. But this is not all. Life, for the most part, is trivial.

We are the ones left behind, we are the needy relatives, the old-fashioned, uninformed, unlucky, troubled, sentimental. The ones who don’t answer letters, the ones who miss the great opportunities of life, the hard drinkers, the deadline missers, the promise breakers, the ones who insult each other to death but cannot break off relations. We are the ones unable to cope with the demands of a normal social environment. We are cheap labour, you can buy products from us at a lower price. Our letters are unnecessarily detailed.1 And we can blame everything- all our private, public problems on the government.