So I don’t want this to be a sad post. It’s actually more nostalgia than sadness.

Quick history, was born in the USSR (In Tashkent), came to America when I was 13.

Would go back to USSR in a quantum second (ask anyone who was born there if they want to go back and they would collectively say “hell yes”)

USSR (if you take out the bad, such as political repressions, gulags, and few other things, was paradise. It was truly the best place on Earth and most of us who were born there miss it, especially with the rise of Putin, Trump, Right Wing movements, etc. And more and more I notice myself feeling nostalgic. I asked my grandma about this. I know that was too young to know most of the bad things, but even my grandmother who lived through WW2, Hitler, Stalin, and many other horrible events during USSR, also misses all those things that we had. There was no worry about tomorrow, how to pay rent, car loan, credit cards, university, etc. We didn’t live to work. We worked (mostly doing things we liked) and enjoyed our lives. A month vacation out of the whole year. Free education, from start to end, the most well read nation in the history of this planet. People were decent and there was more equality than America could ever dream off. I won’t go into the bad stuff, there was plenty of it, but the good was awesome and lots of us who remember it are sad now because of what’s happening in the world the last few years. People are becoming more closed minded than ever and the rise of Right Wingers and religious nazis all over the world is not what we signed up for when we give this “Liberal Democracy” of the West a chance almost 30 years ago. Anyway, I spent this whole evening on YouTube watching old USSR video, from intellectual game shows to science based programs to comedy and everything else, I really, really miss it. We’ll never have that again, but I am thankful that we have YouTube and the ability to watch these videos. I will make sure my kids know all that instead of the Kardashian culture that surrounds us. I am just a little sad that I am 40 and time is flying by and things are getting crappier and crappier all over the world.

PS. I don’t want to go back to Russia. I am not Russian, I am technically Soviet (Jew). I wouldn’t want to go back to Russia now. Russians are backwards and brainwashed people who hate the West for all the wrong reasons. I want to go back to the USSR that promoted friendship, science, culture, music, art, sport, comradery, and where we weren’t afraid to open our mail because the medical bill could bankrupt us, where Republicans foam at their mouths when someone talks about free lunches for poor kids or affordable healthcare.

I wish I was less emotional, but I don’t live in this world alone. Some people are more successful and some are less, and in USSR everyone had a fair chance. There was nothing evil about it (only to the outsiders and Westerners). It was very similar to Star Trek. People in USSR lived to better themselves.

Anyway, I wish I was less emotional. 2017 is an ugly place