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Peeking through the
Iron Curtain
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Sergey Grechishkin, an author and father of 3 kids, born in the Soviet Union during the ’70s, he always felt different from everyone around him and wanted to see life beyond the Iron Curtain.
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By Germaine Ng
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Sergey Grechishkin is a writer, author of the book, Everything is Normal: The Life and Times of a Soviet Kid. Photograph: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4949003.Sergey_Grechishkin
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“I popped the pink gum into my mouth and began chewing with gusto. It was my first piece of gum ever, and it tasted like nothing I’d ever had before — a mixture of strawberry, banana, and vanilla! The only thing I was told was to now swallow it under any circumstances, so I kept on chewing and looking out of the window as the train chugged along…..But after my first taste of bubble gum, something new began to mix with my malaise: jealousy of the kids in faraway countries who could chew such gum every day.” – pg.11.
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Sergey was born and raised in Leningrad, a city in the Soviet Union. Growing up, he never saw anything past the communist country, but somehow, he had a strong urge to figure out what he was missing. “I always wanted to be different from other Soviet kids around me. I always wanted to prove to myself that I was different. I always wanted to get out.”
My classmates and I had the pleasure of interviewing Sergey in person. Before we started asking him questions, he started asking us some. He prepared a short game to see how much we knew about life in the Soviet Union. Sergey projected common objects onto the whiteboard for the class to see. For each object, he asked us whether we thought it was something they had in the Soviet Union or not. “So you’ll need to raise your hand if it’s yes, or not to raise your hand if its a no.”
“Were there any burgers or fries?” At that question, my classmates seemed conflicted. They began to look at one another while switching their answers every second. Our English teacher, Ms.Levy, started laughing at our reaction. And all of this was happening while Sergey had a slight smirk on his face; he seemed to be enjoying the game more than we did. “There was no such thing as burgers! I tried a burger for the first time when I was 18, and french fries and a shake.” Laughs and snickers filled the room.
The game continued. There was no Coca-cola, cereal, popcorn, or even take away. It took me a while to realize that the absurdness of not having these things, though inessential, was why it was so hilarious! But after the laughter subsided, a twinge of sympathy formed as I thought of the other constraints that people living in the Soviet Union had to go through. The game was much more than something fun to do, it was a way to show us why he wanted to see the world so badly.
Sergey’s curiosity for the outside world was becoming very evident, he couldn’t wait any longer. “I always wanted to go.” So, he took Chinese at his university. “If I choose Chinese studies I will probably be sent to a language course in China, and it happened.” He first crossed the border when he was 18. Feeling excited and full of glee, he couldn’t wait to explore the world. “Orange juice was very impressive,” he added.
Sergey has lived in several countries ever since. From France to the UK, and now in Singapore. He is also the author of the book, Everything is Normal: The Life and Times of a Soviet Kid. The book is about his life in the Soviet Union and some of the historic moments that happened there.
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The cover is a picture of Sergey as a kid, photoshopped to hold a huge gun. This created some controversy within the Russian community.
“One of my distant relatives, funny enough, she saw the cover and she said, why are you doing this, and I said, have you read the book? and she said, not yet. But I’m not even not going to read the book because I know you are critical there and you had a happy childhood. Full stop.”
Others in the community have also told him off for being too judgmental of his childhood. However, he wasn’t swayed by the criticism. “To be honest I tried to be balanced, but I’m critical in many places for the way I received all these things.”
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Cover of Sergey’s book. Photograph: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39068789-everything-is-normal
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Since travelling to so many places and going through new experiences, Sergey’s life has been filled with excitement. However, this has created uncertainty for where his home lies. “I don’t have a home anymore, that’s the thing.”
He told the class about the places he has loved staying in, but would never consider his home. “Singapore is currently my home, but I don’t think I’ll stay here forever, so it’s really hard to say….I would like to have a home. Maybe at some point, it will happen. Maybe at some point, I’ll settle down and live happily somewhere, but not at the moment.”
Like Sergey, many people don’t feel like they truly belong anywhere. Third Culture Kids (TCK) are people who likely struggle with this situation, they “may adopt so many personas as cultural chameleons that they don’t know who they really are” (Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds).
People want to have a home, a place where they can fit in. Nevertheless, this isn’t the only way to feel like you belong.
Sergey is happily married and has 3 kids. His young daughter attends UWCSEA East, where TCK’s can not only empathize with one another of their struggles with identity, but it’s also a place where you can choose where, or who you want to associate with.
“I’m definitely very happy about my children living in flexibility of whatever they want. So they can decide to live in one country or another country. They can identify themselves as British, as Russian, whatever they want”.
Sergey has chosen his path of life, to finally walk away from the Iron Curtain and see what lies ahead. Because of that, he has found an entirely new life, where he truly belongs.
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