June 29th
Today was Day 1 of our first two day weekend history trip. Today's first stop was the Vojna Memorial, which was a former Soviet run labor camp, where people were imprisoned for both political and criminal reasons and made to mine uranium. This trip to Vojna was extremely uncomfortable for me. Being a person who basically lives by the motto "ignorance is bliss", this trip forced me to face the situation head on, and all I wanted to do was get out of there as fast as I could.
Seeing all the barracks/buildings and hearing the stories of what went on there, I tired my best to put up a front, a hard shell, pretend I wasn't fazed by any of it, and resort to my "ignorance is bliss" ways. I always get this way when the topic turns to the former Soviet Communist Regime since having 100% Russian roots makes the idea of Communism always hit extremely close to home. And forever I end up feeling torn between "siding" with the Communists or the "other side". It is impossible for me to claim that Lenin/Stalin/the Communist Regime in general was bad. Yet at the same time, I can't claim that they were angelic do-gooders either. Therefore, I attempt to push the issue under and avoid it at all costs.
The Communist Regime was my family's reality. My grandparents lived through WWII and Stalin in the USSR. My parents grew up in the height of the Communist Regime. My brother was born in the USSR and my parents moved to the US for work, not due to political oppression. It is in my blood, in my veins, part of my history. But at the same time it is something that I feel is discussed in hushed tones in my family. My parents recall the hardships of the Communist era that they remember. Yet at the same time, my father's hometown boasts massive statues of both Lenin and Stalin and my maternal grandfather still votes for the Communist party in every election. Once again, I end up torn between what to think, what to believe, and once again, I choose to ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist.
While at Vojna, I mentioned to someone that I personally could not judge something unless I experienced it first-hand; I could not judge it off other people's words. As I began to reflect upon why I said that, I realized that with this topic, I choose not to judge it because by saying that the Soviet Communist Regime is bad, I feel that I am inherently saying that my roots, my foundation, my nationality, and me myself is/are bad. And that is something that terrifies me. No one wants to think that they are a bad person, so I avoid the topic, pretend it doesn't exist, and move on.
Another part of Vojna that made me uncomfortable was how familiar the smells were. The outside smelled like my grandparents' dacha garden, and the wooden barracks/school buildings smelled exactly like the inside of their dacha house. In Vojna, I was remembering all the pleasant memories I had at their dacha, how I would examine the wood panels on the walls, taking in the texture and small, while approximately 60 years ago, people probably couldn't stand those wood panels that remind me of home. And at that moment, I once again felt like a bad person having a labor camp remind me of family and happy memories.
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