“My well-to-do adolescence created a gulf between that life and the one to
which I’ve become so accustomed. I need that tether, something to remind
me that my identity was formed here, too.”
“My parents struggled to choose a name after my birth in a shabby Moscow hospital. Nothing felt exactly right. After a month they settled on Yulia, a traditional Russian name that, they decided, was just unique enough. My mother loved the lyrical way it rolled off the tongue, Yoo-Lee-Yah. ”
The New York Times: In A Throwback Place, a Fashion-Forward Store
“That Brighton Beach has not vanished. Women bundled in fur coats push grocery carts full of cured meats and ripened vegetables down the streets, and awnings with Cyrillic lettering advertise restaurants where the specialty of the house is a steaming bowl of Ukrainian borscht. ”
TeenVogue.com: I Went Back to the Town Where My Family Lived While Trying to Get to America
"Out of the 28 pictures I’d brought, eight featured Sisters. 'Oh,' she said wistfully, holding her hand to her cheek. She looked through the entire stack. After saying the name of each Sister aloud, she uttered 'morta.' Dead. All were already old nearly 30 years ago; I expected there to be no survivors. She examined a photo of me eating gelato — long chestnut hair held back by a plastic navy headband, chocolate all over my lips. 'Tu?' she asked. 'Si!' Yes, it’s me. 'Sei Russa?' Yes, I am Russian."
TeenVogue.com: My First Kiss: The Messy Complexity of Sexual Milestones
“I’ve learned, though, that not all moments can be qualified simply as good or bad. Some moments just happen, and you learn from them. Or you don’t. And that’s okay too. Much of what we build up in our heads doesn’t transpire the way we envisioned. Not everything we live can be assigned a moral designation.”
“At times the city feels more than just alive; it feels raw and kinetic, like an ember feeding on whatever oxygen it can find.”
Image courtesy of Andrea Hubbell Photography