Before I started school, I wondered if my school uniform would be boring. I wondered if it would be black and white like a traditional uniform.

Dad had told me that when I started school I would wear a uniform. This brought me to my memory of our neighbour downstairs, Костя, Kostyah, who was in the army. He had a uniform and I think he even wore it sometimes. He wasn't in the army at that point though. Then I imagined wearing that kind of uniform and I was devastated. When I told Dad how I hated the bland uniform and actually started crying. Dad chuckled softly, with a hint of the sadness that comes when you imagine yourself in someone's perception. He assured me that I wouldn't be wearing that kind of uniform, but a school one. 

The first two years of school the girls got to choose our classes' school uniform. They chose one which was grey with pink and yellow thin stripes. I'm wearing a blouse on the 1st of September though.

I was happy that it didn't have any black and white because back then I seriously despised black and white. I was overjoyed that it even had pink on it.

When we got to my new school, I was pretty nervous. Not so much because I was going to school in Russian. I was surrounded by Russian people all the time then. More because I didn’t want to leave my parents. Still now, in huge crowds I stick pretty close to my parents. My little brother and sister run off more and freak me out.

Everyone was new to me then. Except for Arseniy. He was at my children’s centre. I distinctly remembered a girl with a blonde fringe. Out teacher marked the role and we headed off for the lineyka.

We walked in pair, and I was beside a short girl. I asked her what her name was. She was Катя. – Katya. It’s the same as Kate really. It is a very common name in Russia. There were three Katya’s in my class. Though I suppose I wouldn’t have known that at this point.
I just naturally made friends with her. We didn’t talk much, but you don’t need to have said much to qualify for a friends as a kid.

Russian have huge bows that you can put in your hair on the first day of school.
I’m disappointed that I don’t remember the first time that I met Настя. – Nastya. It is short for Anastasia, so in English you would call her Stacy. But I still prefer to call her Nastya. Because that is her name for me in my head. She had long golden hair and a vivid imagination. I’m still friends with her. Well, I text her on what’s app occasionally.
The primary school and the high school are connected where in lived. The primary school unfortunately didn’t have enough room for us, so they made some space in the high school. It is much larger, but I still enjoyed it.

The way that we hung up our coats with the teacher’s in the morning. Walked off in pairs to the cafeteria. Some kids used their diaries as ping-pong rackets downstairs for the table tennis. The music room was huge and all the seats were on those types of elevated things like they have in choirs sometimes. In the cafeteria, we had milk boxes like juice boxes. They had fun facts on them like Roman numerals and stuff. We had porridge a lot. The high school kids would go and order their own food. Back then I thought this very grown-up and wondered if I would ever have the nerve to do that myself.  At first, I felt that we ate very quickly. Then I got used to it. I would pray silently before I ate. More like whispered. Now I’ve kind of just stuck with praying in my head.

It was home.


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