As you may have guessed from my name, I was born and raised in Russia. (I lived in the city of Novosibirsk until I was sixteen and a half). My family then moved to Bulgaria, and we immigrated to the States when I was 19. After immigrating, I, like most immigrants, went through a couple of stages of adjustment: from wanting to act and be treated as American as possible to eventually coming to realize that my Russian origin is not something to be ashamed of, and seeking out the parts of Russian culture I enjoy. Here, then, are the results of that search so far: