more from #70

This is my class from Russian school. Second grade, which means...1995, I think. I am in the middle row, wearing the pink shirt. One of the only girls without a huge bow in her hair. To the left of me (your left, not mine) is my best friend Katya Ascheulova. She befriended me in first grade when I arrived and we remained friends through fifth when I left. I last saw her around 2002, still at #70. I wonder where she is now. She lived with her mother, mother's boyfriend (? they called him their uncle), half-sister, and occasionally cousin. They had a three-room house - meaning, kitchen, living room, bedroom. There was an outhouse around the back near the chicken coop and small garden, and they bathed at relatives' houses. Katya loved coming to our apartment and playing with my Barbies. She and her sister made their own Barbie clothes.

To the right of me is Polina. Two people over is another Katya. There were three, I think. This Katya was always sick and pale. Two people over is Pasha. He was tall. The second from the right in the front row is Dasha. Dasha was in my class every year I was at #70. She was teeny-tiny, and often the teachers' favorite. She and this kid Dima would sit in the front row. The girl in the top row with the white bow is Nastya.

I wish I remembered more names, and more about these faces. Russian school strongly influenced who I am today, but I hardly remember it. I concluded recently, in all seriousness, that I must have blocked a lot of it out of my memory.

My teacher, in the middle of the back row, is Inna Vladimirovna. She taught me and my sister for three years each. She was a great teacher. When we came to the States for six months and I forgot all my Russian, she tutored me after we got back and helped me relearn it. She is probably in her 70s now. I wonder if she's still alive. My dad saw her in 2003ish, but that's all I know.

The kid looking away, in the top row, just to the left of me, is Eldar Djangirov. Eldar is now a brilliant jazz pianist based out of New York City. He was always good at piano, and in 1998 (after I left for Kazakhstan), he was discovered by an American benefactor during a competition in Siberia, and was brought to the US to study. I forgot about Eldar until my sister heard he was playing at her school, and put two and two together. We rediscovered him, I found him on facebook, etc. I went to see him play in Tulsa in April and talked to him afterwards. Pretty crazy. His third album came out in June and was nominated for a Best Contemporary Jazz Album Grammy Award. He's really good. Check him out.