What can happen if a drunk Russian gives an interview...

Grigor (Johnnie) Velkovsky
Intro to Journalism

My interviewee sits reluctantly at first, the prospect of been asked questions about his past doesn't seem very comfortable, and I would imagine it is for quite big number of people. However as the conversation goes on the pace picks up and he starts to speak with much more enthusiasm – in the end people always like to talk about themselves or what's on their mind. He is in his twenties, blond hair and brown eyes, Russian of descent although he likes to consider himself at times simply “international”.
Our interview starts with basic questions such as “Where did you grew up? What influence your family had and on you” and so on. He replies “Saint-Petersburg” with a smile on his face and quickly starts to talk about the beauty and the memories, which he has from the city. His parents divorced when he was four and he doesn't have much memory of them being together, although his father would take him out occasionally and he would live with his mother for most of his life. His mother would often go to work, so he would spend time mostly by himself, describing his early childhood as “quiet”, one of grey sky and books he would go through, since he learned to read at quite young age. He and his mother would often travel and he lived in Ukraine for about an year, moving from place to place until he returned once more to Saint Petersburg. As the years passed and he reached the age of seven, my interviewee would often spend a lot time on his own, his mother helping him out to learn basic mathematics, writing and enhance his readings as beginning of school approached more and more closer. Asked at school what he wanted to grow up as, he gave a surprising answer to the teachers - “I always wanted to be a spy, unlike the other kids who wanted to be lawyers or business men, without actually knowing why or what it meant”. Few years later, he would excel in his work and become much more socially out-going until him and his mother decided to change school - “I felt no growth in that school anymore”. By that time he also started hiking, which he describes as one of the best experiences ever - “We all got to know who we are and who we can really rely on”, he adds with a smile as the memories replay. Family issues however brought him back and created another aspect of his personality “I didn't see them as a role model anymore, I wanted to make my own future”. A talk with his cousin led him to a decision to try for a UWC (United World College), and few months later he got accepted, a decision he made with a snap of fingers - “I really wasn't thinking about it much, I just wanted to have something different, something new, wanted to run away.” Those two years he had there helped him immensely to grow up as person, to become much more responsible, which he describes with three words “greatest experience ever”. My question that followed immediately was “Why? What was so special?” to which he replied “Because it changed me up-side down, took away the concept of homeland.” I could identify myself in those words, it was an all too familiar path I once walked myself and as he continued to explain more about his two years, I could not help but nod and agree with what he said. He finishes off with a metaphor “I became an Odyssey of some sort, but it also took away my home, family and friends to an extent.” UWC could be described in such way, it is indeed a journey for those who get through such experience, one of finding and re-finding yourself at an alarming rate. We pause for a bit, talking about our mutual experience and our interview slowly progresses to what he felt after leaving it - “I found that I lost the everyday's awesomeness in UWC, the ability to create it, I lost a lot of people with whom I could relate and connect in many different ways, in a sense I lost home again.” I wondered myself and again could not help but agree, that those two years were really years of great change, reaching maturity and last but not least making connections with people that would last possibly a life time. Our conversation follows the path of UWC graduating students and we slowly begin to talk about universities. “I couldn't afford education in Europe, I started looking in US”, an all too familiar scenario for myself as well. “Why Westminster?” was my first question. He smiles and answers that “I just came from an UWC and wanted to meet other people that felt like me, Westminster is a gathering point of many graduating UWC students. It's also a place, which was relatively new as I've never been to America before, I wanted to see it.” I asked him what in particular he likes about Westminster, to which he replied with - “I like the variety of classes I can take here, I also like people with hearts, and I believe I met such people here. It also gives me time to stop and reflect”, which in my opinion is a not very often found commodity and an extremely essential one. I wondered and asked, which would be the three words describing this place for him, my interviewee thought for a while and with a smirk tells me “peaceful, thoughtful and future-orientated place”.
As our interview drew to an end, I asked him how he would describe his whole life, to which he mentioned three words “unbearable lightness of being” - I wondered of what the meaning behind it would be before asking the question myself to which my interviewee nodded negatively and smiled refusing to answer - “You have to figure it out on your own” his last words are as my pen drops on the notebook.