Cosmopolite?...Yeah, thats me

I can definitely call myself a cosmopolite - a world citizen, a person who has home everywhere and in the same time nowhere, a person who has no nationality. My life can be well described by a verse from Nelly Furtado's song "I'm like a bird" : I'm like a bird, I'll only fly away. I don't know where my soul is , I don't know where my home is...

I was born in the southern part of Russia, by the Black Sea. I think I was a couple months old when we moved to Estonia. The town I was born in remained as a second home for me since I spent there every summer. When I was 15, we moved again. Not to another country though. Just to a bigger city. It didn't take much time to get used to a new place. My mom is half Ukrainian half Russian, my dad is half Georgian half Estonian. I do not know who I am. My passport says Estonian. I grew up as a bilingual. I learned to transform myself every day: half of the day I spent as an Estonian, as Viktoria (because that's how all Estonians called me). I went to Estonian school, hung out with Estonian friends, went to practice - lets say lived according to Estonian cultural and societal rules and norms. That sometimes meant denying and hiding my other life and identity, my life as Vika (because that's a Russian short version of Viktoria, and nobody called me by my full name). Why hiding? Because of all that history and politics Estonians hate Russians. And I didn't want to be bullied because of that...kids are mean you know. I was Vika the other half of the day when I got back home from school and practice. My family follows rather Russian traditions. I speak Russian to my parents. So, I really don't know what to say when people ask what nationality I am. I just wanna be a me.

Since I have been doing track and field for a long time it gave me an opportunity to travel around the world a lot: a month long training camps, competitions. My home was where my luggage was. Never felt home sick. After graduating from high school I came to America and guess what...I learned to love this country. Right now I feel my home is here. I do not have anybody here, all my family is back in Estonia, but I do not feel home sick. It doesn't matter where I go: back to Estonia, back to the town I was born in or the little town where I spent my first 15 years - I feel home everywhere. The world is my home.