Do Svidaniya, Mockby

It has been a week since we've left Moscow. We've hugged our families again, greeted old friends, and had the time to sleep off the jet lag. I've done a lot of reflecting on our trip in the past few days. I've thought about the ideas that have been challenged in me, and I've realized the things that have really changed in me. 

I think the most important thing that I've realized coming home is how different America's opinion of Russia is from what it is actually like. In the majority of American TV shows and movies, if there's a spy-- they're almost guaranteed to be Russian. We know more about what we think the KGB is than we do about what the people of Russia are actually like. America and Russia have always been competitive with each other, and for a long time, there was a lot of dissension. Americans hated their communist ideas; Russians didn't like the ideas of capitalism. A lot of Americans don't like Russia as a whole and assume that all Russians are still in support of the old Soviet Union. Russians see our nation and see the shooting sprees at school and wonder how unsafe our nation is right now. Through our separate media, we only get to see the worst pieces of the other country. This is so incredibly dangerous because we don't get to see the whole picture. We don't get to meet the people. 

During my time in Russia, I learned a lot about theatre. I grew so much as an artist. But I think some of the most important lessons I learned were simply about humanity, and how much ignorance there can be in blindly accepting facts about another place. Before we mistrust an entire nation, let's look at our sources. You have to get to know someone before you know whether or not to distrust them. There are good people in every nation. It's so important to get to understand the people in a place rather than just the politics of the people at the top of those nations. 

After living in Moscow for three months, a piece of my heart will always be in Russia. I will celebrate when they do, I will cry when they mourn. I will also always look at international relations differently and strive to look at humanity as a global entity and not through my western, American lense. I think that my perspective about what looking at things from a "global scale" means has changed completely, and I have become impassioned about how important it is to care about the WHOLE world instead of just your own side of it. I loved Russia, and I can't wait to see where my new passion for thinking globally will take me next. I might have said goodbye to this journey, but there is so much more for me to explore.