My Love For Russia.

USSR. Soviets. I'm just in to weird Russian stuff.

I can't say exactly where this fanaticism started. I'm not a communist, and I'm not in to the whole WW2 thing behind them. Maybe it stems from seeing so much about them as being the enemy that it just made it interesting.

They were our space competitors. They owned a color all to themselves. There was just something...intriguing.

Tatu. Maybe that was it. Russian pop duo with lesbian overtones. But there was something more about the culture, about a people that were our rivals for so long that if things were a little bit different, then maybe we would have been exploring our creative minds for generations to come.

I look things like Russian Bus Stops. They are just so fascinating to me. I've read articles and am seriously giving thought to buying a book about them.

It is different from the cold weather. From the vodka. From the language that sounds so harsh, and so depressed at the same time.

One of the places I visited in Austin was The Russian House, a restaurant that had two head chefs with family recipes from Russia that they brought to the US. The food was delicious.

It is like looking at the opposite side of the coin. America could have been like this. It is an alternate timeline that is just depressed and decaying away. There is some beauty in the architecture. There is some beauty in the people and customs.

If I were born a lifetime ago, I would have learned Russian. If I had the chance while growing up, I would have studied abroad in Russia.

I really can't put my finger on it. Female Russian accents are just to die for. They are a weird music to my ear like Norah Jones' voice. When I heard that ScarJo was going to be Black Widow, the combination of red hair, Russian accent, and ScarJo just sent me in to a tizzy. It was a trifecta of beauty.

Watchmen dealt with tensions with the USSR. I remember maps in my school growing up that had either USSR or Russia on it, showing just how much the teaching materials were out of date. It was intriguing to me.

I may never know what it is that really gets me about it, but I'm enjoying cooking Russian food, eating Russian food, and drinking Russian vodka. I'm going to continue to be intrigued by everyday Russian living and seeing the strange cultural reflection whenever I learn more about it.