Hi. I’m Stepa Mitaki. Morning Walk is a personal weekly newsletter where I share some musings on tech, working on startups, productivity and some nerdy stuff.
This issue was sent out to 69 subscribers (+6 from the previous week). Last week’s issue received 426 views.
For obvious reasons, there won’t be any regular posts this week. It’s impossible to think of startups, tech, and other normal life stuff at this hard moment in history. Instead, I want to share a short personal story.
My father was born and grew up in Odessa, Ukraine. My auth and cousin still live there right now. We often visited back in the 90s and early 2000s when I was a little kid. My most vivid memory of playing football on the streets of our small village from early morning until dark. Growing up, practically everyone I knew from any part of Russia had some family members in Ukraine. It always felt like we were one nation. We are one nation.
My father hadn’t seen his sister since 2014 when Putin invaded Crimea. What was going to happen in the next eight years, now, in retrospect, seems like a full-blown preparation of his next big step. More aggressive arrests at protests, prison terms for any kind of disloyalty to regime, new laws, implementation of sovereign internet, import substitution for withstanding sanctions, and many more. But, most importantly, frightening everyone and building up his military power.
In August of 1991, when I was three years old, my Dad and I visited my aunt there. My Mom was back in my hometown of Murmansk, Russia. We were on separate sides of the border the moment when the USSR collapsed in August 1991. I still can’t imagine the nightmare of uncertainty my Mom went through during these days. What’s going to happen next? What country are we living in now? Would we be able to come back to Russia now? When will she be able to see her three-year-old son? I remember some of these stories, but I never fully understood what it felt like.
What’s happening today in Ukraine is much much more frightening than what happened in 1991. But now, unfortunately, I understand much better the level of uncertainty my Mom felt back then. I feel it now, and I’m scared. For my family in Ukraine, my own family, and not being able to do anything. The world has shattered. It will never be the same. Putin is a threat to the whole world and needs to be stopped, but it seems it would take millions of lives to stop him.
P.S. Here is what’s happening on the streets of Moscow these days: