The Orchard by Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry

Author:Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry [Gorcheva-Newberry, Kristina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

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The new year had arrived—1985. And with it a new president, a new regime, a new country. But that night, we knew nothing about it. We listened to Chekhov and then Freddie Mercury and then Tsoi, with his deep throaty voice of someone who smoked and drank and never slept. His songs exploded with caustic questions, addressed not so much to us, but to those in charge of us. He loved the words “sun” and “fight,” and there was an edge to his voice, a sharp point, like a needle, about to break off. His music wrapped around our hearts like a serpent, filling us with excitement, daring, anxiety, fear, and power. It was crude, unapologetic, beastly even, but it told us that a change was underway, that if it was possible for someone to challenge our Soviet institutions by singing such violent verses, the rest was possible as well: to travel abroad, to live in America, to buy jeans and burgers, to be free from gulags and dictators, the Communist Party, our teachers, our parents, who always reminded us of duty to our country, our land, our history, to everything we called home.

So we danced, and we smoked, and we made jokes, feeling so infinitely happy. We also felt free, free from having to grow up, to lie or worry or make fate-altering decisions, from any responsibility other than being teenagers in love with life and all it had to offer at the moment: music, liquor, food, cigarettes, sex, and friendship—the greatest gift we would know.

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