Fire safety is not a joke, son

ok i think svetlana’s mom (who i still haven’t thought of her name) is american and was adopted by a white family as a baby and grew up in some affluent area on the east coast kinda by boston. she probably felt a lot of racial alienation growing up and always like she didn’t fit and was really let down in so many ways by her parents. 

and then i think sergei vetrov played in the NHL in the late 80s/early 90s, maybe for the raiders (i can’t remember in the book who he played for but idrc show sveta is a different character than the book sveta) and met her mother and he was charming and also took her seriously as a mind, interested in her thoughts about things, possibly talked social theory with her in a blunt way her family never would. and they were involved for a while and she got pregnant and really wanted this child who she would feel close with, so she kept the pregnancy and she and sergei got married and had svetlana. 

sergei is a doting father, and they all lived in the US for maybe a year or two and then he got injured and retired or something, and he asked sveta’s mom to move back to russia with him. and probably talked it up a lot as a paradise where the west’s problems with racism didn’t exist. so she moves to moscow with him and immediately it’s so bad, violent anti-black racism is rampant, she is terrified all the time, she doesn’t leave the house, she has no job or friends, she is miserable and so alone. and sergei is no help, tells her she isn’t trying hard enough, she needs time to adjust, she needs to assimilate, she needs to be less sensitive, she needs to meet everyone halfway, and he isn’t home much anyways because his political career is taking off. and they fight all the time and sergei tells her well you can leave, i won’t stop you, but you’re not taking svetlana. 

eventually when svetlana is about 6 her mother can’t take it anymore and is like if i stay here i will die, i will actually truly literally die, and so she leaves and goes back to the US. at first she calls svetlana all the time but she doesn’t want to alienate svetlana from her support system so she doesn’t tell svetlana that sergei wouldn’t let her svetlana go. and as time goes on, svetlana is less interested in talking to her, svetlana is less fluent in english, svetlana appears well-integrated into her life there, svetlana is more resentful, and sveta reminds her mother of this incredibly incredibly painful part of her life, and her mom realizes she needs to let svetlana be because otherwise it will tear her and tear svetlana apart. so from age like 9-10 svetlana doesn’t have a lot of contact with her mom. 

eventually svetlana’s father is so busy (and possibly there are safety concerns) so he sends sveta to boarding school in switzerland when she’s 8 and svetlana is miserable at first but then loves it and becomes friends with a black french girl nicole. eventually some bullshit goes down, sveta gets asked not to return to school. in the meantime her father has gotten remarried and the new wife lowkey doesn’t like svetlana. sveta age 10 is back in moscow for a minute, does figure skating, meets sasha her skating partner. stepmother gets pregnant and svetlana gets sent to a different boarding school in italy, HATES it, runs away, gets all the way to some border and causes an international incident, sergei is like okay okay you can come home. 

sveta comes back to moscow age 11-12 and vaguely meets ilya a few times, has no strong opinion of him. irina dies and svetlana is dragged to her funeral where she finds ilya hiding and crying. and svetlana is like “are you crying” and ilya is like “NO!!!!!” and svetlana is like “everyone is going to know you’ve been crying your nose is bright red. you have to put it in cold water that’s what i do.” and ilya is like tch… (effect lessened by him being a clearly sobbing cherub faced 12 year old) so sveta gets him a cup of ice water and then they stand there for 10 minutes while he dunks his nose in it. and then they’re friends and svetlana winds up at school with him the following year and he is really her physical protector in a lot of ways like he is ready to fight anyone for her. 

svetlana is quite lonely. she reads a lot, everyone is always telling her oh you’re just like pushkin so she has to then go read all of pushkin obvs and she finds she’s actually really into russian lit, that’s a respite for her for many years. and other than pen-pal nicole and sasha and ilya she’s very alone. her father is always off on a trip and her stepmother and step siblings are always in. idk. wherever wealthy russian wives go. and it’s mostly just svetlana in the house. i think she reconnects with her mom around then and learns about her dad not letting her go with her mom, and that’s a complicated thing emotionally because she is furious and heartbroken and betrayed and also her father does love her and she loves her father. but she does wind up letting go of some of the resentment towards her mom at that point.