After contemplating writing about a photography/travel blog, I changed my mind when I brought my (American) boyfriend to meet my extended family and come with me to a traditional Russian wedding last weekend. When I saw how amused and entertained he was by all of the “russian-ness” of the night, I knew this was what I wanted to write about.
I want to write about being raised in a Russian family and environment and all the challenges I’ve faced being first generation of my family in America. I also want to touch upon all of the cultural differences I’ve become so accustomed to and forget are so different than all my other American friends.
I chose this idea for my blog because I love my Russian roots. Both of my parents came to America in their late teens and built their futures here. They raised my sister and I with Russian as our first language and lots of Russian culture including food, music, and much more. There are so many experiences and aspects of my life that may seem so foreign and strange to others that I have always been surrounded by and never expressed or realized. These would be the topics for my posts; including: eating exotic food, going to Russian night clubs with our parents since the age of 8 or 9, having the smelliest/weirdest lunch at school, pronouncing words wrong, having parents who sound like Borat, and much more. I feel like I can target my audience to people like myself and also my friends who aren’t Russian. I’ll do so by telling these stories in a funny but also truthful way to show how awesome it is to be raised in a Russian family.
(Tweets from #growinguprussian. These are things I think are totally normal but are a bit strange to most people…)
There are many other people doing similar blogs to this; such as Russians Anonymous, and Garik Suharik. However my blog will be very different and add to the conversation in a positive way. Russians Anonymous has great titles and stories that I can relate to, but I want to make them more personal and add more of a better design to the page. I would have it be cleaner andd putting videos, pictures, and personal media with each story rather than GIF’s. I also love and follow Garik Suharik because he is hysterical and targets the same audience I want to, but he only does so through pictures and videos and very little text. I want to use the same tone and voice as his videos to get across my humor. I also want to model my blog after Humans of New York and have a personal photograph with each story which will show how relatable each post will be.
Immigrants be like 😂😂 #yana #craycray
A video posted by Garik Suharik (@gariksuharik) that shows the humor I want mirror.
I look forward to channeling my Russian roots and expressing all of the crazy, fun, and some could say strange experiences I’ve encountered by being a first generation kid here in America. This will really help me understand how my culture has shaped me and also allow me to express how much I love where I come in a fun and expressive way.
http://www.humansofnewyork.com
https://twitter.com/beingrussian
https://instagram.com/gariksuharik/
http://www.russiansanonymous.com