Nikita Miller - Es war einmal im Nirgendwo

Karl-Farkass-Gasse 19

1030 Wien

 

"In the Soviet Union, we were the Germans; in Germany, we are the Russians" – these words from his grandmother are burned into Nikita Miller's memory like a Soviet stamp on a deportation order. His grandmother would still swear today that a glass of peppercorn vodka can solve all problems – from a cold to an identity crisis. But it's not quite that simple.

When Nikita was expelled from high school in the 1990s for supposedly being "too Russian" for Schiller, he had no idea that this very cultural divide would one day become his greatest treasure. Between German buttered sandwiches and Russian pierogi, between the schoolyard and the stories of his grandmother, who was deported to Kazakhstan, he found his very own path.

Today, as the world once again turns upside down, Miller digs deep into his family history and finds astonishing parallels to the present. He wants to know: What actually makes us who we are? The genes of our ancestors? The place where our identity cards are issued Or perhaps the fact that we were the only ones in the class who knew how to pronounce "Dostoyevsky" correctly?

With the precision of a German master watchmaker and the soul of a Russian poet, Miller takes his audience on a journey through times and cultures. Because in the end, it's like a good borscht—it's the mix that makes it interesting. And sometimes you just need an identity crisis to figure out who you really are.

(Source: globe.wien)