Zeitgeist of the Mongrel Child

Nastassja is a youngest child of a Russian mother - Mama, and a Kazakh father - Papka. She begins to observe the world around her through the relationships of her parents, her siblings, her neighbours, and friends in their small community. Her childish psyche is shaped by Mama's response to domestic abuse, Papka's failure to provide, a blessing and a curse of having Asiatic eyes in Eastern European village.  "When Jelena was four or five, Papka hit her with his briefcase because she couldn't read read in English. The briefcase buckle injured her little head. She never forgave him for this unsolicited bout of violence. That and many other things: the tears and embarrassment of the agonising experience at the passport office, a childhood plagued with peer racial abuse, self-abasement and poverty." It's a story about people who survived the fall of the Soviet Union and continued navigating into the promised future "to live like in America". A unique period in Eastern European history when a young country set off to find its identity, while the people had to learn overnight how to fend for themselves.  "In summer, we would gather into small communities to help each other to harvest the hay, but that was before the spirit of the post-communist world started to diminish, and everyone began picking their friends based on who owned better stuff."