SvetlanaL's VirtualTourist Home Page

I am the only child of Marina and Oleg, who have stories of their own.
Being bron in Kiev, Ukraine in 1985 just four months before the Chernobyl incident, forced my family to find creative places to live in the rural parts of Ukraine,
spending a large part of my childhood in silos and rural parts of Ukraine to escape radiation.
As a little girls I fell in love with the land, and forests, and birch trees. When I was a little girl, my father had a mtotorcycle and he would sit me and the back of it and together we'd zip through the meadows of the Ukranian countryside.
we emigrated to U.S. in 1992 after the fall of Socialism in Ukraine. The journey to the U.S. was and amazingly enlightening transition, even at the age of 6. Now I just can't seem to sit still. I want to go everywhere.
To me, there is something spiritual about an experience in a completely foreign place.
Lately, I've been traveling by rail or car for long stretches at a time for contrast, and right now I'm trying to get myself out of here and out there.

For the last five years I was involved with the painting process, going through many styles and mediums, and I enjoy working with clay and porcelain. However, I tend to talk about it more than I actually do it now.
My creativity seems reluctant to continue in that direction so I've taken up scrapbooking and travelwriting. Mostly they're just excuses to allow myself to spend all my saved money on travel, but it keeps me productive.
I enjoy nature, both in theory and in reality, very much and am studying Environmental Science, although I am constantly taking time off.
Knowing that I probably won't graduate in my twenties doesn't bother me, because right now I am learning in other ways.
Aside from this I have a routine and a job I don't enjoy (that's a severe understatement) and this is what keeps me sane. This right here. On these pages.