I had a dream that I was taking the metro.
It was dim, metallic, rattling along its track like any other, —but in the dream, I understood something uncanny: everyone around me was Russian. Not just speaking the language, but radiating it, like heat. It wasn’t fear at first—just awareness. Then a man stepped inside, paused at the door, and smiled. An unnaturally wide, frozen smile.
“Привет. Будешь моим другом” (“Hello. Will you be my friend?”) he said, turning to the next passenger. He shook their hands, then moved on to the next. Again: “Привет. Будешь моим другом?”
And on and on it went—this strange ritual of friendliness, unsettling in its repetition. As if being invited in wasn’t a choice but a requirement. Inclusion as performance.
I stood at the other end of the carriage, watching the wave of smiles and handshakes move closer like a slow tide. I dreaded it—not because of them, but because I knew: I couldn’t say the phrase. I couldn’t speak Russian. I knew they would notice. I wouldn’t be able to pass. I wasn’t one of them. I couldn’t say it. Not because I didn’t know how—I did, of course. I speak the language. But I couldn’t speak it. Not anymore. Not in that context.
I felt a trap, set long ago, click into place. They would turn to me, smiling, expecting. I was supposed to pass it on—to participate in this charade of friendliness, to say the words, to let the language roll off my tongue like I belonged.
But I didn’t.
And they would know.
That I wasn’t one of them.
That I never wanted to be.
The truth is, I still feel deceived. Not just now, not just by history, but by my own past—by the fact that I speak this language at all. I didn’t choose it. It was given to me, a gift wrapped in expectation. Like it was natural. I was taught to feel proud of this language and comfortable enough to call it my second mother tongue. And now I want to spit it out.
Hate, in this context, is not toxic. It’s lucid. It sees clearly what was stolen. It’s not hatred of a people—it’s hatred of what domination does: to language, to memory, to your sense of being at home inside yourself. The language was once a tool of expression, maybe love, even. Now it feels like a weapon turned inward.
I’m in Tbilisi now. The streets are warm, alive, textured—but every second person I pass is speaking Russian. And with each word, my body tenses. I fear they’ll speak to me. Not because they are dangerous, but because I feel exposed. That same unease from the dream creeps into daylight: the fear of being caught in the act of not belonging.
And every hour, someone stops me on the street and speaks to me in Russian.
“Помогите разобраться… не работает мобильный интернет.”
They say it like it’s obvious I understand. And they’re right—I do. And it’s this that unsettles me.
What in me signals that I speak Russian? My face? My posture? The way I walk? Maybe it’s not about me at all. Maybe it’s just the assumption that everyone should speak Russian, that this language still owns the space around it. That it should be understood without asking. That its presence is still a default.
I resent that expectation. I resent that I know it. I resent that I hear words and understand them not because I reached out, but because I was trained to.
This is what cultural imperialism does. Not only through overt violence, but through the enforcement of a shared emotional script. Language becomes a test. Hospitality becomes a performance. And your inability—or refusal—to perform marks you as “other.” It whispers that this language is the shared one, the superior one, the one that lets you belong.
The other night, I was in a bar. A band was jamming a Moby song. I went to the restroom, and the pianist—not too young, yet charming—turned to me in the line and said with a theatrical bow: “Мадам, прошу.” I smiled and said thank you. He was being kind.
But something twisted in me. If he knew I was Ukrainian, maybe he’d try to become friends with me. Maybe he’d offer more smiles, more gestures. Maybe he’d want me to say it back.
It unsettles me. That friendliness can feel like a test. Because the insecurity I feel is not incidental—it’s structural and it was sewn into me. It doesn’t just strip me of territory—it colonizes my interiority. It rewires my instincts, makes me flinch at welcome, mistrust a common tongue. That’s the paradox of the colonial hangover: you fear kindness because it might ask you to forget.
Now I carry a strange grief: the loss of feeling at home in a language. The ache of hearing it and wanting to respond, but not being able to do so without tasting ash.
In the dream, I was the last person.
And in waking life, I sometimes feel the same. Alone in a crowd that speaks in the rhythm of something I once understood. Now we are estranged. But I am not alone in this fracture. I know that now.
Because this isn’t just a personal discomfort.
It’s a legacy of violence—linguistic, emotional, historical. It’s what happens when identity is forced to pass, to perform, to survive.
It’s the empire’s quietest victory—until we name it.
And I just did.
