THEY WERE EIGHT
DASHA was 8
20 min / language: English / Saint-Petersburg, with Dasha Belova / images : Vika Ilyushkina
Dasha lives in Saint Petersburg, she was eight years old when Perestroika started, where were the borders of her world then? What memories does she have of the end of the Soviet Union? Have these changes broadened her young teenage world? And today, when Russia is considered to be a constitutionally democratic and open country, what borders confront her?
ELNARA was 8
12 min 40 / language: English / Tallinn, with Elnara Taidre
Elnara was living on the Estonian border city of Narva when Perestroïka started. Elnara is of Russian origin with an Estonian surname. She tells about the very first feelings she had when she got an Estonian passport while living in a Russian speaking milieu.
SERGEI was 8
8 min. / Tallinn / language: English, with Sergei Pogoreltsev
Sergei is a Russian speaker, he lives and studies in Tallinn, Estonia.
DANIS was 8
20 min. / Kazan-Berlin / language: Russian, with Danis Aliaskarov
Danis decided to leave his home town of Kazan –Russia- where he had studied aeronautics and go West, to Europe. He randomly chose Germany. When he arrived in Berlin, 2 years ago, he could not speak German, he managed to survive with low paid job, within the Russian community. Today he is trying to get to a German university and spend a few more years in Europe before he could go back with a positive experience and more money than he had left with.