Тоска

It was the very beginning of my school year at the MCI (Mennonite Collegiate Institute) in Gretna, Manitoba. I had come to Canada a mere month before school started. I didn't have any friends yet, nor could I have them - my language skills were of very limited use then. I had no computer, no games, no fancy lava lamps. I only had two things: a little battery-operated pocket radio (though it wasn't able to catch any stations) and a Russian-English dictionary. So, in the evenings, when we were confined to our rooms in the dormitory, I would read the dictionary and reminisce about days bygone as a means of killing time and keeping my sanity.

Although the haunting voice and smile of a mysterious woman in the poem are meant to represent my homeland, the inspiration for this image was originally derived from a girl with whom I went to school and for whom I had great affection - Олеся Печеницына. The fourth verse was actually later removed from the poem, as it made the meaning somewhat ambiguous: was it the girl I missed or my homeland? However, some years later I restored the poem to its original form after deciding that a little ambiguity couldn't hurt.