‘How was your vacation?’. People who don’t know me assume I go on vacation a lot. They think I’m jetting off, sipping cocktails, seeing the sights. I go to Russia to visit family.

Normal ppl visit family for the holidays. In Russia, you visit family to work in the fields. I either plant potatoes… or un-plant the potatoes I planted in the spring. How was my vacation? Well, I cried in raspberry bushes, bleeding from thorns, overheated, dizzy, with dirt under my nails and a lower back that feels like it’s been in a car crash. Thanks for asking!

My family has a country house in Russia. Now, Americans hear “country house,” and they think Hamptons. Big porch, a pool, maybe a little wine cellar. No. Our country house is basically a potato field with a tool shed. I’m exaggerating - it’s a cabin. We’ve got electricity. There is cold water in the well, and a hole in the ground for a toilet.

I tell people we own a boat and they picture a yacht with a name like Serenity on the back, a captain’s wheel, champagne on ice. No. What we have is… a few pieces of wood tied together with string and hope. I should start calling spade a spade - my family owns a potato filed and some floating planks of wood.

What’s the deal with the potatoes?

Well, I’m coming from a very traditional patriarchal muslim family. Our Logan Roy is my 85 yo grandpa. He grew up during WWII, starving. As a 5 yo he would walk miles in home-made bast shoes to steal rotten potatoes - cause that’s all they had to eat. Now, at 85, he’s still living in potato scarcity mindset. Potatoes are his security blanket. Potatoes are his life work.

So we’d spend all week working in a city, then for the weekend, we go work a few miles north. “Vacation” doesn’t mean “relaxation.” It means work… But at a slightly different latitude.

My granddad’s dedication to planting potatoes has no boundaries. Literally. In the countryside he once found some abandoned ditch. Looked left, looked right, installed barbed wire over it, and proclaimed it his. Like some potato king. He just called it his. No one even bothered to account for it because… who wants a random ditch? That ditch is now a potato field the size of 2 basketball courts.

You know, Americans go to Cancun and think, ‘Wow, this is heaven!’. My grandpa looks at his land of potatoes and says, ‘I’ve made it. This is it.’ Good for him. And me?

When ppl ask me ‘How was your vacation?’. I just nod and say, ‘Very productive.’ I cried in the raspberries, I cursed in the dirt, and I was overwhelmed with joy watching my grandfather’s proud smile as he surveyed his potatoes.