08.08.08

It was my graduation ceremony date. I loved that it was scheduled for 08.08.08. The date was easy to remember and I saw perhaps an unjustified significance in that sequence of numbers. It took me 4.5 years to finish my doctoral program at LSU, and my hard work and joys and tears of going through it as a single mother of a toddler was already paying off: I was about to start my first job in the United States at Georgia State University.

The day before, on August 7, I flew down from Atlanta where I had moved all my stuff, having driven a Penske truck for the first time in my life. My friend Mikhaela, who was also a fellow doctoral student graduating on the same day, picked me up at the New Orleans airport and graciously hosted me for one night. As we drove from NOLA to Baton Rouge, we exchanged the news and future plans. Mikhaela also landed a job in Missouri, so we would be partying our ways after four years of living side by side and helping each other with our sons. Their birthdays are just one day apart and Mikhaela and I are talking about how to make sure that their friendship lasts even though they will be away from each other. We make plans on visiting each other after we settle in our new places.

My son is spending the summer with my mother in Russia. We all decided that it would be easier that way for everyone: I knew it would be a summer of a lot of work (I picked up a summer job at the call center of the LSU policy research lab, and that's a different story) and moving states. I brought my son to the US when he was 2.5 and now he was 6. I usually sent him to my mother's for the summer so that he could keep up his Russian and I could do some extra work or field research during the summers.

As we had dinner with Mikhaela and her son that night, I was longing for mine. Was it a mistake not to have him for my graduation ceremony? He was only 6, would he even care or remember? I made a rational decision to bring him back to the US only when I moved to Atlanta, which meant he wouldn't be at my graduation. I'd be flying to NYC to pick him up from a plane from Moscow the weekend after, and it would be his first flight as an unaccompanied minor.

In the morning of August 8, we got all excited about the ceremony. We robed up into our newly minted doctoral robes and went to the hall for the ceremony. PhDs get awarded their degrees first, then Master students, and then undergrads. Since it's a summer ceremony, the number of graduates is a lot smaller than in a regular fall or spring commencement, but it still takes time. We were sitting in the first rows, closer to the stage, and when my name was called, I got up to the stage, my dissertation advisor hooded me up, I got my diploma from the dean of our school while the school photographer took pictures. Then I went back to my seat. About an hour later, the ceremony was done. It's all a blur now, 15 years down the road, and I don't even remember who our commencement speaker was. All I remember is how excited I was to get my diploma.

After the ceremony, I went back to the school, took more pictures with my advisor, the school dean and my friends, disrobed and went back to Mikhaela's to pick up my things and my car that she was keeping an eye on while I moved my belongings to my new home. It's a 9-hour drive to Atlanta, so I need to get on the road as soon as possible. After saying good-bye to my friends, I am on the road, still elated from the ceremony and hopes of the new beginning.

NPR is a default radio station in my Nissan Sentra. As soon as I hit the road, I get the news. Putin did what? I can't believe my ears. The tensions between the Republic of Georgia and Russia had been building up for some time and got worse when Russia started to give out Russian passports to people living in Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, under the pretext of protecting the Russian population from Georgian oppression. However, only few people could then predict that Russia would roll its tanks into the Georgian territories.

But Putin did it. Even though the president of Russia was Dmitry Medvedev at the time, amply nicknamed "Seat Warmer," everyone knew who actually ruled the country and issued the military orders - Prime Minister Putin. I incredulously listen to the reports of Russian troops rolling into Georgia and Georgian military fighting but not able to fend off the attacks. President Saakashvili appealing to NATO and Western countries for help. Bush Jr., who allegedly had seen Putin's soul behind those pale-blue fish eyes, expressed concern publicly. In private, I'm sure he called his friend Vladimir and firmly asked him to stop it. I would have loved to eavesdrop on that conversation.

I knew in my gut nothing would happen: Bush Jr. had only several months left of his presidency, he was just a lame duck sympathetic to Putin. And for Western Europe, Georgia was too far, both geographically and psychologically. Some former Russian colony in the Caucasus mountains. I immediately thought of my Georgian friend Nino and her husband Misha, whom I'd met at LSU and who were back in Tbilisi at the time. I couldn't even imagine what they'd think or do, as great Georgia patriots and political activists. What can you do in a situation like that as a citizen, really?

I can't imagine what President Saakashvili was feeling that day. Putin hated him because Saakashvili was always sounding the alarm about Putin's dictatorial tendencies and did everything he could to make Georgia independent of Russia, both politically and economically. Next day after the invasion, there would be lots of Russian propaganda reports about Saakashvili "chewing on his tie" in the moment of fear and weakness. That's a common trick from Putin's playbook - to present his political enemies and opponents as weaklings, a laughing stock. He will play it out again and again, most recently against Ukrainian President Zelenskyy. On 08.08.08, I'm sure President Saakashvili might have indeed felt weak, vulnerable and alone, unable to defend his country against a powerful "neighbor." As of today, Russia still controls Abkhazia and South Ossetia, having effectively annexed almost one-third of Georgia's land territory and a huge Black Sea shoreline through Abkhazia. And Saakashvili has been imprisoned in Georgia on trumped-up charges.

I was crying most of that drive to Atlanta. I cursed and damned Putin for invading an independent country. I knew that as a KGB thug and raider he would not stop at that. He would escalate in 2014 to annexing Crimea and then to a full-scale war against Ukraine in February 2022. But 15 years ago, I hated him for forever ruining my graduation day. And as he continues his genocidal war against Ukraine, my happy memories of that day get pushed back and fade away. I only hope I will be able to bring them back when Ukraine defeats Russia and Putin is tried in the Hague for his war crimes.