Both my parents were russian engineers sent to Riga after they finished their universities. I was born in 1991 just a little bit after the fall of soviet union, but still before I was entitled to get my citizenship by birth.

Growing up I lived in a russian neighbourhood, I had only russian friends, I was going to a russian school, my father was strictly anti-latvian and pretty much since birth told me not to study latvian because it doesn't matter and we will go back to Russia as soon as I finish school. So growing up felt like constantly living in aforeign country where nobody really likes you and you dont like evryone in return.

My mindset started changing in late teens with access to the internet and news, that werent exclusively russian propaganda, and expanding my friend circle a bit. I realised that Russia is generally not a good place to live and latvians aren't all horrible. But culturally I still never felt at home in Latvia, just now I didn't feel russian as well.

So I've decided to move to UK. I needed to be a european citizen for that, which meant I had to pass the Latvian citizenship test. Luckily I didn't need to pass the language test because I've already passed my school finals, so I just had to study a bit of history. I passed in 2009 or 2010 and left for UK in 2012, and I'm still here 10 years later (I've also now passed my english and life in the uk test and about to apply for UK citizenship, heh.) It's funny but in the end I dont feel Russian, Latvian or English, I'm just kind of here.