Watching and experiencing these professionals at work, I cannot help but think of embroidery – perhaps it comes from my pedantic upbringing at the Royal School of Needlework, where technical execution was of the utmost importance. In this context, this is probably as close as I'll get to dancing ballet or playing the violin. Both ballet and classical music, as well as embroidery, have strong traditions that make them elevated and perhaps even unattainable?

It's no secret that Soviet living and its visual aesthetics are close to my heart. I write, research, and interpret them in my work, so this museum visit was a small fulfillment for my soul.

It was a Sunday when we arrived at the museum and realized that we would have the entire museum to ourselves. The ticket itself was old-school, and to my pleasant surprise, the entrance fee for students was only 1.50 euros. What else can you get for euro fifty cents nowadays?

I was very excited to visit the pavilion and a neighbouring country's version of a mikrorayon, the concept in itself is very appealing and current. When we got there, my excitement was overflowing my capacity, my first sighting of visitors were two locals with 2 litres of beer in an according condition, which I gotta say, were really on brand.

My thoughts and feelings about London got changed after a conversation with an architect who lived in London too after studies. He said - London is a shitty place to live, but a good place to be at; that re-programmed my view on my time there. For me it was hard to accept how demanding that city is, at the same time generous and cruelly fast.

My first semester was kind of an introduction to Cultural Heritage studies from so many different aspects, which was very dense, so detrimental and heavily theoretical. I had moments where I genuinely could not understand why I am in the program because my fellow students are working in the museum and heritage field and I clearly am not, so I kept gaslighting myself that I am trying to pretend to be someone I am not as I am very dedicated to my creative practice in hand embroidery and they started to feel like two separate lives.