Today is the day. Today is the day I'm leaving my home, and everything I've ever known to go to America, Pittsburgh to be exact. My name is Svetlana Vasilyevna Khitrova and I have lived my whole life in Russia but I can speak both English and French in addition to Russian. Ever since I was a little girl, my mama has groomed and trained me to be like her and her mama, a ballerina in the Bolshoi Ballet. You see there are two types of people in Russia, the person who scrapes on by to make a meager living and people who are rich and has more than enough money to spare. Luckily I was the latter but my ballet training was at a price, I was 16 turning 17 when I was accepted to the Bolshoi Ballet Academy, which is late for most girls in Russia, and it was then when I had to leave my first home of Magnitogorsk and I had to leave everything to follow not only my dreams but the dreams of my parents.
After two years I have risen through the ranks to become one of the prima ballerinas at the Academy but I chose to join the foreign exchange program to the Pittsburgh Ballet Company. Naturally I know you would wonder why Pittsburgh? Its cold except during the summer where it swelters, its snows and it has one of the highest poverty rates in America. I can give you one reason, Evgeni Vladimirovich Malkin. When I left Magnitogorsk I had to leave Evgeni, he was my first, my last and so far my only. When I went to the Academy, we wrote to each other near daily till he left for America to pursue his dream of becoming a professional hockey player. Every performance, every recital, every moment, even as I sit in first class, every fiber of my being belongs to him. Evgeni was my first everything, my first kiss, my first real friend, my first love. Now as I wait for this plane to take off and bring me closer to him I can only hope that he feels the same way.