On the day my country died, Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s famous ballet Swan Lake was front and center on TV. I was fifteen, and like all other students, I was off on a summer break from school, so I was free to do just about anything that day.

I woke up after 9 AM, and my parents were speaking in hushed tones about something I could not quite grasp. Of course, they always whispered if there was a sleeping family member in the apartment. Since my younger brother was still asleep when I got up, the quiet voices of my parents did not alarm me at first.

But when my brother got up and we tried to turn on the TV, our parents told us not to bother. Our Rassvet television received exactly two channels, and both showed the ballet Swan Lake.