Katerina Wasiljewa

When I first arrived in Tyumen, Russia, it felt like stepping into a world made of concrete and noise. The horizon was blurred by buildings and roads, and the wide rivers and lakes I knew back home felt distant, tucked away at the city’s edges. Back home, 500 kilometers north, we were used to space—miles of nothing but pines, water, and earth as solid as the people who lived on it. We didn’t have much, but we knew how to live with what we had. My husband hunted, I managed the home, and the children each had a part in keeping things going. We were as self-sufficient as the landscape demanded, each season shaping how we lived.

It was a long journey from that life to this one, with a hospital close by and a grocery store where vegetables don't need growing. Sometimes, I still find myself turning to remind my husband to bring in the firewood or checking if the children have returned from the river. But I know they're not there. The boys have lives of their own, good jobs in the oil and gas industry. They visit often, and I’m grateful to be so near them. At 78, I’ve come to accept this strange city life, finding comfort in its conveniences, even if the wildness of home feels like another world.

Recently, though, Tyumen has begun to feel a bit too much like that unpredictable wildness. A house just down the street caved in, swallowing parts of the earth itself. People were injured; some were trapped. My sons came rushing to make sure I was safe, alarmed at the sight of the fractured ground.

I’ve learned since then that the soils here, frozen for thousands of years, are thawing. The ground is changing beneath us, melting like snow under spring’s first light. It’s too warm; everything feels unsettled, even in my own bed at night. I never thought the earth here would become like that at home—full of shifts and dangers that no one can control. It’s a reminder that, even in a city, nature always finds a way to remind us of its power.