COMMENT: I recently travelled to Russia to meet my siblings. Though it was my first time in the country, it felt familiar to my experience of reconnecting to my taha Māori, to my marae.
Weeks before my journey, the thought of how people would think of my trip to Russia stirred tension in my puku. I had to balance the current invasion of Ukraine with the urgency of meeting my whānau.
On a minus-20-degree Moscow morning, I sat nervously in a hotel room with a double bed, a small TV, and a cabinet holding a kettle.
The internal heating was blasting. I cracked open a window with a broken latch, and it swung wide from the 23rd floor. Snow covered the city below, the air sharp and dry. Locals might call it bleak, but I saw a winter wonderland.
I am a wahine Māori standing on the whenua of my tūpuna, a place foreign yet familiar. Soon, I would meet my brother for the first time, and in a few days, my sister.
My worries were small but still significant: a thin wad of cash, New Zealand bank cards that wouldn’t work, the language barrier, and lastly, my sun-tanned skin. I wondered if I would face racism as I had in Aotearoa. What if they didn’t like me because I look different? I didn’t yet know this trip would actually heal a wound decades old.
Putting the pieces together
If my life were a story, it would start in Timaru. My Russian-Ukrainian father arrived on a fishing boat far from life in Nakhodka, planning only a short stay. Within five years, he settled in Dunedin with two children: Vladimir and me, Anastasia.
The dream didn’t last. My parents separated, and my father was deported. My brother and I were raised by our Māori grandparents. When he left, we didn’t know it would be the last time we would see him.
My name was shortened to Ana, easier, unintentionally sounding Māori. My full name was rarely pronounced correctly anyway. With black hair and tan skin, few questioned the other half of me.
Occasional late-night calls from Russia, and a family that told old stories of a good dad. When wi-fi bridged the distance, we finally reconnected.
Shock and joy came when I learned I had two younger siblings and that my father wanted to know us as much as we wanted to know him.
One year, it all changed in an instant. I began to feel a pull in my wairua to see him soon, which I knew wasn’t a normal feeling. I had no job after Covid and the world was experiencing a frightening pandemic with borders closing everywhere.
One night, a message came that gave sense to the feelings. My sister reached out to share devastating news: our father had died unexpectedly from heart failure.
It felt like hope was snuffed out, and I began to struggle to accept that I would never see him again, and there was nothing I could have done to have helped it.
Rūhia mana nui, Rūhia hara nui
Being here is not simple. I am a wahine Māori raised in Aotearoa, a country that supports Ukraine, imposes sanctions on Russia, and condemns the invasion. I know what Russia is accused of, I know the kōrero and fears about how dangerous the country could be, and yet, I am here.
There is tension in that. On one hand, many of my values come from te ao Māori, an understanding of colonisation and the fight for sovereignty. On the other hand, half of my whakapapa traces back to Russia, a man who was on a temporary work adventure to New Zealand, and to siblings who did not choose a career in geopolitics, including a brother who could be whisked away into war.
I worried about what people back home in Aotearoa might think and whether my visit would be condemned for giving into the Russian economy. Could my visit be seen as ignorance? Could my love for my whānau be misread as silence on Ukraine? But whakapapa is not politics.
Whiria te taura tangata
My phone buzzed.
“I’m in the lobby,” it read. I jolted.
I grabbed my things and headed downstairs. I thought to film for a second as friends had suggested. Heart racing, I instead put my phone in my pocket.
I turned the corner towards the reception and saw a 6ft 4 male waiting in full winter gear. I noticed his face instantly.
The moment is cemented in my memories. Seeing him stare at his phone, then up to look around, as if waiting to know my whereabouts. I called out to him and moved quickly, catching up to give him my warmest embrace. Luckily, I wasn’t outside where water freezes to ice, because I spent the rest of the day covered in tears.
Meeting my brother that morning, and later my sister, lifted a weight I had carried for years. The war raged elsewhere, headlines full of destruction and politics, yet here in this small hotel lobby, connection and whakapapa held more power and importance.
My journey reminded me that family and identity are not defined by governments, borders or conflict.
Oddly, it was my Māori roots that strengthened me. The importance of whakapapa, aroha and a sense of meaningful connection. The way our love surpasses blood quantities and the amounts by which you’re biologically related to another.
I came not as an observer of the state, but as a daughter, a sister, a granddaughter, and a friend.
Walking into the crisp Moscow air with my siblings beside me, I marvelled at all of the pieces that moved to create this moment. I realised for myself that there may never be a ‘right’ time to do anything.
None of this was right. Not the way our story came to be, or the circumstances in which it unfolded around, but for some reason, it was whole and perfect.
In a time of war, reconnecting with whānau was a silent act of resolve, my reclamation of what was lost.
