my homes
April 25
A flat house from the 1980s, in a small Czech town, was our first real home in the Czech Republic. A studio apartment with a small kitchen, where I had my own separate room, while my parents shared the living area with the kitchen. The kitchen already had its designated space. It was small, yes, but no longer just an improvised corner. We also had our own bathroom, toilet, and a balcony.
It was on the walls of this apartment that I first hung my canvases. I didn’t just have a shelf for clothes—I had an entire wardrobe. A whole room.
We didn’t really know our neighbors anymore, even though there were fewer of them than in Chișinău. Probably due to the language barrier, but also the lack of shared interests and the fact that we were in different stages of life. We only knew about each other through the shared responsibility of cleaning the stairwell.
Unlike the apartment block in Chișinău, where the staircase was separated from the flats by doors and a long hallway, here everything felt more open. The staircase ran alongside the windows; a long landing that led directly to the doors of each apartment. It was meant to encourage more connection. And yet, we barely saw one another.
Trimmed grass, a well-kept front garden, a maintained playground. A kind of small-town comfort that, in Moldova’s capital, would have required significant private effort—residents investing their own money and time to care for shared spaces. But here, everything was looked after by the local authorities, paid for from public funds and taxes.
A comfort that was quiet, moderate, calm. Safe. The kind that allowed people to live and shape their lives in their own way. Quietly. Separately. Perhaps even a little estranged.