Between the Past and the Future
Author: Marina Kochetova
In life, we are pushed forward either by our desires or by our fears. We either move toward something or run away from something. For fears to take over, you don’t need to do anything at all—just live as it comes and wait for fate to find you, both in your career and in your personal life. But the hero of my story never waited for the weather to change; overcoming fears, he worked on his desires. What came of it is the sketch you are about to read. I have the honor of introducing: Yegor Yevsikov.
He was born into a family of researchers at the International Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, in the Moscow Region. His ancestors, despite their working-class and peasant roots, became scholars after graduating from elite universities. Dubna, where Yegor spent his childhood, was a privileged town whose ordinary Soviet schools were attended by students from the countries of the socialist bloc. Yegor grew up among interesting people and books. From childhood he loved reading and earned the nickname “bookworm.” He read the entire adventure library and became interested in the history of the Middle Ages—knights, musketeers… Besides reading, he loved hiking: first fishing trips with his father, later canoe trips with friends. In summer he often stayed with his grandparents in the Urals, in the town of Ozyorsk, Chelyabinsk Region.
Yegor’s father, Igor Ivanovich, a graduate of the prestigious Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT), Faculty of Molecular Chemical Physics, quickly retrained in the early 1990s as a programmer and achieved notable success. A long-term assignment to Canada led the family to decide to move there, which they did in 1997. Yegor was sixteen at the time. He entered Grade 11 in Waterloo. In Russia he would have had only one more year until graduation, but here he had to spend three: to enter a university humanities program he needed to score 75% in English. To reach that goal, Yegor had to take English three times. He always followed desires rather than fears. His desire to connect his life with history, geography, politics, and international relations began gradually forming from about age twelve. When people don’t just dream in their thoughts but purposefully pursue their dream, taking the right steps, the dream eventually becomes reality. That is exactly what happened in Yegor’s life. After finishing school he became a student at Wilfrid Laurier University. As a student, he decided to join the army. (The Canadian army is very different from the Russian one.) He decided—and he did it.
With a Bachelor of Arts in Social Science (history and political science), he went to serve in the infantry, which also meant participating in numerous military exercises. These instilled in Yegor strict discipline, teamwork skills, and sharpened his sense of responsibility… He had to dig trenches and use weapons as well.
A few years later, Yegor entered a master’s program in a military specialty—the only program of its kind in Canada—at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario. He moved from Waterloo to Ottawa, closer to Kingston, combining studies with work for the Canadian army, fully aware that the bridge between the past and the future is the present—and he lived in the present. Fulfilling a long-held dream, he also took an additional course at Carleton University in Ottawa (Russian and European Studies). In 2009 he received a master’s degree (MA in War Studies). In 2011–2012 he worked as an analyst in Naples, Italy, and after returning he taught in Kingston, Ontario, at a military intelligence school.
In 2017 he decided to leave the army to devote more time to his family and to try himself in a civilian profession. And once again, he decided—and he did it, because desire outweighed fear! This time Yegor successfully entered law school (University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law). It was a conscious choice: the humanities not only develop analytical skills, but for the most determined they open many new doors. After three years of legal studies came a ten-month placement at a law firm, followed by the licensing exam, which is very difficult to pass. Yegor managed that as well. As a result, the qualified specialist obtained a position at one of Ottawa’s law firms, where he works to this day—drawing parallels between the past and the future not only for himself and his loved ones, but also for clients, helping them live with dignity in the present.
In addition to his main work, he teaches chess lessons at a Russian Saturday school, enjoying well-deserved respect from the teaching staff and students. He still loves to travel. Yet his main lifelong passion remains history—his interest in it has not faded over the years. Moreover, Yegor is the author of several articles in English published in Canadian popular-science magazines. He is currently working on an article about the history of Quebec in the first half of the nineteenth century. But Yegor dreams of writing and publishing a book as well! He doesn’t merely dream—he is collecting materials, in other words, taking concrete steps to make his next dream come true. And I am absolutely certain that in the foreseeable future a book authored by Yegor Yevsikov will not only appear, but will also find its readers. And I wish everyone to follow Yegor’s example and not give up on their dream, because heartfelt desires (not fleeting whims) are part of one’s karma.
An essay from the author’s collection Flowers by the Roadside.