ROOTS – this is about who you are. It’s your family and your history, your victories and your pain. These roots go so deep that necessarily intercross with the roots of others – other people, other nations, other countries.

RECONCILIATION – this is about how to deal with your pain and learn to live in peace, firstly with yourself and after that – with your neighbors.

I became part of the Roots in 2012 as a participant of a ProFest “It`s my story” in Karabakh. Since then, there was a row of Roots events in different places on Earth but the questions that had occurred then are only growing in number and still stay unanswered.

Here are some of them:

How do my friends from Armenia, Karabakh, Georgia, Ukraine manage to be so open-minded and positive despite all the challenges they have been facing?

What happens to people after three-four days of conversations, joint meals, walks, songs and games so that they get changed forever?

Why is our knowledge of our own history so limited and narrow-focused and what can we do about it?

In which way should we bring up our children so that they know what war, genocide, deportation is and never allow it happen again?

This is only a small part of my long list of questions. And I feel privileged to be able to raise them in the safest environment possible.

I attach a photo from my family archive as a small part of my personal history and my personal roots. These are my great grandparents with my granny’s elder sister, the picture is taken almost 100 years ago, in 1920.

Tina Larionova, Moscow, Russia