Speaking the same language

EWA ANDRZEJEWSKAEditor The mistakes of our youth - we all make them. I have to warn you, this is going to be nostalgic. I grew up in Poland during the communist era. In primary school it was obligatory to learn Russian. The language of our eastern neighbour was relatively easy to master, even though the motivation at the time was rather... different. Then came secondary school, and with it the fall of the Berlin wall and changes to the education system. Russian was replaced with - in my case - German, which I had to learn in secondary school. As a result my Russian has been completely forgotten as it has been a number of years since I attended primary school, and the disliked language of our western neighbour has since also been permanently driven from my memory. These days I would give a great deal to be able to speak both the languages of Goethe and of Pushkin and Akunin (my favourite author of detective stories, of Georgian origin). German - if only because the final "wall" came do