“Where are you really from?” is a microaggression that has harassed people of color for decades. For Veronika Petrova, it’s the question that made her go viral.
The answer is simply “Russia.” And where her parents are from? Also, Russia, and so has the answer been for countless generations. Yet, due to her Asian features, it’s something that Americans just can’t seem to process since she first visited the United States.
Petrova is Russian but ethnically Asian. Her family is Yakut, one of the many different Turkic Groups from across Asia and the Middle East that Russia colonized. As she frankly explains in her viral video, “If you understand your geography, you would understand that half of Russia, the biggest country in the world, is in Asia.”
With such a diverse and expansive collection of cultures, Russians are still seen as a monolith, and many of us in the Western world cannot grasp the idea of people from Russia being Asian. So where does this disconnect come from?
Petrova believes it largely stems from our TV screens and the media’s narrative. “Hollywood has a very specific archetype of who a Russian person is. A Russian person is always evil — a bad guy with a crazy accent who is White with blonde hair and blue eyes,” she tells me. That’s why people cannot comprehend the fact that a Russian can also be Asian, she adds.
This lack of nuance led to Petrova being subjected to endless questioning of where she’s from and why she’s Asian. Petrova says that almost every person she first meets in America asks these questions, but she has noticed some change during the past few years thanks to social media.
It’s clear Petrova was very intentional in her content. Following TikTok’s formula at the height of the pandemic, Petrova got to the point in every post and found a way to bridge education with humor. “When the [viral] video was made, I got a lot of love. The video was funny, and people liked my personality because I was explaining the history, but in a joking way. I find humor unites all people. You make something funny. They agree with you, whatever it is.”
Six million views later, Petrova’s informative, saucy rant was a hit. Suddenly, she validated millions of people’s experiences around the world and intrigued those who had never experienced someone like her. She’d put a taboo desire — trying to detect someone’s ethnic identity to understand more about their experience — out there in a way that felt accessible and human. Petrova didn’t take her sudden fame for granted; she began expanding her content to explain Russian colonization, her Yakut culture and to air out her funny and insightful opinions on American culture.
Much like our struggle to grasp the concept of being Russian and Asian, Americans appear equally confused about the cultural differences between East and Central Asians. “The way people in the West perceive the term ‘Asian’ is also very problematic and very narrow-minded,” Petrova explains. China, Korea and Japan have become staples in Western pop culture, but by only viewing Asians through a lens that’s comfortable and marketable to Americans, Asian cultures outside of that limited view are erased.
In another one of Petrova’s viral videos, she answers this erasure directly, “I’m not fried rice, sushi, ramen type of Asian. I’m horse meat kabob type of Asian,” humorously rejecting the rigid archetype pop culture puts on Asians. Her sound also went viral across Central Asia, prompting users to create their own version and affirm themselves. Asiansofrussia, its_trashling and tatar.prince all use their platform to speak on Central Asian identity, the impacts of imperialism and advocating for equality.
Not only do these videos educate, but they inspire people all over the world to advocate for a more nuanced understanding of Asian identity. “A lot of Central Asians reach out to me all the time saying, ‘Thank you’ or ‘You inspired me to write my paper in university about Central Asians or Russian imperialism.’ I think [her first viral video] really had influence on the world.”
The Western world’s lack of understanding of Russia’s diversity can have some pretty ugly blowback. Take, for instance, Russian K-Pop star Lana, when she debuted, was the subject of vitriol and hate, despite being both ethnically Asian and Russian. Lana was even accused of getting plastic surgery despite naturally having Asian features.
Marsel Rafail-ulı Ganeyev, a doctoral candidate and content creator, initially joined social media for queer activism as an openly gay person in Kazakhstan but also experienced ignorance related to his ethnicity and race. He was born in Kazakhstan, a country also colonized by Russia and formerly of the Soviet Union. He is half-Russian half-Tatar, another native ethnic group of Russia. Because he is ethnically Russian and white-passing, Europeans were confused about how he could be from an Asian country with his skin color and features.
“I was always fascinated by complex identities within Kazakhstan and studying them and reflecting on my own identity,” Ganeyev says. “I was trying to raise awareness about people speaking in Kazakh, but also using it in the queer context, speaking about queerness and LGBTQ rights.” In exploring his identity in Kazakhstan, Ganeyev wanted to learn more about his Tatar identity and the language.
Like the Yakuts, Tatars were forced to assimilate to Russian ideology through imperialism in the 16th century. According to Ganeyev, even in academic settings, Tatars must write in Russian when discussing their culture. This erasure of his culture and the homophobic Russian propaganda fueled Ganeyev’s social media content.
Ganeyev’s strategy for creating informative and accessible content aligns with Petrova’s. “I’m amazed by Veronika because she is bringing content in an understandable way. It’s not an academic article that you would read and try to understand all this history, but it’s just storytelling that is personally connected,” he says. “It helps a lot of people understand in general. Same for me, when I create content, write my posts, it’s just academic words being said very simply.”
Despite being an educator online, Petrova’s online persona is not central to her identity, nor does she see it as something that will last past her 20s. In addition to social media, Petrova is a college student, intern, podcaster and now runs her own clothing line. “I want to travel the whole world. I want to have talk to different people in different parts of the world,” she says of her future aspirations. “To me, a conversation is the meaning of life.”
The conversations Petrova has started online are not just empowering to those who feel unseen but also for people who thrive off of human connection on a deeper level. Hopefully, Hollywood will catch on. Acknowledging a more realistic spectrum of Asian identity ultimately combats Russian imperialism and helps communities worldwide embrace their most authentic selves.