00:00If I'd been born in spring, no one would bet an eye at my name, Elvira.
00:05But in my hometown of Gorky, now Nizhny Novgorod, Elvira sounded as exotic as Marie Antoinette.
00:11Originally, my parents planned to name me Maria, but then my grandmother Diana intervied.
00:17She had already tried to name my cousin Elvira, but that plan fell through, and she wasn't about to give
00:24up her dream.
00:25Let me paint a picture of grandma Diana for you.
00:29She lived in Urimets, a sleepy little town where questions of social status and pedigree were a big deal.
00:37She was the deputy principal at the local school, which gave her near-absolute power over Lenin and Soviet streets.
00:45Everything in her life had to be top-notch, like a true aristocrat.
00:50Her blankets were feather-filled, her tea imported from Ceylon, and her soap for the bath strawberry-scented, unlike the
00:58plain old laundry soap everyone else used.
01:01Her greatest pride was that both of her sons were respectable men who neither drank or smoked.
01:08Of course, no one had the nerve to tell her that in his younger days, my dad smoked like a
01:14chimney.
01:14But there was one thing she couldn't achieve.
01:17Every true aristocrat in her eyes had to play the piano.
01:21She envied and admired the music teacher at her school who not only played, but had the perfect aristocratic name,
01:30Elvira.
01:31For grandma, Elvira became a symbol of everything elegant and desirable.
01:35When my mom got pregnant, grandma decided the baby, and it had to be a girl, right, would have everything
01:43done the right way.
01:45A fancy name, piano lessons, and enrollment in music school.
01:49My dad was sent to register my birth with strict instructions from my mom to name me Maria.
01:55But when he came back with my birth certificate, the name on it was Elvira.
02:02He told my mom there were already three Marius ahead of me at the registry office, and he thought our
02:08city needed a bit more variety.
02:11But I don't buy that story for a second.
02:13My dad just didn't dare cross grandma Diana, unlike his older brother, who lived far away in Ukraine.
02:20Hurricance, on the other hand, was just a four-hour bus ride from Gorky.
02:24If my dad defied her, grandma Diana could have shown up on his doorstep before dinner.
02:30And so, my fate was sealed.
02:33I was destined to grow up and dazzle the residents of Lenin and Soviet streets, with my name, my music,
02:40and all the aristocratic flair my grandmother dreamed of.
02:44Want to see how I lived up to grandma Diana's grand ambitions?
02:48Check out my upcoming historical novel, Russian Treasures.
02:51I pulled out all the stops to dazzle not just Uriens, but America too.
02:58The link to join my waiting list is in the description.
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