Story highlights Silvia Marchetti: Anglo-American School of Moscow I attended is a landmark for expats

The school withstood the Cold War and should remain open, she writes

Silvia Marchetti is a Rome-based freelance reporter and writer. She covers finance, economics, travel and culture for a wide range of media including MNI News, TIME and The Guardian. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely hers.

(CNN) Before today, the last time I opened my 1991/1992 yearbook from the Anglo-American School of Moscow was 15 years ago when I changed houses. I searched for it again Friday morning under a stack of university stuff, after a frenetic 24 hours of activity between Russia and the West. Amid the flurry of activity -- President Barack Obama's announcement of sanctions and expelled diplomats, Trump's assertion that the US should "move on," and Putin's declaration that (despite the recommendation of his Foreign Minister) he will not retaliate in kind against US diplomats in Russia (yet) -- reports reached me in Rome that the Kremlin would allegedly take steps to shut down the school as retaliation against Obama's moves against Russia.

Silvia Marchetti

I was shocked, both by the sudden and dire turn of international events and by the material object before me. The yearbook was covered in layers of dust but it immediately flooded my mind with a wave of happy childhood memories from my time at the Anglo-American School of Moscow -- dubbed AAS by its students and faculty.

In 1991, when I attended, the political outlook was quite unstable. The USSR was nearing its dissolution. A strong wind of change was blowing in Moscow, triggered by Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika and glasnost, but risks and social tensions in the city were elevated. There were guards outside expats' compounds, including ours, and the school had tight security checks as well.

I was just an 11-year-old kid back then, one whose father had moved to Moscow to oversee the first joint Western-USSR filling stations in the country. My dad thought wise to enroll me at the only middle school he believed would give me a good international background and also allow me to pursue my English-language learning.

I was one of only three Italians attending the school. My two best friends -- Kim and Nicky -- were both American. The school gave me and all other international students a sense of belonging. Campus life was great. During break we would gulp down a snack and rush to our lockers to pull out our ice skates. The football field had been turned into a huge ice skating rink and so for 20 minutes, despite the biting cold, we were free to whirl around until the bell rang again. It was thanks to Kim, who taught me how to stand upright on the ice, that I didn't break my neck. And when I had the chance to spend the night at my American friends' houses, it was big time for me.

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