My childhood smells like Grandma's pies. With cabbage, with potatoes, and sometimes with jam. I still remember that dough: soft, airy, slightly sweet. Grandma would get up at five in the morning to knead it before I woke up. And by breakfast, a mound of golden-brown pies would already be steaming on the table. No store-bought bread could compare to that taste.

We lived in a private house with a huge yard. In the summer, I'd spend the summer outside until dark. Riding my bike, climbing trees, hunting for treasure with the neighbors. And my mother never worried. She'd just shout from the window, "Dasha, dinner's in an hour!"—and I knew I had a whole hour for another adventure.

Now I look at my friends who take their children to clubs, activities, and tutors. Every minute has been planned since they were five. I used to think it was all right—development, competition, a successful future. But now I'm not so sure. Because my future is already set, and I've also managed to live my childhood. A real one.

I remember going fishing with my grandfather. He'd sit me down on a big rock, give me a fishing rod, and say, "Listen to the silence, Dasha. It teaches you, too." I didn't understand it then. Now I understand. Silence teaches you to be with yourself. To be calm. To not always run somewhere.

And I also remember how we'd listen to the old record player as a family. Records with songs that no one remembers now. And Dad twirled Mom around in a dance right there in the kitchen. They laughed, and I sat on the windowsill and thought: This is happiness. It's not in money. It's in this—in dancing in the kitchen and in the smell of baked pies.

I don't want to go back to childhood. I want to take the best from there and keep it in my life. The silence. The simplicity. And sometimes I bake pies. I'm not very good at it, to be honest. But I try.

Do you have a smell or taste from childhood that still warms you?

Daria