"It seems to me that the age-old superstition that wealth brings happiness seems to be disappearing." Well, that's what Leo Tolstoy once said, although he died seven years before the start of the Soviet Union. Nikita Miller is certain: if the guy had lived a little longer, he certainly wouldn't have said that.

When Nikita came to Germany from Ukraine with his parents at the age of five, he realized over the years: A person may be able to leave the Soviet Union, but the Soviet Union can never leave a person. No wonder that Nikita's grandfather still doesn't speak a word of German after years of rigorously copying the Duden dictionary.

The expectations of the West were great, the possibilities seemed endless. But Nikita Miller understood: Sitting between two cultures is terribly exhausting. The family tugs at one side, the new life at the other. So he has been busy tinkering in his thought laboratory, mixing things together here and there, taking something out of it and sprinkling a bit of glitter on top.

He has mixed the best of German and Soviet together and learned to love and appreciate both cultures with all their beauty and diversity, with all their quirks and inconveniences. Because we all have to admit to ourselves: The cultures are not that different. Pelmeni are just small dumplings.

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