When I was in sixth grade we had to choose a biography from our library to do a book report on one of our heroes, but because I was wicked underground none of my heroes had biographies available in our middle school library so I got frustrated and just pulled a book at random and got this guy.
I don’t remember a single thing that was actually in the book, just that Leonid Brezhnev was officially my hero in sixth grade.
edit: I thought his first name was Lenoid for well over two decades until checking just now because apparently I was terrible at reading back then.
second edit: I never really took time to think about what a middle-school teacher would think about a kid that says their hero is Leonid Brezhnev.
third edit: called him Lenoid again in the second edit
In many ways I’ve led a very privileged life because I read this part and at first didn’t at all get why he would say it, just couldn’t figure it out for a minute. It seems like horrific trauma to process for everyone close but especially for him, so my instinct is to think about how hard it must be to manage that - especially given that part of the trauma is being ignored by authorities in spite of speaking loudly.