By Jeremiah McBurrows, Heritage High School, Frisco, Texas
Summer is a time when people play sports, go camping, swim or maybe just sleep. Kate Kitova, however, has a different hobby – one that sometimes even keeps her up all night. Kate plays Minecraft, a world-building game where she can carry out her wildest architectural fantasies.
One of Kate’s favorite aspects of Minecraft is the fact that she can create whatever she wants.
“I’m interested in…video games,” Kate said. “It’s one of my favorite games. I love building and creating something.”
The building appeal of Minecraft is what draws many gamers into loving this franchise. It allows the gamers to have full creative and artistic expression. Kate uses Minecraft to create a whole other world of her own.
“I build in 18th-century style or 19th-century style,” she said. “I want to improve my style in…Japanese styles or Egypt styles.”
Minecraft is fairly popular among young gamers. In fact, Kate herself was introduced to the game when she was a little kid.
“Maybe 9 years old? My brother gave me a CD disc…he showed me this game…I started to play more and understand more of this game,” Kate remembered.
Kate moved from Russia to the United States earlier this summer to study at Southwestern Oklahoma State University and often uses Minecraft to connect with her 16-year-old brother who is still in Russia. While playing Minecraft might remind her of him, the game also allows her to de-stress.
Kate said that she misses her brother, but Minecraft allows her to find a happy place, even thousands of miles from home.
Minecraft also takes Kate’s mind off missing her home. She has found similarities between her town of Taganrog and Oklahoma.
“Moscow and St. Petersburg are very famous cities… and they are colder than my home city,” Kate said. “Maybe some foreign people think all of Russia is cold…My city is similar to Oklahoma in weather.”
Whether it be predisposed notions from the Cold War or just that it’s a foreign country, Americans tend to have the assumption that Russia is not a “happy” or “joyous” country. Kate disagrees.
“Sometimes people think Russian is sad,” she said. “They do not smile…uh yes, but in small cities, we are more friendly and smiling than the big city. Like Moscow, because in Moscow sometimes people haven’t time to smile haha…because they have a lot of work and they can’t think and do…other things and help people…they have to do work.”
Whether it be rock climbing or playing Minecraft through the night, hobbies are all at their core the necessities in life people keep to sleep through the nightly peacefully in this crazy world.
