fdsailor.blog-city.com — July 2004
Back from Russia - the main report..
Well, the last three weeks seem like a blur, and things have finally settled down a bit so perhaps I can write some about our trip to Russia. How does one write about a set of continuous experiences, where time seems not to stop, and where it seems that nothing short of fifty pages will do? In blog form with the time I have it simply can't be done. Had I had a laptop with me would not have mattered - it seemed that every minute was spent sleeping, eating, but especially talking with friends - a very rich feeling. But there has been not enough time for reflection - for me this happens on long walks where I can think about anything, past or future. So perhaps I will have more useful thoughts then.
We were in Russia for 17 days, and during that time we slept in 8 different beds - with Natasha in her apartment in St. Petersburg, in Borovichi with (a different Natasha) and her family, with Tanya and her family in Pestovo, with Natasha and her family in Novgorod, on the train to/from Moscow, and with Olga in Moscow. Finally we stayed 4 days in cabins at a camp in Valdei - lots of swimming and fishing.
It all really seems a blur, but at the same time seemed familiar. It has been four years since I was there last, and each place has its character. So let's talk places...
Novgorod continues to form the centerpiece for our trips to Russia, the same as it did four years ago. This place holds fond memories of friends, the first place we called home four years ago, and still true today. Not only is it Rochester's sister city, but a very old and beautiful city. It took us a week to get there once we arrived in Russia, but when we got to Novgorod, it felt in a way like we were arriving home - as soon as I got there I felt that I knew where I was. At the same time, it has changed considerably. It feels to us that in the four years of time it has progressed by 8 years. I can't quite say why - it is sort of scattered all about and through the fabric of the city. Yes, the buses and many of the public places are exactly the same, but the commercial sector is modernizing like mad. Many stores open 24 hours or at least from 8 until 11, new apartment buildings, and general signs of wealth. Supermarkets even I could figure out, and people on rollerblades. Both G and I noticed that the cars all seem much newer compared to 4 years ago - no longer the "how does this thing run", but now standard cars, although on the average older than in Europe. And smaller than in America (thank God - let's hope that "western" characteristic does not catch on).
And all this in the city of all the old churches and the Kremlin...
Pestovo also has gained a special place in my heart - being sort of half town, half city, this town wins an award for having the most character. The people seemed very real there - leading real lives, with practical, everyday concerns. And the ourskirts of the town were rather rural, which is my style. Indeed, by American standards, Pestovo felt most like one of our older city suburbs. Picket fences. From an American standpoint an interesting mix of country, village and "old America".
St. Petersburg seems to be a standard (larger) European city - not as quaint as, say, Paris, but recognizable. In the area near N's apartment, I went for a walk at 10 at night. There is a set of walking paths and a park nearby, and I really enjoyed what I saw: couples holding hands just walking, the rather common sight of pairs of women walking and chatting, each carrying their own beers, and groups sitting in the part around campfiles, drinking, talking, having fun and playing guitar. This is an experience you just can't have in the US - we don't as a rule spend time outdoors in the late evening unless we are "camping". In this way Russia seems to be a wonderful place to grow up and have friends. Basic stuff we tend to miss here.
Moscow is a large city. Quite modern (we visited a shopping mall that is cleaner and more modern than most in the States), good metro and public transportations, and lots of people. In the apartment area where O lived, we tried to estimate the people density - came out with perhaps 300K per square kilometer, perhaps? To large for me - I'll leave this to the New York city types.
Valdei (forgive me for the spelling) was where we stayed in cabins for several days. This is a beautiful area located between Novgorod and Pestovo - unlike Novgorod, here one finds gently rolling hills and multiple, small lakes. In the past (and probably currently) I understand this was/is a preferred place for dachas (the nice kind, not the kitchen gardens) of government officials. It is easy to understand. The campground was cool - it was rather "fishing" oriented (after all, N's dad, a fisherman, helped choose the location), but had local swimming. And (strange, but true) a table tennis pavilion - a standalone "tent" with walls, a door, and a table tennis table! Very cool. Natasha and I played there for several hours. She taught me the word "pochtE", i.e. "almost" - very useful in this game, at least at our playing level.
There are places and there are impressions. Here I can only give you a sample of the many:
- Puskin palaces (or something like that just south of St. Petersburg) - fields full of tall grass around a series of lakes. Here and there couples and families beat down the grass and sunbathe, etc. Islands of people in a sea of grass.
- A rail yard by N's apartment (one can hear this all night, trust me) - let's say you have a long train that you want to reassemble into a number of smaller trains so the individual cars get to their final destinations. You have a switchyard and some engines. What is the fastest way to do this? <Think for a while about this one>. OK, here is the solution they used, which just makes too much sense: have a single, long track climb up a short, perhaps 5 meter hill. On the other side of the hill, you have a series of switches that fans out into, say 12 tracks. Put an engine at the far end of the single long train, on the long track. Have it slowly push the entire train down the track such that the "end" of the train starts climbing up the small hill. As an individual car reaches the top and starts to go downhill again, cut it loose. As it rolls downhill on its own, throw the switches so that it coasts into (i.e. crashes into) the newly assembled "smaller" train. By this time the overall slower train has moved enough that the next car is ready for the same treatment. Cool solution - no switching of train engines, backing up, etc.
- St. Petersburg, 10 pm - couples and friend walking as though night was far away. It was - the sun will remain up for over an hour more. Time moves slowly in Russian summers. (We won't talk about the speed of time in the winters, however).
- Also late at night - an (older) boy, perhaps 16, trying to fly a kite. Unsuccessful due to lack of wind. But how many people have you seen flying kites at 11 pm?
- Older women seen in the woods in the morning with baskets, looking for berries and mushrooms. If you find a woods, if you wait long enough you will find a person doing just this (or so it seems).
- Pestovo - look up at the telephone poles, and see individual strands of telephone wire hanging in a bundle. I have read about this in my engineering career, but never actually seen it just like this. If there are 20 houses on a street, you will find 20 individual, thin, wires.
- Is there a standard on if the hot water tap goes on the left or the right? I think not - it seems random to me. You actually have to look - what a concept.
- Washing machines - now here you see lots of variability. You just have to experience it - I won't describe...
- And yes, motion sensing hand dryers are now a normal fixture in Russia, even in bathrooms where you buy your toilet paper from the old women in the front. Really, though, many of the bathrooms are pretty decent - a big change from 4 years ago.
- The "cheap" food store in Novgorod which seemed hidden in a set of warehouse buildings. At first I thought we were stopping for fertilizer, or perhaps to have a chain saw sharpened. Walk through a few doors, however, and what do you find? A grocery store!
- High speed internet, computers in most houses.
And one final note, and a wonderful beginning - we had the wonderful opportunity to meet our exchange student-to-be: Masha. I won't get into personal details, but this is going to be a lot of fun for all. If you are reading this Masha, Hi!
I could go on and on, but one has to stop somewhere, or I will miss writing about the now current events (a week has passed since our return to Russia). It was a good trip...
9:50 pm Warm and humid
TGIF-day (i.e. Thank God it's Friday) - in this case because, due to summer hours, I get Friday afternoons off (this priviledge is earned by working 9 hours for the rest of the week). I would like to say I did something really fun in my afternoon, but due to no wind and intermittent rain instead I came home, lay down to read for a bit, and woke up two hours later. I guess that if I need to go to work a half-hour earlier then I should probably go to bed a half-hour earlier also. Yeh, right!
The last two days have been hot (around 29) and humid - sort of the type of weather that inspires sleeping and generally being lazy. I took Anya for a walk earler just down the street and it felt like there was steam rising off of the street where it was still damp from an earlier rain. The buzzing of the cicadas completed the summer soundscape - everything seemed to be saying that the slow days of August will be here soon.
G and I went skating for the first time in several months - it was a good change (I actually needed to wear a fleece jacket), but it seems really odd to take OFF a jacket before going outdoors to the car. At first there were just 4 other figure skaters there, but at mid-session we were attacked by a dozen "tiny tot" hockey skaters (I think they are about 6 years owd) - after they started buzzing around like bumblebees it somewhat decreased the solitude, you could say...
Russia, 2004
To start things off, we have Natasha, in a rare moment of cooking dinner for us :-) . She is in her apartment in St. Petersburg. To the right is a view of one of the many "parks" outside her apartment. We would call them parks, although I think in this part of St. Petersburg this is how many of the streets are just done in this rather residental section. That's the good news. Just beyond the park are "the trains" - a switchyard that runs all day and (especially) all night long. With a loudspeaker to tell everyone what to do... Let's say it added "character" to the area.
This picture above is G and two Tanyas (lotsa Tanyas in Russia...). We also have a picture of G with Natasha's family in some "Puskin park" south of St. Petersburg (G - can you fill in the correct name?)
On the left is yet another place I liked in the Puskin park. The next several pictures are taken in Pestovo. There seem to be several heating options in Pestovo - wood, steam (city steam is available - during the winter you apparently can find the pipes underground where they melt the snow) and gas or electricity (not usually employed for heating). Wood is the norm, and lucky me, I was there for its delivery. Yes, this entire load of wood was placed in Tanya's back yard, where some combination of the family will evenually cut and split it for stove use.
Here is Tanya standing in front of her back yard. Most houses have one or two gardens for growing food (and some flowers). In Tanya's case there is the back yard garden and a share of her grandmother's "dacha" - we'll see one in a bit.
Tanya has a cute cat - she brought it home to her unsuspecting family several weeks before we arrived. Cute animals get pictures in my book, so I did the "cat + bag = amusement" thing...
Here we have a piece of a park in the central part of Pestovo. I like their parks - nothing formal about them, but great places to sit and read, talk with friends, etc.
The next picture is one of several I took from the "<insert name here>" annual festival. For a proper history of this festival, see the <<insert link>> page. But here are some of the things I remembered, as told by Tanya. During this particular day, swimming in the water is supposed to have some magical healing power for whatever ails you. In fact, it you walk too close to the water, there is a tradition that others may help this healing process along by pushing you in - after all, they are doing you a favor, right? But oh, the water is useful for other things also. Apparently if a girl goes swimming and a guy helps her out of the water they are destined (sometime in the future) to marry. I don't even want to know what happens to you if you swim many times and get a broad range of help, but I expect you will be very healthy and very busy. There is also something with a crown of flowers, but I forgot the details.
Well, this particular day it was lightly raining and cold, so not many people were taking advantage of this easy cure (or matchmaking service). Later Tanya and I decided to wade in up to our knees, so in we went. Tanya really wanted to swim, but with no towels decided no to do it afterall. I got cold first, so got out and put on my sandals. Tanya then started out herself. To save her from sandy shoe syndrome, I lined hers up on shore. She picked up her first shoe and I reached out to steady her. A horrified expression formed on her face and she screamed "DON"T TOUCH ME!!!!!". After some brief confusion I remembered what I had been told earlier - that would have been awkward, my being married and everything!
Here is a picture of Tanya's grandmother at her dacha - they share it and work on it together. Talking with Tanya I get the idea that her grandmother thinks she should quit all of her school and job so that she can work the garden all summer long. Lots of work.
The blue flowers I just liked - can't even remember where they were - probably alongside the road.
Here is an picture of boats along the river that wraps around Pestovo. Very pretty. And on the right is dinner! I have never seen such a sequence of such wonderfully prepared (and a bit too filling) dinners. It seems that as soon as breakfast was over lunch appeared - a short break then it was dinner time. But as I said earlier, this kept us from losing weight on our trip! This is classic Russian fare, although I am hoping it is not so carefully prepared on a day-to-day basis!
Fast forward a few days - after Pestovo we drove to Novgorod, met Natasha, and boarded the train to Moscow. This was an overnight train, and a rather hot one at that. We traveled in first class, where there were four beds to a compartment. Since there were three of us, we shared it with a fourth woman, who had a top berth. In the middle of then night there was a mighty "CLUNK" - it you can belive it, she had fallen off (they removed the safety bars). Luckily she was not hurt, but rather confused and disoriented for a while. But I digress. On the left is a shot of downtown Moscow - only one of a number of pictures I took, but representative. And on the right is Natasha and her sister Olga doing girl things. Maybe some day they will forgive me for publishing their pictures, but I think they're cute together.
Another day another city. We returned from Moscow to Novgorod again, via another overnight train, but without the leaping lady this time. I liked the juxtaposition of the volleyball game and the Kremlin walls. On the right I yet another in the "Natasha and Gwendolyn sitting on a bench" pictures - I have quite a collection over the years.
Another day, another bed to sleep in. The next several pictures were taken in Valdei - sort of a fishing resort with cabins. On the left is a picture of the "fish pond", which was stocked with fish (but you had to pay for what was caught). And yes, we did eat a lot of fish. On the right is Gulda, Natasha's dog, or rather her family's dog, since when she moved to St. Petersburg her Dad refused to let Gulda go.
OK, here's another picture of Gulda being cute.
On the right we introduce Masha, second from the left. Masha is going to be staying with us as an exchange student for the next year. Brave kid! No, really, we all expect we will all have a wonderful year together. One of the really cool features of our being in Russia is that we were able to meet her before she came over - and this was good, no only because we got to meet her family, but we also resolved some last minute airplane ticket issues. From left to right you have your's truly, Masha, G, Masha's dad, Alexi, an Rochester exchange student staying with Masha for a few weeks (getting confused yet?) and Masha's mom.
We will end with a cute picture taken in St. Petersburg of a merchant that really likes to sell watermelons. You've gotta love her shop!
