Okay, it’s getting out of hand now. Whenever I leave our apartment building and run into this one babushka, she instantly insists that I put a shapka on Gretchen’s head and zip up both girls’ jackets. It’s like, she sees me coming and goes into grandma-mode and must remedy my maternal instincts, otherwise the girls will, no doubt, get sick. At first this was endearing. Now it’s just annoying because it happens even on days that are like 60 degrees, and when I don’t do what she says, she walks away mumbling something under her breath. I smile and nod and say, “da, ya znayou,” and continue on my way.
So, what have we been up to? Well, we’re not in Germany any more. You gathered that from my last post. My runs are not quite as surreal these days, but I finally found a good route that takes me by a beautiful orthodox church each morning and I could always brave the “60 Years of Victory Bridge” that crosses the Irtysh if I’m bundled enough.
David has been busy already. He spends his days in the archives, library or at the university. He’s in Moscow now for a few days hanging with embassy diplomats and feeling out the archives for what he needs. He’s lucky and I’m jealous because he gets to stay in a nice hotel and have filet mignon without us. Yevgeny, David’s Russian counterpart here in Omsk, recently took us all on a historical tour of the city ending with a lovely embankment walk along the river Om.
The girls and I have been exploring the city as much as we can. Last week we went to a wonderful Russian puppet show which was somehow about road signs and how to be cautious when you see one…I think. Hazel has started going to Russian school twice a week for 3 hours. She’s busy learning Russian and is using it at home already. Between that and our home school lessons, we’re busy. And Greta is just happy following Hazel around. Her heart breaks when she can’t go to school too. But she may start in a toddler group soon and then I’ll have some free time to visit some museums on my own.
I’m finally at the point in my language learning where I don’t have to look at the cash register when the cashier rattles off the total for my groceries. Instead of bearing her fiery glare while I sheepishly look at the machine to read the digits, I can now pull my rubles out almost as fast as the next Russian mom. And I'm buying veggies and fruits like a mad veggie fruit woman out here because this stuff is so good. I think I'll do a separate post just on Russian foods. Surprise! It is worth writing home about.
You’d never guess this, but when you live in Russia, and the cold weather arrives, you better plan on getting out your shorts and tank tops and opening the windows in your flat. Whether you want it or not, apartments are heated by hot water beginning on a set date in the fall and then stopping in the spring. The cold weather has been trickling in and just last week our heat was turned on, and now we’re sweltering… again.
We were invited to spend an evening speaking to a group of Russians in an English club that meets at the Pushkin library where Dave has been working. Various questions were asked about life in the USA: How does health care work? How do we shop? What don't we like about Russia? Everyone was waiting with baited breath for our answers. Very few people have actually heard English spoken in person out here and so, when they hear it, they tend to perk up. In St. Petersburg we felt more like outcasts. In Omsk, we feel like English speaking celebs. It got hairy when someone asked a very philosophical, "so what is truth and do you think there is truth even when you are told one thing and then told the opposite thereafter..." She was, of course, referring to her Soviet experience. I let Dave answer that one.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Russian Life
When I take the girls out to play, I can’t help but notice Russian life bustling all around me: An old babushka carries her groceries home every day. She walks on filthy streets for blocks on end, cold or warm weather, to buy them and then lugs them all the way home herself in the plastic bags she has brought from home. Some days she gets up early and rides a bus way out of town to her dacha and brings back what she can carry and then sits on an upside-down crate in front of a cell phone store and sells a few sprigs of parsley and a couple of cucumbers that day. Dave and I like buying berries this way. We’ve tried getting into wild mushrooms, but we simply don’t know how to fix them, so we refrain from buying those.
A mother in stiletto shoes carries her baby blocks upon blocks on these same filthy streets in order to get on a fumy bus and ride 45 minutes across town and then walks a few more dusty blocks to drop him off at grandma’s house. She then gets back on a bus, this time standing-room only, and goes to her job which pays her very little. Another mom and her teenage daughter carry home a bag of vegetables, each of them holding one handle of the bag, and then, to balance the weight, they each hold a bucket full of tomatoes with their outside hands. They stop just outside our apartment building to rest their buckets on the ground and then start up again.
At the playground, a mother holds her child’s hand as she scours the ground because it is covered with millions of shards of glass. You can’t just search out a better playground - every playground is like this. This is life in Russia.
Most children in Russia are raised by grandparents because both parents have to work to make ends meet. As a result, kids are disconnected from a home life and left to fend for themselves. The population in Russia is diminishing because people continue to choose not to have children, or to have just one child, because it’s simply too hard to live here with more (low birth rate is a problem Putin addressed a few years ago by giving people a substantial monetary incentive if they have a baby, which, by the way, has helped for the most part.) Everything is shoddy, muddy, gloomy, and bureaucratically depressing. Of the few Russians I’ve met so far, most of them have out-and-out stated that their life is difficult, that Russia is like a prison, or that they don’t like their city and dream of living elsewhere. And then… Hazel comes up to me and says:
Some days Hazel and Gretchen and I get up and walk out to our bus stop. It’s not too far for us luckily. We ride the number 109 down to Universam grocery store a few blocks away and get out, cross the street and then wait for the Mega bus to arrive and sweep us off to Ikea for free. This bus has very comfortable seats. When we get to Ikea, which is part of a larger shopping complex akin to a western style mall complete with indoor playground and coffee shops, we sit down and just breathe. This place is clean, light, and airy. You can let your guard down and just relax, have a cup of coffee, or even read. It’s a nice break.
A mother in stiletto shoes carries her baby blocks upon blocks on these same filthy streets in order to get on a fumy bus and ride 45 minutes across town and then walks a few more dusty blocks to drop him off at grandma’s house. She then gets back on a bus, this time standing-room only, and goes to her job which pays her very little. Another mom and her teenage daughter carry home a bag of vegetables, each of them holding one handle of the bag, and then, to balance the weight, they each hold a bucket full of tomatoes with their outside hands. They stop just outside our apartment building to rest their buckets on the ground and then start up again.
At the playground, a mother holds her child’s hand as she scours the ground because it is covered with millions of shards of glass. You can’t just search out a better playground - every playground is like this. This is life in Russia.
Most children in Russia are raised by grandparents because both parents have to work to make ends meet. As a result, kids are disconnected from a home life and left to fend for themselves. The population in Russia is diminishing because people continue to choose not to have children, or to have just one child, because it’s simply too hard to live here with more (low birth rate is a problem Putin addressed a few years ago by giving people a substantial monetary incentive if they have a baby, which, by the way, has helped for the most part.) Everything is shoddy, muddy, gloomy, and bureaucratically depressing. Of the few Russians I’ve met so far, most of them have out-and-out stated that their life is difficult, that Russia is like a prison, or that they don’t like their city and dream of living elsewhere. And then… Hazel comes up to me and says:
“Mom, aren’t we so blessed to have a home and food and all these Russian playgrounds around us?” And I look at her and almost cry because I know she's right. I’ve got to remember her words.
Some days Hazel and Gretchen and I get up and walk out to our bus stop. It’s not too far for us luckily. We ride the number 109 down to Universam grocery store a few blocks away and get out, cross the street and then wait for the Mega bus to arrive and sweep us off to Ikea for free. This bus has very comfortable seats. When we get to Ikea, which is part of a larger shopping complex akin to a western style mall complete with indoor playground and coffee shops, we sit down and just breathe. This place is clean, light, and airy. You can let your guard down and just relax, have a cup of coffee, or even read. It’s a nice break.
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