It is 9 pm on Monday here in Saratov. It is hard to believe that it has only been
one week since we left on our adventure, because it feels we have had more
adventures than days in country. I think
Karen and I are just beginning to come to terms with where we are and what life
is going to be like for the next 6 months.
What we have and what we once had...
Moscow
While Moscow was essentially a brief stop for paperwork, it
turned out to be significant in our welcome to Russia experiences. The first reason is that Karen and I were
quickly convinced that we will not be doing a lot of driving here in
Russia. My first clue that we will not
drive was when, while walking, I came to an intersection in Moscow and
literally could not figure out how to cross the road; traffic signals are apparently optional here for
drivers and we will not be here long enough to really learn traffic customs. While not being able to cross a street was
pretty humorous in retrospect, our trip to the US Embassy was just short of
terrifying. Our driver missed his turn
off of a major thoroughfare, did not realize it for half a block and then
decided to not just drive around the block.
No, the driver decided the best thing to do in this situation was to put
the car in reverse and work his way back up a major thoroughfare in the tail
end of rush hour. This would have been
the most terrifying moment of the trip had I not experienced the takeoff of our
flight from Moscow to Saratov.
The takeoff of our flight from Moscow to Saratov left me
dreaming of a nice train ride. While the
plane was accelerating, the thing shuddered three times as it was gaining speed
and it was unnerving. Think somewhere
between a “hop, skip and a jump” and “up, up and away” and you will start to
get the feeling of what it was like to be on the plain. Once the thing actually got in the air, a
high pitched scream from the frame greeted us while we climbed to
altitude. Neither of these events seemed
to even catch the local’s attentions, so I figured we were pretty safe. And, well, we landed an hour later in
Saratov, still intact. Combine this
experience with Karen’s previous experience of passengers yelling at the pilot
and one quickly realizes it is not Delta out of JFK. Here’s hoping for nice train rides out of
here.
Saratov
Ah, glorious Saratov!
We made on Wednesday in the late evening and were greeted by a winter
wonderland. I know! I know! Winter in Russia, shocking! However, it has been a really long time since
I have seen winter like it is here. The
snow is like the snow in my hometown of Steamboat; it comes often, it comes in
large amounts and it is a light powder.
The result of this ever present snow is an area that is often quite
beautiful, but it also helps hide some of the mire that permeates the
city. It is unnerving to be looking at a
building from afar that appears interesting only to find it has been abandoned
and left to rot. Saratov is somewhere in
between gorgeous and a town down on its luck.
Since we have been here, we have had a couple of distinctly
Russian experiences. The first day we
were here, Karen’s local boss (American named Mark) to us to the equivalent of
Russia’s Wal-Mart. Having long heard about the privations of Russian life, I
was stunned to be in a store so full of everything a person could need. I was also shocked to find out a store of
this magnitude did not take credit cards.
While it seems like such a minor thing, Karen and I are learning to
leave the house with enough Rubles to get through the day. We have long opted not to carry a lot of cash
at home, but this is not even remotely possible in Russia. Karen and I had heard that Russia was a cash
society, but we had no inkling to the extent Russians deal in cash.
Many of the articles and blogs I read while getting ready to
come here mentioned both the kindness of Russians towards children and the
willingness Russians have in setting your kids strait when they are not toeing
the line. Just this afternoon, a Russian
grandmother would not let me or the boys go until the boys put their hats back
on while playing in the snow. Our boys
have been scolded by complete strangers (in Russian and in English) for being
out of line. While it is unnerving to be
so openly corrected by strangers, I think this is one of the coolest aspects of
Russian life I have seen so far. It is
almost as if the culture accepts a hard life, but works to help each other just
get through the daily grind of staying warm and keeping kids safe.
Sunday provided us our first opportunity to attend any type
of festival or cultural event. We went
to a pancake festival being held to say goodbye to winter and hello to spring;
the irony of the festival happening in driving snow was not lost by me. While the snow just came down on us, an
entire “ritual” was held that culminated in Winter (in the form of a scarecrow)
being burned in effigy. While we had no
idea what was going on, our guide for the day explained it and the local crowd
just loved the burning scarecrow.
The festival took place in Saratov’s Victory Park. This park has just about every Russian tank,
cannon or aircraft used since WWII and it will be cool to come back in the
spring to climb on them. The park is
also reputed to have a spectacular view of the city and Volga River, but the
view was obscured by the driving snow that joined us as we said goodbye to winter.
Karen started work today, we are interviewing the au pair
and school started for the boys today.
We will have more adventures as school, work and the au pair become
integrated into our Russian lives, but I think we took the full measure of our
first week.
Random Observation of the Week:
Even Russian jazz radio DJs try to sound cooler than you. In
the middle of our death defying trip to Embassy in Moscow, the radio is
basically background noise of no significance until the DJ comes on. As soon I heard the studied cool tones of the
DJ, I thought this has to be a jazz station. So I looked down at the radio and,
sure enough, it was a jazz station. I had a good chuckle over the studied
sounds of the jazz DJ permeated through a language that I do yet understand.
