Returning to Moscow

Photo: Historical Museum at Red Square in Moscow

I’m trying to prepare myself mentally for returning to the U.S. I’m likely to feel over- whelmed with everything that’s piled up waiting for my return. I may feel grumpy that I can’t find brusnika, which translates to red whortleberries. I won’t be able to sleep at night, and I’ll sleep during the day. In other words, I’ll have the usual assorted symptoms of dealing with jet lag for perhaps a week.

On the way back I will, however, have a full fun-filled day in Moscow with my friend Ludmila. Most of the time when she sees me coming and going, I'm not at my best. It's amazing that we have a friendship that survives that.

Of course I am looking forward to getting back. And after the fog has cleared from my brain, I’ll have a final posting of thoughts about Russia.

Cure for Jet Lag? 2005

Once again I'm writing about jet lag -- twice today. This first posting is about jet lag going west to east, from U.S. to Russia. The last posting is anticipating the trouble going east to west. Have I found "The Cure for Jet Lag?" On July 5, 2005 I thought perhaps I had.


I have, I think, found the cure for jet lag. It has three elements: travel first class, stay in a five-star hotel, and take 6 mg. Melatonin. On this trip I took the Melatonin, and approximated the other elements. My Frequent Flyer ticket on Delta was for Business Elite class, and for the first four days in Moscow I received loving pampering from Ludmila Rodina.

It was fortunate that Delta's in-flight entertainment was a collection of lousy movies. After a pleasant but not spectacular meal featuring shrimp and pasta, I went to sleep in the wonderfully comfortable, fully reclining chaise seat. Shortly after being awakened for an approximation of Eggs Benedict, we were on the ground, and Slava was there to meet me.

Ludmila welcomed us into her busy household. While we were there she had an Italian client and four young men from Japan. Ludmila's ex-husband Rem had been persuaded to take a vacation trip to his homeland of Armenia, but that still left Ludmila short one bedroom. She gave her room to Slava and me, and she slept on the living room couch.

I can't tell you what happened each day before 2:00 pm or so. I did show up for breakfast but regularly "took a little nap" after that. Slava had appointments and meetings to attend. 'Mila and I did some errands in the afternoon, and one evening we went to a concert of early English music at the Anglican Church.

Ludmila told me that she has attended the Anglican Church from time to time, mostly for concerts, I think. She likes the priest there very much, she told me. He's very friendly (and he also happens to be British). 'Mila reported that she told him, "Although I'm a Christian, I really like your church." She, of course, meant to say that she's Orthodox, but here Christian is taken to mean Orthodox Christian. Catholics are simply Catholic. Protestants are largely thought of as belonging to sects like Hari Krishnas. Ludmila thinks it's okay for a Russian to go to an Anglican Church -- that there's one God, but many ways to worship Him. By the way, this particular Anglican Church has a few small icons scattered around, providing a familiar element to Russian worshippers.

Ludmila fed us with lavish spreads and the finest of foods. There were several kinds of caviar, a selection of expensive imported cheeses, the great Russian delicacy of sturgeon, fresh vegetables from her garden, home-made raspberry preserves, and much, much more. She loves to cook, mostly Russian style, but she brings in ingredients from the Caucuses and her knowledge of French cooking.

One night we took 'Mila out to a restaurant of her choosing. It was in an old mansion, and there was a harpist who entertained while we were eating. The food and the service were superb, and we all left happy.

On our last full day we went out to her dacha. It takes 1- 2 hours to get there by electric train, combined with a metro connection in the city, and walking from the train station to her place. 'Mila's son has hired a gardener from Ukraine for the season ($300 for three months of work). 'Mila has about an acre of land, part of it wooded, part of it in lawn, and the rest in flower gardens, vegetable gardens, and berry bushes and fruit trees.

This early in the season not a lot of the produce was ready for picking, but for our lunch we selected some crispy cucumbers and peppers, delicate lettuce, ripe tomatoes, fresh herbs, and lots of berries. We ate black currents directly off the bushes, and picked tiny wild strawberries. The big surprise for me was the larger cultivated strawberries, very few of which had turned even a pale pink. No matter. The white berries were the most delicious strawberries I've ever tasted, bursting with flavor and aroma. For our main course we had what Russians call "Bush legs," that is, chicken quarters imported from the United States. It was during the presidency of Bush 41 that chicken began to be imported from the U.S., chicken that is much meatier and still cheaper, I think, than Russian chicken.

The flight from Moscow to Ekaterinburg was uneventful, and Slava went in to work rather late this morning. He had food shopping to do, and he wanted to prepare "oo-kha" for dinner tonight. Ookha is a fish soup. He wants to eat mostly Russian style while we're here. Although I know many Russian recipes, I'm happy to let him take over the kitchen whenever he'd like.

Last Day in E-burg

Photo: Promenade down the center of Lenina Prospect in Ekaterinburg, a pleasant walk 5.5 km long


I forgot to put the roses in the bathtub last night. In Russia I’ve learned that long-stemmed roses really benefit from being laid out in a tub of cool water overnight. You can have freshened roses on your breakfast table if you let them rest overnight when you do.

The roses I have now were a gift from a young man who was grateful for something I brought for him from the U.S. I had also exchanged small gifts with my friends, after dealing with the difficulty of finding things in the U.S. made in the U.S.

The dinner party Friday night could be termed a success. The ratatouille was well received; the carrot curls were eaten only by the women. The golybsti and fish pie that I half-expected never got made, but the French-boned roast chicken turned out well, and there was plenty of food.

Tomorrow I leave for Moscow, and on Tuesday for the U.S. One of the tasks I had set for myself in Ekaterinburg has been only partially accomplished, and that is going through old files and weeding them out. It’s easy to get bogged down reading things that once seemed important, and now at least bring back memories.

I came across a resume for Roman Chigerev, which I helped him write. Roman was my translator at the Urals Center for Cultural Initiatives. My task at UCCI was to train trainers on fundraising and marketing principles for cultural organizations. The expectation was that cultural organizations in Russia would find their state funding dwindling, and they would have a need to be self-supporting. I found out that the cultural organizations feared that if they started such innovations as differential pricing for tickets, setting up subscription series, and organizing patrons, their state funding would diminish accordingly, and they’d be left with no extra money after a lot of effort.

The Philharmonia went ahead with these innovations, and I will attribute much of their current robust status to a U.S. AID program that was separate from what I did. U.S. AID had a cultural exchange program that brought the chief administrator of the Philharmonia to the U.S. to meet colleagues in several cities. He came back inspired. Today the music center offers a variety of programs, from symphonies to jazz to the ethereal choral music of the Orthodox Church, which is what we went to hear last Monday. Performances are regularly sold out.

In contrast, the Musical Comedy Theater where I saw “Die Fledermaus” this week shows signs of the old regime. The facility has been lavishly renovated with money beyond what $10 tickets could buy, and I think that the sparse audience agreed with me that casting the 19th century Viennese libretto in 21st century Russia didn’t work very well, although the large cast had excellent singers. But if the Musical Comedy Theater pleases just one person (the city cultural officer) then they are assured of funding.

As I worked through Roman Chigerev to convey basic principles of marketing for non-profit organizations, Roman realized that I was talking about basic principles of marketing – period.
When I left UCCI, he started marketing himself as a business consultant. He was smart and he had truly learned a lot, plus he had initiative. As his list of clients grew, he understood the value of sharing “best practices,” and with recommendations from satisfied clients he has developed a consulting business from one side of Russia to the other.

Another piece of paper I came across was a letter of recommendation I had written for Olga Sidorenko, one of my students at Urals State Technical University. Here’s a paragraph from that letter:

“One class assignment was to pick three business opportunities, describe them briefly, and then a few weeks later choose one for a thorough analysis. There were many students who did a fine job, but Olga’s work was unusual in one important way: all three of her ideas were entrepreneurial and quite feasible as business start-ups, even in the current difficult economic situation. I made a strong recommendation that she choose a particular one for her class project. She chose a different one because it fit a burning interest of hers. She has ideas of how to meet pent-up demand for stylish home decorating in a low-cost manner. The result of her class project is that she has plans for something that may become a family business.”

Two pieces of paper, and a flood of memories…There are many Romans and Olgas in Russia, and I wish them all well.

Zemlenika Diet - 2005

"The Zemlenika Diet" was written on July 16, 2005. Once again, I write about food.


I'm trying the Russian "zemlenika diet." For two weeks you're supposed to eat nothing but zemlenika berries -- but you can eat as many as you want. Zemlenika translates as "earth berry." They look like wild strawberries to me, however I'm assured that they are not. You can put 18 of them on a teaspoon -- I counted once.

Zemlenikas are not sold in stores. They're only available from little old ladies who sell them by the cupful on the street. It must be exhausting labor to find these wild berries, and carefully place them in a cup. If you stare at them hard, they begin to spoil right away.

The season for zemlenika is very short -- about two weeks actually. So you have to be ready for the zemlenika diet as soon as they appear.

Slava tried to sell me on his enthusiasm for the zemlenika diet, which guarantees good digestive health for a whole year. This guarantee comes by way of hearsay; I doubt that anyone actually knows anyone who actually went on the strict zemlenika diet. I found a practical problem in that we can't really get many zemlenikas at a time, and I didn't like the idea of going hungry for two weeks. Slava and I compromised. We eat a bowl of zemlenikas twice a day, once before breakfast, and once before bed. That way we're having zemlenikas on an empty stomach, which ought to do some good, don't you think?

Speaking of food, I had a small disaster in the kitchen today. It had been my intent to make "varennia," which is something like fruit preserves. There were quarts and quarts of black currents in the freezer that had come from our dacha. Slava doesn't like eating them plain, so I was making varennia.

Instead of granulated sugar, I decided to use up a small supply of confectioner's sugar that I had brought from the U.S. some time ago. Sugar is sugar, and I didn't anticipate having any problem. But when I added a cup of confectioner's sugar to the three cups of cooked currents, instantly I got a pound of purple cement. It turns out that the "confectioner's sugar" was actually cornstarch.

I told this tale of woe to my friend Irina. She recognized that cornstarch is a thickening agent much like the potato flour that Russians use as a thickening agent. Potato flour and berries and sugar and water make "kisel," a pudding-like dessert. So tomorrow I'm going to find out how much water a person has to add to re-liquify soupy cement. Then I'll find out if it passes the taste test with Slava. It probably won't seem quite like the Russian dessert to him. I found out long ago that in similar circumstances he assumes my culinary mistake is an unfamiliar American dish. One way or another, he's in for a surprise.

Parties, Parties

Photo: Modern version of a Russian icon by painter Andrei Yeletsky


These last days before my return to the U.S. are busy ones, so there’s less time for writing. One evening we went to the opening of a new art gallery, featuring paintings by Andrei Yeletsky, a friend of Slava’s. Last night we went to an unusual production of “Die Fledermaus,” sung in Russian and presented in modern dress. Instead of period costumes from the original setting of 1890’s men wore business suits, and two teens wore punk outfits. One character sang into a cell phone.

Friday and Saturday nights we’re hosting dinner parties. The first one will be with Dima and his family, including in-laws Alla and Alexander. The second one will be with Yuri and Tamara Izyumov, friends of ours. I learned from my mother that having parties back-to-back saves a measure of effort. In this case extra portions of the cold dishes I prepare for zakuski Friday night will be available for Saturday.

I’ll be curious to see how Russians react to the black bean and corn salad I’ll prepare with diced peppers. Beans aren’t commonly eaten here, and black beans are quite unusual, although I did find some. Ratatouille should be well received, because the ingredients are familiar. We’ll have salted cucumbers in sour cream with fresh dill, mixed mushrooms, Korean kimchee, a Russian version of cole slaw, sliced tomatoes and pepper rings. I plan to make carrot curls and crisp them in ice water. They’ll be another unusual feature of this zakuski table. Slava will choose some salted or smoked fish and get fresh bread.

At the moment I don’t know what will be the hot dish – and it’s only hours before the first party. Last weekend Alla had said that she’d bring a family favorite, golybtsi (stuffed cabbage). Yulia said that she’d bring a fish pie. But it is very, very unusual in Russia for guests to bring food, and Slava startled me just now by saying he wasn’t sure that they really are going to do so. As I followed the conversation last weekend I heard “We’ll bring…” “Oh, no, you don’t have to…” “Oh, yes, we want to…” I thought it ended that they were indeed going to bring food. But if not, then the French-boned chicken I was going to prepare for Saturday night will be plopped on the table Friday.

Dessert on Friday will simply be vanilla ice cream, served with Massandra dessert wine for the adults. The kids will get some freeze-dried ice cream I brought from the U.S. On Saturday dessert will also be simple, a store-bought torte. There’s no social requirement for a hostess to knock herself out on dessert.

Before the guests come I hope to connect with family in the U.S. by Skype service on Internet. We have pre-arranged for calls 7:30 – 8:30 am EST, which is 5:30 – 6:30 pm here. It is amazing to think of videocalls being free and easy. The wide world is shrinking!

Embarrassment - 1999

Photo: Cathedral of the Imperial Martyrs, built recently on the site where Czar Nicholas II and his family were murdered.


Two posts today deal with the social scene. This first one is "Embarrass- ment," written on October 22, 1999.


I've done something embarrassing, and I've done it twice. It's something I doubt that you've ever done -- have you ever left a person's home, mistakenly wearing somebody else's shoes?

The first time I did this was at a party several years ago. Russian guests always remove their shoes in the front hallway, then wear slippers provided by the hostess, or something they bring themselves. Well, when leaving this particular party, I picked up a pair of high heeled boots that looked like mine, but as I later found out, belonged to a Japanese woman. It seems that she was a small woman with big feet, and I didn't notice any difference in size between her boots and mine.

Yesterday I was visiting my friend Galina. And again it's the season for boots (Indian summer is over, and we've had our first snowfall). I clumped home in Galina's boots, again not noticing that I was wearing boots that belong to a petite person who apparently has big feet.

Even when you're wearing proper boots, walking around is hazardous at this time of year. The first snowfall has turned to slush, and at night the slush turns to ice. This coating makes Commie-constructed sidewalks downright dangerous. The sidewalks here are uneven ribbons of asphalt with poor drainage, so there are often puddles or bits of ice. Conditions improve when winter frost sets in, usually by early November, and dry snow accumulates until spring. Packed layers of snow make a smoother surface than the bare sidewalk.

I have one or two weeks before the refrigerator where I'm storing vegetables turns into a freezer. The storage place is our balcony, where I have no control of the temperature. I've given priority attention to the carrots, because I'm more fond of them than I am of beets and cabbage and potatoes. The carrots need a good hosing, but since that's not possible, I put small quantities in a pail of water and attack them with a scrub brush. After peeling, most of them get shredded and then are cooked or frozen. Shredded carrot bits will be added in varying quantities to many things.

Let me share with you one of my favorite ways of using up carrots. It's a side dish we call "carrot marmalade" because it's a somewhat sweet, especially if you have good carrots.

Carrot Marmalade
1 onion, diced
cooking oil
2 - 3 carrots, shredded
1 tomato, diced

Saute the onion and then shredded carrots until cooked, then add the diced tomato and heat gently. If made in large batches it can be refrigerated and then served hot or cold. It's easy to make, and it's pretty on a plate.

Knotty Problems

Photo: The czarist-era mansion that is now the headquarters of the presidentially appointed governor


Look down a single street and you can see signs of three different eras in Russia – the czarist era before the 1905 revolution, the Communist period to 1991, and the modern era. There are brightly stuccoed buildings next to faded Krushchev-era housing, and passers-by talking on cell phones. It is complicated to try to take it all in.

The Russian economy is said to be growing at a healthy rate near 7 percent, and I can see signs of it all around Ekaterinburg. Construction cranes arch across the skyline. There are some clusters of high rise buildings growing in the city center, and here and there are what Russians call “point buildings” or “candles” sticking up above neighborhoods of five-story buildings. One of these “candles” is being built near us, and construction is going on 24 hours a day, six days a week. I assume that they’re trying to get the outside work done before winter sets in. Neighbors don’t seem to have any say about the klieg lights and banging noises that definitely disturb sleep.

I know that a one-bedroom flat in a new building was recently sold for the ruble equivalent of $500,000. Larger flats go for multi-millions. Real estate is regarded as a good investment for those that have the money. Ah, but how many have that kind of money?

You see old people on the street who look like they’re living in Soviet times, only perhaps not as well as they did then. A typical pension of 3,000 rubles a month is equivalent to $120. The average salary of a working person is about 12,500 rubles, or $500. Monthly utility bills and the charge for maintenance on state housing take a chunk of money, and the service is terrible – in many cases, it’s worse than nothing.

A friend had a water leak in her flat while she was away on vacation. The downstairs neighbor called a city plumber, who did nothing more than turn off the water for the whole building. When an upstairs neighbor complained, the city sent someone to turn the water back on without bothering to isolate the problem. The continuing leak ruined the downstairs flat, and now that neighbor is suing my friend. They both know that poor maintenance of the very old plumbing by city services caused the original problem, but neither expects the city to pay for the damages – or replace worn-out valves and rusty pipes.

Bad maintenance is an irritating fact of life for the multitude in state-owned buildings. In many areas it hasn’t improved or gotten worse since Soviet times. What is changing quite noticeably is food prices. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union Russia has struggled with inflation, and the goal this year is to keep it below 8 percent. Already it’s above that. In Russia 40 percent of the consumer price index is for food – in the U.S. food accounts for only 15 percent of the CPI.

Food prices shot up in September, worrying both average Russians and politicians. There is not a single cause, but there is one definite effect – many ordinary things become luxuries to pensioners. I’ve been told that cheese, as well as most meat, costs too much now for pensioners to buy very often.

And what about medical care? Russia has a mixed system today. There is socialized medicine that is theoretically free, however anyone with money finds it useful to spend it when necessary on doctors and drugs. Doctors are so severely underpaid that many students are now entering medical school just to get free education, and more than half look for jobs in business rather than medicine after graduation. Good medical care is therefore thinly available across this vast country. What happens to a person in a remote village when they get sick, I asked a friend. “They die,” she said. She cynically half-believes that the government wants these people to die off so that they will no longer be a burden on the state.

Russia is the only developed country in the world that has experienced a decline in life span in the last 40 years, while death rates in certain working age groups have doubled. The greatest cause of death is heart disease and the second greatest is alcohol poisoning from illegal spirits. These two causes of death affect men in particular. Cancer can affect anyone, and is in third place as a cause of death. With a five-year survival rate of only 43 percent for all forms, it is so feared that patients might not be told what is wrong with them.

Even supposedly healthy people may have unusual problems. I know of a young mother of twins who breast-fed her babies. The drain on the calcium in her body caused her teeth to loosen, and they all fell out. Another mother breast-feeding her baby is losing her hair. The doctor tells her she’ll be all right when she weans the baby.

Housing…food…health care… These are the biggies in a person’s budget. I could comment on transportation, clothing, and entertainment, but I’ll end with just one more item: personal income tax. A few years ago it was noted that rich people were using various schemes to avoid paying taxes. It was decided that it would be a good idea to tax everyone the same. No longer would the rich pay European level taxes. With a rate lowered to 13 percent, they would feel shamed not to pay.

The Moscow Times reported recently that the Znamenka advertising agency was asked to make an ad, displayed in 2005 and 2006, that showed a new metro station paid for with taxpayers' money. The caption read: "Thanks to all those who paid taxes. To all those who didn't, please do so." The Times quoted the president of Znamenka, Alexander Moshayev explaining, “We want people to understand that taxes are paid and collected not to make officials rich. We're saying, 'If you haven't paid, please do so, because others have and you should feel a little ashamed.’" I hope the rich do feel a sense of shame. They don’t have much to fear from law enforcement.

The most remarkable part of the flat tax scheme is that the tax on the poorest people was raised from 12 percent to 13 to meet the goal of everyone paying the same. I don’t recall that there wasn’t much opposition to this proposal. The political parties that are called “opposition parties” like to be known as pro-Kremlin. They are opposition only insofar as they’re not the favored party, and they seem to hope that if they curry favor, one of them might become powerful later. Real opposition is quashed because the greatest fear is of instability.

To unravel any one of Russia’s problems leads to a knot somewhere else.

Near the Arctic Circle - 1999

In just two posts today I'm going to try to convey something of the range of life experiences in Russia. There's more to Russia than the city of Moscow, which is the place from which we get the most news. This first post is "Life Near the Arctic Circle," written on July 28, 1999.


Just in case you ever find yourself near the Arctic Circle in summer, I have some advice: don't stay in a room on the west side of a hotel.

Slava and I went to Arkhangelsk in June, about the time of the summer solstice. He had a conference to attend; I had curiosity about life near the Arctic Circle. The longest day of the year, I thought, would be a cause for celebration there -- but it wasn't. Really, it is kind of maddening never to have it dark when you're trying to sleep. Our hotel room had thin panels of cloth hanging on either side of the window, rather than draperies, and at midnight the sun blazed into our room. At 2:00 am it was still light enough to read by.

Our trip to Arkhangelsk started with the alarm set for 4:30 am so that we could leave by 5:10 for the airport, and catch a plane that left at 6:45. (When the alarm went off at 4:30 I noticed that the sun was already up, so it didn't seem quite so early as it was.) We flew on Aeroflot and had for breakfast what many Russians eat in the morning: leftovers. Of course, I can't say for certain that Aeroflot was actually feeding us leftovers, but it seemed like that to me. Although Russians do have some favorite breakfast foods, they're just as likely to have something left over from supper. Like what we had -- coleslaw and cold cuts. With that we had our choice of red or white wine. Slava and I had juice.

When we had a change of planes in Moscow, Slava dangerously thought like an American. I remembered to think as a Russian. Slava assumed that since we had a connecting flight, Aeroflot would transfer our luggage for us. Wrong. By the way, we arrived in Moscow at 7:00 am, just about the same time as our departure from Ekaterinburg. We had flown for two hours and had two hours of time zone change. The flight to Arkhangelsk was another 1 1/2 hours, in a northeast direction.

We arrived in Arkhangelsk by mid morning local time, and went directly to the hotel where reservations had been made for us. While we were checking in I made a mental note not to have any fried food in the restaurant -- the smell of stale grease permeated the whole first floor. As we got into the elevator to go up to our room, I observed that it would hold no more than two people and one big suitcase. Our two little bags barely made it with us.

Our room was clean and fairly nicely decorated, but the plumbing had the mark of Soviet craftsmanship. Although the hot water faucet is usually put on the right in Russia, that's not always the case. The hot water faucet was on the right at the sink, and on the left at the shower. The toilet ran continuously, but not with an irritating drip -- it sounded more like a roaring waterfall. Water usage isn't metered here, so there's no particular incentive to spend money for repairs. As a client I didn't feel that I had the right to complain, for our bed and breakfast was costing us only $4.50 per person, per night.

In the afternoon Slava went to the conference being sponsored by the Russian Academy of Sciences. The theme of the conference was geodynamics // geo-ecology. Slava's work with geopositioning systems and map-making is rather tangentially related to the theme of the conference, and the institutes represented there couldn't afford his map-making. Frankly speaking, Slava was more interested in the site of the conference than in its theme. You see, near Arkhangelsk is a fabled place called the Museum of Wooden Architecture. It has over a hundred log structures made over several centuries. There was, of course, a field trip to this location, and we took lots of pictures.

Near our hotel, in the middle of the city, is the most unusual wooden structure of all. A New Russian ambitiously planned to build the world's tallest wooden building, and to get into the Guiness Book of Records. He did. His creation is ten stories high, and it hulks over the one-story houses in its neighborhood. Each story has its own style, making it look like it was designed by a committee of architects who didn't talk to each other. Bay windows and overhangs stick out at various angles, and from a sturdy base, the structure gradually narrows into a tower. It is still unfinished, and it may remain that way. The New Russian who commissioned it happens to be sitting in jail for doing several of the things that "New Russians" do to make money.

The conference group also had a steamboat ride one afternoon, stopping for a picnic lunch. The Russian requirement for soup every day was well satisfied by kettles of sturgeon cooked in broth over an open fire.

Arkhangelsk is an interesting place to visit, but you definitely wouldn't want to live there. In the winter it can go below -50 degrees Centigrade. The local people are grimly aware that if the city doesn't get enough fuel in the fall, when winter comes they could literally freeze in the dark.

Ah, but it's summer now. There's plenty of sunshine and flowers...

Tea for Three

Photo: table set for tea at Irina’s

Galina and Irina and I have gotten together for tea three times, once at each house. Having tea is not the same as having coffee, apart from the obvious difference of what you drink. Having tea requires food. In Russia you can serve almost anything with tea except soup – if you serve soup, you’re having “dinner.” Dinner comes in the middle of the day. You can have “tea” in the morning, afternoon, or evening.

I started this recent round of teas in rather typical Russian fashion. Fruit is a good thing, a touch of luxury in any season but summer. It can be whole fruit in a decorative bowl, homemade vareniye, which is something like a jam, or sliced fruit. I served sliced rounds of orange layered with rounds of kiwi.

Candies are nice to have on the table, fine chocolate or anything pretty. Mine were fairly ordinary hard candies, things we had around. No special points for me on that.

There should be some homemade dish, a pastry or cake or something. You might serve a store-bought item to your family, but if you’ve invited people to be your guests, you should make them feel special. Well, here I fell down. I don’t have any cookbooks here, and I wasn’t up to the challenge of Russian baking, which is done without baking powder. So I fixed cinnamon toast. My guests looked at it politely. I don’t think it’s common in Russia. Fortunately the tea was in the end successful, but only because Galina had brought me a homemade apple cake.

A week later we gathered for tea at Irina’s, and her table is the one pictured here. Irina collects blue porcelain, and she sets a very pretty table. I very much liked her apple cake, and I’m going to give the recipe here, as best I understand it. When the three of us get together, the conversation alternates erratically between English and Russian. When it’s in the second mode, I don’t always catch the details.

Irina’s Apple Cake

4 eggs, beaten until light
200 ml sugar
200 ml flour
½ kilo apples (about 1 lb)

Butter a cake pan and dust with fine bread crumbs. Mix eggs, sugar and flour into a soft dough and spread in the pan. Top with peeled, sliced apples which have been dipped in flour. Sprinkle with cinnamon if desired. Bake in a very, very slow oven for about an hour. The dough will rise above the apples. After that happens, you can turn up the heat if you wish.

Although Russians normally bake with baking soda or yeast, this cake uses only the leavening power of eggs. It’s remarkably light and tender. I’m looking forward to trying it at home, and will amend the recipe for the American kitchen.

Today Galina had us over for tea. She served cherry vareniye and a Russian style cheesecake. It was our farewell get-together since I’m leaving this Sunday. But Galina and Irina have both been to the United States, and I’m expecting to see them there some time in the future. I wonder what they would think if in the U.S. I would just serve them coffee?

Intimidating Vegetables - 2000

The end of summer brings bounty from the "kitchen garden" at the dacha. The experiences reported here were repeated in one form or another every year. This report on "Intimidating Vegetables" is from August 8, 2000


My current concerns are very elemental. Normally I look at vegetables as lumpy things that just lie there. They don't seem intimidating. But en masse I've found they can be threatening.

Last week I had buckets and buckets of cucumbers and tomatoes and squash sitting on the kitchen floor, making it difficult for me to get from refrigerator to sink, from stove to table. In the refrigerator were bags of black currents, patiently waiting to be turned into jam. All this produce had come from our dacha, where we had been the previous weekend with Slava's sister and her husband.

The weekend had gone well. Olga and Eduard had never been to our dacha before, and they enjoyed its bucolic setting. The main street of our village, which is unpaved, has more traffic from cows than from cars. Many of the villagers, it seems, keep a cow. And in the morning the cows amble past our house in sociable two's and three's, on their way to the lake where they get a drink, and where later in the day we go for a swim.

Alla and Alexander, who are the in-laws of Slava's son Dima, are the chief gardeners at our dacha. They prepared the garden this spring and put plants in the huge greenhouse that Alexander built for us all last fall. The greenhouse is divided into two parts, one housing tomatoes and the other cucumbers. To give you an idea of its size, there are 75 huge tomato plants. I think that Alla is raising them for market, because the size of the crop will be intimidating. Fortunately not very many tomatoes were ripe last weekend, so I only got a few buckets full of tomatoes.

We picked the cucumbers that were ready for harvest. I didn't worry too much about having only a couple of weeks to eat them before our departure, because I expected to share the bounty equally with Olga, Alla, and Yulia. Well, Olga took her portion, but Alla and Yulia insisted that the rest of this week's pickings be mine for making pickles. Uh, thanks.

I almost enjoyed picking the black currents. Interfering with my pleasure was an irritating insect Slava called "sleppen," and with his amazing English vocabulary, he translated it correctly as "gadfly." Oh. I had never known what a real gadfly was, only knew it in the metaphoric sense as applied to an annoying person. The one that buzzed around me had a vicious bite that drew blood, and then it kept trying to return to the scene of the crime to lap up the blood. A gadfly is something much worse than a mere annoyance!

We picked some fresh leaf lettuce for a salad, harvesting some green onions and garlic and parsley at the same time. We got a few carrots and baby beets, knowing however that they wouldn't be nearly as sweet as they would be when harvested in the fall after the first frost.

Our squash looks like zucchini on steroids. I picked a half dozen, each of which is a meal for six. Previous experience has taught me that these large squash keep fairly well for months if kept cool.

Because Slava's sister is a good cook, I planned our weekend menu with care. I had a few things that Olga hadn't seen before, such as fried green tomatoes and roasted garlic, but in general we had Russian style meals such as pirogi meat pastries, much-appreciated beef tongue, and kvass soup. Kvass is a Russian non-alcoholic beverage made from fermented black bread. It's a summer drink, and it's also used as a base for a cold soup with chopped cucumbers, green onions, and boiled eggs. Only I didn't know that there are *two* kinds of kvass -- one sweet and carbonated, and the other tart and plain. So my kvass soup was sort of like Coca-Cola soup with vegetables. In other words, disgusting!

On our return to Ekaterinburg I wanted to be sure to get recipes right for canning and preserving all our produce, so I checked with my friend Galina. Russian women generally follow traditional practices passed down from mother to daughter, and cookbooks aren't all that important to them, but Galina got out her cookbook for me. She has just one, which I think she got when she was first married nearly forty years ago. The book was written to contain all the knowledge that a housewife needed to know -- it has a section on cooking, one one sewing, and one on raising children. We looked up the official Soviet instructions how to make pickles.

The cucumbers in the kitchen were particularly intimitating to me. Fresh from the garden they're wonderfully crisp, and unlike the waxed products in American supermarkets. But give them a few days and they go very very limp. I had to make a peck of pickles before my cucumbers went bad.

My first task was to get some canning lids, dried bay leaf, and fresh dill (I did have garlic, but I had forgotten to pick fresh dill at the dacha) . Fresh dill isn't available in any grocery store, but there are babushkas on the streets selling their own products, and I got some dill fairly easily. Normally bay leaf is a staple in the grocery stores, but the current demand for it has outstripped supply, and I had to go to four stores before I found it. The same with canning lids, which took trips to several stores. And with all ingredients on hand, I started making pickles.

If you don't mind, I'll keep secret the Soviet recipe for pickles. I will reveal, however, that I used a French recipe for bar-le-duc jam to preserve the black currents. The tomatoes went into Bulgarian lecho.

All is now calm in the kitchen. I'm no longer being intimidated by vegetables.

My Daewoo - 2005

The posts today are all girltalk. Guys, you can learn a little about what it's like to be a housewife, at least in Russia. This first posting is from July 12, 2005 and is about a traumatic experience I had with my Korean washing machine, "My Daewoo."


Let me begin by saying that it was not the machine's fault. As I tell my story, see if you can tell where I went wrong. At one point it will become obvious.

In Ekaterinburg we have what Russians call a three-room flat. We have a living room, a nicely renovated kitchen, and two bedrooms. During the five years I've been away, this has been Slava's bachelor quarters on his lengthy business trips. He spends most of his time at the office, coming to the flat for a quick meal and sleep. Housework has not been high on his list of things to do.

From time to time Slava has hired someone to come in and clean. In preparation for my arrival, he had Nina Vasilovna from his office scour the place from top to bottom. Nina Vasilovna even brought her own houseplants to friendly up the place.

I will interrupt my story with a slight digression into an explanation of Russian names. The formal way of addressing someone is by their first name and patronymic -- in this case, "Nina, daughter of Vasil." It would be presumptuous of me to call her in an intimate way by her first name only. I don't know her last name, and that doesn't happen to be important in this case. To address her properly I have to call her Nina Vasilovna. Slava, by the way, is known to most people here as Sviatoslav Anatolyevich, "Sviatoslav, son of Anatoly."

Well, Nina Vasilovna did a nice job with the windows and the floors and such, but there were some things I knew that she hadn't done. When I used the vacuum cleaner, for instance, it had an asthmatic wheeze. The dust bag had been emptied, so the suction problem was elsewhere. The air filter protecting the motor was totally clogged. I removed it, washed it, and then it was fine.

Slava had lived lightly in the kitchen, and had probably not touched much in the way of supplies. I threw out five-year-old spices and boxed goods way beyond their expiration date. There were suspect cans, as well. And the freezer contained some interesting remains. After five years freezer burn turns frozen spinach into a product like spongy algae.

Some things looked okay. I have done nutritional experiments with dry goods like pasta and dried beans. That is, I've cooked them up for supper, with no resulting tummy troubles.

I moved on to do some washing of clothes, and looked suspiciously at the bathroom floor mat. Slava had washed his own clothes, so Nina Vasilovna hadn't had to use the washing machine. I asked Slava when was the last time that the floor mat had been washed, and he answered vaguely. So the mat went into my Daewoo along with some towels and a sweatshirt of Slava's.

The Daewoo washing machine has a character all its own. It gives me an extensive list of choices for each cycle. For instance, if I want hypothetically to throw one of Slava's business suits in, I can choose "suit." Another choice is "green." Since I've lost the instruction book, I can only assume that it is an energy conservation choice; still, I hesitate to choose that for white sheets…

The Daewoo has a cycle called "night." Maybe it spins real, real quietly then -- I don't know; I've never tried that one. The cycle that I use most is called "fuzzy." It amuses me to do so, because I don't think the Korean manufacturer understood the usual meaning of this word in English. When I trust my clothes to the fuzzy cycle, what I am doing is engaging the sequence that uses "fuzzy logic," adapting to the load that I put in. I think it chooses the water level based on the weight of the load. And as it turns out, I have a philosophical difference with my machine. After it has chosen a very conservative amount of water, I always over-ride to select the next notch higher.

Well, the Daewoo had my towels and the bath mat and Slava's sweatshirt. They sloshed around together for a while, then went into spin. Trouble happened.

The bath mat is more than five years old. Ten, maybe. And the rubber backing disintegrated all at once into thousands of little rubber balls. The resulting mess clogged the drainpipe of my Daewoo.

The obvious first task was to bail out the machine. When it was empty I tried to figure out how to take it apart to clean it. I decided instead on a homeopathic remedy -- a little bit of what ailed it -- that is, more water. The results were encouraging. It belched up lots of little rubber balls, and I bailed them out with the water. I repeated this step so many times that my Daewoo finally used its fuzzy logic to figure out that it might as well give me all it had.

My Daewoo is now working perfectly fine. I shook the towels to remove the little rubber balls that clung to them. I did the best I could with Slava's sweatshirt. He may, however, find a few little rubber balls as a reminder of this time nestled in the fleece fabric when he puts the sweatshirt on next winter.

Sofia and Friends

Photo: Four-year-old Sofia

Sofia and I are pals. Sofia is Slava’s granddaughter, and he is “diye-da” to her. I’m “Shirwee.” Sofia and I get down on the floor together to play with dolls, or better yet, with the plastic cash register. Shopping is my specialty in the Russian language. I can play either the customer or the cashier. I can add numbers better than Sofia, and I also know how to make change with rubles and kopeks. In other spheres my vocabulary severely limits me. I’m not sure, but Sofia might think I talk like a three-year-old, definitely not like someone her superior.

Sofia’s older brother Nikita is 15. He’s 6’1” and may still be growing. Nikita is close to the age when he will need to make some serious decisions about his life. College entrance is at 17, and a specialized program of study starts right away. Changing majors is not common in Russia. Nikita is a fair student but not an enthusiastic one. He is simply trying to preserve his options as long as he can.

I’ve had short visits with friends from times past. They all say, “Shirley, you haven’t changed,” and I say the same about them. It’s easy to pick up where we left off, which was two years ago, on my last trip to Russia. But of course, our lives have changed.

When my friend Irina was a teenager, she decided to become a physicist in part because movies conveyed the impression that “physicists have more fun.” Soviet propaganda was definitely more successful than American propaganda in convincing young people to become scientists during the era of the Space Race. Irina thought that it would be glamorous and exciting to be a physicist. Although the glamour and excitement didn’t quite materialize, Irina found that she liked the work of an experimental physicist in the Metals Institute. With her facility with foreign languages (German and English) she got opportunities to travel when the Iron Curtain fell.

Irina has an entrepreneurial streak, and she started a business during Perestroika of importing medical equipment from Germany. The business was successful for a time, allowing her to buy some rental property real estate. She’s back in her lab at the Metals Institute, but the Academy of Sciences doesn’t have much money for equipment in her area. So once again she’s made a switch. She went back to school to earn a doctorate in a new field, one that’s only about ten years old here – ecology. And now she’s teaching classes in water resources at the College of Mining. She tells me that although most of the students in the college are male, in ecology the students are mostly female. She’s quite sure, however, that the few male students are the ones who will become bosses after they graduate. Irina is a proto-feminist. Although she’s something of a free thinker, she’s firmly convinced that feminism is a bad thing. No respectable woman in Russia, at least outside Moscow, would be known by that name.

Another of my friends, Galina, also had a career as an experimental physicist. Galina retired about ten years ago, at the age women are eligible for retirement, which is 55. Her monthly pension is about 3,000 rubles or $600, which is not enough to live on. She’s lucky to have two sons who are well off, one in New York, and one here in Ekaterinburg. Galina has prepared a cultural program for my last week here. Tomorrow we’re going to some art galleries, and the next evening to a production of “Die Fledermaus.” I don’t know if it will be in German or in Russian. Frankly, I don’t care. I’ll just swing to Johann Strauss.

Russian Thanksgiving - 1999

Photo: An Orthodox chapel in downtown Ekaterinburg, pictured in early autumn, before the first snowfall


Today there will be three posts, all on the theme of celebrations. This one is "A Russian Thanksgiving," written on November 28, 1999

On Thanksgiving we were invited to a party at the American consulate, and in the morning I decided to perk up my hair with a hot oil treatment. While thoroughly saturating my hair with oil, I dreamed that the lingering effects of a bad perm would be made less noticeable. After a suitable period of time for the oil to do its best, I prepared to rinse it off. Problem: When I turned the shower on, I found out that we had no cold water.

In Russia there are separate water lines that supply residential buildings with hot and cold water. Sometimes one line or the other is out of service for a few hours or a few days, and you make lifestyle adjustments. For instance, when there's no cold water, you can draw a tub of steaming water and wait for it to be cool enough for a bath. That's what I did on Thanksgiving. And the glunk of oil I had put in my hair spread in the bath water to coat my skin. Huge amounts of soap and shampoo finally got me clean, and a quick hot rinse got rid of the soap and shampoo.

My contribution to the Thanksgiving dinner was to be a pumpkin pie. As I started on it I received a telephone call. Would I mind moving up my first class in the afternoon? We had just had a schedule change (for some reason that has never been adequately explained to me, there's always a new academic schedule half-way through the semester). Instead of teaching at 2:15, the department head wanted me to come in to have the noon "pair" (two 45-minute classes). Well, okay. I could come home after that, put the pie in the oven for an hour, and get back to the university in time for my 4:00 pair of classes.

Tempus fugit, and I didn't have an hour to cook the pie. The microwave came in handy as a way to give the pumpkin filling a head start on heating. When it went into the oven, it got a chance to cook very quickly before I took it into the below-freezing temperature outside, on my way back to the university.

After class I carried the pie and my school papers over to Slava's office, and we set off for the consulate. Slava's driver was sick, so we hailed a "taxi," that is, the second car that passed us on a busy corner. For the equivalent of fifty cents, we got a ride downtown.

Slava estimated the crowd at the consulate to be about 120 people, almost all of them very young. Before dinner they were sipping 7-up and Fanta. There were some harder drinks such as Coca-Cola, which for religious reasons most wouldn't drink. The Mormon missionaries wouldn't touch anything with caffeine, but I heard another missionary wistfully yearn for a cup of coffee.

There were three large tables laden with food, more than even the young Mormon guys could eat. The fare included all the traditional items, with a few Russian specialties such as salmon pirogie and jam torte. The consulate general had had turkeys shipped from Moscow, since there are none to be had in this town. The consulate staff had chipped in to host the party themselves because such frivolities are not chargeable to the office expense budget.

On Saturday we had a second Thanksgiving, this one for Dima, Yulia, her parents, and little Nikita. As usual for a Russian Thanksgiving, I cooked two chickens. A savory bread stuffing seems very strange to Russians, and so I accommodate local tastes by making a very light stuffing with lots of apples and raisins. Also to accommodate local tastes, we started out with caviar canapes.

Thanksgiving may be observed in different ways in different places, but no matter where or how, it's always a wonderful holiday.

Self-Reliance - 1998

Photo: Quilt made by a friend from silk remnants of dresses that had belonged to her mother.


The topic for today is people, their likes and dislikes, their hopes and dreams. The first posting is entitled "Self Reliance in Russia," and it was written on November 23, 1998.


Self reliance is an American virtue and a Russian necessity. The Russian economy has shattered into dysfunctional pieces that don't fit together, and government officials don't seem to know what to do

In the city of Yekaterinburg there are 1.5 million people, and 1.5 million stories of coping in times of trouble. Mikhail Chukhaev, in his mid 40's, has just seen his savings wiped out -- for the second time in his life. His reaction is, "It's like I'm young again." When pressed to explain he says. "I started with nothing, except confidence in myself. And that's what I have now. I'll have to work hard, but I can do that."

Chukhaev doesn't expect to get much, if anything, from his bank account that has been frozen since August, but Elena Strekotina hasn't given up hope for hers. Banks seem free to decide about honoring withdrawal requests under certain conditions. Strekotina has filed a petition explaining that she'll be married soon. Her fiance has just finished medical school and has no money. His mother, who's also a surgeon, hasn't been paid since June. Surely the bank will try to find a way to return her savings.

Irina Medvedeva is a partner in a firm that imports goods from Germany. Or, to be more precise, used to import goods from Germany. The swift devaluation of the ruble caught her, as it did so many importers, with the need to pay nearly three times as much as expected for ordered goods. Her business is economizing every way possible. The office rent is lower if they don't take a key to the restroom on their floor, and so they are doing without that. The partners take turns spending short hours in the office. They also have other jobs.

Alla Pavlova and her husband spent their summer growing tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, beets, cabbage, squash, and hundreds of pounds of potatoes. Now that the first frost has sweetened the carrots and beets, and caused the heads of cabbage to close, it's time to harvest all the crops. It looks like there will be enough to feed them and their relatives through the winter.

At Urals State Technical University in Yekaterinburg there is a class about a foreign country, the United States of America. Students in this class were recently asked to write an essay about "the American dream." And then they wrote about something which sounds just as unattainable to them -- what Russians call "a normal life."

Alexandra Beliaeva says that she's heard of something called the American dream, but she's not exactly sure what it is. "I think American people want to have a quiet and well-off life, to have own business, good children, and so on." But, she adds, that since Americans have better living conditions than Russians, "their dream is not so big and far as the Russian dream."

What Russians want, Beliaeva says, include such things as steady work and wages, an apartment that doesn't have to be shared with relatives, good service in shops, and clean streets. Dasha Shvetsova adds a wish for "modern conveniences, like hot water every day." She also would like very much "to trust government and the banks."

Marina Mokolenko is one of several who think that Americans want to have big families. "All of them try to have a big family of five to seven persons." If Americans can afford luxuries such as a comfortable house with a garden or a swimming pool, and 2 - 3 modern cars, she reasons, then surely they must want lots of children to enjoy such things.

About the American dream Anastasia Shurnova says "maybe it's life without problems." Then she adds, "maybe not." She's a little surer about the Russian dream. "It's just a wish to live calmly, be sure of the future, have something to eat, clothes and a place to live." Shurnova speculates that maybe the "Russian dream" is normal life for Americans.

Anna Bakhareva doesn't think economic success is all of what Americans are after. "More important," she says, "is the ability to be free to express your opinion about anything." She also doesn't think that personal economic well being is enough for Russians. "Some people think that the so-called New Russians are living a normal life because they've got enough money to buy cars, clothes they like, etc. But even they can't be sure their children will still be alive tomorrow." What Russians really want, she thinks, is to be able to have confidence in tomorrow.

Socio-economic and political instability has had a profound effect on many students. Irina Verlennikova says, "we don't make plans. We don't know what will be tomorrow." Olga Soukhareva thinks that Americans must be proud of their country, because she sees in the U.S. the stability she yearns for.

As disparate as lifestyles are in the U.S. and in Russia, several students think there are similarities between the people. Elena Sivakova says, "I think the most important thing is a good family. And it doesn't matter in what country you live -- in America, or in Russia." Evgenia Shikunova replies, "I think all people want to be happy, healthy, and live in peace."

Each in their own way, these students are trying for what they call a normal life. They take their studies seriously, doing their best to prepare for an uncertain future. They can't count on anything except themselves. Self reliance is the one assurance they have.

A Day at the Dacha

Photos: Family and friends at the dacha

Alla Nikolaevna’s birthday was Sunday, and we had a family gathering at Slava’s dacha, which is in the village of Mariinsk, about 1 ½ hour by car to the east of Ekaterinburg. We went by taxi because Slava sold his car after it sat without much use for years. Dima and his family went by car. Alla Nikolaevna and her husband Alexander Konstantinovich, the parents of Dima’s wife Julia, went by bus. As we went east from Ekaterinburg, we all crossed the line in the Ural Mountains that marks the border of Europe and Asia. Russia regards itself as largely a European country, however the greatest amount of territory is in Asia. Ekaterinburg is an Asian city.

It was Alla’s 60th birthday, and Slava and I weren’t prepared for such a major milestone. I had known before I left the U.S. that her birthday was coming up but had gotten only a modest present. Fortunately we had some gift items from the U.S. stashed in the flat, and once they were all wrapped in silver paper they looked nice.

Russian tradition is to present unwrapped presents. They are given one at a time publicly, when offering a toast to the honoree. My funny American habits are accepted when I don’t hew to Russian traditions, although I do try to follow local customs as much as I can.

The celebration dinner was served shortly after 1:00 pm, with several neighbor couples present. There were twelve of us all together, sitting at two tables. Alla had prepared all the food herself, most likely with some help from her daughter. The major part of the meal is “zakuska,” a table full of cold dishes served in this case with Russian champagne and cognac. Alla had platters of grilled eggplant, salted cucumbers, homemade pickles, and a half dozen other salads. In addition there was smoked forel or sea trout, and a meat gelee. While we were eating all this, Dima was cooking pork tender-loin “shashlik” or shish-kebabs.

The weather was gorgeous, with blue skies and lots of warmth. It was Alla’s special day, but we all enjoyed the day at the dacha.

Women's Day - 1999, 2000

Here are two descriptions of one of the biggest holidays of the year in Russia -- International Women's Day.

Happy Women's Day!
March 8, 1999

Today is one of the biggest holidays of the year in Russia -- International Women's Day. The celebrating started Friday with office parties, since March 8th this year is on Monday, and the holiday is always celebrated with a day off from work. It's a requirement that if you're female, you receive a box of chocolates from someone, and a bouquet or two of flowers, among other presents.

We had a small party with Slava's son's family and a widow who lives across the hall from us. Our guests were invited for tea, which can mean almost anything, In this case I served a quiche, homemade pickles (a gift from Dima's wife), assorted fresh fruits, chocolates, and some good cognac along with tea. Little Nikita insisted on microwave popcorn, because it's something he can only get at our place.



March 8, 2000

We're having a heat wave here, and it's causing havoc. In the daytime the temperature is consistently above 40 degrees, although it does cool off at night. We don't know if winter will return, or if these spring-like conditions will continue.

Sidewalks are never salted here, and they are only only occasionally shoveled, so layers of snow slowly build up into layers of ice under the pressure of pedestrian traffic. When the weather starts to warm up, the ice melts reluctantly, a millimeter at a time. The icy sidewalks are now covered with a slipperly layer of water that re-freezes smooth at night.

I've fallen only a few times. My bones have been tested by what we may call the School of Hard Knocks. I'm sure that many of the elderly here have good reason to fear a fall, yet they have to chance it to do their grocery shopping.

Our second problem is the temperature inside our apartment. We have district heating, with no individual control over the hot water supplied to our radiators. As far as I can tell, the central controls are set for the climate and not for the weather. In general the month of March is cold here, and so the heating system is cranked up high. The only relief we can get is by having windows open in every room.

Our third problem is with our walk-in freezer, or rather, our walk-out freezer -- we stored food on the balcony this winter. The balcony faces south and it's glassed in, so it does get warm once the temperature starts rising. Normally, though, things stay solidly frozen on the balcony through March. But not this year! Cycles of thawing and freezing turned my summer vegetables into mush. All the work that I had put into preserving them in the fall went to waste! There was also a very dead chicken that was recognizable only by the bones.

Enough of our troubles... Let me tell you about our celebrations. Today is one of the biggest holidays of the year in Russia: Women's Day. Since most offices and stores are closed on the 8th of March, this holiday is really a two-day affair, because office parties are held on the 7th. Every woman is constantly greeted with "poz-drav-LAH-yu" (congratulations) or "seh PRAZ-ni-kom: (holiday greetings). When greeted this way by a man, the proper response is a gracious "spa-CEE-ba" (thank you); when another woman greets you thus, you politely respond "vam TOZH-a" (to you, too).

When Slava came home from work last night he apologized for not having flowers for me. The line of men at the flower stand was too long, he said. Ever the one to put a cheerful face on things, he said that buying flowers one day later would make them last one day longer.

To be honored on Women's Day you don't have to be a lover or a mother or a secretary. You just have to be female, over a certain age. I'm not sure exactly what that age is; I just know that I'm over it. I was given a box of chocolates at the university, and at Slava's office all the women were given small artworks of amber. At midnight Slava gave me a bottle of perfume. And today there are two parties -- a family one, at Dima's, and a birthday party at my friend Irina's. Yesterday was Irina's 50th birthday, and for this jubilee occasion she's having 16 people over. I've never been to an at-home party here with so many people, so this will be unusual.

Let me close with a Women's Day greeting I just got by e-mail from a friend in Moscow. His name is Michael Chukhaev, and he is a former private pupil of mine. He left Ekaterinburg before I got his English polished up, but it's good enough that you will be able to see that he has a warm heart.

Dear Shirley!
Let me congratulate you with Russian female holiday!
(I know that there is not such holiday 8th March in US but you live in Russia for enough long time and I think you take our traditions)
At first I wish you great health because without it there is not love, friendship and happiness.
Then I wish you love relatives and other people love you also.
And I think that is enough for satisfied life.
I am sorry if I did not mention something very important from your point of view.
Good evening that day and injoy yourself.
Best regards, Mikhail

And best regards to you, too.

Political Change

Photo: Shirley in Ekaterinburg at memorial for soldiers lost in Afganistan

In my brief visit to Russia this fall there has been a momentous political development. I’d like to comment on it, but first I’m going to pull up a piece I wrote on September 25, 1998, which I called “Skating on Thin Ice.”


Being in Russia has never been as disorienting for me as it is now. One essential part of me, I think, is optimism. I'm trying to focus on some point in the future where I think things will be better than they are now, but as far as I can see, things here will be worse.

Russians regard themselves as generally pessimistic, believing always in the ability of their government to screw things up. It's disconcerting to find myself more pessimistic than the people I talk to here -- should I depress them with my views about the seriousness of the current situation?

As always, I was greeted with great warmth on my return to Russia. In Moscow my transfer from one airport to another was eased by a friend-of-a-friend who met me and presented me with two boxes of chocolates (one from her, and one from my friend Ludmila). Slava met me in Ekaterinburg and gave me an armful of flowers.

The city of Ekaterinburg was beautified in my absence, as part of the celebration of its 275 anniversary this year. But although things look good, I find myself preoccupied with troubles underneath the surface. It's what I call "skating on thin ice."

Skating on Thin Ice

We didn't know we were doing it at the time. Last spring there were cracks that should have warned us we were skating on thin ice, but trouble seemed far away from us here in the Urals. Although I heard a loud crack, for most people here it was merely another item about Moscow on the nightly news. No one I knew was particularly concerned when the stock market plunged 25 percent in one day. The stock owned by the average Russian is nearly worthless paper bought with vouchers Russian citizens got when enterprises were privatized. The stocks rarely pay dividends, and there aren't brokers for most of them. Some factory workers have been surprised to find that there are people with suitcases full of cash who will loiter outside the gates to buy these things called stock. And some factory workers have been told they would lose their jobs unless they sold their stock to management. The average Russian doesn't see much benefit in owning stocks.

There was not a lot of attention paid to the other cracks that were developing. High interest rates on GKO's? What does that matter to me, today? If it's reported on television, it must be something bad (TV news always shows fires and crashes and wars and other sad things). The Russian government was losing in its desperate attempt to cover payments on loans coming due. Unfortunately the Russian people didn't understand the significance of what was happening.

I wasn't here for the panic of bank closings and ruble devaluation in August. People saw their savings evaporate, and inflation soar. Having been through something like this once before, in the early 1990's, people knew what to do: with whatever money you have, buy whatever you can. Imported goods of every description flew off the shelves.

What's the mood of people now? An informal survey of my friends has surprised me, having found them to be generally in a cheerful mood. The August crisis is over, and people have small prizes from their panic purchasing. Bountiful summer crops from the garden are ready for harvesting. The government promises that back wages will be paid by October lst. A little inflation can be expected, but it will be controlled:

Well, it's Indian summer ("peasant woman summer" in Russian). You might be tricked into believing that it's genuine summer, except that the fall colors on trees tell you that it's cold at night. More than my Russian friends, I'm shivering at the thought of the coming coldness.

Back to 2007. The big political news is that Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has decided to be a candidate for the December election to the Duma. There are various interpretations of what will happen next -- he’d have to resign as president to take a seat in the Duma. His party, which will have a supermajority by that time, would elect him Speaker. Or maybe he’ll decline the seat in the Duma and expect to be appointed Prime Minister. Whatever. What will happen will be whatever Vladimir Vladimirovich wants to happen.

Vladimir Vladimirovich has always said that as President of the Russian Federation, he’s above politics, which means that he doesn’t want to be a member of a political party. Yet the leading party, called Unity, has as its platform “whatever Putin wants.” It’s not a party of the left or the right. If Putin leans left, that’s what Unity does. If Putin goes right, so does Unity. The party is so subservient to him that the membership amended their bylaws to have at the top of their ticket a person who refused to join the party.

Putin’s power can be attributed to what is generously granted to the Russian president by the new constitution, and to what he has amassed on his own. The one point I want to make right now is that the Russian people overwhelmingly yearn for a strong character who will provide stability. The Russian people have been through a lot. The country is not developing in the way that I would like to see, but I have witnessed more than experienced the recent economic and political tumult.

Letter to the President - 1999

Photo: Communist speakers at statue of Lenin in main square of Ekaterinburg, October 6, 2007. Not many people were listening.



March 30, 1999

Below is a copy of a letter I sent to President Yeltsin. There's been no response, but I know that the guy has been busy. Although he's been under medical care for most of the last month, he has stirred himself to action once or twice, firing people as usual.

When I wrote the letter, the prevailing problem seemed to be that nothing much was happening. Ah, those were the good old days!

Corruption scandals have reached the First Family, most notably Yeltsin's daughter Tatiana. And then, of course, there's the matter of the prosecutor general having been seen on television cavorting in the nude with two prostitutes (a piece of blackmail that didn't work because it simply showed the prosecutor as a macho guy). My own favorite story is the head of the Central Bank telling everyone "it's none of your business" what happened to $50 billion that was sent to the off-shore company called FIMACO. Since there's been no public indignation at any of these stories, I had begun to think that Russians are totally shock proof -- until I saw the massive outpouring of indignation over U.S.-led bombing of Serbia, a country of fellow Slavs.

I don't think I'll try again to give Yeltsin any advice.


February 26, 1999


The Honorable Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin
The Kremlin
Moscow, Russia

Dear President Yeltsin:

I am sending you this letter to explain my reasons for writing the enclosed document that is, in essence, a proposal in the form of a speech you might make if the ideas in it are acceptable to you.

My perspective is that of an outsider, specifically American, who is also an insider, because several years ago I chose to make Russia my home. I'm married to a wonderful Russian man, and for the last five years I've been teaching at Urals State Technical University.

Before I came to Russia, I read Against the Grain, the English language version of your memorable autobiography. I was glad that you had risen to the pinnacle of power at a most crucial moment in Russian history. And every day that I enter the doors of USTU, I pass the plaque which proudly proclaims, "Here Studied Boris Yeltsin, Elected by All the People - First President of Russia." These experiences make you a familiar figure to me in a personal way.

As I think about your place in history, I think about how I would want to be known if I were in your position. It might be presumptuous for me to think that way, yet I don't think that my ideas are outrageous. Here is the basis of them:

1. Russia has a fragile democracy which is in need of strengthening. There is an important element that seems to be missing today -- a feeling that ordinary citizens have a role in constructive change.

2. Among its many resources, Russia is blessed with having an educated population. Once informed about issues, citizens can be expected to make intelligent choices. They have already demonstrated convincingly their willingness to make sacrifices to bring about a better future.

3. The president has a significant power that isn't mentioned in the Constitution. It is the power to shape public debate, to define issues. This power is especially important when people feel uncertain and worried about the direction their country is going.

My proposal is this: for nationally televised public debates on fundamental problems troubling Russia today. The president would be the one to call for these debates and set their general framework. Each debate would feature representatives from the left and the right, and would include several people who could speak objectively about the root causes of the problem, and with expertise about what policies have been found to be useful in other countries dealing with similar issues. RTR could be given the responsibility of organizing the programs and gathering a panel of media professionals to question the debaters.

The programs would let Russian people decide for themselves which politicians have constructive ideas and which do not.

Personally I'm tired of the angry voices which shout accusations of blame. There's a large circle of quarreling politicians and business oligarchs and international heavyweights who point fingers at each other. The blame gets passed around and around in the circle, endlessly.

The proposed debates would focus attention on what could be done now. They would allow the Russian people to learn about policies that the Duma could put into law, and also learn about policies appropriate for action on the local level. There could be a groundswell of public opinion that would force politicians to listen if they want to be re-elected.

I'm proposing that these debates be held outside of Moscow for symbolic reasons. It's my sad assessment that Russian people tend to think of government as something that is done to them, not done by them. Having a regional audience for each debate would make it easier for members of the viewing audience to identify with the participants. It would also be useful to have a local person on the panel. But on the other hand, there may be technical difficulties with either satellite transmission or videotape production, and so it might be simpler to headquarter the debates in Moscow.

Would the debates be controversial? I hope so! The point is to get people talking, debating among themselves about the trade-offs that come with alternative courses of action. Whatever has happened in the past is past. The issue before us all today is: What choices will be made for the future?

Most respectfully yours,

Shirley Hayes Timasheva


PROPOSED SPEECH FOR BORIS YELTSIN


“My fellow citizens, there is much that has divided our people recently. We need to come back together and have a national dialog about the problems confronting us. I want to focus attention on three particular problems – inflation, organized crime, and, I must add, governmental corruption. Why these three? Because dealing with them is fundamental for dealing with other problems.

Imagine yourself in a rowboat, rowing as fast as you can to reach your goal. But there are three big holes in the bottom of the boat – crime and corruption and inflation. You must attend to these things in order to get to the place you want to be.

The first problem I want us to confront head on is the growing strength of organized crime. It is sucking wealth out of the economy in an often painful way. I also hate the mafia's effect on public morality. The international reputation of Russia has been affected by the image of these gangsters. What has been buried is the beauty and the strength of the soul of Russia, something which resides in every citizen who has pride in our heritage.

All too often it is said that “government is the biggest mafia.” When I hear that, I'm embarrassed. And I’m worried that there may be some truth to that. We have too many cases of large scale corruption, yet I also don’t like the corruption that comes with small bribes. Corruption occurs when a government official puts private interest above public interest. Corruption is therefore corrosive of public trust. It’s like an acid that eats away, day by day, at government function. A structure that is so weakened has difficulty holding together in times of great stress and strain.

Inflation is a problem that is making us feel weak and worried about our future. Inflation is especially cruel to pensioners and others on fixed income. It also inhibits us from rebuilding industry. And the longer inflation continues, the worse these problems become.

Here is how I want us to enter into a national dialog. I am calling for us to have a series of national televised debates on these three topics. The program organizers will seek out people who have constructive ideas on how to deal with the issue in question. We will examine the root causes of these problems, not just the results. If we understand the processes that feed the growth of these problems, we'll be better prepared to evaluate the effectiveness of proposals for change.

Although follow-up coverage by national media will be useful, I’ll be particularly interested in what local media do and say. Will they interview their own politicians on these topics? Will they search for their own local experts? Will they find out how various groups of ordinary citizens react?

We will be paying attention to the mood of the people in this country so that we know what the people really want. You can also be sure that your local politicians and members of the State Duma will be paying attention as well. They will want to know if voters will demand action, or can be satisfied with nice words.
The first debate will be one month from now. The second will be a week later, and the third will follow in the next week. Like you, we’ll be listening to what people on all sides have to say. I trust that you’ll support this plan.

Thank you, and good night.”

(Prepared by Shirley Hayes Timasheva)

Indian Summer without the Indians

Photo: Shirley in “Yavlinsky for President” t-shirt, holding squash from the dacha

Have you ever packed for a trip and found out later that everything you had was wrong, wrong, wrong? That’s pretty much been my experience this time. I worried about keeping warm in the chilly days of fall. But the weather has been balmy. It’s “babye leto” or “peasant-woman summer.” You can think of it as Indian Summer Without the Indians.

My last post was a write up done on October 15, 1999. It’s now humiliatingly obvious that I don’t learn very well from experience. I’ve been through “babye leto” before – quite a few times, actually.

It isn’t just warm, it’s hot. Oh, outside it’s in the 60’s, but inside the temperature is in the 80’s. We have no control over the heating provided by the radiators, and the central heating for the city goes on and stays on after there have been three days in a row below 12C, or about 55F. And that's when "babye leto" begins.

We can cool the place down by opening all the windows, and in self defense that’s what we have to do. Still, it’s been too stifling to wear the turtleneck sweaters and such that I packed.

Before your imagination goes too far in guessing what I might be doing, let me call your attention to the photo at the top of this blog. I found a lightweight t-shirt to wear, which happens to be printed with the slogan “Yavlinsky for President.” It’s from the 1996 election. Grigory Yavlinsky is still running for president, gearing up now for the 2008 campaign. He’s regarded as a democrat, and one that has given “democrats” a bad name in Russia. He could have become one of the founding fathers of Russian democracy, but the founding of democracy in Russia will now be some time in the future. Yavlinsky would rather go down to defeat than bend his principles, but his main principle seems to be It’s All About Me. He will form alliances with anyone who will do things exactly his way. There aren’t many people in that category.

In the photo you see me holding a couple of the squash grown this summer at our country dacha. Plant a zucchini in the ground, give it 20 hours of sunlight a day, sit back and watch it grow. With the quantity of squash that we have, I have an obligation to fix a dish of it every day. I’m happier with our carrots, which have a sweetness that comes from harvesting after the first frost. These garden carrots are as unlike grocery store carrots as garden tomatoes are to the commercial kind. After I get back to the U.S. I’ll boycott grocery store carrots for a while, until the memory fades of what real carrots taste like.

We also have bounteous supplies of berries. My favorite is “brusnika,” a cranberry-red berry the size of a small bubble. My guess is that 30 – 50 of them would fit on a spoon. They don’t need to be cooked, just sprinkled with some sugar.

In spite of the heat, I’m enjoying being in Russia.

Indian Summer - Oct, 1999

Photo: Autumn color in Ekaterinburg


When Slava and I returned to Ekaterinburg a couple of weeks ago, we were enveloped in the warmth of Indian summer -- although in Russian, it's called "peasant woman summer." Daytime temperatures have been in the upper 60's, but at night it's been cool enough to turn birch trees a golden hue. The city itself is more colorful than ever. Summer is the season for fixing up and painting buildings, and stuccoed fronts have been freshened up with pale shades across a painter's palette.

Our apartment building has a new sign by the door. It says, "To keep out terrorists, please keep the door locked." Actuallly, that's not exactly what it says. The sign reminds residents of "recent events" and suggests that the door be kept closed. Nevertheless, the door is left open more often than not, indicating perhaps that most residents don't really expect Chechen terrorists to deliver dynamite to this particular building.

The heating system has been turned on since October 1 just because it's scheduled to be on then. Since the weather has been warm, our building has been more than warm, and we've had to keep our windows open to cool down the place as much as possible. Everybody in this metropolitan area of 4.5 million people is doing this, and I figure we must be heating up the outside by a good degree or two.

Slava and I went to a couple of parties our first week back. One was a celebration of the 50th anniversary of Communist rule in China. The celebrants were the twenty or so people in the Russians-born-in-China Club. Since every single one of them, like Slava, had suffered under Communist rule when they came to the Soviet Union, they weren't really interested in cheering for Communism. The anniversary just happened to be an excuse for a party -- the first I've attended in Russia that was pot luck style. My contribution was stuffed peppers. I buy red peppers by the binful in the fall because they're so cheap -- about 20 cents a pound. Green peppers are the same price, and I get just a few of them for color contrast. Alas, in a few weeks the only vegetables that will be available will be root veggies and cabbage.

The second party we attended was hosted by the accounting firm which Slava has had do auditing. It was the firm's fifth anniversary, and they threw a party for their clients. It was an elegant "forchette," which is something like an American cocktail party, but in Russia the food at such an occasion is always French style -- lots of highly decorated canapes, puff pastry shells, etc. Guests are expected to bring bouquets of flowers and a gift that is presented publicly after a short speech. Because there were many guests, there were many speeches, mostly in the form of toasts. A small combo played American pop music throughout the evening, interrupted by two sets of Russian folk songs by a trio in traditional dress.

Last weekend we went to our dacha and inspected the greenhouse that Alexander Konstantinovich had constructed this summer. We had another small party to celebrate the birthday of Alexander's wife, Alla Nikolaievna. Slava and I had several small gifts for her, the most appreciated one being a bottle of Centrum vitamins. Centrum is a brand name that is known here and is regarded as totally unaffordable, so a bottle of that is a useful luxury that can be given to any man, woman, or child.

There's no shortage of Vitamin A in the Russian diet because carrots may appear on the menu for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Cabbage, which is eaten daily, is a source of Vitamin C. Beets must have something good in them, but I don't know what -- I don't think it's Vitamin B.

We divided up the harvest in thirds, as usual -- one-third for Alexander and Alla, who do almost all of the work; one-third for Slava and me, because we own the dacha, and one-third for Dima and Julia, our joint children-in-law. This year I pleaded with Slava to take less than our allotment, for several good reasons. Publicly I pointed out that we're going to be gone for much of the winter, so we didn't need so much food. My private reason is that I always feel overwhelmed by the canning and preserving of so many veggies. Well, Alexander insisted that we take our share, and this year we have the following:
20 lbs of squash, 2 large grocery bags of carrots, a heavy burlap bag of potatoes, a kilogram of giant radishes, 60 beets, 45 heads of garlic, and more cabbages than I want to make into sauerkraut.

In addition to the above, we've loaded up on another couple of staples. Alla got us 3 liters of honey at a market (we supplied the 3-qt. jar), and Slava got us 10 kilograms (22 lbs) of his favorite berry, brusnika. Brusnika berries are in the cranberry family, but they're midget sized, and edible without cooking. We've frozen some, and the rest are in the refrigerator, to be taken out 8 oz. at a time, crushed, and then mixed with sugar, to be eaten by spoonfuls with a cup of tea.

So, the harvest is in, Indian summer is over, and in Russia we're preparing for yet another winter.

Orenburg - June 17, 1999

Photo: A tram in Ekaterinburg


Here’s a continuation of my report “Arriving in Russia,” June 17, 1999. This part relates our experiences on a trip to the city of Orenburg.

The flight to the southern city of Orenburg was okay except for the scheduling, which had us arriving at 00:30. Most domestic Aeroflot flights that I've been on use pilots on swing shift or the graveyard shift. I'm convinced that the pilots moonlight and have daytime jobs as well. I'm grateful for every smooth landing.

We were met as promised, then packed into a jeep with three other people for a long ride to the village of Tashla, where we were going for a weekend festival. It was a three-hour drive. The driver missed most of the potholes in the road, and after dozing off, I was awakened when the road stopped but we didn't. Actually, the driver decided to take a short cut by careening across a field, toward another road. As we pitched down the road embankment and bumped across the dark field, I regretted the lack of seat belts in the jeep. Yet by 3:30 am we arrived safely at our lodgings, an orphanage in the village of Tashla.

Tashla is not a town that is used to having visitors and it is too tiny for a hotel. The only spare rooms were at an orphanage, so that is where Slava and I stayed. As we settled in for what was left of the night, we were told that we'd probably find a few "tarakan" around, that is, cockroaches. Seeing the surroundings, I wasn't surprised. I asked about the location of the bathrooms. Our host led us across the property to the community outhouse. It was dark inside and out, and the smell was terrible. I couldn't bring myself to go near it. Surely I could find somewhere else the next day...

Hoping for something to look forward to, I asked Slava about the chances of getting a hot bath. "Well," he said, in villages people usually have banyas (Russian saunas). And they heat them up on Saturday nights. We just missed it for the week." Oh.

On a positive note, I'd like to say that I heard my first nightingale. When other birds have their heads tucked firmly under their wings in sleep, the nightingale bursts out in song. To tell the truth, though, it reminded me of a southern mockingbird.

We awoke the next morning to the sounds of the orphanage children doing their chores. They were tending the vegetable garden, carrying water in buckets. They were, I'm glad to say, doing their chores in the inefficient way of children everywhere, more interested in having a little fun than in getting the job done speedily. There were, we were told, about 50 children all together. The orphanage is definitely a home, with a kindly director the kids call "daddy." They seem to have a few shared toys -- a bicycle, a chessboard, and some other things, I'm sure. I doubt that they have many clothes. Yet they do have a roof over their heads, and all the vegetables they can eat.

After breakfast we attended an outdoor prayer ceremony conducted by a young Orthodox priest. It was held on the site of a church built centuries ago by the Timashev family, which once owned 65,000 hectares of land (and serfs) in the area. During the Bolshevik Revolution the church and the mansion and many other buildings were destroyed. Now that the Communist era is over, the people who live in the region want to see the church and the remains of the mansion rebuilt. Neither will happen any time soon, however.

The prayer ceremony was the kick-off to the day's events honoring the 200th birthday of Alexander Sergeivich Puskhin, and at least half the village turned out for the program held on an outdoor stage on the grounds of the Timashev estate. It caused quite a stir to have a real Timashev present. Slava was asked to say a few words, and later he was interviewed by an Orenburg TV reporter there to film the event. The program included, as one would expect, readings of Pushkin's poetry. There was also some poetry by Pushkin's friend, Ekaterina Timasheva, and local poets read their own work. Interspersed with the readings were songs by two Russian folk groups in colorful costumes. Afterwards the participants were all given books of one sort or another.

For lunch we joined a select group having a picnic in the woods above the old mansion. A long banquet table had been set up, and people were standing alongside, eating "shashlik" (shish-ke-bob) and drinking home-made vodka and mead. Mead is something for sipping, not for drinking in quantity. Because it's made from honey it has quite a bit of sweetness. I don't know if it was because of the mead or the vodka, but after a while I found myself singing with one of the folk groups and their accordian player.

Mellow from the mead, I received the good news that a local family would prepare a banya for Slava and me. It took them several hours to get it hot -- and they got it really, really hot. We were given birch branches to flail ourselves or each other, and I was given a basket of mint leaves for a mint facial.
This hospitable family invited us to share a picnic supper in their garden, at a table set for 12. On the menu was home-made noodle soup (the noodles having been finely cut by hand), wild goose, and an assortment of vegetables from the garden. There was a small plate of hard candies served after supper with the tea. Slava told me later that for village people, items such as candy, which require purchase from a store, are served only on special occasions. Russian village families have very little cash. Our host, who worked in an open coal pit, hadn't any salary for five months. His wife, a teacher of retarded children, was owed salary for 17 months.

During dinner (and vodka) discussion got political. I found out that the group was interested in Slava's opinion about the United States, but not particularly interested in mine. One guest said that he didn't believe me when I answered a question of his as honestly as I could. The hostess was unhappy with his antagonistic behavior and said so. I later found out that people in the village weren't at all pleased when they first learned that a Timashev had married an American -- he should have been loyal to his roots. Nevertheless, the people who got to know me a little decided that I'm okay.

The next morning there was a work group that met to discuss what could be done to preserve the historic Timashev estate. We met over breakfast, which featured local produce, potatoes and vodka. It was served in the remaining wing of the Timashev mansion. Restoring the Timashev mansion, it has been estimated, would cost $1.6 million. That's a lot of rubles!

After lunch (vodka and potatoes), we headed for Orenburg, a city of 560,000. We stayed in a real hotel, a place with indoor plumbing and hot water. Our room had a soaring 12-foot ceiling, powder-blue wallpaper, and comfortable beds. It also had holes in the walls where radiator pipes ran from room to room, and carried every sound from our neighbors. It was lacking in a few things, such as window screens and a toilet seat. There were also no doornobs. The bathroom door had to be pried open with fingers, and the hall door could only be opened by pulling on the key in the lock. The worst thing, though, was that during the partial renovation that the hotel had had, the electrical work seemed to have been done by plumbers, and the plumbing by electricians. The beautiful wallpaper was marred by sloppy placement of light switches and electrical outlets. The bathroom flooded from a pipe at the sink when the shower was turned on. I took a long shower, anyway.

Slava and I went out for an evening stroll, taking the pedestrian bridge from Europe to Asia. There wasn't much happening in Asia, so we went back to the European side. Orenburg is at the southern end of the Urals, where the two continents meet. Orenburg also happens to be a transshipment point for cocain and heroin from Afganistan, headed for Western Europe. The unfortunate consequence is that nearly half the young people in this city use drugs of one type or another.

What seems so out of reach is something that was touted on a signboard at the place where Slava and I ate dinner: that is, normality. The place advertised that they served normal food, at normal prices, with normal service. And really, it wasn't bad.

The next morning Slava went to meet someone at Orenburg Technical University. I was shown around town by a local historian, a remarkable woman by the name of Svetlana. Like many Russian historians, she started out with a particular interest in the period of Pushkin's life, especially because Pushkin had once made a four-month journey from St. Petersburg to Orenburg and back. As she studied Pushkin's time in Orenburg, she learned about the importance of the Timashev family at that time, and she started researching Timashevs as well, back to the 1600's. It has become her specialty. And because of her campaigning, the city dwelling of the Timashevs is now being restored. Svetlana showed me the building, and also one of the local museums, then we met Slava for lunch. Our next stop was the home of a local artist who had done an oil painting on commission for Slava, based on an old, old photograph of the Timashev family estate at Tashla. We then had tea at the House of Literature, where an invited guest was another Timashev -- Alexander Timashev. Like Slava he's a big guy, tall and barrel-chested. Where their lines may meet on the family tree isn't known yet; Svetlana will research that. Alexander does know that he's from a lesser side of the family (a bastard son some centuries ago). Slava's roots may be similar; you never know what genealogical research will turn up. Anyway, the current generation of Timashevs is rather distinguished in accomplishments. Alexander has a brother who is head of a large construction firm, and Alexander himself is a doctor of reanimation -- what we would call intensive care.

From the House of Literature six of us went out for dinner together, Slava's treat. We had a full-course meal and plenty of vodka, all for just 350 rubles, or $14. There are some good things to say about Orenburg....

Alexander took us on a tour of the city the next day, with stops at an ancient mosque and a newly restored Orthodox cathedral. We then had a nice lunch with his family -- his wife, 16-year-old daughter, and brother Boris. Alexander took us to the train, and Svetlana appeared to say goodbye and to give me a bouquet of peonies for the trip. Twenty-five hours later, we arrived home.