Russia

After my week of illness in Irkutsk, I was ready to join my group. My friend Korrina had travelled back to Irkutsk to see a play and she joined me on Saturday for our long journey to the village. We boarded a marshutka (small van) headed for улан уде ( the city we would meet our group in before the bus ride to the actual village). It was filled with laborers from Uzbekistan, and for eight hours we travelled through siberia, through the hills, all the way up lake baikal, around curvy streets, and waited for lengthy periods of time for cows to cross the road, trains to roll over the tracks, and for the men to get out and smoke. We finally arrived and soon we found our group. The next day we travelled to the old believers village on a bus, not knowing what we would find. We arrived and walked through a maze of wooden houses painted and decorated with beautiful designs, a sign of the old believers. We went to each of the houses the members of our group would be staying in. At every house they insisted on trying to feed us. When Russians offer you tea, they are offering you so much more! They are actually attempting to stuff you full of the most wonderful food and make you drink shots of vodka with them. The tea in the village itself was fanstastic and I miss it still. My babushka was a lady in her 80s. She had children adn grandchildren, but only one daughter and one grandaughter still lived in the village. The old believers are struggling to survive and continue to exist. This is primarily because of the fact that historically after the purges and the soviet times, a resurgance of religion occurred and those who had been alive or who had still practiced religion during those years were able to continue. However, as Russia now develops, the jobs and education in such villages do not meet the needs of their offspring, so instead the village is full of the elderly. The first house we arrived at was the spiritual leaders house. She had broken her leg and was so upset she could not prepare tea for us, but really we were far more interested in the red corner, the corner in which icons from the 17th century sat. I was in awe of their beauty and their history. Soon we moved on to where stacie and riley would stay. Their babushka simply could not understand why we had come to siberia, why we had come to a place where there was so much hardship and so much work that had to be done. These people get up every day and work all day, but there is a certain beauty in the way they live their lives. They gather together often and make music and cook, something that Americans take for granted. She instantly attempted to label stacie and I with nationalities laughing at stacie and calling her a gypsy and grabbing my cheeks and awing over how I must have been ukranian. The day before, the Uzbekistani men thought that Korrinna and I were from Latvia and since then I have been called German and Finnish. I have also had numerous people come up to me and speak other languages besides Russian, so convinced I know the language they are, that even when I begin to tell them in Russian, German, and English that I don’t understand and my bewildered face is apparent, they still talk. I am quite glad they don’t think I am American! Our group does not look very American, so it is rare that people can tell where we are from. The next day we gathered at the spirtual leader’s house once again and with our hair tied back, kerchiefs on our head, and aprons covering our bodies, we made palmeenee (a type of dumplings). We rolled out the dough, placed meat and potatoes in, and learned how to fold the beautiful dumplings, while Alla taught us Russian folk songs to sing. Soon we were done, and while they cooked we were shuffled back to our own homes where our babushkas dressed us in traditional clothing. Then, we returned in full ensemble and sat at a huge table, americans on one side and all of our babushkas and the two dedushkas on the other side. The table was full of food and alcohol. Moonshine and vodka kept filling our shot glasses and I drank more than I ever have in my life. We sang, we danced, and it was wonderful! We left that evening for the airport, to fly back to the modern world.

The flight from Irkutsk back to moscow and then on to St. Petersburg took its toll on the group. We were all quite affected by the time change and the flight, not to mention the alchohol and events of the day before. We met our families and moved in. I adore my family here, they are wonderfully crazy and treat me as a daughter. I have been extraordinarily lucky with the families that I have been placed with. Others in the group have had issues and problems with their living situations, and I have been fortunate. Poor Stacie, she is a vegetarian and the people here get mad at her when she doesn’t eat meat, tell her she’s crazy and anorexic. I have tried to tell people how unhealthy it is to meat in general but they don’t listen. I had to fight my father this morning to stop him from cooking me eggs and sausage again. Yesterday he made me some for breakfast after Stacie and stumbled back home early in the morning, and I could barely stomach it. They have cereal, granola which they call muesli, that I eat for breakfast and that is plenty. But they insist on big breakfasts here and smaller lunches than I am used to.

This was my first full week back in St. Petersburg. Three hours of the Russian language a day and lectures in Gender Studies, Economics, and Politics at the grad school here have filled this first week. Stacie and I also met two british men at the Irish Pub next to my apartment. They speak almost no russian and they are engineers for Nissan who just moved here. Nissan pays for their housing and everything on top of a generous salary, friday night we went over to see their apartment and the two flats, which are connected,  were the largest I have yet seen in Russia and quite beautiful. My group is dealing with major sickness. Stuart is in the hospital with some terrible virus, he was vomiting blood on Friday night.We visited him at the hospital yesterday. Sasha, Michael, and Stacie have also all been throwing up this weekend. Riley, Korinna, and I have been lucky enough to be healthy all weekend, thank goodness. Hopefully we will continue to be healthy.  I must go now as sasha, korinna, and stacie are coming over to play music, sasha has a banjo and there’s a piano here. I hope all is well in the states, that this terrible election fight will be over soon, and that NATO falls apart (oh how I wish, poor russia!).

Tags: Travel

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