I went to Russia. It was awesome. My sister Anne came to Chisinau a couple of days early, and after touring around there and hanging out with other volunteers for a bit, we hopped on a plane to Moscow. My brother John arrived an hour later, from Chicago. We met up with a former Peace Corps Moldova volunteer who is now working in Russia, and he got us into the center, showed us how to get cards for the metro, took us to the apartment, helped me buy a phone card, and then took us to Red Square. Without him, all of that would have probably taken the entire four days that we had available to us!
We spent our days in Moscow mostly around the Red Square area, shopping and hiding from the rain. St. Basil’s Cathedral (the multi-colored, multi-onion-domed church that you always see in pictures) is really quite impressive, and Lenin’s masoleum is a hoot. It’s all dark in there, and he’s just laying there illuminated and stuffed, and if you pause for even a split-second while encircling his body, the Russia guards grunt at you to move along. The Kremlin is also quite impressive. I didn’t realize that it is actually a large fortress – a government compound encircled by huge red walls. We’re pretty sure we saw Medvedev or Putin race into the Kremlin in one of their sleek black cars with police escort and blocked-off roads. Inside the Kremlin walls is the world’s largest cannon that’s never been shot and the world’s largest bell that’s never been rung. Hmmm. That’s about all we saw before the skies opened up and we were forced to seek shelter.
During our walks throughout the city, I taught Anne how to read ‘the Code,’ aka, Cyrillic. It seems really complicated when you look at it, but once you know what sounds the letters make, you can sound out anything. So I would scan the buildings for words that are the same or similar in English and Russian, such as ‘Internet’ ‘Bancomat’ ‘Cosmetica’ ‘Baskin Robbins’ ‘Pizza Hut’ ‘Stop’ and ‘Sport.’ She said that once she figured it out, she didn’t feel so lost, and it is kind of like a game. After getting over his jet-lag from the first few days, John caught on too.
While we were there, Moscow was hosting the hugely popular ‘Eurovision’ song-contest, which meant there were extra tourists and Eurovision-related stuff all over. 25 European countries send an entry to the contest, which is a huge spectacle, somewhat akin to American idol. Russia won last year, so they hosted this year. This year Norway won, with some guy playing a fiddle and singing about a fairytale. While we were out and about in Moscow, we came across the entry from Denmark singing in the park outside the Kremlin. We thought they were pretty good, and happened to seem them compete in the finals on tv later in the week. They took 13th place. Moldova took 14th.
After wandering about Moscow, we took a night-train to St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg is a city like none I have ever seen before! It has canals somewhat like those in Venice or Amsterdam, and huge palace-like buildings that you might see in Paris or Vienna. It is a relatively young city, being founded by Peter I in the early 1700s. We visited the fortress out on an island which was the built to defend the land from the Swedes. (St. Petersburg is located in the western most part of Russia, across the bay from Finland). Their main street is ginormous, and lined with huge buildings and multiple cathedrals. One of the palaces belonged to the Stroganovs, where beef stroganoff was ‘invented.’ There is also the world-famous Hermitage art museum, housed in the former palace of Catherine the Great. It is truly magnificent. We also went to see a Russian ballet – the Nutcracker. The best part of the trip was probably the last evening, when we took a boat ride through the canals and out to the river. By evening, I mean night. We started out at 1:00 am (about two hours after sunset – it is on the same latitutde as Anchorage, so the long days were starting already!). Around 1:30 the four bridges across the river open up to let the tall-masted ships through. For about a mile all of the buildings along the river are illuminated, and there are crazy flashing lights on the bridges, making it a truly an incredible sight.
Overall it was a great trip, but we had a few ‘interesting’ moments. Anne was stopped by the police once for taking a picture of a street sign. She was forced to delete it. The address we were given for the place where we had to register our visas was wrong, and we were met with blank stares from non-english-speaking uniformed men. Luckily one of them recognized the name of the travel company, and explained to me how to get to the place. My limited Russian allowed me to understand ‘white door’ ’50 meters ahead’ and ‘second floor.’ I was actually quite impressed with how much I was able to get by on my Russian. I was able to buy us the ballet tickets, easily navigate the metro, negotiate with a few street vendors, ask directions for finding an atm, and chat with a random guy on the boat ride. However, my abilities didn’t do me any good with the angry babas (old women) at the hermitage museum. It was cold, so everyone had coats. But you aren’t allowed to enter with your coats, so you have to leave them at the coat check. But the coat check was full. Baba after baba just yelled ‘nyet’ and told me to go to someone else. The group check lady was empty but she wouldn’t take them because we weren’t a group. There were cupboards, but those are only for bags. Dozens of people were running around trying to find a place to leave their coats, and the babas just yelled and didn’t do anything to find a solution. After running around for 15 minutes, I started to get upset. We paid for our tickets, the musem was going to close in less then two hours, and these cranky babas wouldn’t take our dang coats. Well, John and Anne and I were standing in a tight circle, and I didn’t think anyone was paying attention to us, so I said ‘fine, I’ll leave our coats here!’ and threw them down in the middle of the floor. Well, a nice baba somehow saw it and came barging in the circle and picked them up and brushed them off and kept saying ‘nyet, nyet, nyet.’ Then she took them behind a counter and somehow found a free hook for them. Well, now I know that in Russia I just have to throw a tantrum to get something done. Later, when John went to get the jackets while Anne and I were in the bathroom, he didn’t recognize mine and Anne’s jackets and tried to tell her that these weren’t ours. But she insisted, and then re-enacted my tantrum, throwing the jackets down on the counter. Then John was like, oh, yup, those are ours.
So that was Russia. Anne and I said goodbye to John, and went our way back to Moldova, where she stayed with me for two weeks. She happened to pick two great weeks, for there was a lot of stuff going on in my village. She came with me to work most days, but it was more socializing and eating than working. There was a big party outside the town hall to celebrate 650 years since the state of Moldova was formed. There was also St. Nicholai day, so we went to a friend’s house for a dinner because her dad is named Nicholai. There were two big birthday parties, a welcome dinner for Anne, a big concert in the woods at which I sang, and a graduation/last day of school ceremony at the school. We also were invited over for dinner at a couple different places, and made a few trips to see the sights in Soroca. One day, the group that I sing with made some music videos. A crew came from the regional TV station to film us all over the village – while singing about a tractor, there was a big tractor in the back, while singing about sheep and shepherds we stood out on the hill where all the sheep are out to pasture, you get the idea. The transportation between these sites was done by one car, three trips each time. There were 24 of us, plus the driver. The car has 4 seats plus the driver. You do the math. (Ok, it’s 9 people per trip, including the driver.) We ended in the forest and had a picnic afterward. When the director/host of the show on which these videos are to air found out that I am an American, she had to have an interview, and asked me about how our folklore and their folklore differ. She was like my best friend after that. It was fun, and funny.
Everyone in my village really took to my sister. She loved the fact that no one ever thought that she looked her age (she’s quite a bit older than I). My new host family especially loved her, and we spent a lot of evenings teaching American card games to the two girls (Moldovan card games were too confusing for us). We made them a pancake breakfast one morning and a taco dinner the last evening. When the time came for her to leave, they joked about stealing her passport so that she couldn’t. The youngest girl even woke up at 5 am and came running out in her nightgown to say goodbye the morning the we left for Chisinau. I thought that two weeks was going to be a long time for her to stay in the village, but it ended up being not enough!
We spent some time with other volunteers in Chisinau before catching our bus to Brasov, Romania. Wow, I’ve been in a lot of crazy mini-bus rides, but this one takes the cake. This guy had some serious road rage, and even the Moldovans were telling him to drive a little more calmly. But fortunately we arrived in one piece nine hours later, and even managed to enjoy the scenery a bit. The border crossing was less than pleasant, since we kept getting yelled at for trying to go to the bathroom while they were checking passports and baggage and stuff. They wouldn’t let us go at all on the Moldovan side, and then on the Romanian side they were like, you should have gone in Moldova. What is this, the international no-pee zone? The bathrooms are just there to taunt us?
Anyways, we arrived in Brasov around 9pm and checked into the little guesthouse where I had stayed when I was there in September. I got to know the woman who runs it quite well, and we had been emailing each other, so I was looking forward to seeing her. We spent the next two days running all over Transylvania, hitting up all of the best Dracula/Vlad the Impaler sites. We went to a medieval walled city, Sighisoara, and saw the house where he was born. We hired a car and drove three hours into the foothills of the Fagaras mountains, where his fortress is and climbed up the 1500 steps to reach it. And we went to the tourist attraction castle at Bran, which is said to be where he lives but he actually didn’t. But it’s still a really cool castle and I would want to live there. In the evenings we explored Brasov, which I would have to say is my second-favorite city in Europe, after Vienna.
The last morning we said goodbye to the guesthouse woman, who is so awesome and gave us one night for free. She said that if I can take two years of my life to volunteer, the least she can do is give me a free night. I really appreciated that. At the train station we were hounded by a taxi driver who wanted to take us all the way to the airport in Bucuresti, which is about 80 miles away. At first we resisted, but then we added up the cost of the train tickets, and the taxi ride from the train station to the airport, and the inconvenience and wasted time, so we decided to go with him, on the conditions that he didn’t raise the price when we got to the airport, that he didn’t steal our bags, and that he didn’t drive like a maniac. He agreed to all conditions, and it ended up being awesome. We stopped in another mountain town, Sinaia, and visited the most magnificent palace I have ever seen, Peles. I liked it even better than, say, Versailles or Schonbrunn. Instead of expansive gardens, there are lush green mountains, and while it is lavish, it doesn’t go overboard. Absolutely loved it. And you can take a two-day hike over the mountains and the Bran Castle is on the other side! Anyways, our driver had special privileges and drove right up to the front, past where all the other cars had to stop. He knew everyone, and even got us into the bathroom at the restaurant that was only for customers, haha. Further along the way to the airport, he pulled over at an awesome restaurant so that Anne could eat ‘mici’ (meech), a traditional Romanian food made of meat. We chatted the whole time, and after he dropped us off at the airport, he gave us each a hug! So nice! He didn’t raise the price, but we did!
As if all this wasn’t enough, I had another visiter last week – one of my two American roommates from when I was studying in Vienna, Mandy. We went to Odessa, Ukraine, where we severely burned ourselves while laying on the beaches near the Black Sea. Odessa turned out to have a very beautiful center area, which we frequented in the evenings after having spent the days at the beach. After that Mandy spent a few days in my village as well. Needless to say, the past month and a half has absolutely flown by! I realize that I am so lucky and blessed to have the opportunity and ability to travel, to see and experience these things. I thank the Lord every day for it!
June 27, 2009
June 5, 2009
A Long Walk Home, and Other Things
I love good weather, because it means that people are out and about. I get out to run almost every day now, and I usually go the same route, about 8 km towards another village and back. It is not a main road, it simply links the main road to this other village. There are a few large farms along the way that belong to a company that makes juice and canned fruits and vegetables. This company buses in workers from all over the region to work in the fields. Well, the bus drives by at almost the same time every day while I’m running. So now the driver always taps the horn and waves, and some of the workers on the bus have even started waving. I also feel like I know the tractor drivers who also always drive by and wave, or give me a ‘thumbs up.’ Strange, I’ve never even talked to these people, and I see them (through a window) for 5 seconds each day, yet I feel like they are my friends. ‘Oh, there goes my friend the bus driver! Oh, and here comes my friend the blue tractor driver!’
The following is a story of my walk home one day. I really enjoy such days as this, when it seems like everyone is happy and glad to talk, when I don’t have to rush, and when I feel like just another member of the village:
I was waiting on the side of the road to try to get a ride home from Soroca. My village is only about 6 km away from the city, directly on the main road to Chisinau, but it can be impossible to get there sometimes! There are two mini-bus drivers who drive between Soroca and my village every day, but there is not a regular schedule. It is not uncommon to be riding with one of them when he decides make a detour to his house to pick up a snack or something. Also, they don’t go anywhere until the bus is full. So sometimes I could spend up to an hour just sitting in the bus waiting for more people to come. Sometimes hours go by and neither of the buses come. Then you just have to hitchhike. There is a parking lot at the edge of the city, across from the bus station, and everyone wanting to go to the surrounding villages waits there to hitch rides. If a car stops, it can be a mad dash for who gets the seats.
Anyhoo, I was waiting to get a ride, and it was a beautiful day, the mini-buses were nowhere in sight, and I was tired of fighting people to get to a car first, so I decided to walk home. It’s really quite a nice walk, the first kilometer is along the Nistru River (which marks the Ukrainian border), and then there is a huuuge hill. The road does a long switchback, but there is a path straight up through the woods, which I took. Then it is another 3 kilometers up on a hill, which overlooks the city, and endless farmland. Upon reaching the edge of my village, I decided to stop in and see my friend who just had her baby. I popped in, and we caught up on the events of the past two weeks, and I admired the baby. I then headed out, because I had to be at choir practice.
I took the shortcut through the woods and met up with the main road. I ran into the friend’s 7-year-old, who was munching on some popcorn on his way home. He stopped me and made me eat some, and I promised him I would bring him candy from Russia when I went there the following week. I continued on, but soon realized the my jacket had fallen out of my bag. So I went to retrace my steps to try to find it. As I reached the entrance to the woods, I heard a friendly voice call out to me in Russian. Two young men were working on a car on the side of the road up ahead. Ah, one of them was one of the only people my age in the village. He had been working in St. Petersburg most of the time, but due to the ‘economic crisis,’ there isn’t much work there anymore, so he came home. He had given me his sim card to use while I was in Russia, and he wanted to know how my preparations for my trip were going. I struggled through a few minutes of conversing in Russian, but then switched back to Romanian and told him about my jacket. He wished me luck, and I went on through the woods. No sign of it. I couldn’t figure out where I lost it. I made it all the way back to my friend’s house, and found her, her husband, and the boy sitting in the back room. They all started laughing when I entered. ‘Looking for something?’ The asked. The boy had found it in the woods on his way home. ‘Be careful not to lose my candy on the way home from Russia!’ he told me. And I continued on my way home. As I exited from the woods, I held up my jacket to show the two guys working on the car down the road and they shouted a congratulations.
A bit further down the road I met up with a woman who was coming out of the field carrying a huge burlap sack on her back. She was wearing one of the bright, floral-patterned bathrobe-like things that all Moldovan women wear, and a bright, floral-pattered head scarf, which doesn’t at all match the bright floral-patterend bathrobe. I didn’t know her, but she seemed to know me, which isn’t uncommon, I guess. She asked me if I walked all the way from Soroca, and I said yes, it’s a nice day, why not? She replied with ‘yeah, nice to exercise a little!’
Then, on the other side of the road, going in the same direction, appeared a horse-drawn cart. It was extremely over-loading with twiggy branches sticking out in all directions, and the two watchmen from work were sitting atop the pile. ‘Katerina!’ the shouted to me. ‘Where are you coming from?’ We yelled across the road to each other for a bit, and they continued on. A bit later, they stopped to talk to someone else, and I passed them and made the turn into my part of the village. A few minutes later I heard the cart approaching from behind, so I move as far as possible to the side of the road for them to pass me. It got closer and closer, and I kept waiting for it to pass me, but it never did. Finally I turned around to see why they were going so slowly, and the horse’s head was about an inch from my shoulder! I yelped a bit and jumped into a bush, and the two watchmen were sitting atop their branches laughing their heads off. I laughed to, and then continued on.
As I walked on, I greeted people with the required ‘Christ is risen!’ (for 40 days after Easter, instead of hello). I got enthusiastic responses and smiles from all. I turned on to my old street, and the old man who lives on the corner waved from his garden. A bit further on I turned onto my new street, and another jokingly asked me if I hadn’t lost my way home. Finally, two and a half hours after setting out from the town, I arrived home, in a good mood and with just enough time to grab my notebook and make it to choir practice!
So I’m really liking my new home. My partner and the girls are very interested in my ‘gymnastics.’ That is, my body circuit exercises – jumping jacks, squats, sit-ups, push-ups, lunges, etc. I do a lot of the exercises with a large medicine ball, which they love. One evening they all came into my room and I tried to show them how to do some of the exercises. There was a lot of shrieking and stumbling and falling off of the medicine ball. In trade for the gymnastics instruction, I was instructed on how to hang up my laundry. I did a very large load the other day, and I hung them up on the clothesline in the order that they came out of the washing machine. But apparently, I have to put the pants by the pants, shirts by the shirts, etc, and in order by color. Otherwise people might walk by and think that I don’t know how to do things right. Hanging up my clothes that way never even occured to me, but now that I know, I have noticed throughout the village that everyone does it that way!
Awhile back I really got to put my language skills to use. There was a soccer game between Switzerland and Moldova (I don’t think I need to tell you the outcome) here in Chisinau. After the game a bunch of us were out at a bar where there is live music, and one of the Moldovans who works at Peace Corps plays the harmonica there. Some Swiss fans showed up, so we talked with them a bit. Lots of the Moldovans in the bar also wanted to talk with them, being so obviously foreign, dressed all in red with big swiss flags. But of course the Moldovans speak only Russian and Romanian, and the Swiss only German and English. But I speak all four! So I got to be translator. Man, that was a riot. My Russian is very poor, but I was able to facilitate a Russian-German ‘hi, how are you, where are you from, what are you doing here, how do you like Moldova, do you want a beer’ conversation! I don’t know if I’ll ever again find myself in a situation where those four languages all come into play. Crazy. Fun.
Stayed tuned for tales from my adventures with both of my siblings in Russia, and with my sister in Moldova and Romania!
The following is a story of my walk home one day. I really enjoy such days as this, when it seems like everyone is happy and glad to talk, when I don’t have to rush, and when I feel like just another member of the village:
I was waiting on the side of the road to try to get a ride home from Soroca. My village is only about 6 km away from the city, directly on the main road to Chisinau, but it can be impossible to get there sometimes! There are two mini-bus drivers who drive between Soroca and my village every day, but there is not a regular schedule. It is not uncommon to be riding with one of them when he decides make a detour to his house to pick up a snack or something. Also, they don’t go anywhere until the bus is full. So sometimes I could spend up to an hour just sitting in the bus waiting for more people to come. Sometimes hours go by and neither of the buses come. Then you just have to hitchhike. There is a parking lot at the edge of the city, across from the bus station, and everyone wanting to go to the surrounding villages waits there to hitch rides. If a car stops, it can be a mad dash for who gets the seats.
Anyhoo, I was waiting to get a ride, and it was a beautiful day, the mini-buses were nowhere in sight, and I was tired of fighting people to get to a car first, so I decided to walk home. It’s really quite a nice walk, the first kilometer is along the Nistru River (which marks the Ukrainian border), and then there is a huuuge hill. The road does a long switchback, but there is a path straight up through the woods, which I took. Then it is another 3 kilometers up on a hill, which overlooks the city, and endless farmland. Upon reaching the edge of my village, I decided to stop in and see my friend who just had her baby. I popped in, and we caught up on the events of the past two weeks, and I admired the baby. I then headed out, because I had to be at choir practice.
I took the shortcut through the woods and met up with the main road. I ran into the friend’s 7-year-old, who was munching on some popcorn on his way home. He stopped me and made me eat some, and I promised him I would bring him candy from Russia when I went there the following week. I continued on, but soon realized the my jacket had fallen out of my bag. So I went to retrace my steps to try to find it. As I reached the entrance to the woods, I heard a friendly voice call out to me in Russian. Two young men were working on a car on the side of the road up ahead. Ah, one of them was one of the only people my age in the village. He had been working in St. Petersburg most of the time, but due to the ‘economic crisis,’ there isn’t much work there anymore, so he came home. He had given me his sim card to use while I was in Russia, and he wanted to know how my preparations for my trip were going. I struggled through a few minutes of conversing in Russian, but then switched back to Romanian and told him about my jacket. He wished me luck, and I went on through the woods. No sign of it. I couldn’t figure out where I lost it. I made it all the way back to my friend’s house, and found her, her husband, and the boy sitting in the back room. They all started laughing when I entered. ‘Looking for something?’ The asked. The boy had found it in the woods on his way home. ‘Be careful not to lose my candy on the way home from Russia!’ he told me. And I continued on my way home. As I exited from the woods, I held up my jacket to show the two guys working on the car down the road and they shouted a congratulations.
A bit further down the road I met up with a woman who was coming out of the field carrying a huge burlap sack on her back. She was wearing one of the bright, floral-patterned bathrobe-like things that all Moldovan women wear, and a bright, floral-pattered head scarf, which doesn’t at all match the bright floral-patterend bathrobe. I didn’t know her, but she seemed to know me, which isn’t uncommon, I guess. She asked me if I walked all the way from Soroca, and I said yes, it’s a nice day, why not? She replied with ‘yeah, nice to exercise a little!’
Then, on the other side of the road, going in the same direction, appeared a horse-drawn cart. It was extremely over-loading with twiggy branches sticking out in all directions, and the two watchmen from work were sitting atop the pile. ‘Katerina!’ the shouted to me. ‘Where are you coming from?’ We yelled across the road to each other for a bit, and they continued on. A bit later, they stopped to talk to someone else, and I passed them and made the turn into my part of the village. A few minutes later I heard the cart approaching from behind, so I move as far as possible to the side of the road for them to pass me. It got closer and closer, and I kept waiting for it to pass me, but it never did. Finally I turned around to see why they were going so slowly, and the horse’s head was about an inch from my shoulder! I yelped a bit and jumped into a bush, and the two watchmen were sitting atop their branches laughing their heads off. I laughed to, and then continued on.
As I walked on, I greeted people with the required ‘Christ is risen!’ (for 40 days after Easter, instead of hello). I got enthusiastic responses and smiles from all. I turned on to my old street, and the old man who lives on the corner waved from his garden. A bit further on I turned onto my new street, and another jokingly asked me if I hadn’t lost my way home. Finally, two and a half hours after setting out from the town, I arrived home, in a good mood and with just enough time to grab my notebook and make it to choir practice!
So I’m really liking my new home. My partner and the girls are very interested in my ‘gymnastics.’ That is, my body circuit exercises – jumping jacks, squats, sit-ups, push-ups, lunges, etc. I do a lot of the exercises with a large medicine ball, which they love. One evening they all came into my room and I tried to show them how to do some of the exercises. There was a lot of shrieking and stumbling and falling off of the medicine ball. In trade for the gymnastics instruction, I was instructed on how to hang up my laundry. I did a very large load the other day, and I hung them up on the clothesline in the order that they came out of the washing machine. But apparently, I have to put the pants by the pants, shirts by the shirts, etc, and in order by color. Otherwise people might walk by and think that I don’t know how to do things right. Hanging up my clothes that way never even occured to me, but now that I know, I have noticed throughout the village that everyone does it that way!
Awhile back I really got to put my language skills to use. There was a soccer game between Switzerland and Moldova (I don’t think I need to tell you the outcome) here in Chisinau. After the game a bunch of us were out at a bar where there is live music, and one of the Moldovans who works at Peace Corps plays the harmonica there. Some Swiss fans showed up, so we talked with them a bit. Lots of the Moldovans in the bar also wanted to talk with them, being so obviously foreign, dressed all in red with big swiss flags. But of course the Moldovans speak only Russian and Romanian, and the Swiss only German and English. But I speak all four! So I got to be translator. Man, that was a riot. My Russian is very poor, but I was able to facilitate a Russian-German ‘hi, how are you, where are you from, what are you doing here, how do you like Moldova, do you want a beer’ conversation! I don’t know if I’ll ever again find myself in a situation where those four languages all come into play. Crazy. Fun.
Stayed tuned for tales from my adventures with both of my siblings in Russia, and with my sister in Moldova and Romania!
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