July 11, 2005
This is Russia
By Jocelyn Brick-Turin
Yesterday I took an old rickety German bus to the airport to buy a plane ticket from Rostov-on-Don to Moscow. My accompanying translator reassured me that the airport is the best, if not the only place to buy a plane ticket and had already been there herself that morning to research when flights were leaving for my destination and how much they would cost. She never batted an eye at making two trips to the airport in a single day during which she flew no where, and took in stride both the need to pay in cash and the cashiers lack of change. “This is Russia!” she shrugged, beaming a glowing smile.
Smiles are not hard to elicit here. My favorite come from the bliny ladies at the kiosk next to our faculty. Blinies are like Russian crepes and staples of my diet here in Rostov. The same two women have been selling blinies all day, every day, in this little stand, since I first discovered it a few weeks ago. They get an obvious kick out of my attempts to order; or is it the frequency with which I attempt? Together we’ve devised several methods of communication including me pointing to each item on the menu and they bringing the topping to the window for me to approve with a nod, or grimace and point to something else. Or as I approach they list toppings out loud, since “chocolad” in Russian sounds a lot more like the English than it looks, and I nod when I hear one I like. Recently though, a friend started ordering coffee, and I guess all of us Americans blur into one as now they offer coffee every time, just the way she likes it.
Pizza is my intake runner up to blinies in terms of quantity, but carries its own obstacles while ordering. Pizza is available without sauce. It is available with sauce on the side. Pizza with meat, fish, chicken or vegetable toppings are popular. But the classic, plain, dough-sauce-cheese combination is scarce. I have been told in several establishments that the cheese pizza is “out,” that they’ve sold every one… but would I like a cheese pizza with something on top? No I would not like something on top! Can you take the toppings off? No. Can you make a fish pizza and bring it out before you add the fish? Nyet. Well never mind then. What do you have to go? Nothing. How about the six restaurants up and down this street? Nyet again. Fine then, I’ll settle for a cup of tea; one ruble for the lemon slice and another 10-minute interaction for a hot water refill. But hey, this is Russia!
Computers crash and the Internet “takes naps,” but never all at once. The power blows in dorm rooms, but only two out of five at a time. It took me four days and two trips to the bank to receive an “instantaneous” Western Union wire transfer. Friends were vehemently prohibited from sitting on grass they were free to walk across. But this is Russia and it is a charming place. As soon as I stop expecting sources to call me back, or contacts to answer their phones, when I accept that neither cell phones nor business lines nor personal landline telephones connect to answering machines, if I take a deep breath when nothing and no one operates before 10am and closes at a seemingly arbitrary time at some point thereafter, I will appreciate the true beauty of this place.
In this place a foreigner is never a foreigner, but first a guest and quickly a friend. These people do not bemoan our ignorance of Russian language but enthusiastically compliment our mastery of the half-dozen words we know, eager to teach us more. And they do not take offence to our shock at the condition of the toilets but bond by whining with us. I have received gifts from a madroshka (those wooden Russian dolls that stack inside each other) to hours of patience and kindness from virtual strangers. With 10 days left, I already miss this place.
This is Russia.