July 13, 2005
Optimist Prime
By Erin Coe
While swimming in the Sea of Azov off the port of Taganrog on a hot July afternoon, I move through a strange combination of soothing warm streams and chilling icy streams. Strings of warm and cold intermingle like ribbons and seem to hold this body of water together. The wide surface is calm and flat, but below I imagine these warm and cold streams battling with one another for control of the entire sea.
I meet a young Russian man while I swim. Exhilarated, I exclaim, “Isn’t this beautiful?” He replies by pointing to the sky in the distance where a cluster of clouds has formed. “Look at those clouds,” he says in English. “It’s going to rain.” As we bask in the middle of the Sea of Azov underneath the shining sun, I am confounded that he could be troubled by clouds miles away. I can only say, “Worry about the clouds tomorrow. Enjoy the sun today.” And with that, we swim off in opposite directions and make our own peace through the flashes of warm and cold water.
Holding onto my American optimism in Russia is a struggle. I meet many people with attitudes that conflict with my own. Usually, I swim in a constant warm stream, and when I find myself moving through an icy one, I hold my breath with the belief that a warm one is a couple of strokes away. But in Russia, I have come into contact with individuals who exude a cool pessimism that can send me into a fit of shivers.
It is not that I find Russian people to be cold and unfriendly. The continuous generosity of people I have met in Rostov-on-Don humbles me. One day at a restaurant, my American classmates and I had trouble understanding the menu, and the waitress, noticing our confusion, went outside and pulled a man off the street who spoke English to help us order our lunch. Another day, I bought coffee from a stand nearby my school, and the woman chased after me to give me my change of 10 rubles (less than 50 cents). With warm enthusiasm, my Russian classmates guide me around their town and tell me about their traditions and culture.
But I am daunted by some individuals who seem resistant in helping me, especially when I am reporting. Currently, I am working on a story about how women in Rostov-on-Don are marrying at a later age. I have come across a few cool streams that numb me. It can be a minor offence, like a long drawn-out response that does nothing to answer my direct, yes-or-no question. Or it can be a ludicrous comment that the statistics I am looking for simply do not exist in all of Russia (i.e. statistics on the average salary of men and women, which I later found through an employment agency).
Recently, I had an interview with the director of City Hall for the Rostov-on-Don region to obtain some marriage statistics. Through my translator, Sasha, I asked the director for figures on women marrying later and if this has become a trend in Rostov. She began to give us a few numbers, and midway through the interview, with a sly smile, she said she had some questions for me.
She pulled out a large binder with official documents from states including Arizona, New York and Colorado. She wanted to know how marriages were registered in the U.S. and whether there was a federal regulated system or if it varied with each state. Then she pointed to numerous documents in her binder and asked me to identify whether they were official or fake. Surprised by such questions, I said I did not know; I was not an expert.
In icy retaliation, the director pulled back her binder. Apparently, she had expected me to give her information on how the U.S. registers marriages in exchange for statistics on marriages in Rostov-on-Don. She said through my translator that typically I would have to go through a statistical agency to obtain the information I requested – as if she was ready to wash her hands of me and send me on another paper chase. Although she freely shared the statistical information that she possessed just a moment ago, now she seemed reluctant to acknowledge its existence. By this point, my translator and I were uncomfortable. I began feeling that this woman was playing a game with us. She seemed unwilling to give me information, unless a trade was made. Sasha reminded the director that I was a journalism student, and I came to get statistics to write an article. Surely she could understand that just because I was an American did not mean I was a specialist on the entire marriage system in the U.S.
As if the stream suddenly grew warm, she resumed giving us the statistics I needed for my story. Thankful for Sasha’s assertiveness and the director’s abrupt change in mood, I sighed in relief and carried on with my prepared questions. Besides a few hassles along the way, we exited the director’s office with the information we needed.
Now as I swim in the sea, I look back on my experiences in Russia so far, and the warm and cool memories spill over my mind. I feel a new cold stream stiffen me from my fingers to my toes, and I wade in it for a moment. I look up toward the sky - half sunny, half cloudy - and decide I am glad I went for the swim.