Part I: Vecherinka
Friday, after work, K invited us to her apartment for a small vecherinka (party). K is one of the two teachers who worked at the AH last year, and this year she has her own apartment instead of living with a host family. Her little Russian apartment is adorable. The kitchen is seafoam, and the other room is peach. It is substantially bigger than both apartments I had in San Diego, not to mention considerably cheaper, and honestly, I am kind of lusting after it simply for its colors. It was a very jolly party, full of much laughter and inebriation, and since I promised not to post any compromising photos, you do not get the pleasure of laughing at all the absurd pictures I took.
When leaving the party (we left around 1am), we decided to take a marshrutka home. Marshrutki are minivans which travel the same routes as the buses and trolleybuses, although they run 24hrs/day (while the buses do not), and they are a little more expensive. You also often (especially at night) have to tell them where you wish to disembark in order for them to stop. Now, B does not speak very much Russian, and she was also very tired, and perhaps somewhat boozy. She did not think that she could tell the marshrutka driver where to stop, so I said I would ride with her and then just walk back to my apartment (her bus stop is two blocks from mine, which is not far, although they are rather lengthy blocks). Anyhow, B and I were the last two of our group to leave the marshrutka. Sitting next to the driver were a man and a woman, both of whom were completely hammered, who seemed to be friends of the driver. Anyhow, the drunken man started asking me where B and I needed to get off. I told him that we wanted the second bus stop from where we were (which was true), and he asked me, Pechugin or Ludmila? These are the names of the bus stops, but hell if I knew what either was called, so I simply repeated that I needed to stop at the second stop. He was way too drunk to understand that I was not a native of Vladimir and therefore had no clue as to the name of any bus stop. The drunken fellow continued to ask me all sorts of things, none of which I understood because he was slurring his words and making no sense. Luckily the driver understood me perfectly and stopped at the correct stop (which turned out to be Pechugin, so now we know).
B and I got out of the marshrutka, and the drunken fellow shouted something after us. I do not know what he shouted, but it definitely seemed to give the wrong impression to three men (possibly drunk, definitely carrying beers) who were on the sidewalk by the bus stop, and they immediately began trying to convince us to go wherever they were going. We simply ignored them, and began walking quickly away. Anyway, B and I should really have turned left at the bus stop, but instead we turned right. We realized our mistake within seconds, but the three sketchy dudes were behind us, and we did not want to turn around and walk right back into their willing arms or anything. So we ended up making a long detour around the entire block, but we did manage to circumnavigate the creepy men and get B back to her apartment.
Then, of course, it was time for me to walk home. I made it nearly most of the way without any problems, although as I approached my building, a young man began walking next to me. He tried to talk to me, saying devushka, devushka, blah, blah, blah. (Devushka means girl, but here is used as a form of address, sort of like Miss). I could not understand what he was saying, although this was probably because I was very intent on simply ignoring him. I think that at one point he told me not to be afraid, but I continued ignoring him. There is a 24 hour market sort of below my apartment, and I made a beeline for it. I figured if he continued to follow me, that would be a safe(ish) place to go. Luckily, he gave up before I reached it, and I was able to make it back to my apartment in peace. So that was my Friday night adventure.
Part II: The Dacha
Saturday morning, we all met at 10:00 at the AH (by I mean American teachers and Russian staff), and we drove about an hour out into the countryside to a dacha. The dacha was owned by T, one of the two Russian teachers who works for the AH. For Russians, having a dacha is somewhat analogous to having a cabin in the mountains or a condo at the beach, although it seems that more Russians have dachas than Americans have vacation homes. This might be because most Russians live in apartments in cities, instead of in homes in the suburbs like so many Americans. The dacha experience was wonderful, and I would love to have one. Or live at one. Like I said, we drove about an hour out into the countryside, where there were huge open fields, small rivers and the occasional forest. It was very peaceful, and the air was incredibly clean and fresh. Additionally, this was yet another perfect day weather-wise, with temperatures in the lower 70s, and bright blue sky without a cloud in sight.
The dacha is within walking distance of a small, spring-fed river, so we walked down to it, and explored. We also ventured a little ways into a nearby forest, and I picked a mushroom. Mushroom picking is an art over here, and Russians seem able to tell immediately whether or not a mushroom is safe or poisonous. You know how in the US, people often have secret places to hunt or fish? I have also been told that here, when people find a good mushroom picking spot, they guard the secret of its location as best they can in much the same way. I suppose that since I only found one measly mushroom, I should not be so pleased with myself, especially since it is not like one can simply cook one mushroom. Anyway, the mushroom I found was called (I think) a maslyonka, and it was edible. The shroom itself was very sticky, and when I commented on this, Galina told me that when you cook this kind of mushroom, it becomes very slimy. Well, actually what she said (after consulting with Alexei) was that it becomes sleazy, so we got to explain that while a slimy person can be called sleazy, a mushroom can only be referred to as slimy.
The dacha was located in this teeny-tiny village (although village is far too big of a word), where there were about ten dachas and the remains of an Orthodox church. (I was told the name of this area, but unfortunately I cannot remember it at all.) T’s husband told me that this used to be a very big village, and that there were many, many people (thus the need for a big church), but that when the Soviet Union was created, the people all left to go to Vladimir (and other cities) to work in the factories, and the village died out. Now, I have quite a fascination with old, abandoned buildings (this is absolutely my mother’s fault), and I have a tendency to try and get inside of them and take pictures. I found this church very fascinating. It had reached that state of decay where there were trees growing up through the roof, and I thought it was quite picturesque. Several of us tried to get inside, but the doors were all fastened shut fairly well. We could open them enough to see inside, but not wide enough to squeeze in ourselves. I stuck my hand (holding my camera) in through the crack and shot some pictures. Later I was surprised to discover that in these images I could see the faded remains of old frescoes on the walls!
At the dacha itself, most of the people spent a lot of time playing frisbee, volleyball, or tossing an American football. (I would like to mention that J is incredibly impressive with the football.) I, being the as uninterested in sports as I am, spent a lot of the time lying on a blanket in the shade, which was actually quite wonderful. Male B played a lot on his guitar, and when he was not playing, we had some cheesy Russian pop going. And, of course, we grilled shashlik. The word shashlik is related to shishkabob, and normally, when one orders shashlik at a restaurant or from a vendor, it comes out as a meat on a stick kabob. When you grill shashlik for around 17 people, you do it in these metal things (which I really do not know how to describe, although that is possibly because I am really tired), wherein you can cook a lot of meat all at once. We had shashlik with a dish of smoked eggplant and tomatoes and garlic (all freshly smoked that day), and both were fantastically delicious.
Now, at a picnic in the US, you have to worry about ants and flies. In Russia, the problem is bees. Well, I call these things bees, although I think they are more along the lines of yellowjackets, as they when they sting you, they do not leave you with a stinger embedded in your skin. How do I know this? Sigh. Well, ever since we have been in Russia, there have been bees everywhere. This must be the year of the bee or something, because apparently the problem last year was mosquitoes. In the US, bees are cause to panic. Here, they are so ubiquitous and commonplace, that for the most part, one simply ignores them as one would ignore houseflies. It had taken me a while to get over the initial American reaction of Beeeee! Aaaack!, and I was doing fairly well at ignoring them until one of the yellowjackasses stung me in the hand during our dacha picnic. It was very strange, because my hand did not swell up or anything, and there was only a tiny white spot marking where I had been stung, but man did it sting! My whole hand was stinging within seconds. The Russians decided that the best course of action was to pour salt on my hand and then have me press the leaf of some unknown plant onto the spot. That helped almost immediately. The stinging died down, although my hand throbbed for about an hour or so after.
Part III: Making a Movie
On Sunday we had yet another activity planned for us. Sunday was the day we (as a group) visited each others apartments and videotaped them, for the purpose of making a small movie to send to friends and family back in the US. It was a fun, if long, day, and it was nice to be able to see where everyone lived, and to see different parts of Vladimir. I now know essentially where VEMZ is located, and it is a damn long way away from anywhere I might normally be. Sigh. I will be getting to know the Number 7 Trolleybus very, very well. I also now know how to find FAKEL, which is supposedly a great market for buying things like shoes and coats. I should really stay away from that place, but you know I will not be able to! Most apartments where the other teachers live are very much like my apartment, although B lives in a mansion. Her apartment is new, and two stories, with a beautiful staircase winding up to the second floor, and all of the rooms are huge. That apartment is bigger than my mom’s house in the US! Needless to say, her host family is an anomaly among the city of Vladimir. Most Russians live in small apartments like the one I share with Nina M. Some of you know that I tend to get carsick very easily, and unfortunately, taking various trolleybuses from one place to another all over Vladimir, all day long, without any lunch, did not sit well with my body, and I was feeling pretty crappy by the end of the day. Sigh.
The good weather that we have been having is not going to last. I checked the weather channel today, and learned that as of Wednesday it is going to start raining a good bit, with lows in the 40s and highs in the low 60s or upper 50s. I felt like I should be out enjoying the wonderful weather while it lasts, but after my stomach got to feeling all motionsick, I ended up simply returning home to take a nap. Sigh. Winter is coming.
Friday, after work, K invited us to her apartment for a small vecherinka (party). K is one of the two teachers who worked at the AH last year, and this year she has her own apartment instead of living with a host family. Her little Russian apartment is adorable. The kitchen is seafoam, and the other room is peach. It is substantially bigger than both apartments I had in San Diego, not to mention considerably cheaper, and honestly, I am kind of lusting after it simply for its colors. It was a very jolly party, full of much laughter and inebriation, and since I promised not to post any compromising photos, you do not get the pleasure of laughing at all the absurd pictures I took.
When leaving the party (we left around 1am), we decided to take a marshrutka home. Marshrutki are minivans which travel the same routes as the buses and trolleybuses, although they run 24hrs/day (while the buses do not), and they are a little more expensive. You also often (especially at night) have to tell them where you wish to disembark in order for them to stop. Now, B does not speak very much Russian, and she was also very tired, and perhaps somewhat boozy. She did not think that she could tell the marshrutka driver where to stop, so I said I would ride with her and then just walk back to my apartment (her bus stop is two blocks from mine, which is not far, although they are rather lengthy blocks). Anyhow, B and I were the last two of our group to leave the marshrutka. Sitting next to the driver were a man and a woman, both of whom were completely hammered, who seemed to be friends of the driver. Anyhow, the drunken man started asking me where B and I needed to get off. I told him that we wanted the second bus stop from where we were (which was true), and he asked me, Pechugin or Ludmila? These are the names of the bus stops, but hell if I knew what either was called, so I simply repeated that I needed to stop at the second stop. He was way too drunk to understand that I was not a native of Vladimir and therefore had no clue as to the name of any bus stop. The drunken fellow continued to ask me all sorts of things, none of which I understood because he was slurring his words and making no sense. Luckily the driver understood me perfectly and stopped at the correct stop (which turned out to be Pechugin, so now we know).
B and I got out of the marshrutka, and the drunken fellow shouted something after us. I do not know what he shouted, but it definitely seemed to give the wrong impression to three men (possibly drunk, definitely carrying beers) who were on the sidewalk by the bus stop, and they immediately began trying to convince us to go wherever they were going. We simply ignored them, and began walking quickly away. Anyway, B and I should really have turned left at the bus stop, but instead we turned right. We realized our mistake within seconds, but the three sketchy dudes were behind us, and we did not want to turn around and walk right back into their willing arms or anything. So we ended up making a long detour around the entire block, but we did manage to circumnavigate the creepy men and get B back to her apartment.
Then, of course, it was time for me to walk home. I made it nearly most of the way without any problems, although as I approached my building, a young man began walking next to me. He tried to talk to me, saying devushka, devushka, blah, blah, blah. (Devushka means girl, but here is used as a form of address, sort of like Miss). I could not understand what he was saying, although this was probably because I was very intent on simply ignoring him. I think that at one point he told me not to be afraid, but I continued ignoring him. There is a 24 hour market sort of below my apartment, and I made a beeline for it. I figured if he continued to follow me, that would be a safe(ish) place to go. Luckily, he gave up before I reached it, and I was able to make it back to my apartment in peace. So that was my Friday night adventure.
Part II: The Dacha
Saturday morning, we all met at 10:00 at the AH (by
The dacha is within walking distance of a small, spring-fed river, so we walked down to it, and explored. We also ventured a little ways into a nearby forest, and I picked a mushroom. Mushroom picking is an art over here, and Russians seem able to tell immediately whether or not a mushroom is safe or poisonous. You know how in the US, people often have secret places to hunt or fish? I have also been told that here, when people find a good mushroom picking spot, they guard the secret of its location as best they can in much the same way. I suppose that since I only found one measly mushroom, I should not be so pleased with myself, especially since it is not like one can simply cook one mushroom. Anyway, the mushroom I found was called (I think) a maslyonka, and it was edible. The shroom itself was very sticky, and when I commented on this, Galina told me that when you cook this kind of mushroom, it becomes very slimy. Well, actually what she said (after consulting with Alexei) was that it becomes sleazy, so we got to explain that while a slimy person can be called sleazy, a mushroom can only be referred to as slimy.
The dacha was located in this teeny-tiny village (although village is far too big of a word), where there were about ten dachas and the remains of an Orthodox church. (I was told the name of this area, but unfortunately I cannot remember it at all.) T’s husband told me that this used to be a very big village, and that there were many, many people (thus the need for a big church), but that when the Soviet Union was created, the people all left to go to Vladimir (and other cities) to work in the factories, and the village died out. Now, I have quite a fascination with old, abandoned buildings (this is absolutely my mother’s fault), and I have a tendency to try and get inside of them and take pictures. I found this church very fascinating. It had reached that state of decay where there were trees growing up through the roof, and I thought it was quite picturesque. Several of us tried to get inside, but the doors were all fastened shut fairly well. We could open them enough to see inside, but not wide enough to squeeze in ourselves. I stuck my hand (holding my camera) in through the crack and shot some pictures. Later I was surprised to discover that in these images I could see the faded remains of old frescoes on the walls!
At the dacha itself, most of the people spent a lot of time playing frisbee, volleyball, or tossing an American football. (I would like to mention that J is incredibly impressive with the football.) I, being the as uninterested in sports as I am, spent a lot of the time lying on a blanket in the shade, which was actually quite wonderful. Male B played a lot on his guitar, and when he was not playing, we had some cheesy Russian pop going. And, of course, we grilled shashlik. The word shashlik is related to shishkabob, and normally, when one orders shashlik at a restaurant or from a vendor, it comes out as a meat on a stick kabob. When you grill shashlik for around 17 people, you do it in these metal things (which I really do not know how to describe, although that is possibly because I am really tired), wherein you can cook a lot of meat all at once. We had shashlik with a dish of smoked eggplant and tomatoes and garlic (all freshly smoked that day), and both were fantastically delicious.
Now, at a picnic in the US, you have to worry about ants and flies. In Russia, the problem is bees. Well, I call these things bees, although I think they are more along the lines of yellowjackets, as they when they sting you, they do not leave you with a stinger embedded in your skin. How do I know this? Sigh. Well, ever since we have been in Russia, there have been bees everywhere. This must be the year of the bee or something, because apparently the problem last year was mosquitoes. In the US, bees are cause to panic. Here, they are so ubiquitous and commonplace, that for the most part, one simply ignores them as one would ignore houseflies. It had taken me a while to get over the initial American reaction of Beeeee! Aaaack!, and I was doing fairly well at ignoring them until one of the yellowjackasses stung me in the hand during our dacha picnic. It was very strange, because my hand did not swell up or anything, and there was only a tiny white spot marking where I had been stung, but man did it sting! My whole hand was stinging within seconds. The Russians decided that the best course of action was to pour salt on my hand and then have me press the leaf of some unknown plant onto the spot. That helped almost immediately. The stinging died down, although my hand throbbed for about an hour or so after.
Part III: Making a Movie
On Sunday we had yet another activity planned for us. Sunday was the day we (as a group) visited each others apartments and videotaped them, for the purpose of making a small movie to send to friends and family back in the US. It was a fun, if long, day, and it was nice to be able to see where everyone lived, and to see different parts of Vladimir. I now know essentially where VEMZ is located, and it is a damn long way away from anywhere I might normally be. Sigh. I will be getting to know the Number 7 Trolleybus very, very well. I also now know how to find FAKEL, which is supposedly a great market for buying things like shoes and coats. I should really stay away from that place, but you know I will not be able to! Most apartments where the other teachers live are very much like my apartment, although B lives in a mansion. Her apartment is new, and two stories, with a beautiful staircase winding up to the second floor, and all of the rooms are huge. That apartment is bigger than my mom’s house in the US! Needless to say, her host family is an anomaly among the city of Vladimir. Most Russians live in small apartments like the one I share with Nina M. Some of you know that I tend to get carsick very easily, and unfortunately, taking various trolleybuses from one place to another all over Vladimir, all day long, without any lunch, did not sit well with my body, and I was feeling pretty crappy by the end of the day. Sigh.
The good weather that we have been having is not going to last. I checked the weather channel today, and learned that as of Wednesday it is going to start raining a good bit, with lows in the 40s and highs in the low 60s or upper 50s. I felt like I should be out enjoying the wonderful weather while it lasts, but after my stomach got to feeling all motionsick, I ended up simply returning home to take a nap. Sigh. Winter is coming.
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