Russian cleanliness

The Russians are not as obsessed with cleanliness as Americans are. We wash the bejeezuz out of our dishes. They don't. Some of them just rinse their dishes off in water, and consider that clean. Yuch. I've never seen one use really hot water to wash the dishes. And, their sinks and kitchens are small, lending themselves to a quick soap and rinse cycle. Now, I have to recognize that this is almost certainly adequate except in extreme circumstances.

On the other hand, they have more of a culture of bathing than, say, Latin Americans do. They are generally as well bathed as Americans are. The Roman heritage of bathing lives on here. Oops, I say Roman, but this may reflect historical ignorance. Today we know the sauna as an invention of the northern Germanic (Scandinavian) peoples. And, the bathes in Russia are as much a heritage of Scandinavian culture as Roman. You go do the research, and come back and tell the rest of us which is which, eh? Thanks so much. By the way, up until WW2, the Russians were probably better at bathing than Americans in general. Up until WW2, we were still using the bathtub as the primary means of personal cleanliness. Sometime after WW2 the shower became predominant. And that is only for people who had such facilities. Russians, on the other hand, have almost universal access to some way to clean themselves. The villages may be even better in this regard than the cities of the 20th century. The villagers, as far as I can tell, always have access to a banya. At the lightest heat, the banya is the equivalent of a good shower or a bit better. City folk don't have access to banyas, but do have bathrooms with baths. I couldn't say how long they've been on the scene, but the baths have shower heads with hoses, so that one can wash, and rinse, the whole body. This is better than a bath, where one merely washes the body, but soaks in the dirty water.

Their habits are so different from ours when it comes to household cleanliness, tho. They take off their shoes when entering an abode, and wear house shoes. Shoes are dirty, so they don't wear them inside. They probably sweep more often than we do, but they don't mop as much. The stuff on the outside of the house can pretty much go hang, except if you have money, you paint and mend once a year. And you may mow your hay (notice I don't say lawn) once or twice during the summer - or not. However, some folks in the rural communities take very good care of their lawns - except if they do, it is because it is not a lawn they are taking care of, it is a garden. It may be producing food, flowers, or whatever you can get out of gardens.

They keep their clothes just as clean as we do, perhaps a bit cleaner. The washing machines are, in the city, European style. Which really isn't a matter of cleanliness, at all, but rather one of cleaning frequency and style. They usually air-dry their wash. In the country, by the by, the washing machines may be European style, or they may be a single washing machine and another spin-dry machine, or maybe some other combination that I did not experience.

On occasion they smell worse than Americans. But so do Europeans in general. Americans seem to be obsessed with body odor, as much as the Japanese. This wasn't true before WW1, and perhaps not true before WW2, since the Japanese made such an issue of how much we smelled, but it is true now. Again, you go research the history, and give the rest of us the benefit of your sagacious knowledge, please and thank you.

The train past goodbye

I see a beautiful landscape, great stretches of things that bring joy to my eye, and I think to myself that perhaps I should try again to capture this using photography. But I quickly remember how much time it takes to turn any part of what my eye perceives as beautiful into an image that others can perceive as well as I. I think that it is actually faster to write about it than it would be to try and photograph it. And, I seem to achieve more success with writing it.

Right now, my eye was caught by the clouds and the play of the mid-morning light amongst them. Patches of bright light and color amongst the thick woolly clouds, the shadings are striking. We pass a station where people are standing and waiting. One girl is walking rapidly along the platform, looking like she has somewhere to be. A couple is hugging, a young man and woman, not youths, but somewhere in the prime of young adulthood. She leans into the man and raises a foot behind her, standing on one leg now, as they embrace.

Another time, we are passing a small town, and the portion by the tracks has been an apple orchard, now looking unkept, and somewhat unruly. But my mouth literally waters at the sight of all the apples. The trees are full of them, green apples or red apples still partly greenish. It is a beautiful vision, and my hunger arises as I see it, my mouth anticipating the taste.

Contract up, goodbye, end of Journal?

Thursday, July 27, 2006
And, now, I must say goodbye. It is sad for me. My contract has not been renewed, and I am leaving. As I leave, da spadanya rises to my throat, wanting to be spoken. Da spadanya, Chumlyak, da spadanya Shumika that I just met and wanted to know better, da spadanya Shchuch'ye, da spadanya fields and forests of the Siberian side of the Urals. I do get to say da spadanya to the driver, and I ask him to pass this to the other drivers, as well. I don't think I said da spadanya to Chelyabinsk. I have no love for that place. This is not a happy time, but leaving the camp is a bit like a release. We often say that things will always eventually turn out for the better. I hope that this is so. When I post this to the blog, I think this will be an end to the Russian Journal, because it is certainly an end. I'm not sure of what, but I know that it is. I may start a new blog, and post more Russian experiences there, or I may not. I may not stay in Russia at all. At this time, we just don't know.

Wildflowers

Wildflowers, version 2.

July 5
Wildflowers, there are clouds of them in yellow, purple, and white. Two weeks ago, even last week, I was wondering why there were so few of them out here. There are huge stretches of fields and woods, it would seem that there should be wildflowers aplenty. And there were very few. But now, oh now, we have hazy clouds of color floating over the green fields.
There is a sweet light lavender~pink, in spires, with long green leaves, looking every bit lilke western fireweed. Another set of spired blooms, this time a proper purple. The yellow clouds, perhaps a legume, give me a light and sweet fragrance. I see some purple clover, some white, and a few daisies as well.

July 25
The wildflowers have even grown more numerous. Now the daisies form big swatches to paint more white on the landscapes. The purples have changed, some have faded away a little, replaced by others. There is a blue flower, too, that I think may be chicory. It certainly looks to me like chicory, but unfortunately, this is not a plant I know very well. Now the thistles add intense droplets in deep crimson and purple shades. The grasses are maturing, and they bring silver highlights to the palette of color. The fields of grain are also coming into fruition. The visual texture is rich, and beautiful.

Conversations with Nadia

I continue to ride my bikes often. Sometimes I ride my road bike to work, sometimes I ride my off-road bike to Sovietskaya. I plan on playing with the soccer players on occasion. This is good.
The weather has been a tremendous adventure. It was hot, then it rained, and it was still hot, and it rained again, and it rained again, and it rained again, and . . . now it is cool. Almost cold! Only 11'!
Emily, the boss translator, and I rode to Sovietskoye this evening to talk to Nadia. Nadia, if you will remember, is the neighbor lady whom I have volunteered to do work for. It rather mystifies Nadia that I will work for her, I think, and I think she is a bit uncomfortable with me working for her for free. She tells us she is not an "exploiter" to use my labor as a slave. I was so glad I finally got Emily to go to Sovietskoye with me. We talked with Nadia for a nearly two hours, and we had a marvelous time. There were many, many conversations we had had that we reviewed and updated, now that we had a way to know the other understood. We completed so many conversations, and opened new ones where we were curious. This is the first chance we have had to share the more complicated communication we are used to, and we all enjoy this.
Nadia jokes that she talks to me in German. I tell Emily of when Nadia was talking to me in Tartar, French, and Armenian. Nadia laughs, and says yes, she counted from 1 to 3 in Tartar for me. We talk of her farming. She tells us she tried to put raw manure on her gooseberries the first year and they died. I replied that yes, raw manure would burn them. I told Emily how Nadia had told me she now lets the manure and straw ripen for a year or three. And Nadia illuminates us on some details of how she now does this, but it turns out I had understood her correctly.
She is industrious and hard-working, and loves to farm a bit, I think. She actually bought the house and land she is in on purpose. She was living in Chelyabinsk, I think, and she wanted something for her old age. She is exceptionally strong, and almost never ceases to work as far as I can see. Oh, she takes many breaks, but soon enough she is being productive again.
On her little plot of land she has squash, pumpkins, onions, garlic, gooseberries, rasberries, strawberries, blackberries and more. Flowers for instance. She had wonderful tulips, and soon she will have other flowers. She has given me and my friends most of her tulip crop, and that made me a lot of points with the ladies at work! Later in the year I know I will be taking as much of her berry crop as she will spare.
Nadia says at one point that if I leave in August, she will not have time to make me the mittens and socks she has promised. Later she tells me that when I leave she wants to buy my bicycle. I tell her of course I will sell it to her.

The retirement home

It rains again today, thundershowers. They are plains thundershowers, with the clouds forming, and visible, miles and miles away. The lightning occasionally startles the sky, and thunder is heard. You can see the rain then. It is under the clouds, a grey living veil. Slowly it creeps towards us, a living thing, and slow, so slow. But when it gets near, the wind blows gale force, a priarie hurricane!

I am riding my bike in front of it, and it brings dust from the road a half mile away now. The wind is so strong I feel as though I could fly without pedaling! Soon, soon, the rain will follow. If I were in the American plains, the rain would be already here, but on these plains, the distance between the wind and the rain seems to be stretched a bit. It finally comes down, a nice little wetting. The air cools slightly. The mosquitoes seem to multiply by magic. Now the heat hangs heavily, and the air is humid, although not yet the turgid humidity of the American south. Again it rains, bringing refreshing coolness for a spell, and then that cloud passes as the day passes. It is a little later, a little cooler, but it is still hot, and unpleasantly so.
I sit outside and eat dinner while I drink a beer. Some fellow residents are there, and we joke, but there is a tension. They are tired of the confinements of the camp. One likens it to a retirement home, telling jokes about old men, and his jokes ring true. We swat mosquitoes and they bet on what color of car will pass on the street next. It doesn't take long for them to tire of this amusement they have dreamed up, and they move inside, to the bar, where there is a larger variety of our expat community to share the jokes and stilted communing.
I swat mosquitoes for a few more minutes, alone, and then head indoors myself.

City pollution

Driving into Chelyabinsk

The trees are blooming as we go into the city. My fellow riders comment on the beauty of them. Indeed, they are beautiful, but I had seen the air over the city long before the trees came into view, and that view overrode any enjoyment I might have had of the beauty of the trees. The dirty air poured visibly from the smokestacks, hanging over the town, a horrid pall of pollution.