Ukraine: "Babushka will like a scarf"

2006 TRIP TO RUSSIAN AND UKRAINE, PART 4:  CHERNIGOV AND MOSCOW

June 26:  Ukraine's 70-year old Foreign Languages Magnet School is the reason for our visit to Chernigov.  Through arrangements made by our friend Sherrie Howey and her Foundation for International Professional Exchange (FIPE), three families connected with the school have generously hosted us in their homes.  Today at noon Bill will present FIPE’s annual awards (certificates and $50 to $100 in cash) for excellence in academic achievement and essay writing. 

In a large classroom at the school, Director Ludmilla tells us that more than 100 teachers serve 1500 students in grades 1-11.  She acknowledges FIPE and our visit and then asks our sons, who’ve just filed in with the 20 awardees, standing along the back wall of the room:

"Would you like to stay longer in Chernigov?"

“Yes!” says Owen.  John: “I don’t know," and then quickly: "Yes!”

Bill makes appropriate remarks and then come the awards.  The winning students are mostly girls--fresh-faced and lovely--who smile broadly as their names are called.  I take photos as they shake hands with Bill, to rounds of applause.

Our official invitation

One of the awardees gives us a ceramic candleholder with tea light and says: “We hope this candle will burn in your home and in your hearts, and remind you that you are also in our hearts.”

After lunch with the students, Bill and I hop on a packed mini-bus with two teachers who will show us some historical sites.  I ask about their means of transport, as neither owns a car.  Helen rides a bus. Irina walks to work--an hour and a half each way: “If I didn’t walk to work, I would never get outside for fresh air as my day begins early and ends late.”

The women speak with pride about their Cossack ancestors who ruled here from the 1600s up to the late 1700s, at which time Chernigov became an administrative center of the Russian Empire.  We offer to take them to tea, but they’ve talked with our host Misha, who thinks we should have a rest prior to a 7 pm meeting with Dr. Karetta--director of the local hospital and the man who did the primary triage after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.  He has links with FIPE, and Sherrie Howey made arrangements for the meeting.  How grateful we've felt for all the advance work Sherrie did on our behalf!

Back home, during tea with Misha and Galina, a call comes to say Dr. Karetta can't meet us.  We're relieved.  Our energy--at the end of this two-week marathon--is flagging.  

"Oh good," says Galina, "We've been planning an outing to the forest to cook a special fish stew for you.  But first you must rest!"

Around 6 pm, we spray ourselves with DEET and head for the woods, toting food and supplies, joined by friendly neighbors Ciril and Tonya.  Just 3 blocks from the house we come to a birch forest. The air cools pleasantly as we enter the quiet world of tall trees, stepping on a carpet of green grass.  

The forest seems to go on and on in all directions, but after 10 minutes we reach a small clearing where a large log lies near the remains of a previous fire.  Misha and Ciril chip bark and split thin strips of wood from the log while the women chop previously peeled potatoes, carrots and onions.  Misha goes in search of the right piece of wood to make a stand for holding the large pot.  

Before long the pot is boiling with the vegetables and a grain that look like quinoa.  Soon the fish will be added, but meanwhile we lounge on the blankets and start in on brown bread, cheese, cucumbers, tomatoes, and something new to me as an appetizer--sallow (cured pork fat).  I hesitate on the sallow...

"Try a little with some bread and vodka," says Misha.

This is our last evening in Ukraine and I join in the toasts, taking just small amounts of vodka.  Each couple has brought a bottle of a favorite birch-flavored variety.  We have five toasts over the course of the meal...each merrier than the previous one...always concluding with “Za zdorov’ye!” (To your health!).  The stew is delicious--seasoned at the end with a special spice mix and fresh dill.  After eating we sing and make jokes, laughing heartily in unabashed comradery.

Galina and I walk back to the house with our arms around each other.  After goodbyes to Tonya and Ciril, we two couples sit at the table and have strawberries, chocolate, and more vodka--a red pepper variety, spicy but pleasant.  I'm aware that I may pay for these last 3 small shots, but we're all in a gay and loving mood that continues until we finish the vodka and strawberries and kiss goodnight around 11.  

June 27:  It’s 4:30 am.  I have a headache and my stomach soon rejects its contents.  I drink lots of water, and then doze off for a few hours.  Bill is still asleep when I get up to pack and organize gifts for our host families--scarves for the women, t-shirts for the teens, and Colorado-themed key chain bottle openers, US flag napkins, and post cards for the men.  These things seem so inadequate, but they’re the items we were advised to bring.  

Galina has made another big breakfast.  Sallow is part of the fare…ugh.  Galina offers several kinds of medicine--for head, stomach, and a cough that's coming on.  Each med is in a small bag, with a Russian label.  I take all, along with a little food, and--per Bill's advice--a little vodka.

Misha and Galina present gifts:  Vodka!…one bottle inside a ceramic holder in the figure of a dashing Cossack plus a spare, a box of chocolates, a beer mug for Bill, and a picture book of Chernigov.  We give them our gifts and Bill does his best--as he’s been doing faithfully for three days--to express in Russian our heartfelt thanks, telling them once again how much we would love to host them in Colorado. 

“We will see,” says Misha.

Back at the school for a meeting, we're early and find Ludmilla and some of the teachers dancing and singing boisterously in a hot, airless office.  

"We're practicing for graduation," chuckles Ludmilla, wiping her brow.

Bill, who's been teaching in a community college for over a decade, knows well the heady feeling of "school's almost done for the year! " He takes photos of the animated group. The women have laid out tea, coffee, and chocolates on Ludmilla's large desk, but first we visit the school's newsroom, holding artfully-displayed traditional clothing, collages of historical events, and photos of graduates notable for war service or other endeavors.  

During our brief business meeting, in which Misha and Galina participate, Ludmilla expresses the desire to see more student exchanges--just a couple weeks in length--so youth can directly experience each other's cultures.

Natasha--our guide in Kiev, whose son attends this school--is present to serve as translator, so we can finally express more fully our thoughts and feelings...

Bill:  "Misha and Galina have been the most wonderful cultural ambassadors, and we're so deeply grateful for their hospitality.  Jan and I want to help with student exchanges, and we would very much enjoy serving as hosts."

Me:  "We know that our sons, whom we've hardly seen (they laugh), will have been greatly impacted by this visit and we're anxious to hear from them--as much as they are willing to share (more laughter)--about their experiences."

Ludmilla:  “I’ve heard how well your sons have integrated with the students.”  

Natashsa:  "I wish I'd taken a camera to the town square last evening to capture John wrapped in the Ukrainian flag in honor of Ukraine's [win against Italy and] advancement to the World Cup quarter finals."

As we're about to leave,  Ludmilla lifts from her desk a small, hinged icon set of the Virgin Mary flanked by the angels Gabriel and Michael.  "I don't remember who gave me this," she says, "but knowing it was given in love, I give it to you with love."

Ludmilla's gift

We get to the train station with just 20 minutes to spare for meeting John’s and Owen’s host parents to say thanks and give gifts.  Bill takes photos on the platform and then we board and stand at the train window for 5 minutes with 12 pairs of eyes looking at us intently--several of them overflowing with tears.  We blow kisses and wave goodbyes as the train starts...and then stops abruptly.

Ludmilla has stopped the train.  She forgot to give Bill his requested copies of the winning essays, and now hands them to him in a plastic sleeve.

The boys start talking as their friends run alongside the train, waving goodbye.

Owen:  “The girl in the turquoise top is the one I like.”  

John:  “Let’s come back next year.  Owen and I will start saving our allowances.”

Bill:  “Mom and I can match that.”

John:  “I’m going to learn Russian before then.”

Owen:  “This was the best part of the trip.  Everything else was a waste.”

Bill:  “Mom and I enjoyed the rest, but this was the best.”

They talk on about their new friends and how wonderful their hosts were.

John:  “The little babushka at my house made my bed every day and arranged my clothes and bags carefully by my bed.  And every evening when we got home, dinner was on the table.”

Me:  “I’m sure you didn’t throw your clothes on the floor.”

John:  “No, and I thanked them a lot and gave Babushka my leftover money.  What gifts did you give them?”

“Scarves, t-shirts, and small souvenirs of Colorado.”

“Babushka will like a scarf.”

On the train I read all the student essays and am touched by the eagerness of Ukrainian youth to embrace their expanding world while remembering and honoring their roots.  They look with hope to the West, but seem to have an awareness of some of our excesses.  Like young people everywhere, they’re experimenting with life and trying to figure out what they believe.  

June 28:  At the Moscow airport, we discover our camera is missing.  We search everything, including our very tired brains, to try to figure out what happened.  We’re all upset, and the boys and I are especially sad for Bill, who bought the camera for this trip, took most of the photos, and feels the loss deeply.  We won’t be able to make a photo album for Galina and Misha or send photos of the awards ceremony to Ludmilla.  

But…we have my journals, a calendar from St Petersburg, and the photo book of Chernigov.  And rich moments are imprinted on our minds and in our hearts.  I picture Galina’s sweet, smiling eyes as she says to me, in perfect English:  “I love you” ...and Inna’s approving, loving look as she tells us:  “Owen made breakfast this morning--omelet and bacon."  I'll not forget Misha’s direct, blue-eyed gaze as he says:  “Janette, I’m going to dance with you,” nor Ludmilla’s insistent, purposeful: “Now, back to the issue of student exchanges.”

I remember the brightly painted shutters on old wood houses, the blue of the lakes where we swam, the deep green of the birch forests, and the golden domes of churches sparkling in the sun.  Perhaps in the future I’ll take fewer photos and instead take in more deeply life's passing moments.

A few years after the trip, our Russian friend Katya gives us a book about her home town Vladimir (her mother helped us during our visit there).  Not having the Chernigov book at hand while writing these memories, I've gratefully used here some photos from the book:  Vladimir: Glimpses of the City (1995). While reading the book again, I find words that can apply not only to cathedrals created by man to the glory of God, but to we ourselves--however beautiful or broken--created by God to hold his glory:

The ancient cathedrals "are not only 'monuments' on the UNESCO World Heritage List, not only 'properties to be restored.'  They strike the string of inborn Truth and Beauty in us, the children of the rationale age. Pause, passer-by."

Ukraine: Adults Only

PART 3, 2006 TRIP TO RUSSIA/UKRAINE:  CHERNIGOV AND KIEV

June 23:  Our train from Moscow to Ukraine is older and grimier than what we’ve known so far.  We board at 9 pm--a half hour before departure--and settle in, but the cabin is stifling.  Bill, Owen, and John return to the platform while I stand in front of the open window adjacent to our cabin, waiting for the occasional breeze.

Instead of a young hostess, as on other trains, we have a small, thin, gray-haired steward.  He’s quick and efficient:  checks passports, gives us immigration forms, and then linens, for which we lack correct change.  He and Bill sort it out and Bill tells him to keep some money for a tip.  Soon he brings tea, at no charge, and later comes again to offer refills.

John (14) and Owen (15), summer of 2006

Bill and I complete forms while the boys--delighted that four teen girls occupy a nearby cabin--walk up and down the train for awhile.  Then they settle into their berths--eating snacks and drawing--and we have a mini discussion about relationships and sex. “Be available when they want to talk, as the moment may soon pass,” advised a wise friend and mother of older teens. In recent days we’ve had other brief discussions:  about communism, poverty, respect for differences, and compassion for those who make poor life choices.

“You guys have been troopers on this trip, and Mom and I are very proud of you,” Bill told them.  They’ve pounded the pavement and lugged bags on and off trains, up and down escalators in extreme heat, pressed by crowds.  Owen has been ill some of the time (Bill’s virus passed along) and John has low tolerance for heat and sweat, but they’ve complained very little and seem energized for each new adventure.  We’ve encouraged them to go out on their own in safe areas.  We don’t know it yet, but in about 10 hours, we’ll be separating from them for several days.

June 24:  Having just exited the train in Chernigov (or Chernihiv), about 80 miles north of Kiev, we’re greeted by a sturdy, middle-aged woman and a lovely, teen-aged girl with dark hair and porcelain skin.

“We are your hosts,” says the woman, with a warm smile. “I’m Ryuslana and this is Inna; the others are looking for you on the other train cars.”    

Sherrie Howey and husband Hamp brief Bill (L)
on his duties in Ukraine just prior to our trip

Soon we’re surrounded by a dozen adults and teens--all smiling broadly.  Ryuslana explains that each of us will go with a different host family...all connected with the Chernigov Foreign Languages Magnet School which receives support from our friend Sherrie Howey’s organization:  Foundation for International Professional Exchange (FIPEworld.org).

“Thank you!  We need just a little time to organize our things for separate dwellings, and we'll need to do some laundry,” I explain.

“No problem.  We all have washing machines,” says Ryuslana.

Our greeters give us privacy to sort and repack on the train platform, and then the boys go off happily with soon-to-be new friends.  

“Your sons will join a group from the school,” says Ryuslana. “They will enjoy an outing to the river, some games and competitions, and then a concert in the evening.  You will be hosted by a school family for an adult picnic at a lake.”

Our hosts Mikhail and Galina live in a comfortable, moderate-sized suburban home with a shaded yard and garden.  Handsome, brown-haired Mikhail shows us the multi-leveled structure he built 20 years ago...2 sunrooms, 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, and a small kitchen and dining area with a table for four.  They are parents of two teens.  We never meet the older son.  Their daughter Dasha, 15, will be out with our sons and other students during most of our stay.  Her parents keep close tabs on her whereabouts as girls in Ukraine have been kidnapped by sex traffickers. 

Galina--blond, full-figured, and motherly--offers showers and then invites us to breakfast:  chicken soup, creamy rice with corn, salad of fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots and dill, plate of cheese and sausage, sour cream/nut/raisin blinis, small fruit pastries, and to drink: coffee, tea, juices, chilled vodka, and wine.  Feeling immediately “at home,” and with Bill translating,  we jump right into Ukrainian history and politics.  They have questions about the US, and fear either Russia or the US will “take over” Ukraine (independent since the 1991 dissolution of the USSR).  Their thoughts on current leaders:  “Yushchenko is weak; Putin is strong; we don’t like Bush.”

A couple hours later we’re on our way to the (man-made) lakes, driving through pine and birch forests and a village that was a collective settlement during Soviet times.  Old people sit on benches in the shade or dig in their gardens.  Government pensions: $80/month; professional salaries, as in Russia: $100-$200.  

The tree-rimmed lakes are peaceful on this sunny day--with families swimming, boating, and cooking food over open fires.  We swim, rest, eat ham sandwiches and strawberries, and chat like old friends.  Galina promises that if we come again next year, she will learn English.  We invite them to Colorado, but “It’s so expensive to travel,” they say.

At dinner, back home, Mikhail demonstrates proper toasting.  “The third toast is always to the women!” he exclaims...all of whom are then kissed by all the men, etc.  A friend who’d traveled in Russia, knowing of my low tolerance for alcohol (more than two glasses of wine, and I’m silly or ready to doze), warned me about toasting customs and advised small sips of wine instead of vodka.  So while Bill and Mikhail take vodka shots in traditional fashion, I sip my wine.

“You must drink if you want to have a fun evening!” says Mikhail...now “Misha.”

“Galina is not drinking,” I reply.

“She will drive us to the town center this evening...unless you would rather rest?”

“Oh no, we'd like to see the town!”

We enjoy a lovely park where old people dance to accordion music, young people stroll, children climb on ancient canons, and cathedral domes gleam in the setting sun.  This city is one of the oldest in Europe, founded in the 8th or 9th century.  Only a very small percentage of its 300,000 citizens occupies the town center this evening....such a pleasant change from the crowds in Moscow and St Petersburg!

In a cozy cafe, Misha orders small bowls of chicken and mushroom salad, vodka for the men, and wine for me.  Bill wants to treat; I demur on the wine.

“Nyet,” Misha says firmly to Bill, and to me: “Have a small glass of wine and then I am going to dance with you.”

A party's progressing in another room, and people are taking the mike to sing local songs.  Galina orders ice cream, but when it arrives, Misha says it's time to dance and leads me next door.

I’m not much of a dancer, but Misha is, and thanks to him we move somewhat gracefully around the floor along with two younger couples.  Back at the table, he declares me his best American dancing partner ever.  Bill and Galina smile indulgently.  I suspect I’m his only American partner, but whatever...this charming man makes up for the lack of interesting men in Russia!

June 25:  The Dnieper River runs through the ancient city of Kiev, serving as a natural divide between east and west Ukraine.  The river crossing--on a metro train--offers a broad view of the city with its skyline of high rises and beautiful, old churches, several of which we’re soon to see.

Our guide Natasha--a good friend of FIPE--has a PhD from New York University and speaks fluent English, Russian, Ukrainian, German, some French, and “a little Spanish.”  Directer of international programs at an agency here in Kiev, she’s full of pride in the country in which she gained citizenship through “lots of paperwork over two years.”

“This corner of the Soviet Union was once unified,” she says, “but now it’s three separate countries:  Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia.  We should have been granted dual citizenship when the USSR dissolved (she lived in Belarus at the time).  The new nationalism negates common history.  Students used to spend 2 weeks studying Pushkin (revered father of Russian poetry, Bill reminds me); now they get 2 hours because Pushkin falls under ‘foreign’ poets.” 

Walking along a wide, tree-lined boulevard, we stop at a war memorial.  Here, as is other cities, memorials are awash in flowers in remembrance of the 65th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Russia.  Over the past 10 days we’ve repeatedly heard this phrase from tour guides: “...destroyed and reconstructed after the Great Patriotic War,” and I’ve pondered the will and energy required for rebuilding cities and lives after war.

Being Sunday, we mingle with church-goers--babushkas in shabby garb and stylish young women with lovely scarves tied over their heads, round their necks, flowing softly down their backs.  We visit a 10th century monastery, where monks lived in catacombs  for up to 30 years.  The tour guide recounts a “miracle”:  100 bodies, among the thousands buried here, were found fully intact.  The 100 monks were later designated as saints.

It’s “Youth Day,” and on the packed town square--Maidan Nezalezhnosti--rock bands play on temporary stages under blue skies.  Just 18 months ago hundreds of thousands gathered here to protest the outcome of a rigged election.  The peaceful event led to the reversal of election results, and Yushchenko (who’d been famously poisoned with disfiguring dioxin in an assassination attempt) came to power.

“How do you feel about his leadership?” we ask Natasha.

“He’s not been able to deliver what was promised and there is so much secrecy.  Officials are concerned more about their own interests than the needs of the country.”

We’re a group of 7 today...including Owen, John, Natasha’s 16-year-old son Valera--a friendly, worldly-wise young man who’s traveled widely with his mother, and Inna--the 14-year-old daughter of Owen’s host family.  Inna has seen to everyone’s comfort and ensured that no one has been without a walking partner or lagged too far behind as we’ve traversed the city.  Her English is as perfect as she herself seems to be, in both character and physical beauty.  

After our visit to the Maidan, we debate a further walk or a return to Chernigov.  Weary of the crowds and the heat, I vote for calling it a day, and the others agree.   The boys go off with their friends for a Youth Day concert.  Grateful they're in good hands, Bill and I enjoy another adults only evening with our now beloved hosts.  Galina prepares Chicken Kiev in honor of today's outing.

Remembering Russia..."We have to trust people"

PART 2,  2006 TRIP TO RUSSIA/UKRAINE:   ST PETERSBURG AND VLADIMIR

St Isaac's Cathedral, St Petersburg

June 19:  I’m back on the streets of St Petersburg, but with a new guide.  Tonya is filling in for our helper Katya who is busy giving oral exams at the University today and tomorrow.  Bill and the boys have opted to take it easier today.  ”It’s like a day off school,” says John.  Owen wants to skateboard; he's met some interesting people in his forays around the neighborhood.

"You can't go off with anyone," said Bill.

"I know, Dad."

“It’s girls' day out,” I say to Tonya.  She takes me to find a teapot like Olga’s, and then to a couple grand churches.  The most interesting part of the day, however, is our conversation during afternoon tea on a terrace overlooking Nevsky Prospekt, the city’s main boulevard--a place of "feverish activity," wrote one historian.

“There are many beautifully dressed young women around St Petersburg.  Are they all well-to-do?" I ask.

“No,” Tonya replies, looking both ways and then, in semi-whisper: “Let me tell you...most of these young women buy their clothes off the street.  They come from Turkey and are cheap and not well made.  But if you search, you can find nice things and the summer is short, so they will last.”

"There are so many women; where are the men?”

“That’s what I wonder...I mean, really!  There are nice young men, educated, but they don’t want to work.  They are wimplike.  I don’t know why.  I’m 24 and I can’t meet anyone here I would want to marry.”

“Why is there so much corruption?”

“Our systems have never really worked right.  Russian people take advantage of freedom.  They don’t know what to do, and so go to extremes...like in eating and drinking, for example.”

John Lawrence, in A History of Russia, wrote of “...an uneasy freedom limited by the shackles of debt and poverty.”

Tonya will be coming to the US in the fall, to study Teaching English as a Second Language at the University of Northern Iowa.  She expresses delight when I invite her to visit us in Colorado (we’ll keep in touch by email for awhile, but she’ll be unable to visit).

A university student said this:  “If you want a life, you have to get out of here.  Out of Russia altogether.  Otherwise, you’re caught in this bureaucracy.  If you can’t make use of it, or understand its way of thinking, you sink.  Young people don’t feel connected with this country, because its system isn’t ours.  It’s an old people’s system.  It comes from another time, so we’ll go to America, or anywhere that will free us.  It’s not that we don’t love Russia, it’s just that we have to live properly.  We’re young men born into an old man’s world.”  Quoted by Colin Thubron, In Siberia (1999)

June 20:  The Winter Palace of the Tsars, with its ornate, gold-gilded rooms and famous Hermitage Museum is nothing short of magnificent.  We spend 3 hours viewing works by Michelangelo, Rodin, Rembrandt, Goya, Rafael, and the largest collection of French Impressionist paintings outside France.  Owen is intrigued by the jewel-encrusted crowns, John the armor.  Thousands from all over the world mingle with us, along with guides speaking German, French, Chinese, and English.  On the way out, Tonya notes the steps by which revolutionaries entered the palace in 1917 to arrest the governing official.  Nicholas II had already abdicated and was at Tsarskoye Selo, where he and his family would be executed the coming year.  

Bill has succumbed to a miserable cold/cough, so Tonya is my date for a 6 pm concert at the Mariinsky Theater.  Opened in 1860, it will close for repairs soon after tonight’s concert--dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of Shostakovich.  His 7th Symphony, “majestic music about mankind’s resistance to violence and tyranny” reads the program note, was famously performed in this city in 1942, during the Nazi siege of Leningrad.  I’d read The 900 Days just prior to our trip. Starving people extended their meagre flour rations with sawdust and glue scraped from wallpaper.  A million and a half died here, among the estimated 26-27 million Russian deaths during WWII.

June 21:  A sleeper cabin on a Russian train is a great way to travel.  It’s clean and comfortable, with a fresh white linen cloth on the little table by the window and crisp bed linens and towels ($10 for four packs).  Each car has a hostess who looks after your needs.  Oriental carpets cover the floors, with linen runners protecting the main corridor rugs.  Vendors come by with drinks, magazines, and toys.  

The boys are watching the movie Crash on John’s Play Station.  Bill sacked out on a upper berth about an hour ago, at 9 pm.  Faithful Katya saw us off at the station.  We’d shared much/talked of many things: she and Bill--literature and languages; she and I--family and poverty.  We invited her to visit us in Colorado.  She has a boyfriend and would like to marry, but is challenged financially.  Her most immediate desire is “to move to a greener, less polluted place...a suburb of St Petersburg.”

Golden Gate at Vladimir

June 22:  Our Vladimir guide is Marina, a short, middle-aged piano teacher, with a crew cut and a big smile.  She picks us up in a minivan with a driver, tells us she speaks Russian and Italian.  Bill will translate for me and the boys.  “Vladimir was the first capital of Russia,” she says, pointing out the Golden Gate (it’s mostly white) built in 1164--similar to gates in the holiest cities of Eastern Orthodoxy: Jerusalem, Constantinople and Kiev.  We visit an 11th century monastery and enter a small church whose walls are covered with frescoes in earthy colors.  Soon a quartet of men enters and begins singing, their voices amplified in the cavernous interior.  I close my eyes; my spirit is lifted.  All too soon it’s over and we leave the sacred space for an adjacent gift/antique shop.

Vladimir is full of skilled musicians and artisans and we purchase a CD (above) and some small souvenirs.  I can’t resist a beautifully crafted, wide-brimmed hat made of local flax (linen), and wear it gratefully as we spend time outdoors in the mid-day sun, walking around a village depicting peasant life (85% of the population at the time of the revolution).  

Still wearing my flax hat!

For lunch Marina takes us down a shaded side street, where sit two old ladies wearing traditional babushka scarves.  They pull bright green pickled cucumbers from a bucket of brine and herbs, and extract warm piroshkis--savory with onions, potatoes and eggs-- from their small pushcarts. Yum.  Marina says there will be a cucumber festival in July.

A less cheerful claim to fame:  this city was home to the main prison for those who disagreed with Soviet leadership.  Other dissenters were essentially imprisoned in the 30 “psychiatric” hospitals around the area, often diagnosed with “sluggish schizophrenia.”   At one point on our drive, we come to a big T-junction and Marina says: “A left turn takes you to Moscow, and a right turn to Siberia.”  I think of the hundreds of thousands who were sent down that road to forced labor/prison camps.

Our hotel room is stifling (“This is the hottest it’s ever been in Vladimir!” said someone), so we sit at an outdoor cafe after a disappointing meal at a local restaurant.  We’re feeling used after handing over $200 requested by Marina for what we thought was an agreed upon $100.  Bill questioned, but she was persistent:  “You got a private tour.”  

"She should have spilt it with you--you served as translator."

"That would have been a good response," chuckled Bill.

Marina is the friend of our Pueblo friend Katya’s mother, so we did not want to push the issue.  Adding to the small miseries of the moment, Bill wonders why he was asked to translate for an American guest who complained to the hotel management about being ripped off in Vladimir...by taxi drivers, a prior hotel, etc.  A military policeman at Checkpoint Charlie a few years before Bill’s army intelligence stint in Berlin, the "other" American at our hotel now tracks bank fraud.  

“He didn’t need a translator,” says Bill.

“Probably the management just didn’t know what to make of him,” I suggest, “but I suppose for someone with your background...it must be easy to be a bit paranoid.”  

As we sip cold drinks, I notice several brutish looking men busy on their cell phones on the sidewalk nearby.  Perhaps it’s all perfectly innocent, but Russian organized crime is the biggest crime network in the world...

June 23:  Bill wakes me up at 8 am by pulling a damp towel down my arm (cooling method we employed last night in our sweltering room):  “We have to check out in an hour, honey.” 

Nina's gift

We meet Katya’s mother Nina in the hotel lobby.  Trim, 40 something, she greets us with a sweet smile.  We hand over gifts sent along from Pueblo.  Nina gives the boys a box of chocolates, and Bill and me a small, framed cross-stitching of a church.  Then she says, “William, a secret,” and takes him aside.  Pulling out a white envelop, she removes a $100 bill;  she and Marina decided $100 was enough for yesterday’s tour.  After a visit over coffee, Nina takes us across the street to catch a local bus to the big bus station.  When we arrive, ready to board for Moscow, she tells us where to sit to avoid the sun, and kisses us goodbye. 

In Moscow, Bill easily gets us from the bus station to the train that takes us to the other side of the city, where we’ll board a train to Ukraine at 9:30 pm.  I sit with the luggage at the connecting station while the guys explore the possibility of storing our bags so we can wander unencumbered and find dinner.  There’s a storage area nearby, but Bill and I are both wary about leaving the luggage.

“Is it guarded by older ladies?” I ask, believing that no one messes with the military-like babushkas who monitor many of the check stations and public bathrooms.

“No, by 3 big guys in blue jumpsuits,” says Bill.

“Come on,” says Owen: “We have to trust people.”

“Right, let’s do it,” I say.

The luggage guys--aged 50 or 60--look like the kind of men who might have roughed up people for the KGB.  While we wait to deposit our bags, one of the men approaches me and says: “Austrian?”

“American,” I reply, with a smile.

He claps his hands and grins widely.

“Spasiba!” (thank you), I say, patting his hefty shoulder. 

Remembering Russia…10 Years Later!

This is my year of meaningful anniversary decades:  1976--finished grad school and headed to Africa;  1986--first full year of marriage to Bill Lewis, a man I still love and honor, in spite of our present “divorced” status;  2006--began collaborative work with Haitian women and made an unforgettable trip to Russia and Ukraine with Bill and our sons Owen (15) and John (14). 

That unforgettable journey fulfilled a long-standing dream for Bill, who studied Russian and used it in military intelligence work--his first career.  His release from the related security designation (Top Secret) meant he/we could finally make the trip, and his selection as Faculty of the Year at Pueblo Community College (southern Colorado) provided some travel funds.

Bill receiving faculty award, 6 months prior to trip

Friend Sherrie Howey learned of our plans and asked us to carry/present cash awards to students in Ukraine on behalf of the Foundation for International Professional Exchange (FIPEWorld.org), an agency her family had co-founded with a Russian man a decade or so earlier.  In exchange, Sherrie helped with some of our expenses and arranged guides for us in Moscow and St Petersburg.   

With Sherrie Howey

Russian friends in Pueblo helped too!  Karine Garibova of the Veronika String Quartet, resident musicians at Colorado State University-Pueblo at the time, overlapped with us in Moscow and showed us some of the city.  The quartet’s violist Katya Dobrotvorskaia arranged for her mother to assist us when we visited Vladimir--one of the ancient cities of the Golden Ring northeast of Moscow.  

Sadly, our one camera--holding hundreds of photos--was stolen near the end of our two week journey.  “I don’t think I’ll ever get over the loss,” said Bill.  Fortunately, I kept a detailed journal of the trip, enabling me to share highlights here.  Photo credits: Vladimir:  Glimpses of the City (1995); calendar purchased in St Petersburg.   

The journey was much more than seeing historic places, where people have known deep suffering.  As visitors/strangers, we were offered the beautiful gift of friendship!  And in facing various traveler’s challenges, we as a family learned to depend on two essentials--our love for one another, and the determination to find ways forward together. I dedicate this four-part blogpost to Bill, in honor of Father’s Day. 

Karine Garibova

PART I:  MOSCOW and ST PETERSBURG

June 14:  On arrival at the airport, we quickly spot a short, dark-haired man holding a computer printed sign: “Bill Lewis.” After a brief exchange in Russian, we follow him to the parking lot, where he opens the car trunk for our bags.  We're all silent for awhile in the car, and then Bill asks if he's a friend of our contact person Galina, who arranged the transport. “No. Taxi" are his only words to us during the hour plus trip to the hotel.  

We soon see an advantage to his silent focus.  The highways are congested and he drives very aggressively!  It’s 2 pm; is this rush hour in Moscow? Galina tells us the next day that there are 10,000 new cars on the roads every year, and highways have not been improved for decades.  But what a place!  Stately ancient churches, ugly Soviet-style buildings, and flashy neon signs touting designer clothes, electronics, and casinos. I can’t wait to see it up close.

Our $300/night, 3-star hotel suite is clean and comfortable, with 50s era art deco furnishings.  Two sleek windows--the only modern features in the rooms--look out on tall ash trees and a bank of old toilets.  I wash the clothes we’ve been in for 48 hours, thankful for the advice to bring along a wide plug for the bathtub.  Owen helps me wring out the laundry and asks: “How did the women who washed our clothes in Haiti (during a 2003 service trip) get them so clean?”  I explain about washboards.

June 15:  Fortified by a decent night’s sleep and a breakfast buffet almost fit for royalty (there went some of our $300!), we’re headed toward the city center on the Moscow Metro...a shabby but apparently well-functioning system. The cars are packed.  People mostly sit quietly…reading, dozing, or looking around.  We no doubt stand out with our backpacks and Nikes, but we’re ready to walk!  John and Owen are dismayed that we look like tourists.  “It’s a legitimate role,” I say, “and Russians are most likely pleased we’re aiding their economy.”

We exit at a stop where we need to switch trains, and step into a grandly ornate hall with huge chandeliers and paintings on the ceilings.  We’ll be in about 8 different metro stations in Moscow, each unique--with statuary, mosaics--depicting themes of the communist state.  We get muddled by the many levels and signs, decide to leave the station and walk to our destination, but then realize it’s too far.  Bill gets directions from a hotel concierge and back we go...now finding the right train.  Over the next few days Bill ably navigates the system and the city.

The Tretyakov gallery: “world’s foremost collection of Russian art,” is spectacular. The boys are intrigued by the icons; I’m drawn to the light and color of the paintings of the impressionists and The Wanderers.  Our Pueblo friend Karine (visiting her family here) meets us at the gallery exit and takes us on a walking tour along the Kremlin wall, past the Moscow Conservatory, and to a small Georgian restaurant tucked away on a side street.  The food--eggplant, lamb kebobs, and borscht--is delicious.  We make plans to meet for dinner tonight at a new jazz club.  “An Armenian Aretha Franklin will be performing,” says Karine, “and they have great ethnic food.”  

June 16:  We’re standing--in awe, with thousands of other tourists--in the middle of Moscow’s Red (“beautiful”) Square.  Before us is the colorful, 9-domed St. Basil’s Cathedral, behind us the multi-spired, red brick State Historical Museum, to our left the impressive expanse of GUM (state department store), and to our right the walls of the Kremlin--imposed upon by the now heavily debated tomb of the embalmed Lenin, which many Russians feel is inappropriate for their capital’s beautiful city square.

The Kremlin

Inside the park-like Kremlin, we visit the magnificent, gold-domed, Archangel Cathedral (completed in 1508)--burial place of the tsars, every inch of wall and ceiling covered with colorful icons and other renditions of the Holy Family, saints, and events in the life of Christ.  Five singers lift their voices in celestial song that moves me to tears.  We buy a CD...a favorite for years to come.

Over late lunch at GUM we talk with our guide Galina about the realities of her life.  She’s positive and philosophical, but admits things are tough for 80% of Russians--3/4 of whom are quite poor.  A typical retirement pension is $100/month, and most jobs pay little more.  Immigrants from the former Soviet republics (where economic conditions are even worse) vie with Russians for jobs and are willing to work for less.  “Intellectuals--educated professionals are not appreciated or remunerated in Russia,” says Galina.

A fifth of the population has taken advantage of opportunities to make quick money on the backs of others--a huge area of profit being the sex trade.  I’d readThe Natashas just before the trip, and learned that tens of thousands of girls from Russia and the Balkans are being lured--with promises of work as nannies, etc., into essential slavery as prostitutes in Europe and elsewhere.  On the black market, these girls are the third most profitable regional “commodity,” after illegal weapons and drugs.

June 17:  We board the train to St Petersburg just after midnight and settle gratefully into our sleeping compartment...under fragrant pink sheets.  I awaken at 4 am to full daylight (it’s the season of the “white nights”), eager to see the north country.  I peer out the window at rivers and lakes, birch and pine forests, and quaint wooden houses...until sleep overtakes me.  At 8 am, a female voice gives the wakeup call at the door and soon the attendant brings us tea in glass cups nesting in silver holders designed with spaceships orbiting the earth.  No sooner has the train stopped than a young woman with short brown hair and glasses appears at the doorway: “Are you the Lewises?”

Katya, 26, has a PhD in Germanic and Romantic Languages and teaches at St Petersburg State University, earning about $100/month.  She, like many, works more than one job; she’ll earn $80/day as our guide and helper.  She takes us to the small apartment we’ll rent for $50/day from a friend of a friend of our friend Sherrie Howey.  Across a featureless courtyard, through a heavy iron door, up a dark, cement stairway lit by a single bare bulb, to the third floor we go.  

Katya knocks, and red-haired, smiling Olga opens a thick, heavily insulated door.  The two-room apartment exudes a shabby, old world charm--loose parquet floor, molded ceilings, antiquated wallpaper, china plates on the walls.  The narrow double bed, pull-out couch, and foam chair/bed will do for sleeping.  And hooray!--there’s a washing machine (it can boil clothes, I learn the hard way). Olga offers tea and fruit--the traditional Russian welcome--and then exits to stay with her grown daughter.  This is our cozy home for the next five days.

Mid-morning we commence a 10-mile tour, at race-walk pace, in unusual 90 degree weather with high humidity.  We move in a wave of humanity, in a fashion parade, with hundreds...maybe thousands of young women dressed in stylish sundresses or two-piece ensembles baring midriff and decolletage, many braving stiletto heels on cobblestone walkways.  The boys enjoy it immensely.

“Why can’t you dress more stylishly?  You have stylish clothes,”  says Owen.

"I'm more interested in comfort right now, sweetheart, and we have lots of walking ahead."

"We'll be strong for all this walking," John (whose preferred activity involves computers) had commented in Moscow.

Peter and Paul Fortress, St Petersburg

Tsar Peter the Great founded the city in 1703.  Renamed Petrograd in 1914 and Leningrad in 1924, it became St Petersburg again in 1991. The imperial capital of Russia until 1918, it's a city of majestic proportions, on the Neva River, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea.  We see the city center, walk along the waterfront, hear an open-air concert, and spend time at the museum/home of Dostoyevsky--who wrote of the “devil-possessed underbelly of St Petersburg.”  On the way home we visit a  farmer’s market and buy fresh salmon ($8/lb.) and the pickled vegetables we've come to love.

June 18:  It’s 3:30 am, and having slept a solid 3 hours, I need to catch up on this journal.  Sensing the great privilege of being here, I want to record and share the experience with others.  But first tea--brewed with loose leaf Ceylon, in Olga's beautiful blue and white teapot.  I toast some bread on the stovetop and top it with Havarti cheese and jam.    

Six hours later, following a 40-minute train ride, we’re walking through a small settlement of wood houses of various sizes, in various states of disrepair.  From the rich black dirt, flowers bloom and vegetables sprout on this glorious, blue-sky day.  Katya checks her map, and we turn off the paved road onto a dirt country road where we encounter the occasional car or bicycle.  After a mile or so, we cross a field of purple lupine, skirt a shaded cemetery, and approach a open rise ringed by tall pines.  Within the pines stands a Russian Orthodox Church--built of wood, painted white, with traditional dome and bell tower.  

Katya and I don heads scarves, and we all enter the sanctuary just in time for the 10 am service.  Paneled with lacquered pine, the walls are covered with icons.  The only seats are a few benches against a back wall, where older women--dressed in shabby skirts and sweaters, anklets and sturdy flat shoes--sit from time to time during the long service. The priest, wearing a stiff, white, brocade-like robe, stands in a corner near the front, hearing confessions and blessing the penitent by covering their heads with his stole and making the sign of the cross.  I recognize the portly Father Nicolai from Sherrie Howey’s photos, his long, curly blond hair--under a white headpiece--and beard now speckled with gray.

I’m struck by two things--the devotion of the ~ 60 worshippers and the sensual beauty of the whole experience...incense, candlelight illuminating the gold of the icons, sonorous intonations of the priest, voices of the choir, and reverent movement of congregants from icon to icon.  I also marvel at the ability of the worshippers to stand for 2 1/2 hours.  Bill whispers: “Here you get your salvation and your suffering at the same time.”