Borderland Edition

“Heel, toe…heel, toe…” I was thinking to myself as I walked along the sidewalk on the layers of snow and ice that had accumulated from winter’s first snowstorm. As I pondered whether the four-inch stiletto heels that the Ukrainian women were still wearing were a help or a hindrance in such conditions, I saw the first of probably many car accidents that I will see this winter. One car was stopped to turn left in front of the movie theater “Sputnik” and another car didn’t realize that until it was too late on the icy road. After a moment of shock the two drivers appeared from their banged up vehicles, spoke for a few minutes, and then lit up cigarettes. Apparently auto accidents are a big problem here. Seeing how people drive, it’s no surprise. The cover story of this week’s issue of Korrespondent, the Russian news magazine, was on the same topic. Война на дорогах (war on the roads) was the title, with the odd subtitle something like “Ukraine has lost more people in auto accidents this year that the USA has lost in five years in Iraq”. I’m not exactly sure what the statistics of one year of auto accidents has to do with five years of fighting a war, but I’m assuming it’s the usual dig against the situation in Iraq.

Feels like Ukraine

This weekend I spent an hour with one of the students at the tutoring center. He is a 30 or 40-something year old guy, Vladimir, sort of like the Ukrainian version of the character from “40 Year Old Virgin”. He has decided to learn English by reading weird detective stories so he uses phrases such as “to get the boot”, “no need to cry over spilled milk” and other assorted cliches. It’s interesting to see how he deliberately steers the conversation in order to use his favorite new phrase. This weekend he must have been researching Colorado because he asked me if I’ve ever eaten Rocky Mountain Oysters. Then he said he was confused because there is no ocean near Colorado, so why do they call them Rocky Mountain Oysters. Exactly.

Since I can only stand so much conversation in broken English, much as I’m sure people feel with my broken Russian, I sometimes try to turn the time into a useful interview session. So, I started asking Vladimir if he was in the Soviet army and what he did during his years of service. He spent his time as “frontier soldier” under Mikhail Gorbachov guarding an important Black Sea port against citizens of the USSR attempting to escape to the free world via cargo ship. When I tried to get more details of the work there he strayed off topic and began to speak about more philosophical subjects such as losing one’s life in past even after confessing the sins of the past. I’m not really sure what he was referring to. But, soon enough the conversation turned to the usual (yawn) topic of what is my favorite music. But, Vladimir did leave me with one interesting saying in Russian:

The realist studies how to dismantle a Kalishnakov rifle.
The nationalist studies the national language (Russia, Ukrainian, etc).
The pessimist studies foreign languages.

Enjoy the pictures of the first snowfall.

I found this on YouTube today:

My Internet connection was too slow to watch all of it, but I loved the scene of skiing in Colorado. The video reminded me of all of the beautiful places and culture we have in America. We may not have thousands of years of cultural traditions, but we have plenty of culture. We also have plenty of time in the future to do so!

Tonight I was invited by my friend Marina to go to a birthday party of her thirteen year old cousin. I didn’t get enough sleep last night and was already exhausted but I decided to go to the party anyway. Marina and I met her parents at the train station, which is one of the central hubs of public transportation for the city. The only form of public transportation that travels near the home of Marina’s aunt was crowded tramvai number 15. The train station is the end of the line for the 15 so when it pulls to a stop there is a collision of people attempting to exit and a huge crowd of people pushing and shoving to get on board before the doors slam shut, occasionally catching an old lady only halfway on. I still hate being stuck in these crowded situations and usually avoid such trams, but in times like these I have no choice so I just start pushing and shoving with the rest of the group. The fun doesn’t end there though, as soon as you want to exit you get to push and shove your way off of the tram as well. And if some unlucky elderly women happens to get in your way, well then so be it.

The aunt’s house was located in one of the village districts within the city. Our arrival was announced by Marina’s father yelling that we had arrived while a menacing-looking German shepherd growled and barked at us from inside the gate. Once inside I was greeted warmly by the babuska of the house with a big gold-toothed smile. We were led into the living room where Shrek 2 was blaring on the TV screen for an audience of no one. The dining table was overflowing with a cornucopia of Ukrainian dishes, from salads to meats. One thing that always amazes me is the amount of food that a host can whip up out of seemingly nowhere in very little time at all. And of course, what dinner is complete without an endless supply of vodka.

After the remainder of the guests arrived, then eating and drinking commenced. After a couple of shots I began using my uber sneaky form of fake drinking which consists of filling my glass with bottled water when nobody is looking. The guests at tonight’s party were amazed at my ability to keep up with the other guys shot after shot. When the rest of the men got up to go outside to smoke the babushka declared that those who stay inside should drink. Being the only guy who didn’t smoke made me the automatic drink pourer which made my fake drinking method all that much easier to pull off. I must of poured at least eight shots for the old lady and she wanted to keep them coming. Eight shots of kool-aid would have put me under the table for good.

In between shots of vodka the group decided it was time to dance. So the Russian music was turned up full blast on the CD player, causing the already blown speakers to become a distorted jumble of noise, and everyone was pulled into the chaos of jumping around in circles with 40-year old women. The traumatic part of the evening came when one of the aunts grabbed me and started to dance with me. Having 200-pound Ukrainian woman wearing a low-cut dress toss me around was not something I expected from the evening. When she pushed me into a corner and came at me with those huge heaving breasts I thought I was done for. My pleading look for help only brought about a laugh from Marina, which reminds me that next time she needs a substitute English teacher I’ll be suddenly busy.

In the end I survived the vodka, meat jello, and Ukrainian melons. I left the house loaded with a bag of pickled tomatoes, leftover Russian salad and an assortment of meat products wrapped in cheap plastic baggies. As we stood in the chilly fall night and waited for the number 15 tramvai to take us back to the train station, I thought that this was definitely more interesting than a night at home reading books about traveling through the Balkans…

My great friends Tyler and Shannon just had a baby. A small girl named Lacy Joy. Congratulations!

It’s funny that in my poor Russian I incorrectly translated that as “Моя подруга - детскый комбинат” which means something along of the lines of “my friend is a children factory.”