Posts Tagged ‘Russia’
After deciding to move to Siberia for a year to teach at the Chita State Technical University, I embarked on a travel odyssey unlike any other. In this entry, we pick up the trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway.
The Horror
As my new Russian friend walked down the hall, I reflected on the information he had provided me with a grimace. The train ride from Khabarovsk to my destination, Chita, was going to take three days. I had already been traveling for four days and the thought of 3 days on a train made me?unhappy.
While reflecting on this development, I had an opportunity to take a look at my new neighbors, err?fellow passengers. They were moving in. Literally. Pillows, sheets, bags full of food. The general impression was we were going to be on the train for a long, long time.
As we actually cleared the city, I told myself to look at it as an adventure. An adventure? Oh, yes.
Of Crackers and Grape Juice
Nutrition is an odd thing. Like many, I try to eat a healthy diet with vegetables and so on. Of course, a stressful day at work has led to more than a few fast food meals. On the Trans-Siberian Railway, I would’ve killed for fast food.
Contrary to what another passenger had told me, the food car on the train was open for business. The woman in charge of our car told me this in limited English and an exasperated look on her face. Well, she didn’t lie. The food car was open. Unfortunately, the only thing it was selling were boxes of crackers and grape juice.
I’m not a big cracker fan, but I’ll eat them. I happen to like grape juice?or I did. For the next 48 hours, Grae, a fellow traveler, and I munched crackers and drank juice. Then we drank juice and munched crackers. Then we crushed crackers and put them in the juice. Then we made feverish declarations to never eat crackers or drink juice again. Ever.
The Funny Part
After 48 hours of crackers and juice, I was more than willing to starve. I kept having nightmares about the horrible things happening in my stomach. Grae apparently had arrived at the same opinion. Cinching up his pants, he went to hit up our fellow travel companions for some real food.
Part of the fun of traveling is realizing how foolish you really are. When you are in a country where you don’t speak the language, you are going to eat a pretty hefty amount of humble pie. What the hey, we were hungry.
After five minutes, Grae returned to our compartment with one of those looks on his face. We had lived on crackers and grape juice for no reason. Yes, we could buy food at every stop the train made by just walking into the train station. And we stopped a lot.
As we pulled into a little town, Grae and I were hanging from the doors of the train. We ran into the station and?all they had were crackers and grape juice. Just kidding. I am not sure what we bought, but it was the best food I’ve ever had.
Next stop?Chita!
Read more of this Russian Travelogue at NomadJournalTrips.com
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Romance and Russia, the two words just go together. Unless, of course, you are trying to speak in Russian.
Russian Language
The Russian language is not one that is typically considered a romance language. Based on the Cyrillic alphabet, there are a lot of stops and starts not to mention the occasional harsh noise. Given the fact that I was from California and thus could barely speak proper English, it was all the more a challenge.
Russian Women
In that I was living in Russia for a year, it was inevitable I would pick up a Russian girlfriend. Hey, there had to be at least one crazy one in the city!
Russian women are much sought after for their beauty and grace. Indeed, 9 out of 10 desperate men prefer to order addresses from a Russian mail order bride web site versus all other nationalities. Okay, I made that up, but you get the idea.
In truth, I found Russian women to be all they are touted to be and excellent cooks. As a single male in Siberia sans microwave, the cooking part was critical. Due to the lack of Pepto in Siberia, poisoning oneself is not recommended.
Still, Russian women do suffer from one flaw inherent in all women. Upon finding a boyfriend lacking in certain areas, a Russian woman will endeavor to fix them. In my case, the improvement involved the Russian language and love.
Ya tyebya lyublyu! This is the Russian phrase for “I love you.” At no point in time could I pronounce it correctly. I could declare my love, but never in the right direction. Because of the nuances of the Russian language, my inability to profess my love would lead me to say the equivalent of:
“I love tree”
“I love door”
“I love dog”
Of course, I could cuss like a local, but that was frowned upon by the girlfriend.
After months of aggravation, my girlfriend became determined to resolve this flaw in my moral character. Practice was the key and practice I did. Like that odd person in the bookstore, I mumbled “Ya tyebya lyublyu!” everywhere I went. This often led to random Russian women smiling at me and less enthusiastic Russian men giving me harsh looks. I won’t even mention what the occasional dog tried to do to my leg. Despite my efforts, my immortal soul could not be fixed. We gave up. Still, she had the determined look in her eyes, so I knew I wasn’t out of the woods yet.
One fine Siberian winter morning, which is to say it was ?30 degrees, I was groggily greeted by an excited Tatyana. I was ordered to say “yellow blue bus.” I did. I was told to say it faster. I did. A yelp of triumph was heard across the permafrost of Siberia.
I had learned how to say “I love you” in Russian.
The door to which I had professed my love so many times went into depression.
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In this continuing series, we cover my decision to move from San Diego to Chita, Siberia to be a professor at Chita State Technical University. We pick up the story aboard the flight from Anchorage to Khabarovsk, Russia.
Day 3 Still
As I lounged in my huge Aeroflot seat, the stewardess announced that we would be arriving in Khabarovsk in the next 30 minutes. Khabarovsk is located in the deep south of the far east of Russia on the border with China. It is the home of the Far East Military of Russia and is the largest city east of Lake Baikal. I was primarily interested in how hard it would be to find a hot shower.
Well, this was it, the first day of my year in Siberia. I had my phrase book, electric blanket, traveler’s checks and a solid rush of adrenaline. Of course, I had never actually taught a class before, but I would deal with that later.
We descended out of the clouds into a rainstorm. The view was still incredible. We were flying into a flat valley surrounded by snow-capped mountains. Everything was a deep green. A few cabins could be seen on the ground.
There was a very clear view of the airport as we banked through the valley to approach from the West. Umm, aren’t airports usually lit up? This one looked like a ghost town. The runways looked fine, but there were no lights in the buildings. There appeared to be a dearth of activity on the ground. I had never backpacked from a plane to the airport, but maybe this was the way it was done. When in Rome?
Finishing off an incredible flight, our Russian pilot set us down with a light touch. As we taxied up to the airport, I could only think that if the rest of Russia was as good as the flight, it was going to be a great year.
Blink, blink, blink?lights started coming on in the terminal! Despite being no more than 50 feet from it, we were herded onto a transport. We started, did a wide u-turn and stopped at the gate. All I could think of was “The Gods Must Be Crazy.”
“The Gods Must Be Crazy” was a hilarious movie released in the eighties no jokes about my age. The first scenes of the movie are biting satires of our modern way of life versus the indigenous tribes of Africa. In one scene, a woman gets into her car, backs down to the end of her driveway and puts a letter in the mailbox. Ah, progress! The journey from the plane to the airport couldn’t have been much longer.
The airport terminal was pretty industrial. That is to say, no effort was made to sell you fast food, booze, ice cream, “Khabarovsk Hard Rock Café” shirts or duty-free crap you really didn’t need. Frankly, it was a relief.
Russian customs worked pretty much the same way as customs at any airport. You grabbed your bags, bummed pens off of strangers to fill out forms and stood in long line with other tired travelers. Eventually, you got to the front of the line and tried to see how the person standing eight feet in front of you did it.
Unfortunately, my turn was also my first chance to experience the Russian language. I passed my passport, custom forms and visa through the little window. I also tried an innocent smile, which worked about as well as smiling at an IRS agent. Everything went smoothly until the customs agent started speaking rapidly and pointing at my customs form. Something was wrong, but I hadn’t a clue as to what. I turned to Grae with a quizzical look and he came forward to interpret.
All international travelers quickly learn a fundamental rule. The “wait here” line at customs is sacred. To prematurely cross the line is to commit an act of war. Russian customs was no different. Grae was loudly instructed to get behind the line and wait his turn. The customs agent then gave me a stern lecture. To this day, I can’t tell you if he was discussing my forms or the weather, but the tone was definitely stern. The lecture was capped by the universal customs agent expression known as “stupid foreigner?why did I take this job?I really wanted to be a painter?”
Eventually, the issue with the form was resolved. I would like to tell you that I took an active role in this, but I basically stood there while the agent grumbled and aggressively stamped the documents. I did actively pray that the stamp wouldn’t explode, but that was about it. Grae moved through customs without incident and we walked out into the cool, wet air of Khabarovsk, Russia.
To be continued?
