Часть 1. Дорога до Наро-Фоминска
Chapter 1: The Road to Naro-Fominsk
The road to Naro-Fominsk begins in Moscow, at the Pushkin Museum of Foreign Art from the 19th and 20th centuries. From there we went to Yugo-Zapadnaya on the Metro and awaited the group to assemble at 6.00 PM Saturday. From Yugo-Zapadnaya, we took a bus to Naro-Fominsk. It is interesting to note that we took a commuter bus on a limited-access highway - that is, the bus did not exit the highway to drop people off, but simply dropped them at stops on the side of the highway. At most stops, there is an elevated cross walk, which allows commuters to cross to the other side of the highway. By the time our stop came up, there were no more crosswalks, and it became necessary to cross on the pavement - and interesting experience on a highway. However, people here are very kind and allowed us to cross with ease (the strangeness of this experience I have a little trouble typing). We then walked through about two miles of woods in the middle of nowhere Russia in order to arrive at a gate and a gravel road, which led to Sasha's dacha.
Часть 2. Первая ночь на даче
Chapter 2: The First Night on the Dacha
The dacha itself is interesting, so I will take some time to describe it. It is part of a community of sorts. Only one person that I know of lives there year-round - he owns the dog, which will come later. He takes care of the place in the winter when people are not around. Each dacha is on a separate plot of land, and they are usually separated by a fence. It is constructed primarily out of two railway carriages, one of which can be seen as the small projection on the side. The room at the back of the picture is the second. The rest was built around this frame and there are five rooms in total - anteroom/washroom, kitchen, downstairs bedroom (the carriage), upstairs bedroom, and (unconnected) the second carriage, which also has a bedroom and a small bathroom (port-a-potty + shower)
Security in this country is a huge concern, primarily as a result of Stalin's Great Terror. During the Soviet Union, doors to residences (and dacha's as well, I would imagine) did not lock. This is why my apartment here is behind four heavy doors - two thick wood and two iron - each with a separate key and each with a lock, which can only by operated from the inside. Dacha's are also secured beyond imagination. The gate at the end of the road was a large iron-bar construction, similar to the front of an old prison cell. The fence for the dacha had a similar gate with some sheet metal attached for privacy. Additionally, there was a large lock on the door, like a deadbolt, but with seven separate metal bars instead of one deadbolt.
That said, people are very open about things when they are actually at the dacha, and as long as we were there, it was only necessary to lock the outer gate. Everything else stayed unlocked the entire time, even when we went swimming and left no one at the dacha.
We spent the rest of the light on the first night swimming in a nearby pond. The water was freezing cold, but comfortable if you kept moving - not difficult to get the motivation for that (I was surprised at how long I could tread water in those conditions). However, the cold water was a VERY welcome change after the heat of Moscow. If you haven't heard, we're experiencing a bit of a heatwave here, producing Atlanta-like heat. This is mixed with the humidity, usually in the 80's because of all the peat bogs and such surrounding Moscow. It is pretty miserable anyway, but you must also factor in that it is (usually) socially unacceptable for college-age males to wear shorts in the city and many of us simply did not pack for this weather. Moscow usually enjoys summer temperatures in the 70's and 80's Fahrenheit. I tried wearing shorts in the park on Monday and got myself into an interesting conversation with some drunk teenagers - it really is that easy to mark foreigners in this city.
We also had a grand party that first night. Vodka, shish-kabobs, tea, and salad. It may come as no surprise that I did not partake in the vodka, but in reality I wasn't particularly averse to it - I simply didn't feel like drinking that night. We also had two kids that Sasha knows over for dinner. Our conversation - in a unique breed of Russian and English, which we continue to speak with increasing regularity - lasted until the sky began to lighten, at which point it was agreed that we should stay up and watch the sunrise in a field nearby (at only 4.00 AM, not as impressive as it would be in the US). Here are some pictures from there, and they can speak for themselves:
This is one of our student helpers, Alina, who hangs out a bit and went with us. She happened to catch a hedgehog in the garden while we were cooking dinner.Часть 3. Гречневая каша
Chapter 3: Buckwheat porridge
Day two began fairly normally (actually, it began in the last chapter, but this is from the time I woke up, 3 hours after going to bed). I had slept on the floor for a number of reasons - space and the amount of alcohol consumed by my bedmate being the primary two. We tried buckwheat kasha for breakfast, which was not particularly good. Kasha is one of the staples of this country; I've been served it everyday for breakfast. It's like oatmeal, only less "oat-ty" if you will allow me to make up a word. It is much more versatile in my opinion. We usually have a banana or other fruit with it, some sausage of some sort (so many choices here), cheese (also, so many choices), and bread. The reason the buckwheat kasha was not good was probably because the milk we were drinking and put into it tasted like it could have been buttermilk. Or maybe it was just nasty.
However, it was filling and sufficient for day two activities - a hike through the field, over the river, and through the woods, to our second swimming hole. It was at the beginning of this journey that we met the great Малыш, whose name means something like "little one." He is probably one of the biggest dogs I have ever seen.
This is Malysh when we first saw him. I would label him as our first bear - the story about bears in Russia is in fact not true. There are no bears (except for Malysh).
This is a picture of the same field as before, taken during the day obviously and from on of the trees we climbed to get a better view.
This is the second pond we swam in. I have a few pictures of the first, but I think this one most accurately captures what the place was like. On the dacha people just sit around and cool off after Moscow and her problems. It was interesting that when we first got there and were speaking English, everyone got out like we had poisoned the water. But when we were standing around drying off, we started speaking Russian and Vitya came by, and almost immediately people became much more willing to see us as not just tourists, but part of their vacation. I wouldn't say we had the cold shoulder at first, but they were very friendly later. We ate ice cream (so ridiculous how much Russians love ice cream, but also so good) and then left.Часть 4. Заблудились в лесу
Chapter 4: Lost in the Woods
On our trek through the woods back to the dacha we lost two of our group. As it became evident that they hadn't followed us or figured out a way back, a search party was organised, which consisted of me (of course) and Sasha. It was a particularly grueling search, but I have definitely learned how to be a Russian woodsman as a result (for those you who know a little Russian, when I got back I said that he had gone настоящий lumberjack в лесу - characteristic of the language we speak in as well). On more than one occasion, we stopped at foraged for edibe plants like clovers from the forest floor. They tasted kind of like a mild spinach with a slightly acidic citrus flavor. I definitely was expecting them to be so tasty. Additionally, these woods are littered with tracks, but nothing resembling a solid trail for the most part - Sasha knows them like the back of his hand. In fact, I later remarked that he would probably be able to tell me the age of 80% of the trees simply by looking at one and telling me what year it sprouted. We received a call after an hour or so that our missing people had found their way back to the dacha.
Часть 5. Чемпионат мира
Chapter 5: The World Cup
Dinner the second night was not quite as eventful as the first. It would not have happened except as a result of one of the perks of being on vacation with our professor - class was cancelled for Monday, and we were staying another night. I had one condition for this - we had to get a TV working (such a rarity at a dacha) so that I could watch the World Cup final. This was met, and I had no desire whatsoever to hike to the commuter train four miles away through the woods. Dinner was primarily pel'meni and a cabbage salad with oil and vinegar. Promptly at 10.30, I made my exit and went to the kitchen, where my viewing set up awaited.
The rest of the night until about 1.30 was spent in here. At first everyone was watching, but honestly, they were just in it to say they had done it. The first thirty minutes were un-enjoyable because of this. However, most people left and I was left pretty much alone with two whole hours of World Cup final to satisfy my taste. I won't make any comments about the game on here, but I can definitely scratch "watch a World Cup final on a Russian dacha" off my bucket list.
This is the little train station that was used to get on the train back to Moscow. Like everything else in Russia, working hours were determined by the willingness of the employees to actually do their jobs. We had to wait an hour for the ticket office to open and another thirty minutes for the train.Часть 6. Москва
Chapter 6: Moscow
It was a relief to be back in Moscow, but I'm already dying to get out into the country again (hopefully you see why). There is an excursion scheduled to a dacha this weekend, however, I will be skipping this to go to my host family's dacha. Sunday is my host mother's birthday.
Eventhough class was cancelled on Monday, we cancelled it again today. This time it was to see Lenin's mausoleum. I got into a small argument about it last night with my host father - I think he got out of it that I'm a communist and worship Lenin's dead body. I could not sufficiently convince him in Russian or English that this was entirely not the case, even when I agreed with him that it should be burned and shot out of a cannon. Tonight, we will talk about it again, and hopefully I can convince him this time, even if it means looking like a fickle and mutable college student, who changes his mind on a whim.
That said, it was an interesting experience to say the least - entirely not what I expected. Lenin's un-decomposed body is on display. I can imagine it is a supreme waste of money to keep it from decomposing. I hope that soon it becomes unsustainable and that people at the very least bury it. Although, I'm agreed with my host father that neither he nor Stalin deserve a burial for what they did.
Sorry for the long post. I hope you found it enjoyable, because I definitely didn;t have time for all this - two compositions due tomorrow and I really need to get going on my final project. Less than three weeks left . . .
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