The Wonder of Winter

You know when you take the first sip of a cup of tea, and it's the perfect temperature: not scalding, but too hot to drink quickly? I think that's why I drink it, and probably why I drink at least 3 or 4 cups a day. I didn't drink tea before I came to Russia, and I still prefer coffee, but there's something soothing about tea with which coffee just can't compete. 

My host mother serves great tea; sweet, without needing to add sugar. I drank a lot of tea over the weekend, between skiing, swimming, and ice skating. I don't actually live with my host family anymore, but I take the bus out to their house on the weekends, and they always welcome me with open arms (and cake). 

This weekend was pretty active: Saturday night Nastya and I went to the neighborhood schoolyard, where there is a small hill and a skating rink strung with brightly-colored Christmas lights. It was crowded with people- the rink scattered with middle-schoolers and highschoolers playing pick-up games of hockey and skating (mostly, just kids getting out of the house and fooling around), and the slope covered with kids sledding and parents teaching their little ones how to ski.

Nastya and I brought cross country skis, and I learned how to climb hills while wearing them ("learned" does not imply 100% success).  I think it only appropriate that I learned to ski amidst toddlers- I'm at about the same level of Russian language as them. But it was a lot of fun, and Nastya even called her friend Julia (Yoolia) to come ski with us. (Julia wanted to meet the American girl). At one point Nastya fell, and I asked her (in Russian) if she was ok. She mumbled something and shot me a look, and then when I went over to her she told me not to talk; that people will hear. I said Nastya, I spoke in Russian. But Amanda, she cried, your accent! I guess my pronunciation isn't as good as I'd hoped...

Sunday morning we arose early- 6:15am, to be precise- to go swimming. The indoor pool is in a huge sports complex, which is located outside the city. The further we drove from the city, the more white everything became, until we were driving through the country surrounded by pure white fields. When we turned off the highway, the country roads were covered in snow, and my host father handled the car expertly as we slipped and skidded. I've noticed Russians are quite adept at maneuvering cars through 6 inches of thick snowy slush, while passing another car on a road that almost isn't wide enough, thanks to the 7ft-tall snowbanks on either side. It's not that they couldn't clear the roads (although I've heard the snowplows come in from Moscow, 5 hours away); it's just, why bother? It's going to snow again soon anyway, and where are they going to put all that snow?? In the city, they have an ingenious machine that has a giant claw arm which scoops the snow onto a ramp, which then carries it into the back of a dump truck. I wonder where they dump all of that snow... 

The longer that I'm here, the more I realize that people here aren't ignorant, or unwise just because they don't do things like Western countries (for example: plowing the roads every time we get a half-inch of snowfall). It would be ridiculous, expensive, and ultimately, unnecessary. Russians may not always have or use the latest technology, but a lot of the time it's because they believe in the philosophy of, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Tanya was telling me it was strange to see a new-style of a garlic press in Evan's kitchen, because everyone she knows still has the same Soviet-Era press. We do have a lot of unnecessary things in America, but I think that's just another reason that makes America so great- we can afford to have luxury, to have leisure. As long as it's all taken in good measure.

Speaking of leisure- the pool was magnificent. To get in, I had to pretend to be deaf and dumb, I think because only Russians are allowed to use the facility, and obviously if they asked me something I didn't understand, or if I ... well... spoke, they'd know. Or maybe it was just because my host mother got the pass for me instead of me getting it myself, I'm not sure (Also, my name is now Amanda Alexandrova Boyekovo). You have to get the pass from a doctor though, who says you are healthy and can use the pool. My host family asked if this was like America, and I said no, you just pay for a membership, no doctors are involved. But, they inquired, what if someone who is sick goes to the pool?! The everyone will get sick!! I looked at them and said if someone is really sick, they won't go to the pool, and they sort of laughed like that would never happen. It seems here that there is a lot less emphasis on personal responsibility. There seems to be the concept that if something is wrong, then it will be forbidden, by the government, or the establishment, or some authority. Because otherwise, people would do it. If it's not forbidden (or even sometimes if it is), then it's okay to do! Or so it follows...

But, after ignoring the ladies at the front desk and the coat check lady (I felt bad, but I thought staring at the proudly-hung pictures of the Olympic athletes who'd trained there was safer than making eye contact with anyone), we changed and went into the pool. This was 8am on a Sunday morning, so there were only a few other people there, and we all pretty much stayed in our own lanes. 

The pool itself was pretty standard, but one wall of the room was all glass, with a full view of snow-covered evergreen trees outside. It started snowing, the thick, huge, fluffy snowflakes, and we floated in the heated kiddie pool and watched the blizzard outside. It was strange, but wonderful. 

On the way back, we stopped at a little country church outside a village. It was a quaint little log Tserkov, with 2 very warm rooms full of people offering prayers and petitions (and perhaps a little gossip). 

I enjoyed going out into the country so much, and as I walked down the road, returning to the car, I could see the traditional wooden houses of the village through the softly falling snow.  I looked back at the little wooden church, stuffed full of women wearing headscarves and long skirts that take them out of the current era and suspend them in some timeless place of Russian tradition, and then to the rolling white fields surrounding me, and then to the forest of birch trees in the distance, and finally understood exactly all of the poems and novels and films that have been written about the rugged beauty of the Motherland.It's not something you will see in a Russian city, nor something you can really see at all- it's something you feel, like the feeling you get from that hot cup of tea.