Day 16

I’m not sure if this is actually day 16, but my numbering system is flawed and I don’t feel like counting from the beginning, so c’est la via. Day 16 it is. I just finished another delicious and filling dinner (alert! new menu item: bletchki- crepe like thin pancakes with some sort of fruit bearing syrup spread on top, rolled up and eaten like, well, a crepe). Normally, these occasions go as such: I am summoned to the meal, Olga Arkadevna is usually still busy preparing the other courses of my meal and I begin to eat. I try to come to dinner prepared with one or two prepared statements or questions about my day or the things that I’ve seen. These I try to time at well spaced intervals throughout dinner to keep up the pretense of conversation. So, I deliver my spiel correctly and with confidence which leads to a response from Olga Arkadevna. This I usually either completely fail to understand or I do understand and simply lack the presence of mind to be able to respond with something pertinent and/or not ridiculous. Thus, the conversation is done, often before it has really begun… Every once in awhile Gina (insert patronymic here that I’ve totally forgotten and am too afraid to inquire about) will stick his head in with some pithy comment about something I’ve said, or to correct his wife. At this point, Olga Arkadevna always tells him that if he wants to take part in the conversation then he should eat dinner with us. Gina usually beats a hasty retreat, unwilling to take part in the awkward dinnertime conversation. I can’t say I blame the man. So anyways, tonight’s dinner was a little different, and I actually managed to keep a conversation rolling for almost the entire meal! Exciting, I know. We started with an explanation of why I came home at two in the morning on a Monday night (later, I promise) and rolled into the exotic travels of her daughter and sister (also, later). It was quite exhilarating, despite the fact that I managed to accidentally say that I’d never seen Tupperware before, only to later rescind my opinion with the astonishing revelation that my mother in fact is also a Tupperware user (although, sorry Mom, not to this extent, I think Olga Arkadevna simply pointed at the Tupperware catalogue and said, “Yes.” She’s got everything…). Anyhow, that was dinner. As usual, excitement abounds here in the house on the Street with a Thousand Potholes (I came up with that myself, thanks).

Voronezh Moment of the Day

So, I’ve been holding off on writing every day, partly out of laziness, but also partly out of the fear that I will run out of Voronezh Moments of the Day before 109 days is out. But then I realize that I’m in Russia, Voronezh to be exact and I realize how ridiculous this fear is. So, here I am, faced with a backlog of stories, so there’ll probably be a spat of these in the near future…

Well, I was on my way home last night around 1:45 AM, returning from a longer than anticipated night of meeting Russians and generally having the time of our young lives. I have a 30 minute walk home from the city center, in particular Pivasii, the bar that we call home. This walk is usually fraught with all the interesting things that happen in Voronezh between the hours of one and five o’clock in the morning. This particular night, I was walking behind a middle aged man who was horrendously drunk. He was doing the Voronezh Shuffle in a particularly convincing manner (swerving from one side of the sidewalk to the other while maintaining some sort of forward motion. This isn’t actually a term I’ve ever heard used, but it struck me as especially poignant right now). Anyways, I was content to walk behind him and see where this ended up breaking the monotony of the walk home. We (and by we I mean he) were doing well until a part where the sidewalk was closed and you had to walk on the road for a few meters. I made it back onto the sidewalk, but my newfound acquaintance was not quite so able. He continued along the edge of the road, still swerving, narrowly avoiding being clipped by several (almost certainly also drunk) motorists zipping down the road. I had no interest in seeing this man killed in front of me, so I took action. From the safety of the sidewalk, I called out to him, “idi suda!” or “come here!” He turned to look at me and took a lurch in the direction of safety when I spied a passing militzia jeep speeding in the other direction. The police spied the drunken man on the road at that same instant and literally power slid into a U-turn, burning rubber and all, and came to a stop right next to the man. I was transfixed to the spot and watched as two police in their grey uniforms and combat boots jumped out of the passenger side doors and grabbed the man roughly by the shoulders. The drunk guy, too inebriated to stand fell heavily, shoving one of the policemen in the chest with what looked like some force. The cop shouted something which was likely, “He’s resisting!” Both cops jumped back and in a fluid motion drew their impressive looking Billy clubs. One cop struck the man low across the waist while the other club connected with a sickening sound on the back of his skull. The man collapsed like a bag of marshmallows and he was hauled by the armpits into the back of the jeep which then sped off as quickly as it had come. I continued my walk home contemplating what had just happened and filled with wonder at my utter lack of surprise concerning the incident I had just witnessed. On a positive note, I befriended a precious stray kitten on the way home.