November 11th

Many Russians do have a sense of humor...

I’ve got a pretty Russian Voronezh Moment of the Day for ya’ll so I’m going to make a brief foray back to the old format. So, legitimate blog-piece first. Last night, as we were sitting at a bar having a good time, this older gentleman came up and said “Hello.” I assumed he was Russian and was confused by the weird accent he had. Well, it turns out he wasn’t Russian at all, but a Northern Irishmen from Belfast who’s been living in Voronezh for 10 years now. His name is Brian and he’s probably about 60. He’s probably the most foulmouthed, down to earth, Irish, fun man I’ve ever met. He’s the owner of an internet café and a pub here in town and he had quite the insight on foreigners living and working in Russia. His place, called the Shamrock (a bar) has closed and re-opened in a different location three times in these ten years. What happens, according to him, is that he gets about a two year grace period (thanks to generous bribes to the right local officials). As soon as the place gets successful, then no matter how much he pays anyone, the police will make up some blatantly bogus charge and sue him for enough money to shut down his place. Three times this has happened and three times he’s opened a different place in a different location. He had a friend in St. Petersburg who owned an American burger joint called City Bar. It had such a great reputation that I spent one hour of my precious time in that city looking for it. But, it was closed too. The landlord of the place had owed a ton of money to the city in taxes and such, but when the authorities saw that one of his clients was a foreigner the city tagged the debt on him instead, suing him for every penny and sending him home broke. I was fairly unsurprised, but I wasn’t sure how much I believed it. That is, until about 30 minutes ago when I was walking through town talking to Brendan Fox. This tall blond girl that I’ve never seen before came up and asked “Are you guys Americans?” in about the most Texas accent you could imagine. We were taken aback to say the least… It turns out that she was a Baylor University student who came to Russia on a semester abroad in the ‘90s. She loved it so much here that she dropped out of college and moved here permanently. She lived in Voronezh for nine years and started a new life here. I (half jokingly) said that a bunch of us were just about ready to quit school and just stay here too. She got this panic stricken look and said, “No, take it from me. That would be the worst decision in your life.” Ok… It turns out that she, much like Brian, had started a business here. For the first year everyone was her friend, helpful and kind, etc. But as soon as she became successful, all of a sudden, she was not only competition, but a foreigner to boot. She said she got used, cheated, back stabbed, harassed by the police until finally after nine years she broke down and returned to America. She’s back here for a week collecting her things and getting her paperwork sorted out. Two of the same story in less than 24 hours, and both were totally random occurrences. I think God is smiling on my blog and just wants to give me something to write about.

Voronezh Moment of the Day

So, I was on my way home today with Amy and we were walking along one of the main roads here in Voronezh. It was only about 2 AM so there were still a good amount of cars on the road. We came around a bend in the road and in the middle of the eastbound lane were two guys fighting to the death. One guy had the other by the head and was smashing his face into the pavement and making the most disgusting sounds ever as the bones in his face broke. There were cars swerving to avoid them and just as I was about to rush into the road to pull them apart (yes, this is easily the worst impulse idea I have EVER had. SO MUCH could have, and probably would have, gone wrong) a passing motorist jumped out of his car, hauled the one guy up and pushed him away. At this point both of the guys jump up and sprint away into the darkness in opposite directions. They were both COVERED in blood, one guy had a gash from his forehead down to his chin, and the guy who’d been being beaten when arrived, his face was a mask of blood. There was even a puddle of blood on the street that was a dark brown stain when I walked by the place on the way to school this morning. Absolute insanity. And the ladies who work at the 24 hour flower shops were all clustered by the edge of the street while this was happening as if watching a sports match. Oh Russia, why?