American Media In Russia

Jay Perkins, one of my dearest mentors and one of my journalism professors during my college days, asked me to write about my observations of American media in Russia for the journalism school’s alumni newsletter. I’m re-publishing here just because (see below).

You can check out Jay’s awesome journalism Web site here.

American Media In Russia

I never thought of American media as one of our nation’s major exports until earlier this year, when I spent three months working in orphanages in the Russian city of Yaroslavl. As I tried to immerse myself in this fascinating, foreign culture, I was stunned to find that no matter where I went in this relatively obscure city, I couldn’t escape the profound influence of American media. The latest releases by Justin Timberlake and The Pussycat Dolls boom from the city’s restaurants and Internet cafes. Brad Pitt and Sandra Bullock star in movies at the local cinema. Supermarket shelves are lined with videocassettes featuring Hollywood’s best and worst (DVDs haven’t become Russian staples yet.).

Here are two moments I’ll never forget:

▪ At a center where my group volunteered to work with neglected teens, two 13-year-old boys wrote and performed a play in our honor. Although the play was in Russian, we understood exactly what was happening, because it was so laced with American culture and media influence (Steven Spielberg was actually a character in it!). We were utterly enchanted, until one of the boys – playing an elderly grandmother – delivered a line that included a four-letter English expletive that curled the hair of every English-speaking audience member. Except for our translator (who turned white), the Russians had no idea that the dialogue included a major English curse word. Because they hear it in our movies so frequently, they figured the word is part of our common vernacular.

▪ At one orphanage, I joined a group of girls ages 6-16 who were working on a jigsaw puzzle while watching television in their common room. My back was to the television, and I ignored it (after all, I couldn’t understand the Russian dialogue), but the girls were enjoying the program. Then, behind me, I hear: “Missus Solis! Missus Solis!” I whipped my head around, and sure enough, these kids are watching Desperate Housewives – hardly after-school fare in American homes. It was a surreal moment: “Am I really watching Desperate Housewives at 5 in the afternoon with a group of Russian orphans?”

My Russian friend Nadia lamented to me that the hottest program among kids at her 8-year-old daughter’s school is a Russian copycat of Married With Children. Another friend, Nina, who works with at-risk kids in Yaroslavl, believes American-style television is responsible for a corresponding increase in violence that she’s observed among kids since glasnost, when American media became more mainstream in Russian culture. Both were surprised when I observed that their concerns about American media are shared by many Americans.

My encounters with the media-generated image that Russians have of Americans were sometimes startling. The orphans were irreversibly convinced that our sophisticated, English-speaking, translators were Americans (all were Yaroslavl locals). A handful of cab drivers and restaurants wouldn’t serve us because we were Americans; a few other cab drivers tried to charge us $50 a mile because “all Americans are rich.”

When we export our pop culture, we also export a pop image of ourselves. Language is easy to translate, but nuance, innuendo, satire and sarcasm aren’t. Look at American media, and you’ll start to understand how the world sees Americans.

On a completely unrelated note, I came across this interesting article about the first day on the job for a Yaroslavl policeman. I thought it was really enlightening.

Update from Glenn

I joyfully received an update from Glenn today, one of the volunteers I worked with in Yaroslavl. He lives in England and has returned a few times and looked up a few of “our kids.” He also sent me this link to the orphanage where one of the kids we worked with is now. Here are the interesting parts of his email:

Hi Julie,
… I went there the first week of April … I … saw Nadia and Brian, who are both well. I stayed at the Kotorsol hotel just for the 1 night. Nadia mentioned that because of certain problems with regulations, the maximum stay with [the program] in Russia was possibly going to be reduced to only 3 weeks.

——’s orphanage is one of the better ones in that the director does try to give the children a skill that they can use when they leave, and some of the children are able to stay there until about age 20 instead of 18. The one thing the orphanage lacks is any toys or books for the kids, or computers!! … I actually took 4 russian children books with me (one was like the Guiness Book of Records), and the books were well received.

I am hoping I may be able to supply a couple of computers to [this particular] orphanage so the kids can have some computer classes, because knowledge of computers is so important these days.

… I made sure all the … boys in [the] group had a little gift, just before I left [they] began giving me little notes of paper with requests of what I was to bring them on my next visit!! Very sad but very touching – it was the same with birthdays – the boys were writing down their names and birthdays on little bits of paper and giving them to me, because they wanted me to send them a birthday card. I think I should make a film about my visits – light hearted comedy, some touching moments, and then hard hitting moments when you wonder what life and the world is all about.

Quite [odd] how this place come to be built in the middle of nowhere I do not know – about 15 miles to the nearest town. It is not even in a village, just a few houses dotted around, but perhaps it is to stop the kids running away!!!

I will let you know when I next go over there. The director said it would be good in the summer because of the long school holiday, so there is an outside chance I may go back at end of July, but if not then, it will be in October. In August we are having our 2 boys from Belarus stay with us again in the UK for 3 weeks- they are now 18 and 11 and so I get plenty of chance to practice my russian!!

Keep in touch – Best regards, Glenn

I came across this article in Sunday’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution and it really made me think of my time in Russia. I can remember walking through the artists markets in Russia — Yaroslavl, Moscow, St. Petersburg — and thinking how all the art really looked alike — lots and lots of landscapes, and the occasional realistic portrait. It made me sad to see such talent homogenized with little to no indication of individuality — the artists were clearly trained that there was a “right” way and a “wrong way” to execute their talents. I also remember reading the English-language newspapers in Moscow and St. Petersburg and wondering what kind of approval or censoring process they went through before publication, because they struck me as the most candid information I’d encountered during my time in Russia. Not that they were strikingly critical or revolutionary — they weren’t, but they were actually newsy rather than PR spin. I remember reading about a bombing at a Burger King in St. Petersburg when I was there and some demonstrations against a local council vote. In Moscow, I remember reading about the arrest and persecution of gays who were demonstrating near the Kremlin. Perphaps I was simply deprived of English language news at the time, but I remember wondering if the news in the English newspapers was being sanctioned and really appreciating the creative freedom of being a writer in the U.S. and never having to worry about my work being censored or sanitized. These thought were especially poignant to me in St. Petersburg, because I was reading “Putin’s Russia” at the time, the final book by Anna Politkovskaya, and we all know what happened to her, right?

If not, click the link on her name.

Etc.

I came across some interesting things relating to Russian orphans and culture recently that I thought I’d throw up.

This is a story about a young man who was adopted from a Russian orphanage when he was about 9 years old. It’s the sad but inspirational story about his life — and death.

This story is about Russian-style banyas in New York. Interesting, but I don’t know if they can possibly rival the authentic experience of a rural banya in Russia.

I’m going to try to start posting again periodically. The posts won’t be about my adventures, of course, but things related to Russian orphanages and culture that relate to my travels. Check for new posts periodically. I have a few new posts in the works!

Letter From Hank

Sergei & Anton Peace Out

My friend Hank was one of my inspirations for going to Russia to work with orphans. He goes every few years to do missionary work in a different part of Russia than I visited — he goes to the Siberian city of Tyumen in south central Russia, about 1,000 miles from Moscow. He left in September for another visit. Here’s an email he recently sent to some friends (thanks Hank, for including me on the email and agreeing to let me post!):

I must first apologize – I should have sent this message last week, now that I have been here for 10 days, and am getting ready to leave. But life here has been hectic to say the least – great – but hectic.

I just returned from spending a night with a kid I met at camp over 5 years ago. He is 20 now, attending the local college, and is still an awesome young man. He is a growing Christian, doesn’t drink like most do here, doesn’t date excessively (no time for it), and is working hard to save up $4000 for a 1993 Toyota that he just couldn’t stop talking about.

We stayed in the tiny apartment in a house he shares with his brother – one den, one kitchen, and a storage room. Yep, no bathroom – that was in the back yard, in a barn – an outhouse. No running water except a hose in the yard. If my stomach survives everything I ingested while staying with them, I’ll be able to eat anything anywhere, anytime! So far so good. The sofa in the den let out into a small bed, on which all three of us slept. No problem with that, except Igor has a stuffed up nose, through which he whistled and snored ALL night long, and I just couldn’t tune it out much, so I didn’t sleep. Maybe a nap today will take care of it.

But we had such a good time, with my small Russian and his small English, and my Russian/English dictionary. Amazing how much you can communicate without speaking the same language.

But I’m rambling. I have been to several orphanages, and taken lots of goodies to them. It was not easy – you have to go there first, see the needs, and then go buy the stuff, and then take it to them. All of that took much longer than I thought it would. In the two years since I have been here, the city has grown tremedously – traffic jams are everyday, and stores are packed. It takes hours to drive around a few miles and buy goods, two lanes on the road become three just because the drivers make it so, and traffic still crawls. But it is worth it to see the faces of those little kids when they get a stuffed animal or ball, or even socks. They really don’t expect much from life, so anything is great to them. I was so humbled to walk through those places and be announced as the American who is bringing things to them.

Credit is now available – you can buy many things on credit – even shoes, one sign said. I’m afraid this concept is going to be a bad thing – these folks are not used to planning ahead, and easy credit can mess you up. Prices have skyrocketed, with housing more expensive in the city than my home town of Atlanta, just for an apartment! This is the oil and gas center of the region, and those companies are booming and paying big salaries. The monthly salary has doubled, now up to $500 per month for menial jobs. Business office type jobs pay upwards of $2000 per month, which was unheard of 2 years ago.

So far all has been awesome – tiring, but no problems. I have not been sick more than a day, no problems driving the car around the city and region (though hair-raising sometimes), and I have been able to find the supplies I needed for the orphanages. Most of that due to a 16 year old high school student who has been my guide and interpreter, when he is not in school. He has been the biggest blessing – the missionaries here met him at English club the week before when he just “happened” to come for the first time. He was in America this past year for 9 months as exchange student, and was desparate to keep his English skills up. We have become fast friends, brothers we call it, and have had loads of fun. He is an excellent guide around the city streets, and can bargain with the best of them when I need to buy 50 pairs of socks for an orphanage. I could not have accomplished much at all without him. A gift from God he is, I keep telling him, which embarasses him. He is also part of an accomplished Russian folk dance troupe, and the dances they do are amazing, I have never seen anything like it. I think leaving him will be very hard, but that’s the way it goes.

Well, I better end this, I have rambled too much! Tomorrow I visit an English class for law students, as a favor to a friend, they love to practice and hear American English. Then it is pack up and head to Moscow, starting the trip home.

I look forward to getting home, and seeing you all, but be patient as I will be full of Russia stories for a while.

Take care, thanks for listening and being such great support,

Hank

Obviously I had a tough time finding places to blog as I traveled out of Russia! Much to my surprise, it appears that some of you are actually still reading this — sorry I haven’t posted anything new. But for you die-hard followers, my thanks! Here’s the link to all my photos — feel free to check them out!

Thanks for all your support and encouragement!

Culture Shocks

It’s amazing how quickly a person acclimates to a new place. I’m being hit with wave after wave of culture shock since I entered Scandinavia three days ago. King-size beds? Drinkable tap water? I found a bookstore in Helsinki that sells English language magazines and thought I was in heaven. When a restaurant server asked if I wanted ice in my Diet Coke, I nearly swooned. I keep thanking people with “Spasiba” and asking for help with “Pajalsta.” What was normal to me three months ago is now abnormal. I feel like I’ve been catapulted back into the Earth’s atmosphere from outer space.

***

I read an article in this weekend’s Herald Tribune that talks about the challenges of capitalism and generating venture capital in Russia. It was of particular interest to me because the other volunteers and I found ourselves making similar observations. We were very surprised to gradually realize that, although the Soviet system of government is defunct, its remnants and vestiges are alive and well in the collective psyche. As volunteers from the West, we naturally celebrate and value individualism, but Russian society still sees individualism as far second to the collective whole. I entered Russia expecting to see a society reveling in its newfound opportunities for entrepreneurship and capitalism, but I left there with the realization that the residual Soviet mindsets and norms present staggering challenges to the country’s ability to take full advantage of a free economy.

Realizing that most Russians still operate with a Soviet-style mindset — one that values the community over the individual — was a natural source of frustration for the volunteers. For example, one day an 11-year-old girl named Luba showed me a beautiful drawing of a fruit tree she made. It was really terrific and I was wildly impressed. I gushed over it and hung it on the wall of our classroom. The next day, I came into the classroom to find it removed from the wall. I asked Luba where her drawing was. “They took it down,” she told me, without much emotion. It was an individual project rather than part of a group project that everybody worked on, so the orphanage officials didn’t think it merited a place on the wall. Luba didn’t seem to mind and accepted this as perfectly normal.

We encountered this type of thinking perhaps more from the translators we worked with than anywhere else. Even though they are young and progressive, they’ve been raised by parents and teachers who were firmly inculcated in socialist thinking. This emphasis on the community over the individual is closely accompanied by a seemingly rigid perception of “the right way” and “the wrong way.” Here’s an example: on my last day at the orphanage — in fact, during the last 30 minutes — Dasha and I were playing volleyball with some of the kids. We were on opposite teams. Throughout the game, various kids were wandering onto the court to tell me goodbye. “You need to leave the playing field if you are not going to play!” Dascha snapped at me in exasperation. Two months ago, that remark would have bothered me and made me feel terrible, but by my last day, I understood her perspective and intention. In her mind, the game was being interrupted for all the players as I paused to say goodbyes. In my mind, it was a light-hearted game of pick-up volleyball that won’t suffer from the occasional interruption. Russian society doesn’t really comprehend a lighthearted game: it’s the task at hand, and we should put all of our attention at the task at hand. Anyway, it was my last 30 minutes of working with the kids, so I pretty much allowed myself to go with my American sensibilities. I wasn’t about to tell a child that I couldn’t say goodbye because I was playing volleyball. I replied by telling Dascha that, in fact, I was playing volleyball, just not as seriously as she was, so I wasn’t leaving the field of play. They’d just have to deal with the interruptions. It might be my imagination, but I thought I saw a little light go on in her face, like maybe she got what I was saying.

Other volunteers had similar experiences. One was working with a Down’s Syndrome child on a rather complicated project. The child was enjoying herself but not doing the project correctly. “It’s OK if it’s not right. She feels a sense of accomplishment and is proud of what she’s making,” the volunteer said to her translator. “No. She will feel a sense of accomplishment and be proud of her work when she does it correctly,” the translator replied. The volunteer responded like most of us learned to respond after a few weeks of dealing with the Russians’ sense of right and wrong: She said, “Oh. Okay,” to the translator, then let the child go ahead and do exactly what she was doing.

These little examples illustrate the differences between American thinking and Russian thinking. I never realized so vividly how much American culture is oriented toward fostering individuality. We’re willing to focus on the ends rather than the means if the result is an individual accomplishment. Although the Soviet system is defunct, the culture is still very much about everybody rowing in unison so that together we guide the boat to the desired port. Observing the contrast was incredibly eye-ópening.

This realization explains a lot to me about why Russia has its orphanage system. It’s an answer to individuals (usually alcoholics) who aren’t “on the playing field” when it comes to parenting. When I first came to Russia, my individual-centric American mind was agog that a society would go to such extremes to accommodate and enable negligent and irresponsible parents rather than hold them accountable. I don’t really look at it the same way anymore.

As Americans, we view parental rights as practically inalienable. It’s nearly impossible for parental rights to be severed. How often do we read about abused American children repeatedly returned to abusive American parents? In Russia, parental rights are quite fragile. You screw up as a parent, you lose your kid. You’re messing up the game for everybody and need to leave the playing field.

In retrospect, I don’t know that either society has the answer for handling neglected children. Russian orphanages aren’t good places to spend a childhood, but at least the kids have their biological needs met. They’re fed and warm and have a bed to sleep in. I read one study that shows most kids in Yaroslavl orphanages actually like living at their orphanages because they’re not cold and hungry, but they don’t like the rules. They want to go visit their families at will, then come back to the orphanage for mealtime and bedtime. I don’t think the Russian orphanage system is the answer to child neglect, but this experience left me questioning whether the American sensibility of the inalienable right to parent is on the mark too. I hope the world keeps looking for a better answer than both societies currently offer.

***

One thing I’ve come to realize about my own society is that Americans seem to be the only people in the world who laugh so freely. In Russia, whenever I heard a group of people laughing, I knew they were Americans. Now in Scandinavia, I’m finding that observation to be equally accurate. Nadia and the translators told us that in Russia, a person is perceived as foolish or dim-witted if he or she goes around smiling or laughing. In America, you’re perceived as glum and sour if you don’t smile. We’re a happy bunch of people.

***

Keep checking back for a link to new pix. I had a near-disaster with my memory card at a St. Petersburg photo shop when I tried to have them put on to disk and decided to avoid putting my memory card in any more Russian computers. I am now trying to find a place here in Stockholm to upload my latest batch. They’ll include my goodbye party in Yaroslavl, some more orphanage pix, St. Petersburg and Scandinavia.

Par Angleeski, Pajalsta!

Ismylova Market – Moscow

I don’t miss many things from home. I haven’t missed my car or my cell phone for a second. But I desperately miss being literate. It’s an incredibly helpless feeling being unable to read even the simplest signs on the street. Being illiterate is awful.

My ability to communicate and to be understood in this country is terrible, but it’s significantly improved in the last eight weeks. Surprisingly, the most helpful things I’ve learned are colors and numbers. They’ve made a huge difference in my ability to communicate with the children, and the usefulness is transferrable. If you can ask for green paper and a black marker, you can ask for green tea or black coffee.

The Cyrillic alphabet is difficult. It has more letters than the Roman alphabet, includes sounds that English-speaking tongues can’t really enunciate, and has lots of letters that look alike. I’m afraid of any Cyrillic letter that looks like a Roman “b.” It seems like there are 20 of them, and they’re always associated with a vowel sound that I can’t make. But many of the words are similar to English words, so if you can sound the letters out, you’ll often understand the word: кафе is “cafe”; интернет is “internet”; ресторан is “restaran” (restaurant). It also helps if you know the Greek and Hebrew alphabets; they share some letters with the Cyrillic alphabet.

People here know English better than Americans know Russian, but few of them know a lot of English. Most can say “thank you very much” and count to 10, including the kids I work with. One girl can count at least into the 20s. English is a required subject in Russian schools for young kids for a semester or so. If kids decide they want to take more English, they can when they’re older. I was surprised to learn from the translators that if you choose to major in English in college, you have to choose between “American English” and “British English.” All of our translators studied “American English” except for Dascha, and Dascha actually speaks with an impeccable British accent.

It’s a huge relief to get together with other volunteers at the end of the day and have a conversation that doesn’t require anybody to point and grunt. My fellow volunteers and I have developed our own language that we affectionately call “Rushlish.” We want to use what little Russian we know, even with each other. When we speak Rushlish, we understand each other just as well as if we were speaking English but we get to use our Russian. The conversations go something like this:

“What are you doing after zaftrak?”
“Going to the poschta. Need anything?”
“Yes! Could you get me dva marki?”
“Sure.”
“It’ll be dvatset piat rublay but I only have a piat sto.”
“Don’t worry about it. Just pick me up a bottle of vudduh next time you’re at the Magnet and we’ll call it even.”
“Cool. Spasiba.”
“Pajalsta.”

Translation:
“What are you doing after breakfast?”
“Going to the post office. Need anything?”
“Yes! Could you get me two stamps?”
“Sure.”
“It’ll be 25 rubles, but I only have a $500 ruble bill.”
“Don’t worry about it. Just pick me up a bottle of water next time you’re at the Magnet supermarket and we’ll call it even.”
“Cool. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome – No problem.”

One night a French guy started trying to talk to us in the restaurant. A few of us know a little French, and he knew a little English and a little Russian. That conversation was really weird. I guess we were speaking Frushlish.

The Russian Home

Kruschev Condominiums

The buildings in this photo are what I call “Khruschev Condominiums.” Kruschev and Breshnev carpeted Russia with these dwellings on a massive scale. When we first arrived, they reminded us of housing projects. They’re everywhere, and from the outside, there’s little difference among them except for their degree of massiveness. Some of them seem to stretch on for blocks. You can’t drive far here without seeing Kruschev Condominiums. But they’re typical Russian homes. The buildings in this picture are across the street from my hotel in Yaroslavl.

I’ve been a guest in two homes since I’ve been here. One was the home of a retired bricklayer who does incredible woodcarving for a hobby. He’s paneling his apartment with detailed and intricate hand-carved panels that he makes himself from wood he finds in the forest. His name is Avant Garde Petrovich. He attends one of the senior centers where we volunteer, and he lives in a Kruschev Condominium. Mr. Petrovich hopes to donate his apartment and its intricate paneling to the city of Yaroslavl for its 1,000th anniversary in 2010, but he can’t seem to get the city to accept it. The woodwork is amazing. He’s been working on these panels for years. (For pictures, click here.)

Visiting Mr. Petrovich’s apartment in one of these “Kruschev Condominiums” was enlightening. I was surprised to learn that these buildings generally don’t have elevators. “If they do have elevators, they probably don’t work,” Julia told me. I met a 60-something-year-old architect who was one of the first female architects in Russia. She told me that in her early professional life, she loved her work, but she grew to hate it once Kruschev decided to blanket the country with these buildings in post-war rebuilding. “They’re all just big boxes,” she said. “There was no opportunity to be creative as an architect.”

Building these structures probably made a certain amount of sense at the time. They enabled many families to have their own apartments rather than community apartments, where multiple families shared a kitchen and bathroom (although many Kruschev Condominiums do have such communal homes). They also were more durable than wood structures. For an ancient country, you don’t really see many ancient buildings in Russia, because most were built of wood until the 1700s, so they burned or rotted.

I don’t think we realize how big our homes are in America. A small home in America is a large home here. Mr. Petrovich’s home had a small mud room/entry area, a kitchen, a bathroom and a combination bedroom/living room. The whole thing was maybe the size of two nice hotel rooms.

I was in the guest of an upper middle-class professional in a building that wasn’t a Kruschev condominium too. The furnishings were more upscale, but the layout was basically the same except that she had two bedrooms instead of one. No living room. No elevator in the building. A typical college apartment in America is bigger, and this was the home of a three-person family.

It’s rare in Russia for a family to have more than one child. I guess the size of the homes here is one of the reasons why, and it’s really understandable when you think about the people living in communal homes where the entire family lives in a single room and shares a bathroom and kitchen with other families. The Russian government is really concerned about the population decline. If a woman has more than one child, she receives $9,000 after the birth of the second child and for each child thereafter from the government (with certain conditions on how the money must be used – it has to go to the support or education of the child).

In America, it’s common to have multiple bathrooms, powder rooms, a den and a living room – not to mention five bedrooms, a two- or three-car garage, and a back yard. The two homes I visited in Russia were lovely, but they really illustrated to me what an amazing standard of living we have in America.

The Gloves, Machinka Love, And Other Stories

I am constantly haunted by machinkas. “Machinka” is the Russian word for toy cars — any toy car. These kids are mad about machinkas. I’m pretty sure I’m going to be dreaming about machinkas for the rest of my life.

We have a chronic shortage of machinkas. Three and a half weeks ago, all of our machinkas were broken and we had none for the kids to play with. A few days later, we were up to nine working machinkas. Today, we still have nine working machinkas. I sleep well at night knowing that we haven’t had a major machinka casualty in three weeks.

I’ve learned a lot from machinkas. One thing I’ve learned that when you have nine machinkas and 25 kids who want to play with a machinka, there are no good choices. You can either tell nine kids that they can only play with their machinkas for 30 minutes because other kids are waiting to play with the machinkas too, or you can tell
16 kids that they can’t play with a machinka at all today. I hate both choices.

Machinkas make a really cool sound when you spin their wheels — a neat clicking noise like a roulette wheel having a good spin. The kids love to spin the wheels and hold the car to your ear so you can hear the cool noise.

Another thing I’ve learned from machinkas is that when an uncoordinated child holds one too close to your “ear” with the wheels spinning, the machinka will hopelessly entangle itself in the hair between your ear and the back of your head. An orphanage caregiver will valiantly try to untangle the machinka from your hair, but in the end, you will beg her to get a pair of scissors and cut the damn thing out.

Another thing I’ve learned from machinkas is that the best salon in Yaroslavl charges $20 for a haircut. Certainly a bargain by U.S. standards.

***

I think I’ve mentioned before that a lot of the children at the Hospital for Kids don’t have gloves to wear outside. We chipped in and bought a few pairs of kids gloves to take with us, along with balls and other outside toys. We can’t give them the gloves to keep, but we can let them borrow them when we play outside with them. We added three new pairs of gloves to the collection last weekend but were told on Monday that the kids couldn’t go outside until Thursday and not to bring the outside supplies until then.

We should have known better. On Wednesday, they decided we could take the kids outside after all, but we hadn’t brought the outside supplies with us. We all had fun anyway, and I let one of the kids wear my gloves.

Thursday, as promised, we could take them outside again. This time we had the outside supplies with us. The kid who’d worn my gloves the day before saw me waiting at the door in my coat & gloves and asked to wear my gloves again. Instead, I pulled out a pair of the new gloves and handed them to him.

I didn’t understand his Russian words, but I understood what he said: “Hey! These are NEW gloves! WOW!”

The facility had arranged for relay races and games outside, but this kid wasn’t interested. Revelling in the joy of being the first person ever to wear those gloves was the only thing on his mind. He burrowed through snow with his hands. He scooped up piles of snow with his hands. He knocked icicles off the monkey bars with his hands, then twirled himself around on the monkey bars with his hands. If there was a snowy surface he could touch with his hands, he touched it — to heck with the sack races!

An hour later, he came to me and the translator: “My hands are cold!” We laughed. “Of course your hands are cold! Even new gloves won’t keep your hands warm if you cover them in snow for an hour,” the translator replied. I think this news came as a surprise to him.

If you ever have the chance to give a new pair of gloves to a kid who’s only worn hand-me-downs, take it. Watching that kid enjoy those new gloves might just be the best time I’ve ever had.

***

On my way to the salon on Friday, I was struck by the sight of water in the street. I haven’t seen water in the street since I arrived.

Yes, the temperature rose above freezing on Friday and has held steady ever since. Two days later, walking through town is like walking through a dirty melted Icee. I didn’t mind the snow, but this half-melted, half-frozen witch’s brew is nasty. The puddles are calf-deep, just like the snow used to be. Thank heavens (and Dale!) that I have great boots, so my tootsies aren’t getting wet!

***
Saw my first professional hockey game last night. The Yaroslavl Locomotives won 6-2!

And yes, they play Queen’s “We Will Rock You” and that song “Na Na Na Na, Goodbye” at sports events even in Russia.

Separation Anxiety Sets In …

Piling on Paul

Has it really been 10 days since I blogged? Heavens! Where has the time gone?

It’s flying by way too fast. I learn so much here every day that sometimes it feels like my head will explode. This experience is an amazing combination of joy, frustration, fulfillment, bewilderment and discovery.

We’re having a lively debate among the volunteers: Is it better to try to maintain an objective approach to all the children, much as a teacher would with her class, or to be a little bit closer to a few of the kids whom you especially click with and perhaps have a more profound long-term impact on those few? Different volunteers have different perspectives on that subject, and it’s interesting to hear the discussion and varying viewpoints. I’d love to hear the feedback of anybody reading this, so leave your thoughts!

I’ve been working at the Hospital for Kids almost daily since I got here — at least 4 days a week and sometimes 5. I’ve become extremely attached to the place, much to my surprise. I wasn’t too excited about that particular assignment and didn’t think I’d want to stay there throughout my entire stay. It took me a few weeks to become comfortable there, but now, I’m totally attached to it. Among the volunteers, Hospital for Kids is considered “the most hard core” placement (to quote one of them). The conditions are tougher than at the other orphanages, and the kids tend to be sicker both physically and emotionally. Nobody would want to live there. I consider my biggest accomplishment of this experience to be that I’m the only volunteer who’s consistently stuck with the Hospital for Kids for the last seven weeks.

Now the payoff is starting to overwhelm me. Yesterday’s caregiver apparently felt the need to start preparing the kids for my imminent departure. Before we began working, she started talking about some special volunteers of the past and then said, “And when Yoolya leaves, we will all be very sad.” Then one of the kids chimed in: “We will all cry!” I was so taken aback and so moved … I nearly burst into tears on the spot. That moment is definitely among the most overwhelmingly and touching moments of my life.

I don’t know what I’ve brought to that place that merits such disarming praise. But I do know that I’ll never be able to accurately inventory all I’ve reaped there.

I’m increasingly finding myself bracing for my departure. I leave a week from Sunday to start two weeks of travel to St. Petersburg & Scandinavia. Suddenly, that two-month volunteer experience that seemed to stretch before me with such luxurious vastness has become alarmingly short. Wait a minute! I’m just now learning to ask the kids some quasi-meaningful questions and actually understand the answers! What will happen to Kid A, who was a perfectly normal and happy kid until last week, when he started to come into the room sinfully overmedicated and falling asleep on the filthy floor? What about Kid B, who is perfectly happy as long as she gets her 5-minute hug every day — who will make sure she gets hugged? And that teenager who is so smart and responsible and protects the little kids from bullies — how will I ever know if grows up to be the awesome man that I believe that he will?

I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to leave at all!

Time to change the subject … had an awesome three days in Moscow last weekend. Saw all the must-see sights (Kremlin, Red Square, St. Basil’s, Lenin’s Tomb, etc.) and saw an opera (La Boheme) at the Bolshoi. Perhaps my favorite place was the Ismylova market. I’m a sucker for a good flea market. Now I have to ship a bunch of stuff back home because I don’t want to travel with it. We stayed in a lovely hotel, so another highlight was a delightfully long, hot, bath (no bathtub at my hotel in Yaroslavl – only a shower). My roommate, Marla from Michigan, said she could hear me let out a long, happy sigh in the other room as I slid into the bathtub.

For pics from Moscow (not the bathtub, I promise!) and other stuff, click here.