Breaking the Silence

The metro. Recently I have become an aficionado or something like that. I have ventured out on my own with kids in tow and arrived perfectly timed at my destination. I also have walked to and from different stations and been able to navigate around my traditional path. This is a big accomplishment. Believe me.
There are some interesting things to note about the metro. The groggy masses board and depart the train with equal amounts of indifference. Some of these people have ridden these rails since childhood, back when communism was alive and well.

It’s different now to be sure. Young people sport ear phones, cell-phones, and e-books instead of the traditional bound materials. But I’ve noticed something unique about this massive public transit---its silence. Aside from the announcer who tells us at which stop we’ve arrived and where we’re headed, there is no talking. You don’t really notice when the sounds of the scraping breaks ensue, but when it stops, the silence is almost deafening.

There are, like all things, some exceptions. The kids and I witnessed a few when we were out the other day. One is the occasional giggle or screams from a small child. I get to witness this often when my three older kids tickle number 4. If you want to see a Russian smile, cause a small child to laugh or giggle. It gets them every time.

Second is the cell-phone ring. In the States you might hear a cheesy television theme song, heavy metal, or even rap on the ring. Here it is something akin to the Russian version of techno music (which surprisingly reminds me of polka). It rarely rings more than once. The guilty party is very quick to pick up and conduct their business. Although I don’t know what they’re saying, I don’t think they talk on the phone just to yak.

The third phenomenon is unique. Real musicians. Yesterday we stood feet away from a young boy playing the accordion keeping his balance on the moving vehicle. At first I thought it was a cell-phone but the volume increased and my kids’ eyes widened. He didn’t look poor or sick, but he took donations in a bag on his arm anyway. Many were happy to oblige.

A fourth unique scene is the traveling salesperson. The most frequent item is foldable shopping bags that make something cute like dangling strawberries, a triangle or whatever. These people move from car to car, wait until the doors close, and then prey on the captive audience. My favorite item was Dr. Scholl’s insoles for men. Very funny.

The last thing I want to mention is real beggars. This is heartbreaking. Usually we are decently comfortable in our seats when someone stumbles onto the train. A seat is always offered to them but they decline and then announce their needs. They hobble down the aisle asking for a kopeck or two. A woman I saw yesterday had a body that looked 80 years old. When my eyes wandered to her face, I saw that she was no older than me. It made my heart ache to look at her. Moscow isn’t exactly handicap friendly.

Despite all these social oddities, we will continue to ride the metro. We’re definitely getting the best view of the city from this angle.

Supermarket (Супермаркет)

We got paid this week and so my friend and I planned a big grocery store excursion. As usual, my hubby stays home with all seven kids while she and I venture into the cold to bring home the bacon. This morning we left the house at 10am. This was good because we were hoping to have missed the morning traffic. Then we remembered----there is no rhyme or reason to Moscow traffic ergo, there is always traffic. It took us only 40 minutes to get to the store.

You may ask, “Why this store,” or “can’t you go somewhere else?” The answers would be yes and if I go somewhere else, their produce might not be fresh, there may be funky tasting cheese there, or worse yet, and it may not have cases of milk that I can buy in bulk to freeze. Which brings me to my next observation: There are malls galore here, but each one of them has a supermarket as an anchor. Can you imagine stopping by the Buckle, stepping into Claire’s and then hitting Food-A-Rama on your way out?

We parked the car, grabbed a cart, and headed into the store. But first we have to stop to get our canvas grocery bags stapled into a plastic bag. This way we can’t steal stuff. I used to shop very methodically. I would begin in dairy and work my ways up and down each aisle grabbing what I need and ending up in the produce. Not here. Here I get to bag, weigh, and label my own produce and skip whole aisles because they are restocking during rush hour. Anyway, after I loaded my cart down with an obscene amount of items (believe me, there was staring) I tried to head toward a cash register.

Now, something to keep in mind----all four wheels on the cart swivel. So imagine my cart weighing about 200 pounds now requires all of my body weight just to keep it on course. This is assuming there is room to maneuver. But there isn’t. Today must be national shopping day. When I reached for a carton of milk, I’m pretty sure I grazed a woman’s shin/calf area. She didn’t seem to notice. There is no “pardon me” or “would you mind if I reached above you?” Oh no. People just move to where they want to be. I’m getting pretty good at this. There is one exception to this rule.

IF YOU TOUCH MY SHOES, MY DIRTY LOOKS JUST MIGHT KILL YOU.

I am not exaggerating. Russians take their shoes very seriously. Note to self, do not touch shoes with cart.

Once at the checkout, I’m wondering why I showered today. I heave all of my items onto a belt about the size of a yardstick. My cashier is not impressed that I am American. She is flinging my stuff past the belt so fast that she actually yells and points that I need to start bagging it. This would be great except that my cart is still full! So I try to find balance between heaving things onto the belt and then heaving them back off the belt, cartless. This goes on for what seems like a natural lifetime. I wonder to myself if she is going to call one of the roller-skating managers to swoop in on the current slowpoke. No big deal, it gave her time to flirt with the security guard.

Despite all this, today was a breakthrough.

The last two shopping trips I have had to bum money off my friends because I still haven’t got the ruble quite figured out. Not today. I brought double what I hoped to pay and had plenty to spare. I proudly paid the woman the exact amount (including kopecks) and pushed my cart into the foyer to take a breather. There was sweat running down my neck and elbows. There will be no exercise routine for me today.

I knew what was coming next. The exit. I had one bag on each shoulder and a cart loaded down with swiveling wheels. I barely made it onto the magnetic walking belt in one piece. Three bags of frozen corn jumped ship on the way down. I heroically rescued them and vowed not to buy so many next time. Once we made it back to the van, we loaded up all our stuff. The trip back was much faster and we made it home in an almost new record- 3 ½ hours total! Good thing I bought Kraft Macaroni and Cheese on Amazon ‘cause guess what’s for dinner tonight?

Small Treausres

A couple of my kids have croup, so yesterday, the other two kids and I went to church alone. This was my first solo trip navigating the metro and buses and I was excited to be so independent. Church was wonderful. My kids are about 80% of the Sunday School program, but they love their teachers dearly who represent several different countries around the world. I asked Number 1 why she likes church so much and she said, “Because the leaders are so different from us. They have different lives and families, but we have one thing in common---we all come here because we love Jesus.” What wisdom from an eight year-old.

One of the highlights of Sunday mornings is the florist stand outside the metro stop. Every time we attend, I treat myself to a bouquet to remind myself that living things do grow in this cold atmosphere. This week, Number 3 had requested roses. They are expensive, but we found some pretty orange ones. In Russia, it is bad luck to give flowers in even numbers so you would never see a dozen. We purchased five. I paid the man 300 rubles and waited for him to wrap them. After he wrapped them he proclaimed in a loud voice with opened arms, “EYE LUUFFF YOU!” I smiled and said, “Spaseebah.” He saw my confusion and pointed to the flowers and said again, “EYE LUUFF YOU!” I said, “Da,Da” and walked away. While I thought the vendor was proclaiming his undying devotion to me, he was actually explaining what the flowers represented.

Occasionally on the metro, they will empty the train completely at a random stop. I don’t know why. Official police (sometimes with guns) motion for everyone to get off. Usually you just wait for the next train, but today they would not let us get back on. So I was forced to re-route. An older lady saw the map in my hands and assumed my confusion. I said to her in Russian, “Do you speak English?” She nodded and showed us where we needed to go, even going so far as to give us directions regarding the next station. Nothing like this has happened when my husband is with me.

We arrived in our town and I thought we would try a taxi this time. But I discovered that I had misplaced my badge that grants entrance to our private community. So I waited for the bus. I took the girls to a coffee shop where I ordered hot chocolates, a latte, and a yogurt parfait. She delivered the hot chocolates and they were exactly that! Cups of warm chocolate syrup. It looked more like pudding than a beverage. We all laughed about it and re-checked the menu. Cocoa was one line down from hot chocolate and it contained milk. Lesson learned. The bus came and we went home.

I took a hot shower, turned on the bathroom heater, sat by the fire and thanked God for all the small treasures I had enjoyed today.

The Need for Heat

Last week the temperatures were below zero several days in a row. The sun was shining and the sky was blue, but it was cold. It was then that I discovered that all three methods of heat are necessary here in Russia. So we begin with the central furnace. This is impossible to regulate. If you turn the thermostat up to 70, the temperature gets up to 85. If you turn it down to 60, it’s freezing.

So the secondary version is the baseboard heaters. These are dangerous. You can heat up a room in a few minutes flat, but it turns out that they burn blankets and pillows with little evidence but an odd smell. It’s only after a few hours of this oddity that we ask ourselves, “what is that smell?” I would love to blame it on the kids, but I burned my organza pillow shams all by myself.

Number three is the fireplace. My husband and I both grew up tending wood furnaces in our childhood, so we know how to build a fire and keep it from smoking. Except, of course, when you happen to burn paper from Russia that is coated with a strange plastic and smokes like crazy. We also have to wonder what the heat is worth when it is roaring so loud that my man calls for a squirt bottle and a shovel.

This week it is 15. It’s incredible what a warm up that is. Number Two was outside in the snow with his friends for three hours yesterday. Most of the time I stay pretty toasty in the house, but today I took a bike ride to the Sport Center to visit the Solarium (aka sunbed). Best 300 rubles I’ve spent. I got to listen to soothing music in Russian and when I left to rejoin the tundra, I had a little tan line.