>From baikaltour@gin.global-one.ru Mon Oct 6 08:39:53 1997 Subject: miscellaneous observations Hi everyone! Just a few remaining observations and thoughts about life in Irkutsk as viewed by two temporary American residents. -- Beware of requesting a "pie" when you visit here! The other day in the central market Valentina offered to get each of us a special Russian pie. Picturing something along the lines of a Hostess fruit pie, we had our typical Pavlovian response. (Kevin did, anyway!) Valentina returned with two items which looked something like cinnamon rolls. Not bad! We hungrily took big bites just as Valentina was explaining that these were filled with mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes? The look of hesitancy on Kevin's face was classic. Actually, they turned out to be quite good once our expectations were adjusted. We learned that these also come in two other delightful flavors -- cabbage and mushroom! We sampled the cabbage version today, in fact. -- When making purchases with roubles here, at the market or elsewhere, exact change is not as rigid a requirement as it is in the U.S. It goes both ways. Merchants frequently do not have the right bills to make change, and we've often been pleasantly surprised to have someone wave away a difference of a few hundred roubles by giving back a bill when they don't have correct change. Just as often, though, we've stood there perplexed as a merchant took our money and clearly considered the transaction complete while we expected change. We've gotten used to it. It evens out in the end. -- "Paper or plastic?" is not a question that you hear at all here, and not just because of the language barrier. At the grocery store or market everyone is expected to bring their own means of carrying home their goods. Not a bad "reduce/reuse/recycle" strategy, but rather inconvenient when you forget! The other day Kevin walked home from the store with two-liter containers of soda sticking out of each pocket of his jacket! At last, we have built our own small collection of bags, so we're in good shape. -- On another recycling note, they have an interesting way of implementing trash removal here in the park areas and also along some of the streets in the city itself. Every few paces you will find a small pit containing some trash. It took us a little while to figure this out, but these are essentially "mini-landfills". When one is filled, a city employee covers the trash, then digs another pit beside it. Interesting, but not especially pleasant to look at. -- Back to the market again, the central market here sells all kinds of things, but there is little clear organization to the goods, because it is basically just a large room where independent merchants set up to make their sales. Most of them have a little bit of everything -- fruit, baby food, candy bars, cookies, Russian pies ;-), etc. -- so you get a strong feeling of deja vu as you walk around. Perhaps the most interesting section of the market is the meat area. In America we've gotten to a point where we hide the ugly process that leads to the sanitary, packaged meat products we eventually buy. Not so here! There are several places where the butcher stands on an elevated platform and does just what he does best -- hacks cows and pigs to pieces! That's kind of an interesting process to watch, but not for very long. ;-) Today as we left the market munching on our cabbage pies, a man walked by us carrying two shopping bags, each containing a complete bull's head, horns and all! That's just not something you see every day back home... -- Computer Science folks might be interested to know that a significant tool for doing calculations in stores here is none other than the abacus! They have hand held calculators too, but virtually every store we have been in has an old abacus right on the front desk. The first one we noticed was in a souvenir shop, and Kevin asked how much it would be to buy it, assuming it was for sale! The proprietor cracked up at the very idea that some American loony would want to buy her abacus. Later it became clear that it is still heavily used. -- We are told that married couples in Russia wear their wedding rings on their *right* hands. And people who are divorced move it over to their left hand, believe it or not! We can only assume that the hotel employees think we're a couple of divorcees shacking up in Irkutsk for a while... -- We have seen only an occasional stray cat while we've been here, but dogs are all over the place. They roam the streets and sidewalks fairly freely. One thing that is really funny is that it is so natural to them that they actually seem to follow various pedestrian rules! We have cracked up on several occasions as we'll watch a dog all by itself walk on a sidewalk, take a left turn, then take another left turn, rather then just run across the grass inbetween like any American dog would do! They'll also stand and wait with a group of people on the sidewalk before crossing the street. Our best moment by far was while we were in the Moscow airport waiting for our flight to Irkutsk. We were talking with the Smiths, trying to kill time, when a small golden dog just walked up and sat down beside us, looking for all the world like it expected to be included in the conversation. Maybe it was just sleep deprivation, but we laughed about that for a long time. (And got a good picture of him too...) -- Speaking of pedestrian rules and guidelines... Have you ever heard the song by the character Gaston in Disney's BEAUTY AND THE BEAST where he sings, "I'm especially good at expectorating!" Well, that could be the theme song of the male population of Irkutsk. You know how you have to walk on the sidewalk whenever it has rained and all the worms are out? Sort of delicately, watching where you step. Well, it's the same thing here, except it's all the time, and not only after it rains... Yuck! -- American sports teams are very popular here, as evidenced by the number of team jackets, hats, etc. that we've seen. However, like the video movies, it seems likely that much of the merchandise is bootlegged. Our first clue was seeing a Russian boy in the airport wearing a green-and-blue Chicago Bulls hat. Hmmm. Maybe we've missed something, but neither of us could recall seeing Michael Jordan sporting his new green-and-blue road uniform. We've seen other examples of this as well. We were really hoping to spot someone in a UNC basketball jersey in a nice bright Wahoo-orange color, but no luck yet. ;-) -- Car alarms! Oh my goodness, let's talk a bit about car alarms! We are absolutely not exaggerating when we tell you that a car alarm in the parking lot of our hotel has gone off *every single day* we have been here. And it's the rare day when it happens just once! We have come to develop a rare appreciation for the wide range of tuneful melodies played by these devices. We appreciate them most at 3 a.m.! We are drawn inevitably to one of two conclusions. (1) Perhaps Russian car manufacturers have advanced the technology just a bit *too* far. (E.g., The Anti-Pointing Car Alarm: "Hey, look at that nice car over there!" BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP.) Or (2), maybe they just have some of the dumbest car thieves in the world here. ("Whadda you wanna do tonight?" "I don't know. Wanna try to steal a car or two from the Intourist Hotel? They can't *all* have car alarms!") Unbelievable. -- Russian babushkas -- grandmothers or grandmotherly types -- feel an obligation to share parenting advice with younger parents. While this might not sound that unusual, what makes it so in this case is that they do so with complete strangers on the street! On a few occasions we have had women stop us to point out that Benjamin is sucking on his fingers once again. And even more frequently we are admonished about not covering him up adequately enough! We have gotten so paranoid that we check every few minutes to make sure that he hasn't pulled his hat off, and that neither his pants legs nor his sleeves have hiked up. *Any* exposed skin will generally result in a "babushka citation!" Actually, we were prepared for this from some reading we did before our trip, and we sincerely appreciate it. We think it would be quite nice as parents of young children to know that society's elders have a genuine interest in the well-being of our kids. We also think it would be nice younger generations to respect the knowledge and advice of their elders like they do here. We know that we'll probably think of 10 more things we would like to tell you during the elevator ride to our room alone, but that's all for now. Please keep in mind that we haven't done any sociological studies here, so we don't mean to state with confidence that all of these comments reveal things that are true about the Russian culture in general. They are just some interesting and possibly amusing things that we've observed in our two-week stay. Have a wonderful Monday everybody! One week from this time we'll probably be rising from a fitful night of sleep, trying to figure out why we're going to work at 9 p.m.! But it will be nice to start returning to our normal schedules -- biological and otherwise -- again. We're thinking of you all. Much love, Kevin & Julie