Saturday evening | May 6, 2006
Moscow
Summer weather, very warm and clear
10:00 pm and just getting dark
Streets full of people strolling and children playing in little gardens behind apt. buildings

We’ve landed in Moscow three days now unexpectedly.  The result is a small miracle, though the process was purely, wholly, completely and utterly Russian.  To make a LONG story short, we finally have internet access through a new, small mobile telephone which wirelessly links to our laptop and connects us to the internet.  We bought a reserve power source that works off our car battery and so we can write as we travel across the vast landscape that is Russia and that takes us to the villages.  The telephone has a camera and so we’ll try to send pictures along the way.

The next stop is Vetoshkino, the first village we worked in where Nikolai’s elderly Aunt Natalia and cousin, Tatyana, live. All day tomorrow we will prepare for the journey, packing the car with sacks of food, bottles of water to drink and other bottles of water to clean the headlights and windshield in case we run into mud.  We’ll take rope (in case you need to be towed), a small sack of tools, music cassettes, and most importantly, we have no less than three fantastic flashlights that don’t need batteries.  They work by being shaken and . . . given how much they will shake . . . they should work very well.

We now know we will definitely be doing the next library project in the Ural Mountains and this too is proving to be far better than our original plan to work north of Moscow.  More later on that theme.  There are many miles yet between here and the Urals. 

Some short snippets before signing off.  For the first time we filmed various Moscow scenes, including driving.  It should make for lively footage.  The first day I decided to prepare chicken for dinner, brought the little bird home only to find that they only clip off the feathers.  You have to pluck out all the little ends yourself.  It took a long time to make dinner as a result.

Next entry on the road to Vestoshkino.  --JF

Monday  |  May 8, 2006
Somewhere between Moscow and Nizhni Novgorod
Roads busy with merchants in big trucks; others pull carts by hand heaped
with wares
As always, countless women by the side of the road selling hand made things
and tomato plants
______

     We are about two hours out of Moscow as I write, heading toward Nizhni Novgorod, and have just turned around to go back to Moscow.  We got pulled over by the police, which is nothing unusal.  It just helps them pass the day as they stand on the side of the road with their little black and white batons in hand.  As always, Nikolai cheerily jumped out of the car and said, "Good morning, Comrade!  What is it that has caught your respectful attention?" 
     We were speeding, it seems, but just a little.  We didn't get a ticket as the policeman was very young and not quite sure how to handle Nikolai. But what did come of it was that Nikolai discovered that he had none of his documents on him (i.e. his passport or driver's license).  This was no minor event.  It is hard for those of us who have not lived in the Soviet Union to fathom how critical one's "papers" are here even now.  You don't go to the corner market for a loaf of bread withouth them. It is the first time I've ever seen Nikolai concerned.  Half way back to Moscow he broke the silence by saying, "It would have been better to lose $1,000 than to lose my documents."
      It was too early to ask how or if we could proceed without them.  Within 20 minutes, however, of returning to Moscow we found them but it was too late to turn around and go back.  Instead, we took care of a host of minor details that will make our journey better than had we gone ahead today without them.  Strange to say, but it feels like we're farther ahead even though we're yet another day delayed.  It's tending to the details in Russia that make all the difference in the end.  It is hard to fathom how Americans could possibly work, or even survive, in Russia without the help of a knowledgeable Russian working alongside: that is, knowing what to do, when to do it, who to ask for help and how, where to find the infinite number of tiny things you need, etc., etc.
     In any case, we leave tomorrow morning at 5:00 a.m.  One of the blessings in that is that tomorrow is "Victory Day" in Russia - the most revered holiday of all.  It not only celebrates Russia's victory in WWII, but is a day to show particular respect to all seniors who managed to survive that horrific time.  As a result, all along the way on the road, in all the little villages and towns, we'll see their celebrations and that will be very special.  There is no need to think that anything has gone wrong, despite the unexpected turn of events.  That is simply not the case.  You go forward from where you are and take advantage of all that each day brings.  --JF  



Thursday, May 11
This e-mail is from Jeannie's husband, Peter:

Got a call from Jeannie just now explaining her recent silence.  She and Nikolai are in Mwesee, but have lost Internet service for the moment.  (Don't know how long a Russian "moment" is!?!)  It worked fine when they first arrived, so they know it's possible.  She just wanted to post a brief update explaining the situation for those who are following things closely.  She said everything is going very well otherwise. The other main news is that they have a new house in Mwesee. The roof on the back part of the former house, which had not been replaced last fall, collapsed under the snow this winter.  So the townspeople gave them another house, which is even better in every way than any of the previous ones according to Jeannie.



Webmaster note: Although this entry is dated May 9, it arrived on May 13. Jeannie's entries will be posted in the order they are received...

Tuesday  |  May 9, 2006  |  12:20 pm

On the road between Nizhni Novgorod and Semyonov
400 miles to Kirov

Very few cars on the road (because today is a holiday) and so we are making very good time.  Such good time that we got stopped once again for speeding.  This time Nikolai jumped out of the car (you get out of the car here when you get stopped) and said, “Hello Comrade!  Ive come all the way from Moscow simply to wish you a happy Victory Day!”  The officer immediately started to laugh and didn’t bother to look at Nikolai’s papers. He wished us a happy holiday and sent us on our way.  One needs often to forgive Nikolai for speeding.  After all these years of getting stopped (in all the years we’ve worked together he’s been stopped no less than two or three dozen times) I’ve become accustomed to it and I no longer get concerned as he’s never been given a ticket.  Rather, I wait to hear what he will say to talk his way out of it. Each time it is something surprisingly original that gives the poor, bored officer a chuckle to brighten his day.  (Now having admitted this, I can no longer, in all good conscience, give my poor husband a hard time when he drives five miles over the speed limit.)

       Here, of course, everything is in kilometers and  I don’t know how to convert them into miles.  However, perhaps someone could e-mail me to tell me how fast 120 kilometers/hour is?  books@worldpath.net

At this point the only other news is that for the first time we’ve discovered that you can’t shut the heat off in the car.  We never noticed it in the winter.  It is quite noticeable now however.   The inside of the car e resembles the interior of Africa. 

          It is now close to eight hours later and we are in sight of Vetoshkino, our first destination.  Unfortunately we have somehow lost our Internet connection.  That is particularly frustrating given the DAYS we spent preparing for every possible technical problem so that we would be guaranteed a connection.  We phoned several people to see what mobile telephone connection is the best here; we went to the head office of that company in Moscow to learn what type of phone card we needed and other such things; we worked for days to make sure the link between the computer and the mobile phone would work . . . and, alas, Russia is simply enormous.  We are at the edge of utter remoteness where nothing is guaranteed.
     As we approach Vetoshkino we are still miles and miles away but can spot it on the horizon.  One of the most thrilling parts of the Kirov region is that you feel as if you can see into eternity itself.  Nothing interrupts your view.  It is a scene of endless fields and enormous billowy white clouds that hang low overhead like the too heavy tops of sunflowers.
     We arrived in Vetoshkino just 13 hours after leaving Moscow.  We have never made such good time.  (Usually the trip is closer to 17 hours, and has been as long as 25.)  The roads are hard and dry.  We have not had to deal with either mud or snow.  And, because of the holiday there were virtually no cars on the road.  There was one, however . . . on the side of the road. An elderly man was trying to change a flat tire while his wife, children and young grandson waited patiently.  When the grandfather saw us he waved us down.  Of course we stopped.  You never pass a stranded car
here.  Even more, we have been helped too many times not to help in return. Within minutes Nikolai had the flat tire off the car and the spare in its place. In the meantime, I found a trinket (a keychain flashlight) in the sack of presents we always carry with us to give to seven year old Misha. His older sister, Anna, I learned, is studying English in school and considered it a minor miracle to suddenly get to speak English to an American.  The mother said, for her part, she could never have dreamed that a foreigner would be willing to stop and help.  She was truly, simply amazed.  There was that look in her eyes that I have seen more than once: a perception of Americans was changed and she was startled by it.  It is such moments that we seek out.  They are the reason we travel these long, difficult roads, and they are what give the work such meaning.  Before we said good-bye we took a group photo with their camera and with ours.

________________________________
Friday  |  May 12, 2006  |  10:20 pm

Vetoshkino and Mwesee
Two + hours south of Kirov on the Vyatka River

I am sitting in the main room of the home of Tatyana, Mikhail and Babushka Natalia.  A curtain separates me from the kitchen where Babushka is busy at work with some new project.  She has been up since seven.  When I first saw her this morning she was carrying an armload of wood for the stove that would have been hard for me to manage.  After getting the woodstove going, she then separated the cream from the new milk that Tatyana had just brought in from the barn and took half the cream to heat in the center of the large stove that serves as oven, stove top, furnace, and, finally, bed at night.  The heated cream forms a golden crust on top which is, in a sense, their version of hot chocolate.  It is something that usually only children drink.  After that, Babushka went out to the side garden to clean the fish Mikhail caught yesterday.  When she was done with that she went into the cellar to collect a large bucket of potatoes.  I came into the kitchen just has she was hoisting them over her head and setting them on the kitchen floor.  I immediately reached out to take the heavy bucket from her not able to fathom how she can possible lift it. But after nine decades of such a life it is so automatic she doesn’t seem to wonder if any other life is possible.
     The potatoes are kept in the cellar below the kitchen.  The pumpkins and daily cash of fresh eggs are kept under her bed. Thanks to Babushka, I now know that you have to leave a few old eggs in the chickens’ nests so they know where you want them to lay them.  The carrots and onions are kept in two separate bins along side the banya and, lastly, fish hang on lines in the upper loft above the barn to dry and harden.  
     The long, narrow freezer at the head of Babushka’s bed (a little curtain separates her “bedroom” from the kitchen) contains various meat and whole chickens the family has themselves prepared.  Large chunks of meat are stacked on one side and the chickens on the other.  Every spare inch of the house is used in one way or the other.  There is no wasted space.
_____

     It is nearly impossible to describe all that has happened since we arrived.  We are still without Internet connection and so will either drive to Urzhum (where we fell into an ice hole five years ago) to send off this log or we will put in on our small backup device and give it to Sasha (Nikolai’s nephew) to send for us when he returns to Kirov in two or three days.
     The day after we arrived we went immediately to Mwesee (about six miles from Vetoshkino) to see the “American Home”.  It is a simple village home that had been given to our organization last year in gratitude to everyone in America who makes our work possible.  Their villagers desire was to provide a place to which any American family could come to see and experience Russian village life.  It was the simplest and purest desire for friendship.  It was a simple, pure act of good. 
     Thus, when we arrived we couldn’t possibly have imagined the surprise that awaited us. Last year we had left just enough money to repair the roof on the main part of the house. No one felt that more was needed.  Here, I will pause to say that we have gone slowly with each new step wanting to “test the waters” and see what was realistic, what was possible, in terms of bringing others here to visit.
        We pulled up to the south side of the house, parked the car, and then walked around to the north side, where the main entrance is, only to notice a surprising amount of light in the barn and “courtyard rooms”.  Then suddenly, we all looked up and then at each other in shock.  Half of the
courtyard and barn roof had collapsed under the huge amount of snow Russia had last winter.  It was apparently not only the amount of snow but the unusually severe cold last winter that caused the beams to snap under the snow and collapse.  (In much of Russia the schools were closed for over a month as the temperatures hit 40 and 50 below zero.)
      While I said nothing, apparently my face said much, for it was clear that the “American Home” project had just come to an end.  To repair the roof and barn could not be justified.  I went off on my own and sat by the bank of the Vyatka river to think, to cry and to pray.
      When I returned, our friend Nikolai Aleksandrovich had arrived from Votskoya – the village between Vetoshkino and Mwesee.  He is the head of both Mwesee and Votskoya, both of which still function as “kolhozes” or collective farms.  That means that the homes belong to the village and are given to families based on their needs.  Both Nikolai Aleksandrovich and a committee of villagers decide this. His face was equally sad.  His first words were, “Please don’t give up.  We are 100 percent against throwing in the towel.  We cannot say how much we want this friendship between your friends and our village to happen.  It gives us all hope and something to work for.”  The words were deeply sincere and came out of an even deeper desire to save this village that is so beautiful and once thrived.
     I could only reply that his words deeply touched me, but such a home was both beyond my strength and the means of our organization to repair and care for.  Nikolai Aleksandrovich then went on to say, “Since you were last here, another family left the village because the father found work in the city.  Come, look at the house.  If it pleases you we will give you that house.  Please just look at it.  Don’t be discouraged.  Don’t give up.” 
      As we headed off down the road, Nikolai said quietly, “You don’t have to accept the house, you just need to look at it so that they feel they have done all that they could to show you their sincerity.”

      We began work on the second home within minutes of seeing it and have not stopped since.  The home is even more wonderful than the first home. It is strong, solid and in excellent shape, needing only a very (VERY) thorough cleaning and painting.  We have worked day and night at getting it in shape for me to live in for the next four weeks.  From the first home we were given we took out a bed, two small tables, two benches, a little wall cabinet, and various instruments that you need to work with the woodstove and cook on it.  The second home already had a bed (plus the space you can sleep on top of the woodstove), a corner cupboard for dishes and an armoire for towels or canned goods, etc., and a huge number of buckets and basins. Here you QUICKLY learn to throw out little.  Even old buckets can be used in a number of essential ways, as can scraps of string, pieces of rope, and old sacks.
     Various neighbors have come each day to help with the cleaning and to make me feel welcome.  Directly across from the new house is a family of three.  The wife is a nurse and the husband a mechanic.  They have a little daughter named Olga.  The next house down belongs to Auntie Raiisa with whom I got acquainted last year having helped her carry her laundry home from the river.  As far as I can tell, the house next to ours is vacant and the house down from that belongs to Nikolai Aleksandrovich’s elderly mother.  Finally, the building kitty corner to our house (we are on the “corner” of the road) is absolutely beautiful.  It was the library when Mwesee was a thriving village.  All told, I’ve learned that there are some 70 people in the village, though it feels as if there are far fewer.  As to what they do to earn a living I will soon discover though it is clear that
unemployment is a huge problem. 

     The house has one main room heated by a woodstove in the center. There is one small walled off bedroom.  There is a large courtyard off of which is another room that can eventually be used as another bedroom. There is a large area for wood storage in which was left about two cords of good, dry solid wood.  That is a huge relief not to have to find scraps of wood to heat the woodstove.  Beyond that section is an incredible barn which I’ve just barely explored.  It has small stalls with low ceilings (helping the animals keep warm in the winter).  It appears as if the family had goats, a cow, pigs, rabbits and chickens, though there are no animals now.  We will buy two chickens for me which I will then give to Tatyana and Mikhail when I leave.  There is a wonderful hayloft which still has fresh hay.  I’ve used a portion of it to make a clean path to the woodpile. Here, every consideration is how to keep as much dust and dirt outside and not inside the home!  Water is the most precious commodity you own.  When you have to walk a quarter mile for it down the road and then down a hill (which means you carry full buckets UP the hill on the return trip) you think very carefully how you use it.  I spilled a cupful the other day and scolded myself for hours afterwards.
     Interestingly, there is a well with a pump directly outside the new house.  It still has ice and so cannot be used, but should be usable in another week.  That will make a huge difference in the ease of living in Mwesee.  And the point of my living here alone is to see if it is realistic for other Americans to come here and live.  That question I will answer in four weeks.
     Our plans have changed slightly in that we did not go directly to the Ural Mountains where the next library project will be.  To save both time and money, we decided that it was far more logical for me to remain here now while Nikolai works to prepare everything in the Urals for the library project.  In three or so weeks, Tatyana and Mikhail will put me on a train in Kirov which goes directly to Pervouralsk.  There Nikolai will meet me and we will stay in his mother’s house while we do the library project and yet another project in Marinsk where we work every year.
     There is MUCH more to write about, but this entry has already gone on far too long.  We cannot tell you how disappointed we are that the internet connection has proved so problematic when we did so much to make it work. But there is still time to find a solution.  --JF


 

Saturday | May 13, 2006  |  10:20 pm  Mwesee  

It is my first night in the American Home.  Tatyana, Sasha (Tatyana's son), and Nikolai have just left.  Having lived in the house less than one full day, I still managed to pull together a modest meal of soup, bread, apple sauce, tea, and cookies.  (Fortunately, Russians eat their main meal at noon and so it was not a problem not to have more to serve them.)  Still, as soon as the home felt it's woodstove working again, and the smell of fresh made soup filling the air, and curtains hanging in the windows (which a neighbor has been making the last two days), it once again began to live, breathe, and rejoice.       

There has been a HUGE amount of effort on the part of many people to make the American Home a reality.  In just four days we have transformed this little home.  Two huge truck loads of trash have been removed from the house, courtyard and barn -- and the house thoroughly cleaned from the ceiling down to the smallest crack in the floor.  How hard these people can -- and will work -- if they are rightly worked with.  They are strong and industrious, talented and, at the same time, willing to do the humblest, most unpleasant work, you can imagine.  Yes, they need constant supervision and someone to point out every detail -- though they know all too well how to do most anything, and to make the most useful tools and gadgets out of nothing.  They are good people who have been disappointed thousands of times.  They are kind people who are leery of strangers, (or perhaps it is better to say self-conscious in front of them) but who are willing to try to reach out and trust once again.  They suffer from purposelessness, though there are many who have found ways to succeed and progress during these difficult times in Russia.       

The villagers have been willing to help us.  Of course they are eager to earn money, but there is no fault to be found with that.  (For a day's work, depending on the work, a good salary is anywhere from $1 to $5.)  They want work desperately.  They want purpose. So much of their hesitation before a foreigner is that they fear being judged by their simple homes, their worn clothes, and their toothless smiles.  If you can see past all those things, there is a goodness in their hearts that is deep and sincere. We have also bought several absolutely wonderful old things for the house.  Of course, to the villagers there is nothing special in them and they cannot understand why I am so thrilled with the two old trunks we bought (for $3), the "dining room" table (for $5), and this little writing desk on which I am now working for $1.  Here Tatyana has been invaluable, knowing exactly what is a fair price: not too little and not too much.  It is incredible important that not too much be given.  It is extremely important to live here as a Russian neighbor and not as a "rich foreigner" - thus I rely on Tatyana to tell me how much to pay for everything.     

My neighbor across the street who is a nurse (Svetlana) is truly a Godsend.  She has been over at least a half dozen times today to see if I need anything.  She and her husband Mikhail have a cow and so for 25 cents each day I will buy a liter of milk.  I have two of my own chickens (which Tatyana and Mikhail loaned me) as well as a huge sack of potatoes, carrots and onions.  I bought a sack of flour when I first arrived and will live off of these supplies.  Once a week a truck comes from Votskoya that sells things like butter, sugar, flour, bread, etc.  Each week I thus have a chance to stock up on non-perishable staples.  If needed, I can walk to Votskoya (which is about three miles away) to buy things.  An even bigger store is in Vetoshkino, but that is a six-mile walk.  I thought I would have a bicycle, but the roads are too rough.  It is actually easier to walk.      Svetlana and Mikhail heat the banya (where you bathe) once a week (on Sunday) and have invited me to come use it each week.  That too is a Godsend.  The other days I will go to a little room off the courtyard where a three-foot tub awaits me.  You fill it half way up, stand in the middle of it and use a large cup to pour water over yourself.  The "other facilities" are also in this room which I have improvised and put there.  Technically, the outhouse is at the other end of the barn, but I have suddenly discovered what was once called a "bed pan" and have put it in that little room.      

It is hard to believe all I've learned in just one day.  For instance, every scrap of paper is saved to start a fire in the woodstove.  You collect the firewood each day and put enough by the backdoor so you don't have to walk through the barn to get it, thus bringing more dust and dirt into the house.  As soon as you get up, the first thing is to start a fire in the woodstove and then put a pot of soup on which will simmer all day.  There is a special basin that fits into a ring and lowers into the stove near the fire.  (Many such useful things were already in the house waiting to be used once again.)  They say that soup that simmers in such a pot over a wood fire has an altogether different taste than soup that is prepared on a stove top.     

The soup cooks all day not only for yourself, but to be ready for guests.  Next I have learned to ALWAYS keep a pot of fresh hot water going on the stove.  It is used for washing the dishes as well as your hands, or for making tea.  To wash the dishes you need three basins.  One where you put just a little soap (too many suds making the rinsing long and laborious).  The second basin is for the first rinse and the third basin is for the last rinse.  Like Babushka Natalia, my first eggs are in a little basket under the bed.  I have room to keep them in the kitchen, but putting them under the bed reminds me of her.  Like all Russian grandmothers, she was worried about me having enough to eat and so sent over several things she had made today with Tatyana and Nikolai.  Once Nikolai leaves for the Urals (which will most likely be Monday) I will see very little of Tatyana, Mikhail and Babushka.  I wish their village (Vetoshkino) was just a little closer, though theee times a week the older children in Mwesee walk the six miles to Vetoshkino and back to go to school.     

It is now 11:30 and time to go to bed.  Since I began writing this entry both Nikolai and Tatyana have phoned to see if everything is alright. So I am VERY well cared for and that is MUCH to be grateful for.  Already I feel that most any American who was adventurous, flexible, and willing to laugh about all the unexpected little "adventures" could live in this home and village quite easily.  --JF     



Sunday, May 13, 2006  |  10:33 pm

Mwesee

Beautiful warm spring days.  Bright blue skies, pale green new leaves budding everywhere.  At night and first thing in the morning you can hear “coo-coo” birds (as in coo-coo clocks) calling to each other.  Their songs, however, are more melodious than the clocks.
____

The morning was soft and misty with bright sun breaking through. Absolutely gorgeous.  I’ve discovered that there is a view of the Vyatka River from the front windows.  Once I finished breakfast, I opened the courtyard door so that the home, as much as possible, will give the feeling of welcome.  (That was at the suggestion of one of  four students from New Hampshire who are doing a special Mwesee Expedition project with me while I am here.)  At the suggestion of another of the Expeditioners, I made apple sauce first thing and left it on the stove. It not only fills the house with a lovely aroma (a friend sent me off with an incredible amount of fresh spices), but it is always ready to serve if someone drops by. . . and someone is always dropping by.  Applesauce is an unknown dish here.  No one so far has eaten it alone.  It seems to them that it should be spread on bread.
     My first guest arrived about 8 in the morning. (A small flock of geese have taken up residence in my front yard.  Wherever I am in the house, I know when a guest has arrived when the geese start to squawk.)  My first visitor was Tanya.  She lives one field over.  She is the postmaster.  She came to get acquainted and invited me to dinner next week.  The rest of the day proved to be a steady stream of visitors.  We had a large meal here at noon which Tatyana (Nikolai’s cousin) helped prepare.  There were seven of us all together.  It was a traditional “send off” as Nikolai is to leave for the Urals early tomorrow morning.
     We found, sadly, that two other houses in the village that have been vacant for many years, also lost their roofs under the heavy snow of last winter.  (Now we understand why we were given this home that has only been vacant a year.  The village is desperate to preserve the homes that are still strong.)  Nikolai and Tatyana went through the collapsed homes to see if there were special things that should be saved and that we could preserve in the American Home.  As a result, a beautiful samovar has now found its place on the hutch -- and an absolutely magical little spinning wheel is now in the front room next to the writing table.  It is deep green with goldish-yellow trim and design.  There is still wool on the spindle waiting to be finished.  There are probably hundreds of such spinning wheels in the village. When our friend Nikolai Aleksandrovich (the head of the village) and his wife Emelia came for dinner they were thrilled that we were “willing” to help preserve such village items.  So the home is slowly being filled with beauty and the villagers grateful and pleased that the work of their hands is valued. 
     I decided early on, that no matter how little food I had in the house, when guests arrived I would put out all that I could on the table and not worry about the next meal.  The reason is, again, to give the feeling that Americans can live here as friends and neighbors, and not as foreigners nor strangers.  Each time I have just about run out of food, some guest arrives with a sack full of food.  Thus, at the moment, I’m hoping I’ll have guests tomorrow as I have more food than I can eat alone and I don’t want it to spoil.--JF 



Monday, May 14, 2006  |  7:30 pm

Mwesee

By seven I was out in the front garden painting a small table and two small chairs.  Most of the furniture in the American Home needs painting, but the reason to haul it all outside is again at the suggestion of the students who are participating in the Mwesee Expedition project.  They recommended that I do as much as I can outside so that I can strike up conversations with the neighbors.  I thus got acquainted with three different elderly babushki (grandmothers).  Sadly, there are fewer people in the village than I expected as more and more migrate to the cities each year.
        A little dog has taken up residence in my courtyard.  He is white with pointy ears and a tail that never stops wagging.  He is very polite, never barking and never coming into the house though the door is open all day.  When I can’t eat all my lunch or dinner I give him the scraps which may have something to do with his loyalty.  I’m open to any suggestions for names if you’d like to e-mail me recommendations. 
      In addition, I painted the woodstove.  The stove is a technological wonder given all that it can do.  The most wonderful part is the spout I pour water into each morning.  Within an hour I have hot water that comes out of a spigot six or eight inches below the spout.  I don’t know how much the iron container built into the stove holds, but it is more than enough to give me hot water all day.  The stove is made of bricks which are then heavily plastered over.  Finally, there is a special white paint that is quite thick when it goes on and then becomes chalky once it’s dried.  (It’s water, and not oil, based paint.)
      The reason for rushing to get as much done as I can, is that some time this week there will be a truck load of children coming from Vetoshkino to visit the American Home.  (There isn’t a school bus here, or anywhere in the region, and so one of the farmers will load the children into the back of a hay wagon and carry them here.)  I will try to video tape our time together as they are preparing songs and dances to share with me.  Their biggest hope is that some year American children will come here with me to visit.
      I don’t think my hands will ever be the same.  In just a week’s time they’ve become thick and rough. The most challenging part of living here is not having a hot shower or bath after a long, grubby day of work.  I still haven’t learned how to get clothes really clean in the river, though technically it’s supposed to be more effective than a washing machine. Actually, you don’t wash the clothes in the river, you wash them in the three-foot tub you bathe in (if you don’t have a banya.)  You only rinse the clothes in the river.  And the rinsing, I’ve learned, has as much to do with getting them clean as the washing.  Along that line, I’d do anything to have trash bags, dust cloths, furniture polish . . . and a hot fudge sundae before going to bed.  If anyone has any suggestions for what I could make dust rags out of, I’d gladly welcome them.  I’m sorry now that we threw out a bunch of old ragged clothes on the first day.  It never dawned on me (since they were utterly grubby) that they could be washed and torn apart for cleaning rags. 
      I found an amazing little instrument today.  The handle resembles a foot long broom handle at the end of which is a “spiked” wooden attachment that resembles one of the pieces in the children game of jacks.  It is used, I learned, to knead bread.  It seems even more amazing as I look down and see it sitting here next to my laptop and mobile phone.     --JF 



Tuesday, May 16, 2006  |  10:50 am

Mwesee

It is cold and rainy this morning -- one of those damp, grey days that feels colder than it really is.  Two and a half hours after getting up, I had managed to start the woodstove, make breakfast and do the dishes.  For some reason it took me well over an hour to get the stove lit.  At one point I despaired of running out of both kindling and patience -- not to mention, hope  Yet, there was no choice.  I now have run out of clean clothes and have to do washing today.  Thus, I had to have a hot fire.  I finally found an old, unusable broom in the barn (here, brooms are made out of narrow, narrow tree limbs) which I broke up for kindling and got the stove going.  The frustrating part was, I didn’t know why the fire wasn’t catching.  I didn’t know if the wood was damp or if I did something improperly with the infinite number of little doors and vents you have to adjust as you start the stove and the other set you have to adjust once it gets going.  Thus, the morning is close to being over and I’ve only managed to get myself breakfast.  Already I’m having to think about putting water in the pot on the stove and peeling potatoes to make myself soup for lunch. Each day it amazes me how much time it takes just to do the most basic things.  I have virtually no free time. 
      After getting the stove going and breakfast made, I suddenly looked down to see that my last clean blouse was utterly filthy from carting wood, traipsing through the barn, and reaching in and out of the stove.  The next time I go to town I will try to buy a man’s large shirt to wear over my clothes to help keep them cleaner.  It also finally dawned on me that I could make a carrier to haul firewood by making four holes in a burlap sack I found and putting two short broom handles through the holes for handles. That too will help keep my clothes cleaner.  (Thank goodness that whoever lived here earlier saved all their old brooms!)  How quickly and, at the same time, how slowly, I feel like I’m learning to live here!  The story has a happy ending, however.  Before Nikolai left for the Urals, he brought over a box full of food supplies, including powder to make hot chocolate. Thus, once the stove was roaring, the dishes were washed and a new load of firewood was brought in, I sat down and treated myself to a cup of steaming hot chocolate.
      I have a small table in the kitchen on which I prepare food and wash the dishes.  It tilts to the left and then slightly forward.  I’ve now learned to keep a bucket at the left front leg to catch the water that spills off the table and on to the floor.  It can later be used to mop up something that has spilled or to clean some wonderful old object I find in the barn each day.  At the other end of the kitchen (the kitchen is a narrow “L” that wraps around the woodstove) is a small sink.  Nikolai found the sink in the barn and built a little stand for it.  The hole in the bottom has no pipe attached to it.  Instead, there is a small stool underneath it on which is set a bucket to catch the water.   Above the sink is a narrow metal bucket with a ¼ inch hole in the bottom and a long narrow stopper that hangs down.  When it is down, it seals off the water.  To wash your hands or brush your teeth, you push up the stopper and it lets the water out.  The tricky part is, you have to keep the stopper held up to have the water flow out.
         Svetlana was over until 11 last night.  She’s become a wonderful friend already.  She laughed and said that the villagers think that I must be a millionaire, being able to buy a ticket to come all the way to Mwesee. It is an image I must work hard to break through.  The perception of all Americans as rich and far removed from “common life” would keep a wall between us and much of the world.  I spoke with Tatyana this morning about it (she asks me to call her each morning to let her know everything is alright) and she said the only way through the stereotype is for the villagers to see me working each day doing the same, common, ordinary things they do.  Thus, on that note, I’m off to the river to do laundry.--JF 

Part II

Tuesday, May 16, 2006  |  5:50 pm

Mwesee

I had to write a Part II to this morning’s entry in the log book.  Despite the damp, grey skies, today turned out to be the day I have long waited for in Russia.  You could even say that it was an answer to my morning prayer. It was a day when those around me forgot to notice that I was different, or a stranger, and we all simply got on with living together as neighbors. 
      Again, as a result of an assignment I gave the Mwesee Expedition students to give me suggestions as to how I could become accepted in the village, I set out today to find a way to do something useful for my neighbors.  And the result was the following. 
       To get to the stream where you do your laundry, you have to cross a footbridge over a small ravine between two hills.  The footbridge has a series of long, narrow planks, one of which, at the far end of the bridge had rotted and fallen through.  It left only two narrow planks to walk on while carrying heavy water buckets or laundry baskets full of wet clothes. Then, when I got to the narrow platform on the bank of the stream where the laundry is done, there too things had decayed.  The board you stand on next to the water troughs had become like a teeter-totter as the ground under one end had washed away. 
       I’ll back up a minute to say that the stream you wash clothes in is astonishingly small and languid.  Yet, when you force even a small stream into a narrow trough and then dig the ground out below the trough to cause it to become a waterfall, the result is a rushing flow of water.  Below the water fall lie two additional large troughs (that resemble cradles) each of which have a hole in one end to let the water rush through.  By putting bricks over the hole, however, you can fill the troughs to rinse your laundry properly.  But the four old bricks used to stop up the troughs had disintegrated into several small pieces making it impossible to fill them. Thus I set my sack of laundry down on the mossy edge of the stream and headed back through the narrow valley and up the hill to the first house we had been given (whose roof collapsed last winter).  I remembered that it had a stack of bricks in the courtyard.  To make a long story short, I took several bricks back to the stream to put under the board you stand on (thus steadying it and keeping it out of the water) and put two more large bricks at the end of the troughs to use for sealing them up.  I went back once more to the house and found two very solid small doors that were probably used on pens that housed either sheep or goats.  They each had three planks solidly bound together by two cross planks.  As fortune would have it, they fit perfectly over the hole in the bridge enabling you to cross it safely now.  All of the repairs are very unprofessional, and merely cobbled together, but they at least work.  Finally, I happened upon a bunch of kindling in the first house that I can now use to start the woodstove every morning.
      But this is all not the point of the story.  The most important thing that happened was, that on the way home a couple of neighbors who had seen me working came out to say “Good morning”.  We had a wonderful chat which resulted in three of them coming to the American Home to have tea and sit and talk.  After tea I showed them the short films we’ve made of life in America.  Their smiles were worth all the time it took to make them.  But what I’m MOST grateful for is the ease with which we sat together “like neighbors”.  My heart absolutely leaped for joy when I got up to get more tea and from the kitchen heard one of the neighbors whisper to the other (they are elderly and so their whispers could be heard in Moscow), “She’s practically Russian.”  (Please forgive me for sharing such a self-centered comment.  The point is NOT to write about me, but to write about what is possible.)  It was my first hope that the infinite number of barriers that are falsely thrown up between peoples and nations are made of illusions and nothing truly solid.   --JF


I can’t thank everyone enough for their calls and e-mails.  They mean more than I can say.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006  |  5:20 pm
Mwesee

_________
Bright blue skies, but a penetratingly cold wind has been racing across the fields all day.  The village babushki (grandmothers) pointed out a particular tree yesterday whose leaves flip backward when it is about to be cold.  There is little they don’t know.
_____________

I happened to look out the window this morning just as she was turning off the path and up to the American Home.  She was bent at the waist at about a 45 degree angle and had a walking stick.  None the less she was sure footed and resolute over the bumpy path.  I swung open the kitchen window and waved her to come in.  Her head was wrapped in a flowered wool scarf and she wore an old man’s blue padded jacket.  She wore thick woolen socks and valenki.  Her toothless smile was an innocent as a baby’s.
     I soon learned that she was Auntie Vera, Nikolai Aleksandrovich’s 85-year old mother.  (He is the head of this village as well as Votskoya.) She had come to see if all was well, but really to see the inside of the American Home as word has spread quickly that it has all been made new, though really it has just been thoroughly cleaned.  She nodded in approval at where I had placed all the furniture and the color of the little stool and chair I painted two days ago.  “Harashor!  Harashor!” she said over and over.  “Very good.  Very good.”
     I, of course, immediately put the tea pot on and went to the sideboard where I still have two fresh oranges.  Fruit is a real treasure here and so I have saved it for company.  We shared an orange and tea as she sat and told me the history of the village.  Before we began to eat, she quietly and unobtrusively crossed herself.   She was born and raised here, never having lived anywhere else and never having traveled farther than Kirov.
      It is impossible not to notice the hands of the babushki.  They are so thick, rough, red, and worn.  I all too well now understand those hands. Like mine, they look unwashed, but they are not.  They are simply never without work:  scrubbing buckets with old rags, scrapping the scales off the freshly caught fish, fighting the endless battle against the dust that blows through the open windows, and rubbing the coarse laundry in the freezing stream.  (My hands were numb after doing yesterday’s laundry and it is mid-May!)  
      It was only when I walked Auntie Vera home, steadying her step by holding her arm, that I realized what an incredibly unselfish thing it had been for her to walk all the way to the American Home to welcome me.  I will make a fresh batch of apple sauce tomorrow and take to her.  She and her little silver and black cat, Masha, live in only one of two brick homes in the village.  It is classic.  The most beautiful home, in my opinion, in the village. 
          There are an infinite number of little details to notice all around you.  The babushki wrap their heads in scarves not to look like some quintessential illustration from a childrens book, but to both keep warm and, especially, to keep their hair clean.  As I get to have a banya only once a week now, I too go about the village in such a scarf. 
      If you look carefully, every babushka has a safety pin pinned on to either her apron or sweater.  (Babushka Natalia wears no less than four safety pins.)  She pinned one on my sweater before I left Vetoshkino for Mwesee. She said it was an old tradition of wishing a new homemaker well.  She said too that it would not be long before I understood the tradition.  Almost every day that little safety pin has been used in one way or another.
      Curtains hang in doorways (instead of doors) so that the woodstove can heat the entire house easily.  All the little doors here and there on the stove (our stove has seven) are not only to regulate the heat, but are used for cleaning the insides.  Two metal plates (that resemble narrow cutting boards) can be slid into two upper slots at night preserving the heat almost twice as long as it could be preserved otherwise.
      Everything left on the table (a bowl of fruit or nuts, the sugar or salt bowls) are covered with a cloth, not to keep things fresher, but against the dust.
      To let someone know you have arrived for a visit, you knock on the window.  Specifically, you knock on the “fortochka” – the little lower pane that opens separately from the window itself, allowing you to converse with people on the street.  You soon learn who has arrived by the strength of the knock -- whether it is a man, woman, or child.
      But by far, the thing you notice most of all, are the babushki’s hands.

     Today was Svetlana’s day to visit all the elderly villagers who can no longer easily go out of their homes.  She invited me to come with her so that she could show me the entire village.  I am amazed at how big it is. I had no idea.  There are four main roads, separated by fields.  The other streets, as Svetlana called them, are no more than a flattened strip of grass the width of your two feet.  Yet each of these little paths has a street name.  At one point, the “street” led us through a woods and then to a steep ravine.  Before I could see the ravine, Svetlana turned to me and said, “Are you afraid of heights?”  The steep path downward winding path is on the very edge of the drop off (literally on the edge of it). As I made my way gingerly along it I could only think of having to traverse it in the winter!  We then came to a bridge that crossed the ravine.  The bridge was no more than three feet wide and had no arm rails.  It slopped off to one side . . . and was made of sheet metal!  I still don’t believe that I crossed it.  “Isn’t it solid ice in the winter?” I asked Svetlana.  “I suppose so,” she replied.  “I’ve never thought about it.”
     It was a telling comment.  So much of what I’ve considered unimaginable living conditions, the villagers simply don’t notice.  They have never known anything else.
     Wherever we went, I was warmly welcomed.  It was a real treat to get to see the inside of so many homes.  Some were classic.  Others extremely modest.  Where I could, I took pictures, but often felt it was inappropriate on the first visit.  Everywhere some little thing was put out on the table for us to eat: a cup of cottage cheese, bread with honey, a cup of milk or tea – whatever there was to share.  Again, I could only think how unselfish it was, given that those we were visiting were very elderly and could not easily restock their pantries.
     Most every house has an ice house (though old refrigerators are common).  The ice houses have small doors that you must stoop to enter and very low ceilings.  They have a cellar hole filled with ice, covered by a thick board.  All the food is stacked on the board.
      In one home (the most classic and traditional of all the homes we were in) when you first entered you had to bend over the ceiling was so low.  It then opened up into the kitchen where the ceiling was normal height.  Later I saw that the low ceiling was built off the woodstove and was an upper platform off the stove where the family slept.  It’s hard to describe, but it was an ingenious design to keep warm through the night.
     We finally visited the home of a woman who is an “Old Believer”.  The traditional icon corner was in the right front corner of the kitchen draped with an intricately woven cloth.  The icons had been passed down from generation to generation.  They were worn with age and dimmed by the smoke of candles.  Still, they were truly beautiful.
     Tomorrow the weekly delivery truck arrives.  I’m out of only sugar. I’m hopeful to buy more fruit, but that is unlikely. If I can buy some candies I will buy those too to put out for company.  --JF 



Thursday, May 18, 2006  |  9:30 am
Mwesee
__________
I can’t thank everyone enough for their calls and e-mails.  They mean more than I can say. One friend wrote to suggest that I go out to the sheds where sacks of grain and flour would have been stored to find material for dust rags.  There I found two small cloth sacks filled with herbs of some sort and one burlap sack.  The larger of the two cloth sacks has now become a laundry bag, and the smaller a dust rag.  A portion of the old herb leaves are now on the bottom of my trash bucket to absorb moisture.  The burlap sack has been torn up for dust rags.  They are a real killer on your hands, but they clean things amazingly well.
     The question was asked as to how Russians’ take advantage of all the naturally growing herbs, plants, and leaves the land pours forth.  I’ll ask the villagers and answer the question as soon as I can.
________

Today’s Log Book Entry:
Part I

When I went out this morning before breakfast to get firewood, there was frost on the ground.  I had left enough wood in the house last night to start a quick fire, but wanted to bring in more before the day got going. For breakfast I had hot chocolate, bread with jam (the jam was a gift from Svetlana), and a cucumber that Babushka Natalia sent over with Mikhail two days ago.
      Even these moderately cold days make me realize what an enormous amount of effort it must take to live here in the winter.  I can’t fathom it.  I don’t know how the older ones do it.  I already realize that I’ve arranged the furniture in the house improperly.  I put the writing table in the far corner because it looked good there.  But it is the farthest point away from the woodstove.  Today I will move it next to the woodstove and put one of the trunks Nikolai bought in the corner instead.
     For all the work, there is a peacefulness and uncomplicated rhythm that fills the days -- a simplicity that is greatly to be desired.  There is a conscious sense of freedom that I have yet to be able to preserve when I return home.  It is a freedom from all the things we let bother, burden, and trouble us.  (The things we find so important at the moment -- even though it would be hard to say why.)  With so few things  -- and, in the villages at least, nothing to systematically educate people to want more and more -- and with so much work to be done each day, there is less time for foolish thoughts and concerns, and more need to simply take care of one another.  (I now understand why the village homes are built on top of one another.  Without the closeness you would feel utterly lost in this place – swallowed up by the land and the elements, and overwhelmed by the remoteness.  That is in part because the village is largely without cars. I have seen only two cars and one motorcycle in the entire village.  Thus, for virtually all of the villagers, the only way anywhere is by foot – and where you would walk to is beyond where your eyes can see.  Thus, without the close proximity of the homes, it would be ten times harder for people to help each other.  And you cannot live here without the help of others.) 
       It is humbling to live among people who are so poor (the laptop computer I work on cost more than they can earn in 10 years) and yet who have such an abundance of all those things that  give life so much worth and meaning.  Again, if you can get past their patched clothes, weathered faces, gnarled hands, and stooped forms, they are truly good and dear people. (We visited an elderly couple yesterday who make and sell honey. They must have 60 or 70 bee hives.  I didn’t dare, but I so wished I could photograph the seat of the grandfather’s pants.  They had a patch so huge it looked like a caricature.  Each knee had an additional patch the size of a large potholder.)  The people are no more remarkable than blades of green grass.  Yet, like the grass, they must give to earth something that, without which, the earth would be hard, brown, and dry.
        Yesterday I discovered a pile of split and stacked firewood out beyond the barn where the fields start.  It was hidden by some scrub bushes that have grown up since the house has been without a caretaker.  The wood has probably been there two or three years.  It is still usable, but will not be after another winter.  Thus I decided to save the wood that is stacked in the barn for next year, and use the wood in the field.  I carried in about eight loads after breakfast.  Because the wood is already very dry, I suspect it won’t last more than two days.
      The fields that belong to the house are enormous.  They are maybe four football fields in length and two football fields in width.  It had been plowed, it seems, before the owners left – as if they had not expected to leave.
       I am surprised how many verses in the Bible have taken on new meaning since living here.  For some reason, not once I have found myself thinking that it was just such people the Master lived in the midst of, and taught and healed.  The people he lived amongst were no different and no more remarkable than these.  And for some reason that thought has captivated me. Rather than their being disdained, I wonder if there is something in them waiting to be refound  -- something from them I need to relearn and regain.  --JF

Thursday, May 18, 2006  |  7:30 pm
Mwesee
__________
Part II

I made my most successful meal so far today and felt like I had eaten a feast.  Mid morning I made hearth bread and cream of potato soup.  About noon, I saw that most of the village had gathered  -- sitting together on benches in front of what was once the library, kitty-corner from the American Home.  I thus realized that the weekly produce truck would be arriving soon.  As I watched them from the window, I realized that it was the weekly “event” – something to look forward to as they sat and talked and laughed waiting for the truck.
     Seeing them all together, I suddenly got cold feet.  How should I approach them?  What should I say?  (Most of those who gathered were from different parts of the village and I didn’t know them).  The only thought that came to mind was that I should definitely go last so that they could purchase as much as they needed in case there was not an abundance of certain things.  I finally took off my apron, put on my headscarf, grabbed a cloth sack, and stood a moment by the door reaching out for a help beyond my own to find a way to blend easily with them.
       I waited by the front garden as, for a long time nothing seemed to happen or get started, and I didn’t know why.  Finally, one of the villagers who I met yesterday (the beekeeper) spotted me and called out “Zhenya!” (They can’t pronounce Jeannie) do you have a table to spare that we could use?  I hurried into the courtyard where there was just what was needed.  By that time two men were at my heels picking up the table and carrying it over to the truck.  It was all that was needed to be accepted. 
     As I approached the group they smiled openly and waved me to come nearer. We made small talk while two women in blue smocks unloaded the truck.  It was quite a production.  The table became the check out counter with two abacuses and a glass jar filled with change.  Then box after box of goods was laid out on the road: a box filled with nothing but matches (match boxes), another filled with bags of sugar and flour, another filled with sausage, another with spaghetti and macaroni, another with five small bags of apples and five more of sunflower seeds, one more box with sweets (cookies and candies), and yet another with household items (toilet paper, shampoo, soap, and work gloves). The end of the truck had racks of fresh made bread.  Only when the last box was laid on the ground did the villagers form a line and begin to inspect this week’s choices.  How patiently they wait!  To my surprise and delight, they didn’t mind in the least that I took photographs. When I took as many as I thought I could without overdoing it (I will take more next Thursday as well) I quietly went to the end of the line. 
     It seems that I was the only one interested in the apples (most likely because most of them have only a few teeth), and there were plenty of bags of spaghetti.  I bought the last stick of sausage and a jar of homemade tomato sauce they recommended I make soup with.  All in all, everyone couldn’t have been more warm or helpful.  They carefully explained what everything was and how to use it.  They are such dear little people.  I am so relieved that they don’t seem to be afraid of me.  One of the few elderly bachelors in the village asked if I was married.  Everyone laughed.
     Finally, we all hurried home with our sacks of food to make dinner. In addition to my bread and soup, I also had some sausage and half of the cucumber left over from breakfast.  After dinner I took a bowl of soup to Auntie Vera who I didn’t see among the crowd.  She hadn’t had dinner and it didn’t appear as if anything was in the process of being made.  Tomorrow I will take more soup as well as homemade apple sauce.  Eventually I’ll take a little cup to each of the neighbors I know.  If the villagers like it, we will have gotten the victory over their toothless mouths and apple sales should rise significantly.
     Each day, twelve-year-old Olya and Anton come by after school for a cookie, a glass of juice and a game of checkers.  (One of my friends sent me off with a wonderful little wooden checker board set that doubles as a tea tray.)  Both children are dear, but little Anton is a real heart melter.  He has huge blue eyes and an irresistible smile.  Olya and Anton are best friends and today they arrived with a chess set determined to teach me how to play.  It was hopeless of course, but we had a good laugh. While they were here, Nikolai Aleksandrovich arrived with a bunch of flowers he had picked on the road.  “A home is not a home without flowers” he said.  Apparently the children paid close attention to my true delight in having flowers, for an hour after they had gone home to have supper, they arrived once again – each with a bouquet in hand.  They then invited me to take a walk on their favorite road to the river.  It is only a short distance.  They darted off the road like little rabbits finding more flowers and running back with huge eager smiles.  When we got the the river, which is still very full from the spring rains, I then learned that the point of coming to the river is not to sit and gaze at it.  It is to jump all the little riverlets that are still flowing here and there without falling in the mud.  I watched, they jumped.   --JF



Friday, May 19, 2006  |  4:15 pm
Mwesee

     Help!  Can any of you think of games I can teach the children here? The ones who come by are in the 10 to 13 age range. 
     Also a question.  How long can butter sit out and not go bad?  This is homemade butter that is in a jar with a plastic cover (i.e. it is not margarine).
__________
Today’s Log Entry:

Each time I log on to my e-mail server I laugh.  It says “Pick up your mail anywhere in the world”.  If only they knew . . .

     Dear Auntie Vera walked all the way over again today to invite me to dinner at noon.  Just the walk over (let alone the invitation) was an act of pure unselfishness.  It demands so much of her to get here.  As I walked her back we had to stop half way and let her rest on a neighbor’s front bench.  Each house has its own wooden bench.  It is usually no more than a sturdy board set on two birch stumps.  It is along the front of the house where you can sit with neighbors and chat, but is also a place for anyone to stop and rest should they need to. Auntie Vera inhaled the hot applesauce.  Tomorrow we’ll see how Auntie Raiisa likes it.  She has even fewer teeth than Auntie Vera.
     As I bent under the low door into Auntie Vera’s kitchen I immediately saw dinner waiting on the table.  The table had a well worn green and yellow plastic cover over it, which is typical in village homes as the plastic covers are easy to wipe clean. (The beautiful tablecloth that a friend made me draws everyone’s attention.  Not only because it is so bright and cheerful, but because it is cloth.)   Auntie Vera’s tablecloth was only moderately clean, but there was no ill to be thought of that as she does not see well now.  It is clear that she works hard to keep house despite the fact that she needs to walk using a cane.  Everything in the kitchen was neat and orderly even if not clean. 
     On a plastic bag was a loaf of bread she had made yesterday and a long sharp knife.  There was one plate set in the middle of the table on which were four very, very small pickled tomatoes.  In addition, at my place and hers, set directly on the table, was a hot potato.  Thus we at our dinner of bread, two tomatoes, and a hot potato.  For dessert I had brought her a cup of hot applesauce.  She inhaled it.  Tomorrow we’ll see how Auntie Raiisa likes it.  She has even fewer teeth than Auntie Vera.  Again I was able to take pictures.  Auntie Vera was not the least self-conscious or hesitant.
     We sat and chatted for about 30 minutes after dinner, but I didn’t want to stay longer as it was clear that she was tired.  (For that matter, so was I.  I did very little today -- though every day demands hauling water, carting wood for the stove, and doing the dishes by hand.  Still, today I neither cleaned house nor washed clothes.  I had intended to pick up bits of trash on the road, but that will have to wait until tomorrow.) 
      As so often happens with the elderly babushkas, Auntie Vera quickly launched into a discussion of things religious.  She, like the others, wanted to know about churches in America, and if I go to church or am able to read the Bible.  (Not if it is allowed -- but simply if am I able to read it.  The Russian Bible of “Old Believers” is in a dialect no longer spoken, in addition to the fact that during their life times, for the most part, it was forbidden to read the Bible.)  There is an awe in their eyes that is very humbling when I tell them I read it daily.  You can see how much they yearned for such a privilege.  Yet, their sincerity and hunger for things spiritual seems to me to be equally yearned for.
     Before I left, Auntie Vera got up and made her way into her bedroom. I heard her rummaging through a drawer.  When she reappeared she had a little packet in her hand – a piece of paper folded over and over again. As she opened it she said, “When my children were little (she has seven children) I gave them each a cross.”  (A brave thing to do in communist times.)  “They kept losing them and so I had to keep a supply on hand.” (Though I can’t imagine where she got them.)  She then told me choose one for myself.  Most of them were about ¾ of an inch in height.  But then I spotted a very small one no more than a ¼" in height.  It was so worn than it was as thin as tissue paper.  Could I have that one, I asked?  She couldn’t imagine why I’d want the smallest and most worn one, but I told her that I thought it was the most beautiful one I had ever seen.  Thus I came home with a little cross in my pocket from Auntie Vera.  –JF

P.S.  The name Vera comes from the word “vereet” and “vera”. The first means “to believe” and the second means “faith”.



Saturday, May 20, 2006  |  3:45 pm
Mwesee

Today was the first tough day.  When two men, with a young child in hand, knocked on the window last night (it was still light, though it was close to 10 o'clock and the neighbors were still outside talking with one another), there was nothing to justify concern.  Their faces were weathered and their clothes worn, but that is no different than any villager. Immediately, I understood, that they had the child with them to signal to me that they wanted to do me no harm.  When I asked what they wanted, they replied that they wanted to know who had moved in and what type of books I wrote.
      I told them to come back tomorrow during the day if they wanted to talk, or they could go across the street and ask Svetlana about me.  With that they left the yard -- but left me with a storm of feelings which, even though I knew were wholly unjustified, I could not shake off.  How did they know I was a writer?  Why did they want to know what kind of books I wrote? Were they suspicious that I was here to write poorly of Russia?  Were they pleased or displeased, glad or angry, that an American was living here? (In all fairness, it is even clear to me how strange it must seem -- why an American would want to live in a beautiful, but utterly poor, village in the middle of nowhere.  Furthermore, they have no way of knowing how or what I write about.)
      Thus, when I woke up this morning it was with a lonely feeling of estrangement and that I could accomplish very little here because the differences between us were simply too great.  I was discouraged, as well as disgusted with myself that I had immediately rebuffed the two men and distrusted them. (In no circumstance would I have let them in at that hour, but I could have talked with them through the fortochka - the little window that opens within the kitchen window - or I could have gone outside where the neighbors were.)  It was against my whole reason for being here to so abruptly turn them away -- and against all that I proclaim I believe about the inherent worth of man.  Thus, the day seemed cold and grey both inside the house and out.   To make matters worse, my cell phone suddenly stopped working.
      I knew the depressed mood I was in had to be fought.  I forced myself, literally, to go down to the river and do "a load" of laundry. When I returned home, the feeling persisted and so again, with greater effort, I forced myself to go back to the river and finish the repair on the bridge.  Yet, I returned again still feeling low.
      At one point I looked out the window and saw Auntie Raiisa and the beekeeper (Svetlana's father-in-law) sitting on a bench, talking.  It took as much effort as lifting a bolder out of a hole, but I put on my jacket and went out to talk to them.  Immediately Svetlana appeared and said she was eager to talk to me and assure me that the men who stopped by last night were genuinely interested in meeting me.  She also said that she told them how stupid they had been to arrive so late and that naturally that would have frightened me.  With that they protested that they had brought the child along to show that they were kind, harmless people.  They had traveled all the way from Lee`byazha (some 15 miles away which is no small distance given the roads, gas prices, and the miniscule salaries people earn) to "meet the American".  Thus, they went away truly disappointed that they had not been able to talk to me.
     I then learned how they knew I was here.  As it turns out, the "fish are running" in the Vyatka River, and all the men from the surrounding villages are there stocking up for their families.  Someone from Mwesee shared the news that an American, who was a writer, had taken up residence. When the two men from Lee`byazha heard the story, they decided to make the drive to Mwesee as they had never met an American and one of them was a writer.
     It was an opportunity lost and, even worse, very likely left them with a view of Americans as unfriendly.  Thus, I have been spending the day wondering what it would take to live with "the risk" (as some might see it) of giving people a chance to be people and allowing them into our experience rather than shutting them out. 

___________
Monday, May 22, 2006  |  8:30 a.m.
Vetoshkino

As planned, Mikhail and Tatyana came to pick me up Saturday afternoon to spend the night with them in Vetoshkino.   However, after a long family discussion, we came to the unexpected conclusion that I will live here with the family until it is time for me to go the Urals.  The reason is three-fold.  First, we heard on the news that we are to get four or five days of heavy rain (which began last night).  If that is the case, the road to Mwesee will become impassable and that has made everyone uneasy.   And it is obviously not my purpose to be here to give others concern. 
     Secondly, the home in Mwesee has been made as livable as we can make it for Americans at this point.  I have lived there as easily as could have been expected (I think) and have learned what it will take for other Americans to live there.  Thus we have accomplished what we wanted in regard to the American Home.  Finally, it is clear that I can learn much more about the Russian people and Russian life (and they about Americans) living in Vetoshkino with the family.  And the thing you learn quickly is that village life is work without end -- every day of the week regardless of the season or weather.
      Each day I rise at 4:30 to give myself an hour by myself.  By 5:30 it is time to care for the cows and chickens.  By 6:30 it is time to make breakfast, which is eaten at 7:00.  If it is a week day, Tatyana and Mikhail go off to work.  Mikhail sells meat and milk products in Kirov, and Tatyana is the head (perhaps you could say the director) of the "kolhoz". Vetoshkino still operates as a kolhoz which means that the community hires people to do certain jobs which benefit everyone, and that other work is done by everyone and for everyone.  For example, this Saturday will be the first day the cows are put out to pasture some three miles away.  Each day of the week one man in the village is responsible for shepherding them to the pasture early in the morning, taking care of them during the day, and bringing them home at night.  They say when the cows approach the village they themselves know where to go and each heads off to her own home. During the summer, during people's "dinner break" at noon, the women ride in a truck out to the pasture to milk the cows.  In earlier times, Babushka said they'd have to walk to the pasture and carry the heavy milk buckets home by hand.  The truck is called a "kolhoz" truck.  That is, it belongs to the entire village and is used for communal work.
     On the weekends Mikhail and Tatyana do all it takes to keep the home, banya, barn, and gardens in repair and good order.  Sunday, for instance, after breakfast we headed to the outdoor market in Lee`byazha (under a pouring rain) to buy supplies for the week.  The market is open only once a week in Lee`byazha on Sunday.  Weather is not a factor.  Even if it is pouring rain, or 40 below zero, the merchants -- some 100 of them -- are there with their little makeshift stalls.  At the market you can buy everything from clothes to shoes, car parts, kitchen utensils, basic food stuffs (flour, sugar), and plants for your garden.  Here too you can "eat out" once a week as each "corner" of the market has grill where men make and sell shashlik (the Russian version of barbeque).  The merchants travel from town to town -- a different town each day of the week -- so as to supply all the surrounding villages.  If you forget to buy everything you need, or if you can't find what you need, you have to wait until the following week.  I have already gone through all the hand cream I brought with me and, sadly, the one merchant who sells such things was out.  Thus I'll have to wait until next week. 
     When we returned home from the market it was time to work.  (That word has taken on a whole new meaning for me.)

      From a distance, life on a farm is romantic: the fluffy hay spilling out of the loft, the roosters crowing, the black fields newly turned, the first wheat sprouting.  A little closer, however, and soon your hands, feet, clothes, and nose reveal a "slightly different" reality.  My first job Sunday afternoon was to plant this year's crop of onions.  Sack in hand I stooped over the rich, black earth and surveyed how long the furrow was I had to plant.  Tomorrow I'll walk it to measure it, but I'm sure the onion patch alone is two football fields in length (though the very narrow).  I selected my first onion and suddenly fell into doubt as to which end was supposed to be plunked into the ground.  Tatyana started to laugh, immediately summing up the situation, but said nothing.  When I chose the right end she simply nodded in approval and went off to get the "fertilized hay" to put over the row once I had planted it.  (That job makes me tired just thinking about it, the hay is so thick and heavy.)
     Half way down the row I apparently disturbed a bee on a dandelion who promptly welcomed me to farm life by stinging me.  Tatyana laughed again and ran over and pulled out the stinger, broke open an onion and rubbed it on my hand.  She then went back to work before I could say, "Was it my accent that offended him or are Americans considered a delicacy?"  In any case, I went back to work and finished the row before dinner.
     It was then time to cart wood into the banya and fill the five huge barrels with water.  (That job, though a heavy one, is one of the easiest in that it soon promises relief.  The wood begins to crackle in the stove, the barrels of water begin to heat up, and soon you are steaming away on a long bench.)  As you can do your laundry in the banya, I took along my work shirt and pants (did I say VERY dirty work shirt and pants?), and both pairs of thick socks that only recently were new and light blue.  This morning, however, I quickly learned that it is a mistake to wash both pairs of socks at once as neither dried over night.
     Thus I headed out to the barn at 5:30 to feed our one remaining cow and her calf with bare feet.  (One cow was sold to a neighbor last week, and two others were sold for meat.)  I still can't easily milk the cow and so I help by feeding her  . . . and cleaning the stall . . . three times a day. This, friends, is not for the faint of heart -- especially when you've washed both pair of socks and have no others to wear. There was no choice but to slip my bare feet into the two cold, thick rubber shoes that are worn for such work and get on with things.  The mother cow (Katusha) and her little calf (still to be named) greeted me with a gentle moo as I entered their stall.  Both acknowledged my rub down of their soft, silky necks by leaning against me as a dog does when you pat it -- though their "lean" is considerably more noticeable.   I then made my way to the place, shall we say, that needed the most work only to slowly discover that one of my rubber shoes, that held one of my bare feet, had a hole in it.  But as goes the Russian saying, nothing awful ever happens.  It's all just an adventure.  Next week at the market, I'll buy a third pair of socks. --JF 



Tuesday, May 23, 2006  |  5:15 pm
Vetoshkino

There is very little worth knowing that Babushka Natalia doesn't know.  Her life has been a hard (truly harsh) "school master," but it has taught her much.  Even so, she takes life easily.  There is little that upsets or concerns her, except perhaps, wasting even the slightest scrap of food or buying something new that you could make out of what is at hand.  Each day as I sit and write she comes in with something for me to eat: a cup of hot milk or entire loaf of bread.  This morning I returned from feeding the chickens to find that Babushka had set an entire loaf of steaming, hot bread on top of my closed computer to let me know it was for me.  (When the bread is finished baking, instead of setting the loaves on racks to eliminate the moisture on the bottom of the loaves, she simply turns them upside down across their pans and sets them in the oven for another five minutes.)
     Babushka works day in and day out without ceasing.  Her pace is slower now, but she nonetheless is busy at something every waking hour.  Yesterday she did all the family's laundry by hand, cleaned fish, ground meat into hamburger, restocked the onions and carrots, prepared the garlic bulbs for planting, worked in the garden tending to all the new plants in the hot houses, helped me get the banya ready for everyone's evening bath and, finally, set dough to rise before going to bed.  Her little bedroom at the end of the kitchen is virtually the center of life here.  There she braids onions and hangs them over the second little bed to keep.  There she stores the fresh egg in a bucket under the foot of the bed so that they are easily reached from the main part of the kitchen.  The weathered bucket is made of birch bark and was her mother's. On top of the second little bed is a host of useful things: an old shoe box that holds clothes clips, safety pins, and glue; old socks that are partly unraveled so that the yarn can be used for string, extra sponges to wash the dishes with, clothes needing mending, and a flashlight.  In addition, she now keeps the music box we found for her in Moscow on the pillow.  The bright red box has a picture of Mozart and plays 3 short sonatas.  The box came filled with candy.
     When it is time to hang the laundry out to dry it is on a host of lines that criss-cross each like a spider's web, the center of which is the apple tree whose branches are also used to hang out socks, underwear and handkerchiefs. In short, everything is useful.  Her apron serves to keep her one dress clean, hold little things in its pockets and, at a moment's notice, becomes a sack (turning up the sides and hem) in which to cart onion or potato peels out to the compost pile.
      Babushka's one dress is deep blue with flowers.  Her apron is an orange and brown paisley design and her head scarf is a yellow and green flower pattern.  I looked over at her the other day sitting in her chair fixing her hair, and from the angle I saw her, and for a brief moment, I could see what a beautiful woman she once was, though even today her toothless smile is truly dear. Babushka wears long heavy woolen socks which, I discovered last night as we went into the banya, are held up by strips of cloth she ties around her legs and socks just above the knee.
      We've had wonderful conversations since I've been here.  What respect I have for her!  She often speaks of her childhood when her only shoes were laptee (made of woven birch bark) and when the only light at night (and in the winter) was that gotten from strips of wood (resembling delicate strips of kindling) which were burned instead of candles -- which only the rich could afford.  Even here we use such kindling to start the woodstoves (instead of newspaper).  To make them you find a good, dry split log and a large knife.  You wedge the knife into the top of the log about 1/32 of an inch from the edge.  Getting the knife started is tricky, but then it slices off the wood strips like cutting through butter. 
      Babushka has known only poverty (or the bare essentials) all her life, and yet she does not carry herself as a demeaned or poor person. There is a dignity about her -- a resolve, resourcefulness, and determination -- that makes her life full and purposeful (even rich), and which has enabled her to survive two revolutions, two world wars, and the collapse of the Soviet Union.  The day she spoke of the second world war it was not of the fighting but of, as she put it, "raising three children on grass".  She said the years following the war were even more horrific. I've followed Babushka around incessantly, not only to learn how she does everything, but to photograph her.  Such are the women, I believe, that have held Russia together when so many things have relentlessly tried to tear it apart. --JF


 

Wednesday, May 24, 2006  |  11:30 pm Vetoshkino  

 The trials that beset village life are simpler, but weigh heavy on the heart nonetheless.  

     When the "master" (as they say of anyone who is able to fix something) arrived this morning to repair Babushka's sewing machine, it was the start of a very frustrating day for her.  The antique machine is run with a hand crank. When the master left and she went to use it, the finished stitches appeared on the bottom instead of the top and the hand crank would only work by turning toward her and not away from her as it should.  She shook her head and mumbled all afternoon about the "block head" who fixed the machine.       
     But even more traumatic, yesterday was the day when the calf had to be separated from its mother for the first time.  Soon the mother will be put out to pasture and if she is not separated from her offspring several days in advance, she will not stay in the pasture but will try to return home.  From my little room where I sleep I could hear her calling to her calf all night.      
    Today the road to Mwesee was passable and so we went to close up the house until next year and say goodbye to the neighbors.  Mikhail and a new friend, who is also named Mikhail, drove me in Mikhail's meat truck.  While they went to gather their fishing nets from the river (the nets are set at night and gathered the next morning) I worked in the house to put it in order.   It was much harder than I anticipated to say good-bye to Mwesee.  The villagers did everything in their power to open their hearts and their homes to me.  They could not have been kinder or tried harder to accept me.  
     I took Auntie Raiisa my large canister full of water and a little hand towel.  (The canister resembles a very large milk container you'd see on a farm and must be hauled by a little cart.)   I then went back to the house to fill a sack with my left over eggs, a head of cabbage, a jar of "tvorag" (a cross between cottage cheese and sour cream), and a box of tea.  This all would go to Auntie Vera.  I also had a little hand towel for her and the recipe for apple sauce.  We sat and talked perhaps 30 minutes.  It does not seem right to share the conversation as it was so intimate, but in general she lamented living until next summer to meet again.  She cried when it was time to go.  The parting was indeed difficult.  She then put her hand on my arm and told me to wait.  She got up and rustled in a drawer and returned with three balls of "raw" wool which still smelled of the sheep and barn it came from.  She said it made very warm socks for the winter.  They would be even warmer, I assured her, because the yarn came from her.
     I went home once more and gathered virtually all of my dry goods (flour, salt, noodles, spices, some canned goods, etc.) and took them to Svetlana. I saved my favorite hand towel for her.  I also gave her a little gift for her in-laws (the beekeepers) and for the post office clerk (whose son is Anton).  We sat out on the bench in front of her house and talked for almost an hour.  Svetlana is truly the saint of the village.  Without her neither the elderly, the sick, nor those who are often drunk could survive.  Her door is always open and she helps anyone who appears -- without question and without hesitation.  She works alone, and wholly unrecognized by anyone in the world save the villagers, but truly the world is a better place for such people.     
    I finally locked the house and left a pan of milk by the hole in the courtyard fence for the little white dog who came to stay with  me each day.  I learned that his name is Tomnik and that his real home is one field over.       
     Before I knew it Mwesee was left behind in the vast wilderness of land and sky that is Russia.  To my regret, I realized only this evening that I never took a picture of little Tomnik.  

Thursday, May 25, 2006  |  6:30 pm
Vetoshkino

In answer to the question as to how Russians take advantage of what grows all around, there is very little that they don't use.  Almost everything that grows is put to use, or at least appreciated.  Even the millions of dandelions that fill the fields are considered beautiful flowers and not weeds -- and to see their bright yellow faces blanketing vast stretches of land gives them a whole different character.  Juice from onions is considered the solution for taking the sting out of bee stings and the leaves of fresh cabbage or beets are used to wrap a wound instead of bandages or band aids.  There are thick stemmed leaves (the stems of which almost resemble celery) that are salted and eaten raw.  There are other leaves that are small and delicate, like four-leaf clovers, that are put in soup.  Actually, there are many different leaves along the road side (that look to me like weeds) that are put into soup or stews, though unfortunately I can't translate any of the names.  Mushrooms grow in abundance, no fewer than a dozen or more varieties. They are gathered in abundance and eaten year round. (Those eaten in the winter are either pickled or simply frozen.)  Wild onions grow in abundance and each variety has its own taste.  Fiddle heads are considered a delicacy (as they are everywhere), though here they are not as prolific as, say, in New England. By mid-summer there are at least four different wild berries that are gathered and made into jams and juice.  There are even certain roots that are boiled in soup broth.  In short, there is very little that grows that is not put to use.  All of this is called "the wisdom of the villagers, "that is, the wisdom of those who "live on the earth" (as opposed to living in apartment buildings).  Their understanding of all that grows has been passed down from generation to generation.  As a result, the children are well versed in how rich the earth is all around them and they have taught me as much as the adults.  You quickly come to appreciation the Russian people's love of "Mother Russia".  The phrase refers to the land itself and how it alone has never failed to provide for them.

     Once again the utter innocence of the children has touched me deeply and made me realize how wonderful it is when that quality is allowed to thrive in them.  It is the grandmothers, in particular, that seem to nurture that quality in the children and, in turn, the children thrive on the grandmothers' love and care.  Only this time have I realized what sheer contentment innocence gives to children.  Each day, two or three come by after school and invite me to go for a walk to the pond, or to the river, or simply through the village.  This time of year they love gathering flowers for their teachers or grandmothers . . . or for a guest from America.  On my writing table I have a large jar filled with bright red tulips, small white flowers that grow 20 or more to a long, willowy stem, and a clump of bright yellow flowers called "beautiful booklets".  They are tight little balls, about two inches in circumference, that open only one petal at a time.  They have an absolutely wonderful aroma to them. 
     When we go to the river, which winds and turns, and widens and narrows, the game of choice is seeing how many times you can jump from bank to bank without falling in.  (They invited me to play but I told them it was more fun to watch.)  They skip stones across the pond and delight in seeing the cows put out to pasture.  (It is truly a peaceful scene that you never tire of seeing.)  Even more fun is meeting all the new calves tied up to their owners' fences and in playing with all the new puppies the village has produced.  There is a joy in the children's faces, a happiness, that simply makes you smile.  They have showed me all their favorite paths and introduced me to all the grandmothers who sit out on their little benches under the afternoon sun, chatting.  Perhaps you could say that it all resembles a Russian version of a Norman Rockwell painting.
      Yesterday, Natasha and Kristina invited me to go to the river with them.  They study together in the 5th grade and are both learning English. On the return trip home, we met a kindly grandmother making her way along the road.  "That is Babushka Anna," the girls told me.  "She can't hear very well and so you have to wait until you are right next to her and then you have to shout into her ear, OK?"  Babushka Anna proved to be very dear and very pleased to see Natasha and Kristina.  While we chatted, Kristina suddenly said that she needed something at the store. (The store is a one room building that basically has flour and sugar, bread, sausage, apples, homemade cookies, hard candies, bottled water, and soda pop.  A long table that holds a few pair of slippers and goulashes divides the store whose second "department" contains things like soap, buckets and brushes). Kristina returned with a huge smile, four freshly baked cookies and one small bottle of orange soda.  To each one was given a cookie and a turn at having a drink.  Tomorrow I will tell her how I wrote about her.  --JF

Friday, May 26, 2006  |  8:30 pm
Vetoshkino
__________
I've discovered that Babushka can hear when she wants to hear -- depending on who she's with.  And, when she's alone, she puts easily 1/4 cup of sugar in her tea.  Of late, we eat breakfast together.  Usually Babushka eats all her meals alone because she is embarrassed that she doesn't have teeth.  It is such a privilege, however, to sit with her and hear her stories. Finally, I now understand why the family took so long to decide what air freshener to buy last week at the market.  There were three or four scents to choose from: lemon, apple-spice, pine scent, and wild berry.  After opening each one and spraying a little into the cap, they choose wild berry.  All of the care I only discovered today, was at my expense.  I both laughed and nearly cried when I found the expensive freshener in the outhouse today -- as if to make it a little more "citified".  Given that the outhouse is in the barn next to the cow stalls, the delicate wild berry scent gets a bit lost.  Nonetheless, the thought was sweet.
_________________

Today was truly a special day.  Early this morning two children arrived with a hand written invitation from the school inviting me to attend the graduation ceremony of the oldest class.  The ceremony, called "The last school bell," was to begin at 12:30.  It had been raining in the morning, but by noon the sun was shining and the day had turned absolutely gorgeous. By the time we arrived, most all the villagers had gathered and were sitting on little wooden benches on one side of the school courtyard while the children stood on the other side.  In between the two was a little table with a microphone and tape player.  At 12:30 promptly, the tape player was switched on and the volume turned up as loudly as it would go, playing an old, loved school song that I've heard in several soundtracks from movies of the 1950s.  The school doors swung open and out came five kindergarten students carrying red tulips and little bells tied with yellow ribbons.  Around each of their necks was a golden key made out of construction paper and tied with red yarn.  Behind them came the seven shy, but beaming, graduating students: two boys dressed in suits and five girls dressed in black dresses with white pinafores and white ribbons in their hair.  How proud everyone was!
     The graduating class put on a skit that politely made fun of the school director and their favorite teachers.  It was based on a film from the 1970s.  After that a young girl with an absolutely beautiful voice sang a traditional song about saying farewell to the years gone by, but not to friendships or to all that was learned and shared together.  Several teachers made short little speeches -- all of whom got choked up.  Only slowly did I realize that that was not only because they had watched these seven students grow up here, and had devoted all their time and energies to nurturing them, but also because the likelihood of the graduates going off to technical school (or a regular university) in Kirov -- and not returning again -- was great.  Yet each graduate -- who gave three tulips to each teacher, the school director, the guest speaker and, finally, to me -- spoke very movingly of their love for their school, their teachers, their families and the village.   Although the young people dream of a better life in the city, they clearly hold dear this village and count it to be both rich and beautiful.   Only after the ceremony as I took my daily afternoon walk with the children, did I see the village with different eyes.  Perhaps most interesting, or at least arresting, was the guest speaker's speech (the mayor of the region).  After congratulating the graduates, he immediately launched into a talk about the last 15 years and how difficult "perestroika" (period of change) has been.  Those who launched the change, he said, have still not found the way to make life better.  It was up to their generation to find the way to move the country forward.
     Finally, the five kindergarteners got up and began to ring the little bells, which were then given to the graduates -- along with a new book. The "key to success" (i.e. a good education) around each of the little one's necks were taken off and put around the necks of the graduates.  Hand in hand, the little ones and the graduates paraded around the circle while everyone cheered and applauded.  Finally, the graduates broke away, waved, and walked down the path for the last time as the little tape player played
on. --JF 



Saturday, May 27, 2006  |  10:45 pm Vetoshkino

Every time I think I'm utterly exhausted and can't do another thing, at that very moment, I inevitably come upon Babushka lifting the fifth bucket of potatoes out of the cellar above her head or hauling water out to the cabbage patch.  There's something humorously intimidating about little Babushka and so, before she can catch you resting, you quickly hurry off to start the next chore.  They are not, needless to say, hard to find for the simple reason that as soon as you've finished washing the floor (literally), it's dirty again.  As soon as you've put your clean shirt over your head, it's stained from cleaning fish or the chicken coop.  As soon as the dishes are washed it's time to think of the next meal.  Furthermore, after crawling into the cellar this morning to get three more buckets of potatoes for Babushka, I realized that that which I greatly feared had happened:  I've become accustomed to being perpetually grubby  -- despite being in the banya every night. The first time I crawled into the cellar and later came upon a pile of fish heads in the chicken coop, the first time I rubbed against mama cow's  flank and later made my first trip to the outhouse, my stomach turned.  The next day I simply tried not to think about it.  Now I don't even notice.  I think it's time to come home.
    
     Today we put the cows out to pasture -- and the mosquitoes arrived in masse. After being cooped up for more than six months in their stalls, the cows went wild as the sun met their eyes, their feet hit the soft ground and the wind filled their nostrils.  They leaped and kicked, ran out of control and into each other, but finally behaved themselves (to everyone's relief) and started down the road to where they pasture each year.  As the sun broke over the tree line, the villagers at the far end of the road began to turn out on to the street behind their cows.  By the time the procession reached us, there were about 15 cows and an equal number of people shepherding them.  By the time we reached the pasture there were 40 cows in tow, but it is more than half the number the village had last year. It is another troubling sign of the decline of the villages.  When the cows returned home at 5:00 pm they were so tired they could hardly walk, their heads drooping low and their udders full.

    All in all, it was a very Russian day.  After the cows were put out to pasture I returned home and filled a small sack (that was once Babushka's dark grey skirt) with two potatoes wrapped in newspaper, a soup bowl and spoon, a cup, and my video camera.  I tied a scarf around my head and headed off to the school where two (very Russian) cars and eight sixth graders and their English teacher awaited me.  In addition to the two cars, three boys were astride their father's vintage 1970s motorcycle eagerly anticipating our adventure.  We drove about a mile down the road from the school under a warm spring sun, and then turned off the road and traveled some three or four miles over the fields (whose grasses reached up to the top of our tires).  The three boys on the motorcycle bounced up and down in turn as if they were on a trampoline -- and having as much fun as if they were.  Although Roma, the driver, was the biggest of the boys, he still amazed me for how well he handled the motorcycle, given he is only 13 years old. 

   The last quarter mile or so was through a pine and birch woods which took us to a stream.  Near its bank, (but not on it because of the mosquitoes) we unloaded sacks of bread, potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes, and utensils from the trunks of the cars.  Next the children pulled from the trunk a couple of small axes and kitchen knives, along with a large cast iron kettle.  With these the children quickly got to work cutting down small trees and making benches for us to sit on, while others gathered branches and birch bark with which to start a fire.  Before I knew it, they had a good fire going and soup simmering in the pot.  The soup was made of water from the river, potatoes, salt and various leaves they gathered from the fields and woods around us. 

   Roma found a sapling and quickly turned it into a stir stick by stripping off the bark and making a hook on the end to hang it up with so it wouldn't lie on the ground.  He then filled a large plastic bottle with water and tea, screwed the top on firmly, and put it into the coals of the fire.  In ten minutes we had hot, delicious tea. (Here children drink tea from the time they are three or four years old.)  With another plastic bottle he cut off the bottom and turned it upside down (with the cap facing down).  A hole was punched in either side near the top where it was cut off, and then it was hung from a tree limb.  The cap was screwed on tightly and then the bottle was filled with water.  When you needed to wash your hands (the stream had a steep bank and the ground was muddy there) you simply unscrewed the cap a little bit and a trickle of water came out under which you could wash either your hands or your soup bowl and spoon. Finally, potatoes were put in the coals and the bread cut and laid out on a colorful, striped cloth.  While we waited for the soup and potatoes to finish cooking, we played volley ball in a circle, sang songs, and then played an alphabet game one of you suggested.  
     Soon we heard voices coming over the field and toward us.  (It was a very hilly spot with clumps of birch trees here and there that kept us from seeing right away who was approaching.)  A group of six or seven adults who had a fire and soup going farther down the river had come to join us for a game of volleyball.  Although no one knew each other, they joined us as easily as if they were long time friends.  The game quickly became lively and humorous, with the children showing off and the men bellowing out Russian songs as we played.  When everyone's soup was ready we each returned to our camp fires to eat and play more word games.  Finally Roma could wait no longer and begged me to ride on the motorcycle with him.  It was clear that he wanted to do something special for me and, from experience, I knew he'd be able to talk about it for weeks on end.  I said a short prayer, hopped on and off we went.  He kept turning his head back toward me and saying, "Don't worry, don't worry! Nothing awful ever happens."  To which I answered, "I know, I know, Roma, . . . it's all just an adventure!"
      When the day was over Roma, Sasha, and Sergie hopped on the motorcycle with Sasha holding the cast iron soup pot (still have full) and Sergei the lid.  The leftover soup most likely tasted even better when they got home, having been well mixed with large doses of dust and laughter.
--JF     


Sunday, May 28, 2006  |  Vetoshkino

     In answer to a question.  One of you was telling a friend about the two men and child who knocked on my window at 10:00 one night, and asked, "Where is the front door?  Is there no front door? Is the only door in the back?"
     If you look at pictures of Russian village homes (like the picture at the top of this page) you most always find that they have three (sometimes four) windows across the front and one or two on the sides. Just past the windows on the side starts a tall fence that goes out 15 feet or so and then back and around to the back of the house.  This is the "courtyard" area which includes the barn, storage area, and the outhouse.  Sometimes the courtyard itself open, but more often it's covered.  The door to the courtyard is usually locked at night but not during the day.  Once you go through the courtyard door there's a "mudroom" area at the back of the house that leads to the door that opens into the house itself.  (Thus, yes, the only door into the house is at the back and behind the courtyard fence.)  The only way to let someone know you're there is to knock on the side window.  One pane of the window swings open to let you converse with whoever is on the street.  Unless it is family or very close friends, no one simply comes through the courtyard door.  You knock on the window and wait to be invited in.
________________

     I've now been here 26 days and it is the first day that has been somewhat laid back and restful.  Even so, the work that constantly awaits you hangs on your shoulders like a yoke.  What it takes just to live each day is truly humbling.  (And the stamina of the villagers is even more humbling.)  I survive by the thought that in a few weeks I will return home.  I cannot fathom the strength -- perhaps endurance is the word -- that it would take to live here permanently.  I now realize what a luxury it is to live in a place where you have time to keep your house spotless and in order, and have time to waste.  When the villagers brought the cows home today they could hardly put one foot in front of the other they were so tired.  And still they had to get their supper, tend to their gardens and have clean clothes to wear.  They now put the cows out to pasture at 7 am and bring them home at 7 pm.  Twelve hours is a long time on your feet -- especially when it is raining or simply a damp, grey day, or when you must stand under a hot summer sun and the mosquitoes are inescapeable.  Of course, those shepherding the herd can sit or lie down to rest.  But in any case, it is a long day.  One of the cows broke away from the herd on the way home and started trotting toward the river.  With each weary stride over the field and through the tall grasses, you could not help but be aware of the amount of energy it took for the villager to chase after her and bring her back.  He was a man probably in his mid or late 50s.  He was extremely talented in cracking his long whip.  (It's harder than it looks.) When he saw me filming him, it brought a momentary smile to his face and he cracked it even harder.
     Roma comes each day now to see if I want to go for a motorcycle ride. Tatyana and Mikhail insist that I go, saying that it is important to give the village children my time.  Nonetheless, it is truly hard to go off knowing how tired they are and how much they have to do before they can finally go to bed at night. 
     Today Roma and I road to the far end of the village where we parked the motercycle in a clump of birch trees and went by foot along a narrow path that led down to a valley and finally to an absolutely gorgeous little wood with a rushing stream.  Birds were there in mass as were an abundance of wild flowers.  Unlike the dry, hard roads of the village, the land was thick and soft as if it had just rained.  Roma, no doubt, will soon still the hearts of every girl in the village.  He is truly a remarkable boy. Earlier in the day I happened to look up from watering the strawberries and saw him taking an elderly man home on his motorcycle.  The man was drunk and could not have easily made it home on his own.  When I later told Roma how touched I was by what he had done, he simply shrugged his shoulders and said, "He needed help."
     When I returned home it was time to fix the evening meal.  I decided to make hearth bread for the family and soon got to work.  When it was time to grease the bread pan I asked Tatyana where the butter was, as it was not where it is usually kept.  Instead she pulled an object out of a cup that I stared at for no less than 10 minutes before I could answer.  "You really use that to grease pots and pans?"  
     Tatyana laughed.  "How else do you grease a pan?"
      I took hold of it by its very end.  "How old is it?"  At that moment Babushka came into the kitchen and asked what the matter was.  "Nothing, Babushka, nothing," I quickly replied putting the aged greasy, chicken wing (with feathers) back into the cup.  I made the bread without greasing the pan.  --JF



Tuesday, May 30, 2006  |  Between Kirov and Perm.  On the train

     I finally collected my things in Vetoshkino and left for the Urals early this morning.  I will arrive in Pervouralsk tomorrow morning at 5:30. I gave the calf a good rub down before saying good-bye, cleaned the stall, watered the strawberry patch, brought wood in for the banya (so Babushka wouldn't have to do it later on), feed the chickens, made a big batch of carrot-apple salad for Mikhail, did the breakfast dishes, and then left a small saucer of milk in my attic room for the stray, nameless, kitten who came to sleep with me each night.  The village houses have numerous little holes in the floors and doors through which your cat can come and go without bothering you.  The system works well with the exception that it lets all the stray cats into the house as well.  Babushka spends at least half of her day shooing them out.  One however, would come in only at night to sleep with me.  He was not much more than skin and bones, and so at dinner I would tuck a little piece of meat in my pocket to give him at night.  This morning, however, I managed to sneak a little saucer of milk into my room without Babushka seeing me, though of course she has already discovered the saucer and knows exactly why it was there.  By 8:30 am I was on the road for Kirov where I have caught a train for the Urals.
       In addition to a small bag which holds my two shirts, dress, skirt, three balls of fragrant wool, computer and cameras (I left my second pair of shoes in Vetoshkino as they were beyond cleaning), Babushka packed a sack of food: bread, tomatoes, two apples and a small sack of sugar cubes for tea.  The most important thing to report, however, is that Tatyana has come with me.  She was concerned about me traveling alone and so she will be but one day in the Urals and then turn around and go home.  This, along with so many other details, says so much about the Russian people.  Their unselfishness knows no end.  Not only does it mean that Tatyana will miss three days of work (and pay), it also means that her absence on the farm will give both Mikhail and Babushka twice the work they normally have.  How unselfish these people have been over and over again these last three weeks.
      The time in Vetoshkino and Mwesee was as rewarding and special as it was demanding and, at times, almost overwhelming.  But more on that later. 
For now, we are on our way to the Urals.  As is always the case, we arrived at the train station 10 minutes before the train was to leave.  Tatyana then dashed off to buy a few additional things to eat on the train at the outdoor stands that line the train station.  With four minutes to spare we boarded the train.  Tatyana paused and said, "Maybe there is something else we need?"  I must have turned white, as she took pity on me and returned to our cabin.  Next letter from the Urals.  --JF


Tuesday, May 30, 2006   Part II |  Between  Perm and Pervouralsk

I am writing this from the upper bunk of our cabin on the train.  The bunk is less than two feet in width.  I've decided to sleep on my back as the chances of rolling off are most likely less that way.  We called Babushka to tell her all was well.  She immediately mentioned the saucer of milk in my room but said no more.  She also said that I forgot my shoes.  If I were to tell her they were beyond wearing, she would not understand.  Better to leave them there for cleaning the barn next year.  However dirty, at least they don't have holes in the soles. 
      Besides the food Babushka packed for us, we bought a stick of sausage at one of the stations we stopped at, and have several chocolate bars. Yesterday morning I taught three English classes at school and several of the children returned at the end of the morning to give me a bar of chocolate.
       Children regularly give their teachers either flowers or a bar of chocolate in appreciation for their help. The classes consisted of me listening to the children read aloud and then correcting their pronunciation.  In addition, I showed them the films I've brought with me of life in America. Finally, they wanted to learn a song.  The only simple one I could think of was, "Swing low, sweet chariot".  Later on in the day when I was packing my things, through the open window I heard four little voices on the road belting out, "comin' for to carry me hoooome . . . ."    --JF



Wednesday, May 31, 2006  |  Talitsa

     In answer to more questions.  "Have you picked any wild mushrooms yet? And what is the population of the village that you are in?" 
     The first mushrooms usually appear at the end of May.  Each month more and more varieties appear.  They grow until the first frosts in September.  Nonetheless, we simply never got a chance to go "mushrooming" while we were in Vetoshkino, and spring is late here in the Urals and so the first mushrooms have not yet appeared.  We are still eating those that were pickled last winter. 
     As to the population of Vetoshkino, there are exactly 770 villagers (127 of which are children) with one on the way, due in October. Mwesee has 72 villagers, only seven of which are children.  Two families with children left the village last year to try to find work in the city.
________________

      This is now the second day I've been in Talitsa, the village where Nikolai was born and raised.  It is about 45 minutes across the Ural Mountains to Ekaterinburg -- the large, beautiful tsarist-era city.  We are staying with Nikolai's mother as we always do.  And, as in the past, I share a little room with her at night.  Our bedroom holds exactly two beds, a narrow, braided rug between them, and a chair.  (The chair is not for sitting on, but to hold a bright blue radio, as well as your clothes at night.)  A black and white photo of Mama Zoya's husband, Mikhail, who passed on many years ago, hangs on the wall.  There are new curtains in the door way.  They are bright orange.  There is a sort of a "bunk bed"/shelf above Mama Zoya's bed.  It used to hold the summer's crop of onions, but now I see that it has become the place to store linens. 
     Mama Zoya lives with amazing strength despite living alone.  (At least she gives the impression that her self sufficiency is not a burden to her.) She has a quick, firm step, and arms like a blacksmith although she is quite small in stature.  Her older son Vasily has repeatedly asked her to move in with his family (who live in the city in an apartment).  But to put her in an apartment would be like putting a fish in a desert.  It would be her end.  It is literally the hard work, and the support system of village life, that keeps her going.  As she loves to say, "The more a person jumps, the more he lives.  Life is activity!  And that's all there is to say about it."  With that, she gets up and goes off to do some new task. 
      At the moment she has left for the post office where she pays her electric bill and phone bills each month.  At some point each day she inevitably returns to the subject of being active and says, "I don't know how you can live buying everything at the store! You have to live by your own hands."   
     Russian villagers are very close knit (as are Russian families).  They come and go through the door like a weather vane spinning round on a windy day.  They look after one another, and especially look after the elderly. People take care of one another without being asked -- and virtually without noticing anything unusual about it.  It is as automatic as taking care of yourself.  It is a support system that enables Russia to exist with day care centers or retirement homes. 
      She stays active, however, not only because it gives her a feeling of satisfaction, but also, I believe, because she knows that she has no other choice.  And yet, I am convinced that she will always have help, even as she has always helped others.  People love to be in this home and fully make themselves at home.  People fill the house day and night as if that was the reason her home exists.  She accepts them as easily as letting fresh air in through the window.  In short, she doesn't fuss about life.  I never have the sense that she calculates how much food she can share, how much wood she is going through to keep the banya hot, how many more dishes she has to wash, or how many times she has to change her plans to accommodate yet another unexpected visitor.  It is all just life.
     "I need nothing more than I have," Mama Zoya says over and over again. "My garden is full and my pension covers my other expenses." 
      Her pension pays for her electric bill (32 rubles or about $1.05/month), her phone bill (200 rubles -- almost $7/month), for heat in the winter (about $15/month), and seven rubles pays for a liter of milk every other day.  Both Mama Zoya and Babushka Natalia are loathe to buy anything but the most essential things at the store.  Whenever I think we are out of food, they find this and that from here and there and pull together a meal. It might be no more than potatoes with green onions cut on top, milk with rice, or bread with cheese and jam, but it is a meal. Old clothes are turned into sacks, braided rugs, and dust rags.  Before old socks are unraveled and turned into string they will have had four or five layers of patches put on them.  Tin pans with rust holes become containers to collect eggs in from the chicken coop, or pots for spring seedlings.  Underwear is patched so many times that they completely change color.
      Yesterday, the students who are part of the "Expedition Project" had a chance to talk by phone with both Nikolai and Mama Zoya, as well as with Tatyana. One student wanted to know what Mama Zoya saw as the biggest difference between the Russia of her childhood and Russia today.  Almost immediately her eyes filled with tears.  Her first, unhesitating response was that families today have been spared from living during "the war". (She was referring to World War II.)  "They can raise their families in peace.  They have been spared the horrors of war. Especially the hunger. To think of the children who wandered the streets without fathers or mothers! Without a home, without anything to eat or any way to keep warm.  They followed after the soldiers simply because they had no one else." 
     There is a look in her eyes when she speaks of the war, a tone about her voice -- there is something which I know I simply cannot fathom.
     This morning Mama Zoya sat on my bed and expounded a bit more on the subject.  But it was what she concluded that said everything: " Life was so difficult then.  It demanded a strength of character that has almost disappeared."  --JF



June 2, 2006  |  Talitsa.  Midnight

It is now midnight and both Nikolai and I are utterly exhausted after what was an endless day.  Nonetheless, it was one of the most important days we've had thus far.  For three years now a TV station in Ekaterinburg has done a short program about my impressions of Russia and how they have changed and grown over the years. This year, however, two stations asked to do a longer program about how an American fared living alone in a Russian village.  Thus they wanted to film everything from my putting on village shoes, to carrying water back from the river, milking the cow (we borrowed a neighbor's), working in the garden, getting the woodstove going and . . . making French toast.  The subject of food came up, of course, and what I prepared for myself when I was in Mwesee.  (They were disappointed when they learned I did very little cooking as all the neighbors overfed me.) In any case, their hopes rose when I described the griddle I brought with me.  But when I tried to describe what "French toast" was that proved to be virtually incomprehensible.  Indeed, the idea of putting something sweet on something that had egg in it was literally as inedible to them as dried salt fish for breakfast is to me.  Thus, we did a mini cooking show with them filming each step of the process.  The segment concluded with Nikolai being served a hot, golden brown piece of French toast with jam on it while my plate held an entire grey-brown, dried fish (head and all).  We then took turns eating our respective meals to see which of us would finish what was on our plates.  Neither of us got past the first bite. . . .
     For the final segment, they asked that I sit at the computer and type a short piece in Russian about my impressions of milking a cow (which I learned how to do today as they filmed).  They then showed the screen (so the viewers could see what I wrote) and finally filmed how, with the mobile telephone, it was possible to send the description to someone in America.
     There is much to be said about why we are genuinely and deeply grateful for the opportunity these TV stations gave all of us to share something honest and innocent with one another.  But that will have to wait for another day as I'm too tired to write something meaningful about something so important.
     After the filming was done, we drove to Marinsk where we have worked now for several years.  It is probably the strongest link we've made in Russia between the villagers and the school children, and children and families in the U.S.  We will be with them all day next Wednesday as they celebrate the founding of their village.  It is over 175 years old if I remember correctly.
     We got home at 9:00 pm from Marinsk and left again at 9:30 to have a meeting (that lasted until 11:30) with one of the most respected school administrators in the area.  The reason being, is that we still have not found a village we feel right about doing the next library project in. That is a subject in and of itself which I'll write about tomorrow.  In any case, Nadershda Aleksandrovna was able to be of enormous help.  She knows all the best schools, the most responsible school directors, as well as the villages that hold the most chance of progressing.  It is very likely that we will be working in a village on the other side of the Chusavaiya River across from Sloboda.  We very much wanted to work in Sloboda as it is a simply wonderful village (where I attended the Easter service a year ago), but sadly it no longer has a school.  The adjacent village, ironically enough, is called "Progress".  And, indeed, it would be if it proves to be our next project.

     Mama Zoya just came into the banya (where I am sitting alone writing as it is the only warm place in the house at this hour) and told me emphatically to shut off the computer and come to bed.  I know she'll wait up until I do and so . . . Good night.  --JF


Saturday June 3, 2006  |  Talitsa.

Just a bit more about yesterday's opportunity to work with the TV journalists from Ekaterinburg. The most important thing is not the program itself, but the fact that there was an innocence and goodness about their intentions.  They just wanted to do something good.  They sought an opportunity to do something thoughtful and, in the end, their intentions will (at least) give a kindly face to America even if the nature of the program will be very light hearted -- and even humorous perhaps.
         On the subject of how hard it has been to find the right village to work in, that challenge says much about the rapidly changing conditions in rural Russia -- as well as Nikolai's determination to do something truly needed and useful, as opposed to, as he puts it, an "imitation of good". It is hard to know what the fate of the villages will be.  Literally hundreds and hundreds have disappeared.  Simply disappeared.  Nothing remains of them but the cemetery.  There is no trace of the homes, roads, or life that once filled so many valleys.  And yet, my strong impression has always been that the villages are Russia.  (Though that comment incenses the newly rich in Russia whose lives are as fast paced and modern as anywhere in the world.)  Yet, the villages have held Russia together, have preserved its culture and traditions, have bred an enviable closeness of families and respect for the elderly (not to mention care of the elderly), and have kept Russia alive. The percentage of food produced in family gardens is staggeringly high, though I don't remember the exact number.
     Our need is to find villages that are not only thriving, but that are determined to thrive (like Marinsk).  Further, the villages have different characters.  It is vitally important to find a village where the residents would welcome a long lasting relationship and the opportunity to discover a very different America than that which they have been shown on the nightly news. Thus, we have been patiently seeking out a village where our efforts will bear fruit in the future.
     Today we returned to Sloboda.  The village itself has just the atmosphere that holds promise of a long lasting friendship. The villagers working in their gardens were friendly and talkative and the village itself has a vital feeling to it.  That might be because the church in the center of the village is quite famous and attracts many people from other areas who come to celebrate the major religious holidays.  It is the only church in the region that was not destroyed during the communist era. 
      What made us hesitant to work there, is that the school has closed. However, Nikolai learned that the village itself has an active library and so we returned today to see it for ourselves.  It is a classic wooden building that, although small, is well maintained and is also the "cultural center" of the village, or the "hall of culture" as they say.  Half of the building is a meeting room where either the villagers can come to cultural events or where young people regularly hold dances.  The other half is the library.  At the back of the building is a small room with musical instruments, presumably where children come to take music lessons.  The library itself has only a handful of books (literally) that are new.  The rest are at least 40 or 50 years old as far as I could see.  We asked if we could see some of the library cards to see how often books are checked out and what kinds of books are checked out. 
     Although the library was closed when we got there (it is open three days a week in the morning and three more in the afternoon), we found out where the librarian lived and walked the short distance to her house.  She is a young woman who has been the librarian for 15 years now.  She willingly stopped what she was doing and opened the library for us and spent about an hour talking about the village.  She impressed us as being creative, energetic and devoted to her work.  We also learned (although it is somewhat humorous) that the library has a "security" budget.  That is, because it holds books, musical instruments and a "sound system" (for dances), the library has a budget that pays a man to sleep there at night so that nothing is stolen!  Thus, all in all, there is much about the library that lends itself to helping them.  As always, as soon as we know, we'll let you know.  --JF
 

Monday June 5, 2006  |  11:00 pm, Talitsa.  (The sky is still quite light.)

I have three half completed stories waiting to be finished, but not today. I will not even write about the next steps we've taken to do the library in Sloboda or about our preparations to be in Marinsk on Wednesday.  Today we have an adventure to share. 
     After we finished work, we told Mama Zoya to put on her "outing" skirt and scarf as we were going to take her on an excursion. Mama Zoya rarely has the opportunity to ride somewhere in a car, and so her delight over the unexpected invitation was as full as a child's.  We then headed off to Ganina Yama.  The name is unfamiliar to you, but the story behind it is not. 
     At the start of the Bolshevik Revolution, Tsar Nikolai II and his family where held captive in a home in Ekaterinburg.  In the middle of one night they were told to rise and dress in preparation for being taken to another more secret location where they were to be held.  They were then told to wait in the cellar until it was time to go.  Shortly thereafter a group of armed men entered the cellar and executed them. 
     The home in which they were executed was eventually torn down in the 1970s by order of President Yeltsin so that it would not become a shrine and the royal family deified.  Nonetheless, a church built in their honor today stands on the location where the house was and the family members are considered saints.  Less known is the fact that when the Romanov family was executed, an additional order was given to dispose of the bodies in a way that no one would know where they were.  Or so the story goes.  By night, they were taken to the outskirts of a village called Koptyakey and thrown down a mine shaft that had been closed more than 50 years.  The truck, however, carrying the bodies was noticed by a villager as trucks were nonexistent in villages at that time.  As a result, word quickly spread that a truck had been in the area and the villagers followed the tracks to find out why.  While they still didn't know what had happened, those who disposed of the bodies knew it was only a question of time before their deed would be discovered.  The fear was that if the bodies were found the ground they were found on would thereafter be considered holy -- a thought abhorrent to the communist party.
     Thus an order was given to remove the bodies from the mine shaft and take them to a still more remote location -- away from all known villages -- where they would never be found.  (Just a few weeks after the execution, soldiers from the "White Army" -- those in favor of the Tsar -- arrived and found remnants of clothing, but had no idea of where the bodies had been taken subsequently.)  The truck set out again down a remote road that would eventually turn into nothing but uninhabited woods.  On the way, a part of the road crossed a marshy area where tree trunks were laid down side by side so as to make the low spot traversable (by horse cart).  Yet, as soon as the truck got across the anchored logs, the ground gave way and it fell into a ravine.  There was no way to get the truck out or take the bodies further.  Morning was fast approaching and so the logged section of the road was taken apart and the bodies laid under it.
     It was not until the advent of perestroika that a well known Russian historian and author was given permission to do research in the formerly secret archives of the communist party. In his research, he came upon the order to execute the family, including the subsequent events.  He kept what he learned secret for some eight or 10 years, and only then secretly sought and found the logged road.  At some point he and a small group of people returned to the spot and found the bones laid under the road.
     Just two years ago, on that remote road in the midst of a thick pine and birch forest (called "The forest of the four brothers") a wooden monastery was built consisting of seven small churches (symbolic of the seven family members who perished), a bell tower, and a large brass cross on what was once the wooden section of road. In one of the churches is an icon that belonged to the royal family.  During their captivity in the home in Ekateriburg, a village woman was allowed to bring them eggs, milk, and bread, etc. each day.  The Tsar secretly gave her the icon, which she hid in her egg basket, just days before they were executed.  Again, as the story goes. In any case, it was to the monastery in that remote wood that we took Mama Zoya today.
     There are different versions of the story as to what really happened and where, and there is truth and legend in each version,  But it did not diminish the adventure of traveling down the narrow, wooded road and imagining that tumultuous time that still affects our times.  --JF


Tuesday June 6, 2006  |  7:00 am, Talitsa.

     The question was asked, So what exactly are you doing these days in the Ural Mountains? 
     We have three projects here, and one in Moscow, still to finish before I return home. 
     Before I describe those, I should say that on Sunday we finished the first stage of a major project we started last year called Village Democracy.  The residents of Talitsa held a town meeting in regard to all that physically needed repairing.  By the end of the meeting they resolved to: 1) replace the rotted platform on the river bank where the women wash clothes; 2) repair the well house that covers the well and keeps the water clean and free from ice and snow in the winter; 3) fill the ravine surrounding a pump at the end of the main road which is the second water source and easier for the oldest women to use; 4) rebuild the wooden path to the main well house; and 5) do something about the trash piles along the sides of the roads.  It was the responsibility of the villagers to come up with a working plan, organize work crews, and get the projects done.  The part of Access to Ideas was to supply the funds for the materials needed.
     While the "working plan" was wholly Russian (i.e. a sketch was made on a scrap of paper and the morning our friend Andre decided the projects should be started, he simply knocked on everyone's door telling them to get up and come help).  Nonetheless, the trash is now gone, the well house and platform built, and the ravine around the pump filled.  The only thing that was left to do was to build the wooden path to the well house which was done on Sunday. (In the end, we were glad that that project had been delayed because I was able to film each stage of the work.)   Before the work was finished I hiked the old path with water buckets on my shoulders -- and with considerable "fear and trepidation".  Not only were there large, gapping holes in the path (which hangs above a marsh), but in places the boards were so rotted, I wondered if they'd hold my weight.  It is really by the grace of God that the path never caved in with someone on it.
When the five or six villagers (including Nikolai) finished the new path on Sunday, I hiked the new one and it is truly wonderful.  It was only a day's work, but it took all of them working and thinking together to make the most of the wood left over from last year.
     The projects left to do this year are continuing Village Democracy projects in Marinsk and one more here in Talitsa, and the library in Sloboda.  (Last year we also supplied Marinsk with the funds to rebuild their well house and the path to it.  Their new well house now has the name "Friendship" painted across the front of it. The name was wholly their idea.)  The project in Moscow involves working further with the children's newspaper/magazine called "Pioneer Pravda".  We had an initial meeting with them when I first arrived.  Each project deserves a page of its own and so I'll end this log entry and send the next one about the Marinsk project. 
--JF


Wednesday June 7, 2006  |  7:46 am, Talitsa.

      I'm sitting in the courtyard as it is already hot in the house. Indeed, the weather has been oppressively hot, the roads dry and dusty (as well as the air) -- all of which is intensified by the fact that the heater in the car works nonstop, despite the concerted efforts of Alosha, Feodre, Anatoly, Stass, Andre, Vladimir and Nikolai to fix it.  In the end, they decided the best thing to do was simply wait until winter to use the car. Given that my visa runs out in three weeks, we have no choice but to work now.  Worse, we have to drive with the windows practically closed if we don't want our faces and clothes covered with the grey/brown dust that covers everything these days.
     I'm falling farther and farther behind in describing all that has been happening simply because so much has been happening.
     For the last several days I have watched Nikolai painstakingly pull together the people and pieces of the puzzle that will become the new library in Sloboda.
     Like a game of chess, he constantly thinks several steps ahead -- but, unlike chess, the pieces to move are rarely visible.  You might say that he uses all that is at hand and -- although it often appears to be insufficient -- because it is what there is, he simply uses it rather than questioning it. 
     For instance, when we first arrived in Sloboda yesterday, we spotted a woman who had given us directions to the librarian's house just a few days before. (Actually, we asked for directions three times although the village has but two roads.  Only later I realized that Nikolai did it purposely, simply to make more contacts with the villagers.)  Again, Nikolai stopped briefly to say hello. And like all neighbors in a small village who know everything about everyone, it was she who informed us that Natasha Vladimirovna (the librarian) had only just left on the bus for Novaya Utka, but she didn't know when she'd be returning.
      Whereas I would have sighed at having missed the librarian and returned home, Nikolai resolved that it was a perfect opportunity to visit the village monk. The church being the center of the village (literally, figuratively, and historically), we knew it wouldn't hurt to build a bridge with the monk and get his input and support for the new library.  When we arrived, however, no one was in the church.  Yet, everyone knows that village grandmothers can be counted on to come and go from the church like bees coming and going from the depths of roses and peonies, and so, while we waited for the next babushka we admired the icons.  Soon enough, an elderly woman came into the church, and, indeed, when we asked her if she knew where the monk was, she immediately told us that he had just gone home for lunch, but wouldn't mind being interrupted.  She gave us directions and off we went, going no farther than the church's courtyard where a workman was setting out to do repairs on the windows.  Nikolai struck up a conversation with the man and, 30 minutes later, he had agreed to help with the repairs that will be needed in the library to hold the new books. Though he was clearly more than happy to be able to tell his wife that night that a paying job had fallen out of the very heavens while working in the church courtyard, he nonetheless ended the conversation with the question, "Do you really know what you're getting into?"  To which Nikolai replied, "Don't worry, by the time we're done we'll all be in it together!"
      We then found the monk's house and spent well over an hour talking with him, learning about the challenges facing the village, as well as his thoughts as to what is needed to bring about progress.  Atetz Vladimir was a middle-aged man with a long, graying beard and a weary smile after 15 years of dealing with the vast changes that have beset Russia and the bewildered villages.  He lamented the fact that the "hall of culture" had all but lost its culture and given way to a discothèque .  As a result, he ended our conversation by wishing us God's blessing on our work as if a miracle were needed to accomplish it.
      From there we left the village and by car followed the river to a resort/summer camp some two miles away.  Nikolai sleuthed around from building to building until he came upon a secretary who should have been a stand up comedian.  With pleasure she sat and talked with us as if she were our Auntie Olya. She had more than a few humorous stories to tell about the changes that have beset Sloboda, but counted none of them as life-threatening.  In short, she ended the conversation by saying that the children in Sloboda were wholly normal and would most likely regain their interest in reading when they were of the age that they could no longer dance.
      We then headed off down a road that led into the heart of a forest where the car could barely squeeze between the trees and where ruts swallowed 3/4 of our tires.  When we reached the point where our car could go no further, there before our eyes was one of only four active observatories in all of Russia.  The modest dome held a telescope powerful enough to search the very heights of the universe.  The observatory, we learned, was closed until the end of the summer as Russia's famed "white nights" result in only two or three hours of darkness now.  Nonetheless, Nikolai managed to find a kindly white haired scientist with sparkling eyes (no doubt from spending his life staring at the stars) and with a wonderful smile.  He gladly agreed to open the observatory and give us a tour.  When he learned I was from America, he immediately smiled and showed us a very small, but powerful telescope that sits in the middle of this far off wood and belongs to NASA.  He spoke warmly of his years of working with NASA and ended our visit with the words, "We have never had problems working together.  We have one heaven and one science that unites us."

     From there we headed back to Pervouralsk and to the central library where we spent yet another hour or more talking to the head librarian.  She could not have been more helpful and gave us two invaluable pieces of advice: 1) to take advantage of the fact that the library system in Russian requires that libraries readily help each other and 2) that we seek out a woman in Pervouralsk who is the most respected and knowledgeable librarian in all of the Urals.  From there we set out to find Tatyana Victorovna -- the specialist who had yet to learn that she was about to work with us. 
     Through a series of steps that were wholly Russian, (this friend calling that friend who knocked on the door of the neighbor with the blue windows who then asked his Auntie Sonya to check her address book, etc. etc.), just minutes ago we found Tatyana Victorovna who, far from being a stuffy elderly librarian, answered her cell phone while tending to her potato patch.  (It is now time to plant your potatoes in Russia.)  She ended the conversation by saying that she loved projects which everyone else gives up on.
    
     In short, in a far off Russian village with a library full of 50 year old books and an equal number of gyrating teenagers intent on turning it into a disco, we are heading down a road whose end is impossible to know. What we do know, is that villages like Sloboda are vital to Russia and that "halls of culture" are vital to the villages.  While it is unquestionably a risk to consciously decide to work in a village in decline and in a library all but dead, it is exactly in such a place where the work is most needed. Even more, the carpenter has already told his wife about his good fortune, the monk is already reconsidering whether his discouragement was justified, and the most respected librarian in the Urals has already washed her hands and rolled up her sleeves. --JF



Friday June 9, 2006  |  Talitsa, 5:30 am

     Yesterday was a gift.   
     Less than 10 minutes after being perfect strangers, Tatyana Danilovna, the librarian-specialist (whose name I got wrong yesterday) readily agreed to change every plan she had made for the next two weeks and help us.  Even more, less than 10 minutes after being perfect strangers, it felt as if we had known her all our lives. And, less than 10 minutes after being perfect strangers, we were convinced that she could bring the library in Sloboda back to life. From that point on, everything gave its consent, so to speak, (even the heater in the car which Stass fixed that morning) to cooperate and move forward.
          On the way to Sloboda, Tatyana said she had a short errand that would be helpful to get done before she spent the entire day with us. Forty-five minutes later she reemerged from the market whose long lines are no doubt sent from God to teach one patience.  After that, Nikolai suddenly decided that, since it was on the way, he'd get another errand done for his mother at the town dump that collects her trash each week. Before I knew it, we were somehow drinking tea with the workers and with the librarian-specialist who we had met just 55 minutes before.  I simply sighed as there was nothing else to do and as it was all perfectly Russian. It made no sense to worry that the day was quickly fleeing away, or about what Tatyana Danilovna must be wondering about the perfect strangers who had just taken her to the town's sanitation department to drink tea. 
     Yet, since everything was progressing as it does in Russia, we drank tea with the head of the department and his workers thanking them sincerely for the changes they had brought about in just a year's time.  They were so pleased with the visit that they invited us to a little celebration they were about to have for the trash collectors who had completed their first year of work.  I held my breath (Nikolai is incapable of turning down an invitation), but to my relief (and no doubt Tatyana Danilovna's) he politely declined.
     As I had no unexpected errands to get done, after stopping to get gas, it appeared that we were actually on our way to Sloboda.  
     With every mile, the bleak picture of the day before changed as dramatically as a summer thunder storm that blankets everything in gloom and then leaves everything fresh and new.  As we bounched along the road, kicking up clouds of dust, Tatyana Danilovna chatted merrily about other libraries that had been in such a state and how, with just a bit of know-how and encouragement, with just a bit of practical advice and furniture polish, before we knew it, the curious villagers would be poking their heads in filled with new interest.  Over and over, she laughed with joy at the impossible way we had found her and how she had actually agreed to jump in the car and go off with us.  "It must have been meant to be!"
     At the very minute we crossed the footbridge to Sloboda, Natalia Vitaliovna, the village libarian (whose name I also got wrong earlier) was walking out of her courtyard door.  She smiled broadly as if she had been expecting us and said she was on her way to open the library for the day. As it turned out, the day went until midnight.  By the time we were done, however, all the boxes, chairs, antique summer fans, and New Year's Eve costumes (Father Frost's and the snow maidens) that had been stored between the aisles had been put in the back room, the entire children's section had been sorted and properly catalogued, (the best books being saved and the worthless ones being thrown out), the deep red drapes had been taken down, and Anatoly and his son, Sasha, had rewired the entire room, installing five beautiful, new ceiling lights that Nikolai and I bought during the day.  Already, the room began to breathe again and start to fill itself with new life. 
     Both the librarians were more than a little pleased.  Especially when we crossed the footbridge carrying the new xerox machine.  Natalia stared at it as if we had given her the moon and Tatyana, filled with the most childlike joy at yet another library being brought back to life, rushed over and gave her a big kiss on the cheek congratulating her on her newfound good fortune.  The xerox machine, the only one in a 25 mile radius, will not only be invaluable to the residents of several villages, but it will also be a little source of income for the library -- whose librarian is more than a little resourceful (which is one of the reason so many things were stacked between the isles simply waiting to be put to use).  Indeed, it is clear that Natalia has had more than a few hopes and dreams for the library and has been courageously working away to bring them to life despite the impossible odds. Even her agreeing to turn half the library into a disco was more than a little clever.  It was better to have the children there than in some unknown hidden place and it was one way to make the library central in their lives. She told us that for 15 years she has worked away, hoping and praying for some miracle that would give her the means to buy shiny, new books -- knowing that a shiny new book is as irresistible to a Russian as honey is to a bear.
      Thus, although Atetz Vladimir had no way of knowing about Natalia's long held hopes and prayers, (assuming that anyone who would allow children to dance in a library must be mad) -- in fact, their intent to help the children gave them more in common than they realized.  And so, at some point during the day (which even I didn't notice) Nikolai managed to slip quietly away to have another talk with Atetz Vladimir -- encouraging him to make peace with the librarian.  In turn, Nikolai promised the monk that he would get Natalia Vitaliovna to agree to turn down the booming bass on the speakers when the church bells are ringing.
     Today and tomorrow will be spent buying books in Ekaterinburg.  The funds for the books -- in addition to all the other things we have been able to do over these last few weeks, (including buying the equipment needed to post the web log) -- have all come from you.  And although you're far away, you can't imagine how present you are in yet another Russian village.  --JF



Saturday, June 10, 2006  |  Talitsa, (now 1 a.m. Sunday morning)

    About four o'clock this afternoon we crossed the long foot bridge over to Sloboda with the last cart load of books.  At one point the cart teetered on the narrow, swaying bridge and we gasped as if the whole load would topple into the river. Even now, I shudder at the thought.  It was another hot day and everything -- the wooden houses, the church dome, the weary grass and dusty road -- bore a heavy golden glow.  It took two of us to push the cart up the path past the monk's house to the "hall of culture" which, as we've written, is half library and half discothèque.  (Though being as it is, after all, in a Russian village, it is a VERY tame discothèque, i.e. an empty room with benches around the sides.  Two speakers and one three inch light that throws colored dots across the room have earned it the name of "discothèque".)  The three buildings -- the monk's house, the hall of culture and the church -- constitute the central part of the main village road.  It was only today, however, that I learned that the classic wooden home (that is between the monk's house and the church) was turned into a meeting room and hall of culture during the Soviet era.  Before that it belonged to the church.  Thus, whether he is at home or at work, the village monk can never escape what must certainly appear to him to be the demise of things spiritual -- especially since half the hall of culture is now part discothèque. 
     It is a very small melodrama compared to a Shakespeare plot, yet, the more we learned of the division in the town between those who are for and against the discothèque, those who feel that all the young people are being ruined by western culture, and those who are trying to find a way to keep them in the village; the more we realized what a struggle it is for the village to hold on to its rich culture -- and what an even greater struggle it is for the young people to find their way and feel normal -- the more we sought a way to use the library as a peace maker.
     Slowly over these few days, the impression the village monk had given us of the young people as hopelessly ruined has given way to a more realistic view.  We learned, for instance, that the small amount of money they pay to attend the discothèque each week is used to put on a much loved New Year's celebration for the entire village so that the hall can be colorfully decorated and little presents bought for everyone.
     Further, we learned that the village monk has spent no small amount of time trying to work with the young people and interest them in something other than dancing and drinking (i.e. sports and gymnastics) -- but, as he saw it, to no avail.
     And everyone (even the village dogs and cats) is clearly weary of such a long period of change (since the collapse of the Soviet Union) without any sign of improvement. And as often happens when people have strong hopes and dreams that slip away, those very people can actually begin to doubt good and (tragically) cease to expect it.
     Despite the fact that it appeared to be a considerable risk to work in a village where there was no longer a school -- and in a library that was as lifeless as the dust on the aged books -- the choice to work Sloboda could not have been better.  The choice -- like the change that has already started to happen -- was again like a gift, and given to us all.  And the gift was the librarian herself.  The librarian is not only a remarkably courageous and selfless woman, but she was willing to take an even greater risk than we were taking: she was willing to trust us -- even when others were not at all sure of our intentions.  In short, we now understand that the "state of the librarian" is far more vital, or critical, than the "state of the library".
     At the end of the day today as seven of us sat in the library surrounded by gorgeous, shiny new books, eating watermelon and drinking tea, Natalia (the librarian) told us an amazing story which, no doubt, few in the village know.  She was at work one cold rainy fall day when two hunters appeared at the door.  It was nearing dusk and they were exhausted. They asked if they could spend the night in the library and leave early the next morning before the villagers noticed. 
     The only way the library can be locked or unlocked is from the outside and thus, to spend the night, she'd have to lock them in and then let them out in the morning.  Not only did she agree to let them spend the night, she brought them hot tea and something to eat that night and then early the next morning.  She laughed as she told us the story, saying that only afterward she realized she must have been mad to let two perfect strangers spend the night with so many valuable things stored there.  Yet, as we listened to her, we knew that she was not only humble and courageous, but capable of great good. 
     She, along with Tatyana, selected the most incredible and thoughtful array of books you could imagine: not only the large, magnificent new encyclopedias, but things that would be of immediate interest to young girls and boys, as well as biographies of great people to inspire them, "how-to" books to help them with career choices, etc., etc.  Before the last books were carried off to the store clerk, Natalia quietly went to the sports section with the clear intention of helping the village monk realize his dream of teaching the young people soccer and gymnastics.  At the same time, Tatyana found three extremely well done religious books: one on Russian icons, one on the journeys of Paul, and one on the religions of the world, while Nikolai went off to buy balls and sports equipment.
     It was nearing 5 o'clock and time for us to say good-bye and head home.  But before we ended our little celebration in the library, Nikolai slipped quietly away from the table.  I knew at once where he had gone. Ten minutes later he came back saying that he had asked Atetz Vladimir (the village monk) if he would come to the library and hold a special little service to bless the library's intentions to help not only the young people, but all the villagers.  At the same time, Nikolai explained, he wanted to hang a beautiful wooden plaque on the library wall that was made by a friend in America in honor of the people who made this library project possible.  The plaque has an elegant bird carved on it with a ribbon held in its beak.  On the ribbon are the words:  Hope and Peace.
     Again, like an unexpected gift, at the very moment we left the library (literally), the church bells began to ring.  It was the start of the evening service.  We paused on the bridge to listen.  Nikolai then told me that Atetz Vladimir had agreed to come to the library on Tuesday.  The deep tones of the large bass bells swelled over the hot, dry earth, and harmony reigned.   --JF



Sunday, June 11, 2006  |  Talitsa, 3 pm

    Today (at least in Russia) is the 40th day after Easter and a religious holiday.  I decided to go to the service in a small church this morning only a half mile or so from Nikolai's house.  I was not sure when the service started, but as such services go on a long time, with people constantly coming and going, I knew I could safely show up just about any time.
     When I arrived, a long line of young mothers were having their babies baptized.  Three monks were presiding, one of which I would have done anything to photograph.  Although the oldest of the three, he must have been the least in rank for he wore a simple smock of beautiful green and mauve colors.  He had thick white eye brows, a fluffy crop of hair surrounding his shiny bald head, and a beard so thick and perfect it was as if an illustrator had drawn it.  So engrossed was I with his classic face that I barely noticed when the formal service began.  As in the past, although it was difficult to feel or understand much from the service and its traditions, I felt a tremendous amount from the people around me. There is a meekness and sincerity about them that transports you to another age (when there was less to be expected from a material world, but rather a longing to be released from it).
     The church was hot and crowded -- all of which was intensified by the fact that everyone was standing as you do in a Russian church. The rough wooden floor was scattered with dry grasses and filled with delicate, scented candles.  The unseen choir further filled the church with lilting, then languid harmonies, rising and falling seamlessly like violins that had overcome the need to breathe.  I had planned to stay only 15 minutes or so (and actually started to leave three times), but in the end remained more than 90 minutes with the service still in full swing. 
      When I was first about to leave, an older woman next to me sensed my intentions and quickly took me by the arm and gently moved me to another spot.  The monk had begun to make his way around the people who had put themselves in a tight circle in the center of the room.  I smiled my thanks for her help, relieved that I had not found myself in the outer ring alone with the monk.  Wondering what would happen next, I stayed a bit longer.
      The congregation had turned itself to face the icon wall whose central doors were being opened.  I now found myself virtually in the center of the sanctuary.  (The coming and going of people results in a gentle, constant repositioning of the congregation).  And now for the first time I saw that there was a very large icon positioned directly behind the door on the front wall of the church, but only the bottom of it was visible.  As a result, it held my attention simply because it seemed strange that you couldn't see more of it.
     Before I fully realized what was happening, there was a shuffling all around me, and to my utter amazement the worshippers began to prostrate themselves on the hard wooden floor.  I went down on my knees and waited. I don't know how long it was, but it was not a brief time.  Again we stood for maybe ten minutes  when the shuffling started a second time and everyone went down on their knees, bending their heads to the floor.  At this point I found myself next to a very elderly woman who had a crutch under one arm.  She could not get down on her knees and so, holding her crutch under one arm and supporting herself with her other free hand, she bent herself over at the waist with her head hanging near her feet. She was a portly woman, and so to support herself with her free hand she had to bend her knees slightly.  As the minutes dragged on I could not imagine how she could hold that position -- and that without wavering. 
     The third time we went down on our knees my entire body ached and felt as heavy as lead.  I shifted my weight often, though the elderly woman next to me again did not flinch -- and did not even seem anxious to stand upright again.  Every so often she merely uttered under her breath, "Lord, help me.  Lord, help me."  To my right was a young woman prostrated in a way I'll never forget.  (It was in such a wholly unselfconscious, unabashed way that it was as if she was utterly alone.)  From there my gaze turned forward and I almost gasped aloud.  I forgot the hard wooden floor; I forgot the struggle to remain so long on my knees, and even momentarily forgot the people around me.  When we rose again, I knew it was time for me to go as staying longer would have diminished what had just happened:  It was so obvious, but so unexpected: On my knees the icon on the front wall, the risen Christ, was suddenly, fully visible.   --JF



Tuesday, June 13, 2006  |  Talitsa, 1:15 am (Wednesday morning)
_______________________
For several days we had technical problems that prevented us from getting on to the internet.  If nothing else, it makes us realize what a miracle it's been to be able to have had as much access as we've had.  In any case, the loss of our internet connection has had no affect on our finding more stories to tell.  But first, the end of the story in Sloboda.
________________________

    When we returned to Sloboda today and made our way across the footbridge swaying playfully in the wind, we suddenly realized that we had crossed more than a river.  Despite the relatively short time given to us here, still, that invisible, miraculous line has been crossed and we genuinely feel that we are no longer "foreigners nor strangers".  And that, by no means, is an automatic result of a library project.  While each place in which we've worked has been deeply grateful for the books, only Vetoshkino and Marinsk have become villages to which we know the road there and back as clearly as one knows his way home.  And now we have that feeling about Sloboda.  Even as we said good bye to one another today we anticipated the next time we'll be together and the letters and calls that will be made to each other in the meantime.

     The risk that was the library project in Sloboda has become a source of deepest encouragement -- a gust of wind carrying us forward.  The library in Sloboda has ceased to be a storage room and has become a library once again.  There are rugs on the newly polished floor, lights hanging from the ceiling, and row upon row of beautiful books on the shelves.  (We learned that no sooner had we left on Saturday afternoon, when villagers began to appear in the library that night to pore over the books still in the boxes.) The copier is on a table as you come into the room and will be put into use tomorrow.  Natalia told us that she has already had more than 20 requests for copies (which is not surprising in this land where the smallest task requires four or five different documents in triplicate and where it can take a villager an entire day to get to the nearest city and back to get a copy made.)  Already it is clear that the copier was an unexpected stroke of genius and will not only bring people to the library (and to the shiny new books) but will be a small, but true help to the library financially.  (It is one more example of how each library project is "given" more than made.  We had no way of knowing how valuable the copier would be until, while standing in a computer store waiting to buy a phone card for our cell phone, Nikolai spotted the machine and suddenly realized how invaluable such a thing would be in every library.  Indeed, Tatyana later told us that the main public library in Pervouralsk had waited years to have enough money to buy a single copier.
     There are, in fact, a thousand little details that have woven themselves together in a way we could not have imagined. When I packed the hand carved plaque in my suitcase (inscribed with the words "Hope and Peace" at the request of the people who have made this library possible), from that side of the Atlantic it was impossible to imagine that that was truly what the library would so quickly give to this small village. While it took money to buy the books, the sports equipment, the copier and the new lights -- without the desire on the villagers' part to put away discouragement and doubt, without their willingness to trust good again -- nothing would have happened and nothing would have changed in Sloboda.  And one of the most important changes was the willingness of the village monk to come to the library and give it his blessing.
     We arrived in Sloboda a few minutes before 11 am when Atetz Vladimir was due to hold a short service in the library.  Without the service, it is almost certain that the monk would never have set foot in the library.  How could he when every fiber of his being told him that the room opposite the library (the disco) was leading children astray.  His struggle was completely understandable -- and his humility considerable to take the first step forward in mending the rift in the village.  (He told us the first time we met him that once already he had "turned the other cheek," and simply did not have the strength to offer the other.) 
     We looked up at the clock at 11:15 and held our breaths.  At 11:30 we despaired of his coming.  At 11:45 Nikolai decided to go to the church and quietly ask him again to come -- only to find that the monk was on his way. When he first arrived he was clearly uncomfortable and gave the impression of feeling completely estranged.  Still, we did our best to express our sincere gratitude for his willingness to put his blessing on the project. As the service began, his voice seemed cold and routine.  My heart went out to him and the struggle raging within him. 
     Then suddenly, a dog appeared through the door left open at the back of the library.  The monk turned angrily toward the librarian and said sarcastically, "Will the next through the door be a cow?"  The brief comment spoke volumes of how deep and hard the rift in the village had become.
     And yet, there was a moment in the service when something changed as gently a slight breeze on a hot, still summer day.  Atetz Vladimir's voice became warmer and softer.  The prayers (which are sung) became more melodious.  And then, like a faint rainbow appearing in a clearing sky, when the formal service ended, Atetz Vladimir suddenly prayed one last prayer as if unexpectedly.  He prayed that the library would prove to be a source of encouragement for the young people and that it would bless people in other villages as well.  He prayed that the librarian and the staff would reap the rewards of their good intentions.  And then, to my amazement, he prayed for Nikolai and me and all the people who have helped us -- and that, in the most touching way.
     After the service we invited him to stay for tea, but he declined. That was more than he could do.  But he had already done the most needful thing of all.  He had taken that first, and most difficult, step toward reconciliation.  He looked us in the eyes and smiled -- and then he was gone. 
     Over tea, Natalia said that the monk's youngest daughter had already shyly put her head in the library saying that her father had given her permission to come.  There is a good chance that she will tell him about the plaque and about the large colorful encyclopedias; about "The Little Prince" which Natalia has put on special display, as well as the book on Russian icons.  And not only his daughter.  Atetz Vladimir is a man who has dedicated his life to being a father to many.  And like any good father, he will delight in his children's joy.  --JF



June 19, 2006  |  Moscow

On June 18th we flew from the Urals back to Moscow.  Circling the city in preparation for landing, we looked out the window feeling as if we had been to another world and back - so many miles had been traveled and so very much done over these seven weeks.  We no sooner arrived when I repacked my bags in preparation for the long journey home.
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The last letter and the last days in Russia are always the hardest.  And this trip was by far the hardest and most demanding of all.  The rewards were, at times, overwhelmed by the challenges.  While the "fairy tales" are fewer, the good now that is found is far more substantial. And so, while it is time to come home, it is hard to leave.  We attempted more than ever before and perhaps attempted too much.  Still, this trip was the most "real" of any we have made and, despite the price, gave us a strength and maturity that will be needed to meet the changing times in Russia and the rapidly changing relationship between Russia and America. Things which we described in only a few words, in fact, took an amazing amount out of us.  You simply don't let yourself think about it at the time. 
    I can hardly fathom now that it took an entire week simply to get our cell phone and computer to give us internet access on the road.  We stood not just hours, but days, in small, hot computer stores, walked blocks back and forth between phone companies and then blocks more back to our car in the evening without having eaten all day and without a minute of rest.  (Yet, that access finally gave us what we have so long wanted: a way to make the work in Russia more real and vivid to all those who make the work possible.)
    Contrariwise, I can fathom even less the energy, strength and labor it took to transform the house in Mwesee -- and that in only four days and with challenges I never wrote about.  The first day we left a crew of four people at the house to work while we drove the long road to Urzhum to buy a hammer, saw and nails, light bulbs, wash basins, a lock for the door, etc., etc.  We returned after a long day only to find the workers drunk and asleep on the floor having done nothing all day.  (Please, do not be quick to judge them.  The situation is far more complex than I have been able to write about.  My heart only went out to them.  The villagers are now largely a people without hope and without understanding of how their Russia has disappeared before their eyes over the past 15 years.  They no more wanted to succumb to getting drunk than they wanted their jobs to be lost 15 years ago and their villages to be drained of purpose and meaning.)  Of course no one was paid.  Tatyana was disgusted with them and they all felt tremendous shame -- their apologies to me being far more difficult to bear than the precious time lost and the work left undone.  The third day Nikolai fell from a ladder on to a pile of old boards which drove 2 nails into the bottom of his foot.  He worked on and his foot miraculously healed by the end of the 4th day when the house was ready for me to live in.  The next day he drove 14 hours alone to the Urals. 
    Indeed, Nikolai's selflessness, courage, patience, and persistence are incredible as the daily burden of the endless details and challenges fall on him.  And the greatest burden he carries is the concern that the challenges of working in Russia will not be understood by the people who help us, and that we will lose their trust and support.
    Yet all this is Russia.  Everything is difficult but, more importantly, everything is possible.  You swallow much pride, impatience, and human will.  And if you are willing to do that, the most amazing things inevitably happen -- things which only increase your appreciation of the talents, determination, and courage of these people. 

    The last days in Talitsa were spent helping Nikolai's mother who, for the last five years now, has endlessly helped us.  Nikolai did repairs around the house.  I cut the long grasses along the road and in the back field with a scythe.  The sound of the blade slicing rhythmically across the earth is enough to keep you going for hours.  I then cleaned the banya while Nikolai installed pipes for the washing machine we resolved to buy Mama Zoya this year.  Her house continues to be filled with guests who love her dearly, but who leave behind piles of bath towels, sheets and blankets needing to be washed.  Only now, having carried laundry to the river and scrubbed towels in freezing cold water until my knuckles were raw -- only now can I even begin to appreciate this woman's endurance, as well as her courage and strength at 90+ years.  It was time to come to her aid. 
    The chores were interspersed with last minute meetings and obligations as well as with welcoming and caring for the stream of friends who came to say good-bye.  Each year more come to the door to have one more "contact with America".  The last two nights the guests that filled the house stayed until after midnight.  Cleaning up afterwards took until 2 in the morning.  Yet, this too is our work.  (As I wrote that phrase I suddenly remembered that I never wrote to say that we left copies of the films "This too is America" with yet another TV station in Ekaterinburg, with the villagers in Mwesee, with the Main Public Library in Pervouralsk and with the Moscow children's newspaper "Pioneer Pravda".)  However much it takes to have a house constantly full of people, or to fulfill the requests to meet with new groups and organizations; however demanding it is to have no time alone, it is a wonder to think that all this is now possible.  These are the people (and not only these, but the numerous friends in Moscow, Belgorad, Vetoshkino, Mwesee, Mariinsk, Sloboda, Kurdim, Ekaterinburg, Nalchik -- as well as in America -- with whom we work), these are the people who have allowed themselves to be a bridge between our countries.  They have lent their labor and their lives to us in full trust that we will use it all for the sake of peace and understanding.  And that we will do, thanks to them and you.  --JF 

P.S.  There are over 600 photographs and 25 hours of film waiting to be edited and put to use.  Within the next few days we will post photos in the log book of the events and people we have described.