Back at Last

I am so happy to be back home. After staying away for almost two months coming back felt strange. I saw my home with new eyes and I loved seeing it again. I felt the heat and it was brutal. I saw Fourth Av. and it was empty. I thought about the masses of people in the streets of St. Petersburg, especially downtown. I thought of the metro in rush hour and wondered how we were all able to walk in different directions without walking into each other every second, like a bunch of babies playing bumper cars.

At the end of May a gentle white flower blooms called "Under Snow". It usually grows in the forest under the melting snow. I'm not sure how or why it's in this snowless field.

I have often wondered the same thing when walking on the U of A campus between two periods, I think that's usually the 10 minutes before the hour. Everyone is rushing, no one is checking the street before crossing it and bikers and skateboarders are flooding the same paths as the pedestrians in all different directions. Somehow no one ever seems to get hurt and I think the human brain is amazing for being able to navigate through such chaos.

My grandmother can never take a walk without sitting down on a bench for a rest. Here we're sitting in our neighborhood in one of the small refuges from the city. You can pretend you're in the country when you sit here.

St. Petersburg was beautiful because of the pretty buildings, lush summer foliage and aromatic spring time blooms of lavender, cherry blossoms and fresh leaves sprouting on the branches that smell of the gentle green color. St. Petersburg was home because of my grandmother that I know and love and the strangers whose faces I understand with their open frankness and meek soulfulness. Tucson is home because of the large support network of friends and family I am so fortunate to have and because I know where the yummiest food is, where my friends play the best music and where people I know and love show their art.

I wish my grandmother didn't live by herself. I am sorry to leave her so far away where she has no family and most of her friends are already dead.

I am so happy to be back home.

From Cold to Hot

I've spent May and most of June in St. Petersburg. The warmest it's been here during those two months is 70 degrees, and that was only for one day. I wore my summer dress only once. Some time at the end of May the central heating system in our building was turned off for the summer because the temperatures had reached 65 degrees in the day and at night it did not drop to freezing anymore. For a week the weather seemed to be warming up. Suddenly it dropped down to 48 degrees in the day and no one turned the central heating system back on in the building. It was REALLY cold for an entire week.

At home I wore woolen socks, a sweater dress, a large cotton sweater and a woolen scarf wrapped around my head. I found a Soviet Era space heater in my grandmother's closet. It was made of a bright red plastic on the outside and I was afraid that it would melt if it got really hot. I'm not sure why I thought this, upon reflection I recall that I have plastic space heaters at home which work just fine, although now I question the choice of material. Unfortunately the old space heater was missing a prong in its socket.

I think that if I could add up all the days that were actually warm in the city, they would amount to one full week. And if you counted up the days that I could spend entirely without wearing a coat, it would probably amount to two days. On the 21st, in the evening, I will be in Tucson. I really missed the heat.

Saying Goodbye

I walked out onto the balcony today, on my grandmother's flat on the fifth floor to hang up her laundry. The air is fresh, a cool breeze is blowing and the sun is shining. A beautiful day. Aroma from the lavender is floating all the way up to the fifth floor. It must be pungent down there, on the ground. The radio plays songs from the Soviet Era, the 90s and some contemporary stuff I've never heard. My grandma is fixing a cabinet door she's been waiting for me to come and fix for many years now. I was supposed to fix it today, maybe she'll let me finishing the job. She's upset, she's mad, she knows I'm leaving in less than 48 hours.

View from my grandma's kitchen window on a rainy day (June 2017)

I'm drinking my coffee and crying. She saw my tears fall, she said nothing. What is there to say. She lived through the WWII blockade. She moves on, she can't cry, life does not care for tears. Tears do not feed you, tears do not fix things. I remembered my feeling of love for this country. I've been away for so long that I forgot. But now I remember and I can come back home and carry the painful, aimless love with me.

Marsovo Field and blooming lavender on a sunny day (June 2017)

Stuff about Russia and Me

I'm coming to the end of my stay in Russia. This trip is culminating with much time spent with my grandma. We spent so much of this trip waiting for doctors and worrying about possible surgeries that this time we have left together since the results feels like stolen freedom. In Russian we have an expression "torn off the leash" meaning we've been pent up not doing much and now we're going wild with all the sudden freedom we have. So we've been doing all the touristy things that people do.

The first time I visited since leaving was in 2008-2009, during the christmas and new years season. I spent a month with my grandma in the cold cold city and I remember then she went all over town with me and did a bunch of sight seeing and theater going. It took me 7 years to finally make it out again and last summer my grandmother hardly did anything with me. She seemed much more feeble than she did in 2009 and I had experienced my mother's decent into disability by then.

My experience of taking care of my mother and the hardships she faced whenever going outside of the house, and the stress it caused me to take care of her made me fear going out with my grandmother last summer. I was afraid that her personality would be difficult, like my mother's. I was afraid we would clash. I was afraid she'd be extravagant and embarrassing and I avoided going out with her.

This time a friend gave me some very good advice. I was complaining one day that my grandmother sometimes embarrasses me by the things she says or the things she does and it causes me to tension around her because I try to contain her outrageousness by reproaching her. My friend told me I should not worry so much about what other people might think of my grandma when she says or does things I don't like. Even if her behavior is offensive, it's not my fault and not my business to do anything about it.

Sleeping security guard on the train to the village (Summer of 2016)

I started to mind this advise and it really helped me to enjoy my grandma's company a lot. Besides, I  later realized that while she is a bit extravagant even in Russia, in her own city, the things she says are not as outrageous as I think. For me it's just culture shock. Certain conversations publicly unacceptable in my experience in the US, are normal and acceptable in Russia.

Another sleeping guard on the train to the village (summer, 2016)

Of course we all know that in theory when it comes to any country or culture, there are going to be polar opposites in some aspects. It's weird to experience these polar opposites suddenly and come to a realization that what you thought was your culture, is actually not something you can understand or accept anymore. What I mean is, because I'm Russian and because I've spent a certain amount of time growing up here and living with my Russian mother in the US as well, I have a belief that I am culturally like people in Russia.

I didn't anticipate that being here for two months would cause me so much internal turmoil. Turns out I only speak and look Russian, but many things are lost on me as far as ways people interact and things they say and value. Often times I've been truly upset by things and it's been a journey of acceptance and coming to terms with two very different worlds where things are different and yet the same.  It's funny to leave at the end of two months because I feel that it is now that I've finally come to terms with all the cultural differences and clashes and have overcome my culture shock. I leave with a bitter sweet taste of affection for this place that used to be my home.

Sleeping passanger on the train to the village (Summer 2016)