Just Another Carpenter Story

Happy Spring, everyone! The weather has fluctuated between freezing and high sixties (surprisingly more of the latter than of the former).  Every month in Russia seems to have its high, low, and comically strange points. To be honest, March had some low points. It took me a few days to identify the fact that I may have been experiencing culture shock again. Which indeed is hard to admit to myself since I have been living here for six months and thought I left culture shock behind back in October, when I first arrived. I always rolled my eyes when being warned that culture shock may “strike at any point”, but indeed it did. An extreme example of this culture shock is the woman who came up to me this morning and started rubbing my leg to make sure I was wearing stockings with my dress (sometimes it is a cultural taboo to not be wearing tights..which I often forget as I always wear ones that match my skin tone).

Enough of that, though. Here are a few of the people and things that have kept life interesting in Voronezh.

A few weeks ago the lights in my bathroom went out. I decided it would be easier to shower in almost total darkness for a few days than to figure out how to change the light bulbs or explain the situation to my komendant (lady in charge of my dormitory). Two days later, I was awakened by an elderly toothless man standing at the entrance of my door rambling Russian words to me that I couldn’t understand since I was…half asleep…still snuggled under my blankets. I eventually put together that he was the carpenter sent to fix my lights and showed him which ones were broken. (Note: this is not the carpenter from my first week. He is still around and threatens to beat up anyone who bothers me and reminds me that he has four eligible bachelor sons).

It took me a few minutes to wake up and realize I hadn’t even told anyone about this issue so how did he know to come? The new carpenter responded to my inquiries by shrugging his shoulders and saying a cleaning lady told him to come. Soon, I heard a loud knock on my door. Two Russian guys were standing at my door and asked if Aleksei was in my room and to tell him he was needed downstairs. I realized I had no idea what the carpenter’s name was and asked if it was Aleksei. He answered by telling me he didn’t believe in names or in patronymics and launched into a rant about religious names and the Bible and “youth today”. While feigning great interest in his ramblings, I gathered my things for Russian class and after about fifteen minutes I interrupted to announce I was late to class and thanked him for his help. He told me to check everything in my room to make sure he didn’t take anything of mine and then went back to staring at my broken light bulb. I never found out his name. And he never figured out how to change the bulb-now there are just a few wires hanging from my ceiling.

In other dorm news, my building now has…drumroll…A real washing machine! It was installed last week in the room with tubs where students handwash their clothes. However, there is a catch to this machine. It costs 100 roubles (~$3.00) to wash your clothes but only accepts 5 rouble coins. Let me be more specific: 5 rouble coins produced after 2009. I have yet to collect enough, but maybe by next week I will have enough to test out this new machine and actually launder my clothes here!

Lent in Russia has also been a different experience. I found an Orthodox youth group at the church I have been attending. They are really wonderful people who have done a lot to make me feel comfortable in Voronezh and are taking me on an excursion this weekend. The best part is that none of them know English, so I am able to immerse myself completely in Russian. (Often my attempts to speak only Russian all day fail when I meet with friends who also want practice speaking English with a native speaker).

Anyways, more to come next week. My mirror broke yesterday, so I am sure I will have an unexpected carpenter visit to share soon.