Since I am now
back in the US of A with access to wifi, I will be publishing posts written a
few months ago. Apologies for the delay!
The day the National
Teacher's of English conference ended in Voronezh I hopped on a train to
Moscow to surprise my parents at Domodedovo. They were expecting a friend of
mine to meet them at the airport since I was involved with the conference.
Imagine their delighted surprise when they emerged from Customs Control to find
me grinning behind a large sign in Russian " Doubleday"! We
spent two wonderful weeks together exploring St. Petersburg and Moscow. In my eagerness
to show them my favorite places and pack as much into their first two
weeks abroad in over 40 years,I earned myself the nickname "Sarge".
After 4 trips to Russia it was interesting for me to see this country through
the eyes of my parents.. almost everything they commented on I would respond
with "Well, that's different in Voronezh" reminding myself that life
in Russian provincial cities is much different from that in the bustling
capitals (St. Petersburg by most is considered a second "cultural
capital" of Russia). I warned them that Russians, especially in Moscow,
are not generally warm and fuzzy on the street when a foreigner asks for
directions or help. They, however, had wonderful luck, and everyone they ran
into was polite, patient and helpful. My mom adored every smelly fish
dish I had spent months learning how to tactfully avoid, and my dad was able to
find some version of meat and potatoes at every ethnic cuisine restaurant we sampled
(Russian, Georgian, Uzbek, etc). Most of all it was incredible to be
on the same continent, in the same place and catch up with my parents without
having to walk around holding my phone in every which way in order to get a
signal strong enough to hold a conversation.
I assumed
seeing my parents would bring me to an all-time homesickness high, but instead
it gave me an energy boost to get through the next two months. With recent
memories of the many happy faces I left behind at the conference I found myself
eager to get back to Voronezh as soon as my parents were on their way home.
Back in
Voronezh, Ira and I set off for Zadonsk, about two hours northwest of Voronezh
with her mother and 7-year old Sasha in tow. After spending the night at the
dacha, we set off early in the morning but kept getting delayed by the presence
of cucumbers being sold at the side of the road. Ira wanted to bring
some home, so we had to stop at every stand along the way. Unfortunately,
none passed Ira's mother's standards either by the way they looked or by how much
they cost. When haggling for a lower price didn't work we set off
again on the highway keeping a lookout for the next stand. In the end, I don't
think we ever ended up getting any cucumbers at all.
Our first stop
in Zadonsk was the men's monastery where the relics of St. Tikhon are
kept. We spent about an hour at the monastery at the relics inside the
largest main cathedral and outside where the nuns were selling souvenirs.
Ira bought Sasha a toy to keep him distracted from the heat and all the
grown-up things we were doing. Then after another brief stop at a small women's
monastery for fresh bread we travelled to the spring which by tradition St.
Tikhon brought forth himself.
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| Enjoying the drive |
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| A sneaky picture inside the monastery cathedral |
We made one
final detour on our way home for Sasha at a Safari Park.
There, much to my
surprise, I found camels and ducks with these funny looking crowns on their heads. Even the ducks are different in Russia (or maybe I don't know much about ducks?).
June blog
coming soon!
