Next 15 things about Russia

1.     Lots of little plots of ground are dug up by various assigned people and planted with lots of flowers.  Wonderful.

2.     The sidewalks and parks are kept very clean – every morning there are old women – babushkas – who sweep around each apartment house and sweep the streets.  Babushkas kind of run Russia.  Each apartment building has a “committee” of babushkas who watch over the place.  Russia men die young due to the alcohol and tobacco use…very common to have families with no husband.  Babushkas – grandmas – are often seen with grandkids.  The multigenerational family – minus Grandpa in many cases – is alive and well in Russia.  Lots of time they live in the same apartment.  Very common for young men and women to still be single and living at home into their thirties/

3.     Speaking of warning signs – forget about it!  Safety is not uppermost on anyone’s mind.  Low hanging sheet metal roofs at eye level as you walk along a sidewalk, potholes in the sidewalk and streets, construction sites with no signs…our lawyer sons have said that we can thank lawyers for our safe environment in America.  Our attitude about that has changed – a little.  Besides, we don’t own a business anymore…

4.     People cut in front of us in line all the time. That said, we also meet the nicest people – they are friendly and want to talk with us and go out of their way to be nice. 

5.     Popcorn.  Russia needs more popcorn…lots of microwave popcorn but very hard to buy popcorn kernels.  We have senior missionaries who buy it for us when they see it…we have had popcorn delivered from Moscow and Samara as we travel around.  It is good to have friends.

6.     Friends.  We have made friends that we will have forever.  Other senior couples, a few younger missionaries and a few Russians.

7.     Chocolate.  Some of the best chocolate we have ever tasted. I had to quit buying it so I would quit eating it. Mostly.

8.     Ice cream.  One ice cream bar is the best ice cream bar I have ever eaten.  No ice cream in boxes – it comes in logs in a plastic wrapper.  Cut it into slices and serve it.

9.     Tea.  Lots of interesting kinds of herbal tea.  Jasmine and Cherry or Creamy Rooibos are our favorites.  People drink a lot of tea.

10.  The monthly cost of our internet is 400 rubles…about $12.  Lots cheaper than the U.S of A.

11.  McDonald’s, KFC (or Kentucky Fried Chicken if you are our age) and Carl’s, Jr.  Rarely go there in America but there is something comforting about a burger, fries and a milkshake…

12.  Shoes.  There are a LOT of shoe stores.  And women wear really high heels – even in the winter.  The variety of shoes is incredible!

13.  The way women dress.  Women dress up when they are in public.  One of our friends says she dresses up to take out the garbage.  The women are beautiful on the street -  they may live in a small apartment with a bunch of other people and not have a lot of money – but when they are on the street they are dressed well.

14.  Renoks - marketplaces - are awesome.  Lots of little booths and just about everything and anything to buy. We have a fruit and veggie stall we shop in a lot – the lady running it really likes us.  We buy a lot since we feed a lot of people.  She is always suggesting things for us to buy just so we don’t forget.  Sherry has eaten her weight in kiwis.  Russian cabbage is incredible.  The pomegranates rock. Great potatoes and carrots.  Celery and iceberg lettuce?  Not so good…

15.  Buses and tramvis and trolley buses and minibuses.  We want our car.  Air conditioned, quiet, smooth roads…can’t wait!

Dacha Time

After returning from our travels we were invited to visit Lena and the kids at the dacha.  She stays there alone a lot while Zhenya is traveling so it was really nice to be able to spend a few hours with them and relax a little.  Of course, we had shashlik!  Zhenya just took some herbs from his dacha garden - garlic, onions, mint and tore them up and marinated the chicken in them with a little salt.  Really simple and delicious.  We ate a bazillion fresh strawberries from their garden...plus took a bunch home and had them over ice cream the next day.

We put together a bed he had bought at IKEA on our travels.  Zhenya is very patient...his kids Tonya and little Andre wanted to help and got in the way a lot.  Of course my "get the job done" reaction is to get them out of there - but he calmly kept on working and having them help him.  I suspect he knew that he wasn't building a bed but raising a daughter and son.  Great example to me...I spend too much focus on building the bed and not enough on raising the child.  I've committed to do better.  Same principle applies to my relationship with my sweet companion...getting a meal made or cleaned up after is not as important as being kind to Sherry.  Guess we never learn, do we?

There are a couple pictures of Tonya in her new nightgown Hannah included in the last package she sent.  Tonya loved it and wore it all night.

One last picture of me working...as a CES Missioanry you are always working, working, working.  We had a pile of documents to shred and Zhenya suggested I burn them at the dacha instead.  So the picture may look like me relaxing but it is really showing me hard at work destroying vital CES documents!

Traveling With Zhenya

On our recent road trip with our boss we traveled 2500 kilometers in five days, over 40 hours in the car and visited four branches and held graduation ceremonies in each branch.  Actually due to Russian law we held an activity since we can not hold offical classes since we are not official Russian approved "teachers".  Of course that means we don't give out diplomas - we give out letters.  That said...we had a great time seeing all the teachers and students we have come to know over the last 22 months.

I've attached a picture of the branch president in Toliatti with our coordinator as they are preparing to give out letters.  Zhenya had a great program organized - nice program to hand out to attendees, a few appropriate videos to show and some testimonies and a great Book of Mormon multiple choice game to play.

On our travels we stopped at a roadside stand and bought some flaxseed. That area has a factory where they make flaxseed oil.  You can see in the picture the bottles full of seeds or oil. The colorful things hanging on the stand are woven, out of a plastic type cord, by the folks that live in the area. They make a great backcleaner for the shower...we have one in our apartment. There are a lot of people that sit by the side of the road selling stuff. At this time of year a lot of them are selling honey and strawberries from their yard or dacha. They sit there for hours, sometimes with only a little table and chair and sometimes with just a chair. 

We stopped for shashlik at a new place - as you can see Zhenya loves shashlik.  This one was cool because they brought it out and set it over a burner at the table.  We were in Tartarstan and were the first Americans the waitress had ever met.  Pretty cool.

Stalin's Bunker

We visited Stalin's Bunker during our conference...here's a little info about it.

World War II best held Secret “Revealed” in Samara, Russia

In 1991, when the Kuibyshev was renamed Samara, a building in the city center was opened to the public, which for half a century was known only to a handful of people. This building was Stalin’s bunker, which was the deepest structure created during the Second World War.

Stalin’s secret bunker was built in Samara so that he would be protected if Moscow fell to the German Army. It was built not only to house Stalin but the Soviet government. The building itself was disguised as an Apartment building as to not attract attention.

Stalin’s bunker in Samara is considered the most secretive of all now declassified bunkers.

The bunker itself is an amazing feat of engineering for its time, the overall depth of the structure was 37 meters, the height of a 12 story building.

The giant “hole” for this structure was excavated in less than 9 months of non-stop day and night work. In the bunker was a stand-alone air regeneration system which had its own power. Even today all this is still in excellent working order. The Bunker itself has kept its integrity and is designed for full autonomy for five days. The once-secret multi-story building is also equipped with elevators. The lowest floor was a meeting room that held 115 people. Next – was a recreation room, especially designed for Stalin. On the upper floors were rooms for security guards, warehouses, and logistics services. The bunker itself could withstand a direct hit by the largest aviation bombs of that time. The overall construction of the walls and ceiling were monolithic poured concrete, each being three meters thick, with a sandy layer and then another 3 meter concrete “mattress” on top of that.

The main issue of concern to all those who might have come to dwell in the structure: Was Stalin himself there? According to official data, during the war he had never housed here.

Most of the visitors to the bunker have questioned the fate of those who built this building. Many believe the theory that all the construction workers where shot once the bunker was complete. However, no evidence has ever been found to support this.

Behind the first door is the upper deck, from which the descent into the bunker runs into the elevator, and on-wall stairs. We get to the bottom of 14-meter shaft which connects to a long cross-floor corridor that is home to life-support machines and the auxiliary machinery bunker. If necessary, the upper floor was covered with an extremely massive steel plate capable of withstanding pressures up to 10 tons per square meter.

In the middle of the corridor leading to the emergency exit, the entrance to the main part of the tank – the vertical trunk of refuge, stretched into the depths of the earth for another 23 meters.

After descending all 192steps, we get finally to the deepest part or lowest floor. Once you have reached this destination you will notice light emanating from under glass block tiles that has been laid as a floor to walk on.

Russian Weirdness, Part 2

One of the senior missionary sisters in what must have been collusion made a fresh broccoli salad for one of the many meals at our couples conference.  I ate it and really enjoyed it.  I had like four helpings.  It's the first time I have voluntarily eaten and enjoyed broccoli.

It MIGHT have something to do with the bacon that was also in the salad. There was a LOT more broccoli than bacon.  The salad was REALLY healthy.  My companion liked it, too...

I had to complain to Sister Schwab - at one point during the couples conference we actually went twenty minutes without eating.  Of course, there were snacks on the table if you wanted them but no real meal.  It was hard.

Unique Things About Russia

1.     The light switches are higher on the wall than in America.  Took a little getting used to.  And they are outside the door of the bathroom instead of on the wall inside the bathroom.

2.     People wear their wedding bands on the right hand.

3.     Aeroflot stewardesses.  They are dressed in wonderful uniforms and are all beautiful.  Kind of like America in the 60’s.

4.     People applaud when an Aeroflot flight lands.  Are they happy to survive? Not sure why but it’s cool.

5.     You have a little key fob that you wave over a thingie by the door to your apartment building and the door buzzes and let’s you in.  The sound of those door chimes/buzzers will always remind us of Russia.

6.     Car alarms.  Car alarms go off all night.  One night we had a lightning storm and the thunder would set off all the car alarms.  Once a car with a very loud stereo went down the street and car alarms went off as it passed.

7.     No skim milk.  Just 2.5, 3.5 and 4.5.  We did get 1.5 after we had been here a while.  And a lot of the milk is not stored in the refrigerator section at the store – it is packaged and has a pull date of four or five months after you buy it.  Tastes okay, though.

8.     Everyone takes off their shoes in the foyer of apartments.  You walk around in your socks…we have slippers we wear around our apartment.

9.     Half the time the hot and cold water faucets handles are backwards.

10.  Lots of people have bad teeth…and a lot of people have gold teeth.

11.  Calendars start on Monday.

12.  There are a LOT of holidays and almost all of them are in the first part of the year.  The first ten days of January are holidays. Then there is Victory Day and Russia Day and Women’s Day…the list goes on and on.

13.  The sidewalks are very uneven…we have to watch where we are walking or we trip or fall in holes.  We have both fallen a few times…sometimes on the ice and sometimes tripping on the sidewalk.  The sidewalks have 4 or 5 inches of ice on them during the winter…we have learned to slide our feet like we are ice skating.  Sherry puts her arm through mine and we slowly walk down the sidewalk together in the winter.  I like it.

14.  The sidewalk curbs are painted – a few feet white and then a few feet black.  There are groups of men and women who have plastic buckets of thick, oil-based paint and little paintbrushes that go all through town painting the curbs every spring.  There are no “wet paint” signs anywhere – you just learn to be observant.

15.  Trees are painted, too.  The bottom four feet of trees are painted white all through town…again, people with buckets of white paint and little brushes walk around painting tree trunks every spring.

Samara Visit

Here's a couple more pictures from our recent Couples Conference in Samara.  One is of Elder Childers channeling Stalin at his desk in his Samara bunker.  The second is of us in front of the statue of Lenin in Revolution Square in Samara.  Every city seems to have a statue of Lenin...in Samara there are many.  One is huge! In the picture we are on our way home after a long day with a lot of fellow old people.  

Once a year or so the mission president and his wife invite all the senior missionary couples to attend a Couples Conference.  Last week we enjoyed three days with the six other couples and our mission president and wife.  We all had an interview with our president.  Each couple also got to report to the group on our assignments. It was incredible to hear what the various couples are accomplishing!  It's really amazing to hear about the one on one relationships they are building and the lives they are changing. 

We visited Stalin's Bunker - there is a separate post about that - and the local botanical gardens and went to the mall and ate at the food court...if that isn't a typical senior missionary activity I don't know what is.  Crazy.

Took a train ride there and back with the Saratov couples. Our train left Saratov at 4:20 am and got to Samara at 12:30 pm. Our trip home from Samara we left at 11:00 pm and got back to Saratov at 7:30 in the morning.

 Really wonderful to be with our peers - they are an impressive bunch and really doing the Lord's work here.  We can touch people that no one else can.

Life is good.