Four Hands in a Russian Banya and a Botched Russian exit

My time in Russia wouldn’t have been complete without a visit to a “banya” – the Russian equivalent of a sauna/hamam experience, with the added pleasure of jumping in the snow or having freezing water poured over your head in the meantime. Since even in May, the weather was still pretty wintery in Yekaterinburg, a good friend organized а banya outing at the gorgeous Ananyevskie Bani. Along with my fabulous girlfriend IL, I was given a wooden chalet, which consisted of two cozy rooms, and one wet hamam room that led into a dry and frighteningly hot sauna. It all looked a little out of an old Russian tale, which was enhanced by the fact that the woman who met us at the door was dressed like a 19^th century peasant (unless, of course, she just had a penchant for heavily embroidered-bouffant style blouses paired with puffed-up skirts). My friend IL had wisely brought a bottle of wine, and after confirming with the period-clad woman that I do indeed want a “parilshtik” – a person to come and whack me with tree branches as part of a traditional banya experience - we proceeded to order from the banya menu delicacies like salted pork fat, pickled vegetables, sausages and black bread. As we settled to chat, drink and eat, the door suddenly opened, and a short, stocky man appeared, completely undressed save for a large cloth enveloping his lower body like a skirt, tucked under his enormous protruding belly. He was carrying a large wooden water bucket, filled with various types of tree branches. He merrily remarked that he was only bringing those to let them soak for 30 mins in cold water – apparently, the treatment was going to include whacking with 5 types of tree branches, birch, oak, fir, eucalyptus and juniper, all gathered at midnight on some obscure religious holiday. Then he cryptically remarked that four hands were better than one and happily disappeared.

Somewhat puzzled, we nevertheless stripped down to bathing suits and continued to drink and chat. In a few minutes, branch guy came back, again without knocking, but to my shock behind him was an identical semi-nude sweaty guy who, it seemed, was about to take part of the show as well. Somewhat alarmed at that point, I was led into the hot sauna by the boisterous men who really seemed to know what they doing. Both took the opportunity to emphasize several times that bathing suits were optional, and I cheerfully informed them that I was keeping mine on. The sauna was like an inferno. They placed a wreath of branches on the bench, and made me lie down with my face in it. Then, they put a stack of other branches, dripping with icy-cold water, on top of my head, so in fact I felt quite comfortable and the heat did not seem that horrendous anymore. For the next 15 minutes, they proceeded to lightly whack me around with various branches, while frequently changing the cold ones on top of my head. Each time, they changed the type, so I would invariably smell eucalyptus, or birch, or whatever else. It was, in fact, rather glorious.

After all that, feeling a bit dizzy from the heat, they brought me to my feet and led me gingerly outside the sauna into the wet part of the banya. As I sheepishly looked around to see what was next, someone suddenly dumped a bucket of icy cold water on my head, and I nearly passed out. I was so out of breath that before I even managed to start yelling obscenities, another bucket of icy water got poured on my head. Just as I was about to kill someone, the banya men expertly pulled me and made me lie down on a wooden bed. Then a whole bunch of treatments happened, but I was too disoriented to remember them all properly. All I know was that there was spreading of clay, something that felt like peeling, massages with aromatic leaves, spray washing, rinse, repeat. That went on for quite some time and was also rather pleasant. Feeling that I was enjoying all of that too much, the two sadistic men then dragged me back into the hot sauna, and continued with the branch whacking. The whole process took about an hour and in the end, they had to literally carry me into the bed to rest as my blood pressure was all over the place and I could not walk. My skin, however, was glowing and I felt like a newborn. I proclaim banya one of my new most favorite things!

My last month in Russia was an absolute blur of activity. As Son finally finished school and graduated elementary school, I offered to throw him a goodbye sleepover with his best friends, while the Diplomat left for India to see the Inlaws. As a result, five prepubescent boys spent the night in our house, playing soccer, eating pizza and talking nonsense about girls. As far as I could tell, they did not go to sleep until 1 am, and I found one of them asleep upright in a sofa chair – apparently, he “liked to try new things, like sleeping in a sofa chair.” (I also do like to try new things but mine go more along the lines of trying First Class on Emirates, buying my first Christian Louboutins, or very old single malt scotch. I guess we are different.)

The next day, Son and I left Moscow for good - he was coming to stay with me in Yekaterinburg for the last 2 weeks of our time in Russia. For lack of other better options, I put him in an overpriced cooking camp, taught exclusively in Russian – a language he somewhat understands, but still does not exactly speak. Every evening, the parents would come to pick up the budding chefs and we were served dinner cooked by them during the day. To his credit, Son did not complain a single time and seemed to get along with everybody, even if they communicated mostly through monosyllabic sounds and hand gestures.

In the meantime, I hosted my goodbye party, which ended with at sunrise (granted, at that point, the sun in Yekat was rising at 2:30 am), Yekaterinburg hosted its famous Ural Music Night, featuring 80 stages indoors and outdoors all over the city and some 2500 artists (among which yours truly, belting out Country Roads at the opening of the festival with a full scale band behind me!!), and the U.S. Consulate Yekaterinburg hosted its annual Independence Day reception, which lasted 6 hours in high heels and where I hosted part of the program the evening before we left Russia. In between, there were more receptions and dinners and parties and goodbyes, and, oh yes, the packout of all of my belongings.

So, I think you would imagine the extent of my exhaustion when Son and I woke up at 4 am the day after the reception (me having slept a total of 3 hours), zipped our suitcases, shoved Fat Cat in his brand new, garish red carrying case (he was to fly with us in the cabin of the plane for a change), and bid the lovely city of Yekat goodbye. Except that we ended up not leaving. Due to an outrageous mistake by Turkish Airlines, Fat Cat was booked erroneously as a cargo animal, and not a cabin one – the reservation claimed he was almost 20 lbs. Now, the cat is overweight, I am not going to argue. But 20 lbs he ain’t. Despite the fact that I weighed him in front of the ground staff, they said that if the booking said he was 20 lbs, then he WAS 20 lbs, even if he actually was not. And then they denied us boarding. As an alternative, the airline rep suggested we release him in the street. No matter what I said or how much I or Son cried, he was one unmoved Russian man. When I pointed out to him he was very rude, he told me I was impertinent. And so we had to come back to the apartment. I ended up buying new tickets on the omnipresent Aeroflot who seemed to have their s**t together a lot better, and after sleeping most of the day and a hearty steak lunch, Son, Fat Cat and I finally left Russia that same night, to arrive in the welcoming hands of Grandma in Bulgaria the next day.

We spent the next 4 days on the Bulgarian coast, eating our weight’s worth in an all-inclusive resort in Nessebar, and resting and roasting on the beach. (Fat Cat stayed with my uncle, in case you wonder. He is really making the rounds.) A day after we came back, I left the child and the expensive cat with Grandma in Bulgaria and flew to Washington, DC where the Diplomat had already arrived a week ago to start training for our next assignment in Ukraine. I saw him for one hot minute and the next day, I left again for a week-long State Department training meant to prepare me for life in a dangerous country. Having conquered that, at the end of the week I returned to DC and we left that same night for a quick romantic getaway since it was our 16^th wedding anniversary. The next 4 days were spent having dinners with friends, last minute shopping, and getting very sick. Exactly 12 days after I had arrived in the United States, and 3 weeks after leaving Russia, I hopped on a plane again to fly to my final destination - Kyiv. You think I was exhausted? Oh, you bet. Not to mention the piercing throat pain, cough and low-grade fever. Welcome to Ukraine!

The Russian Roadtrip – Vodka and Churches Part 1

Last month, we took a long-planned road trip through the so-called Golden Ring of Russia – a circle of about 650 km in total, starting in Moscow and going north-east, dotted with beautiful old Russian towns, featuring the obligatory gorgeous onion-domed church or seven, typically organized in so-called Kremlins. (Generally, a Kremlin is a major fortified complex found in the center of a typical old Russian town; the most famous one is, of course, in Moscow, and houses the Russian government, among other things). When I say long-planned, I mean I have been talking about it forever and we decided to go on it three days before the actual trip, which always means great prep work. We also decided to travel during the biggest holiday weekend in Russia – the May 9^th holidays (anniversary of Victory Day of the Second World War) – which made the task of finding hotels and navigating the traffic of Russians leaving Moscow to go to their dachas for the long weekend that much more exciting.

Undaunted, we were on the road by 9 am on a warm Thursday morning, headed to our first stop on the Ring – Sergiev Posad.  Without much dramatic traffic, we made the 90 km trip in about 2 hours, and set about to explore the city’s Kremlin. Given the holiday, the entire downtown was closed down, all, and I mean ALL, kids were dressed in military attire, adults were carrying flowers and portraits of older relatives who appeared to have died in the war, random groups of people were gathering in the corners singing patriotic songs, and the overall atmosphere was very festive if somewhat somber. To understand just how much this holiday means to Russians, you need to know that they don’t call the war World War II; rather, they refer to it as the War for the Fatherland. Any town worth its salt has a formal demonstration and a procession, and, apparently, throughout the day, there were 10 million (yes, TEN) people who attended and walked in such processions across the entire country.

 

Sergiev Posad’s Kremlin was as if it came from a postcard or the pages of an old Russian storybook. It had the gold-covered, onion-domed pristine church, the frescoes, the blooming trees, the white-washed seminary and busy-looking, all-clad in black, scuttling about young priests, clutching various important books and discussing theology over simple soup in the refectory. There were also the ubiquitous hordes of Chinese tourists who took picture of EVERYTHING, including of each other taking pictures. 

After we soaked-in the beautiful architecture, we left for our next destination – Pereslav-Zaleskyy. The exact opposite of Sergiev Posad, the tiny town featured an old Kremlin with somewhat crumbling but picturesque buildings and a lovely garden. After a half-hour walk and a deep theosophical discussion with the Diplomat about the differences between atheism and agnosticism (during which no agreement was reached), we continued to the last stop for the day – Rostov Velikiy.

Rostov was my favorite on this trip and has the most beautiful Kremlin on the entire route. First, we dropped by the stunning Spaso-Yakovlevsky monastery on the banks of the Nero lake, where I had to wear a headscarf and drank some holy water, which tasted funny and I had to go to the bathroom immediately (if very blessed, of course). After that detour we ended up at the Kremlin around 5 pm, which ensured that we were pretty much the only people there to enjoy the gorgeous architecture in the balmy warmth of the sunset, surrounded by the quiet of the early evening. Son declared he was not feeling well (he drank some holy water too) and stayed in car, which further enhanced the peace and quiet of the walk through the centuries-old utterly enchanting Kremlin complex.

Rostov

Filled with awe and hunger, we headed to our hastily booked “home for guests” perched on the banks of the lake. Since it was already 10 pm, we went to grab a quick bite. That turned out to be a bit of a daunting task given that we were, well, in the middle of not very much. Our only option consisted of a simple café/restaurant with nice outdoor seating with not much lighting, where several groups of happy folks appeared to have been celebrating Victory Day for a week. So, imagine everyone’s utter shock when we pulled in our giant SUV featuring a shiny red diplomatic license plate, and parked it in front of everyone. All conversation abruptly ceased and all gaze focused on us. At that point, someone pointed out importantly and quite loudly that we were apparently American (he had already managed to decipher the license plate symbols on his phone), and then inexplicably greeted the Diplomat with a hearty “As-Salaam-Alaikum.” We sat down next to them, and soon a key bilateral conversation ensued, ensuring friendship and cross-cultural exchange, enhanced by several offers of vodka shots. I ordered the only wine there was, a particularly horrid red varietal of unknown origin – the price for the bottle was $6, so you make your own conclusions. After a mediocre meal but a lovely discussion on various engaging themes varying from politics to the merits of a sink incinerator, it was time to go back. I offered the rest of the wine to the merrymakers, who happily accepted it but then insisted that we take a bottle of vodka in exchange.

Ipatiev Monastery

The next morning, we continued on to the next couple of pretty towns – Yaroslavl and Kostroma. The Yaroslavl Kremlin was rather large and well preserved, and hence as usual besieged by tourists. We used the bathrooms, took a quick gander to see the church, and went out to the neighboring Uspenskiy Cathedral Church, which featured stunning 16^th century frescoes. Next – Kostroma, where we strolled through the stunning Ipatiev monastery complex located on the banks of the Volga River. There, I almost caused an international scandal when I remarked to the Diplomat that there was a group of elderly German tourists visiting. Suddenly, their young and overly zealous Russian group leader jumped and yelled at me in heavily accented English, “If you have a problem with Germans, you have a problem with me!” Utterly stunned, I asked him what exactly his problem was to which he responded that he was joking. We clearly had different definitions of humor.

Tune in tomorrow for Part 2...

How I became a Silver member on Aeroflot in 4 months

The past 5 months can only be summarized with one word – incessant travel. As you know, the Diplomat and Son are currently in Moscow where Son attends school, and I work in Yekaterinburg and fly to see them virtually every weekend. That, or we all travel somewhere else together instead.

For example, in October, we met in St. Petersburg. It was all wonderful and very pretty, except that it rained the entire time we were there. It made for a very soggy experience and we would have to come back in order to actually enjoy the visit.

In November, we all went to India to see the In-Laws in Chennai. It was largely an uneventful visit used to spend time with family and eat good home-cooked food, walk the dusty streets and even snag a few cocktails in the bars that have recently cropped up all over the city. We did go to see the new apartment, which the In-Laws have bought in the city in a luxury high-rise building with a swimming pool and gym, and so much more. The catch – the building is still being built. Thus, we arrived at the construction site, very strong wind causing piles of sand to fly all over us, and not only were we allowed to walk all over the place but were in fact ushered into a shaky (and tiny) construction elevator, whose doors were held together by a rope. Along with my rising terror, we slowly went up to the 15^th or so floor, and gingerly got out to step on a wiggly thin wooden bridge and onto the unfinished floor. Going down was even ricketier and hair-rising, if that was even possible.

And then for the Christmas holidays, we went back to Bulgaria to visit Mom, and see friends and family. Then the Diplomat and I left Son with Mom, and flew to Madrid to drink sherry and eat tapas. Everywhere we travel, I always try to find places frequented by locals only. That is how we ended up in La Venencia on Calle de Echegaray. This lovely old-fashioned bar serves only sherry, the happy hour (1-3 pm) choice of Madrilenos. They don't allow photography inside, otherwise you would see the moldy high ceilings, the accounts written in chalk on the wooden counter. It is ridiculously cheap and tips are not allowed. People have to stand up at the bar and actually talk to each other! After three food and drink-filled days there, we flew over to the Canary Islands, where we met the New Year in the balmy 75 degree weather of Gran Canaria.

A few days later, happy and slightly sunburned, we came back to Bulgaria, picked up Mom and Son, and went up to ski in the snow-drowned resort of Borovetz. While Son re-learned how to ski in lessons, and Mom hiked around the slopes, the Diplomat and I enjoyed the immaculate slopes, stopping for the occasional strong drink to fight the crazy cold. After an exhausting 3 weeks of vacation, we went back in Russia, ready to go back to school and work.

And then, a mere 2 week later, I went to Paris for a long girls’ weekend away with some fabulous friends from Brazil. The trip started with an overly talkative taxi driver from the airport, who did not speak more than 5 words of English (and me – the same in French), but upon hearing that I had arrived from Russia, assumed that I was Russian and did not stop praising Putin for the next 30 minutes. Because of the language barrier, it was not 100% clear what exactly the driver was talking about but then he suddenly pulled out a video on his phone, showing the Russian president singing “Blueberry Hills” at some event, and proceeded to loudly sing along with the video. Once it was over, he simply added in his terrible English – “Macron is shit. Putin – real man!”

 The whole three days in Paris remain a blur to me, with dinners soaked in endless bottles of champagne, dancing until 5 am in secret underground clubs, shopping fabulous French dresses in the (governmentally mandated!) post-Christmas sales, and the icing on the cake – a visit to the Crazy Horse cabaret. Now, we have all heard and even seen on TV scenes from Moulin Rouge – pretty ladies in skimpy clothing, dancing frivolously in sexy unison on the stage. The Crazy Horse – a whole different level of skimpy, mostly expressed in a circular bandaid of sorts on the crotch area. Yup, there was a whole lot of naked that night. A fitting end to an incredible weekend.

After all the money spent on clothes, I decided to be a good girl and take the train back to Charles de Gaulle airport rather than pay for a taxi. After reading extensively on which train to take to where, I took my small hand suitcase and walked decisively to the metro. It did not start well (and did not continue well, for that matter) – the ticket machine refused to take any of my credit cards and I did not have a dime of cash. Cursing, I had to get out and go into another entrance where I found an actual agent and my credit card worked. I managed to make it to Chatelet from where I was supposed to take the B train to the airport. First I got on the wrong side of the tracks. Up and down a few escalators, and I was at the right place finally. Then I carefully read the signs to make sure I am getting on the right train. And then I got on the wrong train. 15 mins into the completely wrong direction, I managed to get off, change the side (yup, a bunch of escalators up and down again), and eventually get a train back to Chatelet. Change sides again and finally got on the right train. At this point, I realized that I am going to miss my plane. Highly uncharacteristically for me, I had left 3 hours earlier (I was planning to do some final damage at the duty free), so there was a glimmer of hope. I spent the next 35 minutes glued to the map of my phone, watching the small blue dot on it showing how excruciatingly slow the train was moving. Once at the airport, I cut every single line, begged and pleaded with everyone to let me go first and made it barely breathing at the gate, 10 minutes after boarding was supposed to begin. And then it turned out that nothing had even started there. Oh well. It gave me a few minutes to actually start breathing again. The rest of the trip back was uneventful.

Now some further impressions of life in Russia:

1. Russians are obsessed with wrapping their suitcases in plastic wrap – you have all seen those packing machines at the airport. They wrap them small and big, they wrap even hand luggage, boxes, gym bags, and backpacks! I will never understand why.
2. Russians know cold and do not joke about heating. Every inside space here is aggressively heated – whether it’s the mall, the opera house, a museum, airplane, hospital – it’s hot, hot, hot.
3. Russians do not jaywalk. Ever. This is the most (unnecessarily) disciplined pedestrian society. It may be -20F, there may not be a car in 10 km sight, but no one (apart from me) would even think to set foot on the street until the lights change.
4. Everyone drinks everything warm (see point 2 above). That includes warm water in restaurants, and, sadly, warm white wine. When I demand cold beverages, I am given distrustful looks.
5. Every restaurant offers hookahs and Russians smoke them everywhere, including expensive Japanese restaurants and the corner coffeeshops. There is no escaping them – anywhere you go, in any city, you are destined to eat your dinner and watch everyone around you enveloped in thick, sweetish smoke.

The Russia adventure continues.