Kazan — summer 2012

My first full day in Kazan. In some ways it didn't feel very productive. Slept till a bit after eleven... still doing the jet lag adjustment, but not too bad. Had lunch with Aygul and Ildar at a restaurant I had not been to before. It offers halal meat, which Aygul prefers. The women serving there were wearing head scarves, so they are among the more pious local Muslims. Food was quite nice. I'd go back in a heartbeat.

They brought their 4-month old son Nurbulat with them. What a great kid! Seems amazingly sweet-tempered, eyes curious about everything, strong grip. Aygul and Ildar seem incredibly relaxed for new parents; it helps that Nurbulat already sleeps through the night. But seriously, they seem happy and peaceful with him, not at all frazzled, unlike many new parents I've seen. It suggests to me that they have both seen good parenting modelled in their families and among their acquaintances.

In the evening I caught up on e-mail, and now it's back to bed. More tomorrow.

Well, if one has to have graffiti, this is hardly the worst.

Some entrepreneur stenciled this on the main entrance to my apartment building

which I first read as meaning "temptation training." That sounded odd, so I used the dictionary to look it up and discovered it more likely means "seduction training."

Hmph. Nowadays I don't want to seduce anything that isn't a fried and breaded pork cutlet smothered with gravy... but if I were 30 years younger and really desperate, I'm sure I'd be all over that website.

Hmph. I wanted to cook this morning, but the gas was off. So instead I had a glass of katyk, a chunk of salami, and a hunk of Adygeizski cheese, which is probably not quite so visible in the picture.

Sabantui

Danila and his mother picked me up at 11:40 a.m. They had invited me to Sabantui and to their home for the weekend. Danila had said that it was also a weekend cookout.

They picked me up at my apartment in a Hyundai Santa Fe. Nice vehicle. We headed toward their town. Sabantui, roughly speaking, is a Muslim agricultural festival. It's one of the big holidays here, kind of like Thanksgiving in the US: no one takes the religious aspect particularly seriously.

We arrived at the location, and I asked Danila, “How long will we be here?” He replied, “Not long.” From my American point of view that was a non-answer. “Give me a guesstimate. One hour? Two hours? Five hours?” “I don't know. We'll figure it out while we are here.” Oy-oy-oy. This is precisely the answer an American does not want to hear. “Not long” normally means five or ten minutes to me. Here the phrase has no quantifiable meaning whatsoever. At this moment I was finally able to make the necessary mental readjustment to go with the flow. I would accept their control over my schedule. I wouldn't rush. I wouldn't ask the time. Let them decide everything themselves. It will be okay.

For a man who spent every spare minute working over the last year, that's a freakish point of view. Time to allow myself to be a freak.

First we tried to enter the grounds of the Sabantui festival from the side. They searched Danila's bag, found a bottle of wine, and wouldn't let us in. We eventually got to the main entrance where they had cops and metal detectors, and we got through with the wine with no problem. Crazy, huh? Russians don't even bat an eyelash at this stuff. They just deal with it without worrying too much about it. Can't get in one place? Try another! Maybe it'll work. And of course they are right.

We entered the grounds. Sabantui is essentially a county fair nowadays, minus the animals and plus more singing than you can possibly imagine. Lost of food. Lots of singing. Tatar wrestling, which is a type of wrestling where each combatant has a towel wrapped around the other, and you can only touch the towel as you try to bring your opponent down. There is telephone pole climbing, although of course they don't actually attache the pole to phone lines. Food. Vodka. Music.

On the whole, very nice time. The day was warm, but there was an excellent breeze that made everything nice. Alas, I still have no sunscreen, so I'm getting redder.

My pictures are below. Here's the main entrance.

They have some crafts displayed as well. Here is a woman demonstrating Tatar embroidery. Love the costumes.

One of the cold drinks available is kvas, a soft drink made of rye bread.

And here is a nice selection of regular breads and desert breads.

Flyura, Danila's mom, bought us this chicken and salad and bread plate for lunch. The chicken was great, and the rest was good.

Here is a picture of Danila on th06e right and his sister, Dasha, on the left. Dasha is magnificent. If I were thirty years younger, mutatis mutandis, she would be at the top of my list of... okay, let's let that idea go. I've often thought that Danila could be a model in Europe or Japan, but he is probably too sensible to try that kind of futile lifestyle.

Danila and I

Like many county fairs, there is a place where kids can enjoy a trampoline-ish baloon castle. This one is unique with the mushroom turrents that resemble Amanita muscaria, a poisonous mushroom. I've decided that the mushroom images are to scare off Baba Yaga, the bony-legged witch who eats children. After all, if she sees they are poisonous, she will stay away.

The fairgrounds are covered with hay to reduce dust.

And here is the main stage where the most popular acts are performed.