Kazan — summer 2012

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.

Since I don’t have a car here, and since I’m a complete tightwad, I end up usually taking public transport or walking. And one does a lot of walking. Here’s a summary of today’s walking, with thanks to Google Maps for being able to calculate distances.

Home to grocery store & back	1.3 km
Apt to palace and back	8.6 km
Apt to downtown & back	3.2 km
Total:	13.1 km

So, in ’Murrikan terms that is eight miles.

I also have new shoes, and apparently my socks were too thin yesterday, which explains why I have blisters on my feet. I can barely walk. Must have a safety pin around here somewhere. Gotta drain these bad boys because I've been invited to a two-day cookout. Can't be limiping everywhere I go.

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.

In 2010 in Kazan at one of our student meetings, I met a Russian kid by the name of Danila. He made a good impression on me; we occasionally kept in touch by e-mail. In 2011 he came to the US on a temporary work visa to South Carolina. Although some of the people there were very kind to him, his employers ended up being jackasses, so in August I invited him to my place in Tempe where he slept on my couch for a month. He got to know Arizona, where everybody treated him well. He attended occasional classes at ASU when the instructors gave him permission as a guest, and he met some of my work acquaintances, most specifically Marina, her husband Billy, and their adorable children.

You know what’s weird? Danila really liked AZ. I mean, most people come to our state and detest the heat. Not Danila. Instead he hated our air conditioning. I assigned him some duties in my secondary office (for which I’m grateful, thanks, Danila!), but every once in a while he simply had to step out to warm up.

So... 2012... I return to Kazan, and his parents want to invite me to their home. This is actually a bit awkward for me. I mean, I didn’t require anything in return. I just wanted to give a Russian kid a chance to see people who weren’t jackasses. Still, from the parental point of view that makes perfect sense. If someone treated my son decently in a difficult situation, I would also want to return the favor.

So I accepted the invitation to their place for... two days. Ohmigoodness. I can hardly tell you how much that makes me flex my intercultural muscles. To spend two days with people I have never met... To put aside my list of tasks... To accept their control over my schedule... Ay-ay-ay... I’m serious. It takes a conscious mental readjustment for me. But Danila was a kid of good character. His family would probably be the same.

So Danila made arrangements to pick me up. I asked what time. He said around lunch time. Americans have lunch around noon, Russians have обед around 2:00. I asked for a more specific time. Danila was reticent to specify. I pushed. He said, “Well, twelve, maybe eleven.” I answered, “Okay, twelve o’clock, give or take an hour.” I would wait for the potential arrival over a two hour period. As long as I have a starting point and an end point, I’m okay.

But I must tell you, here I had made somewhat of a cultural error. Russians generally don’t worry about starting points and end points. Instead, you make a semi-tentative arrangement, and then on the day of the event you call each other to find out whether you still want to do it.

In my experience Russians never show up early. To my surprise, they showed up at 11:40 a.m. I really hadn’t expected them till one or two.

Later I found out that Danila’s mother had said to him as they left their home, “Danila, call Don to tell him we are on our way just in case he has made other plans.” Danila had answered, “Mama, we don’t need to do that. He won’t have made other plans.” Danila has learned something significant about American culture. Heck, when my Mom told me in November that she wanted me to go with her to the Canadian Tenors concert in April, I simply scheduled it in. Mom was buying tickets. If I cancelled, it would have caused some unpleasantness. That’s how Americans plan things... at least Americans of a certain class and profession and upbringing.

My next entries will tell you about my marvelous time with Danila and his family. Stay tuned: same Russki time, same Russki channel.

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.