Kazan — summer 2014

Our itinerary today was mainly to visit the Raifa Monastery, but on the way we stopped at the Temple of All Religions. The temple was the soul-child of Ildar Khanov, a remarkable man, now deceased. He spent huge sums of his own money helping alcoholics recover, and he also invested much into the creation of this beautiful place. I have blogged previously about the Temple and Raifa, but this time something unexpected awaited us. Mansour, one of the disciples of Ildar, was on hand, and he allowed us to enter the temple itself. There we also met Alexander, an artist in residence. Mansour has been carrying on Ildar's vision. He has arranged concerts and art events here. Bit by bit he keeps adding art on the outside and developing the inside. First, here's a general picture of us at the temple. (Click for larger version. You can find the remainder of my photos here on Picasa.) Mansour is in black in the center. At the far left is Luiza, our tour guide, whom I quite enjoy. At the far left is Alina, Aygul's sister. And the shortest person in the photo is Nurbulat, Aygul's son. (Alina was brave enough to take him for the entire day. As a big walking 2-3 year old, I would have been too worried about him pooping in public to take him on a bus ride to a monastery...)

At the entrance to the building is a sign that is titled “Mother Teresa’s advice.”

The translation is:

People are often unreasonable,
illogical, and self-centered;
love them anyway.

If you do good, people may accuse you
of selfish, ulterior motives;
do good anyway.

Sincerity and openness
may make you vulnerable;
be sincere and open anyway.

What you spend years building,
may be destroyed in a single moment;
build anyway.

People who need your help may
reproach you for giving it;
help anyway.

This bit of writing was put to music by the Roche Sisters on their amazing album “Zero Church.” I link it below. It's marvelous.

The attribution of the writing to Mother Teresa may be spurious, but I quite appreciate the sentiment of it, no matter its source.

With Ildar's passing it is an open question of what will become of the place. There are back payments and taxes for water and electricity. His daughter, who lives in Moscow, is not particularly involved in the place, and I was given the impression that she would be grateful to have it taken off her hands, back taxes and all. The place is so beautiful in terms of its conception; I hope it finds a decent patron.

In terms of worldview I am a liberal Christian (previously Evangelical), and as such I believe that God most clearly expressed Himself when He became incarnate in Jesus. So why do I like this place so much? It's because of the sad shreds of violence I observe in so many subgroups of various religions. It happens among people who label themselves Christians and Muslims and Jews and Hindus and Buddhists. So a temple like this where we are encouraged to see the light of God at least partially residing in other religions strikes me as a thing excellent beyond words. When we see Him in others, we are less likely to attack.

Of course from there we went to Raifa, which is also a lovely place. Raifa, too, has artists in residence who have populated the place with beautiful sculpture. The gardens are the most beautiful I have seen in orthodox settings. In the church where the icon of the Georgian Mother of God is located we were treated to beautiful a capella singing by the monks. As a Protestant I am never comfortable with Orthodox/Catholic veneration of the Virgin Mary, but I'm quite fond of the paintings of the birth of the Virgin Mary and the presentation of the Virgin at the temple that are located in the church. The narthex has a pretty amazing three-wall presentation of the final judgement as well. Quite remarkable.

Gentle rain, clouds, time to get my umbrella out and go shopping.

One of our students has come down with a nasty sore throat, the kind that needs to be dealt with pronto. And most of the doctors have gone home for the day. We've got an appointment for 7:30 p.m. So in the meantime he's napping on my living room couch, and I'm listening to music I haven't listened to forever. Wow. Jewel's song "You were meant for me" is about the most heart-breaking heartbreak song ever.

Today one of my student's was feeling poorly and wanted to go to the doctor. I took him first to the clinic I had worked with two years ago, but the doctors had already left for the day. It was 2:00 in the afternoon…

Eventually found a late evening appt at a clinic called Будь здоров, which means literally “Be Healthy” but could also be translated “Gesundheit”; here I think I would translate it as “Get well.” Saw a doctor, easy diagnosis, got an antibiotic prescription. The doc also wanted to do some lab work to exclude another unlikely but very serious disease, and the student agreed to the swabs for that. I was actually kind of glad about that. Last year in our Kiev group we had a kid who came down with whooping cough despite the fact that he had had his vaccinations. Sometimes the unlikely happens. Best to be safe.

Wow, I have to say that this was the nicest clinic I have ever seen in Russia. You could have eaten off the floors. The doctor did his record-keeping by computer, asked lots of good questions (and some typical Russian ones...). He made more effort to communicate well than anyone I have ever seen in Russia, and he showed experience in dealing with foreigners by massively slowing down his speech rate. Took his time in asking and answering questions. Made sure the student had plenty of opportunity to ask his own questions. If I get sick in Russia, I'm definitely going here.

So all is well for the moment. I'll put a summary of ruble costs below, just for interest's sake.

BWT, my new word I learned on this trip was мазо́к ‘swab, smear’ (for lab analysis). I also got reminded of the words перелом ‘fracture’ and переливание ‘transfusion.’

A former student of mine is going through some training in Fort Knox. He asked for letters on Facebook. I am in Russia, so if I send a letter now, there is no guarantee that an international letter will get there in a timely fashion. I figured there must be some kind of online service that lets you write a letter and send it via US Mail. I started my search that usps.com. No help there. But then I found mailaletter.com. Wrote the letter yesterday. Wow, that was the easiest user interface I've ever worked with. This morning I received e-confirmation it had been sent. The interface also lets you download a PDF of the letter you sent. Assuming that the letter actually arrives, I'll definitely use this service again.