Belokurikha

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Olesya and I took the bus to Belokurikha on Saturday, March 1st. “It’s about 15 minutes away.” Maybe I misunderstood or misheard. Maybe it was, “It’s about 50 minutes away.” In reality, Belokurikha is about an hour bus ride drive from Biysk. I’ve heard of this town before. Many times when I’ve asked, “Where were you this weekend?” my students answer, “I was in Belokurikha.”

The road to Belokurikha is excellent. There are almost no potholes, and there is lovely scenery. Putin has a summerhouse there.

Belokurikha is to Altai Krai as Park City is to Utah. It’s a resort town and not entirely representative of the rest of the area. In fact it is in general discord with the surrounding area, at least money- and culture-wise. And damn if it isn’t beautiful. There are aspens everywhere, it is in the mountains, and a general sense of peace and affluence hangs about the town. All of the buildings are new or refurbished or quaintly Soviet (as compared to unfortunately Soviet), and I would recommend it to the weary traveler in a moment. There are famous hot springs there that are supposed to have a potent healing affect. Most of the buildings in town are resorts or “Sanatorias.” I still have difficult separating “sanatoria” from “sanatorium.” But while a sanatorium is a place for mentally ill people to recover, a ‘sanatoria’ in Russia is simply a place for sick or tired people to recover.

As such, Belokurikha is certainly a pleasant and beautiful place to be. There is also an excellent ski resort there. I had hoped to go skiing, but unfortunately that wasn’t possible. I was told it wasn’t safe, but really, there just wasn’t time since I was only there for a day, and I had other obligations.

So what did I do in Belokurikha? In Russia, there is a state exam (with different ability levels) that students or teachers may take in order to receive state recognition of their English abilities. One part of this exam is oral. I went to Belokurikha because I was invited by a foreign language school (that Olesya has connections with) to help prepare for the oral examination. They gave me typical prompts (for different levels) and I proceeded to “examine” the various students of their school. It took about 3 hours to get through all the students, including a break. The break was actually very pleasant because it included exceptional green tea, tasty cheese and fruit, and I got to meet some of the younger students of the school. We simply talked about American or English or whatever, but it was fun. Most of the kids still laugh when I tell them one of our cat’s name is “Kisa.” Kisa is basically the equivalent of “kitty” in Russian.

After the practice oral exam, the director of the school and a teacher drove me around the city briefly and took me out for coffee. Real coffee. Granted, at home I am a bit spoiled. Olesya likes good coffee, and so occasionally for breakfast, I have something quite akin to real, good coffee; however, it isn’t quite like real coffee, I’m not sure why not.

The cappuccino I had in Belokoikha was the real thing, foam and all. Mmmm, dyes your teeth, erodes your gut, coffee.

After cappuccino and some conversation about America, Russia, teaching and politics, we went back to the school. The school in Belokurikha was absolutely lovely. Light green and yellow walls, spotlessly clean environment and excellent students… I certainly wouldn’t mind working their. I feel a bit guilty saying that their students are better than ours (excluding Makcim and my private students Yanna and Katya), but obviously true. They gave me an enormous lemon and a school t-shirt for my help.

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