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Published: August 27th 2011
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Part 2:
I made friends with 3 Russian girls who were teaching Russian at Khovd University. They all live in a town called Barnaul, about 4-5 hours south of Novosibirsk and when they left Khovd, I promised to visit. Sasha, the girl we’d be staying with arranged for her friends to pick us up from the train station and drive us to the bus station, where they put us on a bus to Barnaul. I have no idea how we would have figured it out without them, so we were all very grateful.
We arrived to Barnaul to an excited Sasha who was baring small gifts for all of us. She had arranged a vehicle to take our bags to her home so we could hit the town. Sasha speaks very little English, so she also had her friend Alex along to translate for us. We took a bus to her neighborhood and stopped for beer on the walk to her apartment. In Russia, you can purchase draft beer in a 2 liter bottle, which they fill while you wait…it’s also legal to drink in public.
We arrived to her and her husband’s apartment where they told us we could
shower, although I’m not sure if it was for their benefit or ours, either way it was nice to be clean. After showering, they had a full meal ready for us all. There was grilled steak, pork and potatoes as well as a fresh salad and fruit. At some point we mentioned that we wanted the full Russian experience, so 3 shots of vodka were taken by each of us during the meal (for good digestion). Mongolia taught me to hate vodka, but the vodka didn’t taste like chemicals here, so it wasn’t too bad.
Sasha is an enthusiastic currency collector and had asked me to bring her a crisp, US $1 bill to add to her collection. I had a number of other currencies I’ve collected over the years so we did some trading and I came out with a lot of money from when Russia was still the USSR. I traded current currencies for currency that is no longer available, so I think it was a good deal.
After dinner, we headed out to a tribute concert for one of Russia’s most famous musicians who died in a car crash 20 or so years ago. There were about
15 bands that took turns playing this artists most popular songs. We obviously didn’t understand any of the lyrics, but it was a nice environment nonetheless. Sasha and her husband Deema, short for Dmitri refused to let us pay for anything, they continued to say, “Today our day, tomorrow your day.”
We woke to Deema cooking a traditional Russian breakfast and it was much better than most things I’ve ordered at restaurants. There were eggs, bacon, onions and tomatoes all smothered in melted cheese and somehow cooked perfectly. It was a great way to start the day!
We headed out to see the town and met up with my other Russian friend, Nadia who speaks great English. They took us to their places of work, the park, Lenin monuments, the river and the old part of Banaul where all the homes are over 300 years old and made entirely of wood, with ornate carvings. We stopped at the beer store on the way to pick up some draft roadies, as that’s what people do here. We ate lunch at a Uzbek restaurant and before walking around some more and ending up at their friends home for dinner and our first
Russian bathhouse or Banya experience…this is where things got interesting.
It seems that most Russian homes have their own banya. It was explained to us prior that in Russian tradition, you get naked, make the banya really hot, put on wool hats to protect your head from the heat so you don’t pass out, then take turns beating each other with a bushel of birch leaves. So, you can understand my apprehension when I was introduced to a 300 pound Russian military sergeant, with a buzz cut and well-manicured moustache who they referred to as, “The Russian King Kong.”
They laughed and said, “The banya is ready, King Kong will show you to it.” Five minutes later, I find myself face down, alone and naked with a 300 pound man they call King Kong, we both have wool hats on with pikachu ears and he’s grunting and hitting me with birch leaves. He kept throwing more water on the hot rocks and it felt like the wet air was burning my skin off and I had to cover my mouth, as it felt as though my lungs were disintegrating. During this whole experience, I figured they must have some sort
of safety word in Russian, I just wasn’t informed of it ahead of time. Afterwards, he would pour a bucket of cold water over my head, chuck more water on the rocks and hand me the birch leaves.
After we both had a turn, it was mimed to me that we were supposed to slam a full cup of beer in at least 2 gulps, before going back in....I was told the beer slamming is Russian tradition, which I don't necessarily believe but it definitely took the edge off. It was quite the experience.
Once I left the banya, it was the girls turn so I headed back to where everyone was sitting and had some more drinks. The guy whose home we were at, it turns out is a 29 year old neurosurgeon who spoke quite a bit of English. In Russia neurosurgeons don’t make very much money, he was telling me that some of his friends from high school who never went to college make a lot more money than he does, but he loves the work. He was well aware of how much money he’d make if he were a neurosurgeon in America, but kept saying, “This
Poor representation leads to misunderstanding
Large man with a moustache, small child falling to his knees....turns out it was a memorial statue for all the families that were torn apart under the USSR (this information provided after some pointing, laughing and the photo)...oops! is Russia.” He said that he was basically poor and said, look around, I don’t even have a car. His apartment was a lot worse than anywhere I lived during college. Also, he was moving out the next day, back to his parents’ house to save some money.
The next day we made breakfast and did a little running around before buying our bus tickets back to Novosibirsk so we could catch our train to Perm. Sasha insisted on calling her sister to meet us at the bus station and take us to the train station. I think we could’ve made it without too much trouble, but she was concerned that the taxi driver would rip us off. So, her sister met us and took us to the train station as promised. We’re on the train to Perm now, more to come!
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