Day Two and Three

After being so tired the day before- sleeping through the night and adjusting to the 11 hour time difference didn’t seem like such a challenge. I woke up on the second day feeing like I had the best sleep of my life. After a lazy morning Peter met us and took us to have piroshki inside a church. They cost less than a dollar each and were stuffed with cabage or potatoes. Probably the best piroshki I have ever had. After a filling lunch we had our first metro express to my mom’s uncle and aunt’s apt. The metro station is really fancy here. Once you get under-ground you can purchase anything from beer and cigarettes, to toys and trinkets, to lacy underwear. It reminded me of the underground fuzganger zones in Germany. Each metro station is different. The one we went to had chandeliers and marble like floors. Paintings hung on walls. Peter told us it was build by Stalin’s architects as a bunker of sorts.

Taking the metro was a breeze with my mom’s Russian and Peter’s experience and Russian. Once we arrive at my aunt and uncle’s we are faced with more food: home-made dolmas, more soup, bread, eggplant dish, dessert. I don’t want to be rude and they keep piling my plate, so I eat till I feel sick. My parent’s joke I look three months pregnant and will have a food baby. After a huge second lunch my mom’s cousin takes us out of the city. First we go to Catherine the Great’s Dacha and park. Since it was a Monday we couldn’t go inside (all museums are closed then), but we were able to walk around the park, enjoy the woods, and the amazing buildings. I was shocked by how many kids there were. Russians do not hesitate to take their children outside. We order Kvas (drink made from Rye bread and sugar) and walk around the park some more. On our way back into the city we stop at the park/ground where Ivan the Terrible has a church and the small village. There was a beautiful apply orchard with delicious green apples.

Once we get back into the car we hit the most terrible bumper-to-bumper traffic. Since I have been stuffing myself all day my stomach now presses against my bladder and makes me need to pee. I try to hold it, but I have never had to pee so badly in my life and feel like I will pee in the car. I jump out of the car, dodge through traffic, my dad runs after me and we only find over ten feet of Kremlin wall around us. I run into the park and every bush seems to have a kissing couple under it. I ask my dad to find out where a bathroom is. He finally asks a woman who ignores him (Later we find out my dad asked the woman where the ladies make-up room is). Once I finally find it I pee all over the place. It was so embarrassing it was hilarious. We finally get out of the park and are faced with huge Moscow streets packed with traffic. How we will find the car is beyond me. But luckily, within 5 minutes, I spot it pulled over in front of Lenin’s Library under a HUGE Lenin statue with emergency brakes flashing. We have to go back underground to cross the street and emerge by the car to find out my mom’s cousin went to look for us without a cell phone. Probably ½ a million people are in the park. My mom is sitting in the passenger seat of the car- eyes wide- Lenin loaming over it all as the sun it setting. We call Peter (who is waiting for us with Dinner) and tell him we have a situation. He is relieved our situation doesn’t involve police or arrest. Finally, Garick finds his way back to the car and we all laugh at the ridiculous situation. We end day two with yummy Russian beers and a good night’s sleep.


We have a lazy morning on the third day and make our way through the city to an old Soviet restaurant (decorated with Lenin statues and the typical Hammer and Sickle). We order a huge lunch ($17 for four people) of cheboureki (stuffed with mushrooms and potatoes) and unfiltered Siberian Corona. Probably the best thing I have ever had. While we are eating we notice people in work suits getting a quick bite to eat and drink (most of them have a beer or share a bottle of vodka before returning to work). As we are leaving one of the men who just downed half a bottle of vodka comes up to us and asks if we are german. For some reason I am always mistaken as german in foreign countries. We reply American and he tells us he has a souvenir for us that is so special we wouldn’t believe it (he is telling this all in Russian). He pulls from his satchel, wrapped in newspaper, a pinecone and hands it to my mom- from Siberia he tells us and gives it to her. Then he continues on to tell us that he was in the army – a solider. And he doesn’t understand why there are so many black people (most likely triggered since we said we are American and mostly Obama comes to mind). He says- one or two are ok, but more just means there is more crime. Russia is a pretty raciest country. We leave and thank him from the pine-cone. Making our way to the grocery store. I am shocked by how cheap vodka is here- $4-$6 for an average bottle. Beer is just over a dollar for a larger bottle. A box of tea is $1. Some things in Moscow are cheap, but do not be fooled- coffee costs about $6 a latte.

After my first Russian grocery store experience my mom tells us she knows we are close to her old neighborhood and we make our way through the city streets to find her old apartment. It is amazing how much she remembers. Without ever taking a wrong turn she leads us straight to the windows of her old apartment. It is an emotional moment and we all stare up at the second story windows that where my mom grew up. I watch and remember the story where my mom’s childhood dog almost falls out the window after the cat she chased out the window. My mom watches the apartment in silence and I can only feel her energy and imagine what she is experiencing after 34 years of leaving the place in a rush- with nothing. I get teary eyed and feel so lucky to be here, standing next to my mom, re-visiting the places of her childhood. How many people are able to do this? Especially after her amazing story where she escaped with her family. After looking at her apartment she leads us up her street past an old church and turns down an ally in silence. She leads us behind tall apartment buildings to run-down building. This is how I walked to ice-skating every day. This is the place. It is beyond me how she remembers this. A place you would never find on your own. The entrance is open and Dina suggests we go inside. We walk in and there is a guard/receptionist at the desk (every building seems to have someone that will allow you to enter or not). My mom tells the woman her story and how she is returning after 34 years. The woman allows her to go into the back-yard where the ice-skating rink used to be (now a tennis court and tennis center). My mom sits on the stairs and I can only imagine her memories of skating around the rink and doing spins. She points to a fence and says all the parents were glued to it, competitively watching their children. She reminds me this is the fence a girl stuck her tongue onto as a child and got it stuck in the freezing winter. They had to pour hot water to remove her tongue from the fence. The building where she had choreography class is being renovated but still is the same (paint chipping from over 30 years ago). When we leave my mom thanks the receptionist who smiles (they don’t smile in Russia so this is a rare moment) and tells my mom: “Now you can come back to learn tennis.”

My mom leads us through more ally ways and finds her old French school which is exactly the same as she remembers. We try to enter but the guard tells us we can’t and are not allowed. We return outside and Dina remembers we have our embassy papers. She says to go back in and show the papers. My mom pulls out her embassy papers and goes into the school, I follow. She tells the guard it has been 34 years and she travelled all the way from America to show her oldest daughter where she went to school. She asks if the papers will make a difference. This catches the guard’s interest and she says she will get the principal. The principal returns (in a good mood) and welcomes my mom back to the school. They allow us in and we get a tour of the principal’s office. Then we walk through the four stories of the school. My mom says the school is exactly what she remembers and her classroom is still the same. The biology classroom is still a biology class and the cafeteria still has a stove that looks to be over 30 years old. My mom shows me where she walked and chatted with friends and learned math. I can’t believe everything I am hearing, walking in the same places my mom did as a child.

After the school we walk to a monastery that next door. My mom said after school they came here to play spin the bottle. We then make way back to the embassy, stopping at the Red Square. I want to cry and do gasp at the same time. It takes my breath away. I have never seen a church so large. St. Basil’s is amazing- out of picture books. We see the building where Lenin’s body lies and I watch the Russian people: women wear tight jeans or fish net stockings with stiletto heels. Men wear jeans with zippers and still cut their hear in the soviet mullet. I take in Russia and feel like the day cannot get any better.

We end the day at my mom’s family’s apartment eating more Russian food: borscht and fish. My mom’s uncle tells me the fish was made especially for me. He went to the store and they didn’t have fresh fish so he returned. They had live fish, so they killed it with the back of the knife. He is proud to tell me he got the freshest fish in Moscow for me. I learn through the night that my grandfather lived in one of Stalin’s Seven sisters (buildings built for government workers by Stalin). He was later banned after his father was taken away, deemed a traitor. The stories of history are amazing. We stay till midnight and return for a good night’s sleep.