Apartment Tour!

Welcome to our new home!  Here's a short tour to show you where we live in Moscow.  Hope you enjoy it.

Sunday Tea!

My favorite meal of the week is Sunday tea.  A hangover from my family's England days.  I always enjoyed having tea, crisps, cheese, fresh bread, egg salad, and sausage rolls.  As Rachel and I make our new home in Moscow we've decided to make Sunday tea one of those traditions that we hope our children can enjoy when they're grown up.

Although the food (and tea!) itself is essential, what makes it even more fun is praying a vespers service from the book of common prayer, reading some scripture, and then talking about God.

The next time you are in Moscow swing by on a Sunday night and break some (freshly baked) bread with us!

-Dan 

Using One's Noggin'

Translation:  V. P. Nogin

-rkc

Sveta

Sveta, or full name, Svetlana, was born and raised in Baku, Azerbaijan.  She looks back on her youth in the Caucasus as some of the best years of her life.  Like many Russians of her generation, Sveta looks back fondly on her years as a child in the Soviet Union, agreeing that "life was better then."  She misses these old days, and is never pressed for a story about life back in the good ol' days.  This makes for continually interesting conversation, but an even more mysterious, and surprising woman.  For a few weeks, I lived life by her side, understanding more fully her values, her priorities, her goals, her dreams.  What a wonderful example and friend.  Thank you, Sveta.

She takes after her Dad in every imaginable way, from the tip of her nose to her feisty and exuberant character.  She grew up swimming, as her Dad managed a sports' facility in Baku, and eventually wound up at Moscow's prestigious sport's institute on a scholarship for synchronized swimming.  She learned from her father that in order to get things done in a Soviet society, you start at the top of the food chain and work your way down.  Always go see the director first, get him to see your side, and your battle's basically won.  More easily said than done, but that's Sveta in a nutshell.  She chooses her battles carefully, but fights to the end to the benefit of her children, her family, her friends, and her guests, (to which we can attest from personal experience.)

Sveta has always been a believer.  Since she can remember, she has always believed in God, and walked with Him wherever He lead.  Faith is an easy thing for her.  She can recount mystical experiences that make your hair stand on end!  One night we stayed up until 2 swapping spiritual stories - she has some doozies!  These acted for her as proofs along the way, compelling and telling of the life she's lead.  To her very intelligent and pragmatic son, stories of his mom's experiences both torture and fascinate him.  He cannot intellectualize what his mom has experienced.  In a post-Soviet, rationalistic society, this is the legacy of faith she leaves for her family.  If only there were more like her... 

What will I carry with me most from our time with our host family?  Sveta's inexhaustible hospitality.  Daily, Dan and I were humbled by her generous and gracious manner toward us, at first complete strangers to her, and later dear friends.  She never once lost patience with our mumbled and incomprehensible speech, never once expected something in return for our stay, never acted out of disingenuous or insincere motivations.  She intentionally welcomes people into her home, meager as it may be, and provides not just a place to stay, but life for these people there.  Countless times, she would return from dropping Dasha off at swim practice, or taking Yan to school, with a new acquaintance or fellow mom to have some tea or to make a salad together while their children swam or studied together.  She befriends new people easily and lovingly, welcoming them quickly into whatever she has to offer.  She seems to understand when people, from her closest friends to these new contacts, are in need; she is not deterred by the messiness of their lives, but still jumps into difficulties with them. Each week she watches her friend's problem child so as to provide her friend some much needed rest and solace from a difficult situation at home.  Her hospitality is not a manufactured set of behaviors when company comes around, it's a genuine state of her heart.  By that I was daily challenged and refreshed.

Sveta taught me not something I'd like to do and create in my own home, but something much deeper, somebody I'd like to be.  Her lessons were not of Russian etiquette, or cultural do's and don'ts, or 6 easy steps to being a more hospitable person with a home for entertaining...  Her gift to me was hospitality in its purest, deepest form.   Her gift to me was herself, a gift of which she is most likely unaware.  Sveta, thank you for showing me the best possible side of Russian culture.  It was a pleasure to share in your life and home.  Here's to many more memories down the road.

Cheers!

-rkc

Happy Birthday Dan!

October 9th was a big night at 173 Bolshaya Cherkizovskaya.  The little apartment rang with good conversation, games, and a thundering round of Happy Birthday, half in English, half in Russian.  Birthdays are a big deal in Russian culture:  one spends all day preparing food and desserts for all of your guests to enjoy, cleaning the apartment, and thinking up toasts and happy wishes for all invited.  We were no exception!  I started preparations at 10:00 am, and finished up as guests started arriving at 7:00 pm!  But the caviar and crackers, chicken fajitas with homemade tortillas, fresh salsa of all natural ingredients, sliced $6 avacado (a rare find here, but worth every rouble!), pan seared Kubanski peppers and onions, hot tea with sugar, lots of local cookies and treats, and a double decker chocolate chip cookie cake (courtesy of our teammate Kim,) made the day very memorable for all.  

Here are some moments from the evening.  I hope you enjoy them as much as we did!

The boys (from left to right Egor, Chris, Dan, Yan)... and Dahsa enjoy the appetizers and some Pepsi.

Dan and Robi dig into some black caviar, a tasty treat served at most big occasions.

Yan built this delicious fortress out of the cookies and treats available.  He's in a prep school to become an engineer and constructor one day.  Off to a good start!

Our teammate Kim and her oh-so-fabulous-cake, complete with icing spelling С Днем Рождения Данил!  (Happy Birthday Daniel!)

Dan managed to blow out almost all of his imaginary candles.  He missed two.  Better luck next year.

Our happy crew enjoying tea and cake after a round of pictionary.

Happy Birthday, Dan.  And many more.

-rkc

Dasha Cherripasha

Meet Dasha, our youngest roommate, at just 8 years of age, known as Daria to her teachers and acquaintances, Dasha to her friends and family, and Dahsa Cherripasha (Dasha Turtle) to her Dad, Slava.  Quite the bubbling ball of energy and excitement, like most 8 year olds, she's eager to try anything that looks fun or entertaining, with unending commentary for any adventure.  She's a constant chatterbox, full of stories ranging from lunch in the cafeteria that day, to finding dragons' eggs at show and tell.  We've enjoyed helping Dasha with her homework this semester; she attends an American Christian school here in Moscow, so actually speaks both English and Russian very proficiently.  Her spelling and vocabulary lessons are much more fun when we reverse roles and Dasha teaches us, well, much more fun for her anyway...  We're so thankful for Dasha, and have enjoyed our days seeing life through her eyes here.  Please pray for Dasha, that she would listen and obey her parents, that she would grow in her knowledge of a God who cares for her and hears her every word, and that her overflowing joy for life and adventure would remain with her all of her days.

(Yes, she's literally climbing the walls... welcome to our family stay...)

-rkc   

Slava

Who is Slava?

The father of our Russian family is called Slava.  Slava works hard.  He works most days at a men’s clothing retailer and often works 24-hr shifts at the American Christian school as a security guard.  We really haven’t been able to figure out when he sleeps.  When he’s home he is kind, fun, and always smiling.  Usually he arrives hungry sometime after everyone else has already had dinner.  When the kids are doing their homework in the other room, I’ll often sit with Slava in the kitchen drinking tea, eating an omelet, and listening to him tell stories.

 

Where’s he from?

Before moving to Moscow, Slava and Sveta lived in Baku, Azerbaijan.  They have fond memories of warm weather, watermelon, friendly neighbors, and trips to the sea.  Slava served in the Soviet army before the fall of communism.  He was trained as a radio operator and was about to be sent to the war in Afghanistan when the government began unraveling.  He moved to Moscow and joined a friend in a venture selling various things at the six stores they owned in town.  In the post-communist chaos they were making a good living providing the clothes and products that were hard to find in most stores during that time.

 

Jacket = Car

One day, in the early 90s, a old, scruffy-looking man with a backpack came to their store wanting to try on a leather jacket.  Slava and his business partner Pushkin looked at the man skeptically but gave him the jacket to try on.  The man said “I’ll take it” and opened his backpack that was full of cash.  Pushkin took the money from that sale and went and bought a car with it the next day. 

 

The 1998 economic crash

Slava and Pushkin had 6 stores full of men’s clothing that they had purchased with dollars.  Overnight the ruble dipped to about a sixth of what is was worth the day before.  Sveta’s family had sold their car and put the savings into a bank, the next morning they woke up to find that their account had gone down to just a few dollars worth of rubles.  Slava and his partner lost an estimated $600,000 and were stuck with a bunch of men’s clothes that no one was buying.  They eventually had to shut down all but one store.  It was a good week when they could sell one pair of pants.

 

Paying taxes

In the 90s almost no one paid any taxes.  The government was so disorganized that they never knew who wasn’t paying.  Sending taxes in just caught the attention of the tax ministries.  If a tax collector did come they would pay him some arbitrary amount (which went into his pocket).  One day Slava decided to figure out how much it would cost the business to pay all of their taxes to see if it was even feasible.  After a long time of adding everything up he determined that to be above board they would have to pay 118% of everything they sold as tax.

 

Police protection racket

One day the police came to their one remaining store and asked if they had paid their taxes.  Of course they hadn’t so the cops told them that there was a $1,000 fine.  When they said that they couldn’t afford $1,000 the officer said “Listen, we’re in the same boat as you, our police station burned down and we can’t afford to build a new one.  The government won’t give us any money.  Now we’ve figured out that we need $150,000 to build a new station, so we are going to all of the 150 stores in our district and taking $1,000.”  Slava and Pushkin refused and tried to figure out a way not to have to pay them.  Eventually the cops won, shutting down their store and taking away their business license.

-drc