Kerch had dubious claims of a youth hostel, and while I was more than willing to go there and take my chances on the ladies at the train station, what I wasn’t willing to do was sleep outside at this point. Don’t make the foolish mistake of inferring from this that I think I am somehow above sleeping outside, but I was down to a thin cotton spring jacket and a windbreaker not designed to break the particularly arctic winds sweeping in from across the Black Sea, or the particularly arctic northwesterlies gathering steam in the Urals and Steppes to last one night outside. That and I had also become a bit more self aware in Crimea about how much of a tourist I looked, and how easily things could be stolen from me if I was sprawled out and snoring on a park bench. Oh! And being arrested for sleeping outside, of course. And then subsequently robbed by the police.
The only response I did receive from Couchsurfing was from Maksym in Evpatoria. Even Kevin and Shelly in Simferopol didn’t respond! (not Kevin and Shelly! you gasp). I took the $1 wooded-seated, electric train to Evpatoria, a resort town of sorts on the Crimean west coast, and then a small commuter bus to the the village of Shtormove. In the marshrutka, I asked a sturdy soldieress to borrow her phone and let me know when we reached the turnoff for the village. As soon as we passed the turnoff she shrieked in Russian, “STOP THIS MARSHRUTKA NOW!” and then everyone else started screaming to stop and the driver slammed on the brakes to let me and my 20kg MEC backpack gingerly tetris myself out from the backseat, over luggage, apologising profusely on the way and hoping enough thank-yous and impish smiles would ease the situation and melt the ice that had recently frosted over everyone’s patience. It didn’t, so I tipped the driver and disembarked. Happy to be rid of me and my baggage, the driver sped off and left me in a cloud of dust.
Maksym’s family took to me right away. The mother was Russian and revelled in the joys of feeding famished young men. The father was a pleasant and friendly man of Ukrainian stock, and had been vice-president of the local khokoz during the Soviet era. I was staying in the house of a former mid-level Soviet bureaucrat. This was my dream. This was me living out my dream. A well-respected man in the community, he had eased his way out of the political economy in the early 90s due to various conflicts with his former colleagues.
On a walk around the village, Maksym took me to his former elementary school where we stopped in on an English class. The young teacher was not pleased to have us show up unexpected, but when her cell phone rang, she had no qualms with leaving the classroom in our charge for 30 minute while she went outside to talk. Then the director came and told us we were not welcome. Maksym explained an equally curious reasoning for this curiousity—the young teachers were rigid and unenthusiastic, whereas the older teachers were full of energy, fun, and revelled in the joys of teaching and seeing their former pupils. The rest of the village, which contained an abandoned palace of culture and many socialist realist murals, as well as playgrounds and parks in disrepair, helped to illustrate his points about how the collapse of the Soviet Union had meant the subsequent collapse of community. There was no money for cultural programs or community events and people were much more interested in the pursuit of money at their neighbour’s expense. Having been only four years old when the SU called it a day and coming from a well-to-do family, Maksym represented an interesting viewpoint for his generation.
Then we visited babushka. She lived in a khrushchoba across from the school and was soaking her feet and watching soaps in her housecoat when we showed up. She immediately embraced me into her bosom and planted a big kiss on my cheek, calling me Sacha outright*, though not before asking if we were hungry. Not waiting for an answer, she went to the kitchen muttering about how in Canada, we think that they don’t eat in the Ukraine, but she will show me how Ukrainians really eat. Terrified of not being able to handle the onslaught to be proffered, I braced myself for the onslaught: soup, salo (slices of cured lard with raw garlic on bread and spring onion), stewed meat suspended in jelly**, salami, radishes, and much more. A man also came in who I understood to be Maksym’s uncle. He asked about Canada, specifically the cost of living (i.e. the price of vodka and cigarettes). After destroying his streets-paved-with-gold image of Canada with the reality that it’s all paid for in sin tax, he renounced all desires to move there***. After we left, I learned that this man was in fact babushka’s new husband—15+ years her junior. Maksym shrugged it off with a smile and said, “She likes the younger men.” Good for her. That’s the kind of can-do attitude I like to see in today’s elderly.
*I’m sure you know will have deduced that Sacha is the hypocoristic of Alexander, which often drifts—and no exception in my case—into the diminutive Sashenka. Further variations include Sanya, Shaska, Shashechka, Shurik, Shura, Shurka and Shurochka—all well-known to me. I learned long ago that “Rory” is not user-friendly anywhere outside the Anglosphere, and have consequently opted towards my middle name.
*I’m sure you know will have deduced that Sacha is the hypocoristic of Alexander, which often drifts—and no exception in my case—into the diminutive Sashenka. Further variations include Sanya, Shaska, Shashechka, Shurik, Shura, Shurka and Shurochka—all well-known to me. I learned long ago that “Rory” is not user-friendly anywhere outside the Anglosphere, and have consequently opted towards my middle name.
** I don’t know what the name of this is and while it’s only a Google search away, I am leaving it as-is because it helps to illustrate a point I recently made about English not being particularly creative with culinary naming and our choice to simply adopt and anglicise foreign names for foods help to disguise the fact that we’re dealing with stewed meat suspended in jelly.
*** My sincerest apologies to the late Clifford Sifton and his descendents. I, in no way, was consciously trying to undo his proud legacy of attracting Ukrainians to Canada.
Ha, ha: "the driver slammed on the breaks"
ReplyDeleteThe meat suspended in jelly sounds like headcheese, but I expect you have had before.