A month in Chita, Nov-Dec 2021 post #3
Movie viewing; meeting my godson; Petrovsk volunteering friends; Sunday hike
WATCHING SHREK
Two days ago Elena organized for English students a viewing at her university of the 2001 animation, Shrek. On December 3rd there will be the monthly Movie Club zoom discussion of it paired with the Russian animation, “Fortress” (2015) which Elena and I will be viewing at home in the next several days.
She let teachers in some schools and in the community-college-equivalent part of her institution know about the viewing and Q&A and posted about it online. The feature besides this very popular movie–many were singing along with the first song of the movie!–was me, an all too rare visiting native English speaker from the US. It was the largest audience by far for these regular movie viewings and there were well over 100 students attending. 10 students is a more normal attendance! They ranged in age from about 11 to early 20s.
A lot of good questions were posed and observations made about the movie. There were some questions about my thoughts on their President and on the protests and violence last year following the murder of George Floyd. I was especially proud of a young teen-aged student, Veronika, who spoke right up and said this was her first use of English in public and was quite nervous but also excited by the opportunity. I admire that first-time courage! In fact, I was just asked to record a short speech in Russian, my first ever, so I was both sympathetic and empathetic! Emphasis for me–emotional stress-wise–on “pathetic!” 🙂
TWO DINNERS IN KSK DISTRICT: VOVA KULAKOVSKY’S HOME (SON), VICTOR KULAKOVSKY’S HOME (FATHER)
Right after that, Victor picked me up and brought me out to the KSK district where he, Elena and I had dinner with his son Vova and Olya Kulakovsky and met (again) my godson Seva who will be 3 in January.
Maybe it’s that age, but Seva is very lively, cheerful and sweet-tempered. His big sister, Varya who turns 9 on Dec 6, is a bit more volatile. He kept showing me his toys, and we played a little. Dinner at the kitchen table was simple and fun, mainly because Vova and Olya, and Victor and Elena, too, are very willing to work with the language difficulties and give me little Russian lessons while I give them the occasional little English lesson. The featured dish was a Chinese stir-fry. Vova told me earlier he was learning Chinese cooking and had a shelf-full of Chinese sauces and spices. I learned a banya (Russian bath) was being planned at Olya’s parents’ farm a 40 minute drive out of the city. It is a trout farm and was where Seva’s christening party in summer 2019 was held, written about here.
I spent that night with Victor and Elena, because going back to the city center was a 90 minute project all-in-all due to the crazy traffic these days. There are two ways to get from KSK to the city, one is 7km, the other is about 50% or more longer, and both choices are only two lane roads. We were bumper to bumper the whole way.
The next morning Victor and I visited Oleg Gotlib’s grave as reported already, and then that afternoon Victor and Elena held a dinner for friends who are all volunteers for the Children’s Center out in Petrovsk-Zabaikalsky. There was Olga Burlova, Head Librarian at the branch library #5 where I played in 2019, and Elena’s boss, Jannah (don’t know her last name) the staff member of the Academy of Health private hospital who is the main contact with the Children’s Center. This hospital and its founder-director have a long relationship with the Center through Olga Fleshler. Jannah is now on maternity leave and she came with her son Andrei. Then the Pishchersky family, too.
I finally was allowed to help! I diced sausage for the Olivier salad, cut chicken for the casserole and cleaning garlic for the beet salad.
A SUNDAY AFTERNOON HIKE
And yesterday, Zhenya, Elena’s close friend and trainer, led a small group of her clients plus me up a nearby mountain. It was 16F, no wind, and very clear, a perfect day. There was an inch of new lighter-than-air snow on the branches in the birch and larch forest that would float off limbs at the slightest breeze. the hike was about an hour of steady incline, some of it pretty steep and slippery if you didn’t scuff down to the sandy soil. The last 15 minutes were treeless and the breeze picked up there. I was soaked with sweat, so the windbreaker I brought was much appreciated. Arriving at the top we saw two other groups, and from the one sitting around a blazing campfire a voice called out, “Thomas Dickinson!?” It was a community-college student who was at the viewing of Shrek. Small world!
We took some photos where the entire city was laid out below us, and then we moved down out of the wind and started our own campfire. Everyone’s picnic contributions were pulled out: thermoses of coffee and tea, hotdogs to roast on skewers, fresh blini with a squeeze container of sweetened condensed milk, melted (and long cooled) cheese on black bread, and some of Vitaly’s smoked ham hock he’d made the day before. Zhenya, like a mother hen, was making sure everyone was eating and drinking! Then came the walk down by another route that was often almost at a trot since that felt safer than trying to keep from sliding on the thin layer of snow.
Both Zhenya and Elena slid onto their backsides. I was next they warned, but I managed to stay vertical. I told Elena it seemed uneconomical to take 45 hours and four flights just to enjoy such a beautiful Sunday afternoon on the far side of the globe, but I was thinking it was worth it!
Zhenya came for dinner and there showed me photos of her new hobby, rock-climbing. She hopes to come to climb El Capitan in Yosemite National Park someday. She also showed me photos of a hike this past summer in the Kodar district in the northernmost part of Zabaikalsky Krai. It resembles the Canadian Rockies with its dark grey rock and dramatic sweeping mountain views. Absolutely beautiful!
