Visit to Chita Summer 2018, No. 1 First days
I arrived in Chita on the morning of Thursday July 19th to grey, rainy skies and vast puddles in the roads from the airport to the city. It was sprinkling at the moment, but the region has suffered record-breaking rain in June and July. Judy, our Treasurer and Facebook presence, learned several weeks ago about this from a Facebook post by Anna Krushelnitskaya, a Chita native who married one of Siberian Bridges’ teachers of the late 90s early 2000s, Robert Romano, and now lives in Michigan. She posted some video. I was wrong to not take it seriously then. A friend here said that were it not for the World Cup, this would have been big news in Russia.
Video of a downpour while at Victor and Elena’s dacha:
Until yesterday, no one had died, but a woman walked to the bank of the Ingoda River near Chita to look. The bank gave way, and she perished. I haven’t been made aware of injuries, but two bridges (at least) are out, making travel in the outskirts of Chita problematic. Many dirt roads in the countryside have been washed out. A lot of people spend the summer at the dacha, but I’ve heard a couple stories of a dacha house being thigh-deep in water, and, of course, no garden could be planted there, and of impassable roads. I went last weekend to Victor and Elena’s dacha and the road of the dacha compound was half washed away in a couple places. Later in the week it was completely washed away in one of them. The neighbors are out shoveling and sandbagging.
I looked up the quantity of rain for these months on my phone’s weather app, and frankly it didn’t seem like that much water: 8-9 inches total. But this region is semi-arid (~22 inches annual average) yet with a high water table, I believe, so the rain has no place to go. Also, as in our dry western states, a downpour causes devastation downstream from the storm. I experienced this once in Utah, no rain on us, but distant thunderstorms filled the wash we were camped next to, as if by magic. Anyway, that is my theorizing. Judy is an hydrologist (JUST retired from the Minnesota DNR! Congratulations!) and when she comes next month on the tour, she will get to the bottom of it for us all with local hydrologists.
The last several days have been mostly dry, a couple showers, yet humid, and the big puddles are mostly gone in the city. Crews have been sweeping away the sandy mud.
Other news, nearly all personal.
Elena and Vitaly’s youngest, Sasha, 2yrs and 9 mos, is now talking up a storm, often repeating with the same intonation whatever anyone around him says, even English! He says my name like a native New Yorker, Tu-om! The rest are doing well and I’ve been over at their apartment several times already.
Sasha with a bottle of milk straight from the village. On the right is Vova, Victor’s son.
Last summer I told Elena I wanted to take fitness classes at the Academia Zdorovie (AZ) with her when I came back. In the intervening year, I finally got back to exercising after years of elective sedentary-itis, so at least they don’t have to start me off from scratch—my terrific trainer and friend in St Paul, Tim Pearson, handled that!
So on my 2nd day in Chita we went to AZ, I paid up–$160 for one month of unlimited access to trainer, towel, sauna–and saw the doctor who checked me out (my spine isn’t straight and something about my neck probably causes headaches…true…but I’m flexible and in good shape for someone my age who isn’t in good shape!) and she devised the exercise program. I’ll get checked out again by her after every 5-6 exercise days.
The program is all on weight machines, some I’ve seen at the Y back home, but some are the invention of a highly regarded doctor here in Russia, Sergey Bubnovsky (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m64O5CQ7eQ This long video is in Russian, but you can see some of his exercises. He is the main speaker). If I understand correctly, they are used for fitness/strength training, but also physical therapy and body reorientation—maybe working on getting my spine straight? Those exercises involve traction with the weight pulling my leg or arm first, and then contraction of whatever muscle is being worked on, often with extra rotating. When I’m finally up to speed, it’ll be about an hour’s workout, and that is followed by a required hot sauna (not Russian banya) alternated with cold shower or bath. I am finally not cheating on the cold shower, but haven’t been brave enough for the bath!
A poster at Academia Zdorovie of a rather dramatic exercise on a Bubnovsky machine. I’m not scheduled to do that one!
Possibly the most important fitness thing, though, is all the walking. 30 min. to get to AZ, 35-40 to get from there to downtown. 30 from downtown back to my apartment. I could take the mini-buses (40 cents) that are frequent, go everywhere in the city and the outlying towns, or the center-city electric trolley-buses (30 cents) or a taxi ($1.90 for 3km), too.
Lenin Square at the city center while walking home after seeing an London theater production of Hamlet (Benedict Cumberbatch) on film shown to a nearly packed audience at the big Udokan Theater.
Besides exercising with Elena and the visit to Victor and Elena’s dacha with Olga Fleshler and Elena and Vitaly’s family—Victor’s son, Vova, and his wife and daughter Olya and Varya came, too—I had a wonderful visit with a friend from 1991-1995, Victor Vaulin.
Victor and Elena’s dacha. The ground is springy with moisture, but things are growing beautifully.
Typically wonderful dinner spread at the dacha: chicken soup, carrot salad, smoked chicken from a vendor in town, cucumber-tomato salad, quick brine pickles, potatoes, and those things at the bottom: mild cheese, mayo and garlic on tomato and lettuce…yikes! Later tea and a wonderful torte. Oh, and some welcome back toasting, too!
Best friend of my very first contact with Chita (Sergey Checheotkin, 1989, China on the train), he guided and translated for my father, my college friend, David Emory, and me on my 1991 concert tour, and I saw him and his wife Larissa often on the 1992-93 visit. Victor and Larissa just moved back to Russia (Moscow, across the street from Sergey Checheotkin!) this year from a career in Beijing working for various Russian firms. I hadn’t seen him since 1995! He was in Chita visiting his parents.
Lunch with Victor Vaulin, old friend from back in 1992-1995. Hadn’t seen him for 23 years!
Next week I’ll visit the summer school I “taught” at last summer. I think the parents and students are a tight group and most who are not off on some vacation trip should be there. I hope so. I hope to see Irina and Michael Shipley and Lyosha, one of their mentoring charges who has been learning piano, for a short visit this weekend and a longer one after next weekend. On August 2, Olga Fleshler and I will take the train to Petrovsk-Zabaikalsky to the Children’s Home. The Director, Natalia Skliarova, arranged for me to play a recital at the town’s music school as I had done in 2014 and 2015. I am frantically practicing at the Music College these days! And I hope we talk projects and state of affairs of the Home. When the tour group arrives at the end of August—it consists of SB’s board minus Janet and Kevin (unfortunately) plus Irene’s ball and chain, Tom (ha ha) and new/old SB friend, Ginny Redgrave—we’ll all go together to the Children’s Home. Other reunions are in the planning stages.
