Taste of Zabaikalye Tour 2018, No. 4: the Children’s Center “Unity” in Petrovsk-Zabaikalsky

CHUCK RITCHIE WRITES:

Sunday, September 2: Here we are in Petrovsk-Zabaikalsky having arrived yesterday and gotten a great tour of the town and the Decembrist Museum. (In that top photo you can see the traditional welcome we received at the Children’s Center.  That’s Tom taking the bread and salt, friends Olga and Victor to the left, and fellow tourist Ginny in the middle). I hope others in the group will say something about that day, but I’m going to focus here on today, our real last day in Russia.  After this it is all travel: we board the train for Irkutsk, taxi to the airport there, fly to Moscow, crash for a day at the airport hotel and then take the multiple flights back to Minneapolis and home–a trek spanning 48 hours and 15 timezones…argh…

So here goes.

Up for exercises at 9, then breakfast, and then it was off on a hike to celebrate the Day of Health. The hike went up over the ridge to a really nice field where we had a picnic, but a picnic unlike any other I have ever seen. Olga Fleshler, Judy, and I were offered a ride up in the vehicle carrying some of the food for the picnic. We gladly accepted as all the kids had already tromped off with Elena and Vitaly, Irene and Tom (Irene’s Tom), Viktor and Elena, and Zhanna from the Academy of Health in Chita. However, the ride up was worse than any walk! How my back survived with a watermelon in my lap I will never know. To make it more fun, the driver got lost twice and one time had to turn around when the road became impassible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The kids got there before we did by walking.  They were divided up into their families, except for the boys, almost all of whom wanted to play soccer. There were five or six families and each one had an area where they spread out a tablecloth on the ground. There was a competition to see which family could set the loveliest table. Unbelievable what the kids and their mentors came up with. In the meantime the kitchen staff including Alyosha, a graduate of the Home who now works there as the baker, were setting a table for us that was on tables and chairs that they had hauled up the hill in another truck.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The picnic competition reminded me of the story of the magic tablecloth–food, tables, chairs, tablecloths appeared as if out of nowhere. There were motifs, The Flying Dutchman, fall harvest, mushrooms from the woods.  We went around to each family and they explained what they had done and then they had to answer a riddle. Once done, they went over to get their hot soup of tushonka (canned beef) and potatoes to go along with all the fruit and veggies they had used in their table setting. The amount of time, effort, and planning much less execution of this event was mind-blowing. Yet it was done for us and the kids.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It became for me a metaphor of how Natalya and her staff care for and love these kids. They spare no effort to let these children know that they are loved, despite their individual circumstances. It was a beautiful, almost magical afternoon.

Judy and I decided to walk back rather than face another ride so Vitaly, Irene, Tom, Judy and I walked back ahead of the kids to get packed up to leave for Irkutsk, Moscow and home. We all packed up and then went over to the school building for a round table discussion. We shared our thoughts and started the long process of saying goodbye. Gifts were exchanged. Natalya made it clear that our visits are very important to the kids, although some of them are still reluctant to open up, perhaps out of shyness, perhaps out of the coming to terms with the difficulties they must deal with as orphans or children whose life at home ended when parental rights were removed (due to crime, neglect, alcoholism, drug abuse, etc.) But if even one child is touched it is worth it. and it was clear that more than one child was touched–and at least this one adult, too!

For me to see Vika, Anya and Tanya, Kristina, and Alyosha whom I got to know in visits in 2010, 2013, and 2015 but are now young adults away at school or working, was a real treat. “Chuck” (Sasha) couldn’t make it as he is in the army right now. I loved seeing Zoya and Vitaly, the stars of last year’s “You’re Super!” national singing contest. How they are growing up!

And then to connect with a new set of younger children! My favorites are little Katya and her sister Polina, little Sasha (the youngest there at four years old), and Valya the budding artist. Valya took me over to the wall where her art work is displayed and gave me one of her pieces. I gave her a Lake Superior agate in return, and I hope I can keep in touch. Her mother is in prison and her father comes to visit once in awhile, but for some reason he is not allowed to have her at home. She has a little brother who I think is named Sasha. Then there is little freckle-faced Sveta. All good stuff!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So it all comes to an end. At the round table I made the comment that Fyodor Tyutchev once wrote the line “???? ?????? ?? ??????“: Russia can not be understood with the mind… There is wisdom in that line as we try to understand the Russians in this day and age.  It and its people can best be understood with the heart, and this trip proved that assertion once again…as each visit (my 46th to Russia) always does.