I originally wanted to write a story about how mentally resilient Russian Women can be but instead I ended up writing about what many of these ladies go through on a daily basis. I think this post is equally effective in illustrating my original point about their general fortitude. The following scenario in itself is fictional but every element is completely grounded in everyday reality here. Click the various links below to see more images.
Did you know that only 34% of Russian families own cars and the rest rely on various forms of public transportation to get around?
Now at first glance this may not seem so bad but when you combine this with extreme weather and a lack of modern infrastructure for the vast majority of the country outside of Moscow, a whole different set of visuals comes to mind.
In the winter, a typical Russian girl may wear a heavy fur coat weighing up to 10 pounds in order to protect her from the elements. This is usually done in conjunction with knee length winter boots with at least a 3 inch heel because looking her best in public is never an option for her.
(If she doesn’t have a fur coat then a heavy ankle length felt coat or nylon winter jacket with goose down and fur lining also works equally well.)
Now try to imagine this young lady waiting up to 2 hours after work at an unsheltered bus stop in minus 30 C weather along with dozens of other cold and unhappy people as another sub-zero Siberian night quickly rolls in. If there’s any wind this minus 30 will instantly feel like minus 40 on any exposed part of her body. Now even-though her coat has a gorgeous protective fur hood around her head, her face is still exposed and is especially sensitive to the pounding icy winds as her cheeks flush bright red due to the frozen and tiny broken blood vessels just beneath the surface of her skin.
Her mini-bus (or mashrutka) finally rolls up with 16 people already crammed inside like sardines. It’s standing room only for the lucky 4 strangers who managed to fight their way in with her. They may say “standing room” but it’s not really the case because the low roof of the mini-bus forces her and the other passengers on their feet to hunch over and grab a support grip and often the person next to them for support while the momentum of the van throws everybody from side to side. She probably won’t be stuck in this position for the entire 45 minute trip home because somebody sitting next to her will inevitably get off at an earlier stop and then she’ll be relieved to take it and finally sit down.
The air inside is equally frozen and the smoky white puffs of exhaled breath from the passengers has created a frozen glaze on the windows which prevents anyone from seeing their location let alone knowing where their next bus stop is. The heavily tattooed driver is smoking Marlboro Reds (and by default so is everyone else because of his 2nd hand smoke) while blasting an obnoxious mix of electronic polka prison music called “chanson” that is literally composed and sung by incarcerated criminals.
“… I’m sorry i’m such a bad boy… Please forgive me mama… I was drunk when I killed her..”
If the driver is feeling generous he will call out the bus stops as he approaches them but often no-one will hear him above the crowded clamor of the van. In-spite of this, somehow our Russian lady manages to get enough visual cues to her location through the smeared and melted hand prints on the frozen windows and calls out to the driver to stop.
“Nosto-novke Pazhaluda!”
The driver comes to a sliding stop on the ice. He only saw 2 other crashes on the slick roads this evening so traffic really wasn’t that bad today. He’s more worried about the traffic cops stopping him and shaking him down for the usual bribe that he can’t afford to pay.
Our young lady now has to squeeze through the compacted bodies in her way to reach the handle to open the van’s sliding door. She’s not worried about any cad coping a feel of her ass right now because she’s protected by a few inches of fur and clothes, but in the summer when she’s only wearing a loose top and mini-skirt it can be a whole different story.
She survived the commute to her local bus stop or “ostonovka” but now it’s time to walk through the uneven mounds of glazed ice on the sidewalk to the corner market so she can get groceries on her way home.
The market itself looks like a scene out of a horror movie. The foundations are uneven as one side slowly sinks into the mud below. The exterior walls are made from brick and old cracked wooden panels. The roof is dangerously ringed with large hanging icicles that could easily impale somebody when they eventually fall. The two windows on either side of the entrance are protected from intruders by a twisted pattern of rusted iron re-bar made to look like a spiders web.
None of this is given the slightest thought as she approaches the heavy black metal door to the market. The door itself looks no different then the ones you’d find in the solitary confinement section of a prison. There is a locked waist high sliding panel that would be perfect for handing a prisoner his meal but in this case it’s used to sell late night bottles of beer and vodka to the neighborhood alcoholics who need their fix no matter what time it is.
She uses both hands and most of her body weight to swing open the door and enters into a room that is no bigger then the typical living room of a small apartment. There are a series of ledges that ring the room displaying different Russian food products. They usually display only one or two different brands for items like pasta, rice, porridge, and canned goods but there is always an entire ledge or wall devoted to displaying about thirty different brands of vodkas and roughly 20 various grades of beer. The vodkas range from the small 250 ml “one hit wonders” that cost about 50 cents to the expensive, elaborate and artistically designed bottles that are made to look like fine female sculptures or even a Kalishnikov automatic rifle.
The wooden floor is smeared with melted mud that’s been tracked in by other customers and it hardly seems like a sanitary place to buy food but the older babushkas behind the refrigerated display counter don’t really pay attention because they’re too busy trying to find change (that they always never seem to have) for the 500 ruble note (about 15 dollars) that she hands to them for the groceries. Cash only in a place like this.. no credit or debit cards here.
Two plastic bags are filled with a few dried sausages, canned food, bottled water, vegetables, imported fruit and a hard loaf of uncut black bread. She now turns and carries the bags with her hands side by side as she uses her shoulder to shove the door outward for her quick escape before the door forcefully speeds back with a loud metallic clang against it’s heavy frame.
It’s not the weekend so the number of used cigarette butts, empty bottles, and broken glass around the surrounding area is still relatively sparse. The rotating metal trash cans welded next to the fractured park benches are not over flowing with garbage yet. But even in this freezing cold, the distinct smell of rotting beer and urine still lingers near the garbage dumpster she directly passes just outside the market.
Through the icy roads she goes, past the neighborhood bust of Lenin so prominently displayed in the local park, and weaving through the monolithic blocks of Soviet era housing compounds which are standard homes for most Russian people.
The bags swing heavily from her sides but their weight gives her added leverage by holding her down to the ice as she shifts her feet in quick short slides that move her forward like a girl learning how to roller skate for the first time. It would be interesting to note that she’s mastered this fine art of walking in high heel boots by the time she was just a school girl.
Walking in winter is actually not so bad compared to the spring when the snow melts and the black water combines with mud and leaking car oil which openly sloshes around in huge pools on the streets because Soviet era central planning never had the wisdom to build water runoff drains or storm sewers to handle the rain or snow melt. In the spring there is so much mud and black slush that people throw down broken bricks and planks of wood in order to create a makeshift stepping stone bridge through the grime. Even with these improvised measures there’s simply no avoiding the mud and daily effort must always go into cleaning their boots once they reach home.
After nearly 3 hours she’s finally reached her building. Taking a taxi could really have helped her and by western standards 8 to 10 dollars for a ride home may not seem like much but when the average monthly salary is only 150 to 300 dollars, taking a taxi is simply not an option when 10 rubles is all it usually takes to ride the “mashrutka” which she just came out from. Taking the bus is even cheaper but it would have easily added another hour to her trip due to it’s lumbering slow speed and even more crowded conditions.
Her colorless and gray 12 story housing complex is nearly identical in every way to the ten others in her block. She’s lived here for all 24 years of her life but she still feels lucky because she knows that the taller buildings like her’s are more “modern” then the standard 4 or 5 story buildings with no elevators that most everyone from the older generation lives in. The old folks can still make it up and down the 4 story stairwell but they would never make it up to the 9th floor where she lives when the elevator inevitably fails or get’s shut down past 9 pm.
Today is not her day it seems.
The lift is out of order again and no attempts have been made to repair it yet. She can quickly see this with the crude “Nyet Rabotet” sign taped on its door. Without breaking her stride she heads for the dimly lit and heavily graffitied stairwell. She knows that the faster she climbs these stairs without stopping, the easier it will be to push through and quickly reach her floor.
She’s normally very happy to live on the 9th floor in order to have the relatively good view of the city that she does. Sometimes she’s even happy to take on this often mandatory exercise and climb the 9 flights to keep her attractive slim body in shape. But today after such a long and cold wait at the bus stop she really could have used a quick elevator ride to her door.
2nd floor..
Past the rows of small blue mail boxes.. lots of junk mail and payment notices are scattered on the dirty bare concrete floor.
3rd floor..
There’s an old man with a cane slowly walking down stairs. His breath reeks with alcohol as his hand trembles on the raw iron railing he uses to guide himself down.
5th floor..
Complete blackness and she reaches into her coat pocket with great difficulty to pull out her mobile phone for illumination as the grocery bags are cutting the circulation to her hands. It seems like nobody on this floor really cares about putting their own bulb into the hallway light socket.
6th floor..
Three teenage boys about 16 years of age are hanging out on the stairwell and sharing a large 5 litter bottle of strong Siberian beer, smoking cigarettes and trying to talk like gangsters. One of them already has a bruised and black eye. She completely ignore the hooligans in training as she squeezes through the stairs between them.
7th floor..
Breathing really hard and her legs are starting to cramp. She really doesn’t like this floor because she’s seen an occasional syringe on the ground during the past year.
9th floor..
Home at last.. and with her last bit of strength she presses the door bell. Mama’s been waiting and quickly opens the door for her. The smile they share is real and heartfelt even as she’s still trying to catch her breath. Mama quickly grabs the bags from her and heads to the kitchen.
Being the only daughter is always a big responsibility and tonight is no different as she quickly shed’s her fur coat and places it on the hallway hook and then unzips her long winter boots before heading to the bathroom to freshen up a little.
After washing up she instinctively heads to the tiny 35 square foot kitchen to help her mother with the cooking. Her mama can tell by the time that her daughters has had a long commute home so she tells her to feed the cat and to go relax in the small living room. She obliges but not until she gets a chance to embrace and carry her large fluffy cat onto the small sofa next to the TV.
In fifteen minutes a few modest pieces of pan fried chicken, borch soup, sour cream, and sliced black bread are waiting for her on the tiny kitchen table that only the two of them dine on. She pours the hot tea for mama and chit chats about her day as they start to eat.
There is genuine love and warmth in this home. The simple mercury thermometer attached to the outside kitchen window pane starts dipping down to minus 35 C but you would never feel this chill as the radiator beneath the table keeps both of their legs toasty. Mama’s had her usual long work day too but the pride she feels in her beautiful daughter is more then enough to compensate for the hardships.
She only hopes that someday her daughter will be blessed to find a good husband who can someday bless her with beautiful grandchildren.
Mama reverently looks towards the small pictures of Orthodox Christian icons adorning her kitchen wall and wonders.
source: russianwomentruth.com
