Home, Family

We were told we would be living on our own in the center of town; instead we’re about half an hour away from Lenin’s head (the center of town) on the outskirts of the city. But it’s much better than I could have hoped. A cozy place with one bath, one room for me and John, one for Melissa, a bedroom for Svetlana and Igor (our parents), a kitchen (the bird Kasha lives here), and a living room for any guests who might happen to show up with a toothbrush, which is often. For a few weeks at the start, Valentin, one of their three children, was home from university; he stayed on the couch while John and I slept in his bunk bed, in a room that doesn’t seem to have changed in a few years, which means it looks like a room from the 70’s: football posters with their edges curling, a large yellowing periodic table, hundreds of books, some Buddhist artwork, pins and medals from outdoor organizations (“TIMBY: Tahoe Is My Back Yard”), an award with Vladimir Putin’s face on it (in high school, Valentin was the country’s orienteering champion for his age group), some antique guitars, a jigsaw dinosaur, a high bar with rings and a rope (which I use for getting off the top bunk and my gymnastics routine), a top bunk that is a foot length’s too short. The requisite thin walls, on top of an already modest square meterage and the typical Russian nosiness, make privacy as nonexistent an idea in Russia as it is a word. But there’s little need for it anyway; we’re starting to feel like a family. We dine with Igor and Sveta most nights and sit around for hours talking about our work and days, our experiences in Russia and the States, our families and friends, sharing photos. I’m confined to mostly trying to listen of course, and if I get bored I can at least practice my Russian with the bird. When we go out, we often pay for each others’ bus rides and sodas and blinies and beers without thinking of it, as much out of familiarity as out of a lavishness in our ruble power. The neighborhood, Vostochny, is mostly a homogenous collection of apartment buildings and the requisite supermarkets and stores, like any number of concrete neighborhoods in the Bronx or Queens but with mountains in the distance.