VC Belogorie owns a hotel
where the team has practice every morning. They are also required to live at
the hotel for a few days preceding matches, so Justin has to spend quite some
time away from home and I have to close the French doors to the bedroom because
I get spooked by the full length mirrors in the hallway at night. But, when I
awake in the morning to sunlight filtering through our gauzy curtains and birds
chirping (or snow crashing off the roof onto the aluminum awnings) I get to
fling open those doors like a fairytale princess and sashay down the mirrored
hallway to the washroom. After the friendly little animals help me dress and fix my
hair I settle in the living room for a leisurely morning that I can occupy with
schoolwork and exercise or hours of Anna Karenina, as I please.
My afternoons are spent
student-teaching – my first foray into which involved simple q&a with the
students about me and Canada to practice conversation. Easy peasy. Besides basic getting-to-know-yous I got many laughs over poutine (see: Putin, Vlad), frequent inquiries regarding my husband and
children, and a few outliers like: 'How long do you take to put on makeup?' Lately though,
I’ve been following a real lesson plan and have even got a private student of
my own! (To all my teacher friends and family: I know. ONE student. Whoopdeedoo)
In the last few weeks I’ve
been learning more about my neighbours, generally speaking. Russians are a
closed, private people who take life seriously and are distrustful of
foreigners. The freedoms of women still lag behind those in Europe - there is a pretty strong culture of male machismo (see: Putin, Vlad) and chauvinism. It is common to marry young; Justin is the
only unmarried man on his team. Also common are cheating and bribery – a
guaranteed pass on your driver‘s test runs about 12,000 roubles. Russia – a giant
country with a harsh climate, sparse population, pervasive corruption, high unemployment and pandemic alcoholism, is
like a giant turtle lumbering forward; progress is slow and life here can be hard. Fortunately for me, most of this I have
learned second-hand from my colleagues and friends, who don’t quite fit the
mold of this cold stereotype. I suppose being multi-lingual and well-travelled
helps with a progressive and welcoming attitude, and I am the luckier for it - I've got more social engagements than I can manage. And Justin's team mates, some terrifyingly intimidating, are all really nice guys. Vodka-drinking, cigar-smoking, duck-shooting manly men, yes, but plenty friendly.
I am learning to drive our standard car (!) but most days I walk or
take the bus. The marshrutkas (cozy minibuses) are very cheap: only 30 cents
per trip. They get a lot of flack for their annual death toll, but considering
my recent traffic experience they seem quite safe. My only complaint is that
they are heavily curtained, so I have to blindly count the roundabouts to know
my stop. This will be useful if I am ever kidnapped, and like Liam Neeson in
Taken2 need to trace my route from the car trunk based on street sounds and
turns.
Despite Belgorod’s mixed
first impression, the city has steadily grown on me. Though I was first
overwhelmed at going out to eat (it was hard enough to determine which building
was a restaurant, never mind what was on the menu) we have since found through
trial and error and suggestions a few gems:
·
The Ukrainian
restaurant with the 4-dollar 3-course lunch special
·
The pizza place
with thin crust and real bacon
·
The coffee shops
with Polar Express hot chocolate. No joke.
·
The fancy Italian
restaurant where Justin can have sushi and I can have lamb kebab.
I have found the market in
our apartment complex, the hidden extension to our couch and a route to school
almost entirely through parks. With each grocery store meatball selection being
even better than the last, and with second winter finally receding, I have
little doubt that this little piece of Russia will continue to win me over. Though I'm leaving soon, Belogorie's win against Zenit-Kazaan on Wednesday looks promising for playoffs, so Justin will hopefully be staying in the hotel for another month. And we're both hoping this might mean a possible return in the fall.