St. Petersburg, Russia: First Fifteen Days of #Fails - November 2016

In my 36 years I have moved 19 times. While I've been fortunate to experience different places and make friends all over the world, the process of moving is stressful. Our most recent move to St. Petersburg, Russia has been no exception. More complicated and confusing navigating the language and cultural differences, my husband and I have managed to quite beautifully #fail our way through our first couple weeks.

Day 1: Today on the train from Finland to Russia, my husband and I are caught by customs smuggling chicken, sausage, booze and one lone tomato across the border. Fortunately, the inspector turns a frozen cheek and mutters “глупые американцы” or “stupid Americans” as she walks away.

Day 2: Our taxi driver asks in broken English if I believe Michael Jackson is still alive. I laugh. He glares at me through the rear view mirror and violently slams the brakes at the next red light.

Day 3: After being dropped off in the parking lot, it takes us twenty minutes to find the entrance to IKEA. We get lucky and find a discarded map. It's written only in Russian. We wander around for another ten minutes before entering into the store midway through the kid’s section.

Day 4: The first heavy snowfall blankets the city. Our coats, hats and gloves are in a moving truck somewhere. We get our first colds of the season instantaneously.

Day 5: We need to pay the Russian government to get our goods through customs. No credit cards or personal checks are accepted. The Russian bank rejects our attempt at a money transfer. We are instructed to pay in cash. We take out the equivalent of eight thousand dollars in rubles and return to pay the fee. The Russian customs official smirks and informs us that they do not accept cash from American citizens. We walk back to the hotel dejected and with a backpack full of loot.

Day 6: Numerous family members and colleagues comment about hearing a repetitive clicking sound on telephone calls with us. Some suspect the KGB may be listening. Conversations become shorter and less frequent.

Day 7: On our apartment walk-through we notice that all of the drains and toilets emit a smell similar to that of a rotten skunk carcass and the shower knob groans like an old man when twisted. The landlady explains this is standard for Russian plumbing.

Day 8: Our furniture and goods are delivered to the new apartment. Fortunately, all is accounted for and nothing is broken; unfortunately, I walk in on a man assembling my bed who is not wearing any pants.

Day 9: We become acquainted with the special features of our new living quarters: ridiculously slow dial-up internet, continually flickering lights due to power surges, the two minutes it takes for the television to come on, and the radiant heating system controlled by the government.

Day 10: Braving the elements with a purse full of change, I attempt to procure groceries. I learn the hard way that ruble coins don’t go as far as euros. The cashier shakes her head with hands on her hips as I slowly count out 560 in 5 and 10 ruble coins in exchange for O.J., milk, bread and eggs.

Day 11: After unpacking we carry the empty boxes and paper down the four flights of concrete steps from our apartment, out the door, around the corner and down the street to the dumpster. For some reason today the dumpster is missing.

Day 12: To unwind after a long day I set out to take a bath in our new claw foot bathtub. I start the water and go to find towels. Upon returning I find the tub filled with a disturbing liquid the color and opacity of chocolate milk. My husband instructs me to add some bubbles and it’ll be just fine.

Day 13: A pigeon flies into the apartment.

Day 14: My husband travels three and half hours back to Finland to go grocery shopping finding it easier and more fruitful than navigating the metro and underground shops here in the city. He comes back with four bags of Doritos and more contraband chicken.

Day 15: This morning following my shower, I walk to the window in a towel to see how hard it’s snowing. To my surprise what appears to be an entire middle school of children is standing across the street in front of St. Isaac’s Cathedral peering back at me. I wave. A few wave back. Must be tourists, I think to myself. Way too friendly. 

Life in big city Russia is not for the faint of heart.

Chiusi, Italy: The Evolution of a Lost Masterpiece - October 2016

Following a mid-afternoon lunch of freshly-baked focaccia bread, sliced pork, buffalo mozzarella ... and a half liter of crisp house wine, it's nearly impossible to paint a straight line. And so I learned the hard way on day four of my week-long painting retreat in the hills of Tuscany.

 

Days earlier I had arrived by train from Rome into the quaint town of Chiusi, Italy, where my instructor, Julian, greeted me at the station with a warm smile. I was driven to the gated, hilltop retreat of Siliano Alto nested above a picturesque valley and surrounded by lush landscape.

The five-day painting class offered by Easel & Lens catered to professional artists and novices alike and aside from lessons included room and board.

Before candlelit, home-cooked dinners, I, along with my three classmates, spent the days in the studio overlooking the Tuscan valley watching lizards dart between the brick cracks and smelling lavender and rosemary whirl in the breeze. In the evenings, I retreated to my downstairs apartment across the hall from Louis, who I learned is an accomplished Australian artist currently immersing herself in an iceberg-painting period since visiting Antarctica earlier this year.

The first couple days of the class we practiced basic drawing techniques like hatching and perspective, and were able to experiment with various tools and mediums.

Our beginning assignment was to get comfortable with watercolor. While the other ladies perched on the back grassy hill and painted landscape, I chose to focus my attention on a green bench and rusty barrel situated in the front of the house. Watercolor proved to be extremely fluid and forgiving, and I enjoyed the exercise more than I thought I would.

As a welcome escape from our focused time in the studio, we spent one morning in the village of Chiusi where we strolled down rolling, cobblestone streets and through the narrow alleys. We sat in the town square with our drawing boards on our laps and learned tricks for drawing angles and dimension before stopping by the local farmer's market to pick up fresh mushrooms and leeks for dinner. 

Another afternoon we ventured to the nearby town of Cortona. Popularized by Diane Lane's film "Under the Tuscan Sun," the town buzzed with people and excitement.

On day three of the class we were tasked with finding our medium: watercolor, acrylic or oil. I opted for acrylic and set out to recreate a photograph of the colorful fishing village of Burano near Venice.

For three days straight under the instruction of Julian I created my masterpiece: first sketching in the buildings with pencil, then blocking in the background color and throughout using a fine brush to paint the details. Painting from a photograph, it was difficult to tell when the painting was complete as there was always more detail and color play to be done.

In the final hours of the last day of class, I completed my Burano painting. While some of the dimensions were a bit off and not all of the lines were straight, I was pleased and felt it effectively embodied the learnings from the week. I treasured the opportunity to do something out of the ordinary for me and took great comfort in the peace that came with "creating."

The day following class the experience and my masterpiece truly became priceless as somehow the rolled-up painting was left on a train headed to Genoa never to be seen again. 

Imatra, Finland: Fifteen Efficient Facts about the Finnish - October 2016

Why didn't we think of that?

Reflecting upon our two years living in Finland, we've discovered several items the locals have enlisted to make life easier. While known for their environmental and social-consciousness, the Finns may not have invented these life hacks but they were new to us and notable to share with the rest of the world.

1. Parking Cards. The Finns need not pay attention to pesky meters to secure a public parking spot. Instead the honor system is employed. Spots that are signed with a time limit require a blue card be placed in the windshield dash indicating the correct time of arrival.
2. Shopping Cart Coin System. In order to borrow and "unlock" a shopping cart or buggy at the local grocery store, you need to deposit a coin into the handle bar. Your coin or coin-like token will be returned upon proper return of the cart.
3. Drying Machine Bottle. Ever conscious of the environment, Finnish clothes dryers have a built-in system to capture the moisture loss in the process. Once at maximum capacity, the machine alerts you that the bottle is full and you can reuse the water to nourish your garden.
4. Closet Organizers. The Finns as a rule make effective use of all spaces - no matter how big or how small. One example is that in smaller living quarters, closet organizers with removable baskets are used in place of dressers and armoires.
5. Radiant Water Heating. Forget the thermostat. Wall-mounted radiant water heating units are secured in every room of the house to cut the winter chill in Suomi.
6. Heated Floors and Garages. When the temperatures dip to 40 below, there's nothing more comforting than stepping out of the shower onto heated floor tiles or resting comfortably knowing the heated garage will ensure your car starts in the morning. It's the little things ...
7. Dish Drying Racks. Who has time to use a towel to dry a plate after it's been washed? Not the Finns. Kitchen cupboard shelves double as drying racks with false bottoms allowing for the excess water to drip back into the sink.
8. Public Firewood. You know a society is highly-evolved when it brags public areas outfitted with cabins equipped with pre-cut firewood and axes free for public consumption.
9. Potted Herbs. In the middle of a long, cold winter, fruits and vegetables have to travel quite a distance to get to our friends in Finland. To ensure herbs are fresh and to extend their lives, they are purchased in grocery stores planted in soil cups.
10. Transparent Window Blinds. When the days are only a few hours long, every ounce of sunshine, or even daylight for that matter, counts. To ensure their privacy but also take advantage of the daytime hours, transparent, one-way window blinds are the perfect solution.
11. Curtain Clips. A bit conflicted, Finns are half of the time savoring the daylight and the remainder feverishly trying to block it out. Because darkening shades are required in the summertime, metal curtain clips are an easy way to continually modify your window treatments.
12. Studded Shoes. Who says cleats are only for the ball field? To combat the bone-shattering sheets of ice present several months of the year, shoes studded with metal or plastic-bottomed cleats are in high demand. Some styles even have retractable studs to prevent sounding like a tap dancer while indoors.
13. Shopping Bags for Purchase. Paper or plastic? Now that's a barbaric question. The answer is neither in Finland. In grocery stores you are required to bring your own reusable bags to carry home your goods or you can purchase a bag at the store.
14. Silverware Buckets. Unless you are frequenting a fine dining establishment, you can find your eating utensils and napkins in a bucket. Finns save time setting the table or dishing out silverware to customers, by employing a fend-for-yourself policy. Just make sure your kids with grubby hands don't contaminate the batch!
15. Checkless Pay. Can I write a check as payment? The question will send your Finnish friends laughing all the way to the bank. According to the local who schooled me, the country did away with paper check slips decades ago. Who needs something as formal as a check when you can rely on plastic or two Euro coins?  
    

    

Bratsk, Siberia: A Country of Contrast - August 2016

"Everybody's like Cristal, Maybach, diamonds on your timepiece. Jet planes, islands, tigers on a gold leash. We don't care, we aren't caught up in your love affair." Lorde's song "Royals" is bellowing over the car speakers as we drive through the dark, dilapidated industrial town of Bratsk, Siberia.

The twenty-something Russian interpreter sitting next to me in the backseat is humming along to the music while gazing out the window. Overgrown fields blanket the landscape dotted with broken-down buildings and trash. "Do you have any plans for the weekend?" I ask, trying to connect with the girl who will be my sidekick for the next day and a half. "Oh, yes," she answers with a smile. "I'll take a bus to my grandmother's dacha to dig up potatoes. We need to harvest them now to feed the family through the winter."

I nodded and smiled. This girl's reality couldn't be farther from the words she sings along to on the radio. The designer store studded boulevards and lavishly decorated palaces in St. Petersburg seem a world away. Instead of donning full-length fur coats and stiletto heels, the women in Siberia wear their hardship on weathered faces unmasked by gold-toothed grins. It's hard to believe it's even the same country I thought to myself; what an amazing contrast. 

I was in Siberia for work. After an overnight flight from Moscow over the Ural Mountains, we arrived into the south central Siberian city of Bratsk. The dimly-lit airport was one of the smallest I'd ever seen; our baggage was thrown onto a conveyor through what looked like a barn window. Once all of our belongings were accounted for, our group of two Americans and six Russians loaded into two vehicles and set out for the town of Ust-Ilimsk.

For the next four hours we endured a hair-raising drive through the Siberian countryside dodging stray dogs, chickens and cars approaching us head-on, before finally arriving in one of the most notorious places in Russia. Ust-Ilimsk was the site of a gulag in the 1930s where tens of thousands of people lost their lives.

Despite its grim history, we were now there to visit the town's paper mill. The mill and a hydroelectric plant are accredited for the creation of the town in the 1960s when people were recruited from all over the country to start-up the industrial city. The paper mill remains one of the largest employers in the area and even dictates the city's traffic flow with its shift schedule. After our two-day visit to Ust-Ilimsk, we returned to the slightly larger but equally depressed city of Bratsk to visit another work site.

All together, it was a humbling week. Unlike the Russia I was previously acquainted with, namely St. Pete and Moscow, visiting Siberia felt as if we were going back in time sixty years.

In Siberia, due to the unforgiving winters and harsh temperature swings, the roads are riddled with potholes. Communist block architecture towers over the cities and hides the sun. Buses blow clouds of black smoke that hang in the air. Faded and torn billboards flank the trash-littered streets.

Traveling outside the cities, the grass is uncut and fields are overgrown. Small wooden triangular dachas, or rural houses, are enclosed by rusty gates and bear the scars of broken windows and caved in roofs. In both Ust-Ilimsk and Bratsk, the city's main tourist attraction is the hydroelectric dam. Locals commonly retreat into the forested taiga to flee the noise and polluted air. Siberia is the far less publicized face of Mother Russia.

Regardless of the difficult conditions, the locals welcome foreigners to their towns with a smile and, not unlike the rest of Russia, are passionately patriotic. The lyrics of the pop song continue, "And we'll never be royals. It don't run in our blood. That kind of luxe just ain't for us. We crave a different kind of buzz." And maybe that goes for the people of Siberia as well. It's a different kind of buzz, but they keep marching on every day, working hard and digging out potatoes to survive the long, harsh winter that is soon approaching.