Elena and her daughter
Elena lived next door to Igor. She offered to put me up for the
weekend. I also got to look at her daughter's schoolbooks. Elena was a
bit chagrined when I was watching Total Recall on TV, she kept saying,
"That's not Christian." Which people in Moscow and St Pete would never
say; thus showing people in the towns are more religious. In the late
evenings, she and I would have tea and talk. She gave me a book of
Siberian folk tales, saying I would never find it anywhere else. The
second or third day, her mother came to stay too; one morning I woke up
and her mother was making tea. Yes, Russians make as big a deal out of
drinking tea as the Brits do.
Podol'sk, Russia -- September 1995
Copyright © 1999-2004 by
Mike (Sluggo) Orr
