Yabloko

Sunday, June 25, 2006

The Cows of Gunib

Ah the cows! The bus on the way in to Gunib got stuck twice in tunnels by sheltering cows, and that was only start. They were everywhere, on the square, along the side-streets, hiding in sheds and of course in the hills overlooking the town. Always happily chewing and always seemingly ownerless.

Cows are more clever than we think. On one of our hikes we met the town shepherd and he explained. Every morning he gathers the cows from people's gardens and brings them up to the mountain grass. As evening approaches he brings them back down, but at the town gates he leaves the cows and goes home. The cows, left alone, stand about for a bit, and then all make their way to their respective homes! When a cow gets home she stands at the gate and moos until her owner lets her in. It's an incredible sight, seeing a cow standing at the gate, ringing the doorbell so to speak, mooing "babushka I'm hoooooommmmmme!"

Baba Patimat has three cows, two of which are milking, and (I learned) a cow gets millked twice a day. Do the maths, that's four buckets of milk every day between an oul granny, grandad, their daughter Irina, and their Irish guest.

The result was an incredible dairy diet from which my poor gut is still recovering. Breakfast was milky porridge with salt and butter. Lunch was bread with sour cream, cheese and curds. Dinner was soup, soup being in fact hot milk with pasta in it. Sometimes I was treated to some local specialities, pancakes (flour & milk) or chugu (flour, curds, nettles & milk). Thirsty? Have some tea, that is - hot millk topped with tea. Or maybe you could have a glass of milk...

So with all these clever cows and a house awash with milk, it was only natural that I wanted to milk a cow. I milked a goat on Cape Clear, but who was ever scared of a goat? I told Baba Patimat I'd love to milk a cow, but she just giggled and told me there was no need.

Assuming she'd refused out politeness, I brought it up at dinner the next day. Irina, who some might describe as "the eccentric aunt", squealed with excitement, and Baba giggled, but Grandad Djevad was totally against it. He told me men don't milk cows, it simply wasn't done, and at my peril I underestimated what a deeply held belief this was. And so was the milking scandal was born.

The scandal had already escalated by the following night, when on the village square a friend of Irina's came up and said "are you man who wanted to milk a cow?!?" What could I do, I mean I was backed into a corner, and instantaneously the legend of the Irish milkermen was created. "In Ireland ALL men milk cows, especially the manly men" and other such vague untruths. Then there was the classic - "In my country we have a folk saying - a man who's never milked will never get the maid." Pity the alliteration was lost in translation.

But for god's sake I just wanted to milk a cow! It was one man against the huge weight of a centuries old Muslim tradition - men don't milk - I didn't stand a chance. In the end a compromise was found, and it was decided I would secretly milk the cow, so to speak. Whatever happened, the neighbours could never find out. "But Lui, you can yourself imagine the disgrace if people thought the house of Saghitov allowed their guest to milk a cow?" Well now I can but at the time this was killing me.

So Baba Patimat showed me how it was done, and I sat on the milking stool and finally got to milk the bloody cow. Disgusting! A dirty, sloppery job that I wouldn't wish on any man or woman. After a good five squirts I'd had enough and handed the gready udder back to the expert. But it was worth it, of the fifteen gallons of milk I was fed there, I milked a whole cupful of it myself.

Posted at 02:12 pm by yabloko
View 4 comments Permalink

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Dagestan

When I finally got my passport on Friday I went straight to the train station and found that every single train South was booked up, so I bought a ticket to Samara. I've done a lot of foolish things but this really was absurd, I arrived in Samara with no idea what of what there was to see, and no particular wish to see it. I sat in a park for 2 hours eating chicken pie then went back to the station and bought a ticket to Saratov. The train to Saratov was great craic, I'll write about it when I have more time. Spent the night in Saratov waiting hall then got the morning train to Makhachkala, the main town in Dagestan. A full 24 hours later I arrived, found my way to the bus station and got the bus up to the mountain village of Gunib. I'll write all this up when I get back to Moscow, the people I'm staying with insisted I tell everyone I'm safe. Everyone I'm safe! This place is quite blatantly not a war zone. On the train a young Dagestani couple were amazed to hear I lived in Moscow. "A foreigner living in Moscow? Don't skinheads kill foreigners in Moscow? Surely it's not safe for you there?" - you see what I'm getting at... All my love, my train back to Moscow is Sat-Mon, and back in Dublin on Wednesday!

Posted at 02:18 pm by yabloko
View 1 comment Permalink

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

My Bureaucratic Nightmare

You can get an exit-visa in a week, but it's recommended that you allow two weeks, just in case it's delayed. Three and a half weeks ago I handed my passport in for said visa, so that I'd be able to go travelling at the beginning of June - needless to say I'm still in Moscow waiting for it.

Last Friday I started to get annoyed about it, but good oul Nina in the institute promised me that by Monday I'd have my passport back. On Monday she told me I'd get it on Tuesday. On Tuesday, she wasn't in, but good oul Sasha was there for her, and he explained that at the at the very earliest I'd get my passport back the following Friday. We started to argue, and he sneeringly told me that if I didn't like the way they do things here I could ring the passport office myself and they'd tell me to piss off.

He gave me the phone and I rang the passport office, right in front of him, and the polite lady told me of course my passport will be ready for the next day if I need it, all they had to do was call and it would have been ready quicker.

And so at the arranged time today I went to the passport office to collect my passport, and it turns out that Sasha had rang and told them not to give me my passport under any circumstances, by attempting to collect the passport myself I was breaking the protocol. They'll give the passport to the institute and the institute will give it to me...on Friday...so fantastically late that I probably won't have time to travel anywhere, and all because of the petty spite of a clerk in our institute.

Posted at 07:07 pm by yabloko
View 3 comments Permalink

Thursday, June 08, 2006

A pleasant entry

They turned off our hot water. It happens every summer for about three weeks. In theory the plan is that every summer they check to make sure the entire heating system is fully functional so that during the harsh winter nothing will break. In practice, the entire workforce at the waterworks turns everything off and heads down to the Crimea for a bit of sun, while the hoi polloi of Moscow smell that little bit worse than usual.

I am no such pleb! I washed in a cooking pot instead, a nice big yellow one with flowers on it, usually confined to the drudgery of borsch or onion soup. A remarkably enjoyable experience, everyone should try it at some point in their life.

Posted at 06:18 pm by yabloko
View 1 comment Permalink

Saturday, May 20, 2006

Skins

My end of year project is called "Russia moving to the right", 3000 words in Russian on the fantastic decline of liberal democracy in this part of the world, specifically censorship, racism and skinheads. But alas, I worried, how will I ever find sources for a title like that? Luckily, good oul Mother Russia saved the day, and I had the pleasure of bumping into a (rather modest) fascist rally on Pushkinskaya Square, just by our institute.

Under the banner of "Christian Russia - you need us", about a dozen well dressed men were giving out leaflets. The party armband, Nazi-red with a black cross in a white circle, confirmed to me beyond any doubt that these guys were true Christians.

I stood and watched in delight, political fanatics are very exciting you see, and sure enough one of them quickly approached me. Petition in hand, he asked if I agreed that foreigners should be banned from Russia.

"Well no, but I would love a copy of your petition. I'm doing a project you see, you know about this kind of...stuff." I think it was just as I slid the petition into by bag that the inner workings of this guy's brain ticked over the conclusion that he wasn't talking to a Russian.

He fakesmiled, and asked me where I was from. "Ireland."

"Oh right."

We stood there in silence, me beaming up at him, eager to hear some of his political vomit. He stood looking awkward, not quite sure how to deal with the foreigner. Eventually he had a flash of inspiration - "Guinness!"

"Yes, yes, Guinness, Ireland." God I'm thinking, give out to me, amn't I racial vermin or something?

"Yes, yes, Guinness, Ireland, I knew it" he repeated, nodded sheepishly and walked away. Pathetic.

Posted at 04:54 pm by yabloko
View 1 comment Permalink

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Oleg went into hospital today...

He'll be there for about a week. Nothing's actually wrong with him, it's to avoid military service. In exchange for a bit of cabbage, the doctors are arranging for him to officially have an ulcer or something. Phil did the exact same thing, this is all very procedural. In fact, only 10% of young men don't dodge the military draft, that's an awful lot of ulcers, and an awful lot of cabbage.

Cabbage is what Oleg calls money, "Oh Lui I've no cabbage" etc etc

Posted at 04:57 pm by yabloko
View 1 comment Permalink