If you are
looking for authentic cuisine, regional arts and crafts and traditional Russian
hospitality, you will never find it in St. Petersburg or Moscow. Only in small
villages like Makachova will you be welcomed into a peasant’s house by the
babushkas to enjoy tea straight from a samovar along with traditional Russian
pancakes, pastries and piroshky and be given to eat until you can have no more.
In short, a visitor to the heartland becomes a member of the family when he is
seated at the dining table
Despite the challenges
and the lack of resources, the Russian heartland continues to produce talent. When we visited the babushkas in Makachova, we met a little girl who
attends the village school. Her name was Olesei I believe and she was no older
than 6 years of age. She had just begun her first year of English classes.
Alina was showing her cards with simple English phrases on them. Olesei not
only pronounced the phrases in almost perfect English, but she was able to
learn and to recite them quickly. When I asked her to count up to ten in
English, she was able to do so with confidence. It is people like Olesei in my opinion that
will determine the fate of the heartland.
And lastly, another important moment
for me was when we together with the Russians recited poetry in front of the
village school administration as we celebrated the 8th of March or
international women’s day. Before that, Jake and I had stayed behind with the
11th grade Russian teacher and her class. I remember she asked me
whether I thought Russian was hard to learn, to which I replied: русский язык
сложный но красивый or Russian
is a complex language but a beautiful one. After our poetry recital, the teacher
replied that although English was a complicated tongue, it too was nevertheless
deep and rich in meaning like Russian. It was amazing that even though perhaps
we could hardly understand the words, the mere rhythm and rhyme of the poems
were enough to touch the strings of our hearts and unite us at deeper level.
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