Первого Октября

For the first time today, my ears got red and my fingers stiff from walking to the grocery store. The city turned on the heat this morning, and our room radiator is a toasty spot, although heat means a clicking in the pipe by the head of my bed. The government controls the heating system in Nizhnii, and will only turn it on after it's been colder than a certain temperature for a certain number of days. Colder weather means that our food in our “fridge” (the space between our double window) will last longer, though, and that I can wear the many warmer things that I dragged across the Atlantic just for this purpose.

Maria and I went another one of our exploratory walks around the city. This time we found a dirt path leading off the road and followed it. It led through a hilly, overgrown field with power lines, old, weathered, decrepit fences almost hiding the cottages and garden behind them. We crossed a metal bridge with an assortment of trash underneath in a stopped-up stream: a sled, a tricycle and a tire . . . a suitcase, in the bushes, it's clothes spread out around it, looking like it had been there a while. Piles of trash and fire pits up every minor trail leading off the main one. Through hole in the fence, we found what I still say are missile containers, (big metal boxes with locks on them). The path was well traveled; we didn't get to follow it to the end, but it has to lead somewhere, I'm thinking. The funny thing about this field is that it is right in the middle of the city. Granted, it's not the only strange field like this in the city, and the cities here let their vegetation grow-- there are dirt oaths through the woods everywhere, which I'm a fan of. There's even a stairway down the mountain behind the university. It, too, is decrepit. The hand rails have fallen off, the benches alongside have the frames, but nowhere to sit. And, like everywhere else, covered in trash. Broken beer bottles abound. You can't exactly see it on the postcards that I've sent you (haha), but it's pretty trashy and grimy here. Your shoes, and even your socks underneath get covered in a film of gray dust.

We've been studying Pushkin, one of Russia's most renowned poets over the past few days. Our teacher says that Pushkin is untranslatable, and that you have to read him in Russian to really get the full effect. Eventually, maybe :) Even though his mother tongue is French, he was consider the “creator” of the Russian language. I think I get the gist, even in English, so I'll leave you with one of his love poems: (turns out he was a womanizer, had a bad marriage, and died in a duel over his wife :( So sad.)

I loved you once, that love, still, perhaps
has not died out completely,
but may it not trouble you anymore.
I do not want to cause you sorrow in any way;
I loved you silently, hopelessly, and slavishly and jealously, I languish.
I loved you so sincerely, so tenderly, that may God grant you to be loved in that way,
by someone else.

Я вас любил, любовь ешё, быть может,
В душе мой утсла не совсем.
Но пусть она вас болше не тревожит,
Я не хочу печалить вас ничем
Я вас любил без молвно, безнадежно,
То робостью, то ревностью томим.
Я вас любил так искрено, так нежно,
Как дай вам Бог любимой быть другим.