The Siberian Haze

Since today is Sunday and it hasn’t rained for about 12 hours, a person should be allowed to go out and celebrate.  I do adore spring and summer in Russia because there are two things that always come to mind when I think of this time of year: the smell of things burning and the sound of people remodeling their apartments.  The burning smell isn’t a bad thing; people love to burn trash, the cotton fluff from the trees and the smell of shashlik or kebob if you will.  Kebob doesn’t do this word justice, so we’ll keep the Russian word, shashlik.  The difference is this, it’s not just meat on a stick; it’s the idea behind the meat on the stick.  No one ever makes shashlik alone, and no one ever just eats the meat.  Oh no, there’s a least half a day dedicated to preparing the meat by the women, the men have to out and get their man points by building the perfect fire and finding pine cones still intact to add to the fire; then there’s the assortment of vegetables that must also be present (tomatoes, cucumbers, green onions) and last but perhaps the most important part the beer and guitar.  No shashlik party is complete without a guitar.     

 

Unless you just so happen to be stuck with a group of people who only shout and drink and play badminton, the grandmother response to an actual sport, like tennis.  Anyway, so add another must-have ingredient to the smell and genuine good feeling of having the perfect Russian summer day is the scent of the forest.  Yes there are pine, fir and birch trees everywhere you look, but like all places you can’t really appreciate the beauty unless you’re outside of city, away from the noise and pollution of the city.  Unfortunately it has been my experience, and remember I’ve traveled all over this country, you must go quite far outside the city to find a clean place.  Quite far.  A couple of weeks ago some friends and I drove for two hours outside of Novosibirsk to the local lake called Obskoy Mori.  There are about three different ways to spell this place, and I like the letter Y so I’m going to go with this spelling.  Anyway, a two hour drive gets you outside the city and into a nice part of the forest.  That is, unless you look down and then your eyes are assaulted by the view of alcoholic trees boasting their intense desire to drink large amounts of vodka.  Clearly the trees are to blame in this situation.  Aside from the air being corrupted by the smell of drying beer and other random fermented products, my heart was saddened by the sheer number of cigarette butts every 2 feet.  I wish I were joking.  Granted, I do come from a hippie place, but this was simply uncalled for.  Once my general shock and horror subsided I couldn’t help but be enraged at everyone around me.  What’s the point of planning and having an amazing picnic and driving so far to see some of the countryside only to discover that no one cares at all about nature.  Period.  This amount of litter is unforgiveable and everyone should be ashamed of themselves for hiding behind the ridiculous notion that ‘Russia is so big, we can do whatever we want’ because in case people have forgotten, no you can’t.  There is always a price for pollution.

 

Aside from the rage I am clearly expressing about the litter, I’m even more annoyed at myself for viewing such events with rose colored glasses.  Traveling has opened my eyes and yet at times, I hate to admit it, but on some topics my mind has become narrower.  There are clearly right ways and wrong ways to do things, and dumping glass and trash in the forest is obviously a wrong way to go about ‘cleaning up’ places. Despite all my happy memories of Ukrainian shashlik parties, I know that it was also terribly dirty as well.  Like all things, most of us prefer to remember events with friends with rose colored glasses.  I will always have a special place in my heart in dachas and shashlik parties, but if mean witnessing the abuse of trees and land, I think I’d rather stay in the city and dream about the beauty outside the walls.    My other rant/ humorous observation in this weeks “You know you’re in Russian When”:

 

You know it’s spring time when people start lighting trash cans on fire.  I’m not talking about country style burnings (if you’re from a farming town, you know what I mean) I’m talking about when you’re standing at the bus stop and there’s smoke coming out of the bin.  And once again, no one cares.  Apparently I’m the only one concerned that the fire could spread outside the can, you know, since it’s overflowing with paper and napkins.  But alas, this is Russia, land of Don’t-Worry-Everything-Will-Be-Okay.  This desperate phrase everyone mutters every single day simply because people have no choice but to believe that everything will be okay, even though it clearly won’t.

 

On any given day, you can smell the smoky aroma of charred meat, paper, wood and other carbon delicacies.  It’s only upon further inspection (admit, everyone likes fire and wants to see how things look when burned) that you realize that among the magazines and napkins, there are the remains of plastic milk bottles, shoes, cigarettes, and if you’re really lucky, tires.  Bring on the carcinogenic perfume.  There’s nothing like a healthy inhale of burning plastic to get your day started. 

 

Of all the things people do that is completely unnecessary this moves its way to the top of the list. In late summer when people are tired of burning all flammable products, wait, who am I kidding, no one will ever tire of this practice, but when you’re low on firewood, the next best thing to burn is cotton fluff from the trees.  Now, who doesn’t love cotton fluff?  There are times when there is so much fluff that it looks like snow.  I find it quite whimsical and charming, but silly me, this fluff must be annihilated with gasoline and matches.  Die you soft cotton fluff!  You have made this country sneeze for the last time. 

 

I feel better now that I’ve exorcised my annoyance with the fires and accidental inhalation of toxic chemicals.  On to the sounds of remodeling, or remont if you will.  Again, just to state the obvious to a developed world, there are four seasons: winter, spring, summer, autumn and construction.  The joy of owning your apartment or house or anything is your right to change and hopefully improve said object.  In the words of Spiderman’s grandfather, “with great power comes great responsibility” and this is phrase applies here.  Just because you have the right to take out a wall or replace old windows doesn’t mean that you have to wake up the whole building at 6am by shouting and drilling.  Can’t you just wait until a civil hour, say 9am?  And since most of the country is experiencing the awesomeness of White Nights (that’s right St. Petersburg, you’re not the only one with white nights) it’s not like there is limited number of sunshine hours.  Is it fair that your neighbor has to mow his lawn at 8am?  No.  Is it annoying that a different neighbor has to start drilling at 7am?  Yes.  And this drilling must continue for at least 4 hours.  I have decided that Russian drills sound completely different from European, Chinese and American drills.  They have a high pitched hum that even scares the dogs.  I’ve done my fair share of home repairs before, and I’ve helped and seen others, but never has anyone drilled for four hours.  What on earth is everyone drilling?  And since everyone lives in an apartment, it’s not like there are a variety of walls and rooms to drill things to.  Perhaps everyone is building their own panic room after watching one too many American movies.  I don’t know.  And to be honest I hadn’t actually noticed this sound until my Korean student pointed it out to me. But since she did, it got me thinking so I’m going to have to agree with her.  So in Korea, drills and other things don’t sound like this either.  I should also clarify that I really don’t mind the construction sounds, I mind the inconsiderate people who feel the need to sand and drill and whatever else at 8am on a Sunday until well past midnight.