It’s a nice 90 degree day and
despite the stale heat, it’s a beautiful day.
As I was standing on the crowded bus, trying my best to keep myself calm
and collected, I saw this babushka make a mad dash onto the bus with, you
guessed it, two enormous bags. It didn’t
matter that there were other people boarding at the same time, and it mattered
even less to her that the bus continued to idle for another two minutes which
meant that the rushing was completely unnecessary. This got me thinking about babushkii in
general. Yes, I know every traveler from
Moscow to Kurdistan has a story about a babushka, and most of these stories are
hilarious as they are special. There is
the story of the babushka freaking out because a girl was sitting on a bench in
the winter and she thought that her eggs would freeze. There’s the story of an old woman giving an
uncalled for lecture to a guy because he had dirty shoes. There’s the ever classic story of not one
babushka, but several shouting at some students because they were speaking any
language other than Russian. And my personal favorite, being spoken to
firmly because I had the misfortune of snagging my nylons; it was after all my
goal to waste five dollars by ripping my nylons on purpose.
Now you may be asking yourself:
why do they care so much? Or for that
matter, do they really care or do they just need something to talk about? The Soviet Union is but a dim a memory for
many of the young people these days, so perhaps the aging generation is
desperately trying to make their voices heard to validate the years of
conformity. Just like rebellious teens
that make it a point to dress wildly and shout obscenities; the senior
generation has to pass judgment on those they simply don’t understand. Like countless people it must be a shock to
wake up one day and realize that the world which you grew up in is long
gone. These women were raised in an era
where people had a handful of patterns and materials to choose from for
clothes, impressively long lines for eggs and milk and were really allowed to
form personal opinions; imagine the astonishment to see their grandchildren,
especially girls, running around in what can only be described as porn style
Soviet school uniforms where the skirts barely conceal butt cheeks. We now live in a world where we have access
to vast quantities of information, no one is afraid to criticize the government
(correction, you’re allowed to grumble and you better not be someone in office)
and traveling is open to all those who which to deal with the paperwork. In other words, it’s a brave new world. In this world no one cares a girl is sitting
on something cold, a young man under age 30 will be annoyed about being dirty,
but won’t panic and no one will lecture you for speaking a different
language. Will they stare at you? Absolutely.
Will they tell you to shut up?
No. Will they think you’re a
spy? Well, something never change with
time; but once people accept that you are a spy you may continue with business
as usual.
Let me backtrack a bit about The Babushka;
first thing’s first, what exactly is a babushka? It’s a fun fact that all foreigners who come
to the post-Soviet world use this word instead of the English word
‘grandmother’. Why? Perhaps it’s because elderly ladies from
America, England, Australia etc are just, for lack of a better word, different
than they are in Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan and so on. The typical body type of a babushka is square
with massively wrestler type arms. She
will have either a classic color of hair such as brown or blonde, but just to
walk on the wild side; it’s not unheard of to see babushki with purple or
magenta colored hair. Keeping this
imagine in mind…imagine her with gold teeth and a shawl wrapped around
her. It sounds like I’m describing a stereotype. I’m not doing much to promote the open-mindedness
which I pride myself on, but bear with me.
The purple haired babushka which wears just about every color
combination and pattern known to man is my favorite. She is the one who will happily shout at a
young person and demand that they give her their seat on the bus, but at the same time, she
will happily give up her seat a pregnant woman.
She will be upset that you don’t speak Russian, but if you’re buying
tomatoes or milk from her she will undercharge you by ten rubles (about fifty
cents). If you are invited for a meal
with her, she will spend all day cooking for you and be offended if you get
full and it’s just possible to eat another piece of cake. Paradoxical?
Undeniably. And with these
clearly generous yet confusing people, they can be summed up in one word: Russia.
Nothing annoys me more than being
pushed on an already overcrowded bus by an old woman who hasn’t used a
toothbrush in about a week only to told by the same woman that I should somehow
move some more because she has to make room for her bag. Speaking of bags, even young people will ask,
what’s in a babushka’s bag? Potatoes? Slippers?
Body parts to be sold on the black market? Perhaps precious metals to be melted down for
some nefarious purpose, but whatever may be in those ever present suitcase
style bags, they are clearly heavy as they are ugly. If you’re going to be running all around the
city with such huge bags and pushing people with them, at least have the decency
to push people with a fake Louis or knock-off Gucci bag. Since this happens on a weekly basis it more
or less makes me crazy. After all, once
again, who do these women think they are?
Yes, they do have their charm but the charm is like a light switch: they’ll
be fine one moment and go off at the bus conductor for driving one meter
further than normal.
My friend and I were discussing a
curious situation about crossing the street since the lights didn’t seem to be
working and as usual the drivers had no idea what to. She just scanned the streets for a babushka
and decided to cross when she did. I
naively asked her why and she just shrugged her shoulders and said, “when in
doubt, just do what the babushka does”. This
made me laugh and I told her that I wanted to make t-shirts with this funny yet
very accurate piece of advice.
You may also be asking yourself, ‘yes,
the streets are filled with bi-polar babushki, but where are the grandfathers?'
Notice the language shift? We don’t use
the Russian word, ‘dedushka’ we simply say old man or old guy. The easy explanation is that we, as in
travelers, don’t have the same experiences with them like we do with
women. Yet the sad truth is that most of
men just die younger; and perhaps this statically depressing fact is what also
drives the women to act as they do. Whatever
the case may be, Russia wouldn’t be Russia without babushki.
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