Plans kept changing as we were getting ready for the move. At first there was talk of using the mission van and driver, but that ended up not working out. We talked about what to move--all the dishes and everything in the apartment owned by the mission (the furniture and a few other items are owned by the landlady), or only take our personal belongings and things we had bought. Because the store in Barnaul where we got a lot of our bulk items was a long way from our apartment and we didn't want to be lugging things like heavy bags of flour through the snow in -40 degree weather, we've been buying extra on every shopping trip: a case of peaches, lots of our favorite muesli cereal only available at that store, several "big" bags of powdered sugar (almost a pound each, vs. spice packet size available in other stores), so we had lots to move. We planned to rent a second sleeping compartment and move everything on the train. However, we found out we could travel on the train, but it's not allowed by Russian law to rent an extra compartment for moving household goods. The next plan was to get a moving van. We decided we'd ride in the cab with the driver and they canceled our train tickets. The zone leader had a hard time finding a van, but finally was able to arrange for one the day before we were supposed to leave. We started having second thoughts about being cramped in a small cab for 6+ hours, especially since most people in Russia smoke, but the train was sold out by then. We were given permission to take a taxi (about $180).
When the moving van arrived Friday morning we were relieved to see the cab was bigger than many of the vans running around Barnaul and decided to go in the van. After we loaded everything, we were told we weren't going to be able to ride in the van after all. The van drove off and the missionaries explained that apparently the van wasn't going directly to Novokuznetsk. Instead they would take our things to the central warehouse, put them on a bigger truck with other stuff going to Novokuznetsk, and it would be delivered, um, sometime. The two missionaries who had talked to the driver came back with different stories. One said they take the container our stuff was in and load the whole container on a bigger truck, and the one with more Russian said they reload our things on the bigger truck. We were immediately concerned because we had run out of suitcase space and put some of our things in garbage bags and left items like a desk chair and the ironing board loose, figuring we'd meet the truck several hours later. We had no idea how many bags we had put on the truck, so we didn't know if we'd end up getting everything. And we hadn't packed with that in mind, but figured we could wear our clothes a second day.
We got to travel in style. The taxi made it a 4 1/2 hour trip instead of a 6+ hour bus ride or overnight train trip (arriving at 4:30 am). As usual, we were running on faith. The zone leader ordered the taxi. When it came we snapped a few farewell pictu
res of the elders and climbed in. It was a VERY nice taxi with soft seats, lots of legroom and a non-smoking driver--a RARITY in Russia. It was established very quickly, even before we got down the driveway by our apartment, that there wouldn't be much conversation since we couldn't understand the driver and he couldn't understand us. We had no way of knowing if we were even going the right way and didn't see Novokuznetsk listed on road signs until we were about an hour away. We keep trusting 20-year-old kids to take care of things and it's worked so far. We had to have faith that all our things that we'd so confidently loaded into the moving van an hour earlier would eventually make it to Novokuznetsk. We had to have faith that the Lord knew what we needed and we would be able to get by.We eventually did make it to Novokuznetsk, where the taxi driver promptly got lost trying to find the address where we were to meet up with the Elders. That extended our trip by about 45 minutes, at no extra charge. Fortunately he kept his good sense of humor as we drove down one-way streets away from where he knew we needed to be heading, and we finally got to our destination. The apartment is one the "traveling missionaries" use on short stays. Since the branch in Novokuznetsk is so small, they often have a senior couple or zone leaders visit. It was definitely compact--the bedroom was about 2 inches wider than the bed was long. One night there was enough to tell us we wanted something larger, just for our convenience. We're glad our new apartment is MUCH bigger.
Because we didn't know we wouldn't have our things for a couple of days, we got here without a comb, contacts, shampoo, deodorant, beauty aids, hair dryer, curling iron, towels, meds, razor, coats (it dropped into the high 30s at night that week). Because of allergies, personal preferences and language issues, it wasn't like we could replace some of them easily. Besides, we kept thinking our things would arrive any time. We had one change of wrinkled clothing for each of us that we'd worn the day before we left, an electric toothbrush that died our first night here, Arline's comfortable but leaky shoes--not a problem the day we were traveling, but it rained several times in the next few days.
Remember, we were meeting people for the first time and Dave was being introduced as their new branch president and we wanted to make a good first impression. And he did, even without a suit!
We really struggled in the first couple of days here, but once Dave was sustained as branch president, many of those misgivings and feelings of wanting to go home (we weren't sure if that was Barnaul or Salt Lake so we stayed put) eased or disappeared, even though some of the problems remained. With all the opposition we felt, we think we're going to be a part of some very important things here in Novokuznetsk. One day we were feeling especially sorry about our circumstances, but then realized that in a few years we'll be laughing about it and decided not to waste time now being miserable.
On Monday when we had a little time to ourselves we did discover a few useful things buried in the bottom of the suitcase: one contact and solution, a comb, the picture album--everyone in Russia loves to show off and see pictures.
Except for a few minutes in a restaurant with wi-fi (we happened to have the iPad with us), we didn't have internet access for several days. You know you're taking too much for granted when you get frustrated at not being able to communicate with the family for a week.
On Tuesday we found out our things had arrived but they didn't have a truck to deliver them to us. We were given the choice of renting a local truck and picking them up ourselves or waiting until morning. Since we were just leaving to go to English Club at the time, we opted to wait until morning.
On Wednesday they didn't call and we couldn't call them. In the afternoon someone finally got in touch with them and found out they didn't have any delivery vans again. We arranged for a van to meet us and headed to the warehouse. After wandering around in the general area for a while we finally found the office, where they proceeded to charge us more than double the quoted price. Then they sent us to another place to get our things. They had very carefully packed all of our stuff in two large "build-a-crates." They take 4 boards approximately 8" high and hinge them to form the sides of a box. They can either be set out to be square or flattened for storage. In Barnaul they had put a set of those boards on top of a pallet, loaded the mini box they'd formed with our things and then added additional layers of the boards until everything was below the level of the top layer and put a "lid" on it--a sheet of plywood cut to fit, and wrapped it in plastic. One of our crates was 6 layers high and the other one 9. As near as we can tell, everything made it! We're in our new apartment and getting settled. Pictures to come in a future blog.
This week's "it happened in Russia":
There were a few people we especially wanted to say goodbye to before we left Barnaul. One of those was a lady named Olga. She was one of the "angels" we talked about when Hadley was born. She came to our apartment once and listened to a discussion, but said she wasn't interested in any more lessons. We became good friends through English Club. However, she wasn't there the night we announced that we were leaving. We'd made her a loaf of zucchini bread as a thank you for all of the goodies she had constantly brought to us, so we left it with the Elders along with a note telling her thank you and goodbye. When they gave it to her, she started crying. She said her daughter had been denied a visa and she was really discouraged that night. She told them we had returned the gift of being an angel. After the many tender mercies that have been shown to us in Russia, it was a joy to find we'd unknowingly given one in return. That made up for all the hassles of moving!
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