ANOTHER VISA TRIP

We had another visa trip to Finland last week. They seem to be rolling around faster each time.

This time we had a little more time for sightseeing. We started at the Rock Church--a church literally carved out of the rock. In some places they've added rock so there would be an even foundation for the large semi-glass dome on top. There is a balcony in it.

The entrance

Inside

 

 A fountain by the harbor

We saw several human statues. This lady moved around from place to place. We were quite surprised when she took a break. She sat down on the stairs, took off her headdress including a mask, and revealed a very hairy face with a beard, and started smoking. When he was done, he put the headdress and mask back on and became a her again.

We took a boat tour around Helsinki. Lots of islands dot the bay. The pre-recorded message was given in 4 languages: we assume the first was Finnish, and then we recognized the other three--English, German and Russian.

Several of the islands are very close and connected by short bridges. Our tour boat was just barely able to pass underneath this one (see the next photo for how close we came to scraping the underside).

 There are many summer homes right on the water, along with local transportation

 And smaller boats

 Beautiful scenery

 Down a canal between two islands

 

One of the islands is a zoo.

This is statue is in front of their big cathedral. We forgot the name on it. The stairs are very steep.

 A view from the top of the stairs.

The statue is in the middle of a big plaza, and this next picture is just to the side. They were preparing for their Midsummer Night Festival the next night. We would have like to have stayed for it. We were told it's one of the biggest holidays of the year.

   The organ in the cathedral was beautiful.

It never got fully dark at night. Although cars did turn on their lights, the blue sky never completely faded to black. We did see one faint star on our last night, and the skies were clear.

The weather was delightful. It was about 30 degrees cooler in Helsinki than in Novokuznetsk. Yes, Siberia does get hot! The forecast for the next week shows high 80s, low 90s, with 35-55% humidity. We loved the air conditioner we had in one room in our apartment in Barnaul, and the temperatures there last year were even cooler than this year.

The longest day(light) of the year combined with our last visa trip makes us feel like we've passed our hump day--we actually passed it 6 months ago, but didn't even think about it then. This was our last visa trip. It was bittersweet, knowing we probably won't ever be back. Helsinki is beautiful, and we've loved our five visa trips there!

As the days get shorter, so does the time we have left.  We don't know our exact release date yet, but we do know it's less than 90 days from now. The younger missionaries have pre-set transfer/release dates and know months in advance. Senior couples arrive and leave whenever it works out. We will be leaving on or before our visas expire on September 17, about the middle of normal transfers.

This week in Russia:

Today at church they started up a class for new members. Investigators and all those who had been in the Church less than a year were invited. More people attended that class than the regular Sunday School class. Novokuznetsk is growing!

Mother's Day/Father's Day

Happy Father's Day!

In Russia they don't celebrate Father's Day or Mother's Day, even on a different day like in some countries. Instead they celebrate Women's Day on March 8 and Men's Day on February 23. Supposedly we celebrate them in the US, too but only in certain circles and often on different days. These two holidays started out in socialist countries as a political event.

Women's Day apparently came first. It has lost much of the political overtones and (according to Wikipedia) is now sort of a blend of Mother's Day and Valentine's Day, showing appreciation and love to women. And yes, they do celebrate Valentine's Day here but generally it's only observed between couples. Young children don't trade valentines at school.

Men's Day came along in order to give men equal appreciation for their work.

On March 8 Mary (we've talked about her a lot in the past--our FHE coordinator) got the men to the branch on a variety of made-up excuses and surprised them with a party. We had food, games, and a kind of card for each man.

The men reciprocated a few weeks later and threw a party for the women with games for everyone that often crossed stereotypical activities, like tying a tie or threading a needle. They gave a box of delicious candy to each woman.

Many people get the day off, both men and women, but then they have to work the following Sunday to make up for it.

A few Russians insisted that we celebrate these holidays in the US, and there are even websites showing that we do, but it isn't very widespread. Have you ever heard of them or celebrated them?


Last week in Russia:
For several weeks some of the Russians talked about making Окрошка or "cold soup" as refreshments at FHE, but there kept being reasons why it didn't work out. Finally Mary and Kirill made it for us. The easiest way to describe it is a tossed salad (potatoes, hard-boiled eggs, radishes, cucumbers, shredded wild garlic, and kolbasa [kind of a salami], all chopped finely and mixed together). Then they pour either buttermilk or kvas over the top. Kvas is, well, sort of like bread-flavored unsweetened soda pop. The Russians love their kvas. We were glad we got to try another authentic Russian dish. However, it isn't something we'll try at home, and not just because we can't get kvas. :) Mary also made a tasty salad with wild garlic, salt and sour cream.

Привлекательный

With the birth of another grandchild this past week, we've been thinking about the people back home a lot.  And because it's Jeff's birthday today and Niki's tomorrow and Melanie's a few days ago and Stan's a few weeks ago and Emily's in a couple of weeks and . . .

Here are some pictures of those we love and miss and who have the power to make us very homesick. (This very abbreviated list is just our kids and grandkids--there are a lot more people we love and miss but don't have pictures of all of them). Some of these pictures may look a little familiar. We'll admit it--most of these pictures were plagiarized right off their blogs. That's the best way for us to get current pictures.

Brad (and two of his daughters)




Elizabeth



Ella
 

Emily (and Jacob and Elizabeth)

Hadley



Heather (chasing Ella)



Heidi (and daddy)

Jacob

Jeff (Happy Birthday!)

Maggie



Melanie (and Ryan)



Michael



Nicole (happy birthday tomorrow!)



Rebecca (and Jeff)
[Keep scrolling down for more--there's something wonky going on and I can't change it
Ryan



Stan (and Ryan)


See why we miss them? They're great!
Oh, and if you've read this far, you deserve to know what the title of this week's blog means. It's a good description of Elizabeth: Cute!

This week in Russia:
We are very excited about our sacrament meeting attendance today: 38!

And the Livin' is Easy

As you read this, keep in mind that these are our observations and things we as we understand them, with our limited language skills. Sorry, no pictures this week.

They have banks upon banks upon banks upon banks upon banks of apartment buildings here. In Barnaul they were generally 6-10 floors high, although we saw a few that were only 2  floors and others up to 15 floors high. In Novokuznetsk the majority of buildings are older ones, 3-6 floors high, and the newer ones are higher. Usually in buildings 6 stories or less there is no elevator. Both of the buildings we've lived in have been L-shaped with our entrance where the building turns.

The buildings are all set at different angles, except that the ones along the main street are usually parallel to the street. Most have businesses on the first level (the entrances to the apartments are on the back side).

Each building has several ground-level entrances with a small lobby and mailboxes. On each floor the landing opens up to 2-6 individual doors - no halls or connections to other entrances. Sometimes there will be two doors on each level and behind those doors will be a hallway with 3-4 apartments. Each "stack" of apartments is called a подъезд (thank you Катя for the correct spelling) or podyezd. We call it a pod for short. The numbering in each pod starts with the first apartment at the first entrance and goes up to the top floor. Then it continues with the first apartment at the second entrance and so on. It appears that there isn't a set floor plan and your apartment may be very different than the ones above and below you. Our apartment is in pod 4 and is #19 on the third floor. There are 6 apartments and 4 mailboxes in our pod.

Almost everyone lives in apartments with no private yard. Some apartments are privately owned, while others--like ours--are rentals. Included in our apartment is all the furniture, dishes, bedding, vacuum, hangers, and washer. We did have to provide our own clothes, however. :) It's no big deal for most people to move--they pack up a few clothes and settle in to a new place with very little disruption.

We've been told that single home ownership is unusual except for the very rich, and even those homes don't have any lawn like in the U.S. They would think we're rich beyond their wildest dreams if we talked about having an upstairs and a downstairs and a yard. Many of the apartments we have visited are like studio apartments or slightly larger--they sleep/live in one room, have 2 bathrooms (one for a toilet, the other with a sink,tub/shower and washer) and a small kitchen. And a balcony. Almost everyone has at least a small balcony. Many of them are enclosed, but it's often an unheated area mostly used for storage or hanging clothes since dryers are very rare. Or they use it to hang out of the window to smoke.

This week's Russiansim:
We noticed a lady was doing some prep work before painting the hall and stairways in our pod. After she started painting I commented to Dave that I wanted to import their paint to Utah because it didn't have a lingering paint odor. A couple of days later Dave asked me what a potent smell was. Apparently the lady was still patching when we thought she was painting, hence no paint smell, because once she started, even just a little paint, the odor was terrible, a very thick, heavy, sickening, gasoline-type tear-inducing smell. The nice thing was that by morning it was gone--until she started painting again the next day. And it took her several days to get all the painting done on the first floor and stairs, so we lived with that for a while. And no, we won't import their paint to Utah! She didn't put up any wet paint signs, but the color change made them unnecessary. It looked like she did the ground floor entries in each pod. We assume she'll go back and do up the stairways and the landing area on each level at some point.