ODDS AND ENDS

As we've sorted through our pictures lately we've discovered a lot of "single" pictures--little stories centered around one picture, but not enough for a whole blog, so today's blog is made up of a variety of things we've enjoyed here.

We saw a lot of these in Barnaul, not so many in Novokuznetsk. We wondered for a long time what they are. In some areas there are rows upon rows of these (well, not quite organized into rows, but a whole bunch of them) in empty fields along the walkways by apartment buildings. One day Dave saw a man stand up and climb out of one so we asked what they were. They're like individual root cellars. People use them to store potatoes, onions, etc. from their dachas and access them all winter long. You can't tell from this picture, but there's a lock on it; it's propped open for a little ventilation

This is from the Sunday we had record attendance. We loved having 39 people there that day.

Russian men really do sit like this. They won't sit on the bare ground or even on stairs, but this is a very common scene. They can sit like this for a very l-o-n-g time.

These statues (to the left and below) are at  on either side of a big archway at the entrance to a large park in Novokuznetsk. They depict the mining that is such a big part of the economy in this area.

 

An update on the wedding locks on the bridges: Several weeks ago this metal "tree" appeared next to a bridge. There's a note saying it's a gift from a local company, and brides and grooms should put locks on the tree instead of the bridge railing. That's a nice thing, since the railing is too fat for locks to fit around. The tree is filling up very quickly (this picture was taken about a month ago and there are a LOT more locks on it now).

Most of the Russians love to play games. This one involved feeding candy on a string to another person. The catch was that you couldn't see where the candy was in relation to the person because you were seated back to back.

Games at FHE are a must each week. One popular one is "Do You Love Your Neighbor?" When we play it at the church, there's plenty of room to make the circle bigger, but our living room is much smaller and makes the free-for-all a little tricky.

Many weeks we set up a table or two after the lesson and play Uno. Some people never get tired of it.

We had another baptism a while back. It just happened to be scheduled for the same weekend that President Gibbons was in town, so he got to baptize her. The turnout was terrific--21 people, which more than we often get at church.

After the baptism we went back to the church for a short program and food. Dave made his killer cinnamon rolls--always a big hit with the members here.

We were at the train station saying goodbye to Elder Прокопцев who is now home in Latvia. A man (left side) saw we were taking pictures and wanted to get in on the fun. No one has any idea who he is, but we all got a good laugh out of it.

This week's Russianism:

This story is going to be a little hard for the Johnsons to digest. Sorry, but it's true, so get over it. :) There are pigeons almost everywhere in Russia. Apparently during a war the soldiers survived by eating pigeons, so now they're protected. People often sprinkle bird seed on the ground and then you see this:

Or this:

Shortly after we got here we heard about a missionary who got sent home because he kicked a pigeon. We've learned, don't mess with the pigeons!

Next week our blog update will be delayed because we'll be traveling. We get to go back to Barnaul for a few days to see our old friends! We hope to have a new post up by Monday.

PIPES

We inadvertently left off an interesting part of the blog last week. Have you wondered how the cities in Russia are heated in the winter? They send hot water through pipes all throughout the city. The buildings are heated with radiators. Hot water in the apartments is unlimited year round (except when they shut it off for repairs). Every year during late spring through early fall they check the pipes and replace as needed. The city is divided into sections; only part of the city is without hot water at a time. This year they seem to be adding and replacing all over (maybe that's why the landlady told us they city is working on making it so the mini water heaters we've talked about in past posts aren't going to be necessary).

They block off the area to be dug, which is basically the whole pipeline except the streets.

 Reduced passage for pedestrians

The other side of the metal wall

What the old pipes looked like a few months ago

   What they look like today, new and ready to carry lots of hot water! They'll soon be covered up and the sidewalk will return to normal.

This week's Russianism:

Our apartment is on the third floor in the corner of an L-shaped building. On the street level there is a small grocery store directly below us, and the suppliers take in their products through the back door of the store, right next to our entrance. We often see trucks below our window. There isn't a driveway specifically for the store; the trucks have to go through a small parking lot to get to the store. Sometimes the tenants or their visitors park wherever, which causes problems for the delivery trucks. We're amazed at the patience of people here--parking wherever seems to be a national pastime. The trucks back around and squeeze through and get out eventually. No complaints, no yelling, no blood pressure problems!

WOES AND WONDERS

A year ago when we moved to Novokuznetsk we requested two things for our apartment that we were told weren't necessary: a room air conditioner for our bedroom ("it doesn't get that hot in Novokuznetsk"), and a small water heater for when the hot water pipes get shut down for repairs in the summer ("the city is redoing the system and the water won't be shut off"). Both of those statements were wrong.

We've already mentioned how hot it's been here this year. It's ironic that one of the hottest summers we've ever experienced in our lives has been while we've been in Siberia! As in the US, this has been the hottest summer on record here. Ever. Last year there was only one day over 85 in all of July; this year we think there was only one day when the temperature didn't get to at least 85. We've had a few rainstorms come through that have temporarily cooled things down slightly for a day or two, but the temperatures for all of July and the first half of August have mostly hovered in the 90s and even low 100s. However, Novokuznetsk's fever is about to break. The forecast shows that by the end of this week the high temperatures will all be in the low 70s or cooler. YES!

For the last couple of months we've also had mosquito problems because we chose to keep our windows open rather than cook (if unopened windows are any indication, most Russians don't seem bothered by the heat). However, a couple of weeks ago our landlady got some screens for some of the windows and we are blissfully mosquito free now! The windows had a funny wooden 2.5" lip/wedge on the bottom which made it so regular screens wouldn't work. We couldn't figure out how to put up something ourselves without taking the lip off. The first thing the screen installer did was remove that lip. Staying somewhat cool is much easier with mosquito/fly-free cross ventilation.

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A few weeks ago we saw a lady open her mailbox and take out a bunch of junk mail. The next day we saw a sign above her mailbox and we wondered if the mailman would pay attention to her request for unwanted ads.

When we got back in town from a short trip last month, we were disappointed to find that our hot water was turned off. Throughout Russia the hot water gets shut down every summer in sections of each city to check and repair the pipes and do some maintenance. Someone later told us that the sign above her mailbox was the notice saying the water would be turned off until July 23, not about junk mail. Most of the time they underestimate the length of time the water will be shut off, so we were pleased that it was turned back on by July 25. Here it is up close for those few of you who read Russian:

Fortunately the previous tenants had left behind a coil for heating the water in the bathtub. Unfortunately, Arline didn't know how to use it and fried it the first time she tried heating the water. Apparently there was a run on coils at the stores because we couldn't find a replacement anywhere; however, the missionaries who live on the other side of town found one and brought it to us.

We have screens and hot water. Life is good.

This week's Russianism:
We already told you that Russians LOVE balloons. They L.O.V.E. fireworks. Almost every Friday and Saturday night we can see (or at least hear) fireworks going off. They shoot them off as part of wedding celebrations or for fun whenever they feel like it. No permit or special training is needed, even though they're just like the "professional" fireworks we have in Salt Lake. Here people buy them and shoot them off by themselves. They don't go as high as what we see in Salt Lake but they are still just as spectacular and fancy. Most of the fireworks we've seen here are set off by individuals, but occasionally, like for the city's birthday, there is a major show.  We've seen many of the same fireworks we have at home like "popcorn" bursts, as well as some new ones with flowers and smiley faces. The main difference is that they don't really have a grande finale with a bunch of fireworks going off at once, unless you consider the whole show a grande finale. They just shoot off a constant barrage. It's beautiful and something we'll miss.

FEEDING THE MISSIONARIES

Once transfers are announced we try to do a farewell dinner and fix the departing missionary's favorite meal. A few weeks ago we asked all four missionaries what they'd like us to fix for them, just so we could plan ahead. We're still a few weeks away from the next transfer but we know our district leader, Elder Прокопцев, is leaving because he's going home in a week and a half.  He remembered we had fixed crepes once while he was serving in Barnaul with us and asked for crepes for his farewell meal, so that's what we served on Friday after our district meeting. It's a slow process because we can only fix one at a time and our crepe pan is small, so the missionaries eat several of them. They LOVED them. But then, what's not to love about crepes?

Dave spent several hours in preparation and at the stove.

We couldn't offer all the options we usually have at home, but we did as much as we could and improvised. They could choose from ham/shredded chicken, cheese (we're not sure what kind it was), BBQ sauce/mustard/mayo, pickles/tomatoes/corn/mushrooms/cucumbers/onion, and then dessert crepe options were raspberry jam/bananas/strawberries/crushed pineapple, with butter/cinnamon sugar/Nutella/peanut butter/brown sugar/ sgrushyonka (like sweetened condensed milk). One missionary said "yes" meaning he wanted everything! Dave obliged.

 A bag of sgrushyonka

 Elder Turley (Tremonton, Utah), looking over the options and trying to decide what he wanted

 Elder Прокопцев or Prokoptsev (Latvia) hamming it up for the camera

Elder "give-me-one-with-everything" Варанков or Varankov (Moscow)

Elder Fitzgerald (American Fork, Utah)

They all LOVED the crepes and patiently waited their turns, even though it took a couple of hours.

The other requests are for stroganoff, borsch, and chicken alfredo. Hope we can find what we need. If not, that's ok--the Elders eat everything we fix for them!

This week's Russianism:
Some day we may get used to seeing a car pull up to the curb, the driver jumping out and the car pulling away. If all cars were right-hand drive, we would have figured it out a long time ago. It appears that the cars are about 50% right- and 50% left-hand drive. And yes, that does make it harder to drive and we suspect it's the cause of many accidents. We're glad we don't have a car here. From what we've seen, it appears all the driving school cars are left-hand drive.