Village visit and a hatless banya

Thanks to an invitation by Marina the dean, we were able to spend a couple of weekend days in a Russian village--although this was a town of 5, 000, it does look and feel quite different than an equally sized town in the United States. Here's a little travelogue....although all I have available are pictures from the first day...

On the way, we had a typical rural experience--the car broke down, so Marina and Andrei (a Math prof with connections in the area, so he came as well) did an admirable job of locating a ride for Hannah and myself--although it wasn't on this attempt here to contact a truck by Andrei, or to find cell phone signal by Marina! Eventually an older guy and his sister (he sitting in the front, she in the back) who currently were living in Izhevsk, (but were from the country) stopped and gave us a lift. It was really good that Hannah spoke some Russian....

The real problem was that neither they nor we knew where "the Americans" were supposed to go once we got to the village. Hannah and I had heard we were supposed to go to the school, but had no details on WHICH school or where it was...Our companions had no clue either, but we all knew that to find a school look for Lenin, generally painted gold or silver. We found him behind this salute to the year of the family, and they dropped us off. While it was a school, it wasn't the correct school, so Hannah and I had about 20 minutes of wandering free in a Russian village trying to find where we were supposed to be, and wondering what the village officials would think of our roaming unescorted.... We were found, however, as it wasn't THAT big and we did kind of stick out a bit....Our escort turned out to be Mary, a student from Izhevsk who was from the village, and whose class we had just spoken in on Thursday. She escorted us to the school, where we talked with a couple of the classes. Following that little bit of work, we were served lunch with the head of the English program in the school. A great lunch, with Louis Armstrong singing in the background. Around the table were Marina, the head of the school program, Mary who served as interpreter, myself and Hannah.

Following lunch, we headed out to explore the town. The structure of the town was considerably different than that of American towns; it was strung out along a paved two-lane highway.

It was really hard to tell quite how big the town was because of the different layout. Also, while there were walking paths, they often were made of lumber and wound through open areas between the axis that shot off of the mainroad that had houses on either side. All of the roads off of the main road were dirt trails, and many had potholes. The path led us to a local museum and traditional crafts center, where Udmurt culture, weaving and other arts were still being taught and passed down. We then walked for about 40 minutes or so out through the town and into the countryside. As we walked through the town, we could see many, many gardens. Although we found a good small "all-purpose" store, carrying all kinds of goods and even furniture, most people clearly grew their own basic foods.

Around this particular village there was little or no independent agricultural activity. What you see here is a small farming village of one of the collective farms. The former state farms are still owned and operated as collective farms, but no one claimed that anyone connected with farming had any income. In fact, in the school class we visited, I was assured that ALL of the students in that picture would leave the town, and any that returned would return for the few good jobs in the school, in what is equivalent to county government positions in the U.S., and as taxi drivers to bring people back and forth to Izhevsk (about a two hour drive one-way). Although we saw some sprouted winter wheat and some guys working with a small tractor to dig up potatoes, we really didn't see any thing indicating large-scale agriculture except the size of the fields. Also, although we saw many stacks of hay, there were no large herds of cattle just the occasional lone cow tethered in a grassy area...

We arrived at the dacha (small country house) of a local education official, who generously treated us to a dinner party and let us enjoy an evening banya!! Our hostess Olga is waving over the dinner spread here. There was an amazing amount of food, much of which you can't see here, including grilled meat, ham, salads, breads, etc., and included an extensive series of beverages--juice, water, beer and vodka. It's true that vodka became a pretty big component of the evening. Drinking vodka in Russia is a somewhat intense social experience, but great fun. I also learned what the common use is for the tomato and horseradish puree that the baboushas sell on the street in Izhevsk. (Hannah and I used it as a base for salsa for the Mexican party because it was so similar.) This sauce is commonly had by the spoonful in between hits of vodka--it gives you a strong hit of salt, and (supposedly) lessens the impact of the alcohol. I can't say that hypothesis was firmly proven in my case...

The Russian banya is an unusual experience, but a great one. It's similar to the Finnish sauna, except you add hitting each other with birch branches to sitting in extreme heat and steam and sweat. I've gotta say, it does feel amazingly good, although there were a couple points when they stoked up the banya to the point where I felt like my skin was going to come off even WITHOUT the branches--and I had neglected to bring my banya hat so my head and scalp were really hot to the touch! What's the point of a goofy hat if you forget it when it's needed?

We ended up getting a lift to a nearby new building, with nice sleeping quarters. It was actually a combination guest house and party rental area. The man who owned it also did a lot of construction on the growing number of dachas in the region. It was very nice, light birch wood everywhere.

Getting up the next morning was a little difficult. However, our hosts were kind and generous to a fault, and we were invited to the home of one of the sociology students, who also came from the village. Her parents were amazing. Her mother made us traditional savory Udmurt pancakes, cooked in a wood oven in the house. We had lots of tea, compote and many other taste treats! I was able, with Hannah's help, to ask some questions about the overall attitude in the town toward the future of rural areas. The answers were much what you hear in the U.S...."We've got to find a way to grow good jobs in this area" "We're losing all our young people to the cities." While I know from O'Brien and Patsiorkovsky's research that, in other areas of Russia, private farming is adding to the incomes of some rural people such a trend isn't apparent here. There may be potential for a form of agro-tourism, but the dacha system puts a really different spin on that possibility too. Putin instituted a strong series of rural supports which mostly helped the elderly (who desperately needed the help), but now those worst off in rural areas are families with children. It's quite a challenge.

I go to the RSS (RUSSIAN Society of Sociologists meetings) this week. The way it worked out is not at all exciting--I'll spend 34 hours on the train total, compared to 26 hours in Moscow total--but I am still very interested in learning more about sociological approaches here.