Trump is here

The election is over. I’d gotten about as exasperated as anybody else about the acrimony surrounding this one, and was looking forward to this day. Admittedly, however, I had expected a different outcome. Having worried far more than usual about this election because I think Trump unfit to be president, the news came as a shock when it became clear that Trump was winning. I slept fitfully.

This morning I went, as usual, to lift weights at the gym. At one point, I left the area where I do my upper-body exercises because I could do the same exercises elsewhere and at the same time avoid an anguished conversation between a trainer and his client, ranting about politics. I just couldn’t take it.

Ultimately, I wandered into the group-training room to say hello to my friend Tanya, who stretches in there. I’m always interested to discover what she’s listening to while she stretches. Tanya usually has podcasts going from the London School of Economics or some other erudite institution, and I often learn something simply by stretching out nearby. I confessed to her that the election results had me worried, and went on to say that I wanted as a result to spend more time talking to people with opinions and experiences different from mine, and that I intended to spend less time on social media and reading my favorite news sites, both of which tend to reinforce previously-held opinions.

Tanya’s cool. She agreed that she was shocked by the outcome, but had already resolved to find reasons for hope. Taking the long point of view, she wondered if things might ultimately come out better if this acrimonious election and new leadership led the nation to re-think core beliefs and values, reaffirming things that had brought her to emigrate here in the first place. She enumerated for me a few optimistic notions she’d entertained, admitting that they were by no means guaranteed. She just wanted to focus on the best possibilities. I left the room feeling better.

Later, as I undressed for my shower, I got an email from my friend Gaye in Turkey. She and I had last been in touch when Recep Erdogan clamped down on all of Turkey after a feeble and flimsy coup attempt, and I expressed my condolences. Gaye wrote back earlier today to express her own condolences and to worry about what’s happening to the world in general. This time she wanted me to know what she values but feels that the world does not value, however much it should. Here’s her list: Humanity, equality, peace, science, nature, sociality, good personality, intelligence. I think it’s a good one, and I’ve copied it onto my phone. I want to support these properties by my own actions on an everyday basis. Perhaps you will make a similar list for yourself and join me.

Siri's not home.

I hear that Siri is smart. This may be true, but I can’t comment because I have an Android phone. Instead of talking to Siri, I say “OK Google,” and then my phone springs to life. It does not, however, do my bidding.

The other evening, I called my aunt, Bea Dick. I got my phone’s attention, and then said “Call Bea Dick, home.” My phone lit up, noticed that I have no entries for Moby Dick in my address book, and proceeded to show me a Wikipedia article about Herman Melville’s book. I tried again, enunciating carefully: “Call Bea Dick, home.”

My phone confirmed my intentions. “Big dick?” it asked. I have no such entry in my address book, and don’t know what my phone might have done if I said yes.

“No,” I replied. Slowly, carefully, I explained “Bea Dick.” The phone still imagined I wanted to look at pictures of body parts. “NO!” I yelled. Google allowed as how it was having trouble understanding what I wanted, and suggested that I should ask for just a first or last name.

First I tried asking for Bea, but Google decided I wanted B. Since I had no such entries and the phone was too stupid to hazard a guess, it asked me to try again. I tried asking for Dick this time, with predictable results. Since the phone couldn't tell the difference between a "call" command and a "show me pictures" command, I dialed by hand.

Today I tried to call my friend Atef Aziz. Somehow, my phone thought I wanted to call Alexey. I do have one Alexey in my phone book, in Belarus. I'm in America now, so the phone proceeded to dial an expensive international call. I struggled to regain control and stop it. The phone did not give up easily.

Knowing after the Bea Dick incident that I could offer just a first or last name, I tried asking my phone to call Atef. Google looked in my address book for Atif and decided I had no such friend. Not knowing how to convince Google to use the proper vowel, I tried asking it to call Aziz. Presto! Next thing I know, I’m calling Alexey in Belarus once again.

I have too many foreign phone numbers in my directory to trust Google voice command for calls. Maybe one day, however, I’ll ask it to find me the nearest pizza parlor. I’m an optimist.

Моя большая компания

[Аанглийская версия English version]

Суббота был День Города, когда мы отмечали 949 лет со дня основания Минска. Моя подруга Зарина предложила, чтобы мы пригласили ее незрячих и слабовидящих друзей и пошли в центр города на праздник. Она собрала восхитительную группу, включая ее парня Женю. Это было важно, чтобы Женя был с нами, потому что он видит достаточно хорошо и может вести слепых людей до тех пор, как он знает, куда он идет. Если я ухожу дальше, чем нескольких метрах от него, однако, он не может найти меня; так что я должен быть внимателен. Остальные ребята вообще ничего не могут видеть.

Когда мы приехали во Дворце Спорта, сотрудники МЧС продемонстрировали свои навыки по спасению людей из горящих зданий, преодолению препятствий и в целом свой героизм. У них было много оборудования, в том числе огнезащитные костюмы, кислородные баллоны, необычные машины и другие вещи, которые мне казалось было бы интересно потрогать.

Я повел мою группу к одному из грузовиков, где мы сделали фото, а потом я спросил одного из парней, можно ли нам потрогать их снаряжение. Он сказал, что должен получить разрешение, и исчез. Его просьба пошла вверх по инстанциям, и, наконец, один важный человек пригласил нас встретиться с ним около их новейшей пожарной машины, где он сказал пожарным показать нам что-то. Профессиональная экипировка и снаряжение вероятно удваивает вес пожарного, и мы брали каждую часть по очереди, чтобы детальнее рассмотреть.

После МЧС, мы пошли валять дурака на ярмарке ремесел поблизости. Ремесленники поставили палатки на большой площади, где мы бродили от палатки к палатке и играли в игры на прикосновение. Моей любимой была игра около палатки с антиквариатом, где я передал людям вещи и просил их угадать, что я передал им. Нам особенно понравился красивый медный утюг, со съемными брусками внутри. Когда гладишь ткань, можно использовать тепло от одного бруска, а второй в это время нагревать на печи.

Я думаю, что парень, который делает национальные сувениры причудливых форм, доставил большое удовольствие моей компании своими демократичными ценами. К тому же, они купили несколько плюшевых игрушек, но Анжела ничего не купала там, поэтому продавец кинулся за нами вдогонку, чтобы дать её кролика в качестве подарка. На самом деле, некоторые из продавцов дали им подарки. Это было действительно трогательно видеть, как мои друзья обсуждают различные предметы, передавая их друг другу для изучения.

Говоря о «трогать», Вова попал в беду в конце дня, когда я рассказал ему, что я показывал ребятам кучу кукол. Он догнал Таню и провел рукой по ее голове, через плечо и коснулся ее левой груди. Понимая, что он смутился, я дразнил его, «Вова! Не трогать! У тебя уже есть своя собственная жена!» (Анжела жена Вовы.) Смущенный Вова даже не хотел трогать кукол после этого. Он не стал больше ничего трогать вообще, пока чувство смущения не оставило его.

Когда мы уже посмотрели все, что можно было, примерно за час до начала концерта около Ратуши, где мы закончили день, нам повезло. Я предложил попить чай в открытом ресторане на краю площади, и мы заняли последний столик. Ничего не могло быть лучше. Мы расслабились, пили чай и перекусывали и, когда музыка заиграла, мы слушали концерт, сидя за столиком. Группа, Песняры, в советское время была супергруппой и их любят до сих пор, так как они поют на беларуском языке. Когда я услышал их в первый раз шесть или семь лет назад, мне не понравилась их музыка, но теперь они завладели мной и концерт мне понравился.

В целом, мы наслаждались отличным днем товарищеских отношений, дружбы и открытий. Всё прошло великолепно, вплоть до того, что мы нашли палатку, где продавали шашлык, почти без очереди и со свежим мясом прямо с гриля. Сначала мы не могли найти столик, но кто-то заметил наше затруднительное положение и направил нас к столу, который должен был вот-вот освободиться. Я не предполагал, что это будет так легко руководить такой большой компанией, которые во всем полагаются только на меня, но наши совместные усилия принесли большое наслаждение.

Мой сайт с фотографиями изменил свои правила, и вы не можете увидеть фотографии этого месяца в обычном месте. Вот ссылка на альбом, включая фотографии сегодняшней экскурсии.

[Особая благодарность Антонины Спиридоновой за большую помощь с переводом.]

Big following

[Russian version русская версия]

Saturday was City Day, when we celebrated 949 years since the founding of Minsk. My friend Zarina suggested that we might form an entourage of her visually-impaired friends and go downtown for the festivities. She assembled a delightful group, including her boyfriend Zhenya. It was important to have Zhenya with us, because he can see well enough to lead blind people as long as he knows where he’s going. If I get more than a few meters away from him, however, he can’t find me; so I have to pay attention. The rest of the group couldn’t see anything.

When we arrived at the Palace of Sport, the Ministry of Emergency Situations was demonstrating their skills at rescuing people from burning buildings, beating through obstacles and being generally heroic. They had lots of equipment with them, including fireproof suits, oxygen tanks, fancy vehicles and other things I imagined would be interesting to touch.

I took my group over to one of their vehicles, where we paused for a photo, and then I asked one of the guys if we could touch some of their gear. He had to get permission, and disappeared. His request went up the chain of command, and finally one of the big shots invited us to meet him over by their newest fire engine, where he told a fireman to show us around. Dressing up in all that gear probably doubles a man’s weight, and we handled most of it a piece at a time.

From the Emergency Situations area, we went off to fool around at a craft fair nearby. Craftspeople had set up booths in a large area, where we wandered from booth to booth and played various touching games. My favorite was at a display of antiques, where I handed people things and asked them to guess what I’d handed them. We especially liked the beautiful brass iron, with the removable ingots inside. The user could have one ingot warming on the stove while ironing fabric with the heat from another ingot.

I think my followers probably got a bigger charge out of a guy who makes Belarusian souvenirs in whimsical shapes and prices them for easy purchase. In addition, they bought some stuffed animals, but Anzhela didn’t buy anything there and the vendor rushed over as we left to gave her a rabbit as a gift. In fact, several of the vendors gave them gifts. It was indeed touching to see my friends discussing various items, handing them back and forth for discovery.

Speaking of touching, Vova got into trouble late in the day when I told him I was introducing the group to a bunch of dolls. He caught up to Tanya and ran his hand down her head, over her shoulder, onto her left breast. Realizing that he’d gotten confused, I teased him, “Vova! Don’t touch! You’ve already got a wife of your own!” (Anzhela is Vova’s wife.) Embarrassed, Vova didn’t even want to touch the dolls after that. He wouldn’t touch anything more at all until his embarrassment subsided.

We got lucky, running out of things to explore about an hour before the concert would start on City Square, where we’d ended the day. I suggested that we stop for tea at an outdoor restaurant on the edge of the plaza, and we got the last table. It couldn’t have worked out better. We relaxed over tea and snacks until the music started, and we got to listen to the concert seated. The group, Pesnyary, was at one time a Soviet supergroup, and they’re still beloved here since they sing in Belarusian. I didn’t like their music the first time I heard them, six or seven years ago, but they’ve grown on me and I enjoyed the concert too.

Altogether, we enjoyed an excellent day of companionship, friendship and discovery. Everything worked out great, all the way down to finding a shashleek (sheesh-kebob) stand with almost no line and fresh meat right off the grill. Finding a table at which to eat it proved to be a momentary challenge, but somebody noticed our plight and led us over to a table where they were just finishing. I hadn’t imagined it would be so easy to lead around such a big entourage of people all relying on me at once, but our cooperative effort proved to be pure delight.

My photo sharing site has changed its rules, and you can't see this month's pictures in the usual place. Here's a link to the album including pictures of today's excursion.

A Facebook Manual (for Aunt Kiefie)

The fundamental principle for using Facebook successfully is knowing its purpose. Facebook is simply a way for you to entertain your friends and acquaintances. Remember that it’s more for them than for you, and everything else I tell you will follow naturally.

Messaging is your key means of communication if you want to say something to one person. Your dance friends probably don’t care that you congratulate somebody on the arrival of their grandchild, but that grandmother cares a lot. Send Grandma a private message.

Wall Posts are available to the general public, but Facebook doesn’t automatically show all of our posts to all of your friends. It will show a new post first to a few people who seem especially interested in you, people who read most of your recent posts already. It may also show a post about lemonade to your other friends who post about lemonade, but don’t imagine that everybody is going to see a new post right away. But if those first friends like your post and/or comment on it, then Facebook will begin showing that one to more people.

Since wall posts are public and you probably have a diverse group of friends, you should be judicious about what you put there. If something is interesting only to a subset of your friends, you’d be better off posting it in a group that you all belong to, so it won’t get broadcast to people who aren’t interested. You can even create a group for that special set of friends, if there isn’t one already.

Try to be sensitive about the volume of your wall posts. [This isn’t relevant to Aunt Kiefie, who posts only seldom.] Since your close friends will see every one of your posts in their feed, they might feel overwhelmed and change the settings so they see only “important” posts from you. Or, worst case, they might “unfollow” you. If you want to entertain a lot of people, you need to be judicious about it and post only stuff that a lot of people will want to read about. [And I should take my own advice.]

Comments on posts are a little more private than the posts themselves, because people have to do a little work to see them. This is a good place to put your reaction to the post, and it’s probably even OK sometimes if your reaction is, “Wow, Annie, I haven’t seen you in a long time!” If, however, you want to invite Annie to lunch, you should consider taking that back to Messaging.

Replies to comments are almost private, because only the person whose comment elicited the reply will see what you said without clicking on something. Be as personal as you want there, and that would even be an OK place to invite Annie to lunch if you’re replying to her comment that she hasn’t seen you in a long time.

Naming names helps to make sure that certain people see a post. If you mention somebody in a post or in a comment, Facebook will definitely bring that to their attention. You can also tag people in a post, but it’s generally not cool to tag an inanimate object with a person’s name unless that person gave the object to you or will relate very strongly to it.

Posting on somebody else’s wall is very problematic. You can do it, but remember that it’s a Wall Post, and everybody gets a chance to see it. Your friend may be uncomfortable about presenting your conversation about lunch plans to the whole world. Your friend may even be uncomfortable about advertising your passion for oatmeal cookies. The only time you should post on a friend’s wall is when you are confident that your post will be interesting to your friend’s friends, because basically you’re taking control of their space.

If somebody else, like your nephew Steve in Belarus, puts something on your wall and you don’t want it there, feel free to delete it. It’s your wall.

Now that you’re good at all this stuff, you’ll be able to entertain your friends and acquaintances successfully and get a lot of “likes.” That’s fun, of course, but since you remember that your primary focus is on entertaining them, rather than yourself, you don’t need to count the “likes” several times a day. Just check often enough to learn what kinds of things are especially entertaining for your friends, and stick with real life. If you don’t actually live your life, you won’t have anything to say on Facebook!

Hairy Lake

The cleanest lakes in this area are named, if I were to do a direct translation, “Upper and Lower Hairs.” For readability, let’s use the Russian name, Volosi. There’s a popular beach at the spot where the two lakes join, and last year I discovered a footpath to the southern tip of the lower lake, where there’s a picnic table, a fire pit, and clear access to the water in a pathway between the reeds that generally line the shore.

I described this place to Alla last year, and even showed her pictures. I was eager to go back this year, principally because it’s a nice walk, but also because I like swimming in the clear water, where I can see the bottom however far it is from the surface. Since we’re leaving tomorrow, today would be our last chance. Alla agreed to come, knowing we’d be passing the cheese lady along the way. We decided to start right after breakfast because the weather still looked pretty good but the forecast didn’t promise much more sunshine.

We had a nice walk, and I found the place with only a little difficulty where the path led through a recently-mowed field and it was hard to distinguish the path from tractor tracks. At last, we walked down a narrow grassy clearing and I knew we’d almost arrived. The clearing widened into space to park and turn around a couple of cars. A path to our right led through the trees to the picnic table and fire pit. Grass grew in lush abundance despite the shade. We had the place to ourselves, and the last visitors had done a pretty good job of cleaning up after themselves.

“Here it is,” I exulted.

“This isn’t it,” Alla contradicted. She somehow imagined we’d be at a sunny and sandy beach, not at a shaded picnic table in the grass. She remembered the public swimming area where the two lakes met and hadn’t anticipated the reeds at the shore.

As I changed into my swimsuit, Alla sat down, dejected. “I’m not going,” she said. She didn’t want to walk into the water because the bottom looked dirty to her. This is the same blue clay she smeared all over her body at the public beach, but she would have none of it today.

As I walked out over the clay, it bounced under my feet, supported in a network of soft reed roots. Presently, the water got deeper and I launched myself to swim and to drink the sparkling water. I swam lazy laps where I could keep my eye on that opening in the reeds and occasionally encourage Alla to come out for a swim. She likes swimming, but she wouldn’t budge. After a while, I thought I’d better come back because she didn’t appear to be having a good time.

As we walked home, Alla thought about our friend Viktor, who keeps running for President of Belarus but never gets very far. “Poor Viktor,” she said, “he just wants to make life better for the people of Belarus but they have no use for anything new.”

I’ve heard Alla describe today’s beach a couple of times now, once to the cheese lady, whom we visited on our way home, and once to our friends after we got back. To her, it was a dirty-muddy place with no reasonable access to the water. To me, it was a beautiful spot where I could swim as far as I wanted and eat lunch at a rustic picnic table. I considered it a pleasant change from our shallow swimming hole in a less-transparent river. We rushed back, however, 8 km or so to our spot on the river so Alla might go swimming if the sun comes out again. Right now, that doesn’t seem likely.

Long walks

We’re in Ust'e, in the Braslav Lakes region of Belarus. We’ve had a mix of rain and sun, but the weather hasn’t limited our fun in any way. I’ve been catching up on reading and taking walks when I can’t go swimming. Day before yesterday I took only a short walk because I knew it would rain some more. I wandered over to a neighboring cottage and made friends with the family who owns it. I ended up spending upwards of an hour in their living room, talking life and politics beside a pleasant fire, while another storm passed overhead.

Yesterday I made an excursion to Slabodka, a small town about 4 km from here. On the way, I caught up with a group of Belgians also looking for groceries. None of them speaks Russian, so I helped them with some of their shopping before I went off to another store to buy some soap. The second shopkeeper asked if I were Belgian. She hadn't seen the Belgians yet, but I don’t think there are a lot of secrets around here. Shopping in Slabodka is like shopping at Ralph’s Pretty Good Grocery in Lake Wobegon: “If we don’t have it, you can probably get by without it anyway.” I came home with most of what I wanted and called it enough.

We did better at shopping today. We walked 4 km in another direction, to pick up some homemade farmer cheese. (Cottage cheese, sort of.) We took a cross-country route to our destination and a different cross-country route back. Along the way, we enjoyed a riot of wildflowers, green vistas, a few cows and horses, and a few very nice people. We decided along the way that we needed some eggs, so Alla started paying attention to see who has chickens.

As we approached the cheese lady’s place, we passed a home with two chickens in the yard. Alla asked if they could sell us a couple tens of eggs. (Dozens are apparently an English affectation. Ten is the number here.) The householder readily agreed, though she only had 16 to sell. That’s OK, because we made good use of the empty sockets in our second egg carton later on.

Leaving the village by a back road, we passed a family I’d met last year when I needed water, and then bumped into a guy named Joseph, who said he could sell us tomatoes, cheese and butter. We didn’t need any more cheese, but we’re sure glad about the tomatoes. They’re amazing. Then, along the path to our village, I noticed something spherical and white on the ground. Alla explained that it’s a rain mushroom, and they’re edible when fresh. They look like the spherical mushrooms everybody raves about in New England, but which I’ve never tried. They taste delicious. I ate a couple of them and we heaped the rest into the empty space in our second egg carton.

I’m enjoying the little challenges of getting by without a car and without any big stores nearby.

For more pictures, please see 2016-08 Belarus.

Two apples

We're on our way from Minsk to Braslav, riding in a bus. A few minutes ago, we stopped in Byagoml' for a ten-minute break. I wandered around the bus station, and found a woman setting up a table facing the street, preparing to sell apples and mushrooms. I figured we'd enjoy eating a couple of apples, so I called to her.

"Would you sell me just two?" I asked.

She nodded, "30,000 rubles."

Her apples weren't big enough to command that high a price, a dollar and a half, even in an expensive city. I frowned. Maybe she thought to take advantage of the foreigner. "That's expensive," I complained.

Thinking I may not have recognized that she was talking about old rubles, she persisted, asking incredulously, "three rubles is expensive?"

"For two apples it is," I replied.

"Oh," she said. "I misunderstood. That was for a bucket full." She withdrew four apples from one of her buckets and handed them to me. "Just take them."

I put the apples into my pockets and called her back. "Miss..." I handed her 5,000 rubles. "Thank you very much."

Before the bus left, I still had time to go to the toilet. That privilege generally costs 5,000 rubles in Minsk, but here it was just 1,300. I handed the attendant 1,500 and she scrabbled about in her box for change. She only had a single hundred-ruble note and no new kopeks. I thanked her and told her it was OK, but she promised to reimburse me, if she could, as I left. She didn't catch my eye as I went out, though, but she came to find me at the bus a few minutes later, a hundred rubles in her hand.

People here are very nice.

Adventures in international commerce

One of the big cell-phone companies in Belarus announced a tempting promotion, now that they’re rolling out 4G data in Minsk. You can buy unlimited 4G service for $.05 per day. That’s right: a nickel a day. And since there aren’t many clients yet, it’s amazingly fast. I’m getting speeds of up to 65 Mb/s, but right now I’m powering everything through my tablet because I don’t have a regular 4G modem.

I was aware of the promotion, and I could have bought a 4G modem from Amazon before I left the USA, a modem intended for sale in the Russian market. I wasn’t 100% sure that was what I needed, however, and decided I’d wait to buy my modem directly from the folks promoting the 4G service. Unfortunately, though, they don’t sell 4G modems. Nobody does.

I tried really hard to find one, and finally persuaded a guy at a local computer store to scour his favorite online sites to see if he could find one anywhere in the country for me. Yes, he found one. Just one, priced at $110. The one from Amazon was going to be $50. I cheaped out, and decided to look farther. I finally found an online merchant in Moscow selling the same thing as Amazon for $60, so I ordered it. They added a delivery fee, but it still felt like a deal, so I pressed ahead. Next, I had a really hard time with the payment.

They said I could pay with Yandex Wallet or by bank transfer. I took a look at Yandex and thought about opening a Wallet account, but I don’t have a local bank account and worried about giving my only credit card number to some Russian website that looks like an attractive target for hackers. Besides, I don’t really even know what’s involved in the setup after the first page, because it got stuck on my computer and I gave up and went off to the bank.

To be more accurate, I went to several banks. The first bank without a huge waiting line said that they could complete the transaction for an $18 fee. Frustrated by the size of the fee, I moved on. I also asked a couple of savvy (I thought) friends whether they had Yandex Wallet or knew anything about this. They didn’t know anything. Not even the one who works at the National Bank of Belarus. Now I do.

I learned about Yandex Wallet after I finished the transaction during my second visit to my bank of choice, only one mile from home. On foot. The bankers warmed to my predicament and even talked to the merchant in Moscow to try to figure out a cheaper and faster way to send the money. It took two bankers fifteen or twenty minutes, and I ended up paying $7 in commissions for a SWIFT transaction that will take several days. Unfortunately, I didn’t mention the words “Yandex Wallet” until too late. It turns out that anybody can send money through Yandex from automated pay stations located pretty much everywhere, and the commissions are generally around 3%.

One day I’ll receive my modem. Today I got an education. Yandex Wallet is (theoretically) easy. I should tell my friends.

California 2

We went to Sacramento primarily to see my dad, but our trip gave us a couple of other delightful opportunities in addition. We spent an afternoon with our friends Lonnie and Rocky, whom we hadn’t seen in far too long. It felt just like home to be back together with them. Lonnie and I have been lifelong friends, and it’s always special to spend time with her because we have so much in common. I wasn’t sure about commonalities with our other Sacramento visit. I wanted to see Walter Borland, whom I knew in elementary school. He and I didn’t get along so well in the first few years, mostly because he was cool and I was not. He had Levi’s jeans, and teased me about my Billy the Kid jeans. My family couldn’t afford Levi’s.

I had thought about Walter without warning one morning a couple of months prior. It seemed to me that we’d just begun to learn to get along about the time we graduated sixth grade, and I wondered whatever happened to him. I didn’t have a lot of trouble finding him on Facebook, and he seems to be quite the man about town in Sacramento now. He’s friendly and has maintained strong connections with lots of old friends. He jumped at the opportunity to get together, and volunteered to drive wherever necessary to meet me. We had breakfast together and continued to chat for a couple of hours. I really like him now.

We spent most of the rest of our time in California with Nika and Tim, though we managed to see my cousin Susan one of those evenings too. Nika still works in the Asian Museum, so she got us free entry for a day of art there and an evening of art at the De Young Museum. I didn’t know anything about the Asian Museum until Nika started working there, and I like it a lot now. They always have interesting exhibits, and I like to see what’s new every time we’re in town.

Finally, for our last weekend in California, Nika and Tim took us to a delightful inn in Mendocino. I barely knew this beautiful town on the north coast of the State, and Alla had never been there. By the time we left, she was so enthralled that she took with her a brochure from a house we saw for sale. I certainly would enjoy living in Mendocino, but especially if it weren’t so remote. I suppose it feels so special because it’s so hard to reach. I don’t think there are any easy ways to get there unless you own your own plane.

We picnicked, strolled the streets and ate together. We also took a couple of nature walks out to more remote areas, including a place called Glass Beach, which was once a garbage dump. The organic garbage has rotted away, no doubt a bunch of stuff floated away, and now we’re left with a beach paved with worn pellets of broken glass. It’s very pretty.

Overall, we had a great time in California and we left a bunch of people unseen and desires unfulfilled. We’ve already booked a return visit when the Taiwan exhibit opens up at the Asian Museum and I’m diligently looking for a way to make sense of a move to California while Alla is still excited about it. I’d love to be closer to family.

Glass Beach

California 1

As soon as we got back to Boston, we left town again. We were eager to see family in California, and only waited a few days to move on. We have plenty of people to see there, and barely got started this time, so I guess we’ll have to go back.

On this trip, we started out in Woodside, spending a weekend with John and Meredith. It’s hard to explain who they are to me, but Johnny often feels like the son I never had. As a huge added bonus, he married Meredith. It’s no surprise, then, that their son James is great too. We always like seeing them, and each visit feels like “the best.” We didn’t do much. We didn’t have to. We cooked a little. We hiked a little more. Johnny and I went to the hardware store, where I was pleased to learn that I could have bought a package of live bugs if I needed any. California is a wonderful place.

From 2016-04 To USA

We hit California at the exact right moment, too. The drought is finally more or less over, and the hills are all green. They’ll dry out and turn “golden” very soon, but while we were there, we saw green vistas everywhere. Alla reveled in the biodiversity. We took a wonderful little hike in the hills above Woodside. Sometimes James walked too, but mostly he rode happily in a backpack. He’s a great companion, with a healthy respect for the pleasures of mud.

Johnny’s sister Susie came over with her husband and kids on Sunday afternoon. I haven’t seen them often enough lately, so I was very happy that they could join the party. Their second son, Grant, is almost exactly the same age as James, but he’s bigger. They’re both very big boys. Maybe they’ll grow up to be a rowing doubles team. They’ll sure have the build for it.

On Monday we picked up a rental car, which was a whole story unto itself, and drove down to Hollister to see my cousin Nants, her husband Tim and their daughter Ila. Ila’s been living far from home for a long time, and I really enjoyed seeing her again. She’s always been thoughtful and frequently wise, so it’s fun to be around her. To be truthful, it’s great to be around all of them. Nants stayed home from work and made a bunch of individual cheese soufflés for lunch. And an apricot pie with apricots from their trees. Oh my, did we eat well, almost as well as we enjoyed their hospitality and conversation.

We hated to leave, but we still hadn’t seen our own daughter. Well, she’s really Alla’s daughter, but she’s nice about letting me claim her. We were so eager, we got to San Francisco a little bit early and had to spring Nika from work before she planned to go. Tough luck, Nika! As usual, San Francisco’s yards and parks are filled with flowers, so we went for a walk before dinner. Nika and Tim live right between San Francisco’s two largest parklands, so we always have someplace pleasant to walk. Alla and I like the ethnic grocery stores in the area too. We’d be with Nika and Tim for almost a whole week, so we had plenty of time to explore. I’ll tell you more about it later, when I also tell you about our bonus trips to Sacramento and Mendocino.

Hacking malware

I got a call yesterday from “The Windows Support Company.” I knew right away that it was one of those outfits that entice the user to put a virus onto their computer so the company can then remove it for a fee. I decided to string him along for a while, figuring I’m doing a public service if I keep him from calling another person.

The guy had an excellent script, but he lacked the skill to detect my irony. I was very amused when he told me that I had an especially virulent form of hacking malware on my computer. Wow. “Hacking malware.” I laughed and told him I was having a little trouble visualizing that, but he pressed on. He was very excited; urgent, even.

He started out by trying to figure out without directly asking, whether I have Windows or a Mac. He achieved this by asking about my keyboard, and I stretched out his investigation by describing the Windows key in terms nebulous enough that he couldn’t be sure I was talking about a Windows key or a Mac Option key. Tiring of the game, I said, “You know everything about my computer, don’t you?”

“Oh yes,” he assured me.

“Then what’s my IP address?” I asked.

“I can’t see that, but I see your Windows License Key,” he answered. “Let me prove it to you.” He proceeded to give me instructions, slowly, in painstaking detail. A dunce could not fail.

I didn’t actually type in the command he asked me to enter. Not into the command window, anyway. I typed it into my browser and found an article about the scam. I knew what he was going to tell me next. Exasperated, I told him “You’ve just asked me to look up a Class ID common to all Windows computers. You haven’t proven anything. I’ve been stringing you along here to see how long I could stretch this out, but I’ve had enough. How can you even live with yourself, scamming people for a living. Can you even sleep at night?”

“No,” he answered, “I don’t sleep very well. I’m very poor and this is the only way I can make a living.”

“I’d like to pray for you,” I countered. “Are you a Christian?” “Yes,” he said, “I am.”

I prayed aloud for him, and he told me he’d quit his job soon.

Botanical Garden

I enjoy walking around Minsk, but I’ve spent most of my time walking around the same few places. A few days ago, I decided to try something new, to get to the Botanical Garden without taking any major streets. I almost succeeded in avoiding big streets, though I had to walk for a few minutes along Platonava Street, where I stopped to visit a couple of very interesting stores: a shop selling a wide selection of traditional Belarusian fabrics and a place specializing in work clothes. I didn’t need anything from either place, but I liked the fabric store a lot. In addition to raw fabrics, they sell bed linens and table linens, so I’m sure I’ll be back.

My busy street led right up to a side door at the Botanical Garden, an entrance I’d never discovered before this. I bought myself a ticket and the lady told me I should without fail go to visit the public greenhouse. As I headed straight over, snow began falling lightly. The light powdery coating decorated what I saw and made me especially glad to be there.

I arrived at the conservatory just as a group of school kids began to leave, and by the time I’d hung up my coat and taken a few steps in, I had the place almost to myself. Noticing bird cages lining the main walkway, I decided to start by walking past the birds, parrots of various kinds. I wondered if any of them talked. Yes, in fact, they do. The chattiest of the birds greeted me as I walked up. “Privet,” he said. (“Hello.”) I answered, and we greeted each other several times before I walked away. A boy and his grandmother walked up to the cage, and the same bird rapped on the cage with is beak and asked, “Kto tam?” (“Who’s there?”) The boy rapped back, and the bird asked again, “Who’s there?” The next bird answered, something about a crocodile. Alla said they were almost quoting a cartoon dialog involving a character called Crocodile Gena.

Of course the birds served simply as extra decorations in a building dedicated to flowers and plants. Touring the building, I stopped especially to admire the plants in flower and the cactus. Near the cactus garden, I noticed a door I’d ignored on my previous visits. It turns out there’s a café here, with reasonable prices and nice-looking food, though I didn’t stay to eat because I wanted to have lunch at home. I figured I could walk down the central pathway and out the main gate, right near a subway station.

Imagine my disappointment at the main gate then, when I discovered it locked and unattended. Apparently they use only the side entrance during the winter, and I had to walk all the way back and then retrace my steps outside the long wall so I could get to the subway. The two gates are far apart, and I got pretty hungry by the time I reached home, but enjoyed a great walk and a beautiful opportunity to see the Botanical Garden in winter.

Poetry show

Zarina got invited to participate in a poetry event at the factory where she works. Nearly everybody at the factory is visually disabled in some way, and it’s a group of people I’m gradually getting to know as a volunteer guide. Because they’re dependent on each other from time to time, they’ve got a special group dynamic that I enjoy seeing and experiencing. I asked if she could get me an invitation to the performance.

Zarina finally confirmed my invitation just before the event. I’d already made other plans for the day, and felt a little bit conflicted about taking the afternoon off, but knew the moment that I walked into the room that I’d made the right choice. In addition to the people I already knew, a variety of new people came in, helping each other with their coats and finding chairs for everybody. I looked around and discovered that everybody had gotten dressed up, and wished that I’d dialed up my own outfit one more step. This show looked to be a big deal.

I knew that I’d gotten my invitation as a special privilege, so when more people arrived I gave up my seat for them and offered to stand at the back of the room. One of the hostesses could see me, and she’d have none of that. She went out with a couple of other people and brought in some more chairs and made me take a seat in the newly-added front row. I felt extra special now.

The show couldn’t have been better. Nearly everybody had memorized their poems, some of which were quite long, during the course of a month. And then they presented them with appropriate amounts of humor, passion and pathos: poems translated from Shakespeare, as well as classic Russian poets, and modern Soviet poets. I understood them well enough to enjoy them, though I found one or two of the poems a little difficult. I also had a really good time watching the teacher and master of ceremonies read a few extra poems from braille. She held her sheaf of papers sideways and strummed the text like a guitar, reading by hand as quickly as she could talk. I’ve never seen anybody read braille before, and I had no idea it could be so efficient.

I’m inspired to try to learn one of the poems myself. I’ve downloaded it and I read it aloud one time to Alla. I had a hard time with the text and need to look up a few of the words, but I’ll practice bit by bit. I wish I’d made a recording from the show, because the reader did an excellent job with this poem’s humor, pacing and inflection. I’d like to learn to approximate that.

Volunteer activities

Our friend Elena teaches English at School Number 31 and I’ve gotten to know quite a few of her students over the years. She invited me over to her classroom yesterday to talk about volunteer work. One of her students has been especially busy with a cancer-treatment facility, and she inspired her peers to help raise money in a joint project for the school and the treatment center. Knowing that I have a volunteer project of my own, she thought we’d enjoy having a chat in English.

I’m really impressed by the level these students have reached in English language. Everybody is able to speak reasonably freely and carry on conversations comfortably. We talked about cooking, because I came to visit while they were baking pastries for their fundraising project. They already knew plenty, but I was able to teach them a few new words and phrases, including “cookie sheet,” “batch” and “golden brown.” Each batch of pastries came out beautifully, but Elena wouldn’t let anybody eat one because they would be for sale today. Fortunately, however, she made an exception for me. It was delicious.

I’m really glad I came back for the bake sale and craft market. As I arrived, music spilled from an open window onto the playground beside the school. Inside, the place throbbed with activity. In the lobby, people did face painting, applied make-up, taught crafts and generally looked very happy. I rushed through the lobby, however, to see what the various classrooms had set up on the tables in a main hallway. I plunged into a sea of people and squeezed past table after table of delicious pastries, pancakes, cookies and handicrafts. I bought eight of the cookies my hosts made yesterday and far too many other goodies. Having eaten many of them on the spot, I left the hallway in a buzzy delirium of sugar and lurched into the auditorium to watch part of a student program.

When the students at School Number 31 do something, they do it with enthusiasm. Just as the whole school devoted itself to the bake sale, I think every class must have been represented in the program, though I didn’t stay to be sure. I am sure, however, that the students prepared themselves well. I had a ball spending part of the morning with them. Thanks!

To see this month's entire photo album, click here.

Fashion in Minsk

Our ever-stylish friend Tamara told us where she buys her clothes. It turns out that there are a bunch of small-time producers in Belarus that make a few garments at a time and then sell them at periodic fashion markets. I wanted to see one, so Tamara invited me to the next, a Valentine's Day extravaganza that they set up in the corridors of a small (but fancy) shopping mall.

Alla didn't really want to go. She doesn't like to shop anyway, doesn't like crowds, and prefers a more classic look. Besides, she had somewhere else to go, so I set out on my own. Walking to the mall, I enjoyed seeing festive decorations all over the city. Store managers tied vast quantities of balloons to their storefronts, and the City of Minsk set up a stage in a main square and invited vendors to sell snacks and souvenirs, and I even saw a courier delivering a huge heart-shaped box of roses.

I reached the fashion market at opening time, and the last few vendors hadn't even fully assembled their displays. I got to see everything. Most vendors limited themselves to just one rack, and each vendor's rack differed from all the others. It was a festival of originality. Shoppers began to arrive. Stylish shoppers. Interesting people. I had a good time exploring the first floor, and finally reached a caricature artist drawing portraits for free. She didn't have a client at the moment I arrived, so she invited me to sit down. I figured I'd sit still for five minutes and get an amusing picture of myself. In fact, however, I had to sit still for a lot longer than that and she captured me in a way I've never been captured before. She wanted to roll my portrait into a tube and secure it with a rubber band, but I liked the portrait way too much to roll up, so I asked her to hold it until I could go across the street and buy a frame and a plastic folder for safe travel home.

Later, Alla and our friend Elena came downtown and we went out for lunch together. Then I talked them into coming back to the fashion market. This time, the hallways were crowded and we had to squeeze between the shoppers. Only I bought anything (a scarf woven in a traditional Belarusian pattern and some chocolate truffles) but everybody had a great time.

Top dollar

I still enjoy going to the big market near our apartment to buy fresh fruits and vegetables and to hobnob with the vendors. I have a few favorites, people I've trusted for a long time and whom I enjoy seeing. Alla has been skeptical about one of these favorites, because I'm not as attentive as she would be to prices and sometimes my total bill from this one comes out higher than it might have been had I chosen a different vendor.

Yesterday I needed some extra vegetables for a recipe I wanted to cook, so I went down to see Tehrana. Tehrana is generous with me, sometimes embarrassingly so, and I'm completely confident in her prices. But on my way to her stand, I passed by Armenya. Armenya is the one Alla worries about, and she sells mostly fruits in the wintertime. I couldn't pass by without saying hello, and she urged me to buy something. She had some nice looking pomegranates, and I haven't had any in a month or two so I asked her to choose me a couple of them. They were kind of expensive, but I added a zucchini anyway because Tehrana doesn't sell zucchini either. The bill came out to $10. Or was it $15? I'm not completely sure. I knew Alla wouldn't like that, but there I was and I did want to have pomegranate. But then Armenya went for the combination sale. Would I like a taste of mango? Yes, it was delicious, so I agreed to buy one. Suddenly the bill skyrocketed to over 600,000 rubles. That's like thirty bucks! I thought I must be confused, so I got out my phone and checked the exchange rate.

I certainly couldn't go home and tell Alla I'd bought four ordinary things and spent thirty dollars. She'd never let me go to the market again. So I told Armenya that I didn't want the mango. She negotiated. Would I pay 550,000 rubles for everything? 500,000? That's still $25, and I knew better than to do that. No mango for me. Armenya adjusted the price back down to 210,000 rubles. Hadn't it been 310,000 before we added the mango? I was no longer sure, but ten bucks for two pomegranates and a little squash would already send Alla into orbit so I asked no further questions and paid up.

During the rest of my visit to the market I bought a lot more stuff and had trouble spending much money at all. I don't know what Armenya's deal might be, but perhaps I won't try to find out.

As for my original purpose, however, I'm happy to report that dinner came out well:

Pelmeni

Our neighbor Natasha makes delicious pelmeni. Knowing that I cook, and that I like them, she offered to teach me her recipe. One of the secrets of her cuisine is her husband, a hunter who often has some kind of special game meat to offer. This time, they had a wild boar.

Alla and I brought over a few other ingredients for the pelmeni and came to Natasha and Sasha's place after church on Sunday. When we arrived, the table was already laden with an array of beautiful and mouth-watering appetizers. I concentrated to get my salivary glands under control because we had work to do before we'd sit down at the table.

First, we had to make the dough. Natasha takes a far more artistic approach than most people I knew. We started by sifting a bunch of flour onto the counter. How did we know how much flour to sift? I dunno. Then she whizzed a couple of eggs and some water in the blender, commenting that she might add more water later. She did, but first she dumped the watery egg mixture onto the flour and started mixing it with her hands. She kneeded and kneeded, until the flour came to a muscular consistency.

I got to roll out the dough, batch by batch. I got the first one about right so they left me alone for the second one, which ended up a little too thick on one side. I compensated on the third one by rolling it until it became nearly transparent. Perhaps I had overdone the thinness, but everybody took my dough-disks in stride and stuffed them with the meat mixture. We started with a LOT of meat, and Alla and I figured we'd have to make meatballs with the extra meat. But as it worked out, we exactly finished the meat when we finished up the dough.

As they say, however, "The proof's in the pudding," and we all looked forward to sitting down to the table. We worked slowly through the appetizers and batch after batch of pelmeni. I don't know how many I ate. I probably set some sort of a record, or at least a personal best. We had a great time, with delicious food and delightful conversation. It felt like a holiday.

To see all the photos, click here and look near the top of the page.

They still don't understand me

I noticed that my glasses case is beginning to get worn around the edges. It’ll last a while, but since I had a hard time finding such a small one I figured I’d better start looking when it’s convenient. With that in mind, I stopped into a little shop near home and said, in Russian, “I came to see if you have a case the size of these glasses.” I took them off and showed them to her.

“What diopter?” she asked me.

“I just want a case,” I replied.

She walked over and opened up a display cabinet. I stepped behind her and saw that the cabinet contained glasses that looked vaguely similar to mine, but no glasses cases at all.

“No,” I corrected her, “I just want a case.”

“A case!?” she asked incredulously. “They’re over here.” (She only had big ones.)

I walked out of the store trying to figure out the difference between what I said and what she said. I played it over and over in my mind. They sounded about the same to me, and I couldn’t immediately identify the important difference. Finally, I figured it out: I said “fotliar” and she said “fotlyar.” They probably look about the same to my readers who don’t speak Russian, and they sound about the same to me. But I got tripped up, again, with a diphthong. I’m not sure diphthongs even exist in Russian, and the second variant, the Russian spelling, includes a vowel we don’t have at all in English: “ya.” Yes, “ya” is a vowel, and I’m told it’s not a diphthong. Here it is: “Я.”

I’ll probably get directly to the glasses cases next time I try.

[Addendum, a few days later: Alla points out that my REAL mistake was in the first vowel. It's futlyar, not fotlyar.]

Book excerpt

I'm working with a life coach to help me set goals and get things done. We're early in the process, but I'm making good progress. Among other things, I'm finally working once again on the memoir I started writing altogether too long ago. (I'm compiling travel stories and life lessons from notes my first wife and I made during our years together.) Today I re-worked a story from the bottom of Copper Canyon in Mexico, in 1998. I think you'll enjoy this excerpt:

It all started out ordinarily enough, as a walk to Cerro Colorado. We knew the village from the year before, but Jim had ideas to add some features to the trip. To get a good start on the day, we had the rhythm guitarist drive us to the end of the aqueduct, where we picked up the trail to Cerro Colorado. The first part of the trip was as we remembered; beautiful and not too hard. We saw again the mill for the gold mine in operation, jumped rocks across the stream from time to time, and crossed the swing bridge into the town. We sat for a while with Ofelia's family. Jim hoped someone would be driving back to Batopilas later in the afternoon, so that we could spend our time going further upstream to a Tarahumara village rather than hike back to the hotel. Our host thought that for 300 pesos, he could find us a driver. I objected that this seemed high, though Jim thought it was about right. Since he really wanted to travel that way, he offered to split the cost with us. In the end, when we understood how long and hard the trip was by car, we agreed that the price was reasonable but the hotel ended up picking up the tab for all of us. I think they were glad to get us back alive.

Freed then from the walk back, we began an extremely beautiful and very difficult two-hour hike up the river to the remote village. We walked atop a one-foot-wide stone-wall aqueduct for quite a while. As you know, this sort of thing wasn’t among Luci’s strengths, and she avoided looking down because she didn’t want to think about how far she’d drop if she fell. I judged that occasionally the drops would have been well over one story: farther than either of us wanted to jump. Most of the hike, fortunately, followed more traditional, ever-rocky Copper Canyon trails. In one place, we walked through a refreshing stream in lieu of passing around handholds over a large rock.

The village center at Munerachi consisted of an old locked-up adobe mission, plastic Quonset hut class rooms, a dormitory, and a very few other buildings. Around us, and up on the cliffs, we could see the families' ranches. We walked into one of the classrooms, in session, to give the teacher the pens Luci had brought as gifts. We delighted at a roomful of beautiful faces, the students all sitting at traditional desks working at math and Spanish.

We didn't have enough time to stay. Our ride back was supposed to leave Cerro Colorado at 5:00, so we came back along the beautiful canyon, happily finding alternative paths in several places, minimizing the time spent on the aqueduct on the way back. Tired, Luci thought the aqueduct looked a lot scarier the second time.

We made it back to Cerro on time, but our driver was not there. We visited Ofelia's family again, chatting and waiting. A violent screeching of pigs interrupted our conversation. Pigs and piglets roamed freely in the town, and we imagined that a fight had erupted among them. Going outside to look, we found a guy tying up two big ones. Luci feared that we’d have to stand there and watch them get slaughtered, but instead men loaded them into the back of a truck; the very truck we would be taking to Batopilas. Jim and a local guy stood in the back with the pigs. The two of us got in the front with the driver, who was drinking the local beer. Judging by the flood of urine when we stopped along the way, I'd say he'd already enjoyed LOTS of it, though I managed to restrict him to two cans during the drive.

Then we began very slowly to navigate the terrifying dirt road back down the canyon to Batopilas. We stopped several times along the way. At one point our driver purchased a bottle of homemade brew called lechugilla, from a fellow riding his horse more or less along our route. The liquor was in an old whiskey bottle, sealed with a corncob. Lechugilla is a type of agave that only grows in this part of Mexico, so we understood the beverage to be some sort of homemade tequila. Erasmo, the driver, offered us a drink but we declined and set the bottle on the floor, out of his reach.

In spite of, or perhaps because of, any alcohol-induced impairment, Erasmo drove the curves very carefully. Some of them were so tight he had to back up and reposition to edge the truck around in the space available. We jostled back and forth down the canyon wall, fording a stream seven times as we worked our way to Batopilas. I kept Erasmo engaged in conversation as best I could, because he drank less while he was talking. It would have been a scary ride even with a great driver in a new vehicle.

We didn't get to the inn in time to hear the ranchero music before dinner, but we still sneaked off to take a bath before arriving a few minutes late for the meal itself. Nobody would have wanted to sit with us without the bath anyway.

Tricky Russian marketing

I chew gum when I’m in Belarus, though I don’t often chew gum in the USA. The difference is Dirol, a Russian brand. I particularly like their lemon flavor, though I also enjoy the mint and the lime. It’s not too expensive and it’s always right there at the checkout line at the grocery store, so I usually have some in a pocket somewhere.

Last autumn, my packages of gum kept disappearing. One day I’d know where it was and the next day I wouldn’t, so I’d have to open a new package. They all reappeared at once when we came back this winter, so I haven’t had to open a new package until today. I bought this one, mind you, the day we arrived. I had to: it was a new flavor, Dirol for Him. The picture on the package shows a cool drink with mint leaves floating in it, so I bought it and it’s been sitting there near my desk for a couple of weeks.

Today I re-lost my last package of Dirol lemon. It’s still three-quarters full, but after it stayed lost for a day or two, I decided I could open the new Dirol for Him as I walked out the door. Amazingly, the Dirol company has arrived at a flavor that every man knows but has never tasted. Worldwide, wherever there’s a urinal, there’s a janitor who throws in little candies whose aroma apparently covers up whatever smells might otherwise waft up from down there. This gum tastes exactly like what I imagine those urinal candies taste like. I’m not going to finish the package, but I have to acknowledge Dirol’s understanding of the male psyche.

Speaking of Dirol, I copied the picture in the second paragraph from advertising on the internet. But while I was looking for it, I found another interesting picture, perhaps not from an official Dirol ad:

Mouthwash in Minsk

We’re back in Minsk now, and I’ve been busy with little details. Among other things, I stopped in at the State Department Store (“TSUM”) to pick up some mouthwash. Alla always buys the stuff made in Belarus, which I don’t particularly like, so I figured I’d try something new. I noticed a bottle on the top of the shelf called “Forest Balm,” with pictures of all the flowers supposedly squeezed into the bottle. This bottle was attached to a smaller bottle of a different kind of Forest Balm, and the label said “1 + 1 Gift”

“Ooh,” I thought, “Good deal! Second bottle free. I should buy this last package.” As a reality check, I looked for a regular bottle of Forest Balm on the lower shelf. The one on the lower shelf didn’t have so many flowers on the label, but it was only 40,000 rubles and I figured the “1 + 1 Free” set would cost about the same.

The cashier delivered shocking news: My pair of bottles would cost 60,000 rubles. I asked her why it was so much, and she shrugged, pointing out that I was getting two bottles. I complained about the “free” business, but didn’t have much of a leg to stand on because this deluxe bottle had all those flowers on the label and there was nothing comparable on the lower shelves.

Frankly, I don’t know what’s inside either bottle. I read too slowly in Russian to bother with it, and ingredient lists certainly aren’t my forte. The good news is that the extra 20,000 rubles won’t break the bank. It’s about a dollar, but I’m amused to find that I’m still incompetent sometimes in Belarusian shops.