Hunting and Gathering

They say this is a good year for mushrooms. Our friend Natasha in Braslav has been taunting Alla for days in their frequent Skype conversations, showing ever-more-amazing mushrooms she’s been finding near her summer home. Clearly, we had to go.

We took the bus on Thursday morning. Alla and another passenger started freaking out as we approached Braslav and saw the quantity of mushrooms for sale along the side of the road. I thought one or the other might jump out of the window, but they both lasted until we finally reached our small-town destination. Victor met us while Natasha tidied up after the previous night’s labor of cooking, canning and drying the mushrooms she’d gathered the day before. We’d be needing that space in the kitchen.

As soon as we reached Natasha she whisked us into the woods. Alla and Natasha taught me to identify three mushrooms they considered worthwhile. They disparaged other edible mushrooms, saying they’d only bother with them in a bad year. This year, we’d only harvest “elite” varieties. I especially like the white ones, which they told me are safe even to eat raw though only I actually did it. Nobody here is used to the idea of eating raw mushrooms and most consider it scary. I grew up eating lots of raw mushrooms and don’t think twice about it when I have the right ones.

That first day we gathered less than a bucketful apiece. Natasha wanted to stay up as long as necessary to process them all and then get up to be on the road at six the next morning for a serious day of hunting. Alla negotiated her back to a 7:30 start, hoping to get something more like a normal night’s sleep. Natasha appeared to take the idea well, but she got pretty comical the next morning trying to make up for the late start by egging Victor on to drive faster into the forest. Victor does not drive fast, and the difference probably didn’t matter. Other people beat us to Natasha’s spot and they harvested a lot of mushrooms, but we still got a lot ourselves. I suppose it just took us a little longer, but I enjoyed visiting several different spots, each beautiful in its own way. And by the end of the day we had a WHOLE lot of mushrooms. I don’t know what they weighed, but I was surprised at how heavy were the two boxes we carried in from the car.

We arrayed ourselves in the kitchen to sort the mushrooms, some to freeze, some to dry, some to can and some simply to cook. We also set aside three or four nice white mushrooms for me to eat raw. We swapped stories over the mushrooms, trying to remember where they came from and under what circumstances who found this or that specimen. The cooking and processing tasks stretched into the next day, when we took a break from hunting.

Not that I got a complete break from bending over and picking stuff up from the ground. When I went outside I saw that the neighbor had gathered her extended family to harvest potatoes from a field big enough to warrant the use of a tractor. I knew Grandma as a very nice permanent resident of the village. Her extended family spilled out over the field, with her son-in-law driving the tractor, other men collecting bags of potatoes, and women and children loading potatoes into bags. They worked hard and they worked fast, as if perhaps the Nazis were about to return and steal their harvest. Grandma saw me taking a few pictures and asked me if I didn’t want to help out. What could I say? I went home and put on my work clothes, stole Victor’s Wellington boots and put in a good hour or more. Finally I decided I’d had enough fun and had atoned for taking those pictures of other people working so I went home and cleaned myself up. As I finished putting my shoes back on in front of the banya, one of the daughters brought me a big bucket of nice potatoes as a thank-you gift for my labors. We’ve already been eating them now, and they’re delicious.

Still, we had come to hunt so we went out near the village again the following morning, not too early. Somebody beat us to the woods and we met her staggering out with more mushrooms than she could comfortably carry. Alla asked her to describe where she’d been hunting so we could start somewhere else, but she said she’d been everywhere. Undaunted, we plunged in. I struggled to find much that this local hunter had missed, but Natasha filled her bucket with choice mushrooms which she apparently locates by X-ray vision. She’s amazing. I, meanwhile, sat down under a tree with a book after I got tired of poking around in the undergrowth. I did gather more than half a bucketful, but had to resort to some second-rate mushrooms to achieve that.

Natasha and Victor sent us home with more than our fair share of the harvest, and I think we’re going to have a pretty delicious winter. As a matter of fact, we had a pretty delicious dinner just now.

For other pictures, click here and start in the middle of the album.
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First day of school

Pupils in Belarus start the school year on September first, but somehow I never noticed the fact until this year, when Anna entered first grade. We went to join the festivities.

On the way we walked past another school and I noticed the kids all decked out in their school uniforms, many of them carrying flowers to present to their teachers. Parents posed them for photographs under trees and in other pretty places nearby. Today was called Day of Knowledge, and the kids looked quite earnest.

Anna's family got to school at the last minute, so I didn't see anybody until the kids made their grand entrance. Disregarding instructions about standing with parents behind the youngest kids, I got myself a prime location behind a bunch of high school kids. Somehow I missed the fact that they would be part of an upcoming performance, but I melted into the crowd of parents before my group made its grand entrance into the school for the first time in the new year. It's possible that somebody noticed a white-haired guy amidst the students, but nobody called me out on it.

The performance mainly focused on welcoming the littlest kids. Unlike everybody else, they started inside the school and they all received balloons. All the other students lined up to form a perimeter around the staging area and then the newest scholars marched into the midst and stood facing the school. We all listened politely to speeches, some of which I judged overly long, and then the little kids released their balloons; to applause and cheers.

As the ceremony drew to a close, the principal admonished the parents on the day's importance and urged them to do whatever they could to be sure their kids ended the day with happy memories of it all. We took our friends out for tea and cakes, and I certainly ended the day with happy memories

Buying a TV

The title of today’s post is misleading. I did not buy a TV. At the time, I was trying to buy a new lock for our mailbox because the Belarusian lock we put on there a couple of years ago gave us endless problems and finally failed altogether. So I went to the biggest locksmith I know of and asked whether he had something better, but he didn’t have anything at all. He sent me to TSUM, the big government-owned department store where Alla bought the previous lock. TSUM didn’t even have any flimsy Belarusian locks today, but the sales guy thought he might have some more in a couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, I walked past the TV department. Alla’s been watching a lot of TV lately because she likes to get the official Russian point of view on what’s happening in Ukraine. Our old TV has a lousy sound system, unintelligible at low volumes and intolerable at high volume. And there’s no place to plug in headphones so everybody in the building knows when she’s got the TV turned on. I figured it might be worthwhile to buy a new TV if I got a good enough deal. Alla could watch her Russian programs without speakers blaring and I could hook my laptop up to the newer TV and we could watch movies in the living room instead of crowding around my desk.

At TSUM I saw a Belarusian 32” LCD TV for 300 bucks. “Hmm,” I thought, “this might be OK.” But I had a nagging concern in the back of my mind because somebody some time advised me never to buy Horizont (the Belarusian brand). I asked the sales guy about it and he reacted with surprise. “What do you mean,” he asked, “that Horizont TVs are bad?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Tell me about your experience. Are they good TVs?” “We don’t have any trouble with them,” he assured me. He went on a bit, explaining that they’re fine TVs. I asked him if he had anything else he’d like me to consider at the same time, and he showed me a Samsung for $100 more. I asked why I’d pay more for a Samsung when the Horizont is such an excellent product. He explained that 78% of the parts in the Samsung are manufactured in Korea and that the TV itself is assembled in Russia. “It’s better. The parts are better. I recommend that you buy Samsung.”

I came home really confused. Horizont is really great but he thinks I shouldn’t buy one. So I cast about online looking for reviews. Mostly I found praise for old Soviet tube-style Horizont TVs and horror stories about unreliability and the inconvenience of repairing newer LED TVs with the same brand. Alla called some friends, who said they bought a Horizont and liked it fine. It failed after two years, was deemed unrepairable, and they received a certificate for a new TV which still works. Except that they dropped the remote control and it’s impossible to replace. They’re happy with theirs, but I’m not feeling so confused any more. As much as I’d like to support the local brand, I’ve been scared away.

1001st place

Years ago, a friend gave us a book called “1,000 Places to See Before You Die.” The book doesn’t have a whole lot to say about Eastern Europe and leaves out Belarus altogether. Now that I’ve seen Braslav Lakes, I can only say that they’re wrong. This is an undiscovered paradise, and while I worry about what will happen as it’s discovered I think my readers would like to know a little more about our visit.

I wrote in my previous post about where we stayed, near Nedrava Lake and the village of Slabodka. We stayed longer than we planned and we’re already looking forward to returning. But today I want to say a little about the surrounding area. I have no idea how many lakes make up “the Braslav Lakes Area,” but Wikipedia calls it 30 and I suppose that’s about right. In between, there are hills, forests and bogs. I get special pleasure out of the hills because the area around Minsk is so flat that the rivers meander in crazy loops and the water barely seems to flow. While the river near us in Braslav didn’t offer a strong current either, at least it flows fast enough that the water looks fresh, and we could enjoy lots of panoramic views from the tops of various hills as we toured around the region.

Victor and Natasha drove us to see lots of interesting places, from the historic town of Braslav to the quaking bog near a Presidential retreat. Natasha took Alla out for a very successful day hunting egg mushrooms, which fetch a couple of bucks apiece in Minsk. They brought back a lot of them, most of which they peeled and put into a three-liter jar of vodka. This concoction is said to have some sort of medicinal benefit, though I have a really hard time imagining Alla doing anything with three liters of vodka. (I use vodka to wash windows, but that’s another story.)

We went swimming at the deepest of the lakes, whose name escapes me now. We started by walking out onto a peninsula. On one side, the shore plunged downward steeply and a few meters out it was already deeper that I was willing to free-dive. On the other side, the shore sloped very gradually over a shelf of blue clay. We lost track of Alla and Natasha, so I finally went over to the clay side of the peninsula to look for them. I found them wearing only their bikini bottoms, slathered in clay. Really, all I could see was their eyes and hair. After the clay dried, they came to visit us before disappearing to rinse off and come back to tell about how wonderful their skin felt after the mud bath. You won’t find any pictures of this online.

Back at the homestead, I really enjoyed village life, the inter-connectedness of the people and the way their lives differ so strongly from anything familiar to me. Sometimes the next-door neighbor brought over fresh goat milk, still warm. I had no idea it would be so delicious. Another neighbor raises chickens and tomatoes. A third raises ducks, and makes fresh dairy products from their cow’s milk. We ate lots of farmer cheese one morning for breakfast, with fresh applesauce and fruit preserves on top. I peeled a big pot of apples so Alla could make more applesauce. They have a delicious variety of apple from the Gomel region of Belarus, where both Alla and Victor grew up, just a few years apart. This is agro-tourism. This is living. This is Belarus.

More pictures here.

Braslav Lakes Region

We kept hearing about how beautiful it is near Braslav, but never got ambitious about visiting until this week. After a week of hot weather and facing another overheated week, I found a website summarizing resorts around the Braslav Lakes and urged Alla to look for somebody who had a cancellation or any little gap in occupancy. On her first call she lucked onto Natasha.

Natasha owns or manages several properties, but couldn't offer any vacancies in the near future. Fortunately for us, however, they hit it off somehow in the course of conversation and Natasha offered us a bedroom in her own house. We took her up on it, and booked a ride in a minibus leaving the next day at noon. That morning Alla began to panic. She had booked us a stay with we-don't-know-whom in unknown circumstances in a remote village. Would we be bored to death? Starved to death? Wasting away scorched in the sun? Grossly disappointed? I tried to reassure her. Surely somebody in the village would have some kind of food to sell us. And if we hate it, we can always go back to Minsk.

As it turns out, the worst thing about this adventure will be the fact that we must at some point leave. Natasha and Viktor are generous, gregarious and interesting hosts. Their place is simply heavenly. And I can only describe the region as idyllic. (Though the grocery selection is, in fact, limited and it helps to have local connections.)

This morning I went out to the garden for my customary quiet time before starting the day. I sat in a comfortable hanging chair surrounded by flowers and fresh air. A flock of little birds chirped in the tree overhead and the family cat curled up at my feet. Bugs buzzed, cows mooed and a warm breeze trickled over my body. I thought of the swimming hole in the river behind me and the watermelon in the kitchen. I already didn't want to go home.

Today we aren't going too far, content to read, converse, swim and explore locally. Tomorrow our kind hosts promise to show is around in their car. We're definitely not going back when we said we would. We're got way too much swimming and sightseeing to accomplish.

Playing in Lithuania

Alla and I came to Lithuania for a long weekend, starting with a day in Kaunas. Kaunas is the second-largest city in the country, and to be honest I booked it by mistake. I knew there was another place we wanted to see (Trakai) and I got all excited when I got an email about a special deal for a good hotel in Kaunas. Alla straightened me out long ago, but we decided to spend a day in Kaunas anyway just to see the city.

Our travel connections worked perfectly and we got there on the earliest-possible train so we had plenty of time to explore the old town. Our bargain hotel was closer to the train station than to the main tourist area, so we had an interesting walk. Our first impressions of Kaunas were fairly dismal, but the farther we walked the fancier things got. By the time we got to the center of the old town, we were in the midst of expensive designer stores, chic outdoor bistros and lots of brides. Friday, it turns out, is a big day for weddings and bridal parties strolled around the city looking great and posing for pictures. We did a pretty thorough job of covering the main tourist sites listed in our book, though we would have dropped in on a couple of museums if they opened earlier on Saturday. But since they wouldn't open until 11, we jumped onto an express bus and checked into our favorite hotel in Vilnius.

We know Vilnius pretty well, but we've only been here in the winter. It feels a lot different in the summer. Suddenly, for example, there are outdoor bistros everywhere. And the girls are even prettier than I realized. As always, we found plenty to do. There's a music festival going on, and we chose a Chinese choir giving a free concert in a church we like. We chose the choir because we saw them (or another Chinese choir) rehearsing in a Swiss church last year and they pretty much knocked our socks off. The group we saw in Vilnius, the Peiyang Chorus from Tianjin University surpassed even those high expectations. If you ever get a chance to hear them, you certainly should. After the concert, I went to thank some of the choir members and one of them gave me a brochure about the group. I asked if I could buy a CD and she took me off to see the choirmaster, who indeed had CDs but not for sale. They gave it to me as a gift.

On Sunday we took a tour to Trakai, the place I wanted to see when I booked a night in Kaunas. Trakai is an island with a big restored historic fortress. Our guide had lots to say, though we couldn't verify the accuracy of her spiel. As they say, history is written by the victors, and she presented strong Lithuanian pride. Her truth may have been polished a bit by that pride, but she certainly had no lack of things to say and she gave a very interesting tour. As usual for a tour, she skipped over some things we might have liked to see longer and I'd like to come back to Trakai under my own power some other time. There are some little hotels there, and I think it might be fun to spend a summer day swimming in the lake and seeing the castle fortress in more detail.

In between things, we discovered a couple of excellent parks in Vilnius. We've walked past Bernardine Park numerous times in the winter without really noticing it, but when we finally found it this weekend we spent lots of time there with great pleasure. We found the other park because I hadn't looked at a map recently enough to know that it would be overly ambitious to walk all the way to the television tower. Ultimately we got waylaid by Vinigio Park, which we'd thought about seeing but figured it was too far away to bother with. It's huge, and we walked all the way across it by the most direct road. Finally, at the far end, we asked a couple of locals how to get back to our hotel and they gave us a surprisingly-long ride back in their car.

I published a few more pictures from the weekend in this album:

2014-07 Lithuania

Hacking through

In March I got interviewed for an article about things that can be tricky for certain groups of people in Minsk. As best I could, I represented all foreigners. Another interviewee, Zarina, spoke for blind people. Naturally, her story was much more touching than my own, and I got inspired to organize a group of volunteers to serve the city’s blind people who might have difficulty with everyday tasks like getting to the store and picking out a pair of shoes. I didn’t have a lot of trouble lining up an initial group of volunteers, but I haven’t been so successful yet in giving the volunteers anything to do.

I started with Zarina. I told her about the volunteer organization I imagined building and asked her if such a service would be useful and if she could help me get in touch with people in need. She invited me over for a conversation, and later I took her out two or three times to walk around Minsk. Unfortunately, however, she’s never wanted to talk about building an organization or introducing me to others in her dormitory or in the factory with all the blind workers. Finally I admitted to myself that I’ll never convert her from client to collaborator and I needed a fresh start.

Zarina lives in a dormitory with lots of visually handicapped people and they all work in one factory. I decided to go over her head, then, and introduce myself to the doorkeepers at the dormitory and maybe to somebody at the factory. In this endeavor, I ran some risk that I’d get into a situation where my Russian might prove inadequate. For backup, I invited along a 15-year-old girl I met at church a few days ago. She doesn’t speak any English, but I figured she’d make up in enthusiasm whatever she lacked in skills.

Iulya is definitely enthusiastic. I called her this morning and asked if she were free. It turns out that she lives outside the city limits and it would take her almost two hours to get to me. Once we joined forces, it would be almost another hour to the dormitory. She agreed immediately, and I explained my plan as we walked from the subway toward the dormitory. When we got there, I asked if she’d like to do the talking. No, she’d prefer that I do the talking. I introduced myself to the doorkeepers, who said that we should go talk to the people at the factory. Iulya tugged at my sleeve, but I wouldn’t go. I wanted to inoculate myself against a run-around so I tried to warm up the dormitory folks. I told them how well they must know their residents and they beamed in caring satisfaction. I asked if they had any advice for me and they referred me to the factory. Iulya tugged harder on my sleeve. At this moment a resident walked by and the doorman asked him to take us across the street to the factory administration.

Off we went, and introduced ourselves to the guard on duty. She asked if we had an appointment, and Iulya explained that we’d only just been sent to them. OK, the guard said, then come back in ten minutes after everybody finishes their lunch. We went out and admired the electrical outlets and plugs manufactured within. I even bought a couple of plugs before we returned to the guard, who started phoning various offices upstairs. Nobody wanted to talk to us, and finally she sent us off to the Central Administration, whatever that may be. She and her colleagues described to us how to get there without giving us an actual address. I hoped Iulya understood better than I did, but still I begged them to help us make an appointment before we left. They handed me the phone and I talked to a receptionist, leaving with her phone number.

We got pretty close to this Central Administration before our directions petered out. As we discussed our predicament a couple of girls came by and asked if they could help us find our way. Unfortunately, we didn’t know so much as the proper name of the place we wanted to reach, but I produced the phone number, one of the girls called it, and then she explained to us how to get there. It worked!

When we finally arrived, the receptionist took us in to meet her boss, who is completely blind. Iulya warmed up to him right away and told our story with enthusiasm and conviction. He immediately understood what we wanted to accomplish and told us whom he’d like us to meet. He wanted us to meet somebody back at the factory, but she’s out of town right now so he called her cell phone and told her to expect our call next week. He then asked us if we came from some sort of a church group. We told him we were Protestants, which can occasionally raise eyebrows here but he didn’t flinch. His daughter is Protestant.

I don’t know if any of this will lead to the formation of a program, but I’m excited to see possibilities ahead.