The timing of our arrival worked perfectly for Ira’s and the other Russian student’s spring break. For the next two weeks we filled each day with field trips. We travelled to Novosibirsk the big city. Novosibirsk is like a small Chicago but circa 1950. In a way it was like watching old black and white television shows from the fifties and sixties especially the jeans and jackets - like the Russian version of Leave It To Beaver.
The roads were atrocious, pot holes that a 4-year old could fit into and this caused borderline maniacal driving. All of the cars were Mercedes Benz. How is it that these Siberian people were driving such a prestigious car?
Academgorodok or Academy City is a science mecca. Stalin brought the greatest minds together to promote research and development. It was also no accident that the location was remote- in the middle of the country. A nuclear war would wreak havoc on the Eastern and Western borders of Russia leaving the central aspect rather unscathed - the missiles just couldn’t reach from the US or even Europe. This was several decades ago, I’m sure today there isn’t a remote village anywhere on the planet that modern technology couldn’t bullseye.
As a result, our field trips were like visiting the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC. These were not museums but rather active labs of modern invention. We toured the collision beam reactor which encompassed the city from underground; the chemistry institute which was across the street from the physics institute; air and space development was adjacent to civil and mechanical engineering buildings. Many of the student’s parents worked at these buildings. The relative scientific brain trust of the country was housed in this city.
Ira’s father was an inventor who worked at the chemistry institute. He was developing a synthetic grease for lubricating conventional motors. Ira’s Mom was an administrative assistant for a financial wall street group affiliated with the government. Their combined income was about 3500 rubles or $35 American per month.
Ira was ambitious and dedicated. She studied every waking minute, even during her spring break. She also played basketball. Sports are highly acclaimed in Russia. She tried out and made the girls team, like varsity but it wasn’t affiliated with the school. Russia prizes their athletes to the degree that they pay their best to compete. When Ira made the team she was awarded an income of 1000 rubles per month. Her basketball constituted almost a quarter of the familie’s monthly income. It was fun to watch her practice, her red cheeks and prideful chin prominent when she stole a ball or made a lay up. It was interesting to see first hand a government sponsored team of girls having fun and getting paid to do it.
The evenings of the first two weeks began in a musical chairs exchange of visits from house-to-house. This was a great way to further our familiarity which each other; sisters and brothers, Americans and Russians, in a pile like high school students would want to do playing cards, flirting, dancing and music - comparing cultures and seeking differences and relishing in the similarities.
I came to learn Ira was not the most social with the students in the group. She was acquainted with her Russian comrades but there were others she called her best friends. And then on about the fourth night she asked me if I wanted to meet other people not in the student exchange group - of course I did.
This began our nightly tour de force of her “other” friends. This group was where the fun began. Louder music, intense card games with piles of rubles at stake and homemade vodka. We partied! Boys were into Ira, they courted her with grace and chivalrous romance. I could see why she wanted to spend her time with these people versus the other students in the program. Where the kids in the program were high school age, the boys and girls we were hanging out with were men and women. I was invited into Ira’s counter-culture; away from her family and the school, she let her guard down. She talked and talked and as she got drunker she giggled and teased. She was cute and bossy and the boys loved it. Several nights in a row I needed to be carried back to Ira’s apartment. They were like brother’s and sisters watching out for me. It was safe to explore and experiment with youth unhinged.
On one evening a friend of Ira’s gave me a special pin. The Russian people were want to give, to exchange, to share but always giving things and not asking for much in return. Aleosha was his name and he gave me his Grandfather’s pin that he was awarded in World War II. I tried to not accept it. It was an amazing pin - larger than a silver dollar with the hammer and sickle and it was solid metal - it was like a purple heart in America. I asked about the sentimental value and he just smiled and laughed and said, “my grandfather is dead, he won’t miss it.”
He did ask me in exchange to write to him. I regret that I never did. I still have the pin on my desk next to my lamp. I pick it up often and think of those many nights together. How much fun we all had, sharing stories, exchanging culture from thousands of miles away. In a way, it was like we all knew each other from lifetimes before and this was just a reunion of spirits.
I am sorry Aleosha, for never writing.
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