Russia is changing me in many ways, but one of the changes I’m happiest about is the determination to fix small things instead of just setting the problem aside or buying a new whateveritis. Case in point: early on in my stay here, my French press broke. And if you know anything about Russia, it’s that for whatever reason, this country doesn’t believe in coffee makers. So a French press is the only way you are going to get non-instant coffee/caffeine into your blood stream. Well, while rinsing off this life-saving device, the little washer that holds the press part of the French press together slipped off and disappeared down the sink drain.
So imagine this situation. I quickly envision the rest of my year here without [good] coffee. A ridiculous thought, because they do have French presses here… Next, I move on to commiserating the death of my beautiful French press [a white and pink porcelain affair bought in English and close to seven years of coffee memories attached to it] just because I’ve lost this small piece of metal. So I get down on my hands and knees in the public washroom of the sanitarium I was living in and start taking apart the pipe behind the sink, hoping the washer is stuck in the U-bend of the pipe. Water, gunk, and bewildered stares of my neighbors, but no washer.
To give a moral to this drawn out story, it occurred to me several days after this incident that Russia has hardware stores, and is likely to carry similar, shiney metal pieces. In broken Russian, not even knowing the word for washer or whatnot, I explain to the bemused hardware clerk my dire situation and for the price of about six cents he gives me three of exactly the right size washers, just in case anything should happen in the future.
All this is meaningless now, because I was bequeathed a larger French press, that pales in beauty comparison to my porcelain wonder, but makes twice as much coffee for me, which is the real deciding factor.
Second supporting argument. I bought a pair of boots at a market in town. The random collection of clothing and toiletry kiosks sits above the market where I buy my cookies, juice, and other essentials. I needed a pair of not-extreme-winter-boots-but-heavier-than-the-shoes-I-brought-with-me-from-America boots. The sales woman was intrigued in my foreignness, as she prince-charming-ishly slipped the boot onto my Cinderella-foot. The boot itself claimed to be made in Italy and repel water, one of which was a requirement in my boot-buying quest. Neither of which proved to be true.
But regardless, I spent money on these boots and I was going to get my money’s worth out of them. So, when on the Trans-Siberian railroad, and entire toe area of right boot disconnected from the sole and the only other pair of footwear I had packed were heels meant to be worn at the Fulbright conference in Moscow, I looked into getting the shoe repaired. Lucky for me, there are shoe repair shops everywhere in Russia, and wandering around Irkutsk—the gem of Siberia I might add—yielded the same results. Because our train was due to leave in three hours, I was concerned about the amount of time it might take to fix my shoe, and also was not altogether adverse to buying a new pair of actually waterproof shoes. Xirsti, in all her wisdom, urged that we at least ask the expert shoe-fixer what was up. Turns out, that for the equivalent of three dollars and fifteen minutes, they could super glue back into its rightful purpose. Some 5,000 miles later, the thing is still holding up.
But, the other boot I guess was feeling left out of the fun and several days ago the zipper broke. Determined that the boots had made it this far on my Russian journey and should last a bit longer, I donned my extreme-Russian-winter-boots, put the offending boot in one of my many plastic bags and took off to find the closest shoe-repair. There, the expert fixer promptly told me he could do nothing to fix my boot. Somewhat attitudinal, I asked, “um, why? You fix shoes…” He then explained in detail (I’m assuming) why he was helpless. Not understanding a word he said, I asked why again. “Girl, didn’t you hear me?” he asks incredulously. “I’m a foreigner…” I offer up as an apology.
He picks up my boot (for the first time) and suddenly realizes that it is within the realm of his expertise to fix my shoe after all. For less than two dollars I have a new zipper on my boot. I don’t think he chose to fix my shoe because as a foreigner I was suddenly a desirable costumer, I think he felt extreme pity for this girl who sometimes mispronounces the word zipper, which when stressed on a different syllable is also the word for castle.
Whatever the reason, I was grateful for the result. I often regret not paying more attention to my father or brothers who are able to fix anything their hands touch. I grew up in a family that never paid for a plumber or electrician or mechanic or shoe fixer, because chances were, our father could solve whatever the issue was. And if all else failed, I owned plenty of other shoes, so I would tell myself I would fix the shoes later, put them into a closet and promptly forget about their existence. Russia does not allow that sort of neglect and waste to happen as often.
Having these small victories in Russia yields a heightened sense of accomplishment, which is something I can use more of here. Owning two functioning French presses, along with a collection of washers in case I should need them, and two boots with mismatching castles…errrm zippers…are slight symbols of my successful navigation of life in Russia.