--- continued
About 5:00pm I call Nina S. and inform her in my best Russian "ye zdyes sech-ahs" (I'm here now), to which she informs me in decent English that "I go to you", but she needs 1 ½ hours. This is good I think, as it gives me time to unpack, shave 4 days of beard off my face, shower & get into the best suit that I had packed. Since there was no apartment doorbell down on the street, only a large, heavy door which required a code for access, we agreed that I would be downstairs waiting for her on the street. About 6:20pm, I head downstairs to the sidewalk where I immediately feel way over dressed compared to the passers-by. I quickly grow tired of craning my neck one way down the street, and then 180 degrees in the other direction. I notice a little café directly across the street where several men dressed in suits are conversing in Russian. I decide to cross the street & innocently stand around near the other well-dressed men, to kinda blend-in, as I want to be the first to get a good look at her, and not the other way around. From here it was also much easier to survey both directions of the street.
I know I'm looking for a blonde woman who's somewhat on the slender side. I wasn't even sure how tall she was going to be, but I just guessed she'd be somewhere about 5'5" or 5'6". Unbeknownst to her, I saw her internet ad only the one time I sent her my first letter. I had to ask her to re-send her photo because I never downloaded it off the internet site. I found her once, and never did find it again to recheck her vital statistics. She has an 18 year old son "Alexey" who lives with her, and appears quite tall in the 1 photo I have of him.
Ok, it's now exactly 6:30pm, and there's still no one on the block that closely resembles her. A couple of blondes have passed by, but none that closely enough resemble the lady I'm looking for. Suddenly, way down on the next block, walking in this direction from the same side of the street, is a blonde woman who is carrying 2 boxes tied together in her right hand. My eyes are on her all the way to the corner, where she crosses the street and proceeds to approach the apartment building from the other side. This time, I'm sure it's her, as she's still walking almost directly across the street from me now. I step-out from beside the crowd in front of the café, and emerge into the street, where we both make eye contact. After she studies me for a second, we both exchange big smiles. As I approach her, she's taller than I had imagined, maybe 5'8" or 5'9" and far, FAR more beautiful than anticipated. For a woman of 40, she could easily pass for 30, and I repeatedly inquired to her over the course of my stay, if she wasn't really 25, and how could she possibly have a son who's 18.
I invited her up to the apartment, where upon entrance she gave me an almost seemingly obligatory peck on the lips. Nothing overpowering, mind you, but I did have fantasies prior to my arrival of giving her a huge full-body bear hug, and slow gentle kisses up & down her neck upon meeting. I showed her the apartment, and we proceeded to share tea & pastry for almost an hour while we chatted. She had brought 2 each, of 3 different pastries. It was here that I realized that her English was far better than I had expected. I thought that my Russian was good enough to converse with, but her English skills were far better than I could've hoped for. Nina R. had previously told me that Nina S. had purchased a book entitled "English in 3 days". If that was the case, I want the "Russian in 3 days" English version. I had also packed an Ectaco electronic Russian-English dictionary. I honestly thought that this was going to be our primary means of communication, but quickly found out that we weren't going to need it much. In all, I think we referred to it maybe a dozen times, and just to look up the odd, complicated single word that we needed to get the full point across.
We finish our tea & pastry and we proceed to take a walk towards the heart of the city, that we had mutually agreed-upon via e-mail prior to my arrival. When we get into the heart of Nevsky Prospekt, I'm experiencing a bit of culture shock, as the sidewalks are in noticeably poor state of repair. The drivers making turns on the street almost seem to be daring you to cross in front of their vehicles. There are a number of banners strewn across the street advertising what I'm guessing to be some sort of festival or celebration. Probably the biggest thing that I notice is that a good majority of the population is obviously, and in an open manner, consuming these ½ liter bottles of beer, right out in public. Maybe this is how it is in Russia, but I'm not quite accustomed to seeing such blatant displays of public alcohol consumption. I also notice that a good percentage of the population looks to be of somewhat questionable character. As we negotiate Nevsky Prospekt, I'm trying to keep her from out in front of crazy drivers. We're also approached several times by people obviously soliciting for spare change. I responded with my most convincing "ne se-chas" (not now) in Russian, which brought giggles from Nina S.
We walked all the way down Nevsky Prospekt, over the Fontanka River, past Gostinyy Dvor, Kasan Cathedral, through Palace Square, and on to the Neva River overlooking the Hermitage Museum. During this entire stroll, we are hand-in-hand, walking, laughing, making jokes, and just conversing as if we were long lost buddies who've found each other after years of absence. I'm of the opinion, that we are extremely comfortable with each other, and during the entire course of the evening, I haven't seen anyone that in my opinion is more beautiful than she is. I notice a lot of men and women alike eyeing her as we stroll throughout the city. I feel very, very lucky indeed to be in her company.
By now, it's almost 10:00pm, and it's still a bit light out. I tell her that I realize that "White Nights" is mostly in June, but since in Florida it's mostly dark these days by 8:45pm, that this is plenty close enough for me. The rest of the evening would consist of my first Metro ride, and she escorted me back to the apartment for another cup of tea before she made her way home for the evening.
--- To be continued ---
--- Tuesday 8/21/01 ---
Nina S. arrives to my apartment at approx. 10:00am as agreed upon. Our first order of the day is to proceed via Metro to station Baltyskaya for the short walk to the Hotel Sovetskaya, where on the 11th floor is the office I was to visit to have my visa registered. After a brief walk about a kilometer or so, we arrive to this office. I was instructed to pay the $35.00 registration fee, and told I could pick up my stamped visa on Thursday. What a pain in the neck I'm thinking this is. Essentially, I'm just paying someone else to register my visa for me. It wasn't the cost that concerned me, it was the fact that I would now have to return to the Hotel Sovetskaya, and would not be in possession of my actual visa in the event that I was ever asked for it. I had photocopies inside my travel wallet, but I was never questioned by any authority figures.
After a quick view of the city from the top floor of Hotel Sovetskaya, Nina S. and I had mutually agreed that today we would do the Hermitage Museum. By the time we arrived via Metro towards that part of the city, it was already early afternoon. The line for the Hermitage Museum was already quite long, and I jokingly inquired to Nina S. if she knew about the discount "Militsia Special" that I have previously read about in other trip reports. She claimed to not know what I was talking about. We were waiting in line for about 5 minutes, sipping on some mineral water, when she told me that she thought it might be at least an hour before we could get inside. She told me that she was going to go up to the front & see how much it costs, and ask about how long the wait would be. When she returned, she told me that for me (a foreigner) it would cost 300 rubles, and for her 20 rubles. If this was agreeable, we could go right inside. I gave her kind of a sly look, as I knew now what she was up to. I agreed, and we proceeded to the front of the line, where she exchanged some verbal dialogue (in Russian) with one of the policemen standing behind the crowd control barricades. The policeman moved the barricades aside, allowed us to pass, and handed her some kind of pass or ticket. Upon presenting this to the Babushka ticket-taker, the Babushka grumbled something to us in Russian, and motioned us on inside. About 30 or 40 paces inside, we were accompanied by the policeman who let us pass, and Nina S. instructed me to give him 300 rubles (about $10.00 U.S). I thanked the policeman in Russian, and we proceeded to enter the Hermitage Museum. I inquired to Nina S. why she claimed to not know what I was talking about earlier, and she chuckled when she told me that "it's not legal". Well, legal or not, if the policemen aren't going to arrest us,… gee, do the Babushka's have some kind of lock-up somewhere? We easily spent the next 4 to 5 hours roaming around the halls of the Hermitage Museum. I knew we were lost inside when we kept roaming some of the same halls 2 and 3 times over again. We both were growing somewhat tired, and found ourselves sitting down every so often.
Earlier, Nina S. had purchased several tangerines from a fruit stand, and thus far during the course of the entire day, we had split 2 maybe 3 tangerines the whole day. Aside from that, we had not had anything else to eat or drink except for the bottle of mineral water that we had split earlier. At this point, I was virtually starving, and while walking back, I repeatedly asked her if she wanted to stop at a café, have some ice cream from one of the vendors, a drink, anything!! She responded by telling me she's on a diet. Here's a woman about 5'8 and probably about 115 lbs. soaking wet, and she's on a diet.
We walked in the general direction of my apartment back up Nevsky Prospekt. I kept pleading with her that she needed to eat something. What I really meant was I needed to eat something. I didn't want to just eat something and not have her eat too, so I decided to wait. As we were walking, for the first time in my short visit, Nina S. had become somewhat silent, and non-talkative. I assumed, and hoped it was just fatigue, and not that she was growing tired of me. We strolled down Kanala Griboedova towards the Church of the Resurrection. After admiring the church for a few minutes, we found ourselves plopped-down on some benches in the park right next to the church. Here we sat for about an hour watching children slide down a slide & swinging. We discussed our family situation, where she told me that her mother had passed away several years prior. She would've been 67 if still living, ironically the same age of my still-living mother. Her father divorced her mother when she was a child, much like my parents, and he now lives outside the city, near Dibuny, oddly enough. She has no sisters or brothers. We continued to make small talk, and I showed her some photos of my mother, and 20-year old nephew, who lives with her.
After a short walk back to Nevsky Prospekt, a Metro ride uptown, we now found ourselves directly outside the small café across the street from my apartment building. It was after 8:30pm already, and I insistently told her that I was having something to eat. She finally agreed it was time to have a bite to eat. This café has very little ambience, as you order at the counter, have a seat, and wait to be served. We both decided to have the sautéed chicken breast dinner, served with a number of side dishes such as shredded beets, coleslaw, sliced pickles, bread, and something else I can't remember. Nina S. had a glass of white wine, and I had a .5 liter of "Boykapeb" beer (boychkarev is the best pronunciation I can give). Her son Alexi recommended this beer over Baltica that I had read about here. The total bill for both our dinners & drinks came to a whopping 140 rubles (about $5.00 total). I was relieved to see that she would finish 90% of her dinner, and naturally I didn't leave a scrap left on my plate.
Nina S. accompanied me upstairs to the apartment, where we had tea and chatted more at the kitchen coffee table. During the course of our conversation, I decided to move my sitting stool around from the other side of the table, and sit directly beside her while we sipped tea & chatted. We watched a bit of Russian TV, which humorously enough was showing a Bill Murray movie dubbed-over in Russian. I didn't recognize the movie, but Bill Murray had this elephant with him for most of the entire flick. I found it particularly amusing to watch the black actors (a sheriff or deputy) speaking in Russian. Nina S. knew of Bill Murray and told me that she has "Caddyshack" dubbed in Russian on video.
At this point, I'm still uncertain of how Nina S. may actually feel about me. Is she just going through the obligatory motions of overseeing my stay, or does she feel somewhat like I do, like we might be a good connection together? It's almost 11:00pm now, and I'm aware that the Metro closes in 30+ minutes. Since it's almost a 5-10 minute walk to the station, I suspect that Nina S. will be preparing to leave momentarily. While watching TV on the sofa, I've been gently massaging her arms, back, and shoulders. I finally lean into her to give her the biggest kiss that we've shared since my arrival. We continue to kiss & embrace for several minutes. I'm very much enjoying the moment, but am also conscience of the time, as I know the Metro closes soon. It's 11:15 and we're still fairly passionately embracing. I'm concerned for her safety late at night, and I'm equally concerned what her son will think if she's not home soon. It's after 11:20pm, and she doesn't appear ready to leave anytime soon. She had inquired a bit earlier, and I told her that she's welcome to stay, but I want it to be her decision. I also want her son to know that she's ok. She calls her son to inform him that she's ok. At 11:30pm, it is now quite apparent that she's not intent on leaving, and I should now expect to entertain an overnight guest.
--- To be continued ---
