"Minneapolis to Zelenograd via Moscow"

As I boarded the plane bound for Moscow's Domodedovo Airport in Minneapolis, Minnesota my mind was racing, trying to visualize what the next four weeks would be like. Not the nine months of ESL teaching as the contract had stated, but the four weeks of ESL training I would receive upon my arrival in Russia.

I had already spent some time in the country, studying language and culture there the previous summer between my junior and senior years of college, so the culture shock was mitigated to some extent. However, this was not a study abroad, a pre-planned package of tourist sites led by a professor as well versed in Russian culture as wading through the idiotic tendencies of American students studying in a country where vodka and beer were (in 2009) sold 24 hours a day and night clubs open until the first sign of dawn crept over the golden domes and spires of downtown St. Petersburg.

This time I was returning as a professional, or something close to that. I had enough button down shirts and pressed, wrinkle free trousers so that I could be presentable for a few months. I had some of my Russian language books. And lastly (most importantly) a Vikings jersey to both prominently display in my new room AND strut around in once the Vikings inevitably won the Super Bowl that season (2010 was a good year to be in Russia for a Vikings fan).

The flight was long and uneventful. The layover in Frankfurt was as German as expected, long and efficient. And after tucking away a meal of blini with gretchkaya on the Aeroflot leg of the trip and hearing the announcement that we were preparing for landing, I steadied myself for the descent into Moscow. My well-conceived (and cliché) plan, started the year prior, of listing to "Back in the USSR" well touching down in Moscow went abruptly amiss the moment I realized that not only had I forgotten to bring a CD of the song with me, but in addition had forgotten to procure a device to play said CD on anyways. With that unfortunate development out of my hands, I gave thought to what the next few hours would entail. I knew that I was to meet someone who would drive me somewhere to live. The details had not been forthcoming from the organization, ominous perhaps, but I had taken it in stride. I had a job and a destination, a lot better than I had thought I would have had four months prior after graduating with a BA in European History.

The plane landed, the baggage was claimed and the custom officials were dealt with. I was there.

Upon exiting the "Arrivals" gate, I immediately saw a sign for "Language Link" held by a tall, lanky man in his mid-thirties. I strode confidently over to him, covering the ground a meter (having had to convert upon leaving American airspace) at a time. I greeted him, beaming, "zdrastvicha!"; to which he replied, "zdrastvicha, vuyi Zachary". A quick confirmation of my identity had him reciprocating my smile.

After having led me to a white, blank van (again somewhat ominous), the driver, Zhenya, told me to wait there, a girl was to join us. He also presented me with a package, an official plastic bag (which I would soon find out was the Russian equivalent of a briefcase) plastered with "Language Link" on both sides. Inside I found, much to my famished delight, some tea, tea cookies and vinyl-like floral patterned bed sheets. Little did I know at the time that the tea and cookies would be my only source of sustenance for the subsequent two days.

After waiting alone in the car for an hour, I saw Zhenya strolling my way without my future colleague. Fair enough, I thought, let's get on our way.

At this point I believe it is prudent to mention that I was flying in on a late August Friday evening. I had given little consideration to the timing or date, and consequently was treated to my first experience in a Moscow "probka", or traffic jam. I was stranded in a sea of Ladas bee lining towards their dachas (cabins) outside the city. The city, I must add, that had been besieged by the noxious, toxic and fatal fumes created by the millions of acres of burning peat which had combusted that very summer. Those who could escape the city for even a weekend took full advantage, compounding the already infamous traffic jams of the capital city and leading to my then perilous situation.

It is not the modern airport, the stern-faced custom officials nor the palatial "Arrival" atrium which first reminds me that I am back in Russia every time I return. Neither is it the haggle over taxi prices with impatient drivers in a uniquely Muscovite broken Anglo-Russian language, the fluency of which is key in trying to discern whether I can get a better deal in rubles or dollars. It is the moment that I exit the airport parking ramp and merge onto the highway that the realization hits home. For there is little like driving along a Moscow highway. It is at once an infrastructure of the developed world: multi-laned, paved (the myriad of potholes not withstanding) and smoothly sculpted by the keen eye of a fastidious civil engineer, and yet at the same time a physical legacy of practicality, perseverance and political and economic upheaval. For not six feet from the road's edge the mechanisms of modernity subside, violently yielding to the brutal pragmatism of the Russian world. Each kilometer is saturated by venders peddling products of every variety. Within a hundred meters, one might encounter the opportunity to purchase fresh, plump watermelons; windshield wiper fluid, new (perhaps stolen) cell phones and flimsy hibachi grills in every and any size (though in only one color: gray). Yet one must not despair if they are unable to capitalize on these opportunities for the next kilometer is bound to bring forth both these and much, much more. Interspersed between these stalls of wonder are glitzy, gleaming new foreign car dealerships advertising their newest line of luxury sedans standing side-by-side with dubious, decrepit auto repair shops; world weary mechanics peering blankly out of disheveled garages. As a finale: a series of tall, slender concrete apartment buildings on the distant horizon, seemingly lone bastions unceasingly battered by the dark sea of evergreens silently attempting to breach their crumbling exteriors. Their monochromatic dull-gray facades, rhythmically punctuated by stout balconies and three-part, curtained, windows overlook (overshadow?) the gilded, cross-topped dome of a truly spectacular white-washed Orthodox church. It is here, in this collaboration between the 18th and 21st century, in the dichotomy of the modern and traditional, where to me so much of the Russian soul is to be first encountered, not in the proudly built, pristine international entrance gates named "Sheremetyevo" and "Domodedovo."

Having traveled for approximately twenty-four hours, I was ready for some much needed relaxation and sleep. Zhenya and I had engaged in some brief conversation that had consisted more of pointing, smiling and nodding than actual linguistically sound words. As we ventured farther from the city, I began to wonder where he was taking me. I had been told that I would be living in a temporary housing situation in Moscow during the internship program, yet the longer we drove the more dubious I become of this.

After four hours of fighting traffic we finally pulled off into one those dull-gray apartment conglomerates, the eerie resemblance to a dystopian city only relieved by the neon lights advertising a seemingly endless array of Japanese restaurants and twenty-four hour flower kiosks. The placid tranquility that had descended upon our car after Zhenya had concluded that either a) I was too tired to properly keep a conversation going or b) I lacked the intellectual capacity to make use of his insights on the funny game called life (my bet is on the former) was soon shattered after our first loop up and down the main drag. His eyes were wide with horror at the possibility that our drive would continue indefinitely for the address that he had been given seemed to not exist in reality: Building 106, Apartment 285.

At this point I must give a (very) brief history of the city we were now hopelessly lost in. Zelenograd was founded in 1958 as the Soviet answer to the American Silicon Valley. It housed the Soviet governments technological university called MIET (Moscow Institute for Electronic Technology) which built computer parts for their aerospace and ballistic missile programs and hence was one of the Soviet's "closed cities", or cities closed to all foreigners and Soviet citizens who did not have any reason to be there. It was also to become a "model" city for future Soviet cities, meaning that it was a completely pre-planned city designed to the last taxi cab. It also lacked street names other than Tsentralny Prospekt (Central Prospect), and instead was laid out in microregions with each building assigned a number starting with the region (My building, 106, meant it was in the first region building six). Proper navigation for those who do not live or have any knowledge of this system is further hindered by the fact that outside of the regional designation at the beginning of the building number, there is not logical order to the buildings, so building 106 could be across the street from building 187. For this reason a taxi from an airport to Zelenograd costs a bit more because there are a limited amount of drivers who know, or are willing to attempt, the treacherous labyrinth I know fondly recollect as home for three years.

Zhenya's fear was compounded by the fact that I, a travel weary newcomer, did not know where my final destination was to be. The local populace that he harangued whenever his desperation led him to pull over either could not or would not lend guidance to us in our harrowing plight. His phone calls to my contact Olga, the head administrator (and future on and off again nemesis) pleading for directions were loud, impassioned and initially fruitless. Multiple times I was convinced that he was on the brink of pulling over, shoving me and my luggage out and making a break for the smooth sailing of Leningradsky Highway. This is how we continued for two hours, venturing off the main street and onto the narrow lada-lined side roads which encircled the gigantic apartment complexes just long enough to confirm that they would not lead to the sweet ecstasy that was to be the end of our arduous journey. Every five minutes he would implore me to lead him to the house as if I was an inquisitor torturing him for my own malevolent amusement. At one point I, having since studied both Russian and Old Church Slavonic, am now convinced he confessed a litany of sins as well as uttered the adjoining "Hail Marys" to absolve them, this coming intermixed with what I can now identify as a multitude of profane curses which are so colorful and plentiful in the Russian vernacular. Finally, one may say a divine intervention, others might say kismet (still others call it learning to read a map) Zhenya's frantic aimless sojourns onto the uncountable, identical side streets became more targeted and his wildly searching eyes and apoplectic language slackened to a twitch and a barely-audible murmur. At last we turned down a street towards a dull-grey monolith that was to become my home for the next two years. As I noticed the way Zhenya was finding some inner peace, my thoughts turned to my surroundings. Though the street itself was maybe two hundred yards long, on it contained what would amount to the center of my non-work universe. On the facade of the first building was a neon lit sign which proudly displayed the cyrillic word "Perekrestok" (the crossroads), underlined by several banners with images of a delectable assortment of meats, vegetables, fruits and breads, each picture beckoning to my agonizingly famished stomach. The next stretch was lined with a variety of the small kiosk stores which seem to exist on any flat surface more than five meters by five meters anywhere in a Russia city. These too boasted any number of delicacies which their smiling, blue smocked benevolent venders would gladly sell to any patron who crossed their threshold. Past that was a small field (later to become a parking lot) whose grass hidden divots and mounds were to become my future obstacle course on the way to work, grocery stores and play. And lastly, just beyond the field was my apartment building.

My first impressions of my new home is hard to recollect due to my sleep-deprived, neigh delusionary state. However it was the end of an odyssey worthy of Homeric commemoration, and for that it’s crumbing exterior and worn-out interior were a veritable Valhalla. As Zhenya escorted me past the door babushka (much more on her later) and up the rickety elevator filled with poorly written graffiti, I felt a sense of accomplishment. It wasn't simply the end of a journey, it was the beginning of the adventure of a lifetime, one that would change my life in so many ways. Of course at that instant I could not know any of that, I only had the feeling that I was where I needed to be at that moment.

In quick (quixotic) conclusion I opened the door and met my future administrator, the aforementioned Olga, and my flat mate (infernal British English!) Micah from Kentucky, with whom I would have many adventures. It being Friday evening I quickly fell asleep in my new, Spartan bedchamber with the sounds of urban life infiltrating my room through the half-opened window. The following evening, when I had at least been awake long enough to take in my surroundings and come to the realization that I needed more than tea and cookies to survive, I inquired of Micah as to the operating hours of the local grocery store. His response, like a dagger to the stomach: "probably closed tonight" and after a quick Americo-centric deliberation, between us we concluded that it was probably closed on Sunday as well. My diet of tea and cookies would have to suffice until Monday, the combination of poor nutrition and extreme jetlag negating any desire to explore. This was my (most appropriate) introduction to my future, my life in Zelenograd.

Only later would I learn that it was a twenty-four hour, seven day a week supermarket.