АВАРИЯ!!!

Tuesday was a day/evening to remember. I have my mainstream class on Tuesday evenings from 8:05 to 9:20 although it usually ends around 9:00. Then I make the 20 minute walk home, usually with my friend Vacilica from class, and then do my homework. Some weeks my mom calls around 11 p.m. my time (1 p.m. her time).

Yesterday as I left for evening class, Margarita was worried that my mom was going to call too early when I was still at class. So she started freaking out about this (*side note: She also freaked out at me last night when I was eating dinner. I had a complete plate covered with potatoes which I was slowly (not really that slowly, but by Margarita’s concerned glares, too slowly for her liking) eating. Then I put down my fork so that I could take a drink of tea. And immediately, like immediately, she asks, “Is something wrong with the potatoes. Are they okay? What’s wrong?” Essentially, I got yelled at for taking a beverage break. I wasn’t even taking a beverage break for a silly beverage such as water, I was drinking the country’s favorite drink/meal, tea. Whatever, I’m over it. Next time I shall keep fork in hand and keep eating the potatoes simultaneously while drinking the tea. Moving on.*)

So then she asked me what she should say if my mother called. I tried to reassure her that my mom would not call 3 hours ahead of our scheduled time. But Margarita was still really worked up about this. Then she suddenly said “Ring late” in English as she had decided this was how she could explain to my mother to “Call back later.” Except she has a very hard to understand accent. I really hope my accent when I speak Russian is more understandable than her accent when she speaks English. Usually when she starts speaking English (which is rare) I don’t understand what is going on. And so I stare at her. And then she repeats the phrase and finally my brain registers that I need to switch to English understanding mode. However, I think that due to earlier referenced “staring period” she thinks I actually don’t know English. Her vocabulary includes such words/phrases as

-butterfly (most Russians know this word. They also know submarine because of The Beatles “Yellow Submarine.” I don’t know if Margarita knows “submarine.”
-“please sit down”
-“good bye”
-“6 o’clock”
-“ring late”

Anyways, I’m getting off topic. So I left for class. And I got to class. And I listened to the lecture. And understood some of it. Then I walked Vacilica to her bus stop. By this time it was 9:30. So I had an hour to get home. If I had walked it probably would have taken me 30 minutes. But I sort of wanted to get some work done before my mom was supposed to call at 10:30. So I got on the 91 marshrutka bus which was supposed to be a 10 minute ride and then a 5 minute walk. And it was what I would call sort of full. There were no seats left (there’s probably seats for 20 people) and maybe like 5 people were already standing in the center aisle way. So I got on and paid my fare and then we kept stopping and collecting more and more and more and more and more and more people. Suddenly I found myself in the middle of the standing people in the middle of the marshrutka far away from either the rear or front doors. So then I tried to move so that I could make my way through the crowd to get to the door to get off at my stop. But no matter how much I tried to move, no one else seemed to notice or to make any room for me to get to the door. So I just stood there.

Sometimes, I get tired of being brave in Russia. Like I probably could have just shoved my way through all these people and made it to the door and pushed my way off at my stop. But I was tired and like I said, I didn’t feel like being brave. So I just stood there squished in the crowd. So then we passed my stop. But I was having a cultural experience of being squished by like 8 billion other people on the marshrutka. I don’t know how to explain how full it was. My best explanation is that at one point, I was having a hard time finding an empty place on the floor to put my foot without stepping on someone else’s foot. If you understand that the space your feet take up on the floor is much less than the space the rest of your body takes up, you will begin to get an idea for how full this marshrutka was. Then we kept collecting more people. The door on the marsrutka has to fold in when it opens. The rear door couldn’t fold in because of the mass of people to open for much of the ride. At any given stop, 5 people would get off (they could only use the front door at this point), 1 of the people would actually be getting off at the stop, then the 4 extra people would climb back in, plus like 3 new passengers.

And then finally we got to almost the end of the route and people started to get off. When I got off there were still lots of people standing in the aisle, but there was at least room to move around and make it to the door. So I got off and I walked to the other side of the street and waited for another 91 coming back into the city to come along. And it was 10:10 by then. So I had given up on getting home in time for the 10:30 phone call from mom. Then a marshrutka never came along. So I stood there for a long time. At this point I began to get sort of worried about my current situation. Not so much that I would miss the phone call. But the whole me being a 30 minute drive away from home at 10:15 at night when the public transportation is starting to shut down. Then Margarita called me on my cell phone. “ABBY! WHERE are you?” I had spent quite a lot of time trying to think of a good excuse for me being like an hour later than I usually am on Tuesday’s after evening class. So I told her that I had to talk to my professor but I was on my way home. I didn’t think she would understand my excuse that the marshrutka was too crowded to get off and plus, I was having my cultural moment of being in a huge crowd of Russian people. Also, no matter how squished we became no one would ever not get on the marshrutka and no one would ever make eye contact or say anything regardless of the fact that any one person was guaranteed to be physically molesting at least like 4 other people. Ah yes, Russia!

So then having successfully lied to Margarita. I continued to wait for the marshrutka. At this point I decided to start walking around the road back towards the center of Yaroslavl. But it would have been impossible for me to actually walk back. As well as the fact that it would have taken like an hour and a half, it is along huge scary large highways. And then no marshrutka’s came. But a sketchy car did pull up next to me. So I kept walking. Then I saw a marshrutka and I took of running across the icy/snowy road/field. But then it turned because it wasn’t going where I needed it to be going. Then I continued walking. There was a high level of panic occurring at this point. A level of panic that is not being adequately conveyed through my writing.

Then I saw another marshrutka. And so I began running again except this time it was actually a real field of snow without a path in it. So I was in my heel boot things running across a snow field at 10:30 p.m. in the Bragino (aka far from my house) part of Yaroslavl. Then my phone rang. And I knew it was going to be Margarita yelling at me again. Except it was Vacilica calling to try to figure out when we could meet again. This was ridiculous. My phone never rings. No one ever calls me. Sometimes I get text messages. So not only was my phone ringing. My phone was ringing during as earlier described sprint across snow field etc…Then I lied to her and said that my mom was supposed to be calling (which was true I just left out the whole part of me being lost in Bragino far from the phone on which my mother would be calling on). So I said I would call her back. Then I slowed to a walk as the marshrutka I had been chasing sped far away from me. Then I got to this other “stop” where people were actually waiting which was a good sign. As the other various places where I had stood waiting had all been without people. Also upon my approach to said kiosk and bus/tram/marshrutka stop there was a large patch of ice on which I sort of did some sort of figure skating stately and majestic twirl except it was neither stately nor majestic.

Then I started to imagine the conversation that was likely occurring between my mother and Margarita.
Margarita: Allyo?
Mother: Abby?
Margarita: Abby no.
Mother: Pajalsta.
Margarita: Ring late.
Mother: Pajalsta? Spasibo? Pajalsta? Spasibo? Abby?
Margarita: No Abby. Ring Late.
Mother: Abby? Pajalsta?

Then I stood at this stop for a long time. Lots of marshrutkas would drive by, except they were empty and done for the day and going to wherever marshrutkas go when they are not being driven. I wonder where they do go? Does every marshrutka driver actually own his marshrutka? Because they all have their very individual curtains and other various decorations. And park it at their apartment? Or is there a huge compound somewhere in Yaroslavl where there are like a billion marshrutka’s, because if there is, I want to go there. I don’t know why I am so intrigued by marshrutkas. They’re just so awesome. I feel like they capture so many different aspects of the whole Russia experience. If I was going to write a thesis, I would write it about marshrutka’s in Russia. This is a если бы construction because 1. I am not going to write a thesis and 2. Middlebury would not allow me to write a thesis about how awesome marshrutkas are. I just typed marshrutka like 6 billion times.

Kept waiting for a marshrutka. Kept waiting for Margarita to call me again and yell at me that she had just had a conversation with my mother. And WHERE WAS I? But she didn’t call. Thank goodness.

Then I asked this woman how to get back to Gigant (my stop) and we waited together for a marshrutka and then got on and then I got off at Gigant. Also this was one of the “small” marshrutka’s which I had never before had reason to ride. These are actually yellow vans, with seats for maybe 10 or 12 people. I think these are the only kind of marshrutkas they have in Irkutsk. So then I got to ride on of the small marshrutka’s which was good because it was on my list of “mandatory things to do before I can leave.” Then I ran through the back alleyways/ courtyard area’s of the various apartment buildings to get home. Courtyard is not the right word. These areas are neither classy nor majestic. Mainly they are dark and sketchy. So then I was sprinting through the back alleyways and it was 11:00 at night and I was very late and there was so much adrenaline. And it was pretty cool. Then I got home. And launched into this over exaggerated monologue about what a кошмар (nightmare/catastrophe/etc…) the whole evening had been. Then I told Margarita that after speaking with my professor I got on a marshrutka but I didn’t read the number correctly and so it didn’t go where I thought it would go. So then I had to get off and wait and take another “correct” one back. Which is sort of true. Except I did actually know the number of the one I got on, there was just the whole “too many people” problem. Then my mom called at 11:30 having actually not called at 10:30, so it all worked out. But oh man, last night was just so ridiculous. I hope that this blog entry conveyed at least a part of how ridiculous the whole evening was.