Reporting from Russia

photo by akk_russ

Two of our clients recently moved to Russia. They will be there for the next year and a half. They sent us this email to let us know how they are doing, and gave us permission to share it with you. We thought you might like to read it. After we read it, we realized we don't have it so bad here in the United States.

Written September 1, 2009

Russia is so different from the United States It is very dangerous to cross a street here. It is also dangerous to walk down the sidewalk because the cars drive there also.

On our way to work we pass a car that has a flat tire. The other day we passed the car and saw they had re-asphalted the road around it. They also asphalted the car in place! Several days later they used heavy duty equipment to dig the car out.

It rains and rains in Moscow. There are puddles everywhere. We walked to work one day, and the road we needed to cross had become a river. It was six inches deep and moving swiftly. The rain was coming down in buckets. We had boots, raincoats and umbrellas, and we were still wet for several hours. It is the first of September, and it feels like November. I can't believe how cold and damp it is. It makes me nervous to think about what November will really be like.

We got back from 25 days of travel only to find out that our hot water had been turned off. This is not because we haven't paid our bill, it is because they have a rotating system here during the summer months where they turn the hot water off for two weeks while they clean the pipes. We were fortunate that we were traveling for one of the weeks.My husband thought he would brave the cold water for a shower. After all, he is a camper. Well, that only lasted for one shower. From then on we heated water on the stove for baths. The washing machine only worked on hand wash because that is the only cycle that will work with no hot water. It is not like the states where you have two water hoses coming in. There is only one here.

I thought I would also tell you a little about our travels to Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, three places in the Ukraine (Donetsk, Kiev and D'nepropetrovs'k) and Saint Petersburg.

Each place has it's own charm, fascination and sadness. There is such poverty here. We went to a gypsy village in Turkey where we donated some computers to a handicapped group. The children had a great time using them. The mayor of the town came to meet us and said they had not realized that these children could learn and now they were going to start a workshop to teach them crafts and a special school to help them.

In Georgia, they are still suffering the effects of last year's war with Russia. There are many displaced people. One man talked to us and said he built his own home, farmed, had fruit trees and worked with his hands all his life. He said the Russians came and destroyed everything with their tanks. Now he has nothing.

In Kiev, we visited a home for women (210 live there) who have neurological problems. They will never leave the home. One woman there was found on the ground in Chernobyl. They didn't know who she was. She experienced a stroke and could not even sit up. She can now sit and get around with help, but she can't speak so they have no way to identify her. She kept holding up one finger and indicating that she is all alone. Then, she held up three fingers and wept. They think it means that somewhere she has three children. It broke my heart to see her. I sat with her and hugged her. I wept when I left her.

In Donetsk, we stayed at the Central Hotel. When I turned on the water to take a shower, it was brown. We left and went to a better hotel. We visited a place where they were giving out hygiene kits, school kits, quilts and clothes from containers that we have shipped over. One woman was expecting her fourth child. Her husband died suddenly last February. She found out she was pregnant after his death. She cried when her children got school kits and clothes.

In D'nepropetrovs'k, we visited an orphanage. There were 74 children there. About half of them were retarded or handicapped in some way. Their parents couldn't or wouldn't take care of them. The other half, were okay, but had been abandoned or taken away from their parents. This was an orphanage for children up to five years old. They had 203 workers to help with the children. We saw children outside playing in groups of 8-10. They were playing games, singing and having fun. We could tell that the workers and children were bonded. The children were beautiful. It was a sad situation, but the workers love the children, and they are doing their best.

Now we are back in Moscow, and I have to say that I am exhausted!