Sunday morning we all got up early and took the metro to Bixino, where we bought tickets and took elektrichka (the commuter/regional train) alone to Kratovo, about 40 minutes out of Moscow. We had been invited to the dacha of Irina Nikolaevna, who is a long time host mother for the Dickinson program and an all around wonderful person. Dachas are typically fairly simple houses with a garden or in the woods where Russians go on the weekends to rest, relatively similiar in concept to a cabin on the lake in Minnesota. This dacha in particular was very old, and a remnant of when the government still distributed property. It is in a very long established community, where most of the dachas were acquired this way and passed down through families.
Irina Nikolaevna met us at the Kratovo platform, and from that point on we just met more and more new people. her son, his family, and several others whose connection I could not figure out were all there. Additionally we met our friends Olivia – a fellow Dickinson student who had been studying in Russia for he year, and brothers maxim and Andre. There was a lot of food, and a lot of toasting. At one point Chase, Olivia, and I agreed to go swimming, which was more of an excuse to go to a lake and drink vodka after jumping around in the water for a few minutes. Then we went back to the house and ate more. And then we ate more. And then she brought out homemade Adjika, a really spicy and delicious Georgian pepper paste, so we ate more. I think this one day alone may have made up for my seven previous years of vegetarianism.
The most rewarding fact about the visit was that no one at the dacha could really speak much English. This was perhaps the most successful day I have ever had in terms of speaking and comprehension. I am grateful that I can begin to end my time here with a sense of how much I have gained in my Russian abilities. My countdown to Saturday has unfortunately begun, each line that I cross things off my list of what to do and see, is one step closer to when I must say goodbye to Moscow. But I wont think of that quite yet.
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