Holidays in Ekat, the mayonnaise capital of the world*

Merry Christmas!

I am sitting down to write this after celebrating my first American Christmas in Russia. It is strange to greet a holiday in a country that doesn’t recognize it—instead of sitting at home with their families, most inhabitants of Ekaterinburg put on their boots and coats and scurried off to work in the dark at 8:30 am (Russians celebrate Christmas on January 7^th, according to the old calendar). Fortunately, foreigners seem to huddle together with candles and chocolate in hopes of remembering that somewhere in the world, the holiday season has arrived in full.

After that opening paragraph, I should point out that I have actually been celebrating Christmas for the last three days : ) It all started on Saturday, when our friend Katya decided to throw a Christmas party in her apartment for all the foreigners she knows. Midori and I arrived to find a Christmas tree and a table full of food especially for us. After eating all of the traditional Russian holiday foods—including mandarin oranges, blini, olivye (a mayonnaise salad with all sorts of vegetables that Russians always have on new year’s), and pieces of toast with whole fish on them (scary, but surprisingly tasty), we moved onto playing games. The most entertaining game was by far “Telephone”—we sat foreigner-Russian-foreigner-Russian in a circle and watched words like “apple” become “fighter-pilot” as it went around the circle. The day ended with sledding our way back to the bus stop.

Last night we celebrated European Christmas with Josefina, Midori, Johanna, and Johanna’s friend Christian. We lit candles, ate lasagna, and talked about Christmas in our respective countries (apparently Midori—and most of Japan—buys a huge bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken to celebrate every year). This morning we awoke to American Christmas: Jen and I made breakfast and we all exchanged gifts. We had stockings full of candy from Santa and some hilarious homemade Christmas decorations (I’m hoping to have pictures up on the facebook soon). We all had our moments when it was difficult to be away from home on the holiday, but all in all we had a good time celebrating the day with our makeshift family.

Before entering the holidays, I had been busy entertaining Carrie Miller for the past two weeks. We had a good run around the Urals—we saw the opera and ballet, and also watched the entire city turn into one big mud puddle when the weather took an unexpected balmy turn. We had an amazing trip to Omsk. It was my first time to Siberia and I was pleasantly surprised—it was beautiful and not cold at all. I realized as we were traveling that I am only now beginning to understand just how vast, endless, and complex this country really is. [Carrie promised to write more about Omsk for you all and post it here]. One weekend we also made our way to Alfina’s parents’ place in the country, where I managed to shield Carrie from liver breakfast, but not from the banya ; ) Sergei and Alfina were amazing tour guides and had a great time utilizing their minimal English skills. In short, it was fun to show off my city and good to see an old friend. I discovered that translating is both exhausting and difficult and that I have a long way to go with it. That said, my Russian has been coming along as of late and my English has been slipping, a fact which may be more and more apparent on this lovely little blog.

In other news, I passed my “exams” in our university and am about to embark on a month-long traveling adventure. It starts with Jen and I leaving for Moscow, where we will celebrate New Year’s (which Russians celebrate like we in America celebrate Christmas) with Laura Erceg, our mutual friend Marina, and her family. Laura Eaton flies into Moscow on January 5^th and on January 7^th, she, I and Alfina (who is coming to Moscow for a few days) will make our way back to Ekaterinburg. After showing Laura my city, she and I will continue on to Petersburg, so that I can introduce her to my true Russian love. We make our way back to Moscow at the end of January—I have Fulbright mid-session training in Moscow at the very end of the month, so I will hang out in the capital until February 2^nd or so, when Jen will fly back in from America and she and I will head back home. Did you catch all of that? It is going to be a wild month, but I am looking forward to touring the Western half of the country!

I miss you all and hope you are enjoying a wonderful holiday! Happy New Year!!!

*Midori’s boyfriend discovered through a Google search that people in Ekaterinburg consume more mayonnaise than any other city in the world. It even made it into the Guinness Book of World Records! How’s that for getting our city on the map??