Wednesday’s Post: Досведания Бублики

I’d forgotten one aspect of the middle aged to elderly Russian character (or at least of those dear persons with whom I am most familiar) which could be irritating were it not so perversely amusing: the constant yammering about “preserving the strength of the organism”—that is, the various and peculiar practices that one must follow in order to stay healthy. And there are some odd ones out there: Never sit down on a stone step (even briefly) because you will get chilled. Do not drink cold liquids from the refrigerator, because you will fall ill—drinking cold liquids to cool off on a hot day is dangerous. If you get a runny nose, stop eating immediately and lie down, so that your body will devote its energies to healing itself, rather than to digestion or other activities. Don’t sleep for long periods if you don’t move, because it is not good to remain in one attitude for too long—instead, arrange to wake up mid-sleep and rearrange your position. And yet, so many of the Russians I know are not in the best of health. I think it’s because of germs and pollution and poor overall nutrition, if not uncomfortable habits such as the aforementioned health practices.

The air pollution was terrible today. I walked only about 4 miles, but my lungs were stinging by the end. It’s not just the automobile exhaust and that almost everybody is smoking cigarettes, it’s the grime and the airborne fluff from the molting trees that you inhale with every breath. The purpose of my exercise was to go to the local travel office which has a relationship with GoToRussia.com (the folks who issued my preglashennia and arranged for my visa processing), to have them register me with the Federal Immigration Service per Russian law. I went there on Monday by metro and bus with Ira, but when I’d told the girl in the office (who was really nice) that I’d already paid for the registration through the GTR people, she’d said to wait for them to send her a voucher confirming the transaction before she processed the paperwork. Well, today she emailed me to say that the GTR people had *not* confirmed my payment, and that I needed to come by to fork over R1200. Another few hours of unregisteredness, and I’d be illegal. So, to enjoy the sunshine and get some exercise while I was squaring myself with the authorities, I decided to walk over. Plus, I wanted to test my geographic memory, which thus far has been working beautifully (Homing Pigeon “Я” Moi).

Since I’ve got blisters from yesterday’s 7-mile stroll in heels, I put on tennis shoes and loped off. The shortest way was right by the old Bolshoi Dom (the “Big House”), as it was colloquially known, and yes, it is what it sounds like—the Stalinist former KGB building that looks as forbidding as its reputation. Ira told me that she never, ever, thought she’d go in there under happy circumstances, and then last year, when she was translating legal documents for a computer hacking criminal case co-prosecuted by the American FBI and the Russian FSB, she ended up being asked up to the offices of the computer fraud police (for whom she was working), which are in that building. She said the people who work in the fraud office are really nice. The building still looks scary, though. Very 1984-ish. And the fact that you know that quite a few people were executed in the basement (and/or temporarily incarcerated there for “political” crimes back in the bad old days before being shipped off to the gulag) certainly makes for an unpleasant aura.

I made it safely to the travel office having only once been addressed by a stranger, and that in Russian—a skinny blond girl asked me if I knew where a certain restaurant was. I didn’t. I’d take her question as confirmation that I looked local, only the student manning the desk at the European University of St. Petersburg (where I stopped to get my archival-admittance documents yesterday afternoon) addressed me in English without hesitation, and I was wearing almost the same outfit then as I am now. But I’ve seen more women in skirts and dresses today. And today I wasn’t wearing lipstick, just like most of them aren’t, so maybe that helped.

I could kick the GoToRussia people. Not only did they not do the needful as far as corresponding properly with the travel office here about my registration pre-payment, it was their likely failure to shred my faxed request to charge my credit-card for the same a month ago that resulted in the number being stolen the week before I left.

I navigated back home by bus and metro—no problem. Still, I’ve noticed another thing from the old days that is gone which I sorely miss—the buluchnaya, or bread shop. Now, in Soviet times the food shops, what there were of them, were split up by type—there was the meat and fish store, the dairy store, the candy store, the cake store (all the same flavor, very socialist), the drinks store, the vegetable store. You had to stand in long lines at each one, and you never knew what or how much they would have. The payment system was obnoxious, too—you’d struggle up to the counter (there weren’t open shelves where you could grab stuff yourself) and tell the harassed, short-tempered woman there how much of an item you wanted, then take the chit she gave you up to the bored-looking, usually rude cashier in another little booth, where you would pay, and then the cashier would give you a receipt, which you would take back to the original counter to retrieve your purchases. It was still mostly like this in 1995, when I came to Russia for the first time. But the bread was wonderful, cheap, and plentiful—fresh baked daily at one of the city factories. There was bul’ka, which was a white bread, khleb, which was the classic strongly-flavored black bread, and other tasty baked goods like the glazed pryaniki (great with tea!), sushki (little skinny dry bread rings—so much better than pretzels) and—my favorite—bubliki (fat soft lightly-sweetened bread rings, less chewy than bagels).

The indirect ordering and payment system had mostly vanished by 2003, when I came back to St. Petersburg, and a couple of the buluchnaya on Nevski Prospekt had disappeared, the premises taken over by expensive boutiques (more’s the pity). But there were still bread shops off the main road, and bread kiosks on the corners where I could get my carbs fix. Well, now there doesn’t seem to be a buluchnaya left! And though there’s a small “Diksi” supermarket (or the equivalent) on almost every street where you pop in, carry a basket or push a shopping cart through the aisles, paying at the register (yes, they even have discount cards, that scourge upon the face of grocerydom) for all your self-served purchases (bananas to bliny, soup to nuts), the great bread is gone. You can get little pre-packaged bags of pryaniki and sushki, but the loaf bread’s all sliced stuff like you see in American stores and nary a bublik have I seen! I’m going to suffer from major withdrawal. For Peter-and-Paul’s sake, what *is* Russia without bubliki?!