Day 37 ~ Russian Cemetaries

8. August ~ Russian Cemeteries and continued village fun!

I slept in until 9:30 today, it was great! For breakfast we had leftovers from last night, cabbage, fish and tomatoes and of course more soapy tea! I am slowly getting used to it and drinking it really fast.

Soon enough we were all piled into the car and on the way to the cemetery. Olga explained we were going to see where her grandparents lay, and I asked the beach?? It was funny, and then I realized where we really were going.

On our way we stopped at the store, I didn’t go in. We got to the cemetery. In the middle of a bunch of tall grass and open space is a wooded area where the cemetery is located. While there we visited the burial places of Olga’s grandparents, great grandparents, and her father.

Olga’s aunt and mother were cleaning up the graves by brushing away dirt and leaves and cleaning the headstones. They were also leaving cookies, chocolate, candies, and bread on the graves or near them on these stands that were located here and there throughout the cemetery. I am pretty sure it’s most likely a customary thing to leave something for the Spirits, but I am not sure.

Overall I felt very privileged that they would bring me here and show me the cemetery. I felt that it’s such a private thing to come and visit and clean and such so I was very thankful to come. The setting was very intimate and the trees of the wooded area were very pretty and the whole scene was just very nice. It felt a little awkward walking among all of these stones at first.

I can see that most likely people are buried in cemeteries like this because I’ve never noticed a cemetery in the city, maybe a few graves here or there right next to a church but nothing more than that.

I’ve always enjoyed going to a cemetery because usually it’s very quiet, there are nice places to walk and you’re usually in the woods. It’s so peaceful and I really enjoyed it. The decorations and the older graves were very neat to see and some were very intricate and very pretty.

We came across a section for soldiers that served in World War Two and the grave of a famous general from Novgorod, who has a street named after him in the city. The cemetery was a really neat experience and I thought it was neat how the whole family came together to clean up the grave and leave things for their loved ones.

When we returned we were all outside for awhile. I took pictures of the banya and the chicken coop and the stream that I came across behind the banya.

Olga comes to the village and does a lot of work around the house doing odd jobs. I relaxed and watched for quite a while, helped when I could, but mostly just watched and enjoyed the scenery and I could hear the chickens in the distance.

For lunch I had borsch, wasn’t as flavorful as Olga’s, but still good and pasta with meat that I didn’t know what I was eating. I figured I would try it and if I liked it keep eating it, if not, eat it anyways, haha. Well, whatever it was it tasted okay so I ate it along with some tomatoes and salt. I found out later on that the meat was chicken necks. I was surprised but chuckled somewhat when I would think of the people that buy it at where I would work and me looking disgusted thinking I would never eat that!

Later on I went inside and war reading for a while. I wondered what Olga was up to now and when I looked out the front windows I saw her and her mother dressed up in bee outfits extracting the honeycombs from the hives. I found great enjoyment in watching because it reminds me of when as a child I would watch my own father do the same with his bees. I decided to go outside and watch a little bit closer. I wasn’t close to the hives or anything but the bees were flying around a great deal. I don’t know how long I was watching but eventually I was headed back inside when a bee came out of nowhere and ran into me and stung me in the neck. He then got stuck in my necklace and Olga had to come over and pick him off me! She also spit on her fingers and then would dab the sting sting and then said a line of something, she repeated herself three times. I have no idea what was said, but it was interesting, maybe a prayer or something of the sort. I was thinking, haha, just great, I had a feeling I might get stung. A few minutes later grandmother came over and gave me some mint leaves to put on the sting. It made it sting but the area never swelled up really bad or anything so I am sure the leaves helped.

After that I decided to go lay down and surprisingly I slept for quite a long time, until 8! Grandmother said I was tired because I got stung. I watched some television when I woke up, about a church and its icons and the story behind it. It was neat. It was in English and dubbed in Russian but you could still hear the English. A lot of the programs were like this surprisingly so I could figure out what was going on.
Eventually we all ate dinner together again, chicken and pasta from lunch with more salted vegetables. With tea I had vanilla ice cream with chocolate shavings in it. It was really sweet tasting, and half melted so it was different than what I was expecting. It wasn’t something I loved, but it was good with soapy tea!

After dinner I spent the evening watching Zoo TV, again in English with Russian voice over. They have features on red pandas and hedgehogs so I enjoyed it. I though, wow I haven’t sat down and watched an animal program in a long time!
After watching television it was time to go to the Banya so Olga and I did. It wasn’t as hot as the night before and we weren’t in there as long but it still felt very relaxing and I enjoyed it!

Of course when everyone had went to the banya we all sat down for tea. I sat and listened to the conversations most of the time, it was enjoyable. The day seemed very long and I was still very tired so I went to bed.

Tomorrow is the last day, most likely just hanging out more.

Love, Sasha