Walking in Yekaterinburg

 

Walking the Iset

The Iset is the river that flows through Yekaterinburg (named after Peter the Great's wife, Catherine I), Russia where I’ve been living since late autumn. Along the river is my favorite place to walk. I’ve only walked about a mile of it, which can get repetitive. There are a couple of small, wooded parks along this stretch of the river that I occasionally stroll through. They help break the monotony, though it is hard to get tired of looking at and listening to a flowing river.  

Here are three different views of some art on display in one of the parks along the Iset.

Thank God for winter. With the onset of Russian winter, a part of the river pools in a wide-open area and freezes, and people use this as a short cut. No bridge needed! This is not allowed, but many locals do it to save themselves hours of time of walking all the way around, so I figured, while in Yekaterinburg . . .

On one side of the road, the river runs freely; on the other side, it pools and, while still flowing, looks more like a pond or lake.

I walked on frozen lakes when I lived in Minnesota. I remember following my boyfriend onto a frozen lake for the first time, gingerly putting one foot at a time out in front of me and tapping the ice before committing my 120 or so pounds to it. And I listened closely for splitting sounds. Over time, I got more comfortable. I learned some of the science behind being on ice. The ice needs to be 4” thick to support a person up to 200 pounds, 5” for a snowmobile, 8-12” for a crowd or small vehicle and 12-15” for a truck or SUV. But this business of walking over flowing as opposed to standing water was new to me.

As wind will ripple the surface of a pool of water, so it ripples the snowy ice, reminding me that what is underneath me is flowing. 

It’s a little less than a mile to walk from our apartment to the river. How I dress is, naturally, determined by the weather. This is the only time I ever check the weather because otherwise, what difference does it make? When it was 27 degrees below zero, I wore everything in my closet. I did look a little strange, but I stayed warmish. The day I started writing this post, it was 27 above, so I left my down coat at home and ventured out in a sweater and light jacket. (Mom, I'm not in Phoenix any more!) I didn’t want to wear my mask (my cold weather mask) because the day was so sunny and bright, and I needed my sunglasses. They fog up when I wear them with my mask. I’d forgotten to check the wind speed before setting out. It was gentle, but that still makes it colder. To determine wind direction and speed, all a meteorologist would need to do is attach a wind gauge to my forehead. If I’m walking north, the wind will be northerly; if I’m walking east, the wind will be easterly, etc. I understand my great-great-grandpa walking uphill both directions to school.

The first time I contemplated crossing the frozen Iset, I stood on the sidewalk and looked at all the people walking across and those sitting, looking intently into their ice holes, fishing. It must be safe, I thought to myself, look at all of them. So, I chose a well-worn (but not too well-worn) path and crossed. I started out slowly, just in case, picked up speed and finished quickly, just in case. And I prayed, God help this fool. Gratefully, I made it across and this became my new route.

I like walking in Yekaterinburg, whether along the river or the city streets. People walk here, rather than saunter. Most places I walk, I'm always winding my way around others and I rarely get passed. Here, I get passed every time I go out. I love it (unless they’re smoking). In so many cities, people stroll along the sidewalks so slowly, it makes me crazy with impatience. And they do it three and four abreast taking up the entire breadth of the sidewalk. Four women in Munich walked into me carrying my groceries home, causing me to land in the street, then yelled something in German at me! Sometimes the most efficient way to get by is to play a surprise game of Red Rover with them and burst through from behind to the other side.

This chubby guy was welcoming people into a restaurant.

This pair of statues represent the two main characters from a popular Russian story/movie called The Twelve Chairs. Briefly, it's about a man whose mother, on her deathbed, told him that she'd hidden the family fortune, her diamonds, from the Bolsheviks in one of the dining room chair cushions. Their furniture was taken from them by the communists after the Russian revolution. He sets out to find them in hopes of regaining the fortune. It's full of funny escapades and witty characters.

Above are three views of The Stonecutter's House. there are several charming, elaborate wooden structures similar to this scattered through Yekaterinburg, each with its own story.  

Walking in the extreme cold is an experience. My eyes get teary if it’s windy and my tears freeze on my lashes. (For some rather spectacular pictures of frozen lashes, google or Bing search frozen lashes images.) My nose runs when I’m just sitting indoors, but something happens (contraction of nasal passages and such stuff) when I go outside that my nose turns into a dike that needs a finger stuck in it. (But I'm trying not to do that, especially in public.) I take plenty of tissues with me when I walk, but getting the tissue to the nose is no easy task. When it was 27 below, I had to debate whether I thought I could get my gloves, hat and mask off before the drippage froze or my fingers frostbitten. (I can’t get my mask off without taking off my gloves because my gloves stick to the Velcro; I have to take my hat off because it covers part of the mask fastening. It’s complicated.) I don’t like the idea of the drippage building up in my mask right above my lips, so I often wind up taking it all off (from the neck up) and blowing my nose. We have precious little Puff’s Plus with us here, so I ration them. Douglas is not allowed to use them. (He blows his nose only when coming in from the cold, about twice a day. He can use the thin, stiff, local stuff.) Yesterday, I dropped one of my Puff’s Plus—an unused one. It was windy. I gave chase. It flitted from snowy patch to icy patch with me in pursuit until I finally caught it. It was dirty. I was in a quandary over what to do with it. Throwing it away was not an option. Putting it in my pocket with the (various stages of) clean ones was not an option, so I held onto it hoping it would dry in the wind. (I could brush it off and use it later.) All the way home, I looked like I was surrendering.

You might need a magnifying glass to see my lashes, let alone the frost on them, but it's all there.

A couple of weeks ago, I started seeing a change in the ice. Where there had been snow everywhere, there were spots that looked suspiciously like water. Maybe it’s just ice from which the snow has blown, I thought. I pondered this before setting out. Was it melting? It was still below freezing, in the twenties. I still saw people walking across. I still saw people sitting on their ice holes fishing. An igloo someone had made stood near the shore, as did a gazebo that had been set up on the ice on which no one was allowed to walk. (Go figure.) I decided to chance it, and I crossed successfully.

Men enjoying the final days of ice fishing on the Iset River.

It’s now officially spring and I know the ice won’t last forever, so every time I start to cross, I give the river the once-over. As long as I see people crossing it without suddenly disappearing into it, I’ll cross. Last week, on my way across I got my boot wet, and my toes. This happened when I strayed slightly from the set path to get out of someone’s way coming from the opposite shore. Lesson learned. Don’t stray from the path. I thought I learned that in all those fairy tales I read. But how can the path be so firm and a few inches away be so slushy and wet?

On one of my walks, in keeping with one of my coping mechanisms to combat depression during this pandemic, I decided I needed a change. So when I got to the open area, I decided not just to cross the river, but to crisscross it. There are several worn paths that people use crossing to and from various points. With the advent of the slush and wet toes, part of my new routine is inspecting the ice by looking over it and determining whether or not I see any arms waving frantically from the river. If I see more people casually crossing than frantically waving arms, I cross. That day I crossed about eight times. Fun.

I'll leave you with one more street picture for Easter. It still amazes me to walk down the street and see something a grand and beautiful as the churches and locals, quite used to them, of course, just passing them like any other building.

Have a blessed Easter and enjoy some jelly beans for me.

Lent: Fasting and Slowing Down

This Lent, I decided to drink nothing but water. I'd fallen into a practice of having a daily Pepsi or Coke, when I couldn't find Pepsi, and nightly cognac. I've switched to diet Pepsi to cut sugar, and I haven't been getting schnockered from the cognac, but I don't want this to become a thoughtless habit. there's been a bit of cheating, but I'm doing all right.

I've also been enjoying daily Lenten readings every morning with my mother. The first Friday of Lent, it suggested a fast. I decided that, since it wasn't too  late (I hadn't had breakfast), I'd fast that day. I almost made it to sunset. (I was getting addle-minded and a little weak, so I had some simple Russian brown bread, with butter. Then some raisins. Then some M&Ms.) The next Friday I did better; I made it to official sunset. In order to keep myself occupied without expending too much energy, I've been doing everything very slowly on Fridays. This has been a surprisingly pleasing, mindful experience. The first Friday, I ran errands. Usually when I walk, I look ahead at the lights. If it looks like it's getting ready to change, I alter my pace so I can avoid standing and waiting to cross the street. It's been quite cold here, often around 20 below, and you can often stand at a light for 90 seconds. But that day I didn't rush. I just experienced the cold, looked around and lived it, appreciating that I wasn't cooped up indoors. The second Friday, I took a two-hour walk along the Iset river. I made sure to walk away from home slowly, so I'd have a nice long walk. I emerged from an underpass tunnel and saw this:

The Sevastyanov House in Yekaterinburg, Russia.

There are birch trees along the Iset across from the Sevastyanov House, the patterns of which remind me of a harlequin in black and white. (So many of these pictures look like I took them in black and white, but I didn't.)

A view of the Iset through a wrought-iron railing on an overpass.

These beautiful ice crystals form on the water all along the banks of the river. Here's a closeup:

They remind me of decorations on a cake. 

I sneaked across the frozen river. It's not allowed, but plenty of people have made a nice trail, so I took my chances. Like sand dunes, you can find plenty of pictures of nature's artwork, but somehow it never gets too dull.

There are small parks along the Iset, and some spillways. Not exactly waterfalls, but I cn pretend. There are nice signs of life along the river: fishermen, ducks, beautiful pigeons that are camouflaged white with gray and black splotches:

And art:

Snow in any language means fun.

The mindfulness on Fridays has calmed me. I did laundry and, as I carried it upstairs from the dryer, thought with each step how one task was completed. We had clean sheets and towels to go into the weekend with and we'd both feel better to have more clean clothes to choose from. I perform more self-care regimens on Fridays to give my body the attention it's not getting through food. I've continued working on a writing I began a year or so ago about what I thought Jesus might have experienced and thought when He went into the wilderness alone for those weeks. That gives me a reason to feel the hunger rather than ignore it. 

In one of my bloglettes early in the pandemic, I wrote of experiencing the isolation and limitations of the pandemic. I wrote of some of the freedoms that could come of it. This might sound random, but stay with me. I've had two very minor surgeries in the past month and a half. What looked like a large pimple on the back of my wrist wouldn't go away, so I had it excised, twice. The first time by a dermatologist who assured me is wasn't cancerous. The second time by a plastic surgeon after it was biopsied and determined to, indeed, be cancerous. The dermatologist kept turning my head away with her hand so I couldn't see her working. I told her, as best I could in Russian, that as long as she held a scalpel in one hand and my arm in the other, I was going to watch. The plastic surgeon didn't care that I watched. He even got a pillow for me so I could better see him slice the surrounding area, pull it back with a long tweezers and alternately snip and cauterize the tissue beneath until it was removed. I've long hated injections, but living in all these countries requires that I keep up-to-date on recommended vaccinations. I've discovered that they hurt less if I watch. Watching this procedure was so fascinating that I was more comfortable than I would have been looking at a sterile wall saying la-la-de-da I'm in my happy place to myself, while imagining what was going on.

So, I'm slowing down during my Friday fasts, even focusing on them, and, like watching the needle go in and studying the snipping and cauterizing, it makes it less uncomfortable, gives it an element of interest, even fascination. Sometimes I worry that after the pandemic is over and we can all go out and be together again, everything I can do now (all the self-care, taking walks, exercising, reading, practicing recorders) will remind me of the pandemic isolation. I hope not. Perhaps all this practice on mindful focusing will help when that time comes. Perhaps it will prove to be preventive.