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Winter Games

There was only one significant Summer Olympiad in my life https://oldladywriting.com/2020/08/09/personal-best/ , if I do not count the 1924 Paris Games, portrayed so gloriously in my favorite movie, “Chariots of Fire”—and, predictably, the occasional gymnastics competition that I caught when spouse (most decidedly not a fan) was not watching. But, I have tried to see the Winter Olympics every time, and when they suddenly showed up in 1994 after only two years, it was an extra dose of excitement for me.

Coincidentally, the first Winter Olympics also came in 1924, but if there is an awesome movie about that, I am not aware.

I like to watch pretty much every winter sport with, again, a very predictable exception of curling. Some of it might be going back to the fact that in the limited TV offerings of my Soviet childhood, European and maybe even world championships of figure and speed skating, alpine and Nordic skiing and, of course, hockey took up a lot of viewing time. If something similar was going on in the summer, I cannot comment—summers were not spent in front of TV.

The first Winter Olympics I watched were the 1984 Sarajevo Games, they of the incredible Torville and Dean’s Bolero. Although we had more channels than I was used to, still, this was before cable and all of the other choices we have today, and my parents would not have missed the Olympics. It was a great time, seeing familiar sports (because to this day I have no concept of American football, and understand that baseball is basically an opportunity to enjoy a hot dog for the price of a steak), and even some of the athletes familiar from the Before Times. I may or may not have pranced around our living room to my own choreographed Bolero moves, as my love of Christopher Dean momentarily overcame my dislike of Ravel’s music.

And then came Calgary 1988. I was in college, and in my first wonderful year of solo apartment living. Although there were many highlights, including the Jamaican bobsled team, what I remember best is that, while almost everyone left for winter break, my BFF and I, neither in possession of a TV set, would trudge to our old dorm, watch the games on the TV in the first floor lounge, and bluntly discourage any stray denizen of East Quad from attempting to change the channel. There was one timid freshman who seemed to cherish a hope that he might glimpse some other program during this, his first big break away from home, but that was not to be in the presence of two brash Russian women. Eventually, he succumbed and joined us in our ardent and vocal support of Katarina Witt and Alberto Tomba.

That also happened to be the week that we somehow discovered the invention of answering machines, and were making an almost daily drive to the F&M Drug Store, now defunct, to buy, try, and return them in the quest for the perfect one, and then run to the payphone during commercials to check if anyone left us any messages. If the machine picked up after the first ring, there indeed was a message—in my case, inevitably from that moronic boyfriend who once used up the entire answering machine tape reciting the Gettysburg Address. Overall, this technology ended up getting used more for evil than for good, especially by my grandmother, who immediately mistrusted it and assumed that recorded message in response to a call is a harbinger of doom and a sure sign that I am dead or at least in peril, for what possible reason could any human have to be away from their landline, at any age or in any circumstance? In subsequent years, she has also been known to use up the entire tape with messages of escalating fury, usually in a span if some minutes, but in February of 1988, this new toy seemed hopeful and benign.

By 1992, I owned a TV set. Well, more accurately, my law school boyfriend did, and Alberto Tomba temporarily replaced Matlock in his affections. I seem to recall an unusual number of figure skating bloopers that year, with women flying out of hands of their partners and crashing into boards, people crashing on their heads, and that one female skater who fell literally every time she stood up and eventually gave up. Curiously, I cannot find any validation for this after an afternoon of extensive research, so either my memory is terribly flawed, or there is a major decades-long cover up. If anyone has any information, please comment!

I must add that in Winter Olympics, I do not always root for the Home Team, whatever name it might bear over the years[1]. In speed skating, I cheer for the Dutch, the historic masters and inventors of the sport. If a Dutch skater wins, I stand and sing “Wilhelmus van Nassouwe”. OK, sing is not what I actually do—I mostly hum with interjections of “Prinse van Oranje” and “Koning van Hispanje” at random times. And I have a shot of genever in memory of Uncle Art. I have no idea if he enjoyed speed skating, but he was Dutch and liked genever, and that’s good enough for me.

In hockey, my loyalty is also time-honored. My grandpa was a huge hockey fan, and a great admirer of Team Canada. I live in Hockeytown, USA, where all the best players have always been Canadian[2]. I actually know the words to “O Canada” and cry every time I hear it, and pretend to be Canadian whenever I think I can get away with it[3]. And of course, Canadians are masters and inventors of the sport. Canada is near, and grandpa is always is my heart and never far from my thoughts. His saying, whenever a match outcome was less desirable was “Friendship won”. Oh, would that everyone had his generosity of spirit!

In bobsled, I root for Jamaica—who doesn’t?

This year, the Russian Freestyle Skiing team is packed with athletes from my home town. How cool is that? I am not entirely sure what this event is, being that it is a newer one, but I am watching, and cheering. I did hear one commentator acknowledge that a competitor was from Yaroslavl, which filled me with pride and joy.

Final thought: When I asked my students whether they had any questions (after I just finished talking about regulatory compliance obligation, an understandably riveting topic that kept everyone awake), the only one they had is the only one that was at the forefront of everyone’s minds: were Nathan Chen’s scores inflated? Because as a professor I must always take an opportunity to educate, I responded that no, I do not think so, and that he is indeed extremely capable. Privately, I awarded Nathan Chen extra points for skating to both Charles Aznavour and Elton John.

[1] Currently, it is Russian Olympic Committee, but throughout the history of the modern Olympics, it competed as the Russian Empire, Soviet Union, Unified Team, Russia, and Olympic Athletes from Russia. I am not bothered by the absence of the flag, but I miss the anthem.

[2] Occasionally they are Russian

[3] No, I am not making a false claim to citizenship, this is just in casual conversations—don’t report me to IRCC!

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Always Nordic, Never Alpine

Pandemic winter is both harder, because there is no place to go, and easier, because there is no compulsion to go places. I briefly interrupted my hibernation on a Saturday afternoon to engage in some cross-country skiing. It was more like “cross-yard”—in fact, it was exactly that, because I literally skied out of my backyard and around the subdivision where I live. Very Old Country. Driving to a specified and possibly paid location just to ski around seems entirely too bourgeois, unless one is on a holiday.

This is me, starting out in my actual back yard.

I would not say I was skiing before I was walking, but I certainly do not remember learning to ski. It was just something children did all winter long, along with sliding down every snow drift and every patch of ice in our path. All my skis in childhood were the kind that did not require special boots, but the type where you just slide your foot into a rubber band, and another rubber band goes around the heel (and sometimes not even that). You put your “valenki” onto the rubber piece, because “valenki”, being just felted wool, are very slippery (Although I was always made to wear galoshes over mine. I come by my indifference to fashionable footwear honestly). In Russia, I never graduated to the adult skis which came with special boots that attached to the skis with the metal cage-like fastenings that looked complicated and somehow final, leaving no possibility of escape.

Not my actual skis, but a pretty accurate representation.

In my childhood, my main ski route was in the front yard of our house (so that my grandmother could watch me out of our kitchen window). It was an easy and pleasant morning before going to school during the second shift, until it became less attractive when big garbage bins were installed in my direct path. Occasionally, I was allowed to ski in the big field behind our house, a site of soccer matches in the summer. Both of these have since been sacrificed to progress: the field is now home to an auto dealership, and an extremely shocking high rise is getting built right across from the old two- and three-story apartment buildings. At least the trash bins have disappeared.

These are way fancier than anything we had back in the USSR

Skiing was the gym activity during the 2nd and 3rd quarters of the school year. As a gym activity, it was terrible for many reasons. First, the school-provided skis were awful and literally went nowhere, because they were never properly waxed and got stuck in the snow. Choosing skis in the gym was a predictable pandemonium. If you were not appropriately aggressive, you could end up with two left skis. I usually brought my own skis, like some of the children of Soviet privilege, and because my grandmother was convinced that the school skis were unsanitary disease-bearers. This involved hauling a pair of skis on the crowded trolley #4, an experience similar to riding the NYC subway during rush hour, but with worse smell (some of which was contributed by me, because at one point I had a winter coat with goat fur collar. Let me tell you, nothing, nothing at all smells worse than goat fur, even after it was aired out AND sprayed with Red Moscow perfume. This might explain why I have never found goats even remotely adorable). Guarding my skis against breakage was a nerve-wracking experience for several winters.

When I was very young, we were not allowed to use poles in school—the temptations of wielding them as swords or trying to poke someone in the eye was too great. I am ashamed to confess I was not always able to resist either once the pole ban was lifted.

Second, although gym during the ski season was a double lesson to allow us time to change, returning to regular classroom after being outside for an hour and a half, sweaty and soaked, covered in snow, was entirely uninspiring. In my later school years, I have taken to not returning. Along with a few pals, we would ski away from the pack on the field where we raced in a long loop, right across the roundabout at October Square (luckily, there were not that many cars in my hometown in those days), grab our backpacks from the school vestibule, and keep going. Who knows what kind of a delinquent I might have become had we stayed in Russia? American schools sure scared me straight…

Third, we had to learn downhill skiing. Now, there are no mountains where I come from. In my entire life, I have never lived anywhere near a mountain range of any kind. To me, anything taller than me is a mountain. If I see an incline, it’s a mountain. There was not so much as a hill in either our front yard or our back yard. However, my hometown, like any medieval fortress, is built along a river. The dramatic and terrifying hill, “Friday Descent” (probably referring to Good Friday, otherwise it is a pretty random name) was the location of our Alpine exercises.

Trust me, this is significantly more terrifying in winter.

Although I am not particularly afraid of heights, I am strangely afraid of speed—or, more precisely, of my inability to control myself on runaways skis. Thus, most my training on Friday Descent ended with practicing safe falling, which is the skill that serves me well to this day whenever I am confronted by any elevation while skiing. I either fall immediately, or sit on my skis like they are a sled. Occasionally, tired of rolling over into a snow bank, I would just find an opportune moment while the gym teacher was focused on observing students at the bottom of the hill and ski away on the hilltop, across the roundabout, and you know the rest.

Since I have not attended a gym class since I managed to get an exemption from my last one in the mid-80s, skiing, strictly of the Nordic kind, has been a pleasurable activity. And so, if you see a middle-aged woman gliding across your front yard—or your back yard—one sunny winter afternoon, it just might be #oldladyskiing.

The Old Country. Front yard: behind the fence on the right is where I used to ski.

The Old Country. Back yard: the big wide open field is no more.

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Valor and Glory of the Motorbuilders

The municipal autonomous institution of the city of Yaroslavl, Palace of Culture named after A.M. Dobrynin, formerly Palace of Culture of the Motorbuilders, just celebrated its 55^th birthday. In a surprising twist, my first short story (amazingly still unpublished), about a visit to A.M. Dobrynin’s “dacha”, just celebrated its 36^th birthday. Apparently, despite August being a heavy month [https://oldladywriting.com/2019/10/13/sorrow-floats/], it has seen some good times.

This is the best photo of the Palace of Culture of the Motorbuilders, because it is not only from my era, but includes the now defunct “Salut” (firework)–the lamppost much maligned as an eyesore

In the course of my career, I have worked closely with some of the biggest automotive manufacturers in the world, as well as the biggest automotive suppliers. This is possibly the most boring sentence I have ever written that was not work related. It is not even a brag. Everyone who lives in the metropolitan Detroit area is involved in the automotive industry in some way. So is everyone who lives in Yaroslavl.

Anatoly Mikhailovich Dobrynin was the General Director of the Yaroslavl Motor Plant from 1961 until 1982, the only one in my lifetime there, and had the longest tenure of any director to date. I was going to say he was like a Russian Lee Iacocca, but I truly have no idea if there is any comparison. Frankly, Lee Iacocca should have been so lucky. Comrade Dobrynin was a Hero of Socialist Labor, recipient of Lenin and State Prizes of the USSR, and many other labor medals, prizes, and honors. And because his entire career and life (the two ended pretty much simultaneously) fit into the several decades of the Soviet Union’s existence, he got to lead an enterprise which, besides its manufacturing prowess, was also a giant benefactor to the city’s workers. Basically, the big plants subsidized various affiliated ventures. For example, the Motor Plant contributed to the creation of the Motorbuilders’ Palace of Culture, Motorbuilders’ Park, movie theaters, stadiums, etc.

The interior of this Palace of Culture is a bit elusive for me. I had few occasions to enter it. I did not attend any of the children’s classes there. Despite it being significantly closer to our house than the Young Pioneers Palace, where I spent four tortured years at an art studio [https://oldladywriting.com/2019/06/04/run-your-own-race/], I only entered the Palace of the Motorbuilders for the movie theater (which was, again despite its convenient location, somewhat unpopular among the youthful moviegoers, and is now defunct) or to attend the exclusive New Year’s parties. I strongly suspect that, given that the Motorbuilders were so superior to all the other organizations in our city, I could not possibly qualify for any of their children’s clubs and afterschool activities. I could only hope to be admitted to the events at the Young Pioneers’, which had to take all young pioneers (and had vastly inferior New Year’s parties), or at the Giant Club, which was loosely affiliated with the other major plant in my town, the Tire Plant. The Tire Plant was uncool, and its director was entirely unknown. Giant, however, had a better movie theater—and, I was accepted into the Young Pioneers on the Giant stage. But I digress.

Not the actual photo of the slide at the Culture Palace.

A word about the New Year’s parties. They were basically Christmas parties, complete with a Christmas tree (called, naturally, New Year’s tree), Santa Claus (Grandpa Frost), and gifts for all the kids. At the Motorbuilders’, the gift package would include a tangerine. Tangerines were not as exclusive as bananas, but one did not simply encounter a tangerine in the middle of a Russian winter in the seventies. The parties would include various activities such as some kind of a fairy tale staging, loud yelling at the tree to “light up”, and presentation of the gifts to the children. Because the Motorbuilders’ Palace was huge, they also had slides. I have no idea where they would come from and to where they would retire after the holiday season, but the slides were possibly even more exciting than the tangerines. Life just does not get better than when hundreds of children are pushing and shoving to go down a giant slide at a Palace of Culture before New Year’s. As we used to say, thank you for our happy childhood, beloved Motherland.

Right behind the Palace of Culture was the Motorbuilders’ Park. Apparently it is officially named the Anniversary Park, as it was created for the town’s 950^th anniversary in 1960, but no one calls it that. The colloquially known Motor Park, Yaroslavl’s answer to Paris’ Luxembourg Gardens and Madrid’s Parque del Buen Retiro, was lush, green, and huge. When I visited it two years ago, it somehow became small, weird, and scruffy. I strongly suspect it was because my BFF kind of rushed me through it so that we could go home and eat, and I did not get the full effect. But, in the glorious 70s the park was home not just to gorgeous alleys for promenading and a very impressive round fountain in the middle as befits European capitals, but also to many exciting rides such as “boats” (those big swings that you see at Renaissance faires), “runner” (a strange contraption of several wheels that lifted kids in attached seats up and down as it also moved in a circle, and was out of commission much more often than it was functioning—to find the “runner” actually running was like finding a unicorn in a Soviet zoo. I kid; we had no zoo), and “autotrain” (A train that ran through the park. Why auto? Because it was not on rails).

Actual footage at the park in 1974. I am not there, but could have been. Look for the rarely functioning ”runner” at 1:50, a very clear view of the back of the Palace at 3:36, followed by “boats”, and then some “adult” rides, such as the “Devil’s (Ferris)” wheel, which for some reason did not allow children.

Last but not least, the Motor Plant owned a resort, officially known as a “recreation center” (the word “resort” was much too bourgeois), named Forest. Forest was literally in the forest on the banks of the Volga. If you worked for the Motor Plant, you could get a “voucher” to spend a summer week at the Forest. My times at the Forest deserve their own story, if ever one can be written to give full justice to the joys of Soviet childhood on the Volga—and I mean that without even a hint of sarcasm. It was basically an all inclusive resort, and for its time and place it was just perfect.

The main building at the Forest. It does not do the place justice.

But wait, it gets better. Deep in the actual forest that surrounded the Forest, there was one more building—the “dacha” (country house, summer cottage, chalet) of the director of the Motor Plant, Comrade Dobrynin. It so happened that my grandfather’s friend, Uncle Sasha, was the director of the Forest, which somehow resulted in us being invited, on several incredible occasions, to stay at the Dobrynin dacha. Of course, we never referred to him as Dobrynin, Comrade Dobrynin, or especially Anatoliy Mikhailovich. He was “Director”. Not that we ever met him—I mean, Uncle Sasha must have, but no one in my family has, as far as I know. It goes without saying that we only stayed at the dacha when Director was not in residence. And when I say “dacha”, I do not mean the cabins that all of our friends had “za Volgoi” (on the other bank of the Volga, beyond the city walls), without electricity, indoor plumbing, or even water (as a child, I found gathering water from a well very charming). No, Director’s dacha was a literal mansion. I mean, it was not even a regular person’s house. I remember two things most distinctly: a billiard room (which I blame for my lifelong burning desire to possess a pool table. Which I’ve had for almost 20 years now, and have probably used six times within the first year of getting it and none since) and a dining room which I seem to recall looking exactly like that dining room in the first Batman movie, the one with Michael Keaton (THE Batman). That movie came out over a decade after we ate pea soup in the Director’s mansion, by the way. Food for thought.

Why pea soup, you ask? Well, there was one touch-and-go trip when Uncle Sasha called my grandparents and another couple, the Osipovs, good friends and fellow adventurers, and invited them to the dacha as Director was not going to be in[1]. The five of us started gathering, but I recall some hesitance on someone’s part until Uncle Sasha’s wife, Aunt Lida, enticed us with a promise of delicious pea soup prepared by the Director’s cook, Mrs. Patmore[2].

Somewhere along the way, we got the command to retreat, as Director was coming after all. But how? This was before cell phones. It was barely after regular phones, because, Soviet Russia. The cavalcade must have been intercepted while the Osipovs’ orange car was picking us up. We dispersed. And then—false alarm. Director was not coming after all. We were going to taste the pea soup! He didn’t, and we did. In the Batman dining room. It was magnificent. And I thought to myself, people live like this in the West. And I was wrong, because no one I know lives like this in the West, because I do not get personally invited to the mansions of the automotive companies’ CEOs.

But the experiences at the Director’s dacha made such an impression on me that when I wrote my first short story, in 1984, it was about one such visit. I exercised poetic license by replacing grandparents and their friends with a fun gang of kids my own age, who cause mischief and wreak havoc, and they actually get to meet the Director, who turns out to be charming and not intimidating. Perhaps that is how Comrade Dobrynin really was. I would not know. And then everyone eats pea soup. The end.

The modern day branding of the Palace of Culture.

For more information, current events at the Palace, fun videos, and an occasional retro photo: https://www.facebook.com/groups/dkdobrynina1965/

[1] I lived with my grandparents, so wherever they went, I went. They were in their mid-fifties then, so like older parents. Almost all of their friends were at least a few years younger, so this is not a feeble elder crowd, just so you know.

[2] I lie. No one called her that. It was Comrade Patmore.

The Three Monuments

~Yaroslavl, capital of the Golden Ring of Russia and the oldest of the Volga towns, was founded in 1010 by Yaroslav the Wise, a prince of Kievan Rus. Legend has it that Yaroslav went North and found a friendly spot by the Volga on which he would built a city. A bear came out of the woods and charged at him. Yaroslav killed the bear with an ax. Almost a decade later, he became the Grand Duke of Kiev. He ruled wisely and well, despite his one known act of cruelty to bears. He built the famous Cathedral of St. Sophia (which houses his tomb and the incredible fresco portraits of his family) and the Golden Gate of Kiev (cue Musorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition”), and established the first Russian law code, Russian Justice. Still, the town on the Volga is his greatest achievement. Memory eternal!

Yaroslavl on top, bear on bottom. But notice who is holding the ax…

In Yaroslavl, time did not quite stand still, in terms of keeping up with internet and other modern conveniences, such as resplendently stocked grocery store shelves. However, the general character and look of the town did not change. One very comforting feature is the profound lack of attention to the destruction of the relics of the past—whether the long past, or *our* past. Just as the name of the town never changed during the Communist era, but continued to evoke the long ago Grand Duke of Kiev who famously conquered a bear with his ax, so did the Lenin and October Prospects remain thusly named in the Yaroslavl of the Russian Federation. And just as the 17^th century churches were not detonated during the three quarters of the 20^th century that comprised the entire history of the now defunct country of my birth, but merely consigned to store potatoes, so do the imposing monuments of that country remain as the scattered guideposts of the city today. There are two Lenins; there always were the two Lenins. One is standing on the Red Square (many Russian towns have a Red Square) and with his upraised arm shows the way to our bright future. Meet you *by the arm*.

The other one is sitting and writing in his notebook upon a crossed knee, facing his namesake Prospect, with his back to Mother Volga, with the Soviet Street crossing in front of him. I remember laying flowers at the base of this sculpture, as it was conveniently located near my school. Kids were sworn into the Young Pioneers next to this Lenin every year on his birthday on April 22. Meet you *by the leg*.

And then there is Karl Marx, my favorite monument ever. I am emotionally attached to it because I remember when it was unveiled. The year was 1972, if memory serves, and we were going to spend the summer “za Volgoi”, literally “beyond the Volga”, or simply, on the other bank of the Volga. On the other bank is the countryside, and when I was really small, my grandmother rented a room in a hut in a village called Yakovlevskoye (Jacob’s). Actually, we had two landladies, one after another, but this is so long ago that I barely remember the first one, Olga something or other. To be fair, I was 2 or 3 years old. I remember only a very high bed with lace pillowcases, and trying to drown Vanechka, a doll to which I have taken a dislike, in my potty. My grandmother seemed to have persisted that the doll’s demise was meant to be an accident, but I, in turn, persisted in trying to destroy it. I do not recall who finally won, but, experience would suggest—not I.

The second landlady was Anna Loginovna, and I can still see her low ceilinged house with the traditional wood burning stove, and our room with pictures of ladies from the fashion magazines tacked to the walls. Anna Loginovna’s daughter died tragically during one of the summers we were living with her, when a drunk truck driver plowed through a window of a store in which she was shopping. I remember seeing photos of her in a coffin, stitches on her face, and her orphaned children, a girl and a boy older than me, maybe a teenager and a preteen, sitting forlornly at their grandma’s rough wooden table. I do not recall, if I ever knew, if Anna Loginovna had other children, or what happened to the two kids, who ultimately took responsibility for them. But I remember sitting at that table, in that house, almost half a century ago. But I digress…

We were traveling to beyond the Volga in a bus, the #50. I was looking out the window, and saw a dreadful and fearsome sight of a block of gray marble with a burlap sack at the top at the intersection of Lenin and October Prospects. I did not know it then, and had no basis for comparison, but if I extract this memory now, I would compare it to a prisoner about to be beheaded. The sight so alarmed me that I never forgot it. Someone (logically, the responsibility would have fallen to my grandmother) explained to me that it is a new monument which will be shortly unveiled. The ceremony happened during our summer sojourn on the other bank of the Volga. I was immensely relieved to see that the bag was off his head and it was now an imposing gray torso with a familiar bearded head on what became (or maybe already was) Karl Marx Square. The clemency shown to the prisoner made me feel proprietary and affectionate toward him. Meet you *by the beard*.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is img_5430.jpg — By the beard