Mother Russia

A couple of days ago I made a comment on Facebook, which I have since removed, about how our apartment was so cold, and that we had no control over the thermostat, and how I felt like I was back in Russia. I don’t want to sound like I am biased against Russia or Russians in any way. I lived in Moscow for nearly two years, and in all of the apartments I lived in, not once did I see a thermostat. Generally in the winter the heat was on and we stayed warm. Winters in Russia are brutal. On two occasions during the time I was there the temperature dropped to forty below and sat there for a week. That’s not comfortable for anyone. You learned never to leave the apartment unprepared.
The point of the comment was not to down talk Russia, it was an angry comment directed at our property management company, who had supposedly sent a maintenance guy to fix the boiler. It was still way to cold in our apartment after the so called repair. Eventually they got it fixed after finding a broken pipe a day later.
When I got to Russia, I did not want to be there, talk about culture shock. But you know what, it took some time, but I fell in love with Russia and the people there. When I left I felt like I was more Russian than I was American. If those two guys were to meet, (before Russia me and after Russia me) they would probably hate each other. I think now I am somewhere in between those two characters, but I still love the people I met there. They were, are, and will continue to be some of my best friends. I just wish they weren’t so far away.
I had some rough times in Moscow, but by far the good times outweighed the bad. Maybe it was mostly the people that made my experience in Russia so great, but even with the mugging, being dragged off to a Russian jail, and other lovely experiences, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.