Learning Russian in 1957
To be a proper time traveler, one must master more than time and space, one must master many languages...
Grigori pointed to the store. “Magazin,” he repeated over and over until I echoed the word. Then he thrusted three coins in my hand.
“Rubles?” I asked.
“Da. Troika.” He held up three fingers, “Troika,” he repeated slowly.
It probably meant three.
“Vodka,” he said and pantomimed drinking from a bottle.
I understood that.
“Butylka.” He held up one finger and then motioned to the store again. My mission was clear enough.
The village market, or what passed for a mall, was really like a series of shops all connected along one side of the town square. Over time, I learned it was operated by a single family. They had the only refrigerator in town. There was a general store with a few items: dry goods, soap, clothes, medicines. There was another section that was a grocery store with canned goods mainly. The shelves were generally bare, and the few pitiful items that were there might sit for weeks at a time: dusty boxes and tins filled with unidentifiable products. The butcher shop was almost always empty, certainly devoid of meat, except on Tuesdays when there was line for sausages.
The shop doubled as a community center; maybe what could be construed as a cafe or restaurant. It had a few rickety tables and chairs where people would often sit for the day drinking tea, or to eat something from the bakery next door. Today it was just a half liter bottle of vodka for Grigori. Mission accomplished.
I didn’t learn till later that pretty much everything in the village cost a troika, three rubles, goods and services. Fix a fence? A troika… Mend a sweater, a bicycle, a broken window or a leaky faucet— a troika… A taxi ride to the next town over? Bus fare to Moscow? It was no coincidence that a troika would buy you a half liter bottle of government vodka.
Note:
A short excerpt from Red City, the fifth book in the Tractus Fynn Mystery Series, due in early May.
Grigori pointed to the store. “Magazin,” he repeated over and over until I echoed the word. Then he thrusted three coins in my hand.
“Rubles?” I asked.
“Da. Troika.” He held up three fingers, “Troika,” he repeated slowly.
It probably meant three.
“Vodka,” he said and pantomimed drinking from a bottle.
I understood that.
“Butylka.” He held up one finger and then motioned to the store again. My mission was clear enough.
The village market, or what passed for a mall, was really like a series of shops all connected along one side of the town square. Over time, I learned it was operated by a single family. They had the only refrigerator in town. There was a general store with a few items: dry goods, soap, clothes, medicines. There was another section that was a grocery store with canned goods mainly. The shelves were generally bare, and the few pitiful items that were there might sit for weeks at a time: dusty boxes and tins filled with unidentifiable products. The butcher shop was almost always empty, certainly devoid of meat, except on Tuesdays when there was line for sausages.
The shop doubled as a community center; maybe what could be construed as a cafe or restaurant. It had a few rickety tables and chairs where people would often sit for the day drinking tea, or to eat something from the bakery next door. Today it was just a half liter bottle of vodka for Grigori. Mission accomplished.
I didn’t learn till later that pretty much everything in the village cost a troika, three rubles, goods and services. Fix a fence? A troika… Mend a sweater, a bicycle, a broken window or a leaky faucet— a troika… A taxi ride to the next town over? Bus fare to Moscow? It was no coincidence that a troika would buy you a half liter bottle of government vodka.
Note:
A short excerpt from Red City, the fifth book in the Tractus Fynn Mystery Series, due in early May.
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