Week of 9 July 2007

Russia is big

Russia is big. Really big. I mean really, really big. Distressingly, ridiculously, impossibly big. We've been running across Russia for a week and we've barely made a dent in the distance we need to cover. You can take the United States, drop it into the middle of Russia, and still have room on all sides to squeeze in a few more states (the western ones). It's big.

Russia in ten-mile bites seems manageable, but it's a slow way to cross a large country. Russia on foot, particularly at seven miles an hour, probably wouldn't have been my first choice, but it does give you a chance to look at things: to really see where you are, consider where you've been, and contemplate where you're going. I've been seeing, considering, and contemplating potato fields (or possibly the same potato field) for several days now. Did I mention that Russia is big?

Some things in Russia seem much larger. The road to Perm is lined with a plant that looks like Queen Anne's Lace, except the flower head is the size of a turkey platter instead of a saucer. The horse flies, which are numerous, angry, and appear to have an agenda, are the size of actual horses. As we run east, the country seems rougher, the road less forgiving, the horizon further away. Russia is larger and longer and harsher than most places I usually run.

Some things in Russia seem much smaller. The angst-ridden flies and haven't-had-blood-for-weeks mosquitoes have driven us into the relative safety of the van, shrinking our world to the size of a single passenger seat. One afternoon, the flies were so thick, we passed the baton to Orange Team by poking it through a side window in the van, slamming the window shut, and speeding away. The only words exchanged were “aughpulbgh” (the noise you make when you've realized a fly is in your mouth and you're frantically trying to spit it out) and “die, die, die” (the noise you make when you're desperately trying to eliminate the rogue flies that have flown into the van).

Some things in Russia are entirely new. The alphabet has been troubling me; I hate not being able to read even the simplest signs. I decided to demystify Cyrillic spelling by matching Cyrillic letters to English letters. I felt a bit James Bond-y as I prepared to break the code of the wacky Cyrillic alphabet (Why had no one thought of this before? I must be a genius.). Of course, all the words I converted, except for “McDonalds,” were still in Russian (ah, so that's why), so I didn't make much progress in the demystification department.

Some things in Russia are extremely old. I've been passed by trucks from the turn of the last century and farm equipment from the century before that which are still very much in use, if not in repair. Russia is a country on a budget; things don't have to be new, or match, or look all that nice, or even work all that well, just as long as they're still running.

I've reached a challenging stage of the trip. Travel fatigue has set in. Anything white in my suitcase has long since turned gray; gray things have turned sort of tea-colored. I'm tired of the clothes I brought to wear on my days off. Most of my socks no longer match. The M7 demolished my new shoes. My toes hurt and my stride still has some serious wonk. Russia, however, has given me a new outlook; I've decided to embrace the country-on-a-budget philosophy. I'm not new, I don't match, and I don't look all that nice, but I'm still running! Woohoo!