6 June 2008
Mark Twain
United States of America

Dear Mark,

Well, here we are-June. I’m amazed that I have been out of the States this long…actually, amazed that I have survived Russia this long. Oh, no…it’s not really THAT horrible, I’m just teasing…but it was a culture shock. I can only imagine the culture shock that I am going to have when I return to the US in a few weeks. Now, as I prepare for my second to last departure from Russia (to Latvia on Monday; my final departure will be back home), I have been thinking progressively about what I have missed most, and, amazingly, what I may miss from here.

I wrote last time about baseball. Gotta admit, that’s towards the top of the list. By this I mean Boston ‘Red Sox’ baseball…if I don’t specify this, my mother will disown me…

I miss my tenor (saxophone). You know, I have been having dreams about it ever since I have been here. For my concerts this year, I only brought four instruments: flute, alto flute, clarinet, and alto saxophone. Basically, these are all the most practical combination of smallest and most expressive. My piccolo is smallest, but it’s not as expressive (at least not when I play it); my tenor is most expressive, but it was too big to bring. Even though the alto sax is the most practical, the tenor was always the one that I felt closest to and the one that I ‘worked’ with-the one that I played the most professionally, at least as far as the saxophones go. I probably have played as much classical clarinet, if not more, as saxophone, and clarinet and tenor always seemed a proper pair for me, but the clarinet is here and the tenor is not. I did have a dream about bass clarinet, strangely…and also one or two on bass guitar, which I haven’t touched in God-knows-how-long…it’s amazing what floats around in one’s unconscious.

Peanut butter. I used to live on this stuff! Doesn’t exist here save only in the finest of boutiques, and it‘s EXPENSIVE like you wouldn‘t believe. I mean, my college diet consisted of peanut butter and “Product 19” cereal…add some orange juice and milk, and you have a complete, balanced meal (or, at least to my deranged thinking, you do…). Margaret’s parents, bless them, when they visited brought me a jar of “Skippy”…it barely lasted the evening…I was grateful like you would not believe!

Real coffee. Russia is NOT a coffee culture. They don’t get it. Boiled Nescafe is not what I call coffee, or even in most cases, drinkable. The best part about touring the Balkans was cheap, amazing coffee. It was like 20 cents a cup in Bulgaria, compared to the $4 espresso here; and coffee they use here is just, well, not like any espresso you have ever had. It is brown, I’ll give them that…

Fresh vegetables that are not either (a) rotten, or (b) poisoned with radioactive waste. There is also waste and heavy metals in the drinking water, which does have the benefit of killing a good number of the parasites…

Friendly customer service…all I have to say is, um, wow…

Toilet paper…see above comment on ‘friendly customer service’…

In general, food that doesn’t require tremendous amounts of either (a) salt, or (b) sour cream (smetana). I don’t really understand this need to pour and lather these products on everything served you. I think that my cholesterol level has spiked to Andrew Lloyd Weber induced dimensions…Get it? Cheesy. The music, it’s cheesy. It’s so cheesy it brings up your cholesterol levels…get it? Oh…forget it…

My wardrobe. I brought only two suitcases with me, mostly of drab colored clothing (Margaret’s, bless her, suggestion) to fit in and not stick out like a foreigner…like they would EVER think I was Russian! Who am I trying to kid? How’s that working out for me? Hah! I didn’t even bring blue jeans, and EVERYBODY here is wearing them, and other hip, Western brands, too…I feel like an Amish farmer…

Paperback books in English that aren’t $30. To add insult to injury, the English book stores never have anything that I would actually want to read; as much as I’m sure teenage romance novels have powerful characters and ripping good stories, I can’t as of yet see the allure there, nor have I yet been driven that far as to embrace them. I miss my personal library.

Metro stations, businesses, libraries, schools, art galleries, museums, parks, concert halls, stadiums, streets, and towns NOT named after Pushkin…it’s also his birthday today; something about a virgin birth and a second coming…

Needless to say, I miss my family and friends. Being here has really shown how dear these people are to me. Except, of course, those who don’t write me back…that crowd can all burn in Hell…

Let’s see. I miss a country where one can make fun of one’s government without the fear of being ‘erased‘, as they call it. Oh, sorry…did I say that? …must have slipped…

Efficient postal systems. No, really-it’s OK. I enjoy the “Tree Sloth Express”…

Mostly, I miss being able to start singing in the middle of the street and then everyone breaks in singing in perfect harmony with all the right words and choreographed dancing, like we do in NYC…What? That’s only in the movies? Darn, I HAVE been here too long…

OK, so there is a partial list. I’m sure that there is more that I am forgetting-pollution destroys brain cells, you know-but I will probably bring up more in future letters.

And as for what I’ll miss here? Well, you’ll have to wait on that for a few more weeks.

Your traveler,

Demetrius

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