7/6 - 7/12 Surgery Day 1 & Dacha

7/6 - Sunday

Don't remember. But here's a pretty picture I took at Suzdal.

7/7 - Mon

First day of Surgery class. I guess i'll just give you a brief summary of the class, now that i'm writing this two weeks since the day:
We're being taught by Ivan, and his peer Sergei, along with some of their other med student friends Boris, Olga, and Zarina. All are between 21-23 yrs old. Yes, i'm being taught by people my age. The medical system works differently here. You go straight into medical school after high school, starting at year 1. Ivan is a 6th year. Sergei I think 5th, Boris 5th maybe, Olga is 7th, etc. They know more about medicine than us, i guess that's all that matters; but they still aren't very good at teaching us theory. They love teaching us random techniques though. Like laproscopy. But never explain when we'd use it. But we can build a dacha of matches, and play miniature chess endoscopically. We also learned knots for suturing. And we learned how to do a cardiovascular bypass. And other vascular suturing. Parashoot technique. yup. Mostly however, we just make jokes, and talk about russian girls and drink vodka when we do well. Yes, vodka. usually two times a week, after class, we'll have a few shots, eat bread, maybe sausage, it's hilarious. i have video and pictures. somewhere.

Sergei is the most ridiculous. he told us it used to be an old russian medicine joke, back when they used vodka to sterilize surgery, they would say "sterilize, sterilize, sterilize ... cucumber!" We started busting out laughing, because we had no idea what the heck he was talking about. He thought we were laughing at the joke; we weren't.

7/8 - 7/11

These days I didn't write. Therefore, I do not remember. I know we went to a bunch of smaller museums during these days. We also had class each day, Russian history and culture at 8:30 am and Surgery at 1 or 2 pm usually. We were supposed to start rat surgery on Friday but Ivan told us that we'd start the following week. We were growing a bit frustrated. But good things were soon to come. on Friday we did watch Sergei and Boris perform surgery on a rat. They used basically zero sanitation practices. They told us the rat had a good immune system. They removed some necrosis-- some dead tissue -- on its leg. They also clipped the end of its tail that was dead. The rat died i think a couple days later. We'd get our chance soon enough.



7/12 - Sat Day of DACHA!

This day I, we, accomplished the greatest goal so far in our Russian lives. The Dacha. We came, we saw, we conquered, we also swam and ain't some darn good 'ploff.' Gotta love the Dacha life.

A dacha is a summer cottage that Russians use during the warm months of the year, June-Aug. Back during the Soviet times, every citizen was granted a small plot of land outside of the city. Here, the soviet families could relax and tend to their gardens (mostly just supply the city with produce). Now, most of the plots of land have been passed down and still belong to the families. Though, many dachas have been improved since then, beyond a typical soviet cottage. Hence, the dacha. (that's sort of a misconstrued history of the dacha, but "it's good enough for me.")

Anyway, to us dachas are like camps, for those Western PA people you know what kind of camp i mean, the kind next to the Clarion river maybe?. For them it's an escape from the bustling city life of Moscow, just like Clarion's bustling city life. Well, after knowing Asya for 1 week (Anatomoy Anya introduced us), she invited us to her dacha. In fact, her parents weren't even planning to go to the dacha that weekend, but they made a special trip for us. These Russians sure are nice.

PHOTO <--- This is Asya.



We had the Morgue in the morning ------ in Russia, the process of donating your body to science is a bit backwards, you must sign a form that says that you DON"T want your body used for science, meaning your body becomes a free play ground for medical students before your burial. weird, maybe. but good for science. We got a fresh one, 1 day old. Irina knows a young Dr. named Nick; he's the guy that takes us. He's a bit weird but very intelligent. We whip this body out; some old guy, and he shows us some wrist surgery. Then we start cutting down his arm; looking at anatomy; his radial nerve, radial artery (where you feel your pulse), muscles, like superficial & deep flexors, other veins, tendons, the whole way up to his armpit; palpating. Nick teaches us how to make sutures. We learn three ways. The cosmetic suture is the most difficult. On the cosmetic he said I did "not terrible, but not good. Medium." We have morgue every Saturday for now on. it is really sweet. I might sound insensitive; maybe i am. But that's Russia speaking. It was very interesting nevertheless; quite weird, eerie even, being that i've never been in a true morgue, especially not a russian morgue. -----------------

So, dacha. Nick held us over; we were supposed to meet Asya at noon. We started at 9am and finished at 1pm. We were an hour late meeting Asya's parents. Along with her parents came Asya's sister, her boyfriend, and two of Asya's (and my) friends-- nastia and Anya. Anya was the orginal russian girl that introduced us to Asya. Nastia is the girl i accidentally made out with; and who subsequently fell in love with me (sort of).

Asya's parents drove us in 2 cars, about 2.5 hrs to the dacha. Their dacha is going through renovations. It was quite big, more of a house than a cottage. We have pictures. Somewhere. We ate dinner when we got there; her dad made 'ploff" which is an awesome rice based dish from Uzbekistan. It was da bomb. Shout out to Jona. Also with pomegranate. We ate handfuls of that stuff. Add cucumber, tomatoes, flat bread, Merlot, some weird lemonade, and a bunch of other stuff i forget, and it was one of the best meals i've had in russia. After dinner, we all went in the car to Borodino. It was the battle site where Napoleon defeated the Russian army on Sept. 7th 1812. Napoleon lead his 'Grand Armee' into the town; lost 30,000 French + 40,000 Russians in 15 hours and Napoleon described it as the "most terrible" of all his battles-- though still claiming victory. In the end, howeer, when Nap. entered Moscow, the Russians burned the city & Nap. was forced to retreat.

The fields at Borodino had sporatic monuments, reminding me of Gettysburg. Why haven't any great PA authors gotten inspiration from those fields like Tolstoy got from Borodino? Oh Tolstoy. I want to read War & Peace. They say that he sat in these fields and wrote parts of War & Peace. Has anyone read it? reply if you have, i'm jealous. Tell me how long it took too, because Nick, the doctor, read it in less than a month while only riding the metro to work. impressive i thought.

We also saw the local monastery built in the 15th? maybe 16th? century. That was a pointless sentence. Tolstoy is rolling over in his grave. and another grave-roll for that follow up cliche.

Can you spot which photo is Gettysburg and which is Borodino? (the answer is at the bottome of page 3 )

We drove back to her Dacha, her mom drove that is. I have a short video of the car ride-- when Mambo #5 is playing on repeat on the car stereo. God i can't wait to upload these vids. We went for a walk to see these bridges Asya was raving about --- bridges that look "just like a Monet" she says, with the "flowers in the river." And, well, they did. IT did. We only say one. Minus most of the flowers. I have pictures, but you don't need them, just google Monet. I do have this one poor quality pic of us swimming though. It was a warm day. Finally Russia has broken into summer weather. J and I (oh i forgot to mention, we're the only two Americans that came on this Dacha trip) convinced Asya to swim with us. She wore a large gray tshirt and underwear. I had my swim trunks. It was hot. in more than one way. Anya swam too, in her normal clothes. it was funny. normal-- they love that word. especially Anya. The water wasn't that cold. it was really refreshing. I dunked Asya under the water a lot. There is video.... on Justin's camcorder. The water actually didn't taste bad either; accidental ingestion "of course."

PHOTO From left: N, Asya, J, Anya

Swimming in this stream in the beautiful Russian country side, when the sun is just setting, was one of the best moments, and most surreal moments i've had in Russia, and maybe in my life. possible overstatement, but probably not, my life's been pretty surreal-less. I really doubt any Americans had ever been in that River. no native English speakers. when we were just about to leave, a couple local teenagers, some preteens, and a Lolita came down to the stream, i said an American "Hey, whatsup!" They all froze, silent, mouths dropped, in shock. i guess they weren't expecting that.

Maybe it wasn't THAT life changing, swimming in that Moscow River tributary, under Monet's bridge, but it sure was cool. something i won't forget.

At least not for the next week, because of all these freaking bug bights...

When we arrived back from our hour long swimming trip down the "Russian road" as Asya called it -- an overgrown path full of jagger-bushes off the side of an old dirt road -- we ate more 'ploff' and drank champagne, tea, while finishing with chocolate cake and more chocolate. Tea and chocolate is great. One thing i'm bringing back to CWA (USA). 9pm came about, and it was time to pack up. As her parents loaded the car, we swung on the old wooden swing Asya's father built when she was very young- when the USSR was still around. It sat 20 feet from the southern dacha wall, where overgrown weeds had succeeded in overshadowing the few beautiful flowers once planted there long ago, neglected, but have continued blooming each year despite the maltreatment. She looked here, in this spot, more Russianly beautiful than ever, with her Russian smile, always stretched farther than a typical smile, gleaming. Oh russia. It sounds like i'm in love with her; i'm not. I'm more in love with them - that is, the Russian girl. "Dyevooshka" or however you would spell it in english. I'm in love with the way a russian girl can smile, and laugh, and mutter out a few words in slow, broken english, then ask me to repeat what i said, "slower please," then giggle, then say something like "What has happened?" because I started laughing at her confusion--- that's what I love to be around everyday here, that's what i may miss when i'm gone.

The swing. We push, pull, jump. The sun always tempting to set, but never does. Like summer Alaska. The bare-wood dacha. The workers on its roof. Workers used lightly; I never saw them do any work on the dacha when I was there. It's really a "grand" place, that dacha. That's what she kept saying. Inside with beautiful wooden floors, wooden walls, ceilings, creating a very homey feel. You can tell they do well for themselves; he's an economist; she's a ... cosmotologist?

So, we leave, parting the girls with the traditional one cheek kiss that we've become so accustomed, followed by a firm handshake with the men (aka Asya's father), and soon enough we were back to the hectic, soviet sprawl of Moscow. A good day.