The Moscow Chronicles

It has been an interesting first couple of days here in Moscow. We have only been here for five days, but already we are starting to learn our way around and are getting adjusted to our new life here. So, I thought I would try to recap the last few days to try to give you a flavor for living in the capitol city of Russia.

Let’s start with the weather…would someone please tell me what happened to the sun? We have been here since Thursday evening and it has not stopped raining since we left the airport! The funny thing is, they said it has been dry most of the summer, but that would be hard to prove to me at this point. We did see a few glimpses of blue sky today while we were out and about, and as Kellye was making supper tonight there was about a 20-minute burst of sunshine before sunset. Temperatures have been in the low 50s during the day and in the 40s at night, but fall has set in and that means that it gets a little colder every day. By the end of the week the high temps are expected to be in the upper 30s with lows in the low 30s. And, they are saying we may see snow flurries as soon as this weekend!



We really have spent most of the past five days getting acquainted with our small portion of Moscow. They were not kidding when they said this was a mega-city. One of the guys at the office today told us that if you take the entire population of Oklahoma, Colorado, Arkansas, Kansas and Missouri and put them into one city, there would still be fewer people than there are living in Moscow. Wow! The area we live in is around the Pushkin Institute, a small specialized university. Our building is next to one of the dorms, so we see a lot of young people walking in and out, but we have not really had an opportunity to meet any of them yet. Our building itself is rather unique. It was designed to be housing for both professors and students at the Institute. We live in the professor section of the building (our landlady is a professor of geology and her father was a professor as well.) There are just over 100 apartments in our section and they are anything but typical Russian apartments. More on that on another day. The other section of the building was designed to be student housing. However, the building codes changed just before the building was complete and it did not meet code for student housing, so that entire wing of the building is vacant!


We are starting to venture out a little more every day. One of the neat things about this city is that there is a mall at nearly every metro stop and the streets and metro stations are filled with little shops that sell anything and everything you can imagine. Last night I bought a rotisserie chicken from a street stand just down the road from my apartment. I can tell you, rarely have I tasted a chicken that was as good as these are. I cannot wait to go back! Speaking of food…because only one person on our tem has a vehicle, grocery shopping is something that you do almost every day. And you can’t let your eyes be bigger than your arms. I went yesterday afternoon on the way home and picked up what we in America would consider a small amount…and then I had to carry it all home! My arms were aching by the time I got back to our apartment. I learned a valuable lesson: you don’t buy two large bottles of soda and two containers of juice if you are the only person carrying the groceries. Note that in the picture above the metro stops are not labeled. That is because they are farther away that what you can see.

Now, lest you think that we are “Super-Missionaries” and that we are adapting without incident, let me remind you that I have only learned a few phrases of Russian…the main one being “I’m sorry. I am studying the Russian Language. Do you speak English?” So far, I have found only one person who did, and he worked at the chicken stand. Though most people are pretty nice about it and understand that you are trying, some are a little rude. This morning I went downstairs to meet one of our team members who came over to watch the kids so we could go to the office and was in the elevator with just a short-sleeved shirt on. The older gentleman who was in the elevator with me looked at me disapprovingly (because you must be stupid to go outside in this weather without a coat) and then said something in Russian. When I threw out my pat response, he just rolled his eyes at me.

We are also trying to get oriented to our ministry here. We have been to the office twice (once all by ourselves!) to get our papers registered and find out how to fill out expense reports, etc. And on Monday I attended our first team meeting. I cannot tell you how much I love our team. They are all great folks and are doing such fun things in ministry. I will write more about that at a later time, but everybody here has been just great. There are two other couples (the girls have taken Kellye shopping several times and are showing her the ropes of getting around), and there are two Journeygirls. And, in a week or so we will have another single man joining us. Yesterday, one of the Journeygirls from our team sat with the kids for the day while we went to the office. When she left John asked, “When is Aunt Tiffany coming back?” I think we are all going to be fast friends and am excited about what the next year will bring as we serve together.

Well, my friends. I have a million other things to share with you, but my brain is still kind of fuzzy. I will try to post a few more updates this week just to get you caught up. I am enclosing a few photos so you can see a little bit of what our new life looks like. Moscow is not what I would describe as a “pretty” European city like Prague, but God has called us here and therefore it is beautiful to us. We hope you agree.

Continue to pray for us. We miss each of you and love hearing from you.

Blessings,
Marc