Volgograd - the oblast'

- Bright colors and benches: you know you're in rural Russia.
- fabulous hay-containing shtuchka
- gaishnik and future gaishnik
- Lenin surveys Pokrushenko from the Dom Kultury
- kopyor
- kopyor
- beer? check. fish? check. other stuff? check.


Not only was fun time had by all within the Gorod-Geroi of Volgograd, but we also ventured deep into the greater region - oblast' - for a taste of rural Russian quietude. We traveled to the tiny little hamlet of Pokrushenko, where my friend Aliya spent summers as a girl. Perhaps "hamlet" is not the correct word. More like "former cossack stanitsa, haven for free-wheeling, law-shirking horsemen." However now it is indeed quiet, calm, and growing more and more forgotten as the population shrinks and shrinks. The slow decline of rural towns is a world wide phenomenon.

We camped a few nights with Aliya's friend, her husband, and their friends. Both guys work as traffic cops, i.e. "gaishniki" in Russian. I learned several things about traffic cops on this weekend, such as: "gaishnik day" is July 3, just before our national holiday, and is celebrated assiduously by those in the trade; gaishniki enjoy doing things that would be grounds for arrest on other days, like drinking beer behind the wheel, in a car of six people drinking beer, where max capacity is probably only three to begin with; that "den' gaishnika" is best spent spread out during three days of copious celebration; and that if a gaishnik's campfire is deemed illegal by the local forest patrol, he may offer to one day look the other way during a traffic stop. Such are the agreements and understandings that help weave together close-knit communities.

Other interesting factoids: in this part of southern Russia people "hekhat." That is, instead of pronouncing their G's they make them H's, just like in parts of Ukraine. So for instance, although we celebrated den' gaishnika with real gaishniki. In fact, we also celebrated den' haishnika with real haishniki. There are other assorted cossack vocabulary: khutor for small town, and kopyor for little stream. So one might say we spent the weekend at the kopyor near teh khutor of Pokruchenko. And one would be exactly right.