On the road again...

I couldn’t believe I was off to Russia again. It had been four and a half years and we’d had another child since the last time, so I didn’t think I’d be going for at least another year or two.

I should have been really excited; I’d been so hungry to get back there again. Russia often features in my mind. Not even I really understand my fascination with the place. I’m not Russian. I have no Russia blood in me – although my children do and I do have a Russian surname!

But it was hard to be excited when the reason I was going was so unbelievably awful. I was headed there to see my dying father-in-law. And without my husband.

This raised a whole lot of questions and anxieties for me that worked to supersede any excitement I would ordinarily feel at the prospect of returning to the land where a portion of my heart still resides.

Firstly, I was a sorry replacement for Nickolai. This was his dad. As much as I loved Yuri, he was not my father and Nickolai should have had a chance to be there with him in his dying hours. Thank God that he (and Kaleb) had actually just spent a whole month with Yuri before we knew he was dying, but it was still not a decision based entirely on choice. If Nickolai doesn’t work, he doesn’t get paid, and we just couldn’t afford for him to not be working for another indeterminate period of time, as well as pay for more plane tickets.

The reason the period of time would be indeterminate, was because Nickolai’s Russian passport had just expired. He had taken it to Sydney (in person as required!) to be renewed, but the process takes at least four months (and then he had to return to Sydney – in PERSON – to pick it up). Did I ever mention Russia seems to love bureaucracy? As Russia does not recognise dual citizenship, he could not travel there on his Australian passport. He could get special permission to enter Russia, but he would still have to wait for his passport to be renewed, and who knew how long that would be? It was a difficult decision for him not to go, but it seemed to be the only one we had available.

Secondly, I didn’t know what was awaiting me. Yuri was incredibly ill with stomach cancer and in terrible pain. The medical system there was being extremely unhelpful and had decreed that there was no point in treating him. This was not something that we agreed with (nor was it the advice we got here), but we were so far away that we could do little. Even Nickolai’s politician step-brother could not pull the right strings to get the treatment we wanted – corrupt country or not. It seemed I would most certainly be going there to help with palliative care.

At 70 years of age I believe that the Russian doctors seemed to feel that it would be a waste of resources to treat him. In Russia, 70 is considered old for a man. The average life expectancy for a male in Russia is still only 59, and it’s much worse in more provincial areas. We have friends in a city about the size of Ballarat (70-80,000) where the life expectancy is 54. And this in a country which claims to have nearly 100% literacy levels.

Thirdly, while it seems that I speak Russian well enough that no Russian appears to believe me when I say I don’t understand everything, I still have a very long way to go. Sure, I am not afraid to wander the streets of Russia without a dictionary. I can shop, talk about the weather, buy tickets for planes, trains and buses, very comfortably, but I still struggle quite a bit with deep philosophical topics, complicated transactions and bureaucratic nonsense. (Let’s face it, I don’t think I could understand their bureaucracy even if it were in plain English...) Knowing I could be dealing with the Russian medical system and with helping to sort Yuri’s affairs, this freaked me out more than a little.

However, all of these concerns I was happy to hand to God. I figured I had to – what other choice did I have? In my life I’ve discovered that’s actually a good place to be. The more I feel I can manage my own life, the more I tend to stuff it up. I know it’s clichéd, but I like that phrase, “Let go and let God”. I’m trying to remember to hang onto that, otherwise I think I would have spiralled out control by now.

So we made plans to go. And then those plans got rapidly sped up as Yuri went downhill fast. No time to pack at leisure or think carefully about what I should take. Before I knew it, we were sitting on a plane waving goodbye to our home in Australia.

I finally let myself breathe and the tears fill my eyes. It had all been so exhausting until this point, and I knew there would be worse to come, so I decided to just try and be in the moment. Regardless of the circumstances, I still can’t help being excited about plane travel. I hope I never lose that (although I must admit that the shine does wear off a little after 20 hours in economy class).

I watched the excitement in my girls’ faces and I tried to take this forced opportunity as time to rest. Not terribly easy with a wired two-and-a-half-year-old in tow, but at least she couldn’t run away anywhere! I started to warm to the idea of actually not feeling guilty about sitting down to watch a movie at ‘leisure’. And on that note, all I can say is “Thank you Lord for the pause button!”

Just a few facts...

When I was a child I heard about this country that was behind an Iron Curtain. Wow! Imagine that. A curtain made of IRON, and big enough to surround a whole country!

And people weren’t allowed in or out of there. There was some sports person who came to our country and managed to run away from the people she was with. It must have been a scary country.

On top of that, those people behind all that iron were building a bomb. A nuclear bomb (sounds pretty bad). So we’d better not make them angry or we may not see our tenth birthdays.

Not to mention this giant frozen prison there called Siberia where your parents would send you if you were really bad.

What WAS this place?

My childish impressions of Russia were somewhat different to my current ones. But there is a common theme – it’s a most fascinating place. And one that many people still don’t know much about or understand. Then again, we shouldn’t be surprised about people having false impressions about a place. Don’t kangaroos jump down Melbourne’s mainstreet?

So, what IS Russia like?

With over a thousand years of recorded history, Russia has many stories to tell. She has seen many wars, revolutions, and different leaders. Her history makes for a most exciting read with all of the changes she has undergone. As I write, Russia is still changing, and rapidly. The last twenty years have seen Russia emerge from the restrictions of communist rule and develop as a free economy. The rapidity of this change means Russia is a land quite unlike our own, in many ways known more for its corruption than its integrity. (Reports vary, but according to one report Russia is the 148th LEAST corrupt country in the world – out of 180 nations, with national bribe taking being worth about $300 billion a year!) 

With so many layers to her character and the depth of her history, there is no way I can possibly convey Russia in a single blog entry. Hopefully over time I can share my impressions of this amazing land and people to give you some insight, but for now, let’s settle for a few facts. And hopefully some that you may not have been aware of..

Capital: Moscow

Currency: 1 Russian Rouble = 100 Kopeks. Currently approx. 30 roubles = $1 (AUD)

Life Expectancy: Male 59.54 years, Female 73.17 years (2010 estimate according to CIA website)

Language: While it is estimated that around 80% of the population are monolingual (ie one language only) Russian speakers, there are over 100 minority languages spoken in Russia. Many of these are indigenous Siberian languages. Sadly, many of these are being lost, and with them elements of the rich cultures they represent.

Population: approx 139 million and shrinking? Russia has just completed a census which should hopefully give a more accurate number. This year Prime Minister Putin declared that the Russian population had stopped shrinking with a 10-20K capita increase this year. (Not sure how they work that out.) in any case, the population is down about 10 million on the nearly 150 million population of around 1995. Brain drain, more deaths than births and very low immigration means I don’t see the population booming any time soon, but who knows, maybe it will stabilise.

Rich in natural resources: Oil, natural gas, coal, minerals, timber. Many of these are difficult to access given the harshness of Russia’s terrain and climate. Much of Russia is subject to permafrost – the soil is perpetually frozen apart from the top 30 cm or so.

Russia is an Asian country. While most Russians are European in appearance, two-thirds of Russia is in Asia. It spans 40% of Europe and ALL of northern Asia. There are only two other countries that straddle both Europe and Asia – Turkey and Azerbaijan.

Russia is the largest country in the world with over 17,000,000 sq km. This is more than a ninth of the earth’s land area.

Russia spans 9 time zones. There were more, but this year has seen a consolidation of some time zones. They do not match up exactly with the GMT zones. You could say it’s the land where the sun never sets – even in winter. When the sun is setting at one end of the country, it is rising at the other.

Climate: Russia’s climate is extreme – to say the least – with possible temperatures ranging from -60C to +40C. (I have personally experienced -40C and +40C in the same city - although not on the same day!!) The coldest temperature ever recorded in an inhabited place was in Omyakon in Russia, at MINUS 71 DEGREES CELSIUS!!! Wow. Believe me, anything much below -20C is COLD.

I can't wait to share more with you about Russia, but I think that's enough for the first instalment. Hope you learnt something new!

Why Russia?

Russia is one of those places you either love or hate – or even both, but I’m not sure that you can feel mediocrity about it. It’s a land of extremes. Extreme temperatures, extreme wealth, extreme poverty, dramatically turbulent history, dictatorships, harsh living and dying (think rampant alcoholism and an average life expectancy for men of around 59), amazing beauty, and conversely at times – an amazing disrespect for nature. And, let’s not forget that Russia is known for extreme bureaucracy!
The fact that Nickolai is Russian probably helps to explain his heart for this rather, um, challenging place, but mine?
I first went to Russia when I was 21. My church at the time often had a short term mission going to China that I had an opportunity to go on. While it sounded interesting, it didn’t particularly stir my heart. But then I was told that there were plans to take a team to Russia. Something leapt inside me and I just knew I wanted to go. I worked like crazy to save for the trip and we left for my first overseas trip on my 21st birthday – what a present!
The moment we stepped off the plane onto Russian soil I knew I was ‘doomed’. A piece of my heart would always be in this Russian Wonderland. I could not even explain the fascination, because the next three weeks I spent being shocked at how different life was there and increasingly frustrated by so many things. And yet Russia gets under your skin.
I knew I had to come back, and I did. A year later I returned with another team and the sense of destiny was the same. This was the trip when I met my husband – a story for another day . It was most definitely not even one of my remotest thoughts to marry a Russian, but it helped to confirm to me that Russia was meant to be a big part of my life.
The following year, Nickolai and I got married in Australia, and 15 years later, here we still are. Four children and a handful of short trips back to Russia later, it’s just never been the right time to go (having small children does manage to consume a lot of time and energy, I’ve discovered!) But things are changing and we believe God is stirring us to go.
We’re still not sure exactly when, but much sooner rather than later. And we’re still not sure exactly how, or what He wants us to do there, or for how long at this time. We have so many questions for Him, but we trust that He will open and close the right doors as we obey His calling. It is a very big step to be considering, especially as our children will be along for the journey. That is why we really covet your prayers. Please pray that God will make things really clear for us, and that the way will be smooth. I can’t wait to see what God has in store!

What a year

What a year...
Hmm, it’s nearly time for my Christmas epistle, and I don’t really want this to turn into my yearly update, but I figure I really should provide some reason as to why I started this blog six months ago and then promptly ‘dropped off the planet’.
At the time I started this blog, the MOTH* and our son were in Russia visiting family for a month. That left me and our three beautiful daughters to fend for ourselves. Fun at times and a danger to the state of my hair at other times!
I got really sick while they were gone. I never knew sinus pain could be SOOOO bad. Honestly – I would give birth yet another 4 times in quick succession rather than have to go through pain like that again. So my plans to get the house decluttered and looking like a Vogue spread while the MOTH was gone (so that he’d be completely flabbergasted on his return) were foiled. Truthfully, so much conspires against my home organisational desires. But I digress...
Well, he gets home and is confronted with chaos and a bed-ridden wife. And the wife is about to have hand surgery in three days and therefore needs to be waited on hand and foot in order to get better. Then she goes and has that surgery and needs to be waited on hand and foot in order to recover from the surgery (you try tying a shoe lace with one hand!) So far so stressful...
At the end of June, a couple of weeks after the MOTH’s return and my surgery, we received the terrible news that his dad had been diagnosed with stomach cancer. Stage IV cancer. Two to three months to live.
Our world tipped upside down.
My husband had just been in Russia for a month. If the man doesn’t work, he doesn’t get paid. And so he made the very reluctant decision not to go back. Instead we decided that I would go. I hadn’t seen Yuri in four and a half years, and I wanted to see him again, and help where I could. We decided that Sasha (14) and Amelie (nearly 3) would come with me.
And so began the whirlwind of passport applications with a plan to leave in 6 weeks (the biggest hold up being the lengthy time required to organise Russian invitation and visas). It was also the beginning of an incredibly frustrating time with Russian medical system. Basically, they had already written him off (perhaps because he was 70 and that is about ten years more than the average life expectancy for a male there). We were told they weren’t even going to try chemotherapy, let alone surgery, even though I was able to ascertain that stomach cancer can respond quite well to treatment. We felt so helpless, and so far away.
After just three weeks we were told that Yuri was going downhill quickly and was not expected to live many more days. In between the tears and the shock of the reality of all of this, I raced around even more trying to organise expedited visas for myself and the girls. This even involved flying to Sydney to pick them up. We were on a plane within a week. It was only when the plane took off that I could take any stock of my emotions and realise the enormity of all this. I felt so scared and overwhelmed by it all.
After 38 hours in transit, our plane landed at 8.10 pm on Tuesday 27th July. Yuri died at 8.00 pm.
We found this out on the Wednesday morning and spent most of the day in shock. The funeral was to be the next day and I couldn’t even get my head around the fact that Yuri was gone. It was an awful feeling.
We stayed in Russia for a month. It was a time of bitter-sweetness. I hope to share more about it in future blog posts. It was sadness tinged with a ray of hope as God was able to use this time to renew my yearning for this land and its people.
When we got back I could not understand why it seemed to take forever to get over the jet lag this time. Ten days later and I was still feeling out of sorts. Emotional upheavals aside, I think the fact I had seen only a few hours of darkness in our entire month over there, and then coming back to early winter evenings, didn’t help.
In any case, my disorientation and feeling of flatness on returning to ‘normality’ did not help when (just two weeks after our return), I received one of those phone calls none of us wants. One of my dear, sweet cousins had tragically lost her life to depression at only 29. Another round of shock and numbness followed by buckets of tears.
I went to Adelaide with Amelie, leaving my ever-hardworking darling MOTH to look after the other three kids and still try and work shift-work. I spent a week in Adelaide leading up to the funeral, which was an entire 15 days after her death (slight contrast to the timing of Yuri’s funeral!). It was an incredibly difficult and emotional time.
Two very sudden and tragic deaths in such a short time. It’s not surprising that it would impact the whole family. When I get tears in my eyes now, dear sweet Miss Amelie looks at me and says, “Who died, Mummy?”
I won’t bore you with all the other little hiccups we’ve had, but suffice it to say, I’ve been reminded again and again of how much a work in progress we all are. Every little hardship is used to shape us. We certainly don’t control the things that life can throw at us, but we can control our reactions to them. I pray that I continue to press deeper and deeper into my Heavenly Father’s arms in times of trial rather than railing against them.
Incredibly, I have felt amazingly calm and anchored throughout this year. I thank God for the peace I have in Him that transcends my limited ability to understand. While the storm rages above the surface of the ocean, beneath the waters are still and deep. When I am tossed around by the waves I try to remember to take a breath and swim down, down to where I am suspended in tranquillity. There I rest and am renewed, ready to return to the surface and check my ship isn’t sinking!

* MOTH – Man Of The House – used with his full permission (actually, I think he kind of likes it!)