Day 270 - Our Moldovan Neighbors

Our Moldovan neighbor Igor
and his children

Our last five months in Moldova were the best five months. The house itself was one reason. It was large and comfortable. Its proximity turned out to be a blessing, not a problem. We could go home for lunch, made for us by Tatiana.

But what made our house truly special was our neighbors. The two story house across the alley was home to two families, one upstairs and one downstairs. We didn't spend much time with the family upstairs, but the family downstairs enriched our stay more than we had ever experienced before or since.

We first met our neighbors on a Sunday evening when Alex and I were sharing a meal of homemade pizza with visitors from Washington. Our guests were being polite as they commented favorably on the pizza. I had used a recipe for the crust from Gourmet magazine that said the dough could be frozen. So I froze it. When it came time to make the pizza, the dough hadn't really thawed enough for my taste with the result being slightly doughy crust. But everything goes well with the right amount of beer or wine.

A knock of the door led to Igor, our neighbor, introducing himself and inviting us to join him and his friends and family for fish that he and his friend had just caught. There was no way that Igor was going to accept no for an answer, so we all - Alex, the two Washington visitors, and I - made our way across the alley to Igor's back yard.

Igor spoke only Russian. His wife spoke Russian and some German. The couple who lived upstairs spoke Russian and some Romanian. I understand some Russian, understand more Romanian, speak German, and am a native speaker of English. Alex, on the other hand speaks only English, and then only the Queen's English. Our visitors may have understood more than they indicated, but English appeared to be the only language they had in common with any of us around the table.

I spent a lot of my effort trying to translate, poorly, among the group.

Before too long, Igor brought out a bottle of ice cold vodka and poured out shots for everyone. I began sipping the vodka when the Moldovans all objected with great movement of hands that vodka isn't supposed to be sipped - it is to be downed in one gulp, usually with both head and glass high in the air. We tried to follow suit. They laughed. It was all good fun.

Then Alex went across the alley to bring back a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label. He poured out the shots, we started sipping, and the Moldovans raised their glasses, threw back their heads and gulped the scotch down in one gulp. At that point Alex and the Washington visitors objected with great movement of hands and demonstrated that scotch is supposed to be sipped, not gulped. They laughed. We laughed. it was all good fun.

Before we made our way across the alley home, Igor invited both Alex and me back the following Sunday to celebrate their daughter's birthday. She was probably about to turn 10. We thanked him and told him that we already had plans the following Sunday so we wouldn't be able to join them. Igor told us we should come over to their house when we got home that Sunday. We told them we would, if we got home early enough.

But we already knew that we wouldn't have a choice.

Moldovan road trip with Nicolai as driver

Birthdays are a big deal in Moldova, probably in all of the former Soviet Union. We knew this because of the experience of Ian, the regional public affairs officer from Vienna who had come to Moldova to take part in observing the elections in Moldova. We had arranged for Nicolai*, a private Moldovan citizen who owned a car, to drive Ian around during the election weekend. The previous weekend Nicolai had driven me, three Americans from the U.S. embassy in Moscow, and Natasha*, around Chişinău on Saturday and then outside of Chişinău to a village where we had a typical Moldovan meal in the home of a family on Sunday. He was such a pleasant man who joined in our activities as if he were part of our group that we thought he would be great as Ian's driver and escort. We mentioned to Ian how pleasant he was. But Ian's experience was quite different. Instead of being a pleasant companion, Nicolai kept grumbling under his breath during the weekend. He wasn't complaining directly to Ian, but Ian thought there was something wrong, so he finally asked Nicolai what was bothering him. Nicolai replied that it was his daughter's birthday that day and he had never missed celebrating her birthday up until then. So Ian asked Nicolai how old his daughter was, expecting the answer to be something under 10. "Forty," Nicolai replied.

Birthdays are a big deal. So we knew the following Sunday when we came home from whatever our previous commitment was, Igor would be there waiting for us. It was late enough that the celebrations had moved inside where we joined Igor, his wife, their son and daughter, and others still there celebrating their daughter's birthday.

We learned that Igor had previously lived in the Russian Far East, on the Kamchatka Penninsula, where he prospected for gold. After leaving Kamchatka, he set up a trucking business in Moldova.

A few weeks later, there was a knock on the door. It was Igor inviting Alex to come along with him and some of his friends to a sauna. This invitation was extended entirely in Russian with some accompanying hand gestures to convey what the words did not. Because of his experience with the theatre in both Doha and Bridgetown, Alex is very comfortable communicating with hand gestures and body movements. Alex went off with Igor and his friends and enjoyed the sauna followed by the dunk in the cold water and the birch branch thrashings to clean the skin, accompanied by copious amounts of Polish beer.

Kamchatka drinking horn

Our final Friday evening in Moldova, we invited everyone from the embassy, both Americans and local staff, to our house to help us eat and drink up whatever we still had in our refrigerator or cupboards. Our suitcases were packed. Our household effects had been shipped. We just needed to get rid of the perishable items. In addition to the embassy community joining us, Igor, his wife, and their children also came over. When they realized we didn't have a radio or anything else for music, Igor went across the alley and brought over their CD player and speakers. When our food began to run low - that was the point of the party - Igor's wife went across the alley and brought back Moldovan pastries. Igor went back across the alley one more time and brought back a farewell gift for Alex, a drinking cup in an animal horn on a stand, a remembrance of the times they had spent sharing a cup while we were in Moldova.

But most impressively, the next morning Igor was at the door again, this time with breakfast for us. In all the years I have lived overseas, that was the only time anyone, from the embassy or the neighborhood, thought to make sure we had something to eat before we left the country.

*a name, not necessarily the right one