Dividing My Time

The Adagio of a Reluctant Pony Mom

Is there anyone in the galaxy who hasn't yet weighed in on The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Very Scary Amy "Well, it's a memoir, Stephen" Chua thing?   Ever slightly behind the curve, here's my semi tongue-in-cheek take:

My 13-year old daughter Velvet is a most accomplished rider…or jumper, or is it hunter?  Maybe it’s eventer?  Or eventress?  I’m not sure, but she is exceptionally good at riding a horse.  She can jump something like three feet.  Or is it four?  She’s always coming home with blue ribbons, or long “Reserve Champion” rosettes, and all manner of glassware, tea towels, trophies, and medals.   Velvet is already on the fast track to something that I’m told happens in Madison Square Garden, and the Olympics have been mentioned as a realistic goal.   

Everyone wants to know how I, who seldom take on anything that I can’t do in my pajamas, managed to produce such an athletic prodigy who excels at one of the world’s most elite sports.  No one believes me when I just shrug my shoulders and say, “Honestly: I did nothing.”  I can tell they don’t believe me.  If these other pony moms had any imagination, they might wonder if Velvet is the natural daughter of a Cossak Hetman or The Duke of Right.  The truth, of course is far more complicated: I really did do nothing.  Velvet is a typical product of successful “indifferent parenting.”

This is the way I was raised, by two WASPs, who came of age about six months too early to be full-blown hippies.  They took great care never to expose my sister and me to anything in which we could win a medal – of any kind.  “Field Hockey,” said my mother pursing her lips, “Why don’t you go out for Big Chorus?”   Their primary concern throughout our childhood was that we never got invited to enough sleepovers. After dinner each evening, everyone dispersed to his or her own part of the house without a lot of detailed chitchat as to what would happen there.  I assume we did our homework at some point because, before you knew it, despite my mother’s tears and protests, we were both packing our trunks for really good prep schools, from which we both matriculated to the Ivy League.

“Darling,” said one of my mother’s friends (Concerto of the Upper East Side Piranha) through gritted teeth, “You never seem to push your children, and yet…somehow they end up doing, so well…”

It worked for me. Primed by constant parental assurance that the fusion of Glee Club, AP Latin, “Most improved JV Soccer player, and a backstage solo in “Jesus Christ Superstar” was exactly the skill set that prepared one for The Real World, I was ready to be a model of indifferent parenting myself when Velvet started to display a single-minded determination to excel.

“Leave this to me,” I said to my Russian husband.  We had a deal:  I called the shots on education, food, clothing, travel, and thank you letters and, in return, Velvet was baptized in the Russian Orthodox Church.

“Hey, sweetie, why don’t we have six or seven of your friends over for a sleepover?” I said when she was eight, “They can all come home on the bus with you.  We’ll get some videos, maybe do some ice-cream sundaes.”

“Mommy,” Velvet reproached me, “I’d have to miss riding.”

“It’s one day…” I coaxed, “what difference can it make?”

When she wanted Breyer horses, I gave her an American Girl Doll.  In a counter offer to her plans to spend twelve to fourteen hours bailing hay as unpaid slave labor at the barn, I suggested a two-week Shakespeare camp or an experimental Quaker farming co-op.  I forced her to go to Cape Cod for the last two weeks in summer, and St. Croix over Christmas, during which time I refused to even discuss the idea of riding.  When she wanted to up her lessons from three to six days a week, I sat her down for a serious discussion.  

“Velvet,” I said sternly,  “There is such as thing as overkill.  Get too good at this, and you’ll end up fox hunting or steeple chasing, and that will be no fun at all, trust me.  Just try to relax and enjoy it.”

Velvet spent most of her leisure time working on a tricky thing called a “lead change.” She set up a jumping course in the living room out of upturned coffee tables and couch pillows, and then taped the complex pattern onto the flat screen. Hour after hour, she galloped around the course on a hobbyhorse.  “Velvet,” I said one afternoon, peeling off the pattern from the TV,  “you’ve been at that for forty-five entire minutes…enough already. Put the couch back together, and we’ll download ‘30Rock.’”

“Mommy,” she rejoined, “I have to do this for at least three hours, or I will never get it right.”   

During the long, hot summer months, Velvet went on the show circuit, garnering blue ribbons by the bucketful.  While the die-hard pony moms crowded each other at the rail yelling, “Get your heels down/pull your shoulders back/pull him up/push him over,” I hid behind “The New York Review Of Books” and sloped off in search of “ice for the cooler,” hitting all the antique stores in town on my way back.   Rather than insisting we stay an additional three hours so she could get in another go at “Maiden English Pleasure” (which to me sounded like a Victorian soft porn film), I took to establishing firm escape clauses such as “Aunt Nancy is coming for dinner,” or “I’m on deadline.”

“You didn’t really mean to tell Velvet that horses don’t feel human emotions,” placated one of the more sympathetic moms after I’d had a mini meltdown swinging in-to the tenth hour of a hot and humid horse show in nowhere Vermont.

“Oh yes I did!” I told her, as all the moms picked up their hoof picks and edged away from my little island of sanity made up of cooler, folding chair, and a stack of magazines. “And I’ll tell you something else: that trainer needs her head examined if she thinks making “good luck” cards for those animals is time well spent.”

Resolute, I refused to buy a horse, standing my ground when my husband waivered.  I made Velvet learn to read and use EXCEL to create and balance a budget from the scarily expensive “Dover Saddlery” catalog before I sanctioned the purchase of $200 dollar jodhpurs and something called “half chaps.” I insisted that she OXYCLEAN her own breeches and iron her show shirts. I made it clear that I was never, ever going to haul anything behind my Subaru and certainly not a horse trailer. I categorically forbade my mother from learning to braid a mane or tail.   I developed an extreme allergy to horsehair and hay, producing notes from doctors to prove it.

It’s been a winning strategy for Velvet, who is, as I mentioned, on track to the Olympics.   Kudos to me! Thanks to the hours that I have spent trying to distract her from the relentless pursuit of excellence, she’s achieving it.   The hours I’ve clocked, wedged between the Scylla and Charybdis of pony moms, unapologetically resisting their patient attempts to teach me the difference between “over saddle under fences” and “hunter jumper” have paid off:  Velvet is a self-made athlete, and her success can be attributed completely to her.  What parent doesn’t want that sense of achievement for her child? After all, it’s nothing I did.  Parental indifference – the Western child’s ticket to greatness!

Jennifer Eremeeva is a free-lance writer, blogger, cooking and humor columnist, and passionate horse show dodger based in Moscow.  She blogs at http://dividingmytime.typepad.com.

Metallurgy Day/День металлурга: No Oligarch Is That Good Looking

All that is gold does not glitter.

~J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of The Ring

Today is the day of the Metallurgists!   Today we celebrate all those who spend their days making alloys, or heating metal to a certain temperature to change its shape.  That kind of thing.

There are, of course, a lot of metals companies (yes, that’s how you spell it – I know from my time at The Bank) in Russia, and they make gazillions of rubles, which I suppose would make them fun to work for, were it not for the fact that they are all located in remote, inclement, and inhospitable regions of Russia’s interior – many of which began life as gulag penal colonies.  Still, I was intrigued enough when a head hunter rang me up several years ago about a Senior PR position at one such company with a direct report to literally the only good looking oligarch.  I put on my best Hermes scarf, dabbed some #5 behind both ears and went off to the interview.   Sadly, I had to call the agency afterwards and pull myself off the list:  it was that scary.   I didn’t mind having to go through the whole humiliating rigmarole of sticking my head into a small window and begging for a propusk (pass) to enter the building, and I didn’t really mind witnessing the vitriolic exchange that took place amongst the propusk ladies and the security guards about who was going to escort me up to the office in question (a distance of .7 miles through depressing warped pine paneling and dirty windows), but I couldn’t stick being escorted by an armed guard with an AK-40 rifle who walked behind me (which is exactly how they escort criminals).  

No oligarch is that good-looking.

    Neither is the Pioneer Valley’s most prominent metallurgist, Good Ole Tom, though he, at least, really does want to see you, as he points out in his charming range of local TV ads like this one:

Good Ole Tom came up at a meeting of the parents’ association at Velvet’s school, and it struck, I don’t have to tell those of you readers who are familiar with that kind of gathering, an incongruous note.   I have written before about how much I am enjoying being involved in Velvet’s new school, after a decade and a half of being ostracized by the Scottish Mums Mafia, so I was very pleased to be invited with such enthusiasm to join the parents’ association.  The parents association consists of a number of earnest female types who live within a 100-mile radius of the school, who get together once a month or so to discuss some important issues surrounding the continued financial well-being of the school, who will bring the hot chocolate to the horse show, and other item agendas in this vein.  It makes you feel good: like going to a yoga class.  It’s wholesome, its selfless, and it is the right thing to do.

Picture the reaction, and then, when in the “new business” section of the meeting, a father (yes, a father, at the parents’ association) got up to propose a new fund-raising idea.  He couched the idea in a snazzy presentation, which included words like “philanthropy” and “gold standard,” but you can’t live in Russia for almost 20 years without having serious BS-radar, and mine started to buzz.  What he was actually proposing was that we set up a tent on the lawn of this small, somewhat struggling, girls’ boarding school, and have people come with their old jewelry, kick nacks and other bibelots to sell for cash to his associates, with the school getting a slice of the financial pie. 

I was riveted.  Nothing like this ever happens at a parents’ association meeting, and I thought the woman sitting next to me in a turtleneck with whales on it was going to have an aneurism.  Several of the mothers were sitting, politely, looking like they felt they’d missed something vital to the conversation, particularly the ones for whom English is not a native language. 

“Is it like Good ‘Ole Tom?” one of the more savvy Moms finally asked.

All at once, fifteen barracudas jumped into the fray, interrupting one another to be the first to introduce the most heinous aspect of this dubious fundraising concept:  the reaction of the local community, the senior who would sell her mother’s ancestral pearl earrings and head off with a guy on a motorcycle and never be seen again, the Public Relations message, the security, the potential for crime, the association with Good Ole Tom, the tax situation…the Scottish Mum Mafia had never been this animated.  Never.

“Are you on drugs?”  I casually asked one of the staff organizers of the parents’ association who had added the item to the agenda. “Because if you are, I would be so interested to learn where you obtain that kind of fine pharmaceuticals.”

“This is not, per se, a terrible idea,” she argued. “It would make more than a bake sale.”

I tried to think of other ideas that would make more than a bake sale. I came up with a lot, but the best one was to auction off the senior class as escort girls – low overhead, I figured, and you could do the entire thing on-line.  But I wasn’t sure it would get off the ground with the parents’ association.

Just as long as we steer clear of metallurgy…that’s my rule.

-------------------------------

This post is part of The Stunt.

-------------------------------

Hey there, readers –

Are you involved in a parents’ organization?  Does it ever get out of hand?  What’s your story?  Have you ever been escorted to a job interview by an armed guard?   Thank you, as ever, for stopping by Dividing My Time.  Stick around and learn more about horse shows and the Scottish Mum Mafia in posts like these:

Horse Shows: Don't Forget The Maps and The Martinis!

Oh, Do You Know The Muffin Mom?

May Day / День труда: A Day of Solidarity

The Day of Victory /День Победы: "In defeat, unbeatable: in victory, unbearable"

But what good came of it at last?

Quoth little Peterkin

Why, that I cannot tell, said he,

But ‘twas a famous victory

-Robert Southey:  The Battle of Blenheim

Today is Victory Day!! I usually put the entire name of the holiday in the title of the post, but this one doesn't fit.   Once again, post-perestroika political correctness at work:  День воинской славы России — День Победы советского народа в Великой Отечественной войне 1941—1945 годов (1945)  which translates as Day of Russia’s Military Glory – The Day of Victory of the Soviet People in The Great Patriotic War 1941 – 1945. 

What can I say about Victory Day that hasn’t already been said? As you know, May 9th  of course commemorates the glorious moment in 1945 (choreographed by Stalin with the tacit agreement of Roosevelt and Churchill, who no doubt just wanted the whole thing to end one way or the other) when the Soviet Army triumphantly marched into a vanquished Berlin.  

World War II, or “The Great Patriotic War,” as any Russian schoolchild will tell you, was a conflict primarily fought in the Eastern European theater of war:  starring the Russians as the Good Guys and featuring the Nazis as the Bad Guys.   As guide books say : while many millions of brave and patriotic Russians perished, the Soviet Forces ultimately triumphed over the powers of Fascism, and peaceful productivity was restored to the peaceful-loving Soviet people.   Footnote: there were, perhaps, other skirmishes taking place on the periphery of this major conflict such as a minor air battle over the English Channel, and some unpleasantness in the Pacific, but they do not cover this in national curriculum of Russia, even in elite officer-training military academies such as the one HRH attended.  As I have written before, HRH was baffled and unable to identify D-Day as an historical event during a screening of “Saving Private Ryan.” I rashly suggested that D-Day had been the turning point in World War II, with dire consequences.   

On May 9th, there is a huge parade through Red Square. Huge ostentatious military parades complete with goose-stepping have rather gone out of fashion, so Moscow's parade is one of just a handful of opportunities left on the planet to experience this live.  I recommend it, if only to see the bizarre moment when Very Senior Military Guy tries to remain standing in the 1950's style convertible car at the beginning of the parade, as the car clatters over the uneven cobblestones of Red Square.  Velvet feels, and I must say I agree with her, that there is really no excuse for this sort of thing: Very Senior Military Guys should be on horseback, like Field Marshall Zhukhov who led the first May 9th parade astride a pure white charger, and here is his statue just outside Red Square:

 In case your local TV station didn't cover the parade in as much detail as you'd hoped, here is a link to the 2009 parade.

We always watch the parade at home with Bloody Mary's and smoked salmon, and avoid going out on the streets since you can hardly move thanks to crowd control brought to you by the Ivan The Terrible School of Civil Defense.    After the parade, the veterans march down from the Belorussian Railway Station to the Bolshoi Theatre and have a big piss up.   Rather nice fireworks later in the evening.  Barack isn’t coming, which is a blow, although my Very Good Friend The Famous Newscaster interviewed him the other day and he wished all the Russians well.   There is this issue of Moscow's pint-sized mayor seeding the clouds to ensure good weather which is true.  No one believes it, but its true: helicopters fly up the sky and put something in the clouds and they go away for the day, ensuring bright, hot sunshine on the day, and cold, cloudy, clammy weather for the next week after.   The estimated cost of this, according to Moscow News:  45 million rubles, and that never seems like a lot in Monopoly money does it: but is actually $1,474,208.58 USD or  £996,858.62 Pounds Sterling.  Seriously.

May 9th this year happens to coincide with Mother's Day in the USA, but I'm not expecting HRH to remember to send floral tributes my way (he recently learned how to purchase floral tributes on the Internet and send them places...was astonished by the technology) since he is hosting a small gathering in our apartment, so everyone can enjoy the five second moment when you see the fighter planes come from Tyushino Airport at the speed of sound right towards our large living room window.  Then you see the same thing on the TV and then you see red, white and blue smoke from the opposite window as they make their way over Red Sq.  Prime real estate.

Since all my clever readers know about World War II (if not, see Cliff Notes in Paragraph 2), in lieu of a history lesson, I'll tell you a very funny story about  what happened to our family on May 9, 2005 in Malta:

Sometimes, if I want to make HRH rein it in, I need only cock my eyebrow and say, “Darling, let’s not forget Malta 2005 now, shall we?” He nods, shudders, puts down the shot glass and, tail between his legs, moves to fizzy water for an hour or so.

Malta was my choice for our annual May Holiday getaway.  I had always had a hankering for Malta, which I vaguely wanted to test drive as a possible second home for when we struck it rich.  On paper, it seemed to combine a number of things which are high up on my list:  Italian culture, British history, a glamorous Order (with a capital “O”) of Knights, stone architecture, the San Antonio palace connected with Marie of Romania etc.  It seemed like a win-win travel destination for the whole family, offering Velvet and HRH the opportunity to sun and swim while I poked around Valetta. The food, I felt sure, would be heavenly Mediterranean.

Disappointment ensued.   Not the stabbing kind of disappointment that motivates you to pen an outraged letter to the New York Times; rather a dull sinking feeling that pervades you like soy sauce spilled on a white cotton T-shirt, that this travel destination is not the travel destination of your dreams.  Yes, the ornate hotel was nice and comfortable, and sure, Valetta offered up some of its interesting history, but the sea was cold, the beach rocky, and the “charming” port town of St. Julian was full of brassy British expats, loud sunburnt German holiday makers, and shifty looking Eastern European youths from the myriad Maltese language schools.   The blocks of flats looked depressing, the drink of choice was Belgian lager, and the plat du jour tended to be lasagna and chips.   As I poked through Valetta’s streets with the growing awareness that even Dan Brown couldn’t conjure up an ancient Maltese secret, at the hotel, HRH and Velvet fell into a nodding acquaintance with a group of disgruntled Russian tourists from Perm, fellow refugees from the cold sea, they pulled deck chairs around the hotel pool and shared their general disappointment in the entire experience.

This cordial entente continued until the evening of May 9th, arguably the most important holiday in Russia.  Returning to the hotel after yet another fruitless foray out into St. Julian to find something more appetizing than lasagna and chips, we found about sixteen of the Permites had taken the liberty of rearranging the hotel lobby’s furniture into a stereo-typical festive Russian living room configuration: couches pulled up around two coffee tables.  They motioned to us to join them, and have a Victory toast.  

It seemed vastly ill mannered on the 60th anniversary of Russia’s unqualified victory over Nazism to flee, although this was my immediate gut reaction.   Since nothing as major as the 60th anniversary of the end of the Great Patriotic War could possibly be put to bed in a mere half an hour – I braced myself for a lengthy session in the trenches.   We squeezed onto one of the couches.  An elegant Maltese waiter immediately approached to ask what I wanted to drink, and I mentioned a local wine I’d tried and liked.  HRH ordered a cognac and we secured Velvet a Fanta.

“Lissssssssen,” Arkady, the ringleader, hissed at us knowledgably.  “No need to pay those bar prices…just order juice, look see what we have!” He motioned us to look between his legs, which I felt might not be completely appropriate for 8-year Velvet, but I followed his eyes to the bottle of Duty Free Chivas under the table.

This under-the-table tactic was one I knew well: having successfully employed it frequently, off-duty, during my misspent youth as a tour guide in the late 1980s in Eastern Europe.  It’s a good trick, if somewhat obvious, and yet somehow, as a full paying guest in the “oughts” it seemed somehow awkwardly out of place.

“Um…” I began, but HRH gave me a no nonsense warning look, and I just smiled.   Arkady deftly topped up eleven orange juices with Chivas and we hoisted our collective glasses to victory: “Za Pobediy!” 

This all-too-familiar ritual was repeated about six or seven more times.  I was getting woozy, and I could see Velvet was on the verge of collapse from the gassy combination of stodgy lasagna and chips and three large Fantas.  I cast a few pleading glances at HRH across the coffee table, but he ignored me, deep in a conversation about the 900 Day Siege of Leningrad with an older men who’s face was borscht red with sun and drink.  We drank to the Soviet Army a number of times, and Arkady was kind enough to indicate, that, of course, America had had a role in World War II, so a toast was drunk to me, which I tried to acknowledge gracefully.

A discreet cough.

“Madame,” said the suave waiter in English.  “Madame, may I speak with you?”

“Of course,” I said, welcoming the interference, but wary about the conversation I felt sure would ensue.  I awkwardly extracted myself from between Sveta and Aniuta, who were on either side of me, and went to join the waiter a discreet distance from the group. My tour guide days had made me feel an intense solidarity with hotel staff, and I smiled encouragingly.

“Madame, I realize your friends are guests of our hotel, and as such are most welcome in the lobby bar.  They are, we recognize, celebrating a national holiday, but we cannot allow them to continue to top up their drinks from under the table.  There are a number of hotels and hostels where this kind of thing is permitted – even encouraged -- but this is not one of them.  It is not our custom to allow such things.”

I sighed; feeling much as I imagined Roosevelt must have done at the Yalta Conference.

“I understand,” I said, “and I will try to get them to move the party elsewhere, but I fear these things are –“

“We know, Madame…we have many Russian guests.  If you could explain that they are very welcome to order their drinks from the bar, I’d be most grateful.”

He had the impeccable manners to hand me a complimentary glass of wine and we exchanged watery smiles.

I returned to the couches and explained, as sweetly as I could, that the guerilla tactics with the Chivas under the table had been outed, and I thought it best that they repaired to someone’s room to continue the party.

Arkady shook his head and, thumbs tilted at right angles to his body, pounded his upturned wrists in the universal gesture of Russian emphasis.

“Urodiy!” he spat out, “Italian Axis Power BASTARDS!  But what can you expect…all these other countries can’t stand it that we won the war…and look at it now…EU money while we…”

“Besieged,” I whispered, miserably, but with the confidence of one with a complete tour of the Valetta History Museum under her belt, which I (correctly) conjectured Arkady wasn’t, “Malta.  Under siege by the Germans from 1940-1942.  British Naval Base.  Allied forces all the way.”

Abject silence ensued, as seventeen pairs of eyes squinted in suspicion and an effort to focus vision.   The suave waiter gave me a big smile and a nod of acknowledgment.  

“I think Velvet and I are going to say good-night now, she seems very tired.  Once again, congratulations on victory in The Great Patriotic War.”  I beat a hasty retreat, dragging Velvet, now on a sugar high, behind me.

HRH lurched in around 9:00 the next morning as I was trying to decide whether to go to breakfast or call the Maltese police first, while simultaneously trying to reassure Velvet that Papa had just stayed awake with the nice people we’d met the night before.   HRH stood in the doorjamb, swaying back and forth.  I felt a rush of relief that he was alive, which is all that matters in moments like this.

“Vraaaaaaagggg-eeeeee…” he drawled, in is his standard morning-after condemnation and accusation of the external forces – or “enemies”, which have forced him, unwillingly, into a drunken stupor the previous evening.

“Allies, surely.” I quipped as he fell senseless onto the bed.

----------------

Happy Victory Day to everyone...where ever in the world you may be!  

----------------

This post is part of The Stunt

-----------------

Author’s Notes:

The phrase “In defeat unbeatable: in victory, unbearable,” is attributed to Sir Winston Churchill, who used it in reference to Lord Montgomery, not The Russian Federation.

-------------------

Dear Reader:

Happy Victory Day!  Unless, of course, you don’t celebrate Victory Day, and there are those who don’t.  There are those who already celebrated it yesterday, but anyway. What’s your take on seeding the clouds?   Do you think I was right to get Velvet out of the Maltese lobby?  Did you think the waiter was being churlish?  Thanks for making it through a long story…but hopefully a funny one.  You can tell me to “edit edit edit” which is what my Mom always says to my Dad, by clicking the comment button below and leaving me your thoughts!  Stay with me as we set sail (hint hint) for next week’s exciting line up of Russian professional holidays!

St. George’s Day /День святого Георгия Победоносца: Cry God For Vovka, Russia and St. George!

The only difference between a saint and a sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.

~ Oscar Wilde

 Today’s is St. George’s Day and before you Brits go ballistic, remember that, despite all that “religion is the opium of the masses” stuff, Russia still goes by the Orthodox calendar, and thus is always about 13 days behind the rest of the world.  We’ve talked about this before.

Having conceived this stunt, I was determined to steer clear of all but the most important religious holidays…once you get into things like  Day of Saint Simeon the Stylites, you kiss any hope of seeing Grey’s Anatomy on a regular basis good-bye.   But St. George is actively celebrated in Russia, possibly due to its proximity The Major Event (stay tuned) happening later this week, and therefore is something of a warm up.   It’s also a very good example of how post-perestroika Russia has returned to Tsarist traditions. Catherine The Great established the Military Order of St. George in 1769, and this was revived in 1994 by President Boris Yeltsin, with an obvious hiatus from 1917 – 1994.  The Order of St. George, said she in a know-it-all voice, is the highest military order in Russia, and before you HRHs out there start mouthing off about The Hero of The Russian Federation, which used to be called The Hero of the Soviet Union, that is the highest military honor associated with a medal.  So there.

When HRH does something truly astonishing such as carrying his empty coffee cup upstairs to the kitchen (our kitchen is upstairs) and is obviously looking for the gold star, I will often say to him:

“What to do you want, The Order of Lenin?” to which he will instantly and rather cheekily rejoin

“First class.”

I think I will start asking him if he wants the Order of St. George the Triumphant.  If I can figure out how to say “Triumphant” in Russian, which could be uphill work.

If you were in Russia this week, you’ll have seen a lot of these ribbons, the “George Ribbon” which is a fad that got going five years ago when Russia celebrated the 60^th anniversary of World War II:  motorists tie this on their antennae or on the dashboard to show their patriotism.   The colors of the ribbon are said to represent fire and gunpowder and are possibly derived from the original Tsarist Coat of Arms, which also features George and the dragon.

 St. George appears on a lot of coats of arms in Russia, as well as on the Presidential flag.  You can see him in the middle slaying the dragon, which interestingly in Russian/Orthodox tradition never dies (classic) but is locked in eternal struggle with the noble George, who embodies all the virtues of bravery, faith, Christian morals and compassion.  No wonder he’s the patron saint of the Boy Scouts.  

 We don’t know much about George himself, except that he was a noble Roman soldier who was beheaded by Emperor Diocletian (who was often known as “the dragon” which perhaps gave birth to the legend) for protesting the Roman persecution of the early Christians.  

Whoever he was, today, St. George is a busy guy:  he is the patron saint of soldiers, cavalry, chivalry, farmers, field workers, Boy Scouts, butchers, horses & riders, saddlers, archers (hence the Henry V speech), and those who can’t get their visa to Russia because they have leprosy, plague or syphilis.   Saint George is supposedly buried outside Tel Aviv, but that doesn’t stop Moscow from making him its patron saint, along with many countries and cities.

Happy St. George’s Day to all who claim him!  And who is the patron saint of Pony Moms…huh?  Huh?

Author's Note:

I'm indebted to Michael Collin's excellent article on St. George in Britannia for details on the life and worship of St. George.

----------------------------

 Dear Reader:

Happy St. George's Day!   Are you a Boy Scout or a Butcher?   Did you have to get a leprosy test to get to Russia, or do you think that's just the straw that might break the camel's back?  Thank you very much for stopping by Dividing My Time.  That means a lot to me, as does your feedback.  Tell me, how do you celebrate St. George's Day, if indeed you celebrate it at all?   Does your husband think he deserves a medal of honor for picking up his dirty socks?   Whatever you're thinking, leave me a comment by clicking on the comment button below and let me know about it!

Добро пожаловать! Welcome BlogTrotters!

Today I’m the featured blogger on Blogtrotting!  This is very exciting and it is my pleasure to welcome you to my blog and the country where I spend a lot of my time: The Russian Federation.   This post will give you a little bit of the skinny on me and Russia, as well as Me & Russia: a long-term, somewhat choppy relationship, which for better or worse, and richer or poorer, is set to last a lifetime.  I've left a few breadcrumbs to follow to some classic posts via links, and I hope you'll stay a while and browse.   

I’m an American who fell in love with Russian language, history, and culture when I was a bored 13 year-old and read Robert Massie's “Nicholas and Alexandra.”   After The Wall came down, I majored in 19th Century Russian Studies, graduated, and set sail for Russia just in time for the main act of perestroika.  To my extreme shock and horror, Russia in 1989 looked nothing like “Nicholas and Alexandra."  You could have knocked me over with a feather.   I almost left, but it was all too compelling to give up.  So, here I am, 17 years later.

In 1992, I settled down in Moscow with the man who would become HRH (which, in addition to meaning “His Royal Highness” can also mean, depending on my mood, “Horrible” or “Handsome” Russian Husband.”) After a suitable interval, we were joined by our daughter, Velvet, who, at the age of six months made it abundantly clear to us that her life would be dedicated spending as much time with horses as possible.   To better facilitate this, we’ve sent her to school in rural Massachusetts and we now divide our time between Northampton, MA and Moscow, and when people ask me what I do, I tell them, I'm a Pony Mom.  We have many frequent flyer miles, but not enough to fly through volcanic ash.

We are an eclectic extended household, which includes some stock characters such as HRH’s parents about whom he says:  “They’re trying,” to which I respond, “and that’s not all they are…” our housekeeper, and our long-suffering driver. If that seems like a lot of staff, well, Russia is a human resources rich country.

“How do you like living here?” Russians ask me all the time.  “It’s never dull,” I tell them, and it isn’t.   Everything you try to do takes strategic planning, on-the-ground know-how, and sheer guts.    What for example, would you do if confronted with this situation? 

Or this one?

 Or indeed, this one?

Though I am pretty sure you would know what to do in this situation...

 

 “What has been the best thing about living in Russia for seventeen years?” asked an American lawyer.  

“Smoked salmon,” I replied promptly.  

“What can’t you get in Russia?” people often ask. The answer used to be everything from A-Z, so much so that I would play that game “I packed my grandmother’s trunk…” when I couldn’t fall asleep.  Today, it’s just zip lock bags and Eileen Fisher.  Yes, I’ve seen a lot of changes.

My blog is about finding the funnier side of life in Russia, which isn’t always easy, but incredibly satisfying when you do. Even the Russian TV Guide is funny.   I found a guy so desperate to find a girlfriend that he dressed up in absurd clothing and was photographed in a truly tacky 18th century palace.   You don’t see that every day, but you can see him here.  

I have a thing about the Uniformed in Russia.  I also am on a mission to chart all of Russia’s professional holidays, which include everything from the Day of the Cosmonauts to Customs’ Workers Day (and how I am going to find anything nice to say about them, I don’t know...stay tuned!).

Moscow is a huge sprawling city that has very beautiful parts of it, like the Moscow Kremlin, and some really awful parts of it, like the raw open wounds of chaotic construction all over the city.   It’s a brusque, businesslike place, where traffic is often gridlocked and the weather is often grey.   Moscow doesn’t welcome you with open arms, but you can find a lot of interesting things if you are willing to look.  I take a lot of pictures in Moscow of the things I see – mainly the things that stand out at me as very ironic, very funny, very sad, or very typical of the Russian approach to life, which is often a combination of all of the above.  I hope you enjoy having a look around.

I love to cook, and living in Russia, oddly enough made me a good one.  I prefer to shop at the Farmers' Markets, which isn't for the faint of heart, but the best place to get fresh produce, meat and fish.

 

 
  
 

  

It is hard being a photographer in Russia, because very few people want to have their pictures taken, especially people in uniform, which is why I really treasure these shots:

 
Moscow cityscapes:

 
 
 

 
 
 

 The women who made Hitler cry...

 
 
 A man who helped...

 And the most enduring image of them all...with the ubiquitous crane...

Author's Notes:

Photos by Jennifer Eremeeva, with sincere thanks to the administration of Dorogomilovskaya Market for allowing me to take pictures of the farmer's market.

_________________________________________

Dear Reader:  I close my posts by thanking readers for stopping by, and telling them how much I value their feedback about Dividing My Time. If you would like to leave a comment, please feel free to click the comment button below.  This is especially true today, when I look forward to welcoming new readers!  I would also like to thank Blogtrotting for their interest in featuring this post:  Большое вам спасибо: Russian for Thank you very much!

 

Horse Shows: Don't Forget The Maps and The Martinis!

So, today, I'm off to a horse show, for my sins, and not just any horse show...a Dressage Show, which, as I pointed out to someone in the home improvement biz, "is beyond watching paint dry...its like watching polyurethane dry!" 

I'll be off to a horse show most weekends for the next two months, so it seems, to watch Velvet compete.  I love to watch Velvet do her thing, but this joy doesn't come without a certain amount of hardship: horse shows are deadly dull, terribly uncomfortable, and incredible time wasters unless you come prepared.  If you are like me, you don't want to get remotely involved in the back-breaking work that takes place before, during, or after the horse is ready for his or her 3 minutes in the spotlight, you are relegated to the sidelines with very little to do.

As a public service announcement, here are two lists to enable the horse show visitor to sally forth, ready for a long hard day in the field:

10 Things To Bring With You When Attending An All-Day Horse Show:

1)            Your own seating arrangement: Never, never, never go to a horse show without your own seating.  Seats at a horse show are never plentiful, and most often wildly uncomfortable.  This doesn’t bother the riders, who can’t sit down anyway because of those insane pants they have on, but if you plan to attend, invest in a comfortable folding chair with a back and, ideally, a beverage holder. Money well spent. 

2)            Your own food and drink: most of the food at a horse show is for the horses.  Riders are happy to grab the occasional tepid Diet Coke or a synthetic, re-heated pepperoni burrito, or something equally disgusting, but this doesn’t mean you have to lie down and submit to this kind of culinary terrorism.   Make a picnic, and, depending on the weather, bring a cooler with ice, or a thermos of hot soup, and, if you’re lucky enough to avoid being the designated driver, bring cocktails. While overt consumption ringside might be frowned upon, that’s why God invented the back seat of your station wagon. I always channel my inner Auntie Mame when heading out to a horse show, “Don’t forget the maps and the martinis!”

3)            Copious Reading Material: horse shows go on forever, and since your rider is only going to be on for about 7 minutes out of a 34 hour day, it’s advisable to bring a book you can sink into, or 3 weeks worth of Sunday New York Times you didn’t get round to.  Or The Yellow Pages.   Anything…

4)            Mud-proof footwear: Whatever the weather, horse shows are muddy, and nothing will piss you off like ruining a good pair of shoes, or spending the day with ooze between your toes.

5)            Clariten-D 24-hour capsules.  All kinds of crap in the air, even in January.

6)            A Black Sharpie.   This is for writing pertinent info on the back of the ribbons your child wins.   A Black Sharpie at a horse show ensures you’ll never be lonely.

7)            Hygiene facilitators: hand sanitizer, wipes, napkins, and towels.  Lots and lots of towels.  Someone always needs to towel something.
 

8)            Someone interesting to talk to.  Because, God knows, you’re not going to meet anyone there who wants to deconstruct the latest episode of Mad Men, indulge in some healthy Republican-bashing, or who finds the announcement for all the participants in “Maiden English Pleasure,” remotely funny.

  This is a picture of someone who is very interesting to talk to

9)            A fully charged cell phone and camera.   When either looses power, your boat has well and truly sunk.

10)            An exit visa: have the thing you have to get to next firmly in place, even if you’ve completely fabricated it.  Mention it frequently and loudly.   Stick to it.

10 Things You Can Do At An All-Day Horse Show to Stave Off Utter Boredom:

1)            Catch up on your chic, intellectual, lefty, liberal reading, like “The New Yorker” which, apart from being good for your soul, will also ensure that none of the horsy set bugs you.  Save “O” and “Real Simple” for plane rides. 

2)            Home Administration: Make shopping lists, make an enormous 6 page to-do list that you can later throw away, plan party menus, pay your bills, which will ensure that everyone bugs you, since they will assume you are one of the organizers.

3)            Have lengthy phone conversations with friends you haven’t seen for a while, assuming, which you should never do, that the horse show venue has cell phone coverage.

4.)            Address and sign your Christmas cards (for any year, any time of the year)

5.)            Go for a long, long, long brisk walk along the muddy muddy muddy roads surrounding the venue, which guarantees solitude, but is risky since there is never an exact time for when your rider will be “on-deck.”

6)            Knit, embroider, crochet, or any other kind of sewing project, which will ensure that the horsy moms besiege you all day long.

7)            Put in some much-needed time on that very-neglected self-improvement project, by making a list of resolutions beginning with “Reduce number of days I attend horse shows.”

8)            Write novels.  Many novels.  Like Trollope.  You’ve got the time.

9)            Read novels.  Many novels.  Like Tolstoy.  You’ve got the time.

10)            Open an alternative to the existing food concession stand, charging $10.00 per homemade muffin.  You will be able to retire in comfort to the Bahamas that evening.