Petropavlovsk Oddities

One day when we were heading to the orphanage, we sat stopped at a red light. All of the sudden, I noticed that the light was also red for the intersecting street, but that all the “walk” signals were green so pedestrians were crossing in all directions at once. The signals were not malfunctioning. Evidently, every so often the lights cycle in this manner to give the people an advantage over the cars. It’s one of the few they receive.

It had turned colder and one morning we were driving in sloppy weather. Igor commented that soon he would have to add vodka to his windshield washer tank so that the fluid didn’t freeze. Thinking he was joking, we started to laugh, but then realized he was serious. Apparently, this is not an uncommon thing to do here. Vodka is cheap and plentiful, and the familiar blue-colored washer fluid that we’re used to isn’t. Igor did say that once a policeman had stopped him for something and accused him of drinking because of the smell of vodka. Igor is very careful never to drive if he’s been drinking, so he explained to the officer about the washer fluid and even had to activate the washers to prove that they were the source of the smell. Robin and I joked that he had a secret tube that tapped into the washer reservoir so he could take an occasional sip.

The apartment we live in is one 540 square foot unit in a typical example of Soviet block construction that exists everywhere in the former Soviet Union. The 5-story building is long and rectangular with a series of 4 stairwells equally spaced along its length. Each stairwell permits access to 20 units (4 per floor x 5 floors) for a total of 80 apartments. They’re massive and imposing structures with outer walls literally 2 feet thick. This is by far the most common form of housing here. We’ve seen very few single family homes so it seems that upwards of 90% of the people live in the type of apartment that we’re staying in. Once, when we exited the apartment, there stood a group of 30 or 40 people clustered about a nearby stairwell. Close by was a small bus that had evidently deposited them there. It was most surprising to see that they were gathered around a portable stand supporting an open casket and a deceased man. Igor explained that this is the standard practice for handling funerals here.

While flipping through the TV channels one day, we landed on a Kazakh cooking show. The chef was preparing a fish. Everything looked normal as he cut the head off and gutted it. The moment for pause came when he took the decapitated fish head and carefully cut the eyes out for apparent later use. Whether part of the recipe or just a garnish, we decided not to stay and find out.

One part of Petro we were just not prepared for was the inescapable and overwhelming quantities of MUD. The sidewalks are in advanced states of decay to the point that along many routes there just aren’t any. In wet weather it is impossible to walk even a short distance without thoroughly becoming one with liberal amounts of very wet Kazakh soil. Whatever little high ground exists turns even more hotly contested as the pedestrians charge into each other to claim passage rights. The most amazing thing is that despite these conditions, you still see women wearing white, high-heeled boots to set off their fashion-driven dress. It would seem more appropriate to wear hip-waders.

The back of Igor’s car carries a triangular warning decal with a bold red border. The picture inside the decal is that of a high-heeled woman’s shoe. I asked Igor about it one day and he explained that it is there to let other drivers know that a woman is operating the car in situations where his wife might be driving. Something about perhaps her being distracted on the phone or maybe applying makeup. It wasn’t entirely clear to me whether this was a joke or intended to be serious. Well, Igor does like blonde jokes so I’m going to assume that it falls in the humor category.

Another odd sign that we spotted on one of our 24 drives (we counted them up) to the orphanage and back was posted along a main street. It was actually two signs, one above the other. The top one seemed normal enough as it was a triangular, red-bordered warning of a pedestrian crossing zone. The odd thing was the bottom of the two. It was simply a rectangular sign with black-lensed glasses. To my mind it suggests blind people. So is this a special crossing only for blind people? If so, how do they know it’s there if they can’t see the sign? Given the way people drive here I can’t imagine too many blind people cross a main highway and live to tell about it, special signs or not.

When we first arrived in Petropavlovsk we spotted a nearby building that was in the process of receiving a new roof. The building has an interesting paint scheme in that half of it is painted light green while the other half is a peach color. It makes one think that perhaps there are two owners of the building who can’t agree on the same color. This thought was reinforced by the roofing process. It was interesting in that the effort stopped pretty much once the light green half of the building had its new corrugated aluminum roof. The peach side soldiered on with the dingy roof that it has apparently worn for many years.