Yasnaya Polyana

Saturday, July 25

Mom's second day in Russia, and boy was it a crazy one!! We ran like crazy to make our train to Yasnaya Polyana. First we had to find where we could buy our tickets--we had about 8 minutes before the train left. We finally found the cashier (after being directed to the wrong one), and then set off to find our platform. We literally sprinted through the station--definitely went to the wrong platform first, but a nice cleaning woman finally pointed us in the correct direction. We jumped on the train right before it took off.

Once on the train, mom and I talked a lot. Or rather, I talked a lot because I was really tired and kept rambling on and on. A little girl in front of us was fascinated with us, and kept stealing peeks at us from behind the chair. Just as we were pulling up to one of the last stops, I asked her mother in Russian what stop it was. The little girl's mouth dropped wide open and she stared and stared at us. Her mom was like, "Sorry, I think she's in shock that you speak Russian! She's been so interested in how you speak the whole time, she never imagined that you would suddenly start speaking Russian!" So I started talking with the cute little girl, who was quite happy to talk after she got over the shock of it all. She and her sister were so adorable! They are from Ukraine and were in Russia visiting their grandmother. Loved talking with them and they posed for pictures for my mom and me.

Then it was off to Yasnaya Polyana, Tolstoy's estate. This is one of our favorite places in Russia!! Tolstoy was an amazing man, and his wife phenomenal! We had so much fun on our tour of his house and estate! We met up with a woman named Janet, who had hired an English-speaking guide, so that was really neat. We saw about 150 brides (okay, more like 30, but still, a ton!), and took lots of pictures around the estate.

To go in the house, we had to put on these huge shoe covers made of leather that were one-size-fits-all (I'm pretty sure it would have fit a size 15 man's shoe), so we were clopping around in them, trying not to fall. My mom was sitting on a bench to put them on at the second part of the house and was trying to take pictures of her feet in them. I took the camera to get a better shot, then turned to go in the house. Suddenly I heard a big crash! Mom and leaned to far back, and being the only one on the bench, sent it tipping over. Once I knew she was okay, I was laughing and trying to help her up. Another woman came to help and said, "Get her up!" I think she thought my laughter was obstructing my ability to help. We got her up and realized the bench had fallen on her arm! She was okay and laughed, and then said, "Oh, dang it! You should have taken a picture of me on the ground!" I laughed and said, "I love that you just said that! Somehow, I don't think that woman would have been okay with me leaving you on the ground to take a picture, though!"

We toured the grounds, with Janet asking about every 3.2 minutes what time it was because she hadn't brought a "time piece." Watches and other forms of telling time will henceforth be known as time pieces as far as my mom and I are concerned!

We then tried to find Tolstoy's grave, which they said was unmarked. When we came upon a mound, I suggested that this was perhaps it. "Oh, no, it would have some kind of marking, wouldn't it?" So I told them to wait while I ran ahead to see if I could find it. I ran for about 10 minutes through the forest, which was actually quite fun, then stopped to take some pictures. Then I saw an old Russian couple coming up the path, and they directed me back up the path where I had just come from to find the grave. By the time I got back to mom and Janet, a crowd of people were gathered around the mound I had seen. Sure enough, this was his grave. Janet didn't get this however, and suggested a different path for us to wander down to find it. We pointed out that the grave was in fact right there and headed back down towards Tolstoy's home.

We were starving by the time the day was over, but our train didn't leave until about 6:00 pm. All of the little shops were closed, plus we didn't know if we had enough money for the train back if we bought something from the cafe that was open. We had eaten a yogurt and drank one water bottle all day, so I was dying. And we knew we had about a three-hour ride ahead of us. We pulled through, though--not much else we could do, and I wondered what everyone would think about me bringing mom back starved and bruised (which is why I had to wait a sufficient amount of time to post blogs...haha). I was complaining about being so hungry, but mom told me to toughen up and that she wasn't complaining. She then added, "I like the self-denial!"

Our train finally pulled in, and we met up with Janet again. We decided we needed to show Janet how to use the metro system in Moscow--she had been paying ridiculous prices to travel one metro stop, and so we rode with her to her stop. I was so concerned with helping her know where to go that I forgot this was OUR stop for our transfer. At the last second, after telling her goodbye, I remembered where we were. "Oh, shoot! This is ours, let's go!" I darted off the train with mom following behind. I thought at the last second that it would be bad if mom got caught in the doors, so I reached out to try and prevent them from slamming closed on her. Despite my efforts, they caught her on the way out, and she was pinned with her arms at her side, pulling her shoulder blades towards each other. I was trying to pull the doors open and explain that she needed to keep moving (they don't just pop open like in an elevator), but she seemed pretty distraught and looked confused as to the best way out of this situation. We finally pulled her out, and though she was a little disoriented from the shock, came back to herself enough to make our way to the next metro. She still has the bruises in memory of the event. Between falling off the bench and getting stuck in the doors, we started to doubt if mom would survive Russia.

When we got to our metro stop, we decided to grab some food and opted for blini (like Swedish pancakes). We got a berry one and the most delicious blinchik I have ever had in my life--carmel double apple with almonds. Totally worth starving ourselves all day!