Operation: MOSCOW – Мульти (multi) and the Orphanage

Entry 22: 7 October, 2011

On Saturday Phil and I were hoping to be able to go to Ismailovna, the best place to buy souvenirs in Moscow, if not all of Russia, but we were not able to do so as I had to meet Nastya at 8:50. Some friends of the Brays were taking them out to their home later in the day, and so I was going to spend the day with Nastya, who I mentioned in my previous entry. All I knew was that we were going to an orphanage and that some sort of celebration was occurring, for which I was encouraged to wear something nice.

The first place we went was to one of the Baptist Church buildings in Moscow. A family from Nastya's church was releasing a Christian multi (sort of like sesame street involving puppets and real people) for children. There was a live show with some of the main characters from the multi and clips were also used from the films themselves. The family apparently won an award for their children's films in Russia, and I may try to buy some when I get back to the states. I was going to buy some there, but we had to leave early, and I spaced.

The main character was named Elya (Эля), and there were two clowns which were her friends. They were fighting over whether girls or boys were better, and of course, they had the kids do different competitions and tasks to try to figure out who was better. Finally, Elya appears and tells them they shouldn't be concerned in who was better. This lead to the watching of one of the short films about the apostles asking Jesus about who would be the greatest among them in heaven.

My contribution to the event was helping blow up balloons (we blew up over 300 by hand), and then Nastya and I were the greeters who handed out numbers to the children for participating in the show. The different tasks sometimes involved picking a number to have someone come and join them on stage. All the volunteers received shirts to wear from the cartoon, so now I have a bright yellow shirt which says in Russian, “I am a friend of Elya Dvornik.”

At 13:30 Nastya and I had to go to meet some people to go to the orphanage. We took a trolleybus to the metro, hopped off the metro to grab some food quickly as we would not be back into town until late in the evening, hopped back on the metro and rode until the end. There we bought tickets for the electric train and rode 20 minutes out of town. There we met another girl, Liza, and an older gentlemen who had brought his guitar. When we got to the orphanage we hung out in the library with a few of the kids. I met a kid named Sasha, who was probably in fifth or sixth grade. He was doing a puzzle from the film Cars, and I asked if I could join him. He was pretty quiet for awhile, but after two puzzles he found a game sort of like a combination of Chutes & Ladders and Candyland. There were some additional pieces with which we didn't know what to do, and there were no instructions. Therefore we sort of made it up as we went along. After hanging out there for a while, Liza, Nastya, and I went to a different part of the grounds. There are 3 or 4 different orphanage buildings in total in the area. It seemed that some of the kids had an aunt, uncle or grandparent, but they did no have anyone to take care of them so they lived in the children's home or the orphanage.

We played with some very young children outside for a while before making our way to another building where Liza and Nastya help students with English lessons. There were three kids to help that day, so we each worked one-on-one with them in the classroom. The girl that I was working with did not want to put in any effort. She would begin to sound something out half-heartedly and then declare she couldn't do it. I tried being encouraging and I tried being stern, but she was just stubbornly not wanting to put in much effort. I think part of it may have been was that she was intimidated because I was an American, and I think that towards the end it got a little better.

We left when it was time for the kids to go to dinner, and went back to where we had been at first. We spent a little more time with a few kids there before leaving. We walked back to the electric train and had to wait quite a bit in the cold, and it was very cold. Even though we were all bundled up, bone-chilling wind is quite persistent.

My phone was not working in Moscow because I was roaming and didn't think it was worth it to buy a new simcard for Moscow. Therefore Phil and Brenda had to call Nastya to get a hold of me. We were heading back around 8pm. When we got back into Moscow proper, we had to pay for our trip back. When you leave you pay before you go, but when you return, you pay to get out. The price had just been tripled, and lots of people were angry. On top of that, the electric ticket stands were not working. There were a lot of cranky people pushing and yelling. We finally managed to get two of the three tickets, and then the ticket lady went to make a phone call. There was a very drunk man behind us telling us how he should be able to go in front of us, and his girlfriend was not being helpful either. Just at that moment, Phil and Brenda called Nastya. She had to quickly say she couldn't talk, mentioned where I would meet them, and turned back to the ticket counter. We finally all paid and got through to the metro. Liza and I were taking a different line than Nastya. When I got back to the stop by Phil and Brenda's apartment, I made the mistake of going out the wrong door. Usually when different lines meet the station has a different name for each of the lines, with the exception of a few, and Phil and Brenda's stop is one of those. Despite the fact that I had been told to take the perihod to the other line, I completely spaced. I had turned my phone off early to save money in case I need to make a quick call. Phil confirmed that yes, I needed to go back into the metro and go to the other line. Thus, I purchased another metro pass, as I had run out, went back down the long escalators and walked to the correct station where Phil was waiting for me. We got back to their apartment around 22:00. It was quite the day, but it was a good day.