Week-end explorations: the beach and the smell of Sephora

Two other KBM fellows, Almaz and Grant, and my brother Eddie joined me in my sojourn. Almaz turned out an Americanized Kyrgyz entering his senior year at Yale, and Grant a Texan Mormon who happily indulged in un-Mormon pleasures of drinking and smoking, thus quickly attaining his title of the Fallen Mormon. The two spent most their days at bazaars interviewing clients and made quite an entertaining team with the tall, thin chatter-box Almaz and serious, solid listener Grant. The four of us stuck together on week-ends, making up the Western summer contingent of our company.

The beach naturally became our first and thereafter most frequented leisure spot. We were told that we could get there on a yellow marshrutka, which would drop us off at an important landmark and final stop: McDonalds – these days all roads lead to the Big Mac. I looked out for the familiar M as we bumped through mysterious streets, crowded together with twelve other people. My favorite discovery in the marshrutka experience was the fraternizing physical proximity one attained with fellow passengers. There was enough room inside to accommodate all without mangling limbs, yet the low ceiling, curtained windows, and seats chaotically facing in all directions to optimize capacity made for a crammed feel, which everyone accepted with indifference. As we solemnly bumped down Samara’s pot-holed streets, popular Russian music blared through the radio speakers, caressing my ear with its rhythms. Our weekend travel was pleasant: an empty city whose inhabitants had either left for their dachas, or were still recuperating from last night’s libations.

We bought beer, took out our provisions of brie, salami, sushki and fruit, and indulged in a beach-side feast. Grant and Almaz were ecstatic at the brie imported into Russia with my brother, then incredulous at hearing that Camembert could also be found at the supermarket near our office. The beach around us was a sea of big well-shaped breasts in a quantity previously unseen. The lack of large fat deposits on these tall female bodies with long limbs pleased the eye, as did their natural voluptuous curves. However, although busty and thin, most Russian women looked out of shape, and I saw thin lose thighs, posteriors flattened by lack of exercise, and un-toned arms about to become flabby. Shapely teens undressed to reveal little pot-bellies and mounds of cellulite on their thighs. I wistfully thought of all the frustrated New Yorkers who strained over diets and work-outs just to reach these girls’ natural proportions.

The most popular beach trend around us was a thong bikini, which looked good on its wearers, but didn’t leave much to the imagination. A slender brunette showed off her smooth tan posterior in a raspberry thong while clinging to her mullet-haired boyfriend. Beautiful Georgian twins arrived in colorful g-strings, their butts rounder than J Lo’s, but alas, pock-marked with cellulite. A woman in her late twenties spread out her towel on our right, covered-up by modest bikini shorts. With her elongated torso, modest bust and fabulous posterior she was the only one in our vicinity with a smooth un-spoilt shape.

The men were also thin, and not impartial to bikinis and tight boy shorts, none of which looked attractive on their haggard frames. Still, watching high school boys at beach volley-ball was a refreshing sight. All bones and lean muscles with firm pectorals, perfect little six packs, sculpted backs and taut thighs, these boys in motion seemed pure form unadulterated by manhood. In several years their smooth teen chests would thicken and grow man hair, and firm little muscles dissolve in a layer of belly fat. Perhaps a vestige of the carefree days would remain, occasionally surprising in a flexing bicep or tiny abdominal curve at the hip.

Hearing these beach-bums speak to each other, we concluded that our Russian, even though slightly accented, was the most proper on the beach. Every other word pouring from everyone’s mouth was “suka” (bitch), “bliadt” (whore), and “nafiga” (the hell with). “Suka” and “bliat” enjoyed wide-spread universal usage in reference to everything, not just people, because a thing - be it an object, a story, or an idea – is of feminine gender. In practice, they were directed mostly at men during sand and water fights, loosing their gender and attaining a somewhat androgynous feel. “Nafiga,” on the other hand, enjoyed much more selective usage only when someone was upset with, didn’t care for, or questioned the point of something. On most occasions all three occurred together, falling on our ears like a deluge of obscenities.

In the evening Almaz invited us to play pool with his friend who coincidentally happened to be in Samara on business. Almaz’s friend, Kanybek, picked us up in a brand new Hyundai. A former Army officer in his mid forties, Kanybek was a rather unlikely friend for twenty year old Almaz. Initially Kanybek told me that he was in Samara to set up a branch for his company, a VIP meet-and-greet service in Russia and Central Asia. However, as they let down their guard and loosened tongues, we learned that Kanybek was sent to Russia by Almaz’s dad for his safety. Kanybek reminisced of his soldier life in various military hotspots like Afghanistan, Chechnya and Nagorno Karabakh. With his unusual features and light blue eyes he easily blended in with the locals, joking that both Russians and Central Asians took him for their own, but proudly adding that he was a full-blooded, not mixed Kyrgyz.

Having had our fill of horror tales from parents, who tried their best to dissuade us from this Russia trip, Almaz and I came to Samara expecting theft, kidnapping and murder at any minute, from any dead end, corner or alley. We were warned not to use local taxis, which allegedly robbed passengers even on the way from the airport, dumping them in more than one piece in forests and fields. Stories of violent robbers who tortured and killed for petty cash made me plead with KBM to find the fortified apartment with bullet-proof doors and thick bars on all windows. To look inconspicuous on the streets I filled my suitcase with worn-out high school and college clothes that were previously molding at the bottom of my closet. The hour long night drive from Samara’s airport was unsettling indeed, as were the street hoodlums. However, I made it to the city on my own without money, while American Grant, whose driver also couldn’t come to meet him, arrived in Samara in a local taxi. In fact, my tattered wardrobe and lack of make-up made me stand out like a sore thumb amidst Samara’s high-maintenance female crowd, but fortunately hadn’t aroused the kind of curiosity I feared. We concluded that our parents’ bogies over-exaggerated Russia’s security situation.

Our pool destination was the ‘Park Haus’ shopping mall, whose name looked just as awkward in Cyrillic as in this literal transcription. A typical mall conglomerate with a large empty parking lot, ‘Park Haus’ seemed just as out of place in Samara as its name. Stepping through its sliding doors we were met by the cool breeze of air conditioning. “Hmmm,” Almaz breathed in, “the smell of Sephora, I smell civilization.” The shopping galleries of ‘Park Haus’ were filled with high end New York and European boutiques like Diesel and Armani, while the top floor housed newly built bowling lanes, pool, game arcades, and a large multiplex playing the Simpsons movie.

After a few games of Russian billiards, which was much more difficult than American pool with its small pocket holes and large balls, we headed off for a bite to eat. Kanybek suggested the Russian Hunt restaurant near my apartment. I passed by the Russian Hunt on the way to work every day, and had always wondered if it made any money with that empty parking lot and one-story billboard prohibiting gatherings of less than three. These doubts were soon dispelled once cavalcades of center-fold hummers with tinted windows and spinning silver rims, and accompanying Mercedes sedans occasionally veered into the lot. Speculating that Russian Hunt was a local mafia hangout, I itched to explore its insides. Alas, as we pulled up, the parking lot disappointed by being completely hummer-less, and upon entering the restaurant, we realized that we were the only customers. The space inside aspired to that of a lavish hunting lodge with stuffed bears and deer peering from plastic foliage while game birds perched on fake tree branches along the walls. Although reasonable by Western standards, the menu was expensive by local ones, and consisted primarily of game meat. Hoping that the game in this deserted den was not too stale, I settled on a deer kebab and tried to find something suitable for Eddie. After some deliberation over his menu, Kanybek decided to leave under the pretext of craving simple food, so we single-filed outside. As we piled into the car, Kanybek told us, “This place is good for connoisseurs of game who know what to look for in their meat. Let’s look for something less complicated. And by the way, did you see their prices?” Happy not to have spent money on over-priced and possibly stale exotica, I agreed with him that the prices were indeed rather steep.

We liked the choices and prices at Bukhara, a less pretentious traditional joint operated by the same owners that offered popular Tatar and Central Asian dishes. The menu was a pleasing display of familiar foods like noodle “lagman” and “beshparmak,” and large dumpling manti. I vacillated over steamed “samsas” for starters, then settled on “beshparmak,” a thick flat noodle in lamb broth. My brother took the Tatar manti, large meat dumplings that grandmother often made back home. Once we had our steaming bowls of food, Almaz and Kanybek reminisced of village life in Kyrgyzstan. As a city child, I took Kyrgyz as a second language at school twice a week for forty-five minutes, less than English which was taught daily. I didn’t speak my language, had never been inside a yurt, drank fermented horse milk, kumys, or accepted the honorary sheep eye or ear at a village feast. Thus, Almaz’s village tales mesmerized me with their authenticity. These rituals were most certainly practiced by the extended Kyrgyz family in my grandparents’ ayil, yet they felt so foreign and out of reach that I romanticized them as exotic, never before heard or seen.