The Realest Day on Earth

On a bone-biting, rainy day back in October, the millennium-old Elabuga received a new tag line that I have no doubt will go down in the annals of Russian history. No sooner did Nick, one of my fellow teachers, arrive in his future residence in Kazan than his hosts dragged him off for a weekend to a little town which turned out to be a hybrid of traditional Russian and Tatar soul and mysterious Slavic eccentricity. Nick told our Thanksgiving clan that as he hiked through the countryside in freezing rain, Elabuga made an unforgettable impression on him. Then and there, Nick christened Elabuga “the realest place on earth.”

Nick’s description of Elabuga has really stuck with me, because in just a few words, it describes the town’s effects better than I could in five pages of narrative. Something about this place, with its simultaneous raw intensity and idyllic quaintness, leaves an impression on you that you can barely describe in any other way than just “real.” If I seem vague, it’s because it’s a “realness” that can’t be described, but needs to be experienced (hint hint: I’d love to have visitors!). Since our get-together in Thanksgiving, our quasi-Tatarstan кружок (circle) has used Nick’s tag line to both humorously and seriously refer to any and everything that goes down in little old Elabuga… which brings me to last Tuesday, what I like to call the realest day on earth.

For the first time in my life, I went skiing.

I know what you’re thinking: “Did she end up in the hospital? Did she run over a babushka?” Well, my friends, I’m happy to say I didn’t do either, but I will say that quite a few babushkas actually showed me up with their skiing skills, and that I did have a few head-on encounters with the snow.

The adventure started when Ksyusha, a woman from the English club, invited me to go skiing on Russian Christmas (January 7^th). Feeling a little stir-crazy and missing physical exercise, I quickly agreed. We went with a motley group of high-schoolers, college-age guys who were clearly very sportivniye, and a few thirty-something women. I started out a little wobbly, but was surprised that I didn’t fall right away. I actually did considerably the first half of the forest trek, since there were few steep hills that I had to go up; it was mostly little dips that even someone with my experience could handle. We reached красная гора (Red Mountain), which boasted a beautiful view of a frozen lake and miles of field.

Here we drank tea, ate hazelnut chocolate to give us an energy boost, and took a bunch of photos. The three Russian guys, who had been shy before, even began to warm up to me, one suggesting that they should all pose around me for a picture of “three bears and an American.”

It’s good they warmed up to me, because they basically had to carry me back to our starting point. It all began when I couldn’t get my skis on. Before I knew it, I had two good-looking Russian guys trying in vain to connect my big feet to the skis. After what seemed like five minutes, they finally succeeded in hooking my feet in, and we were off.

It was right about now that I started falling. A lot. And whereas before, I was with two girls from English club and could discretely pick myself up, now I had three guys behind me, simultaneously making me nervous with their presence and ready to pick me up every time I fell. There were three especially memorable moments from our trip back. First, two babushkas were skiing right toward me; I didn’t have the talent to turn away in time, and they barely missed me. Instead of ignoring it, one of the guys starts yelling at the babushkas, telling them “it’s not your road,” and “can’t you see she’s bad at this!” Thanks for the confidence boost, buddy.

Secondly, after struggling for five minutes to get up a hill (after falling on my face as the guys tried to pull me by my ski poles, and after being instructed by a middle-aged Russian man), this babushka flies right past me and conquers the hill as if it were nothing. If I learned one thing that day, it’s that you should not underestimate the babushka.

Finally, and perhaps most embarrassing, I found myself before an even larger hill that there was no way I could climb. This time, one of the guys had to hold my hand while the other skied both our weight and pulled me by my ski pole. The awkward “ride” seemed to go on for hours. Overall though, I had a great time, and the guys were good sports about helping me get through my first time on skis. They also gave me the benefit of the doubt, noting that the skis I had rented bore the number 13. And most importantly, I didn’t hurt myself before my long-awaited trip to the land of the Britons.

My knights in shining ski gear

After our skiing adventure, I stopped at the store for food (where the security guard now knows me and told me in English “good day!”), then met Hanna at the bus stop for a snow hike to the Devil’s Tower. The Devil’s Tower, or Чёртово Городище, is one of Elabuga’s claims to fame, a mysterious lookout surviving from Volga Bulgaria that is thought to date from the 12^th century. Of course, most of the tower is a reconstruction, but if I’m not mistaken, it still has some of the stones from the original.

The view is breathtaking, and it is definitely a place I’m looking forward to frequenting once the weather gets a bit warmer.

Hanna and I made sure to bring the necessities for a snow-hike in the realest place on earth. TEA!!!