Tonya's Kitchen

Tonya was our home-stay host in St. Petersburg, and the only one of our hosts who joined us for breakfast. The others put the food on the table and then left the room so we could eat in private. We enjoyed Tonya's company, though John found her a bit intimidating. She did not hesitate to tell him he should be eating his porriage (good for the stomach), doing his math homework (you must work hard for your schooling) and visiting the Hermitage instead of going swimming (there are swimming pools everywhere but there is only one St. Petersburg)! The food she cooked for us was marvelous: blini filled with ground meat on day one, porriage and grilled cheese sandwiches on day two, pancakes on day three. There was always sour cream, home-made jam and REAL drip coffee. (It was the first real coffee we had, everywhere else, from Beijing to Moscow, it was Nescafe)

On our last morning there, after breakfast, Nelson and I lingered a bit and talked with her. She was making pickles, the day before she had been canning (plums, I think). She said that when her family lived at home (two children, a boy and a girl, now in their thirties with 2 children each of their own) lived at home she did lots of canning every year, now she just does a little but it's always too much.

She was concerned about John missing school for a year (not possible in Russia) but approved overall of our trip, "family and experience are important, money is ..." she put her hand next to her mouth and blew across it, showing that money is transient.

We told her that our next stops were Poland and Urkaine, and she said "those old Soviet countries, they have bad politics". I am not going to try and transcribe her accent, but I'll try and convey our understanding of what she said. You will have to imagine the intensity.

"After the war those contries were so poor" (thumb andd first finger held close together to show a little space) "there was nothing left. The Soviet Union rebuilt those countries. I was Komosul (Communist Youth Group), we sang songs about those countries. We visited and we helped to work there. Now they say nothing was good about the Soviet Union. I understand that countries want to be independent, but they should not say it was all bad. They should not deny the real history. Bah, it's all just politics."

She was ready to change the subject, so we started talking about visiting Lviv to find Nelson's relatives. (At this point I thought she was talking about her husband's family and Nelson remembers it as her family, it doesn't matter but I'll tell the story the way I heard it).

She said "my husbands grandparents lived near Kiev, his father was here at the university."

"Was he (the father) in the Russian army?"

"Of course, not Russian, Soviet Army. There was no Russian. There were three sons, the older two came back, the younger one was lost, no one knows where. He is just gone."

"Do you have relatives in Ukraine now?"

"They died in the ghetto near Kiev, my husband's family was a Jewish family. The family tree is ...phu...(she blew across her hand again) gone. It is wrong that there are not memorials to the people who died. (I think she meant in Ukraine). I have been to Israel and seen the list of names. So many children, so many old people. People should not forget."