Rodger's Russia

Odd topic isn’t it.  I decided it was time to write about it because of all the stories I have read this week about oppressed Russian people and how everyone who disagrees with Putin meets a grisly end. We’ve all seen the movies and heard the stories about the knock on the door in the […]

I have been avoiding writing new posts since the Ukrainian crisis started.  I prefer to write humor and there hasn’t been a lot funny about that conflict. In fact, if I did write the truth about it, from the Russian point of view, I would get lot of angry letters. However someone has to post […]

We are in Tver. Leo and Marina came up to Moscow for two days and we returned to Tver with them yesterday. We are returning to Moscow in a few hours. There is a commuter train from here to Moscow that costs about $1.50 for the two and a half-hour trip – or more accurately […]

  On this trip, I are in my wife’s home town, Prochlodney. It is in southern Russia, about 75 miles from the Chechnya border. She had described her home as being in a “village” so I was surprised to find a small city of perhaps 100,000 inhabitants. However, each of the suburbs is a lot […]

They say it was different in the good old days. Russia is ratty. Outside of boom towns like Moscow, everything needs paint. The apartment hallways are maintained by the city – and are NOT maintained. Most apartments have enclosed utilitarian balconies where clothes are dried and spare furniture kept. The balconies look decrepit with peeling […]

It has to be that there is an old American-hating Communist Party die-hard in the plumbing department. No one else would do such dirty trick. This morning there was hot water – or at least sort of hot water after it ran for 10 or 15 minutes. I got wet and started to soap up […]

  I have not written since my arrival in Russia because I have been spending several days in rural Indiana, about 1955. I have debated whether to even write about my unpleasant experience, but…. Since my arrival in Southern Russia, I have been suffering from what we used to call “Montezuma’s Revenge.” As you know, […]

I’m singing in the rain, singing in rain, and I’m haaapy agaaain! Why an I happy? Because when it rains, it’s too warm for your ears to freeze off and too warm for ice on the ground. Love rain. Speaking of love….. Love, Russian Style Mother in law, Elvira, just lost her boyfriend. She deserved […]

  We are in Stavropol for a few days to visit an orphanage. It is a gorgeous thousand year old city on the southern edge of Russia. I’ll write more about it later. I guess the best way to describe Stavropol is to start with the hotel that we are in. For $120 a night, […]

As I have written before, mother’s apartment in Premalka has no water during the summer. The main water tower fell down in a storm years ago, leaving very little pressure in the lines. Even on good days, the water pressure is pathetic. During the summer, everyone waters their gardens all day and there is NO […]

  Elona forgot her jacket at church on Sunday, so Larisa and I ordered a taxi and went to get the jacket and do a little shopping. In the center of town, about half way to our destination, there was a very loud Thump and I was suddenly laying horizontally on a collapsed seat back, […]

There should be a point to all letters. Sometimes they are humorous in a broad way, sometimes they are quiet humor. Sometimes they are “feel good” stories because they talk about something nice that happened to other people, and sometimes they are “feel good” stories in the sense of “Thank God! That didn’t happen to […]

Larisa has a cold and decided to go the doctor. She had the same two choices that I had, go to the local, and free, hospital and stand in line for hours waiting to be helped by a doctor who could care less, or go to a private doctor. Fortunately, we have a private clinic […]

If you love Glen Beck and like O’Reilly, this guy is your new best friend. On the other hand, if you hate Beck, this guy will raise your blood pressure enough to cause a stroke. RTN is the English language Russian news channel. Mr. Keiser is between OReilly and Beck in style and way right […]

I own several pieces of history. I own a plant fossil from the Cambrian period, an Egyptian stone goddess from a third dynasty grave, a Civil War bullet, and now a Lada. For those of you who have been incarcerated or entombed for the past 20 years, a Lada is the famous Communist copy of […]

My diamond in the rough turned out to be a lot more “rough” than diamond. I rather expected that this was going to happen in a country where no one can afford to sell a car that runs. That brought us to plan two. I had limited our choices to Ladas from the start. My […]

Your local museum has got nothing better than the average Russian garage. To heck with George Washington’s teeth and Pocahontas’ bra, we have REAL history here! The poorer a person is, the more they tend to horde things. As things are harder to replace, there is a stronger desire to hold onto everything, useful, useless, […]

  Larisa has felt bad that we never been married in Russia and can’t make it legal here until the adoption is finalized. He passport says “single” and her husband is here so rarely that her friends barely believe she is married. Her solution is that we are going to get married in the church […]

  You might live in village if – there is a major information resource that people trust more than the internet, the Encyclopedia Britannica, Einstein and the Evening News. This resource, whose decisions and wisdom can never be questioned, is “Everyone Knows” Example Mother says -“Rodger, I don’t want to use the washing machine. EVERONE […]