Konstantin the First

Of all the ways my experience in Russia has so far been vastly better than my experience in Taiwan, none is more important than that I have had better luck meeting people and making friends. Right now, my circle of friends mostly consists of fellow English teachers at my school. My opportunities to make Russian friends have so far been rather limited, given the small number of hours I am teaching. But this week I had a stroke of luck in meeting someone Ithink will be my first real Russian friend.

Like most strokes of luck I have had in my life, this one began with something bad happening. Tuesday afternoon, all of the photocopiers in our resource basement went on the fritz just as I had to prepare a lesson for the following morning that involved giving a grammar quiz. If the quiz had not been essential--it's a standard part of starting any new class--I would have simply planned around it. But under the circumstances, I had to find another photocopier, and fast. Someone suggested that I go over to our central school, a couple of blocks up the road, and use the photocopier there. And so, an hour and a half before I was due at a lesson an hour away, I set out to use the central school photocopier.

The way up to central school from the resource basement involves crossing a busy stretch of Novoslobodskaya Street that is far from any intersection or crosswalk. There is an underpass nearby, but when I am in a hurry, I rarely take it. Rather, I wait for traffic to clear a little before crossing to the middle of the street, then wait for the cars going the opposite direction to clear before proceeding the rest of the way. Not a particularly safe way to cross the street, I know, and one I would never use Stateside, but my time in Taiwan proved it necessary, and so far my time in Russia is proving much the same.

As I was standing waiting for traffic to clear enough for me to venture to mid-street, a man about my age with a goatee came up and started talking to me. I am approached this way in the street not infrequently, but the people who approach me are usually obviously beggars or tourists wanting directions. As he was too cleanly and neatly dresed to be a panhandler, I assumed he was a Russian tourist and told him that, unfortunately, I don't speak any Russian.

Immediately, he replied in English, asking me whether I was an American. I told him I was and, crossing the street with him, got into a conversation with him somewhat muddled by his poor English. When I told him I was an English teacher, he seemed very interested and said a lot of things, switching between Russian and English, the jist of which seemed to be that he had studied English for a while and was eager to learn more. I motioned for him to follow him to my school, thinking the school might be able to arrange lessons for him, which is what I understood him to want.

When we got to the school, I got a Russian to inquire as to what kind of lessons he wanted. It turned out that he was not looking for lessons at all particularly but just wanted an English speaker to talk to. The school does not arrange for such things formally, I was told, but it was up to me to decide whether I wanted to make some kind of arrangement with him. As he seemed nice enough, I decided I might as well--this seemed as good an opportunity to start making Russian friends as any. He told me his name was Konstantin, and I told him mine was J.R. We exchanged telephone numbers and agreed we would speak later in the week, since I had a class to prepare for and couldn't really speak right now.

Two days later, I called him. We made an arrangement to go see the Armory at the Kremlin together for Saturday morning.

Saturday duly came, and I met Konstantin in the middle of the Novoslobodskaya Metro station platform. This was a first for me as well; in Moscow, the middle of a Metro station platform is a common meeting place, but I had yet to meet up with anyone at one. We exchanged greetings and proceeded on to the Kremlin.

I will write more about the Kremlin Armory in a later post, as I do not have the space to do it justice here. Konstantin was a most attentive host as we went through the Armory, helping me to get an English audioguide and pointing out things as we went along. We spent about an hour in the Armory, then went to wet our whistles at a little cafe in the Alexander Gardens, adjacent to the Kremlin.

Over drinks, we exchanged life stories. Konstantin is a lifelong Muscovite, a couple years older than me. He works in chemical engineering and, it turns out, has ambitions of establishing a life abroad, so discontented is he with the rampant corruption in Russia. I was surprised to find out he was married with a five-year-old daughter; I had not thought a married man and a father would have time to show a stranger famous sites in Moscow. But I gather Konstantin really wants to meet people who speak English, and I am very glad to have an opportunity to speak with a "real" Russian. Before taking leave of each other, we made an arrangement to meet again next Sunday to go see the Kremlin's diamond collections.

And so real contact with Russians begins.