The Wardrobe

To all the regular readers of my blog, I must offer an apology. I have been a very infrequent blogger of late, largely because my schedule has become hectic and busy, and my adventures have been few and far between. Winter is really the busy season for EFL teachers in Russia; my school has had me teaching close to the maximum number of hours my contract allows, and between teaching, lesson preparation, and travel, I have had little time to sit and blog.

Nonetheless, I do have some news to report from Moscow. We have had snow most of this week, a fact which, in my opinion, marks the beginning in earnest of the Russian winter. The temperature has been at about the freezing point, and I go out each day in a warm coat and scarf, but I cannot say I have been much colder than I would be at home this time of year.

I suppose I ought to feel some marvel at being in Russia in the snow, and indeed, last weekend, when a fellow teacher and I ended up walking through Red Square while flurries came down, there was a certain magic about it. But I cannot help knowing that the winter in Russia is long and likely to get far colder. A British administrator at my school who studied in Russia during her time at university remarked that it's not uncommon for the temperature to reach -20 Celsius in January. I dread that extremity of cold, but I imagine I will find some way to make do, as I managed for several months to make do without a washing machine and as I managed, until very recently, to make do without a proper wardrobe for my clothes.

Regarding the lack of a wardrobe: it was corrected last weekend. Sunday afternoon, I was sitting at home when the doorbell rang. As I was not expecting anyone, I had no idea who it could be.

It turned out to be too men delivering a wardrobe my school had promised me. And, it turned out, not just any wardrobe, but a big honking thing that takes up an amazing amount of space in my room. One thing I have learned, having had several experiences teaching Russians in their homes, is that Russians seem to take the same philosophy toward furniture that many New Yorkers take toward their dogs: the smaller the apartment, the bigger the furniture.

My school had been promising me a wardrobe ever since September, when, a new roommate having moved into my flat, the administrator in charge of housing came round for an inspection. When she expressed how appalled she was at seeing my dirty clothes in a massive pile on my bedroom floor (I fully expect to find Jimmy Hoffa in this pile any day now), I explained with a fair amount of exasperation that, lacking both a washing machine and a proper wardrobe, I had not much choice but to have a never-disappearing pile of clothes on the floor. The administrator promised me a washer and a wardrobe.

As I have already recounted, the washer was delivered in short order. Getting the wardrobe, however, became a much more dragged-out affair. Every time I came into my school's central office, I made inquiries about it and was told that negotations with my landlady over this wardrobe were in progress. I had expressed a wish to have one of the two massive bookcases in my room removed. This the landlady apparently proved unwilling to agree to. And so I assumed that the wardrobe was never to come.

I was quite surprised, then, when the men with the wardrobe showed up last Sunday. With all deliberate speed--and by this I do mean speed worthy of a court desegregation order--they brought in the wardrobe. I tried to explain to them, with my limited Russian, that I thought they were to remove a bookcase, and that they should probably do this before they brought in the wardrobe, but I failed to get this idea across. The wardrobe was dumped in what passes for our front hall, as there was no room for it in my bedroom.

Monday evening, I returned home from my evening class to find the wardrobe had been installed in my bedroom, but no furniture had been removed.

Ah, well. At least I have space enough to hang all of my wet clothes after I have taken them out of the washer. With any luck, the pile on my bedroom floor will finally disappear.