the ‘khazyaika effect'

As most of you know, I’ve been in Tallinn for the last two months, just working and enjoying the beauty of this medieval Hanseatic marvel. I’m leaving today.

To tell you the truth it’s been kind of a lonely period in my life. That's partly because, within about a month of arriving, I’d more or less worked out that I couldn’t stay long-term, mostly for financial reasons. So I didn't see much point in trying to forge social ties.

Meanwhile, both of my existing friends here moved to other countries in that same first month, which isolated me further. I  therefore spent a lot of time being ‘one’* ... which of course has its up and its down sides.

Still, Tallinn presented me with quite a few great moments, and I’ll remember my time here with some fondness. For a start, any time I needed to de-stress I could just go for a walk through the atmospheric alleys of the Old Town, which was two minutes from the front door of my school. It’s amazing how much that relaxed me when I felt stressed &/or cheered me up when I was a little down. I don’t think I’ve been to many places that are quite as therapeutic as “Vana Tallinna” (Old Tallinn), and having it so close by allowed me to re-discover my sense of wonder on at least a weekly basis**.

I also really enjoyed my Russian lessons, which took place in a 400-year-old stone labyrinth of a building with an Orthodox Ukrainian church in the basement, in a wonderfully rundown and comparatively tourist-free corner of the Old Town, right next to the medieval wall. Quite inspiring surrounds in which to do battle with the insanely complicated riddle of the Russian language ;-)

On top of that, I found another wonderful group of crazy Russian teenagers to keep me amused and occupied. In some ways they were the best thing about my time here, and I know I'm going to miss them a lot.

Yesterday was our final lesson, and it was mostly taken up by a ‘Death Match’ between three creatures that my students (working in teams of “evil geneticists”) had created during the previous week. The idea was to see which of their monsters would kill the others and take over the world after humanity’s demise – but we couldn’t decide, so one creature went to live on the Sun, another on Mars and a third to a faraway galaxy. I love it when I find a class who is willing to do this kind of ridiculous stuff with me. Thanks, guys!

And then, last but not least, there was my Khazyaika.

Before I explain that sentence, two things about the word itself. First, it’s one of many Russian words that look much cooler in cyrillic script than they do when transliterated into Roman letters. So here it is in cyrillic: “хозяйка”. See?

The second thing: “хозяйка” translates into English as “landlady”, but I always find myself wanting to use the Russian word instead – not because it looks cooler, but because, in my experience, the role of a хозяйка is quite different to that of a Western landlady. She conceives herself very differently in relation to her tenants, often taking a far more ‘hands-on’ role in their lives.

Of course, this can be a bad thing. I had one хозяйка in Kazakhstan, for example, who I could happily have watched being run over by a truck – she was quite frankly an evil, rat-faced bitch, whose rude intrusions into our lives never failed to make me feel angry and disgusted. But generally the хозяйка experience has been interesting, and occasionally very rewarding. Easily the best example so far has been Natalya, who owns 'my' flat in Tallinn.

Natalya is (at a guess) about 50 years old, Russian, lives next door and frequently comes to visit. When I first met her, I thought she was going to kill me: she’s one of those Russian ladies who comes across as incredibly scary (and on occasion I did avoid from her out of fear), but who is actually hiding a warm, generous heart beneath her formidable exterior ... much like a crocodile scooped out and filled with runny marshmallow ... or a cuddly kitten in a cactus suit ... or, ummmm ...

[word nerd considers momentarily]
[sees no good similes approaching down adjacent synaptic tunnels]

Ok, might be best if you insert your own comparison here. Use whatever soft-and-pleasant-thing-inside-a-hard-and-scary-thing image you prefer :-)

*ahem*

Moving on ...

Every time Natalya came to visit, she would leave me feeling exhausted, but I’d always be better off than when she'd arrived. She spoke to me in Russian at about 700 miles an hour, which led to some funny/embarrassing misunderstandings – like a few nights ago when she asked me if she could come around and take some photos. I assumed she meant with me, because I was planning to leave, so I said “Oh no, I’ve just had a haircut and it’s a nightmare!” (True story.) Turns out I hadn’t understood the whole intent of what she’d said – she actually wanted to take photos of the bath! I guess she’s going to put it in the ad for the next tenant.

Anyway, Natalya duly arrived the following night with her impossibly cute six-year-old granddaughter Dasha***. While she took photos of the bath, Dasha and I did some impromptu ‘language exchange’ – I taught her a few English words (like “cow”) and she chatted to me in Russian about her playhouse. Then Natalya (her breath smelling a little of whisky) gave me a shopping bag full of apples from her sister’s dacha, and we browsed Google maps together for about an hour while she told me amazing stories about her many journies through various parts of the USSR. It was a pretty cool part-of-an-evening – almost as cool as last night, when Nataliya came around to work out the electricity, gas and water bills with me, and then proceeded to bring my living room to life with her impersonation of a group of baby hedgehogs, who had followed her daughter Masha home once after losing their mother.

That might not seem like something worth re-telling, but just try and picture it for a moment. Conjure up your most stereotypical image of a stern-looking middle-aged Russian woman, with the cardigan, her hair wound up around her head several times, and a look of defiant self-determination on her face. Focus on that for a moment, and now imagine her in your living room, telling you a story which she punctuates with uproarious laughter and “Eeek! Eeek!” noises, as she holds her hands up to her face in the shape of baby hedgehog paws.

Would that not cause the needle on your surreal-o-meter to quiver?

Oh, and I want to tell you about the apples, ‘cause that became almost a custom between Natalya and I. It started one morning when she called me to find out if I’d managed to buy a good winter coat yet. (See what I mean about the difference between a хозяйка and a Western landlady?). I said that I had, and she insisted that I come in to her flat and model it for her. Of course, Natalya felt a duty to spend the next few minutes telling me all the reasons why my coat was rubbish. But she didn’t stand around idly while she was criticising my purchase; instead, she loaded up three full shopping bags with apples from the dacha, and gave them to me to take home.

I had no idea what to do with so many apples, so I looked around on the 'net for recipes. The upshot: I spent most of the following Saturday night baking an enormous German-style apple rum custard cake. After saving myself a generous-sized piece, I took about 2/3 of the cake to Natalya, to share with Masha and Dasha. My Russian teacher got the rest.

After that, I could scarcely lay eyes on Natalya without her foisting more apples onto me. In the end, the vegetable crisper in my fridge was full of them … I couldn’t keep up!

Anyway, as I said, I’m leaving Tallinn today. As I was doing the last of my cleaning, I got a phone call, and I knew exactly who it would be. “Anton!”, said a stern voice. “I invite you to breakfast!”

It was clear that this was not so much an invitation as an order.

”But Natalya, I’ve already had breakfast. I could come for coffee, though.”

”Anton, you know that they never feed you on those aeroplanes!****. If you want food, you have to pay a lot. That’s why you need MORE breakfast today!”

”Yes, I know, but …”

”So you’ll be here in 15 minutes? Good. That’s all.” And she hung up.

And so, my last half an hour on Sikupilli (my street in Tallinn) was spent in Natalya’s kitchen, eating her home-made pancakes with – what else? – apple sauce. She was in full flight, telling me about all the places I MUST visit in the next year, and about the genealogy of her family going back to the 15th Century. So I just sat back, shut up, ate my breakfast and enjoyed the whirlwind one final time :-)

Then she said “I’m coming downstairs with you!”, posed for a photo, ordered me into her car and drove me to the airport. Again, I didn’t have a choice. Natalya threw her car violently around the road like a Central Asian man while wondering aloud whether or not she actually knew the way, and for a moment I thought we might end our journey under a truck or wrapped around a traffic light. But somehow we made it, and I tumbled out onto the roadside with all my limbs attached.

As her car pulled away, I felt quite sad to think that I'll probably never see my хозяйка again. But hopefully she won't be the last – I'm not even close to being done with the former USSR yet, and I'm sure to meet my next landlord or landlady before too long. I can only wait and see what the Xозяйка Effect will throw my way next ...
 


*In Russian you say not “I’m alone” but "Ya adeen" – which literally translates as "I am one". I think that’s a nicer way to look at it, don’t you?

** Btw, the two-month period I've described in this entry was in fact my fourth time in Tallinn. As I've said elsewhere on this blog, I've actually visited the gorgeous Estonian capital more times than I've been to Melbourne! So I didn't sprinkle this page with pics of the Old Town etc., 'cause I did that three years ago after my first awe-sruck visit.

To see some of my original "Tallinn rocks!" photos, you can go here:
http://rantingmanor2.blogspot.com/2006/02/land-of-eeks-and-baars.html

*** A curious fact that you may not know: almost all people in the world called Dasha are extremely nice. I have no idea why, but I must’ve met at least 20 Dashas by now, and I get along really well with nearly all of them. Plus, at least one of my all-time favourite humans is a Dasha. (Привет, Букаш!)

**** Incidentally, it’s true in this part of the world – Air Baltic and Estonian Air both charge for food and drinks.