June 30, 2005


With the sun going down at nearly 11 p.m. and rising just after 4 a.m., I’m grateful to have an eye mask with me. I’ve always been one to wake up with the sun, and besides the 11 hour time difference, the sun is a natural alarm clock. I was met at the train station and have been “taken care of” every moment since. Anna from the bakery and Oleg the interpreter have made sure I have everything I need. Anna, a petite older woman with short spiky brown hair and a soft muffled voice, wears custom-made conservative suits and small almond shaped wireless glasses. Oleg, a Chuvashian with a strong jutting jaw, a crew cut and light crystal like blue eyes, is a nice young man from the local language institute. He’s more relaxed in jeans and like most men, tries to sneak away to have his cigarette. He spent a month in Texas, and fortunately, is open-minded enough not to believe that Texans are synonymous with Americans.

The hotel Rossiya is not as technologically advanced as the Bega, but the dezhurnaya, or the floor den mother, Tanya, does everything with a smile. I have managed to get a dial-up connection from my room now and if I ever get a moment alone, I’d like to explore the city and find some internet cafes to see what they are like. It’s been a nonstop feeding frenzy since I arrived. I ate breakfast on the train, but Anna ordered breakfast at the hotel for me upon my arrival. Even if I were starving, I couldn’t have eaten all that food!

At noon, they picked me up in the grey volga and gave me a tour of the city. We drove halfway across the Volga. What an enormous river! I don’t know what to equate it to - it’s wider than any river I’ve crossed. The city of Chubaskary is wide and short, no buildings very tall at all. They have an old town on the bank of the river with several historic churches, fountains, a monastery, theaters, a walking boulevard, parks. I am very impressed with how clean it is. Apparently, it is known for it’s cleanliness and friendliness. I’ve been promised a trip to the river this weekend for swimming.

We drove to the bakery, where I met Larissa, the General Director, and we bonded instantly. She’s probably in her late 40’s with beautiful skin, blue eyes with matching heavy blue makeup, straight blonde hair that shapes her oval face. Her Rubenesque body fit nicely into her elegant black evening dress and classy black blazer. She seemed to manage to float in her 3 inch spiked heels, giving her modest height a small boost.

Like extroverted and jovial twins, the two of us talked all afternoon and into the early evening, Oleg and Anna quietly listening. They treated me to an enormous meal - stuffed tomatoes, fresh cucumbers, peppers, dill and tomatoes, cabbage soup, a variety of breads, sausages and cheeses, calamari, shrimps, mussels and salmon. Then a main course of some sort of fried meat or chicken with melted cheese and mashed potatoes and of course, pastries from their bakery, fruit and tea. We drank champagne and vodka and made the usual toasts to our work together. At 6:30 when they dropped me off at the hotel, I quite literally passed out for 3 hours! I’m a bit rusty on the alcohol consumption and have grown to prefer wine over vodka.

The next morning, Anna arrived at 8:45 a.m., took charge of my diet and ordered me breakfast. She waited in the lobby on my floor, until I guess she couldn’t wait anymore and came charging into my room. I was working on my computer, so she just started reading some of the bakery journals I brought, then my photo portfolio. We had 40 minutes to wait for the driver. She went to visit with her cousin who works as a den mother on another floor.

We arrived at the bakery and were almost immediately seated in front of another table full of food and told to eat. It’s becoming clear to me that it’s all about the food. Perhaps it really was in Russia where my food problem began. I was led into the conference room, where 10 people awaited my arrival. Larissa introduced me like a VIP visitor from America who has come to help them with their sales problem. At one end of the table were samples of about 30 different products that they produce and at the other end of the table were the 8 samples I brought from the States. The pastry and bread chef proceeded to describe each product and cut up a sample for me. By the end of the session, mutilated loaves and pastries lay prostrate in piles on small plastic plates. I was surprised how much more room I actually had in my stomach. We sampled the stale California loaves of Artisan bread. I tried to do enough research into bread to paint a more or less realistic image of the diversity of the bread market in America. I’ll be spending the next few days trying to understand theirs.