чита and Our New Car

The past few days in Chita (чита) have been interesting.  First off, we're staying at Misha's parents' apartment. We met Misha in Vladivostok at the hostel.  He's twenty-two and just finished college in Vlad. We spent a fair amount of time with him in Vladivostok and I think it's safe to say we became friends. He speaks some English but his favorite word (and ours) is "Google." When he says "Google" with a huge smile and pops an invisible bubble with his finger we know that he's talking about Google Translate. Whenever we need to talk about something technical we default to the computer but most of our other communication is just fine. Lots of hand gestures. When Misha heard that we crashed our car he invited us to stay with him in Chita without hesitation. He lives with his parents and sister in a large two bedroom apartment.  His father runs a car repair shop (how fortunate for us!) and his mother runs a clothing store. Misha's fourteen year old sister is an incredible dancer (traditional Russian dance) and has traveled through Europe performing. The whole family is incredible and we owe a great deal to them for taking us in.

Right to left: Me, Misha, Misha's sister Marsha, Richard, some random guy who jumped in the picture.

Each morning we wake up to a new smell from the kitchen.  Misha's mother cooks for us every day.  She is an amazing cook. Yesterday it was balini (thin pancakes/crepes) with jam and some kind of goat (?) cheese spread. For dinner Richard, Ezra, and I head to the grocery store and buy ingredients for Misha's mother to cook for us. This was her idea because when we first arrived she wasn't sure what we ate and wanted us to pick our own ingredients. This changed after one meal of spaghetti noodles, onions, and meatballs. Now she gives Misha a list of ingredients and we go to the store to find them. The results are much better.

At dinner we drink vodka. Everyone has a shot glass and from time to time during the meal the glasses are filled, a toast is made, and everyone drinks. Russians know that Americans think they drink lots of vodka. Misha told us that this isn't true except for KGB / FSB who drink vodka like water. Apparently when we come back to Chita in a month (see below) we will meet Misha's father's FSB friend to prove that he can drink vodka like water. That reminds me: Misha's father was a tank commander in the Russian army. We've been hearing lots of stories about driving tanks around Mongolia and through the Gobi desert. We've also been listening to Misha's father's musings about what country has the best tank and the best rifle and the best fighter planes, etc. In the middle of dinner last night Misha's father asked if we liked guns. He then produced a Makarov pistol and a Saiga semi-automatic shotgun from the closet in the entry way and passed them around the dinner table.

 Misha.

Misha's father.

I had a lot more to add but I don't have time to type it all now.  Misha is driving back home with his car as I type so we have to hit the road soon.  I don't have time to do justice to the story of how we found our new car but here are the cliff notes:  Spent a few hours walking around a used car lot 14km outside of Chita.  The cars in the lot are for sale by owner.  Everyone shows up in the morning, parks in the lot, rolls down the windows, and falls asleep in the back seat.  If you're interested in a car you knock on the window to wake up the owner.  We found four Lada Niva 2121s for sale that we liked.  Years ranged from 1986 to 1998.  Price from $4,000 to $6,000.  After the mechanics at Misha's father's shop looked at all four over the course of two days we chose this one:

Some more cliff notes: 1996 Lada Niva 2121 Exciting Version (whatever that is?!).  Five speed transmission but fourth doesn't work very well.  Unknown mileage (says 000004km on the odometer).  Speedometer doesn't work.  Over 90kph the car eats gas like a Hummer but it's pretty difficult to get the car going that fast anyway.  The good part is that it's built for off-roading.  The car has 4-low and locking differentials.

Hopefully we'll get some internet in UB in three days but who knows.  It might be a month before we have internet again.

-Jack