In late February, Russia celebrates a national Holiday entitled "Defender of the Motherland Day". It is one of their significant national holidays and besides being off from work, almost all Russians actively celebrate this holiday in some form or another. In 2007, I had the pleasure of being in Angarsk, Russia with my Russian wife and we were invited by her friends to go with them and their family to a recreation area outside of the city to celebrate this holiday. My wife asked me if I wanted to go, and I responded with my usual response to these type of questions, yes, even though I did not know exactly what the holiday was or what we were going to do. I had only been in Russia with her for a couple of weeks and was still completely unfamiliar with most things there, and she did not explain very well what was happening. All I understood was that it was a holiday and we were invited to go with her friends somewhere to do something. Again, I must emphasis that most things she asked me to do in Russia were done with this vague understanding of what I was doing, but that was okay.
We drove for about an hour in her friend’s older model Lada, a Russian produced car similar to a small square Fiat, in the snow on our way to a slightly mountainous area outside of the city. It was not snowing at the time but in Angarsk in southern Siberia, about a foot of snow covers the ground from November until April or May. The ride was pleasant except for our friends wife who kept fussing at him about how he was driving and her stressing whether the car would break or not. There were four of us adults in the car and given the fact that we were going uphill the entire way, we could only drive about 30 or 40 mph. It was all the car could do, but this helped lighten the atmosphere a little since we laughed about it.
My wife's friends, Alex and Anna, were very nice and we all go along fine, but it was always rather odd for me when we were together because I did not speak any Russian yet, and they only spoke various words in English. I was the odd one out because the three of them carried on in continuous conversation and I did not understand a single thing they said. They did not seem to mind, but after some time in a confined space, this always seemed to start irritating me a little. My wife translated some things whenever I asked her to, but like the typical Russian, she very quickly go enthralled in the conversation again and forgot about translating. Russian conversations are very loud and intense and it always seemed to me that they were arguing, but when I asked what they were upset about, I got the usual response, "We are not arguing!" I later learned that if I could not understand their conversations, then I would just watch and enjoy the match.
We arrived at the recreation area and met their parents there with two of Anna and Alex's children, the teens. It was a really nice park area on the top of a hill in the middle of the woods. There were log cabins for rental, and a central log lodge that was open for food and drinks. Many people came up to the recreation area for their celebratory outing, and the object was to find an open grill and prepare barbecue for a picnic. The fact that it was very cold outside did not seem to influence this plan for most of the people and they accomplished their planned activities. We were able to find a grill and a table, but we quickly discovered that the wind was too much for us to be able to maintain the desired layout, so the eating outside plan was put aside in favor of going into the lodge. Anna's father did keep the grill going and did succeed in cooking the meat, but everything else was moved inside. This suited me fine because being the southern American that I was; I was not looking forward to staying outside all day long in the cold.
While her father was doing the cooking, we diverted our attention to the entertainment for the day. There was a long, long, long path that was cleared down the side of the mountain and people were renting small, circular air tubes to sit on and slide down the hill. I did not describe these tubes as inner tubes because there were not designed for tires and they were much smaller. There were probably designed just for this purpose. Anyway, we rented one and went to the hill. Being the man in the group and the one with the camera, I thought I would be perfectly content to watch them and take pictures. This worked for a short time but the group soon overtook me and forced to participate, so I did! To make a long story short, it turned out to be a wonderful day sliding down the hill and walking back up it. The slide was very exhilarating, almost to the point of being scary, because you built up some significant speed on this little, unbalanced tube sliding down this long mountain path with no protection whatsoever. There was not even anything at the end to stop you except for a short up-slope area with trees at the end. I never hit the trees but I used the entire up-slope area to stop. There were some mounds of snow designed, or at least I think they were intentional, to cause you do dump and roll before reaching the very end of the clearing. Again, each time I dumped and rolled, and used the entire clearing.
It was even more interesting when my wife and I would slide together. I never got used to the feeling of sliding down a hill, sometimes backward as you were spinning, at what seemed like a 100 mph. When we slid together, about 50 percent of the time we would crash and spill about halfway down the slope. The tube was just too unbalanced. We never got hurt though, and it amazed me how this type of public activity could be sanctioned in a public area because of the danger of accidents, but I had to keep reminding myself that this was Russia, not America, and the same rules did not apply.
After we had as much fun as we could stand, we all gathered inside the lodge for drinks and food. It was a very nice time, and with the help of the teenagers that were with us who spoke good English, because they are taught in school, I was able to communicate with the entire group, which made it a very nice experience. We all had fun!
Since it was a military holiday, the Army guys were there with a portable canteen, serving samples of their hot field rations to the public. I had an opportunity to try it and it was not bad, except for the fact that it did not have much flavor, but that was a side event to the celebration. My first Defender of the Motherland Holiday in Russia were very nice and very fun. I was impressed at how the locals turned out to celebrate this holiday, and as I would learn over time, as they do for all holidays.
