with a couple dozen hand-sized fish, which he would salt and hang on a clothesline near the window in my room to dry. This meant my room always smelled like old fish. It also meant, however, that we always had something to snack on while we played cards).
The Plotnikovs might have lived for decades in Turkmenistan, but they still considered themselves Russians. Denis, who had been born in Abadan and had spent his entire life there, spoke only the most basic Turkmen. Olya and Misha didn’t speak any. This resistance to assimilation wasn’t unique to Russians. While many Americans assume that anyone who immigrates to the US can become an American, too, the attitude is different in Turkmenistan. There, nationality is about blood, about history. It doesn’t change. Turkmen passports recorded their holders’ nationalities and casual descriptions of people invariably included nationalities. The Plotnikovs were friendly with a few Turkmen, but spent their time mostly with other Russians.
I’d usually sit around the living room talking to my host family until the sun began to set and the air cooled off a little. Then I would go for a run. No matter how hot it was I always wore pants. Only young boys wear shorts in Turkmenistan. Some days I would just jog along the streets, passing burning garbage, grazing sheep, women pushing babies in strollers, and men squatting on their haunches in doorways and on curbs, talking in low voices. Other days, I would run on the track at the town’s sport center, the “FOK.” It was a strange building, a two-story, angular tin turtle. The weight room was stocked with iron bars to which someone had welded paired chunks of scrap metal of various sizes. Outside was a half-kilometer track wrapped around a dirt soccer field. As I ran around and around, children would often chase me, grabbing my clothes, trying to slow me down, giggling. Sometimes I would pick them up and carry them with me for a half-lap, others I would convince them to race me.
While I walked home from the sport center, sweating and trying to catch my breath, the children from the neighborhood would call out to me:
“Hello, hello.”
“Hello,” I would say.
“HELLO! HELLO! HELLO!” they would chant.
“One hello is enough,” I would tell them in Russian. Most of them spoke only Turkmen.
“HELLO! HELLO! HELLO!” they would respond.
I could still hear them long after I was upstairs in the apartment, lying on the floor, sweating, and chugging water.
A few nights a week, I would go to Tanya’s apartment for Russian lessons. She and I would sit at her living room table, drinking tea and eating cookies. She gave me some grammar, vocabulary, and reading assignments, but mostly we just talked. She believed in God, feng shui , and horoscopes. I didn’t. We spent hours arguing over whether putting fake gold coins under her refrigerator would make her rich. I was so desperate to win the arguments that I studied hard and strained to make myself understood. Tanya was excellent at baiting me; my Russian improved fast.
6.
A Massacre, a Plague of Locusts, and an Earthquake
Living with the Plotnikovs was chaotic. They seemed never to sleep. They were awake when I went to bed at night and they were awake when I woke in the morning. The only access to the apartment’s tiny enclosed balcony, which the family used for storage, was through my room. I would often wake at 3 a.m. to find Misha rummaging around on the balcony, searching for fishing tackle, or Olya rifling through the spare, dorm-sized refrigerator, collecting ingredients for soup. The TV blared day and night, playing Russian movies and variety shows.
It was a good life. It was comfortable. I didn’t mind the salted fish drying in my room. I didn’t mind that everything I owned smelled like stale cigarettes. I didn’t mind being woken up at 3 a.m. sometimes. I loved being part of a family, no matter how messy. Olya would put extra blankets on
The Plotnikovs might have lived for decades in Turkmenistan, but they still considered themselves Russians. Denis, who had been born in Abadan and had spent his entire life there, spoke only the most basic Turkmen. Olya and Misha didn’t speak any. This resistance to assimilation wasn’t unique to Russians. While many Americans assume that anyone who immigrates to the US can become an American, too, the attitude is different in Turkmenistan. There, nationality is about blood, about history. It doesn’t change. Turkmen passports recorded their holders’ nationalities and casual descriptions of people invariably included nationalities. The Plotnikovs were friendly with a few Turkmen, but spent their time mostly with other Russians.
I’d usually sit around the living room talking to my host family until the sun began to set and the air cooled off a little. Then I would go for a run. No matter how hot it was I always wore pants. Only young boys wear shorts in Turkmenistan. Some days I would just jog along the streets, passing burning garbage, grazing sheep, women pushing babies in strollers, and men squatting on their haunches in doorways and on curbs, talking in low voices. Other days, I would run on the track at the town’s sport center, the “FOK.” It was a strange building, a two-story, angular tin turtle. The weight room was stocked with iron bars to which someone had welded paired chunks of scrap metal of various sizes. Outside was a half-kilometer track wrapped around a dirt soccer field. As I ran around and around, children would often chase me, grabbing my clothes, trying to slow me down, giggling. Sometimes I would pick them up and carry them with me for a half-lap, others I would convince them to race me.
While I walked home from the sport center, sweating and trying to catch my breath, the children from the neighborhood would call out to me:
“Hello, hello.”
“Hello,” I would say.
“HELLO! HELLO! HELLO!” they would chant.
“One hello is enough,” I would tell them in Russian. Most of them spoke only Turkmen.
“HELLO! HELLO! HELLO!” they would respond.
I could still hear them long after I was upstairs in the apartment, lying on the floor, sweating, and chugging water.
A few nights a week, I would go to Tanya’s apartment for Russian lessons. She and I would sit at her living room table, drinking tea and eating cookies. She gave me some grammar, vocabulary, and reading assignments, but mostly we just talked. She believed in God, feng shui , and horoscopes. I didn’t. We spent hours arguing over whether putting fake gold coins under her refrigerator would make her rich. I was so desperate to win the arguments that I studied hard and strained to make myself understood. Tanya was excellent at baiting me; my Russian improved fast.
6.
A Massacre, a Plague of Locusts, and an Earthquake
Living with the Plotnikovs was chaotic. They seemed never to sleep. They were awake when I went to bed at night and they were awake when I woke in the morning. The only access to the apartment’s tiny enclosed balcony, which the family used for storage, was through my room. I would often wake at 3 a.m. to find Misha rummaging around on the balcony, searching for fishing tackle, or Olya rifling through the spare, dorm-sized refrigerator, collecting ingredients for soup. The TV blared day and night, playing Russian movies and variety shows.
It was a good life. It was comfortable. I didn’t mind the salted fish drying in my room. I didn’t mind that everything I owned smelled like stale cigarettes. I didn’t mind being woken up at 3 a.m. sometimes. I loved being part of a family, no matter how messy. Olya would put extra blankets on
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