No, this not a testicular MRI of a certain blogger. On the left is a citrus fruit Red Pummelo and on the right is a regular orange. Many times I walked by a stack of Pummelo’s at the grocery store wondering what do they taste like. Finally, when my savings account balance reached $2 I broke down and purchased one. Pummelo is four or five times larger than a regular orange but feels very light. Its skin is very thick and I followed the instructional video explaining how to get it ready to eat. (It’s long but I like the music)

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5dyBrvLIj0

It took me 10-15 minutes to completely take apart the Pummelo by first scoring the peel in a spiral and then removing membrane from each segment. With a little sugar it tasted pretty good, similar to grapefruit but with a slightly different very pleasant flavor. I am not sure how often I will be eating Pummelo considering all the work, but I will probably buy it again when I save up another two bucks.

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Memory is a strange thing. One minute I am reading a story about outpatient surgery in prison and the next minute it takes me back about 20 years when I was sitting in a small army hospital room and another soldier, who was supposed to be a nurse, was poking a scalpel at the infected cyst on my own foot. But this is not about some gruesome sadistic surgery forced on a newly drafted Soviet Soldier, although I still have a scar to show for it. This is a post about portyanki – a foot wrap worn in the Russian and later in the Soviet army instead of socks until just a year or two ago.

After a long and tumultuous day of saying good-byes to civilian life and traveling by train and then inside a truck in the dark, lining up, multiple counts, marching with a group of half-scared schmucks and finally arriving at a place where most of us will spend the next two years, our group of fresh draftees finally settled down for an uneasy night of exhausted sleep. In the morning we were to shed whatever else connected us to our previous lives and become bona fide soldiers in the Soviet Army. After watching in horror other soldiers jump off their bunk-beds and stampede to their morning exercise routine we proceeded to the warehouse to receive our uniforms. The Soviet military uniform changed very little since WWII and there were always rumors of giant stashes of old uniforms sitting around waiting for the time “when enemy strikes”. The boots were the heavy non-laced kind from some fake leather material called kirza (sometimes translated as canvas, I am not exactly sure), uncomplicated by lining or any other comfort features. There were no socks, instead we received two pieces of cloth about the size, shape and thickness of a tea towel (13.6 by 35 inches) and some vague instructions about how to put them on. Given the quality of boots and the fact that this was the only kind of footwear for all occasions except for the rare weekend off, portyanki were not such a bad choice. What we didn’t realize was that putting them on correctly was an art, mastering which for most people required persistence, patience and a lot of foot damage. Another useful but unavailable at that time piece of information was that although the boot may have felt tight at first, getting a larger size was a big mistake. After some trial, error and confusion I ended up with a new uniform, two portyanki and a set of boots one or two sizes too large. Everything seemed to be OK until my first 10K run in full gear. During my whole life before that day my cumulative running distance equaled to about 10 or 20 kilometers. Needless to say that I crawled back half-dead with my portyanki bunched up inside my boots and a big bloody blister on one of my feet, which then got infected, blossomed into a big cyst and brought me to the scalpel wielding failed medical student from the beginning of this post. For the next two weeks one could tell inexperienced portyanki wearer by his distinct limp and walking around in slippers instead of boots. I almost had to wear slippers to my swearing-in ceremony but after the infamous surgery I recovered enough to fit in the boots again.

I could go on and on about portyanki, about the summer and winter kinds, about the smell when everyone aired theirs at night (laundry was once a week), or about how I eventually mastered the art of putting them on and wore them until I was discharged even when I was allowed to wear normal socks. They were comfortable in the end, easier and faster to put on, warmer in winter and cooler during the summer. When I see American soldiers running around in sneakers I smile to myself: what a bunch of pussies! (I am kidding, do not write me threatening comments). For those of you who don’t believe me here is a short instructional video. And that’s, my American friends, how we won the cold war!

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Since I don’t expect that any of you frequent Russian language sites, I expropriated some pictures for your viewing pleasure. If you were invited to a typical soviet apartment in the late 70s – early 80s, chances are it would look something like this. My living room looked pretty similar and so did many other living rooms I visited. The only thing was that many of these only served as living rooms during the day. At night they were converted to bedrooms, where sometimes kids and parents slept and I am not limiting kids to any age here. Some people spent most of their lives sharing a room or two but in the morning you wouldn’t be able to tell. In my own case we had several rooms but we shared the apartment with 4 other families. And by “shared” I mean we had one toilet, one cold water faucet in the bathroom and one corner of the kitchen with a stove and later our own sink. But that’s a different story.
So consider yourself invited:

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Christmas is a very nostalgic holiday, probably more so than any other. It’s the time when people realize that another year is left behind, kids have grown older and now want an iPhone instead of a barbie, and everyone else is sporting more and more gray hairs. People remember their own childhoods, old presents, relatives who are now gone, and the time when Christmas dinner meant killing your own goose.

These photos were taken in Neosho Rapids,KS in 1945.

Read the original Life Magazine article with more photos.

This story had a surprise ending.

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I always wanted to see the beautiful Pacific Coastline, a frequent feature on travel shows and computer screensavers. My original plan was to drive a part of Highway 1, but one day I had an idea to see an even larger part of the Coast from a rail car window – a much more relaxing and hassle-free way of travel. Since writing about traveling by train in 2008, I’ve become an even bigger fan of Amtrak, riding the rails to Chicago at least once every year. It’s a stark contrast with the air travel, where if it were any closer to the cattle transport they would have to give passengers antibiotics and tag their ears. I didn’t have to think twice about buying tickets on the Coast Starlight – one of the most picturesque routes in the country. In addition to the usual advantages of Amtrak – refundable tickets, no charge for luggage, comfort and humane treatment – this time I paid for a roomette in a sleeping car and automatically became a first class passenger. I knew it right away when an attendant brought a small bottle of (cheap) champagne as soon as the train left Seattle. The price of a sleeping car also includes all meals, coffee, juices and fruit in the car, access to a private lounge car and (on this train) a free WiFi. The roomette is not as roomy as one might think, but it’s comfortable enough and private, so no one is schlepping past you at night and the light is not on. The ride is pleasant, the food is not bad at all (did I mention it’s paid for?), the stops are infrequent and the views are breathtaking. I thought it was worth the money, even though it was not cheap.

These are some photos I took from the train, some of them are blurry, so you will feel like you are on the train…or drunk.

This is the Seattle King Street Station, it’s currently being restored so there isn’t much to see inside.

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