Fatherland Defenders and English Across Town

Hurray, it's another holiday in Russia:  23 February, Fatherland Defenders Day!  The origins of this holiday date back to the earliest of Soviet times and are associated with the founding of the Red Army and its initial successes in raging battles against German troops in February 1918.  The holiday was first celebrated one year later and soon became officialized as Red Army Day with the expected parades, fanfare, and rousing patriotic slogans. Yet as is its wont, time rolled on, communism fell some 70 years later, but who wants to give up a holiday? So the day was transformed into the similarly intentioned Fatherland Defenders Day and is dedicated to those people, who protected, protect and will protect the native ground in the form of service in the armed forces. Among the general populace, it is seen as a day celebrating "real men," with all of the bravado and beer (vodka) that this naturally entails.

Meanwhile, Red Kirill scoffs derisively at the official hogwash.  "Such a fatherland! To defend these criminals who have stolen power, who have hijacked the country? Not me!  Give me instead a Traitors to the Fatherland Day!" 

Be that as it may, I must spend this notable day giving English lessons as my students are a dedicated lot. First I head across the Neva to Dearlies -- we spoke about this charming, multi-national child back in April of last year. It turns out that Dearlies is the only one at home today and, probably to escape dwelling on the differences between the "will-future" and the "going-to-future," she insists on giving me the grand apartment tour. From those parts I have already seen, I suspected it was vast, and indeed, it takes up the whole floor, decorated in impressive nouveau riche. "Oh," I say, as I regard the pedigreed Abyssinian cats lounging sleepingly on the tiles, "Your bathroom has a heated floor!" 

Dearlies nods and adds coquetishly  in sweetly accented English, "It is a tiny flat. A very tiny flat! Oh, and look what my father gave me for the holiday!"

She pulls out a bag in that unmistakable Tiffany aqua, and proceeds to display a lovely charm bracelet. "It's silver," she says, "real silver. And he got Mama a purse, a Chanel purse!"  It seems like she is learning all of the important words.

From there it's on to Chokoladnitsa, an upscale chain cafe on Nevski Prospect, where Kate (Katya really, but her mother tries to set the English tone) is waiting for me at a table in the corner, with mother sitting guard. Kate is another charming ten-year-old, slender, pale, wearing a starched white blouse and a plaid skirt, her flaxen hair tied back in a braid. She concentrates, a little furrow appearing on her brow, as we go over comparatives and superlatives, covertly acting out big-bigger-biggest, happy-happier-happiest. Kate pretends to be sobbing (sad-sadder-saddest), while her mother tips away on her i-Phone, every now and again giving Kate grammatical advice and taking a sip of tea. She studiously manages to avoid offering me a beverage, and I could so use some of that $6.00 per tiny-tinier-tiniest cup of coffee right now. Well, it's time to arrange the next lesson and I realize that poor Kate has a schedule busier than mine, as she navigates between school, English lessons, art lessons, horse-riding lessons and the like.  She is clearly being groomed for great things.

"By the way," says her mother, "next time I won't be here, so Grandma will come with Kate instead. I'm going to Dubai for three days.  I haven't seen the sun for so long."  

I trudge out into the sunless, snow-filled Petersburg winter and head back to my apartment to meet up with Golden Guy Pavel. He has good news: he has been accepted into the Computer Engineering Masters Program at a Parisian university and will start there in the fall.  Plus, it's his birthday in a few days, and he's rented a house in Finland for the weekend so he and his friends can celebrate appropriately.  

"So the next time I see you, you'll be a year older,"  I say.

"Yes," he grins, "I'll be twenty-two."

We go over the intricacies of the conditional tense and I ask him, "Pavel, knowing what you know now, what would you have done differently in your life?"

He grins again and says, "I'd do everything just the same."

May it last!

Happy Fatherland Defenders Day!