10 Things I'll Miss About Russia - Part 2

This is the second part of my series about things I'll miss about Russia now that we're no longer able live there. If you missed Part 1 you can find it here. In Part 1 I started listing my choices in reverse order, 10 to 6. So now, let's kick off with number 5.....

5)      The Child-Focussed Nature of the Local Culture

I remember returning to England once when Sophie was still very small, and wondering ‘Why aren’t people cooing over my baby and wanting to hold her? Can’t they see how beautiful she is?’ I’d got used to living in a culture where it’s totally fine for strangers to want to interact with your children; for waitresses at cafes to whisk them off into the kitchen so that you can eat your meal in peace, and for sometimes quite random people at church offering to hold your baby so that you can concentrate on the service. It seemed to me that all babushkas had a supply of sweets stashed away in their pockets, ready to be whipped out whenever a small child appeared within 5m of them (although realising your toddler has chocolate smeared all over his face just when the church service is about to start was not always totally appreciated by the parents involved!), and all strangers, men and women, regardless of age, saw it as their duty to inform any poor, distracted mother when her child was showing any bare skin, especially around the ears, during the winter months. Whereas in England people in supermarkets can sometimes look annoyed that you’ve brought your toddlers there to disrupt their peaceful shopping experience, in Russia they would smile at them, offer them sweets and praise them for being such good helpers. I’ll miss being in a place where children are genuinely loved and valued by the whole community. Not that they're not loved and valued in England, but it was more tangible and obvious in Russia. Now we'll have to teach our children that it's no longer acceptable to accept sweets from strangers - if we'd taught them that in Russia, we would have offended a lot of people!

4)      Experiencing Different Cultures

Living in a culture that’s not your own is difficult, but incredibly enriching. I feel so blessed to have had this opportunity to live in a place where very few foreigners have ever lived, to learn about traditions that are so different to my own, and to have my eyes opened further to the beautiful diversity of culture, people and language that exists in God’s world. Some cultural habits will be hard to shake off, like wanting to take your shoes off when you enter a house, or wanting to 'bob' up out of your seat when somebody sneezes. Other cultural habits we hope we won't shake off, such as the respect shown to elders and the generosity and hospitality shown to guests. It now seems natural to us to want to take a gift whenever we are invited somewhere, and to want to give away toys to the children who come to visit us.

3)      The Weather

OK, so I’m British, and ‘the Weather’ has to be somewhere up there in my top three! Last year we were back in England for six months, just in time to hit the wettest spring/summer on record (going back 100 years!) It seems like the national dress has now become waterproof jackets and wellies. When we returned to Russia in August (I need to point out that we lived down in the south of the country) we experienced more sunshine in one month than we’d had in the whole six months in England! We’re going to really miss the heat, the sunshine and the clear, blue skies! We’re going to miss not having to think about taking a sweater and an umbrella with you everywhere you go. We’re going to miss all those summer evenings of eating outside in our garden, and our kids being able to splash in the paddling pool all summer long.

2)      The Ex-pat Community

Living in an often difficult cross-cultural environment understandably brought all of the like-minded Westerners together in a special way over the years. It was such a privilege to be a part of this amazing group of people, all doing amazing things, and we benefited so much from their practical help, emotional support and spiritual encouragement over the years. We know it’ll be hard to find such a group of people back in our ‘home’ country.

1)      Local Friends

We found the people in our part of Russia to be incredibly warm, friendly and hospitable. In fact, many of them are generous beyond what they can really afford, and I’ve learned so much from them about hospitality over the years. With some particular local friends we have fond memories going back ten years, and it was very difficult to have to say goodbye and possibly never see them again. We’ll particularly miss our local church, where we were so blessed by the fellowship and the worship. However, my heart bleeds most for my children. For me, I know that if I have the opportunity to visit my friends in two or three years time then they won't have changed that much, but for the children it feels like their whole childhood experience up to now has come to an end and will never be regained. They were so blessed to have wonderful friends living right next door, with whom they played almost every day, and they had lovely, local friends in their Sunday school group at church too. I know they'll make new friends here in England, but I still can't stop the tears coming to my eyes when I look at photos of the friends they left behind in Russia.

Qu: Have you moved a long distance away and had to leave close friends behind? How did you help your children work through their loss and start building new relationships? I'd love to hear your thoughts.


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