From the window of the train we could see a young woman holding a tiny American
flag. Arina, with her husband Yura and a second couple, Natasha and
Sergei(right), bravely came out to greet us when our train pulled into the Chita train
station at 3:00 a.m. On our way out to the waiting taxi we discussed
where we would be staying. They ran down the situation for us: Arina and
Yura had an extra room at their place but no phone, while Sergei and Natasha had
a phone but no extra rooms. Obviously, we preferred being where we had access to
a phone, but we decided that for the moment we would stay with Yura and Arina and
run over to Natasha and Sergei's place when we needed to use the phone.By the time we arrived at their apartment we were exhausted and hoping to get some sleep so we could get a reasonably early start in the morning. Arina offered to cook for us but when we politely refused she insisted that we at least sit down and have some tea and cake. Moving and speaking nervously, she seemed embarrassed to have foreigners in her home -- constantly apologizing about the condition of their apartment, which was normal size, even large by Russian standards.
Yura joined us with a bottle of Russian champagne and only smiled at my halfhearted attempt to refuse, which I knew was useless. So at four in the morning we toasted and drank to our meeting. When we told them about our project, Arina listened skeptically, apparently not able to understand how life in Chita could interest anybody. We assured her that many people were very interested but she remained unconvinced. It became clear that she felt we were airing Russia's "dirty laundry" and she was not pleased. Then out of nowhere, Arina began to tell us how how terrible she thought it was that the Americans were bombing the Serbs in the former Yugoslovia. The conversation became more uncomfortable and at our first opportunity we excused ourselves and sheepishly went off to bed.
A few hours later, we woke up and went over to Natasha and Sergei's to check our mail and ask if there was any possible way to stay at their place. We explained that we really needed to be near a phone, which was true, but getting away from the bad vibes at Arina's place was also on our minds. Fortunately, in spite of their tight living conditions, they agreed to put us up. We didn't waste much time gathering our bags.
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