“Kindergarten in Russia” by Robert Pettus

Robert Pettus is an English as a Second Language teacher at the University of Cincinnati. Previously, he taught for four years in a combination of rural Thailand and Moscow, Russia. His short stories have been published in numerous magazines, webzines, podcasts, and literary journals. His first novel, titled Abry, was published this spring by Offbeat Reads. He lives in Kentucky with his wife, Mary, and his pet rabbit, Achilles. 

A Word from the Author:

This piece is about my daily walk to school back when I was living in Russia. I lived in Moscow for three years, and each morning--when I would walk to work on the weekends earlier than most people had awoken--I couldn't help but notice how peaceful everything was; the soundproofing silence of thick snow, the architecture speaking wordlessly of past eras, the few early risers lethargically walking their dog or preparing for the day. I believe this sense of calm was worth documenting. 

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Kindergarten in Russia

The creaking elevator dinged shut. I pressed the first-floor button. The lift slid wobbling unstably downward from my small apartment on the thirteenth floor. It was early in the morning, at least for a Saturday – 7am. I had to work on Saturdays. I had to work on Sundays, too; I worked every day other than Friday. The elevator again dinged again as the doors slid open. I put my head down and paced hurriedly out of the building.

From the lobby, I heard a familiar voice. I looked up. It was the housekeeping lady. She always wanted to make small talk with me.

“Dobroe Utro!” she said jovially. She was one of the few cheery people in the country. That was one of the things I loved about Russia – nobody gave a shit about people they didn’t know; about people they weren’t close with. I respected that. It spoke positively to my intense introversion. This old babushka was the exception to that rule. She was abnormally friendly.

I lifted my head halfway, nodding in her direction.

“Kak dela?” she continued.

“Horror show,” I responded. I pressed the circular magnet of my key into the corresponding place in the thick, steel door, then pushing it ajar, pressing onward, against the wind, out into the dark, snowy cold of the morning.

It was windy. A shifting, powdery mist swayed against the cracked concrete of the sidewalk. The narrow street – crammed claustrophobically on either side with stuck, parked cars – led out from my Soviet-styled apartment building to the bustling highway, Rublevskoe Shosse. Six-foot-tall piles of plowed snow stood mountainous at every corner. Moscow never slept. It wasn’t always very exciting – especially in this dense, bland section of the inner city – but it was nonetheless awake.

Green and yellow painted sidewalks and railings lined the path from the exit of my apartment around the bend of the building. I always wondered why the city chose to color all its public spaces green and yellow; it was such a shock to me – I expected red and blue. Green is the color of nature; green is the color of God. Yellow is… easily detected by people with poor vision? That’s the logic, according to the city government.

A green and yellow, ten-foot fence separated my apartment building from the adjacent schoolyard – which housed a currently vacant playground; its plastic slides and swings sitting in dark, snowy abandonment. They would soon be populated by screaming, crazed children, waddling through the snow in their thick jackets and woolen scarves – like that kid from A Christmas Story.

I trudged forward, stopping into the small Produkti shop in front of my building. It was a cavernous place, its wet, muddy floors lined with cardboard aisles – paths leading shoppers around each of the shelves, allowing one the opportunity to maintain dry feet, and keep the floor at least relatively clean. I walked directly to the front counter:

“Odin shawarma,” I said.

I ate shawarma for breakfast, which most of my other western colleagues found disgusting. Hell, most Russian people found it disgusting, too. But shawarma is such a perfect food – I could never help it. Especially shawarma in Russia. The best shawarma in the world is crafted in Russia. You may be thinking that I’m crazy, but it’s true. Russian shawarma combines the best of both Turkish and Soviet cultures. Immigrants from Azerbaijan, or Turkmenistan, or Uzbekistan, move to Moscow and open shawarma shops, or streetside food stands. The chicken is still cooked and seasoned on a spit, in classic Mediterranean style, but in Moscow, there are added Russian ingredients. The tzatziki sauce is thick, with a hint of Russian garlic and mayonnaise. Dill is sprinkled all over the wrap. This creamy, Georgian brand of hot sauce – which I’ve never seen outside of the former Soviet world, is doused heartily, streaking across the top of the wrap. Sometimes, you could get the chicken doused in ajika. The combined ingredients are wrapped in lavash rather than pita. You can wash the whole thing down with some kvass. It’s somehow perfect while trudging through the snow. It can make you sick, sometimes, though – if you catch the wrong stand. Shawarma stands are becoming a thing of the past, though – at least to some extent; it seems Putin doesn’t like them. That was always one of my biggest worries, in Russia – the disappearance of shawarma.

Anyway, it was my usual breakfast.

I had to walk under the highway to get to school. In Russia, most highways house in their underbelly a walking path through which pedestrians can easily traverse. Upon witnessing this engineering success for the first time, I wondered why every highway didn’t have – as a standard procedure upon construction – walking paths beneath them. I’m still not sure why. Maybe because we hate walking, in America.

Underneath the highways exists bustling life – shopkeepers selling clothes, or coffee, or booze; hawkers trying to hustle unwitting passersby; buskers playing music. It’s really an interesting culture, under there. The highway near my apartment building, however – considering its location in the densely residential inner city, featured nothing so interesting. There was one guy that played guitar, though. He opened his case and set it out in front of him, in classic busker fashion, as he played his tunes. The music sprang off the walls of the tunnel, giving it a strong reverb. I liked that. He played some songs I recognized; he always played Zombie by The Cranberries. That song is popular in Russia – I’m not sure whether for political reasons or just because people like screaming zombie. He would sing that song often. That and Nirvana stuff. Say it Ain’t So, by Weezer. He couldn’t speak English, but he had memorized the pronunciation. He sounded pretty good.

I didn’t see him that morning, though – the tunnel was empty. I trudged through it, emerging from the depths on the other side of the highway – out into the courtyard of a block of tall, leaning, Soviet-styled apartment buildings. The apartment buildings in Moscow, as numerous and massive as they are, all look identically shitty. It’s amazing, really. What’s more incredible, though, are the insides of the places. I don’t think I’ve ever gone into a Russian apartment that wasn’t super nice – even the homes of poor families. The place is always clean, nice looking, and it always has a glittering chandelier hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the living room. Every Russian household requires a chandelier – it’s a cultural tradition. It shows that you have more money than you need; you have cash to burn. The exterior of any Russian apartment building in no way reflects its interior. It’s like walking into a different universe – a Russian Narnia. It’s strange.

I pushed through the empty courtyard, which housed in its center a playground and an outdoor gym. Swings swung creaking in the soft morning wind. I threw the plastic bag formerly housing my shawarma in a green metal trash bin outside the entrance to one of the buildings. A stray cat, laying in front of the door to the apartment building, glanced up at me apathetically.

The snow continued. I put in my earbuds.

I love music. It detaches me from reality, and it also deters people from talking to me. I especially love it when I’m in a foreign country. I like finding the bands whose music I think fits the atmosphere of the place – in both the sense of the place’s soul itself, and also in the sense of my subjective opinion of my surroundings.

Beach House and Fleet Foxes always seemed to fit in so well with Russia. Beach House sounds like snow; Fleet Foxes sound like medieval eastern Europe. At least to me.

I flipped through my iPod – I still had one of the classic models, with the spin wheel – and settled on Days of Candy, by Beach House. No song more than that one fits with a dark, depressing, snowy morning. If you have a hangover, it makes it somehow even more fitting.

I stood idly at the intersection, snow buffeting my face as I waited for the crosswalk light to change to green. Down the street a way, not far from where I stood, sat a small Orthodox chapel. It was a wooden building with a green, corrugated metal roof and a glittering, gold-colored onion-dome. A small wooden fence surrounded the building, protecting it from the numerous, surrounding Khrushchyovki apartment buildings, which had closed in on the small church like a pack of wolves greedily encircling a fawn. That’s one the many interesting things about Russia. In no other place can you see the history of the place more clearly. It’s right in front of your face, all the time. The contrast between the Rurik dynasty, the house of Romanov, the Soviet Union, and the Putin-era is everywhere apparent in the architecture. This distinction makes it easy to appreciate the culture and history.

I crossed the street. As I was walked, a Yandex Taxi speeding down the snowy road halted abruptly, sliding in front of the cross walk. Yandex is essentially the Russian version of Google and Uber, if those two companies were combined. I ignored it and pressed forward. That’s the way traffic works, in Russia. You have to assume that speeding cars won’t hit you. It’s unnerving, at first, but you get used to it. Being a passenger in a Russian taxi is a bit of a different story, however; I never fully got used to that. I would always grip tightly the doorhandle and seat-cushion of the backseat, expecting at any moment to crash hard into another vehicle, or fly off the road.

I turned the corner into the courtyard housing the small school where I worked. I taught mostly Kindergarten kids. I was so terrible at it, for the longest time, but I had finally developed ability enough to consider myself a serviceable elementary teacher. The thing with kids, is you can’t get flustered when your plans go to shit. If kids don’t like something, they won’t do it. It’s as simple as that, so you can’t expect to be any sort of disciplinarian when they won’t do the shit you planned for them. The best strategy is to have a variety of activities at the ready and hope one of them catches the interest of the kids long enough to keep them busy for a full lesson. My Kindergarten lessons at this school were an hour and a half long, so keeping interest was often difficult. Lots of music, games, and crafts – that’s what I found to be the most effective strategy. And the occasional Peppa Pig cartoon – Svinka Peppa is incredibly popular in Russia.

I twisted the key into the lock and opened the thick, steel door of the school. The happy, jangling alarm alerted the empty building my presence. The place was pitch-dark. Nobody liked working on the weekends, but all the parents wanted weekend English lessons for their kids – so the school had to operate. Some of my Russian coworkers would arrive a little later, whenever they woke up, but I was mainly looking for Bruce – an old British guy I was supposed to be training. Bruce had left his home in Birmingham because he was tired of his life in the UK. He wanted some adventure, so he decided to move to Russia. I can’t say I was optimistic about his chances of becoming an effective English teacher.

I sat down at the bench in the foyer of the building, grabbing a couple light blue, plastic bags to wrap around my muddy shoes. I had forgotten to bring my indoor slippers, called tapochki, in Russia, so I had to use the bags. They seemed strange when I had first arrived, but they were necessary. Cars, sloshing through the snow, would color every sidewalk brown with gas and exhaust-flavored snow. There was no way to keep shoes clean, and – without the tapochki – no way to keep the inside of a building clean, either.

I stood and walked to the water cooler, grabbing a small, six-ounce plastic cup, dropping in a bag of Earl-Grey, and filling it with steaming hot water. Bobbing the bag up and down in the cup, I sipped the aromatic tea.

Bruce walked in a few moments later:

“Morning, you okay?” he said, waddling into the room, breathing heavily. Bruce had a bit of an odor about him, but I’m not sure he could help it. He was a large dude, and he was probably sixty years old; I’m sure it wasn’t easy for him, trudging through snow-buried Moscow. He reached in his jeans pocket and pulled out a couple small packages of Nescafe instant coffee, which were labeled intense, I guess because they contained an extra caffeine kick. Bruce ripped one of the packages open and dumped it into his plastic cup:

“You want one?” he said, “I got this other one for you.”

“Not right now,” I responded, lifting my cup of tea, “I’ll take you up on the offer after I finish this one off.”

“Earl-Grey!” said Bruce, “My kind of lad!”

We went into the classroom, which was carpeted a shaggy, 80’s-era pale green, and began setting up. I told Bruce that we needed to prepare our craft, cartoon, story, and game. We would intersperse these primary activities with music and dancing. That’s how Kindergarten classes worked – that’s the only way they would be successful. You had to be ready. Bruce swung open the large window, letting in a frigid morning breeze. You really do get used to the cold, in Russia. I didn’t mind it at all – I was glad that Bruce opened the window. Something about crisp, wintry air is reenergizing.

“So, I’m going to let you read the story, and do the other activity you’ve prepared,” I said.

Bruce was a teacher in training. He was mostly just participating in the class as an aid, but the management wanted him to lead a few activities on his own. I told hm I’d give him the story – being that reading a children’s book is straightforward – and let him plan something of his own. If his planned activity didn’t work out, it was no big deal – half of the activities anyone plans don’t work out, in kindergarten classes.

“What story are you going to read?” I continued.

“This one, I think,” said Bruce, removing There’s a Wocket in my Pocket, by Dr. Suess, from the bookshelf as if grabbing something at random. He probably had, but it was a good choice. It’s a classic story, that one.

“Great,” I said, “And what are you going to do for your other activity?”

“I reckon I’m going to teach them how to count!” he said, “I’ll take this whiteboard,” he said, gesturing to the wooden tripod whiteboard sitting in the corner of the room, “and have them write numbers on it. Maybe I’ll use the Wocket in the Pocket book, have them count hidden monsters around the room, and then have them write that number on the board. Maybe I’ll use these magnets to make the shape of the number, and then have them trace it with a marker. We could even play monster hide-and-seek after that, if it’s all right by you.”

“That’s a hell of an idea,” I said, “You’re really a natural at this, Bruce.”

It was a good idea, but Bruce, unfortunately, wasn’t a natural.

The children began arriving not long after that, the cheery, ringing bell continuously signaling their presence at the front door. After I let them in, their parents would sit and apply plastic bags to their feet. The children would run chaotically around the building, destroying anything entering their line of sights like chimpanzees freed from enslavement at the zoo.

“All right, all right!” I yelled, shepherding them into the classroom, “It’s time to begin our English lesson!”

I would smile at the parents before forcing closed the misaligned classroom door. They would smile back. Most of them weren’t competent English speakers. They would occasionally say basic phrases, like “How are you?”, or “Good morning!”, or “Weather is bad!”, and I would do the same to them in Russian, but for the most part, it was smiling and nodding.

I always closed the door to the classroom because teaching often gave me anxiety, which worsened if I knew anyone was watching me. I didn’t even like having Bruce there, honestly, and he was about as carefree as a person can get. It didn’t matter, anyway. The walls were paper-thin. The parents kept their ears perked; they listened to the entirety of every lesson. Some of them even literally put their ear to the door; I knew that because I accidentally rammed one of them once while pushing it open. It’s a bizarre atmosphere, teaching Kindergarten in Russia.

Our lesson went over smoothly. We sang our introductory, morning songs and practiced our new vocabulary. I held out flash cards, featuring photos of different vehicles, and had the students parrot basic sentences back to me.

“It’s a blue train!” I would say.

“It’s a blue train!” They would repeat excitedly.

“Do you like trains?” I would say.

“Yes, I do!” they would answer, slapping their hands against their thighs to get the syllabic rhythm of the pronunciation.

I would give them a high-five, after that, assuming they actually said the phrases. Sometimes, I would retract my hand at the last moment, causing them to miss. They thought that shit was hilarious.

Bruce’s portion of the lesson went over well, too. He read the Dr. Suess story, which was always a hit, and actually got some students to write numbers on the whiteboard. The hide-and-seek game was a bit of a mess, but that was to be expected. Before I knew it, we were singing our goodbye song, and the ninety minutes was finished.

Bruce worked up a sweat during the lesson, the heavy smell of which permeated the small classroom. I had to open the window; I didn’t want the student’s parents thinking I smelled like that. Upon swinging ajar the large window, the students – three or four of which always remained to play in the classroom after the lesson had finished – jumped onto the wide, plastic windowsill and began pointing outside, conversing in their childish vernacular. I enjoyed it when they did that; it was one of the best ways for me to learn Russian. Children use very simple vocabulary, and they scream almost everything they say, unlike adults, who have a tendency to mumble.

Vanya pointed out the window: “That’s my mom’s car!”

Ivan did the same: “And that’s my mom’s car!”

Sasha joined in: “Look! It’s snowing!”

Alina did the same: “Look! That’s a big tree!”

I felt proud when I understood those simple sentences.

Leaving the classroom, I dumped Bruce’s intense coffee into my plastic cup, filling it at the water-cooler. The parents wanted me to give their students “homework”, so after each lesson, I was expected to go over with them the vocabulary, phrases, and reading/writing skills we practiced during the lesson. I talked to them, downed my cup of coffee, removed the plastic from my shoes, put on my coat, and trudged back out into the snowy morning. After lunch, I would return for another class. After that, I would walk to the metro and travel across the city, where I had an evening private lesson with a kid at his house. That was my basic schedule. It was a lot of walking, and a lot of riding the metro. I enjoyed, though, for the most part. I would have hated it, if I’d had to do that in my hometown, but travelling around a foreign city, especially one as massive as Moscow, never completely dulled for me, even after I’d been doing it for three years.

I’d like to go back there, someday, but the current state of events in the world is unlikely to allow that of me, at least not for quite some time. I think I’m done teaching Kindergarten, though – I don’t have the energy, or the patience, for it anymore.