Stories from the cold

It was a clear winter’s morning, the thermometer stuck at an icy 16 degrees below zero. Outside the trees were left barren and tortured from the majestic snow that covered everything in sight, robbed of their beauty and stripped of their innocence, frozen in a moment in time – an eerie reflection of a life once dominated by splendor and grace. Slowly I paced myself on the rubbery surface beneath my feet while breathing in and out, slowly and purposefully. Hailing from a distant land dominated by sunshine and heat, the experience of every cold breath stinging like an ice pick straight to the chest was unheard of. Yet, walking along the snow clogged streets in the heart of Russia, reality itself was disturbed, turned upside down by the feeling of being lost in time, stranded in history. This is the land of Stalin and the Russian bear, the statues of Lenin and a proud Soviet history still marking the landscape, echoing a time the world has long forgotten, a time that is still fused to the very essence of the people around me. Upon arrival at the local market I have my first encounter with one of the most iconic figures of this extraordinary place, a figure forever immortalized in the art and culture of the society she calls home – the Babushka. The English translation, Grandmother, does not do her justice. She is the face of the much loved Matreshka, a wooden Russian doll that opens up into multiple pieces, a vivid representation of her complex nature. The signature headscarf on her head, tied below the chin and leaving only her face exposed to the elements; her body small and round as if to guard from the clutches of the cold that surrounds her; her eyes bristling with the experience of a thousand lifetimes. She truly is a proud and intimidating figure who demands to be addressed by the name Devushka, or Girl, a reminder of the days from her youth when she was revered by many, covered in beauty and driven by the energy of youth. And just like the trees outside, she seems frozen in time, the evidence of a life lived reflected in the wrinkles around her eyes, her skin glazed from the winds of a thousand winters. She is the matriarch of this society, loved and despised by equal measure, the only constant in a world changing ever faster. And just like the trees, as the seasons change and the sands of time trickle away, she will be there. As I turn to walk away I am reminded that I am just a traveler in this land, but she is the constant, she is time itself.