An Encounter in Russia

Saturday- June 9

Tula is a city of contradictions. There are incredibly old, decaying wooden, traditional homes in the shadow of crumbling, towering soviet style soulless apartment buildings. There are new outdoor fountains and beautiful flowers next to uneven sidewalks and unmowed grass. The city boasts a movie-restaurant – multi nightclub complex that can draw 3-thousand people, most under the age of 30, on a Saturday night but the toilets don’t work well enough to flush down paper and the water in our hotel is often turned off after 1am. Bottled water is served everywhere. No one drinks from the tap because of contaminants from heavy metals and inside the hospitals you see turn of the century technology next to state of the art equiptment.
Despite all this and the lament by young people there’s really nothing to do in Tula, a young man who’s been to the states 3 times – once for a month long work program in Albany, decides to make this town his home.
Alexy Melnikoff is from St. Petersburg. He went to Tula State University and got a degree in linguistics. Now, about 27 years old he’s helped open and then manage a successful chain of pizza shops in Tula. Then he was hired away to manage the afore mentioned restaurant- movie -nightclub complex. It all came about because of a work- travel program that brought him to the States – Cape Cod, initially.
To see him walk through the establishment he now manages you know his future is fill with many fronts to conquer. He’s got a cool, secure style but not quite a swagger. Everyone knows him and wants to shake his hand. He beams as he shows you the kitchen he designed in the outdoor restaurant called MACHO. He delights in showing off the menu he freely admits he designed based on the one Applebee’s uses. And although he’s restless, 7 years in this job, he’s loath to leave Tula. He’s got a sense this city is poised to make a comeback. It will never be Moscow – in fact, I’m told there’s an old saying, ‘when you get 30 kilometers outside of Moscow, you see the real Russia”. Well, that’s where we are – a bit further actually and the real Russia is a place that looks decrepit on the outside but is simmering with potential. The question of course is, will that potential be realized and who will help it along.
I’d like to believe a quick encounter I had at Alexy’s restaurant is telling. A young woman asked me a question. Since I can’t speak more than a few words in Russian I had no idea what she was saying. She smiled and said “speak English” .. I nodded yes and she replied “Hello Friend”.