Spa - Tula Style

Monday June 11, 2007


Time to say goodbye to Tula. We’ve seen so much, spoken with so many people and eaten at countless dinners prepared by locals it’s hard for me to keep it straight. Thankfully I’ve taken copious notes and we’ve got more than 15 hours of video tape. Distilling all that into a week’s worth of stories will be a monumental task, but I suspect I’ll revel in reliving this time.

It only seems fitting that we ended our stay here with a unique experience. There’s a local man, Pavel Nechepurnova, who’s an entrepreneur. (quick aside: the only other American he’s hosted besides our little delegation, the son of Charlotte Buchanan head of the Albany Tula Alliance with whom we’re traveling)
During the Soviet Era Pavel was stationed in East Germany and served as a translator. After Perestroika he tried his hand at numerous endeavors… raising and selling roses, making and selling sausages. Most recently he buys used trucks and construction vehicles, refurbishes them and sells them. To say it’s profitable is an understatement. He lives in a mansion by anyone’s standards complete with a greenhouse and a banya. The only way to describe a banya is spa. In this home there was a changing room, shower, sauna, snack room and through the greenhouse a pool some 15 meters long. This is how it works. You shower and then sit in the sauna where someone softly beats you with oak or hickory leaves that have been anointed with anise oil. After that it’s back into the shower and a swim. This is repeated. Then you take a break, have a snack – some shrimp, beer and juice were served, then back into the shower, sauna and pool. WOW! No wonder our guide Galina told us, when her parents lived in Siberia they first built their banya. Says Galina, you can live without a house, but not without a banya because a banya is for HEALTH.

Now, earlier in the day we visited with a middle class family. They live in one of the old apartment buildings. The husband and wife and two of their 4 grown kids and one grand child live there. The apartment is so humble that we were entertained in a bedroom as the living room was filled with the dining table. They don’t have a banya and their dacha, country home, is a tent on a plot of land they’ve been going to for years. In fact, when the kids were young the father piled them all into his motorcycle side car and off they went for the 14 hour ride. That’s right, 3 on the bike, 4 in the side car along with the tent and some provisions. They had a blast and we so enjoyed their hospitality. For one of the sons, the Alb-Tula Alliance changed his life as he became an interpreter and works for Doctors without Walls.

Such is Russia.

All of our hosts expressed the wish we can sit around their tables again.

Me too – but first, a little banya.