Today I went to the dentist to get a filling. My regular dentist, who owned the dental clinic, retired earlier this year and I have had a string of dentists since then working on my rather poor teeth. This one was named Dr. Yuri. I recognized this as sounding Russian, so I asked him if he was Russian. "No," he said, "Ukrainian." I told him I was studying Russian. "That's great. It's a wonderful language." During this snippet of conversation, Dr. Yuri was giving me a shot of local anesthesia and I was getting goofy from nitrous oxide. "Yeah, it's really hard though. I learned pronunciation and spelling right away---my cursive is great. But my grammar...it's really slow going.""Why did you want to learn Russian?' "Well, you know, I'm a cold war kid [I doubt he is, since he didn't have a gray hair on his head], and I always was curious about the culture, but we could never find out about the culture, and then I got to know a bunch of Soviets who emigrated here..."
"Could you open your mouth for me?" I did, as wide as I could. "Hmmm," he said, "I think you're going to need to use a block," which turned out to be a large piece of rubber that went in my mouth on the opposite side of my jaw than the one on which he was working. Now my mouth was fixed in an incredibly wide open state.
"Is that ok?" he asked.
I answered "Ah-hah..." which is what "Mmm-hmm" sounds like if your mouth is stretched as wide as an alligator's. And then he started to work. This is what I imagine he was thinking:
"Finally !! I've got that woman to shut up! Yeah, Ukraine is just a part of Russia. Everybody loves the Russian language. You want to learn it? Fine. But its not Ukrainian.
"It's not like we all walked to Moscow in 1917 and asked if we could be in Russia's new Soviet Club.. We didn't have much of a choice in it. Now, a lot of people thought the whole communist thing was great, I mean, what's not to like? everybody gets a little piece of the pie. Too bad that pie had about 0 calories throughout the 30s. After having to eat Uncle Ivan or a child who'd starved, my forebears weren't too keen on communism, or Russian , or Russians. Then when Stalin stopped punishing the "kulaks" (read---everyone earning the healthy wage of what would equal $10 per year) and a little meat could be found, boom! Nazis.
"Yeah, OK the Nazis were starved out, which was better than us continuing to be starved out, but Stalin was still around and you know, maybe somebody doesn't get a knock at the door at midnight, 5 minutes to get their things, and a toss into the back of a black Mariah, an maybe someone does. Ha! Those crazy Russians.
"You wan't to know what Russians and Soviet officials were like after the war, lady? Not people we liked very much. Especially after they convinced us how wonderful it would be to have one of those Atomic Cities near Kiev, Free housing for workers! A ferris wheel! The cleanest type of energy known to man! And the best minds on the planet trained to put one of those things together and make sure there was no chance of danger.
"42 years ago this was! You think there's any kind of creature that can get a mile away from Chernobyl without getting a dose of radiation equal to what a worker at a nuclear plant is allowed to get within a year? Forget about it.
"Americans. I know the logic. Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, so that somehow means we're part of Russia.
"At least some of them are learning foreign languages now, I guess that's good."
"
"Could you open your mouth for me?" I did, as wide as I could. "Hmmm," he said, "I think you're going to need to use a block," which turned out to be a large piece of rubber that went in my mouth on the opposite side of my jaw than the one on which he was working. Now my mouth was fixed in an incredibly wide open state.
"Is that ok?" he asked.
I answered "Ah-hah..." which is what "Mmm-hmm" sounds like if your mouth is stretched as wide as an alligator's. And then he started to work. This is what I imagine he was thinking:
"Finally !! I've got that woman to shut up! Yeah, Ukraine is just a part of Russia. Everybody loves the Russian language. You want to learn it? Fine. But its not Ukrainian.
"It's not like we all walked to Moscow in 1917 and asked if we could be in Russia's new Soviet Club.. We didn't have much of a choice in it. Now, a lot of people thought the whole communist thing was great, I mean, what's not to like? everybody gets a little piece of the pie. Too bad that pie had about 0 calories throughout the 30s. After having to eat Uncle Ivan or a child who'd starved, my forebears weren't too keen on communism, or Russian , or Russians. Then when Stalin stopped punishing the "kulaks" (read---everyone earning the healthy wage of what would equal $10 per year) and a little meat could be found, boom! Nazis.
"Yeah, OK the Nazis were starved out, which was better than us continuing to be starved out, but Stalin was still around and you know, maybe somebody doesn't get a knock at the door at midnight, 5 minutes to get their things, and a toss into the back of a black Mariah, an maybe someone does. Ha! Those crazy Russians.
"You wan't to know what Russians and Soviet officials were like after the war, lady? Not people we liked very much. Especially after they convinced us how wonderful it would be to have one of those Atomic Cities near Kiev, Free housing for workers! A ferris wheel! The cleanest type of energy known to man! And the best minds on the planet trained to put one of those things together and make sure there was no chance of danger.
"42 years ago this was! You think there's any kind of creature that can get a mile away from Chernobyl without getting a dose of radiation equal to what a worker at a nuclear plant is allowed to get within a year? Forget about it.
"Americans. I know the logic. Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, so that somehow means we're part of Russia.
"At least some of them are learning foreign languages now, I guess that's good."
"
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