Galina Burley, a local leader in Clark County’s Russian-speaking community, grew up in Sochi, Russia, site of the 2014 Winter Olympics. Her Columbian blog, Exploring Sochi, looks at the culture, issues and her personal memories of growing up in the city, which sometimes reminds her of Vancouver.
Check it out at http://blogs.columbian.com/exploring-sochi. Here are some edited highlights from the past week:
Feb 12: In Russia, football is pretty much always played with your feet. Well, head too, but mostly feet.
Growing up in Russia, loving sports — especially the Olympic Games — was our way of life. Every kid had to be on some sort of athletic track.
I did judo, swimming, got a medal for long jump and played tennis.
During the Olympics, the whole family gathered to watch basically every sport that included our athletes. Back in the day, we only had two TV channels. Both were government controlled (at that time), and lots of propaganda was a result.
We watched every sport, every Olympic event, and of course cheered for the Russians. Back then the USSR included 15 republics, so our athletes weren’t all Russian, although they were called Russians.
For sports, my family loved football. Real football — the one called soccer here. We also watched hockey and tennis — and chess was considered a sport to watch with anticipation and excitement.
Any sport event that included Russians was important. Our entire family would also gather for the Olympic games and watch it together over dinner.
Mom and Grandma would make Olivier salad, baked goods, golubtzi (stuffed cabbage), and since we lived in Sochi (which is next to Georgia), we had to make mamalyga (corn porridge) and satsivi (chicken in walnut sauce) and shilaplavi (a rice dish).
I bet every Russian will be glued to the TV set for the entire duration of the games, both here and in Sochi. I hope you are too. And I hope you share with me your impressions of Sochi with me on my blog.
Feb. 15: I was 15 when we first moved to the United States. My parents left behind their jobs, home and everything they knew to give us a better life in America.
They literally had $50 in their pockets, three kids and one suitcase. They came to America with a dream. A dream full of hope and courage.
After moving to Los Angeles, my parents couldn’t find jobs, and going back to school was not an option. They didn’t speak English. Not a word.
I knew maybe two or three phrases.
For the first few months, we lived with my father’s aunt, with people we met at a church, and even for a moment on the street. Honestly, it was awful and scary. To pay for basic things, dad “dumpster dived,” collected cans and turned them into a dollar here and there.
My dad had a prestigious job in Russia and was well educated.
My mom got an under-the-table job at a sewing factory. Some days she made as little as $4 or $5 for working 10 hours. She was an accountant in Russia, educated as an economist.
I recall at some point we finally got food stamps. And finally after a few months in Los Angeles, my father packed our family up and moved us to Vancouver.
Back in 1991, Vancouver’s Russian-speaking population numbered maybe 100 families. We were in fact one of the first families from the recent immigrant and refugees wave to resettle in Vancouver.
Before coming to the U.S., I only knew what I knew about this country from movies like “Overboard,” a 1987 movie with Goldie Hawn.
I should have paid more attention to the movie. Dean Proffitt, a character played by Kurt Russell, was a super-poor, blue-collar, hard-working man. I assumed Dean was a fictional character. There was just no way that someone could be so poor in America.
In Los Angeles I experienced poverty in a way that I couldn’t have imagined. For the first time in my life, I saw homeless people, gang violence and so much more. It was rough and scary.
Moving to Vancouver made a huge difference in our lives. I got my first job at McDonald’s and helped my parents with rent and the basics. Mom and Dad enrolled at a local beauty school.
A couple of years later, they were working steady jobs, and life here grew more manageable. Fast forward to today, and in many ways we are still Dean Proffitts. Our way of life is humble, hard and not without challenges.
This country gave us many opportunities. I was able to go to school, get a job working for “the government” and raise a family.
My parents own a business and a home. We work hard, we love each other, and most important we give back to our community.
Feb. 17: Sochi was completely rebuilt over the last few years to prepare for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games.
According to the Russian government, 10 years ago Sochi’s declining infrastructure couldn’t support the scope and needs of the games. In fact, I heard that only 10 to 15 percent of the infrastructure needed was in place before the construction boom.
According to Bloomberg News, the Sochi Olympics are the most expensive of all time. Russia’s construction costs are estimated at $51 billion.
In Sochi since 2007, Russia built 54 new bridges, 22 tunnels, 19,000-plus hotel rooms, a new seaport, an upgraded and expanded airport, 14 different athletic venues, expanded sewage and power plants, and much more. According to my friends and family, Sochi is a first-class city, with infrastructure exceeding international quality standards. The residents there are just as tired of construction as they are excited to see their city bloom into a world-class resort.
But can this one-time diamond of Russia be the resort town it was during the Soviet era? Back in the day, our town of approximately 350,000 would balloon up to more than a million during the summer months.
Most Russians didn’t have a lot of options for travel in Soviet times, and going to subtropical Sochi was a one-of-a-kind opportunity that only people with money could afford.
Now that Russians can travel to Greece, Turkey, Italy and any other place in the world, will Sochi see the level of interest from tourism that it once did?
I certainly hope so. Traveling to Sochi is a treat. The city, located on the Black Sea, is still a diamond and no longer in the rough.
The city is an hour away from the snow-capped Caucasus mountains and offers 50-plus miles of sand and rocky beaches. The Sochi River, which runs through the heart of the city, offers amazing fun, and if you get tired, you can go visit the tea farms, mandarin and pomegranate orchards, shop at an open air market, taste local food, visit museums — or go to the ballet, circus, the world heritage site Caucasus Zapovednik, or buy a few things at the International Mall.
If you do make it to Sochi, you can also do me a huge favor: Visit my aunt Karina’s restaurant on the Sochi river, taste some shish kabobs and say hi.
