Rostov-On-Don/5

The bus stopped in front of an old four storied brick building, built in that baroque-style architecture that seemed to characterise all the buildings in this old Russian city. This one…one of several buildings that constitutes the hostels of the Rostov State Medical University…is located at No 212 Pushkin street next to a very long park.

This was early autumn and the trees and the shrubs seemed to be adorned in an Autumn show of colours ranging from green through golden brown and yellow, with occasional splashes of red in-between. And for as long as the eyes could see there were benches scattered throughout the length of the park, interrupted here and there by dark grey and black statues at regular intervals in the park; I recognised one of the statues to be the bust of Lenin from the bald head and the long goatee beard.

On the other side of the park, and running parallel to it, are located several large retail stores. And from the traffic of people that could be seen going in and out of them one could tell that they were already open for business that morning. In front of one of such retail stores a queue was already forming and you could see people...mostly middle aged men and women...standing patiently, with faces that gave away so little about what was going on in their minds. They were dressed up in dark autumn clothes and were all carrying their large bags or briefcases; modjet be'it bags, Eddy had called them.

At that moment a man staggered out of the store. He wasn't carrying one of those large briefcases, but instead he was clutching several bottles of...what looked like...wine to his chest. He stumbled forwards then regained his balance but dropped one of the bottles, which then splintered into pieces as it crashed to the ground. The people who stood near the entrance of the store immediately scuttered aside to avoid the splintering glasses. And I watched them start to reprimand him but he just shrugged his shoulders and sauntered away.

“So na booze dis people dey wait for!” I heard Ugo, who was sitting in front of me say, commenting on the fact that the queue seemed to have been for alcohol.
As we watched the drama playing out outside, Alexei Sergeivitch had gotten up from his seat in front and stood facing us.
“This is the second hostel” he announced. “And it is where you will be staying for the next one year”.

We all got off the bus and followed Alexei Sergeivitch. The air outside of the bus was very chilly that morning even though the sun had started to climb higher into the sky. The rays of the sun seemed to dance on the tree tops, playing in-between the autumn leaves and casting funny shadows on the wall of that old baroque building. There was something surreal about the way the golden orange rays of the sun cast those funny shadows on the wall, while the people-who had now lost their animation-moved slowly forward and silently in their long queue.

I suddenly had a deja vu experience; I have seen all this before! I thought. I have seen these middle aged people in their dark clothes; the faces and eyes bereft of emotions. The silence. Yes! this was the image of Russia that was always lurking on the threshold of my consciousness. And it suddenly felt as if an old motion picture was playing out around me, where i was just the casual observer.

But this was my reality now; this was Rostov-On Don, a city in the Southern part of Russia which I was going to call home for the next 7 years of my life.