Kalmyk Tulip Festival

On Saturday Ted and I had the great fortune to visit the annual Kalmyk Tulip Festival!

The Russian word for tulip is тюльпан [tyul-pawn]. 

The tulips grow wild out on the steppe, and the festival is timed with the blooming, so it's a little hard to predict exactly when the festival will occur each year - similar to the cherry blossom festival in Washington, D.C. We were lucky to get some fair weather and to see the tulips in bloom. 

Look closely, and you will see the small red and yellow tulips all over the grass.

The festival takes place near the western edge of the Republic of Kalmykia, about two hours by car. And 30-40 kilometers of that drive is on a rutted dirt road.

We saw the marshrutkas lined up in the City Center in the morning, ready to carry passengers to the steppe, however we were lucky enough to get a ride from Valeriy. Thank goodness, because I can't imagine an hour on that bumpy dirt road in the back of a crowded marshrutka!

Just getting to the festival was interesting for us. Though the car ride was long, there was a lot to see along the way. 

We passed a several groves of trees that were loaded with birds nest. I've never seen so many nests in one tree!

We came upon a herd of cows in the road as we approached the festival.

Even just looking at the beautiful sky was enough for me.

We stopped alongside the dirt road at a Soviet-era sign welcoming us to a state-owned farm (sovkhoz) and took some photos. At this one they bred cattle - a plemsovkhoz. It was also for youth, the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League (VLKSM). 

When we finally reached the festival grounds, they looked very much like an American festival out on the plains - lots of cars, buses, and even campers parked at the perimeter, a line of port-a-potties and a hand-washing station, and tents set up for food, advertising, and educational purposes. There was an area with some small rides and a blow-up slide for kids and an area where you could ride a camel or a horse for a photo op.

You can't help but start taking photos as soon as you step out of the car.

The flag of Kalmykia is on the left, the flag of Russia is on the right, and if you couldn't tell by the flags,
the wind was blowing fiercely! The sign says: Shashlik, 350 rubles.

Our first stop was the field of tulips near the parking area. There were lots of families and individuals spread out amongst the tulips, posing for photos. We joined right in!

It was a great experience just to sit in the grass and smell the sagey scent of the steppe, with the wind blowing in our hair (really just my hair)!

The tulips themselves are smaller than tulips we see planted in gardens back in the U.S. They are shorter, too. I think it must be due to the limited rainfall and the strong winds that seem to blow constantly here.

The colors we saw were mostly red and yellow, with an occasional purple or white tulip. A few of them looked like a hybrid tulip + iris! It was very difficult to photograph them up close because the wind was whipping them around so much that most photos came out blurry. I managed to get a few decent shots, though (you'll see my hand trying to hold the tulip steady in some of them!):

After our photo session in the tulips, we stopped to eat some shashlik (pork kabobs) at one of the many vendors. It looked like a bunch of families just brought their backyard grilling equipment and a load of bottled beverages to sell. There were probably 20 different vendors to choose from, so we ended up going with the first one we encountered, and it was absolutely delicious - tender and flavorful!

The men are wearing traditional Kalmyk hats.
The kabobs are called shashlik, and the meat is delicious.

Shashlik is marinated, grilled meat served with thinly sliced onions and usually a kind of sweet/savory sauce. The wind was blowing so hard that we had to hold the plastic plate with one hand and eat with other. Our pile of napkins blew away more than once...

Kalmyk chai (tea)

Once our bellies were full, we wandered around, running into people we knew (well, mostly people Valeriy knew) and viewing the music, dancing, and wrestling exhibitions. The head of Kalmykia was there and gave a short speech, and there were many people dressed in traditional garments, demonstrating traditional Kalmyk crafts and lifestyle.

(In the video you get a sense of the incessant wind!)

The camel puppet is connected to the dombra player's hand with string,
so it "dances" as he plays. 

Due to the strong winds, the weather went from sunny to cloudy to sunny to cloudy very quickly, and we could see rain in the distance. Right around the time my phone/camera battery died, we were hit with a sudden drenching downpour! Of course, we were as far from our car as we could possibly be within the festival grounds. 

Everyone immediately dropped whatever they were doing and started running toward the parking lot. Many took shelter inside one of the tents or yurts, or under tarps set up by the shashlik sellers. We didn't even bother running because we were soaked almost instantly, so we just had a nice long walk in the drenching rain, and it was actually really refreshing! 

One of the last camel rides before the rain completely soaked all the animals - and us!

The rain stopped just as we reached the parking lot, and we debated going back to the festival, but we were pretty cold and wet by that point, so we left. I hope we can get out to the steppe one more time before we leave Kalmykia - it was my favorite part of this trip so far!

Accommodations

We have finally settled in here. The weather has been mild, with some sun and some overcast days and temperatures in the 40s. Most of our time has been spent at the university and in our apartment. We are usually chaperoned around town in Valeriy's car, but we've also tried out the marshrutka (van-buses), which we'll cover in another post.

Today I'd like to write about our accommodations and the area surrounding our building.

Our apartment is in a dormitory that mostly houses students with families and married couples. It is more than enough room for the two of us, and it is well-kept. There is a washing machine and ironing board in a common area, as well as an eating area with refrigerators - perhaps for larger items that don't fit in the mini-fridges within the apartments?

We are situated near the outskirts of town, so there's not much around us:

View across the street from the apartment building

View behind the apartment building

We are anxious for Spring to arrive, because it seems there are lots of rose bushes and probably other flowers planted around the front of our building. Apparently Kalmykia is awash with tulips in the springtime. Right now the predominant color is BROWN.

The street next to us is lined with garages. Valeriy says that some hold cars and others are used for storage
(just like in the U.S.!). The large pipe in the foreground probably carries water to this area.

From our road, we can see the khurul (Kalmyk word for Buddhist temple, pronounced HOO-rool) on the horizon

Upon entering the apartment building there is a sort of "house mother" who sits at a front desk and can help out with anything we need. When we need our linens washed, we take them to her and she takes care of it (the washing machine is not big enough for things like bed sheets). If we want someone else to clean the floors in our apartment, she takes care of it. If we want to arrange for a delivery, she takes care of it. If someone in another apartment is being too noisy late at night, we tell her and she takes care of it. She's kind of like a mother, cleaning lady, and mafia boss all wrapped up into one.

"House Mother" not pictured (we don't have that kind of a relationship yet...)

The hallways and common areas are filled with potted plants, to my great pleasure. I love houseplants, and the space would feel too clinical without them.

The common area is filled with people in the evenings - older people watching the news
(TV mounted on the wall to the right, out of the picture), children running around shrieking, etc.

Our apartment is on the first floor, at the end of the hall. It consists of a bedroom, office, kitchen, and bathroom (the toilet is in a separate area than the shower/sink).

We have a very nice office where Ted can do his work and I can write blog posts.

The bed is actually two twin beds pushed together with two separate comforters covered in duvet-type pockets. That seems to be the way they do it here in Russia, with the two covers. I like it because Ted can be a covers hog sometimes, and this way I don't have to fight him. :) The pillows are large and square rather than rectangular like pillows in the U.S.

View of the bathroom(s), to the left of the entryway

We have to sit or squat in the tub to take a shower, because otherwise water goes everywhere - the tub is not flush with the tiled wall. There's a handheld shower head, so you have to strategically turn the water on and off, with sudsing up or shaving done in between rinses. It's not too bad, actually, and probably saves a lot of water.

Hope you're not claustrophobic, because the "throne room" is a tight space!

To the right of the bathroom(s) is the kitchen. The stovetop works well, but using the oven trips the circuit breaker, so we have a microwave for "baking", which we keep in the cupboard when not in use because there's not a lot of counter space. We use a cafeteria tray as a drying rack and an electric kettle to boil water. 

Here you can see what we look like eating dinner in our pajamas at night:

Just beyond the kitchen, we have a small porch with a clothesline:

We need to get with the program and hang some laundry up outside!

The heat in this building seems to be kept at maximum temperature throughout the day and night - perhaps for families with children - so we have our windows open a good 50% of the time to cool off. The outside temperatures have so far been pretty mild, with no snow accumulation despite a couple flurries the day we arrived. We asked our international office guide whether people around here ever talk about climate change, and he answered, "All the time."

Today we are planning to go to a restaurant for a special dinner with Valeriy to celebrate our arrival. Posts about Kalmyk food coming soon!

R.S.V.P.

This is really happening. Ted and I have officially been invited to Russia! We have RSVP'd "YES" to Kalmyk State University, applied for our visas, and the adventure begins.

After several weeks of delays to our visa invitations, during which our frustration and despair mounted daily, we can finally progress to the next stage of our journey: preparing for departure. I have been obsessively stocking up on toiletries, laying out clothing options, and tying up loose ends in Arkansas.

A little background information first: Ted has been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to complete four months of research in Kalmykia, Russia. He will be interviewing native Kalmyks about their religion (Buddhism) and the role it played in their lives before/during/after the time of the USSR. I'll let Ted explain more later, but that's the gist of it... I think.

Kalmykia highlighted in red

I will be tagging along for two reasons: (1) Four months is a long time to be away from your dear husband. We've spent time apart in the past during various education, research, and work-related trips, but never in the combination of THIS far apart + THIS long, and (2) This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to really experience a little-known region of the world that I would otherwise never travel to.

I'm not sure what our internet connection will be like over there or what exactly I'll do to stay busy, but I'll try to post weekly updates of our experiences. Hopefully it will be interesting for those of you following along!

We are headed to Washington, D.C. in a week, then we fly to Moscow on February 24th, if all goes according to plan. From there we'll fly to Elista, in the Republic of Kalmykia. Look for blog updates sometime after February 25th!