Reflections on Novo

We set off on Tuesday evening on the train for Novosibirsk. (We arrived home this afternoon.) I thought it would be a simple time of catching up with friends from our time living there. In some ways it was, but in others it was a lot more. I guess I am a deep thinker at times, so you'll just have to forgive me for my reflections. I remember a long post I wrote in July, that had a lot of angst in it. It is now easier for me to put some of that in perspective. I am able to understand some of the causes of my earlier angst.

But first to the simple things. We had five days in Novosibirsk. We caught up with 15 individuals and two groups of people, so it was a busy time. Importantly for myself I was able to see my Tuvan friend Aidys. Following the events from our trip to Tuva last Summer, this provided some timely closure for me. Melody had a good chance to catch up with Choiganna and Shoranna and invite them to some events in Krasnoyarsk. We also caught up with some expat friends and heard news of how their lives are progressing. It felt weird to know that their lives have progressed separately from ours in the five months since we left. This only reminds me of how separate peoples lives in Australia and Canada will seem when we visit.

I really have no intention of being negative about Novosibirsk. If you live there and you are reading this and I say something that offends you, please forgive me, I will try to be as tactful as possible. In our short time there I found myself getting really depressed, and overwhelmed with a sense of how strongly I was happy to no longer be living there. I guess it is dangerous to make generalisations. There are so many factors involved in the sweeping statement I just made. Some of our friends there are very obviously where God wants them to be and are living very fulfilling and productive lives.

I look back on our life in Novo and I realise how stressful it was for us. I discussed some of these ideas with people there and they gave me some of their feedback. Let me list the factors.

1) We lived in a very tiny place. Even though we had three rooms plus a kitchen and bathroom- our bedroom did not have room for a proper double bed (we slept on a couch); our living room did not have room for a bookshelf; Abigail's room barely had room for her bed; and our kitchen did not have enough room for a table to eat at. (Does this sound like I am complaining? I certainly hope not. In some ways we can only live with in limits that are acceptable to ourselves. I know that some Russians live like this all the time and that it is perfectly normal to them. But that is the catch, it is perfectly normal to them.) I now know that having a place that is comfortable to live in goes a long way towards sanity. This is something I will do well to remember in the future. The place we live in now is three times as big as we had in Novo, and this is one of the reasons our sanity is restored.
2) There were always drunk people hanging around in the square where we lived in Novo. Yes, I do have compassion for them, but I also have to protect my family, my young daughter. We constantly felt nervous when walking past them. It was impossible to not cross paths with them sometimes, and frankly this did lead to some dangerous situations. My response to them would have been very different if I was a single man. We felt like there was a very thin line between our flat and the outside world. I sometimes had dreams of enemies breaking down that door to attack my family. I remember the time when Dan was visiting us and he was assaulted by one of these drunk people. He took it in his stride. In some ways I think God allowed this to happen to show us how dangerous a situation we were actually living in. I have no doubt that this put our stress levels up a number of points on a constant basis. This is contrasted by my recent story of Melody having her purse returned, where we now live.
3) We felt tired all the time when we lived in Novo. A friend who lives in another part of the city believes that it is because there are many old cars on the road, particularly the trucking industry. There is a lot of pollution in the part of Novo that we lived. I guess I don't have any fact to back this up, and there would certainly be polluted parts of Krasnoyarsk. We now live safely away from the pollution with clean air, and no longer feel a cloud of tiredness hanging over us.
4) I wrote about all of the trees being cut down where we used to live. This may have seemed like sour grapes from me at the time, but trees go a long way towards happiness, and you certainly notice their absence. We walked past our old apartment. Every single tree in the two adjacent squares has been pollarded. It will be years before there is greenery there again. I am so glad that we are out of there. In contrast, we are now surrounded by forest. Considering that soviet architecture is quite grey, these trees make a big difference.
5) Our local supermarket in Novo was always very poorly stocked. This was highlighted for me when I was there yesterday. The situation was far worse. It seems that the supermarket are content to have enough alcohol on the shelves and have given up trying to stock other items well. As I stood at the cash register and witnessed a drunk calling out to his comrade to grab another bottle of vodka, I remarked to myself, that I could not believe that we used to live there. We have two very good local supermarkets now. (Sure they do run out of potatoes sometimes. Yes, no potatoes in a Russian shop..... !)
6) Life is so busy in the area we used to live. I remarked to myself that it was actually busier there than the downtown centre of Krasnoyarsk. We prefer the quieter pace of life that Krasnoyarsk over all offers, and especially that Akademgorodok offers.

Aside from all of these factors, I sometimes wonder about the spiritual climate of the two cities. People work together a lot better in Krasnoyarsk. There is a lot more division in Novosibirsk. I am sure that this makes a difference.

Lastly and most positively, we now have people to share our dreams and work closely with. We did not have this in Novo. It was our number one reason for moving. But I can now see that God was removing us from an unhealthy situation. Now that I have the two to compare, inside of Russia, it will help us to make good decisions in the future. Location really does mean so much when it comes to healthy and happy living. I am prepared to spend more money to do this too, if it means that we will survive and thrive as a family and make it the long term in this country. I wonder how long we would have made it, if we stayed where we were.