From the Archives - Circa Spring 2006
On Monday I was reminded of some sage old advise that I believe my friend Lynn's father gave to him and Lynn passed on to me some time ago: "the less you pay for your alcohol, the more you pay in the morning".
Sunday was Easter II, Russian Easter is always 2 weeks after Western Easter. So we were doing the normal things that people here do: hardboiled a lot of eggs and colored them; made a traditional egg & cottage cheese dish; got some cakes that had eggs in them; and then ate eggs all during Easter day. Of course we had a few other things like ham & beans, fish salads; lots to eat. And of course we had a little wine to drink.
Wine is becoming something of an international problem. Russia of course doesn't produce any wine now that the southern part of the old USSR has gone its own way. So all the wine is imported from somewhere, we think. French, Spanish, Italian, Chilean, South African, Australian, Moldavian, Georgian labels are what you see on the shelves. But wait! Recently on the internet Vicky finds information alluding to the fact that lots of the wine is not really wine at all, just powder mixed with water and alcohol. And there is no shortage of empty wine bottles to put such a vile mixture in.
Bottle recycling is big around here, big that is for alcoholics. There are hundreds of dingy, back-ally type recycling operations where you will always see a line of old pensioners and alcoholics who are there to trade a bag full of beer and wine bottles they collect during their brief period of sobriety for a few rubles. Then of course they buy more alcohol and the recycle process starts anew.
Mostly one sees beer bottles being recycled. That’s the easy trade since on any given morning looking out the kitchen window during breakfast one can always spy people walking with a couple of cold ones in there hand. I’ve always wondered “are they heading home from the night shift and getting ready to settle into a few TV soap operas, or heading to work for the day shift and getting ready for dealing with the boss lady?”
So, again, I wondered could these recycled wine bottles be used for Russian bathtub wine? Sounded reasonable, after all this is Russia. We started scrutinizing the wine bottles loooking for anything suspicious.
Inspector Irina quickly noticed that the back labels were missing from some wine bottles. Strange, this is where the winery promotes their product. But wait, there is some kind of Russian label on the back telling “who knows what”. OK, Irina surmises “if the bottle has an original back label it is less likely to counterfeit, we will buy. No label or Russian label – no buy”. Then when we closely looked at the front labels we realized that some of them looked very "amateurish", probably printed on someone's ink jet printer in the back office, and again only a Russian generic label on the back. It is becoming more and more difficult to find wine bottles meeting our strict label criteria.
Then it happened; official confirmation of foul play in the wine biz came a few weeks later. Last year I developed a real liking for the Georgian and Moldavian semi-sweet wines. Suddenly they were nowhere to be found. The mystery was soon solved. The info babes on the 6:00 news, by the way Russian info babes are definitely the most beautiful in the world, are showing swat teams in full combat gear rampaging through unsuspecting grocery stores rounding up all the “Southern wine production”. Horrified owners tried to find an explanation and shoppers just moved to another aisle where it was a little less crowded.
The info babes looking very serious continued talking so fast it was hard for Irina to catch what was going on. The jest of the story turns out to be, that following an "official inspection" it was discovered that wines from these evil “Southern Countries” didn't meet Russia's Adult Beverage Bureau’s high quality standards. The unofficial speculation is that there is some problem going on between the Putin government and Georgia and Moldavia. Kinda like cutting off the gas to the Ukraine last January, the coldest winter in the last 30 years, because of a pricing dispute.
Anyways the wine from those countries all but disappeared, except from some of the small “hole-in-the-wall” purveyors who themselves were “Southerners and had a “leetle” stock left. Their wine was the best we had found but the supply was drying up quickly. It was getting serious because Georgia and Moldavia had been major exporters to Russia. The whining continued for a while and then the Georgian President on TV (that’s Georiga the country’s TV, not Russian TV, we watched on the internet) tells the Russians. "Yes, some of the wine exported to Russian may have been lower quality, but what does it matter? Russians would drink red water with s..t in it if they thought it was alcoholic". I have cleaned up the quote to make this suitable for family reading. Following that tactful diplomatic statement I don't bother looking for Georgian wine in Russia anymore.
So needless to say on our Easter II table was a supposedly Estate bottled, 2004, Chilean merlot. It carried only a generic Russian back label, as nothing else was on the shelves in our local store. I enjoyed my first glass. “Not bad for red water with alcohol and sundry other contents,” I thought.
Soon thereafter Vicky and Igor arrived and what should they have with them but "Kagor" - church wine. They got it from the church where the priest personally blessed the bottle as you handed him the Rubles. It was Easter II so I thought Kagor to be more appropriate than suspect Russkie-Chilean merlot. Only problem Kagor came in a plastic 1 liter bottle, an unsealed twist top and absolutely no labels front or back.
Considering all the recent flap over wine quality and high production standards I should have been more cautious. But I remembered that last year Igor had brought similarly packaged wine from Moldavia and it had been very good. No one else really liked the sweet “Kagor” wine; they were all drinking my Beefeater & tonics, vodka, or Cizano all of which had proper labels on the bottles. So I remember having about 4 glasses during the evening of this unidentified elixir, which really tasted very good, not like "s..t" at all.
After the grand celebration we all got the remaining eggs and once again did the final Easter egg tradition. We cracked the eggs against the other’s eggs and said “Christ has risen” and the other person replies, “He has risen indeed”. Being out of eggs, out of adult beverages, out of food the afternoon winded down. Vicky, Igor and their friends headed off for bowling, leaving Tolick with us; babysitting - our normal duty.
While tidying up and waiting for them to retrieve little Tolick I started having a lot of heart burn. Not being able to spell "relief" with Rolaids I settled for the Russian substitute - 4 black coal pills. Irina had previously revealed to me the magic like quality of coal pills some months earlier. They are actually black coal which when chewed up turn your mouth and tongue a really ugly black; kinda like eating a charcoal bricket. Just make real sure you rinse your mouth after use and before going out in public. But they can virtually absorb or neutralize all kinds of bad things in your stomach. Irina said that the KGB's legendary drinking prowess over their CIA cohorts was built on these little pills. Took the pills, they helped, the parents returned, and we all headed to bed. It had been a good celebration.
Next morning we were up early, 9:00 or so, I took Chico on his morning walk and returned for a breakfast of yogurt, musli, fruits, cheese, black bread covered with homemade baby strawberry jam and black coffee. Finished, took care of the normal morning chores and then that nasty heart burn returned. Took more black coal. Irina headed to Vicky's to help with the baby. Fortunately I stayed home because stomach cramps soon set in. I laid down bed for a bit until I decided it was time for a SIB (Self-Induced-Barf).
Felt a little better but it was not to last. Had this terrible taste of rotten eggs and about 15 minutes later, right in the middle of phoning Irina, I rushed to the toilet for another round. Well this went on for the next couple of hours and I was thinking "what a really weird hangover - but why this terrible rotten egg taste".
Irina returns from babysitting duty and says "what is this terrible smell? Rotten eggs!" Then she gets to the room where I was lying and discovers the source. "Disgusting smell!!"
I told her "I think I am having some kind of reaction to all those Easter Eggs we ate yesterday". My system has always been a little sensitive to eggs.
She exits the room thinking "Yeah - Hangover".
While laying in the fetal position trying to figure out what is going on I’m thinking "rotten eggs & sulfur - a bad mixture. Wait remember? Wine always has in tiny, little print on the back label ‘Caution contains sulfites’. What are sulfites? like hydrogen sulfide. Did we make them in high school chemistry class, or was that sulfates or sulfurics or let's see is that 2 hydrogen atoms and one sulfur atom, or - oho time to head for the toilet
I never knew what sulfites were or what they do. Of course the wine I was drinking didn't have any labels at all, who knows how many sulfites it might have had or what was in it. Anyways, maybe the two combinations of sulfur from the eggs and wine's sulfites are creating one of the many sulfur acids I last experimented with in high school chemistry. Sure smelled that way.
Irina returns and as in all situations like this has the answer "lets go to the hospital". First, I didn't think I could make it. Can't walk that far today and if we caught a little bus packed with people there would sure be a lot of mad Russians if I turned it into a stinking "vomit comet". Second, I wasn't to the point where I wanted to go into a Russian hospital and have them do anything that might require me to be put under - like maybe pump my stomach. I would have settled for some Pepto Bismo, but Russia doesn't have any.
Desperately I though how to respond and then I remembered "Isn't that medicine we got when Chico (our dog) was poisoned still around?” It was, and she brewed me up a batch. "Ummm, not too disgusting. Tastes like undercooked rice in water." Twenty minutes later, time for another toilet run.
By the end of the day my system was virtually empty, except for Chico's poison mix which I kept taking. But then I felt like I was running a little fever. So out came the old-faithful, Industrial strength Soviet, under-the-arm thermometer. "Yupp, 37.8 - IRINA. What is normal again?"
Irina calls Vicky relating my condition and their immediate diagnosis - "FEVER, HE HAS BIRD FLUE!!!" It was everywhere on TV at the time, another wonderful import from China.
I tell them "No way - bird flue is a respiratory problem, not stomach". But I started thinking maybe it could have mutated into some kind of stomach virus. Oh yeah by the way, we have almost quit eating chicken because of all the chemicals they feed them to ward off the bird flue. And there is a real concern about eggs being contaminated also. And by-the-way meat, of course, is out because of Mad Cow. Oh and don't dare eat anything from the Ukraine or Belarus because of the leftovers from the Chernobyl disaster can still be found.
Anyways it was getting late and I was in bed. Irina was forced to sleep on the sofa because she couldn't stand the smell.
The next morning had to get up early because the remodeler boys were coming over to replace the linoleum in the kitchen. So we all got up, including me. Actually I didn't feel too bad, just a very sore stomach and weak from all the vomiting. Made it through the day and finished reading my book so it wasn't a total loss. Still had a sore stomach but by the evening it is almost normal, what ever that is in Russia.
At the end of the day, I agree with Lynn's father's advise. Actually always have, just stray a bit from time to time. But if this was all the result of a hangover I am never, never going to drink any wine again; well at least not from an unlabled plastic bottle when overdosing on hard boiled eggs. However, will never know about the wine because nurse Irina poured all the remaining Kogar down the drain. I was disappointed, I thought I might take to the Russian Poison Center and have it evaluated. But I will just be satisfied with feeling better and surviving another day in old Russia.
On Monday I was reminded of some sage old advise that I believe my friend Lynn's father gave to him and Lynn passed on to me some time ago: "the less you pay for your alcohol, the more you pay in the morning".
Sunday was Easter II, Russian Easter is always 2 weeks after Western Easter. So we were doing the normal things that people here do: hardboiled a lot of eggs and colored them; made a traditional egg & cottage cheese dish; got some cakes that had eggs in them; and then ate eggs all during Easter day. Of course we had a few other things like ham & beans, fish salads; lots to eat. And of course we had a little wine to drink.
Wine is becoming something of an international problem. Russia of course doesn't produce any wine now that the southern part of the old USSR has gone its own way. So all the wine is imported from somewhere, we think. French, Spanish, Italian, Chilean, South African, Australian, Moldavian, Georgian labels are what you see on the shelves. But wait! Recently on the internet Vicky finds information alluding to the fact that lots of the wine is not really wine at all, just powder mixed with water and alcohol. And there is no shortage of empty wine bottles to put such a vile mixture in.
Bottle recycling is big around here, big that is for alcoholics. There are hundreds of dingy, back-ally type recycling operations where you will always see a line of old pensioners and alcoholics who are there to trade a bag full of beer and wine bottles they collect during their brief period of sobriety for a few rubles. Then of course they buy more alcohol and the recycle process starts anew.
Mostly one sees beer bottles being recycled. That’s the easy trade since on any given morning looking out the kitchen window during breakfast one can always spy people walking with a couple of cold ones in there hand. I’ve always wondered “are they heading home from the night shift and getting ready to settle into a few TV soap operas, or heading to work for the day shift and getting ready for dealing with the boss lady?”
So, again, I wondered could these recycled wine bottles be used for Russian bathtub wine? Sounded reasonable, after all this is Russia. We started scrutinizing the wine bottles loooking for anything suspicious.
Inspector Irina quickly noticed that the back labels were missing from some wine bottles. Strange, this is where the winery promotes their product. But wait, there is some kind of Russian label on the back telling “who knows what”. OK, Irina surmises “if the bottle has an original back label it is less likely to counterfeit, we will buy. No label or Russian label – no buy”. Then when we closely looked at the front labels we realized that some of them looked very "amateurish", probably printed on someone's ink jet printer in the back office, and again only a Russian generic label on the back. It is becoming more and more difficult to find wine bottles meeting our strict label criteria.
Then it happened; official confirmation of foul play in the wine biz came a few weeks later. Last year I developed a real liking for the Georgian and Moldavian semi-sweet wines. Suddenly they were nowhere to be found. The mystery was soon solved. The info babes on the 6:00 news, by the way Russian info babes are definitely the most beautiful in the world, are showing swat teams in full combat gear rampaging through unsuspecting grocery stores rounding up all the “Southern wine production”. Horrified owners tried to find an explanation and shoppers just moved to another aisle where it was a little less crowded.
The info babes looking very serious continued talking so fast it was hard for Irina to catch what was going on. The jest of the story turns out to be, that following an "official inspection" it was discovered that wines from these evil “Southern Countries” didn't meet Russia's Adult Beverage Bureau’s high quality standards. The unofficial speculation is that there is some problem going on between the Putin government and Georgia and Moldavia. Kinda like cutting off the gas to the Ukraine last January, the coldest winter in the last 30 years, because of a pricing dispute.
Anyways the wine from those countries all but disappeared, except from some of the small “hole-in-the-wall” purveyors who themselves were “Southerners and had a “leetle” stock left. Their wine was the best we had found but the supply was drying up quickly. It was getting serious because Georgia and Moldavia had been major exporters to Russia. The whining continued for a while and then the Georgian President on TV (that’s Georiga the country’s TV, not Russian TV, we watched on the internet) tells the Russians. "Yes, some of the wine exported to Russian may have been lower quality, but what does it matter? Russians would drink red water with s..t in it if they thought it was alcoholic". I have cleaned up the quote to make this suitable for family reading. Following that tactful diplomatic statement I don't bother looking for Georgian wine in Russia anymore.
So needless to say on our Easter II table was a supposedly Estate bottled, 2004, Chilean merlot. It carried only a generic Russian back label, as nothing else was on the shelves in our local store. I enjoyed my first glass. “Not bad for red water with alcohol and sundry other contents,” I thought.
Soon thereafter Vicky and Igor arrived and what should they have with them but "Kagor" - church wine. They got it from the church where the priest personally blessed the bottle as you handed him the Rubles. It was Easter II so I thought Kagor to be more appropriate than suspect Russkie-Chilean merlot. Only problem Kagor came in a plastic 1 liter bottle, an unsealed twist top and absolutely no labels front or back.
Considering all the recent flap over wine quality and high production standards I should have been more cautious. But I remembered that last year Igor had brought similarly packaged wine from Moldavia and it had been very good. No one else really liked the sweet “Kagor” wine; they were all drinking my Beefeater & tonics, vodka, or Cizano all of which had proper labels on the bottles. So I remember having about 4 glasses during the evening of this unidentified elixir, which really tasted very good, not like "s..t" at all.
After the grand celebration we all got the remaining eggs and once again did the final Easter egg tradition. We cracked the eggs against the other’s eggs and said “Christ has risen” and the other person replies, “He has risen indeed”. Being out of eggs, out of adult beverages, out of food the afternoon winded down. Vicky, Igor and their friends headed off for bowling, leaving Tolick with us; babysitting - our normal duty.
While tidying up and waiting for them to retrieve little Tolick I started having a lot of heart burn. Not being able to spell "relief" with Rolaids I settled for the Russian substitute - 4 black coal pills. Irina had previously revealed to me the magic like quality of coal pills some months earlier. They are actually black coal which when chewed up turn your mouth and tongue a really ugly black; kinda like eating a charcoal bricket. Just make real sure you rinse your mouth after use and before going out in public. But they can virtually absorb or neutralize all kinds of bad things in your stomach. Irina said that the KGB's legendary drinking prowess over their CIA cohorts was built on these little pills. Took the pills, they helped, the parents returned, and we all headed to bed. It had been a good celebration.
Next morning we were up early, 9:00 or so, I took Chico on his morning walk and returned for a breakfast of yogurt, musli, fruits, cheese, black bread covered with homemade baby strawberry jam and black coffee. Finished, took care of the normal morning chores and then that nasty heart burn returned. Took more black coal. Irina headed to Vicky's to help with the baby. Fortunately I stayed home because stomach cramps soon set in. I laid down bed for a bit until I decided it was time for a SIB (Self-Induced-Barf).
Felt a little better but it was not to last. Had this terrible taste of rotten eggs and about 15 minutes later, right in the middle of phoning Irina, I rushed to the toilet for another round. Well this went on for the next couple of hours and I was thinking "what a really weird hangover - but why this terrible rotten egg taste".
Irina returns from babysitting duty and says "what is this terrible smell? Rotten eggs!" Then she gets to the room where I was lying and discovers the source. "Disgusting smell!!"
I told her "I think I am having some kind of reaction to all those Easter Eggs we ate yesterday". My system has always been a little sensitive to eggs.
She exits the room thinking "Yeah - Hangover".
While laying in the fetal position trying to figure out what is going on I’m thinking "rotten eggs & sulfur - a bad mixture. Wait remember? Wine always has in tiny, little print on the back label ‘Caution contains sulfites’. What are sulfites? like hydrogen sulfide. Did we make them in high school chemistry class, or was that sulfates or sulfurics or let's see is that 2 hydrogen atoms and one sulfur atom, or - oho time to head for the toilet
I never knew what sulfites were or what they do. Of course the wine I was drinking didn't have any labels at all, who knows how many sulfites it might have had or what was in it. Anyways, maybe the two combinations of sulfur from the eggs and wine's sulfites are creating one of the many sulfur acids I last experimented with in high school chemistry. Sure smelled that way.
Irina returns and as in all situations like this has the answer "lets go to the hospital". First, I didn't think I could make it. Can't walk that far today and if we caught a little bus packed with people there would sure be a lot of mad Russians if I turned it into a stinking "vomit comet". Second, I wasn't to the point where I wanted to go into a Russian hospital and have them do anything that might require me to be put under - like maybe pump my stomach. I would have settled for some Pepto Bismo, but Russia doesn't have any.
Desperately I though how to respond and then I remembered "Isn't that medicine we got when Chico (our dog) was poisoned still around?” It was, and she brewed me up a batch. "Ummm, not too disgusting. Tastes like undercooked rice in water." Twenty minutes later, time for another toilet run.
By the end of the day my system was virtually empty, except for Chico's poison mix which I kept taking. But then I felt like I was running a little fever. So out came the old-faithful, Industrial strength Soviet, under-the-arm thermometer. "Yupp, 37.8 - IRINA. What is normal again?"
Irina calls Vicky relating my condition and their immediate diagnosis - "FEVER, HE HAS BIRD FLUE!!!" It was everywhere on TV at the time, another wonderful import from China.
I tell them "No way - bird flue is a respiratory problem, not stomach". But I started thinking maybe it could have mutated into some kind of stomach virus. Oh yeah by the way, we have almost quit eating chicken because of all the chemicals they feed them to ward off the bird flue. And there is a real concern about eggs being contaminated also. And by-the-way meat, of course, is out because of Mad Cow. Oh and don't dare eat anything from the Ukraine or Belarus because of the leftovers from the Chernobyl disaster can still be found.
Anyways it was getting late and I was in bed. Irina was forced to sleep on the sofa because she couldn't stand the smell.
The next morning had to get up early because the remodeler boys were coming over to replace the linoleum in the kitchen. So we all got up, including me. Actually I didn't feel too bad, just a very sore stomach and weak from all the vomiting. Made it through the day and finished reading my book so it wasn't a total loss. Still had a sore stomach but by the evening it is almost normal, what ever that is in Russia.
At the end of the day, I agree with Lynn's father's advise. Actually always have, just stray a bit from time to time. But if this was all the result of a hangover I am never, never going to drink any wine again; well at least not from an unlabled plastic bottle when overdosing on hard boiled eggs. However, will never know about the wine because nurse Irina poured all the remaining Kogar down the drain. I was disappointed, I thought I might take to the Russian Poison Center and have it evaluated. But I will just be satisfied with feeling better and surviving another day in old Russia.
I've read every one of your posts now and what a read! You've really got a talent for writing & humor. Thank you for sharing with us, I hope you continue to write.
ReplyDelete