“Nancy the Navigator"

There is really no way to describe traffic and drivers in St. Petersburg, except to say miles of cars inching forward during rush hour and mass confusion. The traffic lights show a yellow caution light both prior to the light turning from green to red, and also prior to the light turning from red back to green. The first (green/yellow/red) caution light means – accelerator to the floor, can my car really do 0-60 in 1.5 seconds, and try to get through before the light turns red. While the second (red/yellow/green) caution light means – I get to start through the intersection on yellow, why should I wait for the green light, even through there are people in the crosswalk and cars still there who are checking out their warp drive to try to get through! In other words, mass confusion – oh, and my description cannot even show you what it really is like!

St. Petersburg was built on a swamp and was originally designed to be a city of canals. There are 77 bridges in the city and the side streets are narrow (kind of like New Orleans). It is a city whose mass transit system is outstanding – their subways (they call it the metro), trolleys, and busses move about 5 million people a day all around the city. The bad news is that as “western” prosperity has come to non-communist Russia, so has the “car in every garage” mentality, so a city that has lived by its mass transit, now is in constant grid lock with roads filled with cars. Oh, and did I mention that most of the streets don’t have lane lines? If the two lanes going your direction are full and you are in a hurry, just create a third lane from the on-coming traffic side – of course, it’s Russia, it’s okay, everyone understands!

I tell you all of the above to set the stage for the great adventure that we enjoyed on Tuesday evening. Marina Topoltsova (40+ year old director of ROL) came to Fuydor on Tuesday afternoon and planned to take us in her car (she’s had her driver’s license for 2 years now) to our evening meeting with the kids from The Harbor. As we get into the car, I in the front with Marina, and Dave, Dustin, and Lucya (assistant director of ROL and my Russian daughter) in the back, Marina asked me where we are going. Of course I think she is joking, but no! So she calls a friend to get the address and directions to the apartment (don’t they know you can Google these things and get directions before leaving home! Maybe that doesn’t work in St. Petersburg). She then informs me that I will be her navigator to help her find the place! “We are here, and we are going there,” she says as her finger moves across pages 2 and 3 of the 40-page map book of St. Petersburg, then she flips over to pages 28-29 so that I can see a more detailed map of our final destination area, although she says “We will really be here (pointing to 2 inches below the bottom of the page into thin air) when it is time to turn, but we will end up here, and the apartment is here.” All the time she is pointing, pointing, pointing, and smiling at me with encouragement. Oh, did I mention the map is in Russian – ah, now you get the feeling of panic that was beginning to set in!!! But I have to hand it to my two male team members – they never said a word – of course the fact that their eyes were closed and I could hear murmurs of prayers coming from the back seat might have been a clue as to why they were so quiet!

So being the wise woman that I am, I handed the map to Lucya who takes the map, has a short conversation in Russian with Marina, and off we go. Of course, we don’t get far before we hit the traffic jam. But we decided to use this time to allow Marina to get to know my team mates a little better. But then we came to a traffic circle and during the confusion of Lucya saying, “No, you need to go there!” and pointing to turn left when we were over to the right, but no problem, Marina puts on her flashers and begins cutting through traffic! After a few blocks Marina informs us that she thinks she is going the wrong direction, and Lucya agrees, handing me the map. Now Marina gets serious and pulls out a fold-out map that is written in English (“Thank you, Lord!”) and again shows me where we started and where she thinks we are now. Of course it doesn’t help much because there are very few street signs in St. Petersburg - only the important ones are marked.

Some day when you have some time I will give you the fine details, but to make a long story short, we turned around, headed in the right direction, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Of course by this time it is 7PM, and I’m desperately needing a bathroom - and everyone is hungry. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I don’t eat at McDonalds except for breakfast, so you will understand how desperate I was when I tell you that I suggested we eat at McD’s so I could get to a bathroom! Anyway, we ate dinner and then were back on the road.

After a few blocks, we dropped off Lucya so she could walk the short distance home, and I began seriously looking for the next street when we would be turning (you know, the one that was 2 inches below the bottom of the page!). Unfortunately when the time came to turn left onto this street there was a no left turn sign and as Marina slowed to try to decide what to do, all horns began to blow, so she had no choice but to go straight. Even more unfortunate, going straight took us over a railroad bridge and out of the city! (Positive thought here – Dustin looks around and for the first time speaks from the back seat – “Hey, this looks familiar. I think this is the way we went to the camp I worked at two summers ago.” Not so positive thought – summer camps are usually located 20-30 miles outside the city!)

Now we are on a four-lane highway with forest all around and a barrier between us and the oncoming traffic (Nancy, “How far is it to Moscow, and do we have enough gas?”). Of course, being the always positive American, I say, “Don’t worry, we will just look for a cross over and turn around.” Not so positively, that cross over came 20 kilometers (that’s 12.5 miles to us non-metric folks) down the road. Of course, all this time the people from the Harbor are calling because we are over an hour late and I’m trying to talk on the phone to them while searching for the elusive crossover!

Okay, long-story-short, we turned around, made the correct turn, found the correct building number (after Marina talked to three different people to help point to it), correct apartment number, and arrived at the Harbor! All in only 3 hours 45 minutes – I could have driven almost to Dallas in that time!!!! But arrive we did, and we spent the next hour visiting with the girls and boys from the Harbor. We were all disappointed that the time was short, but it was a good time spent together and affirmed for Marina and I that we want to try to plan times when the Harbor kids and the ROL kids can get together and enjoy some good old Christian fellowship.

And it was an especially wonderful time for me, because three of my kids that I had known since April 2004 from Orphanage 14 were at the Harbor – Santa Sasha, Denis, and Yana – and I got to pet Sasha’s rat, whose name is Squeaker – although I can’t even pronounce the Russian word for that.

Although the evening was frustrating and full of anxiety, it was also amusing and full of fun. You never know what adventure lies ahead and through it all I had the confidence to know that whatever may happen, I don’t have to worry, because the real navigator in our lives is God, and He knows all of the maps and will guide us through. And praise His name – he even reads Russian!


Nancy Durrett
SAC Team Leader
Russia, Nov. 2007