Category: Uncategorized

Vladimir

Vova 

Travor Southey

“He was 20. To respect his privacy we only used his first name, Vladimir, or more casually, Vova. We could not really communicate much. My few words of Russian were barely bettered by his few words of English. Perhaps over the years of my African childhood and youth, plus years of other travel, a capacity grew in me to get through to others by gesture and a few stick figure sketches, for I was able to glean quite a bit about him. Later, an electronic interpreter inadequately assisted us.

He was one of many young men who came to a party with the idea that they may be selected for this project. They may simply have come for the five dollars each was given, but they were also full of youthful curiosity; clearly eager, shy, excited, amused, or any combination thereof, politely trying to make a link to us as they exchanged repartee with each other.

Vova came from a very small village deep in the country beyond Novgorod. He did not mention his father; presumably dead or otherwise gone, but did show me a few pictures of his mother and their humble, wooden cottage. His mother currently attends eighty calves at a farm near her village. Because she was at work all the time, his Babushka (grandmother) had largely raised him. I commented that he seemed like a real gentleman and teased him that perhaps she had had to chide him often to make him such a gentleman. Indignantly he entered a word in the interpreter that translated into “never!” His demeanor added the exclamation mark. One could tell he must have always been a serious boy.