I heard that people post the photos of where they live, and some people were asking me to post photos of the place where I am staying now, after I mentioned having to start a fire in the oven to get warmer in one of the chats. I also talked about the vegetables that my aunt is growing in the kailyard, so without further ado, here are the photos of the place I've been for about a month now. It is located in Ulan-Ude, which is the capital of Buryat Republic, part of the Russian Federation. A bit later I will do a post about Ulan-Ude, still working on it for now.
Let us start with my room. It is on the smallish side, in the tiny house, that I have all for myself. I think it used to be the only house on the plot some years ago.
I sleep on this pile of mattresses, which is surprisingly comfortable.
Next to my bed, I have this really old chest, that I think belonged to my cousins grandma, it is a really cool old piece of hardware. Not sure how old it is, but is probably at least twice as old as I am.
I use it to keep stuff on, and spread the cards upon it.
Here is my own chest of stuff, where I keep my most interesting and important treasures. :-D I hold fragile stuff in this box, which is the only box of relatively "useless" stuff, that is it is not mission critical. It also doubles as a portable altar of sorts, in a pinch.
Aaaaah, my precious!
Here is the old school "holland type" oven, which differs a lot from the "russia style" ovens, but is a bit useful, while still having quite high heat capacity. Perhaps in the future I will write a post about different types of ovens, heat capacity and stuff like that. It is quite important when you live in the cold climate, so Russians know quite a bit on that, and oven builder is a really respected skills in rural locations. Nice old kerosene lamp too. Vintage!
The oven that "sparked" the interest for this post.
This year quite a few pumpkins and squashes were planted, and here is a big pumpkin. We also had some pumpkin/squash crossbreeds, perhaps I will show several sometime in the future.
This pumpkin would require several months to ripen, I think.
Now, it is time to step outside! While looking inside my sparsely furnished home is probably delightful, but I can actually see your eyes glazing over from the photos of those featureless walls. Here is some greenery to alleviate that.
Tomatoes, peppers and the main house in this picture.
Here is the main area of the plot, with banya prominent. Those rows of greenery are some carrots, some potatoes, and various greens. Banya is the place where we go to wash ourselves, to get hot water, we have to start a fire in a metal furnace, I am sure that most Russians know what I am talking about. Oh, and not depicted on the picture is the "Ye olde outhouse", which is right behind banya in the corner of the yard. Standard hole in the ground design.
Banya and the rows of greenery.
Here is the close up of the greens, they are already harvested as of today, but this picture is about week old. You can also see my house from outside, as well as the stash of firewood, that should last through the winter. Next to the firewood there are where the pumpkins and squashes are growing.
The plots and the veranda of the house I live in.
Next to the house where I am staying are some storage sheds. Tomatoes grow in this inner garden as well as some tubular beets growing. There are also some old washing tubs that serve for collecting rainwater during the summer, which is used to water all those greens. Since it is very sunny all year round with 300+ sunny days, it is required thing, otherwise the vegetables tend to wither away.
More veggies, and the storage sheds.
Well, as you can see, it is almost like living in that Ushi no Tane, that is "Harvest Moon" game that was popular on Nintendo back in the day. And that is about 10 minutes ride from the city center!
A lot of those veggies depicted in those photos end up in our ration. But I'd like to show you some food that I buy in the supermarket. This is the 200 gramm piece of beef jelly, which costs about $1, and is really nice with some bread and mustard, and enough protein to sustain me for a day. It is really popular side dish for drinking vodka, but I like it on its own merits.
Nice $1 worth of beef jelly.
Well, thank you for taking this tour of the place I am staying right now. Since I am sort of a modern nomad, you can expect a similar post when I move to another place, which will probably happen sometime in October. I also hope to be able to go to the Amsterdam SteemFest, so I am holding all the SBD to buy the ticket.
That is all for now, after a short break, I'll go back to translating!
Btw, if you live in a similar place in another country, I'd like to hear how what you saw is similar or different from your own place!