Interpersonal Communication

The kitchen is the heart of the Russian home. Here, we gather at Sveta and Iura Shtapakov's home in St. Petersburg. Their dog, Eugene, is also welcome at the table. I met Sasha Isupov in 1989 while we were both in graduate school. Sveta and Iura are artists. Sasha's professional career and mine have been similar.
	Galina Mitusova, Evsei Abramovich and Alla Adolfovna Kornibad pose after dinner in July in Moscow. Russian kitchens aren't only for eating. On Thanksgiving day at Leo Khirougs in Durham, N.C., we sang in gratitude to God for the wonderful lives we lead. Leo produced the song, Robin sang, and Chris Bisha played the guitar. Listen to music
Likewise, all eating isn't done in the kitchen. Stas Khiroug treats friends and family to shashlyk made in the livingroom fireplace in Kazan. A tasty treat if you like meat. Plenty of potatoes are on hand for the non-meat-eaters.
	Livingrooms can also be used for praying. This group gathers at Zoia Nikolaevna's (she's second from the left) every Wednesday in Kazan. It was a truly international group this summer, including me and Dima and Tanya (second and third from right), who live in Israel. All of us attend the Free Christian Church in Kazan.
Zhenya and I sit on the porch of his dacha (summer cottage) near St. Petersburg. (He built the two-story house with his own hands.) We were just about to head into the house for dinner. When the electrichka (electric train) did not come at the scheduled time the next morning, Zhenya drove us to a station on another branch line over an hour away. On the way back to the dacha, he taught my friend Katya (18) how to drive.	Photo by Katya Stalinskaia
	Sometimes the best things happen when we least expect them. Pasha (Pavel Yarmolchuk), Ada (Adelina Khiroug) and I left home for the ballet knowing there would be no electricity when we returned. After the performance, we ate fruit and ice cream by candle and flashlight. We listened to Leo's music on a battery-operated tape recorder I use for interviews. It was like a scene out of a 19th-century Russian novel. Nobody wanted to say goodnight.
And sometimes, you go without lunch in order to help a friend. Pasha, Artur and I all missed lunch on this day in August in Kazan. We waited while the relevant local authorities were closed for lunch. Pasha and Artur had to come back another day to actually complete the task.