2nd Letter from Crimea

B”H

Chabad of the Crimea

Mironova 24

Simferopol, Crimea 95001 Ukraine

Tel/fax: 380–652–510–773

e-mail chabadcrimea@cris.crimea.ua

June 29, 1995

Dear Everyone, a”mush,

Hi again, from sunny Simferopol! It actually is quite warm and sunny for about half of the day. The remainder of the time, it's like the rainy season in Alabama (for those of you who may remember, when we lived there, I had questioned the validity of referring to Alabama as being in the “sunny South.”) Therefore, the load of wash which I started on Sunday sat in the bathtub until Friday, when in desperation I finally hung the shirts on the fan, one at a time, to dry. Half of the load got done, and the rest I have to rewash today! I do hope you're all well. This is my second attempt at this letter, as the computer ate the first one, so I hope it will be content, and this one fares better. It would be nice to hear from you. As far as we can determine, letters sent to us will probably be delivered to us here eventually, though it may take a number of weeks. IY"H after Tisha B’Av our new address will be Mironova 24. After Sunday, G-d willing, we will also be on the internet. (We're just not sure which Sunday.)

In order for us to have food to eat, the first words poRusski that I learned were the names of foods. I can now write my shopping list in Russian. The main problem is that by the time I learn how to say something, it goes out of season! Take my favorite vegetable, mushrooms, for example. Every week they look different, as there are many species of wild mushrooms. One week I saw what appeared to me to be a form of mushroom. "Nyet, nyet champignons!" said Vitalik, my driver, pointing at the cute little things with reddish caps and yellow spongy undersides. But he had said the same thing the previous week about some really great mushrooms, so I bought them anyway. When I got back to the shul, I asked Reb Shimon about the "mushrooms." He warned me not to eat them, or we would get very sick. When I asked him if they were poisonous, he said, "No, but don't eat them." Vitalik offered to take them off my hands, as they are delicious. Reb Shimon replied that I should let Vitalik have them, as it would be better for him to fall asleep and not wake up, than for that to happen to me and the kids. Knowing that I usually have to take his advice with a grain or two of salt, I went to ask Bubba, our upstairs neighbor. She explained that this vegetable gets its nourishment from the air, and thus may have radiatzia from Chernobyl — but that it is truly delicious. I still didn't know what it was, and thinking that maybe it was truffles, I asked her if this was a French (Fransooski) food. "No, it grows in all countries," she answered. Well, I've never seen it in America, so if anyone knows what it is, please let us know. And yes, it is really delicious. The next week I was really in luck, I thought, as I spied some beautiful white cultivated looking mushrooms. I decided to check them Thursday night, to have a head start on cooking for Shabbos. But what did I find as I separated each cap from it stem? Yup! Zillions of worms — yech! Straight into the garbage! Together with the kilo of gorgeous cherries Itchie brought me, full of creepy critters. And by the next week there were no more mushrooms. Now I have to wait until the fall. By the way, we have other kinds of "fallout" as well. Camp organizer Natasha runs through the rain with a notebook to cover her hair. Why? There might be radiatzia in it. How can you know? Easy. Do you still have hair? And then there's the "fallout" in the market itself. First Sholom Ber got it on his arm, and then I got it on my back. Hint: Its source is the pigeons that roost in the roof beams of the market shed.

Well, when we get back from the market and find places to put everything, it's time to start to bake for Shabbos. This is lots of fun. First of all, frequently the bahlown of gas can only handle either the burners or the oven, not both together. Then, it is calibrated in gas marks, instead of degrees. I mistakenly assumed that 350 degrees must be somewhere around "5" on a scale of 1–8. But my cakes thought otherwise. I finally found out that cakes should be baked between "1" and "2"! Everything else is 400 degrees or more. I can't figure out what on earth they bake on 4–8! Sugar has to be checked thoroughly before it can be used. It's way too big to go through a sifter, so it has to be checked by hand to remove all traces of grass, hair, fibers, kasha, silk tassels, burlap bags, bugs, etc. There's nothing that can be done about the stench. Bubba says it must be kept in a stall with pigs. Someone once asked the Rebbe Rashab why we are so scrupulous about checking our sugar before Pesach. The Rebbe took a lump of sugar at random, broke it open, and revealed a grain of wheat. Living here, it is very easy to see how that occurred. There is no hot water in the house, as the water heater above the sink doesn't work, and the only way to get hot water seems to be by turning on the heating system full blast and chalishing. So in order to get warm water for the challah (or baths, or laundry), we need to boil it, which makes it quite warm in the kitchen! We also are supposed to boil all of the water we consume for 15–20 minutes because of the possibility of cholera, G-d forbid! Until we came here, I thought that went out with the Black Plague, but apparently not. After boiling the water on my trusty Russki stove, half of it has evaporated, so it would take me about two days to boil a one day's supply of water! (I did try it one time.) So meanwhile, some of our water is boiled, and the rest is just filtered, and we say a lot of Tehillim. We had just discovered cold smoked fish, usually mackerel or herring, when the fear of cholera returned and we had to stop using fresh or smoked fish. Meanwhile, I had discovered the hard way that smoked fish is sold differently here than it is in America. I proudly served everyone slices of smoked fish one Friday night, only to have the guts spill out as people began cutting it. I guess, as they say, experience is the best teacher. Back to the water again, once it has boiled, and cooled somewhat, I can begin to prepare challah — by hand, of course. In order to “cream” ingredients for cakes, I have been using a potato masher. Whenever we tried to use our appliances with converters, we either blew the converters or the appliances.

When Itchie flew back to America ("Planet Earth," the kids call it,) I was hesitant to have a big crowd for Shabbos, what with being alone, and the language barrier, etc. So the first week I didn't invite anyone. And 15 kids showed up. The next week it was 25, and now it's around 45. So how do we feed them? First I take one precious New York chicken from the freezer and make a big pot of soup with knaidlach — except we'll soon be out of matza meal, so it will be sans knaidlach. Then the boys help me by taking the meat off the bones and we make chicken patties. This is the amazing thing. Every week I add the same amount of eggs, potatoes or rice, matza meal and seasonings, and make the patties the same size, but boruch Hashem, I always get exactly enough patties to accommodate the growing crowd. Fish is handled the same way, substituting a few cans of scumbria (scoombrrria) for the chicken. Alternatively, I bake the mixture in a large pan and cut it into portions, the size of which depends on how many people have shown up for that meal. Last week we also started a shiur and Shalosh Seudos. Lag B'Omer, Itchie was still in New York. We wanted to make a bonfire and barbecue, but lacked the traditional hot dogs and burgers. Translator Anya said that sandwiches made of Swiss cheese would be great party fare. (Thank you, Mr. Shmerling.) So we made lots of sandwiches, and a few phone calls. Lag B'Omer morning the skies were tchorno — black. I faxed Itchie to get a brocha for good weather, and asked him "How many frozen Swiss cheese sandwiches can you eat?" He replied, "You know I hate cheese." Someone (with a big “S”) must have had pity on him, because as nasty as it looked, it didn't rain. The kids came, had a blast, and finished all of the sandwiches. (Whew! I don’t care for frozen Swiss cheese sandwiches either!)

With Lag B'Omer past, we had to start thinking about Shavuos. Without cheese other than the Swiss variety, or a milchig oven, the traditional blintzes and cheesecake were out of the question. Mendy, of course, suggested an ice cream party, and was put to work immediately freezing batches of milk cubes in l’chaim cups left over from Pesach. The milk cubes, together with custard and fudge base (thank you cousin Stuie) went into my trusty Vita mix, and voila! Quite acceptable ice cream! Around 150 people came to hear the Aseres HaDibros read in shul and to enjoy the ice cream, popcorn (thank you Golden Fluff,) potato chips (thank you Paskesz,) pretzels (thank you Lieber's,) cookies (thank you Kemach,) and candy (thank you Bloom's!) You should have seen the kids' faces — they were literally quivering with excitement! One older woman said, "Look at me, my hair is white, and I've never even seen any of this!" We had told the girls to bring their documents during the week prior to Shavuos, and a number of them were able to be given Jewish names on Shavuos.

Now we're organizing camp, which requires a lot of running around and organizing, which is what I've been doing all week. One errand took us to the state radio station, which is housed in a century old Karaite Synagogue. The woman who we spoke with wants to interview Itchie when he returns — this would be a "cool" thing to do, she said. Tomorrow morning, I have to find a store that sells flatware, as the plastic is all gone. This will hopefully be quicker and more successful than my fruitless search for a large pot in which to boil water. And hopefully Victor will build more shelves soon, because every available inch (excuse me, I mean centimeter) of the kitchen is now covered with the stakani (glasses) we bought last week when we finished the paper cups. I say hopefully, because so far, there is no lumber to be found anywhere in Simferopol!

Anyway, I'm going to have to end here, because it is now 3:00 AM and this letter is rambling on and on.

Be well, please keep in touch, keep us in mind, and you can even visit us if you'd like. If possible, please give us

a call before you come, though it is not an absolute necessity. Friday, I woke up early in the morning to a knock on my window. It was Anya. When I opened the door, together with her there were also 17 lovely American counselors from the camp in Levadia. The boys got to daven with a minyan, we gave them breakfast, and spent several pleasant hours chatting with them, before they left to their camp, and we started to prepare for Shabbos.

Well, do svedania na Yerusaleem! See you all soon in Yerushalayim!

Leah Lipszyc & Company