Ordinary Wonders by Oloesia Nikolaeva

Author:Oloesia Nikolaeva [Nikolaeva, Oloesia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 5316981
Publisher: Holy Trinity Publications
Published: 2018-05-15T04:00:00+00:00

Halvah

One day I was driving to Pskov Caves Monastery with an acquaintance—a very secular and nonchurchly lady, but one who was drawn more and more toward the spiritual life. This was during Great Lent, in the beginning of perestroika, when it was very difficult to fast because there were hardly any Lenten products in the stores except potatoes, cabbages, and onions. And if there were any, it was by special order and given out in exchange for tokens, and only in specific stores assigned to those particular lucky tokens.

Incidentally, in this time of half-hunger, Orthodox Dutchmen would come here to Russia to either study or train at the Academy attached to the Holy Trinity Lavra of St Sergius. Accustomed to Dutch Lenten delicacies—nuts, sugared fruits, enormous shrimp, oysters, snails, crawfish, shellfish, crab, and calamari—they became horrified when they toured our stores at the beginning of Lent, and cried out in a loud voice:

“How do you keep the fasts here? As it is, you live in hell!”

Moving on, my travel companion and I would get supplies in exchange for our writing commissions. So I always had reserves of buckwheat groats, flour, millet, and rice. Some of these I took with me to Pechory, since we were planning on stopping at the home of a wonderful, but very poor, nun, and I wanted to not only load her up with our goods, but also throw in a few fruits and vegetables.

As soon as we settled into our sleeping car, my companion woefully cried out:

“Oh no! I forgot it! I forgot it!”

“What? Your ticket, your passport?” I asked, frightened.

“No, the halvah, I left the halvah that I got from the writers’ supply! I had especially prepared it to take it with me. How nice it would have been to open it up and have some right now with our tea!”

Well, it was too bad, but what could be done? I didn’t have any halvah with me, either. We drank our watery tea on its own and went to bed. But she continued to complain from time to time:

“How could I forget it? It was such good, fresh halvah! I could feel how soft it was through the packaging!”

The sting of that forgotten halvah was still fresh.

Finally, we arrived in Pechory, went to church, prayed at the Liturgy, stood through the moleben, stopped by to see my father confessor, and finally went to see the nun in her cell.

I dropped the bag of produce right on her table with a thud:

“Here you go, dear Matushka! Please accept our gifts!”

She unhurriedly arranged the bags and bundles on her shelves, fed us some Lenten cabbage soup, and then poured us tea.

“I have something to treat you with too. One minute, one minute.”

She dug through a chest, lifted something out, and placed in front of us … some halvah—exactly the kind that they had in the writers’ supply.

“Halvah!” my companion cried out in wonder.

“Matushka, where did you get it?”

“Last night a pilgrim came by and asked to be put up for the night.

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