Hammer and Pickle

Russians love holidays. In my few weeks in this country, I've gotten to celebrate "Russia Day," "City Day," and the "National Day of Family, Love and Fidelity." In addition, there are all sorts of unofficial holidays like Pushkin's birthday (June 6), the first day of school ("the Day of Knowledge," Sept. 1), and any day when Putin goes hunting and takes off his shirt.

"Why do you [Russians] have so many holidays?" I asked a bus conductor on the way to "City Day." "Because life is hard and the people need to be cheered up," she replied. This struck me as a plausible theory. Then again, it would also answer the question "Why do I see so many people drinking vodka on public transport at 8 in the morning?"

Given the abundance of holidays, I was not entirely surprised to hear about the 9th Annual International Cucumber Festival. It was in Suzdal, about 30km from Vladimir. Other students from my group wanted to get there early, so they left around eight. I was tired and refused to believe it necessary to arrive early to a cucumber festival. I decided to go alone around 11, get there around 12. This was a mistake: Do not underestimate Russian vegetable holidays.

I got to the bus station around 11:30 and it was packed with 30-person "lines" at every teller. Despite years of practice waiting for toilet paper, queueing is not a great talent in this country. After pushing my way to the front I bought a ticket for the next bus out, at 12:30.

A long hour later, the bus arrived and was filled to capacity - all seats were taken and all standing room was filled. Cramped, hot, dusty. Grasping one of the overhead hand-holds, my armpit occasionally nuzzled a blonde woman's hair bun.

Despite this arrangement, I was feeling good. I had decided to break my month-long streak of only listening to Russian music and was instead rocking out to Coheed and Cambria. Around the time I started feeling self satisfied with this decision there was resounding XLOP (Russian for "bang"), the bus wretched and pulled over. And then, slowly, those gaps between peoples' heads (and underarms) began to darken and fill with DYM (Russian for "smoke").

Luckily, my fellow passengers made up for their earlier standing-in-line deficiency with an impressive demonstration of getting-the-hell-out-of-a-burning-bus. We evacuated onto the side of a busy highway.

We waited. A long line of cars passed in our direction. Like all Russians standing outside with nothing to do, my companions started lighting up their cigs. I imagined the puffing men turning to the nearest female and saying, "Dear god, Masha! We could have died of smoke inhalation in there!"

Passing us were hundreds of happy, expectant cucumber-festival goers. Through the windows of their Ladas I could feel their smugness.

I started asking people how far it was, thinking I might walk. "Ten kilometers. Fifteen. Maybe twenty." Idea abandoned. Some of the other passengers had already gotten their money back from the bus driver - who at this point was pouring gallon-jugs of water directly onto the engine - and had started to hitchhike. I saw a group of guys roughly my age and asked if I could join.

After walking for about twenty minutes with no luck, a lone taxi going in the opposite direction saw us and turned around. And finally around three o'clock we arrived to the extravaganza, just in time to see all my friends, leaving.

I wasn't about to leave. I needed to see something. Between the wooden peasant houses were a few cucumber dolls, dwindling barrels of pickles and a cucumber carved into a phallus.

This was around the time I began to think Russians have too many holidays. But look, 20 million dead in World War II, 75 years of Soviet rule, 10 years of stagnation and crime - maybe they do need to be cheered up. But imagine you're that conductor on the bus: You've just spent 70 hours of your week tearing off individual ticket stubs, yelling at drunkards and counting out 10 kopek coins. You may be skeptical of a holiday that involves waking up at 7am on a Saturday and driving 30km to view a giant cucumber schlong. Unless, of course, Putin shows up and takes off his shirt.