As I walked down a tree-lined street on my way home to the hostel I passed a little old lady. Returning from an unsuccessful mission to find a supermarket (notoriously difficult in this Russia) I was very pleased to see the little old lady selling some fresh produce. Tired of wasting my precious rubles in overpriced restaurants prices my eyes lit up the sight of her table of goods.
The old, frail lady wrapped in an old, well-worn shawl sat behind an old, frail collapsible table. The table, no bigger than a school desk, was neatly adorned with what appeared to be the contents of the little old lady’s garden. A bunch of chives, a small heap of potatoes, a few bundles of herbs and two small, but proud piles of young, fresh tomatoes.
The little lady had just sold a bunch of herbs to another woman and the two were chattering away in incomprehensible Russian as I approached. At the site of the table my belly rumbled, a noisy reminder of my failed supermarket mission and of another costly restaurant meal to come. I stopped and smiling, I lifted a tomato. I looked for the calculator, by which transactions are done all over the world when we tourists haven’t the manners to even learn the basics of the language. However, there was no calculator, nor pencil nor paper. So in English I asked ‘How much’, whilst rubbing my thumb and fingers together. Both ladies looked confused. I asked a couple more times, but to no avail. Then with a brain storm, I opened my wallet and took out a few small notes, pointing at them and then the tomato. But still no signs of understanding. As the only three occupants on the long street, there was no one to help in this awkward exchange and I considered just walking away. But then the old lady took the tomato from my hand, placed it back on the pile of tomatoes and covered the lot with both hands. ‘How rude’, I thought. ‘Doesn’t want to sell them to a foreigner, huh’. The other lady tried explaining something to me, speaking slow and loud, but it was no use. Then the old lady took her hands off the pile of tomatoes and put them on the other pile. Then back onto the first pile all the while looking me in the eye.
‘Oh, I get it’, she wanted me to buy the whole pile. ‘Ahah’, I laughed at my own dimwittedness, ‘Of course she’s not selling these tiny tomatoes individually'. With my new understanding I reclaimed my single tomato and tried my best to explain that I neither wanted nor needed a whole pile of tomatoes and that one would be just fine. This bargaining went on for a while but the old lady appeared adamant that they should be sold as a team or not at all. Finally giving up I put the delicious looking little tomato back on the pile. But the woman smiled and returned it to me. ‘Ah, success’, I thought reaching for my wallet again. As I tried to pull out some money she put her small wrinkled hands over mine and shook her head. ‘Please take something’, I said, but grasping my meaning she held my hands firmer and smiled.
And so I walked away a happy boy with a free tomato from a nice little old lady.
And in the above snap it's clear she has a bit of 'What's up' attitude like a little mini-gangster that can't walk or talk yet, but can throw looks to kill.
And in the above snap it's clear she has a bit of 'What's up' attitude like a little mini-gangster that can't walk or talk yet, but can throw looks to kill.
