I read about one Russian grandmother abroad and remembered about another. Twenty years ago, we went to Fort Ross with an institute friend from Silicon Valley for an annual Live History Day – a performance organized by volunteers from the local historical community. A friend captured his retired mother, who was just staying with him, looking after a newly born son. We walk through the fort, look at the life of the Russian settlers, as it is seen by the current Americans, and stumble upon a bowl of peelings. The American, depicting a Russian housewife, in front of the eyes of a respectable public blends the paste, catches, makes peelmen, immediately cookes them and sells them for some money. A friend’s mother looks, looks, and then says, “Who’s doing so?” He approaches and begins to show how to stick properly. The American fell in admiration. Then it follows:
“Well, you guys, go, and I still have to show her how to mix the paste.
How will you explain? You are not in English...
Don’t be afraid, the hostess will understand without words.

We return in an hour. Before the bowl a long row, two friends barely have time to let go of the goods, they just walked away from us: say, no time, walk again. Sometimes later, the best friends now ended the pain and they, under the applause of grateful customers, turned the bench, making, according to the American, almost three times the revenue compared to last year. On the way home, the friend’s mother thanked us for a wonderful day and warned us that for the next weekend she will not be able to sit with her grandson, because she will go to her new friend to show how to cook shell and borsch!