Ulitsa Lineinaya

After five weeks in El Salvador this past summer living closely with fifteen students and artists and the handful of townspeople not too busy to show up at our doorstep at six in the morning with philosophical or financial questions on their minds, I was somewhat reluctant to stay, as Shaarbek had suggested, at his or another family's home.


So, when I arrived at Dom 67 Ulitsa Lineinaya at 7:30 on Tuesday morning, I felt these words were the most beautiful ones in the Russian language. Never mind that even when I mastered saying them with nonchalance, not once did a taxi driver recognize this street name (many streets changed names after Soviet de-occupation, but even this street's new name - Togolbai Ata - seemed to bring no results, although one would imagine this street, home to the city's train station, would be universally familiar. Note: learn the Russian word for train!). In my bleary, jetlagged state, I loved every detail of this darkish flat mostly dominated by the bed and populated by rose-printed futon-style sofas. It looked out on a playground, the trash can in the bathroom had an Iranian kitten sticker on it, and most importantly, it had a bed, a big one, which I immediately plowed into for a nap before visiting B'Art for the first time.