Pesach in Stavropol

Well, we did it.

The first three days came and went by, and the good news is that Chayale didn't give birth on the road.

Altogether over the first two nights of Pesach we did 5 Sedarim. That is according to my calculations 20 cups of wine.

Shabbos was quiet. We basically slept the whole day through, and chased Yummy around the house trying to stop her from turniong on the computer and inserting the Living Torah in there.

Motzei Shabbos, everyone except Chayale and the baby trudged an hour and a half to the Jewish center for the first Seder.

35 people showed up for a nice quiet Seder. Highlights of the first Seder:

- Igor Vanskov, a kid of 7, singing the Mah Nishtana by himself in the sweetest little voice.
- At the meal, I ask Oleg Bogopolsky, a community member, to read the part of the 4 sons, since it wasn't said during Maggid. I planned on giving the whole Dvar Torah about the fifth son that the Rebbe speaks about. Oleg reads it (with his own comments), and finishes by talking about the fifth son! I was speechless.
- Misha Gorovenko standing up in the middle of the meal and announcing "Kavod HaRav, we are so happy to have you here!"
- Taking the kids to the door to greet Eliahu HaNavi with a candle. Three 6 year olds and a 3 year old. Cute as anything.
- Finding out after the mneal was over that several people snuck a bottle of booze around under the table and had a party of their own.

After the Seder (ended at 11:00), a detective came to pick us up and walk us through the dangerous streets home. Two spetsnas (Russian special forces) in a car followed us along. In the back seat of the car was an arsenal of weapons. We felt well-watched, even though it was Leil Shimurim. Naturally we felt even more protected thanks to Chaim Hertzel having his mace and a knife.

Just in case.

We got home safely but forgot the key, so the detective had to call our neighbors and get them to open the door at 12:00 AM. Then we went in and ate our real Seder, which lasted until 2. Chaim Hertzel was picked up toward the end by a community member who you would never want to meet in a dark alley. He was walked home.


Sunday - During the day, about 65 people showed up for the childrens seder, which went over very well. We played games with the kids to tell them the story, and did a whole seder.

At night, we did another seder. This time, it was a younger audience, so we sang lots of songs.

Highlights:
- Singing Halleli for one of the women in the community.
- Students opening the door for Elijah the prophet.
- Mistaking onions by Karpas for potatoes, and then not being able to speak after I ate a huge chunk.

Once again we were walked home by security. This time we had the key.

Monday we took everyone to "park pobedy", a mini-amusement park in the centre of the city. We went on a roller-coaster, watched Miriam go on mini-tanks, and walked all the way to the poorest-looking zoo I have ever seen.

The animals were so skinny you could see THROUGH them.

It was also funny. Here was the order of the animals cages.

- ducks.
- horses.
- cats.
- chickens.
- roosters.
- pigeons.
- LIONS. (what the heck?)

Anyway, we went home after that. Today we will go to Kosmos and Ramstore. I will write about them tomorrow.