Here is a recent interview, on my life as a stay at home dad in Moscow Russia. The interview was via a sociologist from Hungry. The original tape-script of the radio interview is below, translated by a non native speaker, it was published on a Hungarian radio show and on their blog.
The Interview
What is life about when you are 1. a
stay-at-home dad with two kids, 2. in Moscow without speaking any Russian, 3.
teaching in homes of oligarchs. I adore this guy, who is all of the three in
one person. I've been following his blog for 2 years now, it is full of vivid
descriptions, funny stories with no pictures sharing with us the details of his
Moscow life. Visit www.englishdadinmoscow.com
Gingerina: How would you define your own
blog?
E. D. It is a kind of humorous, sociological
observation on what it’s like to be a stay-at-home dad living in Moscow,
Russia. There are lots of blogs written by stay-at-home mothers, expat mothers
living in Moscow, or other countries, who were stuck at home all day with
babies, but my blog first of all, I thought it would be different, because,
it’s about being a man stuck at home with originally one child, now two
children, and being a foreigner living in Moscow. I try to make my blog
humorous, I try to make it funny, but at the same time I love Sociology, so I
put a twist of Sociology into the blog.
Gingerina: Exactly, for me it was the most
interesting thing that you are writing from the perspective of a dad, which is
quite new in this field of blogs written by moms, just as you say. The other
point is the sociological twist, but can we say that these are essays, or even
short stories sometimes?
E. D. I kind of mix short stories with How to-s.
These are kind of bits of advice with a humorous twist on how to do certain
things in Moscow. Originally I was a bit personal, but now I try not to be too
personal, I don’t talk about my family life, my wife, my kids, I never mention names, I don’t include photos
of myself or my family, because that is private. The world wide web is open to
anyone in the world, so I am very careful, and try not to write too personal
things. I do write kind of essays sometimes, as you say, usually with a
humorous twist, or sociological twist.
Gingerina: I have the impression that you are
very, very honest, even if you do not put any personal detail in your blog.
Sometimes you share so particular and intimate descriptions about the things
that happen to you. Is this fiction, reality, or some type of mixture of the
two?
E. D. Good question. Some people said to me I
should be careful when I am writing about my teaching experience for example. I
look after my kids and do some teaching in Moscow. I
teach a lot of oligarchs, and very rich kids, I never use real names, I change
descriptions, so if I am teaching in a home, I make it a flat, if I describe
the room having red carpet in reality it’s got green, I
am very, very careful, because, first of all I have to respect people’s
privacy, secondly I don’t want to be sued, or shot, thirdly, it is just a
decent thing to do so. I do change information, but it is all based on reality.
Everything on the blog is based on facts. I just change details: names, ages,
descriptions, metro stations, etc.
When I talk about my experiences as a
stay-at-home-dad, with my own kid for example, I arrived to Moscow with a six
months old, baby, that is true actually, but I never mention my home address,
but that is all true. Since then we got another baby, that I have been looking
after, in the mornings, while my other kid, who is older goes to school.
Everything about that is true.
Gingerina: You are very busy, how
do you manage to write the blog? How do you manage with the
two kids and the part time job to post recent posts?
E.D. I do it in night-time when the kids are in
bed. I love writing, and there is not much on television. As a foreigner you’ve
got thirty channels of crap on the screen. So I sit at the computer and I
write. Sometimes I spend two hours writing one post, because I rewrite and
rewrite it. I always find time. I always find inspiration of little things like
travelling on the metro, observing people sitting on the metro, funny things
you see as a teacher, when teaching rich kids in some of these huge houses, in
the south side of Moscow, you know, houses like palaces. Some of these situations
are certainly amusing, even surreal sometimes. I am never short of material,
and I love writing.
GIngerina: You are very sensitive in defining
the social strata you get in touch with. Your descriptions are very keen on
showing all the details, the entire life, the background of these people. On
the other hand the descriptions focus on the design of these palaces, the
objects that these people are surrounded with. I even have the impression that the
descriptions are calling for photos. Nonetheless the blog
focuses on stories and the details behind them, do you have sometimes the
temptation to shoot on the street and to share that? I have seen some of your
pictures under the title Tourism.
E.D. Well I don’t add pictures on the blog,
because my camera, my phone doesn’t take good pictures, first of all. Although
I have a blog, which is a public thing, I am a private person, I don’t want to
share any pictures of my family or myself on the Internet. I’ve taken or some
pictures during my tourist travels in Russia. I could take pictures of some of
the houses where I teach, without the violation of privacy, as I said. There
are lots of pictures of Russia, or Moscow anyway on the Internet, I could just
add to those. I can’t see any point. I took some pictures of crazy parking in Moscow.
Gingerina: Getting back to your role as a
dad, do you form some type of club with other dads
in Moscow, or outside that in the Internet world?
E.D. Good question. I tried to when I started,
when I arrived to Moscow. I was terribly lonely, because I was stuck at home in
a small, two-bedroom flat on the sixth floor with just a six-month old baby,
and I didn’t know anyone. I started networking, and posting adverts to
stay-at-home dad clubs, and stay-at-home coffee mornings, like mothers do, and
I got zero response. Later I joined some stay-at-home mother coffee mornings,
or baby groups, as they are called. I went to those, and I was the only man.
Then I’ve met a few men, who weren’t in fact stay-at-home fathers like me, but
they were fraud, because they had full time nannies! One man I met was an
American, he had a full time nanny everyday. He went to the gym four hours
everyday, he called himself a stay-at-home dad, a fraud! I call myself a
stay-at-home-dad, because I did it all myself as I write here, I had no
nanny. So to get back to the question: I’ve only met two stay-at-home
dads here. One had a full time nanny, and the other one has got a part time
nanny, but he is working part time. We are quite rare, you know.
Gingerina: This situation suggests that you
have big popularity among those moms, who are doing the same job.
E.D. No, not really. I find that the expat
community in Moscow is quite cold, and quite insular, a little bit snobby as
well. A lot of stay-at-home mothers here, they see themselves as domestic
goddesses, they see themselves as doing a very important role a man isn’t
capable of, and shouldn’t be doing such a thing, it goes against god and all
its holy. I haven’t found a huge popularity. I do not think I have too much
following among the expats, I know some people follow the blog here in Moscow.
but most of the people following it are outside of Moscow. I have some friends
here, who admire me, female mothers, who say, you know, you do a great job, it
must be difficult, bla bla bla… Moscow, Russia is quite how to say, chauvinistic,
or old fashioned in the role division. The Russian man tends to be a bit lazy,
not all of them, of course, but generally tends to be a bit lazy: goes to work,
comes home, dinner is on the table, the wife does all the cooking, all the
cleaning, also often works. You never see men on the playground. I would go to
the playground with my baby, with my older kid, here in Moscow, and be the only
man there. It is kind of weird.
Gingerina: Actually you do not show a
role model of a modern type of dad, do you? You are not
perceived as someone very respectful in this sense?
E. D.: I think I am perceived a little bit of a
joke. Cause, you know, a man shouldn’t be at home looking after the kids. Men
don’t do that, men hunt animals, collect meat, you know what I mean. Outside in
Europe, in places like the United Kingdom, or in France, Italy, bla bla bla, in
Hungary maybe, this seems a slightly more modern, more advanced. In these days
couples, married couples, or not married couples with kids have to do what they
can to earn money, if the woman earns more money, fine, if the woman has to
work, and husband has to stay at home to look after the baby, or babies, fine,
you do what you can to survive. But in a place like Russia, it is slightly old
fashioned
Gingerina: As far as you have described you seem to live in a cage, is
that true? Is there any relief in getting into contact with other expats, are
there any clubs or local networks?
E. D. Oh, yes, there are lots of clubs. When I first joined here, I joined
the British women’s club. They do accept men, although they say officially they
don’t. I was the only men, when I first arrived, then one or two others have
started to join me. There are lots of clubs: there are breastfeeding clubs, I
tried to join one of those. Well, I wouldn’t go there breastfeeding or looking
at breasts. So, there are breastfeeding clubs, coffee morning clubs, baby group
clubs, international women’s clubs. Well, I go to some baby groups sometimes.
But there are lots of clubs revolving around babies and families.
Gingerina: Are these expat clubs, run by expats?
E. D. Yes, it’s the baby group clubs. Mainly Moscow is for women and
babies, followed by husbands, and for single man, working here in highly paid
jobs, who are single, go to the sports, get lots of women, have a great time
and parties, bla bla bla… See, in my situation: I am a stay-at-home dad, my wife
is not British, and she is not Russian either, so I am not in her language
community, I am not in my language community, because I am a man, who is at
home part time, but I don’t fit into the women’s community, because I am a man.
I don’t fit into my wife’s language community because I am not from her
country. I am kind of in a cage most of the time, I am in a goldfish bowl.
Writing the blog helps me in that as well, when it comes to be frustrating
sometimes, and I am a bit lonely, so the blog is a kind of release of
frustrations as well.
Gingerina: How do you get on without knowing any Russian? Am I right,
that you don’t speak Russian?
E. D. People always say that: it is not a problem. Before I lived in Russia,
I lived in Slovakia for five years, and I didn’t speak any Slovak. I am not
good at languages, and I don’t like languages, although I should try to learn
them. You don’t need to speak Russian to live in Russia. With intelligence and
observation usually you can tell by looking at somebody if they speak English.
If you target someone under thirty, they’ll speak some or very good English.
Someone under forty, the chances are they probably won’t speak much or any
English. You don’t really need to speak English. You can use your hands, like
when you want eggs: at the supermarket I make a chicken noise like when an egg’s coming out, the woman laughs and she knows that I
want eggs for example. Being a teacher, I teach English, you have to be a
little bit of an actor, so you can always use your hands, mime, you don’t
really have to speak Russian. It would be an advantage sometimes to get closer
to the culture. If you want to appreciate the culture better, it would help if
you could speak Russian.
Gingerina: So, you are playing constantly the activity game, by trying to
use all the nonverbal tools.
E. D. I teach English sometimes to people who don’t speak English at all.
So, I have become quite good over the years, I have been teaching English.
Being a little bit of an actor by using my hands, mime I can make myself
understood pretty well, without actually speaking the language.
Gingerina: How do you cope with situations which can get really
frustrating for example when standing in a queue, and someone just gets in
front of you? How do you explain yourself in these situations? Do you shout in
English or you make the chicken noise?
E. D. No, no. At the supermarket in Russia… If you know about history, they
used to have to queue for everything for years, and they don’t like queueing,
they don’t like waiting. Being a British, queueing is a British thing, and we
all queue, even these days people queue. But in Russia they don’t form one line,
they often form two or three lines to get to the checkout for example. So, I
cope. Well, you have to keep calm, or you can be punched in the face. If I am
with my wife, she speaks fluent Russian, with Russians you have to… they bark
like a dog sometimes, they shout at you, do what they do, if they shout at you,
you shout back.
Gingerina: So, you just need to be loud.
E. D. You just need to be tough and be strong. You can let it go, let it go
in front of you, or you can use your body, and kind of block them from getting
in front of you. Once I was in a queue, and the woman went in front of me, she
called me a foreigner and said to me why don’t you get back to your country, it is
not your country!
Gingerina: Agh, I see, well, these things you face in any country, I
think.
E. D. Yeah, you do.
Gingerina: in some frustrating situations.
E. D. It illustrates cultural differences. You just have to accept them, and
you just keep calm. Everything here: they don’t like queueing, they are very
aggressive drivers in Moscow, they don’t stick to their lanes, they share
lanes, they don’t signal, they don’t use their mirrors. It’s the same in the
swimming pool, or going to the gym. I remember in the gym people don’t stick to
their lanes, they swim how they drive, they overtake you, they knock you out of
the way, you know, it’s horrible.
Gingerina: And just to get you back to the positive side, Could you
please name three things you like about Moscow?
E. D. I don’t hate Moscow, I don’t love Moscow, but I don’t hate it. Three
positive things: the food, Russian food is very tasty. Can be very calorific.
Very good soups, Russians make very good, tasty soups, very nice blini,
blinchiki, cotlettes. Cooking is very tasty. Russian people love children,
absolutely love children. It’s very child friendly, there is lots of
playgrounds everywhere. Thirdly, the history and the culture is fascinating.
These are the three positive things I can think of, living in Moscow.
Gingerina: What do you mean by culture? In your everyday life how can you
get in touch with culture, cultural production?
E. D. The history, the history, the Russian history is fascinating, the
architecture is fascinating, the Russian mentality is fascinating. I don’t see
it all negatively, often it’s very amusing, it’s very funny. The way the
Russians behave can often be very funny. They are very accepting of life, it
can be very funny living here, you just have to see the cultural differences.
Great art, great theater, fantastic opera, fantastic concerts, classical
concerts, bla bla bla, there’s lots of positive things.
Gingerina: Do you manage to go to the theatre, concerts, or to the
museum?
E. D. Not often, only sometimes. You know it’s expensive by time and money.
You pay the babysitter for four hours, and go out, you pay for the restaurant,
or something, you know it can cost you a fortune. I don’t go out that much
anyway. I had been in Moscow before, I came here ten years ago, when my wife
was my girlfriend and she was working here. We were here for six months. I went
to the theater then. You wanted to ask me the negative things?
Gingerina: The negative things when you moved to Moscow. Actually I was
interested in the first impressions when you moved.
E. D. How big it was, the traffic. Huge roads: six lanes going in one
direction, and six lanes going the other. The smell. I moved here from
Bratislava, Slovakia, a beautiful, fantastic capital city, where the air is
fresh and clean. I noticed the smell of traffic here, it took me a year to get
used to it.
E. D. The spitting. The spitting in the street, I absolutely hate. People
blow their nose and spit in the street all the time, it’s disgusting. And the
cost, the cost in Moscow, everything is very expensive. Renting, clothes,
although food shopping is cheaper than in Europe. If you go to a place like Auchan,
a French supermarket chain, for a family of four you can get everything for a
month for about three hundred euros. It is far cheaper.
Gingerina: Do you cook Russian food?
E. D. I don’t have to cook Russian food. I know how to make pancakes, or
blini. I eat those with Smetana (Russian sour cream) and red caviar, as you
can’t get black caviar anymore. You can’t buy black caviar, only red caviar. I
really love that.
Gingerina: so that’s one of your new habits, you picked up in Moscow?
E. D. We have a Russian nanny part time, she comes when I
go out, and she cooks very tasty soups.
Gingerina: So your kids speak Russian as well?
E. D. My eldest kid understands Russian, but can’t speak it, but he
understands it.
Gingerina: And you have some good hints and tips of Russian life from
your nanny?
E. D. She doesn’t speak in English. Russian nannies are another topic, you should
see in my blog. Russian nannies can be like Russian WW2 tanks.
Gingerina: (laugh) I have read those posts.
E. D. They are very tough. It’s like having my mother-in-law living here. My
mother-in-law is a nice woman, but a Russian nanny is like the worst nightmare of
a mother-in-law. She knows everything, you know nothing. As a man you don’t
know anything about babies. You are an Antichrist. You shouldn’t be looking
after a kid, you are toxic. You know, Russian nannies are another topic of
debate. I have written about that on my blog.
I even taught an oligarch boy, he had two Russian
nannies, and I was teaching, taking him and walking him into the community,
in a private gated community, and there were all other Russian nannies.
So I was surrounded by all these Russian tanks. They were gossiping about me,
what’s this man doing looking after a kid, you know.
Gingerina: Do you really have to fear when you work for oligarchs for
example. If you do something wrong, do you have a special fear in those cases?
E. D. Well, I do have a fear, you can never ask personal questions from the
mother. You never ask personal details, you keep the conversation very neutral.
You have to care for the nannies as well. Because often these rich kids have
one, sometimes three nannies, and if you upset a nanny, she can make up stories
about you. You could be jailed, you could be arrested, in that country. You
have to be very, very careful of Russian nannies. Be careful especially as a
man. I am a father and I have two of my own kids, and they don’t know that. But
you have to be very, very careful in these families.
Gingerina: The places where you go to: do you know these addresses? Are
you carried by a driver?
E. D. I take the metro to a certain stop, and their driver collects me, and
takes me out to their house. You arrive to the house, massive, electric gates,
you go through the electric gate, a few steps, and you are in the house.
Cameras everywhere, you can be nervous. If you think about it, you wouldn’t go.
But the money is very good. The money is very good, and that’s why I go, the
money. I don’t really like teaching very spoiled brats, I don’t really enjoy
it, but the currency is good.
Gingerina: Are these long-term assignments?
E. D. No, not long term, six months usually.
Gingerina: Can you get any result in six months?
E. D. You mean in English? Yes, you can. I used to help two twins, who
didn’t speak any English, a brother and sister. The boy was a
nightmare, I think he had some attention deficit disturbance, the girl was very
spoiled. They didn’t speak any English, but I used flash cards, I use games and
activities, fun games, cause a kid can’t sit at a table for ninety minutes. And
you do get results. The mother wanted them to go to an International
School, the mother wanted them to take a test to enter it, and they did get in,
after I was working with them for six months. I used to go three times a week
for three hours. It was really hard work, but the currency was good, so I did it.
It was a challenge.
Gingerina: Just to get back a little to the expats in Moscow. Your recent
post was about expats, the different types of communities. Could you spend some
words about that?
E. D. Basically, there are three types of people: who come here with their
families people come here for work, and people who come here for love. People
come here, because they are sent by their employer, usually working for a big
international company, with a fantastic carrier, a lot of them directors. The
second type are women and occasionally men like myself, with their partners
working abroad sent to Moscow, and thirdly usually men, who meet Russian women
on dating sites. A lot of these men are divorced or widowed, their wives died,
they are usually to my experience, in their fifties, financially secure, got no
more debts, got a house in the UK, they don’t have any more debts on it, they
got grown-up kids.
Gingerina: Why are they attracted to Russia?
E. D. I think they are attracted to Russian women really.
Gingerina: Why?
E. D. Russian women can be very beautiful, but also… Russian women are.. I
did not dated any Russian woman, obviously. But I think they are attracted to
Russian women, because they look after them, these Russian women look after
these guys, you know, they cook for them, they clean for them, they care for
them.
Gingerina: Maybe these differing cultural traits? Which we have talked
about…
E. D. I think it’s positive for these guys, they set up homes with Russian
women. Because in the United Kingdom it’s very equal-equal, there is gender
equality, and here it is slightly old fashioned. I think they are attracted to
that.
Gingerina: so, they are getting relaxed…
E. D. Yes, they are getting a new lifestyle, they don’t have any debts in
the UK, they’ve got something to offer to these women, you know, money in the
bank, they come here. There is also the single guys, who come here to have a
great time, they party, they are high paid. The expat community in Moscow, I’ve
got some friends here, who are expats, and as I said on the article, when you
meet genuine people in Moscow, you have to keep them as friends, stick to them,
because it’s hard to find genuine people. A lot of the expats, they are false.
They are as genuine as a Gucci handbag bought in Tokyo. They are not real, it’s
all a bit false.
Gingerina: It sounds quite lonely.
E. D. It can be, it is lonely if you are a man looking after a baby or
babies here. If you are a woman here, looking after a baby or babies, you are
fine, you’ll be fine, because there are hundreds and hundreds of other women
doing exactly the same thing, so it’s no problem. If you are a single man or a
single woman, you’ll be fine. There’s many clubs, there are websites for foreigners who want to network, There is lots of clubs. But if
you are a man looking after babies here with a partner who isn’t Russian, who
isn’t from your country, it is difficult.
Gingerina: Getting back to the blog itself, it can be defined as a travel
blog giving hints for those who visit Russia either for a longer or a shorter
term.
E. D: I want to help people, because before I moved to Moscow, I did some
research about it, I joined a couple of forums that had a lot of strange people
on them. I’ve found out some stuff about Moscow, I knew how difficult it was.
This is my second country of being abroad as a partner. I wanted to help
people, that’s why I did these how-to tips on the blog. I wanted to help people
who are thinking of moving here, it’s scary moving abroad, it’s very scary
moving to a place like Moscow, so I wanted to help people really.
Gingerina: Are you planning to put these posts together and edit, make a
book out of it? Or even two books: a travelling guide, and about your
experiences of social life.
E. D. I could put it, as in Amazon you can write your own book, I could do
that, maybe later, I don’t have the energy and time, it’s difficult with kids.
I could do that. I make some money from advertising, there are lots of adverts
on it. The money I make from adverts I use to buy books for my kids for reading
them bedtime stories. I buy books from Amazon from any money I make from the
blog I use it for my kids. Really, I write the blog, because I dream of writing
a book one day.
I am writing the blog as a kind of practice of writing, and I love writing.
And also I use it as a kind of public, private, sociological study of life as a
stay-at-home father and life as a foreigner living within an expat community in
Moscow. That’s why I do the blog.
Gingerina: Do you know something about the readers? Do you get feedback?
I was trying to read the comments, and what I found was that comments do not
come that often.
E. D. Because I’ve changed the comments. I used to have comments settings
open to everyone, but occasionally I got some very nasty comments from people,
some strange comments. And sometimes I was getting a comment after comment from
some person in Moscow who didn’t really speak good English and I got bored of
it. I’ve changed the comments settings to people who’ve got Google accounts I
think, email accounts, and stuff like that. A lot of the readers come from
America, a lot come from the UK, a lot come from Russia, a lot of women read
the blog, some former expats read the blog, because I get emails under the
contact me. I get contacted by people who are asking me could I write some
stuff free for them, could I post an advert free on my blog, when nothing’s
free, I always say no. Sometimes people contact me to say how funny the blog
is. Some Russian people contact me who are living in America, say how funny the
blog is, what a great observation I have about life in Russia…
Gingerina: SO, Russian migrants know what you mean.
E. D: I get comments from Russians living abroad. I get a lot of
emails, not so many comments now, since I’ve changed the comments settings.
Gingerina: Do you edit your sponsors, advertisers, or anyone who actually
pays on the online surface books the place itself? Do you select your
advertisers?
E. D. Not really, well, I do. No one has approached me, with can I put
dental care on your blog, the adverts I have on the blog are perfectly OK. I
don’t let set adverts on online dating on, I wouldn’t let set any strange
advert, no. I only accept adverts related to travel, expat life, these kind of
things.
Gingerina: Do you plan some new features on your blog?
E. D. I still have Ask Auntie Olga.
Gingerina: I miss that!
E. D. It was quite kind of fun. New features… well, I think of sponsored posts.
People who want to write a feature about their company, they can pay me for it.
I thought of putting a forum on the blog, you can easily make a free forum, but
as I have found out with forums before, there are lots of expat forums, forums
usually attract crazy people, so I’ve changed my mind.
Gingerina: and it could break the structure of your blog.
E. D. My blog is more like a magazine type kind of style. More like a
journal, magazine, type of style. I don’t want to make it a chat site, it’s not
a chat site, or a forum. It’s a kind of online diary, an online journal, you
know what I mean?
Gingerina. I have the impression that you are planning to stay, or
willing to stay a couple of months or years in Moscow.
E. D. We have been here 4 years, and probably will be here longer.
Gingerina: that’s good news for us readers, because we can follow your
life in Moscow for more years.
E. D. Yes.
Gingerina. Thank you very much for having you englishdadinmoscow.com
I wish you good luck, and very nice experiences in Moscow. Thank you very
much, and bye-bye.
E.D. Goodbye!
Published on, AZ Orosz OK, January, 2013
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