Sveta like most Russians love fresh fruit. In Russia canned fruit is very rare and hard to find but fresh fruit is sold on just about ever corner, metro station and or bus stop. So as I was sipping that morning cup of coffee. I started laughing when I thought about Sveta and the cherry tree at our village home…
This poor cherry tree met its match with Sveta. Once Sveta realized that our cherry tree was loaded with cherries and these cherries were perfect for eating and picking. All I had to do was go find the cherry tree and I would find Sveta… 🙂
I ate a few and they were delicious but decided that it would be better to let Sveta have all the cherries because she might get grumpy if I tried to eat too many cherries. Now on this tree was thousands of cherries and of course I asked are we taking some home with us. I got this look like: What are you talking about? As cherry pits were spit out into the grass. I realized that the cherry tree was going to be consumed in the few short days we were at the village…
I remember several large pans full of washed cherries and in less than an hour they were all gone. I ate three or four cherries and to find the rest all you had to do was look at Sveta’s red cherry stained lips…
As the days passed I was amazed at the amount of cherries that were being consumed and I started to tease Sveta about that fact. She just smiled and kept eating cherries. Oh once in a awhile she would offer me some cherries and she would hold out two cherries as an offering. But never the whole pan of cherries was offered…
So to close this story out. As we left the village to come home to Moscow. Sveta had one last trip to the cherry tree. She had a big plastic bag and was searching the cherry tree as high as she could reach to get cherries to fill the bag. I stayed away because I figured what cherries she could not reach the poor birds could eat. It looks like she left about 5 whole cherries for the birds…
As we drove about 9 hours to get home. Every time I looked over at Sveta she was spitting cherry pits out the open window of the car. She ate cherries all the way home…
I thought about how proud that cherry tree felt, knowing that someone loved her cherries that much…
Kyle and Sveta
Windows to Russia!