As one of the first students of Russian offered in a Chicago Public High School (Lane Tech HS - class of Feb. 62), the only word I recall with certainty is “Spaceeba” (phonetic spelling) - which of course means “Thank You”.
Thank you for reminding us that life at its worst in the USA (and other countries of course) is better than many other places in the world. And Thank You for reminding us how fortunate we are to have access to so many well stocked stores, either physically near by or on the Internet.
So many of “us” are spoiled, and take so much for granted. We assume that there will be spray paint at the hobby shop, or for that matter, food at the grocery and gasoline at the service station.
Again, Thank You, and I hope your “tour of duty” will end soon and you will be safe back home.
Things have sure changed in Moscow since I last visited. Back then I doubt that they had any hobby shops. Even if they did, the idea of a Westerner just hopping on the subway and wandering all over the city would have been a dream. Stores and restaurants that traded in the Rouble were so cheap to us from the UK and the US that you could dine like a king, if you could find a place that had a full menu. I’ll never forget a meal where I was handed a menu with every dish you could imagine listed. Everything I asked for was greeted with a shake of the head and a firm “Net”. In the end I gave up and asked what they had? “Chicken or meat” I was told. When asked what kind of meat I was given a shrug in reply “meat”. I had the chicken.
oh, for a sec I thought you were modeling traction…
Being in this hobby no matter who you are becomes an adventure, looking for that one obscure rare part, maybe simple paint, maybe some oddball detail you need so bad.
Vane Jones in the dealer directory in the back of his Traction and Models magazine, in the empty unsold slots he put the words…
Very funny story, you should take up comedy writing, sorry for laughing at your problems getting basic modeling stuff but you have to admit your story is funny.
Thanks for the story Steve, sorry you couldn’t get what you wanted. What are you doing there just out of curiosity? Anyhow, your story made me feel better about the three hours I wasted last weekend trying to find some switches and scenery supplies. I hit three craft shops and a hobby shop just trying to find a Pipette so I could do my ballasting. Ugh!!! I ended up coming home with once manual switch(had a motor at home), a container of medium gray ballast and some course green ground foam. Think I’ll order online from now on, except for visits to the one small good LHS near my house.
What is shipping like? Dependable? How long to order something from Europe or America? How expensive to ship something small like a train or paint or model tool?
I don’t want to turn this into a “Four ‘Yershermin’ skit”, but I certainly feel your pain on this. I’ve run into so many hurdles trying to do modeling here, that I just ended up doing the bare minimum. Lack of variety, and high cost of supplies are my biggest complaints, and shipping from the US is a crap-shoot. It seems that Polish customs arbitrarily choses which packages to hold and demand a 110% customs on–and that includes shipping! I typically have things shipped to family in the US, but even that isn’t a guaranteed thing. I can only imagine that it’s worse in Moscow than Krakow. BTW, if you are ever in this neck of the woods, we will have to get together. We have a couple decent model railroading/hobby shops (or at least they were the last time I looked–I generally do my purchasing on Allegro now–the Polish “ebay”). And Krakow has some very interesting and unique sights for the seeing. (Just not right now. Everything is buried in about 30cm of snow!)
(Just not right now. Everything is buried in about 30cm of snow!)