Stranger in a Strange Land
by Asya Passinsky
I‘m not sure how much of this story is true. I thought I’d gotten to know Masha, a Tajik fruit and vegetable seller that I’d befriended by Belorusky Voksal. But then maybe Russian stereotypes about Central Asians have some truth to them: Russians say that they always smile and say yes, but you never really know what they’re thinking.
One thing I can say for certain is that Masha’s life is living hell. It’s not that the work is particularly difficult-though I had a hard enough time with it, constantly mixing up prices and adding things up wrong-but that the hours are completely inhumane. Two-thirds of every day Masha spends in a cramped box. And it’s not like she gets any days off. According to my calculations, Masha’s workweek amounts to 105 hours. 105 hours! Even the brutal Russian Labor Code doesn’t sanction that.
Unfortunately for Masha, labor laws in Moscow don’t exactly protect illegal migrant workers. And gaining legal status is nearly impossible.
Masha pulled out some old photos of herself and showed them to me. In one of them, she is about 19 and wearing a black and white dress cotton suit. Her hair is pulled back and parted to the side. With dimples and a slight smile, she looks stunningly beautiful. In her hands she is holding a stuffed animal dressed in bright red pants and a pink hat. On the left stands her sister, cradling a child. The three of them look like a happy, healthy middle class provincial family.
It’s hard to tell how attractive she is now, in her lumpy beige-colored working sweater and poorly chopped, dyed hair, which she restyled in an attempt to look more Russian (never mind that she has clearly Asian features). But six months of being stuck in a kiosk all day have taken their toll. She’s gained weight, her arms are bulky with muscle, her face is pudgier, and she has deep creases under her eyes, which she ineffectively tries to cover up with cheap cosmetics.
Masha’s best years are behind her. But like most women, she still wants to feel beautiful. Last week she bought R600 perfume from some vendor that was going around the kiosks selling beauty products. The sad part is that she has no one to wear it for. All her days are the same: she gets to the kiosk by 8am, works until 11pm with no breaks, rides the bus back to the 2-bedroom apartment she shares with seven of her relatives, takes a shower, does laundry, and goes to bed.