Tough self-isolation and walks in the park: Russian-speaking New Yorkers talked about life in the midst of a pandemic

Russian-speaking residents of New York told how their weekdays go through quarantine. Each of them experiences this time in different ways: some go for walks in the park, others are afraid to leave the house; some complain about the lack of toilet paper in stores, while others rejoice that there are no more crowds on the streets. The publication shared the details Air force.

Walking in the park and takeaway coffee

The artist Vitaly Komar, one of the founders of Sotsart, and his wife, psychologist and poet Anna Halberstadt, love to walk in the park. They walk towards Washington Square almost every morning. Usually there are many schoolchildren here, but now it is almost deserted.

On their way to the park, they stop by one of the corner grocery stores for a take-away coffee. There are usually many students here, but now it is empty - apparently, everyone has left.

“We stroll through the empty square, taking our time drinking coffee. The marble white-stone statue of Washington is located in the public garden at a safe distance from the bronze Garibaldi, ”says Komar.

Besides them, there are many squirrels in the park. “They raised their tails and engaged in spring flirting. This very funny, funny show reconciles with reality, ”he notes.

Hard self-isolation and food delivery

If Komar and Halberstadt get out to Washington Square for coffee, then Natalya Gabdullina, a former exchange correspondent for the Russian BBC Service, has not gone out since March 17. And so far she does not plan to leave.

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She managed to stock up on coffee and lentils, and if something is missing, she uses the delivery from stores; the courier leaves the purchases with the doorman. When going out to retrieve the delivered products, she puts on a mask, protective clothing, which she then washed, and surgical gloves. “I go downstairs, take my bags, put them in front of the apartment. In my apartment there are other brown paper bags in a small corridor. I put the food in these bags, throw away the packages, my vegetables and fruits, spray it with hydrogen peroxide, then mine again, '' Natalya said. - I buy only those that can be washed: apples, pears, bananas, frozen berries, because they are frozen somewhere not in New York, and at least not yesterday. Broccoli cannot be washed. I stopped buying them. "

She sprinkles eggs with peroxide, and before eating, she also washes each egg. “Maybe I'm overdoing it,” Gabdullina admits cheerfully. - God saves man, who save himself".

Expensive toilet paper and cheap gasoline

Former Leningrad, Harvard graduate Inna Halperina goes shopping at the expensive Whole Foods grocery store in Columbus Circle. She complains about the lack of toilet paper and soap. “On Wednesday, for the first time since the pandemic, I saw toilet paper in my D'Agostino supermarket on the East Side and grabbed a six-roll pack with joy. The cashier, in the current fashion, fenced off from customers by a vertical sheet of plexiglass, dumbfounded me, taking $ 21,63 for the purchase, made from recycled materials, ”she said.

But gasoline has fallen in price, Halperin added.

Masked people and without them

Many people walk in the parks on sunny days. Most of them keep their distance. “People are more cheerful in parks,” says Halperina. "Quite a few polite, non-aggressive people."

On the East Side, most of the passers-by are wearing masks, while others covered the lower half of their faces with handkerchiefs. On the West Side, people are mostly maskless. “I’m walking down the street now and I don’t see anyone wearing a mask,” says Halperina. "Not that they don't give a damn, but just can't get it."

However, her ex-husband, jeweler Lev Genkin, does not agree with this. “I can tell you where to get them,” he says. - On Brighton. They cost, in my opinion, a dollar and fifty pieces. Disposable, it seems. The store is called the Golden Key. They were on sale there two days ago. "

The owner of the video salon Boris Belenky said that on the "Russian" 108th Queens Street, local emigrants advised him to make a mask from a thin female pad and soak it with essential oil. “Fortunately, liquor stores are equated with food stores and are not closed, they recommend poisoning the virus with gin and tonic,“ because it contains quinine, ”he said.

Anarchy on the streets and lawlessness on the roads

Former Muscovite Anna Dronova, sitting in her car, notes that many drivers during the epidemic began to drive too fast. She complains of a “slight sense of anarchy, impunity,” which she finds “uncomfortable.”

Most retail outlets are closed, and the number of hacks since the onset of the crisis has grown by 75%. Some owners began to nail up the windows with sheets of plywood.

On the weekend, Dronova drove onto a suburban highway. Plainly following the stream of cars, she suddenly noticed that everyone was speeding at 90 miles (144,8 km) per hour. The speed limit on this freeway is 55 mph, and stops at 70.

The number of cars in the city has sharply decreased, but they are. Photos of empty New York streets published on social networks are probably taken at dawn or before sunset, Dronova said. And this week, traffic increased slightly, as did the number of passers-by.

Work shops

There are almost no people inside D'Agostino, but in Whole Foods, customers are admitted in turns: they wait for those who are inside to leave, and then new ones are admitted. The store floors are lined with thin colored ribbons so that people stand no closer than two meters to each other. “The Manhattan public more or less observes this rule, but in Brighton Beach, an old man with a basket of food stood next to me on the same red ribbon. "Oh sorry!" - he said politely in response to my protests and stepped back two steps to the side, "explained Boris.

Public Transport

On the metro during rush hours, people stand even closer to each other. And although the number of passengers has become much smaller, so have the trains. “The pure public complains about the abundance of homeless people, although it would seem that there were enough of them before,” notes Belenky.

There are also fewer buses. People are not launched inside through the front door, but through the back; drivers were fenced off from passengers, and front seats were dismantled.

“They go to Manhattan supermarkets on foot, and go to the outskirts. The pavements in front of them are strewn with rubber gloves. Apparently, the drivers are loading food into the car and then dropping their gloves. When I get behind the wheel, I automatically wipe it, as well as my hands and buttons, with 75% methyl alcohol, ”Belenky said.

How to wash their hands, he explains, are taught on TV: “You need to do this for at least 20 seconds. It is recommended to make up for the lack of a stopwatch by singing Happy birthday to you twice. ”

Desert New York

Usually New York is as deserted as it is now, only in August, when about a million people leave. So those who don't like crowds will now feel comfortable in the Big Apple. “Those walking towards you sometimes shy away from you. Millions of townspeople are either hiding in apartments or evacuated to their dachas. The rich and famous left for the local Rublevka, that is, the Hamptons, as they collectively call a series of summer cottages on the southeastern coast of Long Island, some of which end in Hampton: Easthampton, Bridgehampton or Southampton, "the author said.

Among the other advantages of quarantine is the availability of free places for cars, because many New Yorkers left for other cities.

Fear, panic and loneliness

Felix Kleiman is a psychologist. Today he, like most doctors, communicates with patients via video link. “I now send recipes all over the country: New Hampshire, New Mexico, Maine, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Jersey, Alabama,” he says. - My patient, Russian, went to Moscow for at least two months. I understand that it was clearly an emotional decision: “I'm alone, I'm scared, I’ll get sick,” she confessed and went to dad and mom. "

The confinement of the apartment affects some of the brains, Galperina believes. “It is not advised to go outside, because you can go crazy! She says. - When I am at home, my roof starts to go ... Solitary confinement is very difficult to endure ... "

Clayman agrees: “The level of anxiety is much higher. If the patient had it at some average level, now it is very high. Let's say a lonely (62 years old) educated person, a video editor, called today. He is in complete panic: “I don’t know how to cheer myself up: I listen to special music, ride a bike around Central Park. I am in a terrible panic, I cannot sleep ... "- there are quite a few of them."

At the same time, many people cannot even explain to themselves what they are afraid of. “There is no specific fear: here I will become infected and die. But he is alone, and there is no support - that's how he feels. "

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For the first time in his life, he himself is going to apply for unemployment benefits. To do this, you need to fill out an application on the website of the New York Department of Human Resources. “Friends scare them that they cannot break through for several days. The firm's computer programs are written in the ancient language COBOL, used in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and long forgotten, ”he said.

After submitting the application, you need to talk to the official by phone, which is impossible to get through. “A young girl calls me, she has a virus, has fever, cries,” says Kleiman. - Before that, she was kicked out of her job, it took 4 days to apply for benefits, the site was hanging all the time. Now he is complaining: "I have been calling for 10 days!"

Kleiman said that next to his house, on 31st Street, there is a city morgue. Near him, in September 2001, he repeatedly waited for trucks carrying the remains from the ruins of the World Trade Center. “Having approached now at corner 31, I saw from a distance that refrigerators were again placed opposite the morgue,” he stated.