Chapter 16 – The fool: Tarot Readings in Russian

Since high school and university time, I’ve been aware what a party pleaser it is to have tarot cards with me and that many people love to have their cards read, whether they believe in them or not. When I went to Russia, during junior year of college, I made the mistake of leaving my cards at home in Denver but luckily managed to find another deck there in St. Petersburg.

This trip I was smart enough to bring one of my decks. I also managed to pick up a new, interesting and bit more complex deck in London. I read a little bit in England, but since I’ve been in Ukraine and the cat got out of the bag that I read tarot, that has been my extracurricular activity (unfortunately I didn’t think enough to charge for it). The twist? Well I have to do it mostly in Russian as two of my most frequent requests for readings come from Kostya, the night security guard (whose day job is history teacher at a local secondary school) and Sergei Ivanovich, the assistant director or financial director or something for the school. (I’m not entirely sure what his job is in fact, I just know that he’s the husband of Katya, definitely the director of the school and that he pays me. I guess that’s all I really need to know, right?) Although Kostya knows English well enough to have some normal, basic conversations, the vocabulary for tarot is something he lacks in English and therefore I resort to Russian to try and explain. Whereas with Kostya it’s more a matter of Russlish, with Sergei Ivanovich (who knows “I go home”) I have to do all the reading in Russian.

As exciting as that sounds it’s actually rather difficult and there was a while when I read the tarot cards for just about every teacher in the school, except for one Julia who is quite religious and believes it is the work of the Devil. (That was a little awkward conversation.) Most other people however have been satisfied with their readings and it definitely is good practice for me as I learn that you don’t necessarily need a specific word as long as you can describe around it and get the point across.

Case in point – I was telling Kostya that he fears oppression or that he was being oppressed… something to that effect. But I didn’t know the word oppressed (угнетать, in case you were wondering the same thing). Well in order to explain the feeling, I said quite innocently the very simple and obvious fact that “the Soviet Union oppressed its people”. Kostya stared at me and asked “Why the Soviet Union?!” I told him that’s what we learned in school in the United States and certainly it must be true as we don’t learn propaganda in the land of the free. He laughed and said, “We learned that the United States oppressed its people!” So there you have it boys and girls… all the world needs in order to understand each other and dispel misinformation and the party line is a little intercultural communication via the Cards. Perhaps that is the route to world peace; except for those who believe I’m going to burn eternally in Hell for associating with the Devil’s work… well, maybe not world peace then.