Gorchichniki

I spent the entire month of September 2003 in Saint Petersburg for a total-immersion Russian language training course. Having already been to Moscow in 1996 & 1998, I jumped at the chance to spend some time in "Piter."

My hosts were Svetlana ("Sveta") and her father, Anatoli. They have a two-room apartment on Shevchenko Street on the unfashionable western end of Vasilievsky Island. Sveta works as a receptionist for a travel agency on Nevsky Prospekt, and Anatoli works as a security guard for a storage company to supplement his government pension of about $50 per month.

They were very hospitable, and we got along very well. I didn't see Anatoli very much, because he was taking a month off from work to take care of some things at their dacha in the village of Toksovo, north of the city.

About halfway through my stay—as could be expected for anyone making the transition from Hawaii to Russia—I got a terrible cold that lasted over a week. It reached its peak one Friday evening, when I spent the whole time at dinner sniffling, snorting, and blowing my nose.

Finally, Anatoli looked at me and said, "You need a hot bath, a cup of raspberry tea, and some gorchichniki."

Well, I didn't know what a "gorchichnik" was, but I was pretty sure I recognized the root word "gorchitsa" — mustard.

"Mustard?" I stammered. "Are you saying 'mustard'?"

"Well, yes," he answered. "It's basically dried mustard on paper. You wet it and stick it to your skin. Usually two on your chest and five or six on your back." He was describing an old-fashioned mustard plaster, something I had never experienced before.

He handed me the colorful packet of gorchichniki for my inspection. I read on the back of the packet, "The procedure takes 5-15 minutes, until the appearance of pronounced reddening of the skin and strong burning."

"Burning?!" I exclaimed.

Anatoli laughed. "No, not burning," he reassured me. Then, as he thought about it a bit, he added, "Well, I guess it does burn."

"Uh, I'm willing to take the hot bath and try the raspberry tea," I replied, "But I don't think I'm interested in the gorchichniki."

"No, no, no," he said. "You have to do the whole komplekt, otherwise it won't work right."

Although I was unconvinced, he seemed sincere and very keen to help me, so I relented.

I sighed. "Ladno, poprobuem." ("Fine, let's try it.")

The first step was the hot bath. He filled the tub with scalding water and told me to lie in it up to my neck for about 20 minutes. I closed the bathroom door, and tried to get into the water, but it was far hotter than I can stand. I surreptitiously added cold water (by sticking the hand-held shower head underwater) until I got it down to a temperature that I could tolerate. Once I immersed myself in the water, I soon discovered that it was still a little hotter than I would have liked, but I decided to tough it out.

After my soak, Anatoli had me go into my room and lay on my stomach on a blanket. He applied six steaming mustard plasters to my back, and then covered me with the blanket. He then had me roll over onto my back, still holding the blanket so the plasters wouldn't fall off. Then he had me apply two plasters myself to my chest. Then he pulled the free end of the blanket around me, wrapping me up like an egg roll complete with hot mustard. He slipped an electric heating pad under my back, and covered me with the feather comforter from the bed.

"Just lie there comfortably, and I'll check on you in a few minutes," Anatoli said, leaving the room. He was clearly enjoying his role as nurse.

The mustard went to work almost immediately. They went from warm to hot to blisteringly hot in a matter of minutes. I quickly came to understand why mustard is outlawed by the Geneva Convention.

Anatoli checked back in a few minutes, and asked, "Are they starting to warm up?"

"Yes, they're very hot." I answered. "When can we take them off?"

He laughed. "Oh, they're just getting started! Give them about fifteen minutes so you can get nice and red!" He left me to my suffering.

As I lay there under the feather comforter and on top of the heating pad, I tried to flinch away from the searing pain of the mustard on my body. This of course did no good, since they were glued to my skin. Panic was beginning to set in as I pictured my skin peeling away in layers. Through the fog of my pain, I did notice, however, that my lungs and my head were both completely clear. Could this torture be working?

When Anatoli finally returned to remove the mustard plasters, I was drenched with sweat. He pulled off all the plasters, and wiped me down with paper towels. Then he told me to get back under the comforter while he finished making my raspberry tea.

When he finally came in with a big cup full of raspberry tea (piping hot, naturally), he told me to drink it down as quickly as I could and to eat the raspberries as well. I don't normally like raspberries, but this tea actually tasted pretty good, and I drank it down pretty quickly. Anatoli then took my cup away, wished me good night, and turned out the light. Exhausted from the ordeal, I fell asleep quickly.

I slept until about 10:00 the following morning, when I was awoken by Sveta and Anatoli milling around in the kitchen. And you know what? I actually felt better. The Russian home remedy torture regimen had worked!