The Babushka's Gift of Kombucha

Watercolor by Teresa Thorman

       Peter had arrived earlier than expected as he parked the Volga outside the Russian farmhouse noticing the Babushka or 'grandmother' sitting stoically on the porch.  Like a tree trunk rooting the ancestry of the past to the porch of modern industrialization booming after WWII she didn't move but watched him with indifference, as if his coming or going was a matter of swatting his ass against the wall like a swatter to a fly, if he proved annoying. 

       Peter was a scientist working in Moscow.   Due to post war industrialization and pollution fall out, Russia’s people were reporting significantly growing numbers of cancer.  The anomaly was two districts, Berezniki and Solikamsk, which were both practically cancer free.  His job, along with a team of scientists, was to figure out why.  The area of Berezniki was no different than the rest of industrialized Russia, so it seemed, and in addition it was a mining district with potassium, lead, mercury and asbestos in the environment.  Some of the world’s wealthiest men mining potash to produce fertilizer would come from this region. There was an incongruity here he had to figure out so he was making a series of home visits with the hope of discovering the missing puzzle piece.   

The Babushka motioned for him to come up to the house.  Living in Moscow with a modern upbringing Peter could only recall childhood stories of Babushkas.   One story he’d never forget was of a Babushka wielding a saw as she headed to the barn to butcher a pig. He imagined her stout body moving like a tractor that would bulldoze the animal to a platter of barbecued pork. His stomach was tight as he got out of the car and walked toward the porch.  

       The other Christmas bedtime story his mother told him was of The Three Kings stopping by a Babushka’s house on their way to visit the Christ Child who's star they were following.  They invited her to go with them but she felt unprepared and would follow later when she readied herself.  When finally ready and laden with gifts for the Christ Child, she searched for the path to follow the Three Kings but got lost.  The old woman wandered in vain until she came across children to whom she bestowed her gifts.  Since that time, all over Russia, the Babushka leaves Christmas presents for children since she could not find the Child herself.

       Peter approached the steps. The wizened old babushka with an orange kerchief and deep wrinkles where stories of old lay like treasure etched in the folds of her skin, gestured to him to sit down on the rickety wooden chair on the porch.  "They will be home soon," she said as if to assure him that he was in the right place.   She went into the house and came back with a tall glass which she filled with an amber liquid from a five gallon vat that sat in the cool shade on the porch. Not wanting to be rude, but also not wanting to drink a potion that Baba Yaga herself may have concocted, he grasped the cool glass and held it, relieved when he saw a car pull up with the rest of the family members.

Gathering around the table inside the house, Peter watched as kids and adults grabbed tin mugs from a wooden shelf, headed out to the porch and returned with the same liquid he had in the glass.  They drank freely of the brew in the vat, all sitting down to talk about what they did that might make this region so different than the rest of Russia.  The old Babushka brought the glass filled with what he now understood was Kombucha and placed it in front of him.  He had surreptitiously set the glass down on top of the vat when he joined the family inside the house, hoping nobody would notice.

Peters' cheeks burned as if he were a child caught in the act of deviance.  He dutifully sipped the cool drink as penance and watched as the Babushka sat down chuckling with a toothless grin.  Perhaps he was forgiven despite his Baba Yaga thoughts of a witch's brew bubbling in the light of a full moon.

Watercolor by Teresa Thorman

       Months later, in Moscow, Peter picked up the missing puzzle piece lying in front of him all along. The jigsaw puzzle now created a picture of clarity.   The majority of homes in this region made their own Kombucha, filled with immune building and healing properties while detoxifying the body.  Almost every household in Berezniki and Soliskamsk drank the nutritional brew.  It was stunning, really, that such simple nutrition over the years could combat the pollutants spewed from the mouths of factory smoke stacks. 

       Peter recalled the image of the toothless Babushka at the farm house sitting at the table surrounded by her family and decided that the legend of the old woman carrying gifts to the Christ Child was the one that fit her best.   Peter wondered if one of the Babushka’s gifts she carried that legendary cold winter night wasn’t a jug of the amber golden liquid, Kombucha. She couldn’t deliver it to the King of Kings, but she gave it as a gift to the Russian people.  Little could she know that so small an act of kindness in the gift of Kombucha would extend to the far reaches of the world in years to come.

Watercolor by Teresa Thorman

The above story is written by Teresa Thorman and is an imaginative retelling of the two districts in Russia that recorded little to no cases of cancer.  The amazingly low cancer cases were attributed to the region's use of the drink, Kombucha, which almost every household had as part of their nutritional diet.