This story appears in the WNBA20-themed issue of ESPN The Magazine, on sale May 13.

You absolutely must taste the pizza in the food court!" is not something you generally overhear in the U.S. But in Russia, good restaurants are in shopping malls.

The Ukrainian place on the second floor of this particular fluorescent box and the Italian place on the third floor are two of the best spots in Yekaterinburg, more than 1,000 miles east of Moscow. Shopping malls are heated, and numerous errands can be run in one place, which becomes irresistibly convenient when it's around 8 degrees with a windchill of minus 6, as it is tonight, was yesterday and will be tomorrow.

On this January day, Diana Taurasi and Brittney Griner walk to the mall from their apartment complex around the corner, then ride the escalator to the third floor. Taurasi is wearing a brimmed knit hat and gray wool Nike sweats, Griner a long-sleeved Nike camouflage shirt and matching beanie. As they stroll into the Italian restaurant, called Truffaldino, both check their coats, which in Russia is not optional, lest any public space become layered in fur and wool.

That both players actually walked to dinner is unusual. The club they play for, UMMC Yekaterinburg, provides each player with a personal driver, ensuring that they always arrive on time and also allowing them to say, without irony, "I'll have my driver pick you up."

So yes, Griner loves it in Russia. So does Taurasi.

And what's not to love? The restaurants are good, the team pays well and takes care of every detail -- chartering flights to away games, delivering bottled water to their apartments -- the arena is always filled with locals, and the coaching staff is essentially Phoenix Mercury (Far) East. Sandy Brondello, the Mercury's head coach, is an assistant for UMMC, and her husband and former WNBA associate head coach, Olaf Lange, is UMMC's head coach. Plus, a third of the team is American, playing on foreign passports, and those who are not speak English.

Still, that's just the exoskeleton of why Griner, in particular, is thriving here. The core reason is actually more complicated: She's checked herself out of the daily news cycle and checked herself into a crash course on maturity -- taught by Taurasi.

"I don't have to talk to anybody over here," Griner says. "I don't have to see anybody. I don't have to answer my phone. And everybody is asleep half the time when I'm up. I can be disconnected when I'm over here."

Griner, 25, left the States last October with her private life in public shambles, including a joint domestic violence arrest with then-fiancée Glory Johnson in April 2015, an ill-advised wedding two weeks later, an annulment filing plastered all over TMZ just a month after that, a seven-game suspension from the WNBA for her role in the mutual altercation, then media accounts of the former couple's disputes, as well as public court rulings over alimony and child support. (Johnson gave birth to twins in October.)

Few understand the feeling of public shame better than Taurasi, who was 27 when she was arrested and charged in Phoenix in 2009 with extreme drunken driving and speeding. That summer, the Mercury suspended her two games without pay, and a Google search still pulls up thousands of headlines from the incident.

Other than this, and the fact that they're both in Russia to supplement their WNBA salaries, the two seem to have little in common. They're different heights, different ages, different colors. They're from very different places and have different sensibilities about almost everything, from diet to use of social media. And yet, the glaring space between them is what seems to make this whole thing work. Griner is an athlete struggling to come of age, wanting advice and guidance from someone with plenty to offer, which Taurasi does in spades.

But a word of advice: Don't call Taurasi a mentor.

THE SERVER AT Truffaldino has just appeared at the side of the table, and Taurasi is doing her best to make the interaction smooth.

"Hey, mama," Taurasi says.

But the woman does not react to -- or perhaps has not understood -- the colloquial greeting and instead waits for the drink order.

"Can I have sparkling -- Perrier, sparkling water?" Taurasi says. "Bella gas? Da, spasibo, Pellegrino." (Spasibo means thank you.)

"And I'll have Earl Grey tea," says Griner, who is sitting next to Taurasi. "As you can see, Dee speaks all the Russian."

"No, I just go at it," she says.

"Dee speaks all the Russian," Griner repeats.

"I like to say 'Spasibo, mama' -- it's kind of, you know ..."

Griner interrupts: "It's putting some Dee flavor on it."

"I don't know nearly enough Russian as I should for having been here 10 years," Taurasi says. "It's f---ing hard."

I don't have to talk to anybody over here. I don't have to see anybody. I don't have to answer my phone. And everybody is asleep half the time when I'm up. I can be disconnected when I'm over here. - Brittney Griner

The server reappears with the tea and sparkling water, placing both on the table.

"Spasibo, mama," Taurasi says.

The woman bristles.

"See, she didn't like that," Taurasi says. "She's like, 'You might get put in jail.'"

Griner is laughing; she covers her face with her extra-large palm, shaking her head. "Oh my god," she says.

Taurasi is joking, of course, though the joke is loaded. In the past three years, Russia has made international headlines for its strict anti-LGBT law, making the country a curious choice for Griner, who has long been open about her sexuality. But Russia's hostile climate, which elsewhere in the country has resulted in arrests, seems a world away from Griner, who is here to play ball, not make a human rights stand. As long as she doesn't run through Red Square waving a rainbow flag, nobody says a thing.

Griner will be in Russia for seven months before she needs to be back in Phoenix for the WNBA season in May. Between her apartment, the arena, the car and the mall, the former Baylor standout could be outdoors a total of only a few hours if she wants. (And she does.) The concept of walking is routinely rejected for numerous reasons: The driver knows the city best; it's deathly cold out; and walking is dangerous. Despite an average temperature of 3 degrees in January and yearly precipitation of 18 inches, Yekaterinburg has developed an interesting approach for removing snow. It often doesn't. And so by the middle of January, the snow has been pressed by the wheels of thousands of cars and millions of shoes, transforming the city's pavement into something else entirely: a skating rink.

The whole city of Yekaterinburg seems perpetually dark and gilded with ice -- appropriate, considering its history. Nicholas II of Russia, the country's final czar, was executed here in 1918, along with his wife and five children, by the Bolsheviks after the Russian Revolution. In 2003, the Russian Orthodox Church erected a beautiful chapel with golden domes, the Church on the Blood, in the exact location the family was shot. At this time of year, ice sculptures that look like brick line the entrance, and the inside of the cathedral still feels chilly, despite heat pouring from the vents. Neither Griner nor Taurasi has visited the Church on the Blood, a short walk from UMMC's arena, but friends and family often do when they want to get to know this eclectic city -- wooden buildings reminiscent of Siberia, classic structures in bright pastels, modern skyscrapers, hip coffee spots, kitschy shops.

For Griner, and for Taurasi when she was younger, playing in Russia is a "life experience" -- a lesson in how to handle change, challenge and cultural differences. And perhaps nothing defines the yearlong existence of WNBA players more than those hurdles. As soon as they leave college, they exist in a perpetual state of motion. For five months, they live in the U.S., playing during the summer (a season few associate with hoops), making an average salary of $76,500. (Low-level rookies make less than $40,000, the very best players about $109,500.) That's a decent, but not overwhelming, amount of money for a professional athlete, and because the rest of the year is wide open, about half the WNBA players go overseas for a second paycheck, from Italy to Turkey to Russia. They are like modern-day nomads: Have jumper, will travel.

Of course, the top women's basketball stars have been playing overseas for more than 30 years -- well before the start of the WNBA. But when the league, backed by the NBA, started 20 years ago, some believed female players had finally found a permanent home. It hasn't worked out that way, for complicated reasons.

This is Griner's first season in Russia after playing the previous two winters in China. Taurasi has played all over Europe: four seasons with Spartak Moscow; one with Fenerbahce Istanbul; one with Galatasaray Medical Park (also in Turkey); and here since 2012. Her travels have exposed her to the complicated nature of the women's basketball business model overseas. Some teams, such as Galatasaray, are part of a larger club structure that includes a lucrative soccer team. This would be like if the Dallas Cowboys, in an effort to expand their brand, operated volleyball and basketball teams. Other teams, mostly just in Russia, are funded by one rich owner who happens to enjoy women's hoops. Dozens of teams are funded in part by local governments, while other clubs, such as the one Taurasi and Griner now play for, are backed by a huge corporation. (UMMC is the second-largest copper producer in Russia and operates mines across Europe.)

To be clear, UMMC has not developed some winning algorithm for women's hoops popularity; tickets on the floor and in the lower bowl are just a few bucks, and tickets in the upper bowl are free. Some who attend the games truly enjoy women's hoops, but most just appreciate the possibility of free entertainment in a heated arena in the dead of winter.

In essence, the team is a form of advertising -- one that UMMC pays big bucks for. Griner will make a little less than $1 million this season, while Taurasi will make around $1.5 million. The former UConn star made headlines last spring when she decided to accept UMMC's annual offer, rumored to be more than $200,000, to not play the 2015 WNBA season. Her decision was a black eye for the WNBA, demonstrating that the league isn't the top priority for its marquee players. "It's all about right here," says Todd Troxel, an assistant for both UMMC and the Phoenix Mercury. "This is the big paycheck -- for all of us. We all love Phoenix, but ultimately it's all about here."

And so Taurasi and Griner are in Yekaterinburg, more than 5,000 miles from the U.S. and equally far from the daily sports media cycle. Out of sight, out of mind. Essentially, the WNBA and its players must attempt to reintroduce themselves to casual fans -- every single season.