Pictures Revisited

Okay, so I finally found a better Internet Cafe and got things working again! Pictures are updated, and for those of you who'd rather take the short tour of my trip, I've placed links at what I think are relevant places throughout my blog posts that will direct you to a picture of exactly what I'm talking about (that way you can visualize, see what I was seeing, as you read). For those of you who want to see more, here's the link to my photo website again:
http://community.webshots.com/user/ndjacquerieRUS

June 24, 2007 || Aly Paryca

June 24, 2007

Алые Парусa was incredible! The whole city turned out for the event, more people than I’ve ever seen here before.

Before the concert (first of all it was really hard to get downtown at all, there was so much foot traffic and the buses were packed) we went to a bar called Fidel. Little hole-in-the-wall place, local beer was less than $2 for a big mug (they also serve Absinthe EVERYWHERE here), room for about 10 people on the “dance floor” and the DJ stood in front of a big picture of Castro framed in Christmas lights and garland. The music was great, a mix of all sorts—every now and then you’d catch an old classic like “Getting’ Jiggy With It,” “California Lovin’,” CrazyTown’s “Butterfly,” or “That’s the Way (Uh-huh Uh-huh) I Like It.” I accidentally ordered an NA beer in an effort to try what no one else had had, and later got a bloody nose while dancing (I know, that definitely WOULD happen, wouldn’t it?). I cleaned up and then got napkins (or as I like to call it, free toilet paper) from the bartender—I probably got it because it was the warmest night we’ve had since this cold spell started, and of course it was more humid on the dance floor.

After, we walked with the massive crowds (Nevsky, that main street of the city, was actually CLOSED DOWN). Crunching beer bottles and scattering glass (or half full alcoholic energy cans, plastic jugs of vodka, whatever) with our feet made me glad that I hadn’t worn my sandals. It was both eerie and beautiful to be walking with these thousands of people at 1 am through this city that seemed so full and yet deserted and still catch daylight in the broken stars that tinkled and glittered when you touched them. When we turned onto Palace Square, I was floored. Strobes flickered up and down the Hermitage’s front, making the statues on top seem to dance. The angel atop the Alexander Column peered out from behind tall red sails, and a massive stage had been erected in front of the arch. People sang onstage while others holding flashlights shined them in sync from the top of the stage’s girders. Suddenly, shadows appeared in front of both the huge projection screens—2 dancers, hanging from wires, are running lightly across their surfaces and pausing in mid-air to turn and flip and dance. Huge floating globes, decadently painted and vivid-bright, as if lit from within, rove the air—they seem to have come out of nowhere. Below them, too, single dancers perform suspended by thin wires. After the set ended, a fountain of glitter—purple, red, gold, silver—erupted from the front of the stage and continued for minutes. It was incredible, impossible to describe accurately—I feel like I’m talking a pipe dream and not a concert.

After we followed another crowd back downtown, one that was constantly cheering, singing, shouting. We stopped at the Russian version of Starbucks to go to the bathroom and get a quick drink (depending on who you were), and then continued to our favorite café (which ended up being closed, so then we split up and headed home).

But as we walked back down Nevsky, noise like thunder exploded from Palace Square. It boomed constantly, and even the air seemed to tremble from it. Someone remarked that it sounded like gunfire, and for a second, I let myself go. On that night, with all the people and light and ethereal atmosphere, in that city, so steeped in history and conflict and revolution, that it was easy to imagine that just beyond those walls, the Bolsheviks were ending the monarchy again, or that Hitler had resumed his shelling of this great city—that just past that building, history was repeating itself, or forging itself anew in a terrible, grand way. But then we came around a bend and fireworks flared over the walls, and lights of every color washed over the smoke they left behind, and I was left with a dazzling reality.

I was legitimately scared walking home alone (stupid me for bringing a blatantly English hoodie), but when I got home safe all I wanted to do was savor the night; there was no was I could go to bed right away, especially with all that light still flooding in through my window.

====You Might Find This Interesting====

>Russian Names

This is a pretty important topic. Russians are very formal with each other; its built into their language. For example, all Russians have three names: a regular name, a family name, and a patronymic. One of my teachers, for example, is called Irina Andreevna Chechik. Her first name is Irina; her family name, Chechik; and her patronymic Adreevich. This name is taken from her father’s first name—clearly, his name is Andrey. If I were to have a patronymic, it would be Douglasovna. If I had a brother, his would be Douglasovich (feminine patronymics end in –ovna; male ones end in –ovich). The use varies; but people that you are not well acquainted with, your coworkers, for example, will know you by both name and patronymic only. Russians can know some people for years but never learn their last name. So, learning a last name is a first step. Being able to call someone by only their first name, without the patronymic, is another step closer. If you get very close, just about every Russian name has an endeared form (Natalya becomes Natasha becomes Natash; or Ekaterina becomes Katya becomes Katyshkaà all of these represent layers of intimacy).

Russians also have two ways of addressing each other—formal and informal. For example, you can call your peers by the informal form of "you” (ты), but you should never address elders by anything other than the formal “you” (вы) unless invited to do so. Similarly, you may address young children informally, and they should address you formally. People with whom you are not well acquainted are also formal “yous,” although this may be changing; we’ve had at least two instances where female Russian acquaintances have asked us to stop calling them “вы” because it made them feel very old.

In Soviet times, everyone was called “Comrade” or “citizen.” Now, people still aren’t sure what to call each other. Because of that, if you need to call your waiter in a restaurant, or if a shopkeeper is trying to get your attention, the words “young man” and “girl/young lady” are about as formal as you’re gonna get, although they’ll still address you (and vice versa) using “вы.”

June 22/23, 2007 || Georgian Cafe/Russian Play/Kunstkammer/Banya/Russian Movie

June 22/23, 2007

I LOVE talking to Liza. She’s so smart, and a perfect balance of opinion and open-mindedness. I feel like she could offer an educated appraisal of anything (and if she couldn’t she’d let you know) but still fairly listen to your ideas, too. Today we spent a lot of time talking Russian identity, and identity in general (typically defining oneself in relation to an “other”), which is such a complex and interesting subject with multitudes of examples that I could talk about it for days. We also talked about how life sometimes moves both too fast and too slow… for example, living in Saint Petersburg, there’s so many once-in-a-lifetime experiences to be had—but which am I doing for the actual experience, and which am I doing just to say I did it? Or more basically, is it worth doing something that’s a “once-in-a-lifetime” experience if you wouldn’t want to do it otherwise? I’ve never gone quite to that extreme, but sometimes I find myself blowing through events without really savoring them—and I don’t think I should do that. I’m not sure, either, if it’s a personal character flaw or a result of our society.

We went and saw Master & Margarita today, which was fabulous. We walked up to this massive theater, crossed a nice plush waiting area, climbed a flight of marble stairs (ohmigosh ohmigosh this is going to be GREAT it’s like a theater back home!) turned the corner and BAM! … bleachers. Bleachers, and folding chairs set up for us to sit on. We’d bought seats that didn’t even exist (the rows were numbered until about 23, and I had seat 27), so KK and Joe and I crammed into the front row, while Diane and Liz climbed up into the bleachers. The front row was great—we came eye to eye with the devil and had pillows thrown over our heads. The makeup was fantastic—I actually jumped when Azazello (kind of like an "angel of death" demon) first appeared, and because of his face powder, for the whole first scene, Woland/Satan literally smoked under the lights. I also really liked how most of the characters were dressed in black AND white—although Woland wore all white—attesting to their dual roles of agents of both good and evil. Begemot (Behemoth) was of course my favorite—his mannerisms drew my attention even when the stage action was far from him. It was strange, because it was a budget theater, and some of the special effects included looped clips of eerie Indian chants and Halloween USA-esque voice modifiers. The also added a character whom I could not place (a woman in black who shadowed almost every scene, and was only noticed by the characters onstage from time to time; she seemed linked especially to Margarita and dueted with her). The kicker was the huge projection screen that served as a backdrop; it made the whole project seem very art-house and intellectual, but it actually worked and served the play well. Sometimes it showed the owner of the voice coming through the other end of the telephone, sometimes eerie close-ups of Woland, seeming to imply that he saw all, sometimes it integrated itself into a scene, displaying rushing water during the scene with the river, and more than once it showed video of Stalin and his soldiers (the play is set during Stalinist times), and fighting. The whole thing was a wild and new theater experience.

New also: Georgian cuisine. Pretty sure I could live on this food. Tending to be meaty while heavy on vegetables and ALWAYS fresh, it was a bit spicy but just delicious. Georgia is, in classical history, the land where the Golden Fleece hung, and there is a legend that describes Caucasian food as “The Scraps from God’s Table.” I had Tamol, which felt Greek—pork, chicken, and rice wrapped in grape leaves with a tasty sauce, and also tried some sausages, chicken shashlyk (like a kabob), veal, and all were phenomenal—I really want to go there again with Curtis next week when he comes to visit.

Speaking of cultural experiences, Jessica and Trisha and I went to the Kunstkammer for the first time. My basic response to it was really conflicted—morbid fascination, a sense of how bizarre it all was, pity, and even understanding, too. As I told Marina Nikolaevna, it was interesting, but I could only look at so many dead babies who have been bottled, and then that’s enough. It was also an ethnographical museum, the first museum in St. Petersburg (Peter the Great was fascinated with early cultures) and had artifacts from Eskimos, early Chinese culture, a section on Africa, and one on India. It was bizarre to see figures in glass cases wearing animal skins and seeing them labeled “Iroquois” or “American Indian.” And when you think that this might be someone’s only exposure to these other cultures… well, it was interesting to think about what sort of inferences a tour group of school children might draw from them—and it made me think about what I had taken away from my first exposures to other cultures (what did my teachers focus on? What were the legends I heard? What were my impressions of these early people? Were they fair?) The Kunstkammer itself was only one room, and technically, photographs weren’t allowed—but I managed to grab a quick shot before a babyshka told me to knock it off (she didn’t make me erase the picture, thinking I was Russian—score!) It houses all Peter the Great’s bizarre findings; he trained himself as a doctor and surgeon and wanted to pioneer science relating to the human body. As such, he offered to pay subjects in his kingdom for anomalies in nature that they stumbled across; a woman who gave birth to a baby with no legs, or one with a conjoined twin; a two-headed calf; an armadillo, a pangolin; he bought dwarves and human giants to keep in his retinue. So, basically, this room is what’s left of it—there are babies’ heads floating in jars, dismembered hands, the skeleton of the calf, colored brains sitting next to a collection of beetles and diagrams of a person’s insides. It was disturbing, especially to think that these kids, in particular, never had a chance at life—a harelip, a missing arm—we can cope with these problems now and give people who have them relatively normal lives. But we can only do that, I guess, because back then “scientists” cut these people up and found out what was wrong with them; the whole museum is both relic and monument to the early days of trial-and-error, experimental science.

And, for the ULTIMATE cross-cultural experience, we went to the banya on Wednesday. A banya is basically a public bathhouse. I know my first conceptions of banyas were grand and wild and rather Eastern (or at least something like a swimming pool I saw in the Hearst mansion)—tiled pools, waterfalls from the ceilings, decorated columns and big jars of hot water. Then I kind of scaled things back and imagined great big saunas with pools of water in the floor, ready for you to jump in. Then I decided that that must be wrong too, so I tried to clear myself of expectations and just take it for what it was worth—prepared to either like it or dislike it. I wasn’t sure what to expect, either, from my classmates, since Americans are so hung up on body image and NO WAY being naked.

So anyway, we walk into this old apartment and climb 4 flights of stairs, and step into what looks like a swimming locker room (once more I was sooo glad that I chose to swim in high school). And, like a swimming locker room, there were a few naked older women just hanging around getting dressed, no problem. There were giggles, but then WE were supposed to get undressed, and there was a sort of nervous tension as we all modestly changed under our towels, keeping the important parts covered (except for Liz, because there is nothing on earth that could shame that girl--and I mean that in a good way). We next walked down a hallway, through a door into a big open room. The two long walls of this rectangle were lined with either low benches (to the left) or water taps (to the right) and all in the middle of the room were more benches strewn with big buckets. The other two walls were lined with open shower stalls (in one the faucet had been replaced with a bucket and chain—this would end up becoming one of my favorite “stations”) and in one corner there was what appeared to be a dunking tank with a ladder climbing its front. And, of course, there were more naked old women—walking around, scrubbing themselves with soap, rinsing under a shower, or filling up buckets with hot water at the taps. So, we followed suit (Cardinal Rule #1 in ACTR: If you don’t know what to do, just watch a Russian and do what they’re doing). I filled up a big bucket and set it on a bench, letting my veniki (a bunch of supple birch branches—still with leaves) soak while I rinsed off—the air was already 10 degrees warmer in here, hot and humid. It took awhile, but we all got decently acclimated with all the nudity, and finally a bunch of us walked through a door at the end of the room to the sauna room. It was SO hot, and it just kept getting hotter. This is where I first saw women whacking each other with veniki. I thought it looked ridiculous, but after a few minutes, those of us with branches gave it a shot—and it made the experience ten times better. It was like a little massage anywhere, and you could control the intensity.

When it got too hot I went back to the water room and rinsed off before taking my first dunk in the tank—the water was ice cold but felt SO good. You’re to climb to the top of the ladder and just drop in, so it hits you all at once—the hardcore banya-goers go outside and roll in the snow between hot room trips in the winter. After that, I alternated between the tank and pulling the bucket down on my head (which was full of cold water and always came as a bigger shock).

By the time we finished, I think we were all more comfortable with each other—it wasn’t a problem at all after we saw how nakedness wasn’t a big deal, and I felt really good—warm, relaxed, really clean, and my skin seemed so soft. Everyone probably felt the same way, and I don’t think there’s many bonding experiences better than getting naked with a group of people, and then taking turns hitting each other with branches (I know this probably sounds bizarre, but don’t knock it ‘til you try it—I’m definitely going back to the banya when our hot water gets turned off).

It was so funny to try and explain all this to Masha when we met later to go see a movie. We talked (or TRIED talking—the limited vocabulary forces you to really focus on the important aspects of your subject and think really creatively about how to say what) about the banya and Americans’ awkwardness with nudity, and somehow we progressed to President Bush and religion, and I tried to explain the No Child Left Behind Act (Read: BIG mistake; did nothing but confuse the hell out of both of us), and from there we got to the public school systems in both countries and respect for elders and parental responsibility and the Russian and American conceptions of one another (apparently, the majority of them DON’T hate us; in fact, they maybe kinda like us), and Cold War mentalities…and it was fascinating. Masha is so wonderful—patient and nice and I feel like although we’re from such different worlds, we’re on the same wavelength. At one point, I was starting on a touchy subject (probably the war in Iraq) and I wanted to make it clear that I didn’t want her taking all my words as the rule for Americans and America—and she cut me off. Don’t worry, I understand—these are your opinions, and things aren’t like this everywhere, or all the time. And she mirrored my concerns on the Cold War fixation, and we both wanted to see a cartoon (me because I’m lame and love cartoons and because I think they’d be easier to understand than a real movie—could you imagine Oceans 13 {called “The 13 Friends of Ocean” in Russian} in Russian??—and Masha just because she enjoyed animated films like Shrek and Pixar movies) and she’s really laid-back (likes to listen to music and read)—and we were listening to some great international music on her phone and I was trying to scribble down all their names and she asked, Why don’t I just make you a CD? (Answer: Um, that would be awesome!) and she’s also really really determined to make me speak only Russian… which is a good thing, I guess, but sometimes it’s very frustrating to know that I have so much to say, but I don’t have the words to say it. In return, I tease her every time she says “super” even though it’s a common word in Russian. I don’t know when we’re next doing something, but I can’t wait.

I also can’t wait to have my Bely Nochi experience tonight—this free concert, gylyating (a play on the Russian word “gool-yacht” = to frolic/have fun) around the city, and taking (hopefully) wonderful pictures of the city at night, and the ship with red sails, and the bridges broken and upright over the sparkling Neva, and the Fontaka.

====You Might Find This Interesting====

>The Master and Margarita Actually, you probably won’t find what I have to say interesting, but you have just got to read this book. It’s fascinating, written in Soviet times by a wonderful but censored author whom Stalin toyed with like a mouse (refusing to let him leave the country, et cetera), and it speaks volumes about the Stalinist regime—it wasn’t published until the 60s abroad, and even later in Russia; but now most Russians know and love the book, and there was a 10-part TV series of it done about 5 years ago (which I hope to buy) that EVERYONE watched. Basically, if you come to Russian and drop its name (pronounced Master ee Margarita in Russian) you’ll have some instant friends. So, for the bare-bones plot, it follows three narratives: The first is a retelling of the Christ story; we meet Pilate, who views Jesus as an enigmatic philosopher (Jesus, for his part, claims that most of his deeds have been simple and grossly magnified by Matthu Levi); the second narrative follows Satan, who (with a few of his buddies) has come to Moscow to see if the people have changed (Stalin’s whole plan was to make a new kind of human, “The New Soviet Man” who would be completely superior—morally, physically, intellectually—from any who had come before). He tests the people of Moscow and causes all kinds of havoc. The third narrative is a love story, of that between the Master, the writer of a controversial novel who goes mad when the censors destroy his life before the work is even published, and his extremely complex lover and heroine, Margarita (this part draws much from Bulgakov’s own life, and last wife). All three intersect; but I don’t want to give too much away. If I had to list major themes, I’d say (obviously) Stalinist Moscow; the ability of people to rationalize anything (ie things like meeting someone who is clearly the devil in Moscow or the obviously unnatural disappearance of one’s neighbors); the importance of writing; and the idea that those things we take to be purely evil rarely ever are. The devil and his fellows are entertaining characters, although clear workers of black magic; the novel opens with a quote from Faust or Mephistopheles, I believe (which is heavily referenced in the book), that reads something like “I am the force which eternally wills evil but eternally does good.”

>Really, seriously, READ Master and Margarita.

>Banya Know-How:

1) If you go to the banya, buy veniki. Hitting yourself with them improves your circulation and blood flow, allowing for a better experience.

2) “If you don’t bring something to cover your head with, it will either a) get cold or b) explode (depending on who you ask).” The truth of this is that as all the heat escapes through your head, leaving it uncovered will dry your hair out really, really badly; so do bring a small towel to wear on your head, or buy one of the nice sets with a little hat and matching gloves.

3) That other towel—make sure you also bring a towel to lay or sit on in the sauna room—the benches are really, REALLY hot; this is also different from the towel you’ll dry off with.

4) Common sense: the higher you climb, the hotter it gets; steam rises, so if someone throws water on the rocks, it’s going to rise up AT you; shower AFTER you’re done sweating

5) Bring sandals—it is a public place, after all

6) Not sure I have to repeat this, but: buckets are not for bathing in.

June 20, 2007 || Quick Post

June 20, 2007

So after I hung up the phone last night with Mom, I thought I was going to take a shower but there were more fun things than that to do! Like… change the wallpaper. The other day, a huge tear had been scraped in the wallpaper (not by me, thank God) so Marina decided it was time for a change. When I walked into the kitchen, she was digging at the wall with a knife, pulling a huge swath of green down. “Can I help?” And so I got to experience tearing huge strips of wallpaper haphazardly from the wall (have to say, it was pretty therapeutic). Now I’m staring at a brownish wall, and when I get back from the Banya and hopefully a movie with Masha today we’ll have a pink, blue, and green kitchen!

The past few days have been busy—trying to set up the blog, struggling with pictures (and a slow internet connection, and of course, class (due Friday: an essay on the topic "How to Stop Terrorism"). Some days are better than others. And hopefully, things are going to get a lot busier—a lot of us have talked and really want to do everything that we can in Saint Petersburg, because we’ve so little time here. So… we’ve started overloading our calendars as much as we feel able (which is still a struggle, since we’re wiped out after class and all). One of our “events” is to go out on the town this Saturday, to the city’s celebration for those who have finished high school. They get a concert, and a speech from the governor, an all night festival complete with legends and banners, and a huge ship anchored in the river with big red sails… I wish OUR cities turned out for us like that when we finished school.

====You Might Find This Interesting====

Ways to quickly make Russian friends (by keying in on popular culture):

1) Check out Che-Byrashka, national cartoon hero. Kids and teens alike will relate to you (he was so popular that he was actually their Olympic mascot one year; he is ridiculously cute and is clay-animated like the old-school Rudolph).

2) Find out who Sergei Balabonov Jr. is (note: he died a few years ago at a young age, so make sure you don’t ask “What’s he been up to lately?”)

3) Read, read, READ Russian literature—Pushkin’s poetry especially (PS it’s worth it).

4) Buy them drinks (this works in the U.S. too)

5) Drop one of these lines at appropriate times: “Pushkin knows.” … Пушкин знает. (when someone asks a question like ‘Does anybody know where Mike is today?’); Good morning, bandits,” ... Здорово бандиты. (when greeting a group of friends to be); “No questions” ... Нет бопросы. (said very forcefully when someone asks “Any questions?”)

Regarding Pictures

Alright, so I was hoping to maybe be able to put pictures up on this site, but it's not going to happen. I hope to go back through my journal after I get photos figured out and put links for some things (ie. at a part where I wrote "We saw such and such fantastic monument" I'll put a link to a picture of the fantastic monument), reason being that nobody really cares about my 10 pictures of birch trees or the 40 pictures of a graveyard I took--those are the sorts of pictures that happened when I went "Wow this is beautiful I want to remember it forever--!" and cameras never really do those moments justice... but they can serve to jog the memory pretty well.

So, aside from those links, so far I only plan on having two other sections--first, Living in Russia, where I'll put pictures of the rooms I've stayed in (since anybody who's visited here or seen out pictures from Russia knows how different that can be) and Friends/People. I'll probably try to classify the other pictures by location, but most of them (sorry mom, I know you hate this) don't have any people in them, and aren't really all that interesting, unless you're into that sort of thing (admit it, you're always more excited to see 4 pictures of your buddy partying in a London bar than 20 pictures of some fancy whosawhatsit that was built hundreds of years ago out of diamonds and hemp).

BUT when that does become active, you'll be able to find my pictures at:
http://community.webshots.com/user/ndjacquerieRUS
...but I'll be sure to let you know once it's working, and give the link again. =)

June 16, 2007 || Nora and Danya

June 16, 2007

Spent most of my day avoiding homework and playing with Danya and Nora. We played a board game, dominoes, and checkers in the morning (checkers is slightly different—you HAVE to jump or you lose that piece; unkinged pieces can jump backwards when they must; and kings can jump along their whole diagonals—Nora almost beat me the first time around, until I got the hang of the rules).

Marina did my laundry (I’m SO grateful, considering I’m out of underwear). My clothes are hanging all in the bathroom, and in the kitchen and along the window seats in my room, too. The washing machine is small but fierce—it’s tiny, but shakes like mad so the dishes rattle when it hits the spin cycle.

Nora also had a nosebleed today, which she was kinda embarrassed by, but I said how I get them all the time and helped her clean up. The kids really liked my camera and laptop (a “notebook” in Russian), so they wanted to take lots of pictures and listen to music. We also played a few games with a tennis ball and some ping pong paddles (every free second, Danya spent today bouncing the ball on his paddle which totally wouldn’t have been allowed in our house—in the kitchen while Marina was cooking, in the hallway by the table, in the main room while we were watching TV). First Nora laid down on the carpet to watch a movie (an old black-and-white American film that we put on after Charlie Chaplin) and Danya and I bounced the ball over her (she was our net)—and if we accidentally hit her, she would get up and flick us on the forehead. Also we played where the “line” person would move their legs up and down and the other two had to take turns rolling the ball under them. Whoever missed became the next line person.

Kids are the same everywhere. After breaking the “touch” barrier by tickling her until she dropped the tennis ball, Nora holds my hand everywhere, sits real close on the couch, and feels confident enough to play with some of my things—my hairbrushes, my headbands, etc. She really liked my Che Burashka, and my moose, too (which Danya accidentally asked if it was from my husband, giving us all a good laugh). At dinner, those two started talking about big numbers, billions and trillions and other made-up numbers. Then talk turned to what you could buy with that much money, and Marina said you could buy anything. “Anything? What about a house? Cards? A store? A planet? President Putin?”—No, he and planets aren’t for sale. Even though things will be harder in class tomorrow for it, I’m glad I spent most of the day with them. I really really like the kids, and it makes me wish I had a little brother or sister (which, of course, reminds me of Mark, who cares more about his little sister than anyone I know, and was the first person to ever make me wish I had a much younger sibling). Thankfully, even though I don’t have any brothers or sisters, I have enough younger cousins to make up for it, from all different ages. Not only are they always fun (well, almost always), but I’ve never had to do the dirty work for them—punish them, baby-sit them for free, change their diapers (okay, so that’s not entirely true for KPW or KEW, but I can forgive them that—it’s not like they could control their poopy selves).

Last night was so great. The weather was beautiful, and Liza, Trisha and I talked about SO much—religion, Russia, culture, our futures, the past, responsibility, Russia, our host fams, the war in Iraq, feminism, Russia, AIDs, education, Westernization, affirmative action/reverse discrimination, Russia… it was the kind of talk that left me happy and sad and confused and confident all at once. And I think everyone needs one of those talks every once in a while (the fact that we were in a foreign country made me feel very ex-pat-ish and Hemingway-esque).

====================You Might Find This Interesting====================

Neil’s Story (as best as I can remember)…told after I mentioned a few of my embarrassing word mix-up stories in order to show that EVERYONE messes up in Russia and it’s not a big deal:

Pre-Req Class: Banya = a bath house; very popular in Russia, to have both public and private ones; you attend these naked

Dacha = a very small cottage kept by urbanites outside the city; they’re frequented on weekends and are typically cheaply made and packed with trinkets and such

“Понил!” = “I understand!”

“So, I went up to my friend Olga’s dacha for the weekend. This was after I’d had like 6 months of Russian, right? And it was my first time ever using a banya. Now, their banya was brand-spanking new, beautiful wood everywhere—the dacha was your regular crumbling old dacha, but the banya was beautiful. So I got naked, right, like you do in a banya, and Olga’s father opened the door and put in two buckets of water, a rag, and shampoo, which was fine. Now, I’ve done this before, I know how to take a bucket bath, right? But I’m looking at this banya and it’s just GOT to be too nice to be splashing water all over and getting the wood all wet and everything. So I climbed into the bucket. And I’m splashing water from the other bucket onto me, awkwardly naked standing in this bucket, taking my shower. And Olga’s father is out in the yard and he’s planting something or—I don’t know what he’s doing, but he sees me through this one window set at the very top of the banya, standing naked in this bucket, and the door bangs open and he lifts me out of the bucket and dumps the over one over my head, pours the shampoo on my head, splashing everywhere, scrubbing my hair—did I mention I was NAKED? Him, not so much, but me, definitely naked, and being WASHED by my friend’s DAD. “Понил! Понил!” …so basically, don’t worry if you do something embarrassing in front of your host family—Russians like to laugh and get over that stuff pretty quick.”

June 15, 2007 || First Day of Class/Walking with Masha/The Great-Grandkids!

June 15, 2007

I’d be happy to use the toilet seat covers mom made me bring, if only I could find public toilets with seats to cover! A better investment would’ve been travel-size toilet paper. I packed all wrong for this trip, and brought way too much (more batteries, less dress clothes)…the only consolation is that when I go home, my bags will be lighter by half.

So, left to my own devices and given a space of my own, I am super-anal about keeping it neat (who’d have thought?). I spend at least 30 minutes every day straightening things up and can’t go to sleep until all is in its proper place.

It’s been almost a week and I think I’m finally settling in. There are still periods (typically in class) where I find myself thinking, “What did I get myself into?” but then other times (like when I’m walking home and BAM I pass a crazy huge monument dedicated to “The Heroes of the Great City of Leningrad”) and I think to myself, “How AWESOME that I get to live here.” I wish I would stumble across some lost American tourists just so I could say, “Palace Square? Oh, it’s down this street—you turned left instead of right. Yeah, no problem, I live here.” But my body is still stressing out, even if I don’t realize it. On the bus yesterday, about halfway to school, that Jesus song by The Killers came on the speakers (this was the same bus driver who played System of a Down on Thursday), and my whole body sort of… unclenched. Like I had been all tensed up without even knowing it—and I’m still not sure why I would’ve been tense. I’m glad I use the buses—which I could best describe as mules—(except when they break down, as was the case on the way home yesterday) to get to school, and not the metro—which KK can only describe as “angry.”

The first day of class was excruciatingly hard—I felt so overwhelmed that I just wanted to break down and cry at least twice (this mostly happened in grammar class—I don’t even understand ENGLISH grammar, so how could I possibly learn Russian grammar while it’s being taught IN Russian??!). I’m definitely the worst student in the group, and whenever someone asks a question, 9 times out of 10 it’s me (the other time it’s the teacher, and she’s asking a completely different kind of question). Marina said that her exchanges always complained like I did the first day, and that being in the 2^nd Group is a very good thing, but I’m still not sure. By Friday I felt better, but it’s very, very exhausting to have to fight every second just to understand what’s going on in class… Not to mention it’s very disheartening to be the worst in class at everything we do, always. I’m going to talk to Neil, just to let him know how difficult I’m finding it, since our grades are based on effort a bit, too, and I feel like that’s something I should give him a heads-up on. There are 4 groups arranged according to skill level, from 1st the most advanced to 4th, the beginnerish group. In my group there's 2 grad students and a kid who's had about another semester and a half experience on me... so I think it's okay to feel a little over my head.

I got lost for the first time Wednesday, which is always a memorable experience (although more familiar a feeling to me than you might think). I turned the wrong way coming out of the post office, and ended up way down on Starry Nevsky (“starry” = “old” in Russian) before I figured out where I was going. I DID manage to find a few great (and pricey) restaurants, however, and a boulangerie that I’m dying to try.

Thursday we toured the medical clinic that we’re to go to if we get hurt, and I was really quite impressed by how nice it was. It’s run by an American doctor who studied, got licensed, and worked in America, so everything is up to his (read: American) standards. Conveniently, it’s located close to our apartment, so I’m not really all that worried about getting sick anymore.

Marina’s brother Yuri came over Thursday night, too, and he’s harder for me to understand than Igor! But he was, of course, very nice, and is the handyman of the family—he came to fix the brackets holding some cords that run along the floor (behind the fridge) in our kitchen. Marina put it well when she said, “He doesn’t work, but he loves to help.” While I was doing homework that night, I accidentally tore my dictionary in half (it had already taken quite a beating, I wasn’t really THAT upset at my homework, I swear). When I asked Marina for tape, she said she wasn’t sure if she had any, but that I should give my dictionary to Yuri to fix. The next time I looked up, Yuri was punching holes in its spine! He sewed the dictionary up through these holes, and now it’s even better than when I first bought it. Note: Brother Yuri kind of reminds me of the smiling old man with spectacles in the Pixar short who plays chess against himself.

Yesterday I met with Masha again. We tried to see a Russian film, but none were playing at the theater we went to (only American and French films, and Masha didn’t really want to see any of them). We then tried to get a theater program, but the kassa we went to was out of them. We walked around Vasilevsky and saw the Rostral columns, and wedding parties taking pictures with them, and tried to go to 2 museums, but both closed on Friday. So we walked to the Admiralty, and the Bronze Horseman (which I literally expected to be glowing, it’s such an important monument in the Russian consciousness and especially literature), and then back to Kazan Cathedral. We talked a lot although sometimes I just laughed where it seemed appropriate and agreed a lot—there’s only so many times I’m going to say “I don’t understand” and ask her to try and explain herself another way. We talked a bit about accents, and I had fun trying to explain the importance of the word “pop/soda/Coke” and the arguments it provoked at school. She also invited me to sometime meet her friends—I said yes, then asked if any of them spoke English…and OF COURSE they don’t, so I can only imagine how much fun it’ll be to hang out with them (this was one of those ‘what did I just get myself into’ moments).

Today we’ve an optional excursion to a cemetery dedicated to the Siege of Leningrad (which I mentioned in one of my earlier posts), and hopefully after some of us are going to spend a little extra on a nice dinner. And since today’s Saturday, I’m going to take a loooong shower and shave my legs for the first time since I left home. Ypa! (“oo-RAH!” / hooray!)

Oh! I learned today that our hot water is getting turned off July 6 and will be off for 20 days, so that means that I get TWO free gifts on my birthday—the last day of class AND hot water!

àQuick Note: I JUST met Marina’s great grandchildren, Danya (Danil/Daniel) and Nora (Elenora). They are absolutely adorable. When I came home (after spending the day at Piskaroe Kladbishyeh, which was beautiful, but very very sad with its long rows of mass graves and solemn monuments, grabbing dinner with Trisha, Liza, and Neil—who had BEST story—and then grabbing a quick drink with the girls), I was taking my shoes off when I thought I saw a little face peering around the wall down the hall—but when I looked up it disappeared. I was a bit confused, but then came the sound of giggling. I called out hello and this beautiful little girl appeared and said hello back—then ran away. I hurried to the kitchen and finally got properly introduced to the kids, who had apparently been allowed to stay up only until I got home. There was a board game laying open on the table, and I started a game with Nora while Danya changed into his pajamas (the game reminded me of Chutes & Ladders, which I’ve always been horrible at, so of course Nora completely smoked me). When Danya finished changing, we started a new game, but Marina made the kids go to bed, saying we could play again in the morning—“At 8 o’clock!” Nora said, which made me quickly say, “How about 9?” They’re just so cute, and still all giggly and shy from meeting someone new—Danya kept pretending to run into walls because it made me laugh. I’m so glad I finally got to meet them, although I’m sorry I missed their mother.

It’s funny that I met them today, because Neil mentioned after dinner how kids were great to talk to in Russian because you can usually understand them better. But Nora is one hell of a fast talker, and she rolls her Rs like nobody’s business. I THINK she was talking about her dog when she said some crazy name, which she offered to write down for me when I couldn’t pronounce it. Her handwriting wasn’t bad, but I STILL don’t think I could pronounce this word the right way: Эрдэмтерьеп / Erdemtyeryep.

====You Might Find This Interesting====

>It’s illegal to leave the country with authentic religious icons, old samovars (a Russian invention for making tea), and books printed before 1946.

>It’s also illegal to drink out on the streets now—although this rule isn’t strictly enforced.

>When in Russia, never go to the police for help—stay away from them if you can. There’s a Russian saying about policeman being nothing but “wolves in epaulettes.” Your best bet is to show them your proper documentation (carry it with you ALWAYS) and tell them you don’t speak Russian—normally it’s too much of a hassle to try and deal with you. Also, never initiate a bribe—but if they start asking for money, it’s better just to give some to them.

>Don’t go to all-night bars (of which there are many in St. Petersburg). People specifically hang around these places (policemen and criminals) to harass drunken foreigners.

June 12, 2007 || Meeting Masha/Tvarichesky Garden

June 12, 2007

Still so tired, that when I say down to write this again, I took a nap instead. У вы!

I made another lovely blunder again today; yesterday I tried to ask Marina if we were eating Swiss cheese (because that’s what it looked like), but the words for “Swiss” is much like the word for “fresh” and I mixed them up. I ended up asking "Are we eating fresh cheese?" So we had a good laugh after we got past the idea that maybe, some people (like those I knew in America) eat spoiled cheese on purpose. And when I returned home after a walk to Tvarichesky garden, Marina wasn’t home—she had gone to visit her grandchildren and greats, and taken my gifts with her (I hope I’ll get to meet them soon). Igor warmed up dinner for me, and sat with me while I ate. I wonder if Marina told him that he must sit and speak with me, to make me practice Russian (and oh! the practice I had today). Laura (a past student who stayed with the Silenkos) warned me that Igor was very hard to understand, because of his strong accent and his lack of a tooth here and there, and so I had tried to keep away from and not bother him, since I felt that taking in students was mostly Marina’s idea. Of course, I feel that most things are Marina’s ideas, since before tonight I hadn’t seen Igor do anything but sleep, eat, and watch TV.

But today we talked! ..kind of; with much hesitation, misunderstanding, and repetition; but we accomplished it. We talked about football (by which I mean soccer) and how Igor used to play, and how Russia’s team is doing poorly; where he was born and how he met Marina (I didn’t understand this part well at all, but Marina later explained to me that they were both on expeditions for work to the same place and met there); how in Kazakhstan he once saw a rocket take off, but there had been no warning of it beforehand, so he was amazed at how it was so huge and could fly… we even joked a bit with each other, and he is very nice… he kept reminding Marina (once she returned) and me to eat even though we were talking.

And at one point, he commented on how I wasn’t a vegetarian, seeing me eat chicken, and asked if I ate all birds (probably to make sure I was a vegetarian). I said no, and asked if he ate all birds, birds like pigeons too. He said no, and I thought—I THOUGHT he said, “Normally, I eat children.” Well, I like a good joke, and everyone was smiling, so I asked if he preferred little boys or little girls—and they suddenly stopped smiling. He didn’t say he ate children at all! Could you imagine having an exchange student ask your husband almost out of the blue if he liked to eat little boys or little girls better? Haha, well, either way, once everything got sorted out, we all laughed for quite a while. And when that happened, I found myself thinking, “Maybe this is why they take in foreign students.” It was a really wonderful moment, to have all of us laughing together, at the same thing, and all of us KNOWING why we were laughing (which doesn’t always happen with me here).

Today, I slept badly and woke late, because today we had our first excursion. I woke up, showered, ate breakfast, and watched TV with Marina. It was a show with funny acts—like a comedy hour, or a variety-style Premium Blend (but suitable for a View-esque audience), with performers like 2 musical brothers who “couldn’t” sing or play their instruments; 2 tap-dancing comical mimes; a comedian with a lisp (and he was probably gay, which surprised me, since Russia is known for its homophobia); and a funny song played on a trick guitar by a man who had two men dressed as women for backup singers. Marina made me stay and watch the end, then told me my “beach slippers” (my flip-flops) would be too cold for the excursion, so I thought I might be late. But I made it on time, and today I met my tutor, Masha, who probably speaks far better English than my Russian. She is very nice, and pretty, and eager to help; she tried explaining the boat tour to me, but I thought it would be boring for her to just repeat the guide, so we talked of other things—Che Byrashka, Shrek 3, Pirates of the Caribbean, our schools, Bulgakov, why I’m studying Russian, why she’s studying English, what she wants to do in her career, if we’ve ever visited other countries, etc. She is going to call tomorrow and hopefully we will go to an opera or a museum or something sometime this week. The most trouble I had was understanding when she asked me to call her “Ты” instead of “Вы” and at the bus stop, when she told me not to get lost. It was raining after the excursion, so everyone went home. I grabbed my umbrella and headed to Tvarichesky Garden, which was massive—sooo big and beautiful, in spite of the fact that it obviously hadn’t been well taken care of. The buildings within were crumbling and some quite covered with graffiti, and some of the ankle-high iron bars lining the walkways were rusted or broken (a bad idea to begin with, in my opinion) and some of the water appeared stagnant. But still, the grounds were lovely, and I saw all kinds of people: couples walking together, or walking their babies, teenagers hanging out, young adults jogging, kids in the playground areas being watched by their parents (or NOT being watched by their parents, who were sitting on benches nearby), friends talking, old men playing chess (and other men watching and helping), 2 militsia who looked as young as 15, and at least 3 groups of football players. We just don’t HAVE parks like these anywhere but maybe New York, Chicago, and San Fransisco, and here they offer so much relief (it’s nice to see a big patch of green every now and again).

So I sat and read (as the sun had come back out) until I thought it best to go home. Tomorrow I want to buy a bus pass and find a wireless internet café and hopefully get a plug adapter from Jessica so I can charge my computer.

When Marina got back home she told me how her family loved the gifts, the little girl got her hands all tangled up in the string (trying to follow the pictures in the book, I got a Cat's Cradle-type set for her) and that they said thank you very very much. Then she said that her granddaughter had figured out that the body butter was cream for the skin, but what was the little tube that smelled sharp, of mint for? For your lips? What color? It took us a while to figure out “clear”—I really MUST keep my dictionary around always. And when we figured this out, Marina was so excited that she had to call her granddaughter right then and tell her; and her granddaughter said thank you thank you again.

The floors here (I’m laying on the end of my bed writing so I can’t help but look at them) are all beautiful and wood, which reminds me of Uncle Pat… which then reminds me of everyone else at home, and it’s the same waterfall of nostalgia everytime I see even one thing that reminds me of just one person from home (например, one of my teachers reminds me of Mrs. Mann; everytime I’m served peas I think of the entire Diehl family; Liz, a fellow student, looks like Erycca and we talked about how she once tried to change her hair but it was so curly that it won the fight and she just learned to love it; I’ve actually seen a few people who I mistook for Bodie, etc.)...

====You Might Find This Interesting====

>Russians and Europeans have got the cell phone thing figured out ten times better than we do. It’s all a question of personal encoding. In America, our personal information—like our service, our phone number, our cell phone plan info, our messages, etc.—are all encoded to our phones; which means it’s easier for cell phone companies to lock us into contracts and phones. In Europe that information is all encoded to your SIM card; which means that if our phone battery dies, you can pop your SIM into your buddy’s phone, and you’ve got your text messages (called SMSes here), and phone numbers there, and you can make calls no problem, and if anybody calls you, your friend’s phone will ring! Phones and plans are therefore much cheaper and more competitive—for example, all texts and incoming calls are free on basically every plan.

>In Russia there are 3 different kinds of numbers; home or “federal” numbers are 7 numbers long, and cell phone numbers are 11 numbers long; there are also“direct” numbers cell phone numbers that are 7 long as well. Because of this, dialing out is kind of weird; land lines can call land lines directly, but must dial +7 or 8 if they try to call cell phones; cell phones also have to dial +7 or 8 to call or SMS other cell phones; and direct lines can dial both directly (hence their name).

June 11, 2007 || First Day of Host Families/Testing

June 11, 2007

It’s after midnight again and I’m just lying down to sleep, so again this will be short. All of us had fun stories at class this morning—Chris’s “brother” took him out to get drunk and see a metal concert; KK’s whole family welcomed her home with cake, flowers, and wine; and 2 girls who live a floor apart from each other (Liz and Stephanie), their families played a game together. Curtis can hardly understand his grandmother, but feels that she is very like his own babushka, in America.

We had placement tests all day today, and for the oral part I spoke with a woman who was familiar with Michigan, Wilde, Swift, Platonov, and Bulgakov, so I feel like I did pretty well there—but for the written part, I left at least 10 spaces completely blank, because I didn’t even know how to start answering the questions; then again, it wasn’t as hard as I expected either, so maybe I didn’t do TOO bad.

Bought a phone card; called Mom and Curtis (après which Я, конечно, плакала чут-чут). Miss them lots—mom seems so long (time difference) and far away.

Marina is almost as good a teacher as a regular professor—adding vocab (my mind CANNOT make words stick, so day-to-day, poor Marina will probably repeat herself often with me) and breaking words down. We had our first real “talk” about music, of all things, and how groups and singers nowadays are poor musicians, and how it’s all a business anyway, and on TV this morning Marina watched a young rich wife show off her apartment, cars, etc. – and she didn’t get these things by working hard or at all, but because she married a футболисть (footballist/soccer player). Considering that an apartment in St. Pete’s costs around $300,000, (one room, plus kitchen and bathroom), I can understand why Marina finds this offensive. I almost mentioned Paris Hilton, but I was afraid that if I did, Marina would go off like MY grandma.

There’s an international film fest in town for the White Nights, and Balabonov made the evening news (he’s coming out with a new movie). I recognized his имя (imya/name) and asked Marina about him… it didn’t seem like she really liked him (she kind of frowned and mentioned something about a Russian version of America’s war in Iraq), and I wanted to talk about it, but it IS only day 2 in my new family and I don’t have the words. And RIGHT AFTER, of course, Президент Буш (President Bush) came on TV. У вы (Oo vui/Oh well)!

Saw lots of dogs today, big and small, wild and not. Really want to know what the name of that Russian-looking dog (the one who refers to his friends as “comrades” in Lady & the Tramp) is. Also I want to ask what noises all the animals in Russia say, like you would ask a child about farm animals.

Ate lots, of course, again—leftovers but also chicken and pasta (макароны). So блыны (blini/pancakes), чай (chai/tea), борщ (borsch), и овощи. (ovoshi/vegetables)

KK and I were practicing how to say “I don’t eat beets” during our first day here, and what’s the first thing Marina Nikolaevna makes for me? Борщ (borsch/beet soup). Surprise!—It’s actually pretty good.

There’s a lot I want to write, but I also need to sleep, too. Just day-to-day still wipes me out. Maybe it’s this living in a whole new country thing. J

============You Might Find This Interesting============

>Success! That Russian-looking dog is called a Russian Borzoi. =)

>In Russia, this is what the animals say:

Dog: Гав-гав “Gav-gav” (but it sounds more like Gaff-gaff)

Cat: Мяу-мяу “Me-ya-oo me-ya-oo” (said quickly, it sounds just like “meow”)

Bird: Кар-р-р / Чирик-Чирик / Гуль-гуль “Car-r-r” / “Cheer-eek cheer-eek” / “Gool-gool” (only for pigeons, which hang out on our windowsills often)

Cow: Му-Му “Moo-moo”

Horse: Иго-го “Ee-go-go” (gotta do a half-whinny sort of thing for this one)

Pig: Хрю-хрю “Khryoo-khryoo” (this one’s hard for Americans to pronounce; we just don’t train our vocal cords to make the Russian “x” … the more you try to pretend you’re hacking something up, the closer you’ll be to sounding right J)

Frog: Ква-ква “Kva-kva”

Sheep: Мее-е-е “Myeh-eh-eh” (sounds kind of like “Maa-aa)

Chicken: Ко-ко-ко “Koh-koh-koh”

Chick: Пи-пи-пи “Pee-pee-pee”

Rooster: Ку-ка-ре-ку “Koo-ka-ryeh-koo”

June 10, 2007 || Meeting Host Families

June 10, 2007

“That’s a big glass case of ‘Do It Yourself But I’ll Point You In The Right Direction.”- Neil

First—I know why Europeans don’t shave. Showers are not fun places to linger if there’s no hot water. After an icy sponge shower on the first day, and a day full of grease just so I wouldn’t HAVE to shower, today’s burst of hot water was a priceless change. Today we meet our host families, so I wanted to dress nice…. but I didn’t bring any capris, so I decided on a skirt, which would have been impossible for me to wear if swimming hadn’t made me immune to the sight of my own hairy legs.

I wonder what they tell our host families, in how to deal with us? “Don’t speak anything but Russian to them, even if they break down sobbing?” Warn them that we’ll need alone time and a space of our own, like a new puppy? Give them tips on how to help us with homesickness and culture-shock? Teach them about power converters and peanut butter? I can only imagine some of those sessions, and how they must think some of our habits are so strange (and how useful some of them might be).

Speaking of, my lack of a household outfit is going to shock my family right away, especially my lack of slippers. Russians immediately change when they get home, and everybody has a pair of домашные тапочки (at least in the big cities). Their rationale is pretty sound, too—the big cities are so dirty (not so much due to litter as to air quality and dirt, since they’re so old and industrial), that their clothes and especially shoes are filthy by the time they get home. It feels a bit Soviet, too—keeping the public just at your door, but still out, and keeping the private life in.

As the Kazan Cathedral’s bells ring 10:30am I’m reminded that what I really wanted to write about was yesterday, our first real day on the town. We all went to lunch together at a блыны café (basically a creperie) after which about 7 of us got a short crash-course in navigating the city while the other 9 met with the home stay coordinator, Natasha, to find their homes on a local map, figure out how to get to class, learn key Russian habits and such (our lessons had been reversed before lunch). This short, intense lesson began with a stroll down Nevsky (St. Pete’s main drag), where Neil and Katya (Neil’s Russian counterpart) pointed out things like good cafes, the theater kiosks, common scams, and bus stops. Then we were lead into a metro station, given a metro and city map, brief instruction on how to buy tokens, and told “We follow you from here on out.” They gave us a destination, but we had to read the sings, change metro lines, and finally exit at our stop. From there, we had to use the maps to get back to the University. Jessica and I broke off from the other when we thought they were going the wrong way, and eventually asked a бабушка (babushka/grandmother) for directions. She pointed the way, and also offered us rooms for rent (but only until she figured out Neil was with us; she wouldn’t lodge boys). We found the way home, and walked it after 3 buses successively passed us by. According to Neil (who stayed completely silent until this point), who walks as nonchalantly but just as quickly as no one I know but Mike Furman, it was the longest he’d EVER waited for a bus on Nevsky.

Exhausted, we got back to the hotel around 4pm, which was when we’d agreed earlier to meet and get dinner with Trista and KK, as well as hit the Internet Café again, and try to buy tapochki (slippers). We walked around, got our first taste of Гостины Дворь (Gostiniy D'vor), a sort of mall. We ate in the shadow of the Kazan Cathedral, in view of Nevsky and Dom Knigi (House of Books), at a fabulous Japanese restaurant while we at first marveled at the bells’ booms and then began asking each other “When is it going to stop?!” I was back home for good around 8pm, where I had enough to do to keep me busy and tire me out until 11pm. I think the thing I want to buy most of all (after a plug adapter, which I forgot to bring) is an eye shade… and maybe ear plugs, haha.

àQuick Note: Have moved in! Marina Nikolaevna is very nice and chatty, though most of it goes over my head. I fear I am the worst at Russian of her 30+ exchanges. The last 2 girls both had at least 3 years. Igor has picked up on the fact that I don’t speak Russian well, I think, and keeps to his TV. Computer is charging; the bed is so soft I want to cry each time I sit on it (the beds at the University were SO low and uncomfortable). Wearing tapochki of previous girl; going to the store in 15 minutes. Don’t know the proper way to give them my gifts. Brought waaaay too much—I only have 2 drawers and 6 hangers with which to store all my clothes. Place is VERY nice—bright and cheerful with lots of plants and light. Interesting wallpaper in W.C.. Very very happy but upset that all the Russian words seem to have left my head; embarrassed to bring out dictionary at the table. First real waves of people-sickness—Marina Nikolaevna has a cell phone just like Nana’s, I missed mom because I kept wondering what she would think if she was here, and unpacked my stuffed moose from Curtis; wonder how he (and the others) are doing.

====You Might Find This Interesting====

>Russians, like most Europeans, have two “bathrooms;” one is simply a Water Closet, or room with a toilet—the other has a sink and shower, etc. Sometimes they are connected, but not always.

>In Saint Petersburg, and in Moscow and some other Russian cities, the hot water is turned off for a short period during the summer. This rotates every few weeks; and they do it so the pipes can be cleaned out. à Some Russians have a hot water heater right in their bathroom, so they can have hot water all the time. It’s called a colonko, and they have to light it themselves with a match—students without proper instruction from ACTR aren’t allowed to turn on these things in their home, because if lit wrong, they could explode. J

>As soon as they walk in the door, Russians change into different clothes, so the clothes that are all dirty from walking about the city, don’t dirty up the house. For the same reason, on Trans-Siberian rails and long train trips Russians will often quickly change into a track suit or comfortable clothing—it’s just habit, to keep dirt out of their personal space.

>Most Russians carry with them their favorite “pakyet,” which is a sturdy plastic bag used for carrying purchases from a store, and other things (in Russia, it costs extra to have your purchases put into a plastic bag). …It definitely makes the militia/soldiers less threatening to see them walking around in their uniforms with bright plastic bags from fashion shops and such in their hands.

June 8, 2007 || First Day/Dorms

June 8, 2007

We were up from about 7am Thursday until about 9pm, 10pm Friday. When I try to think of words to describe the trip, my mind goes blank. "Long," obviously, and we dealt with it well enough until maybe 4am East Coast time (which unfortunately was about 10am GER—i.e., boarding time).

Now, it’s roughly 4am RU and I can’t quite get back to sleep. I was prepared for late-afternoon sun at 10 at night and morning light at 3am, but I didn’t even think of the birds who must get super-energized from the sun since they sing so loud at its coming and going during the proper shades of daylight, and all the hours in-between.

There are so many other things I forgot to think about (or just remember) too. I’m still in awe of the mere fact that it is GREEN everywhere (each time I've been to Russia before, it's been blanketed in snow), and people are wearing shorts! I didn’t even recognize Pushkin square, the Russian museum, etc., until I heard their names! Every time a seagull cries it reminds me that I am in a port city, the Northern Venice—which was so hard to imagine last time I was here, seeing as the water was always frozen and the gulls had migrated.

I forgot, too, what a busy city looks like on a Friday night—and I’ve never been in one while the Scorpions (of “Rock You Like a Hurricane” fame) were playing a street concert and a worldwide economic forum was being held.

I’d forgotten how even the little diners here were once summer palaces for Russian nobles, with pink walls and white cherubs for moldings, but now they are also fitted with bare bulbs or big-screen TVs.

I forgot how some people would rather lose your money/business than deal with you at stores. Customer service just isn’t important yet... but it’s getting there.

I forgot how blankets are more like thin mattress pallets and the showers are never like those in America. Ours, for example, has no hot water and the faucet is at about waist height; it is long enough that, when swiveled all the way to the left, it spills perfectly into the center of the sink— which is fortunate, since the sink has no faucet.

I forgot how the floorboards creak and the doors stick.

I did not forget to rinse my toothbrush with bottled water.

As for the vibrancy, the color, and the beauty of this city, and the satisfaction of ordering my own meal in Russian, and the kindheartedness and playfulness of good Russian friends—how could I forget?

====You Might Find This Interesting====

St. Petersburg occupies an interesting place in the hearts of many Russians; for those that lived here, some can still remember it being called Petrograd and also Leningrad (and before both of those, it was originally called St. Petersburg). St. Pete’s was the birthplace of the Soviet Union, as it was here that the last tsar and his ministers were captured by the Bolsheviks (you can actually walk in the very room where this happened, in the city’s most famous museum, the Hermitage). Here also, the Decembrists laid their plans. Putin was born and raised here; and he shares in the strong collective memories of the Leningrad Blokada, when Nazis surrounded the city for 900 days, shelling and bombing. Their orders read “[Hitler] has decided to wipe the city of Petersburg off the face of the earth.” In the first winter, 53,000 died. The only way out of the city was across a narrow bridge of frozen water which appeared during the winter over the easterly Lake Ladoga. By the time the siege was broken, 670,000 had perished.

In terms of the arts and culture, Petersburg is the capital of Russia. Many of the buildings were designed by French, Italian, and other foreign architects. Pushkin, Gogol and Dostoevsky wrote here. The Mariinsky Theater and the Kirov Ballet call Petersburg home. This, of course, was due to the influence of Peter the Great, without whom Petersburg would not exist. Peter was a singular monarch, who wanted very much to transform his country; he literally dragged Russia kicking and screaming into Europe. His first act was to build a new capital—St. Petersburg, on the western edge of his empire, whereby he intended to extend his boundaries. The place he chose to build upon was little more than a swamp at the time, and thousands died during construction; tradition has it that St. Petersburg is nothing but a dream city, built upon the bones of those who died serving Peter’s will. Even after construction was under way, problems were plentiful—the Neva often floods (Peter himself almost drowned on Nevsky Prospect), and after dark, wolves would roam the streets… not a very hospitable city. Петр Первый forced his nobles to move to the new capital, and to cut off their beards (an important symbol in Russian Orthodoxy); he also introduced European dress and French into his court, which highly displeased his subjects. To demonstrate how brutally people felt Peter had acted, even years later after Petersburg was a bustling center of culture, Pushkin painted its birth in a harsh light: “By nature we [were] fated here to hack a window through to Europe.” Pushkin could’ve said “opened a door to Europe” or “let in the light of Europe” but hack brings with it an entirely different connotation.

June 7, 2007 || On the Plane

June 7, 2007

“If you’re smiling, you clearly have no idea what’s going on.” – Neil

It’s either 2:45am, 8:45 am, or 10:45am, depending on what time zone you’re working from. Right now, the 16 of us (plus Resident Director Neil) are sitting on a German tarmac waiting for takeoff. The past few days have been a blur; hours of orientation, testing, and tips on language acquisition… broken by a few delicious dinners, a quick trip to the hotel's pool and sauna, and breakfast in the amazing hotel atrium of the Embassy Suites in Washington, DC.

====You Might Find This Interesting====

Miscellaneous Russian Superstitions:

>If you forget something and have to come back into the house to get it, you must look at yourself in the mirror before you leave again.

>Never, NEVER give a Russian an even number of flowers—a dozen roses is a very unlucky thing in Russia.

>Never whistle in your Russian friend’s house—they believe that if you whistle at home, you’ll whistle away your money.

>Don’t sit on the corner of a table—unless you want to wait at least 7 years before you’ll be married, or for women, never have kids.

>If you decide to travel, before you leave your house, sit for a few seconds on the front steps.

>Don’t give knives or handkerchiefs for gifts—if someone gives them to you, you must pay for them, even if you only pay a penny.

>By buying presents for a child who hasn’t yet been born, you may actually be endangering them (calling attention to them and drawing an evil eye).

Welcome/Introduction

So mom told me that she'd forwarded my first long e-mail to a lot of people, and I thought, instead of her doing that, why not make a blog where people could come and see what I'd written themselves? This way I can add pictures, too. So what you're about to read are my adventures in St. Petersburg, mostly written within a few days of their happening. I've looked back over my diary and noticed that a lot of what I've said is probably boring to most people, so I'm going to try to add a section that would be interesting no matter what kind of reader you are to every day (until I run out of crazy things to tell you about Russia, which probably won't happen anytime soon).

Also, if you're reading this, you're probably a friend or relative of mine, and understand how much I love and respect Russian culture (otherwise I wouldn't be writing this from a cafe where no one can pronounce my name, right?). Hopefully, your interest means you're of a similar frame of mind. So, considering that, feel free to share anything on here with your friends, family, etc. But please take this information with an open mind--a lot of what I'll write will highlight the differences between our cultures, but "different" doesn't necessarily mean "worse." If you're relaying anything you read here to someone who suddenly starts using it as fodder to blast Russian society, please stop--they're obviously not taking anything from it but what they want to here, and twisting it into something very negative.

Finally, I encourage comments/e-mails/facebook messages--I miss you all so much, but it costs money and precious time to try and answer everybody!--so know that anything you say is very very appreciated and I'll frequently check this site first (or only) if I'm short on time--so DO write; comment, ask questions, or just say hi--just seeing your name will definitely brighten what might otherwise be a gloomy day. Can't wait to hear from you!