I'll Be Back.

I refuse to believe that I'm leaving Moscow a week from tomorrow.
The only thing that's keeping me from being very sad about this fact is that I know I'll be coming back come the end of January. If it weren't for next semester, I would probably run away, become an illegal immigrant, and you'd never hear from me again.

This is how much I love it here.

Of course, I'm very ready for a break from school. Classes are..well...classes. You know how it goes. Today was our last big presentation for our Language through Mass Media class; all the students from levels four to six had to make a little report on the topic of "Art and Literature in the Modern World." I decided to be philosophical and say that art cannot be defined and that it's different for every person; I then went on to talk about my favorite type of art, music. Grand.
It was a little scary talking in front of more people than I'm used to, but all ended well.

I really haven't been up to much since getting back from Pskov; as I said before, classes nearing the end have forced me to actually stay home more and study. I'm so close to the end, though!

For the extra class I'm taking about Fairytales (I think I've mentioned this class before?), we have a little "open class" on Tuesday where we will perform three different fairytales and sing Russian folk songs. In the longest and most fun fairytale we'll be doing, I have the part of the evil Snow Queen who is angered by sweet little innocent Snegurochka, played by Kelly. Snegurochka is Ded Moroz's (Father Frost's) granddaughter, but in this fairytale she is just a granddaughter who represents all that is pure and wonderful in Russia. To take my revenge for being offered a hot drink (cleary the Queen of Cold would not want a hot drink), I freeze Snegurochka's heart so that she will never feel happiness again! (insert evil laughter here). After Snegurochka's grandparents attempt to cheer her up with candy, presents, and animals who tell jokes, Snegurochka's heart is finally thawed by the singing of Russian folk songs, and the evil Queen is defeated.


Tomorrow we'll also be going to the Kremlin; it's hard to believe we've been here three months and have only seen the Kremlin, but now our Russian has improved a lot so the tour will be in Russian and will (hopefully) be more interesting. Tomorrow night is also the going away party for the students who are only here a semester. We're going bowling. Old School.


I just really still can't even fathom that the semester is ending. Where does time go? I do not understand.


Speaking of time, it's time for me to leave; we're going to a hockey game! The match is between CSKA of Moscow and SKA of Petersburg.
Exciting.



This very well may be my last post before jetting home to Germany, but once I'm home I'll have gobs of time to write about Pskov and so on and so forth.


Before coming to Russia, I wasn't exactly sure why I was so enthralled and fascinated by it; now that I've been here for three months, I'm starting to understand.
This will also be discussed over break.
(Get ready, it's going to be deep.)


Ну, давай.



From Russia with so much love,
Kara.

"Are you gangsters?" "No, we are Russians."

(Quote from Брат 2).


For my Russia Today class I'm writing a research paper about the romanticization of the Russian mafia.

While researching, I found this article and simply had to share it because it's so....unique.



And now, back to work!

Cloudy with a high of 25

Well.

In exactly two weeks and one day I will be back home in the Fatherland, aka Germany. It's so strange how fast the time has gone by.

Today I realized for the millionth time how hard it is to manage my time here in Moscow. I blame this on the size of the city and all the wonderful distractions it offers.
What, you mean I should be studying? But what about that museum I wanted to go to? Or that interesting exhibit that's only going on for a couple more days? Come on people, I'm trying to embrace a new culture. I do not have time for this thing called "school."

Speaking of school, it suddenly got crazy. In all fairness I should have expected this, since one normally is expected to take final exams and do final presentations as the semester nears the end. The end just sorta snuck up me, though, and I feel like I'm frantically rushing around writing papers, final presentations, and studying for exams.
That being said, I'm putting the blog on hold for a bit. Sorry.


On another note, Wednesday was a record high of 7.1 celsius (about 45 fahrenheit), and it's been that warm all week. Everyone keeps saying how ужасно (horrible) it is: "7 degrees in December?! This should never be. We should have snow by now! Horrible!"
BUT. The forecast for next week?

Cloudy.
Highs in the 20s.

Bring it on.

December? Really?

Hi. Just a quick note letting everyone know I made it back from Pskov and it was the COOOOLEST little town.
I don't know if any of you heard about the train accident that happened last weekend, but don't worry it wasn't our train and we're fine.

So now I'm really busy what with it being the end of the semester and everything (only three weeks left! THREE!), and sadly I don't have time to tell you about the glories of Pskov at the moment.
However.
I will give you links to my pictures and write a more detailed post in the near(ish) future.


http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=347273&id=602370412&l=085aa02355

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=347362&id=602370412&l=b27546c2e0



Пока мои дорогие!
(Goodbye my dears!)

gooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal

Apparently one thing you're not supposed to do when going abroad is go to a sports match because it's potentially dangerous with all the crazy fanatic people.

Oops.



A few weeks ago some of us went to a match between one of Moscow's teams, Lokomotiv, and team Amkar from Perm (a city about 1000 km from Moscow, near the Ural mountains). We sat in the cheap seats, aka fanatic fan section, aka the best and most fun section.

This is a bit from the opening ceremonies.


Everyone was insanely into the game, constantly yelling chants and singing Lokomotiv songs in order to cheer their team onto victory. After many close attempts by Lokomotiv to score a goal, the score was still tied 0-0 with only a few minutes remaining; suddenly, a shot, and GOAAAAL -- Lokomotiv won and the crowd went wild.

Walking with the crowd to the metro after the game. The cars are all honking because they heard about the win, and the crowd begins shouting the player's name who scored the goal; they then start singing one of Lokomotiv's songs, which happens to be the tune of "When the Saints Go Marching In." (Sorry in advance for the shakiness)




Our next adventure takes us to the World Cup qualifying match between Russia and Slovenia. If you'll remember, I watched the match between Germany and Russia in a sports bar and Germany won. Russia then went on to play Azerbaijan and tied 1:1. This meant Russia had to win this match against Slovenia in order to stay in the World Cup qualifiers.
We actually didn't buy tickets ahead of time and instead went early to scout out tickets. ...and when I say "we" I actually mean Phil, the football aficionado of the group, went up to random people selling tickets and miraculously found three seats together for the girls and another seat for himself. Tickets in hand, we set off to buy Russia scarves and find our seats.
Everyone was given masks to prevent Swine Flu (which we fondly refer to as "the грипп" - the flu). Although I'm sure the masks are as effective as they are fashionable, we only wore them for the photo op. Also please note our amazing scarves.



Post Russia scoring second goal = happy fans


Our side and the other side of the stadium shouting "Вперёд, Россия!" (pronounced "fpeeryode Rossiya", means "Forward Russia!/Go Russia!")



Russia was slacking a bit towards the end of the game and Slovenia scored a goal. Russia still won, but when deciding who qualifies for the World Cup, they count the number of goals, which meant Russia and Slovenia had to play another game to determine who would go on to South Africa. (I think I'm explaining this correctly? If someone knows better, feel free to tell me I'm wrong). Sadly this time Russia lost with a final score of 0-1 Slovenia, which I think means they're out of the World Cup.


After the win we saw, everyone was ecstatic. People in the metro were shouting something along the lines of "GO RUSSIA!" and being generally insane. It was one of the only times I've seen large groups of happy Russians in public. While riding the escalator out of the metro, I was still wearing my Russia scarf and people gleefully shouted "За шарфа России!" (To the Russia scarf!) at me.
It was the coolest.



Next sporting adventure: HOCKEY.
Stay tuned.


p.s.
Tomorrow we go to Pskov, a smaller city about a 12 hour train ride to the North/West of Moscow.
Next update after I return!

obsession

If I were to rate today on a scale of 1 - 10, it would be a 1000000000000000000000.
Today was a fantastic day.
Today I had one of the most unique experiences I've yet to experience.
I still can't get over what happened today.

Curious yet?



Today we went to Переделкино (Peredelkino), a little place about a 20 minute electrichka (commuter train) ride away from Moscow.
Does the name Boris Pasternak ring any bells? He was a poet and author extraordinaire, most known in the West for writing Dr. Zhivago. He lived in Peredelkino from 1939 until his death in 1960 and his house is now a museum.

I admit, I wasn't very excited to go on another excursion to another museum about another famous dead Russian guy who I didn't really know anything about.
However, this was not to be just any ordinary excursion!

The museum wasn't really like a museum at all; it's just his house. The museum people kept everything like it was when Pasternak lived there. It was like Pasternak had just stepped out and would return any moment to find a group of Americans looking at the pictures on his walls.
The woman who works there and gave us a tour of the house was so obviously in love with her work and Pasternak; when she talked about him, you could tell how important he was to her. It made me want to know everything she knew and feel how she felt about Pasternak. My Russian has also improved a lot and I understood most of what our guide told us, making it that much better.

After our guide explained a little about Pasternak's growing up years and education, she showed us the room where his piano is. I was longingly looking at the piano as the guide started talking about the room, and Kelly mentioned to her that I play the piano. To my extreme surprise and shock and disbelief and so on and so forth, our guide said: "Well, you can play something if you want!"

Yes.
That's right.
I played Pasternak's piano.
I played THE piano that Pasternak played.
Little old me played Pasternak's piano. Pasternak!

After warning everyone that it probably wouldn't sound good because I haven't played in months, I started to play Chopin's Waltz #7 in C Sharp Minor. I could only get a few measures out before I forgot how the waltz went, but it was one of the coolest things I've ever done.
I'm probably never going to wash my hands again.
Just kidding.
Kind of.


Upon our return to Moscow I went to a bookstore and bought a book of Pasternak poems.
I might be a little obsessed.




Next post will have football videos. Sadly my computer crashed and I lost everything; luckily I have it all backed up and just haven't had time to put everything back yet.
I guess I was too busy playing Pasternak's piano.
Hope you don't mind.

the post, pianos, and plays

I've been impatiently awaiting a package from home for about two months, and it finally arrived yesterday. Of course, there is an interesting story about this blessed event (or I wouldn't bore you with a blog post about a little old package).

My host mom informed me the package finally arrived. "Hooray!" I shouted with glee.
She then called the post and asked if they could deliver it to the house; at first they said yes, but that she would have to call back later to get a specific delivery time.
A few hours pass, my host mom calls back. This time, they inform her she would have to go to the post office and pick the package up, since it's an international package. Furthermore, they were going to open the package and examine the contents, since it's an international package. (What is this, the Soviet Union?)
So.
We're preparing to go to the post, and I'm naturally a little worried that the post office workers will confiscate something from my package. My host mom comes in my room and says:
"Now Kara. I'm going to tell them that your parents are old friends of mine, and that they sent you here to study, and that since it's getting colder, they sent you a package of clothes. What's your last name? I should probably know that."
We set off to the post office.
Upon arrival, she shows the package slip to the worker, who goes to retrieve my package.
As it turns out, since my parents sent the package via DHL, they put it in a special bag. This bag is what had to be opened and signed for, not the package itself.
All ended well and the post workers didn't even try to confiscate my precious foreign clothes.



Last Friday the group went to a piano concert! There were two famous pianists: Nikolai Petrov and Aleksandr Gindin. Nikolai Petrov holds an honorary title of People's Artist of the Soviet Union (Народный артист СССР), which basically means he's a big deal. Petrov and Gindin played two pianos at the same time; it was amazing. I've been playing the piano since I could sit on a bench, so this was one of my favorite things we've been to so far.

Last Wednesday we saw a play of Dostoevsky's "Бесы", translated as "The Possessed" or "Demons" or "The Devils." As you can probably gather from the title, it was a bit of a serious play. The school of actors who work at this theater is very well known and very good. Even though a lot of the play went over my head, I was still left feeling unsettled. ...probably because almost everyone is killed/kills themselves. In any case, the actors were great.

Today a few of us went to the Gorky House Museum. Apparently Stalin gave Gorky this house so that Gorky would come back to Russia from Italy, but Gorky didn't really like the fancy-shmancy art-nouveau style. I, however, did. It reminded me of the mansion in Casper, but with not as many secret passageways (that I know of...).
The best part about today was that we got to hang out with Maya, who was a visiting Russian professor at Dickinson the first semester we all started Russian. It was so strange to be in Moscow, speaking in Russian with Maya, when the last time we saw her we could barely form sentences.


That's all for now, I have a grammar test tomorrow. I can hardly wait.

Next post: stories, pictures, and videos from the football (aka soccer) matches I've been to. Russians are insane about their football, so you should be really excited for this.


From Russia, with love,

Kara

a little media

Nothing really big to report at the moment, I just wanted to share a few interesting links.

First, an interview of Medvedev.

It's particularly interesting for me to read this article and be in Russia, learning about the things Medvedev is talking about and also actually experiencing them. I feel like I understand a lot more of what is going on and I am also able to read between the lines of what he's saying. I've talked to Russians about these things so I also get their differing points of view.
This is great.
This is why I'm here.


And the next interesting little bit I will share is a music video.

Watch it.
Laugh at (or with?) it.
And enjoy.

talking heads

I found one of my favorite places in Moscow: a sculpture park.
There is one area of the sculptures that I could look at for hours -- the sculptures of and around Stalin.

Behind Stalin you see another bunch of sculptures of a heads in a cage type thing. When first seeing this, I immediately thought the sculptor was trying to show how Stalin repressed his citizens. (Very original, I know). From far away, the heads look very unhappy to be stuck in a cage.


After looking closer at the heads, I noticed the expressions on their faces. A few looked worried, a few sad, but for the most part...they looked quite content with their plot in life. Some had neutral expressions, others stern, some were even smiling.


In person, the woman below struck me as looking worried. In the picture, though, she just looks like she's sporting the typical Moscow "metro face."



There was one head which was peaking through the bars. He's almost free, but still held back a bit by the barbed wire.


Yesterday was my first time at the sculpture park. Yesterday was also November 8th, the day after November 7th, which if you'll remember was the Revolution. Someone had left flowers (red carnations are a symbol of the Revolution) on Stalin's statue.


The flowers were there yesterday, but I when I went back today -- they were gone.

"birthday" is code for revolution

After returning from a day at the museum of modern history, I found the apartment full of people - my host mom's two daughters, two grandsons, their wives, her great granddaughter, and three other friends. One of her friends was the cutest little old lady I've ever seen. After informing me that she and my host mom have been friends for 62 years, she proceeded to load my plate with food: some type of potato salad, bread, tomatoes, cucumbers, a cheese-garlic spread (YUM), liver (eh...), caviar on eggs (......), chicken, and some type of little fish. A million toasts were made and everyone ate, drank, and was merry.
My host mom started the rounds of toasting by reading a poem that she and one of her daughters had made to honor the memory of her husband, who passed away a while ago. Today is his birthday, and he would have been 92 years old.
I quickly realized that if her husband would have been 92 years old on today of all days, this means he was born on 7 November 1917, the day of the revolution.

So...tonight we celebrated his birthday, which also just happens to be the on the day of the revolution.
We were probably celebrating both.

I love it.

What is why?

A joke:

An American, a Pole, and a Soviet are asked, "Why are there queues for meat in the USSR?"
The American responds, "What is a queue?"
The Pole responds, "What is meat?"
And The Soviet responds, "What is why?"


Today, ladies and gentlemen, was a wonderful day: I stood in a line; not just any ol' line, mind you, but a line for food, a line outside in the freezing cold, a line for fresh produce on a Moscow street corner.
(I don't normally have to stand in cold lines for food, but the grocery store didn't have cabbage and the random lady selling produce on the corner did, which is why there was a line, obviously.)



Today was also a holiday, День народного единства, or Unity Day.
I've heard a few curious things about this holiday, some of which may or may not be true (who knows, really):
1) It's a new holiday and was first celebrated in 2005
2) It's just a little made up day which is actually celebrating the 1917 October Revolution (Russia used to have the old system calendar, so the October revolution was on 7 November by today's calendar)
3) November 4th is the day the Russians pushed the Polish out of Moscow way back in 1612
4) The pushing of the Polish from Moscow never actually happened
5) The holiday is just an excuse for all the nationalist groups to gather and have parades which demonstrate their hatred for minorities


Quite the day, eh?

this is my life.

I chose to go to Dickinson because I read about their program in Moscow and how great it is. It has turned out to be true! We get a lunch stipend, anything cultural is paid for i.e. tickets to the theater, ballet, museums, movies in Russian, etc etc. Transportation is covered too.
It's really really good.

Really quick, a run down of what I did in October, through the Dickinson program (p.s. I can't believe it's already November. Time is going by way way WAY too fast here):

One Saturday we walked around an area of Moscow called Чистые Пруды, or Clean Ponds. This is one of my favorite places in Moscow; the buildings are more of the old, pre-Stalin style, aka my favorite. Our program director, Irina, took us to a little museum about the history of lighting in Moscow. It was cute, little, comfortable, and interesting. Also, who knew they made museums about lighting?

Another day we went to a theater to see Chekov's "Seagull". I had only read a very brief synopsis so sadly most of it went over my head. The acting was fantastic, though, and there were three very famous Soviet actors. People started clapping for them right when they came on stage. By the way, here actors act in both the cinema and theater. It's interesting.

In my text/literature class we read a book called Azazel by a popular modern writer, Boris Akunin. Azazel is the first book in a series about the adventures of Erast Fandorin, a dashing young detective in 19th century Russia. Fandorin is like Bond, James Bond.
These are very popular books and have been made into movies as well as a play, which we went to the other day.

We also took another train trip to Yasnya Polyana in the Tula province, where Leo Tolstoy was born, eventually returned to and built his estate, and is buried. It was a beautifully gloomy, misty, fall day. I've also decided that someday I will have an estate like Tolstoy's.

The bus we took from the train station in Yasnya Polyana to Tolstoy's estate. The bus might have been my favorite part of the day.
...just kidding.
No but really. Look at the bus. This is why I came to Russia: this bus.

Tolstoy's estate through the birch trees, the national tree of Russia.

An izbushka!!! Where the coachman lived.

At the train station.

We also went to the Bolshoi Theater! The main hall of the Bolshoi is under renovation and won't be opened for a few years, but still, the new hall was beautiful too. We saw another ballet, Giselle. It. Was. So. Good.


I feel like such a snob. "Hmm, why yes, just the other day I was at the Bolshoi Theater for the ballet, twas quite wonderful you see. Oh, would you care for another cup of tea? With sugar? One lump or two, love?"

Such is my life.

snow oh oh oh

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. Unfortunately this update is going to be small and whimpy, but I just wanted to tell you all that I'm still having a fabulous time and I love it here more and more every day.

Also, it SNOWED last night! And by "it snowed" I mean there was a light snow. And by "light snow" I mean you kind of have to look for the snow to see where it's still sticking (mainly on top of cars). This is snow nevertheless, and right now there's a few light snow flurries making their way down to the ground. I'm so excited. (I'm a little kid.)

I hope there will be more snow soon, but rumor has it that Moscow's mayor is actually banning snow from Moscow this year.

No, but really.

Read this.

I haven't had any environmental science classes or anything of the sort, but I'm pretty sure shooting liquid nitrogen into the air to make snow fall before it reaches Moscow isn't the best of ideas for the environment. But, that's Russia.
I've also heard another rumor that because of global warming, there wasn't going to be any snow this winter at all anyways, so this plan is actually a money making scheme and the extra 300 million rubles saved will go into someone's pocket.
Fact or fiction? No one knows.
I take it back - someone knows, but they're not letting me in on the secret.

For now I am content with last night's dusting; my next post might just come from a small village outside of Moscow where I ventured to find snow, only to be snowed in.


Until next time (which I promise will have more updates about what I've been doing),

Kara

search for art and grown up things

As the weather gets colder and colder, the Russians are pulling out their warmer coats. These coats come in many colors: black, black, and black (and sometimes red or red).
Enter Kara, strutting down the streets wearing a green jacket, purple hat, purple gloves, teal scarf, and teal bag.
I think I stand out a bit.

Lately I've had this strange feeling of being invincible. I can't decide if this is good and means that I feel comfortable in Moscow, or if this is bad and means that I feel too comfortable in Moscow. I feel like I'm starting to understand more of what's going on around me. I can pick up on conversations I hear on the street and understand what they're saying. Homework doesn't seem as hard and even if I don't know every word, I somehow know what's going on because I can sense it.
Little things don't scare me anymore, either.
Answer the phone when my host mom's gone, and explain that she's stepped out and I'm not sure when she'll be back? No problem. Ask the маршрут (mini bus) driver to drop me off a little farther down the road than the normal bus stop? Yep, I can do that. Make small talk with people who, like myself, couldn't squeeze in the metro train because it was already packed like sardines? Child's play.

This is all good, yes. But....I feel like since it's so good, it can't actually be that good. So many things are going so well, something bad has to happen soon. I like it here so much, so something is bound to happen to make me second guess myself.
(They should make pills for this.)

Until then, I'll enjoy every minute.

The third Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art has been going on for the past month, which means, among other things, photography exhibits! I've been wanting to go to something other than a history museum for a long time and it's safe to say that I'm addicted to photography exhibits.
I happened to learn about the first exhibit from The Moscow Times, a newspaper printed here in English. The exhibit was at the New Tretyakov Gallery and featured photos by Vladimir Sychyov. The photos were, in a word, amazing. They showed ordinary people as well as nonconformist artists in the Soviet Union during the 1970s. Sychyov actually left the Soviet Union in 1979 and took all his photographs with him; this exhibit is the first time these photos have been shown all together in Russia. Read more about the exhibit here.
I also went to an exhibit put on by the Moscow House of Photography, by photographer Boris Mikhailov. It was awesome. I can't really describe in a blog how good it was, it was more a had-to-be-there type thing. The pictures made me think. I liked it.

Another student and I decided that next semester we want to take a photography class at the university. How cool will that be?!


I also got a job. The program director's neighbor has a 9-year old daughter who is studying English in school, so they pay me to come over twice a week and speak in English with her for an hour. Awesome.


You know how basically everyone says that the time you study abroad will change your life?
They're right.
I don't know if it's that I'm in a huge city and away from the sheltered little Dickinson campus, or if it's the different culture I'm living in, or that I'm just growing up, or a combination of all these things. In any case, something big is going on here. I don't know what. I don't know why. But something's happening.
I can feel it.

food, glorious food

Today my host mom called me a плохой человек (bad person) because I didn't finish my breakfast. I laughed, but she wasn't laughing. Hah. Hah. Hah.
I thought I had lucked out and escaped the wrath of the Russian force feeding, but apparently not. Oh well, such is life. In other news, I just finished off my favorite dinner of borsh, pelmeni, and tea. Before coming to Russia, I knew that Russians drink tea all the time, but I didn't think they'd actually drink it all the time. You mean you want a cup of water? What? No. Tea. You drink tea.
(You could also opt for beer, since it's cheaper than water, but that's a whole other story.)


Almost every restaurant has this nifty little deal called a бизнес ланч (business lunch). To pronounce it you say "business lunch" in a Russian accent. The standard is a soup/salad, main dish, and drink, all for less than $10. There are also variations of just soup, salad, and drink or just salad, main dish, drink and so on and so forth. It's quite the little gem.


The first McDonald's in Russia was opened in 1990, in Moscow. Our program director told us that she went with her family and that it was a really big deal to go to McDonald's. The line was also a few miles long.
I have yet to visit this "pearl of capitalism." A few of us have been to others a few times, but I didn't get a Big Mac. I feel like the Big Mac is the deciding food when trying to determine which country has the best McDonald's. I'm a little hesitant to make this decision, because "best" and "McDonald's" probably shouldn't be used in the same sentence, but nevertheless, a Big Mac I shall have.



We ate at a Mexican restaurant a few weeks ago.
They tried.



Anyways, it's time to get another cup of tea and read some Pushkin.

From Russia with love (and a full stomach),

Kara

Deustchland

So, yesterday was a big important football match: Germany vs. Russia. A few of us wanted to get tickets since the game was in Moscow, but unfortunately since it was such a big game the tickets were too expensive.

Instead, I watched the game in a sports bar!

We walked in the bar around 7 (the game started at 6:45), and it was naturally packed. We got there just in time to stake out a standing place and watch the opening ceremonies with the national anthems. It was so cool when the Russian anthem played - everyone stood up, linked arms, and sang along.
Also, Putin and Medvedev were at the game and whenever the cameras went on them, all the people in the bar cheered. Interesting.
Germany scored a goal about 35 minutes in. I confess, I kind of wanted Germany to win; as the game went on, Russia had so many good shots but nothing went in. The crowd was all into it and shouting at the TVs and I almost hoped that Russia would win, just so they would be happy.

But, alas.
Russia was defeated.


Hopefully sometime soon I'll go to a football match or a hockey game or both, either of which guarantee insane fans.

давай!

I. Love. St. Peters.Burg.

The trip to St. Petersburg, or Leningrad as my host mom still calls it, was a great success.

The overnight sleeper train rolled in to Petersburg around 5:30 Friday morning. After sleeping maybe two hours out of the eight hour trip, I was a tad tired. We eventually found our way to our lovely hostel located in the center of the city and after a little negotiating we were allowed to crash in a room that was being renovated until we could check-in at 11:00.

The schedule for Petersburg was packed full of touristy/cultural excursions.
Friday, post morning nap, we met with our tour guide Olga, who has been working with Dickinson for years. We all jumped as energetically as possible into the minibus and went around Petersburg, stopping at certain places to take pictures or go inside cathedrals, museums, etc.
Fun stuff.


This cathedral is Храм Спаса на Крови, or Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood. It was built on the place where tsar Alexandr II was assassinated.



Saturday we ventured out of Petersburg to Pushkin, a little town where tsar Nicolas II built his summer palace. The palace was, well, amazing. The grounds were also beautiful, especially with all the fall leaves starting to change.
The school where Pushkin (the poet, remember?) studied is also next to the palace. After we toured Pushkin's school, our cute little Russian tour guide asked us if we knew any of Pushkin's poems. One of the students recited a poem we learned last year, and she looked like she wanted to cry because she was so happy we knew Pushkin.

On Sunday we went to the Эрмитаж, aka The State Hermitage Museum. It's HUGE. Olga gave us a tour of some of the most important/interesting things, and then we were free to wander around. ...I honestly don't remember everything I saw, but I know it was interesting. By this point in the trip I had gotten about 10 hours of sleep over three days, so everything started to blur together. In any case, it was all really cool and you should go if you get the chance. After the museum we went to a ballet at the Mariinski Theater. The Mariinski ballet company is considered [one of] the best in the world. It was really really really really really really really awesome. (Really.)

Sadly Monday was our last day, but we were able to do what we wanted. Five of us decided to walk down Nevsky Prospect. Suddenly we came upon the brilliant idea of taking a boat ride around Petersburg. Peter the Great was obsessed with water and built a series of canals through the city so that his citizens could travel around by boat rather than on roads. What better way to see Petersburg than how it was intended to be seen? We dashed down a side street along the Fontanka canal. Our first attempt to get on a boat failed, as the boat tour people said the water was too high for their boats to go under the bridges. Distraught, we continued walking along the canal until we spotted a lone man on a little boat, putting down the water. He pointed to us then pointed at the boat, and we nodded enthusiastically until he pulled over to a dock to give us our own little private boat tour of Petersburg. This was probably my favorite part of the trip: I got to sit down after days of what seemed like non-stop walking, I was on the water (I might be more obsessed with water than ol' Peter), and I got to see all the beautiful Petersburg buildings.
















So, differences between Moscow and Petersburg:
Petersburg is like a European city - pretty buildings with pretty architecture.
Moscow has some of the pretty buildings, but Stalin took a lot of them down and put up his own style of buildings. ("Ugly" has been used to describe this style. I may or may not agree.)
The people in Petersburg seemed more outwardly friendly, and the middle class was more evident. It had the feeling of a college town.
Moscow's elite are very visible, as well as the poorer classes.
The police in Petersburg also didn't scare me.
I felt like I didn't have to be on my guard as much in Petersburg. I feel safe enough in Moscow, but I felt safer in Petersburg.
Even with all the good vibes I got from Petersburg, I started to get the feeling that Petersburg was giving me a false sense of security; it felt like there was more there, hiding just beneath the surface.

Four days was just enough time to see the obvious: a beautiful facade.
Maybe someday I can return to find out if what's behind the facade is just as beautiful.

don't forget to breathe

Every week I'm busier and busier, it's a little insane.


The week before last we went to the Opera. We saw Eugine Onegin, which some of us had actually already seen last spring in New York City, but this time the theater was smaller and we were closer to the stage so I could actually see the actor's faces. In other words, the opera was amazing. Eugine Onegin was written by Pushkin, the poet most dear to Russia. There's a saying, Пушкин - наша всё (Pushkin is our everything).
He's kind of a big deal.
Eugine Onegin is a novel written in verse, so Tchaikovsky composed music for it and voila: Opera. It is a classic tale of tragic love. So good.

Friday night we went on a walking tour around Moscow, at night. The tour was based off of Bulgakov's Master and Margarita. Now. I'm sure the tour would have been really really awesome, but I've never read Master and Margarita. I kind of knew what it was about, but the tour also had actors who would pop up occasionally and act out parts of the book. It was all really neat and cool, I just didn't understand. I do want to read the book, now, though.

Saturday the group met in the wee hours of the morning, aka 8 am, to catch a train to Aleksandrov. Aleksandrov was once the capital of Russia during Ivan the Terrible's reign. After a tour of the Aleksandrov Kremlin we took another train to Sergiev Posad where there's this really really big and beautiful monastery.
I'll post pictures sometime next week.

Tonight we are off to St. Petersburg! We're taking a sleeper train, which I am so very very excited about. The train leaves at 9:30 pm and arrives in Petersburg at 5:30 am. We'll also be staying in a hostel, so the group has one big room alllllll to ourselves. Should be interesting, to say the least.

I'm slacking in the frequent blog writing department, my apologies.
Tomorrow we're going to a few towns outside of Moscow and I have to leave my apartment around 7 in the morning, so this post will only contain two short stories:

First, a story of an unfortunate event:
The other day a few students and I tried to turn in the paperwork to get our student metro cards. Our program director said we could turn it in at the station by our university, so we went there only to be told "No no no, look at this list of stations and go to one of those." We looked at the list and went to the next station over because it was on the list. However, once we got to that station, we were again told "No no no, look at the list of stations and go to one of the ones which are highlighted in green." We finally made it to an acceptable station and stood in line for about an hour. The ticket counter closes at 7, and we were finally at the front of the line around 6:40.
This is where it gets fun.
We tried giving the lady our paperwork which the university had already filled out for us so that it would all be OK, but she said we needed to write more things on the papers. She then said we needed to make a copy of our passport, but make it in Russian. I don't know about you, but I never learned how to magically transform a passport into another language when copying said passport. Meanwhile, the line behind us was full of angry Russians who I'm pretty sure wanted to kill us because we were stupid foreigners taking up more time than they would have. It was about 6:59 by the time we gave up, and the line of angry Russians grew angrier as we walked away and the ticket counter closed behind us.
Best part of the story: a few other students went to a different station and had no problems whatsoever.
It was a very Russian experience.
(Cue The Beatles singing Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da)

Story number two:
After classes one day some students and I were sitting in a cafe. A few guys were sitting at a table near us. I was closest to them. They had a bright yellow umbrella and kept opening it and I looked over and I guess the look on my face said "I want that umbrella" because they gave it to me. Then they started speaking to us in German, but we had been speaking English so maybe they thought it sounded like German? I don't know.
Moral of the story, I now have an awesome bright yellow umbrella.



I hope life is treating everyone well!
Until next time,
gooooooooodnight.

8000 words

Pictures!



Musicians in the metro. So pretty.



This is in a park about a ten minute walk from my apartment; it was all decorated for День Города (Moscow's Birthday).


A little sample of Moscow driving, insane style.


...and a tour bus named Sputnik. How clever.



This is a cool fountain tunnel thing at a park near Red Square.



Last Sunday one of the girls from Dickinson and I cooked (we also decided it is going to be a weekly tradition of yummy Russian food making). This is баклажаная икра ("baklazhanaya ikra"), or eggplant caviar. Worry not, there is no caviar to be found in this dish -- just eggplant, onions, tomatoes, carrots, sunflower seed oil, and water all cooked together into a delicious mush which is then spread on bread. ..or if you're as obsessed with this stuff as I am, you can eat it with basically everything.


When my host mom makes баклажаная икра, she adds this mystery vegetable which she called капуста, but that translates to cabbage. This is definitely not cabbage.
*edit: after many people saying "Um, it's zucchini" I looked up the word for zucchini which, when said by my host mom, sounds remarkably like the word for cabbage. So this is zucchini/marrow, a bigger version of zucchini. Who knew.



This is where Gogol is buried. Gogol is one of my favorite authors; he's so clever and witty and sarcastic. I've read Dead Souls in English and bought it in Russian. So far I'm about three pages in. A good start, I'd say.

класс

Today was my quintessential Moscow day, a day which I've imagined for so long but never thought would actually happen.
I took the metro to the university and had a few classes, as per usual. After classes finished for the day, a few students and I had lunch with a new Russian friend, Vladimir. We ate at ТГИ Фрайдес (TGI Fridays. hah), then after lunch Vladimir drove us to a WWII memorial and park. It was a beautiful sunny day, perfect for driving. As I mentioned before, Moscow drivers are insane. So there we were, zipping through the streets of Moscow, windows down, hair blowing in the wind, listening to remixed Mozart songs. IT WAS SO COOL. After walking around the memorial, we went to the little museum by the memorial and then went on to the park to just walk around. We eventually parted ways and now here I am, sitting at my little desk in my little Moscow apartment, doing homework with the sounds of a bustling city in the background.
'Twas a lovely, lovely day.



Monday was the first day of classes. I was pretty nervous at first, but they really weren't too scary. There are two other students from the Dickinson program in my class, another American, a Korean, and some French people. The thing that made me most nervous was the fact that I'd be learning Russian from professors who would also be teaching us in Russian. That's a lot of Russian! The professors are really nice, though, and they want us to learn so it's not a problem to ask questions or ask for an explanation.
I'm taking four classes taught in Russian: grammar, modern text (basically just reading and learning vocab through reading), phonetics, and a class about Russian mass media. For these classes all the foreign students were split up according to their Russian level. The Dickinson students also have a three-hour lecture class on Tuesdays called Russia Today. Luckily this class is in English, except for a few times when visiting lecturers only speak Russian, which should make for an interesting, fun-filled three hours. Шутка.
I like all my professors, some more than others. The phonetics professor is the most energetic and I think I'll have the most fun in that class; whenever she could tell we were getting tired, she has us stand up and do little counting or speaking exercises while also stretching or jumping. Fun stuff. The most difficult class will probably be Mass Media, which coincidentally also features the most serious professor. She informed us that she is a "conservative, structured person" and that she won't be smiling or act all cheerful in class because we'll be talking about serious topics. Awesome. The topics all sound very, very interesting, though, and I think I'm most excited about this class.


By far the funniest part of this week was yesterday: I returned home and the toilet was gone. Seriously, just gone. My host mom said something along the lines of "the man came and took the toilet and he's bringing another one tomorrow." She then proceeded to give me a pot to use in the meantime.
(pause for laughter)
Luckily today, as promised, "the man" returned and installed a new toilet. Hooray!


I have more to say and more pictures to post, but I need to finish homework and will leave you with this one little tid-bit:
Russia can control the weather. Really. They have these special airplanes, or something like that, which move the clouds and postpone the rain. Apparently this is done for most major holidays, such as Moscow's birthday last Saturday. The weather was indeed very pleasant and sunny, with not a cloud in the sky.

glossary of terms

I've started integrating a few Russian words into my every day English vocabulary, so for your convenience here is a glossary of terms I will most often be using in future posts. I will first list the words in Russian, then how they're pronounced, then what they mean.

чуть-чуть ("choot choot") - a little bit
здорово! ("zdore-uh-vuh")- great!, excellent!, wonderful!
Я забыла. ("ya zah-bwee-luh") - I forgot.
Всё равно. ("vsyo rahv-no") - It doesn't matter./It makes no difference.
Всё будет хорошо. ("vsyo boo-dyet khorosho") - Everything will be OK.
хозяйка ("khah-zyeye-kuh") - host mom
шутка ("shootkuh") - joke
класс ("clahss") - cool, classy
давай! ("duh-vie") - let's!/let's do it!/let's go!

Voila!
I'm sure I'll add more later, too.
This is only the beginning!

lala how the life goes on

So. My initial shock-filled realization that yes, I actually am here for an entire year, has worn off. Now I'm excited to be here a year! (I'm basically a roller coaster of emotions right now. Oh well, these things happen.)

Today was День Города (pronounced "Dyane Goroda"), aka Day of the City, aka the day Moscow celebrates its birthday, aka an all around awesomefest with many, many happy Russians. ...and also many police. eek. Anyways, us students met up with a Russian student from РГГУ (the university I'm at here) who will be a TA at Dickinson next semester. He brought along some of his friends who also go to РГГУ, and they were all very nice and cool. If I can find people at РГГУ who are as nice as them, everything will be just wonderful. After we walked around a bit/ate at a cafe, the Russians left us and we went to a special День Города concert called Спасская Башня on Red Square.
The concert was sweeeeet. There were military bands and dancers and/or singers from different countries: Kazakhstan, Israel, Britain, Finland, Italy, India, France, and of course lots from Russia. There were also Chinese students from a Shaolin monastery, who had probably the coolest display of dancing/drum beating/martial arts performance I've ever seen. Everything was also ninety times cooler because, well, it was on Red Square. They set up stands to seat all the people, and from our seats the Kremlin was to our right and St. Basil's cathedral to the left.

So. Cool.

The concert was kind of as I expected with military bands playing military-esque music, but there were a few unexpected twists:
The Israeli band played a Fiddler on the Roof medley. No joke. It seemed a little odd to me, just because in Fiddler on the Roof the Russian Jews were forced to leave Russia, and the Russians were pretty much the bad guys. I tried to see if any of the Russians at the concert recognized the music, but I really couldn't tell.
The Britain band had bagpipes and it was aaaawesome.
The many different Russian ensembles included ballet and a children's dancing group (they did the traditional Russian dancing! SO COOL).
There was some famous French singer, I don't remember her name. Everyone loved her.
At the end of the concert, all the bands came together and played, among other songs, Hey Jude, Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da, and Yellow Submarine. 'Tis true, The Beatles are very much alive in Moscow.

By far the coolest moment of the concert was the finale. (Duh.) The bands played a bit of Tchaikovsky's 1812, and tons of fireworks went off at the end where it sounds like cannons.
Tchaikovsky performed by international military bands on Red Square with fireworks going off behind The Kremlin and St. Basil's makes for a pretty awesome experience.
You know, if you're into that kind of thing.

Sigh.

rollercoaster

It's finally becoming clear to me that a year is a long, long time. In the grand scheme of things, a year is nothing; when you're only in college for four years, a year is an eternity.
I'm still getting used to Russia. I like it, but sometimes the differences startle me and make me second guess myself.
We still don't know our class schedules, and classes start on Monday. For normal Russian students classes started 1 September, and for us foreigners they were going to start today (Thursday) but then ended up starting tomorrow, and then changing yet again to start Monday.
I usually like doing whatever and going with the flow, but since I'm in a completely different environment I need a schedule so I don't go insane. I keep going back and forth from being really excited to start classes to really scared, from loving Moscow to wondering what I've gotten myself into. I know once I get used to it I'll be fine, but right now is the beginning of the roller coaster: the tall climb to the top before you plummet down around the twisty curves. I HATE the tall climb; all that anticipation building up makes me so nervous. Once I get to the top and can look down at what's ahead, I'll feel better.

observations and BFFLs

In an episode of Sex and the City, Carrie's boyfriend at the time writes a book in which the main character traipses around New York City wearing a scrunchy. A scrunchy! Obviously, a real New Yorker would not dare commit such a crime to fashion.
Before coming to Moscow, I wondered how it would compare to other big cities in terms of fashions. I've only been to New York twice but for the most part I'd categorize the people as fashionable. Here in Moscow, I've seen three women (so far...) wearing scrunchies. I don't know if they were actually Muscovites, but they didn't seem to be tourists. There are also so many different classes of people in one spot so it's hard to generalize the fashion. For example, in Luxembourg pretty much all the people are very rich and ergo very fashionable. The rest of Europe also seems (to me at least) to be more fashionable than the States (you don't usually see people out in sweat pants, etc.). I haven't seen people out in sweat pants here, either, but the styles range from nice and new to used-to-be-nice and worn out. Also heads up America, mullets are coming back in style. Ew.

Another observation about fashion: Every woman and their babushka wear fishnet stockings. It seems like in the States fishnet stockings are more...you know...prostitute-ish. Here women wear them to work, to school, to wherever! I even bought a pair of them in sock form. I must try my best to blend in, after all.

Cell phone etiquette is also different than in the States. A few days ago we learned how to talk on the phone, take messages, and all that fun stuff. I'm still terrified of talking on the phone though, and when the phone rings and my host mom isn't here I just let it ring. Anyway, we also discussed Russian mobile phone etiquette: Russians tend to not care who hears what they're saying and talk about all their personal business (which could make for a fun time once I understand what they say, heh heh). They also don't turn their phones off or on silent in movie theaters. Last Friday we saw Inglorious Bastards (in Russian, eek) and three different phones went off during the movie but no one seemed to get mad at them. Strange strange strange. Also, the professor for our one class which is in English has his phone on vibrate but he always stops mid-lecture to answer the phone. I almost want to leave my phone on during class in hopes that someone will call just to see the professor's reaction; maybe once I get them to like me...no sense in giving a bad first impression.


My host mom and I are pretty much BFFLs. Even though I have plenty a stupid moment, it's all good. All we can really talk about is what I want to eat, if I thought what I ate was tasty, and what time I'll be leaving and coming home. We're not so big on the deep, meaningful discussions. I am patiently (well, kind of patiently) awaiting the day my vocabulary allows me to ask about politics etc. Since she's older, she'll have so much to say -- she lived through the USSR, she's seen all the changes. She's packed full of first hand information and I can't ask about it! It's driving me crazy.
One thing I absolutely positively love: She has an Obama calendar hanging on the wall. Every month is a different picture of Obama with a different quote. I got all excited when I saw it and asked her about it, and she started explaining where she got it...but then I didn't understand.
Someday my friends, someday.

I'm still loving the food. Last night she made borsh (yessssss) and this morning I tried buckwheat kasha, a very traditional Russian breakfast food. Kasha is just porridge, but there are many many different kinds. This kind tasted pretty much like warmed up soft Kashi cereal (they totally stole the name). She also makes yummy pelmeni (little meat-filled dumplings). I told her I had pelmeni when I was in Lithuania, and she said pelmeni are a Russian food. The Lithuanians, however, said it was a Lithuanian food. hmm...
Russians also put sour cream on EVERYTHING. It's like their ketchup. We go through a little tub of sour cream about every two days, and it's just the two of us.

One more observation: The no-smiling rule is very important. When we were off at some tourist place I accidentally smiled at some people who were sitting on their car (they looked so cute and comfortable, how could I not smile?) and they said "Welcome!" because they knew I was American. Rarr. However, the no-smiling rule doesn't apply to neighbors. With neighbors you must be friendly, say hello, and all the nice cordial stuff. There's this older man who is always sitting on the bench next to my apartment entrance, and now he recognizes me and we always say hello. See? Russians are friendly, it just depends on the situation.

Little girl, big city

HUZZAH I finally have official internet in my apartment. No more using suspicious free networks for me. One of my host mom’s daughters came over last to hook my computer up to a modem. She also speaks English, so that was a nice change. When we were eating dinner, my host mom told her daughter that I don’t eat very much because I want to watch my figure, and I tried to explain that I think I eat a normal amount, but I’m pretty sure it got lost in translation because they just shook their heads. She did say that I’m not like a normal American, though, because I’m not fat. Hahaha.

Well, week one in Moscow has ended. My thoughts so far? I love it here.

I love that I’m in a big city. There’s so many people, so many distractions, so much to look at, so much to do; I don’t have time to think. It’s awesome.

This weekend we were free from the Russian survival courses and sightseeing and could do whatever we wanted. It was a nice little break. Saturday the whole group met up with our TA from last semester (the university here sends a Russian student to Dickinson each semester to take classes and to teach us once/week). It was so awesome to see her again! We walked around a park called Tsarista Park. It’s HUGE. Fitting for the city, I suppose. It was a beautiful day, too - not too hot and not too cold.

Saturday was also one of the girl’s birthday, so after gallivanting around the park we went to her host mother’s for a big birthday dinner. The food here is so good. So so so so so good. I was actually scared that instead of the Freshmen 15, I would gain the Russian 15. Thankfully we walk around so much that I really don’t need to worry.

I’m hesitant to mention this next part because I don’t want people to read this and think “Aha, I knew it, Russia is a bad evil place.” (Also to any relatives reading this, don't freak out, k?) So, as you read this, please don’t let your opinion become too skewed.

There are exactly two things I am afraid of here. One: that I’ll burn the apartment building down with my hair straightener or computer being plugged in, and two: the police. If they stop you and ask for your documents, chances are they’ll say “These are not in order” and then say you have to pay a fine or go to the police station with them. The “fine” they ask for is actually a bribe. Apparently, the only police who are to be avoided are the older ones who carry guns; the younger ones who walk around in groups are basically there to make everything seem safer. And really, unless you’re doing something to attract attention, i.e. breaking a law, the police shouldn’t stop you. …unless you’re speaking English around the older ones, then they might stop you since they know they can scare you into bribing them.

I really don’t like that. Police are supposed to make you feel safe; instead I’m super paranoid when they’re around.

On the other hand, I don’t particularly like police in any country. It’s not like American police are always of the best character, and corruption is everywhere. Being scared of the police is definitely not unique to Russia.

I think I’m going to learn a lot about Russian culture and learn many new words from watching TV with my host mom. We’re so cute; I’ll finish studying and go sit down to watch TV, and she’ll try to explain what’s going on. We usually watch soap operas and dubbed films, most of which are American. The other day she was watching the news and she called me into the room saying “Kara! Look! Michael Jackson!” There’s also a superawesome channel called the Culture channel; the other night one of Chekov’s plays was on, and they’ve also had documentaries and stuff like that.

My host mom and I get along really well which is a big relief. The only thing is… I’m pretty sure she thinks I’m a moron. I don’t understand everything she says so I’m forced to smile and nod (which I’m the master at so it seeeeeems like I understand, but um…I don’t). Smiling and nodding actually works wonderfully, most of the time. Sometimes she’ll say something which requires a response, though, and I’ll just be sitting there smiling and nodding while she waits for an answer. It also took me a freakishly long time to figure out how to open the door from the inside, and I constantly stumble over my Russian and probably sound stupid when I try to explain something to her. Like I said, moron. A nice and likeable moron, but a moron nonetheless.

Today we have our only class in English, called Russia Today. It's a three hour long lecture and we already had an introduction to the course/super fast review of Russian history last Tuesday. I like the professor, he's funny and speaks English well. Our Russian classes don't start until Thursday (or maybe Friday), when more foreigners get here. I'm pretty nervous about the Russian classes. They'll all be in Russian and our group will be split up according to the level of our Russian. Scary much? At least we'll be with other foreigners; they're not just throwing us into class with Russians who obviously speak Russian fluently.

That's all for now, time to walk to the metro!