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.