In [Soviet] Russia, Blog Writes You

A much overdue farewell, with a new beginning.

2011-09-08T01:33:00.002+04:00

Hello!

Just in case anyone still checks this (doubtful), I wanted to let you know that I won't be posting here anymore. ...as you could probably tell, given my many months absence. But, worry not, you can still read a few witty and Russian-related tidbits brought to you by yours truly (and my mom and sister!) on our new food blog, The Troika Table. I've become quite obsessed with food blogs and decided it was nigh time to make my own. So, there you go.

Thanks for reading about my Russian adventures, and I'll check back in to let you know if (ahem, when) I have more.

From Pennsylvania with love,

Kara

What to do if there's an armed Communist uprising near your home when you're having a party

2010-07-18T22:57:00.003+04:00

On second thought, maybe the blog isn't finished quite yet. A spot to share random things related to Russia, perhaps? Me thinks yes.

The end, for now.

2010-06-30T06:43:00.006+04:00

I decided that since those Russian spies were recently caught it was a good time to write my last blog post. Here it goes.

My year of studying in the Motherland is over. ...rather, it's been over for the past month and a half and I'm just now getting around to writing this last post. Do da do.

The last weeks in Moscow couldn't have been more packed with things to do or have felt more surreal. We were all extremely busy working on our research projects, taking finals, and running frantically around the city trying to see things we had always wanted to but of course had put off.

The research project presentations went well and were not as intimidating as I had imagined. Although we each had 15 minute presentations all in Russian, it wasn't so scary - it was just the five of us, Irina, and a few other professors. There were also a few cakes, fruit, candy, tea, and champagne patiently waiting for us to finish. Once Thursday, the Day of the Presentations, was over, I only had four more days in the city I had grown to love.

Speaking of love and Moscow, why do I love it? Love is a strong word, I admit. But, guess what. I even love Russia. (No, I'm not a spy, and no, I wasn't brainwashed. I think.) Really, though, Russia for some reason captured my attention and I spent a nine months in this foreign land trying to figure out why. Did I succeed in solving this riddle? Ehh......not really.

It's a mystery! There are so many things wrong and weird and strange and backwards and different and and and about Russia, specifically Moscow, that I often times wanted to scream. The living standards aren't up to par with what I'm used to; the people seem rude and cold; the weather is horrible; there always seem to be creepy men staring at you; the bureaucracy makes everything painfully inefficient; there is no concept of a line, anywhere; six wrinkly jalapeños cost $15. So why put up with it all? How could I even enjoy living there?

Honestly, sometimes, I hated it. I was usually exhausted at the end of each day and, feeling grimy from a day in the city, would fall asleep to the blaring sounds of traffic or people yelling outside my window. Looking back, it actually was hard to get used to living in Moscow. I put on a good game face but it did take me a few months to really feel comfortable. I knew Moscow would be different but I also thought that since I had lived in Germany since I was 13, it would be a piece of cake to get used to another non-America. Silly girl; Moscow is so completely different. Moscow is so completely unique compared to any place. Aha! This, my friends, is one reason I love Moscow - its uniqueness.

Moscow is so unlike any other city I've seen. First of all, the buildings (yes, I'm going to talk about architecture for a bit) are all so different. Moscow is home to grand, beautiful Tsarist-era buildings; ugly, run-down apartment buildings from the Soviet years; trippy, 70s colored apartment buildings; new, modern and surprisingly not ugly apartment buildings; thousands of Orthodox churches with their own unique architectures; Stalinist style buildings with Soviet symbols all over; the Seven Sisters; you can see it all! There is one spot on what I believe is old Arbat street where you can literally see all the layers starting from the late 1800s to late 1900s. It's really cool and really beautiful in a quirky way. I didn't initially think Moscow to be all that pretty, but after living there and actually experiencing the city, I learned to look past the rough edges and truly appreciate it. I don't think this would have been possible if I were just a tourist.

Moving on, I really enjoy what I perceive to be the Russian sense of humor. It tends to be sarcastic, dry, and witty all while making fun of a situation which really should not be comical. Finding oneself laughing whilst in a non-comical situation also seems very Russian to me. After all, what else are you going to do? Sit there and cry? No, you laugh. Many Russian authors capture the comedy of Russia in quite satirical manners, and I often found myself feeling like I was trapped in one of Gogol's plays, trying to find the perfect coat or outwit the silly bureaucracy. While this should all be (and was) very frustrating, in the end it makes for a good story and makes you feel oh so very Russian.

I feel like I'm beginning to ramble and will stop here with the realization that I may never be able to explain why I fell for Russia. There's certainly plenty wrong with it, but isn't there something screwy about every country?

For now, I await senior year and my return to Dickinson. Much has changed over the last year, and I'm very excited to see what this year will bring. The blog is going dormant for a while but I would like to post some more pictures in a few weeks. ...I had issues with my computer but will soon have it back and be able to put up my final shots of Russia. Maybe the pictures will explain what I cannot?

Thanks for reading my posts and I hope you enjoyed them. Who knows, maybe another Russian adventure is waiting for me. I do still need to take the train to the east...

Kiev, or the city where everyone is happy but still speaks Russian

2010-06-16T20:44:00.024+04:00

Four days after my return from Lithuania, the group set off for Kiev, Ukraine. Again traveling by train, this was to be our last group trip of the year.

The first day we had a little bus tour around the city, stopping at several points of interest along the way. Our guide was very talkative and seemed to know everything about every little street corner. He also was able to talk about Kiev without getting all political and anti-Russian, which was nice.

The People's Friendship arch. The statue below is a Russian and Ukrainian holding the Soviet Order of Friendship of Peoples.
Kiev is just so friendly.
(No, but really.)

On tour.

Our hostel is somewhere down there...

St. Andrew's church.

A historic area of Kiev, right by St. Andrew's. It was very quaint and crumbly.

After bidding farewell to our guide, we were free to roam the city. There were lots and lots of people out on the streets, enjoying the warm weather and festivities for the May holidays - May 1st, International Worker's day, and the upcoming Victory Day, May 9th. Aside: why does the U.S. have it's labor day in September instead of when the rest of the world does? Glad you asked, for it turns out the inspiration for International Labor Day on May 1st actually came from the U.S. but then things got a little silly (aka it was the Cold War) and in 1958 Congress declared May 1st "Loyalty Day." How lovely.
Anyways, the streets of Kiev were filled with people, and the group noted how happy everyone seemed. We also noticed that people weren't always in a rush to get somewhere, and in the metro one could even stand on the left side of the escalator without fear of getting plowed over by a Moskvichka (Moscow woman) rushing to work. It was very refreshing.

Group of free-style dancers near the McDonald's.

Khreschatyk Street, the main shopping street.

It seemed like there was music and people dancing everywhere we looked. Kim and I decided to join.

Day two from more excursions to the Kiev Pechersk Lavra (monastery of the caves) and the Great Patriotic War museum.

While walking to the monastery, we stopped by the monument to the Great Famine, also known as Holodomor ("death by hunger") of 1932-1930. Records are apparently still iffy, but estimates of the death toll have gone as high as 10 million.

This was one of my favorite monuments; it gave me the chills.

The group at the monastery.

The Great Lavra bell tower, which was the tallest free-standing bell tower when it was built in the 1700s.

Kiev from the monastery.

We went on a boat later that night: The monastery at sunset.

After the monastery we walked up what seemed like millions of stairs to Rodina Mat ("The Motherland") and the Great Patriotic War museum.

Rodina Mat, the protector of the Motherland.

"Their heroic deeds will live eternally, their names will be immortal."

Workers and farmers.

Inside the museum: the papers are fill-in-the-blank letters informing people that their loved ones had died. The table was lined up and down with them.

The last event of the day featured a boat ride in the sunset.

Our last day we went to the Chernobyl museum which was both interesting and slightly terrifying. We also had an excursion at Mikhail Bulgakov's (Soviet writer and playwright) apartment. I admit, my favorite part of this excursion was not the interesting details our guide told us of Bulgakov's life/books, but the tea we drank before the excursion. It was seriously the best tea I have ever ever had. The teas were actually Bulgakov's family recipies, and were served with deeeeeelicious varenya (fruit preserves) of pumpkin, berries, and my favorite, a varenya made of a fruit which is like an apple and a pear. Moral of the story: if you go to Kiev, go to Bulgakov's apartment and drink tea. ...and then you can think about touring his living quarters.

The Kiev trip was one of my favorite trips of the year: it was sunny and warm, the trees were freshly green and flowers were blooming, the people were all happy and relaxed, and the city was beautiful. I definitely want to go back to Kiev someday, and although I was only there for three days, I found myself wishing that I could have also studied in Kiev as well as Moscow.

Kaunas

2010-05-24T19:48:00.000+04:00

After much ado, here is my post about the Lithuania trip (21 April – 26 April). Enjoy.

Remember hearing about that little volcano incident in Iceland? Along with being unpronounceable and messing up tons of other people's travels, it tried its hardest to mess up the aforementioned plan of awesomeness to go to Lithuania. In fact, both my flight and Braeden's (the aforementioned fellow Dickinsonian to be met in Lithuania) flight were canceled. Because of a volcano. In Iceland. A VOLCANO! I was a little dumbfounded and in shock and couldn't help but laugh (in that cynical kind of way) at the absurdity of the situation. Determined not to be outdone by the Voldemort-like volcano, we decided to fight back and venture to Lithuania by train.

If you look at a map of Eastern Europe, the train trip from Moscow to Kaunas, Lithuania, doesn't seem too horrible; it's basically a straight shot west. It would be really very easy, actually, if not for that pesky little country standing in between: Belarus. I have (or rather, had) nothing against Belarus, but they have this annoying little requirement of possessing a transit visa just to travel through the country, even if the traveler is just passing through and doesn't even give a lick about Belarus. I had an inkling of this transit visa business but set off to buy tickets anyways, convinced that I could just take trains around. After finally finding the correct line to buy tickets (after about two hours of standing in two other lines...), frazzled Kara asked the ticket lady for train tickets to Kaunas, but going through Riga, Latvia (so as to avoid Belarus). The befuddled ticket lady curtly responded: "What? How through Riga? Why?" I started to explain that I couldn't go through Belarus, but she said "No no no you can go directly to Vilnius" and assured me that Belarus wouldn't be a problem. This was convincing enough for me and I happily bought the tickets. (Keep in mind this was April 19th, the day before my train was to set off for Lithuania.)

I got home pretty excited that I defeated the volcano, when a random friend from class started talking to me and said something along the lines of "Um...you can't go through Belarus without a visa. Have fun being stuck at the border." This was at about 1 in the morning. I quickly freaked out to Jonathan who told me to calm down and then looked up Belarus on the travel.state.gov site (what a handy little website, by the way). There it was in black and white: travelers even just traveling through Belarus need a transit visa, and people have been kicked off trains in the past, fined, and even put in jail. Extremely worried and slightly seething with anger, I went to bed and got up in the wee hours of the morning (aka 8) to set off once again for the train station to attempt Plan C: taking a train to Riga and somehow finding a bus to Kaunas.

I got my money back for the cursed Belarusian tickets (which actually proved to be the easiest part of this whole process), and stood in yet another line, prepared to beg if necessary to buy tickets to Riga. It took the ticket lady a bit to figure out how to find the tickets to Riga, but find them she did. Finding tickets to come back to Moscow was a bit trickier for some reason, and she had to get up and go ask someone for help, giving ample time for impatient Russians to line up behind me and ask what in the world was going on and why our ticket lady had disappeared. She eventually came back after about 10 minutes, started clicking away at the keyboard, and announced that all my tickets were in order. Literally surrounded by Russians on all sides of me, I whipped out my documents and money, paid for the tickets, and then, finally, strutted away from the counter with an unbreakable smile on my face.

Later that evening the time finally came for me to get on my train and start my adventure to Lithuania. I may have mentioned this before: I love sleeper trains. They are the best thing since sliced black bread. I shared my area with a Latvian woman, Natasha, and her son, Igor, who had actually arrived in Moscow via the same exact train earlier that morning. For the first ten minutes of the journey I sat quietly and pretended to be focusing on a book, until finally a train worker guy (btw what's the equivalent of a flight attendant for a train?) came and asked if we would like tea. Once the tea arrived, Natasha promptly said to me, "Ok. Now it is time for you to explain why you are here." We talked for a few hours about my studies, why I was going to Lithuania, my family, etc., and I in turn asked them questions. It was really very cool, because we didn't have problems understanding each other. I can converse with everyday people about lots of subjects. Sweet. Natasha and Igor also have the best senses of humor; they would say something that could be serious but then ironically laugh about it. I loved it.

We were awoken around five in the morning for the border crossings. No big deal, just some Russian and Latvian border guards, dogs, and flashlights. About thirty minutes across the Latvian border I bid farewell to my new Latvian friends, and we even exchanged emails and telephone numbers. I now had basically the entire end of the train car to myself and sat anxiously until the arrival in Riga, Latvia. Once in Riga, I had an entire 30 minutes to find the bus station, buy tickets to Kaunas, Lithuania, and find my bus. Luckily they speak Russian in Latvia, and I easily got directions to the bus station, which happened to be about a five minute walk from the train station. I quickly bought bus tickets and was soon staring out the bus window as the Latvian countryside turned Lithuanian. It was lovely. I finally arrived in Kaunas six hours later, found Braeden and Evgeni (hostel man who picked us up to take us to the hostel), and epic adventures ensued.

Kaunas is a lovely little city and I really cannot describe how awesome our stay was. I won't even try. It. Was. Awesome. Also the fact that we successfully defeated the volcano added an extra little somethin' somethin'.

The trip back to Russia was not nearly as hectic. I had about four hours to spare in Riga while waiting for my train back to Moscow and thus decided to explore the old town and take millions of pictures. I've actually stayed in Riga before and it was really nice to walk around and be a little lost but still know how to get back to where I needed to be. It was also a beeeeautiful day and I didn't even need to wear a jacket. Scandalous.

On the trip back my train neighbors were an older woman on the bottom bunk across from me and two Belarusian men above us, who happened to be transporting a gagillion bags to Russia full of magazines which they claimed were for an “exhibit”. I’m pretty sure “magazines for an exhibit” is code for contraband. When we got to the Russian border crossing, the border patrol said to the men: “So, all these bags are yours? And you’re taking these magazines to hand out and not to sell, correct?” The men responded, “Oh yes, of course,” at which point the woman and I exchanged knowing glances. They did give us candy at the end of our trip, though. Sure it was probably smuggled candy, but beggars can’t be choosers.

I arrived in Moscow about 27 hours after leaving Kaunas (worry not, I am now a pro at sleeping on trains) and went into energizer bunny mode for my last three weeks of school.

Next post: about our group trip to Kiev, Ukraine.

a joke

2010-05-08T16:23:00.001+04:00

Brezhnev has a meeting with Sophia Loren. He says to her "I am willing to grant you any wish."

"Please, allow anyone who wishes to leave the Soviet Union."

"Sophia, you sly little minx, you just want to be alone with me."

11

2010-05-06T01:06:00.003+04:00

Sorry for lack of posts -- it's that lovely time of the semester where all the time is taken doing final projects.

I still have to tell you about Lithuania, Kiev, and life in general, but while you're waiting you should watch this:

You might have to somehow put it on repeat, though, because my next post could take longer than three minutes to appear.

make photo

2010-04-07T21:25:00.012+04:00

Stairway leading to my apartment

My door!

Ze kitchen.

Which item does not belong?

Those two tubs are full of crushed egg shells. I was always rather curious as to why in the world my host mom would save egg shells and finally asked. She uses some of them as fertilizer in her dacha garden (seems relatively normal, yeah?) She also makes some of them into this powdery substance and puts a spoonful in her kasha (porridge) every morning...to keep her bones strong....yum.

Living room.

Picture of her dacha.

Books galore!

Old church across from my apartment building.

Street market near my apartment.

Lefortovo Park, about ten minutes from my apartment.

Just some morning exercises, is all.

Break time.

"Don't smoke, be different"

Izmailovo Park a few stations up from my metro stop.

Accident.

Accident II.

What do babushkas think about?

check please

2010-04-06T22:48:00.006+04:00

And now a stream of consciousness:

Why must we always have classes in the spring, when it's all nice and warm and the birds are chirping and all you want to do is go play in a park and feel the warm sun on your face because it's been oh so long and the winter seemed to go on for.ev.er and you'd think in Russia of all places they'd understand that once spring hits there's NO WAY concentration could happen, wait what did the professor just say something about a final exam in a month woah hold the phone it's already time to think about final exams and leaving Russia but I just got used to everything and made Russian friends and now you're telling me I have to leave but on the other hand there is quiiiiiiite a lot to look forward to and I admit that I'm ready to get to the next step in my life aka senior year wait wait wait senior year?

End stream of consciousness.

Can someone please tell me how it's already April? Mmm? Any takers?
Life as of late has been zipping by. As my host mom constantly tells me, "when you're young you just want to grow up but once you're old like me it seems like it went so fast." By the way, my host mom just celebrated her 86th (yes, 86th) birthday at the end of March. She is one tough cookie. Phil and I have noticed something about our older hosts (in his case an 85-year old host grandma) - they often quite randomly start naming off all these people they used to know who have now died. I've also discovered that almost every question I ask ends in a story about so-and-so who is now dead and/or life during the Great Patriotic War (aka WWII). ....does everyone get that way as they grow older? If so, oy vey.

The past weeks have been full of the usual trips to museums, plays, ballets, etc. I do love all this readily available culture, but I admit I will be glad to go back to a slightly, shall we say, less-packed schedule. April is actually a fairly slow month as far as the Dickinson program goes; we're only going to the theatre three times! Last Saturday we took a bus to Veliki Rostov, another city on the Golden Ring, and at the end of the month we'll take a big trip to Kiev, Ukraine, for four days. The month of April also brings, for me, a very very very exciting trip which I have been looking forward to for oh so long: I'M GOING BACK TO LITHUANIA. I went a few summers ago for two weeks as part of a volunteer-teach-English-to-teenagers-at-a-camp thing. It was the coolest. This time, however, I'm meeting a friend from Dickinson and it will probably/definitely be more epic than my first Lithuanian adventure.

The semester's impending end also means research projects. After bouncing ideas around, I finally settled on researching monogoroda, or monotowns. This could very potentially turn into something I want to research further after college. Exciting.
My internship at the photography gallery is still going well. I've discovered that it's actually easier to translate things than just a month ago, which means my Russian has gotten better even though I can't really feel an improvement.
The little girl I tutor is also still as fabulous as ever, and I've come to the conclusion that she is me when I was younger, only Russian. One time we were playing the restaurant game (so as to teach her how to order food in English), and it was her turn to be the waitress. She rummaged through her closet, pulled out and opened an umbrella, and said (in cute Russian accent, of course): "Hello! This is the Rainy Restaurant! It's raining! What would you like?" She's also super cultured for a nine year old; she likes to go to the Tretyakov art gallery and asked me to bring her poetry. I feel like this is more normal for Russians, though. The arts are a very important part of education from day one. I approve.

In conclusion, I will write another post soon with pictures from my apartment, around my area, and a few parks I've been to.
In the mean time, go play outside. It's so nice out!

Happy ever after in the market place

2010-03-29T22:33:00.003+04:00

Just a quick note in case anyone is worried about the metro bombings:

I'm ok, everyone from Dickinson is ok, we're all ok.
Our classes don't start that early, so no one was out at the time of the attacks.

Not gonna lie, I feel a little weird. I don't actually feel unsafe, it's just strange to be this close to it all. You hear about terrorist attacks and horrible things happening everyday, but I've never been so close to it.
Growing up isn't so fun sometimes.

It's funny (well "funny" might not be the best word here, but let's stick with it), I was thinking the other day: Moscow is so honest. It doesn't hide the bad. Old Soviet structures in need of repair are crumbling apart; homeless people are sleeping in the metro and on the streets, huddled together in underground passages; packs of stray dogs are running around, searching for anything to eat; thousands of people have come from provincial towns to somehow make enough money to survive; shady deals and corruption aren't uncommon. In spite of all that, maybe because of all of that, I really appreciate Moscow. I appreciate its often harsh honesty. Moscow isn't sugarcoated, and that's refreshing.
Of course when things aren't sugarcoated, they can be hard to handle.

But,
the Russians sill love the Beatles
and life still goes on.

I love you and will bring you goat's milk

2010-03-21T15:43:00.024+03:00

This post will best be read while listening to this song, called "Good to live in the east" by Sergei Nikitin, a singer of the Russian author song genre. Author song is this nifty little Russian term for singers who write poetry and sing them to simple guitar melodies.
Anyways, this song talks about how good it is to live in the east, eating delicious food, laying in the sun's warmth, etc etc.

Our first big trip of the semester took us about 700 km east of Moscow to Kazan, the capital of the Tartarstan republic of Russia. Leaving on a Friday night, we once again took a sleeper train (which I am growing quite fond of) and 14 hours later arrived to a sunny (although cold), Saturday Kazanian morning. After making our way to our wonnnnderful hotel (the showers were nicer than my apartment in Moscow, sigh), we rested a little and then set off to explore Kazan.
First on the agenda was a tour of the kremlin. This kremlin is different from others we had been to and has a mosque! It was a very nice refreshing change from the orthodox churches, and we
even got to observe people doing prayers. All very interesting.

After the Kremlin tour we walked down the main pedestrian street for a while, snapping pictures and being crazy tourists as per usual. The day ended with a lovely* little trip to the National museum of the Tatarstan republic.

Leaving the kremlin; the building to the right is the lovely little museum.

A lot of the buildings were slightly old and decrepit looking. I love it. Also it was cold and full of ice. Awesome.

Peter and Paul's cathedral through a gutted-out building on Bauman street.

Strolling down Bauman street.

Dancing on Bauman street.

Dome reflecting Bauman.

We awoke the next day after a fantastically relaxing night's sleep and headed down to breakfast in the hotel's cafe. The woman who gave us our food was the epitome of our host mothers/Russian women: bringing endless mounds of food and then forcing us to eat. It was glorious. After all the food, we set off to Sviyazhsk island, founded by Ivan the Terrible in 1551. Basically there are lot of old churches here, full of lots of icons and frescoes and so on and so forth. En route to the island, we drove by the Volga river. I'm pretty sure the Volga is to the Russians as the Mississippi is to Americans: epic. So, it was cool to see THE VOLGA (ooooh, ahhhh) in person, but, well, it was kind of all frozen over and covered in snow, slightly taking away from its epicness level. Alas.

On the island. See all the white stuff near the greenish trees? That's snow. On water.

The church is called "The Joy of all Sorrows."

It was built from 1898-1906.

And is crumbling.

However, it is under restoration.

Phil's triumphant return (from petting a kitty, I think).

The main attraction on this island is to be found in the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary:

This, my friends, is St. Christopher. St. Christopher was quite the stud, and it was decided that since he was so studly, his image would distract worshipers and therefore he had to be depicted as a horseman. I've definitely never seen anything like this in any other orthodox church; it was an unexpected and lovely** (in a non-distracting way, of course) surprise.

After our three hour tour it was high time to eat something and we set off along the oh so bumpy roads, at last finding ourselves in a cafe serving traditional Tartar food. For most of the trip I had the sense that Kazan wasn't used to having many foreigners; when we walked into this cafe, people couldn't stop staring. It could have been because we were all having horrible hair days, but I think our foreignness was the main cause. However, a little staring didn't stop me from devouring the best chicken noodles soup I've had (yeah, that's Tartar...) along with uchpuchmakh (pronounced "ooch-pooch-mahk"), a little triangle pastry thing filled with mystery meat and cabbage mixture. De.Li.Cious. Kelly also had the brilliant idea of ordering food to go for our impending 14 hour return trip to Moscow.

After a brief rest back at the hotel, we set off to the theatre to see a Tartar play, "Dilyafruz - remake". As is suggested by the name, Dilyafruz is a remake of a Soviet play/musical.
Also, it was hilarious.
Also, it was in Tartar.
However, we had headset translators.
In summary, Dilyafruz is the beauty of a provincial Tartar town but finds herself at the center of three suitor's attentions when they discover her picture in Playboy magazine. But, Dilyafruz actually loves a fourth man, Zhamil. Zhamil, of course, also loves Dilyafruz and hasn't even seen her Playboy picture but is too timid to tell her. In the end the three force Zhamil to look at Dilyafruz's picture, who promptly laughs and, calling the others idiots, exclaims "That's not her! Look at her face!" And they live happily ever after. Aww.
The best part? We now know how to say "I love you" in Tartar: "Meen seen-yay yah-rah-tam".

Mosque at night.

Monday brought the coldest day yet, complete with a lovely*** little snow storm. Monday was our day to decide what to do, but sadly most things were closed since it was also a holiday (International Women's day).

Nevertheless, we ventured into the cold and trekked to a craft market in pursuit of Tartar souvenirs.
Along the way to the market we ran into Lenin, who studied at the university in Kazan.

After vendors had fought over our business and souvenirs had been bought, we once again made our way outside and headed back to Bauman street, this time searching for Peter and Paul's Cathedral.

We found Bauman street but were temporarily distracted by the cold/music blasting through the speakers and decided it was time to just dance.

We finally reached our final destination, the uniquely Baroque-style Peter and Paul's Cathedral.

Oh, Kazan also has a metro. I'm afraid after Moscow I will forever be a metro snob, and every other metro system will just be kind of cute in comparison. Kazan's metro has six whole stations and two whole trains. It's very nice and pretty, though. In a word - cute. After riding the metro from the beginning to end and back again, it was time to eat. We returned to an Irish pub we had discovered the night before (another story for another time...) for a very very very very very yummy and much needed warm lunch.

Phil also broke out the presents he got for the girls for International Women's day. Thaaaanks, Phil. :)

After lingering as long as possible in the Irish pub, the time had come to say goodbye to Kazan and return to the real world of Moscow. Armed with our new Tartar language skills, we boarded the train and, of course, did lots of homework. We also talked a little to a Russian guy in a neighboring bunk, on his way to visit friends in Moscow. He didn't really speak Tartar but was able to add to our already impressive knowledge of "I love you": when you say "I love you", you're supposed to also say "kezhe set ashatam" - and so I will bring you goat's milk.

And there you have it, our slightly epic trip east. Oh, one more exciting bit of news: yesterday it rained for the first time since November. SPRING IS NEAR! Maybe?

In any case, I love you all and promise to bring goat's milk.
Until next time!

*Like, ok. I have to admit; I...well....I don't really like history museums. Sorry, mom. I just don't. But um...the museum was nicely arranged?

**This time I'm not being sarcastic in my use of the word "lovely." Just to clarify.

***Sarcasm.

Just kidding

2010-03-17T11:40:00.008+03:00

I take back what I said about spring having sprung.
Spring was just toying with me, taunting me with its "warm" temperatures in the 30s.

There was a blizzard on Monday. Ok fine blizzard is too strong of a word. However, when speaking in terms of what should be spring, there was a huge blizzard on Monday.
Yesterday the high was around 28 Fahrenheit.
Today the high is supposed to be around 23.
BUT. Saturday spring will once again toy with me (or come back for good?) with highs in the low 40s! Inconceivable.

Also yesterday in Visual and Performing Arts class, we were shown this painting, "Portrait of Lopukhina" (1797) by Vladimir Borovikovksy.
I. Love. It.

We also learned that poets like to write poems about portraits; I really like the poem for this portrait (surprising, right?):

Яков Полонский "Портрет Лопухиной"

Она давно прошла, и нет уже тех глаз,
И той улыбки нет, что молча выражали
Страданье - тень любви, и мысли - тень печали,
Но красоту её Боровиковский спас.

Так часть души её от нас не улетела,
И будет этот взгляд и эта прелесть тела
К ней равнодушное потомство привлекать,
Уча его любить, страдать, прощать, молчать.

Yakov Polonsky "Portrait of Lopukhina"

Long since she passed away: no more those eyes,
No more that smile which silently expressed
The suffering of her love and her sad thoughts.
But her beauty Borovikovsky preserved.

Her soul, in part, is therefore with us still,
And this her gaze and this her body charm
Will fascinate indifferent generations,
Teaching them
to love, to suffer, to forgive, to be silent.

Next post about Kazan.
I hope you're all very warm. I'm not jealous.

Here comes the sun

2010-03-14T20:56:00.004+03:00

I would like to start this post with a lovely little number by Peter Nalitch, Russia's singer chosen for Eurovision 2010. I don't really like the song chosen for Eurovision, but a Russian friend showed me this song and, well, you just have to watch.

As you might infer from my lack of posts, I've been a little busy. Classes are going fairly well but most of my time is taken up with my work tutoring and interning at the photo gallery. The other day I was given a new task of correcting English translations on the gallery website as well as translating an article from Russian to English, which has proved to be pretty challenging. The article is about a photographer's most recent photo project and is full of tricky, technical photography/art terms which I don't even know in English let alone Russian. Needless to say, I'm learning a lot. I've also started talking more to the others working at the gallery and have discovered that my Russian actually isn't as bad as I thought it is, and I can even be funny in Russian! It is wonderful. The gallery also opened a new exhibit on Thursday, and I discovered with joy the section of the gallery where they sell books and reprints of all sorts of photographs. Overweight suitcase here I come.

At the end of February and beginning of March I felt like I was stuck in a rut and that my Russian wasn't going anywhere. I so badly want to master this language and learn about this mysterious culture which I am for some reason so drawn to, but at the same time I feel like my head can't handle any more or it will explode. However, I think the rut is ending. I keep realizing how little time I have left (two months whaaaat) and how much I still want/have to do: learn Russian, learn Russian jokes, explore the city parks, learn my way around the city above ground (I have mastered the metro), go to museums and plays and ballets and exhibits, take millions of pictures, something about writing a few papers and doing research, buy souvenirs, take a few trips, and sleep? I'll do the last one later.

Saturday brought the arrival of one of Kelly's friends from Dickinson as well as our Dickinson Russian professor, both visiting for spring break. We went to a chocolate factory and, in Willy Wonka fashion (minus the Oompa Loompas and treacherous chocolate river), had a little tour complete with as many chocolate samples as we could handle. After the chocolate factory we set off, chocolate coursing through our veins, to prepare for a night of festivities. We danced the night (and chocolate) away and even met up with one of our Russian TAs from Freshman year! It was a very successful day which didn't end until 5 in the morning. Fantastic.

Today over a delicious Azerbaijanian lunch we were discussing our research projects, courses to take next year, and future possibilities of life in general, when all of a sudden I had one of those moments where suddenly everything makes sense and you know what you want to do with your life. I won't go into too much detail because I'm still figuring it out, but a little seedling of a plan is starting to grow and it will probably be epic and have something to do with photography and Russia and even a little politics thrown in. Of course this is all very lofty thinking at the moment, but I wanted you to know: I am excited.

As far as the cultural program aspect, we have of course been going to various theaters, dance performances, plays, etc, etc. As my host mom says, I lead a hard life. Later this week we're going to Stalin's bunker. I also still need to go see Lenin; I can't live in Moscow for a year and not see Lenin.

Speaking of my host mom, I still love her. She's totally my third grandma; whenever I'm going to be out late she insists that I call her and always answers the phone "Oh you're still living, eh?"
I do admit at times I get rather annoyed with having to answer to someone all time, but of all the problems I could be having in a host family situation, having someone who at times worries too about my well-being is not the worst. I also sometimes make Mexican food and she of course samples it. Without fail, she takes a little bite and promptly says "Fire! Fire!" ...she doesn't do spicy.

In conclusion, it's been getting warmer: highs in the low 30s!
Now, now, you can try to one up me and claim that a "high" in the "low 30s" is no high at all, and then continue to brag about wearing sandals and shorts and skirts (I'm talking to you, Texans and Pennsylvanians), but the day I realized I could leave the house wearing only one pair of socks was the day I realized that spring had sprung. The birdies even chirp more and the sun actually has warmth to it. ...when the sun shines, that is.

I will post again soon with pictures and videos and stories galore from our most recent eastward adventure to the Tartarstan republic of Russia.
Get ready.

Hope all is well with everyone.

Rapunzel, Rapunzel

2010-02-23T20:46:00.005+03:00

I forgot to mention:

I'm still tutoring a Russian girl in English, and each time I bring a little Mad Libs for her. Last week's was priceless and needs be shared with the world. Unfortunately she didn't understand why I was laughing so hard. ...on second thought maybe it's good she didn't understand.
Oh to be young again.

Rapunzel

Once upon a time, there was a very blue violet named Milkspiderman. She lived all alone with her evil soup in a honey tower.

She was very sad, so the very very very red and blue fairy decided to jump her. He stood at the bottom of the tower and flew into space, saying "Milkspiderman, Milkspiderman, let down your jelly, so I can sit on the purple star!"

After that, the violet and fairy lived happily ever after.

The end.

Moscow Never Sleeps

2010-02-20T15:49:00.023+03:00

Well, quite a lot has happened in the past few weeks. It's strange, I didn't even realize how quickly time is going. Every day seems to crawl by, but suddenly here I am at the end of February.

You might want to go get a cup of tea to sip on while you read this post. I have a feeling it could be long. Go ahead, I'll wait.

So, this is my life at the moment:

I'm entering the third week of classes. They are a million times better this semester for three reasons:
1) I only have two language classes (as compared to four last semester) -- Grammar and a class called Praktika which is basically a practice speaking, learn about Russian culture, and watch movies type class.
2) My earliest class doesn't start until 12:15.
3) We have no classes Fridays.

I'm also taking a Russian class. With Russian students. All in Russian. Russian Russian Russian. We could choose any class we wanted and instead of taking the final exams we do a research project about a topic connected to the class.
After a somewhat frantic last minute search for a class to take, I decided to take "Modern Internal Politics of the Russian Federation." Kelly is also taking this class, so I'm not all alone and it's a little less scary. The minute we walked into the classroom I felt like I was in Mean Girls, except instead of having only four Plastics, they were all Plastics. Even the boys. (Maybe especially the boys).
The lecture was very interesting, though. At one point the professor was talking about IKEA and how they don't want to "live under corruption" and pay bribes in Russia. The class just laughed. How else would they get things done?

The Dickinson group is also taking a class called Visual and Performing Arts in Russia; part of the class will be going to museums and galleries and the theatre. Awesome. But, um, so far we're talking about architecture...and I've discovered it's not really my cup of tea. Luckily, we usually get to drink tea during class. This helps.

As our final class, we each have an internship. After arguing with myself about whether I wanted to intern at an NGO or something to do with politics, I decided to forget about what looks good on paper and do something I actually want: Photography. Yep, I'm interning at a Photography gallery. It's. So. Cool. I have never studied photography, I just like it a lot and like to pretend that I sometimes take cool pictures. I met with the director of the Gallery, Larisa, and her second in command, Tatyana, last Wednesday. Tatyana asked me what I saw myself doing at the gallery and how I could help them; I responded "Well...I haven't studied photography so I can do whatever you want!" Apparently they liked me, because they told me to come back Friday to start my work.
I love this place; it's a small gallery located in a complex of other galleries, called the Vinzavod Center of Modern Arts. I even just love the walk to get there -- I go under a bridge adorned with graffiti and follow small, picturesque side streets to the gallery. Too artsy.
So far they have me creating spreadsheets and cataloging bunches of photographs. I don't care if that's all I do. I love it; I'm speaking Russian, I'm with artsy people, they're all really nice, we listen to cool funky music, and I get to drink tea. (By the way, in case you ever thought about putting salt in your tea instead of sugar, don't do it; salty Earl Grey is absolutely terrible.)

That's all about classes for now. Go get another cup of tea. I will now tell you about last weekend's trip outside of Moscow:

Last week Russia celebrated Maslenitsa, aka Butterweek. As in many other countries, this is the week before Lent and therefore filled with festivities and lots of soon to be verboten food. Blini are eaten every day and represent the sun, since after all it's almost spring. ...I don't really believe it's almost spring, but that's what they're saying. On the last day of Maslenitsa, the people gather and have a big outdoor festival in the freezing cold, complete with "adult games" such as men taking most of their clothes off and climbing tall wooden poles, or men again taking most of their clothes off and having a big ol' fist fight until the last man standing. No one dies. I think.

So, for Maslenitsa we traveled three hours outside Moscow to Vladimir and Suzdal, two cities on the Golden Ring, aka two pretty, important, and pretty important cities for Russian history. We walked around Vladimir just long enough to soak in the Vladimir-style architecture and since you know how much I love architecture that's all I'll say about that.

We then caught a bus to Suzdal, checked into our hotel located in one of the gagillion monasteries, and rested a bit before going to........THE BANYA.

In case you haven't heard of the Russian banya, this is what happens: you're in a super hot steamy sauna room for as long as you can take it, then you go outside and jump/roll around in the snow, then you go back into the steam room and are beaten with birch branches, then you soap up, rinse, and repeat.

I was totally expecting the banya to be this huge room with a bunch of naked Russians beating each other, but we had our own little private banya all to ourselves. The few hours leading up to our banya adventure were mostly spent questioning how many clothes we were going to be allowed to wear. I had brought a swimsuit but I was still convinced our group was about to have quite a bonding experience and be all naked. Once we got to the banya, the owner showed us to the little banya house and promptly said "Razdivyaites!" which means "Undress!" We all said "Wait...what?!" and then remembered that this also means "Take your coats off." After a sufficient amount of nervous laughter, we razdivyaitesed and prepared to be steam cooked.

Now, I despise being sweaty. It was so hot in that room, and sweat was pouring from places I didn't even know sweat could pour from. Needless to say, I was quite excited for the whole jumping in snow bit, and ran outside to play in the snow until I couldn't feel my feet anymore, at which point I returned to be beaten. The getting beat with birch branches also felt very good. I only have a few wounds that are still healing. Just kidding.

After our triumphant return from the banya, we decided to sample the local specialty medovukha, a delicious honey alcohol drink which has actually been in Russia longer than vodka.

The next day was the big end of Maslenitsa celebration in the center of town, complete with pole climbing, people running around in traditional costumes, dancing, lots of blini, and of course medovukha. We attempted to get a picture with the giant dolls, but they ran away from us and instead we asked to take a picture with some cute little dressed up girls. They first demanded candy before taking a picture with us; after handing over two pieces of chocolate, we danced and took pictures and it was all quite lovely.

It was very very very cold and we were thus forced to dance and drink medovukha to keep warm:

It was overall a nice, freezing, relaxing trip outside the big city.

So, that is basically what has been going on.
Oh, January and February featured the birthdays of Kelly, Irina, Phil, and me, which clearly meant we had to celebrate. Jonathan had the most brilliantest of brilliant ideas and suggested we go to an Indian restaurant. I think it was the first time I have had slightly spicy restaurant food in Russia. Oh how I miss spicy food!

I also must add that my English is definitely getting worse; first of all, I can't think of words. Second, we all mix in Russian words when we're talking, and to make matters worse we usually mix the Russian with English, creating such masterpieces as "I govorilad with so-and-so" (I talked with so-and-so) or "I think I'm all priklyucheniyad out" (I think I'm all adventured out). Alright so maybe that last sentence isn't good English, either, but the point is: Russian is taking over. I have decided that I'm not protiv (against) this.

One last thing: It started snowing about four days ago and hasn't stopped. As Jonathan pointed out, it's like you're constantly getting bombarded with little icy missiles.
And everyone thought the cold war was over. False.

Until next time, dorogi (dears).

A Letter

2010-02-01T21:54:00.007+03:00

Dear Moscow,

I'm back.

I missed your smells -- your stinky, smokey, stuffy smells. I missed your people rushing to get away from the cold, especially the women wearing ridiculous heels clicking effortlessly over the patches of ice. I missed your business lunches and endless cups of tea. I didn't really miss your vodka, but we can talk about that later.

This time, Moscow, I'm not as intimidated by you. I know my way around; I speak your language (usually); I know you're harsh but you're awfully pretty sometimes. I am very glad, as you know, that I'll be here another semester. Now I have more time to process all the culture you've thrown at me and make some sense of it all. It will be difficult and full of things that won't make sense to my little Western-bread mind. I will try, however, to understand what's going on and I won't judge you for your misfortunes. You do lead a tough life, but I like that; I know what I'm getting myself into, this way.

I wouldn't mind if you'd let the sun stop by once and a while, for we used to be fairly good friends and I haven't seen him in a while. In the meantime, I'll make do with your best friend, snow. By the way, do you think it's bad that I think just below freezing is a heat wave? Yeah, I don't think so either.

Well, Moscow, I hope you're as ready for me as I am for you. Things will probably get epic (I've heard this happens when one can see Russia from one's house), and I'm positive we're going to enjoy ourselves this semester.

From Russia with love,
Kara

It is vacation, after all?

2010-01-11T01:56:00.004+03:00

Alright.
So maybe I lied when I said I would have plenty of time to update you on more things about Russia.
I do hope to do this someday, or, if you really want to know, you can ask me and I shall spill all the beans.

In the meantime, I'll fill you in on my life as of late:

I'm entering week four of my six week break. A few people from school are here with me, making this by far the most entertaining of breaks I've had yet. Another friend from Russia also came to visit for New Years, and I got to see some high school friends who I haven't seen in way too long.

Side note -- how is it already 2010? This is getting ridiculous.

Anyways, I've been trying to be a good tour guide and take people to all these nifty little unknown corners of Germany/Europe, while also forcing the guests to try different kinds of German beer (I'm sure they really hated me for that) and eating as much of my mom's food as humanly possible. We even got to go up to Bremen, Germany, to visit some fellow Dickinson students who are studying there for the year.

We've ran into Russians literally every place we've been to.
We take a day trip to Bruges, Belgium, and who is in front of us in the line to go up the bell tower? Why, a group of Russian tourists, of course, complaining about the long line. (I found this slightly ironic.)
We venture up to northern Germany only to see a stereotypical Russian man (in the black leather jacket, slightly greasy hair, and sneaky aura type way) reading a Russian newspaper right behind us.
We get to Bremen and find a group of Russian school students doing their little circle dance in the middle of old Bremen.

As the saying goes, you can take the girl out of Russia, but the Russians will just follow her everywhere she goes.

I'll Be Back.

2009-12-11T16:56:00.004+03:00

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."

2009-12-05T17:50:00.009+03:00

(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

2009-12-04T20:06:00.005+03:00

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?

2009-12-01T19:54:00.013+03:00

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

2009-11-25T15:05:00.011+03:00

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

2009-11-21T22:50:00.004+03:00

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

2009-11-15T18:07:00.010+03:00

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

2009-11-12T01:00:00.002+03:00

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

2009-11-09T19:45:00.012+03:00

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

2009-11-07T21:21:00.004+03:00

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?

2009-11-04T23:54:00.006+03:00

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.

2009-11-02T20:27:00.009+03:00

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

2009-10-30T08:36:00.004+03:00

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

2009-10-20T20:59:00.011+04:00

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

2009-10-14T17:11:00.008+04:00

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

2009-10-11T15:21:00.006+04:00

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.

2009-10-07T17:17:00.023+04:00

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

2009-09-27T22:53:00.010+04:00

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.

2009-09-26T01:31:00.002+04:00

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

2009-09-13T12:14:00.013+04:00

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

2009-09-10T23:20:00.005+04:00

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

2009-09-06T12:03:00.008+04:00

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

2009-09-06T00:30:00.004+04:00

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

2009-09-03T23:40:00.005+04:00

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

2009-09-02T19:11:00.007+04:00

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

2009-09-01T10:16:00.004+04:00

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!

достопримечательности

2009-08-27T21:43:00.009+04:00

I'm really excited for classes to start so I can have a set schedule. These first two weeks will just be orientation stuff, i.e. crash course review of Russian, learning our way around, and visiting lots of sights, aka достопримечательности (pronounced "dosta-pree-mah-chahst-el-nost-ee", one of the coolest Russian words, I must say). As promised, here are pictures of some достопримечательности. I also plan on using the word достопримечательности as many times as I can in this post. достопримечательности достопримечательности достопримечательности!

Anyways, here are some pictures of some достопримечательности:

But of course I wouldn't disappoint you by not having a picture of St. Basil's Cathedral on Red Square:

This is the girls of the group and our program director at a monastery. It's not such a touristy place and women have to wear skirts (or are provided wraps at the gate) and must cover their heads.

On Wednesday the weather was nice and sunny, so we went on a boat ride down the river, which also provided awesome views of the city. We bought blini -- like crepes, filled with anything from caviar to mushrooms and cheese -- and ate on the boat. (I'm on a boat I'm on a boat!)

And this is me trying to be artsy:
The prettyness in the background is St. Peter's Basilica. I took this picture on a bridge where newly married couples come to attach a lock and throw the key away in the river. Aww.

Tomorrow will be filled with more Russian and достопримечательности!

Well, do ya, punk?

2009-08-27T01:12:00.003+04:00

I finished studying for the night and went to watch a little TV with my host mom. Last night we watched a show called "Let's get Married." It's hilarious; a man or woman who want to get married go on the show, and the hosts bring in other people to choose from. They go through a series of interviews, bring gifts to impress, and are interviewed by friends and family. It's basically like MTV, but less high-tech and cooler because it's in Russian and everything sounds funnier in Russian.
A Clint Eastwood movie was starting as I sat down to watch the "televisor" tonight. My host mom had never heard of Clint Eastwood, so I quickly explained that most of his films were Westerns with cowboys, and that he's usually the hero who saves the town and gets the girl. Whenever an epic shooting scene occurred she would gasp a little and shake her head.
Those crazy hooligan cowboys.

No smiling, please.

2009-08-26T18:48:00.005+04:00

Success! I finally have internet at my apartment. I found a free network I can use if I sit in/near the hallway of my apartment and I’ll try to get a safer connection soon. I’ve only been without internet for a few days, but it seems like a lifetime. I’m addicted.
Right now I should be studying new words I’ve learned, but instead I’m writing to you lovely people. I justify this procrastination by saying that I don’t want to forget anything that’s happened thus far, and therefore I must write it all down now. So, a summary of the past few days:
Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite was playing as I boarded my plane which would whisk me away to Mother Russia. I flew Aeroflot, a Russian airline, and since I was flying from Germany it was only about a two hour flight. Awesome. I arrived in Moscow around midnight but luckily I didn’t have to figure out the trains and metro right away – the program director and her husband picked me up and drove me home. Oh, and Moscow drivers? Craaaaazy!
I made it to my host mother’s apartment around two in the morning and she had some tea and little pastry type things ready for me, all of which were very delicious. My host mom is fairly old and has children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. As I sipped my tea and desperately tried to remember my food vocab, she mentioned that she speaks a little German. Wunderbar! Ok so yes maybe this is cheating a little, but when we don’t understand each other and after playing charades gets old, she says “po-nemenski?” (In German?) and voila! Everything works out.
The apartment is almost exactly as I imagined it would be: small. I don’t want to say it’s not nice, because it is nice. It’s just not up to the typical modern American standards, which I admit surprised me a little and even made me wonder what I’d gotten myself into. These feelings went away after I had a good night’s sleep and more yummy pastries in the morning. Now as some of you know, I’m a little obsessed with my memory foam mattress pad. Four inches of super-soft bliss? I think yes. Sadly I could only bring my memory foam pillow (which I tried to translate as “special pillow”…didn’t quite work out). My bed here is also made of foam but on a scale of 1 – memoryfoambliss, I’d rate it a 3. Oh well, I’m in Russia. If I had to sleep on the floor, I would. And I would love it.
On Monday my host mom took me to the metro station near her apartment, about a 10 minute walk. I’d heard the stories and even seen the pictures, but if you haven’t seen the Moscow metro in person, you ain’t seen nothin. The escalators going down to the trains are INSANE. They go on seemingly forever at what I think are 45 degree angles. I felt like I was going to fall forward and take everyone with me. The stations are also very, very beautiful, with architecture like you’d find in a museum. There were also tons of people since the metro is the fastest and cheapest way to get around; you can find anyone from the lower to upper classes in the metro. It was all a little intimidating at first, but on Tuesday our program director taught us all about the metro: how to buy tickets, how to make transfers, how to ask for help, and how to respond when someone asks directions. I can now confidently go from my apartment, transfer to another line, and continue on to the station by the university.
I’ve been warned that it’s easy to spot an American in Moscow because they smile at everyone and expect a smile in return. Silly Americans. In Moscow, like any big city, there are too many people to spend all your time smiling. I’m a pretty smiley person, so I sometimes have to work at my game face. Most of all, I try to imitate what the Russians are doing. As the program director told us, Russians read on the metro, so we should read; if they don’t read they stare at you, so we should stare back.

More about the host mom situation: So far the only English word she’s said is “chicken.” Of course it’s awkward at times, but this really really really forces me to speak Russian, which is after all is what I’m here for. It’s only been a few days but I already feel way more comfortable that at first. Since I’m originally from Washington state, I brought her a book of scenic photographs of Washington and a little jar of Washington huckleberry jam (which, incidentally, I have no idea how to translate to Russian.) The gifts broke the ice a little. I also brought a photo album with pictures of me growing up, my family, and my friends. Having pictures and describing them made it a lot easier to hold an actual conversation, and she really liked seeing little bits from my life. After that she showed me her family pictures and we stood (a little awkwardly I admit) in her living room talking about her family, her dacha (summer house), and when she was a teacher. She also has a million books and I’ll ask her if I can read them in a few days.
I eat breakfast and dinner at home and the food is very yummy. I was scared that my host mom would say I’m too skinny and try to force feed me, but luckily if I say I’m full she doesn’t try to shove more potatoes down my throat. So far my favorite things she’s made are the little pastries (I need to find out what they’re called…) and this other really tasty thing (so I really need to review food vocab) which is spread on bread or slices of vegetables. I asked her what it was and thought she said caviar. Eating caviar freaks me out a little, but it was so good that I didn’t care. (Maybe not knowing what you’re eating is better anyway?) I ate it again the next day and asked what it’s called in German. Lo and behold, I was not eating caviar but cabbage. Whew. There is also a never ending supply of tea and coffee. Wunderbar!
I've been having problems using the keys to get into the apartment (she fo' reals needs some WD40 on those locks) and my host mom informed me that if I could learn how to open the door she would go to her dacha for a few days. This morning I think she said she was going to her dacha, so when I came home I was more than a little scared that I wouldn't be able to get in. Luckily I was smarter than the keys (after a few tries) and made it through the door. I'm not sure when she's coming back...or what I should make for dinner...but....as my host mom says, "Всё будет хорошо" - Everything will be OK.

Tomorrow we're being interviewed by professors from the university so they can see how much Russian we know. Scary.
Time to study! I'll try to post pictures next time.

From Russia with love (I will frequently reference movies, so get used to it),

Kara

You're going...where?

2009-08-06T00:51:00.002+04:00

When people ask why in the world I want to go to Russia, I’m not really sure how to respond without sounding like a blathering idiot who makes big decisions such as going to Russia on a whim.

“Because I’m a Russian major…” is what I usually lead off with.

“But...why did you choose Russian? And what are you even going to do with your Russian?” most often comes next.

This is where it gets tricky.

How do I describe why I’m so drawn to Russia when I’m not really sure myself? Honestly (and this is where the blathering idiot part comes in), I think I chose Russian because it has such a unique, pretty alphabet. Look at it: Я люблю Россию. For all you know I could’ve just insulted your mother, but who cares when it looks so COOL?! …so it might not be the most intellectual, awe-inspiring answer to the question, but I’m pretty sure the Cyrillic alphabet is what first drew me to Russian. I also became obsessed with Russian when I saw The Hunt For Red October – the song that plays during the credits makes me want to cry. In a good way.

Well that’s all fine and dandy, but why do I actually want to go to Russia, to that far away, freezing land with danger, corruption, and communists lurking around every corner? Because, silly, those are called stereotypes and I’m not scared of them. Besides, I like the cold. In all seriousness, Russia intrigues me; the history, the people, the food, everything. Russia seems to be a country most people have their minds made up about. They see the actions Russia’s leaders take and then revert back to the days of building bomb shelters and acting like McCarthy. I want to make up my own mind. I want to understand why, not just see what.

After trying to explain why I chose Russian and why I’m going to Russia, the question of what I’m going to do with what I learn still looms in the air. The short answer is work for the government, which yields the “What, like…become a spy?” response. I’ll just leave it at that. After all, if I told you more…I’d have to kill you.

So, there it is: the most solid response I’ve ever given in response to why Russia. While in Russia, I’ll try my best to come up with a better answer as well as keep this blog updated fairly frequently. No promises, though.

I’m eighteen days away from getting on that plane. Eighteen days. Years of waiting have dwindled down to eighteen little days.

Bring it on.