Friday, May 25, 2007
Гммм
Some time in the near future I am going to write an entry to wrap things up, detail what I will and won't miss from Russia, etc. For now however, I would much rather walk around the place I have called home for the last few months and actively reminisce rather than passively on paper.
I hope everyone is happy and healthy.
До скорого,
-Гриша
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Расписание
May 26 - Yaroslavl - Moscow
May 27 - Moscow - Irkutsk
May 30 - Arrive in Irkutsk
May 31 - Irktusk to Lostyanka (and back) to see one view of Lake Baikal
June 1- Irkutsk to an island named Olkhon in the center of Lake Baikal! (arrive at night)
June 2 - Day tour of Olkhon
June 3 Olkhon - Irkutsk
June 4 Day in Irkutsk and then Irkutsk -Ulan Ude
June 5 Bus from Ulan Ude - Ulaanbatar (Mongolia!!!)
June 6 Start tour of Mongolia/Gobi Desert
June 12 End tour in Ulaanbatar
and after that a flight back to Moscow and a day or two in Yaroslavl and, um, home.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Оранжовое Настроене
All that remains to be done now is to book my tour of Mongolia and the Gobi Desert.
Oh, and all my finals, too.
Also, I and a friend were just on the news from when we were watching the Day of Victory Parade. So I’ve achieved my dream of being on Russian TV.
Edit: I also just won Spider Solitaire with 2 suits. This accomplishment probably interests no one but me.
Наконец!
Its finals time here in Russia.
The long definition of this means that I am swamped with work and need to do the following:
15 minute oral presentation on the group “KINO” for Русская Култура (already done)
3, 3 page essays for Culture class
A 12 page analytical essay on Gorky’s early prose (the official thesis is “How Gorky’s portrayal of landscapes works in conjunction with his romantic hero and the idea of freedom in earlier works”)
A Russian Grammar test
And an acting presentation for Phonetics
All of these, of course, in Russian.
The short definition of this means that I have rediscovered the joys of “3D Space Cadet Pinball” on my computer. My procrastination has resulted in a whole slew of new high scores, most notably the 2,341,500 highest score.
To make myself feel better about it all, the names that correspond to each High Score all include my name and a description of what project I am supposed to be working on while playing pinball.
Example: the aforementioned 2,341,500 high score has a corresponding name of «Гриша (работая на доклад)” or, in English “Greg (working on report)” This specific one was for history. But there are other ones there “Greg (working on essay)”, “Greg (working on homework)” etc.
Ok, this really isn’t about Russia.
On Saturday I saw a play, Chekhov’s “Two Funny Stories About Love” (the title sounds much better in Russian) and, amazingly, I understood almost all of it (about 80 percent). It was hilarious-there is one actor there who is incredibly talented. He is the kind of actor you could watch for hours on end and never get tired of. A friend of mine works at the theater and has offered to sneak me in any time I want to see a play.
Oh, before the play, while walking to the theater, I saw something absolutely incredible. It was sunny out but half the sky was covered in dark clouds. And then, all of a sudden, it started to hail. I have seen sun showers but I have never, in my life seen a..I don’t even know what to call it, a Sun Hailing? Anyways, it was beautiful and if I wasn’t so tired I’d do a better job of describing it here, but, sufficed to stay, I delayed my trip to the theater by a good 10 minutes by just stopping and standing and watching the square in front of me, the sun right above me shining, a bit farther off darkened clouds, and all around me streams of little white circles.
I was supposed to see Spiderman 3 in Russian tonight with some friends but unfortunately tickets were sold out.
Tomorrow is День Победы (Day of Victory [WWII]). This is an incredibly important day in Russia (I believe I have already touched upon the significance of the second World War in Russian history and the unimaginable toll it took). There will be a parade tomorrow and many, many veterans will be out on the streets, it will be very interesting to see.
It’s a very odd feeling that this is already my last month here. In fact, I have even less, since soon I will be buying a train ticket to head to Siberia, see Lake Baikal, and then head on a tour of Mongolia. So I actually leave here, if all goes as planned, on the 27th, and don’t return to just a few days before my plane flight back on the 16th of June.
By the way, the train to Irkutsk (Siberia) is 3 days long.
That grammar was incorrect. The train ride is 3 days long. The train is probably about 20 cars or so. I’m already forgetting English.
Like I said earlier, its strange that I only have a month left. The other day, after coming home late, I happened to look at the two large suitcases I had brought with me to Russia, now stuffed in the corner of my room. And these suitcases, that months ago seemed so heavy while I dragged them anxiously and expectantly out of the freezing night and up the dirty stairs to my Babooshka’s apartment, the suitcases, in which I had absurdly “prepared” all my clothes and books and emotions for something you can never truly prepare for, these suitcases that now lay forgotten in the corner – they had dust on them.
You can take that for whatever kind of metaphor you want.
ok, I have to get back to work, hope all is well with everyone,
-Гриша
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Так....
So…
I don’t know if anyone is left that still reads this or if you’ve all long since given up hope that I would make a decent update (I know I have!)
I don’t even remember the last time I wrote, I think it was upon returning from Moscow on my break, yeah.
Well its April 30th now and, if I remember the song right I think there are only 30 days in April which means tomorrow will be May 1. This is incredibly strange, not only because it means I will be leaving in a little over a month, but because it means I arrived here 3+ months ago. However, I don’t want to do a wrap-up/reflective entry just yet, so you’ll have to settle for a sporadic list of interesting things in the order I remember them.
Russian Writers-First and foremost, for some reason I never posted about this but it has probably been one of the greatest things to have happened here. About 2+ months ago I found out that there was a writer’s group meeting in Yaroslavl. So I went to it and there I became friends with a circle of real Russian writers (many of them published, all of them poets). One of the guys there even has his own publication and wants me to submit my own writing to be translated and published in the journal. So that would be cool.
But I really wish I had written about this when it first happened, because it was incredible, I went ot the meeting, perhaps freaked the participants out a bit by my direct questions about philosophy of writing, subject matters, etc, but then we spent about 5 hours just walking around discussing form vs. function, the future of writing, reciting poetry (me, the poetry I knew in Russian, them, the poetry they knew in English), etc. Anyways, I meet with them about once every two weeks so that is great.
Concerts-Besides the classical music concerts I try to go to at least once every two weeks Irecently went to an INCREDIBLE concert here by the group Машина Времени (Time Machine). They are known as the “Russian Beatles” as a result of their popularity (they’ve been around for over 30 years and are more or less the equivalent to the Rolling Stones in terms of name recognition). The concert was amazing.
Детский Дом- that translates to “Orphanage”. With the YMCA group here I went to an orphanage about a month ago which was a very interesting experience. Unfortunately because of the high frequency of slang used it was difficult for me to fully understand everything the kids there were saying. But I was very glad I went and I wish I had more time to write about it.
Черупашки Нинжи – There’s really no excuse for not writing about this earlier. That translates to “Ninja Turtles”. Yes, those ones. Well, the new movie is playing here and, as it was обязательно (incredibly incredibly necessary) that me and the other Americans had a chance to see our childhood heroes (read: “current heroes” as well) we all got together one day, headed down to one of the local theaters, bought tickets with more excitement than the people at the theater had probably ever seen, and sat down and watched a good 2hours of Ninja Turtles…in RUSSIAN. After that we went and ate pizza. There were a bunch of photographs taken to document the event but unfortunately they are on someone else’s camera now and won’t be up for a while.
Moscow- Last week I was in Moscow for a conference for Middlebury students and graduates of the language school. It was basically a gathering for the purpose of networking and I was able to get a whole collection of business cards from people currently working in Moscow. The best part of this was being able to see some of my friends from summer school who I have not seen in a while.
Middlebury Professors- Earlier last week Professor Beyer (my first Russian teacher ever! Professor Beyer, if you are reading this, hello!) and two other Middlebury Professors came to visit us (they were also at the conference) and we all had breakfast together one day. It was really nice, and strange to actually be able to have a conversation in Russian, especially when most of my first year conversations consisted of saying my name and where I am from with a 5 minute pause in between each word.
Currently I have been incredibly busy as a result of finals and friends. When I don’t have встречи (meetings, but more accurately in the context of “hanging out”) I am reading non-stop. Except for the breaks.
I’m at the point now where half of me wants to go to home, but the other half knows that the second I am there I will want to be back in Russia. A while back I came to the odd realization that with every step I take here, a bigger and bigger part of me is going to stay here. At times I feel as if I don’t have a home anymore, or more accurately one single place I can call home. That and my personality is split between my Russian self and my American self. One of the things people who have been to Russia always say is that “when you’re in Russia you want to be home, and when you are home you want to be in Russia”. I think I’ve mentioned that here before.
Oh, on an even more philosophical note (and this is addressed to my first year Russian classmates):
Do you guys remember that cartoon we watched «Дядя Федор»? and how there was that one really odd scene (ok, there were a lot of really odd scenes) with the cat and the sandwich and a) we had never seen a sandwich that looked like that before and b) we had no idea what the cat was talking about [for those of you were not lucky enough to be witnesses to this film, the scene in question basically involves a cat, eating a sandwich, except he tells this kid that the best way to eat the sandwich is upside down (there is only bread on one side) because it tastes better that way. Ok, after that explanation every one should be just as confused as we were]
WELL:
The sandwiches бутерброды really DO look just like that here. AND, I took the cat’s advice, and ate one upside down – they taste like 50 times better.
Regarding the same мултфильм (cartoon) – I was walking down the street about a month or two ago and I saw a man that looked exactly like the creepy postman also from Дядя Федор.
I think there were other parallels I had meant to address as well but they will have to be saved for another time.
With only a month left I’ll try to do more updating in here.
Also, remember that band Сплин (Spleen), my favorite group here? Through a series of random events (ok, two) I ended up with the phone number of one of the members. We’ll see where this leads…
Also, to anyone whose email I have yet to reply to…I am going to very soon, I’m sorry if I haven’t gotten back to you yet!
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Its been a while
I have been extremely busy between spending time with friends here and occasionally finding the time to do schoolwork.
But there will be a new post in which all is detailed.
It just won't be this one.
Hope everyone is well,
-Гриша
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Moscow
Even though its 2 minutes till midnight and I just got back from Moscow (safe and sound I should add) and I really want to sleep, I am going to write this entry now, recapping Moscow because, as we all know, if I just put a promise for the entry here, chances are it won’t appear later. Or maybe it will appear but on a completely different theme or topic than promised. Moving on,
I’ve always had a underlying appreciation for
Both Olyeg and Aleksei got their Visas! I am psyched beyond beliefe about this, as it means they will be in
The second halfd of the day was spent wlaking around
And then in the afternoon I met up with the people for whom I am currently working translating their website. They are a band (called “RadaNik”) and we had an incredible time – went to a café, talked, laughed; it turns out one of the members of the band loves Mr. Bean with a passion only, perhaps, eclipsed by my own, and we spent a good hour or so saying things like “Помните когда он делал это!» “Remember the time he did this!” etc. It was great, and they are all wonderful people and I now have an open invitation to go to a recording session of theirs next time I am in
Sunday night I saw a presentation of Gogol’s Ревизор “The Revisor” (maybe that’s not an accurate translation), a comedy that I occasionally understood and, when I did, very much enjoyed.
Its impossible to stress just how different the Russian view of World War II is. Not difference, so much as, just how central a part the war played (and continues to play) in the lives of Russians today. In
«Что такое Русский стол?»
«Там лежит пива, бутилка водки, киелбаса, и собака.»
«За чем собака?»
«Есть киелбасу»
In English
”What makes a Russian table (for eating. Basically: What is a Russian table composed of)”
“Beer, a bottle of vodka, kielbasa, and a dog”
“Why a dog?”
“To eat the kielbasa”
Klin is a nice, small town that certainly has the feel of the Russian countryside, occasionally interrupted by busy streets. One large difference from either
There was only one sort of scary incident that happened on my way back. Sensing the fact that I stood out fairly strong in the town I tried to take as few pictures as possible so as to not look even more like a tourist. However, at one point I came across a bridge that was over a small but pretty waterfall. I figured that taking pictures of the waterfall would not immediately identify me as a foreigner, since Russians probably did as well, and therefore headed down the staircase to the path which ran alongside the river and started taking a few pictures.
Suddenly I heard a loud crash close to me and looked up to see a group of middle schoolers standing on the bridge overlooking the waterfall. They were throwing fairly large stones in my direction and laughing. (I only found out later that this happened to a friend of mine in
Returning by train to
Tuesday: Went to the Tretyakovskaya Gallery (an incredibly famouse museume, with onie of the best collections of Russian art), got in at the student price which is about 2 dollars. Afterwards I went back to “
One last story before I finish up:
On the train ride back I was quite tired and was looking forward just to reading and not having to think, so for the first hour I ate my Russian equivalent of Raman Noodles, drank my chai, and read. But somehow or another, (I forget how) I ended up exchanging a few words with the guy sitting across from me (with the intention of going back to reading right afterwards). However, the conversation quickly took a fairly philosophical turn and, not being one to turn down such a conversation, the remaining 3 hours on the train flew by as we talked passionately about the human soul, how to lead the fullest life, karma, God’s existence, and the responsibility of one human being to another. It was an incredible conversation and it turns out the man (he’s probably about 30-40 years old) lives in
This is already too long of an entry and badly written. Next time I am going to write an entry about various aspects of Russian culture/philosophy I enjoy/don’t enjoy. And perhaps soon I will finish the entry I already started about the 8th of March as it touches on many of the same themes.
In conclusion, I successfully traveled alone around
До скорово,
Гриша