Гммм

Its my last day in Yaroslavl...


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

Расписание

My travel itinerary (crossing fingers, knocking on wood, avoding cats of the black variety, etc.) if all these trains don't keep changing their schedules:


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.

Оранжовое Настроене

I currently have, in my wallet, a train ticket to Irkutsk for the 27th of May. I am psyched beyond belief.

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!

(this entry was written two days ago)

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

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!

Its been a while

There will be a new post VERY soon!

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

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,

Moscow.

Wait, I want to preface this with a short description of Peterbsurg (remember that?). Petersburg was beautiful and the entire time I was there I felt like I was in Europe, Venice to be exact (which I only found out later was the city that Peter modeled his city after more than any other) But it was interesting because as beautiful and interesting as Peter was (Peter as in the city. Though Peter the First was, indeed, a very interesting and well groomed individual) it had a completely different feel to it than any other Russian city I’ve been in. The whole time I was there I felt as if I was in Europe but with Russian people walking around on the streets. Поэтому I am glad I only visited there and am not studying there. Though I don’t agree with people that say Peter is “not Russia” I do agree that its feel is not as close to the heart of RussiaMoscow. as, say,

Speaking of which,

Thursday I arrived in Moscow with my friends and the first half of the day was spent seeing if they would pass the test to get their Visas. We arrived at a small square where stood an incredibly large gathering of people (there are only 6 or so days each month when people can go see the Consul for the interview to try and receive the Visa). There were more than 400 people there, and at one point Oleg (one of my friends) turned to me and, in English said “You should be proud of your country. Look how many people want to go to it.”

I’ve always had a underlying appreciation for America and of course every time I criticize her policies or political tendencies I thought I was doing it out of a deep seeded love for my country. And I was, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say love, I think my appreciation and understanding of America is just that, a strong realization of how lucky I am to live in such a country, but nothing close to a feeling of love. But what Oleg said really struck me and I stood there, while they waited for their numbers to be called, looking at all the people there, the giant crowd, each waiting anxiously for his or her turn. The most striking and powerful scene I saw was, while waiting for Oleg and Aleksei to emerge from the Consul building (a nerveracking wait) I saw a young girl exit from the building. She had just received her Visa and smiling wildly, ran to embrace her mother, who had tears in her eyes. And I think it was exactly then, that I fully felt how important this opportunity was for people.

Both Olyeg and Aleksei got their Visas! I am psyched beyond beliefe about this, as it means they will be in America this summer.

The second halfd of the day was spent wlaking around Red Square.

Friday: After moving into “Galina’s Flat” (a small 4 room apartment, a woman named Galina rents out to people) I spent Friday morning inside the Kremlin and then walked around for a good 9 hours going to pretty much ever single literary spot in Moscow. These included: Lermontov’s House, Chekhov’s house, Gogol’s house (unfortunately closed for renovations) Bulgakov’s Flat, Patriarch Ponds (the opening scene from Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita, Gorky’s house and various other places.

Saturday: I spent the morning at a cemetery looking at famous dead people: GOGOL!, Chekhov, Kruschev, Bulgakov and then went to a very beautiful church which I forget now how it is named. But there are pictures of it, it’s the one with the giant golden dome. Yeah.

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 Moscow along with a CD of theirs they gave to me as a gift.

Saturday night I saw a concert of the group Сплин (Spleen), probably my favorite Russian rock group that is currently still together. It was incredible. And I was 50 feet away from the stage (it was a small club but still), and they played some of my favorite songs. And I bought a shirt.

Sunday: My second day in Moscow while heading into the Metro I suddenly heard “Гриша!”, turned around to see who had yelled out my name and saw a friend of mine (Misha) who had worked at the Middlebury Russian Language Schools last summer. He is living and working in Moscow now and so on Sunday we had made plans to meet up. And we spent a long time catching up and talking about the Russian experience in general. Also, the next time I visit Mocow I will be able to do so free of charge as Misha has kindly offered his apartment to me any time I need it.

I forgot to add that Sunday morning I was in Red Square and saw the body of Lenin and the grave of Stalin. Both resulted in a vary odd feeling; seeing a body or the place of rest of a body that once held so much power, and under whose command so many people died (60 million under Stalin I believe). If I was more in the mood to write I would elaborate on this point.

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.

Monday: was by far the most interesting and unorthodox day as all of my original plans fell through and most things were thrown together at the last minute. I had originally planned to travel by train to an Yasnay Polyana, a town about 4 hours outside of Moscow where Tolstoy’s estate is located. Woke up early, bought my ticket, only to find out when double checking information in my guide book that the museum is closed on Mondays. Returned my ticket. I still wanted to travel outside of Moscow and thus found another town to go to called КлинПарк Победи (Victory Park) an entire park dedicated to the Russian Soldiers of World War II. The main museum ended up being closed but this was a blessing in disguise because the grounds were almost empty and hauntingly quiet, so that the only feeling was one of incredible awe and smallness standing beside the incredible monument that formed the center of the park (there are pictures). (pronounced Clean, as my clothes rarely are here) where Tchaikovsky’s house is. Bought my ticket and with the 3 hours I had until the train left I went to see

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 America we talk about the “Lost Generation” but in Russia this phrase applies to such an exact degree it is almost impossible to see things from the Russian viewpoint. America had many losses in WWII but in Russia almost one person in EVERY family was killed, oftentimes entire families were killed, in the long struggle. As a result, any American visiting Russia will frequently be met with the question “Who won WWII?” It is the opinion of most Russians that all Americans believe they, themselves won WWII, (this certainly is not completely true but, to some degree each country has its own biases when teaching history in schools), while Russians get little credit for the incredible price they paid. Every time I’ve had this conversation with Russians I’ve tried to make it clear that I am aware the Russians were invested for a longer time but that does not mitigate America’s losses. Regardless on this point, WWII, no matter how hard I try I find it impossible to fully comprehend how strong a part WWII plays in the Russian Conisciousness, and on just what incredible a scale the death toll was.

After the park I went ot the train station, got on the train, and sat next to an old Russian man who told me Russian Jokes. The funniest one, and the one I understood the best, was the first and goes something like this:

«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”

I arrived in Klin, only to find out when I got to the museum a piece of very important information that was not written in my guidebook. I documented this revelation in my photos where can be seen a very friendly, welcoming sign, that just happens to say (in English and Russian) that the museum is closed the last Monday of each month. So I took a picture of the house through the iron gate and, finding it meaningless to return immediately to Moscow, decided to try and find my way back to the train station by walking. I knew this would be a good half hour to hour walk and as a result I would be able to see some of the town.

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 Moscow or Yaroslavl, however, is the attitude of the people there towards foreigners. There is no outward display of antagonism, and I wouldn’t even say a very strong dislike, but I definitely received a feeling from people I passed on the street that it was strange I was in their town and I wasn’t fully welcome. Of course in Yaroslavl (Moscow even more) the sight of иностранци (foreigners) is something people have grown used to. But small towns like Klin, except for the draw of Tchaikovski’s house, I would imagine don’t often see too many foreigners. That said, everyone I asked for direction was very kind and obliging.

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 Irkutsk while she was running and a bunch of middle school aged kids threw stones at her and ran after her. I’m not even sure if it was because I was a foreigner or just because they thought it was funny). Anyways ,it was a difficult situation because I wanted to yell something in Russian at them, or at least make some threatening movement in their direction, but the last thing I wanted was for other people, seeing or hearing my response, to get involved. Therefore I stood there with a smirk on my face, looking at them, and then walked away. That was probably the most worrisome moment I had the entire time traveling alone in Moscow but, in comparison to stories I have heard it was nothing.

Returning by train to Moscow I knew I wanted to see some sort of concert and that they started at 7:00. Luckily, the Russian sense of time is about as good as mine and concerts usually start at least 20 minutes late. (Interesting fact: if you tell a Russian “see you at 4”, they will meet you around 4 but probably be late. If you tell them, “see you after 4” with the intention of seeing them at, say, 4:15, they may arrive at 6). So at 7:04 I ran into the famous Tchaikosvsky Concert Hall to see if there were any tickets left for the performance. All were sold out, but there happened to be someone standing nearby me who said he had an extra ticket. After a good 5 minutes of scrutinizing the ticket to make sure it was real, and finding no fault with it, I bought it (for the equivalent of 6 dollars!) and for the next 3 hours saw the Moscow Symphony Orchestra in conjunction with numerous guitar virtuosos.

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 “Victory Park” to see the inside of the museum. Then met up with friends, and, at 7, headed on the train ride back.

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 Yaroslavl and owns his own shop there. I am going to visit him at some point this week. Just to stress this again, the conversation was wonderful, and his point of view was an outlook that I spend half of my time believing in strongly, and the other half not finding enough proof for. At the very least, however, the exchange of ideas served to refuel and reenergize various views I used to strongly hold before they grew tired under the burden of so much faith and trust.

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 8^th of March as it touches on many of the same themes.

In conclusion, I successfully traveled alone around Moscow for a good 6 days and am now home and happy to be relaxing.

До скорово,

Гриша

Oh

I wanted to write a long interesting entry here, but due to a scheduling error on my part (1:30 am in the morning is called "at night" of the previous day and this lead to various confusions all translating into the fact that I am leaving for MOscow [where I will be goign for my break, not Kiev] in about 9 hours or 1:30 am Wednesday NIGHT.

As a result just a few things:

Pictures from St. Petersburg have been posted. Go! See them! Now!

Um, I think that's all, when I get back from Moscow I will write a long entry, maybe even 2.

Hope everyone is well,

-Grisha

Soon

there will be a new post regarding:

-8th of March (humongous holiday here)

-My trip to Saint Petersbug

-and new photos will be posted.

Very soon.

Righ now i am quite busy. Also, I think I will be ehading to Kiev in two weeks

-Grisha

Part II –In which Grisha learns the real meaning of the word болен as well as many other fun medical terms.

Read Part 1 first if you haven’t yet.

As I said we returned around 5 and I was tired and decided to take a nap. I couldn’t sleep, however, and around 6 I started to feel sick. Ok, very sick. I will spare everyone the details but I will say this was the most sick I have ever been in my entire life and, though it sounds silly to say now I definitely was laying in bed at times thinking that this was how I was going to die, in Russia, in Arhangelsk, in the Taiga of all places (weird to think in Russian –I’m almost positive I conjugated the verb “to die” incorrectly. Sigh).

So while I was busy not retaining any water, food, or medicine, and heating the entire hotel with my forehead, our Coordinator, Megan was constantly checking on me, giving me different medicine to try and trying to think of what it was I might possibly have come down with. We went through a bunch of different possibilities and kept coming back to the river. But this seemed unlikely since no one else fell ill and a lot of other people drank the water.

One of the most interesting medicines I tried was called “Activated Charcoal”. They have it in the U.S. to and its basically charcoal that you take and it binds to anything not good in your stomach so that you don’t end up digesting it. Scientifically speaking its incredibly interesting and it kept me interested, but maybe that’s only because I saw so many of the tablets.

When it was clear that nothing we were trying was working Megan was able to get the hotel people to call a doctor (keep in mind, we were in the Taiga so hospitals weren’t an option. And, even had we been in Arhangelsk, well, its difficult to explain and understand- coming from a country where the hospitals always have all the newest medicine, good doctors, clean needles, etc – but the hospitals in Arhangelsk are not exactly where you want to go. But we were able to get hold of a doctor who went around making house calls etc. I was thrilled at this as I am currently reading Doctor Zhivago and when he arrived I wanted more than anything to call him Zhivago but I decided it may not be the best thing to do.

So the doctor arrives and inspects me and he’s not completely sure what I have but he says most likely it is an intenstinal infection, virus, что-то (something). He ruled out грип (like the flu) which is quite strong and super contagious so this was good. He then said the nurse would give me two shots, one to bring down the temperature and one for antispasmatic purposes. This was a very interesting experience which I will take some time to detail:

The nurse comes over to me with one of the needles and says something to me in Russian which I don’t fully understand but I figure she wants to give me the приривка (shot) so I start rolling down my right sleeve.

She’s on the left side of the bed and starts saying «Нет, нет» (No, no) and repeats what I didn’t understand the first time.

“Oh” I realize, “I’m an idiot, obviously she’s on the left side, she wants me to unroll my other sleave” so I start to do this too. Unfortunately this action is again met with the now too familiar «Нет, нет» followed this time by an explanation with hand movements.

And then I understand.

So I turn over on my stomach, half glad my Russian wasn’t good enough to understand what was about to happen until the last possible moment, and half hoping that maybe I still hadn’t properly understood and she was about to give me a shot in my leg or something.

But I had understood perfectly and luckily I hadn’t seen how big the needle was.

A little while later she gave me another shot and started to explain what to do and I said “Еще раз, да? Хаха Я знаю что делать, я уже мастер сейчась!» (the grammar is off but something to the effect of “Again, ok, haha I know what to do – I’m a master at this now!”)

After the doctor visit I began feeling better and was finally able to sleep which was good. Unfortunately our group of American students needed to leave the next day and end what was supposed to be a 5 day stay there since it was still unclear what I had and we didn’t know if anyone else would get sick. As it was another girl, Вера (Vera/Virginia) in our group also got sick, luckily not as bad as me, but still not good.

So at this point me and Vera have two options as we head back towards Arhangelsk on the 4 hour road (remember how bumpy it was on the way there? It was no different on the way back. This was interesting and nowhere near as fun as the first time)- we can see a doctor there if we are feeling very ill (we were both feeling a bit better already) or we can fly into Moscow the next day and go to an American clinic. Despite my fear of Russian planes we chose to fly into Moscow.

There’s not much more to tell, well there is but I am tired of writing. It was Wednesday when we arrived at our hotel in Arhangelsk, we couldn’t get tickets until Friday and by Thursday I was feeling quite a bit better so me and two other girls in our group walked around the city, went to a fascinating museum, and walked across a frozen river to an island (pictures were taken). It was only after I got back that I realized I probably shouldn’t have done so much but it was a good time. Then yesterday we flew out to Moscow at 7 in the morning, went to an American clinic, got medicine and tests done, etc and then took a train back to Yaroslavl. Now I am sitting in my room in Yaroslavl and taking the weekend to relax and recuperate.


Oh, an interesting side note, we obviously know I had some type of poising or virus from the water but like I said we just don’t know what exact virus or disease. And Megan said there is a small possibility it could be Dissentery which would be extraordinarily cool to say I had so I’m crossing my fingers for that result. But we’ll see. I’m feeling much better now (infinitely better compared to Monday/Tuesday) but now I’m off to go eat some lunch and do some work. Hope everyone is happy and healthy at home!

До встреча

-Гриша

PS:! Big news! This morning I called and talked to a guy who lives in Moscow and who has a band and he wants me to do an English translation for his website. I am so psyched. Apparently I will be paid for this was well which is cool. And he knows other people who want the same thing –pretty soon I may have my own business here!

PPS: I forgot to say how now, for at least the next week or so, there are certain foods both Vera and I can’t eat. These include: Any and all milk products, fruit, anything fried, boiled, broiled, lemon, eggs, and various other things as they will hinder progress of the medicine, aid the organism, and make my stomach танцует (dance). This means my diet will be consisting mostly of bread, water, pasta, meat, and чай (tea)- here’s to carbohydrates!!

I learned some new words in Russian this past week….Part 1

Most of them were medical terms.

Let me start from the beginning.

Last Sunday we got on a train to go to the Taiga in Arhangelsk, something I had been waiting to do since we first heard about it. The train ride was 16 hours and a lot of fun (pictures of both the train ride and the time in are Arhangelsk have been posted) and involved шахматы (chess), reading Doctor Zhivago, sleeping on the top bunk on a moving train (a formidable task especially for one with a penchant for both sleep talking and sleep walking), and attempting to eat all of the food our бабушки gave us for the train.
Side note: (hence the indent) We were on the train for 16 hours as I said but our host grandmothers gave us enough food for about a month. It was kind of insane. In the two plastic bags that I received I had two or three logs of meat, a full packet of cheese, 2 full lunches, 3 oranges, 2 apples, and enough bread and water to get me through any potential famine that happens to strike Russian поезды (trains) within a 16 hour window. Actually one of the girls, Аня (Anya) in our group had about twice as much as me. But all of this yielded various photographs of me attempting to eat a rather large sandwich so as to not let any of the food go to waste. Also, I lost the шахматы game. Sigh.

Very quickly a bit about the train: We were in the cheapest (and most safe) compartment though now I’m forgetting what they are called in Russian. Each one of these compartments has room for 4 people and is not closed off from anywhere else. So basically there’s one main walking hall that runs through the train and on the left occasionally is the место (place – it sounds better to say this word in Russian, in English saying “place” sounds like you couldn’t think of a more descriptive word and, as I couldn’t, here it appears in Russian) where you stay. It’s a small area but not tiny and lining the two longer sides are cushioned “benches/beds” The two bottom ones are where everyone sits when people are awake and they also can be opened to function as trunks to store чимоданы (bags, suitcases) –a very good idea so that no one steals them. Some distance above each of these are the top beds (where I slept) and in the middle of the room is a small table. Okay, enough about the train, I love Russian trains. (Though I must add that sleeping on one is difficult, I got about 20 minutes the entire night)

We arrived in Архангелск (Arhangelsk) sometime VERY early morning (7? 8?, anyways, it was before 1pm) and there we had an excursion around the city. It’s tough to describe the city as its has multiple feels to it, its at once large and white from all the snow but dirty and with an industrial (not factory industrial just industrial if that makes sense) sense that stems from the shipping ports (its located along a large river). The tour was very interesting and we went to one museum where we clearly told our museum guide we only had an hour and a half before lunch and we wanted to see everything.

And so we ended up standing in front of the VERY first Icon in the VERY first room for an hour. This was as hilarious as it was frustrating and half the time she wasn’t even talking about the icon. But there were some very beautiful paintings we saw in our 30 minute jaunt through the rest of the museum (Айвазовский/Aivazovskii was there so I was thrilled beyond belief).

We then had lunch at a restaurant with a sailor/ocean theme which was exceedingly strange and afterwards we went to an incredibly beautiful area (pictures were taken) where are preserved all of these houses and churches. Its an old village where people lived but the thing that makes it so different is, since metal was so expensive, everything is made out of wood. Everything. I had never seen a wooden church before but this was incredible. Imagine typical Russian architecture of a church but then imagine that completely made from trees in the forest. Like I said, there are pictures.

After that we then took a 4 hour ride to the area we were staying in the Taiga. The road was incredibly bumpy and our group ended up in the back where every few seconds we were catapulted to the ceiling. This was actually very fun.

Oh, another quick thing, there was other people in our tour group too and we all stayed at the hotel together and did the excursions together. They were all Russians and were all really nice. Lets see if I can remember them. There was Таня and her mother from Moscow, Сергей (Sergei) and his wife (they were 20 years old and had already been married for two years) from Arhangelsk, a boyfriend and girlfriend pair that were fine during the day but at night they were drunk and yelling at eachother, and then a 6 year old named Федр (Fyodor) and his mother. In one of the pictures I have constructed the самый сильный дворец в мире (the strongest castle in the world!) with him out of blocks. He also beat me at chess. Sigh.

The next day (Monday) we had our first excursion in the Taiga. I can’t describe how incredibly beautiful, peaceful, pure everything is there. Well I can but I have a lot to write about. Look at the pictures. Our first excursion was in a cave (there are quite a few in the area) and I believe people used to live there. It was incredible and we got to put on a lot of very funny gear including camouflage (so our clothes wouldn’t get dirty), special boots for some (there were none that fit me unfortunately), and a hard hat equipped with a working light). At one point towards the end of the excursion our guide (a great guy who, if you are reading this, Joel Norton, reminded me of you a lot. If you are reading this and you are not Joel Norton I am sorry, I will try to find someone else in Russia who reminds me of you.) Anyways, at oen point he had us turn off all our lights and we stood there in silence and then he told us to think about how we were in one of the few places on earth where there is absolutely no light. It was wonderful. And we stood there for about 15 minutes, our eyes trying desperately to adjust but not seeing anything, just listening to silence and occasionally the voice of our guide as he told us stories and philosophy.

Oh, by the way, all tours, etc, everything was conducted in Russian.

On the way back through the caves there was an underground river we came across. We were told that the water was okay to drink and so some people began taking sips and or gulps. I was one of those people. Remember this point. We will return to it later.

Later on in the day we went and explored two waterfalls and returned back to our “hotel” site at around 5pm.

-End Side A. Please Turn Tape Over to Side B to continue-

A quick post

What a boring title.

A couple of quick things because I should update but dont have much time.

Friday: Went to a concert and, afterwards saw the most beautiful thing I have seen here so far-fog on the river Volga. I was going to write a long entry just about this but unfortunately I am pressed for time and will just say now how wonderful it was. There was fog everywhere and me and some friends walked along the banks of the Volga and if you looked closely in clear areas you could see whisps of fog being pulled like cotton from off the surface of the water. And it took only a few steps for one to dissapear completely into the mist and only see a few feet ahead or behind you.

Saturday- Went into the woods with people from the Russian YMCA where we played games and celebrated Масленица with traditions that involved making a giant person sized doll, then tying to her a strand of fabric we recieved (into which we thought all of the bad things that happened in the previous year) and then burning her and then jumping over the fire. My friend took pictures so they will be forthcoming

Sunday: walked around the город. Actually, EVERYONE waled around the город. As this was the official day of Масленица everyone goes otu to гулать (walk around- but with a connotation of having no direction in mind, "stroll" is perhaps the more accurate definition)

Sunday: I also washed my clothes. By hand. A long entry is forthcoming about this b ecause I want to detail it properly.

On Monday I came down with something and have been sick but am feeling better. I didnt go to classes on Tuesday and thus was able to sample many various home remedies from my babooshka. These included:

-Garlic. Garlic all the time. Everywhere. With every meal she gave me two slices to put in my soup and two other slices to sniff.

Yes.

To sniff. Or rather, inhale as deeply as possible.

Apparently it helps stop infection and as I have no complaint against garlic I obliged. I think it works to some degree but I'm weary that some time in my future photos will show up somewhere of me with garlic up my nose and will cost me an important election.

-Honey. This is key. Honey with chai, on bread. And its quite good.

-Чай (tea): I thought Russians had a lot of chai to drink when they were healthy..but apparently the amount grows exponentially when one is болень (sick)

I'm not that sick anymore (and it was only a sore throat, a headache, and a nose which ran enough to rival Gogol's) so no one need worry. The only thing one has to be careful of here is the cold whether. Tomorrow it will likely be -30 degrees Celsius and in Arhangelsk it could be minus 40 or more.

We leave for Arhangelsk on Sunday and I am very excited.

Ok, I must go now, sorry for the staccatic rythym of this post I have about 1000 things to do today.

I think some new pictures should be uploaded soon.

До встреча,

-Гриша

Update

Just a few things:

I wish I could convey properly how incredible Wednesday night was. I could say that it was one of the best times I’ve had here but that would be a horribly trite phrase. I could carefully detail out every action so the only thing that would be missing would be the feeling, the unspoken subtleties of comfortability and ease. I could say a lot of things, in either English or Russian but none could fully describe just how fun it was. Therefore I will just say I spent Wednesday night celebrating Valentines day with three wonderful people and we talked and ate and laughed for about seven hours.

Oh, and Аня (the girl whose house we were at) had a cat.

Who I spoke Russian to.

And then she promptly ran away.

The cat.

Not Аня.

Other things of note:

-Tomorrow is Friday (but most likely today since that is when I’ll be posting this)

-There is a week long celebration going on currently in Ярославль called Маслоница so every night there are festivities like music concerts, film marathons, etc. Anyways I just found out that Saturday and Sunday morning a bunch of hot air balloons are going up in the air (obviously…) above the Волга River. I’m crossing my fingers that anyone can ride in them if they pay money, but either way I will go to see them.

-I just got the name today of someone who teaches lessons on the Балалайка (a Russian stringed instrument spelled like Balalaika?). I’ve found a few people who teach guitar here but the Balalaika would be very cool to learn if I have time.

-Saturday I’m going with people from the Имка to a big event in the park we’re doing for the kids. There will be games, etc.

-One thing I really enjoy noticing in Russia is the similiarities between cultures. I don’t mean the normal similarities like people’s opinions or ideas or sense of humor (though those are all interesting). I mean things like the easy release of breath and the sudden lightening of tension and cooling of temperature that ripples through a concert audience that second right after the last note of a classical music piece goes silent. Small things like that which are so inherently human that perhaps its foolish even to notice them.

-On Wednesday I bought a ticket and went to see Syranno De Berjerak (the spelling is ужасный but it’s the French play about the poet with the giant nose who loves the girl and ends up writing letters to her for someone else). AND its probably one of my favorite stories ever AND I sat in the first row. Anyways, it was incredible and after seeing the performance I was struck with such a powerful feeling of remembering why I love art and how important writing is to me and everything was just целый. The following paragraph in Russian I originally only wrote to show to one person but I’m including it here because I think it captures (or attempts to capture) the feeling I had leaving the theater and walking out into a new snow:

Сегодня после того, как я посмотрел спектакл, я вышел из театра и увидел что снег уже начнел идтй. Но, надо понимать что это снег был совсем другим чем какой-нибудь снег я видел здесь раньще...был новым и белым, был спокойным и молчаливым. И, идя домой под коричневым небом, в темной аллее ночи, и с снегом который шел мягко и молча, молча и мягко...казался мне что все люди спят сейчас и я единственный человек бодрый в мире...один на большой улице, в молчаливом стране, и под небом, снежным, коричевым.

-A week from this Sunday our group of American students is going on a 5 day trip to АрхангелскArkhangelsk) which should be beautiful and cold. I believe its located on the black sea but I’m not совсем уверен of that. (

-I don’t want people to get the impression that everything here is always wonderful and easy and incredible, that would be an unfair simplification of the experience, the country, and myself. There are definitely times when things are difficult and annoying and when I don’t feel like speaking Russian or seeing snow or being cold. But all of these are always balanced out by something good. According to the sheet they gave us on Culture Shock I am still in the first phase where everything is new and exciting and incredible. The next phase is one of disillusion and annoyance and overreaction etc so it will be interesting to see when and if that hits. And then the final stage is a reconciliation between the two. Though I honestly feel like I came into this with a preset idea of reconciliation which makes each small annoyance easier to handle and I wonder occasionally if I’m more prone to a quicker path to stage 3 but, then again its still only the first month. If in a few months I’m submitting angry pictures with the entire country of Russia inside of a giant red circle with a cross through it, don’t worry, it’s just stage II!

But yes, things are good here, I should go get work done now. Спокойни ночи!

-ALSO: There is a very good chance I will be in Moscow a week from tomorrow to see a concert. Yes, a Russian Rock Concert. Of one of my favorite Russian groups no less. Their name is Сплин (Spleen is the English spelling I guess).

-Гриша

Каждый раз когда я начинаюсь чувствовать себя плохо эдесь, что-то случилось что-бы я чуствовал себя лучше...

This was to be posted Saturday.

Despite the fact I had made plans to go to a museum today with a girl from the Roman History course I woke up feeling completely unmotivated and having very little energy to go знакомится (get to know, make friends with) people. So I sat in bed for awhile debating what to do and finally convinced myself that even if I didn’t think I would have that good of a time I may meet someone (she was inviting other people) who I end up becoming good friends with.

And that’s exactly what happened. The two guys joining us were named Alex and Olyeg, two of the nicest people I’ve met here (that’s actually tough to say, I’ve met a lot of wonderful people here already). Anyways, we all went to the museum, had a great time, and it turns out that both Alex and Olyeg are going to be in America this summer in order to improve their English. In order to receive their Visa they are required to give short, concise, well worded, descriptions in English of what they hope to achieve in the US, what they will be doing there, their philosophy of life, etc. to the consulate, I believe. Its insane compared with what I had to do to get my Visa, in fact, I didn’t even have to write or speak a word of Russian, everything was done through professors’ recommendations and forms filled out in my native language.

Anyways I promised to help them with their English (they are already quite good) and if all goes well I should be able to meet up with them some time this summer. After seeing the museum we all went to МакМастер (MacMaster – a rip off of McDonald’s) where we talked about various things and, after discussing differences in holidays between our countries, Аля (the girl from the Roman history class) decided she wanted to celebrate Valentine’s day as they don’t have it in Russia. Therefore all of us are going to get together this Wednesday and celebrate an Amercian Holiday in Russian. I am incredibly psyched.

Afterwards I went to the Имка (Russian YMCA equivalent) again. I’m so glad I decided to do this. I love the people there, I love the kids, and its incredibly fun. I could say a whole lot more about it and I probably should but I really want to wrap this up.

After that I went to an Organ Concert which was incredible and, after looking out on the Volga River at night, walking around, and taking the trolleybus back, I am sitting at home and getting ready to go to bed.

Its difficult to write about everything that happens because I am not a fan of constant cataloguing of events, but its occurred to me that I still have yet to describe the city in any detail as well as various other things I’m sure people are interested in. Therefore, if there is anything you would like to hear more (or less) about, or just have any questions in general be sure to comment and I will be happy to try and answer them.

I hope everyone is doing incredible and enjoying whatever occupies them currently,

До встреча

-Гриша

------------
Edit: Sunday I visited a monastery in an incredibly beautiful part of Yaroslavl and I recently posted new pictures of our trip there.
The first is the room where I am currently living
The next few until Lenin's statue are from the region of Yaroslavl where I live
and eveyrthing else is from the region where the monastery was.

Today’s Objective: The Mainstream Course

Friday I began the difficult task of trying to find a mainstream university course to take, that is, one with real Russian students. Its difficult for a number of reasons:

1). Расписение or the schedules….are, in the first place difficult to find and usually not posted until the day before classes start.

2.) The schedules….even after you find the schedule you still need to attempt to read it- this is almost impossible. Each schedule is arranged in various columns by time of day listed in roman numerals (you have to find out what time corresponds to what roman numeral in another part of the building and they are different for each schedule), class group and level, and most are filled in by hand in pencil. They are subject to change at a moment’s notice and there are no copies of the schedule, just one giant one on a bulletin board that each student needs to make a copy of in their own notebooks. Luckily a very kind девушка assisted us in reading the schedule for the history department.

3). The schedules….lets say you’ve managed to find the schedule, understand it to some degree, and are all ready and gung-ho to go to the class. Well, there’s a decent chance the class will have changed times without you knowing, or just have been canceled. They warn us about this before hand though it has yet to happen to me. However, as I will be trying out classes all next week I am eagerly expecting it at least once.

Its not really that bad but the first time you stand in front of a bulletin board for 20 minutes trying to figure out how to read the schedule it’s a bit disconcerting.

Anyways, Friday I tried out my first class. I had no idea what it was since the name wasn’t posted on the schedule. It turned out to be roman history and the professor was really nice and after class she asked me how I liked the city and I told her I loved being here though I was just starting to understand what “cold weather” really meant.

I really like the class and the people in it are very nice (I got the phone numbers of a few of them) the only thing is I’ve already taken Roman History and as nice as it would be to already know what is going on in the class I feel like that would kind of be cheating, not to mention it would be interesting to attempt to learn something new in Russian. Well, I have all of next week to see- I’ll be trying out at least one different class each day.

Хорошо, that's all for now, I'll continue this post later,

Счастливы!

-Гриша

Week 1!

Apologies for not keeping up with this more, I'll try to give an overview of this past week but so much has happened I will hardly be able to cover all of it. First, however, a story about my first meal in Yaroslavl that was not provided by a бабушка (grandmother).

I was with my group (4 people total) and, after a morning of touring the city, we stop by a local diner for lunch where, not to my surprise at all, I could barely understand the menu. But I stand there for a while, looking at it and finally I see something I recognize "фасол с мясом" (fasole s myasom) and i think "well, I have no idea wat the first word is but I'm pretty sure the second word means meat". Not only is meat good but I know what it is so I go ahead and order that, the entire time wondering pleasantly what "fasole" (the first word) might be. So I wait. And I wait. And finally the waitress arrives.

With the most gigantic mound of red kidney beans I have ever seen in my life.

And I think "ok, well, I like beans, at least there will be meat"

"с мясом" I hear her ask, and I nod my head at least 4 times and say "Да!" (yes)

And so she takes out a giant vat of butter and begins to pour it over the aforementioned mound of beans.

And then I realize that not only have I forgotten the correct way to decline the word 'meat" in the instrumental case but, of more immediate importance, there will be no meat served with this meal.

For those of you that don't speak russian the word с маслом means "with butter" and is somewhat close to my incorrect idea of what "with meat" was.

And so my first lunch in Yaroslavl consisted of water, butter, and about a pound of kidney beans.

Interestingly enough, I wrote a poetic parody about it that strikes me, and probably only me, as humorous. For those of you unfamiliar with the Russian poet Blok, you should be. He's great. Anyways, he has this one poem which is one of my favorites and which I shall post here. Included afterwards is a direct word for word translation just so people hwo don't speak russian will have an idea of what it is about - granted it completerly lacks the beauty, flow and rythym of the original:

Ночь, улица, фонарь аптека,
Бессмысленный и тусклый свет
Живи еще хоть четверть века
Все будет так. Исхода нет.

Умреш- начнеш опять сначала,
И повторится все, как встар;
Ночь ледяная, рябь канала,
Аптека, улица, фонарь.

-А Блок

Night, street, streetlamp, store
Meaningless and dim light
Living still after a fourth of a century
All will be so. No escape.

[You] Die- [you] start again from the beginning
And repeat everything, as before.
Night, icy ripples of the canal,
Store, street, streetlamp.

It is this poem I chose to write a parody of. It follows the rythm decently and has absolutely none of the artistic value of the original,

Нож, кухня, фасоль, тарелка.
Красная гора - это обедь.
Смотрел на ней хоть три минута-
Я уж купил. Исхода нет.

И так – я ем. Что можно делать?
Судба- единственный король.
Нож, мой голод- души, живота,
Тарелка, кухня, фасоль

and a word for word translation:

Knife, cafe, beans, plate
A red mountain- this is lunch
[I've] stared at it already three minutes-
Already bought. No escape.

And so - I eat. What can I do?
Fate - the only king.
Knife, my hunger - of soul, of stomach,
Plate, cafe, beans.


I can almost hear Блок turning in his grave.

Ok I dont want to make this too long so I will wrap up listing a few things I have done this week.

-Had classes

-Walked around the city for hours on end

-Asked for (and recieved) help finding various places

-Went to a music and time museum, got a tour of which I understood about 50 percent

-Saw a play at the theater in town.

-Saw an Ingmar Bergman film in russian at a local film club (scenes from something it was called), understood almost all of it, and made two russian friends there with whom I have hung out with.

-Volunteered at the russian equivalent of a YMCA, spoke english to young russians, was promptly told by said young russians that Russia was better than the USA, and, above all, spent about 5 hours at the YMCA with other volunteers about my age and made friends (russians would say "aquaintances) with about 6 or 7 real russians, all of whom are very friendly, very funny, and just wonderful people in general.

-Had my first birthday in Russia which was amazing. Recieved chocolate, and ice cream from my class, chocolate and a special dinner from my babooshka, various birthday greetings from aforementioned russians and ate 3 dinners.

Really things have been great so far but I should wrap up this post. Today I tried to find a course to take at the Russian university and it was an ужасный experience because the schedules are so hard to read. I will talk about this later.

До скорого,

Гриша

This was meant to be posted some time ago

Over a week ago to be exact..., but here it is anyways:

Hello all. Though this will probably won’t be posted online for a few days I am currently writing from my new home in Yaroslavl. My host бабушка (grandmother) is wonderful and very interesting to talk to but I will get into that later. Today I think I experienced to a very small degree all the various stages of culture shock, or at least the beginning hintings of its presence.But first, I’ll finish up talking about Moscow

After my last post I stayed at the hotel two more days while we finished up orientation. Probably the best story that came out of those two days occurred one night when, trying and failing miserably to sleep, I turned on the TV and was incredibly happy and surprised to find a Russian cartoon on. In fact I think I actually said outloud “Oh Да!” All Russian cartoons tend to lean towards the incredible (in all senses of the word) and this one actually explained the story behind why cats and dogs don’t like eachother. Apparently one day there was this dog who had ruined his hat and went to get it fixed by the seamstresses..who were, of course, cats. They fixed it for him, BUT while waiting for him to return a very rich goat arrived at their shop one day. A very rich goat who, incidentally, had also just ruined his hat and had been laughed at by a female goat all in the same day. I’d just like to pause here and point out the seven plus layers of tension underlying this cartoon already. Anyways the goat can’t find a hat he likes so, in a last ditch effort the main cat gives him the dog’s hat because he knows he will make more money off of the rich goat than the dog who was a sheperd. There was also another odd show on that basically enacted out Russian jokes and, at the punch line of each, became host to an array of raining smiley faces with big lips that laughed at the aforementioned Russian анекдоты. Said floating mouths helped to make it clear when the punchline was but did absolutely nothing to assist with the humor of any of the jokes.

The last day in Moscow I went with two of the girls in my group to see the рынок (market). Even though I didn’t buy anything it was nice because it’s one of the only situations where everyone around you wants to speak to you. As a result I got a lot of practice saying “no thank you, I don’t want one”.

But probably my favorite thing so far has been our 4 hour train ride from Moscow to Yaroslavl. After waiting for about an hour in the train station (вокзал) we saw that our train was finally boarding and headed outside where we saw what, for me, was the most wonderful, albeit stereotypical, scene ever. Outside it had started snowing and the air was frigid with cold. The ground was a mix of sloshing brown slush and since it was only snowing lightly the entire train station acted as an immense looming backdrop seen through the flakes. There were trains, and I mean trains, each lined up next to one another with the backs facing us, and stretching as far as the eye could see (this is not an exaggeration, we had to walk for a good 10 minutes just to get to our вагон or train car) In between each train was a snow covered walking path that had those giant metal speakers you usually see in films about Russia or in army training camps every 50 feet or so. If I had to describe the scene the entire feeling was just- brown, a dirty brown but not a disgusting brown, a brown that loomed over the scene while at the same time subtly pervading the expanse of cold, dark blue. It was almost like the feeling one gets during a long summer’s day when its hot and sticky and the day feels as if its stretching just a little farther holding out against the night and things feel both too thin and too full of nothing at once. It was like that but imagine the color scheme changed to a darkish blue and imagine that stretched out feeling, instead of being hot, as being rooted in cold, actually frozen in cold so its not longer stretching just completely and utterly living static. And after a long period of trying to get our giant чимоданы (bags) into our small space we sat drinking sugery чай (tea- learn to recognize this word, you’ll see it a lot, its all they drink), warming up and watching through the windows into the night and the snow covered ground and the black endless forests that passed by.

Then we arrived in Yaroslavl and took a micro bus to drop each of us off . I was the first and I spent the whole time reciting my hsotesses’ name so I wouldn’t get it wrong. Люция Владимировна (Lyootseeya Vladimirovna) met me at the door and then, after carrying my things up, she told me I was not wearing enough in the cold and made me food and tea. She’s very nice and very interesting to talk to. This is already becoming too long of an entry. Very quickly about today:

We were shown around the city of Yaroslavl. It was below zero and we were shown the university which looks like a 1 star hotel on the inside and various entrances are through random metal doors in back alleys. Also the toilets have no toilet paper so you have to bring your own. But it was interesting and fun though I quickly became tired and cold. It was frustrating as the day went on trying to communicate with people in various shops so that by the end of the day I came back wanting a break from it all. But I’ve had time to relax now and had a nice dinner so I feel like I’ve come full circle. Alright I don’t feel like writing anymore-

That’s another thing, I’m not sure how much I’m going to write in this. I want to of course but at the same time I don’t want to detract from my Russian and I know from summer school how much one can improve without speaking or writing any English. The other thing of course is I’d like to write to some degree just so I’m not completely rusty when I get back. Regardless I’ll try to find a balance. Alright, I am off to talk with моя бабушка.

Also, we saw the Volga river which was beautiful.

And tomorrow we are going to a monastery and seeing a play.

And I start classes on Monday.

До скорово

-Гриша

First Post [Again]

Hey everyone, I’m mostly writing at this point to say I got into Moscow safely and am now stationed at one of the finest in Russian hotels. This means that when you turn on the water in the sink it comes out a stream of yellow and brown for a bit and that there is some ungodly buzzing sound coming from a random part of the room.

Moscow so far reminds me of (for those of you from the Boston area) a combination between Boston driving and Worcester aesthetics or, for the more musically inclined, a copy of the Pink Floyd album cover “Animals” but with a bit more light and movement. This of course is after only a few hours, most of which were spent napping, but its amazing the amount of smokestacks everywhere and the general layer of smoke that pervades the city. That said it certainly has a distinct feel to it and I haven’t stopped smiling since I’ve been here…except for the whole brown water incident.

A bit about the flight:

My first flight from Boston to Atlanta was fairly uneventful, so much so that this single sentence covers it.

The flight from Atlanta to Moscow was a bit more interesting mainly because I had two major accomplishments-I had my first multicultural Russian exchange, and I sat next to a real Bellarussian on the plane.

The multicultural exchange was perhaps one of my finest moments and one that I hope will set a standard for the many others to come. I had just arrived at the check-in gate, met up with some people in the program, was standing in line to board, and generally feeling good about the whole experience. All of a sudden, from somewhere behind me comes a loud repetitive beeping sound and I turn to see a Russian man on one of those small truck airport machines.

He looks at me.

I look at him.

He looks at me.

I look at the giant moving vehicle approaching me and beeping like crazy.

He says something in the vein of “move out of the way, please” (in Russian)

I step back.

He says «Спасибо» (Thank you)

It was a beautiful moment.


-The Bellarussian I sat next to on the plane was a nice guy but spent most of the time complaining about how Delta charged for alchoholic beverages and then, when I told him one was included with the meal, was quite surprised that the wine on Delta was better than that on AirFrance. Unfortunately most of our conversation during the first half was conducted in English (I tried to start off the conversation in Russian but when he did not respond in like I didn’t feel like pushing the point) and was composed of me asking him excited questions about Russia and him contradicting me at each point. An example:

Conversation 1:
Me: So, do you have any advice for someone going to Russia

Him: No

Conversation 2:

Me: So…is there anything I should see in Russia?

Him: No.

Me: Oh.

Him: Well, you can see Red Square

Me Yeah, I’ve heard its incredible

Him: Its really boring, I don’t know why so many tourists go there.


To be fair I think he didn’t understand everything I was saying but, regardless, my favorite part of the whole exchange came as we were flying into Russia. We were above the clouds and the sun was burning on the horizon and it was absolutely beautiful and I said to him
“Wow, isn’t that incredible”

He shook his head with a combination of disappointment and disgust and said “Its just clouds!”

But then, towards the end of the flight something interesting happened. He randomly turned to me and said “Let’s talk in Russian” and we spent the rest of the time talking about Russia, him giving me advice that had previously been withheld, and us discussing the differences between America and Russia.

Afterwards our flight landed and we made our way to the hotel where I am sitting now. The first thing I did when I got to my room was, of course, turn on the Russian TV. Currently I am stll trying to figure out whether I was watching a game show or a trial because someone kept excitedly asking “Если бы вы были там, что вы бы делали?» Basically “If you had been there or been in this situation what would you do?” Like I said, I’m still trying to figure out if the target of the questions stood to win a large sum of money or time in jail.

Anyways some of us are going to be heading into the city tonight in about 20 minutes (its 7:40pm here and we are 8 hours ahead) so I’ll wrap this up.

I hope everyone who is traveling abroad gets there safe and I hope everyone who is in classes is having fun. Things are good here and for the strangest reason when the plane landed I felt as if I was coming home. I realize its foolish to say, not having been here even a full day yet, but like I said I haven’t stopped smiling.

Also, tomorrow I find out who I’m living with. (Бабушки!) (Grandmothers! – something is lost in the translation)

До скорого,

-Гриша