Moscow & St. Petersburg

Honestly, I have really run out of blogging steam. I will try to write a bit more when I get home, but I would kind of rather just show everyone pictures and tell everyone stories individually. At this point, too much has happened for me to feel like I have successfully captured it by blogging.

I am finally back in a place that more or less resembles the United States. I am not actually that relieved and I am not sure that I like the big cities as much as I liked Siberia, but they are still really interesting. I loved Moscow because it reminded me of New York. It was big and weird and beautiful. St. Petersburg is also nice, but I was already biased against it before I got here. Everyone who has visited tells me how much better Petersburg is than Moscow, which made me root for Moscow because it was the underdog. Then, as I understand it, St. Petersburg is to Moscow is like San Francisco is to Los Angeles. I am personally an LA person and hate San Francisco. St. Petersburg also seems a lot like Venice, which was my lease favorite Italian city. I just don't think cities are supposed to be calm, orderly and beautiful.

Anyway, we took a very unpleasant 1AM to 6AM tour of the setting of The Master and Margarita. It would have been amazing, but it was raining and there was a freezing cold wind. The Bulgakov museum was very cool though and hopefully tomorrow I will be going to the Dostoevsky museum in St. Petersburg. I am going to meet my friend Yuliya's brother, who lives here, which should be really fun.

The hostels have actually been amazing, even though I was kind of scared of them before coming. It was a great way to meet people and they felt really safe and comfortable. In fact, the first hostel was a lot nicer than some hotels I have stayed in even though the rooms were communal.

I am really looking forward to going back to New York. My roommates for next year, Tom, found an apartment for us in Manhattan. The location and the price are really amazing and I will be living right by Central Park.

Here are a few pictures from Siberia and hopefully I will have the energy to upload more later:

1. Just a nice picture of a Siberian village.

2. This is so totally the Russian Andy Sandberg it is scary.

3. Karina taught me how to make this delicious things called Gruzinchiki.

4. Me and Johnny Poops (that is what we eventually decided to call him).

5. Brett and I made Huevos Rancheros for Karina. They actually tasted good, but not entirely like Huevos Rancheros.

I am finally in Moscow

Hello! I just got off the Trans-Siberian Railway at 5:30 this morning and we checked into our hostel. It has WiFi, so I am in internet heaven. I didn't post for a really long time because this got very busy for the last two weeks and I just didnt have time to post much. Now, on the other hand, I have lots of time (besides wanting to see Moscow, obviously), so I will post pictures and more!

Altaiskoye

July 30th

On Tuesday night I ended up going to Altaiskoye to see Ted and help him with his lessons on Wednesday. I was just so bored here, I really wanted to actually do what I came here to do and teach English. So, I arrived and we watched Arrested Development (which he had the foresight to bring). Firstly, Ted has kind of a special living situation. He lives in a dormitory and his host mother lives across the street in a one-bedroom apartment. Her name is Natalya Mikhailovna and she is like a very strict, overprotective mother to Ted (who, by the way, is 22 and seems to be able to fend for himself in the world).

In the morning we went to Natalya Mikhailovna’s for breakfast and she was actually fairly nice. She says “to my mind” a lot, instead of “in my opinion,” which made me want to laugh. Then we went to school and met the younger kids. Ted teaches a group of younger kids for 3 hours and then a group of older kids for 3 hours. The young ones were so much fun and so adorable. It was good treatment for my feelings of uselessness here in Belokurikha because the kids were so excited to have me there. Ted does a really great job with them and they uniformly adore him. All of the little girls held my hands/arms when we walked anywhere (minus one, who held Ted’s hand). We mostly just drew pictures and they asked me questions like, “Do you like raspberries?” One little boy, Alyosha, whose birthday was that day, was adorable and carried my camera bag everywhere.

We then ate 3 different lunches and I really started to feel sorry for Ted who has to eat like this every day. We ate with the younger kids, then for some reason the kitchen prepared lunch just for Ted and I (though I think he usually goes to Natalya Mikhailovna’s for lunch), and then again with the older kids. We had about 20 minutes before the next lesson started and so we just sprawled on the bed and rested. The older kids were really great as well. They were slightly harder to keep entertained, but there were a lot of really sweet kids in the group. We started by having them ask me questions, which then turned into a dating game which Ted had played with them before. A “host” asked me different questions and then asked the same questions to four boys, and if our answer matched up they got a point.

The contestants were Ted, a boy named Alyosha who I had met before when I visited Altaiskoye, Misha and Dima. Kind of embarrassingly and hilariously, Ted got pretty much all of the points and his answers were usually exactly like mine. To be fair, we are both American, so that helps, but we also like the same type of music, both play the Mandolin (though I don’t really anymore), etc. I started to suggest questions that we would be less likely to give the same answer to in order to avoid the awkwardness of the students telling Ted and I that we should date, but then we matched on a lot of those too, like favorite flower. Anyway, I managed to put Alyosha in a close second behind Ted by some generous point giving, but Ted won despite my best efforts. The highlight of the game for me was when someone asked me my cup size and then the breast size that the different contestants preferred. If someone asked that question to a female teacher/camp counselor/almost anyone in any position of authority they would be in a lot of trouble.
So, after camp we went to the bus stop to catch my bus. Unfortunately, it turned out that we had misheard the time “shest sorok” instead of “shestnatsit sorok.” The first is 6:40 and the second is 16:40, aka 4:40. Natalya Mikhailovna was very unhappy and said that she knew I had stayed the night before and that she couldn’t see a solution to the problem (cabs are 100 rubles when the buses are running and about 600 when they are not). She seems to have a very weird thing about Ted and I staying together, alone, at night. Anyway, I was under the impression that she knew that I was coming for the night. However, Ted just sort of avoided the subject because of the way she reacted when he visited me in Belokurikha. So, needless to say, she was pissed. I just ended up staying another night, but Natalya Mikhailovna made me take a cab back at 5:40 in the morning for pretty much no reason at all, other than to be vindictive.

I am actually really glad I got to stay another night though, because one of Ted’s students/friends invited him over for his birthday party. His student’s name is David and he just turned 20. He is Armenian and has a huge Armenian family that all live together in one house and are just the nicest people you could hope to meet. I spent most of the evening talking to David who is really an amazing guy. He is a student in Novosibirsk, the capital of this region, and is just amazingly thoughtful and funny. When we started talking he asked his cousin to hand him the computer so that he could use a translation program he had. He said, “I already like you and I want to be able to communicate with you.” Ted, on the other hand, had been over before and they were very happy to see him. They asked him if he wanted wine, champagne, or vodka. He said champagne but they made him be “manly” and drink vodka even though he had to teach the next day.

They kept asking us why we weren’t eating as soon as we stopped for more than a minute, which was especially funny because none of them seemed to be eating. David’s cousin kept telling Ted to ask me why I wasn’t eating my cake and then made me try some of his mother’s pizza. I had a bite and he told me that I had to eat more and that if I was worried about my figure, my figure is fine and this wouldn’t make me gain weight anyway (it was dough, potatoes, and cheese). I started laughing and he quickly told Ted to tell me that he wasn’t hitting on me or anything. Then, as we were trying to leave in order to get back to the dormitory before it closed, they managed to get us to stay for some tea. Tea meant more vodka for Ted and another piece of cake for me. Then, when Ted tried to help me eat my cake, they gave him his own piece.

Oh, this place is so strange.

Only two pictures for now

So I had been tentatively calling this kitten either “Johnny,” after both John Darnielle and Johnny Tsunami (two great Americans), and “Snowball,” hoping that one of the two nice American names would stick. I then asked Karina if she had thought of a name and she said that, oh yes, she was thinking of “Poops.” I was literally struck dumb. In Russian, the word “poop” means “belly button,” and “poops” is apparently a little doll of some sort. However, I taught Karina the English word “poop” maybe two weeks ago, so even if it does mean something in Russian I felt like it should still draw the association in her mind. I am praying that she doesn’t name the cat “Poops” because, not only do I not want to call the cat that, I can’t think of a single nick-name that isn’t reminiscent of excrement.

Beautiful Russia.

More interesting things, weirdly mostly about TV

I have been playing scrabble on my computer a lot since I often just sit in my room while Karina has lessons with students who are too shy to talk to me. I keep getting tempted to write down interesting words that I didn’t know/good scrabble words but I have to keep reminding myself that I am here to learn Russian, not English. I broke down and wrote “dulcet” in my notebook today though.

When I talked to my mom on the phone and she asked me about things that I miss in America, I realized my list was surprisingly close to the half-joking list I made before I left.

I have now seen Law & Order: CI here twice. Firstly, seeing Vincent D’Onofrio on TV in Russia was kind of awesome. Secondly, it reconfirmed what I already knew about CI in English: it is almost unbearably boring to watch. The same holds true in Russian.

My favorite Beatles song has been a hit with my students.

I have now watched The Green Mile, Some Like It Hot, and Shopgirl in English while being here. I keep trying to get her to watch Up in Russian, but she keeps getting distracted.

Most American shows and movies here that are dubbed into Russian still maintain their English dialogue, but the sound is low and it often gets drowned out by the Russian. I actually really hate it because it is really hard for me not to listen to the English. I want to use my Russian literature words and say it is almost polyphony, but it is actually more like cacophony.

Speaking of polyphony, before I left I was driving to LA with Alexis and listening to Usher’s “Yeah” and realized it is a perfect embodiment of polyphony and, dare I say it, of what goes on in Anna Karenina. It is very much a multi-voiced narrative, both literally and figuratively. I kind of want to tell Professor Kliger, but I think he would probably give me the look he gave me when I told him I read David Sedaris’ new book over the summer.

I have seen a show on TV here that I think is the sequel to the Teila Tequila show (I am pretty sure it is called something like “Sex with Tequila: Twin Edition”) but is centered around two bi-sexual twin sisters. It is, of course, dubbed into Russian, but I can still figure out what is going on. It is probably the trashiest show I have ever seen. I like watching MTV here though because they always have shows like “Next” dubbed into Russian and they are pretty easy to understand.

I have kind of a crush on one of the guys on both “Dom 2” and this really stupid show about people with extra-sensory abilities.

I really like listening to books on tape here. I think partly because I like them in general, but also sometimes listening to music makes me sad. Most of my favorite music has really strong associations to my memories and my friends. If I listen to The Backstreet Boys I miss Amy, The Mountain Goats make me miss Matt, and Aimee Mann just reminds me of feeling sad and walking around New York City.

I am still covered with mosquito bites. I keep hoping I will become immune or something, but that doesn’t seem to be happening.

I have to admit, last night I was beginning to feel really depressed about being in Russia. As I mentioned, Karina was hung-over and sleeping all day, I hung out with Tanya, and I really hadn’t done much of anything all week. She finally got up at about 9 at night and seemed in better spirits. She started to make borsht and watch “Dom 2 (House 2).” I was feeling really down and then my mom called me and I got to talk to her for the first time for any extended period since being here. She finally got a calling card that was very affordable and it was really amazing to not have to count every second that we were speaking.

When I got off the phone after about an hour Karina had finished the borsht. It was amazing and I ate a big bowl even though I wasn’t hungry because it was so delicious. It made me feel a little better just having Karina awake and walking around so I wasn’t just wandering aimlessly around the house. Then the two Russian girls that I met last weekend called Karina and asked if I could go for a walk with them today. I wasn’t really looking forward to it because it didn’t seem like they spoke much English from our first meeting. They came to get me today at 10:30 in the morning and took me directly to a café and handed me a cocktail menu. We each had a beer (definitely my only morning drinking experience to date) and then walked up to the heath resort again. I actually had an amazing time with them though. Their names are Irra and Anya and they are both maybe 24 or 25. They were very interesting to talk to and with their limited but combined English and my limited Russian we managed to converse pretty easily. Also, they were so excited to practice their English, which made me feel a little less useless here.

Unfortunately Irra lives in Biysk, so I can’t see her very often. Anya lives here though and she asked me to come over and see her house next Sunday. She also seems to be trying to set me up with her 21-year-old brother. I can’t tell if it is a platonic set-up or a date-y set up, but they seem to sort of giggle when they talk about introducing us. Luckily, if he wants me to marry him and take him back to America I will only be here for another two weeks and I can probably dodge it.

Anya and Irra said two hilarious things when we were walking around. Last week they had met Brett and Ted, two of the other volunteers, and so I asked them if they thought that the boys were handsome. They said, “Oh yes!” and proceeded to say that Ted looks like a Georgian. Anya said, “He is very black,” which I took to mean that he has dark features and dark hair. Then she said, “He is so hairy and he looks like a koala bear, but it is good.” Then, as we walked by a bouncy house, which Brett had talked about liking the week before, Irra points to it and says, “It is Brett’s house!” Oh, Russia.

Today Karina and I are going to begin a lesson about Michael Jackson with some of her students. It was most definitely not my idea, and I thought it was hilarious that Karina brought it up. I was talking to Matt before I left about how I hoped that people in Russia wouldn’t be as upset about MJ’s death as they were in America. I personally thought they were insincere responses since most of the country thought he was a child-molester up until his death. Anyway, we are going to sing a Jackson Five song, which I am very much okay with, and then have the students find out information about MJ’s life for homework.

More about Tanya and other things

I have had an interesting last few days. Last Thursday Karina and I went to her mother’s to pick cherries because two of her students cancelled their lessons so we didn’t have to be back at her house until 7:30. We didn’t get to pick for very long though because it started raining too hard for us to continue, but it was very fun while it lasted. I love picking berries/eating berries, so it was kind of a dream come true for me. That being said, cherries are really different here. They are very small and sour (I am not sure if they are actually all just sour cherries or if there are other cherries elsewhere that are even more sour). Karina said that in other places there are cherries more like the cherries we are used to, but not really in Siberia. Anyway, the cherries we picked are the classic Russian cherries and I thought a lot about Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard while we were picking.
That night we had one lesson but I didn’t really contribute a whole lot. I am really not doing much teaching now, as I mentioned before. I don’t want to be too pushy about teaching during Karina’s private lessons since the students are paying her to teach them English. I just come talk to them when she asks me to and sometimes we sing songs or play games. Some days it is fine and we have fun anyway, but especially recently Karina hasn’t wanted to leave the house much. I do enjoy watching Russian TV, but I also would like to leave the house occasionally.
I have taken a few walks around the town by myself to take photographs or just get fresh air, so I think I will keep doing that when Karina wants to stay at home. I could always call Tanya, but then I would have to listen to her talk about Barnaul and coming to America next summer. I don’t know though, that is starting to sound better than sitting at home.
On Friday I helped Karina with lessons in the morning and then went to the Post Office to use the internet. I got an email with some bad news about a friend of mine, so I felt pretty depressed for the rest of the day. I put more money on my phone so that I could call her but the money ran out really fast, especially because the first time I called her she didn’t answer. After that I was even sadder and I just felt angry that I was here in Russia so far away from everyone I love. It just made me feel so helpless. It was funny though, as if by some miracle of fate, one of Karina’s students gave her a kitten that evening. I, of course, wont say that kittens make everything better, but I think they really do help when you are sad. He was so little and scared, I just sat with him and tried to make him feel more comfortable. Just having something to take care of helped me feel better. I also talked to Matt and Ted on the phone, and they were both very sweet.
On Saturday I slept in really late. We were supposed to go to Karina’s mother’s to work in the garden but it was raining really hard. We watched TV and I played with the kitten. Then Karina made Gruzinchiki, a really delicious meat/dough thing. We listened to Avril Lavigne and The Jackson Five. Then we danced around to Justin Timberlake. She didn’t feel like leaving the house, even to go to the store. I left once in the morning to put money on my phone and she asked me to put money on hers too. Then she wanted me to go out and get beer in the evening. I felt confident that I could easily go to the supermarket and buy a few cans of beer, but she wanted me to go to a special beer store where they fill the bottles to order. She actually gave me a hand-written note to the shopkeeper that said, “This girl doesn’t speak Russian, please give her such and such beer.” It would have been really humiliating if it wasn’t so funny. I am pretty sure that I could have made that transaction by myself, but I just kind of went with it. She also wanted me to get her a pack of cigarettes and I managed to purchase those all by myself. The whole thing made me feel like the 4-year-old daughter of an alcoholic.
That night, Karina fell asleep on the couch at around 9:30 and I just cleaned up a little and went to bed as well since I was really tired. A few hours later I heard the door buzzer and her friend came over and they talked loudly and presumably drank for several hours. I was happy to be in bed with the kitten and not have to deal with it. He is really so cute. I can tell he is starting to feel more comfortable because sometimes he will bat at my hand with his little paws. He likes to hide under the covers and behind pillows, but Saturday night he slept right next to me in the open.
Sunday I waited around for a while for Karina to get up, but around noon I just decided to go for a walk and take pictures. I walked around the city center and then up past the heath resort. I specifically wanted to take pictures of this really creepy playground that I had seen earlier, but the sun went away right when I got there and there were children playing and I didn’t want to be that creepy person taking pictures of children at a playground. Anyway, Russia is famous, or at least I knew about, for its really strange playground statues of deranged-looking animals. After my nice long walk I still didn’t feel like going home and just sitting around, so I called Tanya. I am not sure if hanging out with her was better or worse than going back to my room and listening to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban on book on tape, but I suppose it was at least something to do.
She, as always, talked to me about coming to visit me in America next year and about how much she likes drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. Today she graced me with a description of her ideal career, which was actually hilarious. Firstly, she asked me if we have resorts in America. Then, she said that more than anything she would like to work as a receptionist in a hotel in Las Vegas. I asked her why and told her that I think Las Vegas is disgusting, and she told me that it is the city of rich people. What really surprised me is that she was getting a college degree to work as a receptionist, not just in America but also in Russia. I mean, I understand getting a degree in tourism if, for example, you want to be a hotel manager or start your own travel-related business, but a receptionist? I am actually starting to feel bad that I have no intention of having her stay with me in New York next summer. I mean, she did invite herself without asking if I was even going to be in America next summer, but she just seems so excited.

A very long post about Harry Potter and other things

July 21, 2009

So, as you can see, I was finally able to post photos! I will, of course, post more soon. Right now I am sitting in my room listening to Karina snore. It is 2:21 in the afternoon and today we were supposed to go to her mother’s house to help her in the garden, but then she didn’t need us to. Karina only has one lesson today in the evening, so it seems that she has taken advantage of the day to catch up on sleep. I don’t blame her. She works hard all week and then helps her mother in the garden and do housework on the weekends. I was really hungry though and there really wasn’t anything easily accessible to eat for breakfast. Breakfast isn’t really breakfast, as we imagine it in the United States, here. We eat a lot of leftovers in the morning, or sometimes some ham and cheese on a piece of black bread. Right now I would love some pancakes or eggs and bacon.
Last week and this weekend were very busy. Camp ended last week and we spent a few days celebrating Karina’s birthday. On Friday, I met up with Tanya and we went to a café. I have slowly but surely begun to like her less and less. To say that I hate her would be too harsh, but to say that I hate spending time with her would probably be accurate. I realized that the stuff she told me about on the first day that I met her is actually all she talks about ever: her boyfriend, Barnaul (a larger city nearby where she goes to school), drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes.
I went to the café with her on Friday because her boyfriend (who, by the way, she had only been “dating” for a week before she came back to Belokurikha for the summer) had broken up with her and, she said, “I just want to go out and drink and smoke.” She proceeded to tell me that I am her only friend in Belokurikha and that I made her feel so much better (I pretty much just sat there are nodded occasionally). She then, uninvited, came with me to the train station to meet Ted, who visited for the weekend, and back to Karina’s apartment. It took us several hours to shake her, but finally she went home and Ted and I hung out with Karina.
The next day the other volunteers came to Belokurikha and we walked into the mountains in the rain to have a picnic. It was great to see everyone but unfortunately we didn’t get to spend very much time together as a group. Sara, Wilson and Devon had to leave after the picnic, but Alfred, Brett, Ted and Dasha (one of the people the organizes things for the program here in Russia) stayed. We walked around Belokurikha for a long time and did something called the health walk where you take off your shoes and walk on different materials (sand, pebbles, pine cones, etc.) We waited in the resort part of Belokurikha for the nightclubs to open because Dasha really wanted us all to go to one.
We ended up at a club called “Odikh” and were the first people there. People started to trickle in and eventually it became more club-like and people started dancing. Apparently in Russia people don’t dance anything like they do in clubs in the US. Dancing in male-female pairs barely exists, and if a man and woman do dance together they don’t touch. Brett and Dasha brought the tradition of dirty American dancing to the club, which definitely got some stares. We spent a lot of the time just watching different Russian men dance very, very awkwardly. Also, pretty much every club in Belokurikha offered some kind of stripping, at least on the weekends. There were two strippers, one woman and one man, who stripped in a way that was more theatrical than lewd. It was actually really enjoyable because in one of their “acts” the woman was dressed as an angel and the man as a devil and he drew a ring around her with lighter fluid and light it on fire. At the end they lit some things that looked like giant sparklers.
Dasha and Alfred had to go back to Novoaltaysk on a bus that left at 5:45 in the morning and they wanted to stay out all night. We got back to Karina’s apartment (which is right by the bus station) at 3:30 because they needed to get their bags and we didn’t know how long it would take us to get into the apartment building because we didn’t have a key. Karina had only given me a key to her door and not one for the building. However, we made it in right away because there were some people leaving as we arrived and we slipped in the door. We slept for an hour, then they woke up and left for the station. That left Brett, Ted and I in the apartment to sleep for a few hours and then wake up to go meet some Russian strangers that Karina knew and who wanted to meet us. Tanya, of course, showed up even though I didn’t realize that she was invited.
Another thing about Tanya that I forgot to mention… she has decided to come visit me in America without me actually inviting her to visit me. One day when I was hanging out with Tanya, Vika and Karina she told Karina that next summer she was going to go to America. Karina asked if she knew how much it costs to go to America and she replied, “My mother is prepared to take care of everything.” First of all, people seems to make about 7 or 8 thousand rubles a month here. Just my plane and train tickets cost $29,000 rubles, so even if she expects to stay with me and have me pay for everything, that is a lot of money. Also, visas are apparently very expensive and difficult to get here and you have to travel a long way to get them. The main thing obviously is that I don’t want her to come and stay with me next summer, and even if I did I do not have the money or the space to put her up.
Anyway, enough about my Russian “friend.” Ted tried to take the bus back to Altayskoe but the next one didn’t leave until 6:30. We all decided to go to meet the random Russians, who actually turned out to be very nice. Ted headed home and Brett and I decided to make Huevos Rancheros for Karina. It was really fun to try to recreate a Mexican dish in Russia. It actually turned out incredibly well. The beans were the hardest things to find, but we found some cans of kind of grossly flavored pinto beans, washed them, and then cooked them with some chicken and salt. We used lavash, a Russia/Eastern European flatbread, as the tortilla and made plain white rice and a sort of “salsa” from tomatoes, onions and garlic. We threw in some sour cream and that was it. Karina liked them and I was pleasantly surprised by the results.
Yesterday I Karina with two of her lessons. We sang The Beatles’ song “I’m Looking Through You” with a group of girls and for next week they need to translate it and we will talk about the different verb tenses. Then, with a girl named Anna, we listened to and talked about The Magnetic Fields’ song “Grand Canyon” to demonstrate how to use the Conditional and I did some exercises where we debated where to go for my birthday party and she tried to buy computer games from me.
This morning besides eating too much bread, I was finally able to send a text message to Amy. I missed her so much and it was great to talk to her, even via text message. It just made me remember how much a love her and miss her. I miss all of my friends of course, but Amy always brightens my day when I talk to her. I also tried to read some Harry Potter in Russian. I noticed a few things about Harry Potter, or Garry Potter, in Russian.

1. Funny Harry Potter title translations:
· Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone -> Garry Potter and the Philosophy Stone
· Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets -> Garry Potter and the Secret Room
· Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince-> Garry Potter and the Prince-Half blood
· Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows-> Garry Potter and the Gift/Donation/Grant of Death

2.In Russian, for some reason, Severus Snape is translated as “Severus Snegg.”

3. I kept staring at the phrase “Ты-Знаешь-Кто” until I realized that it means, very literally, “You-Know-Who.”

4. Puffendui, Пуффендуй, is the word for Hufflepuff (or however it is spelled), which is funny because neither word means anything in either language and yet they changed the name anyway.

5. Garry, Гарри, and Isabel, Изабель, are both indeclinable in Russian because they are foreign and because Гарри is grammatically plural and Изабель is grammatically male/just a weird name. This means that both of our names always stay the same and do not take on different endings for different cases.

6. I am pretty sure the books here have the American covers instead of the British ones.

Some of the girls at camp and I with Russian pride written all over our faces.

A really beautiful little church in Belokurikha.

This is a view of the town from the mountains. Tanya, my “Russian friend,” took me up on a ski lift.

Swimming poool, obviously.

This is Nadia, my favorite little girl in the world!

Me with lots of pictures the kids drew and labeled in English. All day the children kept asking me what my shirt said by poking me in the chest.

More pictures.

This is Andrei, my favorite of the older kids at camp. He is just a sweetheart and has a great sense of humor. He is also one of the only kids there at actually seemed interested in learning English.

This is Seryozha, a little boy that I am always trying to make friends with but who seems totally uninterested in me. He just has the cutest sad eyes when he looks up at you though.

This is Karina and I at a “café.” I think it would just be called a restaurant/bar in America, but here they have a different conception of what constitutes a full on restaurant.

Karina, Tanya and I. This was my attempt at a “Russian woman” pose.

Me and my three favorite kids at the camp. There was a speaker talking to the kids about traffic laws or something so Nadia and Alica, who are younger, came and sat on my lap and put their hats on me.

Karina in our favorite park on our favorite bench.

"Halloween" at camp.

Anton, the other teacher, and I in our wonderful costumes.

Alica being too adorable for words.

One of my favorite photos from my trip so far.

Some snipets from blogposts that I have written and cannot post because I can't post pictures...

Hello!

Okay, I seem to have found at least a reasonably accessible and functional internet connection! I can now write emails and blog entries on my computer and just transfer them to the computer in the post office with a zip drive. It is actually really cheap. It is a rouble per minute plus some extra charges for just doing things on the internet. In total my twenty minutes of internet last time cost me 60 roubles, aka less than 2 dollars.
I am still having a pretty wonderful time. I miss my friends and family but otherwise I am just enjoying myself. My host, Karina, is totally awesome. That is really the best way to describe her. We have multiple inside jokes already, which says something about how good her English is. I feel really at home in her apartment and I love her cat who is crazy and bites me all the time.
I have two Russian friends, Tanya and her sister Vika, who I mentioned before. Yesterday they took me to a swimming pool after class and we swam around and got sunburned. Afterward we walked home through Belokurikha and Tanya and I stopped and each got a beer. It was hilarious because she got a Miller and said it was the best beer ever. I got a Russian beer, because it doesn’t really make sense to drink bad American beer in Russia. Tanya and I are going to go out again on Friday night.
My students are wonderful as well. Unfortunately they will only be my students for another week and then I think I am just helping Karina with her students at home. The children at the camp where I am working now know only a tiny bit of English, if any. It makes it hard to do much but I have taught them some games and simple words. Today I showed them pictures of my friends, family and cats. They especially liked my picture of Alyosha in his Santa costume.


July 13th, 2:30 PM
Today was a really good day at camp. I actually legitimately taught some English to Andrei, who knows a little and really wants to learn. I told him at I would tutor him after camps ends this week and he was very excited. He is really smart and just such a sweet guy, I really want to help him out.
Saturday (two days ago), Karina had some lessons at home and I helped her. Then we went to Karina’s mother’s house and worked in the garden pulling weeds. After that we helped her mother with dinner and then went in the banya. It was pretty amazing. I liked this banya better than the last one. I don’t think I totally described it in my last entry, but it is like a steam sauna combined with a dry sauna. It is made out of wood but you through water at the fire and so it gets steamy. Another important aspect is that you are naked. I mean, you don’t have to be, but generally that is what you do. It is really liberating and relaxing. The way you look naked doesn’t matter in the banya and so you just get to hang out and relax in the nude. Karina hit me with oak branches (it is usually birch, but they use oak) and it really just feels like a nice massage. After banya, we ate another huge dinner and went to sleep.
On Sunday Karina and I went to Altaiskoye to visit Ted. It is about 30 minutes by taxi and only 90 or 100 roubles each way. We went swimming in the river and ate lots of different berries and had a big lunch. It was very nice to see Ted and speak English without having to worry about making myself easily understood. I got to use phrases like “code-switching” and words that are difficult to translate.
Thursday is Karina’s birthday and we are having a picnic with shashlik (shish kebabs, more or less) and way too much more food. All of the volunteers are coming to Belokurikha on Saturday for our mid-point break and I am excited about that. Ted might come early or stay late since he is so close by.

July 13th, 5:00 PM
Okay, this is later today now. I just went and used the internet by myself, which was exciting. The only computer related words are “kompyuter” and “internet” which, as you can see, are the same in English and Russian. However, the internet moves so slowly that can’t do much. I still can’t figure out to get pictures to upload, but I will try again.

July 20th

I am at the internet cafe, which is hardly a cafe but actually a single computer in the post office. This weekend all of the volunteers came to Belokurikha and we had a picnic in the rain. It was great to see everyone. On Saturday night a few of us went to a club and danced/laughed at Russian people dancing. I will try to use a different internet connection tonight at Karina's friend's house and post some pictures (HOPEFULLY). I must go now because there is a boy from camp waiting to use the internet just staring avidly at me writing in English.

Interesting things about Russia...

Interesting things:

1. You can drink beer in Russia not only in public places (the street, the park, etc.) but also in moving vehicles like buses and taxis. From what Karina has told me, the laws about drinking and driving are more strict (you are not supposed to drive after drinking pretty much any alcohol at all), but I am not sure how strictly they are enforced.

2. Everyone here has awful teeth. Karina said that the air and the gas in the water here deteriorate your teeth and make your hair fall out. I am not sure how true that is, but at least 3 people have actually commented on how nice my teeth are.

3. This trip has both made me feel like my Russian is terrible but also not so bad. It is complicated, but I do at least feel like I am learning. I speak to almost everyone in English because that is what I am here to teach, but I understand a lot of what people say in Russian.

4. The buildings and the inside walls are really often bright colors here and, from what I saw, all through Siberia. I think it is really great and makes the houses and rooms much more interesting. My guess is that after the Soviet Union people not only had access to much, much more exciting paint, but also wanted to add some color to the bleak Soviet landscape.

5. There is a cooking show host on Russian TV that looks a lot like Juliette from Lost.

6. Most people I have met haven’t actually read any of my favorite books (The Brothers Karamazov and other major pieces of Russian literature).

7. Though the teenagers are totally obsessed with the way they look, women in their 30’s and 40’s seem much less concerned with hiding their “flaws.” When I went to the swimming pool there were lots of women with far from flawless bodies wearing bikinis. It is really nice. I was embarrassed to wear a bikini here so I brought one of my mom’s one pieces and I wish I had just not worried so much.

8. Russian children play a lot of the same games as American children. They all knew Red Rover and others, they just had different names.

9. I saw a ten-year-old boy smoking a cigarette.

10. They listen to Katy Perry in Russia too, and it scares me that her reach has extended so far.

11. I think vodka here just doesn’t taste as bad as it does back home. I was never a bog drinker at home, but I at least tried enough vodka to know that it tastes awful. Maybe I am just more hardcore now, but I actually don’t mind it at all now.

12. Young girls and teenagers here wear really short shorts. I mean REALLY short.
13. As I mentioned before, the haircuts for young men and boys here are really, really hideous. Mullets are prevalent, along with rat-tails. I think perhaps my least favorite is something kind of like a reverse mullet. It is basically a buzz-cut with bangs.

14. So far, the only thing I really miss (besides my friends and family of course) is the internet. I can live without indoor plumbing (Karina’s mother just has an outhouse) and a lot of other things, but I do really miss the internet.

15. The kids at camp all want to see the Statue of Liberty and go to Disneyland. I can understand Disneyland, but I think the Statue of Liberty kind of sucks. I tell them that it is great though.

16. Barak Obama and I were in Russia at the same time.
17. There are not only black and red currants, but also white currants!

18. Karina thinks that “experiences” is the British variant for “experiments” and I don’t have the heart to correct her.

19. Being in Russia is really exciting and surreal, but at the same time it is making the country that I dreamed about visiting seem so mundane. In general, the Russian people I am meeting are not particularly different from Americans. I guess I thought that I would just be constantly overwhelmed by Russianness, but in reality I often forget that I am not back home.

20. Tanya constantly talks about her boyfriend (it is actually getting really annoying) and the other day she told me about how excited she is that he is starting his internship. She said (in essence), “I won’t have to worry about what he is doing or who he is with because he will be so busy for two weeks. He doesn’t worry about me because he trusts me.” So I asked, “Do you trust him?” and she replied, “Yes, I just told you, I am glad he started his internship so I don’t have to worry about him.” Oh Tanya.

21. Apparently a man doing glorified karaoke (singing to something like pre-recorded jazz-pop) is considered “live music” in cafes in Belokurikha.

22. Salaries for teachers here are really shockingly low.

23. There is a reality TV show here called “Dom dva” aka “House 2” that seems to be like The Real World but without any tasks and it is on every night. Whenever Karina watches it, it seems to me that it is just a group of 20-somethings sitting around and talking.

24. My conception of the power of American celebrity was both confirmed and challenged. While there are mentions of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt in the gossip magazines, they occupy only a small fraction of the space. They watch a lot of American movies and TV and listen to a lot of American music, but Russian celebrities seem to be more popular.

25. Everyone here, and I mean everyone, takes their shoes off before entering a house.

In Russia, Finally

It has been several days since I arrived in Belokurikha but I haven’t had the internet… here is everything I have written since I got here:

Saturday:

I have dreamed about going to Russia since my Junior year in high school and it is mind-boggling an wonderful to finally be here. I am writing this at what I think is 6 AM in the morning after arriving in Belokurikha. It is hard for me to wrap my head around the last few days, but I will try to describe it.
My trip began very unfortunately with me missing my flight to Moscow. Needless to say, it was a fairly major crisis and Delta was both mean and unwilling to help me in any way. The Delta terminal of JFK was more or less in chaos when I arrived 2 ½ hours before my flight and every single line that would give you any access to an actual human employee was very long and barely moving. By the time I finally figured out where to go and eventually neared the front of the line it was already one hour before my flight. They would not let me check in because I was 9 minutes past the mark for check in time, according to them, the system locks you out and there is nothing they can do. After crying, pleading and yelling at a number of truly unkind Delta employees, I had to go to rebooking while frantically calling Brett (the program director), another LE staff member and finally my mom. The line for rebooking had about a hundred people in it, all with pretty similar situations to mine, pretty much definitively proving that Delta is a terrible, terrible airline. In fact, after waiting for an hour in the rebooking line I found out that my original flight had been delayed an hour so I would have obviously made the flight if they had let me check in.
Anyway, long story short, rebooking was not going to happen in time (when I got to the front of the line, two of the three people working at the counter just left). The LE staff member and my mom helped me find another flight that I NEEDED to make if I wanted to reach Moscow in time to catch the train with the group. I barely made that flight (another long story), but I did and that is what matters. It cost an obscene amount of money, but it was worth it. I ended up flying on the Russian airline called Aeroflot, which I had been warned against but that I actually really enjoyed. All the signs were in Russian, the flight attendants spoke Russian, etc. It was definitely not the greatest airline though. One of my favorite things was the map of our progress that they showed on the screen because the cities that they chose to label seemed both strange and counter intuitive. For example, as we took off the map showed New York, New Haven, the Hudson River, Trenton and nothing else.
I met the other LE volunteers at the airport and we all got along right away. We made our way through the Moscow Metro to the train station, which was uncomfortable because we were carrying a lot of luggage but fun because the Metro is very interesting. It actually feels a lot like the subway in New York, so in that way it was kind of comforting to be there. However, it is very, very deep underground and much more architecturally interesting than most New York subway stations. I will take pictures when I am back in Moscow at the end of my trip.
We finally got to the train station and settled ourselves in our sleeper cabins. Most of the stories from the trip are better left for another time, mostly because there are A LOT of them. It was an incredible trip and probably the most unadulterated fun I have ever had. I think I slept about 10 hours total between Monday and Friday, but it actually wasn’t too bad. Mostly we just stayed up all night because we were jetlagged and then we would take naps during the day and sleep too long and not be able to sleep the next night. We drank vodka with a rather creepy man from Kazan named Ranad, made friends with a woman who sold food on the train and had a number of metallic crowns in her mouth, drank cognac with some men from the Russian military, made friends with a little girl from Spain, did the Macarena in the hallway of the train car, played human Jenga and there was even an instance of a certain young man taking a nasty fall off of the top of a bunk bed. Also, the Trans-Siberian railway doesn’t have showers, so we all were greasy and disgusting for most of the trip.
Actually, I should tell you a little about each of the other volunteers because all of them are absolutely amazing. Brett, our program director, is just about as wonderful as I thought he would be from the many emails we exchanged before the trip. He is from Wisconsin and he likes cheese. He made me laugh the whole trip and constantly amazes me with how many things he has done in his life and how passionate he is about them. In fact, after we return to Moscow he is going right back to Siberia to teach in a university for a year.
Devon and I hit it off right away. She goes to Georgetown and is one of the most impressively social people I have ever met. I really like her confidence and ability to talk to strangers without embarrassment. She befriended the little Spanish girl I mentioned before and, within half an hour, the little girl was hugging her and saying, “I love you!”
Sarah is from London and studies Classics at either Cambridge or Oxford (I can’t remember). She comes off as being rather shy, but she is an extremely sweet person and has a very nice British accent. She got Brett to speak in a British accent for an entire night and is actually very outgoing giving the right situation.
Alfred goes to Brown and is pretty awesome. He was on the flight I missed and, when I told him that I didn’t know if I would make it to Russia, he insisted that I not only needed to but that I would. When I got off the plane he gave me a big hug and made me feel at ease right away. He was the first of us to meet the Russian soldiers and apparently made such a good impression that the soldier gave him a patch from his uniform.
Wilson, or Vilson as I like to call him, just sort of graduated from Stanford but is staying on for another year to get his Masters in Japanese. Needless to say, he is brilliant and speaks Russian fluently. He says “hella” sometimes, but I don’t even mind because I like him so much. The first morning we were both awake at about five in the morning and just looked out of the train windows and talked about Russian literature
Finally there is Ted, or Teddy Bear, who just graduated from Georgetown. I think he may be the smartest person I have ever met. Not only does he speak Russian flawlessly, he seems to know about 50 other languages and plays the mandolin. I loved just sitting and talking with him on the train and more than once staying up all night and having adventures.
We are all in different cities and towns, but I will see them all again for a midpoint break and a trip in the Altai Mountains. When we arrived in Biysk we were all met by our host families and went our separate ways.
My host “mother’s” name is Karina Baykulova and she is amazing. She is about to turn 28 and is an English teacher here. She and her friend Tatyana and Tatyana’s father picked me up at the train station and brought me nice snacks for the ride. Tatyana is 20 and I think that she came along so that I could meet someone my own age. She seems very nice and goes to school in Barnaul, which is a big city not too far away. Her English is fairly good and we managed to communicate.
When we got home, Karina made a huge meal and I took a very long, very needed shower. We went to the store and bought vodka and beer and then ate dinner and drank. The dinner was about four different salads, herring, and then a delicious chicken dish with potatoes and sour cream. She made a nice toast and said how glad she was that I was here and told me that in Russia you fill the first shot to the top and drain it to the bottom but after that you don’t have to. Karina has a cat named Shlyopa and he is very cute and very playful.
Today I am going to school with Karina and I am not entirely sure what we will be doing. After school Tatyana invited me to take an “excursion” and as far as I understand it, we are taking a ski lift to the top of a mountain.

Monday:

This blog entry is just going to be super, super long because I still haven’t found the internet. Writing in English feels very awkward, not because I have been speaking Russian a lot, but more because I have been trying to simplify my English when talking to my new friends. On Saturday I went to class with Karina and met the children. They were all very nice and asked me lots of questions about America. One little boy seems to be in love with me and kept handing me the ball when we were playing in the schoolyard. I taught the kids Duck Duck Goose and they taught me games as well. I thought that there would be lots of different classes and age groups but there is just one group of children who all don’t really know English at all. They like to sing karaoke and they want me to sing today. I am not particularly excited about it.
After class I talked to my mom on the phone for the first time, which was very nice. Then Tanya (Tatyana) and her father picked me up and took me on a tour of Belokurikha. Honestly, I am a little fuzzy on the details of where we actually went because the tour guide spoke in very fast Russian and Tanya couldn’t translate everything. We did see a beautiful church and took a ski lift up to the top of a mountain where the God of the native Altai people was supposed to have lived. There were giant bugs that bit us and it was very hot, but it was still beautiful and interesting.
I stayed at Tanya’s house for the night because Karina needed to stay at her mother’s house to help her with yard work. Tanya and I went in the banya, which is basically a Russian sauna, but they beat you with birch branches. They have been boiled so they are soft and it feels very nice.
On Sunday Tanya’s sister, Vika, took me riding on her horse. I can’t remember the horse’s name, but Vika calls him the Russian word for “son.” It was an amazing ride… we both rode one horse and I sat behind the saddle, which was kind of scary. When we galloped I was pretty sure I was going to fall off, but luckily I didn’t and I am still alive. Then we went to Karina’s mother’s house and ate lunch/dinner. I wasn’t hungry but the food was so good that I was able to eat enough to be polite. All the meals here are huge! I haven’t been very hungry since I got here any my stomach feels weird, but everyone makes huge meals for me because I am a guest so I have to eat. Karina got a small bottle of vodka and then her friend came over and brought beer, then we walked back to her house and stopped at another bar on the way. It was quite a lot of alcohol but it was very fun.
Today I went to my second day of school. It is really just summer camp though so I haven’t really been doing much teaching. Today I showed some girls how to play hangman and then taught everyone how to play Red Rover but it turned out that they have pretty much the same game in Russia. Lots of the children gave me little presents, which was very cute. Lots of the kids and teenagers have very dated hairstyles like rattails and mullets.
Anyway, if any of you miss me enough to call me my number is +7 (963) 572 8136. The call will be free for me, but probably far from cheap for you. I think it is 14 hours later here than in California and 11 in New York.

Wednesday:

I finally have a slightly better internet connection but I can't seem to upload photos. I will try again later!

Лол кот

This is my last night in the wonderful US of A. I spent the day in Central Park with my friend Jen and we rented a rowboat and enjoyed the beautiful New York day. I am getting a little bit sappy about how much I love New York, but it is actually probably a good idea to get out of here in the summer. Tonight I am just putting the finishing touches on my packing and generally existing in a state of nervousness about tomorrow.

Picking up my visa went almost insultingly smoothly and took only about 10 minutes because, inexplicably, there was no line at all. On the plus side, I get to actually enter Russia since I was able to pick up the visa.

So my next post will hopefully be from Russia! I made some Russian LOLcats for a semi-casual competition the LE Russia program director has created to get myself some bonus points (sorry for those of you that speak Russian if the Russian is bad). They are pictures of my amazing cat, Alyosha:

"Mama loves me, but I only love sausages!"

"I drank too much vodka and ate too many cookies... Wait a minute! Where are my presents!?!"

"If mama didn't give me 'smooties'... I would cry."

"What is this, fish!? I didn't order fish! I want caviar!!!!!"

The Russian Government: An Introduction

Today I spent 5 hours at/outside of the Russian Consulate. I am feeling something in between amusement and anger, but now that I am home all I really care about is resting. I am eating a loaf of bread and a quesadilla at the same time.

I have to say, after everything I feel like I have gone through with Russia (i.e. a miserable summer at UCLA taking intensive Russian, literature teachers I didn't like, my extremely creepy boss at the Russian deli) this is actually the first thing that has made me doubt my commitment to Russia.

Bureaucracy I can handle, but this was something else entirely. It was more like anarchy. Firstly, here is a picture that gives a fairly good idea of what it looked like (I didn't have my camera, but I found this one):

You really can't see the stairs in this picture but they, at least today, were packed as well. There seems to be some sort of divide between people who needed visas and people who needed passports. However, half of the people needing visas just shoved their way to the front of the passport line, which was moving much, much, much faster, so a man that literally got there two hours after I did got in before me.

In the first 3 hours they let in about a third of the staircase of visa applicants, aka about 10 people. Then as they about to take their lunch break they told us (in Russian) that the system was down. And so, for an hour, we all just stood there without even the hope of being let in while they ate lunch.

They was some problems with crowd control in that the people at the back of the line kept screaming whenever the door was opened. Then they tried to get the people in front to just push their way in the next time the door opened. This, to me and all the other people near the front, sounded like the fastest and easiest way NEVER to get a visa, but they kept screaming at us.

On the plus side, I was actually in a cheerful mood and had a great attitude for about 4 of the 5 hours. I had lots of interesting conversations and met some very nice people. Had we been able to sit in a waiting room and were treated slightly better than cattle, it might have been a nice day. In fact, if I wasn't so worried as the hours crept by that I wouldn't get my visa in time for my trip I would have taken this more in stride. I nearly snapped in that final hour, mostly because my attempt to be polite, non-violent and friendly seemed to have actually impeded my visa application process. 

More importantly, I have to go back on Thursday to pick up my visa and there is a very good chance that I will again have to wait somewhere between 1-5 hours.

So, not the most encouraging way to begin my travels in Russia, but I will try to stay optimistic.

A few of my favorite things

American things that I am going to miss:

Taco Bell

My cat (Alyosha)

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

The large selection of clothing that I have to choose from when at home

My fwends

Animal fries

David Duchovny

 

 

Things I am not really going to miss:

Nacho cheese

Law & Order: Criminal Intent

Sororities

Lost

 

 

 

Russian things I am looking forward to:

Seeing the settings of my favorite novels

Sour cream

Getting whipped by things in some kind of sauna (apparently something they do there, according to a reliable source)

Playing The Backstreet Boys for little Russian children

Riding the Trans-Siberian Railway

Здравствуйте!

I am starting this blog to let you (presumably my friends and family) know about my trip to Russia this summer. I thought I would start out by giving some basic information about my trip, the places I will be traveling, etc.

The program I am traveling with is called Learning Enterprises.  You can read about it on the website if you are interested, but basically it is a non-profit that sends college-aged students around the world to teach English.

I will be traveling with 6 other students and our awesome program director, Brett, who is a recent college graduate. I am leaving New York on the afternoon of June 29^the and will arrive in Moscow the next morning. We will all meet up at the airport, spend a day in Moscow, and then embark on our journey to Siberia!

As one of my guidebooks says, “It takes over a week to travel the [Trans-Siberian Railway’s] length, and the route runs through Russia’s dark heart.” We will travel less than half of the railway’s length, but still, the trip should take about 3 days. Our final destination is the Altai Region, located in Southern Siberia between Kazakhstan and Mongolia. One third of the entire area is covered by forest and it is supposed to be beautiful. After we get off the train, we will split up and go to our respective towns. I am “stationed” in a town called Belokurika, which is actually a ski resort and health spa in the mountains.

I will be teaching 3-4 hours a day, 5 days a week and I wont know the ages of the children (and maybe even adults) until I arrive. I will be getting some sort of training on the train (haha, get it?) but that is about it. I am going to be living with a host “family,” though my “family” is a single 30-year-old woman. I am encouraged to spend as much time outside the classroom with my students and host family as possible, so I will be doing lots of hiking, swimming, and hopefully lounging around at the baths.

After teaching for about 6 weeks, we will either fly or take the train back to Moscow. From there my plans are a little more up in the air. We are scheduled to get back either the 13^th or 15^th of August and I am not flying back to New York until the 21^st. Hopefully I will see the sights in Moscow and even take the train to St. Petersburg if I have time (I want to see Dostoevsky’s St. Petersburg home where he wrote The Brothers Karamazov!!).

Here are some links to things relating to my trip:

Belokurikha

Google Map of Belokurikha

Love

By Vyacheslav Ivanov

Translated by Isabel Lane

 

We are two trunks that lightning set aflame,

Two pine trees burning in the murky night;

We are a pair of meteors in flight,

A double-stinging arrow with one aim.

 

We are two horses led together on

By just one hand, - by one spur’s painful cue;

We are two eyes that share a single view,

Two timid wings that one dream flies upon.

 

We are two trembling ghosts with grieving eyes

Above the marble crypt of the divine,

The sepulcher where ancient Beauty lies.

 

We guard one secret with diphthongal lips,

We are, together, one intricate Sphinx

We are two arms of a single crucifix.

 

 

ЛЮБОВЬ

Вячеслав Иванов

 

Мы - два грозой зажженные ствола,

Два пламени полуночного бора;

Мы - два в ночи летящих метеора,

Одной судьбы двужалая стрела!

 

Мы - два коня, чьи держит удила

Одна рука,- язвит их шпора;

Два ока мы единственного взора,

Мечты одной два трепетных крыла.

 

Мы - двух теней скорбящая чета

Над мрамором божественного гроба,

Где древняя почиет Красота.

 

Единых тайн двугласные уста,

Себе самим мы - Сфинкс единой оба.

Мы - две руки единого креста.