Well, friends, as much as this account needs a proper conclusion, I should let you know, in the interests of transparency, that I have been back in the homeland for almost two weeks now. Yes, I know, I’m a fraud.
Here’s a joke to soothe the pain of deceit, though:
Brezhnev flies to the United States to meet with Nixon. After hours of exhausting talks, the two leaders decide to go to the banks of the Potomac to have a heart to heart. Nixon brings a bottle of very expensive California wine.
“What’s the occasion, friend?” asks Brezhnev, “what money are we drinking on?”
“See that bridge over there?”
“Yeah.”
“We were supposed to build it for $2 million in six months. We built it in four months for $1.5 million. That $500,000—that’s the money we’re drinking on.”
After a few months, Nixon reciprocates the visit and arrives in Moscow. After the official state business, Brezhnev and Nixon go to talk heart to heart on the banks of the Moscow river.
“So, Leonid, what’s the money we’re drinking on?”
“See that bridge over there?”
“No.”
“That’s the money we’re drinking on.”
Final Brown Count: 54 (remember, these aren’t individuals, these are sightings, which can involve one happy mustachioed desi, or a whole throng of sweating, salwar-kameezed tourists)
So yes—where I last left off, the relatives had just arrived in Moscow. At this point, of course, the whole flavor of Russia changed—from a public-transport-riding, street-food-eating, shirtless experience, suddenly everything was paid for, and there was no way I could hide my foreignness behind my knowledge of Russian.
The parents arrived first, and much of that day was taken up by my dad being thoroughly dissatisfied by the apartment they had picked in Moscow, saying so loudly, and the lady from the apartment company finally agreeing, after much humming and hawing, to move us to a different property (in the next building, by the way), one in which there was actually A/C in two rooms! Let me remind you that in a country of even fewer working climate control units than independent media outlets, this was quite a luxury. Amazingly, we were on Tverskaya St., which is probably the single most famous street in Moscow, and just a stone’s throw away from Yeliseevsky grocery store, which is in turn probably the most famous grocery store in Russia, let alone Moscow.
Let me tell you about this store: from ceiling to floor, there are amazing decorations and carvings. There are massive chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. The service is actually friendly. And it remains the only store in Russia where I have seen tortellini. Yeliseevsky became our food source during our time at Tverskaya No. 8. My dad claimed we were “living like locals” because we weren’t eating in restaurants the whole time, but shopping at the fanciest grocery store in the country was hardly the local life.
But their first night in Russia, we went out for Georgian food.
Prior to coming to Russia, I thought I was well-acquainted with the great cuisines of the world. Surely, if it was delicious, it had found its way to the palates of American foodies (and less picky eaters like me), right? Wrong. Friends, let me tell you, when it comes to mutual awareness of cooking styles, there remains an Iron Curtain so fearsome that even 20 years of free-ish trade haven’t budged it. The world is still, unbelievably, inexcusably, woefully unaware of the joys of Georgian food. The khachapuri (cheese bread), the lobio (mashed or boiled bean dish), the eggplant dishes!
If pressed to describe the cooking style, I would say it is somewhere between eastern Mediterranean and, well, Indian, but with some Central/ East Asian influence as well. The use of olive oil and red wine points westward, but the spices used with their grilled meats are awfully subcontinental. The red lobio we had was a whole lot like rajma. And then there are the boiled pork dumplings (which we did not have, naturally) which are awfully reminiscent of something from northern China, or of Nepalese momos.
Basically, it was really frigging tasty. If I knew anything about restaurants (or making food at all), I would open a Georgian restaurant.
Anyway, the other great thing about this particular Georgian restaurant was that it was a lot like Disneyland. The management had taken great pains to recreate a highly idealized Georgian village feel, complete with fake grape vines hanging from the ceiling, fake cobblestones on the floor, fake wooden beams holding everything together, and fake smiles on the wait-staff. I almost began to wonder where the winding turnstiles were.
The restaurant was in the Old Arbat, which we strolled before going by foot to O. and V.’s to pick up all my stuff; I was movin’ out. There was a bit of a bittersweet parting there, hardly dulled by the fact that my parents were clearly taken aback by O.’s full mustache. We then took our leave and returned.
The next day the grandparents arrived, and although we did some walking around then, it was clear that in the heat and smoke, they simply couldn’t see the city by foot and metro. So I bustled them onto a bus tour the next morning, which they claim to have enjoyed. All this time, I wasn’t going to work, because the boss decided that braving the smoke just wasn’t worth it.
We had bought train tickets to St. Petersburg, which is an ordeal in itself—you can buy them through a machine at the train station, but you still have to wait in line for an hour in a room that’s probably 110 degrees. The machine itself sports a design so far removed from any known standard of ergonomics (I mean it’s Russian-built, right) that your first urge is to yell at customer service, until you realize that nobody in Russia has heard of such a thing.
We traveled to Petersburg on a fast, air-conditioned, very pleasant German-built train, the Sapsan. Our seats weren’t together, so we just sort of sat in comfort for the 4-hour trip north. Arriving on the platform at St. Petersburg, one gets the sense that one has arrived in a city of culture—soaring classical music greets you as you exit the train. I could tell already that this was my kind of city.
Petersburg did not disappoint. Aside from taxi drivers who seemed actually more unpleasant than in Moscow (actually Muscovite taxi dudes tend to be pretty chill, in my experience, especially the guys you just flag down), Petersburg is a gorgeous city—it has the feeling of order, and of gentility. Practically every building is an architectural or historical landmark of some sort.
Our first day there, we got a tour guide and went outside the city to see the Peterhof, a summer palace built by Peter the Great, the Russian czar who founded St. Petersburg in 1701 or 1703 (I can’t remember off the top of my head). The palace itself, by criminally wealthy European aristocratic standards, is not out of this world, but the palace gardens are. There are about 150 fountains on the grounds, with ten times that number of individual jets. Peter the Great made sure there was a lot of gold leaf, so that in case you were in doubt that he was really fucking rich and powerful, the gold would drive the point home. He also had a very impish sense of humor, turning on fountains where unsuspecting noblemen would least expect them. He didn’t spare the ladies, thereby founding the first wet corset competition.
The next day we went to the Hermitage Museum. Now although I have never really been to France, I imagine that if you took the entire collection of the Louvre and put it inside Versailles, and then dropped that palace right on the Seine waterfront, it still would be a distant second to the Hermitage. The Hermitage is situated inside the Winter Palace, the Big Bertha of all Russian palaces. Right on the Neva River, with a view of basically everything important in Petersburg, and so big that the entire area of Red Square couldn’t accommodate it, the Hermitage is meant to say, “check us out, West. We’ve beat you at your own game.”
The truly amazing thing is that, as huge as the palace is (several football fields long, four stories, actually two buildings fused together), it only accommodates about a third of the entire Hermitage collection. To give you an idea of the kind of stuff this museum contains, let me recount an anecdote. We get up to the “French art of the 19th and 20th centuries” section, which begins pretty tamely, but before you know it, you’re in a room filled wall-to-wall with Renoir. You begin to believe that they must have a Renoir fancy, but you then realize the next room is filled wall-to-wall with Monet. You think you’ve seen it all, but it keeps going—an entire room filled with Cezanne, then another room filled with Gauguin, some Degas and Manet scattered here and there, and then a whole room filled with Matisse. You go back to the Degas/ Manet room to inform your parents that there is a whole roomful of Matisse, pass through the room again and then onward, only to realize that there is a WHOLE NOTHER ROOMFUL of Matisse. I thought I was going to have a (he)art attack (ho ho! You liked that, didn’t you)!
After seeing the physical impossibility that was the Hermitage, we returned home and collapsed for the next four hours, but at 12:20 AM we boarded a boat tour, right outside our apartment. (Did I mention that we were staying in a building at the corner of Nevsky Prospect, the most famous street in Russia, and the Fontanka, one of the most important waterways of St. Petersburg? Well, we were.) Anyway, why a boat tour? Because there are lots of canals and waterways running through St. Petersburg. Why are there lots of canals and waterways? Because Peter the Great liked Amsterdam. Any questions?
The nighttime boat cruise was magical. The entire city was lit by opulent lighting, and the ubiquitous pastels and gold leaf were brought out in splendid detail. St. Petersburg looked quite the classical gem on the Baltic. We saw the raising of the bridges over the Neva River—an amazing spectacle not just because you see these huge bridges going up for the night, but because thousands of people turn out to see it. At 1 AM, the city is as alive and as festive as ever. You just have to make sure you end up on the right side of the river before the bridges part…
Unfortunately, even in St. Petersburg we couldn’t escape the now ubiquitous heat and smoke. The day we spent at the Hermitage was the hottest day in St. Petersburg history, at a sweltering 99 degrees. The next day was only slightly cooler, but first of all, the smoke blowing from inland reached the coast, and second, we, like the doofuses we were, decided to wear long pants in off chance we wanted to go inside a working church.
We took a (non-air-conditioned) bus tour of the city that day, and we stopped at no working churches. Furthermore, not a lot was visible, because of the thick smoke. But the city was beautiful anyway—the Church of the Savior on Spilt Blood, with its stunning mosaics and bizarre history (built on the site of the assassination of tsar Alexander II, used as storage for Mariinsky Theater sets), the monumental St. Isaac’s Cathedral, the Peter and Paul Fortress, the final resting place of all the tsars since Peter the Great, etc. etc. I walked home afterwards, paying a visit to Nabokov’s house and Kazan Cathedral along the way.
The day after, we returned to Moscow to see one final, quintessentially Russian attraction: the ballet. The fabulous Mariinsky and Bolshoi Theaters were closed for the summer, so we went to the Russian State Youth Theater, i.e. where the top ballet students in Russia perform. I had long been told that these performances are secretly the best, because the students actually have some life in them, even if their technique is not perfect. We were not disappointed by the performance we saw of Swan Lake, especially since it was about 100 degrees and very, very stuffy in the theater—so much so that I was the only one of our group to stay through intermission. But the dancers were champs—they withstood the heat and kept performing utterly convincingly and poignantly. And the music, oh, oh!
The next day we flew away, away from the never-ending smoke and heat at last, back to Amurrica. I will miss Russia. I would like to say that I will miss keeping this blog too, but really I won’t. Enjoy life. Have fun. Drink kvass.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
С легким дымом
In looking for a theme to unite the long, mute past two-and-a-half weeks, I have finally lighted upon a single word into which I can condense my experiences. That word is “shirtlessness.”
I will soon get to why this is so appropriate, but in the meantime, I have a pretty extensive backlog of jokes to share.
It is the 1980s, and the Soviet General Secretary has just died. The funeral is taking place at Red Square.
A man walks up and says, “I have a pass,” and he is admitted.
A second man walks up and says, “I have a pass,” and he is admitted.
A third man walks up. “I have a season pass.”
It is 1937, and Stalin’s repressions are in full swing. A husband and wife sleep guardedly in their apartment. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, the patter of feet on the staircase. A sharp ringing of the doorbell, accompanied by a loud voice. Neither dead nor alive, the husband goes to open the door. Within a minute, he comes back:
“Don’t worry,” he says, “it’s just a fire.”
A group of Soviet tourists is visiting Italy, and they are asking their tour guide how to say various phrases.
“How do you say, ‘How do I get to the hotel?’”
“And what about, ‘How much does this gelato cost?’”
One intrepid tourist asks, “How would you say, ‘Please provide me with political asylum?’”
“What the hell would you need to say that for?!” asks another tourist viciously.
“Oh, nothing! I just wanted to know which one of us is from the KGB.”
What do you call a Soviet musical quintet returning from abroad?
A quartet.
“Good morning, Mr. Brezhnev!” said the sun to Brezhnev in the morning.
“Good morning!” replied Brezhnev.
“Good day, Mr. Brezhnev!” said the sun in the afternoon.
“Good day!” replied Brezhnev.
In the evening, the sun remained silent.
“Why don’t you say anything, Mr. Sun?” asked Brezhnev.
“Go fuck yourself!” said the sun. “I’m in the West now!”
One policeman asks the other:
“What do you think about our regime?”
“The same as you do.”
“Then it is my duty to arrest you!”
The latest brown count: 38
Now, back to the narrative of the times. As I was saying, I have lighted on the word “shirtlessness” not only because it describes the state that I have been in for about 60% of the last two weeks, but also because it illuminates so many of the cultural experiences one has when Moscow is roasting in the hottest weather in its history (it reached 100 for the first time ever this past Thursday). In short, the history of the past few weeks is, more or less, the history of dealing with the heat.
The Russian’s fashion sense, a strange animal even without the heat, has actually become less strange with it. Normally, if you are a Russian girl or young woman, you will dress more or less in the Western style up until age 30 or 35 or so, with the caveat that you will wear hooker-heels as often and as gaudily as possible. The heat’s effect on this phenomenon has been most salutary, making the frightening heals and slinky dresses impractical and bringing on skimpier summer attire. Past age 35, the irrevocable and fascinating progression to babushka-hood begins. You start wearing matching blouses and long skirts. You get fat. You wear your hair shorter, and when it starts to gray, you dye it in some unnatural color, especially ruby red. By 70 or 80, you revel in your stooped grayness, and eagerly await the moment that a young man will help you with your unnecessarily large bag.
If you’re a working man in the summer, you will wear a light-colored, short-sleeved button-down collared shirt, with our without tie. Your pants will by light, preferably imitation linen. Your belt and shoes may, but do not have to, match. Ideally, your belt is imitation crocodile, in white, cream, or tan; brown will do. Your shoes are ideally white or tan leather, pointy, with little holes in them “for ventilation”; leather sandals—with socks, of course—are also acceptable. There is a 40% chance you will have a mullet. The heat has caused your shirt to go unbuttoned, even on the metro and the street. If you are younger than 20 or still in school, you might wear very short swimming trunks with bath sandals, shirt optional (there’s your shirtlessness for you). If you fancy yourself really fashionable, you’ll have a white t-shirt, light shorts, white shoes, and very thin white socks, which will come up a third of the way to your knees. Your chance of having a mullet, if under 20, approaches 60%.
At home, in sweltering apartments, all bets are off. Men strip down to their boxers, and women, well, they suffer. When V. Sr. and Jr. and I all sat in the same room naked but for our undies, talking Soviet cinema, I knew I had successfully assimilated.
Anyway, enough of that descriptive detour. Where I last left you, I told of our trip to Sasha’s dacha, and all that that entailed. The following week was pretty ordinary, so I will fast-forward to the next weekend, during which I went to O. and V. Sr.’s dacha.
We traveled in O. and V. Sr.’s Lada Niva, which looks as if it was built circa 1980, but is in fact only 6 years old (unfortunately, it also smells as if it were built in 1980). The ride there was not eventful, except in that the air through the windows was fresh, the backseat cramped, and the tape of Ukrainian drinking songs jolly at first, but kind of annoying the third time around. We reached the dacha around 1 AM (driving in the daytime would have been far too hot, and would be asking for trouble with traffic jams), to be greeted by the sound of crickets and the aroma of forest.
Their dacha is a rather different, more serious, more chaotic affair than Sasha’s. Sasha’s was a little country cottage, made of quaint makeshift materials (recall the old train cars), with a tidy little yard on one side with flowers and whatnot. Not so the host family’s. The plot is at least twice as big, and so is the house on it—which they built with their own hands a few years ago to replace the ancient wooden structure that had stood there since the 1950s and had started to fall apart. There is a huge garden plot, where they grow flowers, yes, but all kinds of fruits and vegetables too. Black currant, red currant, gooseberry, blackberry, raspberry, cucumbers, potatoes, dill, horseradish, etc. etc. This is V. Sr.’s pride and joy, and he works on it whenever he possibly can.
The next morning (or rather early afternoon), I was woken by O., who announced that the neighbors were going for a swim, and that I should get in on the action. I did not refuse. The neighbors were a jolly bunch; the husband had some pretty kooky theories on the “inevitable” hyperinflation and eventual political collapse that America was in for, thanks to the current financial crisis. When I asked him why it was so inevitable, he treated me to a long response that I didn’t understand—perhaps because my Russian is inadequate, perhaps because he was crazy. His father-in-law seemed to be of the latter opinion, but then again he seemed to think that “no negro should ever be president of the US.”
After this delightful excursion, I returned to the dacha to do some nice lying down, followed by some eating. This strenuous regimen, which was repeated a few times, was broken only at 10 PM, when the neighbor, Vladimir a.k.a. Vovan a.k.a. Vovets came over to play cards with us. We played a brilliant Russian card game called tysyacha or “thousand” for several hours. My amateurishness was apparent. The highlights of this little session were the part where a wasp stung me and V. Sr. used vodka to disinfect it/ kill the pain; the part where V. Sr. reverted to baby-talk to “stun” his opponents in the game; and most of all the part (actually the whole evening) where the men (including me) collectively decided to remove our shirts, due to the heat.
The next day was much of the same, minus the swimming. I got to see V. Sr. in his garden-tending element. He picked the vast majority of the cucumbers on the vine, and spent hours sorting his collection of berries (mainly black and red currants). The cucumbers are absolutely delicious, and I’m sure if I were more partial to the taste of black currants, I would have liked those too. But V. absolutely relishes the task—I think much more so than he relished the fruit of his labors.
Why, exactly, the obsession with gardening on the dacha? The answer is… a history lesson! In rough times (which were frequent during Soviet years), when produce was short, a dacha garden patch could supply almost half of a family’s annual consumption. Think about this for a second: the growing season around Moscow is 3.5 or 4 months—basically shit for agriculture. The soil is so-so, the sunlight is way subpar; the amount you can produce is rather limited. But what little a small plot produced could produce half of what you ate. In a whole year.
At first the Soviet government frowned upon this form of private production, but by the mid-1950s they had to acknowledge the reality that it was more efficient to let people feed themselves sometimes. In the early 1990s, which were particularly hard, people literally survived off of their dachas. My boss at work, who is from the rather chilly city of Perm, says that for two whole years (1990-1992), his family ate mainly the potatoes (nothing else would grow) that they produced on the dacha. He still managed to be like 6 foot 4, so no long-term harm done, but still.
Anyway: that Sunday night, O.’s mom, the babushka of drunken birthday party fame, arrived for a week of relaxation on the dacha. I talked with her about the Soviet times, and about her fondness for attending Youth Communist League rallies back in the 1940s. She seems not to think Stalin was a tyrant, although her reasoning was a tad strange. “Of course we were afraid. My father was in the army and all army officers were being rounded up. They would invent reasons to arrest you. But the country needed the slave labor of everyone who was arrested.” Ah, ok, I get—okay cool Stalin, you’re forgiven.
We left the dacha at midnight, hoping to escape both the heat and the traffic, but ended up getting caught in both and not returning home until 3 AM. But no matter.
The memory of the rest of the week is a bit hazy—I’m sure I did something interesting, but it escapes me presently—until Friday, on which day I threw a party: to be specific, it was an indiyskaya vecherinka, or Indian dinner party for my fellow ANE kids and teachers and all, for which I spent the whole day shopping and cooking in 99-degree heat (infuriatingly, the supermarket where I bought my produce, which is located in the largest mall in the Moscow city limits, does not accept credit cards). In the end, it was a wonderful, if rather cramped and sweaty, affair. I resisted every urge to go shirtless. O. enjoyed the sauce for my paneer dish (even though there was no paneer), but V. stayed away. Also, word to the wise: if you need to cook Indian in Moscow, avoid the shop “Индийские специи” (Indian Spices) in Moscow if you can. It’s really damn expensive.
The next day (Saturday), we all left for a weekend trip to the towns of Vladimir and Suzdal, which are located in the so-called “Golden Ring” of historical towns to the north and east of Moscow. The non-Georgia kids were actually not supposed to be on this trip, but thanks to me and Eric from Stanford, who went to the ANE International office and said “yo, why are we not on this trip,” we got on the trip.
After meeting at the ungodly hour of 8 AM at ANE, we hopped on a minibus, which took a good 5 hours to get to Vladimir, thanks to traffic (incidentally, its driver was also named Victor—see my third installment). This was frankly fine by me—I caught up on my sleep and then we played a game of Botticelli. Shirtless. It was fun, except for the part where Kostya (see previous posts) creepily put his camera on video mode and panned slowly back and forth across the bus several times.
By the time we got to Vladimir, it was early afternoon. The Georgia kids stayed in a hotel; we hangers-on (there were 7 of us at this point) found a “hotel” called the Gostinitsa Uyut, which I will translate loosely as “Comfort Inn.” Nothing particularly wrong with the place, except, shall we say, it was immediately apparent why you were paying only 400 rubles (about $13) per night.
We toured Vladimir in a grand total of 1.5 hours, which included the two absolutely gorgeous 12th-century cathedral churches there, made of limestone, an extremely costly material at the time. I suppose they paid for it in the end—while the Vladimirites were building really expensive churches, Ivan the Terrible in Moscow decided he wanted to spend his time taking over Vladimir.
Okay, well I’m bending the truth a little, but trust me, limestone + Italian architects = California-style budget problems.
After touring these churches and not much else, we suddenly found we had another 16 hours in Vladimir with nothing to do. This was frustrating, because:
1) There isn’t much else to do in Vladimir
2) It was hot
3) The hotel was nowhere close
4) There is nothing to do in Vladimir
5) Thunderstorms. No shelter. Wet. And then hot again.
6) We could have just moved on to Suzdal, which is a more interesting town, and maybe seen some of it before the even greater heat predicted for the next day
7) There just isn’t jack shit to do in Vladimir
We ended up going to the Georgia kids’ cheesy hotel, eating in the cheesy restaurant, and dancing in the INCREDIBLY cheesy “club” there. However, I am proud to say that we, good American students and citizens of the world, introduced the club-going population of Vladimir to the Macarena, which, when played, was greeted with incomprehension by the natives, who gladly received our new-fangled Western moves, against which the stolid Soviet moves just couldn’t compete on the open market.
While some stayed (and even swam afterward in the toxic-looking waters of the Klyazma River), I was one of those who elected to return to dear old Uyut and call it a night. The next morning, after a surprising excellent sleep, we made our way to Suzdal, where it was just really, really hot. But no matter. We visited the Museum of Wooden Architecture, where the highlight was actually an impromptu performance by a Russian folk duet. We then saw some old-ass and nice-ass churches, and heard some more awesome-ass liturgical music (I almost bought their expensive-ass CD).
Here’s a fun game: everywhere above where I’ve suffixed “ass” to an adjective, instead see what it sounds like when you put the hyphen after it, thus prefixing it to the following noun. It has a pretty amusing ass-effect.
After this, we tried Suzdal’s most famous product, namely medovukha—or mead. Yes, Virginia—they still make fermented honey in Suzdal, and it tastes really quite good. I bought a liter (for really too much money); around this time, many of us decided to go for a dip in the little stream running through town. Basically, this was an incredibly good decision. We went to a grocery store and bought some cheap food for lunch, made a picnic on the riverbank, and then went for a jolly dip in the gently flowing water, with our feet caressed by thick mud and our mouths treated to the taste of floating rivery plant matter. The water was warm, like a pool, and it was here that we Westerners made our second contribution to the socio-cultural life of the inhabitants of Vladimir Oblast: the game of Marco Polo.
After this, we got back on the minibus for the long and inevitably bare-chested ride home, punctuated only by a stop for water and ice-cream (and some pissing in the field).
I will now fast-forward to the next event of note, which took place on Tuesday.
Now, I have tried so far in this account to emphasize those experiences which best illuminate and reflect the culture of this large, strange country in which I find myself. Well, everything that has hitherto been written simply pales and shrivels in comparison to what comes next (critical note: this is foreshadowing).
You have heard my rants about Russian rudeness and dourness; you have heard of their strange fashion sense. All of these strange inhibitions disappear in exactly one place: the banya. This is also the place where the theme of shirtlessness becomes, to borrow some academic jargon, an inadequate descriptive tool.
To translate the word banya as “sauna” would not quite capture it. In a sauna, as I understand, you delicately get into some towel thing and sweat civilly with your fellow victims. In a banya, the experience hasn’t started until everyone strips down naked in front of each other. If some of you are clothed, it’s weird. If you know someone’s naked, but you can’t see them, it’s weird. If you can see them and everybody is in their birthday suits, it’s a banya.
My theory on the banya and why people there are so friendly simply has to do with awkwardness. You are all naked, and many of you are old and fat. It’s a bit awkward. If you don’t embrace it, it will be super awkward. The result is the dropping of one’s guard and the forming of manly ties between one and all. The banya has the feeling of a gentlemen’s club, with a mandatory dress code of very, very casual.
After stripping down into sweet, liberating nothingness (except sandals—this is important) and perhaps having some preliminary drinks (in our case, water to keep us hydrated; for most others, vodka or beer) and collecting your bunch of birch twigs, you go and do some bathing in a row of open shower stalls. Then, nice and wet, you go into the steam room, which is 90 degrees Celsius (194 Fahrenheit) at the entrance, i.e. the coolest point; the temperature next to the oven is 10-20 degrees Celsius hotter (i.e. above boiling point, or 212 degrees F). Oh yeah. It’s frigging hot.
As if this were not masochistic (and somewhat homoerotic) enough, you then proceed to engage in the activity that separates the banya from the mere sauna—the wheat from chaff, if you will: the old, sweaty Russian men from the wussy, ninny, not-as-sweaty Finnish boys. You whip yourself, and more importantly, one another, with birch twigs. And you know what? It feels great. The Russians swear it opens your pores and releases your toxins. I see no reason to doubt them. As you do this, some jolly naked dude throws scented water into the oven, which upon evaporation produces a lovely scented steam—in our cases, if I’m not mistaken, it was mint. After the steam room, you go out and promptly jump into a cold pool, which feels really, really good, and just lounge there for a bit. You then, quite literally, rinse and repeat for up to two hours.
All this time, you are surrounded by chatting fat men—in our case, curious as to where we were from and sharing their thoughts about America, the banya, etc. etc. You barely notice the distended stomachs and dangling whatsits. One old Russian fellow asked to know which of us was the strongest—this was of course Jace, whom he proceeded to lead off, whither we knew not. He emerged some minutes later with the news that the man had given him a thorough massage, and even walked on top of him, before announcing, “now—we are of the same blood.”
We left the banya feeling absolutely fantastic and very, very lazy, and walked a bit before going home. The rest of the week was not as eventful, except for seeing Inception (in Russian) with Eric on Wednesday and a wonderful picnic on Thursday on the occasion of our last day of classes (this was the hottest day in Moscow history, by the way, but with clouds and wind, it didn’t feel it). That night, Daniel, who was to leave Moscow the next day, and I went to Gorky Park and sat for a while at Chaikhona No. 1, a cool Uzbek-style café on the Moscow River, where between our sitting next to each other (to hear each other better, I swear), ordering identical strawberry milkshakes, splitting a tiny appetizer, and using the same napkin, we must have looked quite the cute homosexual couple.
Later we were joined by Sasha and Gelya, with whom we walked Moscow and talked for literally the whole night. When we dropped Dan off at his hostel, it was already 3:30 or 4; we then decided to take refuge at Arkady’s for a bit, since Arkady basically never sleeps. We sort of did nothing/ napped there for an hour in order to wait for the metro to reopen, which it did at 5:30 AM. I was in bed shortly before 7.
After this, there is not much to relate of the weekend. I shopped (twice) at Izmailovsky Market and visited Ostankino palace with Dima, one of Marino’s friends, as well as meeting up for dinner with Ian, also from Harvard. But in the last couple of days, my parents and grandparents have come to Moscow! And that, I will leave for my next post.
From smoky, crushingly hot, awfully India-like Moscow—до свидания!
I will soon get to why this is so appropriate, but in the meantime, I have a pretty extensive backlog of jokes to share.
It is the 1980s, and the Soviet General Secretary has just died. The funeral is taking place at Red Square.
A man walks up and says, “I have a pass,” and he is admitted.
A second man walks up and says, “I have a pass,” and he is admitted.
A third man walks up. “I have a season pass.”
It is 1937, and Stalin’s repressions are in full swing. A husband and wife sleep guardedly in their apartment. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, the patter of feet on the staircase. A sharp ringing of the doorbell, accompanied by a loud voice. Neither dead nor alive, the husband goes to open the door. Within a minute, he comes back:
“Don’t worry,” he says, “it’s just a fire.”
A group of Soviet tourists is visiting Italy, and they are asking their tour guide how to say various phrases.
“How do you say, ‘How do I get to the hotel?’”
“And what about, ‘How much does this gelato cost?’”
One intrepid tourist asks, “How would you say, ‘Please provide me with political asylum?’”
“What the hell would you need to say that for?!” asks another tourist viciously.
“Oh, nothing! I just wanted to know which one of us is from the KGB.”
What do you call a Soviet musical quintet returning from abroad?
A quartet.
“Good morning, Mr. Brezhnev!” said the sun to Brezhnev in the morning.
“Good morning!” replied Brezhnev.
“Good day, Mr. Brezhnev!” said the sun in the afternoon.
“Good day!” replied Brezhnev.
In the evening, the sun remained silent.
“Why don’t you say anything, Mr. Sun?” asked Brezhnev.
“Go fuck yourself!” said the sun. “I’m in the West now!”
One policeman asks the other:
“What do you think about our regime?”
“The same as you do.”
“Then it is my duty to arrest you!”
The latest brown count: 38
Now, back to the narrative of the times. As I was saying, I have lighted on the word “shirtlessness” not only because it describes the state that I have been in for about 60% of the last two weeks, but also because it illuminates so many of the cultural experiences one has when Moscow is roasting in the hottest weather in its history (it reached 100 for the first time ever this past Thursday). In short, the history of the past few weeks is, more or less, the history of dealing with the heat.
The Russian’s fashion sense, a strange animal even without the heat, has actually become less strange with it. Normally, if you are a Russian girl or young woman, you will dress more or less in the Western style up until age 30 or 35 or so, with the caveat that you will wear hooker-heels as often and as gaudily as possible. The heat’s effect on this phenomenon has been most salutary, making the frightening heals and slinky dresses impractical and bringing on skimpier summer attire. Past age 35, the irrevocable and fascinating progression to babushka-hood begins. You start wearing matching blouses and long skirts. You get fat. You wear your hair shorter, and when it starts to gray, you dye it in some unnatural color, especially ruby red. By 70 or 80, you revel in your stooped grayness, and eagerly await the moment that a young man will help you with your unnecessarily large bag.
If you’re a working man in the summer, you will wear a light-colored, short-sleeved button-down collared shirt, with our without tie. Your pants will by light, preferably imitation linen. Your belt and shoes may, but do not have to, match. Ideally, your belt is imitation crocodile, in white, cream, or tan; brown will do. Your shoes are ideally white or tan leather, pointy, with little holes in them “for ventilation”; leather sandals—with socks, of course—are also acceptable. There is a 40% chance you will have a mullet. The heat has caused your shirt to go unbuttoned, even on the metro and the street. If you are younger than 20 or still in school, you might wear very short swimming trunks with bath sandals, shirt optional (there’s your shirtlessness for you). If you fancy yourself really fashionable, you’ll have a white t-shirt, light shorts, white shoes, and very thin white socks, which will come up a third of the way to your knees. Your chance of having a mullet, if under 20, approaches 60%.
At home, in sweltering apartments, all bets are off. Men strip down to their boxers, and women, well, they suffer. When V. Sr. and Jr. and I all sat in the same room naked but for our undies, talking Soviet cinema, I knew I had successfully assimilated.
Anyway, enough of that descriptive detour. Where I last left you, I told of our trip to Sasha’s dacha, and all that that entailed. The following week was pretty ordinary, so I will fast-forward to the next weekend, during which I went to O. and V. Sr.’s dacha.
We traveled in O. and V. Sr.’s Lada Niva, which looks as if it was built circa 1980, but is in fact only 6 years old (unfortunately, it also smells as if it were built in 1980). The ride there was not eventful, except in that the air through the windows was fresh, the backseat cramped, and the tape of Ukrainian drinking songs jolly at first, but kind of annoying the third time around. We reached the dacha around 1 AM (driving in the daytime would have been far too hot, and would be asking for trouble with traffic jams), to be greeted by the sound of crickets and the aroma of forest.
Their dacha is a rather different, more serious, more chaotic affair than Sasha’s. Sasha’s was a little country cottage, made of quaint makeshift materials (recall the old train cars), with a tidy little yard on one side with flowers and whatnot. Not so the host family’s. The plot is at least twice as big, and so is the house on it—which they built with their own hands a few years ago to replace the ancient wooden structure that had stood there since the 1950s and had started to fall apart. There is a huge garden plot, where they grow flowers, yes, but all kinds of fruits and vegetables too. Black currant, red currant, gooseberry, blackberry, raspberry, cucumbers, potatoes, dill, horseradish, etc. etc. This is V. Sr.’s pride and joy, and he works on it whenever he possibly can.
The next morning (or rather early afternoon), I was woken by O., who announced that the neighbors were going for a swim, and that I should get in on the action. I did not refuse. The neighbors were a jolly bunch; the husband had some pretty kooky theories on the “inevitable” hyperinflation and eventual political collapse that America was in for, thanks to the current financial crisis. When I asked him why it was so inevitable, he treated me to a long response that I didn’t understand—perhaps because my Russian is inadequate, perhaps because he was crazy. His father-in-law seemed to be of the latter opinion, but then again he seemed to think that “no negro should ever be president of the US.”
After this delightful excursion, I returned to the dacha to do some nice lying down, followed by some eating. This strenuous regimen, which was repeated a few times, was broken only at 10 PM, when the neighbor, Vladimir a.k.a. Vovan a.k.a. Vovets came over to play cards with us. We played a brilliant Russian card game called tysyacha or “thousand” for several hours. My amateurishness was apparent. The highlights of this little session were the part where a wasp stung me and V. Sr. used vodka to disinfect it/ kill the pain; the part where V. Sr. reverted to baby-talk to “stun” his opponents in the game; and most of all the part (actually the whole evening) where the men (including me) collectively decided to remove our shirts, due to the heat.
The next day was much of the same, minus the swimming. I got to see V. Sr. in his garden-tending element. He picked the vast majority of the cucumbers on the vine, and spent hours sorting his collection of berries (mainly black and red currants). The cucumbers are absolutely delicious, and I’m sure if I were more partial to the taste of black currants, I would have liked those too. But V. absolutely relishes the task—I think much more so than he relished the fruit of his labors.
Why, exactly, the obsession with gardening on the dacha? The answer is… a history lesson! In rough times (which were frequent during Soviet years), when produce was short, a dacha garden patch could supply almost half of a family’s annual consumption. Think about this for a second: the growing season around Moscow is 3.5 or 4 months—basically shit for agriculture. The soil is so-so, the sunlight is way subpar; the amount you can produce is rather limited. But what little a small plot produced could produce half of what you ate. In a whole year.
At first the Soviet government frowned upon this form of private production, but by the mid-1950s they had to acknowledge the reality that it was more efficient to let people feed themselves sometimes. In the early 1990s, which were particularly hard, people literally survived off of their dachas. My boss at work, who is from the rather chilly city of Perm, says that for two whole years (1990-1992), his family ate mainly the potatoes (nothing else would grow) that they produced on the dacha. He still managed to be like 6 foot 4, so no long-term harm done, but still.
Anyway: that Sunday night, O.’s mom, the babushka of drunken birthday party fame, arrived for a week of relaxation on the dacha. I talked with her about the Soviet times, and about her fondness for attending Youth Communist League rallies back in the 1940s. She seems not to think Stalin was a tyrant, although her reasoning was a tad strange. “Of course we were afraid. My father was in the army and all army officers were being rounded up. They would invent reasons to arrest you. But the country needed the slave labor of everyone who was arrested.” Ah, ok, I get—okay cool Stalin, you’re forgiven.
We left the dacha at midnight, hoping to escape both the heat and the traffic, but ended up getting caught in both and not returning home until 3 AM. But no matter.
The memory of the rest of the week is a bit hazy—I’m sure I did something interesting, but it escapes me presently—until Friday, on which day I threw a party: to be specific, it was an indiyskaya vecherinka, or Indian dinner party for my fellow ANE kids and teachers and all, for which I spent the whole day shopping and cooking in 99-degree heat (infuriatingly, the supermarket where I bought my produce, which is located in the largest mall in the Moscow city limits, does not accept credit cards). In the end, it was a wonderful, if rather cramped and sweaty, affair. I resisted every urge to go shirtless. O. enjoyed the sauce for my paneer dish (even though there was no paneer), but V. stayed away. Also, word to the wise: if you need to cook Indian in Moscow, avoid the shop “Индийские специи” (Indian Spices) in Moscow if you can. It’s really damn expensive.
The next day (Saturday), we all left for a weekend trip to the towns of Vladimir and Suzdal, which are located in the so-called “Golden Ring” of historical towns to the north and east of Moscow. The non-Georgia kids were actually not supposed to be on this trip, but thanks to me and Eric from Stanford, who went to the ANE International office and said “yo, why are we not on this trip,” we got on the trip.
After meeting at the ungodly hour of 8 AM at ANE, we hopped on a minibus, which took a good 5 hours to get to Vladimir, thanks to traffic (incidentally, its driver was also named Victor—see my third installment). This was frankly fine by me—I caught up on my sleep and then we played a game of Botticelli. Shirtless. It was fun, except for the part where Kostya (see previous posts) creepily put his camera on video mode and panned slowly back and forth across the bus several times.
By the time we got to Vladimir, it was early afternoon. The Georgia kids stayed in a hotel; we hangers-on (there were 7 of us at this point) found a “hotel” called the Gostinitsa Uyut, which I will translate loosely as “Comfort Inn.” Nothing particularly wrong with the place, except, shall we say, it was immediately apparent why you were paying only 400 rubles (about $13) per night.
We toured Vladimir in a grand total of 1.5 hours, which included the two absolutely gorgeous 12th-century cathedral churches there, made of limestone, an extremely costly material at the time. I suppose they paid for it in the end—while the Vladimirites were building really expensive churches, Ivan the Terrible in Moscow decided he wanted to spend his time taking over Vladimir.
Okay, well I’m bending the truth a little, but trust me, limestone + Italian architects = California-style budget problems.
After touring these churches and not much else, we suddenly found we had another 16 hours in Vladimir with nothing to do. This was frustrating, because:
1) There isn’t much else to do in Vladimir
2) It was hot
3) The hotel was nowhere close
4) There is nothing to do in Vladimir
5) Thunderstorms. No shelter. Wet. And then hot again.
6) We could have just moved on to Suzdal, which is a more interesting town, and maybe seen some of it before the even greater heat predicted for the next day
7) There just isn’t jack shit to do in Vladimir
We ended up going to the Georgia kids’ cheesy hotel, eating in the cheesy restaurant, and dancing in the INCREDIBLY cheesy “club” there. However, I am proud to say that we, good American students and citizens of the world, introduced the club-going population of Vladimir to the Macarena, which, when played, was greeted with incomprehension by the natives, who gladly received our new-fangled Western moves, against which the stolid Soviet moves just couldn’t compete on the open market.
While some stayed (and even swam afterward in the toxic-looking waters of the Klyazma River), I was one of those who elected to return to dear old Uyut and call it a night. The next morning, after a surprising excellent sleep, we made our way to Suzdal, where it was just really, really hot. But no matter. We visited the Museum of Wooden Architecture, where the highlight was actually an impromptu performance by a Russian folk duet. We then saw some old-ass and nice-ass churches, and heard some more awesome-ass liturgical music (I almost bought their expensive-ass CD).
Here’s a fun game: everywhere above where I’ve suffixed “ass” to an adjective, instead see what it sounds like when you put the hyphen after it, thus prefixing it to the following noun. It has a pretty amusing ass-effect.
After this, we tried Suzdal’s most famous product, namely medovukha—or mead. Yes, Virginia—they still make fermented honey in Suzdal, and it tastes really quite good. I bought a liter (for really too much money); around this time, many of us decided to go for a dip in the little stream running through town. Basically, this was an incredibly good decision. We went to a grocery store and bought some cheap food for lunch, made a picnic on the riverbank, and then went for a jolly dip in the gently flowing water, with our feet caressed by thick mud and our mouths treated to the taste of floating rivery plant matter. The water was warm, like a pool, and it was here that we Westerners made our second contribution to the socio-cultural life of the inhabitants of Vladimir Oblast: the game of Marco Polo.
After this, we got back on the minibus for the long and inevitably bare-chested ride home, punctuated only by a stop for water and ice-cream (and some pissing in the field).
I will now fast-forward to the next event of note, which took place on Tuesday.
Now, I have tried so far in this account to emphasize those experiences which best illuminate and reflect the culture of this large, strange country in which I find myself. Well, everything that has hitherto been written simply pales and shrivels in comparison to what comes next (critical note: this is foreshadowing).
You have heard my rants about Russian rudeness and dourness; you have heard of their strange fashion sense. All of these strange inhibitions disappear in exactly one place: the banya. This is also the place where the theme of shirtlessness becomes, to borrow some academic jargon, an inadequate descriptive tool.
To translate the word banya as “sauna” would not quite capture it. In a sauna, as I understand, you delicately get into some towel thing and sweat civilly with your fellow victims. In a banya, the experience hasn’t started until everyone strips down naked in front of each other. If some of you are clothed, it’s weird. If you know someone’s naked, but you can’t see them, it’s weird. If you can see them and everybody is in their birthday suits, it’s a banya.
My theory on the banya and why people there are so friendly simply has to do with awkwardness. You are all naked, and many of you are old and fat. It’s a bit awkward. If you don’t embrace it, it will be super awkward. The result is the dropping of one’s guard and the forming of manly ties between one and all. The banya has the feeling of a gentlemen’s club, with a mandatory dress code of very, very casual.
After stripping down into sweet, liberating nothingness (except sandals—this is important) and perhaps having some preliminary drinks (in our case, water to keep us hydrated; for most others, vodka or beer) and collecting your bunch of birch twigs, you go and do some bathing in a row of open shower stalls. Then, nice and wet, you go into the steam room, which is 90 degrees Celsius (194 Fahrenheit) at the entrance, i.e. the coolest point; the temperature next to the oven is 10-20 degrees Celsius hotter (i.e. above boiling point, or 212 degrees F). Oh yeah. It’s frigging hot.
As if this were not masochistic (and somewhat homoerotic) enough, you then proceed to engage in the activity that separates the banya from the mere sauna—the wheat from chaff, if you will: the old, sweaty Russian men from the wussy, ninny, not-as-sweaty Finnish boys. You whip yourself, and more importantly, one another, with birch twigs. And you know what? It feels great. The Russians swear it opens your pores and releases your toxins. I see no reason to doubt them. As you do this, some jolly naked dude throws scented water into the oven, which upon evaporation produces a lovely scented steam—in our cases, if I’m not mistaken, it was mint. After the steam room, you go out and promptly jump into a cold pool, which feels really, really good, and just lounge there for a bit. You then, quite literally, rinse and repeat for up to two hours.
All this time, you are surrounded by chatting fat men—in our case, curious as to where we were from and sharing their thoughts about America, the banya, etc. etc. You barely notice the distended stomachs and dangling whatsits. One old Russian fellow asked to know which of us was the strongest—this was of course Jace, whom he proceeded to lead off, whither we knew not. He emerged some minutes later with the news that the man had given him a thorough massage, and even walked on top of him, before announcing, “now—we are of the same blood.”
We left the banya feeling absolutely fantastic and very, very lazy, and walked a bit before going home. The rest of the week was not as eventful, except for seeing Inception (in Russian) with Eric on Wednesday and a wonderful picnic on Thursday on the occasion of our last day of classes (this was the hottest day in Moscow history, by the way, but with clouds and wind, it didn’t feel it). That night, Daniel, who was to leave Moscow the next day, and I went to Gorky Park and sat for a while at Chaikhona No. 1, a cool Uzbek-style café on the Moscow River, where between our sitting next to each other (to hear each other better, I swear), ordering identical strawberry milkshakes, splitting a tiny appetizer, and using the same napkin, we must have looked quite the cute homosexual couple.
Later we were joined by Sasha and Gelya, with whom we walked Moscow and talked for literally the whole night. When we dropped Dan off at his hostel, it was already 3:30 or 4; we then decided to take refuge at Arkady’s for a bit, since Arkady basically never sleeps. We sort of did nothing/ napped there for an hour in order to wait for the metro to reopen, which it did at 5:30 AM. I was in bed shortly before 7.
After this, there is not much to relate of the weekend. I shopped (twice) at Izmailovsky Market and visited Ostankino palace with Dima, one of Marino’s friends, as well as meeting up for dinner with Ian, also from Harvard. But in the last couple of days, my parents and grandparents have come to Moscow! And that, I will leave for my next post.
From smoky, crushingly hot, awfully India-like Moscow—до свидания!
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Чистые груди, нечистые пруды
Had a very packed weekend, so I figured I should report sooner rather than later!
Another joke to get you started, though:
Swimming at the Paralympic Games. Lined up against the side of the pool are a man with one arm, another with one leg, another with both arms but no legs, another with no arms but both legs, and finally, the Soviet contestant, who has no arms or legs at all. The whistle is blown, and the intrepid swimmers begin their laps. But the quadriplegic just stays put. After a while, it becomes clear that he isn’t going anywhere. They disqualify him and pull him from the water.
“Those morons!” he says later, “five years I’ve been teaching myself to swim with my ears, and they put a goddamn cap on me!”
And another one, about Russian patience:
After Yalta, Stalin felt compelled to prove to Churchill and Roosevelt just how tough the Russian people were, and how much they were prepared to put up with. He had an order issued as follows from all the town squares, by radio, and by all the labor unions to their members:
“All citizens, please report to the central square of your respective cities. There, you will be hung. Any questions?”
“—Yes. Should we bring the rope ourselves, or will our labor unions provide it?”
This week’s Brown Count: 21
Anyway, to business. Russia just keeps on getting more and more… Russian. Except in that it remains a frigging furnace, which is very un-Russian. But this week I had my first—and far from my last—experience at a dacha, a Russian country house. It was something else.
But in addition to being a weekend of dacha-ing, this was also a weekend of museums. To begin with, on Friday, a select and privileged group of us went early in the morning (i.e. 12 PM) to the Polytechnic Museum.
If you are wondering what the hell that means, let me explain it this way. Think about a James Bond movie, and think of all the weird, Byzantine, and scary technology that the damn Russky commies are supposed to whip out. This is a museum of that technology.
Unfortunately, from the Soviet perspective, that means mostly industrial technology. Hall after hall after hall of models—rarely real examples—of generators, power plants, cameras, steel mills, guns, televisions, phonograph machines, fiber optics, planes, everything. Frankly, I found 90% of it pretty dull. But oh, were there some gems. To begin with: the Soviet Union’s first atom bomb. Yes friends, the Soviet A-bomb is sitting in a rotting 19th-century gabled building on Lubyanka Square (incidentally also the erstwhile headquarters of the KGB, and the site of the current FSB headquarters), and I took a picture next to it, only to be yelled at the angry 70-year-old dezhurnaya (in the context of a museum, a docent, but in the form of a repulsive Russian babushka). Legit.
Among other joys to be found there: surprisingly effective fiber optics from the 1980s, antique cameras, phonographs, and even cars (pre- and post-Revolutionary), which were a real delight for me. Some things were just absurd, like a model for centralized lighting (the light being centrally generated and then being tubed to houses. From 1923). But the most frigging crazy/ typically Soviet thing of all was a model for a mobile nuclear power plant. Yes friends, a mobile nuclear power plant. How, you ask? Why, of course, you split it into four parts and put it on caterpillar treads, like a tank convoy. That way, you can make your nuclear power anywhere, anytime, on any terrain. No big deal.
At the next museum we went to, the Museum of Cosmonautics, we (at this point me and Tom) met up with Dan from Harvard at Sasha the teacher-man. This museum was perhaps even more awesome—complete with the preserved bodies of Belka and Strelka (the second and third space-dogs, the first being the lost Laika); the suits of such famed cosmonauts as Alexei Leonov, Indian cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma, and… Michael Collins of Apollo 11 (wtf?); a couple of old preserved space capsules (miserably small and uncomfortable); plans for their failed moon mission (hehe); and greatest of all, Soviet/ Russian space food. Not only was there borsch in a tube and freeze-dried rye bread, but there was also liver pate. That’s right, liver pate. Why liver pate? “What can we send up for cheap? Liver pate—it’s already a paste!”
After this, Dan, Tom, Sasha and I walked around ВДНХ, or VDNKh, which stands (or stood) for Выставка Достижений Народного Хозяйства, or the Exhibition of the Achievements of the National Economy, or something like that. A long time ago, it was a massive park, with huge pavilions showcasing the achievements of each of the Soviet republics. Let me tell you, there is no place in Moscow where you more acutely feel the sense of decadent, pseudo-capitalist wretchedness that you expect from the former Soviet Union. Among imposing, moldering Soviet masterpieces, there are garish beer stalls and popcorn carts. In front of a corroded statue of Lenin, there is a dude in a Spongebob suit. In the proud national pavilions of Armenia and Ukraine are cheap knickknack stores. Some buildings are not used for anything at all, and are just half-heartedly boarded up, as beautiful as they are. Unkempt weeds surround them, and signs advertising “restaurant” are falling from their perches.
The best part, and most emblematic, perhaps, was the rocket. Yes, there is a real Soviet rocket, just standing there on a fake launch pad, erected there in another era and just rotting in place ever since. The fake launch structure extended halfway up the rocket; stupidly, we decided to climb it. At the top was an incredible amount of graffiti, and even more rust. It was a wretchedly hot and humid day, and we wiped sweat and dirt from ourselves as we looked upon the VDNKh park below us, ducking below the railings whenever a police car came into view. It was awesome.
We spent the rest of the evening walking around the grounds of the VDNKh park, which are almost forest-like in places, and then we finally met up with Gelya, Sasha’s girlfriend and another teacher at ANE, and went to Sasha’s parents’ place to have some grub. It is HUGE by Moscow standards. The exact same floor plan as my apartment, but the rooms are maybe twice the size. Круто, as the Russians would say. We talked for a long and pleasant time, and then went home.
The next day, I woke up at the crack of noon, lazed around, and went to check my email at McDonalds, where one can get 30 free minutes of internet! It was at McDonalds, however, as I typed away at my increasingly soiled Macintosh, that I realized that my hands smelled like fish.
How this happened, I could only surmise—I guessed that someone in the apartment ate some goddamn fish, didn’t wash their goddamn hands, and then goddamn touched something that I subsequently did—but it was a supremely distressing feeling. You see, even the most optimistic of vegetarians want to throw in the towel and just end their lives when subjected to the smell of fish. It is tantamount to biological warfare. In the hierarchy of bad smells, fish is just right at the bottom. That hierarchy reads something like this:
9. Piss
8. Paint for theatrical sets
7. Melons
6. Gas-station bathroom
5. Skunk
4. Dead bodies
3. Indian bathroom
2. Body of a man whose last meal was melons, recently sprayed by a skunk and rotting in an Indian bathroom
1. Fish
I washed my hands twice, to no avail. Eventually I gave up, and went on the day’s ekskursiya: the Pushkin Museum of art, which was pretty cool, but far cooler was what came afterward: we (our entire class plus Alina, an actual ANE student, and a couple students from other levels of Russian) went off via bus to Sasha’s dacha, about 60 km outside of Moscow.
On the walk to Sasha’s place, we found, to our horror, that the Russian forest was filled with mosquitoes and—worse—deerflies, the awful kind that bite you and draw a substantial amount of blood; killing them is often difficult and messy. Poor Tom took to running just to avoid them. But then we arrived at Sasha’s place, which could not have been cuter. A little wooden domik, with four rooms and a bit of yard and veranda.
First on the order of business: we all went to a pond to swim. At 9 PM, there was still plenty of light and warmth to do this. The color of the water was brownish black, but it was all the same to us. We had a wonderful time cavorting in the cool water, and for some reason making up alternate Metro stop names (Чистые Груди, Неохотный Ряд...). Upon returning home, we had a hearty meal of shashlik (like kebab) for most people, and plain, unseasoned pasta for me. Yaaay!
A note: at some point, I asked where the bathroom was. Sasha responded, “oh, it’s there, inside the vagonchik,” which means “little wagon.” I pondered, but not too deeply, why Sasha might be referring to a part of his dacha as a vehicle, but soon all became clear. Apparently, the “vagonchik” part of the house was, literally, a disposed-of train wagon, covered in wooden planks inside and out, and thoroughly de-wagonized. Such was the shortage of building material in Soviet times, Sasha explained, that one had to simply use what one could find. In this case, an old train wagon. Whoa.
After dinner, we stayed up a long time making merry and finishing off the vodka that Sasha's parents had stored in the cupboard (sorry, Sasha's parents). One person, who shall remain nameless, drank entirely too much and exhibited some pretty hilarious behavior. Before we knew it, dawn was upon us—around 4 AM—and several of us decided to go out into the field to greet the rising sun.
This, friends, was an unequivocally magical experience. To begin with, it was the first time in weeks that it got cool enough for me to willingly put on a sweater. But the field was hauntingly beautiful—enchanting, really. In the distance, tall pines and birches. Beneath us, all manner of wildflowers and grasses. Above us, a cool, pale sky, almost cloudless, with the first hints of the dawn’s pinks and oranges. But the real coup de grace was the mist, the wonderful, eerie, tender mist that hung over the whole field, infused with the blooming light, at once comforting and frightening. Such moments are truly rare.
The next day came hot and sunny as usual, and in those conditions we decided to undertake a walk through the fields and forests. We fetched Sasha’s favorite dog, an enormous Newfoundland, from his alcoholic owner, and went on our stroll (the field is not nearly as nice by broad daylight). The dog, which may have weighed more than me and sweated more in the space of two hours than I have in the space of my entire life, is very ironically named Malysh, or Baby. Malysh helped us through the forest, and watched as some of us (not me) climbed tall birches. By the time we finished our forest trek and arrived at the pond (a different one, this time), we were all completely ready to dive in once again, the heat being pretty powerful. This lake was even prettier than the first, with more people, shallower water, and even thicker mud on the bottom. Yum!
After receiving a relief supply of ice cream from Sasha, we returned home and just lounged. Dinner was long and huge again (and equally heavy on plain pasta…), and we played some bingo, and then some mafia. Deciding that all was going great, most of us voted to stay another night (although I was in the pro-Moscow minority, I didn’t mind too much).
The return to Moscow on Monday made it obvious how much more one feels the heat in the city. By the end of the elektrichka (commuter train) ride, we were all soaked in sweat, and it was worse inside the apartment once again. I’ve taken to walking around the apartment in exercise shorts and nothing else. To keep cool, I’m having all manner of drinks: kompot (the leftover water from making home-made jam, which is great chilled and with some lemon!), tarkhun (which we call trakhun at home, which means, roughly, “fucker,” although a bit more polite), and of course, kvas, the Russian bread drink. If that sounds appetizing to you, you’ll probably like it; if not, you probably won’t. Literally made from fermented black bread, kvas has a flavor that’s hard to describe, but I’d have to say it’s somewhere between beer and coke. Again, if that sounds good, you’ll like kvas; if it doesn’t, you’re likely out of luck.
All normal with class and internships so far, but at the time of this writing (Tuesday night), we are scheduled to skip class tomorrow to go see Lenin’s tomb! Ура!
P.S. I was telling O. today about a surprisingly delicious lunch I had in the ANE cafeteria today, i.e. a really nice eggplant ragout. She said that eggplant is too spicy for her. That's right, eggplant... oh Russia.
Another joke to get you started, though:
Swimming at the Paralympic Games. Lined up against the side of the pool are a man with one arm, another with one leg, another with both arms but no legs, another with no arms but both legs, and finally, the Soviet contestant, who has no arms or legs at all. The whistle is blown, and the intrepid swimmers begin their laps. But the quadriplegic just stays put. After a while, it becomes clear that he isn’t going anywhere. They disqualify him and pull him from the water.
“Those morons!” he says later, “five years I’ve been teaching myself to swim with my ears, and they put a goddamn cap on me!”
And another one, about Russian patience:
After Yalta, Stalin felt compelled to prove to Churchill and Roosevelt just how tough the Russian people were, and how much they were prepared to put up with. He had an order issued as follows from all the town squares, by radio, and by all the labor unions to their members:
“All citizens, please report to the central square of your respective cities. There, you will be hung. Any questions?”
“—Yes. Should we bring the rope ourselves, or will our labor unions provide it?”
This week’s Brown Count: 21
Anyway, to business. Russia just keeps on getting more and more… Russian. Except in that it remains a frigging furnace, which is very un-Russian. But this week I had my first—and far from my last—experience at a dacha, a Russian country house. It was something else.
But in addition to being a weekend of dacha-ing, this was also a weekend of museums. To begin with, on Friday, a select and privileged group of us went early in the morning (i.e. 12 PM) to the Polytechnic Museum.
If you are wondering what the hell that means, let me explain it this way. Think about a James Bond movie, and think of all the weird, Byzantine, and scary technology that the damn Russky commies are supposed to whip out. This is a museum of that technology.
Unfortunately, from the Soviet perspective, that means mostly industrial technology. Hall after hall after hall of models—rarely real examples—of generators, power plants, cameras, steel mills, guns, televisions, phonograph machines, fiber optics, planes, everything. Frankly, I found 90% of it pretty dull. But oh, were there some gems. To begin with: the Soviet Union’s first atom bomb. Yes friends, the Soviet A-bomb is sitting in a rotting 19th-century gabled building on Lubyanka Square (incidentally also the erstwhile headquarters of the KGB, and the site of the current FSB headquarters), and I took a picture next to it, only to be yelled at the angry 70-year-old dezhurnaya (in the context of a museum, a docent, but in the form of a repulsive Russian babushka). Legit.
Among other joys to be found there: surprisingly effective fiber optics from the 1980s, antique cameras, phonographs, and even cars (pre- and post-Revolutionary), which were a real delight for me. Some things were just absurd, like a model for centralized lighting (the light being centrally generated and then being tubed to houses. From 1923). But the most frigging crazy/ typically Soviet thing of all was a model for a mobile nuclear power plant. Yes friends, a mobile nuclear power plant. How, you ask? Why, of course, you split it into four parts and put it on caterpillar treads, like a tank convoy. That way, you can make your nuclear power anywhere, anytime, on any terrain. No big deal.
At the next museum we went to, the Museum of Cosmonautics, we (at this point me and Tom) met up with Dan from Harvard at Sasha the teacher-man. This museum was perhaps even more awesome—complete with the preserved bodies of Belka and Strelka (the second and third space-dogs, the first being the lost Laika); the suits of such famed cosmonauts as Alexei Leonov, Indian cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma, and… Michael Collins of Apollo 11 (wtf?); a couple of old preserved space capsules (miserably small and uncomfortable); plans for their failed moon mission (hehe); and greatest of all, Soviet/ Russian space food. Not only was there borsch in a tube and freeze-dried rye bread, but there was also liver pate. That’s right, liver pate. Why liver pate? “What can we send up for cheap? Liver pate—it’s already a paste!”
After this, Dan, Tom, Sasha and I walked around ВДНХ, or VDNKh, which stands (or stood) for Выставка Достижений Народного Хозяйства, or the Exhibition of the Achievements of the National Economy, or something like that. A long time ago, it was a massive park, with huge pavilions showcasing the achievements of each of the Soviet republics. Let me tell you, there is no place in Moscow where you more acutely feel the sense of decadent, pseudo-capitalist wretchedness that you expect from the former Soviet Union. Among imposing, moldering Soviet masterpieces, there are garish beer stalls and popcorn carts. In front of a corroded statue of Lenin, there is a dude in a Spongebob suit. In the proud national pavilions of Armenia and Ukraine are cheap knickknack stores. Some buildings are not used for anything at all, and are just half-heartedly boarded up, as beautiful as they are. Unkempt weeds surround them, and signs advertising “restaurant” are falling from their perches.
The best part, and most emblematic, perhaps, was the rocket. Yes, there is a real Soviet rocket, just standing there on a fake launch pad, erected there in another era and just rotting in place ever since. The fake launch structure extended halfway up the rocket; stupidly, we decided to climb it. At the top was an incredible amount of graffiti, and even more rust. It was a wretchedly hot and humid day, and we wiped sweat and dirt from ourselves as we looked upon the VDNKh park below us, ducking below the railings whenever a police car came into view. It was awesome.
We spent the rest of the evening walking around the grounds of the VDNKh park, which are almost forest-like in places, and then we finally met up with Gelya, Sasha’s girlfriend and another teacher at ANE, and went to Sasha’s parents’ place to have some grub. It is HUGE by Moscow standards. The exact same floor plan as my apartment, but the rooms are maybe twice the size. Круто, as the Russians would say. We talked for a long and pleasant time, and then went home.
The next day, I woke up at the crack of noon, lazed around, and went to check my email at McDonalds, where one can get 30 free minutes of internet! It was at McDonalds, however, as I typed away at my increasingly soiled Macintosh, that I realized that my hands smelled like fish.
How this happened, I could only surmise—I guessed that someone in the apartment ate some goddamn fish, didn’t wash their goddamn hands, and then goddamn touched something that I subsequently did—but it was a supremely distressing feeling. You see, even the most optimistic of vegetarians want to throw in the towel and just end their lives when subjected to the smell of fish. It is tantamount to biological warfare. In the hierarchy of bad smells, fish is just right at the bottom. That hierarchy reads something like this:
9. Piss
8. Paint for theatrical sets
7. Melons
6. Gas-station bathroom
5. Skunk
4. Dead bodies
3. Indian bathroom
2. Body of a man whose last meal was melons, recently sprayed by a skunk and rotting in an Indian bathroom
1. Fish
I washed my hands twice, to no avail. Eventually I gave up, and went on the day’s ekskursiya: the Pushkin Museum of art, which was pretty cool, but far cooler was what came afterward: we (our entire class plus Alina, an actual ANE student, and a couple students from other levels of Russian) went off via bus to Sasha’s dacha, about 60 km outside of Moscow.
On the walk to Sasha’s place, we found, to our horror, that the Russian forest was filled with mosquitoes and—worse—deerflies, the awful kind that bite you and draw a substantial amount of blood; killing them is often difficult and messy. Poor Tom took to running just to avoid them. But then we arrived at Sasha’s place, which could not have been cuter. A little wooden domik, with four rooms and a bit of yard and veranda.
First on the order of business: we all went to a pond to swim. At 9 PM, there was still plenty of light and warmth to do this. The color of the water was brownish black, but it was all the same to us. We had a wonderful time cavorting in the cool water, and for some reason making up alternate Metro stop names (Чистые Груди, Неохотный Ряд...). Upon returning home, we had a hearty meal of shashlik (like kebab) for most people, and plain, unseasoned pasta for me. Yaaay!
A note: at some point, I asked where the bathroom was. Sasha responded, “oh, it’s there, inside the vagonchik,” which means “little wagon.” I pondered, but not too deeply, why Sasha might be referring to a part of his dacha as a vehicle, but soon all became clear. Apparently, the “vagonchik” part of the house was, literally, a disposed-of train wagon, covered in wooden planks inside and out, and thoroughly de-wagonized. Such was the shortage of building material in Soviet times, Sasha explained, that one had to simply use what one could find. In this case, an old train wagon. Whoa.
After dinner, we stayed up a long time making merry and finishing off the vodka that Sasha's parents had stored in the cupboard (sorry, Sasha's parents). One person, who shall remain nameless, drank entirely too much and exhibited some pretty hilarious behavior. Before we knew it, dawn was upon us—around 4 AM—and several of us decided to go out into the field to greet the rising sun.
This, friends, was an unequivocally magical experience. To begin with, it was the first time in weeks that it got cool enough for me to willingly put on a sweater. But the field was hauntingly beautiful—enchanting, really. In the distance, tall pines and birches. Beneath us, all manner of wildflowers and grasses. Above us, a cool, pale sky, almost cloudless, with the first hints of the dawn’s pinks and oranges. But the real coup de grace was the mist, the wonderful, eerie, tender mist that hung over the whole field, infused with the blooming light, at once comforting and frightening. Such moments are truly rare.
The next day came hot and sunny as usual, and in those conditions we decided to undertake a walk through the fields and forests. We fetched Sasha’s favorite dog, an enormous Newfoundland, from his alcoholic owner, and went on our stroll (the field is not nearly as nice by broad daylight). The dog, which may have weighed more than me and sweated more in the space of two hours than I have in the space of my entire life, is very ironically named Malysh, or Baby. Malysh helped us through the forest, and watched as some of us (not me) climbed tall birches. By the time we finished our forest trek and arrived at the pond (a different one, this time), we were all completely ready to dive in once again, the heat being pretty powerful. This lake was even prettier than the first, with more people, shallower water, and even thicker mud on the bottom. Yum!
After receiving a relief supply of ice cream from Sasha, we returned home and just lounged. Dinner was long and huge again (and equally heavy on plain pasta…), and we played some bingo, and then some mafia. Deciding that all was going great, most of us voted to stay another night (although I was in the pro-Moscow minority, I didn’t mind too much).
The return to Moscow on Monday made it obvious how much more one feels the heat in the city. By the end of the elektrichka (commuter train) ride, we were all soaked in sweat, and it was worse inside the apartment once again. I’ve taken to walking around the apartment in exercise shorts and nothing else. To keep cool, I’m having all manner of drinks: kompot (the leftover water from making home-made jam, which is great chilled and with some lemon!), tarkhun (which we call trakhun at home, which means, roughly, “fucker,” although a bit more polite), and of course, kvas, the Russian bread drink. If that sounds appetizing to you, you’ll probably like it; if not, you probably won’t. Literally made from fermented black bread, kvas has a flavor that’s hard to describe, but I’d have to say it’s somewhere between beer and coke. Again, if that sounds good, you’ll like kvas; if it doesn’t, you’re likely out of luck.
All normal with class and internships so far, but at the time of this writing (Tuesday night), we are scheduled to skip class tomorrow to go see Lenin’s tomb! Ура!
P.S. I was telling O. today about a surprisingly delicious lunch I had in the ANE cafeteria today, i.e. a really nice eggplant ragout. She said that eggplant is too spicy for her. That's right, eggplant... oh Russia.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
SLOVENIA!!!!
Over a week since last time, so I'll try to keep it all short!
But first, a joke. This one is about Russia's favorite ethnic whipping boy, the Chukchi people, a small, obscure Siberian tribe:
At a meeting of the Soviet Writers' Union, a group of Russian writers are conversing with their Chukcha colleague.
"Have you ever read Tolstoy?"
"No."
"Have you ever read Dostoevsky?"
"No."
"How about Chekhov?"
"No."
"Well then... what about Pushkin?"
"No. Chukcha-- no reader. Chukcha-- writer!"
And the Brown Count thus far: 16.
Biggest thing since last post-- went to Slovenia to hit up Jan and the Dins! Jan, for the unenlightened, is my Slovenian blockmate at the Harv, and since I have been to three of the countries surrounding his homeland (Austria, Italy, Croatia), I figured I had to make it there at some point. Moreover, Jan arranged a World Tour stop there for this year's Din and Tonics, of which, of course, I am an erstwhile member. Since I am the connection, and because I don't like missing out on this kind of fun, I had to go.
Now, before I go any further, a note to you T4 types who went to Europe but decided Slovenia was not worth the time or money: you are FOOLS. Slovenia is AWESOME. Why? I will get there, I will get there.
My adventure started on Thursday, when I packed very economically, since more than half the space in my backpack was taken up by my Dins gear-- tails, shoes, etc. I left home in the afternoon for my 8 PM flight, first via metro to Belorusskiy Vokzal (i.e. train station), and then via express train (with AC!) to Sheremetyevo airport, where I saw not one, not two, but three people who looked exactly like Rowan Atkinson.
I flew Czech Airlines to Prague, and then onward to Ljubljana. Czech Airlines prides itself on being the best airline in Eastern Europe. I think they need to think a bit bigger. Still, they still beat the shit out of American carriers in that they actually served dinner on a 2.5 hour flight. I was delighted when I heard the flight attendants announce this, only to be horrified when I realized the cuisine was, indeed, Czech. When the pork chops, dumplings, and sauerkraut arrived on my little tray, I was too hungry to be repulsed, and ate the dumplings and sauerkraut not already soaked in dead pig juice. Luckily, we got some bread and cheese on the side, so not all was lost.
Speaking of flight attendant announcements, the plane ride from Moscow to Prague was when I realized just how stupid the Czech language sounds to anyone who speaks Russian. The fool of an announcer guy on the plane could not have had a thicker accent, and the sorry mess he made of English was dwarfed by his pronunciation of Russian, which was terrifying. I once thought Czech was elegant-- it certainly looks elegant when written, and the gorgeousness that is Prague itself no doubt exerted no small influence on my psyche when I was there. But I mean really, if Dr. Steve Brule had his own language, it would be Czech.
In Prague I had a grand total of 40 minutes to change planes, so I literally ran through the (miraculously empty) airport, and was the only person in the customs line at the time. I then boarded the plane to Ljubljana, which was a tiny propeller outfit that looked as if it had been manufactured before the invention of TV. I sat next to an Dutchman who lived in southern Austria, who spent the entire hour-long plane ride complaining about how much he hated lawyers.
I arrived in the absolutely diminutive Ljubljana airport at 11 at night (or 1 AM in Moscow). Jan's dad and brother drove me home in what must be the only Chrysler in Slovenia (well I guess not, since Jan's mother works for a company that imports Chryslers... I must say, sounds like an uphill battle). Jan wasn't even there yet, because he was, in his turn, visiting a friend in Uzbekistan. Jan's family is absolutely lovely, and they were so happy to have me there (or at least they pretended really, really well. Jan, which is true?). He lives in a sweet Socialist-era apartment in the Bežigrad area of Ljubljana (his mom has lived there since age 12). Judging by the amount of space the apartment had compared to our Moscow place, Tito cared a lot more for his people than Khrushchev did. Yay benevolent dictators!
When Jan arrived from Uzbekistan (with 30 Uzbek hats... I got one too!), we immediately went to Jan's second home, i.e. Plavi Bar, which is across the street from Jan's place. It's not so much a bar as it is a cafe that also serves alcohol, and I got to meet, among others, the main waiter at Plavi, a cool Albanian dude known as Daši. I cashed in on the joy occasioned by Jan and Daši's happy reunion; the latter gave us both free drinks (I had cappuccino). Then Jan and I went strolling through the streets of Ljubljana. At first, it seemed like a modest mid-sized Central European city. But then we got to the center, and oh, how lovely! A beautiful little square, named for Slovenia's national poet, France Prešeren, some lovely bridges over the Ljubljanica river, lots of narrow medieval streets with Austro-Hungarian classical and baroque architecture, which were overflowing with outdoor cafes and restaurant tables. I was in old Europe again! A land of touristic happiness! Ease and relaxation! Gelato! Pizza! Vegetable markets! Gelato! A castle on a hill! Did I mention the gelato!
It was now that I began to regret not having a camera, a situation which I finally remedied the next day (pictures to follow!). But until then, Jan and I went to an outdoor place and watched the Netherlands crush Brazil over some Union and Laško, the two (yes, only two) brands of Slovene beer. Frankly, they taste pretty identical. We then went home and had pasta (with fresh veggies! joy!), which was like heaven after weeks of cabbage cutlets and packaged potato-mushroom balls, while watching Germany beat the living daylights out of those poor tragic fools, the Argentines. It was sad, pathetic even.
The next day was frankly largely the same, with more wandering of the center. This time we went to the castle, which is pretty cool, and from which you can see basically half of tiny Slovenia. Since Slovenia has only 2 million people, other Yugoslavs like to joke when they meet a Slovene, "you're a Slovene? But then who's guarding the border!" Hyuk hyuk hyuk. But I did buy the camera (AA-battery powered, ghetto).
Also, I forgot to mention that the day before, I had gone with Jan's dad (a real joker, by the way. Example: he said "we will now go to a traditional Slovene restaurant. Maybe you have heard of it." It was McDonalds) to pick up some fliers advertising the Dins! We had these ready when the Dins showed up at 9 PM that night, which, I must say, was a really joyful reunion. It was pretty awesome seeing everybody in their sweaty, unwashed World Tour glory, and even more awesome feeling their sweaty, unwashed glory while hugging them. The Dins stayed, for the most part, in wonderful little boutique hotels in Ljubljana's city center, except for Rashid and Sam Galler, who stayed in a hostel a little ways away.
Fact: Jan and I had visited this hostel, which was in an old Art-Nouveau kind of building, and were greeted by the owner, who apologized that the place was dirty because "I am hung over. It will look better in an hour."
We went out that night to a bar called Pr. Skelet, whose chief decoration is-- you guessed it!-- fake skeletons all over the place. This place is, appropriately, in a basement, and even more appropriately, the bathrooms are hidden behind secret revolving bookcases. But best of all, they gave you two drinks for the price of one. Naaaice!
The gigs were great-- in the morning, on the steps of Ljubljana City Hall, and in the evening, in a club/ theater in the town of Celje-- but best of all was being/ singing with the motley crew that is the Dins again. The deal was pretty awesome for me: I got my pick of solos, basically, and I was not considered obnoxious; on the contrary, everybody was like "I want a picture with Aseem!" You see Dins, this is why I'm not coming back. Being an alum is SO much better than being the real thing. Freshmen Dins: don't get any ideas. Come back to the group next year, or uncle Aseem will eat you.
But yes, for a day, I felt like I was back on the world tour circuit: playing Euchre in trains, watching Alpine scenery go by, free sit-down Italian dinner, ordering as much as possible because it was free, the smell of putrid tailcoats, etc. It was wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, and all too easy to believe I'd be there on tour with them for the rest of the summer. But it was not to be: upon our return to Ljubljana that night, I bade a sad goodbye to the young enthusiasts and slept my for three pre-plane hours. It was unspeakably fantastic of Jan's parents to wake me at 4 AM, feed me breakfast, and drive me to the airport.
Coming back to the vastness and rudeness of Moscow (by Aeroflot, no less-- although it's really a very ordinary airline, with a color scheme in the plane not unlike that of a youth hostel), alone, Janless, Dinless-- that was particularly disappointing. The rest of the (sickeningly hot) day I sat at home, did nothing, and felt lazy, irritable, and lonely. Naturally, the Russians have a word for exactly this feeling: тоска, or "toska," which means, well, exactly that-- when you're bored and slightly depressed. To add insult to injury, dinner was cabbage cutlets-- a rude blow after the gorgonzola-spinach ravioli of the previous night.
But since then, I have made some interesting acquaintances. Last night, I watched Spain-Germany (suck it, krauts) with E.S. from Stanford, but more importantly, with a Muscovite friend of a Harvard guy who did my program two years ago. Serge, Marino from Harvard's friend, brought his friend Ivan too, and we went to a cheap little bar close to Red Square. Marino had informed me of Serge's legendary beer-drinking capacity, and he did not exaggerate. We each drank FIVE beers. FIVE. It was mildly disgusting. But I survived.
Then today, I met another friend of Marino's: a dude named Dima, who is much older, but who is more awesome for it. We met at a bar near Chistye Prudy station, a pretty swanky place, so consequently I ordered next to nothing. We (me, Dima, his girlfriend, another friend) talked for a long time about American's stereotypes about Russia, and vice versa. Russians seem to think that Americans are poorly educated, boorish, fat, and are very bad at geography. Regretfully, I confirmed that this is all basically true. They also seem to think that we are outgoing and are good talkers, which is not exactly true. Substitute "loud-mouthed" for "good talker," and that seems to be more accurate.
Anyway-- all for now. Pictures to follow!
P.S. If you want to follow the Dins on their whirlwind adventure: http://dinstour.blogspot.com
But first, a joke. This one is about Russia's favorite ethnic whipping boy, the Chukchi people, a small, obscure Siberian tribe:
At a meeting of the Soviet Writers' Union, a group of Russian writers are conversing with their Chukcha colleague.
"Have you ever read Tolstoy?"
"No."
"Have you ever read Dostoevsky?"
"No."
"How about Chekhov?"
"No."
"Well then... what about Pushkin?"
"No. Chukcha-- no reader. Chukcha-- writer!"
And the Brown Count thus far: 16.
Biggest thing since last post-- went to Slovenia to hit up Jan and the Dins! Jan, for the unenlightened, is my Slovenian blockmate at the Harv, and since I have been to three of the countries surrounding his homeland (Austria, Italy, Croatia), I figured I had to make it there at some point. Moreover, Jan arranged a World Tour stop there for this year's Din and Tonics, of which, of course, I am an erstwhile member. Since I am the connection, and because I don't like missing out on this kind of fun, I had to go.
Now, before I go any further, a note to you T4 types who went to Europe but decided Slovenia was not worth the time or money: you are FOOLS. Slovenia is AWESOME. Why? I will get there, I will get there.
My adventure started on Thursday, when I packed very economically, since more than half the space in my backpack was taken up by my Dins gear-- tails, shoes, etc. I left home in the afternoon for my 8 PM flight, first via metro to Belorusskiy Vokzal (i.e. train station), and then via express train (with AC!) to Sheremetyevo airport, where I saw not one, not two, but three people who looked exactly like Rowan Atkinson.
I flew Czech Airlines to Prague, and then onward to Ljubljana. Czech Airlines prides itself on being the best airline in Eastern Europe. I think they need to think a bit bigger. Still, they still beat the shit out of American carriers in that they actually served dinner on a 2.5 hour flight. I was delighted when I heard the flight attendants announce this, only to be horrified when I realized the cuisine was, indeed, Czech. When the pork chops, dumplings, and sauerkraut arrived on my little tray, I was too hungry to be repulsed, and ate the dumplings and sauerkraut not already soaked in dead pig juice. Luckily, we got some bread and cheese on the side, so not all was lost.
Speaking of flight attendant announcements, the plane ride from Moscow to Prague was when I realized just how stupid the Czech language sounds to anyone who speaks Russian. The fool of an announcer guy on the plane could not have had a thicker accent, and the sorry mess he made of English was dwarfed by his pronunciation of Russian, which was terrifying. I once thought Czech was elegant-- it certainly looks elegant when written, and the gorgeousness that is Prague itself no doubt exerted no small influence on my psyche when I was there. But I mean really, if Dr. Steve Brule had his own language, it would be Czech.
In Prague I had a grand total of 40 minutes to change planes, so I literally ran through the (miraculously empty) airport, and was the only person in the customs line at the time. I then boarded the plane to Ljubljana, which was a tiny propeller outfit that looked as if it had been manufactured before the invention of TV. I sat next to an Dutchman who lived in southern Austria, who spent the entire hour-long plane ride complaining about how much he hated lawyers.
I arrived in the absolutely diminutive Ljubljana airport at 11 at night (or 1 AM in Moscow). Jan's dad and brother drove me home in what must be the only Chrysler in Slovenia (well I guess not, since Jan's mother works for a company that imports Chryslers... I must say, sounds like an uphill battle). Jan wasn't even there yet, because he was, in his turn, visiting a friend in Uzbekistan. Jan's family is absolutely lovely, and they were so happy to have me there (or at least they pretended really, really well. Jan, which is true?). He lives in a sweet Socialist-era apartment in the Bežigrad area of Ljubljana (his mom has lived there since age 12). Judging by the amount of space the apartment had compared to our Moscow place, Tito cared a lot more for his people than Khrushchev did. Yay benevolent dictators!
When Jan arrived from Uzbekistan (with 30 Uzbek hats... I got one too!), we immediately went to Jan's second home, i.e. Plavi Bar, which is across the street from Jan's place. It's not so much a bar as it is a cafe that also serves alcohol, and I got to meet, among others, the main waiter at Plavi, a cool Albanian dude known as Daši. I cashed in on the joy occasioned by Jan and Daši's happy reunion; the latter gave us both free drinks (I had cappuccino). Then Jan and I went strolling through the streets of Ljubljana. At first, it seemed like a modest mid-sized Central European city. But then we got to the center, and oh, how lovely! A beautiful little square, named for Slovenia's national poet, France Prešeren, some lovely bridges over the Ljubljanica river, lots of narrow medieval streets with Austro-Hungarian classical and baroque architecture, which were overflowing with outdoor cafes and restaurant tables. I was in old Europe again! A land of touristic happiness! Ease and relaxation! Gelato! Pizza! Vegetable markets! Gelato! A castle on a hill! Did I mention the gelato!
It was now that I began to regret not having a camera, a situation which I finally remedied the next day (pictures to follow!). But until then, Jan and I went to an outdoor place and watched the Netherlands crush Brazil over some Union and Laško, the two (yes, only two) brands of Slovene beer. Frankly, they taste pretty identical. We then went home and had pasta (with fresh veggies! joy!), which was like heaven after weeks of cabbage cutlets and packaged potato-mushroom balls, while watching Germany beat the living daylights out of those poor tragic fools, the Argentines. It was sad, pathetic even.
The next day was frankly largely the same, with more wandering of the center. This time we went to the castle, which is pretty cool, and from which you can see basically half of tiny Slovenia. Since Slovenia has only 2 million people, other Yugoslavs like to joke when they meet a Slovene, "you're a Slovene? But then who's guarding the border!" Hyuk hyuk hyuk. But I did buy the camera (AA-battery powered, ghetto).
Also, I forgot to mention that the day before, I had gone with Jan's dad (a real joker, by the way. Example: he said "we will now go to a traditional Slovene restaurant. Maybe you have heard of it." It was McDonalds) to pick up some fliers advertising the Dins! We had these ready when the Dins showed up at 9 PM that night, which, I must say, was a really joyful reunion. It was pretty awesome seeing everybody in their sweaty, unwashed World Tour glory, and even more awesome feeling their sweaty, unwashed glory while hugging them. The Dins stayed, for the most part, in wonderful little boutique hotels in Ljubljana's city center, except for Rashid and Sam Galler, who stayed in a hostel a little ways away.
Fact: Jan and I had visited this hostel, which was in an old Art-Nouveau kind of building, and were greeted by the owner, who apologized that the place was dirty because "I am hung over. It will look better in an hour."
We went out that night to a bar called Pr. Skelet, whose chief decoration is-- you guessed it!-- fake skeletons all over the place. This place is, appropriately, in a basement, and even more appropriately, the bathrooms are hidden behind secret revolving bookcases. But best of all, they gave you two drinks for the price of one. Naaaice!
The gigs were great-- in the morning, on the steps of Ljubljana City Hall, and in the evening, in a club/ theater in the town of Celje-- but best of all was being/ singing with the motley crew that is the Dins again. The deal was pretty awesome for me: I got my pick of solos, basically, and I was not considered obnoxious; on the contrary, everybody was like "I want a picture with Aseem!" You see Dins, this is why I'm not coming back. Being an alum is SO much better than being the real thing. Freshmen Dins: don't get any ideas. Come back to the group next year, or uncle Aseem will eat you.
But yes, for a day, I felt like I was back on the world tour circuit: playing Euchre in trains, watching Alpine scenery go by, free sit-down Italian dinner, ordering as much as possible because it was free, the smell of putrid tailcoats, etc. It was wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, and all too easy to believe I'd be there on tour with them for the rest of the summer. But it was not to be: upon our return to Ljubljana that night, I bade a sad goodbye to the young enthusiasts and slept my for three pre-plane hours. It was unspeakably fantastic of Jan's parents to wake me at 4 AM, feed me breakfast, and drive me to the airport.
Coming back to the vastness and rudeness of Moscow (by Aeroflot, no less-- although it's really a very ordinary airline, with a color scheme in the plane not unlike that of a youth hostel), alone, Janless, Dinless-- that was particularly disappointing. The rest of the (sickeningly hot) day I sat at home, did nothing, and felt lazy, irritable, and lonely. Naturally, the Russians have a word for exactly this feeling: тоска, or "toska," which means, well, exactly that-- when you're bored and slightly depressed. To add insult to injury, dinner was cabbage cutlets-- a rude blow after the gorgonzola-spinach ravioli of the previous night.
But since then, I have made some interesting acquaintances. Last night, I watched Spain-Germany (suck it, krauts) with E.S. from Stanford, but more importantly, with a Muscovite friend of a Harvard guy who did my program two years ago. Serge, Marino from Harvard's friend, brought his friend Ivan too, and we went to a cheap little bar close to Red Square. Marino had informed me of Serge's legendary beer-drinking capacity, and he did not exaggerate. We each drank FIVE beers. FIVE. It was mildly disgusting. But I survived.
Then today, I met another friend of Marino's: a dude named Dima, who is much older, but who is more awesome for it. We met at a bar near Chistye Prudy station, a pretty swanky place, so consequently I ordered next to nothing. We (me, Dima, his girlfriend, another friend) talked for a long time about American's stereotypes about Russia, and vice versa. Russians seem to think that Americans are poorly educated, boorish, fat, and are very bad at geography. Regretfully, I confirmed that this is all basically true. They also seem to think that we are outgoing and are good talkers, which is not exactly true. Substitute "loud-mouthed" for "good talker," and that seems to be more accurate.
Anyway-- all for now. Pictures to follow!
P.S. If you want to follow the Dins on their whirlwind adventure: http://dinstour.blogspot.com
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Могилы и конторы
Okay, this is going to be a long post, because I have a lot of ground to cover. Here goes!
To begin with, another joke-- this one from the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda:
A team of scientists from Harvard University working with lab mice have published a new study, in which they have demonstrated that lab mice live longer without the interference of teams of scientists from Harvard University.
And this is for those of you who know a little Russian:
A man walks into a travel agency.
"Two tickets to Dublin."
"Kuda blin?"
"Tuda blin!"
Also, before I begin this week's account, I would like to inaugurate a new feature of my narrative. I will preface this new addition by saying that Moscow is a diverse city, as diverse as it gets in Russia: there are plenty of East Asians, Central Asians, Caucasians (i.e. from the Caucasus region, not white people, dummy), even a few black people here and there. But there is a conspicuous paucity of one ethnic group: the Indians. You can thus imagine my secret delight whenever I see one of my own, traveling in a little Desi pack on the street, or smelling up the metro-- such that I have begun to keep a mental tally of how many times this rare treat of a thing happens.
The Brown Count thus far: 13.
Now on to events. As of the last posting, I was in the midst of the internship search and classes. Classes remain interesting; the internship has already started. More on both of these themes in a second.
Here in Moscow, we have just emerged from a week of hellish, record-breaking heat. Now when I say hellish and record-breaking, I mean low 90s and dry, which for the average Californian is quite literally no sweat-- or at least, not very much sweat, provided physical activity is confined to mornings and evenings. But in Moscow, people don't know how to cope. Alcoholics are weeping openly, bears are walking the streets in search of food, the Red October chocolate factory has literally melted, and the police have started returning people's bribes to them.
Okay, well it's not that bad/ awesome, but it's still pretty bad. Essentially no building in Moscow has air-conditioning, including our apartment. As a result, in low-ceilinged, poorly-ventilated rooms, it turns into an absolute furnace. You could fry an egg on the Khrushchev-era parquet floors. By evening, it's hotter inside than out, and I have often taken to taking a book to read on the lawns of Ukrainsky Bulvar to escape the heat indoors. Add to all this the fact that nobody owns shorts, and the fact that everybody thinks cold drinks will give you angina, and you will understand why O. keeps saying, "we're in Death Valley! We're in Death Valley!"
Despite the oppressive heat, I've done a lot of cool things lately. Last week, I saw Chekhov's The Seagull at the Moscow Art Theatre, which, if you took Study of Theatre at Harker, you may remember as the place where the great Stanislavsky basically founded modern acting a century ago. It's a lovely place, and the play was, as far as I know, excellent, but since my comprehension of the 19th-century Russian script was maybe 15%, they could have been doing Artaud for all I know (Artaud is a very, very different playwright, for you uncultured swine out there). I could, however, tell that this production was better than the one I saw at the ART in Cambridge in early 2009, because here, people were laughing from time to time, while in Cambridge, the only emotion that most people felt was the desire to vomit.
On Friday, I did some nice, healthy nothing. I tried, but failed, to withdraw dollars to pay rent for my family, now technically 2 weeks overdue. In the evening, we simply watched the World Cup. On Saturday, however, we had a morning tour of the Tretyakovsky Gallery, the premier museum of Russian art in the world, which was rather interesting, although I have frankly had my life's fill of Kievan-Rus-era iconography (that's not a code, Mummy). After a surprisingly delicious and cheap meal at the Tretyakovsky Cafe, several of us, including the omnipresent teacher Sasha, decided to undertake an adventure to Novodevichy Convent.
The convent itself is cool; it was built in the 15th-16th century, and it frequently served as the destination of exile for the uppity wives/ daughters/ sisters of insecure tsars; we spent a good 2 hours walking around the grounds and exploring the various buildings and artifacts to be found there. But far more interesting still is Novodevichy Cemetery, where basically every famous Russian EVER is buried. Among the illustrious to whose gravesights we payed homage were Boris Yeltsin, Nikita Khrushchev, author Mikhail Bulgakov, writer Anton Chekhov, director Konstantin Stanislavsky, poet Zabolotsky, poet Mayakovsky, film director Sergei Eisenstein, cosmonaut Gherman Titov, composer Skriabin, composer Shostakovich, composer Prokofiev, plane-guy Tupolev, communist Anastas Mikoyan, communist Lazar Kaganovich, communist Vladimir Molotov (of Molotov-Ribbentrop and Molotov cocktail fame), wife of dictator Nadezhda Alliluyeva-Stalina, and Soviet-anthem-lyricist Sergei Mikhalkov (also, inexplicably but perhaps uncoincidentally, a popular children's poet).
Interestingly, we arrived at the Cemetery 45 minutes after closing time; a good old 300-ruble bribe from Sasha did the trick. Anyway, the whole day combined kept me away from home from 9:30 AM to 10 PM, so Sunday was a bit quieter. In the morning, we had yet another tour, this time to the Kremlin, and this time in Russian. Unhappily, one of our fellow students, a poor Georgia Tech child of Indian extraction whom I will call Kostya, decided to join the Russian-language tour, while in fact knowing essentially no Russia, and even less, appallingly, of Russian history and culture. In his shoes, I would shut up and listen patiently, but he unceasingly would ask for the definition of words that ended up meaning things like "three." I doff my hat to the extremely patient tour guide, who had the generosity of character not to kill him.
Nonetheless, it was an interesting tour-- although they hardly let you into the government buildings, which is disappointing. Instead, you see the fine 15th-century churches on the grounds-- most of which were built by Italian rennaissance architects (cheaters). Therein, there were more graves (!), although Ivan the Terrible's is behind a partition that is not open to the public. Sadtimes. Afterward, we munched on ice cream on the park in the Kremlin, and made fun of the English-language tour guide from the previous week (the one who fought with the great Victor the driver), who had legitimately asked us if we had ever heard of the Great Patriotic War, the Russians' name for WWII.
We all laughed except Kostya, who evidently had not.
Then on Monday, my internship at the Slavic Center for Law and Justice began. The SCLJ is a law firm that focuses on cases relating to human rights, and particularly religious freedom rights. Scarily, it's affiliated with Pat Robertson, but their work is very legitimate, as far as I can tell. I'm working for a pretty cool young guy, who another Harvard dude worked for a couple years ago; he says he is the real thing, and that the internship involves good work. So far, I've helped him on a project in which he is supposed to offer suggestions to the Bar Association of Moscow (or whatever it is) to improve their lawyer examination process; and in finding summaries of European Court of Human Rights cases/ rulings/ execution reports.
Speaking of which, if you know anybody who practices law in Canada, the UK, Australia, or New Zealand, let me know.
Today, there was a cool round table of various academics, religious officials, and lawyers at the SCLJ, where they all compared notes about how to fight for religious rights in Russian courts. I was particularly struck by one vein of conversation: whether Russian courts are bad because people are incompetent, or because they are not independent. As my boss told me afterward, it's a mixture of both, in his experiences. The fact is, Russian judges are all directly appointed by the President, and their ratification by the State Duma (parliament) is basically a rubber-stamp process. Thus, competent or not (and many clearly are not), they all know where the buck stops, and it's not with them. My boss also added that comparing American and Russian courts is like comparing a human with a chimpanzee.
I assume that he was commenting on the evolutionary relationship between the human and the chimpanzee brains. Maybe, though, he was being really deep, and commenting about the long arms of the Russian law, which nonetheless cannot walk properly upright, due to its stunted and underutilized nature, more suited to clinging to the tree on which it suckled than to treading freely on the bold plains of justice. Then again, maybe not.
This week in class has been ho-hum, but the last couple of days we have been learning some Russian black humor, of the "malen'ky mal'chik..." ("little boy...") variety. Here is a sample (my free translation):
Boy's in the kitchen, his cutlets are frying;
In the next room, legless, father is crying.
Well, that's mostly all for now. Today, I finally got the money for my host family, which was a relief, and ate delicious, delicious syrniki, or cottage-cheesish pancakes with jam. I think V. Jr., who is currently strolling with wife and son, is drunk again. I was going to talk a bit about the Russian soul-- about which I have a lot of deep and poetic thoughts-- but I will leave that for another time. But there is news! Tomorrow, I fly to Slovenia, to join my friend Jan and the Harvard Din and Tonics! Jan has set up a stop for the Dins there, and since I'm the mutual connection, I figure I would be stupid not to show. Excitement!
With that, I must depart, but I will leave you with this final video. I hope I could say that it was in jest, but it's completely serious. I will let Petr Nalich (Cosmo Kramer? Borat Sagdiyev?) speak for himself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOzkN8dHnjk
To begin with, another joke-- this one from the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda:
A team of scientists from Harvard University working with lab mice have published a new study, in which they have demonstrated that lab mice live longer without the interference of teams of scientists from Harvard University.
And this is for those of you who know a little Russian:
A man walks into a travel agency.
"Two tickets to Dublin."
"Kuda blin?"
"Tuda blin!"
Also, before I begin this week's account, I would like to inaugurate a new feature of my narrative. I will preface this new addition by saying that Moscow is a diverse city, as diverse as it gets in Russia: there are plenty of East Asians, Central Asians, Caucasians (i.e. from the Caucasus region, not white people, dummy), even a few black people here and there. But there is a conspicuous paucity of one ethnic group: the Indians. You can thus imagine my secret delight whenever I see one of my own, traveling in a little Desi pack on the street, or smelling up the metro-- such that I have begun to keep a mental tally of how many times this rare treat of a thing happens.
The Brown Count thus far: 13.
Now on to events. As of the last posting, I was in the midst of the internship search and classes. Classes remain interesting; the internship has already started. More on both of these themes in a second.
Here in Moscow, we have just emerged from a week of hellish, record-breaking heat. Now when I say hellish and record-breaking, I mean low 90s and dry, which for the average Californian is quite literally no sweat-- or at least, not very much sweat, provided physical activity is confined to mornings and evenings. But in Moscow, people don't know how to cope. Alcoholics are weeping openly, bears are walking the streets in search of food, the Red October chocolate factory has literally melted, and the police have started returning people's bribes to them.
Okay, well it's not that bad/ awesome, but it's still pretty bad. Essentially no building in Moscow has air-conditioning, including our apartment. As a result, in low-ceilinged, poorly-ventilated rooms, it turns into an absolute furnace. You could fry an egg on the Khrushchev-era parquet floors. By evening, it's hotter inside than out, and I have often taken to taking a book to read on the lawns of Ukrainsky Bulvar to escape the heat indoors. Add to all this the fact that nobody owns shorts, and the fact that everybody thinks cold drinks will give you angina, and you will understand why O. keeps saying, "we're in Death Valley! We're in Death Valley!"
Despite the oppressive heat, I've done a lot of cool things lately. Last week, I saw Chekhov's The Seagull at the Moscow Art Theatre, which, if you took Study of Theatre at Harker, you may remember as the place where the great Stanislavsky basically founded modern acting a century ago. It's a lovely place, and the play was, as far as I know, excellent, but since my comprehension of the 19th-century Russian script was maybe 15%, they could have been doing Artaud for all I know (Artaud is a very, very different playwright, for you uncultured swine out there). I could, however, tell that this production was better than the one I saw at the ART in Cambridge in early 2009, because here, people were laughing from time to time, while in Cambridge, the only emotion that most people felt was the desire to vomit.
On Friday, I did some nice, healthy nothing. I tried, but failed, to withdraw dollars to pay rent for my family, now technically 2 weeks overdue. In the evening, we simply watched the World Cup. On Saturday, however, we had a morning tour of the Tretyakovsky Gallery, the premier museum of Russian art in the world, which was rather interesting, although I have frankly had my life's fill of Kievan-Rus-era iconography (that's not a code, Mummy). After a surprisingly delicious and cheap meal at the Tretyakovsky Cafe, several of us, including the omnipresent teacher Sasha, decided to undertake an adventure to Novodevichy Convent.
The convent itself is cool; it was built in the 15th-16th century, and it frequently served as the destination of exile for the uppity wives/ daughters/ sisters of insecure tsars; we spent a good 2 hours walking around the grounds and exploring the various buildings and artifacts to be found there. But far more interesting still is Novodevichy Cemetery, where basically every famous Russian EVER is buried. Among the illustrious to whose gravesights we payed homage were Boris Yeltsin, Nikita Khrushchev, author Mikhail Bulgakov, writer Anton Chekhov, director Konstantin Stanislavsky, poet Zabolotsky, poet Mayakovsky, film director Sergei Eisenstein, cosmonaut Gherman Titov, composer Skriabin, composer Shostakovich, composer Prokofiev, plane-guy Tupolev, communist Anastas Mikoyan, communist Lazar Kaganovich, communist Vladimir Molotov (of Molotov-Ribbentrop and Molotov cocktail fame), wife of dictator Nadezhda Alliluyeva-Stalina, and Soviet-anthem-lyricist Sergei Mikhalkov (also, inexplicably but perhaps uncoincidentally, a popular children's poet).
Interestingly, we arrived at the Cemetery 45 minutes after closing time; a good old 300-ruble bribe from Sasha did the trick. Anyway, the whole day combined kept me away from home from 9:30 AM to 10 PM, so Sunday was a bit quieter. In the morning, we had yet another tour, this time to the Kremlin, and this time in Russian. Unhappily, one of our fellow students, a poor Georgia Tech child of Indian extraction whom I will call Kostya, decided to join the Russian-language tour, while in fact knowing essentially no Russia, and even less, appallingly, of Russian history and culture. In his shoes, I would shut up and listen patiently, but he unceasingly would ask for the definition of words that ended up meaning things like "three." I doff my hat to the extremely patient tour guide, who had the generosity of character not to kill him.
Nonetheless, it was an interesting tour-- although they hardly let you into the government buildings, which is disappointing. Instead, you see the fine 15th-century churches on the grounds-- most of which were built by Italian rennaissance architects (cheaters). Therein, there were more graves (!), although Ivan the Terrible's is behind a partition that is not open to the public. Sadtimes. Afterward, we munched on ice cream on the park in the Kremlin, and made fun of the English-language tour guide from the previous week (the one who fought with the great Victor the driver), who had legitimately asked us if we had ever heard of the Great Patriotic War, the Russians' name for WWII.
We all laughed except Kostya, who evidently had not.
Then on Monday, my internship at the Slavic Center for Law and Justice began. The SCLJ is a law firm that focuses on cases relating to human rights, and particularly religious freedom rights. Scarily, it's affiliated with Pat Robertson, but their work is very legitimate, as far as I can tell. I'm working for a pretty cool young guy, who another Harvard dude worked for a couple years ago; he says he is the real thing, and that the internship involves good work. So far, I've helped him on a project in which he is supposed to offer suggestions to the Bar Association of Moscow (or whatever it is) to improve their lawyer examination process; and in finding summaries of European Court of Human Rights cases/ rulings/ execution reports.
Speaking of which, if you know anybody who practices law in Canada, the UK, Australia, or New Zealand, let me know.
Today, there was a cool round table of various academics, religious officials, and lawyers at the SCLJ, where they all compared notes about how to fight for religious rights in Russian courts. I was particularly struck by one vein of conversation: whether Russian courts are bad because people are incompetent, or because they are not independent. As my boss told me afterward, it's a mixture of both, in his experiences. The fact is, Russian judges are all directly appointed by the President, and their ratification by the State Duma (parliament) is basically a rubber-stamp process. Thus, competent or not (and many clearly are not), they all know where the buck stops, and it's not with them. My boss also added that comparing American and Russian courts is like comparing a human with a chimpanzee.
I assume that he was commenting on the evolutionary relationship between the human and the chimpanzee brains. Maybe, though, he was being really deep, and commenting about the long arms of the Russian law, which nonetheless cannot walk properly upright, due to its stunted and underutilized nature, more suited to clinging to the tree on which it suckled than to treading freely on the bold plains of justice. Then again, maybe not.
This week in class has been ho-hum, but the last couple of days we have been learning some Russian black humor, of the "malen'ky mal'chik..." ("little boy...") variety. Here is a sample (my free translation):
Boy's in the kitchen, his cutlets are frying;
In the next room, legless, father is crying.
Well, that's mostly all for now. Today, I finally got the money for my host family, which was a relief, and ate delicious, delicious syrniki, or cottage-cheesish pancakes with jam. I think V. Jr., who is currently strolling with wife and son, is drunk again. I was going to talk a bit about the Russian soul-- about which I have a lot of deep and poetic thoughts-- but I will leave that for another time. But there is news! Tomorrow, I fly to Slovenia, to join my friend Jan and the Harvard Din and Tonics! Jan has set up a stop for the Dins there, and since I'm the mutual connection, I figure I would be stupid not to show. Excitement!
With that, I must depart, but I will leave you with this final video. I hope I could say that it was in jest, but it's completely serious. I will let Petr Nalich (Cosmo Kramer? Borat Sagdiyev?) speak for himself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOzkN8dHnjk
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Damage Control
One reason that blogging is not so good is that I cannot reveal everyone's wonderful names, or else hold back on details. The latter I will not do, so I am going to go back and retroactively turn most recurring characters' names into initials (unless I deem otherwise). If you'd like to know someone's actual name, let me know. I know the account will lose some color, alas, but hey-- the price you pay for publicly available content!
И смех и грех
Originally sent June 23:
I forgot to mention a few things. They are mostly not happy, so I will start with a joke I learned yesterday:
1 Englishman is a gentlemen, 2 Englishmen-- a bet. 3 Englishmen-- a Parliament.
1 Frenchman-- a lover. 2 Frenchmen-- a duel. 3 Frenchmen-- a revolution.
1 Russian-- unemployed. 2 Russians-- a fight. 3 Russians-- a drinking session.
1 Jew-- a professor. 2 Jews-- trade. 3 Jews-- the Russian Symphony Orchestra.
Trust me, it's really funny in Russian.
Now-- some drama! I forgot to relay that on Thursday night, V. Jr. came home drunk. O. was not happy, but it was no big deal. But then it happened again yesterday-- a Monday. And he skipped work to do so. This was a massive scandal. O. kicked him out of the house and became very emotional. Tears were shed. They had to call V. Jr.'s boss to ask for forgiveness on his behalf. She told me "I understand if you don't want to live in a house like this. We will think of something." I told her-- nonsense. I like it here. And I meant it-- every family, after all, has its problems.
Another thing: I was told to be wary of racism/ profiling in Russia. While no ordinary person has ever done anything remotely racist, the police aren't ordinary people. I was stopped on the metro yesterday and asked for my documents. As it happened, I didn't have them with me. What does a sensible person do in such a situation? Explain that one doesn't have his documents, and slip the militsiya a few rubles, just to make the point. But what does Aseem Shukla do in such a situation? Shouting "inostranny student!" ("foreign student!") and pretending he doesn't speak Russian. It worked.
All for now!
Aseemchik
I forgot to mention a few things. They are mostly not happy, so I will start with a joke I learned yesterday:
1 Englishman is a gentlemen, 2 Englishmen-- a bet. 3 Englishmen-- a Parliament.
1 Frenchman-- a lover. 2 Frenchmen-- a duel. 3 Frenchmen-- a revolution.
1 Russian-- unemployed. 2 Russians-- a fight. 3 Russians-- a drinking session.
1 Jew-- a professor. 2 Jews-- trade. 3 Jews-- the Russian Symphony Orchestra.
Trust me, it's really funny in Russian.
Now-- some drama! I forgot to relay that on Thursday night, V. Jr. came home drunk. O. was not happy, but it was no big deal. But then it happened again yesterday-- a Monday. And he skipped work to do so. This was a massive scandal. O. kicked him out of the house and became very emotional. Tears were shed. They had to call V. Jr.'s boss to ask for forgiveness on his behalf. She told me "I understand if you don't want to live in a house like this. We will think of something." I told her-- nonsense. I like it here. And I meant it-- every family, after all, has its problems.
Another thing: I was told to be wary of racism/ profiling in Russia. While no ordinary person has ever done anything remotely racist, the police aren't ordinary people. I was stopped on the metro yesterday and asked for my documents. As it happened, I didn't have them with me. What does a sensible person do in such a situation? Explain that one doesn't have his documents, and slip the militsiya a few rubles, just to make the point. But what does Aseem Shukla do in such a situation? Shouting "inostranny student!" ("foreign student!") and pretending he doesn't speak Russian. It worked.
All for now!
Aseemchik
Поездка к Толстому
Originally sent June 23:
Quick update now. Five days ago, went (with our awesome teacher), on a walk through Moscow late in the evening, then to a really awesome bar-club called Solyanka, had a great time, although we had to leave before the party really got started in order to make the metro before closing time at 1 AM. Beforehand, we walked through the narrow, historic streets of Kitay-Gorod, which in contemporary Russian means China-Town, although the etymology is different, and if you go looking for Dim Sum, you will be disappointed.
Before I go on, a few notes of correction/ clarification before I proceed. In a previous posting, I noted that the cost of three months on the Moscow subway is the equivalent of $55. I was off by a factor of 2. It's actually more like $105. Conversion fail, slash you can all stop hurling your "THAT'S SO CHEAP!" at me.
Second note: in my previous posting, I noted that V. Sr. is a large man of fearsome appearance and bear-strangling physical capacity, reminiscent, I would rather say, of a Cossack. Well, as it turns out, V. Sr. IS a Cossack. Verily, his last name means, in his Ukrainian mother tongue, little Cossack. Which is funny because he is not little. But he is a Cossack. His ancestors presumably decimated rebelling villages, grew long tufts of hair on their had, became rowdily drunk, and, for all that I know, strangled bears.
A few more notes on home life. Russian standards of hygiene seem to be regretfully lower than American ones, and I have seen no evidence of the usage of soap to clean dishes thus far. Ah well. I'm not sick yet, am I? Also, the cats have a way of going into the bathroom, and in plain view of their litter boxes, shitting right in front of the toilet. Late at night, when nature calls me but I can't call O., there is little to do but grin and bear it. Also between the cats and the fact that Russians seem to find the usage of sheets superfluous, the apartment wears the perpetual aroma of feet.
Back to the account of things. Thursday night I slept like a long, waking up at 1 PM on Friday (no class on Fridays!). I did nothing for a while, but then went to the Academy to use the free internet (getting there was basically free too. Because I have a 3-month metro pass. Did I mention it's for three months and $105?). I did basically nothing else for the rest of the day, but in the evening I talked to O. and V. Sr. for several hours, while Misha the cat sat on my lap and gave me a massage. Yes, Misha gives massages. He puts his hind legs on your lap, and his forelegs on your chest, and gently presses, going up and down your chest. Where he learned this skill, I know not. All I know is that in Soviet Russia, cat pets you.
On Saturday, we had a pre-planned "ekskursiya," i.e. tour, that we went on. Due to some clerical error (or perhaps sadism on some higher power's part), we advanced students got an English-speaking guide, who operated under the impression that we had never heard of Russia before, while the beginning students got a Russian-language guide who is used to giving tours to people from St. Petersburg. But it was a good tour. We saw the immense and impressive building of Moscow State University (seriously, google image it), one of seven Gothic-inspired skyscrapers built by Stalin in the late 40s and early 50s, situated in the prestigious Sparrow Hills area, from which the whole city (and the other six Stalinist buildings) was visible. From there we stopped through Victory Park, then the Khram Khrista Spasitelya, or Cathedral of Christ the Savior (yes, Borat fans, Khram means Cathedral, not... you know). The latter was built in the 19th century, demolished in the 1930s to make room for a huge skyscraper that never got built thanks to WWII, and where Khrushchev, at a loss for what to do with the foundations, set up the world's biggest outdoor swimming pool. After the fall of the USSR, Russia rebuilt the Cathedral, much to the dismay of atheist swimmers across the city. After this, we were deposited at Red Square, which really has to be seen to be believed. St. Basil's cathedral, with its mystical, Byzantine, chaotic architecture, is just jaw-dropping. Not as big as you think it is, but even more exquisite.
The best part of the Ekskursiya, however, was when our tour guide and our driver, Viktor, yelled at each other. Viktor often took it upon himself to correct the tour guide, who would respond "Viktor, bez kommentarii, pozhaluysta," which I will loosely translate as "shut up in the peanut gallery." The tour guide was also seemingly challenged with the opening of sliding doors, at which point Viktor expressed his opinion that the "passazhiri dolzhni znat sami kak otkryvaetsya dver', potomu chto vy rukami pol'zovat'sya ne umeete," which means "the passengers themselves should know how the door opens, because you don't know how to use your hands."
Anyway, the rest of Saturday was passed in pleasant sitting around, because plans to go to O. and V.'s dacha (country cottage) fell through. But this freed me up to go on Sunday to Yasnaya Polyana, Tolstoy's estate, with Danya of Harvard, E.S. of Stanford, and Sasha the teacher-man. We all met at Sasha's metro stop, which happens to be the same metro stop as the Cosmonaut Museum. Sasha met us there covered in grease. "I was repairing my car," he said. Sasha then led us to said car, and we saw why: it was an early-1980s Soviet Lada.
Ladies and gentlemen, this was the most legit car I have ever seen. And by legit, I mean if you crashed, you would almost certainly be ripped to shreds by the force. It consists of little more than some sheet metal and a couple of (surprisingly comfortable) seats. Sasha had rigged up an electronic locking system himself. Also, the back seat manual window cranks were broken, so the windows were perpetually open! We returned to Sasha's so he could wash up, and then went on our way.
Yasnaya Polyana is outside the city of Tula, a good 2.5 hours from Moscow. The road there passes some lovely Russian countryside-- big green fields and fine forests of birch and maple. It was a warm, dry, sunny day: lovely for a ride-- and for open windows at 70 mph. And what a ride it was. We stopped only to fill the minuscule gas tank and piss in the great Russian outdoors. Later, when to got to the outskirts of Tula, we drove through a small village that looked pretty damn third-world, and had potholes of the sort that led you to believe it had recently been shelled. This was all good for Sasha, who refused to go slower than 60 while taking narrow corners, dodging the potholes on the one-lane street. It was like being at a theme park, except if you died, it wouldn't make the papers.
Yasnaya Polyana was a lovely little spot in a lovely neck of woods. We saw Tolstoy's pond, his apple orchard, his house, books, grave, etc. The house is preserved exactly as it was when he lived in it. I found it weird that he kept the couch on which he was born right behind his work desk. I mean, that's kind of gross.
We then ate a bit, toured Tula (it kind of sucks), and at the local cake, pryaniki, before returning to Moscow; we got home around 11. Then the last couple of days have been more of the same as before-- class in the morning, goofing off in the afternoon, and all that. Last night, we celebrated the 20th birthday of one of the girls in the program at a lovely expat-friendly bar. Today I had an interview at the place where I'll probably be working, the Slavic Center for Law and Justice, which is a law firm focusing on human rights, esp. religious freedom issues, with both for-profit and non-profit clients. I met my putative boss, who is a cool dude. Work duties to be specified, but there is of course the ubiquitous "you want to read some documents for me in English?" And that's all so far! Okay, not so quick update.
--Aseem Aseemovich Aseemin
Quick update now. Five days ago, went (with our awesome teacher), on a walk through Moscow late in the evening, then to a really awesome bar-club called Solyanka, had a great time, although we had to leave before the party really got started in order to make the metro before closing time at 1 AM. Beforehand, we walked through the narrow, historic streets of Kitay-Gorod, which in contemporary Russian means China-Town, although the etymology is different, and if you go looking for Dim Sum, you will be disappointed.
Before I go on, a few notes of correction/ clarification before I proceed. In a previous posting, I noted that the cost of three months on the Moscow subway is the equivalent of $55. I was off by a factor of 2. It's actually more like $105. Conversion fail, slash you can all stop hurling your "THAT'S SO CHEAP!" at me.
Second note: in my previous posting, I noted that V. Sr. is a large man of fearsome appearance and bear-strangling physical capacity, reminiscent, I would rather say, of a Cossack. Well, as it turns out, V. Sr. IS a Cossack. Verily, his last name means, in his Ukrainian mother tongue, little Cossack. Which is funny because he is not little. But he is a Cossack. His ancestors presumably decimated rebelling villages, grew long tufts of hair on their had, became rowdily drunk, and, for all that I know, strangled bears.
A few more notes on home life. Russian standards of hygiene seem to be regretfully lower than American ones, and I have seen no evidence of the usage of soap to clean dishes thus far. Ah well. I'm not sick yet, am I? Also, the cats have a way of going into the bathroom, and in plain view of their litter boxes, shitting right in front of the toilet. Late at night, when nature calls me but I can't call O., there is little to do but grin and bear it. Also between the cats and the fact that Russians seem to find the usage of sheets superfluous, the apartment wears the perpetual aroma of feet.
Back to the account of things. Thursday night I slept like a long, waking up at 1 PM on Friday (no class on Fridays!). I did nothing for a while, but then went to the Academy to use the free internet (getting there was basically free too. Because I have a 3-month metro pass. Did I mention it's for three months and $105?). I did basically nothing else for the rest of the day, but in the evening I talked to O. and V. Sr. for several hours, while Misha the cat sat on my lap and gave me a massage. Yes, Misha gives massages. He puts his hind legs on your lap, and his forelegs on your chest, and gently presses, going up and down your chest. Where he learned this skill, I know not. All I know is that in Soviet Russia, cat pets you.
On Saturday, we had a pre-planned "ekskursiya," i.e. tour, that we went on. Due to some clerical error (or perhaps sadism on some higher power's part), we advanced students got an English-speaking guide, who operated under the impression that we had never heard of Russia before, while the beginning students got a Russian-language guide who is used to giving tours to people from St. Petersburg. But it was a good tour. We saw the immense and impressive building of Moscow State University (seriously, google image it), one of seven Gothic-inspired skyscrapers built by Stalin in the late 40s and early 50s, situated in the prestigious Sparrow Hills area, from which the whole city (and the other six Stalinist buildings) was visible. From there we stopped through Victory Park, then the Khram Khrista Spasitelya, or Cathedral of Christ the Savior (yes, Borat fans, Khram means Cathedral, not... you know). The latter was built in the 19th century, demolished in the 1930s to make room for a huge skyscraper that never got built thanks to WWII, and where Khrushchev, at a loss for what to do with the foundations, set up the world's biggest outdoor swimming pool. After the fall of the USSR, Russia rebuilt the Cathedral, much to the dismay of atheist swimmers across the city. After this, we were deposited at Red Square, which really has to be seen to be believed. St. Basil's cathedral, with its mystical, Byzantine, chaotic architecture, is just jaw-dropping. Not as big as you think it is, but even more exquisite.
The best part of the Ekskursiya, however, was when our tour guide and our driver, Viktor, yelled at each other. Viktor often took it upon himself to correct the tour guide, who would respond "Viktor, bez kommentarii, pozhaluysta," which I will loosely translate as "shut up in the peanut gallery." The tour guide was also seemingly challenged with the opening of sliding doors, at which point Viktor expressed his opinion that the "passazhiri dolzhni znat sami kak otkryvaetsya dver', potomu chto vy rukami pol'zovat'sya ne umeete," which means "the passengers themselves should know how the door opens, because you don't know how to use your hands."
Anyway, the rest of Saturday was passed in pleasant sitting around, because plans to go to O. and V.'s dacha (country cottage) fell through. But this freed me up to go on Sunday to Yasnaya Polyana, Tolstoy's estate, with Danya of Harvard, E.S. of Stanford, and Sasha the teacher-man. We all met at Sasha's metro stop, which happens to be the same metro stop as the Cosmonaut Museum. Sasha met us there covered in grease. "I was repairing my car," he said. Sasha then led us to said car, and we saw why: it was an early-1980s Soviet Lada.
Ladies and gentlemen, this was the most legit car I have ever seen. And by legit, I mean if you crashed, you would almost certainly be ripped to shreds by the force. It consists of little more than some sheet metal and a couple of (surprisingly comfortable) seats. Sasha had rigged up an electronic locking system himself. Also, the back seat manual window cranks were broken, so the windows were perpetually open! We returned to Sasha's so he could wash up, and then went on our way.
Yasnaya Polyana is outside the city of Tula, a good 2.5 hours from Moscow. The road there passes some lovely Russian countryside-- big green fields and fine forests of birch and maple. It was a warm, dry, sunny day: lovely for a ride-- and for open windows at 70 mph. And what a ride it was. We stopped only to fill the minuscule gas tank and piss in the great Russian outdoors. Later, when to got to the outskirts of Tula, we drove through a small village that looked pretty damn third-world, and had potholes of the sort that led you to believe it had recently been shelled. This was all good for Sasha, who refused to go slower than 60 while taking narrow corners, dodging the potholes on the one-lane street. It was like being at a theme park, except if you died, it wouldn't make the papers.
Yasnaya Polyana was a lovely little spot in a lovely neck of woods. We saw Tolstoy's pond, his apple orchard, his house, books, grave, etc. The house is preserved exactly as it was when he lived in it. I found it weird that he kept the couch on which he was born right behind his work desk. I mean, that's kind of gross.
We then ate a bit, toured Tula (it kind of sucks), and at the local cake, pryaniki, before returning to Moscow; we got home around 11. Then the last couple of days have been more of the same as before-- class in the morning, goofing off in the afternoon, and all that. Last night, we celebrated the 20th birthday of one of the girls in the program at a lovely expat-friendly bar. Today I had an interview at the place where I'll probably be working, the Slavic Center for Law and Justice, which is a law firm focusing on human rights, esp. religious freedom issues, with both for-profit and non-profit clients. I met my putative boss, who is a cool dude. Work duties to be specified, but there is of course the ubiquitous "you want to read some documents for me in English?" And that's all so far! Okay, not so quick update.
--Aseem Aseemovich Aseemin
Выпивка у бабушки
Originally sent June 16:
New update. And thanks for the replies! Cris-- nice job figuring out that priklyucheniya means adventures. If I ever say anything you don't understand, look it up on multitran.ru.
After I wrote on Monday, V. Sr. showed up in the night. The man is HUGE. He's about 6'3", and could strangle a bear. Also he has a massive moustache and long, thinning hair. Basically, he is a Cossack. We talked until 3 in the morning about life in the Soviet Union vs. in contemporary Russia. The reason the conversation was so long was that he preferred life in Soviet times, for a variety of very valid reasons. Like the fact that there were no homeless people, and basically everything was free. But he did admit that the repression was inconvenient.
Went to ANE for the first time yesterday, after a breakfast of fried cabbage cutlets (actually delicious, no joke)-- this is the organization that organizes the program. ANE, i.e. Academy of the National Economy (Akademiya Natsionalnogo Khozyaystva). Basically, I take Russian in the morning, and in the afternoon, I'll end up doing an internship or two-- more on this in a bit. The ANE is at the Yugo-Zapadnaya, which is in the South-West of Moscow (Yugo-Zapadnaya means South-West, by the way). A pretty grim place, made grimmer by the fact that it has rained basically non-stop for the last three days, and the temp. has not exceeded 65.
There on the platform, I met the other students-- but I was looking forward to seeing Danya (as I'll call him for the blog), a Harvard kid, who was not there. Apparently, he was trying out an internship. You will understand that I was looking forward to speaking in a familiar language with a familiar person in a very foreign land, but eto ne poluchilos'-- which means it didn't happen. I tend not to be super-outgoing in brand new situations, especially since there was a large contingent who all knew each other from Georgia Tech/ U. of Georgia. But all was good. A.A., the mustachioed dude who runs the program, is a hilarious and friendly dude who made us all feel at ease. We then took a tour of the premises, and finally divided up into advanced and intermediate students. We also met our two ANE student hosts, Boris and Alina.
There are six of us in the advanced group, and it's a pretty vesyolaya gruppa-- i.e. a jolly group. There's Danya and me from Harvard, T. and D. from U. Georgia, A. from SUNY Stonybrook, and K. from McGill. D. is gay and speaks Russian way too well, and thinks nothing of yelling at the rest of us when our Russian lapses or we make a mistake. If he weren't so nice outside the classroom, I would want to kill him. Our teacher is Sasha, a recent MGU (Moscow State) journalism graduate, who is AWESOME. He decided he hated saying positive things about Putin all the time, and he now teaches elementary school.
After class, we advanced kids decided to have lunch together at one of the on-campus restaurants, Il Patio. Delicious Italian food! I got a Greek salad, 8-inch veggie pizza, and glass of coke, all for about 8 bucks, which is considered expensive here, and this is a sit-down restaurant no less. After that, we went in vain search of SimCard stuff for another one of the kids with Boris. Then we went our separate ways, the other kids to watch a movie at one of their apartments, and I to the Babushka's 80th birthday party.
Here follows an account of what has definitely been the most awesome part of the trip so far. O.'s mother turned 80 yesterday, and there was a birthday party at her place. An 80-year-old's birthday party? That was fun, you say? Oh, gentle reader, oh yes. After much difficulty finding my way on the metro and on the street in the pouring rain, I finally arrived at a stately brown Stalinist building (the nasty grey buildings you associate with Communism are Khrushchev-era; under Stalin, the standard of architecture was quite high). And then up to apartment, which I tell you, was so old, and so beautiful, and so Russian, I thought I would explode. Wooden parquet floors, high ceilings, crown mouldings, lime-green wallpaper, sweet-smelling brown furniture, a long corridor lined with hundreds of books. I expected Nabokov to emerge from the office, offering the guests glasses of cognac.
Nabokov there was not, but cognac there was aplenty. I went into one of the rooms behind O. It was so jaw-droppingly Russian-- two long tables, with white tablecloths and lovely silverware, and all laden with Russian party food (mayonnaisy salads and cold fish dishes, and so on) and Soviet-era champagne. And on one end of one of the tables, a gaggle of classy babushkas, all softly and respectfully talking to each other and partaking of the banquet. I sat at the other end of the table and ate the only stuff I could, stewed mushrooms and pickled tomato. Then, the most wonderful thing started happening-- each of the babushkas took it in turn to stand up and say really, really nice things about the 80-year-old birthday girl. Lots of toasts all around. The place could not have been more cozy if we were all wearing snuggies.
It gets better still. At some point a couple showed up and sat next to me. The wife was boring, but the husband, Victor, became my best friend. His first thing to me, having seen me for the first time and putting his arm around my shoulder: "I don't remember your name, comrade, please remind me!" I said I was new here-- and to the country. He said cool. That was all for the time being, because we both knew that this party was all about the babushkas, and not to have side conversations. But later, he got up to have a look from the balcony. I found my way there, because I wanted fresh air. Victor and I ended up talking for about half an hour-- about the climate, about Stalinist architecture, about the reading of foreign literature in the Soviet Union, etc. Then we returned to the table, and there I tried the cognac. But Victor kept refilling the glass, and I ended up drinking about a third of the bottle. Yes, my friends, at a babushka's 80th birthday party, around 8:30 PM, I was drunk.
Now, Alina had invited all us advanced kids to a bar that night, so around 10 PM I set out. My family yelled at me and insisted I be back before midnight, because apparently after 11 PM the "khuligany" (hooligans) start roving the streets. Believe me, after Babushka's 80th, the bar kind of sucked. I left after an hour, but it took 45 minutes on the metro to get home, and I flopped down.
Today I got up at 7:25, shat, showered, shaved, and shined, had three fried eggs from O. (why does everything she makes turn out delicious?), and went off to school again. I arrived 10 minutes late, thinking I'd be the last. I was the first. A very nice day of class with Sasha, and started the internship search! Now, I plan to intern with the Slavyansky Pravovoy Tsentr, i.e. the Slavic Center for Law and Justice, a human-rights related law firm, but the ANE internship coordinator had an idea for a second internship for me, and at 1:30 today I was informed I had a 2 PM interview at the so-called Institute of Europe. Whoa. An ANE woman took me on the metro to Okhotny Ryad station, which is right on Red Square. We went to an old, round building, the headquarters of the Institute of Europe, which is a think-tank on European issues. There, I had an interview with the Director himself. I tell you, there is nothing like a well-educated Russian for worldliness, friendliness, and intellectual curiosity. He talked to me about the Institute and what it does and all his personal interests-- for an hour. Then he asked what I wanted to do here. I thought-- I don't know, you tell me! But I told him that any kind of academic research experience would be cool, and that I was open to anything. He said, I have an idea-- my English sucks, but I need to read a lot of stuff in English. You want to read stuff for me, translate, and send me analytical summaries in Russian? So I said sounds interesting. And he said think about it! But first, he ordered me to enjoy myself and see Moscow. Why are Russians so awesome?
Then, I decided to walk through Red Square, but randomly on the street-- I ran into a couple of my classmates! They had already been on the Square, but were on their way to the Arbat, which happens to be my way home. So I went with them. It suddently started raining cats and dogs, so by the time we got home, I was totally soaked.
Anyway-- that's all for now. After getting home, all I've done is watched Spain vs. Switzerland with V. Sr., who again talked fondly about Soviet life. Also, more delicious fried cabbage cutlets. That's all folks!
--Aseemsky
New update. And thanks for the replies! Cris-- nice job figuring out that priklyucheniya means adventures. If I ever say anything you don't understand, look it up on multitran.ru.
After I wrote on Monday, V. Sr. showed up in the night. The man is HUGE. He's about 6'3", and could strangle a bear. Also he has a massive moustache and long, thinning hair. Basically, he is a Cossack. We talked until 3 in the morning about life in the Soviet Union vs. in contemporary Russia. The reason the conversation was so long was that he preferred life in Soviet times, for a variety of very valid reasons. Like the fact that there were no homeless people, and basically everything was free. But he did admit that the repression was inconvenient.
Went to ANE for the first time yesterday, after a breakfast of fried cabbage cutlets (actually delicious, no joke)-- this is the organization that organizes the program. ANE, i.e. Academy of the National Economy (Akademiya Natsionalnogo Khozyaystva). Basically, I take Russian in the morning, and in the afternoon, I'll end up doing an internship or two-- more on this in a bit. The ANE is at the Yugo-Zapadnaya, which is in the South-West of Moscow (Yugo-Zapadnaya means South-West, by the way). A pretty grim place, made grimmer by the fact that it has rained basically non-stop for the last three days, and the temp. has not exceeded 65.
There on the platform, I met the other students-- but I was looking forward to seeing Danya (as I'll call him for the blog), a Harvard kid, who was not there. Apparently, he was trying out an internship. You will understand that I was looking forward to speaking in a familiar language with a familiar person in a very foreign land, but eto ne poluchilos'-- which means it didn't happen. I tend not to be super-outgoing in brand new situations, especially since there was a large contingent who all knew each other from Georgia Tech/ U. of Georgia. But all was good. A.A., the mustachioed dude who runs the program, is a hilarious and friendly dude who made us all feel at ease. We then took a tour of the premises, and finally divided up into advanced and intermediate students. We also met our two ANE student hosts, Boris and Alina.
There are six of us in the advanced group, and it's a pretty vesyolaya gruppa-- i.e. a jolly group. There's Danya and me from Harvard, T. and D. from U. Georgia, A. from SUNY Stonybrook, and K. from McGill. D. is gay and speaks Russian way too well, and thinks nothing of yelling at the rest of us when our Russian lapses or we make a mistake. If he weren't so nice outside the classroom, I would want to kill him. Our teacher is Sasha, a recent MGU (Moscow State) journalism graduate, who is AWESOME. He decided he hated saying positive things about Putin all the time, and he now teaches elementary school.
After class, we advanced kids decided to have lunch together at one of the on-campus restaurants, Il Patio. Delicious Italian food! I got a Greek salad, 8-inch veggie pizza, and glass of coke, all for about 8 bucks, which is considered expensive here, and this is a sit-down restaurant no less. After that, we went in vain search of SimCard stuff for another one of the kids with Boris. Then we went our separate ways, the other kids to watch a movie at one of their apartments, and I to the Babushka's 80th birthday party.
Here follows an account of what has definitely been the most awesome part of the trip so far. O.'s mother turned 80 yesterday, and there was a birthday party at her place. An 80-year-old's birthday party? That was fun, you say? Oh, gentle reader, oh yes. After much difficulty finding my way on the metro and on the street in the pouring rain, I finally arrived at a stately brown Stalinist building (the nasty grey buildings you associate with Communism are Khrushchev-era; under Stalin, the standard of architecture was quite high). And then up to apartment, which I tell you, was so old, and so beautiful, and so Russian, I thought I would explode. Wooden parquet floors, high ceilings, crown mouldings, lime-green wallpaper, sweet-smelling brown furniture, a long corridor lined with hundreds of books. I expected Nabokov to emerge from the office, offering the guests glasses of cognac.
Nabokov there was not, but cognac there was aplenty. I went into one of the rooms behind O. It was so jaw-droppingly Russian-- two long tables, with white tablecloths and lovely silverware, and all laden with Russian party food (mayonnaisy salads and cold fish dishes, and so on) and Soviet-era champagne. And on one end of one of the tables, a gaggle of classy babushkas, all softly and respectfully talking to each other and partaking of the banquet. I sat at the other end of the table and ate the only stuff I could, stewed mushrooms and pickled tomato. Then, the most wonderful thing started happening-- each of the babushkas took it in turn to stand up and say really, really nice things about the 80-year-old birthday girl. Lots of toasts all around. The place could not have been more cozy if we were all wearing snuggies.
It gets better still. At some point a couple showed up and sat next to me. The wife was boring, but the husband, Victor, became my best friend. His first thing to me, having seen me for the first time and putting his arm around my shoulder: "I don't remember your name, comrade, please remind me!" I said I was new here-- and to the country. He said cool. That was all for the time being, because we both knew that this party was all about the babushkas, and not to have side conversations. But later, he got up to have a look from the balcony. I found my way there, because I wanted fresh air. Victor and I ended up talking for about half an hour-- about the climate, about Stalinist architecture, about the reading of foreign literature in the Soviet Union, etc. Then we returned to the table, and there I tried the cognac. But Victor kept refilling the glass, and I ended up drinking about a third of the bottle. Yes, my friends, at a babushka's 80th birthday party, around 8:30 PM, I was drunk.
Now, Alina had invited all us advanced kids to a bar that night, so around 10 PM I set out. My family yelled at me and insisted I be back before midnight, because apparently after 11 PM the "khuligany" (hooligans) start roving the streets. Believe me, after Babushka's 80th, the bar kind of sucked. I left after an hour, but it took 45 minutes on the metro to get home, and I flopped down.
Today I got up at 7:25, shat, showered, shaved, and shined, had three fried eggs from O. (why does everything she makes turn out delicious?), and went off to school again. I arrived 10 minutes late, thinking I'd be the last. I was the first. A very nice day of class with Sasha, and started the internship search! Now, I plan to intern with the Slavyansky Pravovoy Tsentr, i.e. the Slavic Center for Law and Justice, a human-rights related law firm, but the ANE internship coordinator had an idea for a second internship for me, and at 1:30 today I was informed I had a 2 PM interview at the so-called Institute of Europe. Whoa. An ANE woman took me on the metro to Okhotny Ryad station, which is right on Red Square. We went to an old, round building, the headquarters of the Institute of Europe, which is a think-tank on European issues. There, I had an interview with the Director himself. I tell you, there is nothing like a well-educated Russian for worldliness, friendliness, and intellectual curiosity. He talked to me about the Institute and what it does and all his personal interests-- for an hour. Then he asked what I wanted to do here. I thought-- I don't know, you tell me! But I told him that any kind of academic research experience would be cool, and that I was open to anything. He said, I have an idea-- my English sucks, but I need to read a lot of stuff in English. You want to read stuff for me, translate, and send me analytical summaries in Russian? So I said sounds interesting. And he said think about it! But first, he ordered me to enjoy myself and see Moscow. Why are Russians so awesome?
Then, I decided to walk through Red Square, but randomly on the street-- I ran into a couple of my classmates! They had already been on the Square, but were on their way to the Arbat, which happens to be my way home. So I went with them. It suddently started raining cats and dogs, so by the time we got home, I was totally soaked.
Anyway-- that's all for now. After getting home, all I've done is watched Spain vs. Switzerland with V. Sr., who again talked fondly about Soviet life. Also, more delicious fried cabbage cutlets. That's all folks!
--Aseemsky
Первые впечатления
Originally sent June 14:
Privet druzya,
So I don't know if you care or not, but I will use this thread to describe my adventures in Russia henceforth. I will consider keeping a blog, but until then-- vot syuda ya budu zapisivat' vse svoi priklyucheniya.
Internet time is limited, so I shall keep things brief and curt. Flew via red-eye from SFO to Washington Dulles on Friday night; had 12-hour layover in DC. My cousin picked me up from the airport, and I slept at his place, and then my other cousin came to his place and we had a homemade Indian lunch, the last I will get until August, I am sure. Then the flight from Dulles to Moscow Domodedovo. I was very excited and nervous and all, especially since that plane ride was the first time in my life that I was surrounded by a majority of Russian speakers (in my previous experience, they have formed a small but humorous contingent wherever I was). My first contact with a Russian who didn't necessarily know me to be a non-native speaker: a woman who asked me for my blanket. It was very exciting.
Upon arriving in Moscow, I was dismayed to find it was hot as balls, and the airport was not really air-conditioned. I was more dismayed to find the line at immigration to be longer than the Trans-Siberian express. Literally. The line started in Moscow. I'm now in Vladivostok.
The above is not true, but it was a long line, and it took over an hour to get through. I found my baggage and asked if I needed to go through customs, because I had a bottle of wine (a gift for my host family). The customs officer was like-- why? So I just went through. Awesome.
Then a student from the ANE-- Academy of the National Economy, the host organization-- was waiting for me and found me, and we drove the 40-minute drive from Domodedovo into Moscow. Countless numbers of Soviet-style block apartments along the way. I was excited but slightly terrified, because it occurred to me that this was a fucking huge city, and I didn't know anybody in it, except this one weird punk kid.
We finally got to what is now home for me-- Ukrainsky boulevard No. 6, Apt. 243, and there I was met by my host mother, O.
O. was not what I expected from a woman who teaches journalism at Moscow State University (MGU-- Moskovsky Gosudarstvenny Universitet). She is short and fat and unlovely, and has a liberal amount of facial hair. Nonetheless, she is an extremely nice woman, and her first act was to make me a massive lunch of tomato-cucumber salad with smetana (sour cream), mushroom-potato bliny (pancaky wrap thingies*), and kvas (bread drink, literally made from fermented bread, delicious). We talked for a bit, and I started to feel overwhelmed being in this very new place. I went to bed for six hours or so.
At this point I will say a bit about the family and the apartment. The apartment is located in a very Soviet building. There are three bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen/ dining room. I get a bedroom to myself; my host parents V. Sr. and O. are in the largest bedroom, and in the other bedroom live their son, V. Jr., age 24, with his wife L. and son, D. (age 10 months-- super cute). The apartment is shabby but clean. Cheesy decor. Welcome to Russia.
Anyway, when I awoke at 10:30 PM, the sun had not yet set-- welcome to 55 degrees north latitude. Cool. Had ice cream with home-made cherry sauce (made at the dacha-- i.e. their summer cottage), then talked and watched some world cup, finally went to bed again.
Woke up at 9:30 AM, broke fast, mom called from home. I assured her all was well. Then I went out with O. to buy a simcard for my GSM phone, get a three-month metro card (3000 rubles, or about 55 bucks, for three months-- not bad, but not cheap), and whatnot. O. then went to work, and I walked for the first time alone in Moscow! Normally this is not a big deal, but in a place like Russia, you feel like everyone is watching you, esp. when you are brown.
Later, I went out with V. Jr., who gave me a walking tour of the city. So cool. Walked through the Arbat, the Bohemian artsy street of Moscow (now quite touristy), through the Mayakovsky district, past the Kremlin, past Pushkin's place, bought a beer and stopped in a little courtyard where Pushkin used to hang out, and then walked to Patriarch's Ponds. If you've read Mikail Bulgakov's Master and Margarita, you'll know that this is where the novel begins. And then we went to Bulgakov's house!!! So cool! Saw his typewriter! Used his toilet! So cool!
Then we saw more monuments like the Russian Foreign Ministry and the Russian White House (home of the Prime Minister, i.e. Putin), and other stuff I don't remember, then back home to Ukrainsky boulevard. We passed the majestic Stalinist Hotel Ukraina, which is now the Radisson. Yay capitalism!
Then I had more bliny and tomato-cucumber salad, and now I am writing to you. Cool, no? On the agenda for tonight: a stroll through Victory Park, and then card games. Ура!
--Aseemovich
Privet druzya,
So I don't know if you care or not, but I will use this thread to describe my adventures in Russia henceforth. I will consider keeping a blog, but until then-- vot syuda ya budu zapisivat' vse svoi priklyucheniya.
Internet time is limited, so I shall keep things brief and curt. Flew via red-eye from SFO to Washington Dulles on Friday night; had 12-hour layover in DC. My cousin picked me up from the airport, and I slept at his place, and then my other cousin came to his place and we had a homemade Indian lunch, the last I will get until August, I am sure. Then the flight from Dulles to Moscow Domodedovo. I was very excited and nervous and all, especially since that plane ride was the first time in my life that I was surrounded by a majority of Russian speakers (in my previous experience, they have formed a small but humorous contingent wherever I was). My first contact with a Russian who didn't necessarily know me to be a non-native speaker: a woman who asked me for my blanket. It was very exciting.
Upon arriving in Moscow, I was dismayed to find it was hot as balls, and the airport was not really air-conditioned. I was more dismayed to find the line at immigration to be longer than the Trans-Siberian express. Literally. The line started in Moscow. I'm now in Vladivostok.
The above is not true, but it was a long line, and it took over an hour to get through. I found my baggage and asked if I needed to go through customs, because I had a bottle of wine (a gift for my host family). The customs officer was like-- why? So I just went through. Awesome.
Then a student from the ANE-- Academy of the National Economy, the host organization-- was waiting for me and found me, and we drove the 40-minute drive from Domodedovo into Moscow. Countless numbers of Soviet-style block apartments along the way. I was excited but slightly terrified, because it occurred to me that this was a fucking huge city, and I didn't know anybody in it, except this one weird punk kid.
We finally got to what is now home for me-- Ukrainsky boulevard No. 6, Apt. 243, and there I was met by my host mother, O.
O. was not what I expected from a woman who teaches journalism at Moscow State University (MGU-- Moskovsky Gosudarstvenny Universitet). She is short and fat and unlovely, and has a liberal amount of facial hair. Nonetheless, she is an extremely nice woman, and her first act was to make me a massive lunch of tomato-cucumber salad with smetana (sour cream), mushroom-potato bliny (pancaky wrap thingies*), and kvas (bread drink, literally made from fermented bread, delicious). We talked for a bit, and I started to feel overwhelmed being in this very new place. I went to bed for six hours or so.
At this point I will say a bit about the family and the apartment. The apartment is located in a very Soviet building. There are three bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen/ dining room. I get a bedroom to myself; my host parents V. Sr. and O. are in the largest bedroom, and in the other bedroom live their son, V. Jr., age 24, with his wife L. and son, D. (age 10 months-- super cute). The apartment is shabby but clean. Cheesy decor. Welcome to Russia.
Anyway, when I awoke at 10:30 PM, the sun had not yet set-- welcome to 55 degrees north latitude. Cool. Had ice cream with home-made cherry sauce (made at the dacha-- i.e. their summer cottage), then talked and watched some world cup, finally went to bed again.
Woke up at 9:30 AM, broke fast, mom called from home. I assured her all was well. Then I went out with O. to buy a simcard for my GSM phone, get a three-month metro card (3000 rubles, or about 55 bucks, for three months-- not bad, but not cheap), and whatnot. O. then went to work, and I walked for the first time alone in Moscow! Normally this is not a big deal, but in a place like Russia, you feel like everyone is watching you, esp. when you are brown.
Later, I went out with V. Jr., who gave me a walking tour of the city. So cool. Walked through the Arbat, the Bohemian artsy street of Moscow (now quite touristy), through the Mayakovsky district, past the Kremlin, past Pushkin's place, bought a beer and stopped in a little courtyard where Pushkin used to hang out, and then walked to Patriarch's Ponds. If you've read Mikail Bulgakov's Master and Margarita, you'll know that this is where the novel begins. And then we went to Bulgakov's house!!! So cool! Saw his typewriter! Used his toilet! So cool!
Then we saw more monuments like the Russian Foreign Ministry and the Russian White House (home of the Prime Minister, i.e. Putin), and other stuff I don't remember, then back home to Ukrainsky boulevard. We passed the majestic Stalinist Hotel Ukraina, which is now the Radisson. Yay capitalism!
Then I had more bliny and tomato-cucumber salad, and now I am writing to you. Cool, no? On the agenda for tonight: a stroll through Victory Park, and then card games. Ура!
--Aseemovich
First Post!
Hello everybody! I will henceforth be doing updates via this blog-- here we go! First order of business: copy the existing posts, just so all is here. I will date them in the text from the original date. Пока!
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