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.