Студент! Учись!

The school year is officially over for the Predstavitelstvo Midlberi Kolledzh v Rossii. That is the official name of the Middlebury program here. At the beginning of the year I accidentally wrote “Pravitelstvo” instead of “Predstavitelstvo”, which means “the Government of Middlebury College in Russia.” Which goes to show you how much I have learned, like how to copy a word written at the top of the page onto a space two inches below. Actually, let’s see some of the things that I have learned:

1. You can eat mayonnaise with spaghetti, but only if you want to.
2. Italians eat said “spaghetti” with ketchup, and they love it. Love it.
3. If you are eating a meal and there is not bread in your mouth or in your hand, you’re doing it wrong.
4. Siberian pigeons can survive -30 weather, but more than a few of them will die.
5. I can eat salted pig fat. That doesn’t mean I like it, but it doesn’t mean I hate it, either. Salo—don’t say anything until you’ve tried it.
6. I learned a lot about the Russian army on the news. Nothing ever happens, but every week they have some report about how awesome they are is so that people know that they still exist, selflessly meeting with a French cruiser in the Mediterranean. Or training in Orenburg against fake terrorist attacks.

Actually I learned a lot, from my classes and from my home life. Learning a language is such a slow process that I am never sure if I’ve improved a lot, but at the end of the semester we took the same test that we took at the beginning and I could see that I actually was a lot more comfortable answering those stupid roleplay questions this time around. Except when prompted to “confront a friend who constantly misses class because he is sick all the time” I said roughly the following:

“Sasha (my friend), what’s with you? You’ve got sick, sorry, you’ve been getting sick, um, a lot, often, and you haven’t been at school 3 times this week, um, I think you need to go to a doctor, because, um, you’ve been sick, um, like, 3 times this week, and, um, I think you need to go to a doc—um, I think its bad. Yeah, its, um bad, that you are getting sick so often, a lot, so, um, maybe you’ve been nutrienting yourself, no, that’s not a word, is it? No, its not. Um… Your diet! Yes, maybe your diet is bad.”

It was a stupid question, and I don’t usually speak that poorly, but it was also a cultural miscommunication, because in America we would probably just say “go see a doctor,” but in Russia they would probably smear some cream on your ankles or something. I don’t know.
I will miss the 4 kids who are leaving from my program, they were a good group of people. Three new students are coming in February, and I hope to act like a snob and alienate them, laughing when they get on bus #80, thinking it will continue pass the Philharmonic on to Lenin, but actually turns onto Derzhinskovo and they have to get off two stops after they got on, all flustered and upset with themselves, with everybody on the bus staring at them, like I myself may or may not have done 3 months ago. Plus, I wasted 10 rubles.
But I probably should talk about next semester, next semester. I have big plans, namely to do the many, many, things that I did not do this semester.
Like:
*“hang out” with a Russian that is within 15 years of my age.
*Find an activity to do after classes
*Find out what in KVN is funny (this will probably never happen)
*Be outside of my apartment after midnight (not in a dark alley, though)
*Tell a joke in Russian
*Write fascinating posts on my blog

Other than sports, there are few clubs, but at our farewell lunch I found out that there is an Esperanto club in Irkutsk. Laugh if you want to, but I studied Esperanto for 3 weeks sophomore year. But mostly I figure that people who learn a made up language can’t be jerks, right? I’m sort of serious about this.

But I can already see that this post is going nowhere, so I will just do a rundown of the best moments of these past weeks. Actually here is the worst moment:

Drowsing off in the class Baikal studies, not because it is dull, it is in fact very interesting, but because it was around 1 pm and my body always gets kind of tired around 1 pm. I thought to myself “Okay David, this is rude. Industrial complexes in Angarsk and Bratsk are fascinating. Time to pay attention, for reals.”
And I agreed with myself. But then I suddenly woke up and there was drool stretching from my lip to my notebook and I was sitting 3 feet directly across the teacher Pavel Aleksandrovich and he was looking directly at me. It appears that I fell asleep for literally just enough time to lose control of my lip muscles and then I woke up to be shocked at my horrendous behavior. I probably have been more ashamed in my life, but I can’t think of the moment right now.

But anyway here are some good moments:

*Buying a knockoff Adidas down jacket from a Chinese guy for $80 so I can exist in -20 degree weather.
*Ending a conversation with my host grandma with the words “death to fascism.”
*Going bowling, which was great except I accidentally hit the cleaner resetter machine with a size 13 ball and was informed that I had to pay a fine of 8 dollars. Which is a lot, considering that we paid 10 dollars for 3 people for one hour. Nothing was even damaged. Fascists.
*Going to the open air museum at Teltsi, which was pretty cool, but not the best part. The best part was giving a deposit of 100 rubles to a van that rented out cow hides so we could slide down a hill made of ice and wood, and swinging on old-fashioned Russian swings, which are sort of scary, sort of great. So basically the first time in 4 months that I acted like a child in public, which is really underrated and necessary.


*Today we went to the Nerpanarii, which is where some nerpa seals live and put on shows for little Russian children and 20 year old American students. I hope you know that a nerpa is a freshwater seal that only lives in the nearby Baikal, the deepest lake in the world. I think I have mentioned nerpas in every entry and I will probably do so until I return to America. My favorite part of the nerpanarii is the sign in front of it, which is a very large picture of a seal playing a toy saxophone with his nose and the words «WELCOME TO THE NERPINARII» written on it. It is probably one of the best pictures ever, but also a picture of one of the stupidest things ever. It was a seal playing a toy saxophone, with his nose. It was hard for us when we approached the building because you can't smile on the street and we were already laughing into our scarves. I forgot to add that today was officially the coldest day of my life- -30 degrees fahrenheit. Which isn't that bad, there wasn’t any wind, thank God.
Anyway the show runs every 45 minutes, and we waited for a while. The session before us was a class of elementary students, which made us feel really cool. Then we went inside a little room with a pool in the middle and a crazy-looking lady who talked really loud into a microphone about the performer-seals, Laska and Tito. Tito was very sportive and aggressive, while Laska was graceful. They played «soccer», «danced», «danced a waltz», «break-danced», and Tito painted a picture. But not in quotation marks, he really did, the only seal in the whole world who paints pictures. There was an auction and among the 6 of us, Kevin bought it for 100 rubles. The show was at times awesome and at times depressing. We had to clap for them while the lady explained how Tito is young and loves break-dancing. Which is ridiculous, of course. First of all, he is a seal, and they don't have culture, and second of all, he is a Russian seal, so maybe he has culture, but not, I am certain, hip-hop culture.
I plan on returning with the new students next semester, and with my parents in May. I will get my picture taken with one of the seals for 6 dollars, in the big glossy format. I plan on having a very serious look on my face, or maybe I will smile. I still haven't decided yet.

He played the saxophone with his nose!

Soon (tuesday) I am embarking on a one month adventure across northwestern Russia that I am not planning very well. Wish me luck!

Current temperature: -9 F. Feels like: -31 F.

Nothing exotic happened since I went to Mongolia. I wrote 5 posts in Sleptember and only 2 in November, and they described events that mostly took place in October. What does this mean? I guess things aren’t as noteworthy anymore, I have started forgetting that I am in another country from time to time, which doesn’t mean that I feel comfortable here, it just means that my brain thinks that I’ve always been a foreigner, or at least for a lot longer than 3 months. So its gotten used to not being used to the surrounding environment. Maybe. I don’t know.
So in case you were wondering about my November, here are some (the) highlights:
*Helping my host grandma take apart a sofa chair to save the rubber belts that held up the cushion at her dacha in the countryside, then chasing after a garbage truck through five-inch thick mud in rubber boots because he only comes once every two weeks. (it was a lot more dramatic, you really had to be there guys)
*Watching the new James Bond film, surprisingly well dubbed into Russian, but in the end deciding that it would still be pretty unsatisfying even in English. I think I honestly enjoyed the new Kylie Minogue song that they played over the speakers before the movie than the film, which isn’t to say that it wasn’t a fun movie, its just that that Kylie Minogue song is great. I think its called “In My Arms”
*Getting a hair cut from what I think is the first or second gay man I have seen in Irkutsk.
*Watching 2 basketball games at the stadium “Labor”. The local team is the Irkutsk Irkut (a pretty stupid name, if you ask me,) and although the level of play is about at an american high school, the crowd is a lot less animated and men don’t really clap that much. Which is a problem, because I can’t make that “woooo” sound, so I have to clap to show my support. We won the first game and lost the second against Saransk. Also sort of depressing: the little middleschoolers who break dance during the timeouts while the crowd watches, bewildered and not feeling anything. Basketball may one day become big in Irkutsk, but break dancing—not so much.
* Visiting the nearby town of Listvyanka on lake Baikal when the temperature was -6 (f) with a very strong wind blowing. It wasn’t that cold because I got to wear my new mink hat with the ear flaps down. We went to the little museum and in a little tank they had two nerpa seals! They are freshwater seals that look like lumps of fat, and they are adorable. I think everyone’s sentiment was expressed in the exclamation of a little girl, who said “Ookh ti! Nerpochki!”, which translates to “oh jeez! Nerpa sealies!”
The only problem with Listvyanka in the winter is that there wasn’t anything to do for the five hours between check out time and bus leaving time. I mean, nothing. Also, the five of us ate in an empty restaurant that somehow managed to far exceed my expectations of bad service: it was icier than the wind along the shore of lake Baikal! Hahaha!
*Buying a small tv for my room, sort of against my will, and not understanding that the word “passport” can also refer to a manual, and, following the wishes of my grandma, almost asking the cashier at the electronics store to stamp my U.S. passport. But I didn’t, because something deep down told me that even in Russia, Best Buy-like stores shouldn’t stamp official government documents.
*Watching a hockey match: In line for tickets, I heard about 400% more swearing than normal, and I knew that this wasn’t a great sign. I saw some little 12 year olds and women, but for the most part everybody was a man. A Man, with a capital “M”. So we bought our tickets and were surprised to see the stadium had tons of blank spots. But as we quickly found out, the most outstanding member of each group shows up early and claims a whole row, and we weaved among many rows, trying to guess whether that man with the big club flag was saving two rows or just two. We finally sat pretty far to the side, and I felt a little uncomfortable, because there were about 200 police officers with little world-war-2 style helmets and riot batons standing around the rink. But they had sweet uniforms on—not their normal camo jackets, but sort of beige great coats and wool boots, so they looked just like Ivans from Stalingrad, or something. So it was fun to look at them, but not really, because they glared at everybody who walked by them. At least they were there, though. So before the game started the rows around us filled in a little, and the people behind us started talking about their preparations to the match. One of the questions was, “did you bring the drugs?” “Yes.” Which I thought was weird. Although I think they were joking about alcohol. I mean, the rink is outside, it was pretty warm that day but it was still a lot of sitting in the dark in winter. I got a good lesson in Russian swearing, and the game was actually very beautiful, actually. They play hockey with a little orange ball instead of a puck, and our team, Baikal-Energiya scored two goals in the first seven minutes.
It might seem like “Baikal Energy” is a bad name for a team, but the visiting team from Novosibirsk was called “SibSel’Mash.” No joke. Which is short for “Sibirskiy Sel’skokhozyaistvenniy Mashinazavod”, I think, or “Siberian Agricultural Machine Factory.” Such names aren’t that rare in Russia, so its like “Home Depot Arena,” but a lot worse. In the end we played badly and it ended in a tie, 3-3, although our team is pretty good, we’re in the same league as the Moscow teams, etc.
*Celebrating Thanksgiving at the coordinator’s apartment, eating marshmallows and sweet potato paste… in Russia!
*Asking for the brand of vegetable oil that host-grandma wants at the local market and the saleslady not understanding.
* The stupid lady in the coat check breaking my coat zipper, and now I have to button it up. Good thing this week has been freakishly warm. Goddamn coat lady.
So that was November. I have six more months left, and that’s starting to sink in, but I don’t regret staying another semester. Although I miss namely the people who read this blog.
PS. I thought I would have a little side note on music. I can’t find new music here, really, so I just put all the unlistened songs on my computer on shuffle, which is several hundred hours worth. It has been a pretty positive experience for me: there are more than a few brilliant songs that I just never listened to on my computer, and songs are sort of like friends. I mean, there was a time when you weren’t friends with X, your really good friend, and your life wasn’t empty before that, but its even better now that you know him. So the song “Ready For The Floor,” by Hot Chip, or St. Christopher’s “All Of A Tremble” was there before, but I hadn’t listened to them before I came to Russia, so I didn’t know that they are immaculate. And just like it is odd but altogether nice to meet up with Y, your best friend from seventh grade, when a song that used to hit me hard comes up on shuffle, I can remember why I used to like it so much. I hope that made sense.

Now I have to buy a new coat because it is really cold outside. Like face-sucking cold. And not in the sense of kissing, but as in the air is trying to suck the life out of you. Something about low pressure systems, I think.

The rest of our trip in Mongolia, a month later.

So I wrote this, after nobody cares anymore. Mongolia? Was I there? Oh yeah, I was. And I rode a camel:


So in Ulan Bataar there was plenty to do. We went to a museum of Buddhist art, which is beautiful and sometimes terrifying, especially when they wanted to depict a wrathful demon, and the whole painting looks like a bad acid trip. We also visited the largest temple in Mongolia, which was amazing, and although I am not a Buddhist a lot of my Japanese relatives are, and it made me want to learn more about it. But here they are Tibetan Buddhists, which is pretty different from the other branches, I think.
It was nice in the hostel to speak English with people who are not Russians. Especially with the brits, I don’t know why, but they are always 100x wittier than Americans are. In the morning we started our tour, which was five days long. Our guide was a very normal Mongol girl Dogie, who spoke english perhaps worse than I speak Russian, although her vocabulary was good. She always said «did you full?» and «we wake up at the nine hour» so I think I could be a Russian guide. Maybe.
I finally got to ride a camel, which is a life-changing experience. Camels are terrifying, no, horrifying creatures. They are kept in check by a wooden plug that is placed in their nose so that the slightest pressure is painful to them so they have to yield, and at first I thought this was inhumane, but later on I was glad, because my camel was pretty angry and probably would have bucked me and bit my face off if he had the chance. But not really. Basically we just sat between their two humps and looked at the gorgeous scenery around us. They are completely unnatural animals: their necks are freakishly long, their legs are all knobbly, and they make dinosaur sounds. But it was an experience.
I think it is known that I hate horses, but now I have to say that I only hate non-Mongolian horses. They are basically ponies, but we're not supposed to call them that, and I had a blast riding them. This time it was for a few hours and we weren't all together, so we had to control our own horses. Our guide scared us when she said: «don't take pictures on the horse, don't take off the coat on the horse, or he will throw you off. And, please don't try to kiss the horse. Last summer, a girl from Ireland kissed her horse and he bit her nose very badly.» So I didn't try to kiss my horse.
I knew from the start that I was going to get the white horse, and I was right. At the beginning he wanted to return to his horse friends, so he constantly went to the right. I thought I was a bad horse-driver, and I was ashamed. He also loved to walk extremely slowly, ignoring my exhulations of «chu!» (that was what we were supposed to say) until he got far enough behind and on his own will decided to trot up to the last horse ahead of us, and then promptly started to walk extremely slowly again. However, after we stopped the first time to look at a waterfall, he was a completely different horse. At this point I had already chose the name Yan-Yan for him, because it was his name, I think. He still liked to be a little separate from the other horses, to the right of course, but now he listened to me and we gaily trotted across the great plains of Central Mongolia. We stopped at a second waterfall, which was much more impressive: an icy river poured down into a crater-shaped depression through an ice-waterfall. It was really neat. But I was excited to get back on Yan-Yan, and prove to everybody that he was the best horse. He might have been the smallest as well, and I was the tallest. Sitting on him, I think my torso was almost taller than he was. But not quite. It was a little uncomfortable when he trotted, but the land around us was golden with little strips of white snow, and the sky was enormous and dark blue, and I thought I could ride a horse across all of Mongolia. But then it got more uncomfortable, because Yan-Yan loved to trot sort of quickly. At the end we went out for a little jaunt to make our horses gallop, and it was fun but a little scary, because you really have to balance right.
We slept all 5 nights in yurts, which have five beds, a little table, and a central stove that either uses cow dung or wood. Yurts are great for nomads, but I didn't really love the eye-burning lightbulb, or the plastic kindergarten seats that Mongolian used. And my least favorite part was the yurt heating system: the local family put about 50 logs into the stove so at bedtime it is 95 degrees, and then we woke up 4 hours later and it was 25.
Another highlight was a visit to an old temple that was pagoda-style, and I really felt that I was in Asia, and while we were visiting a dust storm blew up, which was unpleasant for my eyes but created a beautiful light over the temple walls.
When we got back to Ulan-Ude I went to a huge market and bought a Russian fur hat for $200, which is of course a lot, but it was made out of real mink fur and it will come in handy when it is -30 here. I hope I didn't offend anybody. It's a sweet hat. We also ate… Cuban food! In Mongolia! And the chef was Belorussian. What a strange country.
In general, Mongolia has shed a lot of the Russian influence from the past 70 years. I felt like I was in a dirty Korean town, not Siberia or Kazhakstan. There were some strange things on the streets: people had home telephones that somehow worked without wires, and people could pay for one phone call or one cigarrette, but the strangest thing I saw was a lady sitting on the sidewalk with a scale in front of her. I had to ask the hostel owner, but it turns out that people will pay her to see how much they weigh, even in winter clothing.
In the end, we were a little sad to leave Mongolia, because a) except for the border, the people were more calm and friendlier, b) it was a lot more exotic that Irkutsk, c) there was more things to do in Ulan-Bataar than in Irkutsk, and d) no more speaking English. The second border crossing went swimmingly, the customs agents were not even angry at us! We took a bus to Ulan-Ude, capital of the Buryat' Republic on the other side of lake Baikal, and all trains to Irkutsk were full so we had to stay in the train station hotel, which was surprisingly nice, except for the loudspeakers announcing the arrivals and departures. The next day we had time to see the main attraction of Ulan-Ude: a gigantic head of Lenin. A gigantic Lenin head. It is probably 35 feet tall. It is odd—you are walking along, admiring the Soviet architechture, and then—oh. It's a giant head of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Wow.
Our train home started in Beijing and was headed to Moscow, and so I spent 7 very interesting hours in the company of Pasha, who made me shake hands and hug various young Chinese people who passed through our wagon in the name of Eternal Russko-Sino-American friendship. Then I joined Kevin in his compartment with Pasha and drank beers with four young men that looked exactly like the people that intimidate the heck out of me at the bus stop but they turned out to be good people. Even the one with tattoos all over his hand, which meant that he had been in jail. I even was able to discuss world politics with them, but when they began arguing amongst each other about the price of Hummer-3's, I couldn't follow. And then we got home, back to our beloved Irkutsk.

Chingis Khan energy drink

So we went to Mongolia last week. I think I should say that our first 18 hours in Mongolia were awful, and the rest were really fun.

Most people just take a Russian train straight to Ulaan Bataar, the capital, but there were only 1st class trains on the day we wanted to leave so we decided to take the train to the border and see what we could do there. We heard that there were cars and stuff that would take us to a Mongolian border town, so I wasn't too worried.

The train ride was fine, we left at night and arrived around 1:00 at the border town of Naushki. On the trip, a train policeman asked us if we were Americans, and we kept trying to give him our documents because we didn't understand him but he said that he didn't need them. "You are Americans?" "Yes." "And you are going to Naushki?" "Yes." "And then on to Mongolia?" "Yes." "I see. Then blah blah something something something, okay?"

We didn't understand him, so we said yes and tried to give him our documents. "I don't want your documents!" He said, and walked away. Later I realized that he probably gave us some valuable advice on how to cross the border, like probably not to do what we were about to do. Oh well.

We got off the train and immediately found a person who would take us to the border town of Sukhbataar in Mongolia for 600 rubles per car. Great! Except we just drove 25km to the actual border, and then we had to change cars. And still pay him. So at the border there was bunch of trucks and little beat up cars and Mongolians yelling at us to get in their car. Kevin and Patrick were in another little van because they got there about a minute earlier, and I was about to get in with them when the other three of us got into a beat up little white car. It was one of those decisions that you know is completely wrong, and yet you still do it anyway. I immediately felt pretty uncomfortable, what with all the shouting and pointing in Mongolian, the fact that the car had only 0 doors that were working perfectly, and that our driver was drunk, farted next to our window, and did not speak english and about 4 words of Russian. Before we got in I asked how much and his friend said 200 rubles. "To Sukhbataar?" I said. "Yes."

So the Russians opened the border gate and to my delight our car was pushed into the zone. Our driver asked me to write his own damn name on a customs form, which I did, but when he started telling me to write some numbers down and I didn't understand what he was saying at all I suddenly realized how stupid this all was and said in Russian "no! No! I don't understand! Where Is Your Friend, Who Speaks Russian?" It went on like this for a while, with him pushing the car from station to station, and in the car it was revealed to me that the car was not going to Sukhbataar (probably because it did not run) and now cost 300 rubles. At the Mongolian passport zone the border guard looked at my passport and asked me if I was an Indian when he saw that I was from Alaska. In english.

So Chris and I decided that we weren't going to pay him, seeing as how he didn't do anything close to what we agreed on. We decided, in our naive American certainty, that we were going to give him 30 rubles, because he did take us across the border. In Mongolia proper there was a van that promised to take us to Sukhbataar for 100 rubles each. We tried to give our guy his 30 rubles, and he responded by grunting angrily and grabbing Chris's bag. Chris held on to it, and we tried to explain that he didn't do what he promised. I then looked around and with a sinking feeling looked at the hard, unsympathetic faces of the 9 other Mongolian men around us, including the border guard who thought I was an eskimo. Everything became clear to me: give him the 300 rubles. Except then we found out that it was 300 each, and we protested a bit more, but there was really nothing we could do, so I gave him 1000. He didn't have change, of course, but that didn't matter. I just made sure to shake his hand so that he wouldn't get the idea to ask for any more money.
At this point I must say that I was not to hot on Mongolians in general, and when our last driver told us that he had to stop at his house to tell his wife, I pictured a bunch of baseball bat-wielding Mongols waiting for us, and was extremely unsettled. It turns out that he really just told his wife that he was going to take us there, and he turned out to be a very nice guy who spoke a little Russian. "Your driver, taxi driver, bad man." he said. "Very drunk."
Its surprising how quickly I went from being a generally trusting guy to a guy who hated non-American Asians to a normal trusting guy again.
So we finally got to Sukhbataar, and all we had to do now was buy a train ticket to Ulaan Bataar. Except the ticket office was closed. So we waited in the small station hall for about 7 hours. At the start of the last hour about a million people flooded in and the ticket sellers came opened up shop. In Mongolian trains there are basically two classes: hard and soft. Soft means slightly softer beds and a guaranteed spot. They sell unlimited hard tickets, so we obviously wanted soft ones. They were twice as expensive, but when choosing between a 4 dollar ticket and an 8 dollar ticket, it wasn't too difficult.
Except:
They were out of soft tickets. So we were just given a wagon, #3, and we gathered in a big clump around it. As soon as the wagon attendant showed her face by the door, people started fighting to get on. Not like Americans fight to leave a baseball game, or even like Russians fight to get a spot on a minibus, but like a big battle. Probably because of our size advantage, Patrick managed to get the last compartment on the wagon, which meant that we didn't have to watch our bags as we could put them under our seats. Unfortunately, this was a night train and we tried to sleep sitting upright while dozens of Mongolians talked loudly and banged the door as they went to smoke. Every time I woke up, which was a lot, there were more and more Mongols on the train, sleeping on luggage racks and such. It wasn't nearly as bad as Indian trains, though, I bet.
When we arrived in the capital at 6:40am it was really ______ cold, because it is in the desert and the temperature pretty much keeps dropping until sunrise. Nobody was there to meet us from our hostel like we thought, and there apparently no telephones in the station, so we decided to walk.
I was just glad to be in Ulaan Bataar at this point, and as we walked the sun rose and despite the cold I felt pretty good. It was my first time in Asia proper, and I saw all the little kids walking to school, and the signs for Korean hair salons and everything. It wasn't a pretty city, but it was a very pleasant city and I liked it a lot. We found our hostel by accident because although it is very close to a central landmark, the State Department Store, it is hidden away in a nearby courtyard. We got there around 7:30 and I finally took a shower.

Well that was the first bad part of the trip, but I have run out of time so I will soon write about the rest, which was fun and interesting and safe. But that was the thing. Also, I have been in Russia 2 months and Obama will be the next president of the United States and that's good for me and for the Russians, I think.

before i go to Mongolia

I am going to Mongolia tonight for a week, of course I will have something to write about then, but I wanted to post something before then about daily life.

I am getting a lot more used to living in Russia. I look at my old posts now and letters to people and they are pretty damn gloomy. As if I was exiled to Siberia or something! No, now I feel more or less comfortable, although not always pleasant. I mean, I still think that things are a lot more pleasant in America, especially the warm and cozy Middlebury campus, where i don't have to think about anything, really, except what I'm studying. But I came here to learn Russian and also to learn about Real Life, and I think that I am doing so. Speaking isn't that much of a problem, although I am still very limited, but I can now watch some movies and understand pretty much everything, although others are not so easy. Still, I think it is about setting goals: when I was just starting, I wanted to be able to form real sentences. Then, when I was on the first and second levels, I wanted to understand movies and understand real speech. Now, I still want to understand real speech better but most of all to be able to respond with actual, unstilted thoughts. So we will see where that goes.

Last night we watched the Russian Hollywood Blockbuster "Admiral" in the beautiful Khudozhestvenni theatre. The special effects were excellent, but I thought it wasn't very good in terms of history. According to the movie, the Russians could have one World War I if it wasn't for the goddamn Reds, all Whites were noble and all Communists were rude bastards with snot all over their faces, and Admiral Kolchak was not a cruel dictator but an honorable man. I mean, the Reds were just as bad as the Whites, but Kolchak, if I am getting my history right, was so bad that the Czechs betrayed him in order to return home. What were the Czechs doing in the heart of Asia? Don't ask! The Russian civil war was just a big bloody mess.
The film, though, is very popular, and I couldn't help but feel a little jolt of pleasure when they kept talking about Irkutsk, where Kolchak was betrayed and shot and his body dumped into the river Angara. There is a statue of Kolchak here now in Irkutsk, not very old, and not very far away from the big Lenin statue on Lenin street. I think that is sort of odd. If a Russian can watch this film and agree that all the Reds were rude masses, and then also agree that Lenin did right and that the rich weren't going to give up their land voluntarily, it seems a bit confusing to me, but not to them. I am glad that we never had to choose between such extreme parties, although I heard that Obama is an anarchist/antichrist.
So I will see you after Mongolia, if we don't meet any Mongolian Death worms.

Two weddings there will be in Pereval

I haven’t written for a while, I guess I should tell you about my trip to Severobaikalsk, because it was interesting. If you want to read about it, that is. I can’t tell if you skipped ahead or not. It’s pretty long, I wrote it out on my computer and then just copied and pasted it here, but:

We left on the 3rd of October, very late at night. When I was riding the bus from my apartment to the coordinator’s apartment I realized that I hadn’t been out at night yet, and Irkutsk in the dark seemed more like a normal city, if that makes any sense. Our seats on the train were in a platzkart, which means little compartments of 6 beds, four on one side of the aisle and 2 on the other. Our compartment-mates got on at a station about a half an hour from Irkutsk, and they woke me up. It was a relatively young grandma with her granddaughter, and since I was sleeping by the window facing the platform, it was my job to hold the curtains open while they waved goodbye. Not that I minded, I hadn’t gone to sleep, but there was something sort of demonic about the little girl, she was probably about 2 and a half and kept blowing raspberries and giving people the fig, and I felt bad because I didn’t like her very much. I think two year olds should be mischievous but not demonic.
Everyone went to sleep, and like always, I slept well, until the little girl woke up very early and then I just laid in bed for about an hour. Outside the window it was cloudy and filled with empty Siberian forests. There aren’t any walls or anything between compartments, its just one long aisle through the whole wagon, and people were moving around to brush their teeth or get some hot water (free!) for tea and instant noodles/kasha. I finally decided to actually get up when one of the young boys from the next compartment who I later found out were related to the grandma sat on my feet. I read Anna Karenina in English, looked out the window, and ate a lot of snacks that other host moms had given their students. I was supposed to ask my host mom, but I forgot. But it was fine, because there was enough food for about 20 people, although there were only 7 of us.
Later in the evening we started talking to the Russians around us, and that was nice. The two boys, Ruslan and Denis, were very talkative and told us about fishing, pop music, etc., and we talked about the Beatles and politics with the grandma. She was very sociable as well. I haven’t really enjoyed talking about politics with Russians so far, because although they will say immediately that “people should live peacefully,” which I agree with, and point out their disagreement of the Iraq war, it never occurs to them that their government might also from time to time engage in not entirely necessary conflicts. However, everyone I have met has come to a mutual consensus about the Beatles: they are awesome!
The train ride was 35 hours long but not that bad, just a little groggy, and we arrived in the city of Severobaikalsk in the morning. A little background history: the Soviets built Severobaikalsk along with the BAM railroad that connects Eastern Siberia with the rest of the rail system. It was one of the last “great projects,” and Estonians, Georgians, Russians, and Ukrainians all labored to build this railroad in a not very hospitable place. Severobaikalsk as a city is 10 years older than myself, and it shows. Every building is a big tower block, and the main street is named “60th anniversary of the USSR,” which is a little sad, because it doesn’t exist anymore. The railroad station is very creatively shaped like a ship, or the abstract interpretation of a ship. Our guide, Marina, informed us that most people here are involved with the railway and that no new industries are advised for the city. It seemed like it wasn’t a dying city, but it wasn’t a growing city at all. We didn’t really spend much time in it, anyway.
We stayed in a nice guest house whose owner was from Moldova and cooked us a nice breakfast and dinner every day, and during the day we usually went on a nice hike around the lake. The first day we followed a trail along the cliffs on the northernmost part of the lake, and it really felt like we were on the sea, minus the salty smell. There is a tree here called the listvennitsa which looks just like a spruce tree but all the same it sheds its needle-leaves in the winter, and in this time of year they are all a very bright shade of yellow, and I enjoyed walking among them immensely.
Besides nature walks we also bathed in not one but two hot springs. The first was in a city with the ridiculous name of Goudzhekit, which is not Russian but from the local people, the Yeleni. There we got dressed into our ridiculous American swimsuits and went out to the springs, which were pumped into two pools: one pleasantly hot, like a hot tub, and the other painfully hot. I thought the hot one was just cooling off for later in the day until an old Russian who looked like the human version of wolf calmly lowered himself into the scalding pool and stayed in there for about two minutes. From time to time I dipped just my legs in that pool and it was always painful. Finally, determined to prove that I was not just another wimpy westerner, I tried to immerse myself in the hot pool. But it was still quite scalding and I had to give up. But I couldn’t give up, not when I saw that slight smirk on the face of the wolf-man, and after 5 more minutes I tried and succeeded! The trick is to stay absolutely still—after a while, it only hurts when you move your arms and legs, but when you decide to get out, it is really painful. I was probably more proud of my time in the hot pool than my graduation from high school. I still am.
The other hot springs were on the other side of the lake and rode on a little skipper for about 3 hours to get there, to the little resort of Hakusi. The boat ride was pleasant, just to be on the open water, but Hakusi was even more pleasant. In the summer I guess it is quite popular, because we walked by little stores, cabins, a rec center, etc, all made of wood and colorfully painted, with lots of “Nature is our soul—don’t litter!” signs, but there was not a soul there besides us and the captain of our boat. The hot springs there were a lot simpler, just a wooden structure built over literally a hot spring, and there was also water that I was supposed to drink and another well of water that I was supposed to put in my eyes, and of course I did so, and I think my eyes have been doing well since then.
There was one strange thing about Hakusi, although nobody else in our group thinks its strange. On the beach in front of the resort there is a big sign that says “WELCOME!» in English and in Russian, and a bunch of wooden arrows that point to various Russian cities with the distance painted on them. Fine, that's very cute and appropriate. But then a few more feet away from the lake there is a little sign that says: «Square of Hope…». And the Square of Hope, or Hope Square, made me very sad, because it was a strip of sand with 4 tires and a little flower mosaic from the city of Bratsk. The tires were sloppily and garishly painted with pink and white paint and some of them were filled with dead flowers. The other 4/5 of the «square» was just sand, and it wasn't organized in any way. These questions immediately came to mind: why would the Russians build a square of Hope here, way out in the middle of nowhere? Furthermore, why would they make such a depressing square? I don't know. They certainly weren't being cynical. I think it’s a Soviet thing: Americans would never address a group of strangers as «Dear friends!» and wouldn't name a little grocery store «Friendship,» «Spring,» or «Summer.» Doesn't anybody else think this is strange, or is just me? Not that I don't like it. I like it when Russians say «Dear friends,» or how they give out «prizes» to everyone who gives a presentation, even if it is mandatory and they are university students.
ANYWAY
The big highlight of our trip was the (former) village of Pereval. We took our usual minibus with our friendly driver Sergei, who unfortunately tunes his radio to the worst station in Severbaikalsk, to the nearby village of Kholodnoye. There we met our driver Volodya, who was going to take us to Pereval in his truck. Liza had already told us that the road was too rough for our minibus, but Volodya's truck was a military truck, with giant wheels and a diesel engine and so on. We sat in the back with a tarp roof, like soldiers, and drove down a dirt road. «This isn't bad at all.» I thought. «Sergei could have driven down this.» Then, after 5 minutes, the truck turned sharply to the left and we drove down into what I thought was ditch, but it turned out to be the road. We bounced all over the truck and had to hold onto the metal bars supporting the tarp-roof of the car, and it was fun for about 15 minutes but then it just got hard to think about anything and too loud to talk to each other. We stopped after about half an hour at a place that the local people considered holy, which was a beautiful hill of boulders covered with a few inches of snow, and continued on. The next hour and a half was extremely uncomfortable because quite frankly I had to use the bathroom and all the shaking and bouncing around was not pleasant, and I was about to ask Liza to knock on the window to ask Volodya to stop when a sleeping bag flew out of the back of the truck and when we got out to get it, it turned out that just about everybody else had to use the bathroom too, but didn't want to say it.
The last hour went by quicker, and we crossed several rivers. Every time the water splashed on the engine this sort of steam-fumes rose up into the back of the truck, but it was not as bad as it sounds. Nonetheless we were happy to arrive in Pereval, which, true to its name, is located in a broad valley between two mountain ranges. It reminded me a lot of Hatcher's Pass in Alaska, and was beautiful in a desolate way. There was a few scientific buildings from an old mining camp and a little wooden house where we stayed, run by Boris Gerasimovich. Boris was about 60 years old, had messy white hair and leathery, dark skin that comes about by living in a mountain pass for 18 years and not once coming down. Our plans, whatever they were, did not work out so we went on a walk around the place. The old village of Pereval was located up the hill, and it was quite strange to walk around all these smashed and twisted remains of little houses, which still had dolls and empty packets of condensed milk and newspapers from 1989, when everybody had to leave because the Soviet Union was going to hell. I found a little plastic model of a deer, which I kept because the local people principally hunt and raise deer and it seemed appropriate to me.
Afterwords there wasn't much to do, so we started playing Spades in the cabin. Boris and our driver came in, a little oiled up and in better spirits, and taught us (sort of) how to play Durak, which is a very popular Russian card game. At dinner we ate rabbit soup and Boris proceeded to get pretty pickled. We had a guest at the table, a local hunter named Andrei who was about 45 years old, sort of looked like my Japanese relatives although he was Yeleni, and was very shy. Boris kept babbling and flirting with our group leader, and Andrei kept quiet and didn't laugh at Boris's mischieviousness. Once, when there was a pause, he said in his meek voice: «Well, we have guests from America. Tell me something about America.» We of course couldn't think of anything to say.
After dinner we of course played cards. The other Russians went into the next cabin, but Boris stayed with us. Earlier he had announced that I was going to get married to my group-mate Sarah next year in Pereval, and that Aubrey was going to be married to his son, although earlier he said that he would never allow his @!#$$% son to come to Pereval, so I'm not sure. The other students made sure to play Spades, a game he didn't and would not understand, and Sarah was knitting, so that, as the Russians say, it came to me to sit next to Boris.
I would like to say that there was sucessful cultural exchange, but that wouldn't be true. He asked Sarah about 20 times why she kept knitting, and either praised her, saying she would be a good wife for me, or scolded her, and asked me how old I was. When I told him, he apologized to me and explained that it is extremely offensive to ask someone how old they are. I said it was fine, but then two minutes later he asked me how old I was. Pretty soon after dinner he started swearing, but really materilsya, which is like a dialect of Russian, and of course I didn't understand him very well. He got frustrated with us, and thought that we didn't speak Russian at all, just because I couldn't understand him when he swore like a sailor.
I told him I was from Alaska, which I thought he would like, but he started swearing and I made out that he claimed he was born closer to Alaska…than I was(?), and that I wasn't from Alaska, but from outer space. I started to get pretty tired of him and eventually started reading Anna Karenina by the lantern, and he just sat there, drunk and slightly morose, making me feel guilty, but it was impossible to talk to him, especially since we were all completely sober. He wasn't a bad guy, but he wasn't a great guy either. I don't think it was completely a culture clash, aka upper middle class college student vs. russian man who has lived in a cabin for 18 years, because our driver, Volodya, was a hunter, not a very cosmopolitan guy, but the group all got along very well with him. We talked about Alaskan animals and hunting in general as a profession, and at the end of the trip I gave him my pack of cards from Alaska because he was so friendly. Also, I feel guilty writing this, but when he did his impression of a Yeleni accent, it sounded very similar to the accents of Alaska natives I used to hear in Anchorage, only he was speaking Russian, not English. From what I've seen in museums and such, the native people of Eastern Siberia have a lot still in common with Alaska natives, although they crossed the land bridge thousands of years ago.
The plane trip back was about an hour, we didn't have time for another 35 hours on the train. Interestingly enough—our old Soviet plane had more legroom than American ones. I guess that shows that Capitalism really is not in the interests of the people, especially tall ones like myself.
This week, briefly:
That weekend we went to the dacha again, and I helped them build the roof over the garage, overall a nice time there. Monday I had my one mainstream course, XXth century Siberian history, which I really like, and we even talked before class with real Russians(!), named Igor and _____. They seemed pretty friendly. Monday was also Patrick's birthday, and we for the first time went out at night to a Czech bar, where the writer of «Brave Soldier Svejk» supposedly lived for 2 years, which was fine, except I messed up on the taxi and paid too much.
On Friday we had a busy day: all the foreign students were supposed to give a presentation about their country, although I just gave one about Alaska, which went pretty well, I think. I got a little ceramic bell for an «award». The Koreans and the Chinese students, unfortunately, have a real tough time with Russian, it was sort of hard to understand them, and there were some Germans that speak pretty well. Afterwards everybody was supposed to drink tea together in the cafeteria, but this being Russia, the cafeteria was closed and all the teachers disappeared. The Koreans and Chinese also disappeared, but the Germans invited us to their room in the dorms and we spent a few hours talking with them, I am very glad we had the chance. Hopefully we will be seeing them more often, too.

Well that just about catches things up. If you read all this, you're a true friend. If you skimmed, you're probably a true friend as well. I mean, it was really long. And sort of haphazardly written.

One month

yeah so i've been here one month. i'm not feeling very reflective, but i feel a little bit more comfortable every day, which is supposed to happen. Vyso po planu. Except I still need to find something to do. It's a shame that in childhood I never sticked with a sport or an instrument, but its just not in my nature, I guess.

Nothing much happened. I bought a striped shirt at Shanghai because I like striped shirts and they happen to be an alternative to Black which is popular among Russian men and women. Shanghai is a market full of Chinese people that apparently will steal anything off of you if you so much as one second don't hold onto it. The shirt cost 650 rubles, which I thought I paid too much for, but my host mom said it was a normal price. 650 rubles = 26 dollars. But it is a nice, long sleeved shirt. It is from what I hope is a very prestigious shirt factory in China.

Last weekend we went to Arshan, which is a popular tourist spot in the neighboring Buryat Republic. I know this from my host mom, my professors, and my favorite billboard in the city, a strange looking girl with pale flabby arms doing a strange gesture in front of the Sayani mountains with "REST IN ARSHAN" written above it. I'm not saying that the girl is not pretty, its just that she has weird arms, and they are prominently featured in the ad as she is gesturing with them.

We went to the bus station, which is kind of dumpy and not pretty like the railways station and bought tickets. We sat down on our minibus, only to find that it was going to drop us off at the train station anyway. The ride was very beautiful-around Irkutsk there is mixed forest, then in the central part a broad valley, and near Arshan real, beautiful mountains, not sissy Vermont mountains, but more like Alaskan ones. Kevin's host mom found us a place to stay ahead of time and we then went to a Datsan, or buddhist monastery, which was very small but peaceful. After that we went to see the famous waterfalls. It was a very strange place, because many people go there "to heal." There was a big sanatorium with strange playground equipment, a monument to those that died in World War II, and a big plaster gate with socialist realist workers on the top. The waterfalls were located along a steep and kind of scary trail, but there were tons of Russians of all ages walking around too. That meant that there was a lot of trash and graffitti, but it was still very beautiful. Some things I noticed:
Russians usually just write their name, their city, and the year on the rocks. Nothing else to say.
Russian women take what we would call a "senior photo" every time they are in front of something pretty. Which usually means lying on the ground with the hand on the chin, or with an arm wrapped around a strategically placed tree. They also like to block the trail when they do this.

Afterwards we decided to find a place to eat. We walked along the main road of Arshan, which was not really anything, just some stores and houses. At the very end of the town (15 minute walk) we found a zakusochnaya, where we ordered pozi and cherembeki. Pozi are the national dish of Buryatia, who are like Mongolian type peoples, only not. It consists of a dumpling filled with meat and about 6 oz. of grease. They are good, but you have to eat them right or about 5 oz. of grease will spill on your jeans, which in Russia is awful because a) you're not allowed to wear dirty pants and b) people very seldom wash their pants. All the tables were full so we decided to wait at the outside tables, and four different people asked us: "you're not cold?"

My favorite part of Arshan was this little green strip in the middle of the town (really a village.) It wasn't really a road, just a strip of land about 30m wide that had a little stream running down it, powerlines up above, and grass and dirt paths and cows wandering along it. It was very peaceful.

Yesterday was a day of shame for me. I came home, opened the window like my host mom reminds me to every day, but today I didn't forget, only I stepped over my bed on the way back and not around it and smacked my head into the chandelier and broke one of the glass plates (there are about 30 plates and one was already broken, but this is still bad.) So then my host mom came home, and in the doorway told me to stop scraping my keys against the wooden door because she can't afford a new door, and of course I had to tell her then about the chandelier, she wasn't too happy but not really angry, because it was an accident. Later she scolded me for not picking up my clothes (rightly so) and for not changing my clothes and lying on my bed. Which I understand, but she told me that there is a lot of AIDS in Irkutsk, which is true, but I didn't want to tell her that you can't get AIDS by sitting on a dirty bus seat, or standing on one, because I knew she wouldn't believe me. I was lying on the bed because for God knows what reason, my host mom had a copy of Catcher in the Rye, in english, in her bookshelf, and I read it yesterday. I still really like a lot, and if anybody tells me that Holden Caulfield just complains the whole book, than he is a moron who doesn't understand anything.

this post is turning out to be pretty long. We are going to Severobaikalsk tonight for a week, so have a good week everybody.

David

David digs potatoes

So I returned to the dacha, to dig the potatoes. This task gradually took on more and more urgency as the rainy weather of the past week continued, and I arrived ready to help, all weekend if necessary.

Except the first day, when I revealed that I had never officially dug potatoes I was relegated to pulling weeds along the field. This was not what I was expecting, and as the other
relatives talked about how to buy siding for the add-on garage cheaper, I was off in the corner, wondering what was a weed and what was just a plant, because they used the russian word "trava," which I thought meant grass, but clearly applies to most things smaller than a bush.

Later on I was taken with cousin Pasha and his girlfriend Anya to look at some horses near by, and we talked about the movie "Robin Hood: Men and Tights" a little bit. This goes along with my biology professor Pavel Aleksandrovich's frequent references to bad American movies, like "Police Academy."

Later that evening my host mom's son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter came, and I had a good time playing with my "niece." At dinner I talked with my host-grandma Ninel (what is Ninel backwards?) about some opera about a half-japanese boy who gets killed by her japanese mom so the american sailor father can't take him away with his new american wife.

I also on Monday was supposed to attend my first mainstream class, I chose History of Russian Literature, and after some awkward waiting around the door, I found out that the professor couldn't make it and instead was treated to a lecture on the details of Russian language, but the professor that day was young and lively and it actually turned out more interesting than the next class I sat in on, about the history of the Orthodox church, because it was taught by a man very similiar to Brezhnev with a class full of 20 year olds acting exactly like 13 year olds, i.e. punching each other, talking, sending text messages, etc.

I guess this didn't turn out to be as an exciting week, especially because I didn't make any embarassing mistakes, so here I will list some random observations:
1. Russians love ice cream, they sell it on the street for cheap and the toughest youths can be seen eating fancy strawberry cream bars. This is a plus for me, because I love icecream.
2. Russia is still awfully Soviet, i know that may seem obvious, but they just never bothered to change all sorts of stuff, and people just treat it as irrelevant, at least young people.
3. Russian cities are dirty but Russians are very clean. My host mom asked me if it was really true that Americans rest their feet on things and when I said sometimes, I couldn't really explain how that wasn't dirty.
4. One little thing: Russian notebooks for school are all like grid paper, it is impossible to find them ruled like in America. And they are all really small, and called tetradi. I guess this isn't interesting.
5. I still sort of like Soviet architechture, I don't care what people think. I like Kirov Square with its gaudy fountain, huge monolithic buildings, and terribly confusing traffic pattern.
6. I still don't know anything about Russia and it is probably not worth it to even write this out.

So next time I will have something exciting to write. We are going to Severobaikalsk for a week on Oct. 3rd.

Baikal, sacred sea, pearl of siberia

So we finally saw Baikal. In case you didn't know, its the deepest lake in the world, the purest, the deepest visability, and the coolest. There are even fatty little seals called nerpa that hang out and eat fatty fish called Omul. But I already knew this because Baikal is about 20x more famous than Irkutsk. The people at the study abroad program treat it like an equalizer. I mean, why study in Siberia when you could be in Western Russia?

So I thought that Baikal would be pretty touristy. Every Russian knows all about it, even if they live 6 time zones away, but it turned out to be above all, peaceful. At least where we were. We took a motor boat called a "raketa" (lit. rocket) to a village called Bol'shiye Koti, which probably doesn't mean "Big Cats" but I'd like it to. Besides a somewhat gaudy sign explaining the nature of the Pribaikal'sky park, it was a cute, normal village, without any Hawaii-style tourist junk. We then walked along the coast to a little complex of log cabins run by a young guy named Sergei. He was a buddhist, looked kind of like a skinny guy that you might see hanging out at a local coffee shop, and was very peaceful as well. In the kitchen there was a little red box that constantly played quietly some buddhist chants. It was pretty rad.

Raddest of all was the banya, which is like a Russian sauna except its dry, not wet, and they beat you with birch branches and you wear little felt hats. And then when you get to hot you get to jump into a little brook beside the hut. It reminded me a little bit of heroin, because afterwards I felt weak, sleepy, and euphoric.

So that was our trip to Baikal. Oh, wait, this is Russia, and things never go according to plan, so the next day there was only enough room on the boat back to the next town, not Irkutsk, and there we got off and had to wait in a parking lot. Our advisor Liza said that we need to catch a little private bus that would come "in an hour." I worried about this, because a) there are usually about 12 seats on a little bus, if it is empty, b) there were 7 of us in all, and c) there were another 14 people waiting to get on that little bus, who were Russian and would push us out of the way like it was their job. So I felt better when we decided instead to take a bus to the airport and take another bus home from there. But we still had to wait about 40 minutes for no reason. But it could have been worse. Americans are just unpatient, I guess.

One last thing: I know that Siberia is in Asia, like, almost half of it, but I didn't really think that much about it. Even if all the local Buryat (think Mongolian) people and the Koreans and the Chinese left Irkutsk, it would still be a little Asian, because literally every car is Japanese and every bus is Korean. The other day I grabbed onto those little straps that are on buses to keep people from falling over and "Incheon: Asian Games Canidate City 2014" was written on it. And yesterday I ate seaweed as part of my dinner.

So there's that. I haven't made a huge mistake lately, but this morning I somehow broke a lightbulb by pressing the on switch.

The Posts Will Be Less Frequent When I Start Making Less Mistakes

So here is a nice story from when I was at the dacha: I told my host grandma that I study Russian because it is "the most beautiful language in the world." Pretty standard icebreaker. She replied, "Yes, what did they use to say? I would study Russian, if only because Lenin himself spoke it." What am I supposed to say to that?

Another funny story: We have a security code in order to get into the house. Two days ago I entered the code and pressed the button 2 times. Oops! I was supposed to press it one time! So I did it all over again and was fine. Twenty minutes later I was eating a snack and drinking some tea when my host mom started unlocking the door. "I'm coming!" I said. No answer. I said it again, and again no answer. I called out her name: "Natalya Viniaminovna? Is that you? Who's there?!" No answer. I called her on her cell, and she answered. "Natalya Viniaminovna, there's someone at the door, trying to get in!" "It's my neighbor. Open the door."

But I was an idiot and left the keys in the inner door, so I scurried around frantically searching for the keys while the door rattled and shook. Finally it opened and there was my little old lady neighbor with a tall blond guard from the security company. He had to fill out a report but just about the only words I could understand from his handwriting was "no violation," so I signed it. It was a lot more stressfull than it sounds.

So that's about it. I hope everybody is having a good time in Alaska/Middlebury/the US, I miss you guys, but everyday here is a little better. I didn't make any mistakes so far today. If I don't write back it's because the internet here sucks and you have to pay by the megabyte.

Sophie asked me if I was still a vegetarian and how the food was. No, I dropped that about 2 months ago namely to live in Russia, but evidently I didn't prepare well enough, because the past three days I was fatally ill with unpleasant gastronomical disasters, but now I am almost recovered. The food is for the most part good but always too rich and in too bountiful a quantitiy. I think my host mom feeds me a lot less than the others, which is good.

So tomorrow we are going to Lake Baikal and I guess I'll write about that later. Skaters.

David

Irkutsk n' Stuff

Orientation went great, they just warned us mostly never ever ever ever to go out on the street at night. Ever. So, I wasn't planning on doing that anyway, so it will be fine. Unfortunately, after getting sort-of used to Moscow time (+13 hrs!), we boarded a plane to Irkutsk that left at 2:00 in the morning and arrived at 2:00pm Irkutsk time (+18 {i think} hrs!). There my new mom Natalya Viniaminovna and her son Konstantin Pavlovich were waiting. They took me immediately to their dacha outside of Irkutsk, in a pleasant little village where they grow lots of vegetables. Things are still a little odd, just because I've only known them two days, but nothing serious. They are both very Russian, I think. Not really like the Russians at Middlebury.

I know its a cliche, but I realized that I am really, really, American. Its hard not to ever make eye contact or smile at anyone, but I have to get used to it, and I will. Also, just little things, like when the dog at the dacha jumped up on me and got mud on my pants, it is a much bigger deal. People dress a lot better here. Well, better, in the sense that they dress nicer. I'm not sure if I agree with some of their outfits. But I am the foreigner here, and it is up to me to fit in to a degree that at least I don't stand out until I open my mouth. I am writing on the fatally slow University computer. We haven't had classes yet, but I just took a test for placement, and I totally f****ed up a retelling of the legend of Lake Baikal. I had to listen to it, and then retell it, and I completely missed the fact that the young lover was the Yenesei river, and the rock was Listvyanka. At the end of the year, I'll know that damn story by heart, though. It's pretty good, once you sit back and think about it.

Well, a class is coming and I have to go. Bye.

Охуеть! Я в Москве!

So the flight(s) that lasted about 27 hours were a gray blur, I watched some episodes of the Office and I learned how to say safety belt in Russian. When I got through customs, which was fine, and emerged into the main hall of Domodedyevo airport, I immediately realized so far everything had gone swimmingly, and that this was Russia. Sure enough, my friend Sarah Jones was not among the sea of people, most of whom were surprisingly not Russian, but from Central Asia by the looks of them. After telling 20 people that I didn't want a taxi ride, I calmed down and thought about what I was going to do. I was waiting in line at a cellphone kiosk, rehearsing this line: "I am not a customer of any Russian telephone companies. I need only 20 minutes access internet." But then, thank God, Sarah tapped on my shoulder.

Then we rode a little bus for half an hour to the nearest Metro stop. If you didn't know, the Moscow metro is one of the biggest in the world, and it was built from the thirties by Communist volunteers and in the fifties by German prisoners of war/slaves. All the platforms are a nice mix of Art deco with lots of hammer and sickles/busts of proletarian men/flowers. Its actually very nice, but imposing, and I don't think that they'll get rid of the communist kitsch anytime soon.

We took the Metro to the end of the line, and then took a little train to the suburb where Sarah lived. Her apartment was a little Soviet-style, but cozy enough. There's a lot of little changes: the toilet was in a tiny room next to the bathroom, the stove said "USSR" on it, there were strange books on the wall, I can't really describe it. It really seemed like it was out of the 1980's. Well, there was a poster adverstising Czech sporting life from 1982 in the bathroom.

Now I'm at the hotel with the other kids on the Middlebury program. It is going to be a long nine months. I will survive, though. Pretty sure.

No prizes this week- Moscow is too expensive.

David

about siberia-post #1

So I am going to Russia soon, as I have talked to you endlessly about the past 2-3 years. On Monday I fly to Dallas, where I will wait for six hours before going on to Chicago. From Chicago I have a direct flight to Moscow, where I have Orientation. On the fifth or sixth I will arrive in Irkutsk, Russia.

Siberia has a lot of bad connotations, a lot of which I subconsciously believe in, but I'm from Alaska and people ask me stupid questions so I'm sure it won't be that bad. What does Siberia mean? It means, realistically:
a) it will be really cold, like Fairbanks cold
b) it will be in Asia, as in the local people (Buryati)look like Mongolians, and I will see camels
c) it will not be ancient
d) it will not be super hip

That being said, Irkutsk is a city of about 700,000 people, so there. Here is some information about it if you want to read it. I have become aware that a lot of people have heard about it because it is a region on the Risk game board.

wikipedia article
an adorable picture
pictures

I am pretty anxious about the trip. I guess that is to be expected. I plan to write on this blog pretty often once I get there. There will be prizes for attentive readers.

David