the pacific ocean

So I will briefly here sum up my trip to the Far East:

I left really early Saturday morning. I really didn’t want to, I was anxious about traveling alone and in Khabarovsk I was to be met by my language school teacher’s brother, and I was grateful and at the same time worried about that, too. Because I didn’t know him at all. I laid in bed and couldn’t sleep and my host mom was sick so I thought: “maybe I’ll get sick and then I won’t have to go, I can just hang out here.” And I also thought: “do I really have to get up at 4:45am? Let’s see, the train leaves at 6:30. So I called the cab for 5:30. So I have to –yeah, damn, 4:45am.
At the train station it was snowing wet and thick and it was quite nice waiting on the platform. I really lucked out, because I bought 2nd class tickets and in my four-person compartment there was only a middle-aged lady. After 30 minutes she was already calling me “sonny” and she fed me the whole trip and we talked a fair amount. Her name was Vera, I am going to send her a postcard from Alaska cause I wrote down her address. The train ride to Khabarvosk was 60 hours long, but it wasn’t so bad. Only I didn’t like the other people in our wagon—my favorite was the guy in the orange t-shirt who stood in the aisle, hiccupping, and giving me a dirty look. Or when I was in the bathroom, brushing my teef, when somebody bang/knocked on the door. There is a convenient light that says “occupied/vacant,” but he knocked. I said “one second,” although quietly. Twenty seconds later he knocked again, and I said “occupied,” not that quiet. He knocked again and I opened the door in anger and then realized that I hadn’t finished spitting out the toothpaste, so I sort of half-closed the door and finished up real quick. But my teeth didn’t get to be as clean as I wanted them to be.
Vera got out after hour #46, and I had the compartment all to myself. Except 2 stations later, very early in the morning, a Tadzhik got on. He was a pretty friendly guy, he was driving a truck when his partner messed up and the truck got stuck and he had to take a train back to Birobidzhan. He also shared his food with me, along with his opinion of the young lady in charge of keeping order on our wagon (favorable.) There was one sad moment when I said that my mother was a biology teacher and he said “I used to teach biology.” And later on he reminded me that “we have higher education, too, in Tajikistan.” And I thought about how sad it was that he would probably rather be teaching biology in Dushanbe than be driving a truck far from home. Its not fair, that he was born there instead of there, but what can be done?
The landscapes went from taiga to hilly taiga to swampy and barren towards Birobidzhan. The stations were all very small and dirty and full of policemen walking with passive drunks, and people selling beer. I was at this point a little tired of “the great unwashed masses,” or whatever, although I hate elitism it seemed like every face I saw was swarthy and prematurely wrinkled and showed signs of alcoholism and did not like me. I think this was just because I was only passing by train platforms—just for fun, David, try taking a tour of Greyhound stations in failed industrial towns and compare your impressions!
Another strange reminder that Russia is strange, but the Soviet Union was stranger—miles away from any other inhabited point, in the deepest steppe-taiga flashed by me a little sign made out of plywood and steel bolts, painted white. It said СЛАВА ТРУДА or "Glory to Labor!", only the C and the T were intertwined to form a hammer and sickle. But it seemed sort of out of place, and I wondered if the people who put it up were honestly excited about labor or if they just felt like they should do it to make up for some non-socialist sinning they had done earlier or something.
I got to Khabarovsk and was met by Semyon. He seemed like a good guy and I was immediately not quite so nervous. But when I got on the bus with his girlfriend Katya I couldn't think of anything to say, and I again started to worry. LUCKILY they were great people and after I chilled out I soon felt comfortable with them, I talked about Spiderman with their young son Artyom and we later watched I, Robot in Russian.
The next day we walked around Khabarovsk, and I liked it a lot. It looks like an actual city, unlike Irkutsk, and has wide streets and nicer city planning. In the great regional museum they had a 3.5m long model of a sturgeon. I heard they can grow to be 6m long, I want a 6m long sturgeon in a moat around my house. Except I was planning to live in an apartment in my future life. I recommend everyone to visit Khabarovsk, it was v. pleasant, especially in good company.
I only stayed one night and the next evening late I got on a train to Vladivostok. It was only 14 hours long, but after half an hour on that train I had the thought: "why are these people so mean?" Yes, everyone on the train was not sympathetic except the lady who took our tickets. Her replacement was not mean, but he was also sort of condescending. It was hot on the train so I decided to buy a bottle of water from the wagon lady. I was told that she only sold tea so I had to go to the restaurant car. I walked through 3 wagons, down the narrow aisles with every single passanger glaring at me as if I had 3 heads or something, and then I gave up and returned back to the same amount of glares to my spot. I don't think it was because I was a foreigner, and that bugs me even more. Why such dirty looks? It's a goddamn train, I'm not walking through your house. I just want a bottle of mineral water. Sheesh.
Luckily, Vladivostok was great. I found a cheapish hotel with a good location and because I left Khabarovsk a little early I booked 5 whole nights, which is a lot for a town of 600,000, by yourself. But Vladivostok is probably the most pleasant town east of the Urals to spend that much time. Apparently it has a climate like Seattle, but when I was there it was sunny and the days seemed longer. It is a hilly city, like Seattle too, and that pleased me a lot. I purposely planned to do very little and walked around all day and saw some museums. They have a funicular that has a nice view of the city, it has a great location, laid out on a series of spits and bays at the very end of Russia. I expected more Chinese, but I guess they are just tourists, not migrant workers like in Irkutsk.
It is strange traveling by yourself, but I've already done it several times. After I descended from the funicular I stood in line at a fast food stand for about 15 minutes because a big group of students were ordering from the local university. I listened to them talking and unlike the people at the train stations I felt like I could relate to them. I had nothing to do so I didn't mind waiting. By the time I got my blini with cheese and mushrooms they had left, and I sat down on a park bench by myself. A little homeless dog walked up and waited patiently. I fed him scraps of dough and started talking to him, in Russian, because he was a Russian dog. "I just got to this city today, dog. I don't know a single person here. I am alone in this city, but I like it a lot. You're not listening to me, huh? You just want some more dough. Fine. Here. You _____ (mildly offensive word)." Then I left. He was a very smart dog, he knew how to beg without lowering himself.
I bought some various things—a cd, a light jacket cause I was dying in my Irkutsk one, and a wristband of the Russian rock band KINO. I went to a fortress museum which was not bad but mostly interesting because of the owner, with whom I talked to for 20 minutes. She was so Russian I can't explain it. The unveiled nationalism, the energy, the spontaeneous reciting of poetry that she wrote, she was a force of nature, she said I had a slavic element in my composition. Ha.
To summarize, Vladivostok was a real city and I could see myself living there for a year or two and liking it. It's a lot cooler than Irkutsk and the middle-aged women there seemed to love me. PS to my utter shock the hotel cable included ESPN America and I watched the UNC-Villanova game in my hotel room with Russian commentary.

Ummm what else happened. My birthday was 12x better than I expected. On christmas I was sick and it didn't feel like christmas anyway, so I figured my birthday would sort of be like that, far from friends and loved ones. But it was a good day. I got up late and bought a new razor that uses razor blades but is still safe for idiots like me, and then my host mom came home and we drank wine and she said a little toast. I was planning to go to a movie with the german girls but they invited me to their dorm and there we drank champagne and they gave me nice gifts and cards and I felt very lucky and happy. Then I missed the last minibus home but I decided that since it was my birthday I was going to walk to the next stop to try to catch a bus, and if I got mugged it would be fine. I wasn't mugged, and everybody on the bus was drunker than me.
A nice moment: a few Fridays ago it was warm and sunny. I got my haircut by a lady who seemingly didn't want to cut my hair, and emerged from the salon to meet the german girls who waited for me, they had bought lime-flavored beer and we searched for a place to drink them. All the benches in the courtyards of the vast network of tower blocks that make up University region were occupied by 14-yr old emo girls, except for one bench that upon approaching was revealed to be in a kindergarten playground, which is not a good place to drink beer, even in Russia. Then Julianna pointed at a white cylindrical structure made of concrete, located on a slope covered with dead dry yellow grass. It was clean enough and we had a good view on the hillside of more giant tower blocks and a seemingly pointless ditch/ravine. It is the best place in the city and next time when the temperature raises above 50 and the snow that has fallen the last two days melts we will return.
Sunday was Russian Easter, which meant that we ate too many eggs and Easter cake and drank Easter wine, which is sort of strong. I enjoyed the game where people knock eggs against each other and whosever's cracks loses. I won a lot, for once. The day before that I worked on the dacha with my host-mom's 14-year old grandson, who is a good, very serious young kid. Things feel good with my host family, and it was nice to be there on a holiday. There are two more coming up right quick: May Day and Victory Day.
PS I met a girl from Anchorage today at a competition of people who are studying Russian. Weirrrrrrrrrrrrrrd.
PPS: in the last weeks a mysterious man has moved in next door. He is home at various times of the day and it seems that his job is to yell in a really unpleasant voice, so that it is heard through the wall, muffled but still clearly, "TI SHTO?! NI PONIMAYESH, SHTO LI? CKOL'KO RAZ YA TEBE ZHE GOVORIL? DURA!" I really don't like him. Apparently there is also a huge dog that lives there, even though his two young daughters are afraid of it. If I ever was in a situation where I yelled that much I would leave and start a new life.

That is sort of a negative note to end on, huh? PS two months from today I will be in America. I can't say that the thought isn't pleasant, but I'm not exactly counting down the days, either.

Я ГОТОВ

So I guess a lot has happened. I’ve been in a good mood a lot, I don’t want to say that I’m comfortable yet, but I think I have reached another nameless stage in the battle with Culture Shock. My 21st birthday is coming up in less than a week, and although I haven’t accomplished many of the things I hoped to do by then, Russia isn’t to blame for that. But more importantly, things seem to have been going my way the last few weeks, and I think I will start off the 22nd year pretty well.
We had a group trip to the neighboring Buryat Republic. Basically our coordinator Lisa planned everything very well, as usual, and we drove around in a little van around the region. One day we visited local Buddhist temples, which made me want to learn more about Japanese Buddhism, like when I was in Mongolia. The best part was a little room “museum” devoted to some holy figure of the Buryat people, which had some of his personal items and three wax sculptures, very realistic. I think I am secretly a Buryat and no one told me. Russians are so funny—we stopped in a small roadside café and the lady behind the counter seemed bugged because we were slow to order and hard to understand, and when she asked us where we were from it seemed more accusatory than friendly. But then she revealed that her son studied abroad in Charlotte, NC, and when we got up to leave she gave us little packets of incense as a gift, without dropping her serious tone. I’m glad I didn’t tell her that Charlotte, NC is nothing special.
The next day we drove out again to visit another Russian religious group—the semeiskiye. They are a group of Old Believers that ran away to Poland, lived peacefully, and then Russia acquired Poland and Catherine the Great sent them to live in Eastern Siberia, where the land isn’t so great. But they didn’t complain, they made a pretty damn good living for themselves. Nowadays only the young kids and the very old are religious, but we happened to show up in the small village on the last day of Russian Maslenitsa, and there were all sorts of folk games—climb the greasy pole, jump over the burning effigy of Winter, tug-of-war, and a contest that I will call “how many times can the young men of the Village raise and lower a 15-pound weight over their head”. Only the pole was too icy, and nobody could climb it. But I got to see the Russian version of Red Rover, which is probably safer than our limb-wrenching version. It wasn’t for tourists, it was a real Russian village, celebrating more or less like they had for hundreds of years, and we were lucky to see it.
That night Middlebury College gave Lisa 4000 rubles to give to us to find a place to eat. 4000 rubles is a lot, so we walked around Ulan-Ude, the capital of Buryatia, looking for a place to eat. We walked down their pedestrian street, which is a lot nicer than ours, and I realized that Ulan-Ude has a much nicer center than ours, although ours is recognized as being better and more historic. I just like Soviet centers, especially when they include ice sculptures and the largest Lenin head in the world.
Our groupmate Sarah was taking her time photographing the ice-sculptures, and I went over to her because I was sort of hungry. But it turns out she was talking to two Buryat ladies, who were delighted at everything we said. They were slightly (or not really slightly) drunk, and soon they were escorting us to a nice restaurant. We walked to the nearby hotel Baikal-Plaza, one of those ex-Soviet ones that are quite luxurious. We were the only patrons that night, because there were “elections” going on. I’m not sure why elections would stop people from dining at 8:00pm, but still. Our new aunties loudly demanded that we be served well, because we were foreigners that study in Irkutsk, and left us in peace.
Our waiter was a young Buryat named Evgeny, who was probably the best waiter in the world, because he did not even smirk at us despite our casual/outdoor apparel and the fact that we all spoke to each other with ridiculous American accents and grammatical errors, as if that was the normal thing to do. He informed us that the kitchen could prepare European, Russian, Buryat, and Mexican cuisine. “You said Mexican?” I asked.
“Of course.” So I had Mexican-style lamb. The only thing that could make eating alone in a fancy Soviet restaurant was when the DJ made a speech to the center of the hall, where no one was sitting, because we on the side, and said, looking at the imaginary, (he was probably imagining hot, well-dressed Russian women instead of frumpy Americans), he declared that the next song was “especially for you.” And then he sang three or four songs, only not to us, and then sat down again. We even ate desert. Middlebury College, shame on you! There is an economic downturn going on!
The next three days we spent on the frozen Lake Baikal, which is especially beautiful in winter, the ice is transparent and makes strange patterns. We drove directly on the lake, and when large cracks appeared our trusty guide/driver Misha looked for a good place to cross and then gunned it. We stayed one night in a yurt with other fisherman, and we drilled holes into the ice right by our yurt-beds, but the fish weren’t biting.

What the hell happened to March? I just got back from yet another trip, this time to the Far East, which was all by myself and I think a life-changing experience. Not really, but I had a lot of time to think to myself, and I walked around a lot by myself. I will write about it in about a week or so, probably, after I remember what I did in March. I think I mainly just read articles about UNC basketball on the internet, who by the way WON THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP. But I have been using the internet a lot less, lately, because I can go back to that in about two months, anyway.
PS yesterday it was sunny and almost 60 degrees, today there was gray dust blowing everywhere and I could taste grit in my mouth, but the sun is shining again now. I expected more out of this post, sorry. Nevermind.

PS I should also announce that I am going to write a senior thesis about the Russian rock hero Viktor Tsoi:

One more thing: a linguistical exercise

and then i will finish reading "we are all similiar, but we are different!" to gain valuable culture knowledge.

Actually, two things: one: I posted some pictures from first semester, they are on the side.

Two: I have always thought about being a translator, and I remembered in Nabokov's "Pnin" that the emigre-hero once recalled a particulary beautiful passage from the Russian translation (Kroneberg's) and cannot find similiar words in the english version. I looked both of them up and I am surprised at how easy it is to read Shakespeare in Russian. Which is sort of odd, I'm not going to say "wrong," just that Shakespeare is hard to read at times for English speakers, although I like him a lot. But I did a rough translation of the Russian version, it just shows me how hard it must be a translator. Because if you translate too closely you lose the poeticism of it, but if you fool around so much you will lose the most beautiful images. It seems like Kroneberg opted for the former. Here is the scene where Queen Gertrude talks about Ophelia's death:

In English:
There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
There with fantastic garlands did she come
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them:
There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element: but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.

From Russian, my shabby version:
There is a willow there: she, brushing aside its branches,
gazes at her reflection in the crystal waters.
In it's shadow she weaves garlands of lily, rose, violet, and jasmine.
Wishing to put them in order, she climbed up the tree
The branch under her suddenly broke
And she fell with it into the weeping waters
with her garlands and blossoms. Her clothes,
spread wide among the waves, carried her up instantly,
like a mermaid.
Unhappy, not comprehending her calamity,
she swam and sang, sang and swam,
like a creature born in the waves.
But this could not continue for long:
Her clothes grew wet and she went to the bottom.
Life and tender melodies fell silent!

The original Russian, so you can point out my mistakes and explain how I don't get it, because its true:
Там ива есть: она, склонивши ветви,
Глядится в зеркале кристальных вод.
В ее тени плела она гирлянды
Из лилий, роз, фиалок и жасмина.
Венки цветущие на ветвях ивы
Желая разместить, она взобралась
На дерево; вдруг ветвь под ней сломалась
И в воды плачущие пали с нею
Гирлянды и цветы. Ее одежда,
Широко расстилаясь по волнам,
Несла ее с минуту, как сирену.
Несчастная, беды не постигая,
Плыла и пела, пела и плыла,
Как существо, рожденное в волнах.
Но это не могло продлиться долго:
Одежда смокла - и пошла ко дну.
Умолкли жизнь и нежные напевы!

and lastly, the words that poor Pnin were looking for in English were "Plila i pela, pela i plila", or "she swam and sang, sang and swam." But those verbs just aren't the same in English. They just aren't the same. Now I wonder if I will ever be able to feel russian literature if I read it in Russian or English, and not just read it.

happy women's day

Oi blin I forgot to update this blog for a long time, huh? I don’t think anybody lost a lot of sleep about it, anyway. But today I am in a good mood and I have been in a good mood a lot recently, probably because spring is coming, earlier than the Anchorage one, I might add. But any kid who has lived in a northern town (who wrote that song? Bonus points) knows that spring is pretty caca for the first 3-7 weeks, because the snow is melting and strange gray dirt/mud covers everything. But that’s not important.
Looking at that last post, there was a lot of enthusiasm in it, too much for a country like Russia. The new students are great but we don’t see them too much because I am taking only 2 classes in the international department, and there is sort of a weird language barrier where nobody really speaks Russian, but we don’t speak Russian better than they do. I guess. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.
On the making Russian friends issue I have made not much progress, but as they say, (actually, I think I’m the only one who says it and everyone else thinks its stupid,) if I made zero progress last semester and I made a little this semester so far, that means that I am doing infinity times better. Sorry for that.
Here is a good story, I think. Sarah, the other student who stayed on, and I took the three new girls to a cheap and not awful fast-food place called MakFud’s. And we were explaining how things work in Irkutsk when some girl two tables over said “Where are you from?” We started talking a little bit, but mostly Sarah with them, and we exchanged phone numbers. Well, mostly Sarah did. I told the new girls that this never happened to us, that someone in public reacted to our accents with something besides a smirk or impatience. But as our new friends got up to leave, I noticed there was something odd about them. They didn’t dress fancy like most Russian girls, and they had short hair. And then I remembered how one of them introduced her friend: “This is Nikki, or “Nick.” “Were they lesbians?” I thought.

I try not to judge people, but the next day I asked Sarah what she thought. She showed me a text message from Alyona that she received later that evening: “Sara u r a very cute gurl ;)” Sarah, who is not attracted to the “weak sex” (a common and not very offensive term in Russian) wrote back “and you are a very friendly girl.” We never heard from them again, and I think they never wanted to see me in the first place. Maybe they wanted a “straight friend,” like the teenage girls in those Hollywood films always have a “gay friend.”
Although it was warm when the new students arrived, I am glad to say that the temperature hit a new low for my time here—32 below zero, Fahrenheit! Now they can say “it was 30 below!!!!!!!” but it was winters last hurrah, I think. No more frosts from now on.

One thing I was looking forward to/dreading was signing up for more classes at the history and literature departments across the river, because the students are nicer there and it would be a real class with real challenges, etc, just like “real” Russians. Unfortunately, fate conspired against me a little bit. But now I think I can say that things are going okay. But here is a chronology of my attempts to find classes, visit them, and get the professors to sign forms:
First week of classes: we had not received formal permission from the dean, so we didn’t try.
Second week: Monday: received a shot against tick-borne encephalitis (not funny) and only had time to look at the schedule. Although that evening I attended a screening of the Mexican film “Nazarin” at a film club full of thirty-year old intellectuals. I plan to go there more often. The film was a little dry and awfully dubbed, but I went with two German girls who study in a different program and who are becoming my new best friends in Irkutsk.

Tuesday: eagerly showed up to the class “history of Western and Southern Slavs,” sat awkwardly in the corner until a girl asked me “who are you,” after about 2 minutes of conversation I asked her how the professor was. “He is really strict, scary really.” I didn’t really believe her, I thought she was screwing with me. So, using my carefully constructed casual speech that I have just begun to use, I asked her: “Are you messing with me?” But she didn’t hear me. So I sat for about 12 more minutes until some kid came into the class and said that the professor wasn’t going to show up. So I left with them. PS afterwards I went to a music store and bought two recentish albums by The Fall for about 4 dollars.

Wednesday: Sarah and I sat on an extremely interesting Soviet literature class, with one of those sardonic, brilliant, hardass professors, and it seemed right up my alley, but when we talked to him afterwards he explained to us that we were studying in the philology dept, not the journalism dept, so we should take some other class. We tried to explain that we were actually studying in the intl department, and that we were Americans so it doesn’t matter what class we take, but the matter would not be decided.

Thursday I didn’t go to that building across the river.

Friday: Sarah and I decided to take a “history of Russian lit” class in our own department, but I arrived 10 minutes early and noticed that the class was in room 115. But the ground floor is numbered 200, and the basement is blocked off. So after about 9 minutes I asked the grouchy guard where room 115 was. It was in the dormitory, of course! I didn’t know which dormitory and where it was located, so I gave up until next week.

0 for 3.

The next week worked out fine:

Monday: Day of the Defender of the Motherland: no classes. I never defended any motherland, much less the soviet/Russian one, but the holiday sort of transfers to all men, so I was congratulated. My host mom and I have been having better, almost real conversations lately, and we were having a good one when her sister Ira called. “No, David and I are talking, we are tired, its too late, we won’t come. Maybe if you had called earlier. What? Your husband? Put him on. Vladimir Evegenich! Hello! Happy Defender of the Motherland Day! (note: Vladimir actually served in the army) What? No, we can’t co… Oh, fine. David, get dressed, we’re going to my sister’s.”
And so we did. And it was nice, we sat in the living room and ate yummy chicken while the TV showed gory war movies. Only my host mom’s granddaughter had this thing where she threw up a little every 35 minutes, and that pretty much killed the evening. She was fine, though. But not a bad holiday, at all.

Tuesday: I showed up again to that history of Southern and Western Slavs class and the professor did as well. He was an aged, doughy man that was hard to understand but it seemed pretty interesting, and I was looking forward to taking the class. And he wasn’t scary or strict at all, suchka. So I asked him afterwards if I could sit in. He said “of course,” but that he would be in Poland for a month in a half. I should have known—western slavs live there. But the point is I couldn’t get credit for that class.
I was forelorn. It was already almost 3:45. I looked at the schedule, and the only class besides “foreign language” which I couldn’t take was “History of the countries of Africa and Asia.” With slung shoulders, I went to the classroom. A sort of dopey-looking kid was standing by the chalkboard. “Is this History of the countries of Asia and Africa?” I asked. “Yes.” he answered. “And it meets once a week?” “Yes.”
So I sat down. And the professor for some reason reminds me of an American: first of all, he talks more about cultural understanding, not industry, and he sort of looks like a Florida retiree. So actually it is turning out to be an interesting class.

Wednesday: I attended “Siberian literature” and “History of Russian literature” and both were interesting, but a bit too fast so far, but I think I will get better at writing stuff. The only hard part is when they mention an author’s name only once. We talked about “Dersu Uzala,” which is funny, because I watched the Kurosawa film adaptation a long time ago and namely the Russian spoken by the main officer convinced me to start studying it.

So we’ll see how that goes. I should be studying more now, a lot more reading, but unfortunately I bought a USB modem and finally got it to work and have been reading articles about UNC basketball instead.

Also we just got back from a week-long excursion to the neighboring Buryat republic, where we visited Buddhist temples, ate pozi, celebrated Maslenitsa (like Mardi Gras) in an old-believer village, and then drove around on the ice of Lake Baikal for 3 days. And the girls in our group danced with Buryat boys in a Chinese restaurant/disco in Ulan-Ude. And you know what, those Buryat boys really could dance. I probably should write more about that, but I plan to post pictures on the internet besides on facebook so all you old codgers can see them too.

my favorite russian pictures

I am going to take the luxury of loading a picture on my blog, for the first time, but not one that I took, but of my two, maybe, favorite Russian paintings, that I had the fortune of seeing in person.

They depict the two sons of Ivan the Terrible. They are both quite tragic. The first is by Ilya Repin, and it is called “Ivan the Terrible has killed his own son.”

The second is by Ilya Glazunov, who is still alive today and paints quite strange and haunting megamurals that show dozens of real people, from Hilary Clinton to Alexander Nevsky, with Russia’s ruin at the hands of the West usually being the theme. He is, basically, an arch-conservative monarchist, but there’s something very Russian and sometimes beautiful in his work. This painting is called “Tsarevich Dmitri,” who was the boy-son of Ivan the Terrible who was sequestered away to a monastery after his father passed away. A few years later he was found with his throat cut. The official commission decided that he had a fit of epilepsy while playing with a knife. Others suspected the new Tsar, Boris Godunov. Tsarevich Dmitri returned twice more to Russia in the form of people pretending to be him, and times were so tough that people believed them. Twice.

And isn’t Russian history interesting?

I could tell you all about the rest of my trip, about the incredible things I saw in the most oldest and most churchy part of Russia. But it was mostly museums that had old things and old churches, and the weather was either thick wet snow falling at night, which adds to the atmosphere of a town, especially if its already dark, or muddy slush the next day after the snowfall.

The dark Petersburg nights were not so bad after I made friends with a Finn in my hostel, who was all around a very good guy. Only I never learned how to pronounce his name, which only adds to my tremendous guilt about the fact that I only learned two finnish words for the whole 6 days I was there, “restaurant” Erich figured out from signs, but we never learned how to pronounce it. And we only learned “thank you” on the very last day from a Lebanese guy who sold us kebab. Oh, there is “hey,” which means “hello.” So I guess 3 words then.

After Peter I went to Velikiy (Great) Novgorod. It is called Great Novgorod because it is really old, not because it is big. Because there is another Novgorod to the south, appropriately named “Lower Novgorod.” I stayed in a hostel there, too, but not a “hostel” like the kind that you might find in Berlin, but in a Russian hostel. So when I got there I was told that I had a room on the 5^th floor—room 503, to be exact. I saw two bathrooms, someone’s frying pan plugged into an electrical outlet, and rooms 509-515. I searched a while for room 503 and then I found it: it was beyond the room with the lights turned off, in the room with, as far as I can tell, no light switch at all. My roommate was a youngish man, I think an engineer, named Aleksei, who was sociable enough, except he made a few not-to-subtle hints about how I should convert to Orthodox Christianity. He gave good reasons too, but its not really that simple, Aleksei.

The main things in Novgorod are the Kremlin, some ridiculously old churches, and the Monument to the 1000-year of Russia. It’s a sort of big statue in the middle of the old town with three tiers of figures shown: on the bottom row are war heroes, artists, and religious leaders. The middle tier are all the tsars, great princes, and emperors of Russia, and on the top: Mother Russia and the Orthodox church. Some lady asked me if I was on the tour, and I said no, and walked off to look at all the people on the statue. Then I realized that I was in Novgorod for another day and I didn’t really have anything to do, the Kremlin turned out to be a lot smaller than I thought. So I returned and decided to join the tour.

The excursion turned out to be our guide, a middle-aged woman in an incredibly ridiculous fur coat (even for Russia) and an pensioner-ex-engineer who was full of good cheer and energy and constantly interrupted the guide to ask unrelated questions and share personal jokes and anecdotes on the subject. I was secretly rooting for him, but the guide won the battle when she said “If you will stop constantly interrupting me and be quiet for just one second I’ll explain. Questions can come later!” But the tour was good, I found out who literally everybody on this statue was. I should say that it was commemorating 1000 years of Russian history in 1862, so there was no communists on there or anything. But the best part was on the artist’s section, where Gogol, Pushkin, and Lermontov are shown standing together like real pals.

I liked Novgorod a lot, the center is very peaceful and pleasant, but there’s not much to describe. There was a church that had some surviving (barely) frescoes from Theophanes the Greek, which means that they must be at least 700 years old. If you are at the train station, however, do not order an “open kebab” from the Firebird grill next door. Yech.

After Novgorod I returned to Moscow after a few weeks break. What can I say? Moscow feels different from other cities that I have been to. It feels terribly important, if that makes sense. I felt this when I was walking back from the New Tretyakov gallery, which had zillions of great modern art from the Soviet times, even after they “implemented” Socialist Realism and all that. Anyway, I was walking by Gorky Park, watching young Russian couples ice skating, I passed on, and snow was falling thickly. I passed by a young father with his son, they had a duffel bag which meant that they were going to go ice skating as well, and after I passed them I stopped and looked onto the Moscow river and the buildings crouched over the river with their yellow windows gave me the impression that Moscow was a very “dark” city, but not evil, but also terribly important. I don’t know.

I had a great time in Moscow largely due to the fact that I stayed with my friends Sarah and Liza, who lived in Irkutsk for a year, just like me, three years ago, and in the evenings I did not go crazy from boredom but in fact had “fun”. I still like museums a lot, and I had good reason to go now rather than later, because my Russian student ID means I pay 40 rubles when a normal Russian pays 100, and a foreigner—250!

The last major thing I did on my vacation was go to the town of Yaroslavl, four hours away from Moscow by train. Middlebury has a program there, and I was met by Glen, who had had a great semester there. I met his many friends, who were all very good people, and it gave me hope. I mean, it’s the same country, right? But I did notice that people in Yaroslavl seemed a lot more interested in foreigners, and they all spoke English a lot better than people in Irkutsk do. A lot of it has to do with distance. I once met a Kansan who told me that he had never gone abroad and didn’t really feel like doing so, not even once. I don’t know if that story makes sense to you.

But I am going to try harder this semester, there’s a film club that meets by my house, and there’s new students coming and all that.

I’m sure I forgot something, but that’s okay. I feel pretty optimistic, though. If things don’t get any better, I’ll be fine, and if they get better—even better! Всё будет в школаде!

люди как люди

its not worth it to write about my trip so far because i don't feel like it. so here is what i will write:

after finland i took a really rough ferry to tallinn. tallinn was beautiful and quite pleasant, they are doing pretty well for an ex-USSR country. I have always wanted to go there, and the Tallinn old town was gorgeous, especially with thick snow falling.

Riga was almost as pleasant as Tallinn but it seemed more like a real city, it is also the biggest city in the Baltic states, I think. There is a strange problem that I noticed: Latvians are very proud of their culture, being a small state threatened by surrounding countries throughout history (Poland, Sweden, Germany, Russia)

BUT 50% OF THE INHABITANTS OF THE CAPITAL ARE RUSSIANS

and they are definitely Russians. They speak Latvian, of course, but their mentality is still very Russian. And two days after I left, riots broke out in the capital because the economy was mostly based in stuff effected by "the Crisis."

But I have been in St. Petersburg for a few days and I really like it. Its like being in a Russian novel, and the weather was really awful, just like I expected!

But I mostly wanted to talk about Russians. About how they are really a downer and rude and not fun in public, inside of grocery stores, anywhere, really, at all.

but how one on one they are not bad at all. But they are still not like me, but that's okay, because if a country was full of people like me, it would be pleasant and boring, a little.

but here are some examples:
in riga the lady at the reception desk of the hotel seemed a little cold but then when i said i was from alaska she sat down and talked to me for about an hour about why the world financial crisis was caused by a global conspiracy, her daughter, the time she became a deputy almost by accident in the Soviet Union time and was embarassed, etc.

on the train from Riga i sat next to Stanislav, who seemed unimpressed by me, but still shared his chicken, beet salad, and cookies with me, and when I said I was full he said "ploxo kushayesh'," which translates to "you don't eat right". Then he got in an argument with the young woman sitting next to me about whether russia was in a bardak right now or if its doing well, seeing as how there are no tanks on the streets. then when we got off the train he gave me his number, just in case, even though i still think he was completely unimpressed by me.

Today I wanted to see Nikolayevski cathedral which is next to a little park. 70% of the church was covered with scaffolding so i sat down on a bench to find out where to go next. Then an old scrappy looking babushka came up to me and asked if I could help her. I expected her to say that somebody stole her purse or that times are tough, and I was prepared to give her about 20 rubles, but instead she asked me to open a beer.

This was sort of moral dilemma, because its sad to open a beer for an old lady, especially when its Baltika no. 9, which is extra strong. But I didn't really want to refuse, because she would get somebody to open it anyway. So I opened it for her and she sat down next to me and started talking. I gradually came to realize that she was insane. She said she worked in churches all her life and drank because her shoulder hurt. She said that the priest in the nearby cathedral was actually God himself, that he had a son but they don't talk anymore. She told me about the 3 monks named Isaac who gave their names to the Isaac cathedral that I was going to visit next.

She kept asking me if I understood, and when I said yes, she kept talking, or sometimes she said "you don't understand anything." I wrote down her address and I will try to send her a letter. She told me that she is afraid for me because all Russians are dangerous and that I have a very spiritual look about me, and when I tried to leave after about 15 minutes she said, "don't go, its nice with you."

But then she would get mad at me when I didn't understand her. She also told me a secret about my heritage that I can't tell anyone. I don't think she's right, but she got so mad when I told her that that I don't think I can reveal the secret, because I want to remain alive. I'm serious.

But I guess she wasn't a typical Russian, more like a crazy person.

Also right before I wrote this the old Russian jew who is living in the hostel as well asked me to rub cream on his back and then told me about world war II and his opinion on the Gaza conflict.

So people in Russia are really lyudi kak lyudi, you know?

No, I don't know, I don't really know anything about Russia. Or Russians.

Chapter 2: Western Europe (Finland)

So when I got into Helsinki my first reaction was sort of shock. Shocked at how clean everything was, how the streets had proper drainage, and how bourgeois everyone was. How all the men over 35 had little trendy euro-glasses and turtlenecks, and how everyone spoke english with basically no accent.

I felt at ease.

But then, as I got to know the Finns better, I decided that they are cool. Because they embody a lot of things that I belive in: they are liberal and tolerant, they are quiet in public, and they are friendly. Especially the young finnish people. Here is an example:

I went to a record store and asked the guy if he knew when the new Annie album is coming out. Here's how the conversation would have gone in America:
Clerk: Who?
Me: Annie. You know, she's Norwegian, pop singer...
Clerk: Yeah, just a second... No, its not in our computer. Sorry.

and in Russia:
Clerk: What?!
Me: Annie, she's an... a norwegian singer.
Clerk. What?!?!?! No. I don't know.

but in Finland the guy said in perfect english:
"Yeah, I think it got delayed until, like, May or something." and he said it with a perfect mixture of sympathy so that I didn't regret asking him at all.

But the main thing about Helsinki wasn't the attractions, which were nice, but the fact that it was very pleasant, with nice buildings that were very angular and attractive but not suffocatingly so, and it was safe, and also I was there mainly to meet my friend Erich, who had been studying in Germany, so we mostly walked for many hours every day and talked a lot.

We went to a nice modern art museum, tried to decipher swedish captions at the history museum (only 5% ish of finland are native swedish speakers, but the whole country has to learn the language and write stuff in two languages. sux.)

so it would be cool to visit finland again. most places i like to say, "it was fun to visit, but i wouldn't want to live there," but i think the reverse is more true for finland. not that it wasn't fun to visit.

but you can't buy beer after 8 pm. even in gas stations.