Umom Rocciia Ne Poniat' (You can't understand Russia with your mind)
Last night, I had my first 'fight' with my hostess, Tatiana Nikolaevna. Somehow a conversation about a popular MTV show, Khodoki (about two pairs of Russians travelling across the US on limited budgets with specific tasks to complete) turned into a debat about Chechnya. We were talking about the need for passport control and how the Russian police randomly stop people on the streets, more often than not, people who look like they're from the Caucases. In the States, this is called racial profiling and is illegal. When I tried to explain this to Tatiana, she explained that this was necessary, asking me to imagine terror attacks like September 11th happening with the frequency that terrorist attacks happen in Moscow. Although insulted that she would compare the bombing of THE WORLD TRADE CENTER with, for example, the seige of a Moscow theater where more people died as a result of how Putin handled the situation than at the hands of terrorists, I held my tongue as much out of respect for how Moscovites' lives have changed in the past five years (as a result of these attacks) as for the fact that any rebutal would required vocabulary that I simply do not have. Instead, I said that it would be more proactive to end the war in Chechnya than harrasing people on the streets in order to stop the terrorism as these attacks in Mosow are usually carried out by Chechens.
End the war? Chechen Independence? Tatiana would hear none of this. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russian lost a lot of territory that it had ruled for hundreds of years before communism. The idea of cutting up the former empire any more than it already had been divided was unthinkable to her. 40 million ethnic Russians have been left in these former republics where they have little rights and the standard of living is even lower than in Russia itself. Tatiana loves asking me about these poor people: "And what's to happen with them?" If its such a tragedy for the Russian people, why doesn't the state take their kinsmen home? Of course the government doesn't have enough money for this (as most of the money is laundered or stolen by oligarchs when it's not being used to fight wars), and the people themselves could never afford such a relocation. If the situation is so dire for ethnic Russians living in former satelites, I honestly have little pitty. Growing up in America, the idea of an empire carries very negative connotations. Maybe Russians should never have been in Uzbekistan in the first place. Maybe Stalin shouldn't have forced his people to relocate in order to create a homogenious society that was held together only by the threat of state-forced starvation or death. Maybe its time for Russia and Russians to take responsibility for its past mistakes.
The idea of independent states based on ethnic boundaries was not an option for Tatiana, citing the fact that Russia is a multiethnic country composed of over 150 nationalities (my vocabulary, again, prevented my from arguing the fact that of course Russia was multiethnic! After a millenium of empiric rule, ANY nation would be composed of the ethnicities they conquered). Any further division of Russia's boarders would leave behind even more ethnic Russians in countries hostile towards Russia. For Tatiana, the question of Chechnya was further complicated by the fact that "Chechens never OWNED that land.n What's the capital of Chechnya?! GROZNY! That's a Russian word! (meaning terrible, as in Ivan the Terrible) They're a barbaric people; they always lived in the mountains." Of course they lived in the mountains! Russians chased them off of any valuable land over a century ago! Even after the Chechens made it back down from the mountains after WWII, Stalin kicked them out again, deporting them to Siberia along with alll Chechen officers in the Red Army coming back from the front. Imagine that you just risked your life for the so-called Motherland only to have your home taken away from you, loaded into cattle cars for the ten-day train ride to Siberia where, even if you survived the trip, you had nothing and no one! I personally don't blame Chechens for wanting freedom from Russia, the source of their personal tragedies for over 200 years.
This is not to say that I'm necessarily on the Chechens' side as far as the war goes. I feel that the first war was justified. Like most former satelites, Chechnya wanted to finally be rid of all things Russian, and I sympathize with this longing. The Second Chechen War, which started in 1999 as a result of a series of house bombings in Moscow (some believe these bombings were staged by Putin himself for his own political purposes. It was an election year), has presented new problems for Russia, Chechnya and the world at large. The second war saw the arrival of Muslim reenforcements, namely Wahhabi fanatics, who have changed Chechens' view of the war from a patriotic endeavor to a holy battle. As a result, Putin has called the war in Chechnya a part of the international 'War on Terrorism'. This seems to have become a sort of catch-phrase for those governments wishing to keep/acquire territories rich in oil under the veil of a 'just cause' (does Iraq ring any bells?). Chechya's war crimes are just as appauling as Russia's: uncountable civilian casualties, frequent kidnappings by both sides and terrorist acts both in Chechnya and Russia at large. The war is unwinable for both sides, and people continue to die.
Russians are often the victims of their own government, whether is be Communist or a Monarchy or Democracy, and I feel that this mentality has woven itself into the fabric of the Russian mind. Tatiana made the ethnically Russian population into the victims of the independence movements across the former Soviet Union. "What will we be left with if you cut up our country into so many tiny pieces?" What country NEEDS to occupy half the world's latitudes? What country NEEDS eleven time zones? Maybe if Russia were smaller, the government could actually DO something for their own citizens instead of clinging to the lost grandure of its former Empire.
Tatiana also implied that Russia was paying reparations for losing the Cold War. This was confusing to say the least. I never heard of the Reagan-Gorbuchev treaty ending the Cold War much less 'war' reparations. She was refering to the fact that although Russia owns half the world's natural resources, all money from these resources resides in American banks. Whose fault is that now? Did America steal this money in some under-the-covers embezelling scheme? NO. Russia has adopted the market economy but without any of controls and with all the remnents of the Soviet 'every man for himself' mentality. As a result, a small portion of the population became millionares overnight. During the instability of the 90s, when some of these oligarchs lost everything they had, those who didn't put their money in a bank with a stable currency. Is America to blame for Russia's sad situation after the Cold War? I don't think Tatiana herself is sure. Some nights it's Gorbuchev's fault. Some nights it's Yeltsin's fault. Last night it just happened to be America's fault. I wanted to tell her that if her country's leaders and businessmen got some ethics, the Russian people would be much better off. Tatiana asked me why America invests so much money in China. American businessmen's choices obviously have nothing to do with ideological differences anymore. The answer was simple to me: no one trusts Russians. I wanted to tell her that the image of Russians in most of the world's imaginations is a Mafia boss or, in general, anyone who simply can't be trusted. I feel that we get back whatever we put out into the world, and the fact is that Russia's karma is simply shot to shit.
I went to bed angry. I hated Russians; I hated Tatiana; I hated myself for coming to the hell-hole of a country, for not being able to get my own thoughts across in the educated and well-spoken manner that I can in English, for being stuck in a country of fools whose own stubborn, antiquated and backwards view of the world was and forever will make them a miserable, damned people. I guess this is what they call culture shock.
TV
Snow
I left my apartment building on Tuesday morning to see speckles of white falling from the sky. I was hesitant to call it snow; it more closely resembled frozen rain, but it didn't shoot down from the sky. It was obviously floating, meandering to the earth. After two winters in Vermont, I thought I had seen all possible types of snow, but as usual, Russia had another surprise for me.
Being our first snow, I was a little disappointed. It didn't stick and was sharp and biting, two adjectives I HATE using for snow. Luckily, this odd step-child of snow didn't last past noontime. I woke up the next day to a bonafide snowstorm.
The whiteness shrouded the gray city and gave the air a clean look (a large feat considering the levels of pollution in Moscow). Wednesday's snow was flakie, feathery and actually stuck, covering the city in a soft pading of frozen powdered sugar. It had a calming effect on me; as snow usually does, it seemed to mute the sounds of this loud city and make everything seem newer, cleaner.
It continued snowing until nighttime and today, this strange october weather has again mutated first into rain and now into sleat. I haven't yet bitten the dust on the Moscow sidewalks, but keep your fingers crossed for me.
Vlad
When deciding where in Russia I would study, my Russian advisor and fairygodmother, Kevin, had one word for me: "Moskva". Moscow is the capitol of Russia's blossoming gay community, and given the fact that various gay students who studied in Siberia (my first choice) had some unfortunate run ins with gay-bashing packs of hoodlem teenage boys, Kevin felt that Moscow would be the right 'fit' for me. The gay population was, of course, not the only plus to studying in Moscow. After two years in the hills of Vermont, I was ready to live in a big city. The clubs, bars, and fast pace of life were a welcomed change from the dull and 'shitty' life of Middlebury (I love Midd. It's a wonderful school and Vermonters in generally are a very warm, inviting people, but most of them are farmers. Dairy farmers. As a result, the campus smells like horse shit for nine months out of the year). Kevin also has many friends in Moscow that he said would love to meet his students, so in mid March, I signed on the dotted line and turned my life over to whatever fate Moscow had in store for me.
Not two weeks into my semester, Kevin sent me a list of his contacts in Moscow who promised to show me what being gay in Moscow was all about. I was understandably intimidated at the prospect of meeting complete strangers in a foreign language (this was despite the fact that Russians are very warm and friendly people if you're a friend, family or friend of their friends/family); due to this cowardice, I didn't contact any of Kevin's friends in my first month here (although I was dying of curiousity and celebrity-awe to meet his ex-wife and former movie star). Just this week, I worked up enough courage to get a hold of Vladimir, an aquaintance of Kevin's who's studying in Moscow as well. After a few English-language text messages, we met up for dinner in the city center. I was relieved that he spoke English since speaking in Russian was a major point of anxiety for me, but in the first three minutes of our meeting, I came to realize that his theoretical English was much better than his practical English. We continued the rest of our evening in Russian, which to my surprise was not as stressful as I would have thought. Overall, I find that people are much more sympathetic when you try to speak their language, no matter how horrible, and the fact that he didn't try to switch our language of conversation to English told me that his ears weren't bleeding as badly as I feared they would.
Meeting infront of the Bolshoi Theater, we had a short walk to one of Vlad's favorite, inexpensive restaurants. It was cafeteria style, which was a relief. You can just point to what you want without know what it's called; you can also be sure about what you're ordering since it's all laid out infront of you. We got to know each other over our cafeteria trays, and I was pleased to find that we had more in common that I would have thought (although we weren't both born in Irkutsk, we share an interest in linguistics and a dislike for politics).
Having finished our meals, we went out to the street to walk around the center a bit. It was at this point that I started to question the nature of our first meeting: he offered me some gum, a curtious enough jesture in any country, but my dating experience in the States taught me that there are other hidden meanings to such an offer, namely the expectation that minty-fresh breath might be needed or desirable at some later point in the evening. I declined and lit a cigarette (I wanted him to make sure he knew he was possibly pursuing a smoker. After all, it's only fair).
The cold, late-October rain forced us to retreat indoors, and we made our way to the underground mall at Otkhodnii Rad. 'Window-shopping, that's friendly enough,' I thought and we proceeded to inspect the wares and fashions of the American-like mall under Red Square. It was a learning experience, not only in the sense that I had my own personal dictionary to translate words like 'accesories' but also because it was an opportunity to see what Moscow was wearing this season.
It was a wonderful time, if for no other reason than because I was talking, relating and hanging-out with a Russian, a first in my two months here.
I had forgotten all about the gum until we went into 'New Yorker' a store selling supposedly 'New York' fashions. Somewhere between the underwear and tee-shirts, he asked if I was dating anyone in the States. Taken somewhat off guard, I told him no, simultaneously kicking myself on the inside. Unlike his gum offer, there was no doubt about the implications of such a question after a full hour of friendly banter and awkward, Russian pseudo-flirting.
Lizi (see blog link at right) and I have quoted our orientation lectures many times in our posts in rememberance of our three-day crash course on living in Russia. That night I was reminded of the lecture on cross-cultural relationships and how there are many problems of cultural understanding that arise from such tristes (sp?). After a friendly hug goodbye (standard and, as far as I'm concern, required for any gay friends in the States), I went down the escalator to the green metro line asking myself what exactly just happen. Did I just go on a blind date? DID KEVIN JUST SET ME UP?? (he is, after all, my fairygodmother) Had I just made my first Russian friend, or something more? Either way, I know that my time here is already quite short, and I'm definitely not looking for love in my remaining three months. At the very least, I'm looking forward to having a clubbing buddy/guide; I've been too scared to explore the gay club scene here so far and having a native will definitely put my mind at ease.
I'll take a strawberry machiatto with a shot of Internet
While Moscow is a ginormous city, I haven't yet explored it in its entirety. I find myself spending a lot of time at Moka-Loka, a cafe not far from my apartment or University where one may use WiFi free of charge (well, that is with the purchase of some drink/slice of cake, etc.). Because of my addiction to the internet, I go to the cafe nearly every day to check emails, share pictures, and of course, write blogs. This has turned me into a sort of a regular at Moka-Loka, someone I've never been at any restaurant or cafe but secretly always dreamed of becoming. In my life, spent in the suburbs of Kansas City and rural Vermont, I haven't had many opportunities to become 'a regular' anywhere (indeed, I've had no need to. My Dad's a wonderful barista and college coffee's free); it just wasn't practical to invest so much time and money in drinking coffee and building relationships with the coffeemakers. Moka-Loka's free internet was definitely a selling point in my decision to make a second home there, but during my first month in Moscow, I never expected to become 'a regular'; I gave up on such a dream years ago. That's why when sometime in early October I was utterly schocked when Oleg, one of the waiters, approached me and asked, "The usual?" I had 'a usual'! (Black forest cherry capuccino, incase you were wondering). Unable to control myself, I smiled broadly and said, "Da, pozhaluista." I had arrived.
At the realization that my baristas succeeded in matching my face to my 'usual' drink, I made it a point to get better acquainted with them. Of course, I'm shy, especially when speaking in Russia, so I didn't plan on starting up any conversations, shooting the shit and the like. I tried to keep my goals a little more realistic, taking it upon myself to learn their names (thanks God for nametags!) and how they each prepared my Black Forest Capuccino. So far, Lena make's the best drink; it's creamy and has just the right combination of chocolate and cherry. She is, however, not the nicest of the Baristas, often yelling at me for smoking on the wrong side of the cafe or using certain forbidden outlets for charging my computer (out of the cafe's four outlets, customers are only allowed to use two of them. The cherished tables near these 'approved' outlets are always taken by other regulars, who, like me, grace the cafe with their presence and money often for hours at a time). In general, I like the male baristas much better than the women (surprise, surprise). During my first few months, I thought Oleg was a complete ass. When taking my order (that is, when I still had to order), he'd often nod his head and smile tauntingly at my less than perfect Russian. With time, I came to realize that the guy's just goofy and he wasn't laughing at me; he was just being his usual friendly self. On the other hand, I never had problems with Vlad. He's a professional and always treated me with respect and the somewhat distant friendliness that is required between server and patron. I never felt that he was smirking at me, mostly because he's fond of nodding his head with squinted eyes and a friendly smile (no teeth, of course) when taking my order. He also makes the most artistic designs in my coffee with the frothy creme. The first time he served me my capuccino with a symetrical heart poured on top, I felt like a giddy schoolgirl who received her first gift on the playground from cutest 2nd grader in her class. Of course I was disappointed to realize this was standard practice for Moka-Loka; a little flirting with the patrons is never bad for business, right?
Moka-Loka is also a great place to meet other foreign students. The free, biweekly expat newpaper "The Moscow Times" is always available, and most foreign students from my university pass through at least once a week to pick up their copy. The Times isn't the only reason there are so many foreigners (students and otherwise). The Moka-Loka chain is owned by the same man that owns the TGI Friday's chains in Moscows, and above my cafe is one such haven of American pop-culture. Just like in the States, all the waiters wear funny hats and 'flare' (although I don't think they always understand the buttons they wear. For example, half the waiters have a "It's what's for dinner" button. I alway's want to ask them what exactly IS for dinner, that is - beef, but I'm not yet brave enough to ask and subsequently have to explain, especially since we never covered the word for 'National Beef Council' in Russian class). Friday's doesn't only offer American cuisine (or, at least a Russian version of it) but also celebrations of American holidays. They haven't started advertising for Thanksgiving '05, but they've already covered the restaurant in fake cobwebs, jack-o-lanterns and shreaded, black trash bags in preparationg for their annual Halloween party. I'm still desparately trying to find this year's costume since Friday's is offering free drinks for the best ones, but I'm not very hopeful. For one thing, there are no costume shops in Moscow and cloths in general are expensive. In general, I don't think I would be brave enough anyway to make the five minute walk from my apartment to Fridays dressed like the Grim Reaper, a ghost, or even a pirate. My Russian friends tell me that every year, more and more people celebrate Halloween, but unfortunately, it's still not common enough to walk around town dressed like Rupaul on October 31st.
On another note, the waiters in Friday's are overall quite nice, although I can never convince them that I speak Russian. All it takes is me saying, "Two for lunch" for them to give me menus in English. It's a little disappointing, but I've gotten used to being 'a stupid foreigner.' (see previous posts regarding cell phones)
to come....did i just go on a date, or did I miss something?
Subbota (Saturday)
The phone woke me up this morning. Luckily Tatiana answered it because my Russian is HORRIBLE in the morning and talking on the phone is intimidating in general. It was a bookseller. In Moscow, there are people to work for the publishing houses themselves and set up appointments with passersby to buy their books. Tatiana ran into this particular bookseller over a month ago and he finally called back to set up an appointment. She gave him our number in the first place because she thought I would be interested in buying a book called "Cities of Russia" with a lot of history and illustrations, all for a very reasonable price. We met not far form our house and I was pleased enough with the merchandise to buy the book. Tatiana also bought a book by the same publisher about the holidays of the Russian Orthodox Church.
After our purchases, Tatiana took me on a tour around our neighborhood while she was running errands (I think she brought me along to help carry groceries, but I was grateful for the tour in general). The first stop was at the bank where Tatiana needed to take out money. She asked me to come inside and wait with her since there were 'questionable characters' outside using the ATM (that is, they were a group of young, loud men). I sat, quietly reading the history of Irkutsk in my new book, and after Tatiana got through two lines, we exited the building. I still needed to use the ATM, which was by that time free. After inserting my card, I strained to read the screen, where it said the ATM was out of order and my transaction couldn't be completed. Of course, it didn't give me my card back, so Tatiana went back inside to solve the problem. After waiting another ten minutes in the cold for the machine to return my VISA, we went back inside and asked them to get the card out of the back of the machine. This was easy enough, but the resulting process of getting the card back from the teller occupied our time for the next hour and a half.
Russia is famous for its beurocracy and needless redtape. To get my own bankcard back, that THEIR machine ate in the first place, I was required to write a formal letter requesting the card's return. Luckily, Tatiana offered to write it for me, and we returned to the counter for the mandatory stamps of approval. The teller then asked us to write the card's number and expiration date on the back of said letter. Tatiana accidentally wrote 119 instead of 19, the last two numbers on the card and started to look worried for some reason. She turned the second 1 into a 9 and skribbled the last digit out. After this, she showed her mistake to the teller and asked if it was OK. Our teller consulted her supervisor and returned to tell us that we had to rewrite the whole letter because of that one skribble! We returned to the small desk, and Tatiana began copy the letter. I offered to copy it myself, but she refused the help since my handwriting could cause even more mistakes on the form. We returned to the counter, signed on the many dotted lines and finally left the cursed bank.
It was frustrating, but for the most part, I was laughing the whole time at Russia's emphasis on the unimportant. After all, why couldn't they just give me the damned card back after checking the name on my passport? I was somewhat sleep deprived and didn't expect so much trouble just trying to take some money out. Well, now I know, and in the end, it's an entertaining enough story.
Problems
The other night, I was sitting at the dinner table as Tatiana Nikolaevna served my favorite meal of pel'meny (Russian dumplings). I was sharing with her some of the strange rituals that today's anthropology lecture covered, namely the ritual of 'perepekenie' or rebaking/finish baking. This is performed on small children when they get sick and are seen as not 'baked' all the way through. Basically, country folk will put their child in an oven to heal him. During the lecture, I could not fathom such a thing, since the professor seemed to insinuate that the child could sometimes die in the flames. Tatiana assured me that this ritual is most likely performed in the warm but not flaming chamber of the oven, although she had never heard of such a ritual.
Sensing that I had disturbed her with this backward, possibly ancient ritual of her own culture, I tried to change the subject and began talking about a classic of Soviet cinema that I saw early that day, "Letiat Zhuravly" (The Cranes are Flying). I refered to an engaged couple as 'lovers' (liubovniki), not knowing the subtle and negative undertones of this particular word. Tatiana proceeded to lecture me for a good twenty minutes on the difference between those in love (like Romeo and Juliet, married couples, etc) and lovers - liubovniki (those who have sex out of lust and treat it like a handshake). She had some very strong feelings on the subject and through the course of her monologue began to nearly yell at me. She also asked some questions that made me feel very uncomfortable ("When you marry a woman, would you want to know that she's been with Lord knows how many other men, or would you want her to be yours and only yours?"). Such a question is quite complicated for someone like me: the very thought of marrying a woman is a very foreign concept, but out of respect for my hostess, I set out to give a diplomatic answer without getting into too many details of my own sexual life. I told her that "It would be nice if she were a virgin, I guess, but I also know that in the world we live in, women like that are few and far between."
This answer didn't provide her with much satisfaction and she continued accosting me until I admitted that I would only marry a virgin (woman). She began citing great authors' views on the matter, namely Theodore Dreiser, of whom I had never heard. Tatiana was flabbergasted at this realization. "Teodor Dreizer (with a thick Russian accent)! He's a classic of American Literature! How can you not know your own classics?!" I consider myself well read and educated even by international standards (as my I.B. Diploma can prove), but not once in my life have I come across the name Theodore Dreiser. She started explaining what 'a classic' is (as though I didn't understand what she meant by this expression) and basically implied that I was uneducated and culturally illiterate for not know who this Dreiser fellow was. It would be one thing if Dreiser were a Russian author, rarely read in the West, but Tatiana was taking it upon herself to tell me who the classics of my own culture were, and using all my self-control to not tell her off for presuming to teach me about my own cultural heritage, I smiled and nodded and let her finish.
Despite hanging out with my American friends (out of which only one had ever heard the Dreiser's name and was unable to name one of his supposedly famous compositions), I spent the remainder of my night in a bad mood. My life with Tatiana is often filled with similar conversations that center around conflicts between the older generation's concept of the world and what constitutes a 'correct' lifestyle and that of the younger generation's. This schizm is complicated by our different cultural backgrounds, and although reminiscent of interactions I've had with my grandparents and older people in the States, my 'discussions' with Tatiana tend to upset me more since I'm forced to defend my generation in a foreign language.
I fell asleep agreeing with Tatiana's assessment that 'Mish, today just isn't your day'.
Viva la Revolucion!
We arrived at the Kievskaia trainstation with an hour and fifteen minutes to spare before our train departed. It was already eight thirty at night and in the darkness of the Moscow streets, protected only by the scattered streetlamps (half of which don’t work), I felt more than self-conscious making my way to the metro and riding the train to our meeting point with my overnight suitecase and backpack. I’ve gotten used to standing out as a foriegner, but standing out as a foreigner taking his valuables on a trip proved even more stressful. Meeting my sputniks (travel companions) on the platform was a relief; there’s safety in numbers, and although a group of foreigners ready to go on a trip is quite conspicuous in the hustle and bustle of the Metro, I felt a comfort in not being alone.
Lead by our Resident Coordinator and overall spiritual, emotional and academic advisor, Chris, we found the appropriate platform and boarded the train excited for the adventure ahead of us, if not a little naucious at the prospect of a 14 hour train ride. All the trains we would be taking over the next seven days would be third or ‘economy’ class; that is, in wagons divided into ten or twelve compartments, each with bunk beds (really cots that folded down from the wall) lining the wall of one side of the train and two more pairs of sleeping-planks across the aisle perpendicular to the small window adorned with sparse curtains. We were fortunate enough to get our seats together and proceeded to pack our luggage away under the lower bunks, sit down and play cards.
Interesting and creative exchanges insude as we tried to explain, to those who had never played, the rules of Rummy in Russian. A hallmark of my program here in Russia is the Middlebury College Language Pledge (trademark)which requires students to speak only in Russian. Fifteen minutes later, after a crash course in Russian card vocabulary (Ace, suit, Jack, etc.), the game was running smoothly and conversation took a turn from the mundane subject of straights, pairs and point counting to our usual, friendly tone.
We asked Chris, who had coordinated everything, if we would need to be registered in Kiev for the three days of our stay (in two short months, we already became accoustomed to the Russian emphasis on beaurocracy and necessity to have one’s ‘documents in order’). As it turns out, Chris asked the same question to the director of our hostel, who seemed confused at this query. Chris explained over the phone that in Moscow, registration was essential, especially since police can and do stop you on the street at anytime and request to see your documents, checking for expired registrations or faulty visas. Pavel, the hostel director chuckled a little, and assured Chris, “Oh, don’t worry, don’t worry; this is the Ukraine. We have demokratsia!”
For those who don’t remember, a peaceful revolution of the people occurred in the Ukraine in October-November of last year. Dubbed ‘the Orange Revolution’, it contested the questionable election of Victor Yanekovich, a pro-Russian Putin-puppet, and installed Victor Yushchenko, the pro-European candidate. Although Ukrainians are their own ethnic group with their own language and customs (both of which are, however, quite similar to the Russian correlaries), their land was part of the Russian Empire for hundreds of years as well as one of the largest and most populated republics of the USSR. Since the times of Kievian Rus’, the ancient mother of the Russia state(9th-13th centuries) , the Ukraine has been occupied by Russians, Ottomans, Hapsburgs and Polish, creating a rather jumbled idea of what Ukrainian identity really is. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Ukrainian government and economy has been quite unstable, corrupt and over all, relatively pro-Russian (especially in comparison the the former Soviet republics of the Baltics). Yushchenko promised to change all that and point the Ukraine in a new direction, that is, towards Europe, with hopes of joining the EU.
Despite recent scandals envolving the Prime Minister, democracy has been working rather well for the Ukraine, not to mention American students studying in Eastern Europe (our decision to go to Kiev was influenced in no small part by the fact that Americans no longer need visas to enter the country – demokratsia!). We could feel the change from Russia’s idea of ‘democracy’ to Ukraine’s fledgling version as soon as we entered the country. We were woken up in the middle of the night by Russian boarder guards, which by the way is the worst possible way to be woken up. Still drowsy, my eyes opened to see imposing, armed men in barrets and military regalia, asking why I was in Moscow and what my business was in the Ukraine. After providing satisfactory answers, they returned my passport and I went back to sleep. Not forty minutes later, I was awoken again for the Ukrainian boarder guards. They asked the same questions, were also armed and for all intents and purposes were Russian (much of eastern Ukraine is ethnically Russian), but for some reason, I wasn’t as frightened under my train-issued covers as I was less than an hour ago. The Ukrainian guards joked around with us (“Are you sure you have a place to stay? Well, it doesn’t matter, you wouldn’t be the only one sleeping on the streets!”) and in general carried themselves much less like military inquisitors and more like simple people just doing their job – demokratsia!
I was even more astonished at the Ukrainian people once we made it to the capital, Kiev. Cars actually stopped for pedestrians on crosswalks, and I even received directions from a lady working in the Metro! Directions! Metro attendents in Moscow yell at you just for looking them in the eyes. Demokratsia!
Ukrainian and Russian are both slavic languages and aside from slight differences in the alphabet, my Russian served me well throughout the trip. There were however many instances of utter confusion when confronted with examples of daily, mundane language. For instance, the Kievian Metro, a familiar voice announced the next metro stations and urged all passengers to give up their seats for invalids, passengers with children and elder people. These announcements were understandable despite being in Ukrainian, but the mandatory warning that “the doors are closing” disturbed me to no small degree. The Ukrainian was (as far as I could tell) “Uberezhno, dveri zachinaiunsia.” To my Russian ears, this warning was oddly reminiscent of “On the seashore, the doors are fixing themselves.” Luckily, all our tourguides spoke Russian, and overall, the Ukrainian language didn’t cause too many confused looks to cross my face.
Being a college-funded trip, we of course had our share of information-packed excursions around the city and its landmarks, the most awe-inspiring of which was definitely the National Kiev-Pecherskii Lavra Monestary. A huge Russian Orthodox complex, the Lavra was composed of at least four breathtaking cathedrals and two monestaries. It was shut down by Stalin before WWII and only recently re-opened within the last 20-30 years (except for a brief time during the German occupation. More on this later). Our tour guide took us mostly to those cathedrals that were empty and for all intents and purposes only ment for tourists to stand in awe at the masterworks of Kievian Rus’ (one of Kiev’s first prices, Volodimir – an old form of Vladimir – was responsible for the Slavic world’s conversion to the Orthodox Church, converting himself in 988). One of my sputniks, Marco, however, couldn’t take no for an answer when our guide refused to take us into the Lavra’s most stunning cathedral since a service was in progress, but after much cajolling, she agreed. The girls convered the heads (as is required in any Russian Orthodox building) and we entered the cathedral in the middle of the believers’ communion!
Some of us felt a little awkward, to say the least, for interrupting the most sacred part of the Orthodox mass; however, I had no qualms with it. I was to struck by the very experience. Russian churches have no pews; one must stand the entire time (sometimes the masses last more than three hours!). During the sacrement, the church-goers followed well-known veins of traffic to make their way to the eucharist, and we often clumsily inturrupted these currents, but I was too engrossed in the atmosphere to notice. The congregation was singing a chant in unison, and although the chamber was filled with music, it was impossible to tell where it was coming from. At first I asked myself if it was coming from the monk choir in the balcony or from the standing believers shuffling their way to the body and blood of Christ, but walking among them, I realized that it was coming from all around me. I was enveloped by the sad timbre of the congregation, all singing no louder than a whisper that I could only detect as I passed the directly infront of single individuals. The believers, mostly old women, chanted their lament, and I was taken over by a feeling of the Holy Spirit, for lack of a better description. Our guide ushered us out of the khram (church), and I left with much difficultly. My musician’s soul had become immediately achored to the chanting masses and it proved difficult to tear myself away. We had other miracles of the Pravoslavnie Church to get to before lunch. (Pravoslavnie is the Russian word for Russian Orthodox, literally meaning ‘the true word’).
Besides being home to one of Pravoslavnie’s oldest monestaries, the Lavra also housed a catacombs of infathomable length and depth with the remains of over 150 Orthodox saints. Our guide lead us through this haunting labyrinth where we again felt like intruders. Believers were praying, crying, kissing and begging the embalmed bodies and various body parts that hugged the carved-out tunnel walls, lit only by the light of candles carried by the passers-by. During the Second World War, Nazi troups demanded to be led through the labyrinth by the abandoned monastery’s keepers. Gauking at the open coffins, covered only by a sheet of glass, one soldier questioned the contents of the morbid restin places and rammed his gun through the class of one coffin, past the protective cloth covering the body. Maybe he was looking for gold, maybe he was just looking to destroy something the Ukrianians highly valued, but what he found when he pulled his pistol back out was actual human blood dripping from the head of his weapon and leaking from the holy corpse. The Germans were so frightened that they ran out of the catacombs and officially opened the Lavra complex for worship for the length of their occupation. This, of course, is all hear-say.
Aside from the Lavra, we spent our days in Kiev relaxing in the sunshine, playing on various Soviet monuments and enjoying the laid-back atmosphere of Ukraine’s new demokratsia.
Soon to come...Adventures in Crimea!
Notes from the Editor...
In rereading my blog and living longer here in Moscow, I've discovered some mistakes I've made in my reports from the Mother land:
1. The average pension for elderly Russians is actually 100 DOLLARS, not rubles a month (this is about 3,000 rubles). Although this is significantly more than my earlier figures (see Manushka moya), it is still a paltry sum. Tatiana Nikolaenva spends about a third of this sum on her rent, leaving about $66 dollars for groceries, clothes and insidentals of city life in one of the most expensive cities in the world (Moscow is second only to Tokyo in cost of living!).
2. Manon, my canine 'little sister' in Russia is housetrained, although since my post on her life in the city (also Manushka moya), I've learned that most Russians are as surprised by this as I was. Manon had a very tramatic experience with a large dog in her early life and has since then feared the outdoors. Housetraining her was relatively easy for Tatiana Nikolaevna since Manon would basically do anything so as not to venture into the cruel world outside.
3. I've changed my blog's settings so that you DO NOT NEED a blogger account to leave a comment on my blog, so please, drop me a line and let me know what you think of my posts! This blog is as much for my friends and the world at large as it is for me.
Tonight I'm leaving on a night train for the Ukraine, so there won't be any new posts until I return in a week. Be looking foward to reflections from 'Little Russia'!
-the management
Slice of Life
The following are some funny slices of life from my last week…
One of my required classes here is Phonetics and is of utmost importance for any foreign student of Russian as the sounds and rises and falls of the language are incredibly foreign (even for those who have spoken it their whole life. My friend Josephine (see last post) is a native speaker of sorts since she grew up in a Russian household in L.A. Her accent, however, leads most Russians to think that she’s from the Baltics). I greatly enjoy my phonetics class because the homework often involves studying elementary dialogues and classics of Russian’s popular music repetoire (including bardy). As someone who believes that music is the best and most accesible window into a foreign culture, you can imagine the fixed smile on my face as I sing our songs louder than any of my other classmates.
The air was definitely let out of my balloon of elation with Phonetics last week when our teacher introduced movements and hand gestures into this week’s song, Povorot (Turn) by Mashina Vremeni (Time Machine), a group reminiscent of a Russian Beatles. I love this song, and the teacher’s gestures were helpful in remembering new vocabulary (for example cliff, take-off, whirlpool, etc.), but performing these gestures while walking (turning, if you will) around our classroom’s table changed the topic of the day’s lesson from the distinction between hard and soft consonents to a lesson in public humiliation.
The university buildings are set up so that directly outside our classroom’s window are the windows of the adjacent building’s ladies’ restrooms where, at various points in our 1.5 hour-long lessons, you can see girls fighting for a place infront of the mirror or delinquently smoking their cigarettes while hanging out of the window itself (smoking is prohibited in the university building, but this rarely keeps students and faculty/staff members, for that matter, from taking smoke breaks without braving the cold of the courtyard). Somewhere in the middle of the first chorus of “Povorot” I noticed a group of girls hanging out the windows across the way from our room, some smoking, all watching our dance and sing-along in Phonetics class with enormous smiles. They were obviously laughing at our rediculous language practice and everytime I saundered by the window driving an imaginary steering wheel our mimicing an imaginary whirlpool with my right index finger, I did my best not to notice them and remind myself that “They don’t know me; I don’t know them; therefore, it doesn’t matter if they see me making a fool of myself.” On my third or fourth pass by the window, I noticed that one of the girls had gotten out her digital camera and was shooting pictures of ‘those crazy foreigners across the way.’ I couldn’t hold back my embarassment any longer and immediately turned redder than the Communist flag on May Day! I’m sure that sometime before next semester, those photos will be on the RGGU (my university’s) website. Here’s hoping I’ll be long gone before then.
You don’t need to be a Russophile to know that both the USSR and the Russian Federation have struggled with alcoholism as a national epidemic. Before I came to Russia, I prepared myself for displays of public drunkenness that would make my hazy memories of many swim team parties at Middlebury College seem like a sober elementary schoolgirls’ sleep over in comparison, but last night’s events proved to me that even my wild imagination couldn’t have prepared me for the levels of drunkenness Moscow nightlife has to offer.
Two of Josephine’s friends from school who are studying in Tel Aviv right now came up to Moscow for the week to visit her on their Fall Break, and we all planned to go out for drinks. Adam and I decided to go out for a beer while we waited for them to finish dinner and found ourselves on a patio café on Tverskaia Boulevard (the 5th Avenue of Moscow, if you will). After maybe five minutes of polite conversation into our two glasses of Königsberg, we heard a loud thump come from the sidewalk next to our café. We looked over to see a man lying facedown on the cement and couldn’t tell if he was dead or alive; the passers-bye simply walked around or even over him, not a single one stopping to see if he was okay or even breathing. Adam and I started our stop watches to see how long it would take someone to help him, or at the very least acknowledge that a man was lying facedown in the middle of the street.
After what seemed like five minutes (in reality, only ninety seconds), two security guards from our restaurant walked over to check on the drunk. He was indeed still alive but totally unresponsive to the two large men. Not bothering trying to talk to him, the two guards picked him up by the arms (at which point, the drunk showed his first signs of life by picking up his not yet empty bottle of booze that had to that point been abandoned next to his lifeless body) and dragged him over to the bench at the nearest bus stop, laying him down across the bench to sober up. Adam and I decided to keep the stopwatches going until the man finally made it to his feet.
We returned to our conversation about or friend Lizi’s experiences in Siberia (see her blog link), and after a couple of minutes, I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye. The man, in an attempt to sit himself up, had fallen off the bench and was once again facedown on the concrete, bottle still in hand. He had apparently sobered up to some extent since instead of lying dead on the concrete as he had before, he made an attempt to get himself back onto the bench, steadying himself with his free hand, but to no avail.
Realizing that it would be a while before he made it back to his feet much less out of our plain sight, Adam and I returned to our discussion which was now monopolized by the struggle of the drunkard ten feet away. It was like being at a high school football game, and we had become his personal cheerleaders. As such, we decided that the drunk needed a name if we were going to cheer him on properly; we decided on Vova (a diminutive of Vladimir) and checked our stopwatches: six minutes and counting since the fall. By this point, Vova had made his way back onto the bench and was sitting up. This was definitely cause for celebration, and Adam and I rose our glasses to Vova’s accomplishment.
As we finished our glasses over the next forty minutes, Vova had made his way to his feet, leaning against the weather-protecting hut of the bus stop, even three feet away from the stop, standing, or moreso leaning to and fro, feet firmly planted on the sidewalk. This didn’t last very long, and he retreated to the hut, trying to work up enough guts to sit himself back down on the bench. It took three failed attempts to do this before he actually made it back to a sitting position. Adam and I finished our glasses, cheersing to Vova’s valient attempts and inhuman courage in braving the mean world of humanity on one’s own two feet.
This was about the time that Josephine arrived with her friends and we all departed to find a bar, leaving Vova, still sitting on the bench. About three hours later, as Adam and I were walking home along Tverskaia, we saw the café across the street where Vova, like any good high school quarterback, gave his all for the team. We remember his many victories and defeats as though they were our own and smiled. Just then, a stumbling, giggling man cut his way between us and Adam and I both did a double take.
“Was that?”
“No, it couldn’t be!”
It was! Vova was on his feet with a fresh bottle of Vodka in hand, stumbling down the street, a whole busy intersection away from where the saga began! Before going home, Adam and I bought a bottle of Champaigne and toasted Vova’s final victory…although it’s still unknown if he made it home in one piece.
Why there's no Russian word for "Political Correctness"
The issue of political correctness and racism was an important enough topic for Amercians studying in Russia that an entire presentation at our orientation was devoted to dealing with Russians' attitudes towards race. Growing up in the US, even in the midwestern, stereotypically honky state of Kansas, i was raised with a respect for people different from myself. Hours of class time were devoted to diversity education both in Elementary and High School so as to engrain the ethos of acceptance that the Civil Rights movement of the 60s and 70s established as a prerequisite for all educated Americans. Such a movement never took place in the Soviet Union, not because Russians were in love with their racist attitudes or because slavery never existed (indeed, slavery – or the Russian incarnation of it, serfdom – was a social institution that thrived until 1861) or even because the African population of Russia is paltry but thanks to, of all people, Stalin. During his tenure as the iron fist of the USSR, Stalin carried out a program of Russofication through which he created the Soviet people. Let me explain….
Russsofication entailed the compulsory learning of Russian language, forced resettlement (to fight feelings of nationalism) as well as the adoption of traditionally Russian mores and values by all peoples of the Soviet Union (a heavy task, especially when one considers that most if not all of the –stans, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, etc., were Muslim). One must understand that the USSR was composed of over 140 different ethnicities, many of which had been at each others’ throats for centuries (for example, the peoples of the former Yugoslavia), and in order to create a united Soviet nation, Stalin, himself a native son of Georgia, saw the need to create a united people (aside from being a complete monster, the man was also a complete genius). Russofication was intended to creat a new race of people – the Soviet people, who could champion the Communist cause with a united front. Although nationalities still appeared on ones passport (Armenian, Russian, Georgian, Jewish, etc.) all people in the USSR were above all considered Soviet. For this reason, the issue of civil rights and ethnic tolerance was a mute point since the government endorsed a policy which ignored ethnicity all together.
This, however, is not to say that ethnic distinctions did not exist in the former Soviet Union; they were mearing kept underground. As America’s recent battle over the civil rights of homosexuals has proven, to receive equality in the eyes of the government and the society at large, a marginalized group must first be visible. Since this visibility was surpressed by the government for so many years for the sake of soviet ideology, Russian culture’s racism continued to burn in Russians’ souls to the same degree it had before the Revolution.
That being said, I’d like to offer some anecdotes and stories of how the Russians I have met relate to ethnic minorities.
Despite the fact that Russians won the Second World War (contrary to many oppinions in the US, it was the Russians that defeated the Nazis, loosing about 28 million soldiers and civilians in the process), antisemitism continues to be a defining trait of the Russian soul. One of my classmates, Josephine, is the daughter of Russian Jews who immigrated to the US in the 60-70s. During soviet times, Jews were the only people, as far as I can tell, that were allowed to leave the USSR (other than dissidents, who were more often than not sent to the Gulag or killed). They were considered dangerous to the government and society, and invited to leave the country so as not to pollute the population any more than they already had. Joesphine’s assigned hostess was disappointed at not getting ‘a real American”. By this, she meant that Josephine was Jewish (not Russian, as I would have assumed since Josephine grew up in a Russian household) and therefore, could be seen as nothing else. After politely smiling and nodding to a series of insane demands from her hostess (including, but not limited to paying rent on bath towels!), Josephine moved in with an old friend of her grandmother’s who lived in Moscow the next day.
Tatiana Nikolaevna, whom I considered to be very intelligent and educated, often slips antisemetic comments into our late night discussions over tea without even flinching. Whether we are talking about the government (which is “all run by jews”) or Russia’s many oligarchs (those who made a fortune after the fall of Communism and for all intents and purposes run the Russian Federation’s government, whom Tatiana insists, with the universal rubbing of thumb and forefinger - $ - are also all Jews), it is clear to me that Jews, as is often the case in today’s ‘modern’ world as it was in Hitler’s Germany, are often blamed for the maladays and poverty of contemporary Russian society. As our orientation presentation recommended, I try not to think too much of these comments since, unlike in the US that I grew up in, antisemitism is accepted in Russia. I just try to keep on reminding myself that Tatiana grew up in a different society with diferent values, and that, while she may be educated even by my standards, it doesn’t mean that she shares my cultural background.
Just last night I was telling her about my best friend at school, Sharai, who grew up in Brooklyn, NYC surrounded by Russians. Our first year, Sharai constantly told me that I was crazy for learning Russian, not because of the strange alphabet or the complicated grammar, but because, to her ears, it was simple an ugly language that, no matter in what context she would hear, always sounded like two people arguing and shouting at each other. Russian intonation patterns are VERY different from those in English, and I often attributed her opinions to this peculiarity of the language (to help elaborate this difference: I was once told that an American accent in Russian sounded to Russian ears much like a Hindi accent in English sounds like to English-speakers, if this gives you any idea of how Russian intonation differs. The rises and falls, the cadence of the foreigner’s very brainwaves are simple different). When I explained Sharai’s oppinion of Russian to Tatiana, she immediately understood Sharai, not because Tatiana has any linguistic training or is aware of Russian students’ many nightmares over intonation patterns, but because she knew that many of the Russians living in New York were Jews with their own way of speaking Russian, their own intonation patterns (which she demonstrated for me, in a very funny and, I assume, accurate manner). I laughed until I remembered so many times that I’ve heard white Americans immitate Black American parlance and how I imagined African Americans taking much offense to these impersonations.
The issue of what to call African Americans is also a very curious topic for Americans in Russia. Russians tend to refer to them with a word whose root is very obviously nigger, causing many of us to cringe when talking about blacks in the States. Interestingly enough, to call someone chyornii (black) in Russian is actually a racial slur, although it is generally reserved for those peoples of dark complection from the Caucuses and gypsies mistaken for caucasians (for those who are unaware, there is a war going on right in Chechnya, located in the Caucuses, and the face of terrorism for Russians is first and foremost caucasian, not arab). There is, however, a ‘politically correct’ term for caucasians – litsa kavkaskoi natsional’nost’ , or faces of caucasian nationality.
As a budding Romanologist (a person who studies Romani, or gypsy, culture and peoples), the position of the romani in Russian culture is especially interesting for me. I was recently talking to a Russian friend about some good venues for romani performing arts (concerts, theater and the like). We had just finished a conversation about personal safety in Moscow in which my friend Sasha (of course his name was Sasha!) told me that those looking for trouble tend to find it and that I should strive to avoid ‘problemy’, problems, whenever possible. When our conversation turned to Romani he told me that “gypsies on the street – they’re trouble. Gypsies on the stage – they’re alright”. This is the dominant attitude towards Romani in Russia, a place that has developed an interesting dichotomy between the revered gyspies of the stage and the hated ‘wild’ gypsies of the street and countryside who are believe to be able to mesmerize you into handing over all your money with the power of the ‘ochi chyornii’, black eyes. I won’t go further on this topic, as this entry is already pretty long and thanks to a final paper I wrote for Anthro Theory last semester, I could go on and on on the topic of gypsies in Russia.
I hope this provides some insight on a topic I continue to be stumped by – Russians and minorities. Some may notice that I didn’t even broach the topic of gays in Russia; look forward to this topic in future entries.
Circus, Circus, Circus!!!
At the age of 14, I received my first copy of US Diving magazine in the mail. I remember this because between the advertisements for diving camps, speedos and sammys, I found a casting call from Cirque du Soliel. They were inviting all acrobats, gymnasts and divers to audition for their world-reknowned troupe. This advertisement will forever be a part of my memory because it began my life-long dream to run away with the circus. I still don’t understand why it took an advertisement to spark this interest; from a young age I excelled at gymnastics and tumbling, and much to my mother’s dismay, I would often juggle furniture with my feet while watching my favorite TV programs. I was born to live the life of a circus performer, and the idea of travelling the world with comrades that shared my passion was simply a dream to my young mind.
I never gave up that dream, although I did become more realistic about my marketability after a career as a circus performer (“Tell me, job candidate, did you ever complete a college diploma?” “Well, no, but I can juggle six burning pins while doing the splits!”). I decided to leave my dream just that – a dream. Nonetheless, I own many of Cirque du Soliel’s tapes and DVDs and see the circus live in person whenever possible. Since my first day in Moscow when I noticed countless billboards and various advertisements for the circus here, it became a top priority for me to see a real Russian circus.
This opportunity presented itself last week when my parents were in town. Their tour guide aranged a night at the circus for their group and invited me to come along. I was amazed. For those who aren’t familiar with the circus world, Russian and the former Soviet Union are known for their strong tradition and talent in the circus arts. A quick glance at the credits of any Cirque du Soliel movie will prove this as many of the performers’ names end in –ov, -skii, and –enko and are near impossible to pronounce because of the consonant clusters (Gtekshcheno, for example). I knew I was in for a treat here in Moscow, the Circus Holleywood of Russia, if you will.
The circus had just opened this fall and was often refered to as “the new circus” (as opposed to the old one, which does exist); this name was well deserved. The music was often rock ‘n roll and the costumes were fashionably hip and modern (by Moscow standards), neon and sometimes glowed in the dark. I won’t try to describe the feats of flexibility and gravity defying stunts I witnessed since most of them would require a pen and paper to adequately describe, but let’s just say I was VERY impressed by the performers.
I was however, a little disturbed by those acts, which featured animals. I love the circus for the strange light it casts on the human body and all its possibilities which normal people are never able to explore because, for the average person, touching ones toes is an amazing feat much less soaring through the air on a flying trapez. While those circus arts were many, there were just as many acts, no less amazing, that employed the help of animals. While I was shocked and amazed that someone could actually train a cat to come on call and jump through a hoop, I had trouble watching the bear act. Their muzzles only allowed them enough room to open their mouths for a treat and to lick their lips, and overall, they seemed so drugged (or somehow subdued) that I couldn’t understand how they managed to remember their tricks (for example, riding a motorcyle or twirling a flaming batton with their paws while lying on their backs). The gaze of unhappy souls was clearly seen on the bears’ faces as in the elephants’ eyes.
As far as I can tell, an organization like PETA has no sister organ in Russian society, and while I love the circus and I greatly enjoyed my evening there, I couldn’t shake the feeling that they were exploiting those creatures without voices, and my money was supporting it. I think I’ll stick with Cirque du Soliel, which only employs human beings.
