From Russia with Love

An Evening Retrospective of Russian Culture

While I’ve already posted about the Thanksgiving holiday’s celebrations, I haven’t reported on all the festivities, namely a very interesting Saturday night.
My acquainance and teacher Andrei Sergeevich invited me to an evening of folklore (in the Russian sense of the word, meaning Russian folk music, dance and culture) where members of his many choirs were gathering to celebrate (?). When he invited me, I didn’t quite understand if it was a concert or simply a tea time get together, so I decided to bring Lindsey along for back up (and in any event, an excuse to leave: “Oh, Lindsey has a headache, we have to go”).
It turned out to be an informal concert/get together. Andrei Sergeevich’s family (wife and three kids) put on a psuedo-concert and invited the audience to join them in singing any songs that we knew. I obviously didn’t know very many songs, but the nice thing about Russian folk music is you can sing along without reallly knowing the words, so I just belted the notes with some universal vowel sounds and had a good time.
Everyone also got up and danced. I learned some new moves with was quite fun. Lindsey, however, was TERRIFIED! Eventhough she took part in the Russian School choir last summer, she doesn’t like to sing and hate dancing even more. Of course, we were guests, so she didn’t really have an option in the matter.
Towards the end we played a Marco Polo sort of game where everyone stood in a circle and chose a boy (universally named Yasha) to stand blindfolded in the middle. Next, a girl (Masha) was chosen for Yasha to catch by saying “tuda….tuda” (over here…over here). It was very funny to watch Yasha chase after this girl (it was also incredibly Russian: girl-crazy boy runs after pretty girl.) Once Masha was finally caught, Yasha felt her down from head to toe and tried to guess who it was. If he couldn’t guess immediately, Masha returned the the circle and Yasha took the blindfold off. He had to then pick her out of the circle of people. Once he chose the right girl, the two of them stood back-to-back in the middle of the circle. Everyone counted “Paz! Dva! Sud’ba!” (One! Two! Fate!) and both of them looked over one of their shoulders. If they looked in the same direction, it was decided that it was indeed ‘sud’ba’ and they would get married. This game is usually for children, but we all played together.
It was absolutely hilarious to watch the boy run all over the place after Masha; well, at least it was until I was chosen to be Yasha. Unable to refuse such an honor, I dawned the blindfold and did my best to catch my Masha with little success. I was stepping on the feet of those in the circle, acccidentally grabing their various body parts thinking it was my Masha. Ugg. One word: embarassing. In any event, I think they enjoyed seeing the American kid making a fool of himself. Unlike my last post, I enjoyed this. Humiliation is a wonderfully quick way to endear oneself into the hearts of others, and I found myself laughing harder at myself than anyone else.
The Americans’ humilitation continued when Lindsey was chosen to be Masha. She tried to deny the offer, but our hosts would have nothing of it. When Yasha was feeling her all over to try to guess who it was, everyone looked at me uneasily. They all thought that she was my girlfriend! Andrei Sergeevich tried to lighten things up by joking:
-This kind of game would never happen in the States, would it? He asked as Yasha was feeling Lindsey’s legs. I laughed and told him no. Such a game would cause lawsuits back at home!
When Yasha correctly picked Lindsey out of the circle, they looked over the same shoulder and it was decided that fate meant for them to be together. Everyone laughingly gave me their condolences and we proceeded to have some tea and cookies.
I had concert tickets that night, so we couldn’t stay long for tea, said our goodbyes and went back to the metro. I was going to Klub Tochka to see 5’NIZZA play. (5’NIZZA is a band whose name is a play on words. In Russian, five is pyat’, so when read in Russian, their name is Pyat’nitza, the word for Friday. They’re from eastern Ukraine and sing a fusion of rock/rap/reggae in Russian). One of my biggest goals for my semester in Moscow was to see them live. I missed their last concert in October, so when I saw they’d be playing again, I bought my tickets immediately.
It was a strange musical journey that night from the oldest of Russian musical traditions to one of the newest, most populare groups in Russia. I met Marco and his friend Pablo, who was visiting, at the club. It was a GREAT concert and the club was wonderful to boot! There wasn’t a bad seat in the house. I was, however, a little confused by what was playing on the Tvs throughout the club. Half of them where showing what was going on on stage and the other half were tunned to Animal Planet. Strange combo, right?
Around 4:30 in the morning, I left Marco and Pablo trying to teach two blond Russian beauties how to salsa on the dancefloor. Since the Metro was closed, I hailed a cab (well, it was actually just some guy in a car. This is a very common practice in Russian and completely safe). He was the coolest cabbie I’ve had so far in Moscow. He was originally from Syria but spent a number of years in Australia and Norway before coming to live with his Russian wife in Moscow where he studies Neuroscience. He spoke with an Australian accent and his speech was full of the mandatory ‘fuck/fucking/fuckers’ that I expect any foreigner would pick up living in Australia for seven years. It was a great ride, especially considering the fact that most cab rides I take are horrible awkward because I don’t like speaking in Russian to strangers (it’s much harder to speak a foreign language to strangers, although I am getting better about this as practically everyone I meet/talk to is a stranger).
I had a Shuarma (it’s a doenner for those of you in Berlin now) on my way home and went to bed full and completely satisfied with my evening. Perhaps Russia isn’t as bad as I thought.

posted by Misha Molodoi @ 1:03 PM