From Russia with Love

Turkey Day, po-russkii

Unlike my friends and collegues back in the States, I took no breaks from school this week to gorge myself in the oldest of American traditions. It’s a pity, though; I really could have used the break to reevaluated and fully appreciate the many good experiences and opportunities that living in Moscow has given me, especially since this week was filled with those days that made me wonder what the hell I was thinking when I chose to come to this place.
I guess the beginning of my week wasn’t all that bad; the problems really started on Wednesday when, if I were still at Middlebury, I would have been home in Kansas for the holiday weekend. It was a relaxing enough day. Of my two classes, one was cancelled, so I took the opportunity to get some nap-time in before my marathon three-hour night class. It was difficult to get up from my 2.5 hour-long nap; I almost convinced myself not to go, but knowing this class was my mainstream and only met once a week, I told myself it was too important to skip. Man, that’s the last time I don’t trust my first instinct.
I took my seat in the first row of the classroom; the professor has a low mumbly voice with a lisp, so I can usually only understand him when I sit in the front. The lecture started on a relatively good note. I was one of the only people in the room who had actually come to the last lecture, so when the professor asked for a recap, I was his go-to guy in a way. The new lecture started and I was somewhat scared. The subject was “the concept of love in the slavonic world” (this class, by the way, is called ‘Problems of Ritual Symbolism in the Slavonic World’); as such, I knew there would be a lot of ancient Russian and Old Church Slavonic vocab and etymologies (both these languages are dead and fiercely hard for even Russians to make any sense of although they are the parent languages for modern Russian, and in Old Church Slavonic’s case, the entire family of Slavonic languages). It didn’t go as bad as I would have expected. I was understanding the etymologies and taking more notes that I had all semester. This must have been due to the fact that I’m a fan of linguistics and jumped with curiosity at a lecture that wasn’t about random rituals of country Russians or demonology.
With twenty minutes of class left to go before the break, the professor passed out handouts with examples of ‘love’ words given in the form of sayings and poems. Sayings can be my worst nightmare sometimes since they tend to be so idiomatic. This was one of those times. The first example was built around ‘pop’, a word I didn’t know which means priest. The only time the noun form was used (as opposed to a verb or adjective made from this same root word) was in the genitive case, ‘popa’. Now, any Russian speakers or people familiar with what a ‘popo’ is might understand my confusion. This word appeared to be the genitive form of ‘toosh/butt’ meaning it meant ‘of the toosh/the butt’s’. Being incredible confused, I asked my neighbor what this word meant – ‘PopA? Eto sviashchennik’ (PopA? That’s another word for priest). Realizing that the accented syllable was different for ‘Of the priest (popA)’ and ‘Of the butt (pOpa)’, I saw my mistake. Nonetheless, I remain a little suspect of a language whose word for priest is so similar to its word for ass. This example should also give you some idea of why Russian is so hard to learn. Stress can change the meaning of many words and if that weren’t enough, stress changes in many words when they appear in different cases. Unlike the Romance languages, there are no accents in Russian to indicate where the stress lies. Well actually, there is one, but it’s never written, so basically you just have to know where the stress in words is or sound like a fool. Take a wild guess as to which is the more common of these two possibilities.
When I explained my confusion regarding the whole ‘priest/butt’ problem, my neighbors definitely thought I was a fool. I was disappointed; I shared my misunderstanding with them (‘Oh, so it’s the PRIEST’S (popA), not the BUTT’S (pOpa)!’) because I thought it was funny and they could laugh with me about it. On the contrary, they laughed AT me.
New Rule for Mike in class: keep your damn mouth shut.
I was understandably upset and decided that it would just be best to spend the remaining fifteen minutes of class looking down at my handout as though I actually understood something. The professor continued lecturing on the remaining axioms and aparently notice my bowed head.
-Well, Mike, this must be hard for you to understand the sayings – he said in Russian before translating into English for my poor, ignorent American self. I was insulted, infront of the whole class no less. I had to prove myself, show them that I could indeed speak Russian. SAY SOMETHING, MICHAEL! ANYTHING!
I pulled a comment out of my ass on the new axiom we were descussing. It wasn’t thought through. It wasn’t inspiring or enlightening, but it was something. No one agreed with me, but I didn’t care. I just needed to prove to them that I understood in some way what they were talking about. So much for Mike’s new Rule.
I returned my gaze to the piece of paper before me. I’ll admit it: I was sulking. I wanted to walk out of the classroom right then and there, but since there were only ten minutes left, I decided to sit through it if for no other reason than to deny them the joy of knowing that they ruined my Thanksgiving Eve.
While watching the time tick away on my watch, I hear the proffessor say my name (not Misha, but Maikl, the Russian version of my English name. Maikl sounds very foreign in Russian discourse and sticks out like a sore thumb). In his mumbly-lisp voice I only understood one other word besides my name (‘odnopolnii’ – same-sex) before the classroom burst out in laughter. I had no idea what was so funny, but judging by the fact that he said my name in a sentence without looking at me, it was clear who the butt of the joke was. Seven minutes left.
I started to look at the poems printed on the handout. In the first one, there were maybe two words that I didn’t understand. Of course they were the most important words in the poem. I was so emotionally exhausted that I didn’t get my dictionary out to look them up. After all, it was already T-5 minutes and counting.
Sitting quietly in the middle of discussion, I heard the proffesor say Maikl again; this time he was looking at me.
-Maybe you have something to say about this poem?
If I were naked, this would have been my worst nightmare. I didn’t have anything left to prove; the class of so-called anthropologists, people who should be culturally tolerant and interested in trasnational understanding, had already judged me as another stupid American. Nothing I could say would convince them otherwise. I looked the professor in the eyes:
-U menia net slova.
The class once again erupted in laughter. If I were to somehow translate the miniscule grammatical mistake I made into English, it would sound something like ‘I don’t have any word’ or ‘I don’t have word’.
The teacher corrected me –Net slov – and continued lecturing until the fifteen-minute break before seminar started. I was out of that hellhole of a university faster than you can say ‘silly American’. The teacher would have to find someone else to make fun of for the next 1.5 hours because I was done! I had enough public humiliation for one night. Anyway, I had tickets to the symphony, which was infinitely more appealling.
I saw a concert of the Four Seasons with two of my friends from the Middlebury program. First they played Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and then another piece called ‘The Four Seasons in Buenos Aires’ (it may be of interest to know that Russian has no word for ‘season’ in the winter/spring/summer/autumn sense of the word. They have to say ‘The Times of the Year’). It was a pretty good concert although the encores lasted longer than the concert itself. Both of the two soloists played encores and then the orchestra itself played two. This was unbelievable for both me and my companions who have significant musical experience. The orchestra didn’t just play an encore (which is strange enough), but TWO encores, both of which were full pieces (i.e. – at least three movements). Needless to say, we left before the second encore; it was getting late.
On the way back to the Metro station, a DVD caught my eye on the street. Moscow has countless street vendors of pirated DVDs that I usually don’t buy because of the quality of picture and bad dubbing. This DVD was, however, enough to make all three of us stop. It was ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’ (which doesn’t come out in Russia until December 22nd!). It had apparently just hit the streets in Moscow that day, as the vendors were quick to point out after noticing our interest. They promised the best quality of picture and sound; it even had an English soundtrack!
-And how much does it cost?
-300 rubles (about ten bucks). This is a deal for ANY DVD in the states, but a little expensive for the street-sold knock offs one finds in Moscow. The vendor saw our reaction to the price.
-And there’s a two-week guarantee! This made me laugh for the first time the whole night.
The three of us talked it over and decided we could find it for much cheaper at Gorbushka’s. We said our thank yous and walked away. We didn’t get two meters before the guy came running after us.
-You know, for you, I can go as low as 250 rubles.
This was still too expensive and we continued walking.
-Ok, 200! But that’s it!
Now that’s what I wanted to hear! I handed over my $6.50 in rubles and walked away a happy man.
-Ahh, vy khitrie (Ahh, you guys are clever), Where are you from?
-America. Apparently we can be cunning sometimes, not just silly or stupid.
After such a horrible day at school, who knew all it would take to make me feel better was some Vivaldi and Harry Potter?
I returned to Sarah and Lindsey’s dorm room and told them about my day. It was relieving to have friends with such sympathetic ears. Besides the bottle of vodka and frig full of beers, they said they had something that was sure to cheer me up.
What was it you ask? Harry Potter of course! They had apparently bought it at the same stand as I did! We laughed so much, I forgot all about my professor and mean classmates. We watched the whole thing and I went to bed happy again.
(As a side note, I was a little disappointed in the newest Harry Potter film. I haven’t read the books, but even I could tell they left a lot out).

The next day was Thanksgiving, and Lindsey and I were on a mission to find a Thanksgiving meal. After much searching, we ended up at the Starlight Diner, a popular expat hang out with wonderfully authentic, if not overpriced, American Diner food. The American haven’s Thanksgiving dinner (750 rubles – over $20!) included butternut squash soup, turkey, mashed potatoes, giblet gravy, stuffing, grilled vegetables and of course pumpkin pie. We added a bottle of Soviet Champaigne to top things off and had a grand old time!
As is tradition, Lindsey and I listed all the things we were thankful for. An abridged version of the list: friends, family, the Starlight Diner, football players, Elvis Presley, and Forrest Gump. We discussed the possibilities of Russia having its own holiday devoted to giving thanks, and historical circumstances aside, we decided that it simply wasn’t possible. Russians just don’t have a lot to be thankful for. “I’m thankful for all the dictatorial regimes that have cursed and tormented my people for centuries!” It just doesn’t sound right, does it?
The evening was rounded off by a private screening of ‘Wallace and Gromit’ in Lindsey’s dorm room.
On a related note, the MiddKids here in Moscow are organizing their own Thanksgiving celebration. Because of scheduling conflicts, Thanksgiving will be celebrated today (Sunday) at Chris’s house. We’re going to have a turkey, apple pie, mashed potatoes, green bean caseroile and Beste’s world famous Company Hashbrowns (unfortunately, I couldn’t find packaged hashbrowns anywhere in Moscow, so we’re using freshly shreeded potatoes. I hope it turns out all right).

Happy belated Turkey Day to one and all. I hope the holidays gave you some needed relaxation to get through the rest of the semester. Just remember: Christmas will be here before you know it!

posted by Misha Molodoi @ 11:26 AM