Adventures in Vladimir

The последный post - for now.

2009-09-07T04:32:14Z

Whew! It's been a while since I've posted. After a wonderful, relaxing, family-filled stay at home, it took a red-eye flight to Boston, a bus trip, and a car ride, an all-nighter packing, one U-Haul rental, several sweaty hours of moving, lots of cleaning, many Goodwill trips, and lots of unpacking, but I am finally settled in the new apartment and as of today have internet access at home. Hooray! I think the new place and the new roommate are going to work out fine. Now if I can just convince the kitty to come out from under my bed...

Classes started this past week. I'll be teaching ESl for international graduate students, and they're a lovely group: bright, hardworking, funny, and curious. We spent most of the first class discussing American greetings - for example, the first bump, and the appropriate answer to the question "What's up?". I love my job.

This weekend I've been greatly enjoying the pleasures of life on the east coast. I hit up the farmer's market yesterday for heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, chard, the last of the summer squash, and the first of the potatoes. After a day of bustling around with my roommate getting the apartment set up, we and two more friends drove down to the beach, to toss a frisbee in the surf and watch the sunset. Is there anything better than rolling up your jeans to wade into the waves, and feeling the sand shifting under your toes? Sitting with my friends in the fading golden light, I felt truly lucky to be alive in this beautiful place.

And with that, plus the very last of my Russia pictures, I'll sign off the russkiblog once more. It's been a wonderful summer - I've made so many excellent memories -but now the air is growing chilly and it's time to buckle down to teaching, studying, and of course, actually writing my paper.

Vladimir, I will see you again soon. In the meantime, I'll be at www.livejournal.com/bona_lector.

Earthquake!

2009-08-20T23:18:26Z

Back in AK for the week, and got welcomed home by an honest-to-God earthquake yesterday morning. Wheee! I love my state. No moose sightings so far, but I'm hopeful.

Spent an absolutely lovely weekend in the bay area playing Rock Band (I rock on the drums) eating delicious Asian food of every description: dim sum, Korean hot pot, pearl milk tea, and upscale Thai...many thanks for Urse and Andy for hosting, and Ming for showing us the best food in Oakland. :) You guys make it worth the trip every time.

Finally, finally got the next set of pictures up here. Be forewarned: you have to wade through several cute baby pictures before you get to the dacha shots. You won't regret it. My friend Ira's daughter is really, REALLY cute. This is the second-to-last Russia slideshow, then I'll head back to my regular blog.

Sadly, my summer's just about over. One more week in Alaska, a quick trip to the state fair, and I'll be back to New Hampshire to move in to my new apartment with my new roomie, put on my new back-to-school pants, and start being a teacher again.

Burnt, but better.

2009-08-10T21:20:27Z

After two days of unpacking, laundry, paying bills, and generally getting resettled, the feeling of unreality has subsided. I've gotten readjusted to the idea that yes, I live here. And despite my (rapidly dwindling) supply of Russian chocolate, Russia seems a million miles away. Now I'm completely focused on finding a place to live when my lease runs out in three weeks. Thus far my panic level is fairly low, but I do head home to Alaska on Friday and I want to get it settled before then. Eeeeek!

Spent Saturday at gloriously seedy Hampton Beach, foolishly not wearing sunscreen and getting monumentally sunburnt. I am epically pink on my legs, shoulders, and back. Then headed down to Cambridge to spend some time with the lovely Rebecca Emily and her collection of entertaining friends. Thanks for the cupcakes, Beckmart!

Finally got roused from my melancholy enough to post my pics from St. Petersburg, mostly from Peterhof, because, well, fountains are pretty. There's a nice description of the grounds and history hereif anyone wants to know more about it.

Dislocation.

2009-08-06T02:16:55Z

After a weekend in Pennsylvania with my wonderful family and two days with my sis and her adorable kitten in Brooklyn, then a rather exhausting day of bus and car rides, I am finally back in New Hampshire. And as soon as I pulled up to my house, I got hit with the weirdest feeling of unreality. Do I really live here? Is this really my kitchen, my bedroom, my closet? I dumped my bags on the floor and gratefully took my friends up on their offer of dinner, just to not be in this strange empty house that must have felt familiar at some point. Bringing the kitty home with me helped, even though he has really filled out this summer, so he looks different than I remembered. Still that odd distance, discomfort, dislocation remains.

Even more odd, up until now it's Russia that has seemed like the dream - a lovely, insubstantial memory. Or maybe it's more that it's so concretely the past now, I've made such a clean break from it, since I can't interact here with anyone who had been to Vladimir or the AH or knows anything about them. I dove back into the world of my family and friends, metro cards and bus tickets, chicken fingers and outlet malls. Even eating the dried apples and candy Ira's mom packed me off with couldn't make it seem real. A trek out to Brighton Beach to get pierog and salat, despite the thrill of having the clerks understand me and respond in Russian (progress from three years ago!), just emphasized that this is really America - too mixed together and romanticized.

In my sister's apartment, or my cousin's, or my friends', I didn't notice a sensation of not-home, because, well, those places are perfectly comfortable and familiar but they aren't my home. Sitting here, this life in New Hampshire feels like the dream, the untruth, and all I want to do is go back.

Probably it'll be better in the morning.

Longest Thursday ever.

2009-07-30T22:20:06Z

Back in New York now at Chelsea’s apartment in Brooklyn. My flight took off at noon from Moscow, was in the air for ten hours, and landed at two pm in New York. Time travel!

We ended up going into Moscow late Monday night to walk around the beautiful parks, with the fountains lit up red and gold, and MGU and GUM both lit up like fairy tale castles. It was beyond amazing - a lovely warm night, with all the young people out strolling around, walking through Red Square where so much history has taken place. I can’t believe how fast six weeks went by. It’s always sad to leave, but this time I know I’ll be back, hopefully within a year or two, and that makes it easier.

Here's a list I put together waiting for my flight to board at Sheremetevo, half a world away from here.

Things I’m going to miss about being in Russia:

-getting mistaken for a Russian. I love it when random people on the street ask me the time, or when the next bus arrives, or whether this is the line for Delta, because it means I don’t immediately strike people as a foreigner. Not that I always understand the question, or am able to answer it, but still. Blending-in success! Of course, the minute I haul out my American passport everything changes. I hate that look of mild annoyance on the faces of the airport staff when they see a blue passport and realize (sigh) they’ll have to deal with this one in English.

-not getting mistaken for a Russian. At the Fakel market in Vladimir, I attempted to buy cucumbers from a garrulous middle-aged guy and messed up some case endings. He told his partner to pick out the best cucumbers for the инестранка (foreign girl), asked me where I was from, and then gave me a free cucumber to eat while I walked around. He then proceeded to ask my friend Amanda if she was married, and if she might want to marry him. Totally worth the 18 rubles I paid for the cucumbers, I think.

-that feeling of being somewhere between centuries. I get it looking at the cathedrals, standing in Red Square, shopping at the market. I had it at the dacha, after the banya, steamed and scrubbed, wearing a worn-soft old housedress of Babulya’s, washing dishes at the outdoor faucet under the raspberry bushes. I felt like had stepped back into the fifties, or the twenties - some time long past.

-feeling passive knowledge turn into active knowledge. During the last year of Russian classes, doing workbook exercises and cramming for vocab quizzes, I developed a base of grammar and vocabulary that was just laying dormant somewhere near my hippocampus (or brain stem, or whatever). Every day, watching TV, listening to people talking, reading signs, I saw words and constructions that I recognized, and I could actually feel the information shifting to the front of my brain. Cool.

-listening to stories about Soviet times and Perestroika. My Russian has finally gotten good enough that I can understand a lot of what people are saying, if there’s context and they’re patient. I spent a lot of time sitting with Babulya, looking at her photo albums, all those serious-faced women with their scores of children and home-sewn dresses. I also got to hear some stories from Natasha about making do during Perestroika. Sasha’s job took him to the seaside, where red caviar was cheap, and she talked about eating nothing but caviar sandwiches for weeks on end (much to the envy of her colleagues, who were eating kielbasa - she ended up swapping them lunches!).

-Russian women’s clothes. Sparkles, ruffles, short skirts, and absolutely insanely ridiculously awesome shoes. Sitting in the park for an hour is better than a fashion show. Though I will be happy to stop feeling short, fat, and poorly shod all the time. Which is not unrelated to...

-the food. I think anyone who’s been reading this blog knows how I feel about Russian food: the chocolate, the keffir, the tvorak, the blini, the soups, the salads, the homemade jam, and the heavenly black bread. I don’t know how Russian women manage to eat so little of it.

Finally, most importantly, the people. I’m going to miss my funny, intelligent, generous coworkers at the American Home. I’m going to miss the brave and always interesting individuals who choose to teach there. I’m going to miss my wonderful friends in Vladimir, who welcome me into their lives for however long I stay. And I’m going to miss all the Ivanovs: from Babulya who called me мая милая девушка and asked God to keep me as I traveled down to little Varia who can’t yet pronounce my name. I’ve really been blessed in my home away from home.

Na dache.

2009-07-27T10:05:20Z

Finally managed to get pictures from my last week in Vladimir posted. Kodakgallery is being weird and won't let me rearrange them, so they aren't in the order I'd like. Oh well.

Our trip out to the dacha on Friday was entertaining - after a two and a half hour drive, we finally turned onto a little dirt road and bumped along another few minutes, finally in sight of the dacha...only to be confronted with a massive pile of sand blocking the road, right where the workers left off the night before, apparently. So we turned around and found another road, which hadn't been used since the spring, and was completely covered in head-high plants. And we plowed through that mess in a Subaru hatchback with wildflowers flying everywhere and Babulya crossing herself every minute. Wheee!

The Ivanovs' dacha is a slice of heaven - quiet, peaceful, and ridiculously, lushly, abundantly green and growing. They've got pear and apple and plum trees, cherry trees, at least four different kinds of berries including red and black currants, a vegetable garden with peas and cucumbers and carrots and green onions and lettuce, and of course every kind of flower you can imagine. Of course, as enamored as I was of the nature, the nature didn't have much love for me. I was so excited about this wealth of produce that I literally ate myself sick on Friday and spent most of the afternoon laying on the porch swing feeling sorry for myself. Bleah. On Saturday I'd recovered enough to go swimming in a nearby reservoir, and help Ira's mom pick berries, tons and tons of them in the afternoon. Unfortunately, the horseflies were out in full force, and I was the newest and most interesting blood. As I was standing in the berry bushes, swatting away horseflies and pricking my fingers, I somehow also managed to step in a nest of biting ants. Back on the porch swing I went. But in the evening there was the banya, and shashlik, and I finally, at long last, got to roast a zeffir, which is the closest thing here to a marshmallow.

Another quiet day at home today, and hopefully off to Moscow tomorrow.

ruskiblog @ 2009-07-23T19:06:00

2009-07-23T15:23:45Z

After a manic last week which included finishing up all my work at the AH and saying goodbye to all my Vladimir friends, I made my way to Moscow on Friday night and then to Krasnagorsk, where I am staying with the wonderful Ivanovs.

Ira and I went to St. Petersburg for three days, mostly so I could see the fountains at Petergof, and boy were they ever worth it. That place is spectacular, and we had a glorious sunny day to walk around the park and tour the palace and take lots and lots of pictures. We had a pretty hilarious marshrutka ride back from Petergof, as the marshrutka was so packed that I ended up in the front squished between the driver and his daughter who was collecting money, handing things back and forth. The driver, who himself wasn't Russian - maybe from one of the 'stans - alternated between shouting into his cell phone, weaving through traffic, and asking me questions like, "So, Micheal Jackson died, eh? He did a lot of operations to his face, didn't he?" Surreal, and awesome. We spent the other two days walking around the city, exploring the cathedrals, and poking our heads into the expensive boutiques. I also got to eat at Teremok, which I kind of missed. It's basically Russian fast food, McDonald's except they serve blini and kasha and borsh.

We stayed with her cousin, who has a tiny room in an обшижитие, where the toilets and kitchen are communal. Naturally there wasn't any hot water, so I got to wash my hair upside down in the sink while Ira poured boiled water over me. Russki extreme! Still, it was comfortable and awfully convenient, being a stone's throw from the train station.

After two days of relaxing, eating delicious homemade Russian food (силедка под шубе!), listening to stories from Ira's Babulya, and playing in the playgrounds with Ira's gorgeous almost two-year-old, we're off to the dacha for the weekend to pick raspberries. Wheee! I can't believe it's almost over.

The birthday haul.

2009-07-13T09:55:20Z

Earrings: 2 pairs (plus one matching necklace)
Russian children's books: many (plus a book-on-cd of poetry)
Russian films: 1
Chocolate bars: 5
Roses: about a dozen (from three different people)
Toasts: too many to count
Poems written especially for me (!!!): 1

Basically, I have the nicest friends and family in the world. I feel so loved. :) Thanks to everyone who made my birthday fantastic.

Spent Friday night at my lovely friend Lyuba's house with her charming parents, eating meat and potatoes and pierogi and blini with homemade jam. Her father, as it turns out, is a long-time amateur poet and he composed a beautiful poem for me which I mostly understood and completely treasure. I also managed to catch a cheesy American horror movie (no subtitles - whee!) at the recently renovated movie theater downtown. Pricey, but definitely comfortable, and I understood more than I expected to.

Saturday I went with my host family to Suzdal, to see an exhibit of gold - icon decorations and the like. We spent the afternoon wandering around the monastery taking pictures, drinking medovukha (sort of like beer made from honey), and feeding sunflower seeds to the pigeons. In the evening I met up with some former students at a cafe and we ended up...bowling! First time I've done that in Russia. I won two games in a row. :)

Sunday I spent in the nature, hanging out on the bank of a river watching the butterflies and well, eating (it's what we do for fun here). Gorgeous sunshine, a peaceful spot, and nice company = a lovely afternoon. I'll be very sad to go.

This week is going to be manic saying goodbye to everyone and trying to finish up my work before I leave - probably not going to get any photos posted, but we'll see.

Life is good.

2009-07-09T10:17:27Z

Not much to report over the past week - a lot of working, a lot of crappy rainy weather, a lot of playing Uno with my host family (this has been surprisingly helpful for my vocabulary, as I think I will never forget the verb "to skip"). Obama's visit has been all over the news. My coworkers have been making a lot of hilariously snarky comments about the "typical Russian breakfast" Putin served him, which apparently included eggs with black caviar, some kind of expensive fish, and pelmeni (dumplings) made with - get this - quail (I think they said quail). In other words, the kind of food a typical Russian will probably never see in his lifetime.

Today is again gray and rainy and blah, BUT:
there are kittens playing in the backyard;
my coworkers not only remembered my birthday but bought me a really pretty pair of earrings, which I am currently wearing;
I have already drunk champagne today and expect to drink more tonight; and
I have birthday-celebration invitations for tomorrow night and Monday already.

So I figure I am one lucky girl. Wheee!

Зоболела, чут-чут.

2009-07-06T13:30:38Z

Bleargh. It is raining and cold and I am feeling headache-y and sore-throat-y right now.

I spent the weekend with my former host Ira in the derevnya (village), where her mother and brother live. I am a big fan of the derevnya, where chickens strut down the peaceful roads and every family has a garden full of potatoes and strawberries. We'd been planning this trip for weeks, but unfortunately this turned out to be a record-settingly cold weekend, with temperatures around 10C. We showed up and Ira's mom immediately swaddled me in soft, worn-out old exercise pants and a huge winter sweater. I have to say, sometimes I get annoyed by the constant mothering by every woman (person, really) in sight, and sometimes it's really really nice. Especially the part where they are constantly feeding you - fresh baked pierog, brimming cups of berries with milk and sugar, handfuls of sunflower seeds. And honestly there's not much else to do on a rainy day, but relax and eat and watch TV and eat and play chess and take a nap and eat again and go to the banya. Which I did. Twice. There is just nothing better than the real wooden banyas.

We spent a lot of time with their neighbors, including the kindly gold-toothed patriarch, Sergei Ivanovich, who for some reason absolutely adores me and likes to lead me around by the arm and show me things, or quiz me about Russian history, or explain various mysteries of the universe, such as how to heal someone by laying your hands on them and sending "your little people" into them. I have mentioned that many Russians are a bit superstitious, yes? He also made some amazingly delicious shashlik for us, which we ate with dill and green onions right out of the garden, and then sang Russian folk songs around the table. Oh, and they had a day-old litter of three tiny kittens with the weensiest little paws and tails I have ever seen.

The whole weekend was like an antidote to my first taste of Globus, the brand-new German shopping center on the edge of town, which I visited for the first time on Saturday and absolutely loathed. It's basically a Super Wal-Mart, with the same horrible chemical smell, fluorescent lights, blaring music, and manaical crowds of bargain hunters. I get that it's incredibly convenient - it's not like I don't shop at Target in the States, so it's pretty hypocritical of me to get in a huff - but oh how I hated to see the encroachment of the big box store on Russia. To me, big box stores represent the absolute worst of Western culture, with everything cheap and disposable and wrapped in plastic packaging. As I've said before, it's the province of the foriegner to demand the preservation of the quaint, inconvenient traditions, while the Russians are embracing modernity wholeheartedly. Still and all, it made me so sad. As soon as I feel better I am going straight to the central market to buy something from a babushka.

Stupid koshki.

2009-07-03T10:25:55Z

I had a hard time sleeping last night because the street cats were in full howl right outside my window. Normally I feel sorry for them, but at 2 am I was wishing for some big heavy boots to throw.

Three of the teachers left this morning, so it's quiet and a bit sad around the AH today. I put up some pictures of Suzdal and other sights from the past week, including the little monument to Michael Jackson that did appear after all but was quickly whisked away.

If the weather cooperates I'll be off to the dacha this weekend. I can't have fireworks but I'll at least be eating barbecue. С празднкиом! Happy Fourth of July, everyone.

Не очень плохо! Not too shabby.

2009-06-30T08:25:05Z

Had my first Russian lesson with my old Russian tutor, Tanya, yesterday morning. She said (I don't know how truthfully) that I hadn't forgotten anything and that she was proud of me. Yay! She was definitely dealing me some tougher vocab words then she used to, and though I'm still making tons of mistakes with case endings (stupid genitive plural) I can usually fix them when she points them out. So overall I felt pretty good about myself. Especially because I had a long involved conversation with my host dad after dinner on the subject of alcohol and the merits of, say, beer versus cognac, which is all he drinks. I've gotten used to my host family's sense of humor, enough so that I can understand their jokes and even contribute one of my own once in a while. I really enjoy being around them.

Weekend recap: On Saturday we finally got some sunshine after several days of rain, so my host dad and sister took me to the park whose name I can never remember because it’s a long, complicated date - I’ll just call it Gorodskoi Park. Turns out that in the back of the park they have these incredibly old Soviet era kiddie rides, all metal painted bright primary colors, little airplanes and cars and swings and whatnot. Ksyusha and I rode on a kind of mini roller coaster, pleasantly creaky and stomach-churning.

After that my friends Larissa and Vova picked me up for a trip to Suzdal, a gorgeous small town often overrun with tourists about twenty minutes away. We walked around, looked at all the lovely old churches, checked out the souvenier stands. The babushki were out in force selling their wares - it’s a pretty common sight by the side of the road or at a market here to see old women sitting on wooden crates selling whatever they’ve got, mostly fresh fruits and vegetables or flowers or sunflower seeds. We bought some pickles, which the babushka scooped out of a big wooden tub and gave to us in a little plastic bag. It's a pretty sweet life - walkin’ around in the sunshine, eatin’ a pickle. When we had our fill of gazing at the cathedrals, we stopped for soup in a cafe. I had solyanka, a kind of hearty meat soup, with sour cream and dill of course.

Back in Vladimir I had a totally different culinary experience - my first trip to "Мистер Гамбургер" (Mister Gamburger), a kind of imitation McDonald's. The menu was simple and hilariously transliterated - my favorites were probably the "Мистер Чикен" chicken fingers and the "Чизбургер де люкс". Heh. I opted for a молочный коктел (milkshake) and картофль фрис(fries), which were both awful.

Sunday it was back to the banya and then relaxing around the house. Every time I go to the bany it seems a little less weird to sit around with my host family in a bathing suit and drink tea. This time Yarik and Ksyusha taught me to play Durak, a popular Russian card game.

Oh, and another forgotten pleasure of life in Vladimir - reading all those books I always meant to read by raiding the American Home's small library of classic literature. I read Tess of the D’Ubervilles last week (not recommended on a gloomy overcast day) and have started on Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Odds 'n' ends

2009-06-26T10:06:43Z

Put up some random photos from around town. Not much to report - it's been raining for the past two days so I've been hanging out at home with my host family. On Wednesday my host mom took me to a somewhat bizarre event that was half an Indian music and dance concert and half an introduction to the teachings of a famous yoga practitioner. I think the guided meditations, which involved holding my hands over various parts of my body and asking my "Kundalini mother" for various things, would have been less odd if I had understood any of the explanations.

My current food obsession is with my host family's practice of eating dill. Just dill. On a plate. Big stalks of it. It's pretty awesome. Very refreshing, and I dig the feathery texture.

Oh, and apparently one of the TV news stations called the American Home this morning to inquire if people were leaving flowers and candles here as a tribute to Michael Jackson. Nope. But it's amusing to be thought of as a mini-embassy.

Кошки!

2009-06-24T12:02:45Z

While I was eating lunch after yoga today (kefir, black bread, and salat - yum), I heard the tiniest little meow coming from our backyard. I looked out the window and saw a teeny little all black kitten, and his calico mama giving him a bath. SO CUTE. I watched him romp wobbly-legged around the backyard for a bit, 'til his mom got tangled up with some other kitties and tumbled off into the bushes.

Currently the American Home has no cat in residence, as the former one took off for parts unknown sometime last year. The staff puts out food for several local street cats who mostly live under the steps of the restaurant next door, including the calico mama. I haven't been able to pet any of them yet but I'm going to keep trying.

Yoga, incidentally, has been excellent - surprisingly expensive, but the teachers are seriously tough. I was sore all over (in a good way) after Monday's class. Both of the teachers have actually studied in India, and are pretty badass. I can't understand most of what the teachers say but fortunately most of the poses are familiar to me and the teachers are plenty comfortable simply picking up my body parts and putting them where they're supposed to be, which I appreciate. Plus I'm learning some interesting commands: relax your neck, release your arm, tilt your pelvis forward. Попка в переод! :)

How the other half rolls.

2009-06-22T07:44:42Z

On Saturday I went with my host family to visit their friends' "dacha". I say "dacha" because, to me, that word conjures up the image of a small wooden house, probably over a hundred years old, maybe with electricity, definitely without plumbing, with a big garden for vegetables and a small banya and a babushka in a head scarf sitting on a bench out front. Possibly chickens. Or goats.

On the other hand, I am now hanging with the rich crowd, so this "dacha" was an enormous brand new house with the biggest flat-screen TV I've ever seen, and a yard the size of Texas, big enough for two vegetable gardens, a flower garden, a hothouse, a shed, a swing set, a banya, an above ground swimming pool, and a small fishing pond. Seriously. It was standing in a row of the kind of dachas I'd been imagining, in stark contrast.

I have to say, I adore my host family but this is a completely different experience from staying with most Russian families. My host mom tends to cook very modern, slightly Americanized food - delicious, I don't mean to complain, but not especially Russian most of the time. I think I'm the only one who notices. Well, no one craves authenticity like a foreigner. And I did get to banya it up with a venik and eat shashlik.

On Sunday I got to meet up with two of my former students/friends and stroll around Vladimir a bit. It was strange at first to see them again. Why is it that we think that when we leave a place somebody hits the pause button? Wishful thinking I guess. Of course life continues, people grow and change and make mistakes and learn lessons and have babies, and when we met them again they have lived just as much life as we have. Even here in sleepy Vladimir.

So, I think it's evident by my philosophical rhapsodizing that I'm exiting the honeymoon phase. I get frustrated sometimes at only understanding half of what anyone says, and only being able to expres myself like a four-year-old. I'm feeling homesick during odd quiet moments - I miss my family and my friends and my cat. Today I'm glad to be at work again, moving forward with the textbooks, keeping myself busy, reminding myself that I'm here for a reason.

A channel to the cosmos?

2009-06-19T08:07:54Z

After dinner last night my host father asked me if I believed in Darwin's theory. Um, yes? Well, he doesn't. I think he said it was because there are still monkeys around now, so clearly they didn't become us. Even if my Russian was good enough to argue about evolution, I think I might leave this one alone. He went on to explain that there's life on other planets, and that aliens directed us to build the pyramids so we could communicate with them. At least, I think that's what he said. At this point my host brother came in and the two of them started arguing about the pyramids, the Sphinx, aliens, and parallel universes. I heard the words solar system and Milky Way a lot. There was much waving of hands and the internet was huffily consulted. My host mom came in to check on me, and I told her not to worry - this is better than television!

No, there weren't subtitles, thank you very much.

2009-06-18T09:18:05Z

I dreamed in Russian the other night, something that hasn't happened to me in a long time. In the dream I was shouting for my host family to come see the snow falling in the middle of the summer. I guess it was inspired by all the hail we've been having. It was reassuring to have a sign that I have integrated the language to some extent, because my skills were thoroughly put to shame yesterday afternoon. We had a group on students from a local high school come to visit the "real American house", a pretty common event. One of the current teachers, Alex, and I were asked to be the token Americans for the kids to practice on. The kids (and for that matter, the teacher) ended up talking to us the whole time in Russian, and I had to be rescued several times by either Alex or Olya. The teenagers talk so fast!

I do feel for the local English teachers - many of them haven't really studied English (this one, for example, apparently spoke excellent French) but have been basically conscripted into teaching English by the increasing demand for it. Even among the ones who have studied English, very few could afford to actually travel to places where it's spoken. I think they do the best they can with limited resources and under strict guidelines from the government. But still, I felt like a real idiot gabbling out my awkward sentences in front of them.

Yesterday evening I reunited with my second host mom, Dr. Ira, who is really more like my host big sister, as she's in her mid-thirties. We had a wonderful evening catching up and looking at pictures and gossiping in our special brand of Russlish.

Today is Russki obyed - Russian lunch made for us by the staff. They are all a-bustle in the kitchen and wonderful smells are drifting up the stairs.

Wheee!

2009-06-16T09:01:53Z

I spent the weekend getting reacquainted with all the various pleasures of life in Vladimir. If you want to skip straight to the pictures, they’re here. First up: Russia, the land of many holidays. Friday was Russia’s independence day, so in the morning my host father Andrei took me, my host brother Yarik (a diminutive of Yaraslav), and sister Kyusha (Ksenya) out to see the celebration downtown. It wasn’t much - a stage set up with various pop music acts, some tents selling souvenirs and shashlik and pierog - but it gave me a chance to see the city center. Not much has changed - a new shopping center, the old grocery store Grossmart replaced by a new one called Atak, more advertisements. You can still buy ice cream on every corner, which was fantastic because it was 28 degrees most of the weekend - felt like 90 or so. Plus crazy ridiculous thunderstorms and hailstorms once a day or so and in the middle of the night. Fortunately it’s cooled off a bit yesterday and today.

In the evening we went to Andrei’s friend’s house to eat shashlik. That house, if possible, is even nicer than my family’s. I seem to have gotten in with the wealthy crowd this time around. I happily stuffed myself with chicken while heated political and philosophical debates raged on (aided, I think, by cognac and vino) and the five-year-old daughter did my hair.

On Saturday it was Yarik’s 15th birthday, so he went off with his friends to see a movie and eat pizza, and we girls explored a very pretty garden not far from the American Home. Saw a couple of wedding parties at the Golden Gates, the cars with the ribbons and plastic rings decorating the hoods and roofs, the girls with their poufy white dresses, the guys wearing suits and sashes, and everyone pleasantly tipsy. In the evening three of Yarik’s friends and his grandmother came for cake and ice cream, and everyone gave lengthy toasts. I wasn’t able to beg off toasting duties but they did let me give mine in English, as Yarik, his friends, and his mom all speak English quite well. Then the boys headed out on the town, and I went to hang out with the American teachers. It’s always interesting to meet other people who’ve made the same life choices that you have, and find out what their reasons were and where they will go next.

I should pause and explain that any time you leave the house to spend time with your friends you are said to гулать (gulat), which literally means to go for a walk. Because the main entertainment here for young people actually is walking around in the city center with their friends, the word гулать has come to mean, basically, to hang out. So I гулалась while sitting around my friend’s apartment drinking beer!

On Sunday the whole family plus one of Yarik’s friends piled into the car and went off to the university’s banya, which you can apparently rent out for private use. This banya had, as usual, a small steam room, a larger tiled room for washing up with a small cold pool, and then a room to hang out and drink tea or beer. The men and women took turns - basically you sit in the steam room as long as you can stand it, then dunk yourself very quickly in the cold pool three times (my host mom kept hollering for me to do it faster) then dash back into the steam room. Then rinse off and go drink tea for a while. And repeat. It’s awesome. While in the steam room you can also hit yourself or your friends with the venik, the bunch of birch leaves, which detoxifies your skin (or at any rate smells fantastic). I just love it. You feel so good afterwards, clean all the way through, alive, healthy, and nicely drowsy.

Yesterday evening after the American Home I went with my host mom to a truly amazing concert. The Vladimir orchestra was hosting a famous pianist named Denis Mantsuyev, who at thirty years old has already played in most of the concert halls I’ve ever heard of, including Carnegie. He played a gorgeous Shostakovitch piece, the Concert for Piano and Orchestra Number 2, and then two little encores, a sweet peaceful lullaby and an outrageously fast version of Peter and the Wolf. Just extraordinary. Tonight I’m going to another concert, a children’s choir singing Russian folk songs. My host brother plays the piano and sings in the famous Vladimir boy’s choir, so he always has the lowdown on the good concerts. I have to say I totally lucked out with this family.

Duck!

2009-06-11T14:13:05Z

It is HAILING right now. Seriously. It's been clouding up for an hour or so and now it is pouring rain, thundering, and little tidbits of hail are battering the windows. Look out below!

I woke up early this morning to a fantastic thunderstorm, lightning in every direction only a second or two apart and great rumbling bursts of thunder. So far inland I think Vladimir gets the violent weather. I watched it from the sweet little balcony attached to my room, with the gauzy Russian lace curtains brushing up against my ankles in the wind.

Today I went to the ATM to withdraw rubles, lots of them, and then went to the little produkti across the street for black bread, vinagret (a kind of salad with beets, carrots, and potatoes) and kefir. So frickin' happy. Mmm.

Today I saw all the staff again, including the directors and my old Russian teacher. I got kissed a lot. I'm hopefully going to be studying a bit while I'm here. I also met with Olya to discuss my work here for the first time. It's going to be really interesting and useful. Also, it turns out the teachers are still here and will be until the end of June, so I've got plenty of company. Hooray!

My host brother, Yarik, turns out to be a really sweet-tempered leggy fourteen-year-old, and both he and my host mom are quite proficient in English (certainly more so than I am in Russian). The whole family is just wonderful, very chatty and interested in everything. I'll have plenty of time with them this weekend, as we have a holiday tomorrow (the Russian independence day). It's shaping up to be a very good two months.

home again, home again

2009-06-10T13:35:24Z

Back in Vladimir for the first time in three years. It's pretty surreal. The home is the same (mostly - some furniture rearranging), the staff is the same (mostly - Olya dyed her hair red), and the city is the same (mostly-lots of new stores have sprung up, though my host mom says the economic crisis has forced many of them to shut down already). The flight was uneventful, half-full, and involved personal video screens. Oh, except we weren't allowed to get off the plane until some "medical personnel" scanned our temperatures to prevent us bringing swine flu into Russia. Um, you guys? Swine flu is over.

One long hot car ride later and I met my host family, who are super sweet and live in a seriously kickass brand new apartment. My room is big and comfortable with its own little balcony, and my eight-year-old host sister talks a mile a minute and is fascinated with my jewelry collection.

Work starts tomorrow - right now, it's time for tea. :)

Return to the Russkiblog

2009-06-08T18:01:16Z

Leaving for Russia in 27 hours. Ура!!

And thus it ends.

2006-09-21T18:20:36Z

Taught another fun swing class on Sunday, Charleston kicks this time, though it was sad to say goodbye to the kiddies. They were so lovably enthusiastic.

Last day of work was Tuesday. Whoohoo! Now it's just getting ready for the trip. Not that there's much left to do. Backpack that actually fits me--check. Sandals you can hike in--check. Tetanus booster--check. Anti-malaria meds--check. See, Urse, I do listen to you and the CDC.

And one of the last checks on the list--switching back to my old livejournal account. I can't in good conscious keep using the Ruskiblog, since Vladimir is definitely not on this trip's itinerary. Ya lyublyo tibya, Ruskiblog, no para skazat da sveydanya. It's on to the next adventure.

Anyone who wants to follow along should check out http://www.livejournal.com/~bona_lector. I'll be posting travel stories and photos there.

Daily blah (that's for you, Jane!).

2006-09-13T20:24:24Z

Apologies for the technical difficulties. Hopefully I've got them figured out now.

I will be very glad to be done with this office job and doing something more mentally stimulating before my brain shrivels away entirely. Fortunately Chelsea dragged me along with her Monday night to a showing of "The Russian Dolls", a truly awesome and funny French film. Nothing like subtitles to de-atrophy your brain.

In other news, I got my Hep A shot yesterday and started on the typhoid pills. Aside from my upper arm being pretty sore last night, and having to cough up a lot of money to the travel clinic, it was a surprisingly easy and painless process. My current debate is about anti-malarials. I've read that they can have side effects that are worse than just getting malaria. Also, does anyone know anything about travel insurance?

Look, Thanksgiving came early.

2006-09-11T20:12:21Z

Yesterday I taught a lesson at the teen swing club which left me profoundly grateful for a few things:

1. I am not a teenager anymore.

2. I will never have to be a teenager ever again.

3. I will never have to date (or dance with) teenage boys ever again.

The kids I taught were overwhelmingly enthusiastic, delightfully open-minded, and massively uncoordinated. At least, the boys were. An hour of teaching them the Jitterbug Stroll produced a lot of smiles and giggles but not much resembling the actual Jitterbug Stroll. Plus, several of the boys had yet to be introduced to the magic of deoderant.

From a teaching perspective, it was very satisfying. I even got a high five from one well-mannered young gentleman, who proclaimed me to be an "intense teacher" and my lesson to be "awesome". Go me.

But oh these kids are so insecure. They are so consumed with their place in the social pecking order that their eyes practically brim with anxiety. It's almost painful to be around, and yet here I am contemplating a life working with these creatures. Still, it's reassuring to see clearly delineated the distance between me and them.

A little validity question.

2006-09-05T22:18:34Z

Last night a massive joint effort between me, my mom, and my sister (well, mostly my mom) produced a delicious Russian meal for us, one of our neighbors and three of Chelsea's friends. My mom cooked up two huge batches of borscht, standard and vegetarian, and Chelsea and I made hochipuri. It wasn't nearly as complicated as you might think, since we used pre-made puff pastry, so it was mostly mixing up a bunch of cheese (mozzarella, feta, and cottage, for the curious) and baking. I contributed a cucumber/tomato salad that my second host mom and I ate for dinner pretty much every night in the spring. My mom spread some caviar on dark bread and busted out the pickles for appetizers, and we had ourselves a scrumptious dinner.

Two of Chelsea's friends studied Russian in college, and one of them lived in St. Petersburg, so they're both well-versed in the language and culture. At the beginning of dinner we reminisced together about the horrors of verbs of motion and the travesty of rampant alcoholism. But as dinner turned into tea and cookies, they started talking about Soviet films and I quickly got left behind. My Russian simply wasn't good enough most of the year for me to watch movies, so I'm limited to the one or two movies we watched in my lessons. And as they moved from films to music, and from music to geography, I started to feel really ignorant, and honestly, more than a little fake. Here I've been mooning around all nostalgic for Mother Russia, and all the time I haven't begun to tap the vast cultural wealth of the country.

And that makes me wonder about the validity of cultural experiences. Clearly I didn't get as deep into Russian traditions and society as I would have if I had spoken Russian at all when I arrived. We talked about this a lot at the American Home. We used to make fun of the older Americans who showed up at the AH complaining about the impossibility of finding "a decent cup of coffee", by which they meant the exact kind they drank at home, and turned up their noses at all the wonderful black teas. But do you have to go completely native to have a "valid" experience? My year in Russia didn't turn me into an expert or change my life completely, but an awful lot of interesting things happened to me. What's the yardstick for experience?