Gera Kremov and Matilda

I have a little explaining to do. I know I haven't updated in a while, I left some stories dangling, and I may still be in Russia for all the blogging world knows. Let's clear up that last one right now: I arrived at JFK last Saturday, spent three days in New York with a dear, graduated friend from Lawrence, and stumbled into my own bed Tuesday night. Reverse culture shock has been understated, the weather has been so much colder, and I'm leading my brother by one in the how-many-countries-have-you-visited game.

As for the dangling stories, I count at least three:

1. Drinking Tea with a Corporate Party Planner and Co.
2. A Business Meeting
3. The Russian New Year's
   

That last one is to oblige my cousin who lives on an island, who was curious about the whole thing. P.S. If you are curious about anything in particular, let me know and I will try to wax eloquent about the topic of your choice.

OK, tea time!

One evening near the end of the semester during Stalinism class, I got a call from an unknown number. Like a good student, I ignored it and turned my phone to silent. Then I got another. Like a bad student, I sent an SMS asking who it was. One text lead to another, and I realized that Bryan, our program director was trying to get a hold of me.

I called him after class and he told me about how he had been talking to a professor at Smolny about an opportunity to record some dubbing for a movie, with the payoff of a hundred dollars. So (naturally) he thought of me. Was I interested? Of course! I called the number he gave me -- no answer.

Ana and I headed home on foot, as was our Friday night tradition. She had Arabic Saturday mornings, and it's best to approach these learning-a-foreign-language-IN-a-foreign-language situations with a good night of sleep and a clear head. A third of the way home, the professor called, spoke in clear Russian which I would have understood 100% if only I could have rewound it and listened a few more times, and asked to pass on my number to Kyrill, the man with the plan. Go ahead!

Approximately fourth-fifths of the way home, Kyrill called. "Is this a convenient time to talk?" he asked right away.

"Um, no," I replied, standing on a busy street and looking at my hand, bloody from a recently-discovered cut on my thumb. "How about in twenty minutes?"

Twenty minutes later, Ana and I had parted ways, I had a band-aid on my thumb, and was ready for a more convenient call. Kirill explained that that he lived on ulitsa Korablestroitely, just as I did; the text was not translated into English, contrary to what Bryan had told me; and when was I free to record? A bit to handle, but I did my best.

At a later date, he called to say that he we going to drop off the text. I was curious and trepidatious. What was this movie about? Was I allowed to have strange men over to the apartment, albeit only to drop something off? I gave Andrei a heads-up, and went back to my room to do work. Then I heard Tat'iana Ivanovna come home and go to her room. Andrei knocked on her door and quietly delivered the same heads-up to her. Great, I thought, this isn't awkward at all.

And surprisingly enough, it turned out to be not that awkward at all. Kirill was businesslike, yet amiable, stayed in the entrance, gave me both a paper copy of the text and an electronic copy on a flash drive, and left quickly. No problems there.

The next part of this story -- How the American Corner was a Blessing in Disguise -- is complicated and mostly boring, so suffice it to say that fellow volunteer Elena who speaks great English was a big help in translating sentences with buried subjects and elusive adjectives, and it all turned out. The text, by the way, was a voice-over for a short film about the new residences being built in Karlovy Vary. That is to say, an ad.

Later that Tuesday night, Kyrill called to make sure I was ready to record. "Я к вам зайду через 20 минут,*" he said. Huh? He repeated himself, slowly and patiently. (What a great guy!) And then I finally understood: I was expecting to just walk over to his place, when he meant to pick up me in his car in 20 minutes. My expectations completely plugged my ears to what he was saying. Noooo, thanks, I'll walk.

In the end, we compromised and met at Патерсон (Paterson - grocery store chain down the street) before continuing to his apartment. I was interested in seeing his apartment because I never knew what to expect when a door opened to a Russian abode. I caught a glimpse of a bedroom and his wife as I was putting on the house slippers Kyrill offered to me. He lead me into his studio and I looked around as much as I politely could. One long wall was completely covered with books and half of another wall was hung with guitars and balalaikas. Computer and sound equipment occupied the middle of the room. Kyrill sat me down in front of a microphone, listened patiently to my translation issues, and got down to work.

After the recording session, he handed me 2500 rubles, a copy of his most recent album, and asked if I'd like a cup of tea. I hesitated slightly before accepting. On the one hand, I felt like maybe he didn't expect me say yes, but on the other hand, when else would I have the opportunity to hang out with a 30-something couple in Russia?

I stepped into his kitchen as his wife rushed out to attend to her thumb, which she had just cut on a falling knife (Russians let their dishes dry in a cupboard above the sink). I had a sneaking suspicion that they had recently made a trip to a certain Swedish megamarket, a suspicion that was quickly confirmed by Kyrill. "We renovated our kitchen last winter, got all this stuff from IKEA..." Very nice, very modern.

I sat at the tiny square table as Kyrill and his bandaged wife loaded it with tea things. Kyrill gave me a copy of his new book about psychobilly to look at, we chatted about the weather and how I wanted to be a dietitian, and watched their two parrots whose names title this entry fly around the apartment. The whole time, I thought to myself, "This is so sweet! I am having a legitimate conversation with Russians that are not teachers or Smolny students or my host family. My Russian skills do work in the real world!" Kirill's wife even complimented me -- Ты так прекрасно говоришь по-русски** -- and I fairly glowed.

Kyrill drove me home, an arrangement I was comfortable with now, having realized what a great guy he was. On the circuitous way home, we talked more about his job as a corporate party planner and his hopes for getting into film. We arrived at my dom and parted ways and I felt so happy about the experience I'd just had and so sad that I was leaving in three weeks. Just when I was meeting all these great people, I was going to up and leave. But that's life. At least I have his CD.

* Ya k vam zaedu cherez 20 minut. I'll pick you up in 20 minutes.
** Ty tak prekrasno govorish' po-russki. You speak Russian so well!

Joint email from Night #5

Here is the second joint email from traveling companion Amy and me. Still edited for additional content and also capitalization this time (Amy is more relaxed about such things than I).

Hey folks,

So we've just finished a couple of cups of tea at our new hostel in Vilnius - VB Sleep Inn. Today we had quite the adventure. We left Riga in the morning on a bus to Pasvalles where we took another bus to Birzhai, or so we thought... [quick remainder: Birzhai is the home of Amy's ancestors]

We were tricked by the very large, old-looking church and the exodus of fellow passengers. And the welcome to Birzhu region sign. Unfortunately, Birzhu and Birzhai are not the same thing, one is a region and the other a city. We walked into the very large, old-looking church, peeked in to the gorgeous sanctuary and peeked out when the older woman by the door gave us curious looks. Then some more churchgoers showed up, and Amy asked a man first if he spoke Russian - success! and then where the information center was. Turns out it was 6km down the road.

6km hike later, we reach Birzhai - the city, and home of many churches, but no temples. Locals (docents in the castle turned museum/library - not as cool as it sounds since it's all in Lithuanian) informed Amy that there are one to three Jews remaining in Birzhai.

Also, most things were closed being Sunday and all. Post office (gone were our dreams of mailing postcards!), restaurants (we ate dried apricots and cashews on a park bench for lunch, which resulted in very cold fingers), and even the tourist information building, but Amy tried the door anyway and it opened! There was a woman cleaning it, and she shoved more maps at us than we could shake a stick at (including one in German... helpful?).

Today we further appreciated our growing language capabilities. Most people in Birzhai do not speak English, but Russian worked out just fine. And it's really wonderful to be able to talk to people and not just point at things.

Hannah really needs some sleep, as one fellow traveller at the hostel already pointed out to her.
"I need a cup of tea," she said in answer to someone's query.
"You look it," an Aussie commented. "That is to say..."
Her eyes are quite droopy at the moment. Thank goodness she has Amy along to help her make her European bed with the comforter-sheet-envelope that confuses her so (Amy got special lessons from Tatiana [her host mom] AND has worked in a hotel).

Tomorrow we are looking forward to seeing Vilnius in the daylight, and bundling up warmly - it's so much colder here than St. Petersburg, who would have thought!?

Cheers!
Amy and Hannah

Six days, seven nights

Traveling company Amy and I decided to write joint emails to our parents, since it takes less time, and joint emails always turn out more interesting than regular ones, especially if you start documenting the conversation that goes on while writing the email. The following email is from Saturday, Night #4, and is edited for content and length -- that is to say, made longer and more detailed.

Amy and Hannah thought they would kill two birds wih one stone and reassure their folks that all is well in the Baltic countries with one email.

We are currently on the sixth floor of the Old Town Hostel, conveniently located a hop, skip, and jump away from the bus station in Riga, Latvia. The ground floor is a Backpackers pub. There's a hidden door just to the right of the bar. It opens to a spiral staircase in the late sixties' (?) style: brownish-yellowish-greenish rocks languish under a laminated surface. One floor down is a kitchen/sauna/WC ensemble, partitioned off one from another, of course. Four floors up are sleeping situations for backpackers. At the top of the spiral staircase is a small wooden platform with a computer on top. The short staircase leading up to it consists of eight wooden steps, shaped roughly like the wide end of a short oar and arranged such that you must ascend left-right-left-right. In conclusion, it was a neat hostel.

Highlights of the day include

-getting confused over which of the numerous churches was the biggest and which the oldest,
-finding a single synagoge that survived WWII (it didn't get set on fire because it was too close to the center of town),
-finding loads of Lutheran churches,
-talking to a random old man (in Russian) that guessed we were Americans and who was interested in minimum wage in the States,
-buying Hannah some mittens so she doesn't have to shove her hands into opposite sleeves [I lost the pair of mittens that I brought to Russia and didn't buy another pair a) because it wasn't cold enough and b) because I figured I'd just lose them again and wouldnchaknowit I've almost lost them twice already],
-eating a dinner of bread, garlic, and olives in the hostel basement and having a passerby marvel at the combo and,
-FREEZING in the -12 celcius wind (but not really, we kept safely wrapped up and ducked into musems when it got too unbearable).

Tomorrow we plan to hit up Birzhai, town of Amy's ancestors which is in the north of Lithuania, and continue to Vilnius, the capital by bus.

Soon a nice young man with a british accent will be back to ask us if we are done with the internet and we will say YES and leave. [He actaully never came. We told him we'd be done in ten minutes and then we were but we didn't see him again.]

Hannah says: Mom, I have a postcard but it is tricky fitting a trip to the post office into our days. Maybe when we are in the little town of Birz.
Amy says: I've got no postcards. But at least Hannah has mittens.

Love,
Amy and Hannah

Heading south

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

I thought I should let you all know that I am travelling through the Baltic countries with my friend Amy. We started by heading to Helsinki (Findland) on a minibus, took a ferry to Tallin (Estonia), hopped on a Ecolines bus to Riga (Latvia) and tomorrow we catch another bus to Lithuania. By Tuesday we will be on a train back to St. Petersburg.

Definitely the Greatest Adventure of My Life. I'll tell you about it when I see you.

Cheers,
Hannah

P.S. I left my only change of shirt/sweater in Tallinn. Oops.

Hang on a tic

I get irritated by the following: a new Russian acquaintance asks me questions about where I'm from, what I'm doing here, where I live, and what I study. After maybe five minutes of conversation covering topics from chapter one of every second-year Russian textbook, the interlocutor declares my Russian language skills to be "very good!"

Hey. Try asking me about the origin of Halloween and its traditions, whether the Dakotas are actually ceding from the US, or why the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries are so important, and then see how good my Russian is. My host mother asks such questions -- perhaps she is the only non-professor that knows the true limits of my Russian. She probably overestimates my listening comprehension, though, since I tend to nod understandingly more often than I should.

I composed this in my head last night as I was trying to fall asleep. And then I realized that the real reason I can't answer my host mom's questions about American life is not because I don't have the vocabulary or grammar necessary to do so, but because I simply don't know the answer.

It's unsettling. Maybe I should have learned all this stuff in elementary school, but missed out thanks to homeschooling (not complaining, Mom!). Maybe I should have been more inquisitive about holidays and civics, but it's hard to be inquisitive about the ordinary. And now I'm in a foreign country, where my ordinary is the foreign, and those around me are inquisitive on my behalf.

Just as quickly as I learn about Russian culture, I stumble headlong into gaps in my knowledge about American culture. I give a half-heartened attempt to explain something about pagans, Native Americans, or Hilary Clinton. Then I might realize the futility of my endeavor, and end with, "Ya he zhayu, kak skazat' po-russki" (I don't know how to say it in Russian) if I want to blame my incapacity to answer based on vocabulary: "All Saints' Day," "eve," "to cede," "tribe," "reservation," "caucus," "delegates," etc.

And sometimes I just admit the humiliating truth: "He zhanyu, kak obisnit', dazhe po-angliiski" (I don't know how to explain, even in English).

Well, it's like this

Dear readers,

I have been sitting on a handful of adventures about which I have not had time to blog. RSL exams were this week, as it turns out. I sat in the Bobrinsky computer lab for two hours, painstakingly typing out my Razgovornaya Praktika paper. I figure it took an hour per handwritten page to type; thank goodness it was only three pages. Not only was I busy with conquering the Russian keyboard, but also with some translating work (adventure #2). But RSL finals are over over over! We had an awards lunch — I got an award for being the most interested in things happening in and outside of Smolny, and also in and outside St. Petersburg, and also for being Bryan's personal hairdresser.

"I need a trim," he added.

But the adventures! I will title and number them, and see how far I get in telling them.

1. Pickpocketed on Nevsky Prospect!
2. Drinking Tea with a Corporate Party Organizer, his Wife, and their Two Parrots.
3. A Business Meeting for the Future of Smolny.

Pickpocketed on Nevsky Prospect!

Carly, Amy, and I had just finished checking out a photography exhibit at the Stroganhoff Palace on Nevsky Prospect and were on our way to Riv Gosh (posh store) to abuse the perfume samples. Carly was feeling especially lightfooted, having traded in her winter boots for loafers. She pranced about in front of Kazansky Sobor before setttling down to wait for the light to change. Amy and I caught up with her, and I got stuck behind a man who wasn't crossing the street even though there were no cars-never mind that the light was still red, I wanted to get across the street!

The light finally turned. I started to cross — and then suddenly became aware that someone was messing with my purse. I glanced down: It was open, and my bright red wallet was gone. I wheeled around in the middle of the street. "Nyet, nyet, nyet," I said loudly, grabbing futilely at strangers' midsections. I noticed a man with a hat in one hand, into which he was slipping my wallet.

"Hyet, eto MOY bumazhnik!" I said (No, that's MY wallet), snatching it out of his hand. "O, tvoy?" he said (Oh, it's yours?). I turned and walked as quickly as I could into Riv Gosh to find Carly and wait for my heart to stop pounding.

So that's the shortest, and most intense adventure yet, I would say. I feel like I finally experienced life in the Big City. Not that I wanted to have my wallet stolen, but it's one of those things, you know? At least I recovered it.

Back at the apartment, my host-mom demonstrated how I should carry my purse, hugging it closely to my chest. I think I'll settle for making sure it's zipped shut.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Ways I have become more Russian and yet retained my foreignness:

I bought a sweet black and white kepka (cap) at the market behind Gostiny Dvor but I did not successfully haggle for it.
I've started wear boots more often but they are not black, high-heeled, or reach my knees.
I expect chai after every meal but sometimes I drink it 'empty,' that is, without an accompanying sweet.
I've stopped compulsively doing homework but I still come to class, and usually on time, too.
I carry two bags: my small purse and an extra one for class materials, dictionary, etc. but it is not a plastic, multicolored checked bag from Рив Гош (Riv Gosh), as are about half the "second purses" I see around town.
I can't put any of my belongings on the floor, because it is categorically too dirty but sometimes I walk around barefoot in my apartment. When no one else is around, of course.

If I really wanted to assimilate to the Russian Woman stereotype, I would have to

- lose about 7 kilos, preferably by skipping dinner,
- obsessively clean my black, shiny, high-heeled boots,
- wear makeup every day of my life,
- dress to the nines for everything, and
- dye my hair dark red.

Sometimes you have to know where to draw the line.