The Highlights
A
Margarita yelled at me for being a hooligan last night. At the time, it sort of pissed me off, but now I just think it’s funny. She gave me a new clean towel which I am then supposed to go and hang on its hook in the bathroom. But when I went to go hang it up, the old towel was still there. So I didn’t know what to do. So I just put the towel back in my room. And then when I was organizing my room, I laid the towel on the floor near the door, so that I would remember to put it in the bathroom. And then Margarita walked by and saw the towel on the ground and yelled at me for being a hooligan and putting the clean towel on the ground. And then I just sputtered (is that an english word? maybe I mean stuttered. Or stammered.) and tried to make up some excuse that I had accidentally dropped it there. Except she didn’t appreciate this excuse. Whenever I do something wrong, she always says something like “See what a hooligan you are when I am not here to keep you in line.” At least that’s what I think she says. This had earlier applied to my inability to finish all of the food I was left for meals when she was not home to supervise my eating, but has now apparently spread to my delinquent towel dropping activities. And my sub par laundry skills. Apparently I don’t wash out the soap well enough from the clothes or wring out enough of the water before I hang them up to dry.
Б
Wednesday was a big day. I decided that I wanted to go to the локомотив hockey game, since they only have 6 more home games while I will be in Yaroslavl, and I hadn’t been since early September. My first obstacle was purchasing a ticket. So I walked to the building where I thought hockey people had said I could buy a ticket. Except the front of the whole building was blocked off for a remont. I realize that’s not an English word. But remont is so much cooler than remodel. Plus I feel like remodel sort of carries the meaning that it might look new and clean and classy after the remodel. But I feel like there are much lower (and more realistic) expectations of a remont. Anyways, then I found these signs instructing to the secret back entrance. At this point, I successfully entered the building. Which had turned out to be more challenging than I expected. And I was actually fairly content with my entering of the building that I still would have been happy if my ticket buying had failed. This will probably not make sense. Russia, or at least me being in Russia, just sort of lowers my expectations like that. Somehow, I think professors at Midd would be less than impressed if I decided that entering the building was really adequate enough and there was no reason to actually go to class or do any of the work. Then, I asked one of the guard women where I could buy tickets for the game. And apparently I had to exit the building and go to another secret back/side entrance. Once again, this was a successful venture and I purchased the ticket.
В
Got on the marshrytka (This word is impossible to type. I always try to type it with the Russian letters even when the keyboard is in English.) And I received a lucky ticket! I also recently realized that the Russians call them счастливый билет (which I guess translates to “happy ticket.”) I am not sure if I am actually receiving an abnormal number of lucky tickets or I just didn’t get one for a long time when I got here. I now have 5 of them. I guess this is enough, that I could sacrifice one so that I could eat it, and see if my luck got really good. But I sort of like my collection of them. Then there was a traffic jam for a long time and then me and half of the marshrytka got off at the stop nearest to the rink. And I bought a program and found my seat and it was awesome. Somehow my actual excitement at doing all of this is really not being translated into my writing. So I will skip ahead to the important parts. They played the Russian national anthem, which is still a very strange and surreal moment. I switched seats with this guy so that he could sit by his wife. Then the wife befriended me. I think that the wife was probably younger than I am. Then there was phone numbers exchanged and popcorn shared and a fateful question asking if I could ice skate. And I said yes. And then the wife said she was very bad. And then I decided to say that I was bad too. Somehow it just didn’t seem right to say, “well, actually I play hockey here at this rink every week.” And then the wife, I think I will now refer to her as Anya, which is her actual name, suggested that we should go ice-skating together. I am unsure if this will ever happen. Mainly because I sort of doubt she will ever call me. But it she does call me, it could be a catastrophe. I guess I will just hope that the fact that I will skate in rented ice skates which will probably be figure skates which will probably be very dull and too small for me, will help to disguise my ice skating aptitude (is that a legit use of that word?). Also, since we were sitting on the first level right behind the net, sometimes an off-shot would hit the glass right where we were sitting. And Anya would scream and I would not really know what to do. Also she kept asking her other friend why there were only 4 of our players on the ice or why the goalie was sprinting towards the bench (on a delayed penalty call) or etc…and I would just dumbly pretend I didn’t understand. But I think I was still paying too much attention to the game and not doing enough giggling and screaming when the puck would approach. Then the husband returned from some undisclosed location (where he had consumed lots of alcohol) and the game ended and we left.
Г
Also the title of this entry is one of the questions Anya asked me. “Are you married?” I had never been asked this question before. So that was good. Then the drunk husband tried to speak English to me. His vocabulary consisted of “My name is Alexander” and something about “Little Lily in Italy.” I think this was some poem he had once memorized. He was astonished that I had no idea what he was talking about. Then they walked me to the marshrytka stop and the girls said “Good bye” in English and the husband yelled “Good morning.” Like I said, limited vocabulary.
Д
The deadline to change my mind and stay the year passed yesterday. So now there has been some calm acceptance of my unfortunate and impending departure. I woke up on Tuesday and there was a lot of snow on the ground and it was a winter wonder land. And I filled out the form to stay the year. But then I calmed down and stuck to my guns (can I say that?)
Е
I am in the process of writing a 20+ pg. paper about Edinaya Pocciya (United Russia). It is a fairly atrocious process that often ends in me playing solitaire or free cell on my computer for hours on end. Mostly it’s hard because although the party is “Putin’s party” and has nearly a 60% popularity rating, with the next popular being the Communists with like 15%, I haven’t met anyone who actually really likes Edinaya Rocciya. Most people just like Putin. But then some people hate Putin. And so I don’t know what I am supposed to think. I guess I’m supposed to not like Putin. But I actually do. Also our politics professor today said that she thinks Putin is going to have a third term. Which would be allowed (sort of) because you are only allowed 2 terms in a row, so if he gave up the position for awhile then he could almost immediately reclaim it. Actually he could pretty much do whatever he wants. **Are American presidents only allowed 2 terms total or 2 terms in a row? Because I thought they were allowed 2 terms total, but other people think it is 2 terms in a row? (I’m sort of embarrassed that I’m half a poly sci major and don’t know this). And then the Russians in this conversation kept talking about how Bill Clinton could become president again. Russians really like Bill Clinton. Also, our politics professor is obsessed with Hillary. And how Hillary will be president and how good old Bill used to be president. Etc…**
Ж (Aiko’s favorite letter!)
Also the president of France (is his title president?) was in Moscow today hanging out with Putin and Zybkov. So the entire country of France being dysfunctional as a result of the strikes doesn’t seem to be affecting him that much. He’s just chilling with Putin.
З
I never go to museums in Yaroslavl. Actually, I went to one of the exhibits in the Kremlin area one time. But my Russian friend Vacilica refused to pay the entrance fee at the gate because she wanted to go pay at the other gate where there were pictures of the exhibits to help us choose. So then the guard woman yelled at us and threatened to call the police. So I am scared to go back there. But there are other museums I should be going to. But whenever I say I will go to a museum, I always would much rather just wander about the city or ride random marshrytkas until they kick all of us off at the end of the route, and then wander more, and then hope that somehow I will be able to make it back into the city. So maybe I will go to a museum this weekend, but I probably won’t. Oh well.
И (this whole labeling the points in Cyrillic was a good idea until I got to where I don’t know the order of the alphabet and now I have to go look in the dictionary to find the next letter. Perhaps I should memorize the alphabet this weekend).
Facebook has some special function where you can enter your maiden name so that it will not be displayed on your profile (because that would disrespect your husband???) but your old friends can search for you with your maiden name and still find you. This is ridiculous. If you are married. You are not allowed on facebook. Period. End of discussion. No exceptions. I know it is a difficult choice. Marriage or the ability to poke people. But you can’t have the best of both worlds. Also, facebook is out of control with it’s like 10 trillion different options/functions/junk.
К
I would like to clarify that Artic Slaughter as mentioned in one of my previous posts as being one of Kit’s New Year’s Resolutions (make Artic Slaughter more popular). Artic Slaughter is a band, and not the actual slaughtering of walruses or penguins. Because that would be atrocious and I would not allow that to be one of his New Year’s Resolutions. Also, I think by mentioning Artic Slaughter on this blog, I have done more for their popularity than Kit ever did. Kit, do they still exist? BURN!
Л
The drunk men on the marshrytka this morning approved of my hockey playing-ness.
-Man 1: A girl playing hockey. Нормально. Which I guess translates as “normal” but I feel like it has more of a “good” meaning.
-Man 2: Yes. Нормально.
(5 minutes pass)
-Man 2: How do you know she plays hockey? Maybe she plays basketball or football.
-Man 1: She has a hockey stick.
-Man 2: Oh.
Also I decided that I am going to abandon my use of the word “soccer” because the English game “football” has essentially 0 contact between the foot and the ball, and the game which is all about the foot and the ball we call soccer. So now I will call soccer, football and I will call football, American football.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Drank Vanilla Coke. Haven't drank pop in 6 years. Wrote an endless blog entry.
I really love New Years Resolutions. And so every year I religiously write down an extra long list of resolutions that I can eventually in November and December look back and laugh at how I didn’t achieve any of them. Actually, that’s not completely true. I guess it mainly captivates me because it seems like I’m on this constant path of becoming “the person I want to be.” I have no idea who that “person” is, but every year I feel like I come closer to being that “person.” I think this has a lot more to do with self acceptance, than with me actually changing a whole lot. Unless the changing is becoming more of a loon. Because that is a fairly constant process.
So I recently looked at the list of resolutions I typed last December/January. It’s also a crazy way to compare your current priorities with your priorities at the time of writing. And the one resolution that really sticks out now as well as the one I remember the most from when I wrote them is #8: become passionate about something. And I realized both then and now how silly it is to decide and put on a list to “become passionate about something.” But I think it was sort of a response to the fact that we’re all so busy at Midd and everyone thinks everything they are doing is really important. And maybe they actually do think what they are doing is really important. Which I guess is good. But I just felt like general busy-ness for no reason or fake passion (which in my cynic point of view is prospering at Middlebury) are lame. If people disagree with me and think that the passion at Middlebury is real and not “fake,” please tell me because that would actually make me very happy. I much prefer apathetic people who don’t really care about anything and are okay with that, than someone who is fakely excited about some cause or movement. I guess I should really be less judgmental. Moving on…
Okay, so back to the “become passionate about something.” I think this is also related to the phase I went through in high school where I decided I needed to develop hobbies. Except the only hobbies I could come up with were various sewing or knitting pursuits. Lame! I wish I could have stuck with the “hobby” problem and not graduated to the much more complex problem of “passion.”
Anyways, I am getting way off topic. I realized recently that my passion is generally Russian-ness. And I am not just referring to vodka. This country has captivated me in a way like nothing I can ever remember. It could just be that this is the first time I have ever lived abroad and so it’s just general infatuation with something so different from the good old U.S.A. But I really feel like if I had decided to go to Germany or Italy or China, it just wouldn’t have captivated me like Russia has. I don’t know why this is. I guess it’s a combination of a lot of different things. The language, the cold and snow and winter-ness, the country’s acceptance of hockey (although there is unfortunately no general acceptance of my female participation in it), the general need for Russians to suffer (I too have been known to make myself miserable for no good reason), the completely crazy-ness that is always occurring (and I say crazy with the most serious respect), the collision of politics and economics and history that still is completely inadequate in explaining this country, the people.
I think especially the people interest me. Like, they’ve all lived through these events and history and political and economic upheaval that completely interest me so much. Tonight at dinner I asked Margarita if she thought life was better during the Soviet Union. The fact that I was able to have that conversation with her absolutely blows my mind. And although she initially said that some things are better and some things are worse, her entire list of examples was how things are worse now…which I guess is sort of what I expected. But coming from a U.S. education, that is not supposed to be the answer. And so that only serves to deepen both my interest in Russia and the developing belief that maybe there really isn’t one “right” answer or one correct political system. I also feel like I am way too affected by the sort of propaganda-esque ness of Putin that occurs everywhere. Well mostly just on the TV stations we watch and on every street corner which is now plastered with “План Путина- Победа России” “Putin’s plan. Russia’s victory.” Also it might be that I have to compare him with our loony Bush. Perhaps in a contest of Putin versus George Washington, Putin would lose. But in a Bush versus Putin contest. Putin is the clear winner, as I see it. Putin speaks three languages. Bush is often unable to speak one. I am going to ignore the fact that Putin only speaks German because of his long KGB work in East Germany.
I also feel that it is sort of unfortunate that the Russian person I spend the most time with is a 70 year old grandmother. I know her current life and life view are probably vastly different from a young or middle aged Russian. One time we were talking about how we all wash our clothes by hand and our conversation teacher was really surprised. So maybe washing machines are more popular than we were led to believe. She was also surprised that none of us had microwaves at our host families. Apparently they might be sort of popular too. So I feel like my time with Margarita is very interesting from a historical standpoint, but maybe not creating the most accurate picture of “modern” Russia. I also wonder where the rich Russians live. Not the really rich ones, but the sort of rich ones. Because there are always Mercedes on the streets. Do they also live in the same apartment buildings like us? What do their apartments look like?
Mostly my deep interest in Russia pleases me so much because I have completely no idea why I began studying Russian. And so this reinforces my life idea that the choices we make are not really that important. That the power we have over our own life is miniscule compared to the power of chance, luck, coincidence, etc. I feel like people could interpret this as me saying that nothing we do ever matters because we have no control over our lives. That’s not at all what I имею виду “mean.” **It also pleases me that even what I am thinking and typing in English, it seems natural to revert to Russian constructions. This is related to what Natasha was talking about with чтобы. I also often want to use бы. Which in 2 letters and you can even shorten it to б for poetic or various other reasons conveys the whole idea of something that could have happened, but it actually didn’t happen and will not happen. But there still was the possibility once of it happening. Or at least in our discussion we are pretending that there was the possibility** Maybe this “our choices don’t matter” life view is my way of convincing myself to worry less about the decisions I make and to just live. But it all works out in the end.
Completely Unrelated Sidenote
**Also why do Russian people always reply to как дела? “how are (your) matters?- i.e. how are you” that things are нормально “normal.” But that всё будет хорошо “everything will be good.” While Americans always when asked “how are you?” say “good.” But we always say “everything will be okay.” Why is everything in Russia only normal in the present but good in the future? And in America everything is good in the present and only okay in the future?
10 Times More Unrelated than Previous Unrelated Sidenote
I am currently listening to a Russian pop/rock song entitled Герпес. Why do Russians sing about STDs? Герпес—Herpes. У тебя СПИД? –Do you have AIDS?
Back on topic:
So Russia has provided me with something about which to be passionate. Is that a legit construction of an English sentence? Oh well. And at some point the question changed from “Can I survive until December?” to “Should I stay for the spring?” This change in outlook surprised me possibly more than it could surprise anyone else. And for approximately a month I have battled with this question every day. Some days the answer was clear, Stay. It’s so much more interesting than Midd. You learn 1,000 new things every day and they’re so much more applicable to life than some political science theory. It’s possibly the one time I will live in Russia. Because playing pick-up hockey at the локомотив rink makes me so happy, in spite of and maybe especially because of all of the strange staring by various Russians. **The staring had actually recently decreased. Everyone who regularly showed up to play on Mondays had become accustomed to the weird girl. Today, we played on Saturday. Some of the same people were there. But there were a lot of new people. The staring, which is actually less staring and sort of just weird prolonged questioning facial expressions, was possibly at an all time high. Also some man started talking to me. I have no idea what he said. I said da. He seemed satisfied with that answer. Also Hug Boy was sadly not present.*** So some days it was clear that I needed to stay.
Other days it was completely clear that I, of course, needed to go home. The most recent example of this day was on Thursday. We don’t have classes on Thursday. And so instead of doing my homework for our classes on Friday. **Russia has also killed my work ethic. It’s IMPOSSIBLE to do work. Perhaps this is why I enjoy this country so much.** So I was bored and trying to fill time until 4:30 basketball practice. So I got on a random marshrootka. Actually it wasn’t random. I have been on this one before. But last time I got off too early and got lost and wandered around for 45 minutes with my hockey stick. So I was sort of trying to redeem myself with a successful riding of the 91st marshrootka. And the entire time I sat there, the inner dialog in my head was “That wouldn’t happen in America. THAT wouldn’t happen in America. THAT wouldn’t happen at home. That WOULD NOT happen in America. That is SO ridiculous and would NEVER happen at home.” Nothing especially annoying or frustrating or even out of the ordinary was occurring. For example we drove past this ugly factory spewing smoke. Except we actually do have huge ugly factories spewing pollution in America. And actually we pollute like, a lot, more than Russia. But I was just completely fed up and so everything became this comparison to the U.S. And invariably Russia ALWAYS (and often unfairly) lost. I can’t explain how strange this was. And at some point I realized that I was doing this. And while I was still frustrated, I was actually just highly amused by the continuous inner dialog of “THAT wouldn’t happen…”
I just realized I have no idea where this blog entry is going. I think when I started writing there was some general idea of what I wanted to say. But somewhere along the way, I lost my thesis statement. Mrs. Williams would not approve.
Okay, I remembered what I was trying to say. So I spent approximately a month battling with, what I lovingly nicknamed, the “stay or go” problem. And I made a lost of lists. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized there was really no correct answer to the problem. That really they are both the “correct” answers in their own ways. I have no idea if this whole entry of “Abby’s crazy inner dialogue” is going to interest my readers. I wonder how many people will actually read this. I always like to imagine that lots of people read about my ridiculous adventures. I bet not that many people read this at all. Oh well…
So I came to the conclusion that although I will count Russia as my new found passion, I need to go home for the spring. There are lots of reasons. Most of those reasons aren’t important now that I have finally just made the damn decision.
Possibly the most obvious reasons to go home are that I want to leave while I am still enamored with the country. I want to leave being excited about coming back. I also am leaving because I feel like if I stayed there is the possibility of liking it too much. So much that going back to finish the often oppressive but always comfortable and safe Middlebury bubble would suck. So I am going back to finish college and then who knows…
However, if there is some sort of large violent overthrow of the government with the presidential elections in March, I may never forgive myself for leaving.
Various Other Items of Interest That Are Probably Much More Interesting Than Abby’s Obsession With Russia;
I asked Andrei if he had ever seen a male conductor on the marshrootka. The conductor is the person who walks around and stares at you until you hand her your fare and then she hands you your ticket and you spend a long time adding up the numbers hoping it is a lucky ticket. I think it especially takes me a long time because I always try to do the math in Russian and then I have to give up and start over and do the whole addition in English. He said one time he saw a male conductor on the marshrootka. But he thinks it was a friend of the driver. Then I asked him if he had ever seen a female driver of a marshrootka. And he just laughed at me. But there are often female drivers of the trams. Perhaps this is only allowed because the tram is strictly confined to its tracks.
Also there is this completely strange phenomenon of hand shaking that occurs in Russia. Like men are constantly shaking each other’s hands. As far as I can tell, whenever you meet another man you are required to shake his hand. But only if you know them. If you don’t know them you are just supposed to walk by and completely ignore their existence. So then they shake hands. And sometimes if they are walking in different directions, all they do is shake hands and nod their heads to each other and continue on their way. Also you are required to shake hands whenever you leave a group of other men. One time at the train station 2 guys approached 2 other guys. They all did the appropriate hand shaking. Talked for like 1 minute. Then 3 of the guys left and the other guy stayed behind. And they all had to shake each other’s hands upon departure. And even they realized how ridiculous this was. I think this would be more acceptable behavior if it was only adults who did this. But also little boys do this. Like one day when I was at the elementary school there was this probably 7 year old boy who walked past another boy and he paused just long enough to shake the other boys hand. And then he continued on his path. Also I have seen teenage boys do the strange hand shaking and head nodding and continuing on their way on the street. Also one time when I went to the Lokomotiv hockey game, Andrei had to stop like every 2 seconds to shake some other guy’s hand. But at least sometimes he would stop and talk to them for a few seconds. But then today while we were waiting for them to let us into the rink, these other guys kept showing up and then they would shake Andrei’s hand and then we would all stand there in silence. Some of these guys I have seen multiple times before other times we play hockey. I wonder if they will ever shake my hand. (Maybe I skipped straight to the hug level.) Or if hand shaking only occurs between two men. I don’t know what the equivalent is when women meet each other on the street. I wonder why they just shake each other’s hands and never say anything. How close of a relationship do you have to have to be on hand shaking basis? Like are you required to know the other person’s name? Or is it enough that you show up to play hockey on a weekly basis and so you shake each other’s hands. Also, once again, I want to know if I am on the verge of being on hand shaking status with anyone. Or if it requires true friendship. Or if because I am a woman I am completely forbidden from the hand shaking. Or if it is enough that I play hockey with all of the men that I can join in the hand shaking. Maybe I will just try to shake Andrei’s hand next time we play hockey. He will think I have lost my mind. Also, perhaps the most annoying part about this is that I can’t ask anyone about this. No Russian person would think it was strange and so they completely wouldn’t understand my question. And an American or other foreigner is probably just as baffled as I am by this hand shaking phenomenon. Actually maybe I am the only person who spends so much thinking it. Oh man, I have just written like an entire page about the hand shaking occurring in Russia.
I went to the post office on Friday. Actually I went there on Thursday but there was a really long line, so I left. So I went back on Friday. The one other time I tried to mail letters I showed up during the lunch break. Except the lunch break is like 2 hours in the middle of the day. I feel like lunch is when most people with jobs try to go mail letters. But the post office was closed from like 11:30 to 1:30. Anyways, I wandered around for a while and then returned and everyone stood outside the front door and then they let us and I waited not that long and mailed my letters. My most recent trip to the post office was much more eventful. On Friday there was still a really long line. But I just decided to wait. So we all stood there. But no one said anything to each other. Then I tried to think if we were standing in a long line in the U.S., if people would talk to each other. I couldn’t really remember. Then there were these cases of goods that you could buy. Like there were sort of acceptable things like greeting cards or lottery tickets. Then there were also displays of children’s books, soap, shampoo, lotion, toilet paper, drawing notebooks, pencils, pens, rulers. Who goes to the post office to buy TOILET PAPER. Or LAUNDRY DETERGENT. Clearly no one actually says “Oh we need toilet paper, I should go buy it at the post office.” Mainly because there would probably be a really long line or it would be lunch break. But then I don’t think that anyone gets to the post office, stands in line to mail their letter, and then decides to buy some toilet paper. So we stood there for a really long time and it was completely ridiculous. And fairly often somebody would enter and just skip the whole line and go to the front and ask the one lady working some question. I guess it would be unfair if they had to stand in line to just ask one question. But it seemed unfair that they got to skip all of us. Then this one lady came in with her daughter and went to the front and asked a question. And suddenly the worker lady disappeared for like 5 minutes. Then she reappeared. And she proceeded to unlock one of the cupboards and the little girl had to spend a long time picking which book she wanted. Who the hell goes to the post office to buy a children’s book? And why did that lady get to skip the whole line? I was only consoled by the fact that everybody else in the line started muttering and scowling at the lady while she paid for the book. Also people would get to the front of the line and just be completely clueless. As if they had never mailed a letter before. This other lady was mailing some important letter so she had to put insurance on it or have notification when the letter arrived at its destination. But she was completely incompetent at filling out the forms. So that took forever. Perhaps an American would also have been completely incompetent at filling out a similar form in the U.S. I’m not sure. But I feel like if you are a Russian person, living your entire life in Russia, speaking Russian, probably often using the postal system, you should not be completely confused by some dumb form. This is also related to my surprise when Russian people don’t know what bus or marshrootka numbers to take. Like they’ve lived in Yarosavl their entire lives! One of my friends was trying to get to her new apartment in one of the other parts of the city after we went to a museum and drank tea one day. And she had no idea what number of bus to take. How does she not know how to get to the other part of the city? So I told her that I only knew that 91 went to that part because I have to ride that one to play hockey. Then I am fairly sure she didn’t believe me. So we stood at the stop for a really long time. Then somebody she knew came along. And she asked him. And he told her to get on 91. Ha. I was right. And then we waited and then she got on. And I actually I just remembered this, but she shook my hand right when she was getting on the marshrootka. So perhaps women or at least young women can shake each other’s hands. But it was more like a hand grasp instead of a true organized hand shake. I shall continue to observe and report back on the hand shaking…
*Also I wonder what people who have never been to Russia think a marshrootka is. Because they are awesome and I wish they were in America. It’s like a pulic transportation bus. But it’s more often van-sized. And essentially you just try to fit as many people in at one time as possible. Usually this is fairly entertaining. Unless I have the hockey stick and bag. In which case everyone just stares at frowns at me. And I end up hitting everyone with the bag. I try to keep a closer watch on the hockey stick as I feel like being hit by the bag is more forgivable than being hit by the stick.
Oh man. This thing is so long. I bet if I spent more of my time reading or thinking or talking in Russian, and less of it writing blogs in English, I wouldn’t still be so bad at this language.
There were other important or not so important things that I was going to write about. I don’t remember what they were.
The high heeled winter boots have been so far a fairly successful venture. Except now my left foot is swollen because I got hit by a puck today. So now the boot is tight. And I have this awkward limp that is occurring.
Also I am going to take this opportunity to remind my family members of some of their New Years Resolutions, which I required them all to make.
So, Kit: You are supposed to be brushing your teeth every day (yeah right) and be able to tombstone Stonewall. Also you are supposed to be promoting Artic Slaughter.
Stonewall: I feel like you might have succeeded at some of your resolutions. As opposed to Kit’s completely ridiculous list. So, Stonewall: You are supposed to be visiting and applying to colleges (Good Work!-If I can I would like to suggest a college in a different time zone from Missoula, because it would be pretty lame if 3 of the 4 clocks were on the same time and mine was only two hours ahead. I feel like mine being 10 hours ahead right now sort of compensates for the lameness of 3 being the same time), have a single digit handicap by the end of the summer, and be coaching a squirt or peewee hockey team this winter.
Mama Mayer: You are supposed to have planned the trip to Vermont (which I think I sort of planned), but we’ll give you credit for that. You need to have gotten proposal signatures (Succesful!) Sign up for ski lessons this winter and hiking to the M once a week.
I thought this would get posted on Laurel's birthday. But I got bored of sitting at the apartment so I came to the internet club. I think the people who work here hate me. I am always here. I wonder if I actually do come that often, of if it is just normal and I feel like I am always coming . Regardless.
This would have been posted on Laurel’s birthday. So 20th happy birthday, my dear!!! I wish we could sleep in a tent like we did on my 20th. But we will have to save that for this spring.
So I recently looked at the list of resolutions I typed last December/January. It’s also a crazy way to compare your current priorities with your priorities at the time of writing. And the one resolution that really sticks out now as well as the one I remember the most from when I wrote them is #8: become passionate about something. And I realized both then and now how silly it is to decide and put on a list to “become passionate about something.” But I think it was sort of a response to the fact that we’re all so busy at Midd and everyone thinks everything they are doing is really important. And maybe they actually do think what they are doing is really important. Which I guess is good. But I just felt like general busy-ness for no reason or fake passion (which in my cynic point of view is prospering at Middlebury) are lame. If people disagree with me and think that the passion at Middlebury is real and not “fake,” please tell me because that would actually make me very happy. I much prefer apathetic people who don’t really care about anything and are okay with that, than someone who is fakely excited about some cause or movement. I guess I should really be less judgmental. Moving on…
Okay, so back to the “become passionate about something.” I think this is also related to the phase I went through in high school where I decided I needed to develop hobbies. Except the only hobbies I could come up with were various sewing or knitting pursuits. Lame! I wish I could have stuck with the “hobby” problem and not graduated to the much more complex problem of “passion.”
Anyways, I am getting way off topic. I realized recently that my passion is generally Russian-ness. And I am not just referring to vodka. This country has captivated me in a way like nothing I can ever remember. It could just be that this is the first time I have ever lived abroad and so it’s just general infatuation with something so different from the good old U.S.A. But I really feel like if I had decided to go to Germany or Italy or China, it just wouldn’t have captivated me like Russia has. I don’t know why this is. I guess it’s a combination of a lot of different things. The language, the cold and snow and winter-ness, the country’s acceptance of hockey (although there is unfortunately no general acceptance of my female participation in it), the general need for Russians to suffer (I too have been known to make myself miserable for no good reason), the completely crazy-ness that is always occurring (and I say crazy with the most serious respect), the collision of politics and economics and history that still is completely inadequate in explaining this country, the people.
I think especially the people interest me. Like, they’ve all lived through these events and history and political and economic upheaval that completely interest me so much. Tonight at dinner I asked Margarita if she thought life was better during the Soviet Union. The fact that I was able to have that conversation with her absolutely blows my mind. And although she initially said that some things are better and some things are worse, her entire list of examples was how things are worse now…which I guess is sort of what I expected. But coming from a U.S. education, that is not supposed to be the answer. And so that only serves to deepen both my interest in Russia and the developing belief that maybe there really isn’t one “right” answer or one correct political system. I also feel like I am way too affected by the sort of propaganda-esque ness of Putin that occurs everywhere. Well mostly just on the TV stations we watch and on every street corner which is now plastered with “План Путина- Победа России” “Putin’s plan. Russia’s victory.” Also it might be that I have to compare him with our loony Bush. Perhaps in a contest of Putin versus George Washington, Putin would lose. But in a Bush versus Putin contest. Putin is the clear winner, as I see it. Putin speaks three languages. Bush is often unable to speak one. I am going to ignore the fact that Putin only speaks German because of his long KGB work in East Germany.
I also feel that it is sort of unfortunate that the Russian person I spend the most time with is a 70 year old grandmother. I know her current life and life view are probably vastly different from a young or middle aged Russian. One time we were talking about how we all wash our clothes by hand and our conversation teacher was really surprised. So maybe washing machines are more popular than we were led to believe. She was also surprised that none of us had microwaves at our host families. Apparently they might be sort of popular too. So I feel like my time with Margarita is very interesting from a historical standpoint, but maybe not creating the most accurate picture of “modern” Russia. I also wonder where the rich Russians live. Not the really rich ones, but the sort of rich ones. Because there are always Mercedes on the streets. Do they also live in the same apartment buildings like us? What do their apartments look like?
Mostly my deep interest in Russia pleases me so much because I have completely no idea why I began studying Russian. And so this reinforces my life idea that the choices we make are not really that important. That the power we have over our own life is miniscule compared to the power of chance, luck, coincidence, etc. I feel like people could interpret this as me saying that nothing we do ever matters because we have no control over our lives. That’s not at all what I имею виду “mean.” **It also pleases me that even what I am thinking and typing in English, it seems natural to revert to Russian constructions. This is related to what Natasha was talking about with чтобы. I also often want to use бы. Which in 2 letters and you can even shorten it to б for poetic or various other reasons conveys the whole idea of something that could have happened, but it actually didn’t happen and will not happen. But there still was the possibility once of it happening. Or at least in our discussion we are pretending that there was the possibility** Maybe this “our choices don’t matter” life view is my way of convincing myself to worry less about the decisions I make and to just live. But it all works out in the end.
Completely Unrelated Sidenote
**Also why do Russian people always reply to как дела? “how are (your) matters?- i.e. how are you” that things are нормально “normal.” But that всё будет хорошо “everything will be good.” While Americans always when asked “how are you?” say “good.” But we always say “everything will be okay.” Why is everything in Russia only normal in the present but good in the future? And in America everything is good in the present and only okay in the future?
10 Times More Unrelated than Previous Unrelated Sidenote
I am currently listening to a Russian pop/rock song entitled Герпес. Why do Russians sing about STDs? Герпес—Herpes. У тебя СПИД? –Do you have AIDS?
Back on topic:
So Russia has provided me with something about which to be passionate. Is that a legit construction of an English sentence? Oh well. And at some point the question changed from “Can I survive until December?” to “Should I stay for the spring?” This change in outlook surprised me possibly more than it could surprise anyone else. And for approximately a month I have battled with this question every day. Some days the answer was clear, Stay. It’s so much more interesting than Midd. You learn 1,000 new things every day and they’re so much more applicable to life than some political science theory. It’s possibly the one time I will live in Russia. Because playing pick-up hockey at the локомотив rink makes me so happy, in spite of and maybe especially because of all of the strange staring by various Russians. **The staring had actually recently decreased. Everyone who regularly showed up to play on Mondays had become accustomed to the weird girl. Today, we played on Saturday. Some of the same people were there. But there were a lot of new people. The staring, which is actually less staring and sort of just weird prolonged questioning facial expressions, was possibly at an all time high. Also some man started talking to me. I have no idea what he said. I said da. He seemed satisfied with that answer. Also Hug Boy was sadly not present.*** So some days it was clear that I needed to stay.
Other days it was completely clear that I, of course, needed to go home. The most recent example of this day was on Thursday. We don’t have classes on Thursday. And so instead of doing my homework for our classes on Friday. **Russia has also killed my work ethic. It’s IMPOSSIBLE to do work. Perhaps this is why I enjoy this country so much.** So I was bored and trying to fill time until 4:30 basketball practice. So I got on a random marshrootka. Actually it wasn’t random. I have been on this one before. But last time I got off too early and got lost and wandered around for 45 minutes with my hockey stick. So I was sort of trying to redeem myself with a successful riding of the 91st marshrootka. And the entire time I sat there, the inner dialog in my head was “That wouldn’t happen in America. THAT wouldn’t happen in America. THAT wouldn’t happen at home. That WOULD NOT happen in America. That is SO ridiculous and would NEVER happen at home.” Nothing especially annoying or frustrating or even out of the ordinary was occurring. For example we drove past this ugly factory spewing smoke. Except we actually do have huge ugly factories spewing pollution in America. And actually we pollute like, a lot, more than Russia. But I was just completely fed up and so everything became this comparison to the U.S. And invariably Russia ALWAYS (and often unfairly) lost. I can’t explain how strange this was. And at some point I realized that I was doing this. And while I was still frustrated, I was actually just highly amused by the continuous inner dialog of “THAT wouldn’t happen…”
I just realized I have no idea where this blog entry is going. I think when I started writing there was some general idea of what I wanted to say. But somewhere along the way, I lost my thesis statement. Mrs. Williams would not approve.
Okay, I remembered what I was trying to say. So I spent approximately a month battling with, what I lovingly nicknamed, the “stay or go” problem. And I made a lost of lists. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized there was really no correct answer to the problem. That really they are both the “correct” answers in their own ways. I have no idea if this whole entry of “Abby’s crazy inner dialogue” is going to interest my readers. I wonder how many people will actually read this. I always like to imagine that lots of people read about my ridiculous adventures. I bet not that many people read this at all. Oh well…
So I came to the conclusion that although I will count Russia as my new found passion, I need to go home for the spring. There are lots of reasons. Most of those reasons aren’t important now that I have finally just made the damn decision.
Possibly the most obvious reasons to go home are that I want to leave while I am still enamored with the country. I want to leave being excited about coming back. I also am leaving because I feel like if I stayed there is the possibility of liking it too much. So much that going back to finish the often oppressive but always comfortable and safe Middlebury bubble would suck. So I am going back to finish college and then who knows…
However, if there is some sort of large violent overthrow of the government with the presidential elections in March, I may never forgive myself for leaving.
Various Other Items of Interest That Are Probably Much More Interesting Than Abby’s Obsession With Russia;
I asked Andrei if he had ever seen a male conductor on the marshrootka. The conductor is the person who walks around and stares at you until you hand her your fare and then she hands you your ticket and you spend a long time adding up the numbers hoping it is a lucky ticket. I think it especially takes me a long time because I always try to do the math in Russian and then I have to give up and start over and do the whole addition in English. He said one time he saw a male conductor on the marshrootka. But he thinks it was a friend of the driver. Then I asked him if he had ever seen a female driver of a marshrootka. And he just laughed at me. But there are often female drivers of the trams. Perhaps this is only allowed because the tram is strictly confined to its tracks.
Also there is this completely strange phenomenon of hand shaking that occurs in Russia. Like men are constantly shaking each other’s hands. As far as I can tell, whenever you meet another man you are required to shake his hand. But only if you know them. If you don’t know them you are just supposed to walk by and completely ignore their existence. So then they shake hands. And sometimes if they are walking in different directions, all they do is shake hands and nod their heads to each other and continue on their way. Also you are required to shake hands whenever you leave a group of other men. One time at the train station 2 guys approached 2 other guys. They all did the appropriate hand shaking. Talked for like 1 minute. Then 3 of the guys left and the other guy stayed behind. And they all had to shake each other’s hands upon departure. And even they realized how ridiculous this was. I think this would be more acceptable behavior if it was only adults who did this. But also little boys do this. Like one day when I was at the elementary school there was this probably 7 year old boy who walked past another boy and he paused just long enough to shake the other boys hand. And then he continued on his path. Also I have seen teenage boys do the strange hand shaking and head nodding and continuing on their way on the street. Also one time when I went to the Lokomotiv hockey game, Andrei had to stop like every 2 seconds to shake some other guy’s hand. But at least sometimes he would stop and talk to them for a few seconds. But then today while we were waiting for them to let us into the rink, these other guys kept showing up and then they would shake Andrei’s hand and then we would all stand there in silence. Some of these guys I have seen multiple times before other times we play hockey. I wonder if they will ever shake my hand. (Maybe I skipped straight to the hug level.) Or if hand shaking only occurs between two men. I don’t know what the equivalent is when women meet each other on the street. I wonder why they just shake each other’s hands and never say anything. How close of a relationship do you have to have to be on hand shaking basis? Like are you required to know the other person’s name? Or is it enough that you show up to play hockey on a weekly basis and so you shake each other’s hands. Also, once again, I want to know if I am on the verge of being on hand shaking status with anyone. Or if it requires true friendship. Or if because I am a woman I am completely forbidden from the hand shaking. Or if it is enough that I play hockey with all of the men that I can join in the hand shaking. Maybe I will just try to shake Andrei’s hand next time we play hockey. He will think I have lost my mind. Also, perhaps the most annoying part about this is that I can’t ask anyone about this. No Russian person would think it was strange and so they completely wouldn’t understand my question. And an American or other foreigner is probably just as baffled as I am by this hand shaking phenomenon. Actually maybe I am the only person who spends so much thinking it. Oh man, I have just written like an entire page about the hand shaking occurring in Russia.
I went to the post office on Friday. Actually I went there on Thursday but there was a really long line, so I left. So I went back on Friday. The one other time I tried to mail letters I showed up during the lunch break. Except the lunch break is like 2 hours in the middle of the day. I feel like lunch is when most people with jobs try to go mail letters. But the post office was closed from like 11:30 to 1:30. Anyways, I wandered around for a while and then returned and everyone stood outside the front door and then they let us and I waited not that long and mailed my letters. My most recent trip to the post office was much more eventful. On Friday there was still a really long line. But I just decided to wait. So we all stood there. But no one said anything to each other. Then I tried to think if we were standing in a long line in the U.S., if people would talk to each other. I couldn’t really remember. Then there were these cases of goods that you could buy. Like there were sort of acceptable things like greeting cards or lottery tickets. Then there were also displays of children’s books, soap, shampoo, lotion, toilet paper, drawing notebooks, pencils, pens, rulers. Who goes to the post office to buy TOILET PAPER. Or LAUNDRY DETERGENT. Clearly no one actually says “Oh we need toilet paper, I should go buy it at the post office.” Mainly because there would probably be a really long line or it would be lunch break. But then I don’t think that anyone gets to the post office, stands in line to mail their letter, and then decides to buy some toilet paper. So we stood there for a really long time and it was completely ridiculous. And fairly often somebody would enter and just skip the whole line and go to the front and ask the one lady working some question. I guess it would be unfair if they had to stand in line to just ask one question. But it seemed unfair that they got to skip all of us. Then this one lady came in with her daughter and went to the front and asked a question. And suddenly the worker lady disappeared for like 5 minutes. Then she reappeared. And she proceeded to unlock one of the cupboards and the little girl had to spend a long time picking which book she wanted. Who the hell goes to the post office to buy a children’s book? And why did that lady get to skip the whole line? I was only consoled by the fact that everybody else in the line started muttering and scowling at the lady while she paid for the book. Also people would get to the front of the line and just be completely clueless. As if they had never mailed a letter before. This other lady was mailing some important letter so she had to put insurance on it or have notification when the letter arrived at its destination. But she was completely incompetent at filling out the forms. So that took forever. Perhaps an American would also have been completely incompetent at filling out a similar form in the U.S. I’m not sure. But I feel like if you are a Russian person, living your entire life in Russia, speaking Russian, probably often using the postal system, you should not be completely confused by some dumb form. This is also related to my surprise when Russian people don’t know what bus or marshrootka numbers to take. Like they’ve lived in Yarosavl their entire lives! One of my friends was trying to get to her new apartment in one of the other parts of the city after we went to a museum and drank tea one day. And she had no idea what number of bus to take. How does she not know how to get to the other part of the city? So I told her that I only knew that 91 went to that part because I have to ride that one to play hockey. Then I am fairly sure she didn’t believe me. So we stood at the stop for a really long time. Then somebody she knew came along. And she asked him. And he told her to get on 91. Ha. I was right. And then we waited and then she got on. And I actually I just remembered this, but she shook my hand right when she was getting on the marshrootka. So perhaps women or at least young women can shake each other’s hands. But it was more like a hand grasp instead of a true organized hand shake. I shall continue to observe and report back on the hand shaking…
*Also I wonder what people who have never been to Russia think a marshrootka is. Because they are awesome and I wish they were in America. It’s like a pulic transportation bus. But it’s more often van-sized. And essentially you just try to fit as many people in at one time as possible. Usually this is fairly entertaining. Unless I have the hockey stick and bag. In which case everyone just stares at frowns at me. And I end up hitting everyone with the bag. I try to keep a closer watch on the hockey stick as I feel like being hit by the bag is more forgivable than being hit by the stick.
Oh man. This thing is so long. I bet if I spent more of my time reading or thinking or talking in Russian, and less of it writing blogs in English, I wouldn’t still be so bad at this language.
There were other important or not so important things that I was going to write about. I don’t remember what they were.
The high heeled winter boots have been so far a fairly successful venture. Except now my left foot is swollen because I got hit by a puck today. So now the boot is tight. And I have this awkward limp that is occurring.
Also I am going to take this opportunity to remind my family members of some of their New Years Resolutions, which I required them all to make.
So, Kit: You are supposed to be brushing your teeth every day (yeah right) and be able to tombstone Stonewall. Also you are supposed to be promoting Artic Slaughter.
Stonewall: I feel like you might have succeeded at some of your resolutions. As opposed to Kit’s completely ridiculous list. So, Stonewall: You are supposed to be visiting and applying to colleges (Good Work!-If I can I would like to suggest a college in a different time zone from Missoula, because it would be pretty lame if 3 of the 4 clocks were on the same time and mine was only two hours ahead. I feel like mine being 10 hours ahead right now sort of compensates for the lameness of 3 being the same time), have a single digit handicap by the end of the summer, and be coaching a squirt or peewee hockey team this winter.
Mama Mayer: You are supposed to have planned the trip to Vermont (which I think I sort of planned), but we’ll give you credit for that. You need to have gotten proposal signatures (Succesful!) Sign up for ski lessons this winter and hiking to the M once a week.
I thought this would get posted on Laurel's birthday. But I got bored of sitting at the apartment so I came to the internet club. I think the people who work here hate me. I am always here. I wonder if I actually do come that often, of if it is just normal and I feel like I am always coming . Regardless.
This would have been posted on Laurel’s birthday. So 20th happy birthday, my dear!!! I wish we could sleep in a tent like we did on my 20th. But we will have to save that for this spring.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
The Rest of Archangelsk
Thursday Afternoon
So I left the hotel at around 5 p.m. after my delicious nap. But before I was also to leave the hotel I had to make it back to the front desk/lobby area. And therein lies the problem. I had just followed the doorman to my room and I was sort of still dazed so I hadn’t really paid attention to where we were going. I only knew that it was confusing because I was staying in the 2nd (cheap) campus of the hotel and I needed to make it back to the expensive lobby 1st campus. So then I left my room and took the elevator to the first floor. And there were lots of confusing hallways and doors but no clear exit to the lobby. So then I decided maybe they connected on the -1 floor. So then I took the elevator there. And the workmen sort of stared at me when the elevator door opened. So they got on. And then we returned to the 1st floor. And they disappeared into some door. And then some other people appeared. And they weren’t workmen. So I started to follow them (at a safe distance, so they didn’t know I was actually following them). But then they went into this office. So then I decided to just sit down on one of the chairs and hope that eventually somebody else would come along and I would be able to follow them. And then as I was turning in a circle to go back to the chair, this guy came up and asked if I needed something. And I asked where the lobby was. And he sort of laughed at me. And then he said something about how I was right that it was a labyrinth. And then he led me to some door and we followed this hallway to the lobby. So that was good.
So once I successfully exited the hotel, it was already dark, so I just walked around on the main streets (Sunday and Trotskii) for like an hour. And then I found this large shopping mall complex which I wandered around for a while. And then I went and bought bottled water at one of the kiosks and I found the information center (which was already closed) which was located very close to the hotel (Good Work Paper Map!). And then I went back and carefully paid attention to the correct hallway and doors I went through to get to my room. And then I went to bed.
Friday
So first thing, I went to the information center. And the woman there was very helpful. And she gave me all sorts of pamphlets and phone numbers to call. And she told me about this famous museum that is 45 minutes south of Archangelsk which is just this huge complex of really old wooden buildings that they collected from all parts of northern Russia and moved together into this one complex. So I decided that I would do that on Saturday.
So for the rest of Friday, I wandered around and found two different museums. One with an exhibit about the history of Archangelsk during Soviet times which was really interesting and then this really sad and depressing part about all of the soldiers from Archangelsk who had died in Afghanistan. And then I realized that the same exhibit could be made for all of the U.S. soldiers who died/are dying in Afghanistan right now. And it just seems so DUMB! That is my very ineloquent response to what seems to be a general trend of Afghanistan invasion.
Then I went and walked along the banks of the sea again. For a really long time. And I came upon another random museum. So I went in there. And I saw a lot of old portraits of old people. Which were displayed in this apartment that used to be the apartment of rich/possibly royalty who lived in Archangelsk. And then there was another display of handmade dolls. And the woman just talked to/at me for a very long time about all of the different dolls. And then I just kept walking along the banks. Then I found the central market. Which is always an essential part of any Russian city. Then I found a grocery story and bought food. And went back to the hotel and planned my Saturday trip to the wooden building museum and went to bed.
Saturday
Got on the marshrootka which had on its list of stops that it was going to the train station/bus station. Except it was actually coming from those places. So then we drove across this huge bridge and into this other part of Archangelsk. But I just decided I would wait until the end of the route and look at all of the Soviet apartment buildings. And then I would get on another one actually headed to the bus station. So then I got off and walked to another nearby stop. It was my hope that this way I would be able to avoid getting back on the same exact marshrootka headed the other direction. So I did not get back on the same marshrootka, but that one did pass me while I was standing at the stop. And I’m not sure if the conductor lady realized. Anyways, I got on the next one headed to the bus station. And I got a lucky ticket! Which was awesome because it is always a good sign to get lucky tickets and it is even better when you get them by accident because you were a loon and got sort of lost.
Then I got on the bus headed to Malie Karelie (museum) and I asked the conductor to tell me when my stop was. And she kindly obliged. ***This is a good point to insert my commentary about the general niceness of Archangelsk residents. It’s not that people in Yaroslavl are actually mean. But people in Archangelsk seemed actually nice. Like the cars stopped at crosswalks!!! Unbelievable, I know. And one time this conductor woman on the marshrootka leaned out of the door and explained where they were going and tried to convince members of the crowd to get on. And also you don’t have to wave for the marshrootka’s to stop. They just do!*** Okay, anyways. So the lady told me when to get off. So I paid for entry to the museum. And I successfully paid only 30 roubles for a student instead of the 200 for a foreigner. And then I just wandered around for like 3 hours looking at the sweet old wooden houses, barns, churches, water pumps, windmills, etc…And it was nice to not be in the city. I always forget how nice it is to be surrounded by trees instead of people and cars. Then I went to another gift shop/souvenir store. This is mainly because I recently realized I better start buying gifts for people. I have no idea what is an appropriate souvenir from Russia. However, my gift buying is constricted by the fact that all of my purchases must be both compact (easily packable), light (I’m deathly scared my suitcases will be over the weight limit), and not fragile (because they will have to share the suitcase with among other things hockey skates). But the woman in this store was also not satisfied with my just aimlessly looking at the souvenirs. So then I went to the bus station and took the next bus back to Archangelsk. And on this trip back I received 2 lucky tickets!!! This was the craziest thing ever. So now my collection of luck transport tickets is up to 4.
Then I wandered around for a long time both in the city center and along the sea. And then I had to find the concert hall because on Friday I had gone to buy a ticket to the organ and violin concert which was the 16th annual opening concert of some international musical concert in Archangelsk. So then I went to the concert and the building was beautiful, both inside and out. I think it was built in the 17th century. And it was nice to just sit there and sort of still be in this “wow-I can’t believe I’m doing this right now” mode which sort of existed the whole weekend. And when the organ guy (whose last name was Stroganof- which is awesome) was playing his back was to the audience. But whenever he would finish a composition he would do this overdramatic swinging of his legs over the top of the bench and hop to his feet for the dramatic bow. It was highly amusing.
Sunday
The alternative title for this entry is “Part 5: Cowboys,” but you will have to keep reading to understand why.
So I woke up and packed and paid for my hotel room. And the woman took my room key and typed it in to the computer and then started to speak in awkward English. But I answered in Russian. And she smiled and said “Oh, you speak Russian!” And it was good. And then I managed to pay to leave my bag in the камера хранения. I guess they must have these things in the U.S. too where you can leave your luggage because your train/plane leaves late in the day. But I must just stay at only like Super 8’s which never have them. Then I went and bought a Snickers at the Kiosk. This is only important because Snickers became an important part of my diet during my Archangelsk time. One time I tried to buy Skittles but the woman looked at me and had to dig around in her kiosk for like 5 minutes to find a bag of Skittles. So I just stuck with the Snickers. Then I went to the last museum on my list of museums which is housed in the old fort/protection building thing which is very old and apparently one of only a few old stone protection buildings left in Russia. And there was this old Russian man standing at the doorway who was sort of sketchy and smiled at me and opened the door. And then I asked him where the museum was and he kept smiling and pointed me to the door. So then I went to this museum.
And read all about how Archangelsk was Russia’s first port city until dumb Piter came about. And then all about wedding tradition in the север. And then as I prepared to exit, I realized that I had to pass the crazy doorman guy again.
Conversations and Candy:
So he invited me into the small glass hut/cabin/office thing which stands at the entrance. And then I sat down and he told me to tell me what I had thought about the museum. So I just stared to talk and then he interrupted me to ask me where I was from. And I said I studied in Yaroslavl, but I was from America. Oh man, this highly delighted him. And then he mentioned Margaret Thatcher and continued to refer to her for the remainder of our conversation.
So we talked about Russia, politics, the U.S., my family, my lack of boyfriend. He was very unsatisfied by the lack of boyfriend. So I changed my story that I had a boyfriend, but it was too hard when I was in Russia and he was in the U.S. My new friend’s solution to this problem was that the boyfriend could come to Russia. Then he also suggested that there were lots of men in Russia. Plus, winter is coming. And it will be cold, so I need a boyfriend. Then when it was revealed that I was 20 yrs. old, he said I should have 2 children already. By the way, did I want girls or boys? Also don’t forget that every approximately 5 minutes, he would again refer to Margaret Thatcher. Then I am fairly sure that he coupled the fact that I was an American and I was interested in politics, that I was going to be president soon. So he stopped referring to good old Margaret and began referring to seeing me on television as president in a few years. Then he gave me some candy and sent me on my way. He was soo cool. Also, he used to work in Kamchatka!
Next up: “House of Books”
This was only a problem because it combines my love for books and my love of Russian and so I just want to buy approximately EVERYTHING. I found some textbook about America in English, in which there was a “Part 5: Cowboys.” The most important things about the U.S. seemed to be New York City and cowboys. Then I found the atlas/map section so I spent forever looking at all of these awesome World Atlases in Russian. And I even found Мизула (Missoula) on one of the U.S. maps! Sadly, Middlebury did not make the cut. Then again, Middlebury doesn’t make the cut on most English maps. Then I found «Моя Жизнь-Бил Клинтон» (My Life-Bill Clinton) and so I really wanted to buy that. Then I found the children’s section and I almost bought one of the “learn to read” books for Kit. The book was called something like “My Little Book-y” and had awesome pages and illustrations of гриб (mushroom) or кот (cat). But then I realized that books are neither small/compact (especially huge atlases) nor light. So I didn’t buy anything. Then I realized that possibly this was a good idea. Because maybe I am the only person who would want a huge atlas of the world in Russian. Also if you are Laurel and you wish that you were going to receive a travel guide to Paris (in Russian) I am sorry because I decided not to buy that either.
Then I wandered along the pedestrian only street which was full of lots of people and lots of miniature horses and….a camel? I don’t know why there was a camel there. I considered paying money to ride it. But as there would have been no one else to appreciate the brilliance of this experience, I just stared at it for a while. Also I remembered the one time I was talking to Susanna and she was alarmed by the camel invasion of the Irkutsk streets. Then I went back to the market and wandered around some more. Looked at the sea one last time. Retrieved my bags from the hotel. The doorman asked me if I wanted him to put it in my car. And I almost laughed at him.
Sat at the train station for a long time. Sat and slept on the train for a much longer time. Returned to Yaroslavl. Margarita prepared a feast for my arrival. Same old, same old. She also rearranged all of the furniture in my room. And I am not satisfied. But she is in utter восторг. Ну, что делать.
Various Other Things Which I Forgot To Mention
My reading during the trip revealed many interesting things:
Apparently J.K. Rowling recently revealed that Dumbledore was gay. And then the article went on to suggest that McGonogal was a lesbian and question the close relationship between Filch and his cat. Pure brilliance.
Also Tom Cruise is building a like 19 story bunker below his house in Colorado. Because he is afraid of alien invasion.
Also there is this phenomenal picture of George Bush looking like a complete loon. And I understood the whole article except for the punch line.
Russians understood the glory of baked goods. And the glory of chocolate. But as far as I can tell, they don’t really combine the two. So any sort of chocolate chip cookie is non-existent. Except I found some in a grocery store in Archangelsk. But they were not very good. But nonetheless, they were chocolate chip cookies.
Also Ирония Судбы 2 is coming out in December.
Tomorrow is November 7 which is the day of the communist revolution of something like that. And although Putin tried to replace it with November 4th (Day of Unity), communist habits die hard. So there is going to be some Communist Meeting and March.
Update: I walked by where the march was going to be an hour before it was supposed to start. And there were already a lot of police men milling about. And I didn't know if I should be more scared of the policemen or the Communists. So I just went home.
So I left the hotel at around 5 p.m. after my delicious nap. But before I was also to leave the hotel I had to make it back to the front desk/lobby area. And therein lies the problem. I had just followed the doorman to my room and I was sort of still dazed so I hadn’t really paid attention to where we were going. I only knew that it was confusing because I was staying in the 2nd (cheap) campus of the hotel and I needed to make it back to the expensive lobby 1st campus. So then I left my room and took the elevator to the first floor. And there were lots of confusing hallways and doors but no clear exit to the lobby. So then I decided maybe they connected on the -1 floor. So then I took the elevator there. And the workmen sort of stared at me when the elevator door opened. So they got on. And then we returned to the 1st floor. And they disappeared into some door. And then some other people appeared. And they weren’t workmen. So I started to follow them (at a safe distance, so they didn’t know I was actually following them). But then they went into this office. So then I decided to just sit down on one of the chairs and hope that eventually somebody else would come along and I would be able to follow them. And then as I was turning in a circle to go back to the chair, this guy came up and asked if I needed something. And I asked where the lobby was. And he sort of laughed at me. And then he said something about how I was right that it was a labyrinth. And then he led me to some door and we followed this hallway to the lobby. So that was good.
So once I successfully exited the hotel, it was already dark, so I just walked around on the main streets (Sunday and Trotskii) for like an hour. And then I found this large shopping mall complex which I wandered around for a while. And then I went and bought bottled water at one of the kiosks and I found the information center (which was already closed) which was located very close to the hotel (Good Work Paper Map!). And then I went back and carefully paid attention to the correct hallway and doors I went through to get to my room. And then I went to bed.
Friday
So first thing, I went to the information center. And the woman there was very helpful. And she gave me all sorts of pamphlets and phone numbers to call. And she told me about this famous museum that is 45 minutes south of Archangelsk which is just this huge complex of really old wooden buildings that they collected from all parts of northern Russia and moved together into this one complex. So I decided that I would do that on Saturday.
So for the rest of Friday, I wandered around and found two different museums. One with an exhibit about the history of Archangelsk during Soviet times which was really interesting and then this really sad and depressing part about all of the soldiers from Archangelsk who had died in Afghanistan. And then I realized that the same exhibit could be made for all of the U.S. soldiers who died/are dying in Afghanistan right now. And it just seems so DUMB! That is my very ineloquent response to what seems to be a general trend of Afghanistan invasion.
Then I went and walked along the banks of the sea again. For a really long time. And I came upon another random museum. So I went in there. And I saw a lot of old portraits of old people. Which were displayed in this apartment that used to be the apartment of rich/possibly royalty who lived in Archangelsk. And then there was another display of handmade dolls. And the woman just talked to/at me for a very long time about all of the different dolls. And then I just kept walking along the banks. Then I found the central market. Which is always an essential part of any Russian city. Then I found a grocery story and bought food. And went back to the hotel and planned my Saturday trip to the wooden building museum and went to bed.
Saturday
Got on the marshrootka which had on its list of stops that it was going to the train station/bus station. Except it was actually coming from those places. So then we drove across this huge bridge and into this other part of Archangelsk. But I just decided I would wait until the end of the route and look at all of the Soviet apartment buildings. And then I would get on another one actually headed to the bus station. So then I got off and walked to another nearby stop. It was my hope that this way I would be able to avoid getting back on the same exact marshrootka headed the other direction. So I did not get back on the same marshrootka, but that one did pass me while I was standing at the stop. And I’m not sure if the conductor lady realized. Anyways, I got on the next one headed to the bus station. And I got a lucky ticket! Which was awesome because it is always a good sign to get lucky tickets and it is even better when you get them by accident because you were a loon and got sort of lost.
Then I got on the bus headed to Malie Karelie (museum) and I asked the conductor to tell me when my stop was. And she kindly obliged. ***This is a good point to insert my commentary about the general niceness of Archangelsk residents. It’s not that people in Yaroslavl are actually mean. But people in Archangelsk seemed actually nice. Like the cars stopped at crosswalks!!! Unbelievable, I know. And one time this conductor woman on the marshrootka leaned out of the door and explained where they were going and tried to convince members of the crowd to get on. And also you don’t have to wave for the marshrootka’s to stop. They just do!*** Okay, anyways. So the lady told me when to get off. So I paid for entry to the museum. And I successfully paid only 30 roubles for a student instead of the 200 for a foreigner. And then I just wandered around for like 3 hours looking at the sweet old wooden houses, barns, churches, water pumps, windmills, etc…And it was nice to not be in the city. I always forget how nice it is to be surrounded by trees instead of people and cars. Then I went to another gift shop/souvenir store. This is mainly because I recently realized I better start buying gifts for people. I have no idea what is an appropriate souvenir from Russia. However, my gift buying is constricted by the fact that all of my purchases must be both compact (easily packable), light (I’m deathly scared my suitcases will be over the weight limit), and not fragile (because they will have to share the suitcase with among other things hockey skates). But the woman in this store was also not satisfied with my just aimlessly looking at the souvenirs. So then I went to the bus station and took the next bus back to Archangelsk. And on this trip back I received 2 lucky tickets!!! This was the craziest thing ever. So now my collection of luck transport tickets is up to 4.
Then I wandered around for a long time both in the city center and along the sea. And then I had to find the concert hall because on Friday I had gone to buy a ticket to the organ and violin concert which was the 16th annual opening concert of some international musical concert in Archangelsk. So then I went to the concert and the building was beautiful, both inside and out. I think it was built in the 17th century. And it was nice to just sit there and sort of still be in this “wow-I can’t believe I’m doing this right now” mode which sort of existed the whole weekend. And when the organ guy (whose last name was Stroganof- which is awesome) was playing his back was to the audience. But whenever he would finish a composition he would do this overdramatic swinging of his legs over the top of the bench and hop to his feet for the dramatic bow. It was highly amusing.
Sunday
The alternative title for this entry is “Part 5: Cowboys,” but you will have to keep reading to understand why.
So I woke up and packed and paid for my hotel room. And the woman took my room key and typed it in to the computer and then started to speak in awkward English. But I answered in Russian. And she smiled and said “Oh, you speak Russian!” And it was good. And then I managed to pay to leave my bag in the камера хранения. I guess they must have these things in the U.S. too where you can leave your luggage because your train/plane leaves late in the day. But I must just stay at only like Super 8’s which never have them. Then I went and bought a Snickers at the Kiosk. This is only important because Snickers became an important part of my diet during my Archangelsk time. One time I tried to buy Skittles but the woman looked at me and had to dig around in her kiosk for like 5 minutes to find a bag of Skittles. So I just stuck with the Snickers. Then I went to the last museum on my list of museums which is housed in the old fort/protection building thing which is very old and apparently one of only a few old stone protection buildings left in Russia. And there was this old Russian man standing at the doorway who was sort of sketchy and smiled at me and opened the door. And then I asked him where the museum was and he kept smiling and pointed me to the door. So then I went to this museum.
And read all about how Archangelsk was Russia’s first port city until dumb Piter came about. And then all about wedding tradition in the север. And then as I prepared to exit, I realized that I had to pass the crazy doorman guy again.
Conversations and Candy:
So he invited me into the small glass hut/cabin/office thing which stands at the entrance. And then I sat down and he told me to tell me what I had thought about the museum. So I just stared to talk and then he interrupted me to ask me where I was from. And I said I studied in Yaroslavl, but I was from America. Oh man, this highly delighted him. And then he mentioned Margaret Thatcher and continued to refer to her for the remainder of our conversation.
So we talked about Russia, politics, the U.S., my family, my lack of boyfriend. He was very unsatisfied by the lack of boyfriend. So I changed my story that I had a boyfriend, but it was too hard when I was in Russia and he was in the U.S. My new friend’s solution to this problem was that the boyfriend could come to Russia. Then he also suggested that there were lots of men in Russia. Plus, winter is coming. And it will be cold, so I need a boyfriend. Then when it was revealed that I was 20 yrs. old, he said I should have 2 children already. By the way, did I want girls or boys? Also don’t forget that every approximately 5 minutes, he would again refer to Margaret Thatcher. Then I am fairly sure that he coupled the fact that I was an American and I was interested in politics, that I was going to be president soon. So he stopped referring to good old Margaret and began referring to seeing me on television as president in a few years. Then he gave me some candy and sent me on my way. He was soo cool. Also, he used to work in Kamchatka!
Next up: “House of Books”
This was only a problem because it combines my love for books and my love of Russian and so I just want to buy approximately EVERYTHING. I found some textbook about America in English, in which there was a “Part 5: Cowboys.” The most important things about the U.S. seemed to be New York City and cowboys. Then I found the atlas/map section so I spent forever looking at all of these awesome World Atlases in Russian. And I even found Мизула (Missoula) on one of the U.S. maps! Sadly, Middlebury did not make the cut. Then again, Middlebury doesn’t make the cut on most English maps. Then I found «Моя Жизнь-Бил Клинтон» (My Life-Bill Clinton) and so I really wanted to buy that. Then I found the children’s section and I almost bought one of the “learn to read” books for Kit. The book was called something like “My Little Book-y” and had awesome pages and illustrations of гриб (mushroom) or кот (cat). But then I realized that books are neither small/compact (especially huge atlases) nor light. So I didn’t buy anything. Then I realized that possibly this was a good idea. Because maybe I am the only person who would want a huge atlas of the world in Russian. Also if you are Laurel and you wish that you were going to receive a travel guide to Paris (in Russian) I am sorry because I decided not to buy that either.
Then I wandered along the pedestrian only street which was full of lots of people and lots of miniature horses and….a camel? I don’t know why there was a camel there. I considered paying money to ride it. But as there would have been no one else to appreciate the brilliance of this experience, I just stared at it for a while. Also I remembered the one time I was talking to Susanna and she was alarmed by the camel invasion of the Irkutsk streets. Then I went back to the market and wandered around some more. Looked at the sea one last time. Retrieved my bags from the hotel. The doorman asked me if I wanted him to put it in my car. And I almost laughed at him.
Sat at the train station for a long time. Sat and slept on the train for a much longer time. Returned to Yaroslavl. Margarita prepared a feast for my arrival. Same old, same old. She also rearranged all of the furniture in my room. And I am not satisfied. But she is in utter восторг. Ну, что делать.
Various Other Things Which I Forgot To Mention
My reading during the trip revealed many interesting things:
Apparently J.K. Rowling recently revealed that Dumbledore was gay. And then the article went on to suggest that McGonogal was a lesbian and question the close relationship between Filch and his cat. Pure brilliance.
Also Tom Cruise is building a like 19 story bunker below his house in Colorado. Because he is afraid of alien invasion.
Also there is this phenomenal picture of George Bush looking like a complete loon. And I understood the whole article except for the punch line.
Russians understood the glory of baked goods. And the glory of chocolate. But as far as I can tell, they don’t really combine the two. So any sort of chocolate chip cookie is non-existent. Except I found some in a grocery store in Archangelsk. But they were not very good. But nonetheless, they were chocolate chip cookies.
Also Ирония Судбы 2 is coming out in December.
Tomorrow is November 7 which is the day of the communist revolution of something like that. And although Putin tried to replace it with November 4th (Day of Unity), communist habits die hard. So there is going to be some Communist Meeting and March.
Update: I walked by where the march was going to be an hour before it was supposed to start. And there were already a lot of police men milling about. And I didn't know if I should be more scared of the policemen or the Communists. So I just went home.
Fast Train 16 Moscow – Archangelsk
I just returned from my four day vacation in northern Russia: Archangelsk. And although I have very many great stories to share, for some reason, I can’t adequately turn them into words at the moment. Usually the writing genius strikes at approximately 1 a.m., so I will hope that later tonight the words I can come up with will adequately describe my experience. Because the excerpts I just wrote are really really bad and don’t capture what seemed to me to be a sort of magical and unbelievable trip….
And so begins what will definitely end up being a very long, multiple entry story of my last five days. My train to Archangelsk left from Yaroslavl at 2:15 p.m. on Halloween, October 31. However I arrived at the train station at approximately 11:30. You ask, why? And I say that Margarita was driving me crazy. So, I just told her that my train left a lot earlier than it actually did. This was a brilliant plan until she wanted to look at my ticket. She wanted to make sure the train was leaving from the main Yaroslavl station and not the Yaroslavl (Moscow) station. But I just sort of refused and ran out of the apartment. So I sat at the train station for a long time just people watching. So then finally the train came and we all got on. And I found the correct wagon but I didn’t understand the seating. It was a platskart wagon so there are open compartments of 6 people in each compartment. Except the seats were numbered for both a sleeping wagon (which I was in) and a sitting only wagon (which would have held a lot more people). So I just stood in the aisle where I thought my seat was until this man told me it was impossible for another person to be sitting in that area as it was already full and he pointed me to the correct place. And then I just sat down and took a deep breath. And realized that I had 20 hours to go. And I was already exhausted from waiting for the train and getting to the right platform and finding the wagon and then my seat.
So I sat there for a while. My seat mates were two women who essentially immediately made their beds upon receiving their package of sheets and went to bed (at approx 3 p.m.) and another middle aged man who didn’t seem very friendly or talkative. Also everyone immediately took off their shoes and put on their house shoes which they had brought along for the journey. Well, everyone except for me.
So I started to read the magazine that I had bought before my departure. And I sort of read/sort of looked at the pictures for a while. And then the most important event of the journey occurred. New seat mates joined our compartment. They were two men who I would guess were approximately 50 years. Okay, this entry is getting really boring to both write and reread. So I am just going to fast forward to the highlights…
Picnicking with the Russians
The two new men decided it was time to eat. And suddenly the little table was alarmed by loafs of bread, hunks of sausage, cheese, crackers, tea bags, like a billion hard boiled eggs, some container of salt, some larger container of sugar, cookies, hunks of carrot cake. (I am sorry that I used the word “hunk” to describe approximately half of the food.) Moving on. So I was fairly alarmed by the whole magical appearance of all this food. And then one of the guys started talking to me and put a hard boiled egg in front of me. I tried to continue reading. And then he said “Why are you reading….Let’s eat…” And so we had this feast of food and they just kept giving me more pieces of bread or cheese or meat or eggs. And then we drank tea. And it was awesome.
And then we all made up our beds and read until they dimmed the lights and then I just sort of laid there thinking how awesome it was that I had just picnicked with Russians and now the train was speeding towards Archangelsk. And then for some reason everyone got up again and we drank tea again and then we actually went to bed for the night. As in I would sleep for an hour and then wake up either because the train was stopping and so people were getting on or off or because I had to change sleeping positions.
Bloody Nose
Okay, I realize this is gross and not really blog appropriate. But then I got a bloody nose and so I laid there really hoping this was not a “Kit” level bloody nose. As in the bleeding would not spread to my eyes. Because that would have been a very very very bad situation. But luckily it did not spread to my eyes. So that was good.
My Friends Departure
And then I woke up again and the men were bustling about because we had arrived at their station. And then they waved at me and left. And I felt really, really alone and scared. So I went back to bed.
6:30 A.M. Arrival
So then the train lady woke everybody up at 6:00. I was very confused. But I followed along what everybody else was doing and I folded up all my sheets and rolled up my sleeping mattress. And I went to return the sheets to the train lady. Except I had forgotten the towel, so she yelled at me. And then I returned with the towel and she scowled at me. And then we all just sat there. And I was still very confused. And then one of the women in my compartment put on her coat which consisted of like an entire dead fox and his face draped across the back. It was really fairly atrocious. And highly alarming at approximately 6:15 a.m. And then the train slowed into a station and the large letters said Archangelsk. WHAT? I thought we were arriving at 10 a.m. So, I just sat there wondering if maybe this was the Archangelsk Oblast station and we were still 4 hours away from the actual city. But then everybody got up to get off the train. And the scowling train lady was scowling. So I got off. And then I went and sat in the train station from for 3 and a half hours. Because I needed time to compose myself in order to embark upon the next challenges, mainly finding my hotel and checking in. Plus, I knew that the check-in time for the hotel was noon. And although I figured I could show up around 10 or 11. I wasn’t about to show up at 6:45 a.m.
Sitting in the Train Station
Nothing happened. Except these official looking men came and stood about for a while. And I felt like they were just staring at me and waiting for me to move and then they would come and demand large amounts of paperwork and documents and such. But then they just turned out to be waiting for a train. So they got on and left. And I started to breath again.
Public Transportation
Although I had spent a significant amount of time reading the travel guide book that Megan has at school, I had to return it to her before I left for the trip. So my entire knowledge of Archangelsk was confined to a small piece of paper on which I had written down things which seemed important. And I had a mini hand drawn map I had copied down from the book. The map consisted of a box representing the train station, another box far away representing the hotel, and the name of the main street which connected the train station to the center of the city in which my hotel was approximately located. So, exiting the train station, I knew only that I needed to go straight for a long time till I ran into the water and then wander to the right and somewhere there would be my hotel.
So I stood at the marshrootka stop for a very long time. Just reading where all of them were going and desperately hoping that this all worked out. And then two different people tried to ask me directions. And I almost started laughing at them. I wish they knew that they asked directions from the clueless American girl with only a paper map of the city. So then I saw that one of the buses was going down “Sunday street” which was the main street I needed to get to the end of. So I got on and paid. And then we drove. And then at the end of it, we turned left. So I got off and walked back to the right. And at this point, I realized how helpless I was. And how useless the paper map really was. Because it didn’t have any connecting street names between Sunday street and my hotel. I also forgot to mention that I knew the information center was at 8 Freedom Street. And on the paper map, the dot for the information center and the box for my hotel were close together. So then somehow I walked straight and I found Freedom Street. And then I turned to walk towards the water because I thought that I remembered that my hotel was close to the water. And then THERE WAS MY HOTEL! And so I walked into the lobby and sort of just stared at the doorman. And he said “registration?” And I said “da.” And then I checked in, which was made much easier by the fact that the moment the front desk boy saw my U.S. passport he began to speak in English to me. And then the doorman carried by suitcase to my room and wished me a “pleasant relaxation.” And then I took another deep breath. And took a nap for 4 hours.
And so begins what will definitely end up being a very long, multiple entry story of my last five days. My train to Archangelsk left from Yaroslavl at 2:15 p.m. on Halloween, October 31. However I arrived at the train station at approximately 11:30. You ask, why? And I say that Margarita was driving me crazy. So, I just told her that my train left a lot earlier than it actually did. This was a brilliant plan until she wanted to look at my ticket. She wanted to make sure the train was leaving from the main Yaroslavl station and not the Yaroslavl (Moscow) station. But I just sort of refused and ran out of the apartment. So I sat at the train station for a long time just people watching. So then finally the train came and we all got on. And I found the correct wagon but I didn’t understand the seating. It was a platskart wagon so there are open compartments of 6 people in each compartment. Except the seats were numbered for both a sleeping wagon (which I was in) and a sitting only wagon (which would have held a lot more people). So I just stood in the aisle where I thought my seat was until this man told me it was impossible for another person to be sitting in that area as it was already full and he pointed me to the correct place. And then I just sat down and took a deep breath. And realized that I had 20 hours to go. And I was already exhausted from waiting for the train and getting to the right platform and finding the wagon and then my seat.
So I sat there for a while. My seat mates were two women who essentially immediately made their beds upon receiving their package of sheets and went to bed (at approx 3 p.m.) and another middle aged man who didn’t seem very friendly or talkative. Also everyone immediately took off their shoes and put on their house shoes which they had brought along for the journey. Well, everyone except for me.
So I started to read the magazine that I had bought before my departure. And I sort of read/sort of looked at the pictures for a while. And then the most important event of the journey occurred. New seat mates joined our compartment. They were two men who I would guess were approximately 50 years. Okay, this entry is getting really boring to both write and reread. So I am just going to fast forward to the highlights…
Picnicking with the Russians
The two new men decided it was time to eat. And suddenly the little table was alarmed by loafs of bread, hunks of sausage, cheese, crackers, tea bags, like a billion hard boiled eggs, some container of salt, some larger container of sugar, cookies, hunks of carrot cake. (I am sorry that I used the word “hunk” to describe approximately half of the food.) Moving on. So I was fairly alarmed by the whole magical appearance of all this food. And then one of the guys started talking to me and put a hard boiled egg in front of me. I tried to continue reading. And then he said “Why are you reading….Let’s eat…” And so we had this feast of food and they just kept giving me more pieces of bread or cheese or meat or eggs. And then we drank tea. And it was awesome.
And then we all made up our beds and read until they dimmed the lights and then I just sort of laid there thinking how awesome it was that I had just picnicked with Russians and now the train was speeding towards Archangelsk. And then for some reason everyone got up again and we drank tea again and then we actually went to bed for the night. As in I would sleep for an hour and then wake up either because the train was stopping and so people were getting on or off or because I had to change sleeping positions.
Bloody Nose
Okay, I realize this is gross and not really blog appropriate. But then I got a bloody nose and so I laid there really hoping this was not a “Kit” level bloody nose. As in the bleeding would not spread to my eyes. Because that would have been a very very very bad situation. But luckily it did not spread to my eyes. So that was good.
My Friends Departure
And then I woke up again and the men were bustling about because we had arrived at their station. And then they waved at me and left. And I felt really, really alone and scared. So I went back to bed.
6:30 A.M. Arrival
So then the train lady woke everybody up at 6:00. I was very confused. But I followed along what everybody else was doing and I folded up all my sheets and rolled up my sleeping mattress. And I went to return the sheets to the train lady. Except I had forgotten the towel, so she yelled at me. And then I returned with the towel and she scowled at me. And then we all just sat there. And I was still very confused. And then one of the women in my compartment put on her coat which consisted of like an entire dead fox and his face draped across the back. It was really fairly atrocious. And highly alarming at approximately 6:15 a.m. And then the train slowed into a station and the large letters said Archangelsk. WHAT? I thought we were arriving at 10 a.m. So, I just sat there wondering if maybe this was the Archangelsk Oblast station and we were still 4 hours away from the actual city. But then everybody got up to get off the train. And the scowling train lady was scowling. So I got off. And then I went and sat in the train station from for 3 and a half hours. Because I needed time to compose myself in order to embark upon the next challenges, mainly finding my hotel and checking in. Plus, I knew that the check-in time for the hotel was noon. And although I figured I could show up around 10 or 11. I wasn’t about to show up at 6:45 a.m.
Sitting in the Train Station
Nothing happened. Except these official looking men came and stood about for a while. And I felt like they were just staring at me and waiting for me to move and then they would come and demand large amounts of paperwork and documents and such. But then they just turned out to be waiting for a train. So they got on and left. And I started to breath again.
Public Transportation
Although I had spent a significant amount of time reading the travel guide book that Megan has at school, I had to return it to her before I left for the trip. So my entire knowledge of Archangelsk was confined to a small piece of paper on which I had written down things which seemed important. And I had a mini hand drawn map I had copied down from the book. The map consisted of a box representing the train station, another box far away representing the hotel, and the name of the main street which connected the train station to the center of the city in which my hotel was approximately located. So, exiting the train station, I knew only that I needed to go straight for a long time till I ran into the water and then wander to the right and somewhere there would be my hotel.
So I stood at the marshrootka stop for a very long time. Just reading where all of them were going and desperately hoping that this all worked out. And then two different people tried to ask me directions. And I almost started laughing at them. I wish they knew that they asked directions from the clueless American girl with only a paper map of the city. So then I saw that one of the buses was going down “Sunday street” which was the main street I needed to get to the end of. So I got on and paid. And then we drove. And then at the end of it, we turned left. So I got off and walked back to the right. And at this point, I realized how helpless I was. And how useless the paper map really was. Because it didn’t have any connecting street names between Sunday street and my hotel. I also forgot to mention that I knew the information center was at 8 Freedom Street. And on the paper map, the dot for the information center and the box for my hotel were close together. So then somehow I walked straight and I found Freedom Street. And then I turned to walk towards the water because I thought that I remembered that my hotel was close to the water. And then THERE WAS MY HOTEL! And so I walked into the lobby and sort of just stared at the doorman. And he said “registration?” And I said “da.” And then I checked in, which was made much easier by the fact that the moment the front desk boy saw my U.S. passport he began to speak in English to me. And then the doorman carried by suitcase to my room and wished me a “pleasant relaxation.” And then I took another deep breath. And took a nap for 4 hours.
Rambling about Margarita
I just got off the phone with my mom which as usual decayed into this hour long Abby monolog in which I just sort of carry on in full loon mode discussing any and every topic which comes to mind. I suppose this is what happens when you speak English with another English speaking person on a very rare basis. And so there was the Abby monolog which sort of further decayed into me telling ridiculous stories about my host grandmother, Margarita. Which I sort of forgot how many there are and how amusing they are.
First off- Margarita is a very nice woman. She makes very delicious borsh. And she’s very good at being generally overbearing and treating me like a completely incompetent person. But I think it would be hard to remember that although this foreign student doesn’t fluently speak your language and has never before lived in Russia, she is still a competent independent adult (sometimes). So I always try to remind myself to accept her quirks and overbearing-ness as her attempts to protect me. Sometimes this helps, sometimes I just get frustrated with her anyways.
Now on to the good stuff-
As I ate my dinner a few nights ago, Margarita proudly exclaimed how glad my mother would be that I was no longer a vegetarian. She explained how there would no longer have to be complex meals cooked for me since as I already told her I was the only family member who had come up with such a ridiculous idea to not eat meat. Then she asked me why I had become a vegetarian. I really hate this question because I feel that generally it’s not asked in an “I’m curious” mode but rather a “Give me your ridiculous reason so that we can engage in this long and annoying debate about how that is a bad and stupid reason.” Anyways, so I don’t like this question and usually (in English) I just say that I don’t like the taste of meat. But seeing as how I was currently eating a bowl of soup with a large hunk of chicken meat floating in it, I didn’t feel that that reason would satisfy Margarita. So I just told her that it was sort of this gradual transition and I didn’t really have a reason (silly me!) and now I have realized how ridiculous it was to not eat meat. She seemed satisfied that I had recognized my mistake and proud that she had fixed the silly American girl who didn’t eat meat.
And then approximately 5 minutes after this conversation ended. She asked me if she should buy колбаса (sausage) for me to take on the train with me. And I said no. First of all, I never eat meat except when she puts it in front of me and makes me eat it. i.e. I do not frequent the hotdog stands at various points around town. Second of all, seeing as she had been planning the food that would be packed for me for the train for approximately 2 weeks, I was sure that this food would both last a lifetime and take up more room in my suitcase than all of my clothes, and so I just immediately declined any food item which she suggested for the train package. Then apparently frustrated with my rejection of the колбаса, for some unknown reason, she began to ask me questions about sausage products in the U.S.
Margarita: What kind of sausage do they have in the U.S.?
Me: Like what brand names? I don’t know. I didn’t eat sausage when I lived in the U.S.
Margarita: (laughs) What do you mean, you don’t know. What kinds do they have?
Me: Like what types of sausage? I don’t know.
Margarita: Do they have (a long list of adjectives describing sausage of which I understood or recognized none of the words)?
Me: (blank stare)
Margarita: Repeats the question.
Still didn’t understand any of the adjectives describing various types. I kept waiting for her to say солёный because that means salty and I figure that could be a type. But she never said it. Thus, I continued to sort of blankly stare.
Margarita: (in disgust) You don’t know what types they have.
Me: No.
Okay, I rarely have discussions about meat products in America (in English or Russian). Unless the discussion focuses on how good “summer sausage” is. I engage in that discussion on a fairly regular basis. Regardless, I can not name a single person who has experience in both American meat products compared to Russian meat products and adequate Russian language skills to have a conversation on this topic. I am probably one of the least qualified individuals to be involved in such a conversation. And Margarita was not surprisingly under whelmed.
Also this doesn’t actually have a story to go along with it. But as I have mentioned earlier Margarita is quite hip and involves in SMS with her grandson on a nearly daily basis. I am fairly sure he hates the fact that his grandmother is constantly sending him SMS. But the most brilliant part of it all is that there is this magnifying glass lying around the apartment which she always has to use in order to read the text on the cellphone. So she sits there holding the cellphone in one hand and the magnifying glass over the top of it to read the SMS. It is pure brilliance. I nearly laugh every time I see this.
Also, watching news program with Margarita is pure torture. This is mainly because at intervals of approximately 5 seconds, she exclaims ужас/ужасно/какой ужас/просто ужас...etc This all just generally translates to “oh the horror.” This continues for the 30 minute program. Sometimes it is interrupted by her attempts to explain the news story to me. It is strange what she decides to explain and what she figures I understand. I would say that 90 percent of the time I already understood what she decides needs explaining. The other 10 percent of the time her explanations have completely nothing to do with the actual content of the news. Like she decides to explain the most trivial piece of information. I am living an existence where I do not approve of or appreciate trivial pieces of information. Or excessive wordiness.
It’s strange living with a woman whose entire perception of the world is based upon the price of bread. In Soviet times, it was only 20 kopecks and now it is 35 roubles. Then she does some very quick math and tells me that it has increased for example by 15 times. This is repeated with the price of cheese, the price per kilowatt for electricity, and the rent for the apartment. Mainly I am more surprised with the rapid math skills than with the actual price differences. Although the price differences are fairly astonishing. As one of the other Americans told me “You can get drunk and chain smoke for the evening for less than 5 bucks!” That was the one and only time we hung out.
I think Russians are good at math because they constantly count the numbers on their public transportation tickets. Speaking of public transportation tickets, I recently received my first lucky ticket!!! Meaning that the sum of the first 3 numbers was equal to the sum of the last 3 numbers. 354-462. But I decided not to eat the ticket (as you are supposed to) but instead it is now proudly displayed on my desk. And by proudly displayed, I mean it is hidden under a pile of papers so that Margarita will not throw it away in her cleaning of my room.
Although this entry will not be posted for a long time (after I return from Archangelsk in all likelihood), I am currently packed and ready for my departure. As ready as I will ever be for a 20 hour train ride with a bunch of Russians.
Bon Voyage!
First off- Margarita is a very nice woman. She makes very delicious borsh. And she’s very good at being generally overbearing and treating me like a completely incompetent person. But I think it would be hard to remember that although this foreign student doesn’t fluently speak your language and has never before lived in Russia, she is still a competent independent adult (sometimes). So I always try to remind myself to accept her quirks and overbearing-ness as her attempts to protect me. Sometimes this helps, sometimes I just get frustrated with her anyways.
Now on to the good stuff-
As I ate my dinner a few nights ago, Margarita proudly exclaimed how glad my mother would be that I was no longer a vegetarian. She explained how there would no longer have to be complex meals cooked for me since as I already told her I was the only family member who had come up with such a ridiculous idea to not eat meat. Then she asked me why I had become a vegetarian. I really hate this question because I feel that generally it’s not asked in an “I’m curious” mode but rather a “Give me your ridiculous reason so that we can engage in this long and annoying debate about how that is a bad and stupid reason.” Anyways, so I don’t like this question and usually (in English) I just say that I don’t like the taste of meat. But seeing as how I was currently eating a bowl of soup with a large hunk of chicken meat floating in it, I didn’t feel that that reason would satisfy Margarita. So I just told her that it was sort of this gradual transition and I didn’t really have a reason (silly me!) and now I have realized how ridiculous it was to not eat meat. She seemed satisfied that I had recognized my mistake and proud that she had fixed the silly American girl who didn’t eat meat.
And then approximately 5 minutes after this conversation ended. She asked me if she should buy колбаса (sausage) for me to take on the train with me. And I said no. First of all, I never eat meat except when she puts it in front of me and makes me eat it. i.e. I do not frequent the hotdog stands at various points around town. Second of all, seeing as she had been planning the food that would be packed for me for the train for approximately 2 weeks, I was sure that this food would both last a lifetime and take up more room in my suitcase than all of my clothes, and so I just immediately declined any food item which she suggested for the train package. Then apparently frustrated with my rejection of the колбаса, for some unknown reason, she began to ask me questions about sausage products in the U.S.
Margarita: What kind of sausage do they have in the U.S.?
Me: Like what brand names? I don’t know. I didn’t eat sausage when I lived in the U.S.
Margarita: (laughs) What do you mean, you don’t know. What kinds do they have?
Me: Like what types of sausage? I don’t know.
Margarita: Do they have (a long list of adjectives describing sausage of which I understood or recognized none of the words)?
Me: (blank stare)
Margarita: Repeats the question.
Still didn’t understand any of the adjectives describing various types. I kept waiting for her to say солёный because that means salty and I figure that could be a type. But she never said it. Thus, I continued to sort of blankly stare.
Margarita: (in disgust) You don’t know what types they have.
Me: No.
Okay, I rarely have discussions about meat products in America (in English or Russian). Unless the discussion focuses on how good “summer sausage” is. I engage in that discussion on a fairly regular basis. Regardless, I can not name a single person who has experience in both American meat products compared to Russian meat products and adequate Russian language skills to have a conversation on this topic. I am probably one of the least qualified individuals to be involved in such a conversation. And Margarita was not surprisingly under whelmed.
Also this doesn’t actually have a story to go along with it. But as I have mentioned earlier Margarita is quite hip and involves in SMS with her grandson on a nearly daily basis. I am fairly sure he hates the fact that his grandmother is constantly sending him SMS. But the most brilliant part of it all is that there is this magnifying glass lying around the apartment which she always has to use in order to read the text on the cellphone. So she sits there holding the cellphone in one hand and the magnifying glass over the top of it to read the SMS. It is pure brilliance. I nearly laugh every time I see this.
Also, watching news program with Margarita is pure torture. This is mainly because at intervals of approximately 5 seconds, she exclaims ужас/ужасно/какой ужас/просто ужас...etc This all just generally translates to “oh the horror.” This continues for the 30 minute program. Sometimes it is interrupted by her attempts to explain the news story to me. It is strange what she decides to explain and what she figures I understand. I would say that 90 percent of the time I already understood what she decides needs explaining. The other 10 percent of the time her explanations have completely nothing to do with the actual content of the news. Like she decides to explain the most trivial piece of information. I am living an existence where I do not approve of or appreciate trivial pieces of information. Or excessive wordiness.
It’s strange living with a woman whose entire perception of the world is based upon the price of bread. In Soviet times, it was only 20 kopecks and now it is 35 roubles. Then she does some very quick math and tells me that it has increased for example by 15 times. This is repeated with the price of cheese, the price per kilowatt for electricity, and the rent for the apartment. Mainly I am more surprised with the rapid math skills than with the actual price differences. Although the price differences are fairly astonishing. As one of the other Americans told me “You can get drunk and chain smoke for the evening for less than 5 bucks!” That was the one and only time we hung out.
I think Russians are good at math because they constantly count the numbers on their public transportation tickets. Speaking of public transportation tickets, I recently received my first lucky ticket!!! Meaning that the sum of the first 3 numbers was equal to the sum of the last 3 numbers. 354-462. But I decided not to eat the ticket (as you are supposed to) but instead it is now proudly displayed on my desk. And by proudly displayed, I mean it is hidden under a pile of papers so that Margarita will not throw it away in her cleaning of my room.
Although this entry will not be posted for a long time (after I return from Archangelsk in all likelihood), I am currently packed and ready for my departure. As ready as I will ever be for a 20 hour train ride with a bunch of Russians.
Bon Voyage!
Monday, November 5, 2007
Archangelsk
I am currently in the process of chronicling my time in Archangelsk. It was awesome. Like, SO awesome. So there will be many posts to come about that...
But now I am back in Yaroslavl. And it is cold. And we have classes tomorrow. And Margarita reorganized my room, so now the table that used to be in the corner just sort of stands in the center of the room being in the way. But there is no way that I would ever be able to reorganize it myself. So yes.
And that is all.
But now I am back in Yaroslavl. And it is cold. And we have classes tomorrow. And Margarita reorganized my room, so now the table that used to be in the corner just sort of stands in the center of the room being in the way. But there is no way that I would ever be able to reorganize it myself. So yes.
And that is all.
I wrote this a VERY long time ago....
Various items of note of varying levels of interest:
I went and played hockey at a special “training session” on Saturday. Except it was at a different rink than normal which I hadn’t played at since the beginning of September. So I forgot where to get off the bus and so I got lost and wandered around for an hour with my bag and hockey stick, increasingly getting more and more frustrated. But I finally found the rink, like 45 minutes after I was supposed to have been there. Also hug boy was not invited to the special practice session, so my count of “sketchy hugs received by large Russian hockey players” is sadly 0 this week. I was also promoted to the first line of players. (*This is a side note that will probably only interest Stonewall, but in hockey in Russia, they divide the team into groups of 5 which always play together instead of lines of 3 forwards and 2 defense-although it is still set up with 3 forwards and 2 defense.*) But this only meant I had to play against people who were actually sort of good instead of the normal loons on the fifth line. This also resulted in this sort of large collision with some guy in which I bit my lip really hard and resulted in a large swollen lip that is only finally disappearing. And then the whole rest of the game he would just apologize to me at every possible moment. Also one of the goalies kissed my hand and told me I was the best player on the ice. Just the general insanity.
On Sunday I took the train to Kostroma which is another of the cities in Russia’s Golden Ring (historical cities surrounding Moscow). The point of this trip was not to actually do a lot of sightseeing in Kostroma which was good because I spent much more time on the train going and returning than I spent in the actual city. Mostly the point was to not sit in the apartment all day increasingly being in a bad mood about my lack of activities. The trip included 3 hours on the train there, 4 hours of wandering about, and 3 hours back. My favorite part of the trip was all of the completely random stops the train made. They kept making announcements about the stops which I didn’t bother to listen to that much, because Kostroma was the last stop so they would just kick me off when we finally arrived. Then I realized that they kept announcing various numbers regarding different stops. At first I thought they were saying “This is blah blah blah stop. The next stop is in 32 kilometers.” Then I realized the name of the next stop was actually “32 kilometers.” So this insanity continued for 3 hours as we went from stop 32 kilometers to stop 39 kilometers to stop 47 kilometers. Also most of these stops were in the middle of nowhere with only the concrete platform to show it was a “stop.” I suppose most of the passengers were going to their dachas which are apparently required to be in the middle of nowhere. Also I remembered during summer school when I had to explain what I was doing for the magical weekend and I just kept trying to explain we were going to Kurt’s “dacha.” Which is just amazingly hysterical now.
Also I think this is amazing, but I think the funniness will be lost in translation if you don’t speak Russian. I had an exam on verbs of motion (глаголы движения!!!) on Monday. So I went to bed on Sunday night with my head stuffed full of various prefixes and conjugations and such. And then I woke up Monday morning and I had this segment of this dream stuck in my head. And all I remember is that it was my бабшука telling me that “Туалет ушёл домой.” …which I guess in translation would be “The toilet left for a long time to go home.” But it loses all its funniness if you don’t understand the hellacious-ness of Russian verbs of motions. Anyways, it was SO strange.
Also on Monday I called the hotel in Archangelsk to reserve a room for the 3 nights I will be there. Which turned out to be less than hellacious than expected, although the spelling of my name was extremely difficult. Hopefully the general sense of “Abigail Mayer” was not lost in my mangled attempt to spell out my name in Cyrillic letters.
I also had this other really strange dream. I’m sorry that this has absolutely nothing to do with actual Russia. Anyways, it is very interesting and sort of displays the crazy mess of English and Russian, America and Russia that is currently occurring in my head. So I was back at Midd and just kept thinking “Thank goodness I made it through all of that Russian-speaking time.” And I was going to water polo practice which for some reason was being conducted at this pool which was a strange mix of the Grizzly Pool and the Midd pool. And Alex Machi (Midd crew coach) was the head coach and he just kept yelling at me that I was doing everything wrong. Which was true. I am bad at water polo in real life and also in my dream. And then this man approached our practice and asked if we were the КПРФ meeting. Which is the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. And we said no but then I got so distracted thinking about how he was looking for the Communist Party meeting that I started playing even worse and Machi just kept yelling at me. And then I woke up.
Looking forward, I am leaving Yaroslavl next Wednesday on our second fall break for the 20 hour train ride to Archangelsk. It never seemed that long until I realized that the flights from the U.S. to Europe are only like 9 hours.
I went and played hockey at a special “training session” on Saturday. Except it was at a different rink than normal which I hadn’t played at since the beginning of September. So I forgot where to get off the bus and so I got lost and wandered around for an hour with my bag and hockey stick, increasingly getting more and more frustrated. But I finally found the rink, like 45 minutes after I was supposed to have been there. Also hug boy was not invited to the special practice session, so my count of “sketchy hugs received by large Russian hockey players” is sadly 0 this week. I was also promoted to the first line of players. (*This is a side note that will probably only interest Stonewall, but in hockey in Russia, they divide the team into groups of 5 which always play together instead of lines of 3 forwards and 2 defense-although it is still set up with 3 forwards and 2 defense.*) But this only meant I had to play against people who were actually sort of good instead of the normal loons on the fifth line. This also resulted in this sort of large collision with some guy in which I bit my lip really hard and resulted in a large swollen lip that is only finally disappearing. And then the whole rest of the game he would just apologize to me at every possible moment. Also one of the goalies kissed my hand and told me I was the best player on the ice. Just the general insanity.
On Sunday I took the train to Kostroma which is another of the cities in Russia’s Golden Ring (historical cities surrounding Moscow). The point of this trip was not to actually do a lot of sightseeing in Kostroma which was good because I spent much more time on the train going and returning than I spent in the actual city. Mostly the point was to not sit in the apartment all day increasingly being in a bad mood about my lack of activities. The trip included 3 hours on the train there, 4 hours of wandering about, and 3 hours back. My favorite part of the trip was all of the completely random stops the train made. They kept making announcements about the stops which I didn’t bother to listen to that much, because Kostroma was the last stop so they would just kick me off when we finally arrived. Then I realized that they kept announcing various numbers regarding different stops. At first I thought they were saying “This is blah blah blah stop. The next stop is in 32 kilometers.” Then I realized the name of the next stop was actually “32 kilometers.” So this insanity continued for 3 hours as we went from stop 32 kilometers to stop 39 kilometers to stop 47 kilometers. Also most of these stops were in the middle of nowhere with only the concrete platform to show it was a “stop.” I suppose most of the passengers were going to their dachas which are apparently required to be in the middle of nowhere. Also I remembered during summer school when I had to explain what I was doing for the magical weekend and I just kept trying to explain we were going to Kurt’s “dacha.” Which is just amazingly hysterical now.
Also I think this is amazing, but I think the funniness will be lost in translation if you don’t speak Russian. I had an exam on verbs of motion (глаголы движения!!!) on Monday. So I went to bed on Sunday night with my head stuffed full of various prefixes and conjugations and such. And then I woke up Monday morning and I had this segment of this dream stuck in my head. And all I remember is that it was my бабшука telling me that “Туалет ушёл домой.” …which I guess in translation would be “The toilet left for a long time to go home.” But it loses all its funniness if you don’t understand the hellacious-ness of Russian verbs of motions. Anyways, it was SO strange.
Also on Monday I called the hotel in Archangelsk to reserve a room for the 3 nights I will be there. Which turned out to be less than hellacious than expected, although the spelling of my name was extremely difficult. Hopefully the general sense of “Abigail Mayer” was not lost in my mangled attempt to spell out my name in Cyrillic letters.
I also had this other really strange dream. I’m sorry that this has absolutely nothing to do with actual Russia. Anyways, it is very interesting and sort of displays the crazy mess of English and Russian, America and Russia that is currently occurring in my head. So I was back at Midd and just kept thinking “Thank goodness I made it through all of that Russian-speaking time.” And I was going to water polo practice which for some reason was being conducted at this pool which was a strange mix of the Grizzly Pool and the Midd pool. And Alex Machi (Midd crew coach) was the head coach and he just kept yelling at me that I was doing everything wrong. Which was true. I am bad at water polo in real life and also in my dream. And then this man approached our practice and asked if we were the КПРФ meeting. Which is the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. And we said no but then I got so distracted thinking about how he was looking for the Communist Party meeting that I started playing even worse and Machi just kept yelling at me. And then I woke up.
Looking forward, I am leaving Yaroslavl next Wednesday on our second fall break for the 20 hour train ride to Archangelsk. It never seemed that long until I realized that the flights from the U.S. to Europe are only like 9 hours.
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