Dispatches from Russia

Home!

Sun, 20 May 2012 14:20:26 +0400

I’m home and it’s awesome/overwhelming.

I’m going to keep posting stories/photos for a little while before I say goodbye to this blog, so keep checking back.

Last day in Piter

Thu, 17 May 2012 21:35:30 +0400

So it’s actually here. It still hasn’t set in, but in twelve hours I will be on a plane taking me away from everything and everyone I’ve learned to love over the past three months.

I can’t put into words how amazing this experience has been. Obviously, there have been ups and downs. But when I look back at this semester, I’m not going to remember the bad days or weeks. Honestly, I’ve already forgotten them.

What I will remember is this city, these people… Drinking tea at innumerable coffee houses, walks along Nevsky, wandering around the Hermitage, watching the bridges go up over the Neva…and the small things too - trips down the hallway to the coffee machine, exchanging exasperated or confused or amused looks during class, продукты runs, trying to figure out the marshrutka.

I feel like this is my city, after three and a half months. I know it. It knows me. I feel comfortable on its streets and in its metro. I can give people directions. I love it. I really do. And there is going to be a part of my heart left here in Piter, the city that has given me so much.

I feel like I’ve grown as a person in ways that I never imagined possible. I’ve become less socially awkward, more open to new experiences. My tolerance for different opinions and ways of seeing the world is growing. I feel like the whole world is at my fingertips.

Thank you, Piter, for everything.

Я люблю тебя.

Goodbyes

Thu, 17 May 2012 21:26:39 +0400

…are the fucking WORST, y’all. I couldn’t. I “said goodbye” to Sun and Ethan (more like “see you later”s, because anything else is too terrible), but no one else.

All of these amazing friends I made - I just couldn’t do it. Most of my “goodbyes” were yesterday and were either “We’ll see you later tonight!” or “We’ll hang out tomorrow!”

I like it better that way. Makes it seem less real.

I’M REALLY SAD RIGHT NOW, OKAY?!

I just took this on my last walk home. How am I expected to...

Thu, 17 May 2012 21:22:03 +0400

I just took this on my last walk home.

How am I expected to leave this place?

White nights

Thu, 17 May 2012 11:23:04 +0400

I didn’t want to turn this into a relationship blog, which is why I haven’t been posting much in the last two weeks. Y’all don’t want to read intimate details of my personal life, and I don’t particularly want to share them with the world.

But the thing is, it was starting to seem strange, not mentioning this thing that’s happened that’s become a huge, massively important part of my life.

I’m not even sure how to talk about it without seeming obnoxious or whatever - that’s one of the downsides to my super flowery prose.

So here’s the deal.

His name is Ethan, and he’s perfect.

And if you’ve never fallen in love during white nights in this incredible city, you should try it.

Because these past two weeks, I’ve been happier than I’ve been in a long time. He gets me. I get him. And we’re so happy together that it’s almost obscene. Every moment of our time together, whether it’s drinking street beers and watching the sunset or sitting in a park for hours, is perfect.

Anyone who knows me knows how out of character this kind of thing is for me. I don’t let people in, and I really don’t let them in this quickly. And yet, it feels completely normal. Completely right.

…and here I’ve completely failed at keeping this not obnoxious. I’m really sorry about that. I’ll hurry up and end this post before it gets any worse.

Oh, and here’s a picture of the two of us and Bill Murray:

#barproblems

Sat, 12 May 2012 02:30:35 +0400

The fact that we’ve had to start going to a different SPB because the staff knows us leads me to believe that we need to do more interesting things in our last five days here.

The World According to Leonid: Pt. 2

Fri, 11 May 2012 20:45:14 +0400

99% of my notes on the Siege of Leningrad consist of Leonid quotes rather than actual facts.

(Sorry this is a Leonid-heavy day. I just love him so much.)

“Some of the relatives of mine survived such siege, and they never read books about it.”

“If you want to say some truth about my country, it could be a bit dangerous. What do I mean by dangerous? Probably you will never see my country again.”

[talking about how real war veterans wear only one or two medals on state holidays] “If the one wears some kind of iconostasis, I am afraid he is not.”

“Of course some of them spent all four years in the army, but this is some sort of a miracle. God-given miracle.”

“The fate of the city in the twentieth century is some kind of a terrible.”

“Of course we couldn’t talk about the local traditions [after almost 6/7 of the population was killed]. No people, no traditions.”

“There was no panic in Leningrad as there was in Moscow. People lived here, and worked here, and - unfortunately - died here.”

“Our secret police is not as brave as it shows the world. We know that if something happens, it disappears - just disappears.”

“Sometimes we the locals think it was better to kill him [Stalin], not demand something of him.”

“Then, a strange example of Soviet barbarism happened. 37,000 objects and papers from the museum were destroyed. It was a destruction of truth, on paper. But they did it.”

“Of course if you don’t want to build something, okay. Stay home. But don’t be surprised by the consequences.”

[Showing a graph of a major uptick in Gulag prisoners after the war] “And one more example of how the country glorified the people who won the war - I mean the citizens.”

“Then the Soviet army, the American army, the British army liberated them from the camps. And they returned to their beautiful Motherland. And they were sent to prison camps.”

“You didn’t die in the battlefield, but you stayed alive. This is your crime.”

“It helped them to stay strong, you see. To find spirit for resistance. To find spirit to stay human.”

“The survivors and the not-survivors of the siege can teach us a very important lesson: whom stayed human under the conditions?”

“In each episode of your Soviet life, there was no space for middle ground.”

“You are always asked for your choice - by people, by circumstances of your life.”

“There is no middle ground. Choose your line, choose your side: to stay human, or not.”

“This is how I remember people who survived - very kind, very calm. The spirit was not corrupted. They were not gloomy. There was a feeling of some light they probably saw.”

“The Russians are very nervous. They are very aggressive sometimes. They are very, I don’t know…nervous people.”

“Two and a half months is enough to destroy beautiful, peaceful life with ice cream.”

“People are not so mighty, you see. We are not so effective machines. We need food to live.”

“There’s something religious about cannibalism. How to stay human?”

“They didn’t want to protect this Soviet paradise.”

“No choice - try to survive.”

“Okay, we know Mr. Putin is probably a closet dictator, but he has an American press agency for his beautiful image.”

“The first thing I should do in my life, because I am Russian, is not to trust anyone. It is a joke of course, but a very sad one.”

“We live here, and we even love our country sometimes, when it sleeps.”

tl;dr: LEONID, I LOVE YOU.

Leonid's essay prompts

Fri, 11 May 2012 20:16:43 +0400

So you guys remember Leonid, yeah? Of course you do.

He gave us prompts for our final paper (two pages double spaced. I know. I KNOW. HE KILLS ME.) and I think you need to see this.

In case you had any doubts about how AMAZING this man is ([sic] is implied for all of these, obviously):

The fate of the last Russian Tsar: a hero or a looser?
Rasputin: a spiritual elder or a true magician?
Was Soviet Communism in a tradition of Russian history?
1917: death (of the historical Russia) or the very beginning (of the new “Russian Empire”)?
Why were anti-religious campaigns of the Soviet era so severe?
Why Bolsheviks won the game?
Lenin’s Mausoleum: a monument or a temple?
Why was the “Great Russian Literature” not banned in the Soviet Union?
Leningrad at war (1941-1944): why it didn’t fit the propaganda picture of the war?
Stalin: fanatic or gangster?
Why are Lenin and Stalin still popular in Russia?
Mr. Gorbachev: a liberator or destroyer?
Secret police and the Soviet power tradition.
Was Alexander II Russia’s last great chance?
What was “Russian ideology” and how it shaped Russian history?
What means “Russia at its might”? (which period of Russian history could be described this way)
The “Soviet Mind” as you understand it.

Y’ALL. I CAN’T EVEN.

Umbrella

Fri, 11 May 2012 20:07:00 +0400

So I slept through my first two classes today (waking up is HARD, y’all, especially when you turn off your alarm in your sleep, you know?). Because I didn’t want to miss the brilliance that is Leonid, I decided to go to school for class number three.

And because I had slept in, there was no shuttle for me. All well and good. The walk to school takes about 40-45 minutes and is a actually a pretty nice walk.

Then I realized it was raining.

“Self,” said I, “how much DO you like Leonid?”

Since the answer is obviously “Enough to go to school even if it were raining fire”, I pulled on my windbreaker (apparently, water resistant is not the same as waterproof…good to know), snowboots, and beanie. SUPER CUTE.

THEN, I realized that there is a very special invention just for situations like this. After twenty minutes of looking in vain for my umbrella, I started off for school, ten minutes later than I should have. Bitching under my breath the whole time, it must be noted. I was like 99% sure EP had jacked my fucking umbrella, although nothing in my experience of her would support that.

I got to school soaking wet and grumpy and late, although the class (on the Siege of Leningrad) was fucking awesome and generated enough quotes for its own post (GET READY, Y’ALL).

As I stood at the end of class, I put my notebook in my bag and then reached in for my chapstick.

Only to encounter my umbrella.

Which had been in my bag the entire goddamn time.

I am seriously on the strugglebus, you guys.

And apropos of nothing, I get to pass this on my walk from (and...

Fri, 11 May 2012 01:15:53 +0400

And apropos of nothing, I get to pass this on my walk from (and to, if I miss the shuttle like I did this morning - seriously, there is nothing worse IN THE WORLD […I know, I know] than watching your shuttle leave as you stand waiting for the crosswalk to change) school every day. A FUCKING PALACE.

So we have: A picture of Palace Square with the beginning of the...

Fri, 11 May 2012 01:11:40 +0400

So we have:

A picture of Palace Square with the beginning of the parade, taken by holding my camera over my head and jumping.
The lake in the park we went to.
Ethan.
Drew and Geoff.
Church of the Saviour on the Spilled Blood, as seen from where we were watching the fireworks.
And the weak-ass fireworks that Piter seems to think are appropriate to the celebration of the Soviet victory over the Nazis.

Белая История

Fri, 11 May 2012 00:51:19 +0400

(Or, White Story. Or, WHAT THE FUCK, WHERE ARE WE)

So Sun’s professor’s friend’s friend’s friend (with me?) is an actor at a comedy theater troupe here in Piter, and she had two tickets to a show tonight called White Story.

…there are no. fucking. words.

I don’t even KNOW, you guys. Was it a play? Was it a musical? Was it some sort of bizarre-ass performance art? …yes.

We were super worried going in about being able to understand the dialogue.

Turns out we shouldn’t have been.

On account of there was no dialogue.

It was an absurdist…theater…thing composed of three actors prancing around on stage for an hour and a half dressed in white and speaking gibberish. With weird-ass masks over their faces.

Some of the vignettes - one where an elderly queen is showered by bubbles, one where a princess plucks stars from the backdrop and puts them into her basket, where they became brilliant beams of light - were beautiful.

Some - one where a BDSM-ringmaster hybrid danced to She Bangs and then jousted with a knight/guard character who kind of resembled Blastoise with squiggly lances while riding on dragon hobby horses - were fucking nuts.

Most of them - the rest of the fucking show - were a cross between “WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING” and “WHY ARE THERE CHILDREN AT THIS SHOW” and “whattttttttt”.

To be fair, though, the effects were often amazing. Very cleverly done.

It was one of those absurdist plays that you just KNOW is saying Something Important about, like, political systems and religion and the importance of individuality and the dangers of autocracy and technology and blah blah blah but at the end of it all you want is a stiff drink and a dose of the most normal play you can find.

…fucking Russia, man.

Here, I found some photos.

День Победы

Fri, 11 May 2012 00:40:37 +0400

Yesterday, Victory Day, was one of those days that you want to keep forever in a scrapbook so you can revisit it anytime you want to for the rest of your life.

The weather was perfect, clear and warm, and the leaves are coming out on the trees; the grass is green, the rivers are flowing, and the birds are out and GOD, PITER, WHY DO YOU HAVE TO BE SO PERFECT JUST AS WE’RE LEAVING.

We started out at the Victory Day parade, which was so full of people we couldn’t see much. The atmosphere was great, though. Think the Fourth of July if it had been invented in a communist country.

Then we went to a park north of the city. A bunch of us just sat around at an outdoor shashlik restaurant for hours, drinking cheap beer and watching the world go by. Ethan and I went for a walk down by the lake, which was so blue and so gorgeous. Also, I got sunburned. Only to be expected after three months of Russian winter sun.

After the park, a few of us went to my favorite cheap-ass chain Japanese food place and then to the Field of Mars (which is right by my apartment) to watch the fireworks. Good friends, gorgeous weather, bad beer, and worse champagne was the order of the evening. I felt ludicrously expatty, sprawling in the grass in a European park and drinking.

Also, Russians suck at fireworks. They let them off at 10pm, which seems fine until you remember that the sun doesn’t set completely until around midnight. Fireworks against a light sky look SILLY. Photos to come.

Really, words and photos can’t do that day justice…just about perfect.

…oh, and here’s the Pushkinskiye Gory Puppy. With...

Mon, 07 May 2012 14:11:55 +0400

…oh, and here’s the Pushkinskiye Gory Puppy.

With his mommy.

…yeah, I almost stole him.

Visitors!

Mon, 07 May 2012 14:02:38 +0400

More about the Pskov trip later… Even though I’m still here, even just thinking about how much fun that weekend was is making me nostalgic and Russiasick.

BUT. When I got back, I had two lovely visitors waiting in Piter for me!

We only had a day to hang out (BECAUSE I’M TERRIBLE AT NAVIGATING THIS CITY, MY GOD) but it was so amazing to see them! <3

So much love for these crazy kids… Good company, good...

Mon, 07 May 2012 13:51:05 +0400

So much love for these crazy kids…

Good company, good views, and resoundingly fine beer adds up to a damn nice weekend.

Photo

Mon, 07 May 2012 13:21:00 +0400

The "Pskov" trip

Mon, 07 May 2012 13:11:19 +0400

Our long weekend was dedicated to a trip to Pskov, although we spent a total of about three hours in that city. Pskov is beautiful. It’s over 1000 years old, a smallish (200,000 people) provincial capitol. It’s on two rivers, and it’s just gorgeous and seems like it would be a really nice place to live (you know, if you had to live in Russia).

Just…not the worst, you know?

We toured the kremlin and looked at some churches, and then we got on the bus for a 2 hour drive over the most poorly-paved road I have ever been on (the gravel roads in backcountry Georgia give smoother rides, I swear) to our hotel out in Pushkinskiye Gory. It translates to Pushkin Hills, and it’s the area that was owned by Pushkin’s family - and where he was exiled to.

…and if you have ever felt even a little bad for Pushkin being in exile, fucking stop it right now. I’ll put up pictures of his estate in a few posts and JESUS, MAN UP, PUSHKIN.

Just a terribly scaled set of maps to show you where Pskov is...

Mon, 07 May 2012 12:52:37 +0400

Just a terribly scaled set of maps to show you where Pskov is and then Pushkinskiye Gory (Pushkin Hills) where we actually stayed. And see Pechory, right on the border with Estonia? We went there too.

…all I could think of the whole time is how jealous my oddly Estonia-obsessed dad would be.

Passport

Mon, 07 May 2012 12:42:10 +0400

So this one deserves its own post.

On Saturday morning, we left for a weekend in Pskov (more on that later). Anyone who knows me knows that I am late for fucking EVERYTHING. That morning, I decided that for once in my life, I was not going to be late. I pulled an all-nighter. I left my apartment at 7 even though the bus wasn’t leaving until 8. I was SO PLEASED with myself. Showed up to the meeting point around 7:20, bought some water from the продукты across the street, chilled with people for a while. Just generally feeling super proud of myself.

Around 7:45, we boarded the bus. As I settled in for a nap, I heard one of my comrades jokingly yell, “Everyone have their passport?”

…

…no. Nope. But thanks for asking.

Thus ensued a 25 minute sprint. At 8 in the morning. On no sleep and an empty stomach. Wearing jeans and boots and (sorry Dad) a regular non-sports bra. Down Nevsky Prospekt.

If you ever wanted to know how to look like a tourist in Russia, sprinting down Nevsky with an American passport in hand is a PRETTY DAMN GOOD WAY TO DO IT.

We were only like 15 minutes late leaving, which is pretty par for the course anyway, but man did I feel like a schmuck.