An Assignment

As a preface, these little paragraphs were a part of an assignment for my Moscow in Transition course at Beloit. I figured I would post them here because they happen to be extremely relevant to this blog, I think. I apologize if they sound pretentious. I tend to change my writing style a lot for class...

         Developing and practicing a neutral facial expression for the metro has proven a difficult task, as the movement of the cars, the advertisements, and the realization that I am one single human being among millions in this city always threatens to put a look of childlike wonder on my face.

          I’ve visited St. Basil’s Cathedral four times, and each time it is a completely different experience. At midday there are crowds of tourists with cameras, smiling and buying souvenirs from the endless booths of matryoshka dolls and fur hats. At night, the crowds are less aimless, the building acting as a backdrop rather than a centerpiece, But the best time to see St. Basil’s, in my mind, is in the minutes before dawn breaks. The streets are completely empty save for the occasional militsia or taxi, and the throngs of people are nowhere to be found. The gray of the sky behind the cathedral and the hint of sunlight, combined with the relative silence on the streets and sidewalks, are the kinds of details sepia-toned memories are made of.

          The Russian students smoking and talking outside of the buildings in which they attend their classes always seem to know something I don’t. Their confident laughter and hushed conversations make me more aware of my American-ness than almost anything else in Moscow.

          Of the things I find myself missing about home, unsolicited friendliness is at the top of the list. Smiles between strangers here are few and far between. For this reason, I find myself making the short trek across the street to the grocery store for the smallest needs (“I could really use some carbonated water…”). On these trips I always look for a specific cashier, a guy around my age who, on my first day, laughed kindly when I didn’t know what he was asking me (I’ve since discovered that he was asking if I wanted to use a credit card). Since then, he’s always had a smile and a “Hello” or “How are you?” for me. These exchanges have never failed to make me more appreciative of even the smallest human connections, and I look forward to them each time I need an apple or some rice.

          None of my friends or family in America would consider me to be an aggressive person. Some (my mother) would hesitate to even use the word “assertive” to describe me. I’ve quickly learned that the only way to navigate on the metro is to shake my fear of offending somebody and the entire concept of personal space. I have a feeling that the lines for the escalators are quickly turning me into a commuter to be reckoned with.

          If I find myself traveling in a group of English-speakers to a restaurant or the metro station, we are almost always approached by a Russian wanting to speak to us in English. These little exchanges make me feel simultaneously self-conscious (“I must stick out like a sore thumb”) and excited at the idea that being an American is perhaps not as socially unacceptable as I thought. On the way to Mu-Mu one night, a man started walking with us and talking about how he had visited the United States once, and he asked what we thought of Moscow so far. After about 5 minutes of conversation he broke away, thanking us for the opportunity to speak with us in English and wishing us a good semester. This entire dialogue took place as we walked down the street.

          I had never spent more than a few days in a large city before coming to Moscow, but I still think that this city must have some of the most persistent taxi drivers in the world. It’s literally impossible to walk down the street at night without hearing “Taxi, devushki?” from all sides.

          Outside the metro station the other day I heard a small group of people around my age talking to each other. Since arriving, I have grown accustomed to only understanding fragments of conversations around me however this time the conversation was in English. It took me as long as I stood looking at the street map to realize that I was tuning out my native language just as easily as I would a foreign tongue. I’m not quite sure what this means.

New Leaves

After yet another weekend of laying around and watching American TV shows on the computer, eating junk food and essentially not doing anything of value I decided that enough was enough. I am here in Moscow to enjoy the city, to learn more Russian, to learn more about Russia and to have new experiences. I've done a fair amount of exploring the city and becoming acquainted with Moscow but up until now I've been neglecting almost every other aspect of my life. Well not anymore!

Hana and I woke up early on Monday (7:45 which is earlier than I planned on waking up here since my earliest class is at 10:00 and if there's any cliche I can get behind it's the one about beauty sleep) and went for a walk/run around the small park right next to the university. We've been slowly easing into exercise, and walking around the city a lot has prevented me from getting too out of shape, but it was a little bit of a challenge to run for an extended period of time. Then, we made an extremely leisurely breakfast (eggs with little chopped up pieces of hot dog..which is way tastier than it should be when I think about it) and since I didn't have class I made an extraordinarily long to-do list, as I am apt to do when I'm feeling particularly motivated.

In order not to bore you with the details of my day, I will write down a quick list of the things I did:

• Finally got around to studying in the library on campus. It's gorgeous and on the very top floor (great for working on stairs!) and in order to study inside you have to leave your bags in a little locker. The library itself isn't huge, but what it lacks in substance it makes up for in style. Also, I didn't exactly have a need for any books so I didn't look around too much but there were paintings and huge windows and it was really quiet.
• This might not seem like a huge accomplishment, but Hana and I (with the help of Maxime at dinner) made and ate three square meals. For two people who have been prone to eating bags of chips for dinner, this is a big deal. We even tried to get creative with rice noodles at dinner!
• My favorite part of the day was taking the metro to the Arbatskaya station. We traveled there to go to what we heard was a GIGANTIC book store, and it was very very true. On the first floor were school supplies (of which I was in desperate need) and on the second there was a fairly substantial Foreign Language Book section. This is a relief to me because I finished the two books I brought with me within the first few weeks and have missed American novels more than I thought I would. I've had far more free time and less internet connection than I'm used to at Beloit.

Today was much the same in that we woke up early for a walk/run and a healthy breakfast. I've also turned into an avid tea-drinker, which is a shocker to me.

After that I had Grammar, and for some reason today I was on fire. We're working with my favorite case, the accusative case (which has nothing to do with confrontation, surprisingly) and I answered most of my questions correctly and even got an enthusiastic "Very good!" from my professor. I was feeling very optimistic about my intelligence and was very excited for Speech, but unfortunately the class got canceled. (Ok, to be honest, I wasn't that upset).

Finally, in a stroke of inspiration I started making a very complete schedule of due dates for my Moscow in Transition course for Beloit. I've planned dates and started brainstorming ideas for my final paper, which is supposed to be primarily observation and some research over the course of my time here. I submitted my idea, which has to do with the way beauty in women is treated here, and would involve experiments with getting into clubs (with face-control, especially) and observing the culture that surrounds women and their appearance. I also want to look at the way that Americans view Russian beauty, as I have been interested in that for longer than I realized.

Anyway, it's getting late and I have some tea to drink and a movie to watch.

I'll post pictures of my weekend later, as I am going to Victory Park!

Emily

Tuesday, September 21st

First, I’d like to apologize for my inactivity with this blog. I’ve been somewhat unsure of what constitutes a “blog-worthy” post and it’s made me a little hesitant to write anything. I’m realizing, though, that the daily experiences that I have are actually noteworthy because they are so different from the way I live my life in the US. I’m in the process of compiling a list of these observations, but I already have a few ready…

Laundry

This is rather fresh in my mind because right now it’s Tuesday morning and that happens to be the day that the “dezhurnayas” come to pick up the laundry. (“Dezhurnaya” is the American alphabet spelling of a Russian word that is sort of a cross between a housekeeper and a guard – essentially, they oversee the cleanliness of both the building and the activities therein) One of the benefits of living in this dorm is that our linens are washed and replaced every two weeks and literally all we have to do is take them off of our bed and set them outside the door. If it so happens that you forget to do this, they simply come into your room and take them off the bed. I, for one, am not diligent enough to wash my linens every two weeks when I’m at home (and there are a few of you reading this blog that can attest to that fact…) so this is a huge luxury. It’s also quite interesting to me, culturally. At Beloit we do have housekeepers (and yes, they, too, are all women) and their work is fairly similar to the dezhurnayas here in that they clean the hallways, kitchens and bathrooms of the dorm, but in the US there is also a separation between community and individual space. At this university, there is none. Last week my roommate and I were sleeping and we heard a quiet knock, the quick opening of the door and a rustling of our trash being replaced. This doesn’t bother me in the slightest, though, as I’ve had a few interactions with our floor’s dezhurnaya and she’s very brisk but always stops to say “Good Morning.” Also, having had the benefit of hearing from past study abroad students that some dezhurnayas will scold students for having a messy room I’ve tried to keep my room neater on days I know that they will be working.

Cooking/Grocery Shopping

Before coming to Moscow, one of the things I was really interested in doing was compiling a list of recipes into a cookbook that I could use to first, impress everyone from Beloit and second, make friends with students from other countries by demonstrating my impressive cooking skills. I’m glad I didn’t waste my time with that for two reasons. One, there is no way on God’s green earth I could afford to eat the kinds of things I am used to eating at home and second, there is a French-Canadian named Maxime who is already worlds beyond my cooking level and he’s doing a fantastic job of making food for everyone.

I learned quickly that if I was going to survive off of more than drinkable Activia and the occasional fresh fruit from the grocery store across the street I was going to have to try my hand at buying and cooking actual groceries. That was a problem for me because my card was eaten by an ATM on one of my first few days here, so I teamed up with Hana and she’s been buying our groceries since then and until I can get access to my money. Our first shopping trip together was hilarious because we were trying to buy literally anything that looked cheap and edible. We bought the cheapest eggs ($1.00), the cheapest corn (50₵), the cheapest salmon ($3.00) and so on. We also found frozen beef and chicken patties that we’ve since used as our main source of meat and can basically be identified as “beef” and “chicken” by their color. Fortunately, we are beggars and not choosers so it’s really not an issue yet. Maybe after four months of eating non-descript meat I’ll be singing a different tune, but they’re so easy and cheap and right now I’m attracted more to price than taste.

Cooking was a whole new adventure for me. The first few times we cooked the frozen meat we took it immediately out of the freezer and put it on the highest setting in a frying pan. The outsides would burn to a crisp while the insides would stay totally lukewarm. It took an embarrassingly long time to realize that thawing out the meat would produce better, less mushy and less burned results. Rice has been another source of trouble for us, as it’s been next to impossible to cook rice without overcooking it or undercooking it. Again, it was an embarrassingly long time before either of us thought to ask about the right water/rice ratio.

Finding foods that are reminiscent of home is also difficult. I never in my life thought I’d miss avocados, green peppers, green beans, cheddar cheese, deli meat and fruit as much as I do right now. Fortunately, I haven’t really had to do without peanut butter as David, a fellow Beloit student and resident life-saver for everybody in this dorm (seriously, I could list a page of kind things he’s done for all of us here), saw some the other day and bought me a jar. I had tried previously, but ended up buying some sort of chocolate/butterscotch hybrid spread that, while tasty, was definitely nothing like peanut butter. Chocolate here is also substantially more delicious, so when I crave it I’m in luck because it’s cheap and there is an incredibly diverse selection at the grocery store right next to campus.

Night Life

Finding things to do on the weekends in Beloit is incredibly easy. There are always at least two parties on campus with the same start time and within about a block of each other. If you don’t like one, you can go to the other and you never have a hard time getting in provided you have your school ID (and sometimes even if you don’t, depending on the venue and who’s working). For those of us under 21, it’s even easier because we don’t have the ability to walk down to the bars that are conveniently located 10 minutes away from the school.

Moscow could really not be any more different. From face control at clubs (which is the confidence-building practice of bouncers deeming you either attractive or well-dressed enough to get in the door or not) to the difficulty of getting from one club to another after the metro closes at 1 AM, being a club-goer in Moscow isn’t the easiest job. I’ve had the fortune of being with a group of people that doesn’t care where we go as long as it’s a fun place to be, so we’ve found a few clubs and bars that suit us a little more than the clubs that cater to the well-dressed unsmiling masses that seem to fill them. One club/bar that stands out is Sixteen Tons, which hosts a wide array of performers, has been full of people that don’t look as though they belong in the pages of a fashion magazine and actually smile and seem to enjoy dancing. One of the things I have missed most about Beloiters is their readiness to have a good time without really worrying whether they look hot enough. When I want to dance, I want to dance, not stand awkwardly and painfully in 4-inch heels (which I did when I went to Propaganda the night of the city’s birthday). Finding an environment that feels nonjudgmental and focuses on enjoying music and dancing has been a really great experience.

That’s all for me for now. I’m looking more to experience the historical side of Moscow as soon as possible, now that I have money. There are some museums and parks that I want to check out before it gets too cold (the parks, I mean) and those are the perfect places to take pictures. Philipp also has some photos from nights we’ve all gone out that I will ask if I can post here. They are absolutely beautiful and since I was actually there when he took them I can explain where (and hopefully what) they are.

Poka,

Emily

More Pictures!

These photographs are a few weeks old, but that doesn't mean that I don't love them. Most are from the cemetery we were to visit for an assignment for Beloit, and some of them are blurry night photographs from the night of the celebration of Moscow's birthday. That was a seriously cool night, as some main streets were blocked off to host a variety of performers that included rappers and dub-step artists (dub-step is, according to Wikipedia and for those of you who are unfamiliar with it, a "genre of electronic dance music" and is incredibly fun to dance to) and concluded with fireworks over Red Square. An absolutely amazing night, and almost none of it was caught on camera due to my inability to take pictures in the dark. I'll post some of the better ones, however "better" in this case is still not necessarily "good."

One of many small trails in the Moscow
cemetery we visited. It was gorgeous.

The graves at this cemetery are absolutely
 spectacular and beautiful.

The cremated remains of some of the people
 buried here are placed within brick walls.

A newer wall with built-in holes.

The portion of the cemetery with newer graves
 that were waiting for their headstones were
covered in flowers and photos.

One of the few pictures from Moscow's birthday
that aren't completely blurry. Still pretty bad, though.

I'm not sure if you can see it, but there were at
 least 10,000 people in downtown Moscow that night.
It was insane.

Philipp and I at a bar/restaurant after the festivities

Party favors.

I promise to post another blog either today or tomorrow, and this one will be only text and no pictures and I promise that it won't all be about parties and drinking, either. I PROMISE!

I will now inundate you with pictures, ok?

Inside Red Square, and not entirely sure what this is. I will find out someday...

This is the Bolshoi Theater. It sort of jumped out of nowhere at me and I wasn't ready for it, but it is gorgeous.

Inside Red Square! This was the most optimal place for me to be blatantly foreign but I still felt like I had to take pictures very furtively.

On the left side of the photo is GUM, the gigantic and very expensive mall (with an Armani Exchange cafe and Louis Vuitton, Moschino, and many other designer stores)

GUM, again. Also a Baskin Robbins stand.

The part of the wall where Lenin's tomb is. We couldn't see it that day, but soon!

St Basil's from the side...

...the front...

...and the back!

This piece of prime real estate is the location where I spent the wee morning hours of my birthday extravaganza

The walls of Red Square from the bridge

A really cool statue in a park a little ways away from Red Square...

...whose title has something to do with the sins of adults and their impact on children....

...and featured such sins as "War," "Theft," and "Prostitution," among other things. This particular statue is "War" and it freaked me out

Then we came to a bridge full of trees with locks on them....

...and written on the locks were names of couples and the dates they hooked the locks on the trees. It was adorable/

Then we went on a river tour and this is Gorky Park. The amusement part of it, at least.

Under a bridge

I think this is part of MGU, Moscow State University

The old Olympic training center. We ended up walking right next to it the next day trying to find the monastery/cemetery we were supposed to visit.

The weather was so weird that day. It was either drizzling and gray and chilly or sunny and warm-ish. Also, the rare green part of the city!

The financial/downtown district from far away

From up close(r)

Proof that I was on the boat ride. I was actually super psyched to be there even though I look less than enthused.

We came upon another boat that was really slow-going. We passed them. When we passed them, we saw that the deck was filled with dancing, drunken business-people who were probably on a staff lunch cruise! They waved a lot.

Mysterious pirate ship.

This is just a bank. But it's a really nice-lookin' one.

I suspect that this might be some sort of EU or International Relations thing. And also the metro station.

Anyway, those are all the pictures I have uploaded for now! But I took a lot more when we visited the cemetery and the city's birthday and that night. I will work on taking more when I can visit more places in the city.

Nothing much is new, although classes have started which is exciting! The bad news is that I woke up today really sick to my stomach and didn't make it to class. (I may be erring on the side of over-cautiousness, but I had an unfortunate experience with mononucleosis this summer and am terrified of a relapse...no more drinking for me for a while!) Fortunately, the professors here are really understanding and I'm not missing too much since it's only the first week. Classes are all in Russian, though, and it can be really intimidating but I know that it can only help my language skills develop. In one of my classes we need to present a 20 minute presentation about a topic of our choosing. 20 minutes!! It's crazy and intimidating but our Conversation professor is extremely nice and helpful.

Also, our French-Canadian roommates arrived this evening. The timing was less than optimal because of my nausea but my roommate seems nice although we might have some trouble communicating. Unfortunately, the students from Canada aren't as far along in Russian as we are.

Cooking has been a fun experience so far, and I have discovered that ice cream can come in tubes (like sausage but with dairy products!) and salmon can come cheap and delicious. Also, fresh fruit is expensive and hard to find fresh, so I'm missing that because I haven't eaten it in a very long time.

I will try my best to experience the city more and to work on my Russian skills so that I have more stories to share! But first, I must get over this stomach problem.

Do svidanya!

Emily

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

      I’ve been terrible with keeping up with this damn blog lately, and for that I am sorry. It’s been an eventful past few days, though (with the exception of yesterday, actually, but one day out of a week ain’t bad).

      I suppose I should start with my birthday, which was Monday! We took our language placement test and it was hard. Like, beyond comprehension difficult, and it wasn’t just me it was everybody (which makes me feel 1000% better). We sat in a room with all of the Beloit students, Philip (from Germany, who is really wonderful) and some students from France, England and Germany. Our proctor asked us all questions verbally in Russian and then we each had to come up with a question to ask her. Then we took a grammar test, which to me felt like 70% wild guesses and 30% educated ones.

      After that, we all kind of dispersed and I went off in search of this bar called Karma Bar. It was a total and absolute failure, but all was not lost because I got to walk around our area of the city for about 2 hours and I got stopped by a cute guy who asked me something that I totally didn’t understand, although he was very nice about the whole thing.

      In the end, for my birthday we went to get dessert and drinks (a birthday mojito for me!) at Yolki-Palki, which was where we went for lunch the other day. I got ice cream, which seems like a useless detail but I have to say, Russian ice cream is absolutely unbelievable. So yummy and rich.

      After that, we all went back to my room, had a few beers, and tried to figure out exactly what to do. We didn’t have to meet with Marina until 2:00 the next day so Philip suggested that we go out to a club or a bar. The catch was that the dorm and the metro both close at 1:00 AM, so we had to make a decision about whether to stay out all night (until dorms/the metro open at 5:00 AM) or go out for a few hours and come back. Hana and I researched and found a cool club/bar called Propaganda, so we (myself, Hana, Philip, Ashley, David and Kate) headed out to the metro to get to the center of the city.

      We got there and searched around for what felt like forever (with Hana asking quite a few people for directions – lots of them very cute and all of them extremely helpful), but when we finally got there the bouncer told us that the kitchen was closed and the bar was empty. Also, it was a Monday night. (Secretly, I think that he was face controlling and we were simply not up to standard but who knows – I tend to be a little paranoid)

      We ended up going to a little bar next door called Bourbon Street, which was New Orleans-themed. The menu was super expensive, so I tried to get the cheapest thing on the menu, which turned out to be a shot of (really really good) vodka served with a slice of lemon. We stayed for a few drinks, and by that time it was midnight. Half of us (Hana, Philip and myself) ended up staying out all night, which I have to say was the greatest decision I’ve made probably all week. Truly.

      We finished our drinks, and then decided it was time for a change of scenery. We ended up at one of those thousand little street vendors that sells literally EVERYTHING you could ever want. Flowers, magazines, beer, fruit, meat, ice cream. Everything. Philip treated everyone to beer, and he bought me a German brand to try (it was very good, even though I don’t necessarily consider myself a beer connoisseur). While Philip and I were talking, Hana met a guy whose name I cannot remember, and he got her phone number and pointed us in the direction of a bar down the street.

      When we got there, it was tucked into a little alley and most of the lights on the sign were totally burnt out. There was a bouncer outside the door and a group of extremely creepy, grabby guys, We were a little weirded out, but actually once we got inside the bar/restaurant/club was pretty dead and the waitresses were really nice. The music was terribly loud, though, and we left after a drink to find, as we would find Philip repeating upwards of about 100 times that night, an adventure.

      Our next adventure, it turned out, was to meet an itinerant Chechnyan man who did not want money, but simply to talk to people. He told us (through Hana, who ended up doing most of the translating for us) that he fought in the war and he described the meat they fed to the army, and after all was said and done (about 45 minutes later) we took pictures with him and he kissed my and Hana’s hands.

      After, it was time for a bathroom break and we picked a Kofe Haus (of which there must be thousands in the city – sort of like Starbucks but with alcohol and meals as well) to regroup and sit down. While we were figuring out something else to do, a man across the restaurant got our attention and asked if we would help him practice his English.

      As it turns out, he was born in Kazakhstan of a Kazakh mother and a Russian father. He really wanted to go to the United States and he loved (and knew absolutely tons about) basketball. He knew players, playoff winners, everything. We stayed and talked to him for a while, and Hana noticed that one of the lenses of his glasses was missing and he told us that he had not slept in days. We left the Kofe Haus at about 4:30 in the morning to find something else to do.

      Hana noticed that we must have been very close to St Basil’s cathedral, so we went picked a direction and walked. Oddly enough, the metro station we had gotten off at the beginning of the evening was only a few blocks away from St Basil’s. At that point, we were the only people on the streets aside from a vendor right near the cathedral and the occasional militsia and guards outside St Basil’s. Philip needed another beer (as was the theme of the evening) and so we stopped at the vendor to purchase some. Again, he treated, saying that since it was my birthday I should not have to pay for beer. The vendor was a really nice woman who asked what we were doing up so late. We told her that we wanted to see the sun rise over St Basil’s and she called us adorable.

      So that is where we ended our night, sitting on the edge of the underground sidewalk, drinking cheap beer and being utterly silent. As it got sunnier it also got colder, which was miserable for Hana and I but Philip was happy as a clam. He took so many pictures but I hardly think any of them could have turned out that great considering his physical condition at that point.

      We ended up taking the metro back to campus at around 8:30 and crawled straight into bed. We all had to be in korpus 3 the next day to meet Marina, and our “lesson plan” for that day turned out to be watching a video showing the sights of Moscow downtown and when St Basil’s came on the screen it was really very exciting for me.

      The rest of the week has been rather unexciting. Short little trips into the area surrounding the campus, but other than that no major events and not a lot of sight-seeing. Hopefully I will take more pictures to post later (of Red Square perhaps?).

      Anyway, there are more plans for later in the week. On Friday we are going to take a boat trip down the Moscow River. Then, the weekend and the city’s birthday which should make for an exciting time.

      Until then!

      Emily

Alright

I've been terrible at keeping up with this blog, and for that I apologize. I have so much to say and now so many pictures to upload so that those of you who are reading this blog can actually know what I'm up to.

Suffice it to say, I will post more soon. I promise.