Monday was a big Russian holiday- something roughly equivalent to Veteran's Day. Pretty much everybody here had it off, but on Saturday we had still not heard anything about it from our program's coordinator, so I fired off an e-mail to see what was up. This is the response I got:
Dear Sean,
Yes, you'll have classes tomorrow. Our program ignores all holidays.
Sincerely,
Irina
I think it's safe to say that I've involved myself in some sort of voluntary gulag.
Also on the topic of holidays, next week is "Pancake Week." At last, I've found a place to call home.
As a personal celebration of the imminence of pancake week I went out to a club last night. It was called the Club Bilingua, and unfortunately I didn't just forget to type the l - the two languages in question were Russian and Spanish. I thought I might have more success communicating in Spanish than I have thusfar in Russian, but it turns out that having another language I barely speak thrown in interchangeably only compounds the difficulty. Still, I had an excellent time, and in a clever twist the concert that evening was sung largely in Catalan, so nobody could understand it. And we had fantastic seats; we had been graciously invited out for the evening by Anna, one of the girls hired by the program to assist us with the basics of living, shopping, and fending off the KGB, and she knew the concert coordinator so we had a reserved table up front. All in all I spent the evening feeling very metropolitan if entirely clueless.
In a few hours I'm taking a midnight train to St. Petersburg for the weekend. Unfortunately I'm a technologically inept hillbilly so I'm still using the original 16mb compact flash card my camera came with five odd years ago, so my ability to convey this experience to you will be sharply limited. Still, at the current exchange rate of 1000 words per picture, my next post should treat you to considerably more information, so stay tuned.
As long as I don't run out of batteries.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Kicking it at the Shitdisco
As I lay asleep last Thursday morning an arrant sunbeam crept into my room, hunting like a fox across my bed and finishing with a pounce right on top of my nose. It tickled with its warmth like a naughty French maid. "The very first ray of sun since I arrived in Moscow!" I exclaimed to myself in a less stunted, more feeling fashion. Delight unfolded on my face and soon the sun was not the only thing beaming. I sprang from my bed and with a flourish drew back the blinds to look down from my 14th floor shared residence onto the marvel of human ingenuity below; the smoke stacks gleamed radiant, powered by the sweat of the idyllic Soviet factory worker, while the morning train chugga-chugga
-choo-chooed blissfully under the sun, hauling in this day's rations of bread and water.Ok, so I don't have the best view from my balcony, but I think you'll agree it's better in the sun than in the capitalist pig dog cloud that is the usual character of father winter's loving embrace around here.
I've lived in cold places before, and in fact I've even chided people for expecting it to be warm on a winter day just because it's sunny, yet I couldn't help but fall into the same trap myself. Like the tourist I am I put on a sweatshirt and hat, grabbed my camera, but skipped the coat as I bounded outside hoping to capture some images of my daily commute on a day that would make it seem unrealistically pleasant when I reflect back on this time in my later years.
This is where I live. During war drills the walls fold down to reveal a missile silo.
This is the metro station I get off at on my way to school. I chose to photograph this one, because unlike the metro station near my apartment, this one does not look like a piece of shit. If you'll notice, everyone else wore a coat; you know, for the freezing cold.
The area in which the Independent University of Moscow is located is actually very beautiful. Specifically I've captured for you (or more specifically, the little man inside my camera who uses MS Paint and a Wacom tablet to draw what he sees has captured for you) a nice walking street and a large building.
This picture doesn't really do justice to the epic proportions of this building. It's one of seven all-alike around Moscow, I think they were built in the Soviet era for some sort of government function - I don't know, ask someone who speaks Russian. Architecturally quite baller though.
I had intended to continue my photojourney all the way to the university, but my camera slurped the last out of its two double-A juiceboxes as I took this photo, so go back and appreciate it twice because it's all you're getting for now.
Some additional Miscellani, in kids-love-it-Mom-approved bulleted format:
- Ordering food here is a lot like an episode of Arrested Development. I think this video I don't understand puts it best. (Thanks to Val for the video.)
- Soviet-era Sci-fi. At last, a genre that truly speaks to me. I could describe it, but I think it's really better if you just set aside an hour to watch Bolshoe Kosmicheskoe Puteshestvie (or, Big Space Journey). If you don't have the time, just think: Red Space Camp.
Monday, February 16, 2009
The Sphinx is Made of Sand, and They Rebuild it Every Morning
Now that I've settled in to Russian life and the initial culture shocks have passed, it may be the case that I'm going to have to venture out beyond the walks of every day life in order to find things shocking, startling, or even generically humorous to entertain you, the Internet's slobbering masses/my closest friends. Luckily this shouldn't be too hard to motivate myself for seeing as I brought barely anything to entertain myself with and my only Internet access is in the public so I can't watch porn (although, it would certainly force me to exercise my Russian if I got caught) - in fact, it turns out I can't really watch anything, at least not legally; none of the major TV sites serve their videos in Russia (anyone know of a good US-based free proxy?).
Still, I do have a small list of interesting morsels which I will share with you today. Ration them wisely.
CONTINUATION
Aha. Fire alarm. This is what I discovered after wandering out into the hall and finding Dirk. He knows some Russian, at least enough to understand that we were supposed to go to the first floor and to absolutely not take the elevator. But all the Russians were taking the elevator and the stairs were completely empty, so, when in Rome - we took the elevator down. After a minute or so of nobody telling us anything we took the elevator back up, and here I am, back on the Internet in a building that I am about 98% certain is not burning to the ground as I type. In a return to our scheduled programming, I had one more thing on my list:
Still, I do have a small list of interesting morsels which I will share with you today. Ration them wisely.
- Pelmeni. They're like meatballs wrapped in pasta. If you're ever offered them, just say no, because once you start eating them you're not going to want to stop but it turns out they kindof make your pee smell funny.
- About 20 meters from my dorm as I walked peacably along, believing in my naivete that pedestrian and locomoting machine could live in this world together in harmony, nay, melody, nay, sympatric symbiotic symphony based on an agreement of mutual respect and trust, a gigantic truck veered in front of me and proceeded to use the sidewalk as a third lane. I guess that's just how it's done here? I'm going to buy another head and install it at such an angle as to be permanently looking over my shoulder.
- A siren just went off and some sort of message I can't understand is repeating on the loudspeakers (which I didn't know we had). And I thought I had to go out to find interesting things to write about. TO BE CONTINUED.
CONTINUATION
Aha. Fire alarm. This is what I discovered after wandering out into the hall and finding Dirk. He knows some Russian, at least enough to understand that we were supposed to go to the first floor and to absolutely not take the elevator. But all the Russians were taking the elevator and the stairs were completely empty, so, when in Rome - we took the elevator down. After a minute or so of nobody telling us anything we took the elevator back up, and here I am, back on the Internet in a building that I am about 98% certain is not burning to the ground as I type. In a return to our scheduled programming, I had one more thing on my list:
- I don't watch a lot of Russian TV because, while flashy, it remains in a tongue in which I have made insufficient investments and I am still receiving poor returns from my fathoming portfolio. But the other day while I ate I was captivated briefly by what was essentially Russian Jeopardy with a minor change in wardrobe - everyone except the host was wearing sparkly silver robes, including the audience. If you end with negative money you're sacrificed to Alex Trebek.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Smile if You're Sober
About a block away from my dormitory, right across the street from the metro station, is the Cafe Bistro. It sits in a row of ramshackle shops, each about the size of a one car garage, but considerably less solidly constructed. The Cafe Bistro is distinguished among these is that it sells a particularly delicious wrap - the so called "shoorma." At only 80 rubles (~$2.25) it is very reasonably priced, and it tastes absolutely amazing. I'm not really sure what's in it; lamb, I think, or maybe pork - at any rate it comes off one of those awesome spinning meat chunks. The shoorma is one of only four things on the menu, and as far as we know it's the only one you can actually order. Every time we're been there, no matter what we say, that's what they give us. It's delicious so I don't really mind, and now we don't even have to order, we just walk in and convey how many we want via held up fingers. (There's probably a Russian blog out there right now talking about the crazy Americans who just walk in and flash a number and expect that many shoormas like it's some kind of understood Russian tradition)
As we enjoyed our mystery wraps today we were interrupted by a couple of engineering students at the table next to us. Their English was limited, but they had plastic cups and a bottle of vodka, so the intent was clear. We had been explicity warned by the administration not to accept drinks from strangers, but they seemed quite friendly, and so we all enjoyed a couple of shots together. Well, almost all; when they came to Emily (the only girl in the program) they skipped her and said, "no women; men only."
I may or may not have done a shot to the prospect of "no Islam."
When we left I summoned all my Russian know-how to formulate the words "you very good," and tried unsuccessfully to introduce the high five, which may need more fertile lands in order to germinate.
There are a million things I could write about, so I'm just going to hit the high points in a kind of Power Point fashion:
As we enjoyed our mystery wraps today we were interrupted by a couple of engineering students at the table next to us. Their English was limited, but they had plastic cups and a bottle of vodka, so the intent was clear. We had been explicity warned by the administration not to accept drinks from strangers, but they seemed quite friendly, and so we all enjoyed a couple of shots together. Well, almost all; when they came to Emily (the only girl in the program) they skipped her and said, "no women; men only."
I may or may not have done a shot to the prospect of "no Islam."
When we left I summoned all my Russian know-how to formulate the words "you very good," and tried unsuccessfully to introduce the high five, which may need more fertile lands in order to germinate.
There are a million things I could write about, so I'm just going to hit the high points in a kind of Power Point fashion:
- The chalk. Yes, I know what you're saying, if item number one is the chalk then you can't imagine how boring the nine hundred ninety nine thousand and ninety nine other things must be, but bear with me. You see, as a mathematician I spend the majority of my waking day using chalk, watching chalk, smelling chalk, breathing chalk, and generally enjoying the chalk's aura. So, with not further ado... drum roll please... the chalk here is three times the diameter of chalk in the US! It's awesome. So much easier to write with, so much easier to hold, so many fewer squeaks. I can't believe we won the Cold War competing against this shit.
- Speaking of the chalk, I just want to mention that the math building is ridiculously run down. Some very well known mathematicians work there which makes the difference in facilities between here and the US even more absurd. I'll post pictures sometime next week.
- I ate 14 granola bars the first two days I was here.
- There is a ping pong table in the lobby of the math building. Everyone has their own paddle and I believe I've seen each and every face late night on ESPN2 during the Olympics.
- There are ~200 foot escalators in the Metro stations. I can't take pictures because it's illegal.
- My rent is cock knocking hockey puck slap shot sky dive xtreme outlandishly cheap. 4000 rubles=$111/mo. Somehow the Russian economy is even more fucked than ours; the Ruble lost 30% of its value in the last 4 months. Profit.
- There is officially only one key to my room and we have to check it in whenever we leave the building. Val made copies.
- Every day this week (except today) I was asleep by 7:45pm.
- My largest class has 5 people in it.
- The largest crowds I've ever seen are in the Metro here during rush hour. Gigantic areas where you are literally pushed from all sides; worse than a
concert. And nowhere in this sea of people is there a smile to be fished. My friend Shane put it best:
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Right on time (standard deviation: 10 minutes)
I forgot to mention in my last post that my flight to London came complete with a complimentary pair of socks.
About two hours out of Moscow I realized that the time had come for my testicles to reach their full descent so I ordered up a glass of Johnnie Walker Red on the rocks. I had counted on the in flight meal to sober me up before landing, but much to my olfactory dismay it turned out to consist entirely of fish and fish products. So, with nothing in my stomach except four shots of whiskey and a few Worcestershire-sauce flavored pretzel nuggets, my first step into Russia was more of a drunken stumble. I thought at least it might steel me against the cold, but it turned out to be a warm day and at a smooth 2 or 3 degrees Celsius there was no real cold for me to be reinforced by any metal against.
Passport control and customs were straightforward and painless, the people running them at 4:40 in the morning about as interested in making a fuss as the people going through them at 4:40 in the morning. Which is good, because none of the officials appeared to speak English, and my Russian at this point consists of little more than the ability to apologize for my inability to say anything else. The English here in general is interesting. The people who speak it seem to do so at a high level, but I have yet to meet a single Russian truly fluent in English, even among the administrative staff for the program I'm participating in. There is, of course, a very simple explanation for this - almost every Russian I've interacted with has been at least 35; and since the Soviet Union collapsed about 18 years ago most of them could not have even hoped to meet a native speaker of English until they were full blown adults. Taking this into account it is actually quite incredible how good the English here is. Still, in these interactions I've had to seriously curb my use of figures of speech, and there are of course some funny quirks of not quite right English I get treated to every day during class. My favorite thus far: "Here is my e-mail, please use it for back feed."
The program employs two girls to assist its students students in Russian life, and one of them, Ester, was waiting for me at the airport holding a big sign with my name in sharpie (I'd always wanted to come out of a plane to find somebody holding a sign for me; check that off the bucket list). After struggling through a gauntlet of determined taxi drivers, we stepped outside and were picked up by our driver in some sort of a rotting-corpse green, but otherwise badass, Soviet-era automobile. Due to the hour of day there was no traffic and the ride was blessedly short, only about 45 minutes. On the way in Ester explained to me some of the basics of the program and Moscow life. When we arrived, she succesfully talked the guard into letting us into the dormitory, and we went up to meet with the landlady, a Russian woman in her mid fifties (I should mention here that every Russian woman in her mid fifties looks essentially the same and it is exactly what you imagine a Russian woman in her mid fifties to look like). There was an unusual amount of hullabaloo involving the correct way to Xerox my passport and migration card, but after an hour of wrestling with the copy machine Ester and the landlady seemed to reach some sort of accord and I was allowed to enter my room.
Unfortunately there is only one key for each room so entering involved waking up my roommate, Val. I lived with him last semester at Penn State and thus I am familiar with his deep sleeping habits, so it was no great surprise when it took several rings to get him up. It was around 6:45 at this point so after performing the rudiments of unpacking I layed down to catch a quick nap. An hour and a half later I woke up and showered, then Ester (who probably got even less sleep than me), showed up to help me with the absolutely necessary errands before class - changing currency, getting a metro pass, and paying my rent. She then showed me how to get to the Independent University of Moscow from my dorm (about a 40 minute trip via metro), and I made it just in time to be 10 minutes late for my first course.
TO BE CONTINUED
About two hours out of Moscow I realized that the time had come for my testicles to reach their full descent so I ordered up a glass of Johnnie Walker Red on the rocks. I had counted on the in flight meal to sober me up before landing, but much to my olfactory dismay it turned out to consist entirely of fish and fish products. So, with nothing in my stomach except four shots of whiskey and a few Worcestershire-sauce flavored pretzel nuggets, my first step into Russia was more of a drunken stumble. I thought at least it might steel me against the cold, but it turned out to be a warm day and at a smooth 2 or 3 degrees Celsius there was no real cold for me to be reinforced by any metal against.
Passport control and customs were straightforward and painless, the people running them at 4:40 in the morning about as interested in making a fuss as the people going through them at 4:40 in the morning. Which is good, because none of the officials appeared to speak English, and my Russian at this point consists of little more than the ability to apologize for my inability to say anything else. The English here in general is interesting. The people who speak it seem to do so at a high level, but I have yet to meet a single Russian truly fluent in English, even among the administrative staff for the program I'm participating in. There is, of course, a very simple explanation for this - almost every Russian I've interacted with has been at least 35; and since the Soviet Union collapsed about 18 years ago most of them could not have even hoped to meet a native speaker of English until they were full blown adults. Taking this into account it is actually quite incredible how good the English here is. Still, in these interactions I've had to seriously curb my use of figures of speech, and there are of course some funny quirks of not quite right English I get treated to every day during class. My favorite thus far: "Here is my e-mail, please use it for back feed."
The program employs two girls to assist its students students in Russian life, and one of them, Ester, was waiting for me at the airport holding a big sign with my name in sharpie (I'd always wanted to come out of a plane to find somebody holding a sign for me; check that off the bucket list). After struggling through a gauntlet of determined taxi drivers, we stepped outside and were picked up by our driver in some sort of a rotting-corpse green, but otherwise badass, Soviet-era automobile. Due to the hour of day there was no traffic and the ride was blessedly short, only about 45 minutes. On the way in Ester explained to me some of the basics of the program and Moscow life. When we arrived, she succesfully talked the guard into letting us into the dormitory, and we went up to meet with the landlady, a Russian woman in her mid fifties (I should mention here that every Russian woman in her mid fifties looks essentially the same and it is exactly what you imagine a Russian woman in her mid fifties to look like). There was an unusual amount of hullabaloo involving the correct way to Xerox my passport and migration card, but after an hour of wrestling with the copy machine Ester and the landlady seemed to reach some sort of accord and I was allowed to enter my room.
Unfortunately there is only one key for each room so entering involved waking up my roommate, Val. I lived with him last semester at Penn State and thus I am familiar with his deep sleeping habits, so it was no great surprise when it took several rings to get him up. It was around 6:45 at this point so after performing the rudiments of unpacking I layed down to catch a quick nap. An hour and a half later I woke up and showered, then Ester (who probably got even less sleep than me), showed up to help me with the absolutely necessary errands before class - changing currency, getting a metro pass, and paying my rent. She then showed me how to get to the Independent University of Moscow from my dorm (about a 40 minute trip via metro), and I made it just in time to be 10 minutes late for my first course.
TO BE CONTINUED
Sunday, February 8, 2009
The Tamale Lady
There is an old woman who travels the Tucson bar scene late in the evening hawking her wares to unsuspecting patrons. She peddles that savory Mexican desire of every drunk's heart - the tamale, six for six dollars (minimum purchase: 6). Though tempting, this is not a pleasure I recommend indulging in prior to an international flight.
Despite my intestinal protests, I did manage to get some sleep on the plane to Heathrow. The conscious portion of the flight was for the most part uneventful - I ruined season 1 of Dexter for myself by watching the first three episodes of season 2, and when we landed, the roof sprung a leak and dripped water all over my head and shirt. Luckily I am sporting a double layered reversible garment and the transition to the backup side was seamless.
Now I'm stuck in London (I know it's London because while we were circling I spotted the giant ferris wheel) for seven hours. I paid 5 pounds to have Internet but I packed my outlet adapters in my checked baggage and my computer is like an electricity vampire that hasn't fed in weeks (alternate Star Wars analogy - my computer is like a mynok). This is causing me to regret bringing only books I should read instead of books I actually want to read.
In Soviet Russia, Internet blogs you.
Despite my intestinal protests, I did manage to get some sleep on the plane to Heathrow. The conscious portion of the flight was for the most part uneventful - I ruined season 1 of Dexter for myself by watching the first three episodes of season 2, and when we landed, the roof sprung a leak and dripped water all over my head and shirt. Luckily I am sporting a double layered reversible garment and the transition to the backup side was seamless.
Now I'm stuck in London (I know it's London because while we were circling I spotted the giant ferris wheel) for seven hours. I paid 5 pounds to have Internet but I packed my outlet adapters in my checked baggage and my computer is like an electricity vampire that hasn't fed in weeks (alternate Star Wars analogy - my computer is like a mynok). This is causing me to regret bringing only books I should read instead of books I actually want to read.
In Soviet Russia, Internet blogs you.
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