snowflakes!

Stop the presses and alert the paparazzi. The moccasins have been retired (and are currently enjoying their retirement basking in the heat of the radiator they are sitting under in the hopes that they will dry out in the next few hundred years) and the trench has been relegated to only more formal occasions – which means it is boot, scarf, hat, and winter coat time in St. Petersburg! (A time which is made even more splendid by the fact that my host mom took my red leather boots in to be re-tipped and they came back the same day, with metal grooved heel tips!!! Have I mentioned lately that I love shoes on this side of the Atlantic and everything associated with them?) But what was the impetus for this sudden change of attire, you ask? Sneg. (SNOW!) And even more than the snow that fell today, it was the slush on the sidewalk that made me realize it was about time to go boots-in and put the moccasins in the suitcase next to the flip-flops and Italian leather. So the Dublin-ankle-boots, black-suede boots, Burberry-wellington-boots, Timberline-combat-boots, and awesomely-metal-heeled-red-leather-boots are lined up in the hallway and ready for action. (Yes, all of the afore-mentioned did fit in my suitcase.) And – don’t freak out mom I haven’t bought any yet – my host mom and I discovered a common desire for over-the-knee-black-leather boots this weekend but just couldn’t find the perfect pair in the 4-floor shoe mall right next to our metro (yes, 4 floors of shoes), so we’re going to a different mall of shoes next week after I get back from Estonia. ☺

Well, if you didn’t already know about my shoe fetish/obsession/problem (depending on who you ask), you have now been informed, so we’ll save the discussion on purses for another day. Actually, my first big purchase will in all likelihood be leather gloves, an equally important piece of outerwear here on the eastern end of the Gulf of Finland. It started snowing during our first class, and I realized that the weather report I had seen scrolled across the bottom of the TV screen last night must have been for yesterday, NOT for today. So my moccasins got more than a little wet on the way home, but the first-snow-excitement kept me nice and warm until I could get home and change into my boots and winter coat for a walk. This weekend it managed to be beautiful almost the whole time, with a brief interlude of hail on Saturday when Kelly and I were thankfully walking next to a well-placed awning. I love my Russian umbrella, but I’m not sure how it would hold up to dime-sized hail.

We were walking back from the Museum of Political History, which is right by the Peter and Paul Fortress. It houses an absolutely incredible collection of documents, propaganda, photographs (some with ‘enemy of the state’ relatives cut out of them), uniforms and clothing, models, and video and audio presentations. It almost makes you wonder if either they knew that someday information on the Soviet Union would belong in a museum or whether they have just made some of the things up, that’s how many passports, train tickets, ration cards, and other documents from important people are displayed in the museum. The posters of Soviet propaganda were particularly interesting to me, everything from satires of ‘the west’ to a depiction of a how the ‘Soviet Family’ was to look and act in their home. It was also striking how many letters of protest were on display, whether written to Stalin or any number of ministry heads particularly during the height of the Gulag system. There were also exhibits of some of the more incredible things to come out of the Gulag, paintings and sketches done on canvas snuck into the camps in the lids of boxes, and even a chess set supposedly made out of bread by one of the prisoners. There were models of communal apartments and barracks in the work camps, as well as reports on the later visits of Soviet leaders with those in the west. Having largely learned about the Soviet era from the perspective of the Eastern European countries rather than from within the Russian territories, it was a very interesting and enlightening museum. At the end, there is also a room dedicated to First Lady Gorbachev, which was very interesting.

We left the museum in the late afternoon – and discovered it had become noticeably colder on the street. Our plan was to find a bar to watch the Germany-Russia soccer game in, but we ended up running into a festival for children instead and later discovered that pretty much all the bars were going to be booked up. So we ended up watching the game at my apartment, after my host mom graciously agreed and fussed over whether we had enough tea and things even though it was incredibly last minute and I tried to tell her a million times not to worry about it. (It’s a silly worry anyways, we have an entire cabinet that is always full of tea bags and loose tea!) The game ended well, and I didn’t get beat up for being a Germany fan watching the game in a Russian sports-bar, so the evening probably worked out for the best anyway. Sunday I was up early for church, met Tom, and said hi to the Americans and the choir for a little bit afterwards before meeting up with our group for our excursion to a palace close to Peterhof.

We spent the afternoon with CIEE and our host families (which was great fun!) at Konstantin Palace in the suburbs of St. Petersburg. It was a private palace before the revolution, was of course nationalized by the Soviets and then destroyed during the siege. It had fallen into decay when, in 2000, a letter was written to then-President Putin declaring it a shame on Russia that such a palace (it is quite a landmark, right on the Baltic and the road to Peterhof. It had been intended to be the site of the fountains but they were moved to Peterhof because the geography was better for a gravity-fed system.) had been allowed to fall into disrepair. Putin must have agreed, because he had the palace and the surrounding park renovated and restored in just under a year and a half. In addition, a five-star hotel and more than a dozen cottages were built on the property right on the Gulf of Finland for important guests. The palace was the main site for the G-8 meetings held in St. Petersburg in 2006, and has played host to many other official events. When it is not hosting Medvedev or Putin, it operates as one of the most secure museums in Russia. Metal-detectors and grimace-wearing-militia remind you every few minutes that you’re not visiting just any palace. CIEE invites our host families to come with us because you can only get in by pre-arranging group trips on certain dates so many Russians have never had the opportunity to go inside.

The rooms have mostly been restored to look as they would have in imperial Russia, some of the chandeliers have been restored exactly from 19th century photographs, for example. One exception is the 'Belvedere' room on the top floor in the center of the palace. It was renovated to look like a ship's cabin, and there is a spiral staircase, model staircases, cherry paneling, and curved glass windows in the shape of a sail to add to the effect. It is used for more private meetings – maybe it is where Bush saw Putin's soul – and is absolutely beautiful. It was a great excursion, made even more interesting because it wasn't just another palace but has a more interesting history. It was also very fun to spend the day with my host mom (and her mom), and they liked the palace and the grounds just as much as I did. It was a great end to the weekend, and this week we will only have 4 days of classes because we are headed to Talinn early Friday morning.

This morning I had a skype date with the twin, but I woke up with a strange feeling of chills and a serious migraine. I got almost all ready but was pretty miserable so I texted her but she didn't get it and now I have a reputation for standing people up ☹. I'm feeling better now, though I still have a headache, and the director of the program has given me the name of a supplement that apparently attacks the virus that is currently going around so hopefully that will knock it out. Matthew also called me from his fancy iPhone and its skype application and it was awesome for like 20 minutes but then it made him sound like a robot and I couldn't really tell what he was saying at all so I hope I can catch both him and twin online today or Thursday. Then its off to Talinn for the weekend, we'll get back real late Sunday night. I'll have my computer on Thursday, so if you've been to Talinn or know of something that I absolutely have to make sure I see/buy while I'm there, let me know between now and then and I'll be sure to do/buy it ☺.

Thanks for reading and putting up with my tangents, I'm going to try and watch an episode of House online! ☺ All my love and many snowflakes - beth