Getting Tired of Witty Snow Titles, and Snow Itself

And, apparently, so is St. Petersburg. Because for the last few days, we have all been running around without our long underwear and three scarves that we have become accustomed to needing. It has been +1 Celcius here and we are treating it like a serious heat wave, I cannot wait to see what +10 feels like, if we ever get there before its time to head home in May. The warmner temperatures have, however, also turned the streets to absolute slush and sent icicles and piles of snow plummeting off of buildings toward the ground. It is a change from the ice rinks that have occupied most of the streets in the city, and makes me grateful once again for my rain boots – but I'm not entirely sure it’s a positive change. We certainly don't have any control over it, though, so we'll take the positive temperatures while they last.

The past few weeks have been full of studying, volunteering, and spending lots of time with friends. This past Tuesday, February 23rd, was 'Men's Day' in Russia, as it is commonly known, it is officially a holiday to commemorate the mens' 'service to the Fatherland' during the Great Patriotic War but it is extended to honor all men in the country, including young boys and foreign students who use the excuse to receive gifts of chocolate, vodka, and a night out on the town from the girls they hang out with. Russians had a four day holiday weekend, but had to work the following Saturday to make up for the free Monday they were given (a very interesting concept in a country where so many don't really seem to value work very much), whereas we studied on Monday the 22nd and so didn't have to yesterday. My host mom says she almost wishes that was how their work week had gone, she's not very happy that she worked all day yesterday and has to again tomorrow, after only one day off. I'm not at all sure how the students here manage with only one day off every week, as I've said before. We made good use of the holiday, going to one of Brent's hockey games and then out afterwards with some Russian friends, coming home on the metro the next morning and sleeping the holiday away – after catching up with Mary in San Francisco which made the day even better! Women's Day is coming up on March 8th, I'll be sure to let you know if the boys make good on their promise to treat us to a night out and other goodies. I dragged Jay and Irina to Kolobok (my favorite perozhki place that I think I have mentioned before, not far from school) before buying concert tickets on Thursday, and while Jay is used to me dragging him there Irina had never been there before. She raved about it for about the next hour, and we are hoping Jay brings in a box of our favorites to class on Tuesday in honor of Women's Day…but we'll have to see.

The concert tickets were for a solo piano performance of Rachmaninoff on Friday evening, an incredible 2 hours of beautiful music and incredible talent on the part of the artist. Irina, Jay, Jeremy, and I had an incredible time bearing witness to the genius of one of Russia's favorite composers, and it felt great to be immersed in the theater culture of St. Petersburg again. (I'll be going to Mozart's Requiem and The Magic Flute before the month is out, we found good deals on the tickets but I'm still sacrificing a few nights on the town for…well, a different type of night on the town ☺ ) After the concert we headed to a student bar for a beer and were treated to a spontaneous eruption of opera from a few of the students in the bar who apparently just decided to break into song. They were harmonizing and everything, it was incredible and the whole bar broke out in applause when they finished.

Unfortunately, there hasn't been as much for Russians to applaud coming out of Vancouver as they had hoped. The Olympics have been a disappointment for nearly everyone in Russia, those who take it very seriously and those who watch very casually. My host mom, who doesn't really watch the Games at all, was going on about it a few nights ago, how before (in the Soviet Union) the team was so much stronger because of the number of eligible athletes and the strength of the training, and how all these little countries competing is just so silly and makes Russia look even worse against the countries leading the medal count. She's not sure why its so bad, just that the team is not like it used to be. Her hopes for the next Winter Olympics when Russia is the host nation are not very high. She knows that the Russia that is shown in Sochi in 2014 will not look anything like the Russia most people live in everyday, and that the illusion that 'everything is great' will only be perpetuated, while most people are struggling through the economic crisis with no help from their government. The people making the money off of the boom in Sochi are the oligarchs and the mafia, she says (and she's right, from all appearances), and the Russian citizens are not feeling any substantial benefits. I remember when we were studying in Salzburg, which was the candidate city competing with Sochi for the 2014 Winter Games, and they announced that Sochi, Russia would host the 2014 Games and how disappointed we all were. At that moment, I had no idea that I would be studying in Russia, and while my heart still belongs to Salzburg I am definitely very interested to see how an Olympics in Russia is carried off. And how the Russia shown by the Games is the same as or differs from the Russia that I lived in and talked about while studying here. Надо посмотреть…We'll have to see.

The studying is going very well, we have a test and an essay due next week so this week there will be a lot of work going on – a nice coincidence since my play money has been directed to theater tickets! I am surviving in grammar, working very hard to make sure I don't sound like too much of a bumbling idiot, but the teacher continues to be very helpful and make sure I understand the things that are new for me but review for the others. Our group is so much fun I would much rather work harder on my own outside of class than change groups. Our literature class also continues to be very rewarding, my host mom and I have been working on reading Russian poetry out loud to get the right rythym and intonation and accents, I can tell she enjoys it and it’s a pretty typical doing-the-dishes or cleaning up activity. She usually reads the poem out loud while sipping tea and then I try and duplicate her intonation and rythym, sometimes we end up laughing when I butcher a 30 letter word, other times she gets very excited when I get it perfect. I'm very grateful for all the support I get from her, she's always checking on new grammar concepts and making sure I'm understanding and using them as much as possible. Its largely thanks to her that I was able to make the jump all the way to group one, which I try and tell her as often as possible even though she always waves it off.

Tonight is the gold medal game in hockey, USA and Canada. Will probably be at a friends to watch it, after a skype date with my twin and eating dinner at host grandma's. Thank you for sticking around and reading, sorry it has been a little while but I should be back to posting more often now that I've realized going out every day after class is absolutely not a good idea, except for the fact that its fun to spend time with friends outside of class. I hear there's even more snow in Cleveland now, while ours is melting, but hopefully winter will be gone from both continents when my parents head this way in April, if all goes according to plan! Comment so I know you're out there ☺ Much love from the land of falling icicles and endless amounts of blini – beth

Novgorod the Great, Freezing, and Sick-Making

Our second trip to Novgorod was somewhat different than our first. We took a nice double decker bus since we all fit easily – there were 20 more students last semester so we took two buses most places, keeping the language and area studies programs totally separate. The year-long students claimed the bottom of the bus for the most part, we wanted the tables so we could play cards and watch movies on peoples laptops, and it was a pretty typical drive. Brent and I tried to teach Jeremy and Jay how to play Euchre…they almost got it. Lunch at the hotel was alright, at least the fish was fresh and the soup was hot. I roomed with Irina, she was actually born in Russia and moved to the US when she was maybe 8, so she speaks Russian almost fluently and she's in almost all of my classes. We get along really well and she's really fun, we did the scavenger hunt together too and had an absolute blast. After lunch she headed out with the group for the excursion while most of us year-longers relaxed and napped rather than spend three hours in the cold hearing things we had already heard. If I hadn't lost my camera I probably would have gone to take pictures of the gorgeous little town all covered in snow, but as it was I was exhausted from getting up so early and feeling a serious cold coming on so it made more sense to sleep. The group came back about an hour early anyway, everyone was frozen so they decided to cut it a little short and give them the time to warm up before dinner. I ate with Megan and a bunch of different new students, it was fun to have casual conversation and get to know everyone a little better still. After dinner we walked over to the banya – where I had my first banya experience the semester before – but it was very very crowded so only a few people could go in. Since I had already been I helped the girls set up and translated while the little babyshka explained things to some of the area studies students, and then I walked back to the hotel. We watched some of the Olympics and hung out, glad to have a night to relax and be on our own.

The next morning we headed out to one of the oldest monestaries in the area, which was absolutely covered in snow and ice and incredibly picturesque until you slipped and fell because you could no longer feel your feet. It was colder inside the main church than outside, and the guides explained that they only held services there starting in May. The path which was lined in beautiful late-blooming rose bushes last semester was this time almost a tunnel through the high snow, and the lake that had been framed with the changing colors of the leaves this time seemed to strech into frozen nothingness. It adds great perspective to see things such as these under different circumstances, and as we headed to the 'open-air museum' I remembered my chat with the German tourists last semester with a smile. This time I found my way to the exhibition halls, partly for the heat and partly because I hadn't realized they existed last semester, and was happy to find a substantial collection of artifacts uncovered from the original village site. The wood carving work is truly incredible, tiny detailed patterns of flours and other designs repeated over and over again, alongside gorgeous beaded costumes that sometimes reminded me of Guatie and other times looked like nothing I had ever seen. Lunch was in the restaurant just across the way, the blini were good but the borsch tasted funny. Behind the restaurant there was a cross country ski race going on, dad you could have done great ☺ Wish I could have video taped some of it for you! The school aged kids were the best, on straight-line rather than skate skiis and trying not to trip all over themselves getting to the starting line. From lunch we headed back into town to watch the 'maslanitsa' festivities. Maslanitsa is the week before the Russian Orthodox version of Lent, like a week-long carnival. There are all kinds of traditions, including eating lots of blini, burning large scarecrows, and watching groups of naked men fight each other, plus lots of food, games, and dancing. Novgorod put on quite the carnival, and we walked around laughing at the slightly drunk babyshki and little kids with balloons tied to their hats. Then it was time to get back on the bus and head home, after getting the feeling back in our feet and arranging ourselves as comfortably as possible to try and sleep. Didn't work all that well, but we made good time back to the city and went home to crash (and do all the homework we had neglected all weekend).

Today began another week, and unfortunately the cold I've felt coming on hit full force this morning. I made it through my language classes but came home and medicated after that, took a nice long nap, and am now headed back to bed after skyping with my dad and Grandpa Doc from Antigua. Chatted with mom last night too, got to see the gorgeous newly-painted bedroom and incredibly bummed I'm not there to go shopping for all the fun things to finish up the bedroom. Got some sad news today as well, dearest neighbor dog in the world has passed away, I miss Libby already and can't believe I won't see her lounging on our deck like its her own or bounding through the snow to come say hello. All my love to the Kilbanes, she was such a blessing. My love to all of you as well, thanks for being interested in my little piece of the universe, more to come soon. Now its time for one more visit with my friends sudafed and guanifanysin! Good night!

Slippery Slip Slip

So much for getting to wear fun heeled boots in Russia…I'm just grateful for being able to stay on my feet in flats! As I have lamented already, they're not really sure what to do with all the snow currently hanging around St. Petersburg – they have pushed some of it into the Gulf of Finland and some more of it in front of the gateway to our university – and this weekend we are headed to Novgorod, a very small city where they hopefully have less snow. The snow brings out interesting characteristics. I will give you two examples, and allow your imaginations to run wild from there. First, young American men are seemingly perfectly content to watch you flounder and slide around on the ice. They don't mind if you take their arm, but aside from if you actually fall they in all likelihood will continue on their way alongside you without offering an elbow. Young Russian men, on the other hand, instinctively seem to know that we appreciate it when an elbow is offered to help us get across a particularly slippery spot. This goes for both those you don't know on the street and any friend you happen to be walking with. I like to think of myself as independent, even by American standards (which labels me a crazy feminist by comparison in Russia), but I must say that I love how the men are attentive on the dangerous streets. Of course this is an almost crass generalization, and true I would exchange their helpfulness for their paying a little more attention to their wives and drinking less, but it is an interesting cultural distinction. Second, the most organized (and the happiest) I have ever seen a large group of Russian people was this past Saturday – on a sledding hill. They would have none of the American style chaos of throwing yourself wherever down the hill, they stood in line for self-made shoots through the snow with the biggest smiles on their faces. We (Brian, Jeremy, and I were sledding while the new students toured the palace) were so surprised we kept commenting on it during the afternoon. All girls scream rather, well, girly, when they go down on a sled, regardless of their nationality, and guys still find something macho in going over a ramp of crumbling snow. It was a beautiful day for sledding, and apparently so beautiful that it made my camera not want to leave, so it decided to detach itself from my wrist and is currently a resident of a Pavlovsk snowbank. I was disappointed, of course, not least because I had a great video of Brian wiping out, but things can be replaced and my family has had enough terrible experiences sledding that I was just grateful we all walked out – frozen, but fine. One of my Russian friends says that my camera was just tired (he loves to make fun of the fact that I have so many albums on facebook) of taking ridiculous amounts of pictures for me so it decided to stay behind. I will survive until I can find a new one, probably in Western Europe since they are so expensive here. And until then, there are plenty of camera-happy new students from whom to steal photos, so not to worry.

I have almost found a comfortable routine, some nights my body still doesn't want to go to bed until a ridiculous hour, and I still have to get up at 7:30 regardless. Classes are more difficult but still going well, and at home Pasha is teaching me incredibly long and random words to help with phonetics, and Ira asks everyday what my new grammar is and then works it into literally every other sentence so that I can practice. They are incredible. Ira heads for Italy tomorrow with her sister, and will be back late on Monday. Babushka (grandma) will be here, and I'm hoping that Pasha and I can go out for sushi maybe on Monday, I kind of wish we weren't going to Novgorod this weekend so Pasha and I could watch movies and make pizza all weekend. I'm sure we'll squeeze it in. I've been going out with friends in the afternoons much more this semester – probably because it’s the beginning and I want to catch up with old friends and continue to get to know the new students I suppose. Went to an amazing little café last night, Tuesdays Ira has Finnish lessons so I don't feel as bad being out later, we usually get soup and tea somewhere and I loved this little café, will definitely be going back. Bookshelves, couches, newspapers, games, felt very homey and really cheap too! Reminded me a little of donkey coffee back in Athens, without the wonderful coffee smell.

I will fill you in next week about Novgorod, we'll see how initiating a new group of banya-ers goes, and whether we find the one dance club that supposedly exists or just take the weekend to relax and sleep a little extra. In the Russian Orthodox tradition this week is the week before the equivalent of Lent, so all week we've been eating blini and Sunday there will be a big festival to mark the last day of celebrations, so that should be very interesting to say the least. Much love from the other side of the world – b.

Snow Wars

Well the first week is almost over, and we’re just a little bit more accustomed to what everyone is telling us is the first true Russian winter in more than a decade. Classes have been interesting, I was placed in the highest group after the test on Monday, with students who have been taking Russian for years longer than I have. It was more complicated than last semester to split up the language groups because there are fewer students this semester, so there are only 4 groups as opposed to 6. There are also a couple of students who were born in Russia and immigrated later with their families, so they speak almost perfectly but have never really been taught the grammar or some of the trickier parts of the language. Apart from those issues, apparently it is a weaker group overall than it was last semester, and that is how I am able to be not 100% in over my head in the first group. Its going to definitely be a tough semester, but I think I will come out at the end of it with an even stronger grasp of the knowledge than I thought I would obtain.

It has been interesting settling into the routine again, and while I am glad that there is so much to do and see that is new to me in this city, it is definitely a different experience coming back as opposed to arriving for the first time. The relationship of the year-long students to the new students is not the same as among our group last semester, and its just a little tricky figuring out the balance. They are all trying to establish relationships with their host families and with each other, while we feel absolutely at home with our host families and so don’t talk about the same sorts of issues and aren’t surprised by the same sorts of things. Of course we remember when we were, but experiencing and remembering an experience are two very different things. I have definitely enjoyed getting to know new people and listening to their experiences, but I have also very much enjoyed getting to know all of the year long students much better, since all of us did not necessarily spend a lot of time together last semester. Last night we went to a microbrewery after class and spent hours talking about anything and reminiscing. I’ve also enjoyed catching up with Russian friends, some of them aren’t around yet because they won’t be back in school until next Wednesday, but I’ve been excited to hang out with the ones who are here. Andrey, the boyfriend of one of my best friends from last semester, took me out to dinner at a delicious Chinese restaurant to thank me for bringing him some things from America, and we’re going to try to meet once a week to work on his English and my Russian. My days have been busy and my evenings almost more so, and I can only imaging how fast this semester is going to fly. We are going to Pavlovsk tomorrow, where we are hoping to go sledding, and next weekend is already time for our trip to Novgorod!

It is cold, but this week has been warmer and we have walked to the metro a few days through the beautiful park which will no doubt become one large lake when all of this snow melts. Between trying not to fall on the mountains of snow that the dumptrucks have put in your way and trying to look above you to make sure no icicles are about to fall on your head, any ordinary walk into town becomes quite entertaining. But the Smolny cathedral is beautiful against the snow and the trolleybus ride on Palace Bridge over the Neva is something out of a painting, so you can almost forgive the snow for inconveniencing you. Plus, it gives you a new spectator sport; joining the crowd of Russians watching men on roofs push snow of the tops of buildings onto the sidewalk to prevent the roofs from collapsing. A few overhangs have collapsed, and we’ve seen cars buried in so much snow that they’re probably not coming out anytime soon. But that’s winter in Russia for you, and while I am already looking forward to spring I will take the amusements that winter here provides with as much salt as they throw on the roads to melt the snow and trash your boots.

Hopefully the sun will decide to show its face soon, and I can take some new pictures of Smolny in the snow! Until then, I’ll keep taking Vitamin D and bringing my camera just in case. All my best to you all back home! Much love - b

authors note: we did go sledding today, but i lost my camera in the process, so unfortunately no new pictures will be up anytime soon. sorry!