Happy Women's Day, and Happy Birthday Padre!!

March 8th is International Women’s Day, a holiday which manifests itself largely in a day off and incredible amounts of flower purchasing by the men of Russia. We celebrated at my host grandmothers with plenty of champagne and food, and a friend of my host grandmothers was there as well. She is from Siberia, her family was aristocratic and was sent there at the time of the revolution. She taught us how to drink cognac in the Russian aristocratic tradition; a drink followed by a lemon with salt and coffee. Quite interesting, not exactly delicious but definitely not bad either. The guys also took us out last night (Sunday night), paid for our bill at the café that we went to the night before Men’s Day a few weeks ago. It turned out to be quite a late night, and Monday was a day full of more champagne and trying to start studying for our grammar test on Wednesday.

As always, Ira wanted to know what was going to be on the test so that she could help explain things or use them repetitively so they would be easier to remember. Half of the test had to do with the million different ways to tell time and the specific prepositions for various units of time and time relationships and time periods and sequences and… you get the idea. Somehow in the middle of all of that we got to talking again about the comparisons between the Soviet Union and Russia today. She gave her now typical spiel about how everyone had a job and there was enough food and space and everything (though by this time we had had not only champagne but also some home-made wine that someone had brought her at work for women’s day that was pretty strong so she was a little more animated than usual), and then we started talking about the nineties when everything changed. She’s not yet 40, but she talks about the seventies as though she remembers how great the life was, so I’m not sure whether its propaganda that’s informing her thought processes or whether that was how her parents explained life to her when she was young. In the eighties and nineties she said life became almost unbearable. There was nothing to be found in any of the stores and no one knew where the country was heading. The ideology had broken down and no one knew quite what to believe. It was then she explained that the change in the censorship policy took effect.

Under the Soviet Union, no one knew what was going on in the ‘West’ or the outside world in general, and they didn’t worry about it because life was good (provided your great-grandparents hadn’t been ‘enemies of the people’ and that you were ethnically Russian). In the last years, that started to change and people in Russia began to be interested in what life was like elsewhere. In the Soviet Union, news was censored so many tragedies didn’t make it to the evening news. (In conversation class one day a few weeks ago we talked about how the average person in Russia didn’t know about the real disaster at Chernobyl until days after the fact because of the censorship. Our conversation teacher knew about it earlier because his neighbors at his dacha had relatives in Finland who had been warned about the radiation.) Their lack of knowledge led to a feeling of comfort, Ira explained, that quickly evaporated as soon as people began to see both what life was like on the other side of the Iron Curtain and that terrible things were happening all around them. We had an interesting discussion about whether it is better to not know and feel safe and secure and comfortable, or to know and be always on edge and unhappy. What she said rings true about the Russian people, there are so many struggles in their daily lives – how many 70-year-olds do you know who work as conductors on busses because the pension from the government they have served their whole life is only about $50 a month – that I can see how it would be hard to additionally be constantly on edge and worried. So I took her argument with a grain of salt – I’m still in favor of ‘knowing’ but understand better now where she is coming from – and we moved on to talking about other wonderful things like the difference between the prepositions за & на and when not to use a preposition at all with time periods. Oh my.

And now its already Wednesday, and the grammar test is history! I studied quite a bit more than I have for any other test during my time in Russia, guess that’s what happens when you’re in a group a little over your head! But the time has been filled with much more than studying! One day last week I went with some friends to a vegetarian café not far from Sennaya ploschad and situated on a little side street. It reminded me so much of my roommate Mary that I immediately wanted to call her, unfortunately I had about 30 cents on my phone so I just gushed to my Russian friends about her and how much it felt like a place she would love. That got us on to a conversation about youth culture, where more things are similar than different between our two countries, and then on to music. Turns out that quite a few Russian guys like Bob Dylan, some even Neil Young. Most haven’t heard of Jackson Browne, but I had a pretty lengthy discussion about the differences between some of Bruce Springsteen songs and albums with a couple of the guys, in a combination of English and Russian which is usually what happens when we get together. Afterwards, we got in a snowball fight on Nevsky which ended with me in a snowbank and the old men on the park bench next to us laughing at us as they took a break from their chess match – yes, it was snowing, and -10, but they were playing chess. I also fell a few times walking around that night on the ice, so my streak of not falling is officially ended. Andrey caught me by the arm both times so I never totally ended up on the ground, except when I was in the snowbank of course.

Then this past Friday we went to a ‘folk show’ at the same palace where we had our end of the year party at the end of last semester with our host families. Our host moms were once again invited, and as usual my diva mama spent longer than I did ensuring that ‘we were again the most beautiful ones there’. I can’t even tell you how many times that phrase was repeated. In any event, she at least was the most beautiful of the host moms, helped by the fact that she is the youngest but also by the fact that she is legitimately very beautiful (hence the guys in the group want to learn pelmenni in the hopes that she’ll let them in the house and they get to talk to her for an hour or two). We had champagne and snacks at the break, and whispered about which of the young Russian dancers we liked best during the performances. A quartet sang beautiful Russian folk songs, and dance troupes performed traditional Russian dances both individually and as a group. Yes, the dance where the guy squats low to the ground and does various kicks was performed many times, and no, I still cannot do it. At one point Brian – at 6’8” – was pulled on stage to dance with the shortest dancer, after which much hilarity ensued. Luckily plenty of people didn’t lose their cameras while sledding, so there are lots of pictures and video of the event. It was a fun evening with my host mom, and afterwards we walked out arm in arm as she got in a marshutka and I headed to Brent’s hockey game with some of the group. It was a great game – with the exception of the 30 seconds in which the other team scored 3 goals – but we were wiped out from rushing around after school and the folk show so most of us headed home. The next night Jarlath was DJing at a new bar, which turned out to be a great time – the first and only time I will hear ACDC in a bar in Russia, I am almost positive – though another late night. And then Sunday night the guys took us out for women’s day, and now it is already Wednesday! Two weeks from tomorrow we head to Moscow – which means I really need to buy tickets! Tomorrow night. No, tomorrow night Brent is playing a show with Jarlath’s band. So Friday. I’m planning on Denmark and Sweden, but if you have any amazing suggestions I’ll take them into consideration until Friday ☺ I’m ready to take a little break from Russia, though I kind of wish I could take my host family with me! We are planning on Finland just after the holidays.

All the best to all of you, and if you are one of the lucky ones who gets to see my dad today, give him a hug and a happy birthday from me! Love - b