Воспоминания о моих путешествиях

Christmas in Estonia!

Reporting live from Tallinn, Estonia on this beautifully white Christmas! My stomach is full with egg and bacon and now eagerly awaiting a course of Christmas crepes. I can't tell you how glad I am to be out of Russia for Christmas - People actually celebrate here. Our apartment is as awesome as I thought it was going to be. We're RIGHT in the center of the Old Town with a view out over the city's Christmas market. Almost all historic landmarks and church services are within a 10 minute walk from our door. We have all the makings of a wonderful Christmas celebration.

After arriving at 6am yesterday we visited the market (hot mulled wine and blood sausage = Delicious) and then started work on the evening's plans. A Christmas dinner including a much-needed personal steak for me, followed by an international midnight mass. The hymn sheets were printed in six languages and each person sang in their native tongue. Very cool and a great way to get ourselves into the spirit! I've got to run -so we can start our Christmas movie marathon - but Merry Christmas to all!!

Our Christmas card:

Before Christmas Eve dinner:

Lutheran international midnight mass:

The view out our window! This is bustling during the day, selling everything your Christmas heart could desire...

Sorry for the break from blogging!

I've been distracted by my final exams. I'm through the paper in Russian and am now studying for a one-on-one exam in Russian. That obviously promises to be quite a challenge. Then just one more paper in English. Unfortunately there are no language barriers to hide behind when your teacher speaks better English than you do.

Anyway, I promise an update from Tallinn and wish you all a very Merry Christmas!!

Musings on Russia

1. My parents always told me not to fill up on bread. It’s quite the opposite here.

2. Cabbage is delicious. Either the Russians perfected this first class cabbage over the centuries or more simply it addresses the crippling nutritional deficiencies of my diet. What's important is that it tastes good right?

3. 50% of toilets don’t have toilet paper.

4. In the ones that do, you can’t flush the paper. Instead you stack it in a filthy bin beside the toilet.

5. Classes here are all one and a half or three hours long.

6. Taking exams in another language is difficult.

7. Russia has its own Starbucks addiction in the form of ‘Kofe Haus’. They somehow manage to charge 5 dollars for a cup of coffee and can be found on every major street corner.

8. You can walk into people on the street without apologizing. It’s acceptable to be similarly assertive on all forms of public transport.

9. I literally survive off cookies.

10. I’m eating coconut macaroons as I type this. Oh yes, I splashed out.

11. I have watched as many movies here as in my four semesters at Williams.

12. Because most of the time it’s too cold and dark to do anything else.

13. There was a record breaking frost in Moscow yesterday. -10°F on 1st December.

14. The nightlife here is crazy. It’s not uncommon to leave the house at nine and come back at six.

15. The gym also gets intense. Again probably because there’s not much else to do.

16. You can actually survive off of milk and cookies. My continued existence bears testament to this fact. I’m talking about food again. Okay no more fun facts about food.

17. It’s actually really hard to get a driving license here, if you don’t bribe the instructor.

18. Despite what I said in one of my earliest posts, gypsy cabs have proved the most efficient means of transport after the metro closes. I’m a massive fan.

19. You thought British football fans were a disgrace…

20. Christmas decorations have started to go up and St. Petersburg looks beautiful.

21. There’s a stereotype that Russians trudge through life without a single smile. I can’t tell you how far from the truth this is.

22. MacDonald’s is considered a high-class restaurant here. Russians go there on dates. (For interest: http://freerefillsamerica.com/2010/03/01/defeating-communism-with-a-big-mac-mcdonald%E2%80%99s/ I especially enjoyed the part with the spoon.)

23. Every weekend we’ll have at least one random Russian join our table to have a conversation. It's a good way to meet both people and crazy people.

24. If a shop owner doesn’t have change, they won’t let you buy what you want. The vendor-buyer relationship is very different here, and somewhat stupid.

25. Russian babushkee (Grandmothers) are obsessed with dressing warm and will give you a piece of their mind on the street if you’re not dressed warmly enough. They were all wearing 5 layers in October. Where is there to go from there I ask?

26. Tea is a delicious, low-calorie beverage. I don’t understand why we don’t drink more of it.

27. Five separate Russians have told me that I look like Ben Affleck. I should probably start thinking about a career in Russian cinema.

28. Who would have known that Russians flock over to Finland at Christmas to buy high quality goods at discount prices? The Finnish government is even smart enough to give them a refund on purchased goods when they cross back into Russia. Bravo Finland, that’s how it’s done.

29. All the doors here open outwards. Harder to break into?

30. On that grisly note, a coin rolled under my wardrobe and while retrieving it I stumbled across a gun. Sobering.

31. This music video was produced, which suggests that someone thought it was a good idea. Is this the Russian take on a boyband? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_rmLmrCv6E

32. I miss dogs, especially big smiley golden retrievers. They only have Pekingese here. I’m not sure that even counts.

33. There are packs of wild dogs that roam the street, but I’m not allowed to befriend them.

34. Okay wild dogs makes them sound menacing, but some of them are really very cute.

35. This video is really worth watching. Vladimir Vysotsky was a Russian bard and is well-known to almost every Russian. Moving I think even if you don’t understand what he’s saying: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZ97BTBGCMI

36. I'm told that if I drink cold water I’ll get sick. Ask for ice and they’ll look at you like you’re crazy.

37. People in St. Petersburg read A LOT. Most people on the metro are reading and some even read while they walk. This can be very annoying, even though I respect their interest. Russians here seems pretty cultured in general. The cultural capital of Russia has many theatres and museums... And the opera and ballet we went to were both packed!

38. Women are still wearing stilettos. Over a foot of snow has fallen.

39. Putin now comes in a bite-size form: http://putincracker.ytmnd.com/

40. He also got a baby tiger for his birthday: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27113957/ (*Note to mom: Christmas idea!!*)

41. World Cup 2018!!!!!!

A Winter Wonderland

Zero degrees today in St. Petersburg. The Russian winter has finally arrived! As ever my Russian reading poses a huge obstacle to blog writing in the start of the week and I must get back to it. For now I'll just hope that a picture really can say a thousand words.

4 days as a space cadet

I am becoming a disappointing blogger! I must apologise for getting out of the habit. I will have to make a bigger effort for my last month here. But I DO have some interesting stuff to talk about so get ready for an awesome blog post.

In the beginning of November our long-awaited trip to Moscow finally arrived. This was one of our ‘cultural excursions’, organised by the program, for the program. Thirty people on a train to Moscow and back! You can imagine. It was a whirlwind tour with little sleep, many late nights and a lot of delicious food. Please note that to compile the collection below I have shamefully pilfered my friends’ facebook photos. (They can't sue me now, right?)

So let me start at the beginning. 4^th November in Russia is a national holiday. Technically it’s the day of national unity, but no one really understands what that means or why it’s a holiday. Anyway, Russians celebrate their unity by taking a day off work, which worked out great for us. At 11pm on Wednesday night we boarded the overnight train to Moscow and began our journey. With such a big group we were able to book an entire train car and spent much of the night moving back and forth between each other’s compartments before hitting the hay for an inadequate number of hours and waking up at 5:30 in Moscow.

After meeting for a lively breakfast in a cafe down the road from our hostel (see below) we made our way to our first tourist stop – An ancient convent in the outskirts of the city.

Now I really don’t understand why the convent made it into the list of must-see attractions in Moscow but there we went nonetheless. It’s really old, very beautiful, consists of a number of different architectural styles, and Napoleon rested his army there when he captured Moscow. That’s about what I remember from the tour (by the way all our tours are in Russian so don’t believe everything I tell you. Ever played Chinese whispers?!)

The rest of the day is a blur involving an ice cream cake in the park and Russian football in a pub, so I think I’ll just skip to Friday. This was by far the most enjoyable, and least spacey, day. Recharged after a reasonable night’s sleep, we marched over towards the Red Square for a tour of the Kremlin. The Kremlin and the Red Square are the two most famous monuments in Russia and sit right next to each other in the centre of Moscow. If you want to learn more about the historical significance of either, there’s oodles of information on Wikipedia for you to sink your teeth into.

Alright, back to picture captioning. This is the gate to the Kremlin, taken just as we passed through the metal detectors (guarded by intense Russian guards of course).

What’s on the inside? A bunch of government buildings, a bunch of churches and a lot more guards. Don’t step off the sidewalk, they’ll shoot you.

Oh and a really big cannon:

And a really big bell:

Not such a practical size, but cool nonetheless.

Wondering how it broke? Well there was a fire near the bell and the workers around it worried that the bell could melt or catch on fire (Really?!). To cool it down they started throwing buckets of water onto the bell and the sudden temperature change caused a massive piece to break off. Bet they felt stupid huh.

Well that, in a nutshell, is the Kremlin. Sorry for a lack of photos, you’re not allowed to take photos of the cool stuff. While we were there we did see Medvedev drive past though. Very exciting, a whole convoy of black 4x4s and Mercedes driving 50 miles an hour! Unfortunately even my cat-like reflexes were not fast enough to capture this moment with a photo.

Ok, moving on to the Red Square! Thankfully the weather really cleared up in the afternoon and we got some great photos. Here I am looking happy in front of St. Basil’s at one end of the square (it’s really more of a rectangle, but don’t tell anyone).

Here I am looking happy again, this time with wind in my face. St. Basil’s over my right shoulder, towers of the Kremlin on the left.

Looking right from where I stood in the picture above, the beautiful Moscow river:

Oh and a friend photo, how exciting! Here I am with Scott, Meg and Steph on the bridge:

Other highlights from a lovely afternoon walking through the city?

Action shot of bride and groom falling on their photographer:

(It’s a Russian tradition for newlyweds to take pictures by their city’s most treasured monuments. On a beautiful day like this there were couples everywhere, making the most of an opportunity to get unforgettable photos like this)

A trip to Starbucks (Don’t judge me)

AND THE CIRCUS. Well, that was after dinner, but this is a perfect segway. I’d never been to a circus before and had no idea what to expect, but I must say that I was wowed. There was an act involving a dozen doxens walking on their hind legs and running over bridges, an act with horses running figure 8’s, an act with bears driving go-karts (I kid you not), an act with a bunch of ex-olympian gymnasts and, the trump card, … An act involving tigers, jaguars and leopards jumping between 12-foot-high pillars. Maybe hard to explain, but truly unbelievable. Sorry not to have photos, tigers aren’t big fans of flash photography.

This really was a long day! The night continued with a trip to the Red Square (which is a totally different place at night, as you can see below)

And another friend photo!

And then of course off for a night of Russian clubbing. Rarely do we start out in a group as big as this (nor are we normally in Moscow...) but we had a really great time. All around Friday was a terrific day!

And the next day...? I think I slept in. I resumed space cadet mode. We met for lunch, visited a great (enormous) market in the outskirts of the city, and ended up at ГУМ (The Harrods of Russia, which makes up one of the long sides of the Red "Square"), before boarding the train back to St. Petersburg. The train was exciting as ever, but this time was more relaxed and involved more sleeping. When I got home at 7:30 I curled up in bed and slept until 2. A morning well spent I think!

Moscow was great. I’d been before, in 2005, but this was a totally new experience. I know more Russian, I know more history, and I got to spend some alone time with the city. Standing in the Red Square and reflecting, for a moment, on the significance of that one spot, is like nothing else you will ever experience. Moscow is a vastly different city from St. Petersburg and it was eye-opening to walk through the second capital of a country I thought I knew. Putting the two together I can only honestly say I have seen only a sliver of Russia. This is an immense country, a state borne out of one of the largest empires in history, yet it is easy to forget the incredible variety of ethnic groups it encompasses. Marveling suits me just fine for now, but someday I’ll have to do some more travelling. Where? To the East of course!

So that was Moscow, which we realised marks the halfway point of our time here. It is definitely sad, and an anticipated but unexpected shock. From now it’s all downhill and soon the study abroad experience will be over. I’ll return to dear St. Pete I know, but there’s been something special about being a student here. Okay no more sop time, it’s only November.

In other news... apartment in Tallinn, Estonia for Christmas?? Sounds like a plan to me!

Иди кушай!

You guessed it, this post is all about food. Eating is one of my favourite pastimes and thankfully Russia has stepped up to the challenge of providing some delicious edibles. You may remember that I whined about food for my first month here (because there was a distinct shortage of meat) but since then I’ve grown accustomed to a more streamlined figure, taken a liking to cabbage pies and found out where to buy salami. So how to introduce you to Russian cuisine? Well let’s dive in head first…

I told my host mother about my nasal congestion last week and was immediately subjected to some Russian household treatments. That is, consuming an onion, two cloves of garlic and a shot of vodka. Straight, obviously. While this seems like a sick practical joke that left me wafting an unattractive aroma for days, I was converted and will certainly be eating garlic from now on when I’m sick. Get used to it America.

Thankfully my meals involve more normal foods. I’ve managed to snap a couple photos when I’m eating by myself, but it’s a little unusual to photograph meals before you eat them. Okay I just ran to the fridge and have returned with a picture of some ‘shee’. Shee is a clear soup, this time involving cabbage, carrots, potato, onion, green pepper and various parts of a chicken.

I’ve also come to be big fan of borsch, THE traditional Russian dish. Never thought I’d come to enjoy beet soup but here we are… I guess your taste buds change after too many garlic cloves and fish heads (I’ll explain that in a minute). So borsch, as with shee, can involve a lot of different ingredients but normally includes the Russian classics (meaning beets, cabbage, potato and onions). As you can probably see in the picture above, soups here tend to be pretty oily. Personally I love the taste of fat but it can be extreme at times. … Just back from the shelf by our front door where 9 litres of oil and 6 kilos of mayonnaise have recently materialised. PREPARE FOR WINTER.

While fats may be necessary to keep my body functioning at -30 degrees, I will never be able to get used to mayonnaise container this big. 3 kilos?? That's just plain ridiculous.

So I eat soup pretty much every dinner. On nights like last night I’m also granted a cutlet and a pile of ‘grechka’ (buckwheat). These are always warmly received. The cutlets are delicious! I’m told the meat is a mix of beef and pork and there are sauted onions mixed in. The grechka is also terrific. Apparently this only grows in Russia?? Here’s a picture for the curious amongst you: http://ifs.cook-time.com/preview/img110/110324.jpg If you’ve seen anything similar in the US let me know!

Alright I’m following no particular order so let’s skip to breakfast. Breakfast is generally the same every day, a combination of bread and kasha. This morning I had a slice of bread with chocolate spread and a slice of bread with some salami. Russians call this single slice creation a sandwich. They really have no idea what they’re missing out on. So with this semi-sandwich goes a ton of kasha, with which I battle every breakfast. It's certainly a challenge to finish. (No, I haven’t failed. Please... I’m a professional.) Oh and kasha generally means hot cereal, in my case oatmeal, cream of wheat, rice pudding or millet. I love all hot cereals so no complaints from me!

I’ve got a couple other pictures here… The first is some eggplant pancakes that I had a week ago. I think it was eggplant. They could also have been made from long, thick white stalks that were sitting on the counter. Honestly I was too busy gorging myself to stop and ask. I paused only after consuming dozens of these pancakes to take the following photo:

Here they’re covered in a delectable, homemade blackcurrant jam. That jam tastes good on pretty much everything. It’s regularly used for blini (Russian pancakes) alongside sweetened condensed milk. While I’m talking about fruit from the dacha I should mention that there’s also been a lot of compote. In Russia that means fruit stew, in my case from plums, blackcurrants and apples from the dacha. It’s in the fridge all week. This is something else I’ll have to bring back to the states!

The next picture has me incredibly excited. Now I get to talk about pies. You’re probably thinking of the fruit pies of America, cherry, peach and berry… And now you’re salivating, ha! True, those also exist here and I regularly do battle with them at the supermarket (It’s a tough choice between fruit pie and foods that are more likely to keep me alive). BUT I am talking about pies that come from shop across the street from my house. These tend to be cabbage, potato and onion, amongst others. Pictured below are a cabbage pie and a hot dog in a roll:

Again, who ever thought I’d become such a fan of cabbage pie?? Either Russian cabbage is nothing like cabbage elsewhere in the world or again my tastebuds are learning to just make do with what they have. There’s nothing like biting into a soft, warm cabbage pie when it’s cold outside. The taste of caramelised cabbage within… Well you’ll have to come and try it yourself. There really are no words to describe the experience.

Okay, well now I’m out of photos so this introduction may be coming to an end. I haven’t mentioned lunch at all but that’s because I buy that myself and in general it’s pretty standard… At the moment I’m eating a loaf of bread and drinking a bottle of чудо. Classic. Part two of my lunch will be my after-gym snack – a litre of whole milk and three scoops of protein powder. Don’t give me that look. They may be delicious but a person can’t survive off soup and cabbage pies. Look at how weird that made the Russians.

Well that’s pretty much it from me. Wait, no! Here are two pictures of my cat, Yemelia, that I’ve been meaning to put up for a while. In true feline style he played it cool at first, making it difficult to get a good picture.

But I quickly discovered that even Russian cats can’t resist a bit of attention…

That’s really all from me this time. I hope you’re all well! If you have an idea for a blog post let me know, these days it’s getting hard to remember what I have shared and what remains a mystery!

A weekend adventure

Back to blogging!

Outside Moskovskaya metro. Pitch black at 7:30am.

Pskov! A view of the Kremlin and surrounding fort from across the river.

Kremlin. But closer.

As is common in Russia, the inside of this church is absurd. You'll have to excuse me if I act disappointed when things aren't coated in gold back in America.

At this point I decided I'm going to need a fort when I'm older.

Imagine throwing a party here? Or just running up and down the walls enjoying the fact that you have your own fort. Yes.

And the next day in Issborsk... Souvenir stalls and old ladies selling homemade pastries. Delicious.

The crumbling old fort...

Again... IMAGINE HAVING YOUR OWN FORT. Just saying...

And this is the real Russia... This is really what we came to see. Small country houses in the foreground and fields stretching to the Pacific.

It may look like a painting but I'm standing in front of an actual landscape. Breathtaking...

And what would Issborsk be without holy water springs? Tasted better than the water in St. Petersburg... That's got more of a mercury flavour.

When I get back from Russia...

http://gawker.com/5658799/this-is-a-cake-with-pies-baked-inside-of-it

Time to think

During dinner on Wednesday I looked up at the calendar and was stunned to see that I’ve been living with my host family for over a month. I’ve been in Russia for almost six weeks. It really doesn’t seem like it’s been that long, but it never does. While I say that is hasn’t been that long, it’s hard to fathom how much I have experienced in the last six weeks. Williams, Summit and Boston have actually begun to feel like they’re on the other side of the planet, not just a ten-hour plane ride away. Every member of my group has experienced that moment when they realise they’re in Russia. Really realise. For me it happens on metro; the surroundings will slap me across the face and those once unfamiliar stimuli will again flood my senses for a moment. I’ve grown incredibly accustomed to life here, I’m falling into a routine like anywhere else in the world, and I’m realising that that’s pretty amazing.

So there were no organised excursions this weekend and I’ve been had more time to brood and ponder. To be honest, since Wednesday I’ve been doing it more than usual and it’s been great. While the words ‘finding myself’ have become so worthless among British gap year students that I want no association with them, I’m beginning to sympathise with their intended meaning. Growing up isn’t something that happens by itself and every person has to figure out how they’re going to make that leap to maturity. So here’s where I introduce my metaphor: Of modern education as a highway to success. A literal highway. No one on this highway starts with a destination and at first you’re just told to pass the other cars. But if you’re always in the passing lane and not paying attention to where you’re going then you’re probably missing the point of the highway. Highways are built to get people where they want to go, faster. And life in the passing lane is fast, any student can tell you that. But how many college students know what exit they want to take off the highway? I’m not going to count medical and law schools, a person can spend another 6 years going as fast as they can with no discernable destination. So what have I been thinking about and why have I invented this elaborate metaphor? Well I was on the highway in cruise control, spending most of my time looking straight ahead. I decided to take the exit for study abroad and that brought me to St. Petersburg. I’m in a new and exciting neighbourhood and the time off the highway is giving me a chance to stop and think.

Russia is the third country that I’ve lived in for an extended period of time. Having an impression of life in this third country is allowing me to develop wholly new impressions of the people around me and of myself. Moving back to America two years ago was a transformational experience. As I gained more of an impression of what it meant to be American, I started to contrast who I was in the US with the person I had been in England. And people change, I certainly changed. Now that I’m in Russia, I feel like this process is happening all over again, to a whole new degree. We know from science that there’s nothing to be learned from a group of two items, you need at least three to determine any meaningful common characteristics. Now that I have a third item – Russia – I feel like I can really figure some stuff out. So this weekend I’ve drifted off in thought during my history reading and gone through old stuff on my computer to remember the person that I was just four years ago. How often does a person stop and take a moment to think about the person they are, or figure out what’s really important to them? This weekend I’ve taken the time to look in my rear-view mirror and to think about the places that the highway has already taken me.

Perhaps this post is making me sound more pensive than I’ve actually been. I haven’t been sitting around thinking all weekend, I’m not a philosopher. (At least I can tell you that much!) What I’m saying is that studying abroad has been an amazing experience so far and I’ve learned as much outside the classroom as in it. Few people nowadays find somewhere that they’ll spend the rest of their life, but hopefully next time I get on the highway I’ll have some idea what exit I want to take.