There is a thing that you may have felt, which only comes as you are hurtling down one of America’s long highways, as dusk rises around you and the air takes on a colder edge, and you are driven to crank up the heater: You wish you weren’t alone. It is fleeting, and sometimes so passes unnoticed – but nonetheless, it’s a moment of vulnerability.
Life abroad – more than life in your home tongue or town – has many such moments. In a swirling world filled so completely with alien sounds and shrugs or stares, they could come in a metro car, or in a honking, bustling square, or at a newsstand. They can also come creeping up – sometimes most disconcertingly, most devastatingly – during moments of calm. You can be sitting in your room, thinking about how, here, just outside your fourth-story window, the birch trees receive soft winter light with the same grace as do the birch trees back in Michigan. Then, suddenly, the sun passes into even thicker gray clouds, and everything gets darker and you shiver because you are alone and your friends and family – both here, in St. Petersburg, and there, in America – are so far away. Instantly, you recognize that on the other side of that simple sliver of a shiver lies a steep fall into a deep, dizzying dark, and you nearly freeze up.
But then you notice the cool water in a bottle on your desk; the familiar comfort of rest offered up by your blue and white-checkered pillow; the book in your hands – Vladimir Nabokov’s stunning Lolita – in sweet, silky English. The moment is shattered, and composure smoothes over it, seals it up, leaving only a placid surface and your reflection: you go back to thinking about trees, about food, and then (once at a distance) about how you, the artful dodger, may have just avoided the dreaded Stage Two of Culture Shock, which, as we learned in orientation, is ostensibly triggered by some small moment (like the above), or event: Your host mom yells at you, you catch a cold, you perform poorly in language class, you slip on the ice in the street and scrape up your hands, etc., and then you spiral into depression and intense dislike for your host culture/country/language, since it is, after all, the root of many of your problems. (This stage can last for some time – months, or weeks – and then vanish as quickly as it appeared. Once in stage three, one is capable of simply accepting cultural disparities and of moving forward; one’s host culture is not bad, it’s just different.)
Yet is there really such a thing as culture shock (like that)? Maybe. But honestly, I tend to think not.
Last last Saturday and Sunday, during the tail end of Maslenitsa, the CIEE group took a trip to Novgorod, the oldest city in Russia. There are more onion domes there than books in my library. We spent a lot of time following our dear, fur-robed tour guidess, nodding at her and murmuring, “Holy wow! Incredible! These are painted blue and not white?! Holy cow! How daring! I’ve never been so excited in my life! Oh look. Another church.” We also toured the red-walled Kremlin (i.e. city fortress, not the Kremlin), on the banks of a frigid river and spent some time inside the churches, all of which are Eastern Orthodox and are ornately painted in rich colors (trees and saints and crosses in blue, red, yellow, green, and brown). For those moments, our breath didn’t come out as vapor, and the muted glow of lamplight on gilt icons gave some impression of greater warmth. Saturday evening, post tour, after short trek back to the modern hotel with its odd proportions (tiny rooms, cavernous hallways), we warmed ourselves over hot coffee and food.
The next day, after we drowsily toured a monastery, we went to a really cool museum. Part of it was indoors, and had carefully constructed exhibits that showcased what some Russian peasants wore and used in everyday life, way back when (i.e. hundreds of years ago or, depending on where in Russia you’re talking about, yesterday). Birch bark was woven to make shoes and other interesting items. Bright red was the color to wear for nearly all occasions, as it symbolizes strength, warmth, sacrifice, etc., and was used in aprons and pants and wedding dresses alike. One delighted girl in our group took part in a brief weaving demonstration, and learned how to work wool on a loom. The outdoor part of the museum was even better, however: two rows of intricately carved, all-wood houses in the traditional Russian style, and one grand wooden church replete with (surprise!) onion domes. I tried out a strange wooden sled-ride that can really only be understood with pictures. And I have pictures, but they’re not ready to be uploaded yet (still waiting on a USB cable from the States). After the outdoor museum, we ate stacks of bliny and hot tea, and piled back on our double-decker bus and drove back on over to an old, wooded marketplace in the shadow of the Kremlin’s walls, where an end-of-Maslenitsa festival was in full swing. This was the best, most memorable part of Novgorod, like the line of a lone violin leaping above the rest of the orchestra:
Little wooden stalls selling food and souvenirs faced, with their backs to a birch wood, out toward the old baroque buildings of town. Down a winding track through the birch wood went jingling sleighs and throngs of dancing and singing people, many of whom were dressed in traditional Russian garb. They carried high above their shoulders a straw effigy of old, scary Winter (personified, oddly enough, by a babushka). Two of my friends and I trotted eagerly after them, absorbing everything: the bright colors of the entourage, the music, the chatter, the optimism. In a fit of excitement, we paused to have our picture taken with a police officer (who obliged very kindly in a bubbling of Russian). Then we dashed to catch up to the crowd, which had reached the riverside, and was preparing to set fire to the effigy and dance away the old, cold winter. Heaving and huffing, the three of us clambered over snow and slipped past people and watched the spectacle. It was spectacular. When the fire had finished, laughing men and women in their traditional garb rubbed ash all over one another’s faces. (I’m still not sure if it was a ritual or a practical joke.) On the way back to the bus, back through the birches, we watched as children rode makeshift sleds down the steep embankment of the Kremlin; along with two Russian children, I clambered up and sat atop a defunct Soviet tank (part of a bizarre playground/monument); we met more of our CIEE group, and bought honeyed mead from a vendor. Content, we strolled slowly and talked, then, finally, boarded the bus and blasted off, waving into the falling night at receding Novgorod and its pure Russian spirit.
When I think back on the rest of my week, my mind mostly fills with images of dinner, the Cyrillic alphabet, pigeons crowded around the steaming vents outside Metro Stop Dostoevsky, and the ransacked palace of Lolita. But of course, several big ships also left their berths. For one, I and a group of interested students have signed up to volunteer for five hours a week at the Hermitage. (Yeah, that’s right. I’m going to work at the Hermitage.) I’m supposed to start soon, and duties may include helping with exhibits (somehow), ticket-taking, English-language guiding, English-language website editing, etc. I have also signed up to help teach English-language classes for an hour a week (or so) here at St. Petersburg State University. Thursday evening, I attended a CIEE meet-and-greet with eager Russian students. The idea was that we (Americans) would meet a Russian that we clicked with, and the sign-up to become language partners with that person for the rest of the semester. I met several, and hope that, even if I don’t become their language partner, I’ll get to hang out with them in the future. Just a few hours with them were great for my mood and my Russian skills.
The next night started out as a low-key closeout on the week – quiet time with friends in a quiet café. But we found out most of our CIEE comrades had chosen the exact same meeting spot at the exact same time. So we decided to migrate down to a venue more suited to large groups, and found a club down the street with a packed dance floor, whirling strobes, and pulsing techno and oddly remixed pop. Now, gentlepeople of the jury, Exhibit A: It was Friday night, there was no shortage of music, and we were wide awake and having fun, so we decided to dance until dawn. At six in the morning, the metro re-opened (it closes at midnight), and I hustled on home. Disembarked at my stop, decided to wait for the bus rather than walk twenty minutes through cold (-25 Celsius). Exhibit B: In my sleep-deprived state and sudden impatience to get home, I boarded Bus 93 instead of 94. The bus in question drove right on past my street and kept going, going, and going for forty-five freezing minutes (the radiator was broken, of course). I stayed on in hopes that it would end up back where it picked me up.
But instead, it reached the end of its line in some terribly desolate parking lot on the outskirts of the city, and I was kicked off. I asked the conductor where the nearest metro stop was. She told me in rapid fire Russian, “You go that way and then” lost me amid complicated directions I only half understood. She smiled, patted my shoulder, and trotted off to wherever bus conductors sleep during the day (I’m picturing a bear den), and left me to stare wildly at my altogether unfamiliar surroundings. Well then, I thought. It’s either stand here and die of exposure, or go in the direction she pointed. So I went and found absolutely nothing except snow, still streets, and the odd Soviet apartment building jutting up like an ugly iceberg. It was very cold. I couldn’t walk straight after a while. It was hard to keep it together mentally. I decided to run (literally, to keep warm) toward a more inhabited-looking part of the city. Neither metro nor bus there. Warm shops all locked up. Handful of people on street, all surly.
In a surge of desperation, I hailed a gypsy cab. Ubiquitous and popular in Petersburg, and altogether unofficial, they’re basically just people driving around in their cars taking people where they need to go for a negotiated fee. They’re rather scary for the un-initiated, the Russian-challenged, or those with much sense. Did it anyway, and ordered driver to drive. He booked it to my apartment, half an hour away, and left me at the door at nine in the morning. My host mom was still not home from her job. I gulped down a pot of searing hot tea and buried myself under blankets. When she did get home, she just laughed when I blearily told her I planned on sleeping most of the day because I’d been out all night (and that’s all I told her). She told me she was planning on it too, because she had just worked all night. So we both slept until four-ish, ate a large lunch, took a short break, and ate dinner. Sense of feeling returned fairly fast. Relative peace of mind took ten more hours of sleep.
How am I now?
As awful as it was and could have been, I would not trade that escapade for a whole lifetime of guaranteed safety. Most of the night was an outright blast. The rest of it reminded me about bus numbers, and about a necessary appreciation for self and place, for wool socks and sweaters and scarves and hats, for patience and improvisation. And I spent the rest of my brutalized weekend nursing tea and some poetry by Billy Collins, thinking about how any person – no matter how mad, lonely, or exuberant – would not need to go very far out of his or her way to find adventure here.
But I guess that’s all it is no matter where I go: a string of luminous adventures, bobbing up and down through good days and bad, sometimes shared with people who do not quite speak as I speak. There’s nothing shocking about it - only wonderous. Each moment of every day is like a flash of found art or a Maslenitsa effigy; each is unexpected, vivid, numinous, edifying, and terrifying, flaring up and burning out in the span of a breath or sigh, resonating long down the road, and made all the more perfect by matchless memory.
24 February 2010
12 February 2010
Both a Culinary Heaven and a Winter Wonderland
This week is Maslenitsa, the Russian version of Mardi Gras, and everyone eats lots of bliny. So in the spirit of tradition, I went into a restaurant that was advertising chocolate bliny. I had just come from class and dinner was still a couple hours away, so I wondered if I should get something more substantial than just chocolate and coffee. But then, there is nothing like reading through translated descriptions on a menu and find enticing entrees like “Puff roll with meat and spinach,” and the positively painful-sounding “Salad with salmon and bloated eel.” I decided to stick with chocolate and coffee.
That was yesterday. On Saturday, before Maslenitsa started, the CIEE group took a slow train outside the city, to Pavlovsk. Pale even in unobstructed daylight, and sprawled out on a low hill, Pavlovsk is the former summer residence of Tsar Pavel I. The palace itself is impressive; ornate, cavernous, and empty, its interior decorator must have been obsessed with ancient Rome and Greece. But – it’s the hundreds of surrounding acres (the palace grounds, now a park) that are breathtaking.
It is like a scene out of Tolstoy: Hundreds of families, all with their children and sleds and skies and smiles, funnel from the little train station at the edge of the grounds down a narrow, mile-long path bored through the dense pine forest, to the clear heart of the park where the palace sleeps. In the rare bright sunlight and crisp cold, Russians drink light beer, and sled and tumble, ski and stroll. When our group climbs the hill to the palace, there are happy people everywhere, and we pause to watch their ice skating. We feel as though we and all the others here are weekend guests of the Tsar, and that later in the evening, we will all dine well in his hall with its high ceiling painted to simulate a brilliant blue sky and white clouds. But of course, we do not, and are forced home as the sun goes down and it becomes bitter cold. The world slowly turns its way into another day.
On Sunday, I slept and memorized vocabulary and went to Swan Lake. It was great (of course), and I learned that Russians, at the end of a notable solo or curtain call, tend to clap all in time with each other. This is a little disconcerting somehow – perhaps because it reminds me of the Russian tendency towards collectivism (so unusual and uncomfortable to Americans, including me). On Monday, three American friends and I braved the way through rush-hour traffic to a renowned Russian pie shop just off of Nevsky Prospekt. It was a pleasant place – warm lighting, intimate rooms, scuffed parquet floors. The pie we chose was square (all the pies were), and it had a cottage-cheese filling and tasted like a billion rubles. Then we settled down and discussed the Russian soul.
You see, in Russia, the word “soul” carries a weight similar to that of the word “freedom” in America. Its definition is really difficult to pin down, but some philosophers (mostly Russian) have said that the vibrancy of a country’s “soul” is based in the strength of its culture, which is largely considered to be “the arts” – i.e. literature, music, etc. These philosophers also say that the “opposite” of culture is civilization, which is defined as the level of a country’s material development (and I put opposite in quotes because it seems an obvious fallacy to completely separate the two). Russia, which has produced some of the finest art in the world (Hello Dostoevsky!), is often said to be very cultured but not very civilized. In contrast, America, although possessed of cheap iPhones and great toilets and roads (unlike Russia), has not (arguably) produced art of the highest caliber (Hello Dolly!), and so is very civilized but not cultured (i.e. less soulful than Russia). Whatever the truth of that assessment – and I only have to think of blues and jazz to feel its weakness – it certainly makes for an interesting discussion in a Russian pie shop. You can imagine.
Then here’s how the ride home goes: You walk through the freezing dark back to packed metro (everyone always seems to be heading home when you are), and jostle your way through turnstiles and sigh while the escalator creeps down and down and down and down. You wedge yourself into metro car – if you had a hatchet you would readily use it to hack open a space. You absolutely do not make eye contact with the man with extensive nose hair standing three inches away. Six stops later, everybody has exited and you can finally breathe and sit down: it seems nobody but you lives way out at Akademicheskaya, except for the young woman in brown fur reading her book, and that sleeping guy in black, and the babushka seated across from you – she probably survived WWII and could break your back. You have seen her jackknife grown men in the ribs in order to get a seat. You pull out the colorful little book of Russian fairy tales your host mom gave you, stare stupidly at words a six-year-old would know, and try to ignore the fact that the babushka is now looking at you in a very funny way; she may have even growled.
Then suddenly it’s your stop and so you hustle on out, and up another escalator and back into the bitter night air, which is so cold that it erases all smells. It’s a long and very brisk walk past rows of dark trees, brightly-lit nightclubs, miniscule pharmacies, hulking Soviet-era apartments, and a Japanese-themed restaurant. The sidewalk is touch and go. Sometimes it’s shoveled, but mostly not; sometimes a gleaming Range Rover or rusting, madcap Soviet-made Lada will clamber its way around banks of snow and up onto your path, in order to park closer to a building. Barring getting hit by a car and having both legs broken, barring getting knocked out by falling snow or ice, barring slipping on ice or snow and breaking your kneecaps, you make it to the little grocery store right next to your apartment building. You wander around, and are proud because although that little white package looks like cheese, you know from the Cyrillic label that it is in fact butter. You buy bottles of water and yogurt, and maybe dried fruit, or something to share with your host mom during tea time. You are not yet brave enough to try kvass.
And then you’re home at last. You eat dinner, mutter about how you don’t quite understand what your host mom is trying to say, eat more dinner, smile, nod, mutter, drink tea. In your eagerness to try out the new verbs you’ve learned today, you try to tell her in Russian, “I drank a lot [of water] today,” and end up accidentally saying “I slept a lot today” – a poor reflection on your academic performance in more than one way. Later, you read over various exceptions in the accusative case and review nominative adjectival endings for about two minutes. You realize that you’ve already forgotten about one-third of what you covered in your three-hour language class today. And then its midnight, and you pass out and sleep soundly until seven the next morning. There are bliny for breakfast.
That was yesterday. On Saturday, before Maslenitsa started, the CIEE group took a slow train outside the city, to Pavlovsk. Pale even in unobstructed daylight, and sprawled out on a low hill, Pavlovsk is the former summer residence of Tsar Pavel I. The palace itself is impressive; ornate, cavernous, and empty, its interior decorator must have been obsessed with ancient Rome and Greece. But – it’s the hundreds of surrounding acres (the palace grounds, now a park) that are breathtaking.
It is like a scene out of Tolstoy: Hundreds of families, all with their children and sleds and skies and smiles, funnel from the little train station at the edge of the grounds down a narrow, mile-long path bored through the dense pine forest, to the clear heart of the park where the palace sleeps. In the rare bright sunlight and crisp cold, Russians drink light beer, and sled and tumble, ski and stroll. When our group climbs the hill to the palace, there are happy people everywhere, and we pause to watch their ice skating. We feel as though we and all the others here are weekend guests of the Tsar, and that later in the evening, we will all dine well in his hall with its high ceiling painted to simulate a brilliant blue sky and white clouds. But of course, we do not, and are forced home as the sun goes down and it becomes bitter cold. The world slowly turns its way into another day.
On Sunday, I slept and memorized vocabulary and went to Swan Lake. It was great (of course), and I learned that Russians, at the end of a notable solo or curtain call, tend to clap all in time with each other. This is a little disconcerting somehow – perhaps because it reminds me of the Russian tendency towards collectivism (so unusual and uncomfortable to Americans, including me). On Monday, three American friends and I braved the way through rush-hour traffic to a renowned Russian pie shop just off of Nevsky Prospekt. It was a pleasant place – warm lighting, intimate rooms, scuffed parquet floors. The pie we chose was square (all the pies were), and it had a cottage-cheese filling and tasted like a billion rubles. Then we settled down and discussed the Russian soul.
You see, in Russia, the word “soul” carries a weight similar to that of the word “freedom” in America. Its definition is really difficult to pin down, but some philosophers (mostly Russian) have said that the vibrancy of a country’s “soul” is based in the strength of its culture, which is largely considered to be “the arts” – i.e. literature, music, etc. These philosophers also say that the “opposite” of culture is civilization, which is defined as the level of a country’s material development (and I put opposite in quotes because it seems an obvious fallacy to completely separate the two). Russia, which has produced some of the finest art in the world (Hello Dostoevsky!), is often said to be very cultured but not very civilized. In contrast, America, although possessed of cheap iPhones and great toilets and roads (unlike Russia), has not (arguably) produced art of the highest caliber (Hello Dolly!), and so is very civilized but not cultured (i.e. less soulful than Russia). Whatever the truth of that assessment – and I only have to think of blues and jazz to feel its weakness – it certainly makes for an interesting discussion in a Russian pie shop. You can imagine.
Then here’s how the ride home goes: You walk through the freezing dark back to packed metro (everyone always seems to be heading home when you are), and jostle your way through turnstiles and sigh while the escalator creeps down and down and down and down. You wedge yourself into metro car – if you had a hatchet you would readily use it to hack open a space. You absolutely do not make eye contact with the man with extensive nose hair standing three inches away. Six stops later, everybody has exited and you can finally breathe and sit down: it seems nobody but you lives way out at Akademicheskaya, except for the young woman in brown fur reading her book, and that sleeping guy in black, and the babushka seated across from you – she probably survived WWII and could break your back. You have seen her jackknife grown men in the ribs in order to get a seat. You pull out the colorful little book of Russian fairy tales your host mom gave you, stare stupidly at words a six-year-old would know, and try to ignore the fact that the babushka is now looking at you in a very funny way; she may have even growled.
Then suddenly it’s your stop and so you hustle on out, and up another escalator and back into the bitter night air, which is so cold that it erases all smells. It’s a long and very brisk walk past rows of dark trees, brightly-lit nightclubs, miniscule pharmacies, hulking Soviet-era apartments, and a Japanese-themed restaurant. The sidewalk is touch and go. Sometimes it’s shoveled, but mostly not; sometimes a gleaming Range Rover or rusting, madcap Soviet-made Lada will clamber its way around banks of snow and up onto your path, in order to park closer to a building. Barring getting hit by a car and having both legs broken, barring getting knocked out by falling snow or ice, barring slipping on ice or snow and breaking your kneecaps, you make it to the little grocery store right next to your apartment building. You wander around, and are proud because although that little white package looks like cheese, you know from the Cyrillic label that it is in fact butter. You buy bottles of water and yogurt, and maybe dried fruit, or something to share with your host mom during tea time. You are not yet brave enough to try kvass.
And then you’re home at last. You eat dinner, mutter about how you don’t quite understand what your host mom is trying to say, eat more dinner, smile, nod, mutter, drink tea. In your eagerness to try out the new verbs you’ve learned today, you try to tell her in Russian, “I drank a lot [of water] today,” and end up accidentally saying “I slept a lot today” – a poor reflection on your academic performance in more than one way. Later, you read over various exceptions in the accusative case and review nominative adjectival endings for about two minutes. You realize that you’ve already forgotten about one-third of what you covered in your three-hour language class today. And then its midnight, and you pass out and sleep soundly until seven the next morning. There are bliny for breakfast.
04 February 2010
Four Degrees South of the Arctic Circle
Nearly everything that you have heard about Russia is true.
The long shadow of the past century is barely concealed by twenty short years of rampant capitalism and roughshod democracy. Tucked into the heart of St. Petersburg, the former KGB headquarters are twelve stories (six of which are underground) of dour Soviet-style architecture and very dark history. Many natives will not approach it; they cross to the far side of the street if they must pass by. It is bad luck to stand too close, as too many terrible things took place there: inventive tortures, measured murders, paranoid police-stating. Over one million people starved to death in the Nazi blockade of Leningrad. The ones who survived did so on just two or three grams of bread per day. If you see a man or woman over sixty, they probably lived through the blockade. They are quietly venerated. Outside the hotel where CIEE did its three-day orientation is a grand monument to those who fell to the Nazi siege. If anything epitomizes enduring pride and aching sadness, it is that monument. It, in many ways, is Russia.
Perhaps it is because of that past that people do not often smile on the streets, and don’t talk on the metro. Few readily volunteer information, but are very blunt when they want it. They drink too much. Drunken Russian men sometimes hit their girlfriends in public, but always hold the door for them. Plans seldom go as anticipated, or hoped. Many cops are corrupt and must be bribed. It is very cold (a week ago it was a record -30 Fahrenheit), and snows off and on nearly every day. You can stand in line for tickets to one of a hundred theaters for ages, in that cold and snow. You cultivate a special patience. I need that patience for my daily hour-long metro commute into the city center. And the metro runs well, although it looks like it hasn’t been updated since the sixties; the stations are palatial and each uniquely decorated, and a couple of them are so deep underground (a Soviet defense against nuclear war), that they take up to three minutes to reach by escalator. (Three days ago, I saw a woman reading a book titled Hasta La Vista, Baby, in Cyrillic, on the metro, and tried really hard not to laugh.) On a guided tour through the city, I saw a little bear drinking orange juice outside the Winter Palace, handle via steel collar and chain by a man with a fur hat. Everyone – or nearly – wears some fur here. The sun rarely comes out from behind the clouds, except to set over the frozen Neva, as it did yesterday. The outlying areas of the city are choked with long, tall blocks of gray and decrepit-looking Soviet apartments. I live in one.
And inside that decrepit-looking gray building, with its peeling paint and one-person elevator which practically predates Stalin, is a very snug and warm world – one well lit and clean, and furnished with new furniture, technology and flooring. The bed in my spacious room is long enough and comfortable; I have thick blankets and a soft pillow. A bust of Lenin sits on my desk, alongside my copies of Crime and Punishment and Stranger in a Strange Land and a carved wooden cat. I have my slippers and house keys. The front door (which really just opens out onto a stairwell) is nicer and newer than the doors at any previous place I’ve lived, and locks in two places. One glows blue when engaged. My host mom takes the prize, however. So far, she has been ever so jovial, helpful, and kind. I’m going to buy her flowers on Women’s Day (but don’t tell – it’s a surprise). She makes me breakfast and dinner, and in return I keep my things in order and her abreast of my day. After dinner, we sit and drink tea and eat sweet cakes, and talk in simple English (her, sometimes) and broken Russian (me, most of the time). We have to pantomime a lot, and always have a dictionary handy. We discuss – among other things – work, the weather, our language issues, our lives and loved ones, the city.
I’ve exlaimed how great the campus I’m studying at is – brilliant blue and white baroque, and at the heart of town, it is right next door to bright yellow Smolny Institute, where the Governor of St. Petersburg has her seat. Both buildings look their crisp and inspiring best in winter time. (Well actually, all of St. Petersburg looks best in winter. It was made to wear snow.) The Tsars and Tsarinas of old yearned to make St. Petersburg the envy of the world, and decades of Soviet rule have not snuffed the results of that imperial initiative. In fact, despite having been horribly damaged in the blockade, St. Petersburg has recovered remarkably well. Recently, there has been a huge effort to reclaim the 19th century look and feel (and thank god!) Laws have been made which deny the construction of buildings higher than the gleaming golden spire of the ancient Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul. So now, there literally are graceful yellow or green or red or blue palaces (mostly housing museums or shops) on nearly every corner of the city center, and not a single skyscraper. The city is re-realizing a history that, naturally, does include the Soviet Century – but not exclusively.
My host mom and I also talk about what I do in the city. Yesterday, I told her that I was planning on meeting some friends for dinner and drinks tonight, on Vasilevsky Island (one of the city’s many), where many CIEE students are staying. We will go sledding in the winter wonderland of Pavlovsk on Saturday, and may go clubbing with Russian students that night. I also told her that the day before a couple of us went into the Hermitage (Van Gogh! Rembrandt! Picasso! Gold leaf on banisters!) and came out so blown away that we absolutely needed to have a scrumptious bowl of borsch and calming cup of tea in a restaurant on bustling Nevsky Prospekt (see Most Famous Street In St. Petersburg/Russia, under the Really Cool Places Heading of any Travel Guide to Russia), and then visit the vast House of Books. There, I bought my first collection of Pushkin in Russian, which I want to read by the end of the semester. I also explained to my host mom that I, along with most of the other CIEE students, have bought tickets to a Sunday performance of Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake and to another ballet called Giselle, both of which are playing in the one of the theater houses on the Square of Arts.
And sometimes, my host mom and I sit and simply stare out the kitchen window, at the little forested park in the courtyard outside. I mention how many trees the city has and how softly the snow sits in them, and she tells me how gorgeous they are in the dazzling spring and short summer.
So it’s true that Russia may be a riddle wrapped in an enigma, a place of extremes. But as much as St. Petersburg and her people do embody that dichotomy, she is hardly a puzzling place. When the sun does finally come out, and its weak fire lights up so much, you realize that only one truth really matters: This is the most beautiful city in the world.
Note: Of all the things I forgot to pack, the USB cable for my camera was the one. I'll take lots of pictures, and try to by a new cable here soon. I'm dying to show you St. Petersburg. Keep your fingers crossed!
The long shadow of the past century is barely concealed by twenty short years of rampant capitalism and roughshod democracy. Tucked into the heart of St. Petersburg, the former KGB headquarters are twelve stories (six of which are underground) of dour Soviet-style architecture and very dark history. Many natives will not approach it; they cross to the far side of the street if they must pass by. It is bad luck to stand too close, as too many terrible things took place there: inventive tortures, measured murders, paranoid police-stating. Over one million people starved to death in the Nazi blockade of Leningrad. The ones who survived did so on just two or three grams of bread per day. If you see a man or woman over sixty, they probably lived through the blockade. They are quietly venerated. Outside the hotel where CIEE did its three-day orientation is a grand monument to those who fell to the Nazi siege. If anything epitomizes enduring pride and aching sadness, it is that monument. It, in many ways, is Russia.
Perhaps it is because of that past that people do not often smile on the streets, and don’t talk on the metro. Few readily volunteer information, but are very blunt when they want it. They drink too much. Drunken Russian men sometimes hit their girlfriends in public, but always hold the door for them. Plans seldom go as anticipated, or hoped. Many cops are corrupt and must be bribed. It is very cold (a week ago it was a record -30 Fahrenheit), and snows off and on nearly every day. You can stand in line for tickets to one of a hundred theaters for ages, in that cold and snow. You cultivate a special patience. I need that patience for my daily hour-long metro commute into the city center. And the metro runs well, although it looks like it hasn’t been updated since the sixties; the stations are palatial and each uniquely decorated, and a couple of them are so deep underground (a Soviet defense against nuclear war), that they take up to three minutes to reach by escalator. (Three days ago, I saw a woman reading a book titled Hasta La Vista, Baby, in Cyrillic, on the metro, and tried really hard not to laugh.) On a guided tour through the city, I saw a little bear drinking orange juice outside the Winter Palace, handle via steel collar and chain by a man with a fur hat. Everyone – or nearly – wears some fur here. The sun rarely comes out from behind the clouds, except to set over the frozen Neva, as it did yesterday. The outlying areas of the city are choked with long, tall blocks of gray and decrepit-looking Soviet apartments. I live in one.
And inside that decrepit-looking gray building, with its peeling paint and one-person elevator which practically predates Stalin, is a very snug and warm world – one well lit and clean, and furnished with new furniture, technology and flooring. The bed in my spacious room is long enough and comfortable; I have thick blankets and a soft pillow. A bust of Lenin sits on my desk, alongside my copies of Crime and Punishment and Stranger in a Strange Land and a carved wooden cat. I have my slippers and house keys. The front door (which really just opens out onto a stairwell) is nicer and newer than the doors at any previous place I’ve lived, and locks in two places. One glows blue when engaged. My host mom takes the prize, however. So far, she has been ever so jovial, helpful, and kind. I’m going to buy her flowers on Women’s Day (but don’t tell – it’s a surprise). She makes me breakfast and dinner, and in return I keep my things in order and her abreast of my day. After dinner, we sit and drink tea and eat sweet cakes, and talk in simple English (her, sometimes) and broken Russian (me, most of the time). We have to pantomime a lot, and always have a dictionary handy. We discuss – among other things – work, the weather, our language issues, our lives and loved ones, the city.
I’ve exlaimed how great the campus I’m studying at is – brilliant blue and white baroque, and at the heart of town, it is right next door to bright yellow Smolny Institute, where the Governor of St. Petersburg has her seat. Both buildings look their crisp and inspiring best in winter time. (Well actually, all of St. Petersburg looks best in winter. It was made to wear snow.) The Tsars and Tsarinas of old yearned to make St. Petersburg the envy of the world, and decades of Soviet rule have not snuffed the results of that imperial initiative. In fact, despite having been horribly damaged in the blockade, St. Petersburg has recovered remarkably well. Recently, there has been a huge effort to reclaim the 19th century look and feel (and thank god!) Laws have been made which deny the construction of buildings higher than the gleaming golden spire of the ancient Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul. So now, there literally are graceful yellow or green or red or blue palaces (mostly housing museums or shops) on nearly every corner of the city center, and not a single skyscraper. The city is re-realizing a history that, naturally, does include the Soviet Century – but not exclusively.
My host mom and I also talk about what I do in the city. Yesterday, I told her that I was planning on meeting some friends for dinner and drinks tonight, on Vasilevsky Island (one of the city’s many), where many CIEE students are staying. We will go sledding in the winter wonderland of Pavlovsk on Saturday, and may go clubbing with Russian students that night. I also told her that the day before a couple of us went into the Hermitage (Van Gogh! Rembrandt! Picasso! Gold leaf on banisters!) and came out so blown away that we absolutely needed to have a scrumptious bowl of borsch and calming cup of tea in a restaurant on bustling Nevsky Prospekt (see Most Famous Street In St. Petersburg/Russia, under the Really Cool Places Heading of any Travel Guide to Russia), and then visit the vast House of Books. There, I bought my first collection of Pushkin in Russian, which I want to read by the end of the semester. I also explained to my host mom that I, along with most of the other CIEE students, have bought tickets to a Sunday performance of Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake and to another ballet called Giselle, both of which are playing in the one of the theater houses on the Square of Arts.
And sometimes, my host mom and I sit and simply stare out the kitchen window, at the little forested park in the courtyard outside. I mention how many trees the city has and how softly the snow sits in them, and she tells me how gorgeous they are in the dazzling spring and short summer.
So it’s true that Russia may be a riddle wrapped in an enigma, a place of extremes. But as much as St. Petersburg and her people do embody that dichotomy, she is hardly a puzzling place. When the sun does finally come out, and its weak fire lights up so much, you realize that only one truth really matters: This is the most beautiful city in the world.
Note: Of all the things I forgot to pack, the USB cable for my camera was the one. I'll take lots of pictures, and try to by a new cable here soon. I'm dying to show you St. Petersburg. Keep your fingers crossed!
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