so its been a year (or more)

Again, again with the Russian summer programs. Fortunately this time around I opted to stay in the US, which saved me a couple of grand in travel expenses. Also, I get to see Justin every weekend (Bloomington and Columbus, OH are only 4 hours apart).

Yes, I am at Indiana University in Bloomington, studying Russian. The program is pretty good, and I am enjoying my studies. Much more so than in Astrakhan'. I don't know what it is about summer language programs, but they all insist on being in class for 5 or more hours a day. I start class at 8 AM, and am usually at school until 5, when my Conversation class ends. Mondays (like today), there is a required lecture in Russian. Todays topic is Russian Press: Last Bastion of Democracy. (I'll let you know how it turns out.)

Mom sent me my emails from the Taganrog adventure in 2007. I really miss that city, and my host family! I will be sure to post them soon.

--shelley

last day of school...

Yesterday we took 6 final exams. Of course, this means that we are in class today, learning new material.

After our 4.5 hours of tests, we had to pretty ourselves up for our "graduation evening." There were speeches from the rector and administrators, we each got a certificate and a DVD (created by our paparazzi). Then there was a buffet dinner with a lot of wine. I ate so much watermelon (Astrakhan' is famous for its watermelon), that one of the servers brought an entire platter to my table!

We danced to Russian pop and had a good time together. The evil L.G. danced with Tiffany. I expected the floor to open up and us fall into the Pit at any second. It was an odd moment.

The Troika peaced out at 8:30. Laura wanted ice cream, so we walked to two stores and strolled along the street while Sara and Laura ate the ice cream they had bought. It took us and hour and a half to get home after we left! No marshrutkas were running after 8:30 on a Thursday night. We had to take one from school to Laura's stop (she lives at a major stop) and then wait 30 minutes for a marshrutka going to our stops with standing room on it. But I made it home shortly after 10 PM.

We received some of our grades today. I have apparently improved not at all in grammar (I've made almost the same grade on every one of our tests). I tried to convince my grammar teacher, Maria Leonidovna, to let me start a fire with our grammar tests...she didn't go for it.

Wednesday was our last lecture (Славо Богу!!!), and so after lunch we are receiving our final grades, our final stipend (which I have a feeling will be mostly going to pay for overweight luggage), and information about our trip to the baza this weekend. I hope it's half-way civilized, or at least moreso than the last baza I went to. A Baza is a Soviet campground.

After school today, we plan to go drink tea and eat tasty sweets at the Sharlau. Sara wants to buy a book we found in an old bookstore for her thesis research. If the antique store is open, I would like to poke around some more.

I've been reading my Bible! I started the 6th of July, and as of this morning, I have less than 100 pages left (5 chapters of 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs). I read it out of order, in chunks. I started with Isaiah and Revelation, and I think I will finish with Ecclesiastes. I should finish before we leave Astrakhan. I feel very proud of myself, and the Bible is interesting.

I have no idea what my internet access is going to be like after today. I hope I will be able to post at least once more from Astrakhan' (next week) and maybe once from Petersburg. Until then, I love and miss all of you.

--Shelley

No real news.

It's hard to come up with something intelligent and clever to say. This is the last week of classes, and I am increasingly focused on my countdown of days to my liberation from Astrakhan.

Also, our Writing test today completely drained my brain power. We had to remember the forms for official requests, complaints, and formal excuses and thank-you notes. Ugh. I also had to write a resume for homework. Apparently the Russian word "fantastichni" just means invented, not fantastical. I wrote a Superhero resume. Oh well. I hope Ludmila Anatoliivna enjoys it. Maybe she'll give me bonus points for creativity...or just take pity on the dumb American.

Saturday, the Troika and a few others...Maria, Christine, and Jennifer, headed to the center of town to bum around and waste our precious free time. We found a couple of really cool stores, and I managed to spend my entire stipend on presents (for friends, family, and myself). I love church stores in Russia. I pretty much love all Orthodox jewelry...ornate and gorgeous.

I am currently under a book ban. We are only allowed 20 kilos of luggage for domestic flights in Russia (all checked luggage). My books purchased here in Russia weigh 10 kilos. Plus I have a kilo of tea. I'm really praying to the nice-ticket-agent fairy.

Sunday I spent 3 hours and the Sharlau and did literally nothing else (I half-way did my homework, which is an accomplishment for me on this trip).

The major flaw of our program in general is that we spend way too much time together as a giant group of Americans. We are all starting to get on each others' nerves. Some more than others.

Tomorrow is a scheduled trip to a sanatoria (the Russian version of a spa). I am not going. I will instead enjoy a fabulously rare half-day...at the Sharlau.

Love you all...I need ideas to write about!!!!

--shelley

Religion part 2

Kalmykia (the autonomous republic of the Russian Federation that we went to on Saturday) is a dominantly Buddhist state. Located in the capital, Elestia, is the largest Buddhist temple in Europe, which also houses the largest statue of Buddha in Europe. The Kalmyks are Lamaist (?) Buddhists, (like Tibet) so their leader is the Dalai Lama, and a residence for him is on one of the upper floors not accessible by the public. The outside of the temple is plain and simply decorated in comparison to the interior.

We also had to take of our shoes for this excursion, and apparently the girls were supposed to be wearing at least a knee-length garment. Of course no one informed us of this. There were shawls provided at the temple, but they ran out of them by the time the line got to me...so I was wandering around in my shorts. Also not told to us (or imperfectly understood) were 2 rules about behavior in the temple: (1) always walk in a clockwise direction, (2) never turn your back on the Buddha. I am afraid I broke both. Oh well, ignorant American here.

The Buddha was giant (and gold-leafed) and robed in yellow. He was an Indian-style Buddha (not the fat, laughing Chinese version) and sat in the lotus position. Arrayed around him was an army of tiny golden Buddhas. Sara was creeped out by them. There was an altar for food offerings, and we could hear chanting in the background (I think it was a CD). All of the walls were painted with intricate scenes from the life of the Buddha. On the second floor was a mural with multiple Buddhas and elephants...I didn't understand that one.

In the basement was a conference center and a musuem of Buddhism in Russia. It was pretty interesting...I didn't spend too much time in it.

We also went to a market, and to the Lenin Square, where there was a prayer wheel and a giant chess set. Every Russian city has a central square named for Lenin. If you want to find the downtown of any city, just ask where the Lenin Square is...never fails.

Sunday, the girls and I (also known as Laura and Sara--my Troika, Russian for "triumvirate") went to the center in search of Fisherman's Day. We didn't find it, but we had a good time looking for it. We meet up at about 2:30, headed to our favorite cafe, the Sharlau, and then wandered around the downtown looking for an cafe with wireless internet. We managed to find it, and the one souvenir shop in Astrakhan'...so it was a good day. Then we ate ice cream while sitting on a bench Russian-watching and waiting for a mythical (i.e. never occured) jazz festival.

On Monday we learned that Fisherman's Day did not occur because EVERY location in the city where festivities normal take place WAS UNDER REPAIR. How, in a city of 500,000 every major park and walking path is closed I will never understand. 3 weeks ago the shaded path away from the university was jackhammered and then left to decay.

I was really proud of myself on Monday. We were sitting in our worst class, Lecture. The topic for the day was "Tolerance." Yes, tolerance. You need to understand that Russian does not have a word for tolerance...our hated Lidia Glebovna made one up from the English cognate. The closest approximation in Russian is "toleration." This then proceeded into a discussion on Immigration. Yes, the naive Russians put 22 Americans in a room together in discussion groups and demanded that we talk about such a controversial issue in BROKEN RUSSIAN. We can't agree or have a civil discussion in English...so now we are going to talk about complex issues like nationalities, immigration, and tolerance? Ugh.

Anyway, we told to pretend that we were the directors of a "Tolerance Center" and to solve the world's problems in 5 minutes. I wish I were making this stuff up. Lidia Glebovna came to our group and demanded an answer (of course, we hadn't been talking about this BS...), so I told her (in Russian) that we had no answer, in fact we hadn't been discussing that and instead had a more interesting discussion. Then I told her that such strongly structured lectures/discussions were impossible, that we had our own questions and wanted to discuss those. This made me feel much better.

Tuesday we went to the major mosque here in Astrakhan'. Like the first mosque, it was fairly plain on the inside, but it there were pretty stained glass windows and the columns holding up the balcony (the women's section) were ornately carved and gold-leafed. They were very pretty.

We met the imam of that mosque, the director of the Islamic school here in Astrakhan', and a very interesting Muslim scientist from Egypt, who spoke to us in a mixture of English and Russian. Afterwards, we were invited into a Tatar (an ethnic group in Russia, primarily Muslim) home and had a delicious tea. The imam said a prayer and sang (a hymn? a prayer?) in Arabic. That probably took 15-20 minutes. It was very interesting but uncomfortable at the same time. There was honey cake, cookies, and a lemon tart. The imam was a very nice man, and talked to us about our impressions of Astrakhan' and Russia.

The whole time we were in the mosque or in the presence of the imam, the females of our group had our heads covered (a complete covering of the hair). It was so hot! When the imam left, our hostess told us (several times) that we could now "uncover"...but we were taking pictures, so it took a while.

It was an odd experience. I felt almost like a different person with my hair completely covered. I don't really know how to explain it, but I had this feeling when I began visiting Orthodox churches and using a head covering (but not as strong...and of course, the Orthodox aren't as strict!). The Muslims in Astrakhan' are fairly secular as a whole, but that doesn't mean there are no women in full dress...hijab and gown...but I haven't seen a burka or face veil.

I've never lived anywhere where the faiths are so integrated. No one faith seems to keep completely to itself. It's a great experience. I don't know if this would be possible with strong fundamentalism of any of the major faiths here. (Although my ignorance of Buddhism keeps me from knowing if there is a fundamentalist sect of Buddhism.)

Of course, after the tea, our troika went to the Sharlau. I had the Russian version of sweet iced tea. There wasn't a lot of tea involved, and it was too sweet even for me! (a native Southerner.)

Today we are going to another house-museum. This one is of a Silver-Age (1905-1920s) Futurist poet, Khlebnikov. I hope it's interesting! We have been forced to read his poems for the past 2 weeks. He liked to play with language and make up words, which is cool and fun in my native language (think Carroll, Dr. Suess, or e e cummings) but not so fun in a language where I have no idea that half of the words in this given poem don't actually exist.

Buddhism, Islam, and Orthodoxy

The theme of this past week has been religion, in primarily a good way.

Last week there was an optional excursion to the churches and cathedrals of Astrakhan'...of course I went, since Orthodox churches are beautiful. Awe-inspiring is probably the best term. I love the smell of the incense used in Orthodox churches--it's just yummy, and makes me think of ancient things.

I managed to take one picture of the iconostasis inside one of the churches. I didn't know whether we were allowed to take pictures, but I saw someone else do so...and then got yelled at by the resident babushka-in-charge. But the picture is on my photobucket!

We also went to a mosque and a Catholic church. The Catholic church here in Astrakhan' is maintained by Polish monks and priests. I am so used to not understanding the Church Slavonic in Orthodox churches that I didn't realize the priest in the Catholic church wasn't speaking Russian! The service was in Polish. Slavic languages sound similar anyways.

The mosque was very plain and small...I think it is also under repair. We had to take off our shoes. Our guide told us that it isn't being used as a mosque right now, and so we didn't have to cover our heads. I did so anyway, because I already felt bad about wearing short sleeves and a knee-length dress. The Russians don't understand that we would like to be informed ahead of time about such things. I consider it an issue of respect...and so I cover my head in Orthodox churches also. Russians. (We asked 10 times whether or not this excursion would include a mosque...we kept being told "no").

Today we are supposed to go on a tour of mosques in Astrakhan' and eat Tatar national dishes. Hopefully this will be interesting...I'll be sure to tell you as soon as possible.

I am afraid my pictures don't do all these houses of worship justice. Almost all of them are being restored, as Communism was not kind to any religion. The largest church in Astrakhan (Orthodox) was the city bus depot during the Soviet Union. The beautiful cathedral inside the Astrakhan' kremlin (the fortress in the center dating from ancient times) was a soldier's barracks and an officiers' residence. The lucky churches in the USSR were archives, while others were obliterated, or had their gorgeous (and 800 years old) frescoes whitewashed.

Kalmykia was beautiful. It was a four-hour drive through the empty steppe. We saw one person...a Russian cowboy with his herd of cattle (which held up our bus as they crossed the road). After an hour and a half we stopped at a WWII monument to one of the Red Armies (maybe the 22nd?) that had a toilet (one for each sex).

I am afraid I am leaving all of you under a strong misunderstanding. In Russia "toilet" does not mean "with plumbing" or "with porcelein."In fact, it is far more likely to be an outhouse. I don't think I saw working plumbing the entire day...and I was in 3 different toilets. The 2nd to last toilet of the day almost broke our group...the smell was simply indescribable.

Sorry that this list continues on top of my post yesterday...just scroll down and read that one before this one, okay?

10) No smiling in public. No smiling by yourself...ever. No smiling while on the telephone. Generally, no smiling. In Russia, if you are smiling without an explicit reason to be doing so (that everyone else can see), they literally think that you are insane or retarded. The flip side of this rule is that Russians love to laugh and make jokes. Weird.

11) Gratuitous sex scenes (TV and movies). I thought I was fairly used to sex scenes from American movies, but Russian TV, miniseries, and movies always have unnecessary sex scenes in no way related to the plot. One day, I flipped through the 6 channels that we get here in Astrakhan', and on every channel was a sex scene...generally unwilling or coerced in some way. I'm not going to get into what that says about Russian culture and its view of sex.

12) Soviet Apartments and NO real beds. Soviet-style apartments were not designed for comfortable living. Almost all of them were built during some urgent housing crisis, and so they were built quickly and with little to no thought about Russian culture. For example, the kitchen is always the smallest room in the apartment (I really do think that the bathroom is bigger...). Everything is hideously ugly (so family's generally quickly remodel their apartments or try to pretty them up as soon as they have any amount of spare cash). There are no lights in the stairwells, and the lightbulbs in the halls have to be provided by the tenants. I think I have already mentioned that I sleep on a (cat-shaped) loveseat that converts into a bed. My last host family, in Tagarog, owned one recognizable mattress.

13) It is forbidden by Russian cultural mores to sit on the ground (especially if you are female). The ground, and even the floors of homes, is considered perpetually unclean. I guess sitting on an unclean surface also makes the person unclean (and morally so for females). Russians don't sit on grass, either...or concrete. Matthew calls the preferred male position "the third-world squat." It looks terribly uncomfortable, but they have been trained since birth to sit on their haunches in a back-stooping squat.

14) The ridiculous cheapness of food, beer, and cigarettes, and the outrageous price of any manufactured good. Beer is literally cheaper than water, and while public drinking is technically illegal in Russia, the police never bother to stop anybody. (Unless you are in an important central square or park...maybe then they will stop people for bribes.)

15) РЕМОНТ (the Russian word for "repair, remodeling, etc"). Right now the entire city of Astrakhan' seems to be in some stage of demolition through reconstruction. August is the 450th anniversary of the city...and they seemed determined to do ALL of the much-needed remodel from Soviet days now, in the two months that we are in the city.

16) Aeroflot, the Soviet national airline...that is still in business. All of their planes are at least 40 years old (with their original unsmiling Soviet stewardesses) and the pilots act like they are state-of-the-art military jets...or at least take off like they are. Aeroflot. ugh.

17) Delicious deserts and blini (my favorite food...a crepe-like creation that far surpasses anything the French could ever hope to accomplish). The Russians love sweets, and in my opinion, do chocolate better than the Swiss or Belgians. It's never too sweet...and always perfect. Baked goods...bread...thank goodness lunch is soon. In this group...Russian tea. Tea in Russia is just too good to describe.

Anyway, tomorrow we are going to a Buddist city about 4 hours away. I think I have heard it called the "Chess capital of the World." Should be interesting.

And Sunday is an Astrakhan' holiday: Day of Fishermen. We'll see how that goes.

Love you and miss you, Shelley

Awesomeness...

I am loving Russia right now...and I think is mostly because we found the best tea/coffeehouse in the entire world. (and the blini aren't bad, either...) It's called the Sharlau, and it is in downtown Astrakhan', 2 blocks from the Kreml' and Bratski Sad.

I spent most of my stipend at the рынок (market?) on Saturday. Laura, Sara, and I met early to go to the large ярмок (farmer's market?) that occurs by the school on Fridays and Saturdays. We ended up going to three markets before noon. Then we went back to the Sharlau for lunch and tea. I've been to the Sharlau 3 times in 3 days. It is awesome.

Since nothing of real importance occured over the weekend...I have compiled a list of Russian things (mostly cultural) that are very different from the US. If I have time, I'll try to expand on some of them.

1) the bluntness/non-PC nature of the Russian language. Imagine American culture of the 50s and 60s, only with 24-hour club clothing. In Russia, a special-needs child is a "defective" and his teacher is a "pedalog-defective"--literally a teacher of defectives. There are many other examples of this in Russian speech. In this catagory I will also place being told to my face how bad my Russian is.

2) The fact that it has taken me 3 days to write this post. The internet does not exist in Russia (or at least, it is not important).

3)My favorite, marshrutkas and the crazy things that regularly happen while riding them.

4) Hating to make or give change. I don't know how Russia will ever develop a flourishing capitalistic economy if the cashiers refuse to make change. C'mon, we all have thousand-ruble notes (it's what the ATMS give out), there's nothing we can do about it. I know you have an entire drawer full of change..."NO, I do not have exact change." "No, I do not have a smaller bill" (generally a lie).

5) Russian female clothing. Really...I know the clubs aren't open 24 hours a day. There is no reason to dress like your destination is a club at 8:30 in the morning. Also, there seems to be no societal ban on being able to view underwear (male and female). I have no idea how many thongs I have seen through white pants... White, skin-tight pants, seriously.

6) Dubbing and over-dubbing. This is more a European phenomenon than a uniquely Russian one. I cannot stand over-dubbing. Because someone feels the need to make my life as a non-native speaker just that much more difficult. Plus, it's annoying. Dubbing isn't too terrible anymore, but I am still 100% in support of subtitles. What's the point of watching a dubbed movie? Russians also hate subtitles in general...and almost never include them on any DVD. ugh.

7) The rarity of street signs, and when they do exist, the horrendous quality of them. Its hard enough to navigate Russia, but the country seems to assume its citizens and visitors possess a psychic ability to identify streets. Even in Petersburg this is difficult. As a result, independent movement about a city is curtailed and made far more difficult. I will also include here the fact that public transportation pretty much shuts down at 9 PM. --private transportation almost doesn't exist.

8) Homeless cats and dogs. So many mangy dogs (and puppies).

9) Whiny Americans. This isn't America. Get over it. Suck it up or go home (and please, never leave the country again).

I will continue this list soon.