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I have a lot to say again. I guess I’ll get right to it. Starting with Tuesday: Went to school like normal. Wait, I guess I never explained how I’ve been getting to school the last week or so. Vickie and I used to catch a city bus outside our apartment that would take us to the hotel where a bunch of other students would meet and we would all take another bus to the school. There was this big thing about Vickie’s mom wanting us to catch this other bus so we could leave a little later and she wouldn’t have to get up as early to make Vickie breakfast. There is actually another bus that comes to a spot about four or five blocks away that picks up some other kids and takes them all to Smolniy also, so that’s what we’ve been doing, and it works fine. On Tuesday morning we caught that bus like normal but there were a lot more students than usual, and I was worried we weren’t all going to fit. Luckily, a bus (more like a big van) that was bigger than usual came and everybody got a seat. This one guy kept looking at me and looking at the paper that I was reading for school. It was kind of creeping me out. But anyways, this is all pointless and not even worth writing about. That day in our Literature Lecture we had a substitute who didn’t really talk about anything in particular. Usually the lecture is about a specific author, but this guy just went on and on about Russian Literature in the broadest sense, mentioning all different kinds of movements and authors and topics like that and it had no focus what so ever. Nobody even really paid any attention to what he was saying most of the time. It was pretty tough to get through. After we got out of class, that’s when the interesting stuff happened (see why I never bother to write about school stuff? Believe me, you don’t really want to hear about what we do at school. It’s interesting and everything, but all it is is me learning more Russian, which is good but it doesn’t make for interesting blog posts). Nick and I had decided to finally make it out to the Gulf of Finland (he had already been a couple times but was willing to go again with me). We walked to the Chernyshevskaya Metro station, which I head never been to before, even though it’s the closest one to school. We rode to the end of the blue line at the Primorskaya station, which is near where Nick and many other students leave (it’s also one stop past the metro station I usually use and often mention here, Vassileostrovskaya). We walked in the freezing wind to Nick’s apartment to drop our bags off before making the short walk to the Gulf. He lives out in the projects. Well, what we would think of as the projects. The buildings out around Primorskaya are all the classic ugly Soviet mass-housing units that have become so famous. I instantly became jelous of Nick’s living situation once we stepped inside his apartment. It was big and clean with an actual living room (my apartment doesn’t really have one. I think one of the rooms is kind of supposed to be, but it is basically my host-mom’s room), and a really friendly dog who wanted me to bit him a lot. His host-mom was also very friendly and eager to talk with us. Not that I dislike my own living situation, My host family is just fine, but I liked the idea of the living-room, the dog, and the host-mom who is really eager to talk and even likes to help Nick with his Russian while he is speaking, something my host-mom doesn’t really do. And here’s the deal breaker: She had fresh made pirozhki waiting for us and insisted that we sit and eat. Pirozhki are a lot like pierogies, but these had a softer, flakier, more hot-pocket like crust and were filled with cabbage and garlic. The were so delicious. After our snack we headed down to the gulf. We were supposed to meet Kenny there because he wanted to come along, but our pirozhki made us late and we kept trying to call him but his phone was acting weird so we couldn’t get a hold of him. He was gone by the time we arrived, so we continued on without him. We actually accessed the gulf from right next to the hotel where all the students catch the bus in the morning (the one I used to ride). Seeing the gulf all frozen was amazing. It’s covered in snow so it just looks like a huge barren wasteland. There are lots of footprints and car tracks too (yes, people actually drive [and race, which we saw off in the distance] cars out on the ice. It seems so crazy to me! But apparently it’s really strong and nobody every has any problems) and the surface is kind of contoured from the wind. It looks like what I imagine it looking like out in the middle of Siberia, except right on the edge of St. Petersburg. You can’t see anything on the horizon, but turn around and the city is right there. Wow. So we walked along on the ice and took pictures and wrote things in the snow and all that. We caught the very end of the sunset so there were a lot of great colors in the sky. It was extraordinarily cold out on the ice because of the wind blowing across the gulf. Here’s another strange thing that happens in the extreme cold: Electronics are visibly affected. I was scrolling through screens on my cell phone and each one would very slowly change from one to the next. Like, on would fade into the next one as I scrolled through phone numbers. It had never done that before, so I knew it had to be due to the cold. Crazy stuff. It was getting late so we headed back to solid land. The ice closer to the land is a little scarier to walk on, because it kind of creaks under your feet and there appear to be some air pockets under certain parts of the ice, because sometimes your foot will break through a thin layer and for a split second you freak out and think that you’re about to fall through the ice. We walked back to Nick’s apartment where I got my bag and then caught bus number 147 back home (yeah, it goes there too!). At home I at some dinner and did some homework, but I was only there for about an hour because I had something else very exciting to do. Earlier, while I had been walking towards the gulf, I had received a call from my friend Matt from back home. Matt was one of the Russian GTFs for my first and second year of Russian at the U of O, and this year he is living in St. Petersburg to study, work, and teach all at the same time. I had been emailing him for a couple weeks and we were trying to find a time to meet up, and then he called and asked me if I was busy later that night, and of course I was not and was more than eager to meet up with him. We decided to meet around eight next to the statue of the guy on the horse in St. Isaac’s Square, because apparently it is right next to his office. I got on the 147 bus and rode it down to Nevskiy. I got off next to the Hermitage and walked down towards the statue. I called him to tell him I was on my way, but I still had a little ways to walk. A few minutes later I got a call from Matt, asking me where I was. I told him I was approaching the statue and that I could see it, but neither of is could see each other. We soon realized that we were both thinking of different statues (there’s one on either side of St. Isaac’s Cathedral of somebody on a horse), and so I realized my mistake and made my way to the real statue, which was only a few minutes away. Matt was there waiting of course, and I felt bad for making him wait in the freezing cold. He asked me, “So, how do you like this cold?” and not wanting to sound like a wimp with little experience in Russia I replied, “Oh, well, you know, it’s pretty interesting,” to which he replied, “don’t mince words. It fucking sucks” (Sorry to offend anyone, but it just doesn’t sound good if you don’t say it the way he said it). We walked back to his office because he had to finish up some work. Matt works for a monthly St. Petersburg newspaper/magazine called Pulse. Every issue is published in both Russian and English, and Matt is actually the English-version editor. He also appears on the cover of the February issue because they needed a last-minute model for the shot. We hung around in his office and caught up on stuff, and he told me about some of the crazy stuff he’s been doing regarding the newspaper. When Phil Collins came to town back in October, Pulse got the exclusive interview, which Matt personally conducted over the phone with Mr. Collins himself. He also told me a story about this big expensive ball that their staff got free tickets to, which was being put on by this guy named Kenneth Pushkin who is an American but also a descendant of the hugely famous author Alexander Pushkin. He’s gained a small celebrity just because of his names and his eccentricities, and apparently Matt and the editor-in-chief of the paper were asked to write a proposal for a screenplay for a documentary about this guy’s life for a Russian TV station. Matt had all kinds of crazy stories like these to tell. Once he was finished up at the office we headed out to a bar that he knew. We walked down some anonymous street, down an alleyway, into an unmarked door, down a flight of steps, and opened the door to a really awesome little bar that you would never even know existed! This is just the kind of thing I was hoping a guy like Matt could show me; cool little secrets that you can only really know about from experience and having an inside edge. No tourists would ever come to a place like this. The place had so much more character than any of the other bars we’ve been going to. Matt ordered us some beers and we got a table and sat and talked for a long time. We talked a lot about music and geography, and a lot about how the two are related. Matt is really inspiring to me. He’s already done so much in his lifetime. He’s 33, but He’s already lived in Slovakia, Estonia, and in the Russian cities of Moscow, Rostov-na-Donu, Kazan, and now St. Petersburg. He also lived in Minneapolis during college, but he’s from Myrtle Creek, Oregon. He didn’t know a word of Russian until about five years ago when he went to a Russian-speaking area of Estonia for the Peace Corps, and now he’s fluent. In fact, the reason he is here now is because he’s on a special fellowship for Graduate students that sends ten people to Russia to learn the language to “professional fluency,” because Russian is one of the four languages (the others being Chinese, Arabic, and Korean) that the US government has identified as vital to national security. The program is obviously very competitive, and only the best of the best would really be awarded with the fellowship. The participants are apparently supposed to “seek employment” in the government afterwards, but Matt made it seem like it wasn’t really necessary. Matt is also inspiring in an academic sense because he is a grad student in geography, and after talking with him I think I may have been convinced to go with a geography major instead of a history major after all. He’s way into human geography like me, and after I explained to him the way I feel about history and geography, and how I’m really interested in how the two meet and interact and the spatial aspects of everything, he told me, “you’re a geographer at heart,” so it must be a good sign. Apparently he’s going to try and teach the Geography of Russia class next year at the U of O, which he says is usually only offered once every four years or so, and if he does I will definitely be taking it. He’s way into a lot of the same music too, so we went on and on about that for a while, and all in all I had a really great time. He also bought me three beers throughout the course of the night, which was also great. We left before it got to late so we could each catch a ride home. He had to take the metro and I had to catch a bus. It was really close to midnight, and I was worried that there wouldn’t be another bus, so he told me to call him once I got on a bus so he knew I got home alright. I waited and waited in the cold at the bus stop until about 12:05 and came to the very disheartening conclusion that a bus wasn’t coming. Matt called me first and asked if I had gotten on a bus yet. The only option (short of walking, which I was definitely not doing again. In fact, I was at the same place I had started walking from the time before) was to take a chasnik, which is basically a guy driving his own car who will drive you where you want to go if you pay him money. Matt told me the procedure for taking one, which is all very straightforward, and said I shouldn’t pay more than 200 rubles. I flagged one down and asked how much to get to Gavanskaya. Here was the conversation, translated into English:
“Is it possible to go to Gavanskaya?”
“Where?”
“Gavanskaya. On Vassilevsky, near the harbor.”
“OK.”
“How much?”
“300.”
“How about 200?”
“Mmm, 300.”
“Well, no thanks then. Unless… 200?”
“Mmm, 250.”
“250? Well, Ok.”
I was pretty tired and wanted to get home, so I was willing to pay the extra 50. I guess I didn’t really need to write all that out, it really wasn’t very exciting. I called Matt when I got home to let him know I got home alright. I was really glad to get to hang out with him and I am looking forward to the next time when we can meet up. The next morning my upper leg muscles were really sore for some reason, and they bothered me all day. School was school, as usual. Afterwards, I used the computer lab and then headed down to Nevskiy with Bryce and Matt (a different Matt, he’s on the program with me). I wanted to go to this CD and DVD shop called 505, because Matt (grad student Matt) had told me that it was a good place to find the cheap bootleg music I have been hearing so much about. There are a bunch of 505s all over town. I really wanted to get some stuff by the awesome Russian band called Kino that I had learned about from my old Russian teacher Josh. Matt told me that you can buy MP3 CDs of theirs with all of their albums on it. I couldn’t find any like that, but I did find their normal CDs, and I bought one album called “45” that I actually already own on tape (got it from Josh), but that was back in Oregon and this version had more songs on it. I also bought a double CD or old children’s songs from the soviet era, because there were a lot of great songs from back then. Together, everything I bought there came to about $11, so not bad at all. That’s actually a lot compared to a lot of the music you can by here, because none of what I bought was bootlegged. From 505 it was only a couple blocks to Soiree, where some people were already hanging out using their computers. I hadn’t brought mine that day, but I decided to go hang out anyways. I needed to kill some time because I wasn’t going home until later. Oh yeah, I wasn’t going home until later because I was going to the opera later that night and figured I would just stay out until then. On Tuesday one of the returning students was trying to get rid of his opera ticket because he couldn’t go. I had wanted to see an opera sometime while I was here, and figured this would be a good opportunity. So, I was going to the opera later and need to kill time by hanging out at Soiree. I ordered a Pepsi and some blini with honey and sat with Bryce and Matt for a while. Matt (remember, CIEE Matt, from Massachusetts) is really into movies and a lot of the same TV shows I am, so we like to talk about that a lot when we’re hanging out. The other people just sat and worked on their computers. Eventually Stacey and Ruth showed up, and they hung around for a while before we decided to go some place else for dinner, because they were going to the opera later too. We rode the metro to Gostiny Dvor and walked to Arts Square where the theater is and found this restaurant that we had all heard was really good. It’s called Misha and Bear and serves good traditional Russian food. I ordered pelmeni, which is basically like Russian tortellini. It was quite good and pretty cheap. The restaurant was very quaint and cozy and had a Goldilocks and the Three Bears quality to it. We finished up and headed back to the theater. We met Colleen in the lobby (Nick and Will later showed up) and took our seats. Mine was actually up in the balcony, and in fact it was more expensive than the seats the others had. The seat was pretty small and crammed up against the edge of the balcony, so I was pretty uncomfortable. By the time the opera rolled around I wasn’t all that excited about it, because I was really tired and needed to do my homework, but I couldn’t get rid of my ticket and figured I should stay at least through intermission. The opera was Russian and was called Prince Igor. I couldn’t really follow the story, but I guess that’s the point of the opera. I did enjoy hearing the singing and watching the dancing though. My favorite part was the set, though. There were big pictures of Jesus in the Russian Orthodox style, which makes him look pretty angry and scary. The main woman hit a really high note that was the classic opera moment in my mind. All in all it was pretty fun and a good experience, but by intermission I was really uncomfortable, tired, and anxious to get home, so I said goodbye and headed for the bus. At the bus stop the147 bus didn’t stop at its usual place but at a cluster of benches a little further down the street to far for me to get to in time. I was pretty pissed, but then the bus 7 came and I knew that it too took me where I needed to go. It stopped further down too, but I anticipated it and ran to it in time to get on. Once home I did my homework and got to bed around midnight again. I feel like my writing right now is getting really lazy because I’m pretty tired, but I want to write about today so I’ll keep going. Sorry if the writing doesn’t seem so great. Today school was typical, of course. After classes I decided to try and get a hold of my friend Emily from back home who has also been here since August. Grad student Matt is also friends with her, and he said that she has been in a funk lately and that seeing me might cheer her up some, so I figured I’d try to meet up with her finally. I called her a couple times but got no answer, so I decided to head back down to Nevskiy where I heard some people were hanging out. I met up with Vickie, Tom, Bryce, Katie, and Natasha at some him touristy café. Bryce and Katie had played hooky all day, but don’t tell anyone. They went to a movie and then ate at KFC. They also went to a bookstore and bought some prints of some awesome old soviet propaganda posters, and after looking at them I knew I had to get some. I had a coke and a piece of pie at the café, and then we all got up to leave. Bryce went back home and the girls went off somewhere, so Tom and I went to one of the bookstores where you can buy posters. It’s a chain of bookstores all over the city called Bookvoed, and Tom knew of one near his apartment. We both bought copies of this great poster that I had seen before in my friend’s apartment back in Eugene. It’s of a young man being offered a shot of vodka with his meal, and he is holding his hand up to block it with the single word “nyet” (“no”). It’s really great. I also bought about six postcard-sized prints of other old soviet posters, all of which are really cool. All the things I bought were great, but the real story from the book store is about Tom and this woman who works there named Yulia. Tom has been in there a few times and has started a friendship with this older woman who works there and speaks some English. She was very excited to see him and kept showing him things around the store. She seems to be giving him all these mixed messages. She gives him lots of attention when he’s in there, but then she told us a story about her husband, but even this was strange. She was actually the one who got us those posters I was talking about, and she told us this story about how her husband is a taxi driver or something and there are all these women out on the street smiling at him, but much like the man on the poster he puts his hand out and says “nyet.” Tom says she doesn’t wear a ring though, so he thinks maybe she’s divorced or something. She also mentioned that she has a 14 year old daughter (Yulia has to be at least 35, but, unlike must Russian women her age, is still pretty attractive). She told us that her daughter speaks English pretty well and that Yulia asks her to teach it to her. Yulia told us, “My daughter wants to know why I want to learn English, and I tell her that at work there is an American boy who comes in and who likes beer and and I like to talk with him.” So, it was all pretty interesting, but then as she was ringing us up she asked Tom if he’s busy tomorrow night. Of course he said “no,” and she told him to meet her at the store at 8:00 when she gets off of work. She told him, “I want to drink beer with you.” So, Tom’s got a date. It’s all pretty funny, and I’m sure Tom’s pretty excited about it. I can’t wait to hear how it goes. So, after the book store we headed back to Nevskiy to meet up with the girls again, but we passed another 505 and I suggested we go inside. This one was even better than the last. I found all the crazy bootleg MP3 CDs that I had heard about, and it really was crazy. For a mere 100 rubles (a little over $3) you can buy a CD that has virtually every album that a band ever released, and not just Russian bands, but bands that are popular in America and elsewhere. Alas, they didn’t have any like this of Kino. I asked the clerk and he said they don’t sell Kino MP3 CDs anymore for some reason. I did buy another regular Kino album, however. I am slowly becoming obsessed with this band. I really hope I can find an MP3 CD of theirs somewhere before I spend too much and buy them all separately. I also bought MP3 CDs of New Order and Leonard Cohen. So, for 335 rubles (approximately $11) total, I got one Kino album, almost every New Order album and almost every Leonard Cohen album. Not bad, huh? This could be dangerous. Tom went crazy too and bought some Thin Lizzy albums that you apparently can’t find in America. We left 505 and met up with everyone again at another touristy café and told them all the story of Tom and Yulia. After a while Vickie and I headed back home, and here I am. I think that this post was really poorly written and I wish I could revise it all but I really can’t, because it’s so long and I’ve already stayed up too late again. We’ll just have to put up with it. Peace Out.