Санкт-Петербург/Saint Petersburg, Day 3

Unfortunately, I have put off writing about the last day of our trip to Petersburg for so long that I now have less to say about it. But I'm long-winded enough that this entry will probably be lengthy anyway.

On the third and last day of the trip, we got up and headed by bus out of Petersburg to go to Peterhof, a palace and a bunch of fountains originally built for Peter the Great. Yeah, by bus--our guide chatted with us the whole time. I was a little cranky about that as a result of sleep deprivation. When we arrived at the palace, we were swept into the building in front of a huge mass of people who were presumably waiting to get in. No idea why we had VIP status. The place was crazy and lavish and covered in gold like most things I've seen here, palaces and churches both. I think a lot of the more indulgent stuff appeared when Catherine the Great was hanging out there--the woman really enjoyed being royal. She was just GOOD at it.

I didn't enjoy the tour or the palace all that much, but the grounds of Peterhof were wonderful. First we headed to the shore--which according to Wikipedia was on the Gulf of Finland, part of the Baltic Sea--and I found a bunch of sea glass that I'm hoping to use to make pendants. Free souvenirs! I'm very excited about that. I hung out on the rocks along the shore with some friends, and then Steve and I set out to wander the grounds and see the fountains. It's such a beautiful place, it's too difficult to describe. Of course, it's very contrived beautiful--all of the trees were placed carefully, the lawns are meticulously cared for. But I liked it very much. It was packed with people. We had to leave too soon; lunch and then back to the bus.

We all fell asleep on the bus and we were woken suddenly, herded out, and made to walk up like 180 stairs. It was a bit of a shock! But when we got to the top, we were on a platform on a church in Petersburg that gave a great view of the city. It was breathtaking and full of tourists. We went back down to see the inside of the church and headed out again.

The chronology is a bit fuzzy now, but I think after that we went on the boat tour we were supposed to take the first day. We took the exact same route that some of us had been on the night before, only this time there was a very loud narration being provided via PA in English. We felt sort of conspicuous but learned a lot about the buildings we passed. After the tour, we were set free to say grab dinner and say goodbye to Petersburg. Jordan, Andrea, Rachel, Darcy, and I found an Abkhazian restaurant with excellent food and awesome dancing waiters. I finally had spice! After two months of being in Russia! It was glorious--adjika sauce.

We met up again and drove to the train station. The ride back was not as interesting as the ride there.

Here's what I intended to be the closing of my last entry about Petersburg; I wrote it right after I got back:

"Now I have a silly tan where I wear my watch—the sun here is kinder (I didn’t even burn)—and a big empty space where any motivation to do schoolwork once was. When we were in Petersburg I nearly forgot about Moscow and my life here altogether, but being back feels comfortable and right. Of course, this week, when I’m working on the four or five big assignments I have due, it may not be so pleasant. A big part of me would’ve liked to spend the rest of my time in Russia in Petersburg. Without that bus, of course."

I still have the watch tan.

Танец/Dance - and more

Well, I've been negligent. Time to catch up--prepare yourselves for a long entry.

This past week was what I guess passed as midterms for us, though no one made an official declaration, and I had three compositions due. It was a rough week for everyone. Homesickness set in in some cases; actual sickness in others. People pulled all-nighters and got arrested at football matches (okay, just person--not me--and one football match). I think we all sort of forgot that we're also in classes--but it is much, much more interesting to spend time out on the streets of Moscow than at home doing genitive case exercises. My attention span has shortened significantly since I've been here, and you may know that it was already rather short. Oops.

Last weekend, Darcy, Andrea, Katie, and I decided to go out on Friday night and stay out until the Metro re-opened at 5:30/6:00 (some stations open earlier than others). At midnight we headed to good ol' Kruzhka and stayed there until it closed at two, talking to our waiter, Fedya. He is from Uzbekistan, and Fedya is his "Russian name." I'm ashamed to admit that I have had trouble remembering his real name. Conversation was sort of difficult because we don't speak great Russian and his is hardly better, but it was fun and he seemed very interested in cultural differences between his country and Russia and the US.

From Kruzhka we headed to Masterskaya, the club at which we saw that quartet perform tango music back in early April. The DJ was excellent and the music was a lot of fun--everything from Red Hot Chili Peppers to "Umbrella" to "99 Luftballons" to some weird sped-up hyper version of a Nirvana song that has no business being upbeat. As much as we liked the music, there weren't enough people there, and guys who weren't there with gals were bordering on incredibly creepy (we would later learn that this is just true of a lot of single dudes in clubs). We decided to move on.

Anya had taken Darcy and I to a place called Club Duma (Duma is the Russian parliamentary body) for dinner after we went to the Pushkin museum last week and we liked it a lot. We headed over to the Okhotny Ryad area to find it again. It's quite hidden, but fortunately Darcy has an excellent sense of direction--unfortunately, however, we were about 200 feet away when an obviously-exasperated girl walked past and said, "If you're going to Duma, it's closed." Bummer. At this point our feet were dying--all of us were in high high heels as is almost-dress-code for young women here. We decided to head over to Propaganda, which is in Kitai-Gorod. It was quite a hike but we pulled out the map and set out.

We went through Red Square on our way to Propaganda--and it was completely empty save for some workers doing something at GUM. We took our shoes off because we couldn't stand them any longer. I wish I could do that moment justice in words, but I won't even try.

Propaganda is a popular club for foreigners. The scene: European techno, a bunch of Euro hipsters with their Euro hipster mullets, hazy because you can smoke anywhere here, flashing lights which make it so you can't get a decent look at anyone, really. Katie got picked up pretty quickly by a guy and they danced the rest of the time. The rest of us got creeped on but avoided the advances--one guy who came up to me was so drugged up (must've been) that he just sort of stood there and stared at me rather than actually asking to dance, which was really pretty hilarious. Other times guys would just sort of hover and wait for me to acknowledge them. Sorry, guys, I prefer to be asked (or do the asking, of course).

I wasn't tired until my butt hit the seat on the Metro around 6:15 in the morning. That same day, I went to Anya's parents' apartment for Anya's birthday dinner--she's 23 now. Their apartment is really incredibly lovely, and the food, Georgian cuisine, was excellent. Anya and Grisha sang some songs they had prepared for the occasion (Grisha played guitar) including, as a joke of course, "My Heart Will Go On." Then Anya's father played guitar and sang for quite a while. He performs Russian bard music very well. Her parents had constructed a tower of vanilla, strawberry, and creme brulee ice cream and covered it in strawberries from their dacha garden. They poured liqueur all over it and lit it on fire. It didn't work at first so her mom pulled out a bottle of absinthe and tried to get it to light a bit better. They babbled in Russian and chastised Anya and Grisha when they spoke English to me, although everyone, even Anya's elderly grandparents, revealed throughout the night that they spoke English. I enjoyed myself very much.

Now for last night.

Katie and I headed to Kruzhka first again because the drinks at the clubs run about 200-300 rubles, or 8-10 bucks. Now, we're classy ladies, naturally, so we weren't looking to get drunk, but I'll take this opportunity to tell you about an interesting feature of Russian clubs. Before Katie and I went out, we were checking out the reviews of clubs on Afisha (popular arts and entertainment magazine for young people) to help us decide where to go. I think I've mentioned before that some clubs have Face Kontrol, which means that the doorman can turn you away if he feels like it. Looks and clothes are a big factor--to a varying degree depending on the club--but it seems that the biggest is behavior. This applies especially to the women. Many of the reviews I read commented on the behavior of the women at the clubs. If a reviewer had seen a sloppy drunk young woman on the dance floor, they felt this reflected poorly on the club. With this in mind, Katie and I had a couple of drinks, talked to Fedya, and headed to FAQ Cafe, which Anya told me is her favorite club.

The doorman at FAQ smiled and greeted us cheerfully. Good sign. The people inside looked interesting, but most everyone was sitting at tables or at the bar, and the room that had been cleared for dancing was pretty empty. There were maybe six other people in there when we got there. Unfortunately, that number hardly grew in the hour we were there. The music was fun but we decided to move on.

There were three other clubs around the same Metro station as FAQ according to Afisha, so we decided to see about one down the street. I didn't like the building much--sort of 70s architecture--but I didn't get the chance to evaluate the club because we were turned away, the doorman saying something about the dress code. I am just going to assume he really had some problem with our clothes, because I'd like to think we're pretty cute (and it seems that Russian men generally agree). No sweat, it was just some karaoke bar that charged you six bucks to sing a song.

We then decided to head to what sounded like the most fashionable club on our list, Fabrique. It was a Metro station or two away, but of course the Metro was closed at this point and we had to walk. It's still difficult for us to estimate how long it'll take to get anywhere in the city. I think that Fabrique was fairly far, but it's hard to say because we got lost for three hours! So maybe it was practically next door and we just walked around it for a while. Still not sure how far or how out of the way we traveled. Anyway, I enjoyed walking, with the exception of getting barked at by a stray dog. By the time we reached the club it was 5, we were tired and our legs hurt, and Katie was worried about getting turned away by the doormen because of her clothes--the girls outside of the club were pretty dressed up. I was fine with skipping it. We'll try it some other time, and now at least we know where it is.

We got on the bridge next to Fabrique to walk across the river and saw Red Square maybe ten minutes in the distance. Oh! We knew vaguely where we were. At the end of the bridge, we were approached by a man who wanted a cigarette, exasperated that the girls behind us weren't smokers. We explained that we didn't smoke. The man picked up on the accent and asked us, in English, if we were from England. No, America, we said. He was excited and began chattering at us in incredibly broken English. His friend caught up with him and asked him why he wasn't speaking Russian. "They are from America!" he exclaimed excitedly. He tried to tell us about some fire show somewhere, then said we should find somewhere to watch the sunrise, and probably a lot of other things I didn't quite catch. Katie and I just sort of stood by as these two 30-something men babbled at us and one another in mixed English and Russian. (It's very funny--almost everyone we encounter speaks at least a little English.)

They eventually decided we should go to a club nearby and swept us, sort of baffled and amused, down the street. The club, Club Kult, looked cool but the doorman turned them away (he said the club was closed, but it obviously wasn't), I expect because they were really drunk, not particularly stylish men in their 30s. They decided we would go to a supermarket so they could get something to drink and then we'd watch the sun come up. They bought us bottles of water and a bar of chocolate and got themselves a bottle of whiskey, slightly dismayed that we wouldn't drink with them. It was like 6 in the morning at this point--they explained that it was May Day (I guess it's sort of Labor Day, though apparently there's another Labor Day), so drinking was entirely reasonable.

We retraced our steps back to a bridge, but once it became apparent that there wouldn't be much of a sunrise because of the cloud cover, the guys continued on down the street, talking our ears off. The second guy, who sort of looked like Leo DeCaprio but, as Katie said, maybe more like Leo DeCaprio's uncle, told me about his trip to America in 1991. He was apparently there when the Soviet Union fell--it was an interesting story. He told me that he thought that Katie and I were brave for staying out all night in a foreign country. His English was better than his friend's. I think his name started with an S--it wasn't Sergei, I'm pretty sure, but that's what I'll call him here. Poor Katie--the first guy, Alexei, just talked her ear off about how much he loves U2 for about fifteen minutes.

The strange men we'd somehow gotten dragged along with couldn't agree on what to do about breakfast. Katie and I stood by as they argued about whether we should find somewhere to sit down (because Katie and I were tired and wanted desperately to get off of our feet) or go to a place where we'd have to stand, but where we could try what Sergei kept calling a "real domestic Russian" food--something that started with a "ch" sound, but I don't remember the name. We settled for the latter, probably because that's what Sergei wanted and he seemed hard-headed. The food was really good--greasy dough with filling, that's all. Mine had potato filling, everyone else had lamb. The guys paid, so it was hard to complain too much. They wanted to talk about music, so we did a bit. We left when they were having some sort of heated interaction with some crazy old man in the restaurant regarding the sharing of alcohol. I think. Sergei kissed my hand--ew?--and Alexei walked us to the metro station (like 200 feet away) because we couldn't seem to shake him off. But he finally left us and we headed home around 7:15.

Hahaha. What a ridiculous night. I slept until 1 this afternoon.

Now my host family has gone away for the weekend and I'm here in the apartment on my own. I guess today I'm going to eat a bunch of sirki* and pears and eggs.

Tomorrow our group is taking a trip to Yasnaya Polyana. I will probably post about it, because I love Tolstoy.

*Sirki are, hands down, my favorite part of food in Russia (which isn't saying much, although their pears are the bomb). Here's a picture that gives you an idea of what they look like--that's a different brand than my family eats. They are made from sweet tvorog covered in chocolate, and are refrigerated.

Not kidding

Tonight, I ate an éclair filled not with creme, but with butter.

It was actually fine-tasting, but...it was butter!

More

I apologize for the infrequent posting. Due to personal life stuff (unrelated to my stay here) and political news from America, I have been tired and a little down, especially when I have free time. So my blog is taking a hit. I've been feeling much better, though, so I'll do my best to post regularly again now.

Today, we went on an excursion to the old Tretyakov art gallery. I'll be honest--it was pretty boring. I just can't dig pre-20th century art. I understand why others do and I can see why it's good, but it's never been my thing. We took a guided tour, which made it worse, and it was led by an employee of the museum who spoke fine English but interjected a high-pitched "Yes?" into her speech about every 30 seconds. I started a count, but I stopped at 67, about halfway through the tour, because I was tired of paying attention. After the tour a few of us realized that there were rooms of early 20th c. art that she had totally skipped, and I'm glad we found them. Modern-era art is some of my favorite. I loved this piece by Filipp Malyavin (click for the whole thing):

There is a new Tretyakov elsewhere which houses avant-garde 20th and 21st c. art, but we won't be taking an excursion there as a group, so I'll have to make time to go one of these weekends.

After the museum, some of us went to a restaurant called Ёлки-Палки--which is pronounced Yolki-Palki. Yeah. It was aptly described by someone at the table as a Russian Cracker Barrel, although it's certainly more expensive. I ended up shelling out about $20, which is entirely normal for Moscow. It wasn't the food that got me, but the juice. I had two TINY TINY glasses of grapefruit juice which ended up costing me about $6. Unfortunately, just drinking water wouldn't have been much cheaper, as the water was 120 rubles ($4). You can't get tap water here (because you shouldn't drink the tap water), only bottled. This is probably why people drink so much beer here--it's cheaper than or comparable to anything else.

From Yolki-Palki we walked to a park that had been recommended to us by the woman who organizes our excursions. She said there was a very interesting sculpture there, and she was right. It's called "Children are the victims of adult vices" (click title for Wikipedia article) sculpted by Mikhail Shemyakin. I think its greatest value for foreigners is the insight it provides into the values of Russian society--though it was very controversial when it came out, according to Wikipedia, and so of course it's not representative of all Russians. Still, artists don't make art outside of society's influence.

Covering some impressive distance, all things considered, Darcy and I led the group over to a great little place Anya showed us on Sunday. It's called, I kid you not, Beard Papa's. It is a Japanese cream puff place. They sell only cream puffs (and not even much of a variety), and I only know it's Japanese because the women behind the counter say thank-you in Japanese and because Anya told us it is. Wikipedia, however, confirms this. But the thing is--the cream puffs are heavenly. They're not the little melon-ball-sized ones you get from the grocery store. I hate those, and the stuff inside is too light and weird. I won't try to describe how awesome the cream puffs from Beard Papa's are, but if you ever come to Moscow please do swing by metro station Kropotkinskaya (not the most attractive name, I know) and hit up this tiny, inexplicable little bakery. Their website indicates that there are about a billion in California and one on the Upper West Side in New York and some in other US locations, but it just wouldn't be the same as eating a really good cream puff at a Japanese bakery with an English name in Russia.

Before being introduced to Beard Papa's on Sunday, Darcy and I met Anya at Arbatskaya to head over to Old Arbat, a pedestrian-only street, where they were holding a Flash Mob event. People had been told to wear bright colors and blow bubbles starting at 2:00 in the afternoon. We didn't get there until 4, but man, people were still going strong. There weren't a ton of bubbles then, but the excitement included:

1. Young kids, maybe junior high- and high school-age, playing a traditional Russian game in a huge group
2. Girls and some guys carrying signs that said, "Free hugs!" and sometimes, "Kiss me!"
3. A guy doing yoga-like poses on his hands, feet, and head on top of broken glass. We left when he picked up a meter-long nail-like thing that he was apparently going to swallow.
4. A drum circle
5. A quartet of young woman, probably from the music academy, playing classical music
6. Hilarious costumes and skimpy clothing in celebration of the spring weather
7. People actually smiling, even laughing and screaming and singing and dancing

That last one is a big deal in a place like Moscow. Smiling for no reason in public, especially at complete strangers, is practically verboten. This morning when I was thinking of depressing things while waiting for our group to assemble in the metro station, our excursion guide looked at me and said, "You already look like real Russians!"

The whole Arbat experience felt like recharging.

Edited to add: Still loving my host family. Grisha just came in with a glass of freshly-made grapefruit juice.

Finally, time to relax

We had a lot of visitors to the little apartment yesterday. In addition to two deliveries (food and Anya's contacts): Grisha's friends, one shorter and round and loud, and one tall and thin and quiet; the cleaning people, who are from the Philippines; a couple of the kids from my program who go to OSU; and Anya's fashion-designer sister.

So Grisha's friends. They spoke English, too! Geez. Or at least the shorter one, Alex, did. The taller--I can't remember his name, it was very unusual--greeted me in English, but hardly spoke at all even when everyone was speaking Russian. After Alex had thrown himself across the couch (which is really a sort of large bean bag thing) and snuggled up to Anya, getting a dirty look from Grisha, he said, "So. All I know about you is that you're from Ogaio (Огайо, the Russian word for Ohio)." And Grisha said (you'll have to imagine his thick accent), "That is not all you know! You know she has long legs and is redhead." Which was very funny. Alex was dramatic and funny and seemed really good-natured. Grisha's other friend--I feel so bad that I can't remember his name--seems sweet as well. I hope I see them again. Anya and Grisha are considering having a party for Anya's birthday, in which case I'll meet more of their friends.

I left not long after the cleaning people came, so I didn't talk with them much--they spoke English with Anya. I went on a walk with Graham and Hanna, who are from OSU. They came back, but Hanna had to leave before dinner. Anya made Graham and I some traditional dish whose name I can't remember. It was not unlike tiny pirogies, and Anya set sour cream on the table and laughed at me. I'm trying to like it, I really am. It's eaten with EVERYTHING here, even more often than I was expecting. Graham seemed to enjoy it just fine. I had a little and then ate the rest plain.

Anya's older sister, Masha (Маша), came over after 8:00. She mostly played with Lyova at first, but then Anya hard-boiled some eggs for us to paint and Grisha came home from the gym and visiting his mother. Grisha, Masha, and I sat down in the kitchen and painted our eggs while Anya put Lyova to bed. Traditionally, Russians paint either end of the egg a solid color and write ХВ, the abbreviation for the Russian phrase meaning "Christ is Risen." I did so, at least on one end. On the other I painted an exclamation mark. My egg was striped white and mustard-yellow. The biggest stripe in the middle was white, and I painted purple swirly things--I wish I had a picture, I'm very proud of it. Masha said, "I like your style." Grisha painted a Star of David at one end of his; he and Anya are both ethnically Jewish, although Anya is also Orthodox by heritage. They are not religious. The rest of the egg he decorated with other symbols and patterns, such as a very well-executed zebra print. Masha painted an absolutely perfect heart on one end, and on the other a third eye symbol with an Aum on it. The rest was striped with various shades of yellow and red.

Masha was fabulous in the exact way I would expect a fashion designer to be. She called me "darling" and said things like, "I don't know, I hate everyone right now" in an absurdly charming, low, heavily accented voice. She is elegantly dramatic, and I can tell I would have a hard time knowing her personally but she was much fun to hang out with for one night. It's apparent that she is a strong, resilient but volatile business woman. There's a lot to like about her. Also, she's a babe.

Anya, Grisha and I watched O Brother, Where Art Thou and ate ice cream. The ice cream was SO DELICIOUS! They put some topping on it, but even alone it was nice, had a stronger cream taste than American ice cream. They gave me the largest serving of ice cream I've ever eaten in one sitting, I think. The movie was sort of dubbed. The original sound was still there, but there was a track laid over it of a man translating into Russian--it was odd, and it seemed like it would be difficult to understand who was saying what. Anya said that it was, but that they could mostly figure it out. I can't imagine enjoying a movie like that, but when it was over, they said they loved it.

This morning, Anya and I will eat the eggs we painted as well as a traditional Orthodox Easter cake called kulich (кулич, I would imagine, though I haven't seen it spelled out). I can't tell you how much I adore Anya. We're very good friends after just over a week.

No energy left

Due to many factors, not the least of which is the fact that I spent approximately seven hours of the day on my feet, I am exhausted in every possible way. But there are a few things about today that I'd like to note.

Today, we went on an excursion to the Kremlin (Кремль). It was mostly entirely boring, but at least we didn't have class AND I learned another ridiculous Russian historical fact, one which really gives the Beard Tax a run for its money. In the times of Tsars and stuff, like way back when, they treated bells as though they were human. The bells had tongues--which is understandable. But they were also whipped, executed, and exiled. How the Russians went about doing this, I have no idea. Nevertheless, they did.

After the Kremlin and a stop at Okhotny Ryad for food, a group of us went searching for a souvenir market we were told was good and cheap. We never found it, but we found some pretty interesting spots that I realize now I will have to describe later, when I'm more awake, in order to do them justice. The important thing is, we found a place that Jordan dubbed Hell Town and we're going back this weekend.

The best part of my tiring and not completely awesome day was coming home to Anya, Lyova, and Grisha and getting a surprise--Grisha had made things for burritos, which I'd told them the day before yesterday I really enjoy making at home.

Life is pretty good here.

Although now I have to go and do the homework I haven't done for tomorrow. It's almost 11:00 here. Ugh.