Санкт-Петербург/Saint Petersburg, Day 2

I am going to try very very hard this time not to walk you through every moment of my day. Because really, the fact that the moments happened in Petersburg does not make them inherently interesting--but this day was something else.

The second day in Petersburg was a Friday. We woke up, had breakfast, and set out for our excursions—sans bus! It’s the little things. We took the Metro cheerfully and walked to the Hermitage. If you know nothing about Russia, you may not know that this is a Big Deal along the lines of going to the Met in New York or (probably a better comparison) the Louvre in Paris. What is now the main building of the Hermitage was once the Winter Palace of the tsars. We began our tour, led by a really adorable young woman named Ira (Ee-ruh, not Ay-ruh), in big grand rooms that gave you an idea of what the palace looked like when the tsars stayed there. Gradually the rooms turned into big grand rooms filled with art, and then upstairs they became small unassuming rooms filled with art. The best part, in my opinion, was the small unassuming rooms, which held newer art—Impressionist works and modern-era stuff. It was the obligatory St. Petersburg excursion, and I’m glad we went, but I don’t have much to say about it.

We grabbed (a slightly more successful) lunch at a café nearby and then headed across the river to the strangest experience of my life. An alley and a creepy barren courtyard let us to the back entrance to Kunstkamera, subtitled “Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography.” Don’t let them fool you. Although most of the museum is occupied with weird “anthropological” exhibits of mannequins dressed up like people from various ethnic groups, what the museum is really all about is the biggest globe in the world, located in the barely-reachable tower of the building, and the 300-year-old, deformed stillborn infants that were the original exhibit of the museum in Peter the Great’s time. I am not kidding. 300-year-old, deformed stillborn infants. In jars. Please refer to the Wikipedia article for more information. It says this sort of collection was “a very typical type of collection in the period.” But it is no longer typical! Why does it still exist? I bet it’s because the curators have no idea how they would go about disposing of the 300-year-old fetuses.

I can’t believe I can say I saw that. To be honest, I wish I couldn’t—it was pretty disturbing. But some of our group really dug it.

Afterwards our younger tour guide dragged us off towards the river to show us “the sphinxes.” We apparently had to see these sphinxes—which turned out to be two small statues by the Neva, given to Russia by France. France apparently has a thing for statue-gifting. A very drunk middle-aged woman was swimming in the river in her underwear and talking to a bunch of young people hanging out on the steps near the Sphinxes. When she left, led by a younger woman, she let out a really excellent, animal howl. She was trashed.

We parted with our guide and Vera and headed to a dock nearby, where a few of the guys in our group were sitting with their feet in the river. Can’t say the Neva’s the cleanest water I’ve ever seen, but we all joined them anyway. The water was ice cold but we were all cheerful, looking out across the river at the beautiful European buildings that line it. Then we found a Baltika stand and indulged in beer and ice cream—some of us more than others. The sky looked threatening, so we dispersed.

A handful of us went and met up with a girl named Beth who was in our first year of Russian class and who has been studying in St. Petersburg for a year. We got potatoes at Kroshka Kartoshka (a potato-hawking chain that seems to be more popular in Moscow), then took a walk and talked. We saw some Ren-fair kids camping near the Petropavlovsky krepost—Beth explained, but I don’t remember why they were there. I heard Beth on the phone and died of envy—her accent is excellent.

Our group split up again and Trever, Kevin, Darcy, and I met up with Costya and Vladimir from the train. They took us to a place that sold beer in plastic liter bottles—whether or you were, uh, dining in or taking it to go. I found that really charming, although admittedly wasteful. The guys led us back to the apartment they were renting for their time in Petersburg, and Sasha, Masha, and Nikita were there. It wasn’t long before a Russian-English game of charades began, which was a lot of fun. Kevin got ahold of Adam and he showed up with Ben, Graham, and Steve in tow.

After the game, we all set out for the river, where we were planning to rent a boat. It immediately was obvious, standing outside the apartment, that the building was a popular place for young people. There were loud groups of people our age standing around and being idiots. Some angry tenant dropped a paket (a form of packaging that some liquids come in at the grocery store) of something from one of the top floors and it landed right in front of me, getting my feet (in sandals) and the bottom of my jeans wet, even splashing up to my shoulder. I was pretty pissed off, but luckily the liquid wasn’t sticky or fragrant. I’m just going to pretend it was water or beer.

We got to the river and each of us paid 400 rubles (about $13) for the boat. We climbed across a few others to get to ours—they were full of people, but ours was empty. It was just for us. Once we were all on board we pulled away from the dock. The buildings along the Neva were illuminated, the bridges were covered with lights, we were all giddy, and the wind was in our hair. I tiptoed to the rear of the boat to savor a moment to myself, riding backwards and watching the buildings and bridges and people rush away from me. Not far into the trip the bridges began to rise, as they do every night to admit big boats, and everyone cheered. We turned down a canal and wound through the center of the city. It was so beautiful. It felt like an eternity. It was one of the best nights of my life.

We got back to the hotel around 3:30 in the morning. The birds were already beginning to sing.

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.

Oh, I'm in Europe

I can't decide which is stranger: the ubiquitous smoking indoors, or the ubiquitous drinking outdoors.

Last night, our program director, Vera, led us to a club owned by a friend of her daughter's. It's called Masterskaya (Мастерская, or The Studio) and is located in the center of town. The city at night is so beautiful, and the area we walked through to get to the club looked so very European. Inside the club: dim lighting, pale walls, a cloud of smoke hovering above the tables, just crowded enough to be cozy. It was only 300 rubles, about 10 dollars, to get in. Not long after we arrived, the band began playing. A cellist, violinist, pianist, and accordion player gave us two hours of tango music that simultaneously broke and soothed my heart. All four were outstanding musicians. I've never seen an accordion played that way, and the cellist was superb--such a stereotypical artist, all floppy hair, passion, and effortlessness. I sipped my drink and smiled at my friends and felt beautiful in my nicest dress. I needed it. It couldn't have been more perfect.

I'm paying for my lazy weekend now, but somehow the homework just doesn't seem like such a big deal.

Night life

Sort of.

Last night, handful of my friends and I were planning on going to Kruzhka, a bar, and then over to Propaganda, a club in Kitai-Gorod. I'd been to Kruzhka on Tuesday and liked it--60-ruble ($2) house beer (which I wouldn't drink more than one of, anyway, so it's quite cheap for me) and it's such a dive. In a very charming, pleasant way. Not much different than the Skull in Athens--only beer, for instance--but about 5 times larger. Anya and Grisha said they'd never go there. Cheap, they said--which is, of course, why we go there. Anya thought it was the sort of place that would have rowdy drunk men who want to fight and hit on young women. But we weren't bothered at all while we were there, and mostly the patrons were young, many of them women. The tables were lit by long candles stuck in beer bottles, and the light actually made the place look pretty classy. Plus they have bathrooms with toilet paper that you don't have to pay for, a rarity here.

I started getting stomach pains on my way to Kruzhka that made it difficult to stand up. But I powered through and made it to the bar. On the ride/walk to Propaganda, it just got worse and worse, and we weren't far when I realized there was no way I'd be able to dance. So Rachel and I took the metro back to our station. I called Anya and stumbled home. When I got there, she was waiting with a box of medicine labeled "Живот" (stomach) and gave me something that tasted like Mylanta. "I hope it wasn't our food!" she worried over and over, suggesting maybe the mushrooms were the culprit. But I'd been eating that dish for the past few days. I didn't say so, but I think the problem was that for dinner, Grisha poured a bunch of leftover vegetables into a skillet and warmed them up with A LOT of cheese. It was so good that I ate the whole pan that he made, and I think that's what did me in--I have a suspicion I'm developing a mild lactose intolerance. But I really hope I'm wrong.

But the night ended up being AWESOME. We talked about movies and music, and sat around for hours sharing music with one another. Anya gave me a bunch of CDs to listen to (including 5'NIZZA, woo!), and when the conversation died down she started watching Friends in Russian on her computer! She said she wants to buy it in English. We are amusingly alike--they don't have a TV, but they watch House on the computer, and now I find out she likes Friends. Grisha and I have very similar taste in movies. We, improbably, share a love for the Jim Jarmusch film Dead Man. He's more into Tim Burton than I am, but he also likes the Coen brothers. I was shocked to find out that Anya hasn't seen any Coen brothers movies, though she certainly knows who they are. I'm going to try to convince her to watch O Brother, Where Art Thou with me today in Russian. She found it on the Russian Facebook, В Контакте (I think). They can, apparently, stream almost any movie very easily. Their licensing laws for movies and music are much different than ours--they can get almost anything free or at least cheaply.

I feel better this morning and I'm excited for today, even if I just end up watching movies with Anya at home.