The friendliness they hide from you
Walking through the streets of Moscow, you get the feeling that Russians are just not very friendly. They push you on the metro and seem to lack any sense of personal space bubble. No one smiles and basic, polite American words such as "Excuse me" and "Please" rarely leave their lips. Cashiers yell at you if you don't have correct change, and roll their eyes if you ask them to repeat something, please. We were warned about all of this during orientation, and I've certainly heard it before then as well. We were told that Russians on the street are direct, distant and yes, in general, unfriendly. We were also told, however, that this does not mean that all Russians are just mean people...obviously. Once you get them in the comfort of their own home, or even just once you establish some sort of relationship with them, they open up and, believe it or not, even smile.
Yesterday, I went to the department office of a teacher that I've been trying to find. I've been looking for this teacher for about a week now, and just cannot seem to locate her. But yesterday I finally found out where her office is, which was, trust me, a big step. I knocked on the door and opened it, saying either "Извините", Excuse me, or "Здравсвуйте", Hello, or some other benign, introduction-type phrase. The woman sitting behind the desk answered me with a blunt "Что?", What?, and that was it. No "Hello", no "May I help you?", just "What?" I have learned by now, however, to not be offended or even taken aback by this kind of response, so I continued to ask her if Professor Urison was in. "No. Look at the schedule," she responded, pointing to the wall. I looked, and found a list of teachers and their class schedules posted to the wall. I already knew this teacher's schedule, however, and had come to the office at this time because I knew that she had class in about half an hour, and I thought maybe she would therefore be in her office. So I asked the lady behind the desk if she knew whether Professor Urison would be here, in the office at any time today. "I don't know. What do you want?" she replied. It was then that I explained myself, showed her the letter from Middlebury explaining that we are allowed to take basically any classes we want, and so on and so forth. The woman suddenly seemed to open up. She got out her copy of the schedule that I had just looked at on the wall and already knew anyway; she made a few calls "just to make sure" for me that I would be able to take the class, and she kindly explained that sometimes classrooms change around and that may have been the reason I didn't find anyone in the room when I tried to attend this class last week. She was extremely nice and extremely helpful, doing everything she could to try and help me.
Unfortunately, she didn't help very much when it came to actually
finding this professor. She basically told me to go to the class again tomorrow and hope that the room hasn't been changed again. However, she was doing everything in her power to help me, and she even did it all with an almost smile on her face. I guess it just goes to show that despite Russians' brisk, unfriendliness on the street, there is some truth in saying that they do warm up to you...eventually.
Одно яблоко
Every few mornings a week, I stop at a fruit stand between my apartment and the metro stop. I tell the man that I'd like an apple.
"One kilogram?" he always responds.
"No, just one apple," I say.
He then gives me a look of surprise and sometimes says, "Oh, I thought you wanted one kilogram." But he weighs my apple anyway, I pay him 10 rubles, and go on my way.
Sometimes I get a pear and really confuse him.
Home on Red Square
Yesterday was the first day I felt as though I’d rather be here, in Moscow, than back home in Middlebury. Now, to all my dear Middkids, don’t take this personally -- the truth is I’d rather be
anywhere as long as it’s with all of you. Yesterday, however, I felt happy to just simply be in Russia.
I woke up yesterday with nothing on the schedule. I slept in, listened to some music, had a long lunch with Irina Ivanovna and Igor Konstantinovich (her “
physicist* friend”) and finally decided that I just wanted to go out for a walk. I wasn’t sure where to, but all I knew is that if I stayed in the apartment, I was likely to start actually doing my homework or something. And seeing how it was way more than 12 hours before that homework was due, I knew I didn’t want to be doing that (oh no, kids, Russia hasn’t changed me that much).
So, I got on the metro and picked a metro stop. I picked one that I hadn’t been to before, but would essentially know where I was when I got off. It was Александровский Сад, a straight shot from my apartment, and right in the middle of town. It actually ended up being even more in the middle of town than I had expected, for when I got off I found myself right in the shadow of the Kremlin.
I started walking. Past Red Square. Over to the Bolshoi. Back to Red Square. A little up Tverskaya Ulitsa. I was just walking. I stopped at one point and had a cup of tea in a café. I really can’t tell you that I did anything at all. But let’s face it -- when do I do anything at all on an average Sunday afternoon at Middlebury? I feel as though I could explore this city forever. I mean, I’ve already been to Red Square probably four times, but I was still drawn there yesterday. Maybe it's more about enjoying being in a big city, but I was really happy to have a clear schedule yesterday, and still have something worthwhile to do. The truth is, Red Square is just breathtaking, and I think I'd rather do nothing there than anywhere else right now.
*It has recently come to my attention that the word, in English, is "physicist" and not "physic". And by come to my attention, I mean my mom asked me what on earth I was talking about and I then realized that my brain is apparently way better at trans
literating than trans
lating. In Russian, physicist = физик/fizik ....and the cloud of confusion clears. Or, at least, I hope so.
Отличные дни
Things that have made me smile in the past 48 hours:
- Linguistics! My class called “Theory of Spoken Communication” and a super nice teacher who hands out lecture notes (lecture notes = me understanding!).
- Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate. Yesterday, we took a tour of Красный Октябрь, a chocolate factory in the middle of Moscow. The guide took us around the factory and literally picked up chocolates off the conveyer belt for us to try. And then they gave us even more chocolate at the end. It was fabulous.
- Finding my favorite spot in all of Moscow and just standing there for 20 minutes, looking. It’s a bridge in front of the Cathedral Храм Христа Спасителя. You’re standing over the Moscow River, with one of the most gorgeous cathedrals in the world on one side, and a perfect view of the Kremlin on another. It’s amazing. Pictures, by the way, will be updated this weekend. :)
- Finding my second favorite spot in all of Moscow, Tsaritsyno Park and walking around all afternoon with Kathy and Drew (other students in the Midd program).
- Did I mention we ate
a lot of chocolate yesterday?
- Beautiful, gorgeous, amazing weather! Not a cloud in the sky, and in the 70s. The weather hasn’t been that wonderful since we got here.
- Watching LOST in Russian, even though I don’t understand a lot of it (Becca Steinberg and I have already planned an English LOST party for next summer for anyone who’s interested).
- Dancing. This doesn’t count as the past 48 hours, but oh well. It feels so good to be dancing again with real classes and real teachers. I really missed it.
- Two truly
wonderful days. I mean, I've had good days and fun days and days that make me smile, but the past two have just been wonderful. It's finally made me feel as though I really can do this all semester, and maybe I'll even have a little bit of fun with it too...
Frustrat-оват-ing
Three cultural observations that I just don’t get…
- I had no hot water to take a shower yesterday morning. When I told Irina Ivanovna, she said, “Oh, yes, my friend told me that she saw a sign downstairs that said that. I didn’t even remember seeing it myself, though.” Sure enough, when I left for the day, there was a piece of paper posted to the door, with a handwritten note that said there would be no hot water in the building from 10 to 3. No reason was given.
- I was supposed to go try out another linguistics class on Monday. I was slightly worried because I assumed I had missed the first class last Monday, before I had had a chance to look at the schedule and figure out what classes I wanted. The class was up on the eighth floor, so I went up and found the room. When I found it, I also found not a single person in the room. I went back downstairs to look at the schedule again and realized I missed the line that said the class didn’t start until September 18. No, I have no idea why.
- Everyday, I pass through two fairly large, very packed metro stations on my way to the university. And everyday, a different escalator is “broken”. I’m pretty sure everyday they go through each metro station and say, ok, close this escalator today, but tomorrow, let’s close the other one, just for fun. Everyday it’s different, and everyday the one that was closed yesterday is suddenly open. They also close certain exit doors every once in a while. For some reason, they’re just locked, and you have to move to the next one and try that one, to see if it’s open. Yet again, I have no idea why.
And despite all this, there is not a single word in the Russian language that means “frustration”. What do you have to say about that, Benjamin Lee Whorf?
In other news, I found pomegranates at a fruit kiosk yesterday! And last night, as I sat in my room with a bowl full of pomegranate and Billy streaming from the computer, I simply thought, the only way this picture gets any better is when all my favorite Middkids are sitting right by my side.
A Week without a Schedule
Technically, the entire country of Russia begins school on September 1. That was last Friday, one week ago. On September 1, we went to our university, RGGU (Russian State Humanitarian University), and took placement exams for our Middlebury classes. We were then informed that they didn't yet have a schedule for us because someone had to move something to some new building, and the teachers weren't set up yet, and basically they just didn't know our classes yet. Welcome to Russia. So, we had a week without a plan and a whole lot of free time on our hands.
It actually all made for good exploring time. I definitely feel better acquainted with the Metro now, and with the millions of Russians that I'm squished up against every morning and evening. We made friends with the guy who sold us cell phones who has friends in West Virginia. We told him we didn't think we had ever met anyone from West Virginia. He was not impressed. In general, though, we've spent a lot of time trying to get to know the area around our university. Karen, our RC, suggested the "sprial theory", in which you pick a spot - your house, the university - and sprial out from it, exploring streets, restaurants, stores that you otherwise would have never seen. It's a great idea for getting to know an area and not feeling too overwhelmed. So on one day with no schedule to speak of, we sprial theory-ed our way to the other side of the university, opposite the metro station, and beyond. Before too long, we found ourselves completely lost on little side streets. Completely lost, that is, until we came to a large, busy square with a statue in the middle and the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall on one side. Ok, so we were still completely lost, but at least we had heard of the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall. It took us another 15 minutes, but we finally found a Coffee House (their version of Starbuck's...they're everywhere) to sit down in and pull out a map. Turns out we had ended up on the well-known Garden Ring that marks the "downtown" area of Moscow. Also turns out that the building in which this particular Coffee House now stands was once the home of Bulgakov, author of
Master and Margarita. Not having read
Master and Margarita, this didn't mean much to me, but my two companions were quite impressed. We also then walked to the nearby Patriarch's Pond, where the opening scene of
Master and Margarita takes place. So, I suppose you could say that the sprial theory wasn't a complete failure. And I definitely feel as though I have a better idea of where exactly the university is in reference to the rest of Moscow, which, I suppose, is one goal of the spiral theory.
So, let's talk about linguistics for a minute... Because everyone loves linguistics (ahh, the funny - and amazing - thing is that about half the people reading this just agreed with that statement). A week without a schedule meant that we got plenty of time to try out mainstream classes. Our mainstream classes are the ones we take with real students, real teachers, real Russians! I'm probably going to take one mainstream, or two if I find more that I especially love. But since real Russians like to be just as unpredictable as our building-changing Middlebury Russians, they suggest we try out as many mainstreams as possible in case in a week or two a class gets cancelled or changed to conflict with one of your Midd classes, or something like that. Now, going to as many mainstreams as possible has been absolutely no problem for me because, you see, unlike my lovely little liberal arts college back home, this university has a real linguistics institute! They offer classes such as "General Linguistics", "Theory of Spoken Communication", "Thoery of Translation", and *gasp* "Syntax" and "Phonetics"! Needless to say, looking at this schedule made me very happy. I tried out two classes this week - one that I really liked, one not so much - and have 1 or 2 more on the schedule for next week. In general, I'm just really happy to have options like this, and love how giddy I get by just looking at the
names of some of these courses.
Ok, enough of this really long, update-y post. Michael's right - I feel like I'm writing a travel novel. You know, one of those books that everyone says would be interesting to read, but no one actually does. Sorry, I'll try to be more random and exciting next time. Until then, miss you all!
Удорение
Yesterday, the lady at the bread stand corrected my Russian. I asked for a roll with пе
ченью, and she responded "
Печенью,
печенью." ...Apparently, my stress was off.
Also, apparently, печень means liver. Eventhough you may think it kind of sounds like the word печенье, which means cookie, and therefore order it expecting something at least a little sweet. They sound different
and they taste different. Imagine that.
p.s. I have an address now! If you want to know it, let me know :)
Ирина Ивановна
Irina Ivanovna is about as Russian as they come. She is a fairly short woman most likely in her mid- to late-fifties who doesn't believe in the word "silence". She lives alone in a relatively big apartment just outside the center of Moscow that contains as many trinkets as you could possibly imagine. When I first met her, we exchanged greetings and she immediately followed with, "Now, tell me if I'm getting your name right: Re-be-kah". I looked at her blankly becuase I had no idea what she had just said. Karen, our RC here in Moscow, helped out. "Oh, no," I finally responded. "Call me Becky." She stared at me as if she was no longer sure she was standing in front of the correct student. Karen again helped out by explaining that "Rebecca" was the long form and "Becky" the short form. The look on Irina Ivanovna's face didn't change, but she did try a few times "Bye-ka" "De-ki" "Be-ki". She has since asked me at least 10 times if she is saying it correctly.
Irina Ivanovna has not stopped talking since I arrived. Everything that I do gets compared to something that
Masha did. Masha was an exchange student she hosted a few years ago who was from the states, but born in Kiev and therefore fluent in Russian. Needless to say, Masha's experience was a little different from mine - and trust me, because I'm hearing all about her experience. I also hear all about Irina Ivanovna's daughter, who she went to Thailand with last May. Her daughter is married and doesn't live at home. Although it is normal for Russians to live at home through their thirties, even once married, Irina Ivanovna's daughter wanted "an apartment all her own and two Mercedes and all that" (I was told this accompanied with a look of scorn or something of the sort). Irina Ivanovna also has a "Physic friend" who she constantly talks about. Now, just to be clear, this is not her husband. Her husband died a few years ago, but her Physic is just a good friend. (Thank you, Irina Ivanovna, because I honestly thought you would refer to your husband as "your physic".)
She also, of course, wants to hear all about my family and I unfortunatley disappointed her by not having pictures of my mom and dad, but promised I would once I got my computer up and running. Irina Ivanovna and I had quite a conversation about the existence of the
state of New York and the difference between it and the
city of New York, and how she possibly could have never heard of the state. She calls me her "little sunshine" and I'm such a "smart one" whenever I do anything from putting my clothes away in the closet to finding the Park Pobedi alone with a few friends. I hadn't been in the apartment but an hour before I was well-informed that the next day would be cool, but not too cool, but wear a jacket, and rain was possible so bring an umbrella (interestingly enough, I was once again so smart when it turned out to be sunny and beautiful and I had conveniently "forgotten" my umbrella). According to Irina Ivanovna, I'm already not eating enough, and apparently lost weight from a time in one of the pictures I showed her.
Half the time when Irina Ivanovna talks, I find myself smiling and nodding and hoping she's discussing something that deserves a smile and a nod. But I actually am surprised at how much I really can understand. I find my mind translating something she just said and then suddenly realizing that, of course, she has continued and listening again just in time to catch the next few words she has said, and then of course the same thing happening. Overall, though, she is wonderful and I'm truly enjoying living with her. Just yesterday she said she couldn't believe I had only arrived 3 days ago, for it seems like I've been with her forever.
