Dear everyone,
Sorry I've been so long in writing. I guess I have less new impressions and have gotten used to life here so much that I haven't really thought to write anything down. That's not to say that nothing interesting's been going on. Let's see....
I was accepted into some grad schools and actually got to go to America to visit them. This was quite a shock, having been in Russia for so long, especially as my first real stop was California (practically a foreign country in itself and quite a contrast from Tomsk). I had a great visit and ended up deciding to go to Stanford for Slavic Studies, although I liked UChicago and Northwestern as well. All in all, the trip was wonderful. I got to see my family and plenty of friends (in San Francisco, Columbus/Gambier, and Chicago), and I also got the chance to try some classic pieces of American cuisine (including Mexican, Italian, Indian, etc, etc, but you catch my drift). I also brought a whole suitcase full of American contraband back for myself and friends, including 3 bottles of Habanero Tobasco.
So yeah, I'm liking the prospect of spending the next 5-6 years of my life in the Bay Area working on Russian literature, although it looks like a lot of work. I was a little disappointed that these programs seem to put so little emphasis on spending time in Russia and providing opportunities to maintain your Russaian. I think they are flexible though, so if this is a priority for me, I think they can help make all that happen. I'd like to spend some summers and at least another year living in Russia before I get my PhD and start pretending I'm qualified to teach people Russian. I'd really like to spend a year in St. Petersburg!
I was happy to get back to my lovely Tomsk, though. Spring had sprung just before I left. It's amazing how great 0 degrees Celcius feels after a winter with temperatures in the -30's and -40's. Basically the sun, along with an army of probably homeless people melted and chipped away the feet of ice and snow that had accumulated over the course of the winter, and people came out in masses. Some places were and are still pretty muddy, but the center, where I live, was cleaned up pretty nicely, so Russians, dressed to the nines, came out to stroll and strut in the the above 0 temperatures (women, of course, in high heels and mini-skirts). The main drag, Prospekt Lenina, felt like Nevskii Prospekt in the summertime.
What have I been doing in my free time? In late February/early March I fell in love with EL Doctorow and read three of his novels, Ragtime, The Book of Daniel, and Billy Bathgate, which are wonderful beyond description. I'm so proud of our Kenyon alumnus. I can't believe we don't make a bigger deal of him. I think we need a statue. My concience has since directed me back to Russian literature, and I've been working away at some Bulgakov novellas and plays, which are pretty enjoyable. At Stanford I got the reading list for the comps exam to be taken after the first two years of study: 14 pages of works typed in size 10 font. Thing's pretty comprehensive. It sounds like a lot of work, especially in Russian, but I like the idea of having read all of those books. Also, I've been working on a top secret project that some of you may end up seeing in the next month or two. Hope you like it!
What else, oh yes, I got a bike through the used stuff paper "Iz ruk v ruki" (from hands to hands). A lot of the bikes seemed way too small, but one was advertized as "for a tall height". Some short lady but an enormous men's bike that she never even managed to sit on. She sold it to me for a song (5,500 rubles), at least as far as bikes in Russian go. They are unimaginably expensive at bike stores. Anyway, much to the shock of the local population, I've been cruising around the city, exploring new neighborhoods, getting some exercise, and, in general, just looking really cool. What shocks Russians most is the idea of using a bike to commute to work or school. From what I gather, they don't really use bike locks. The few that have bikes (bmx bikes have become a huge fad for Russian teenagers in the past few years) just take them out and bring them back home. They think I'm crazy for locking my bike to things. They're sure that cops or the unstoppable Russian criminal mind will surely jack my bike in the next few weeks. We'll see. The only down side is that I have to carry it up to my third storey apartment every day and park it in the living room. You know what, I don't even care. This bike has brought me unimaginable happiness in the past few days. I'll bring you all a picture soon if I get a chance. What a beaut.
So that's about it I suppose. I'm getting by at the university, chatting up my students about my trip to America (convenient for me). Everyone wants to know how the poor Americans are surviving the crisis. I think TV here has them thinking that most Americans now live in the streets and beg for BigMacs. Okay, I don't want to go into the crisis and Russians, so I'm going to stop myself. Hopefully I'll get back to you sooner than later.
Nice seeing you all in America,
Jason
P.S. Check out Alex Murphy's blog about Japan. It's way cooler than mine.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Pictures/too lazy to blog about the rest of the trip/an exciting encounter with the local artists' community
So here are all of my pictures from Europe:
Ekaterinburg/Novosibirsk: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033852&id=14402037&l=8ee7c
St. Petersburg:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033962&id=14402037&l=597c3
Amsterdam:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033851&id=14402037&l=08487
Berlin I & II:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033964&id=14402037&l=48e2a
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033989&id=14402037&l=01856
Prague I & II:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2034045&id=14402037&l=53850
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2034046&id=14402037&l=9d77e
Vienna/Moscow:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2034069&id=14402037&l=b768d
So, after you're done admiring all of these pictures, you can read on. So I left off somewhere in Berlin, and I think I'm going to leave it there. You get get a lot of the story from the pictures and descriptions if you're interested, and if you're really interested, I recommend reading Abbichka or Matt's blogs or asking me yourself.
So I've been back in Tomsk for about three weeks now. I've been loving it. It's so nice to stay put for a bit. I missed all of my friends here and the city itself. I even missed the weather. St. Petersburg and Moscow were so damp and gross. Tomsk, despite the -40 degree weather, is dry and predictable, no rain, not so much wind, etc. It's nice to be back in my cute little apartment living my cute little Siberian life. Only, after Amsterdam, I really, really want a bicycle. We'll see.
So what I really want to tell you about is the most exciting thing that's happened to me since I've been back. This Sunday I was asked to lead a special Valentine's Day film discussion at the American Center, the film selection, You've Got Mail. Woohoo! But, on the way out, after paying a 1.5 ruble fine at the garderobe for my coat hook thingy being ripped, I stepped outside and set my books and notebooks on the ground to put my hat on. Up comes this Russian woman with huge bag of books. She says, "That's no way to treat books!" I answer, "No, you see, I set the books on my notebook." She accepts my explanation and starts chatting me up. She says, "Today's my Birthday!" and I answer "Congratulations!" (I was not being a jerk, this is what you're supposed to say in Russian). So she says, "Do you like the theater?" "Yes." "Do you like Chekhov?" "Yes." "Well then let's go!" ("poekhali!"-an emphasis on the fact that we'll be taking a bus). I, in a silly mood from watching a romantic comedy and discussing it with a bunch of Russian twenty-year-olds, agree, "Poekhali!" She gives me a little plastic bag for my books and thrusts all of hers into my arms. So she drags me into the Pushkin library. We hop on a bus and we're off!
We're late. The coat check's full. We dump our stuff in some other room. She seems to know everybody, and everybody seems to know her. The place is packed, mostly with the over-seventy crowd. She keeps pushing passed people and dragging me along, explaining to everyone that she met "this young man" on the street. Eventually she finds us a spot sitting on these big foam children's toys. After 10 minutes of enjoying traditional Moscow gypsy songs, an elderly man starting complaining that his wife couldn't see over my big head, so I sat down. I couldn't see anything, but the music was great. There were all kinds of theatrical poetry readings and dances and witty speeches. This lady, Natasha is her name, kept taking pictures of me and giggling to some friends. Some old women kept murmuring things like "complete shamelessness!" and "no conscience whatsoever", in reference to my friend. She could care less. She was having a ball on her birthday with a young American chaperon.
When the thing ended, I was planning to thank her and make an exit, but she had different plans. She kept insisting on photographing me with different people, introducing me to friends. Only gradually did I realize that the people she was introducing me to were no ordinary Russians. It turned out that they were all silver-haired and celebrated artists, writers, sculptors, poets, musicians, and actors! They were reciting their poetry to me, showing me their artwork, inviting me exhibitions and readings, discussion 19th century literature, musing about meetings with my favorites 20th-century poets. It was incredible! After a whole lot of schmoozing, they invited me to have tea for Natasha's (and another man's... Lev Nikolaevich (not Tolstoy)) birthdays. In Russia, tea can actually mean sandwiches, wine, candy, and vodka. In this case, it did. There was no tea. So I sat for a couple hours with what turned out to be some writers'/artists' society called "Chekhov's Fridays". They were so charming and interesting. Reading each others' poetry, chatting about old friends, giving each other various gifts (always books except for one present, for Natasha: Sex Shampoo).
It was quite a bit of fun. I met the sculptor of this really famous "baby in a cabbage" sculpture that's in front of the maternity ward. He kept trying to give toasts but was really offended when no one would listen. One lady swore that she never drinks vodka (as she did shot after shot), and by the end she was trying her hand at French, telling me "Tu belle". I suggested that she try "tu es beaux", but she gave up and spilled a 2-liter of Pepsi on me instead. Lev Nikolaevich, a writer with what looked like a Soviet writers guild pin, recited a New Years text-message poem he had received this year, and then begged me to sing "Oh Susannah" with him. We did. He decided to start attending my English club and, since then, has! On the way out, one artist lady was drunkenly complaining about this other "outsider guy" who was tagging a long but who doesn't have any talent or "do anything". I was worried she'd find me out as another nothing-doer. I could never figure out who Natasha was. Apparently she owns or runs the Tomsk Gostinnyi Dvor, which is a pretty big deal. As far as I could tell, she somehow assembled this whole group. She gave a big speech about having met each and every one of the people seated at the table at different points, just on the street. She loves meeting new people, talking to them, learning about them. She just plain loves life, she says, and I believe her. She's a pretty fun lady.
Anyway, so yesterday I get a call from my pal Lev Nikolaevich, saying he's coming to my English club and that he wants me to swing by a studio of his friend. I say, "sure!" but am a bit nervous. He came to my club and got in a fight with this lady who is learning English (as of the past 8 months), because her son is living in Canada. She claimed that all American music teachers and professors are actually Russian. Lev Nikolaevich countered that "Mr. Armstrong and the other American jazz musicians are wonderful!" A good point.
So we hopped on a tram and headed of to his friends apartment/studio. Lev Nikolaevich, a pensioner, didn't have to pay, but, generous as he is, he paid my five-ruble fare. We arrived, and much to my surprise, his friend is the world-famous Leontii Andreevich Usov! The first thing I sought out when I arrived to Tomsk is this incredible, hilarious sculpture of Chekhov (see my first or second blog post for the picture). It is his work! He's had exhibitions all over Russia, Europe, and the world. Putin and Gorbochev have his works at the homes. He even has a picture of Gorby visiting his studio! My good friend Lev Nikolaevich has a diploma stating that he served as the hand model for the statue, and another poet there served as the foot-model. We had bread and tea, and then Usov took me over to show me his work. His studio is filled with beautiful wooden (birch and cedar) sculptures of famous literary figures and characters. It was all so life-like, light-hearted and beautiful! Search on the internet for his work. It's just incredible. He has a book published of his sketches of famous Tomsk personalities: "Tomskians through the eyes of Usov". He did a sketch of me in this style and gave it to me as a gift. I was star-struck. We talked literature and art, politics and travel. It was such a rewarding experience. He's headed to Moscow for a bit, but I'm invited back (they thought I should have brought a camera to take pictures and I agree). Man, what a day!
Time to rush to class!
Love,
Jason
Ekaterinburg/Novosibirsk: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033852&id=14402037&l=8ee7c
St. Petersburg:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033962&id=14402037&l=597c3
Amsterdam:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033851&id=14402037&l=08487
Berlin I & II:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033964&id=14402037&l=48e2a
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033989&id=14402037&l=01856
Prague I & II:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2034045&id=14402037&l=53850
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2034046&id=14402037&l=9d77e
Vienna/Moscow:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2034069&id=14402037&l=b768d
So, after you're done admiring all of these pictures, you can read on. So I left off somewhere in Berlin, and I think I'm going to leave it there. You get get a lot of the story from the pictures and descriptions if you're interested, and if you're really interested, I recommend reading Abbichka or Matt's blogs or asking me yourself.
So I've been back in Tomsk for about three weeks now. I've been loving it. It's so nice to stay put for a bit. I missed all of my friends here and the city itself. I even missed the weather. St. Petersburg and Moscow were so damp and gross. Tomsk, despite the -40 degree weather, is dry and predictable, no rain, not so much wind, etc. It's nice to be back in my cute little apartment living my cute little Siberian life. Only, after Amsterdam, I really, really want a bicycle. We'll see.
So what I really want to tell you about is the most exciting thing that's happened to me since I've been back. This Sunday I was asked to lead a special Valentine's Day film discussion at the American Center, the film selection, You've Got Mail. Woohoo! But, on the way out, after paying a 1.5 ruble fine at the garderobe for my coat hook thingy being ripped, I stepped outside and set my books and notebooks on the ground to put my hat on. Up comes this Russian woman with huge bag of books. She says, "That's no way to treat books!" I answer, "No, you see, I set the books on my notebook." She accepts my explanation and starts chatting me up. She says, "Today's my Birthday!" and I answer "Congratulations!" (I was not being a jerk, this is what you're supposed to say in Russian). So she says, "Do you like the theater?" "Yes." "Do you like Chekhov?" "Yes." "Well then let's go!" ("poekhali!"-an emphasis on the fact that we'll be taking a bus). I, in a silly mood from watching a romantic comedy and discussing it with a bunch of Russian twenty-year-olds, agree, "Poekhali!" She gives me a little plastic bag for my books and thrusts all of hers into my arms. So she drags me into the Pushkin library. We hop on a bus and we're off!
We're late. The coat check's full. We dump our stuff in some other room. She seems to know everybody, and everybody seems to know her. The place is packed, mostly with the over-seventy crowd. She keeps pushing passed people and dragging me along, explaining to everyone that she met "this young man" on the street. Eventually she finds us a spot sitting on these big foam children's toys. After 10 minutes of enjoying traditional Moscow gypsy songs, an elderly man starting complaining that his wife couldn't see over my big head, so I sat down. I couldn't see anything, but the music was great. There were all kinds of theatrical poetry readings and dances and witty speeches. This lady, Natasha is her name, kept taking pictures of me and giggling to some friends. Some old women kept murmuring things like "complete shamelessness!" and "no conscience whatsoever", in reference to my friend. She could care less. She was having a ball on her birthday with a young American chaperon.
When the thing ended, I was planning to thank her and make an exit, but she had different plans. She kept insisting on photographing me with different people, introducing me to friends. Only gradually did I realize that the people she was introducing me to were no ordinary Russians. It turned out that they were all silver-haired and celebrated artists, writers, sculptors, poets, musicians, and actors! They were reciting their poetry to me, showing me their artwork, inviting me exhibitions and readings, discussion 19th century literature, musing about meetings with my favorites 20th-century poets. It was incredible! After a whole lot of schmoozing, they invited me to have tea for Natasha's (and another man's... Lev Nikolaevich (not Tolstoy)) birthdays. In Russia, tea can actually mean sandwiches, wine, candy, and vodka. In this case, it did. There was no tea. So I sat for a couple hours with what turned out to be some writers'/artists' society called "Chekhov's Fridays". They were so charming and interesting. Reading each others' poetry, chatting about old friends, giving each other various gifts (always books except for one present, for Natasha: Sex Shampoo).
It was quite a bit of fun. I met the sculptor of this really famous "baby in a cabbage" sculpture that's in front of the maternity ward. He kept trying to give toasts but was really offended when no one would listen. One lady swore that she never drinks vodka (as she did shot after shot), and by the end she was trying her hand at French, telling me "Tu belle". I suggested that she try "tu es beaux", but she gave up and spilled a 2-liter of Pepsi on me instead. Lev Nikolaevich, a writer with what looked like a Soviet writers guild pin, recited a New Years text-message poem he had received this year, and then begged me to sing "Oh Susannah" with him. We did. He decided to start attending my English club and, since then, has! On the way out, one artist lady was drunkenly complaining about this other "outsider guy" who was tagging a long but who doesn't have any talent or "do anything". I was worried she'd find me out as another nothing-doer. I could never figure out who Natasha was. Apparently she owns or runs the Tomsk Gostinnyi Dvor, which is a pretty big deal. As far as I could tell, she somehow assembled this whole group. She gave a big speech about having met each and every one of the people seated at the table at different points, just on the street. She loves meeting new people, talking to them, learning about them. She just plain loves life, she says, and I believe her. She's a pretty fun lady.
Anyway, so yesterday I get a call from my pal Lev Nikolaevich, saying he's coming to my English club and that he wants me to swing by a studio of his friend. I say, "sure!" but am a bit nervous. He came to my club and got in a fight with this lady who is learning English (as of the past 8 months), because her son is living in Canada. She claimed that all American music teachers and professors are actually Russian. Lev Nikolaevich countered that "Mr. Armstrong and the other American jazz musicians are wonderful!" A good point.
So we hopped on a tram and headed of to his friends apartment/studio. Lev Nikolaevich, a pensioner, didn't have to pay, but, generous as he is, he paid my five-ruble fare. We arrived, and much to my surprise, his friend is the world-famous Leontii Andreevich Usov! The first thing I sought out when I arrived to Tomsk is this incredible, hilarious sculpture of Chekhov (see my first or second blog post for the picture). It is his work! He's had exhibitions all over Russia, Europe, and the world. Putin and Gorbochev have his works at the homes. He even has a picture of Gorby visiting his studio! My good friend Lev Nikolaevich has a diploma stating that he served as the hand model for the statue, and another poet there served as the foot-model. We had bread and tea, and then Usov took me over to show me his work. His studio is filled with beautiful wooden (birch and cedar) sculptures of famous literary figures and characters. It was all so life-like, light-hearted and beautiful! Search on the internet for his work. It's just incredible. He has a book published of his sketches of famous Tomsk personalities: "Tomskians through the eyes of Usov". He did a sketch of me in this style and gave it to me as a gift. I was star-struck. We talked literature and art, politics and travel. It was such a rewarding experience. He's headed to Moscow for a bit, but I'm invited back (they thought I should have brought a camera to take pictures and I agree). Man, what a day!
Time to rush to class!
Love,
Jason
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
More travels...
So Piter...
As I was saying, Petersburg is the city of my dreams. When I walked out of the metro onto Gostinyi Dvor and saw Nevsky Prospekt and everything that had been so familiar it was like heaven. It's so strange that it had already been one and a half years since I was last there, that I was 21 then and am 23 now, that I have changed so much, especially in terms of my Russian and familiarity with Russia since then. It's interesting to try to measure the change in yourself against fixed things like cities. I found, however, that it's not always so simple. There are a lot of variables, things that were familiar that I only know understand, parts of the city that have radically changed while I was away. Revisiting streets, squares, monuments, museums, churches, and people really put a lot of things in perspective. It was a strange and overall, positive experience.
To start, the city really is pretty gross in the winter. Every Siberian will tell you that you're much better off facing -30 degree tempatures in Siberia than the disgusting dampness of Petersburg, and it might just be true. I take for granted how dry Tomsk is. It's too cold for slush, wet snow, and rain. Matt and I have a theory that it might even be too cold for a lot of germs in Siberia. Both of us had enjoyed pretty incredible streaks of good health in Siberia, but the further west we headed, the sicker everyone got. The dampness of Petersburg just compounded all of it and made a few of us pretty miserable.
Anyway, we had a pretty great time in our friend Lauren's incredible apartment right in the very center of the city. When I lived there in 2007 I was on the northern coast of Vasilevsky Island, which was closed off by the drawbridges at night. Living so close to everything and in such a beautiful, old neighborhood was really a treat, and you can't beat free lodging with friends. We cooked incredible meals, stopped into the Hermitage and the Russian museum, and somehow ended up sitting on stage for a production of the "Magic Flute" in Russian at the small hall of the Marinsky. We had some ticket problems and just barely made it to the right theater in time, but instead of being locked out, we were directed to seats literally feet away from the performers. I can't say that I'm a big opera fan, but being that close really helped me to get into the whole thing. It was a really wonderful experience. I only wish I had jumped out to sing a bit with the chorus. We really could have.
Best of all, I paid a visit to my old host mom and her daughter. I brought some wine and chocolate (not church wine like I did the first time I met them, thank God) and they already had a huge spread of tangerines, salads, meats, and all sorts of wild stuff ready and on the table. It was really wonderful to see them again! My host mom was exactly the same as she always was. She called my beard unattractive and swore that no girls would want to kiss me. When I told her I had been living in Russia she was shocked to find that I don't have a family yet. Whoops! We reminisced about all of my wacky misadventures from the summer before, and I tried to convince her that Tomsk was also an okay place to live. She told me all kinds of stories about long-lost relatives and bread-ration tickets. Great. Also, I met up with a friend Ksyusha who I had met the summer before. She told me about all sorts of interesting and outlandish things she's been involved with and working on. She's really brilliant. She has all kinds of funny ideas about revolution and anarchy. We went to an Indian place for tea and found a copy of Tarkovsky's poetry on their shelf. She had given me her father's copy the summer before, when I couldn't find one, and since then she has fallen in love with his poetry and his son's films (like me). It was funny that they had it there of all places, and, as I later found, they even had an excerpt from a poem written in the menu. The waitress came by, saw that I was leafing through the collection, and said that she is also a huge fan.
I was really sad to leave Petersburg so soon. There's so much more I'd like to see. I really hope I get to spend some time there as a grad student some day. There's something about the place that you don't find in Tomsk. Diversity, namely, in every aspect of life. There's so much culture and so much history that just emmanates from every building and every street. When I was cross the street I passed two Russian girls enthusiastically discussing Dostoevsky. So refreshing to hear!
Oh yeah, I went in the Kazansky Sobor (on Ksyusha's recommendation, which I didn't know you could do), and it was so beautiful! Anyone who'll be there should stop in. My favorite part was the flags from Napoleon's army and keys to various Parisian palaces that the Russians snagged after chasing Napoleon back to France. They're still triumphantly on display there, almost as if they're holding onto the keys in case they ever need them. Hope nobody ever thought to change the locks!
Let's see, we had an uneventful, empty couple of flights through Riga (where Abbie's peanut butter and Matt's multi-tool were promptlyconfiscated, despite having made their way safely through Russian security) to Amsterdam.
What a city! A shining, beautiful little slice of some far-fetched utopia! Even in the winter it was warm (with a few exceptions), and the locals just pedal around all day on their bikes, smiling serenely as if it was the most beautiful of summer days. There are so many bikes! I had never imagined such a bike-friendly city! I've never done urban biking, but the five of us rented bikes on the first day and hardly left the seats! Luckily, Lauren and Matt are pretty experienced bikers and good with directions. My memories of Amsterdam consist almost exclusively of us jetting around, from bridge to bridge, embankment to embankment, here and there and back again, in circles day and night, for four days, on our cruiser bikes. I'm so sad that I have to go back to my bikeless, icy, Russian existence. Maybe I can still find a used one?
We hit the museums hard, including the Rijksmuseum, the Sex Museum, the Van Gogh, and the Cat Museum (on the recommendation of a local friend of Abbie's who we just happened to see on the street). It was some really incredible art and we really took the time to take it all in, discuss it, appreciate it. We even noticed two flies hidden in paintings, as if they were flying by the artist while he was painting. Here's one. Zoom in and look to the left of the boat in the middle: http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/images/aria/sk/z/sk-a-447.z .
We did a lot of speculating about Dutch culture, about which, admittedly, we knew and still know very little. We decided they have something figured out that we don't. It's hard to describe, but everything there seems to run so smoothly. People really seem happy wherever you go. It's hard to describe, but anyway, it was nice to see, and I'd like to take a little piece of the Dutch mentality with me, whatever it is.
Okay, so now we're in Berlin, at another hostel. It's been really nice staying in these hostels, meeting all sorts of young people from all over the world. I wasn't counting on that being an added bonus. We saw a Jeff Koons exhibit that I didn't like and a Paul Klee one that I absolutely loved. We followed the old Berlin wall all the way around town and checked out the East Side Gallery, where there's a lot of famous graffiti. Let's see, there's a lot more, but I'll get to it later. It's late and this post is already pretty long. I'm having a blast, but missing everyone and everything in both America and Russia. In other news, I might give myself a moustache!
Love you,
Jason
As I was saying, Petersburg is the city of my dreams. When I walked out of the metro onto Gostinyi Dvor and saw Nevsky Prospekt and everything that had been so familiar it was like heaven. It's so strange that it had already been one and a half years since I was last there, that I was 21 then and am 23 now, that I have changed so much, especially in terms of my Russian and familiarity with Russia since then. It's interesting to try to measure the change in yourself against fixed things like cities. I found, however, that it's not always so simple. There are a lot of variables, things that were familiar that I only know understand, parts of the city that have radically changed while I was away. Revisiting streets, squares, monuments, museums, churches, and people really put a lot of things in perspective. It was a strange and overall, positive experience.
To start, the city really is pretty gross in the winter. Every Siberian will tell you that you're much better off facing -30 degree tempatures in Siberia than the disgusting dampness of Petersburg, and it might just be true. I take for granted how dry Tomsk is. It's too cold for slush, wet snow, and rain. Matt and I have a theory that it might even be too cold for a lot of germs in Siberia. Both of us had enjoyed pretty incredible streaks of good health in Siberia, but the further west we headed, the sicker everyone got. The dampness of Petersburg just compounded all of it and made a few of us pretty miserable.
Anyway, we had a pretty great time in our friend Lauren's incredible apartment right in the very center of the city. When I lived there in 2007 I was on the northern coast of Vasilevsky Island, which was closed off by the drawbridges at night. Living so close to everything and in such a beautiful, old neighborhood was really a treat, and you can't beat free lodging with friends. We cooked incredible meals, stopped into the Hermitage and the Russian museum, and somehow ended up sitting on stage for a production of the "Magic Flute" in Russian at the small hall of the Marinsky. We had some ticket problems and just barely made it to the right theater in time, but instead of being locked out, we were directed to seats literally feet away from the performers. I can't say that I'm a big opera fan, but being that close really helped me to get into the whole thing. It was a really wonderful experience. I only wish I had jumped out to sing a bit with the chorus. We really could have.
Best of all, I paid a visit to my old host mom and her daughter. I brought some wine and chocolate (not church wine like I did the first time I met them, thank God) and they already had a huge spread of tangerines, salads, meats, and all sorts of wild stuff ready and on the table. It was really wonderful to see them again! My host mom was exactly the same as she always was. She called my beard unattractive and swore that no girls would want to kiss me. When I told her I had been living in Russia she was shocked to find that I don't have a family yet. Whoops! We reminisced about all of my wacky misadventures from the summer before, and I tried to convince her that Tomsk was also an okay place to live. She told me all kinds of stories about long-lost relatives and bread-ration tickets. Great. Also, I met up with a friend Ksyusha who I had met the summer before. She told me about all sorts of interesting and outlandish things she's been involved with and working on. She's really brilliant. She has all kinds of funny ideas about revolution and anarchy. We went to an Indian place for tea and found a copy of Tarkovsky's poetry on their shelf. She had given me her father's copy the summer before, when I couldn't find one, and since then she has fallen in love with his poetry and his son's films (like me). It was funny that they had it there of all places, and, as I later found, they even had an excerpt from a poem written in the menu. The waitress came by, saw that I was leafing through the collection, and said that she is also a huge fan.
I was really sad to leave Petersburg so soon. There's so much more I'd like to see. I really hope I get to spend some time there as a grad student some day. There's something about the place that you don't find in Tomsk. Diversity, namely, in every aspect of life. There's so much culture and so much history that just emmanates from every building and every street. When I was cross the street I passed two Russian girls enthusiastically discussing Dostoevsky. So refreshing to hear!
Oh yeah, I went in the Kazansky Sobor (on Ksyusha's recommendation, which I didn't know you could do), and it was so beautiful! Anyone who'll be there should stop in. My favorite part was the flags from Napoleon's army and keys to various Parisian palaces that the Russians snagged after chasing Napoleon back to France. They're still triumphantly on display there, almost as if they're holding onto the keys in case they ever need them. Hope nobody ever thought to change the locks!
Let's see, we had an uneventful, empty couple of flights through Riga (where Abbie's peanut butter and Matt's multi-tool were promptlyconfiscated, despite having made their way safely through Russian security) to Amsterdam.
What a city! A shining, beautiful little slice of some far-fetched utopia! Even in the winter it was warm (with a few exceptions), and the locals just pedal around all day on their bikes, smiling serenely as if it was the most beautiful of summer days. There are so many bikes! I had never imagined such a bike-friendly city! I've never done urban biking, but the five of us rented bikes on the first day and hardly left the seats! Luckily, Lauren and Matt are pretty experienced bikers and good with directions. My memories of Amsterdam consist almost exclusively of us jetting around, from bridge to bridge, embankment to embankment, here and there and back again, in circles day and night, for four days, on our cruiser bikes. I'm so sad that I have to go back to my bikeless, icy, Russian existence. Maybe I can still find a used one?
We hit the museums hard, including the Rijksmuseum, the Sex Museum, the Van Gogh, and the Cat Museum (on the recommendation of a local friend of Abbie's who we just happened to see on the street). It was some really incredible art and we really took the time to take it all in, discuss it, appreciate it. We even noticed two flies hidden in paintings, as if they were flying by the artist while he was painting. Here's one. Zoom in and look to the left of the boat in the middle: http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/images/aria/sk/z/sk-a-447.z .
We did a lot of speculating about Dutch culture, about which, admittedly, we knew and still know very little. We decided they have something figured out that we don't. It's hard to describe, but everything there seems to run so smoothly. People really seem happy wherever you go. It's hard to describe, but anyway, it was nice to see, and I'd like to take a little piece of the Dutch mentality with me, whatever it is.
Okay, so now we're in Berlin, at another hostel. It's been really nice staying in these hostels, meeting all sorts of young people from all over the world. I wasn't counting on that being an added bonus. We saw a Jeff Koons exhibit that I didn't like and a Paul Klee one that I absolutely loved. We followed the old Berlin wall all the way around town and checked out the East Side Gallery, where there's a lot of famous graffiti. Let's see, there's a lot more, but I'll get to it later. It's late and this post is already pretty long. I'm having a blast, but missing everyone and everything in both America and Russia. In other news, I might give myself a moustache!
Love you,
Jason
Monday, January 19, 2009
Travels
Wow,
I've been on the road for about 18 days now. I took the train through Russia, stopping to stay with my buds in Novosibirsk and Ekaterinburg, the third and fourth largest Russian cities respectively. Seeing my friends has been wonderful, and getting to see so many different Russian cities has been quite an experience. I feel like I have a much better perspective on Russia as a whole, better, in fact (and in part(, than some Russians, who've never been outside of Petersburg or Moscow, and who scorn the smaller "regional" cities as primitive and backwater.
We saw quite a bit in those few days. Novosibirsk, so close to Tomsk geographically, is a whole different beast of a city. Enormous, uniformly grey, very young, very Soviet, but as Matt (Fulbrighter living there( would tell you, not without its charms. Ekaterinburg is famous for a number of reasons. We visited a church recently constructed on the spot where the Tsar's family was murdered. It was pretty moving. It's also the rock capital of the Urals and Siberia, if not all of Russia. From what Abbie tells me and from what I saw, the music scene there is pretty great, especially by Russian standards. We even went to a Beatles-themed bar. The river there translates from some local language to "stinky dog river". It did smell. In fact, all of the water there smelled pretty foul, worse, in fact, than a stinky dog. Anyway, Tomsk is dwarfed by these two little-known metropolises. They both have metro lines (Ekaterinburg even has two hypothetical lines sketched on the metro maps in the wagons... luckily Abbie was there to keep us from trying to transfer onto them.
So the three of us continued the train trip all the way in to Petersburg. I could tell you a lot of things about Russian trains, good and bad, but I'll just mention a few. People bring all kinds of food and booze on, pack mini-feasts even. Really. One of our bunkmates named Sergei brought an entire, enormous chicken for the ride, but about half-way through he started trying to sell it to us and to the attendant ladies. No sales. He also tried to steal my pocket knife and trade phone batteries with Matt. All in all we rode the trains for about 2.5 days, stopping only to buy chips and beer from ladies who wait by the stations. You can't use the toilets when the trains stopped, or half an hour before or after a stop, which makes for some difficult situations when there's nothing to do but eat and drink for days at a time. One form of currency that goes a long way on a Russian train is being able to play the one Russian card game that anyone knows, "Durak", which means something between "idiot" and "asshole". Anyway, as Matt explained when he taught us in Kiev, you basically have to know the game to successfully ride trains in Russia. We played until we could play no more. Once we played with this surly Russian man, who was so good that by the end of the game he knew exactly who had what cards and collected cards specially to ruin other people's hands. Amazing. By the time we got to Petersburg we were ready to be done with the whole train thing. I got fined for sneaking my luggage onto the metro, but I didn't care. I was in the most beautiful city in the world!
I'll continue this post later, because my friends are waiting for me to start a game of Durak, but stay tuned for stories from Piter, Amsterdam, and Berlin!
Love you all,
Jason
I've been on the road for about 18 days now. I took the train through Russia, stopping to stay with my buds in Novosibirsk and Ekaterinburg, the third and fourth largest Russian cities respectively. Seeing my friends has been wonderful, and getting to see so many different Russian cities has been quite an experience. I feel like I have a much better perspective on Russia as a whole, better, in fact (and in part(, than some Russians, who've never been outside of Petersburg or Moscow, and who scorn the smaller "regional" cities as primitive and backwater.
We saw quite a bit in those few days. Novosibirsk, so close to Tomsk geographically, is a whole different beast of a city. Enormous, uniformly grey, very young, very Soviet, but as Matt (Fulbrighter living there( would tell you, not without its charms. Ekaterinburg is famous for a number of reasons. We visited a church recently constructed on the spot where the Tsar's family was murdered. It was pretty moving. It's also the rock capital of the Urals and Siberia, if not all of Russia. From what Abbie tells me and from what I saw, the music scene there is pretty great, especially by Russian standards. We even went to a Beatles-themed bar. The river there translates from some local language to "stinky dog river". It did smell. In fact, all of the water there smelled pretty foul, worse, in fact, than a stinky dog. Anyway, Tomsk is dwarfed by these two little-known metropolises. They both have metro lines (Ekaterinburg even has two hypothetical lines sketched on the metro maps in the wagons... luckily Abbie was there to keep us from trying to transfer onto them.
So the three of us continued the train trip all the way in to Petersburg. I could tell you a lot of things about Russian trains, good and bad, but I'll just mention a few. People bring all kinds of food and booze on, pack mini-feasts even. Really. One of our bunkmates named Sergei brought an entire, enormous chicken for the ride, but about half-way through he started trying to sell it to us and to the attendant ladies. No sales. He also tried to steal my pocket knife and trade phone batteries with Matt. All in all we rode the trains for about 2.5 days, stopping only to buy chips and beer from ladies who wait by the stations. You can't use the toilets when the trains stopped, or half an hour before or after a stop, which makes for some difficult situations when there's nothing to do but eat and drink for days at a time. One form of currency that goes a long way on a Russian train is being able to play the one Russian card game that anyone knows, "Durak", which means something between "idiot" and "asshole". Anyway, as Matt explained when he taught us in Kiev, you basically have to know the game to successfully ride trains in Russia. We played until we could play no more. Once we played with this surly Russian man, who was so good that by the end of the game he knew exactly who had what cards and collected cards specially to ruin other people's hands. Amazing. By the time we got to Petersburg we were ready to be done with the whole train thing. I got fined for sneaking my luggage onto the metro, but I didn't care. I was in the most beautiful city in the world!
I'll continue this post later, because my friends are waiting for me to start a game of Durak, but stay tuned for stories from Piter, Amsterdam, and Berlin!
Love you all,
Jason
Friday, December 26, 2008
Christmas party!
Dear readers,
So my work for the semester is over, apart from a pesky oral exam in Russian literature that I'll have to take on Monday. I've almost recovered my hostage visa (still waiting on a copy of one last train ticket), so I might actually be allowed out of the country. We foreigners are in full holiday-celebration mode. We did Christmas Eve at a friend's apartment and Christmas at mine. We exchanged gifts, baked cakes, cookies, and what not, and I made an extra-large batch of eggnog, which was very delicious. I've substituted out rum/whiskey (way overpriced in Russia) for Russian "Balzam", a sort of spiced, berried liquor that goes well with the spiced nog. We have a lovely tree decked in all sorts of decorations that somehow accumulated over the past few days, along with some really finicky chinese Christmas lights. We put out some socks, cookies, and milk for Santa Clause, and on the first day he just ate the goods without leaving anything. He made up for it last night and slipped us some fancy "Cote d'Or" chocolate.
Up next: a few days of extreme, Russian New Years celebrations.
Anyway, enjoy the pictures.
Merry Christmas to all my loved one back home!
Jason
Monday, December 22, 2008
Winter in Tomsk
At long last I've managed to get together an album of pictures of Winter in Tomsk. Pretty beautiful, I think. Here's the link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032426&l=7d105&id=14402037
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032426&l=7d105&id=14402037
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Siberian news/blues
Dear faithful readers,
I guess there's not a whole lot to report here. The weather's warmed up, and we've had some wet snow lately that's really starting to pile up. A lot of the little old wooden houses are really starting to look like a cottage out of a fairy tale, with a foot and a half of snow piled on top. Some New Years decorations are starting to come out, my students are starting to panic about "zachet" and the exam week (I won't even pretend to fully understand how zachet is different from exams... it's just before New Years instead of after). I'm doing a unit on Christmas, which is proving to be a lot of fun. My parents sent some Christmas songs for me to show my students, I'm teaching them to sing Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer (including the light bulb/George Washington bits).
I've been pretty exhausted lately. I don't know how it works out this way, but I never manage to get enough sleep and I just keeps adding up. I've been busy with applications, e-mailing professors, and directing my dad on where to send which form for which university. If I get into grad school I'll have buy him a nice present for doing half the work for me. Anyway, I turned in my first application, for Harvard, and now I'm really starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
I've talked with my friend Sveta about the possibility of getting a class in American-literature during the next semester. It would be so wonderful to get to do some work that is in any way related to my studies, instead of talking about AIDS, globalization, religious diversity, the financial crisis, global warming, and other natural disasters all the time. My grandfather is currently scouring all sorts of books for the best selections from American literature, which is planning to scan and then transfer to text, so that I can use them in the classroom. Needless to say, I'm pretty excited and grateful.
In other news, today we're organizing a forum on "Englishes", featuring myself, Michael from England, and Cate from Canada. It's shaping up to be very interesting. We're going to cover the history of English, the divergence of the different dialects, grammatical, phonological, and lexical differences, as well as local dialects in each of the countries. We've been preparing a bit, and I think it is just as interesting and surprising for us as it will be for them. If it's a success, we may give the forum at a few of the other universities as well! I'm practicing my NY accent, as well as a handful of different southern ones. I've even brought a recording of an old folk song performed in Cajun French.
We watched Life is Beautiful in our American film club this Sunday, which I had never seen and really enjoyed. The students had a lot to say about the movie, so it worked out well. One guy listed four things he liked, but then added that he didn't like that there was an American flag on the tank that came to liberate the camp. Since it's common knowledge that the USSR won World War II, there should have been a Soviet flag, evidently. This is, of course Hollywood's bias, he explained (Hollywood, Italy). Oh well.
So yeah, I have about a week and a half of work, and then it's a well-deserved vacation for me. I just have to figure out how exactly to sneak into the forest at night to chop myself a "Elochka", since there are no tree farms here.
Best wishes,
Jason
I guess there's not a whole lot to report here. The weather's warmed up, and we've had some wet snow lately that's really starting to pile up. A lot of the little old wooden houses are really starting to look like a cottage out of a fairy tale, with a foot and a half of snow piled on top. Some New Years decorations are starting to come out, my students are starting to panic about "zachet" and the exam week (I won't even pretend to fully understand how zachet is different from exams... it's just before New Years instead of after). I'm doing a unit on Christmas, which is proving to be a lot of fun. My parents sent some Christmas songs for me to show my students, I'm teaching them to sing Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer (including the light bulb/George Washington bits).
I've been pretty exhausted lately. I don't know how it works out this way, but I never manage to get enough sleep and I just keeps adding up. I've been busy with applications, e-mailing professors, and directing my dad on where to send which form for which university. If I get into grad school I'll have buy him a nice present for doing half the work for me. Anyway, I turned in my first application, for Harvard, and now I'm really starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
I've talked with my friend Sveta about the possibility of getting a class in American-literature during the next semester. It would be so wonderful to get to do some work that is in any way related to my studies, instead of talking about AIDS, globalization, religious diversity, the financial crisis, global warming, and other natural disasters all the time. My grandfather is currently scouring all sorts of books for the best selections from American literature, which is planning to scan and then transfer to text, so that I can use them in the classroom. Needless to say, I'm pretty excited and grateful.
In other news, today we're organizing a forum on "Englishes", featuring myself, Michael from England, and Cate from Canada. It's shaping up to be very interesting. We're going to cover the history of English, the divergence of the different dialects, grammatical, phonological, and lexical differences, as well as local dialects in each of the countries. We've been preparing a bit, and I think it is just as interesting and surprising for us as it will be for them. If it's a success, we may give the forum at a few of the other universities as well! I'm practicing my NY accent, as well as a handful of different southern ones. I've even brought a recording of an old folk song performed in Cajun French.
We watched Life is Beautiful in our American film club this Sunday, which I had never seen and really enjoyed. The students had a lot to say about the movie, so it worked out well. One guy listed four things he liked, but then added that he didn't like that there was an American flag on the tank that came to liberate the camp. Since it's common knowledge that the USSR won World War II, there should have been a Soviet flag, evidently. This is, of course Hollywood's bias, he explained (Hollywood, Italy). Oh well.
So yeah, I have about a week and a half of work, and then it's a well-deserved vacation for me. I just have to figure out how exactly to sneak into the forest at night to chop myself a "Elochka", since there are no tree farms here.
Best wishes,
Jason
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
New personal record low
-29.7 degrees Celsius.
I'll keep you posted as winter rears its ugly head.
At -30 your eyelashes turn white and you start to feel a really awful pressure on your forehead and eyes. Also your legs go numb after only a few minutes.
I don't know how all these Russian writers survived in those Siberian camps without heat. JEEZ
I'll keep you posted as winter rears its ugly head.
At -30 your eyelashes turn white and you start to feel a really awful pressure on your forehead and eyes. Also your legs go numb after only a few minutes.
I don't know how all these Russian writers survived in those Siberian camps without heat. JEEZ
Friday, November 28, 2008
Little bits and bytes
So,
What's new here? I had Thanksgiving with the Mormons yesterday, which was great. As it got closer to the holiday, I was missing my family more and more, so I was pretty happy to have some firends to eat and talk with. They are quite an interesting bunch. The younger ones are in "companion" pairs, and they are bound to each other for 2 years, or until they get a transfer slip in the mail. They literally can only be apart in the bathroom! But yeah, a week from Saturday they'll get their new orders in the mail, so some of them might be getting shipped off to a new city in Siberia. We even played a game of risk, although I can never take board games quite so seriously anymore. It was also good in that they live in the North of the city, so I finally had a good opportunity to see a new neighborhood.
I've been teaching Thanksgiving for the past week, and for the students it's kind of boring, but I tell them the whole story just the same. I even make them go around the table and talk about what they're thankful for. Most of them are thankful for the families, their friends, their universities, and so on, but some real wise acres today were being thankful for the table, the floor, the chairs, and other pieces of furniture. Some of them are even thankful for me! I've been giving the best Thanksgiving speeches of my life, which leads me to believe that I have a lot to be thankful for. More than ever, I know what it means to have a loving family and loving friends, and that's pretty great.
All my foreign friends are having birthdays and celebrating them in all sorts of adorable ways. Everyone's getting pretty close by now, so that's nice too. I might even have a chance to rap in the club with a guy from Ghana sometime soon! I'll have to practice.
Grad school applications are still weighing me down, but I've made quite a bit of progress. In fact, I only have 3 personalized sections of my personal statement to go! Then: ENDLESS EDITING. I'm feeling more relaxed about the whole thing, but will be very happy to be done, to just wait and enjoy life.
I'm also just about ready for our break from work. Teaching is fun, and there are a lot of rewarding moments, but the daily grind is getting to me. I am planning a sort of forum on different dialects/accents of English, to which I'm inviting the Canadian Kate and the British guy Michael. I think it should be interesting for the students as well as the native speakers. Anyway, I'm getting pretty excited about the prospect of travelling with some other ETA's around Russia and Europe. I'll probably be leaving Tomsk for Novosibirsk on the 2nd of January or so. There I'll meet Matt and we'll head to Ekaterinburg for Abbie. Next stop: PETERSBURG! Then we're planning about 2 weeks in Europe: Germany, maybe Amsterdam or Paris, Prague. It'll be just what I need, I think. After Europe we'll be back in Moscow for a Fulbright orientation thing. If anyone will be in any of these cities or countries, or nearby, let me know so we can meet up!
Lots of love,
Jason
What's new here? I had Thanksgiving with the Mormons yesterday, which was great. As it got closer to the holiday, I was missing my family more and more, so I was pretty happy to have some firends to eat and talk with. They are quite an interesting bunch. The younger ones are in "companion" pairs, and they are bound to each other for 2 years, or until they get a transfer slip in the mail. They literally can only be apart in the bathroom! But yeah, a week from Saturday they'll get their new orders in the mail, so some of them might be getting shipped off to a new city in Siberia. We even played a game of risk, although I can never take board games quite so seriously anymore. It was also good in that they live in the North of the city, so I finally had a good opportunity to see a new neighborhood.
I've been teaching Thanksgiving for the past week, and for the students it's kind of boring, but I tell them the whole story just the same. I even make them go around the table and talk about what they're thankful for. Most of them are thankful for the families, their friends, their universities, and so on, but some real wise acres today were being thankful for the table, the floor, the chairs, and other pieces of furniture. Some of them are even thankful for me! I've been giving the best Thanksgiving speeches of my life, which leads me to believe that I have a lot to be thankful for. More than ever, I know what it means to have a loving family and loving friends, and that's pretty great.
All my foreign friends are having birthdays and celebrating them in all sorts of adorable ways. Everyone's getting pretty close by now, so that's nice too. I might even have a chance to rap in the club with a guy from Ghana sometime soon! I'll have to practice.
Grad school applications are still weighing me down, but I've made quite a bit of progress. In fact, I only have 3 personalized sections of my personal statement to go! Then: ENDLESS EDITING. I'm feeling more relaxed about the whole thing, but will be very happy to be done, to just wait and enjoy life.
I'm also just about ready for our break from work. Teaching is fun, and there are a lot of rewarding moments, but the daily grind is getting to me. I am planning a sort of forum on different dialects/accents of English, to which I'm inviting the Canadian Kate and the British guy Michael. I think it should be interesting for the students as well as the native speakers. Anyway, I'm getting pretty excited about the prospect of travelling with some other ETA's around Russia and Europe. I'll probably be leaving Tomsk for Novosibirsk on the 2nd of January or so. There I'll meet Matt and we'll head to Ekaterinburg for Abbie. Next stop: PETERSBURG! Then we're planning about 2 weeks in Europe: Germany, maybe Amsterdam or Paris, Prague. It'll be just what I need, I think. After Europe we'll be back in Moscow for a Fulbright orientation thing. If anyone will be in any of these cities or countries, or nearby, let me know so we can meet up!
Lots of love,
Jason
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Mormons, Mormons, Mormons!
So, I have a funny story that I'll tell you briefly. A girl from one of the English-speaking clubs asked to interview me for a psychology project, and I said okay, a little nervous that she would think that I stand out as a good candidate for psychiatric research. We met and she took me to some strange building, to the top floor, and unlocked some room that had some flyers about learning English up everywhere. There were a bunch of really unusually religious paintings everywhere, of Jesus and what looked like his clone. At first I thought maybe it could have been Boris and Gleb, this two Russians brothers/princes/saints who were murdered for the thrown, but then figured it wasn't them. I asked why there were two Jesuses, and she explained that one was God the father. I thought it pretty unusual that God was depicted at all, let alone as a perfect double of Jesus, but assumed it was some wacky Russian thing. I did think it was strange that there was one picture of Jesus with what looked like a Native American.
Anyway, so she conducted this endless interivew in Russian. She said it would last one hour but it ended up taking three and a half, with a tea break in the middle (she served some strange, red, flowery tea, explaining that she couldn't drink black or green tea anymore). Anyway, so she asked me a bunch of questions about my life, my childhood, about my feelings, about whether I was every beaten, about how I interact with various people, about what I look for in girls, etc. It was interesting to have a chance to get into some self-reflection, especially in Russian, but I was pretty tired by the end.
But.... towards the end of the interivew, some guy with a beard showed up, and was evidently pretty upset at this girl for using the space. He spoke in English, very naturally, I thought, and with a great American accent. I was impressed at the language skills taught at this place. So they argued, and he eventually agreed to let us continue the interview (I was sitting behind some divider so I only caught a short glimpse of the man), but only on the condition that these two other young guys who had just arrived could wait in the room to make sure there was no trouble. So the older guy left and I heard them refer to him as "Elder Dixon", which I thought was strange. They also kept saying "It wasn't the right way for her to go about doing this, kicking Elder Dixon out, and this guy's not even a member!" Their English was great and the membership business was awfully suspicious.
So we finished the interview, and I finally decided to ask about these strange, English-speaking people. She explained that they're part of a religious organization that rents the space and gives free English lessons. I asked which one, and it turned out that they are Mormons, and Americans to boot!
So that's why there were all these strange pictures of Jesus, God, and some Native Americans. So that's why this poor Russian girl had to reject her heritage and quit drinking normal tea! It all made so much sense!
Here I thought I was the only American in Tomsk, and there are actually six of them, Mormons! I decided to go have chat with them. They thought I was a Russian and asked me where I learned English so well. I told them "in Ohio". They didn't get it at first, but then I explained that I too was an American. They were nice enough, although when we introduced ourselves they wouldn't tell me their first names, only "Elder so-and-so". I thought this a bit odd, but whatever, I'll call them elders if that's what they like. But yeah, they're organizing a Thanksgiving dinner complete with a real turkey and I'm invited. It turns out that one of them lives nearby. I thought of inviting them over for tea or a drink, but they don't drink tea or alcohol, and as they explained, they're not allowed to be out past 9:30. Oh well, at least they won't get mugged.
They were pretty okay guys and even gave me a copy of the Book of Mormon in Russian (there are some great pictures), but I couldn't help but wonder what could drive a Russian to the Mormon faith. After all, I would think that Russians wouldn't be too big on an addition to the bible in which all sorts of miraculous things happen in America. Still, so I have heard, the Mormons attract a lot of Russians with their English lessons and appeal to them in some way that's bringing them members. Evidentally there's even a church here in Tomsk. Also, I hear there's an enormous babtist church that's formed a pretty big congregation. This is all pretty strange to me, but Russia is a surprising place.
But anyway, don't count on this bezbozhnik falling in with these Elders. I would like to hang out with them sometime, though, if they're okay with that. Something tells me they might not be. When I gave them my number they just gave me their businesss card they use to lure Russians to their church. Oh well, I can only hope!
In other news, I NEED TO APPLY TO GRAD SCHOOL!
Love,
Jason
Anyway, so she conducted this endless interivew in Russian. She said it would last one hour but it ended up taking three and a half, with a tea break in the middle (she served some strange, red, flowery tea, explaining that she couldn't drink black or green tea anymore). Anyway, so she asked me a bunch of questions about my life, my childhood, about my feelings, about whether I was every beaten, about how I interact with various people, about what I look for in girls, etc. It was interesting to have a chance to get into some self-reflection, especially in Russian, but I was pretty tired by the end.
But.... towards the end of the interivew, some guy with a beard showed up, and was evidently pretty upset at this girl for using the space. He spoke in English, very naturally, I thought, and with a great American accent. I was impressed at the language skills taught at this place. So they argued, and he eventually agreed to let us continue the interview (I was sitting behind some divider so I only caught a short glimpse of the man), but only on the condition that these two other young guys who had just arrived could wait in the room to make sure there was no trouble. So the older guy left and I heard them refer to him as "Elder Dixon", which I thought was strange. They also kept saying "It wasn't the right way for her to go about doing this, kicking Elder Dixon out, and this guy's not even a member!" Their English was great and the membership business was awfully suspicious.
So we finished the interview, and I finally decided to ask about these strange, English-speaking people. She explained that they're part of a religious organization that rents the space and gives free English lessons. I asked which one, and it turned out that they are Mormons, and Americans to boot!
So that's why there were all these strange pictures of Jesus, God, and some Native Americans. So that's why this poor Russian girl had to reject her heritage and quit drinking normal tea! It all made so much sense!
Here I thought I was the only American in Tomsk, and there are actually six of them, Mormons! I decided to go have chat with them. They thought I was a Russian and asked me where I learned English so well. I told them "in Ohio". They didn't get it at first, but then I explained that I too was an American. They were nice enough, although when we introduced ourselves they wouldn't tell me their first names, only "Elder so-and-so". I thought this a bit odd, but whatever, I'll call them elders if that's what they like. But yeah, they're organizing a Thanksgiving dinner complete with a real turkey and I'm invited. It turns out that one of them lives nearby. I thought of inviting them over for tea or a drink, but they don't drink tea or alcohol, and as they explained, they're not allowed to be out past 9:30. Oh well, at least they won't get mugged.
They were pretty okay guys and even gave me a copy of the Book of Mormon in Russian (there are some great pictures), but I couldn't help but wonder what could drive a Russian to the Mormon faith. After all, I would think that Russians wouldn't be too big on an addition to the bible in which all sorts of miraculous things happen in America. Still, so I have heard, the Mormons attract a lot of Russians with their English lessons and appeal to them in some way that's bringing them members. Evidentally there's even a church here in Tomsk. Also, I hear there's an enormous babtist church that's formed a pretty big congregation. This is all pretty strange to me, but Russia is a surprising place.
But anyway, don't count on this bezbozhnik falling in with these Elders. I would like to hang out with them sometime, though, if they're okay with that. Something tells me they might not be. When I gave them my number they just gave me their businesss card they use to lure Russians to their church. Oh well, I can only hope!
In other news, I NEED TO APPLY TO GRAD SCHOOL!
Love,
Jason
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