Kiitos Suomi! (Part 1)

Merja, Syd, Derek, Ahrne, and I

I'm back!  It's been a very busy month since I've last posted, so inevitably I will have to leave out or glaze over many of the interesting and fantastic things I've done to really focus on the big stuff - namely my week long trip to Finland.  My Finland trip was an interesting one, even before it started.  My friends Derek and Syd had invited me to go with them on a trip to Finland at the beginning of September.  However it wasn't clear whether we would even be able to get there until the end of October.  Even though the Soviet Union collapsed more than twenty years ago, Russia remains a rather difficult country to enter, and in our case, leave.  As anyone who has been to Russia knows, the process to get a Russian visa is a long a difficult one that involves -among other things - passing an HIV test, wrangling a Russian "host" who can officially invite you to the country, and a long an arduous list of questions detailing all of one's experience with nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.  Securing an initial visa can take months.  Once one is in the country, they need to fill out both a migration card and registration.  All of this is meant to, ostensibly, keep illegal immigrants out of the country (since Russia is obviously a highly desirable destination for illegal immigrants from America and Western Europe, right?) but as far as I can tell it is simply meant to make everyone's life much more difficult than it needs to be.  With our original visas, we couldn't leave the country and come back again, so we were forced to apply for multiple entry visas.  The Russian government claims that, barring something "extraordinary", one is supposed receive their new visa within 20 business days of applying, in our case, we would get our visas three days before we were supposed to leave.  Unfortunately, Russia seems to be the home of "extraordinary" circumstances (IE bureaucratic incompetence, corruption, etc.) and it was completely possible that we wouldn't receive our passports in time.  Luckily for us we got our passports early (gasp) and were on our way.
The drive to Finland was relatively uneventful, or as uneventful as a seven plus hour bus ride on a tiny micro bus across a Russian controlled border can be.  We got hung up on the border for about two hours (a long time in our minds but apparently a rather quick one by normal standards.  As far as I can gather one can expect to wait as long as five or six hours at the border on busier days) and passed through seemingly infinite passport control booths in areas.  All were manned by rather surly Russians, who all seemed to enjoy giving directions in uncomfortably loud and menacing voices.  We all made it through however, and made it to Finland around mid-afternoon.

A few of downtown Helsinki

Finland (and especially Helsinki, Vespoo, and Porvoo - the three towns we visited) was paradise; a cold, snowy, eternally dark paradise, but paradise nonetheless.  We stayed with the distant relatives of one of Syd's high school teachers named Ahrne and Merja.  Ahrne -a structural engineer who apparently has designed many of bridges in and around Helsinki - and Merja -a physical therapist who works in a Helsinki hospital- are extremely kind, intelligent, and friendly people who gladly put up with three grown men eating and drinking them out of house and home for a week.  Among the highlights of our time with them (and there were many) by far the most unique (and humorous) experience was our sauna adventure.  Finns are rather obsessed with saunas -sauna is actually a Finnish word- and many of them actually have saunas installed in their homes.  Ahrne was no exception, and we got to use his sauna on Wednesday night.  Sauna basically entails sitting in a boiling hot room (literally boiling, the temperature in most saunas pushes 200 degrees) and pouring water over piping hot stones, that sends waves of boiling steam through the room.  Bouts in the sauna itself are alternated with either swims in cold water, rolling in the snow, or in our case, standing outside in mid-20 degree weather drinking cans of beer.  Sauna is also done naked, which would probably offend the sensibilities of most Americans.  I don't think any of us were too fussed by it, and it is kind of surreal and rather humorous to find ones self standing outside stark naked in 20 degree rain/sleet drinking a can of beer.  While I'm kind of in the dark as to the benefits of sauna (it can be rather dangerous and people have been known to die doing it) Finns, Russians, and other cultures with similar traditions swear by it, and I have to say it is rather enjoyable once all is said and done. 

Helsinki at sunset (my poor photography skills fail to do it justice)

During the week we met with many other members of Ahrne and Merja's extended family, many of whom they themselves did not know.  Unfortunately, due to the fact that my computer is rapidly running out of batteries and I'm getting rather tired,I think I'm going to cut myself off for the day.  I'm hoping to get a few blog posts done this weekend, since I have a pretty nasty head cold and am probably going to be inside most of the time.  So, until later I guess!

Meat Jelly, Gut Sausage, and Other Culinary Adventures.

холодец, this isn't my picture, but it looks like the холодец that I ate.

I'm back, but with very little to report.  However, given the choice between a blog post and a 15 page grammar packet, I'm going to go ahead and write a new blog post.  Life continues to roll quietly along here in St. Peterburg, a fact that I'm almost glad about.  I feel like my last time here was a bit of a circus/roller coaster/house of horrors experience and I got a somewhat skewed view of what life in St. Petersburg was really like.  While Russia is still a bizarre and often times baffling place (even for those of us who speak Russian), and I still experience my full share of hijinks, it's still a place where people lead relatively normal lives.  I have had my share of little adventures though, and that's what I'm going to write about today.  First and foremost (thought it actually happened several weeks ago and I simply failed to mention it), I am proud to write that I can now officially say that I have had холодец!  For those of you who don't know; холодец (pronounced kholodetz) is a Russian dish that can best be described as meat jello.  It's essentially chunks of meat that have been formed into blocks with a jelly made from (I can only assume) it's own juices. Russian students always learn about холодец, and it quickly becomes the one Russian food that no one ever wants to try, regardless of the fact that they have no clue what холодец would even look like, let alone what it might actually taste like.  I have to say, that while холодец does look disgusting (picture a block of opaque yellowish jello with chunks of meat floating in it) it is in fact quite good, and I would recommend it to anyone brave enough to try. 

Over the past couple of weeks I have had several other culinary adventures, including trying wild mushrooms, and what I would call "gut sausage".  Russians have an obsession with mushrooms, especially with mushrooms they have picked themselves.  As Americans, we all learn that one should never EVER eat wild mushrooms.  We're told that they are all lethally poisonous, and even the smallest bite is enough to punch a one way ticket to the great beyond.  Therefore, every time I have been to Russia, I have been skeptical of most any mushroom I see.  Additionally, my first few encounters with the idea of mushroom hunting did nothing to bolster my faith in the safety of mushroom hunting.  Two years ago, I read a small chapter in a mushroom hunting book my host father had a required.  While two years later I am obviously paraphrasing, I distinctly remember one passage on identifying a particular type of mushroom reading as such: "Mushroom X is poisonous and can not be eaten no matter how it is prepared.  It can either have red cap and white stem, or a yellow cap and white stem.  Or it can look completely different."  I don't know about you, but I really doubt the qualifications and skills of a so-called authority on a life-and-death subject is limited to such articulate and exacting descriptions as "or it can look completely different".  However, this time around I decided to take a leap of faith.  While I didn't try any mushrooms picked by my family (apparently this was a bad year for mushrooms at the dacha) I did try wild mushrooms picked by others that my host parents had deemed to be edible.  I figure that if at ages 70 and 72 they had yet to die from picking a "completely different" looking poisonous mushroom, the chances of my dying from one were relatively slim.  Ultimately, the experience was somewhat anti-climatic, the mushrooms tasted like one would expect mushrooms to taste (though one of them did look rather unnervingly like a penis), and I am still alive and kicking.  Gut sausage was also a new experience for me.  In America, it is fairly rare that we eat internal organs.  While organs are gaining traction as a new culinary trend for food and restaurant snobs, most Average-Joes haven't had much experience with guts of any type.  I have to say that I, and everyone else who hasn't had kidney, liver, etc., is really missing out.  There is a great sausage here that isn't just one type of organ, but a bunch of different types (if they're from the same animal [and even what animal they're from] I don't know, and have no intention of finding out) all mixed together.  The stuff is addictively (perhaps not a word) delicious, and I put in on or eat it with anything I can (I'm sure my parents, and especially my mom, are cringing at the thought).
There are a few troubling signs on the culinary horizon though, mainly the disappearance of vegetables and my new found love of condiments.  It is with great chagrin that I say it appears as though fresh vegetables have completely disappeared from my dinner table.  While the usual Russian array of vegetables (tomatoes, cucumbers, and dill) can get pretty old rather quickly, one grows to miss it after many consecutive nights of potatoes, beets, and canned corn.  That being said, I feel obligated to add that I think my host mother is a very adept and able chef, and that this blog entry is not meant to be a slight in any way shape or form.  The other disturbing development has been my new found love of condiments, especially (I am somewhat ashamed to say) mayonaise.  Some of you may know that I have always had a fondness for a few condiments, especially horse radish and spicy mustard, but I have never been particularly fond of mayo.  But for whatever reason, I can't seem to get enough of it here.  The worse thing is that it seems to go great on everything.  No sour cream?  Put mayo in your soup!  Is your chicken feeling lonely?  Add some mayo!  Is your rice lacking that extra something?  MAYO!  I do feel somewhat redeemed because I have found a really delicious condiment that I think will satisfy those readers of my blog who have a more refined palate (if they are any).  It's called аджика (pronounced adjhika) and according to Russian Wikipedia, it's an Abkhazian sauce made from a combination of paprika, salt, garlic, and dried hops.  All I know is that it is delicious and it goes great with -of all things- mayo...
I hope you all enjoyed this blog post, it's a lot of fun writing things that are a little more specific and not just a dull list of everything I have done in the past week of so.  If anyone has any requests for something they would like me to write about (if anyone reads this) I will gladly do so; I did the last time I was in Russian and it was a lot of fun.

Fun and Games in St. Petersburg

So I've decided that I'm going to switch things up with this post and instead putting up some long, poorly written recounting of all the things I have done since I last posted, I'm just going to write about some of the things that my friends and I here do for fun.  As I've said many times before, my life here is rather quiet.  Most of my days are spent either in class or at home doing homework, with some time spent sitting and chatting with my host family or watching tv.  That being said however, my life isn't all drudgery and there are a lot of things that we do for fun.  The biggest thing is that we bought a football so now we can play American football.  I love football, but am honestly not to good at it.  Originally we were going to buy a soccer ball or a basketball, but at the store we decided on a football instead.  Why we at the last minute decided to buy a football I can't say, but I can say that it was the right decision. Last week a few friends and I went and played football out in a park.  The park was very typically Russian (IE it was bizarre and really didn't make much sense) we played on a gravel soccer field (by and large you aren't supposed to walk on the grass in Russian parks) next to what a appeared to be a training course for prospective drivers.  Regardless of our rather strange venue I think we all had a lot of fun and even drew a few spectators.  A man with his dog sat and watched us play as did some of the attendants at the driving school course.
Some of the other things we do for fun aren't nearly as organized, and almost all involve the metro, or more specifically, the giant escalators leading down into the metros.  I don't know if anybody who reads this blog has been to Russia (or if anybody reads this blog at all), but for anyone who might know, the escalators leading down into the metros are massive.  Russian metros, or at least the Moscow metro (and I would assume the St. Petersburg one as well) were originally built to serve as bomb shelters as well as subways.  By being located so deep under ground, the metros were bomb-proof.  During World War II, the Moscow metro did see use as a bomb shelter, as the citizens of the city would flee into the underground during German bombing raids.  While no longer bomb proof the metros still have their ridiculously long staircases which is all that is important to us.  The first game is simple, run down the escalator as fast as you can.  While it may sound simple, the game can actually take a surprising amount of thought and skill.  Like a on most escalators, metro goers follow the rule of people who want to stand stay on the right and those who want to walk down go on the left.  People don't always follow that rule and there inevitably is someone on the right side who is not going nearly as fast as they should be, usually and old person, a little kid, or a fat person.  So instead a straight sprint, you inevitably end up having to dodge around people, bags, etc. on your way down which can really slow down your time.  The other big issue is actually your own mind.  While you have to watch your own feet to avoid missing a step, we've all found that actually thinking about where you are going to put your feet makes you more likely to miss a step.  While I've never heard of anyone falling down the escalator and dying, I'm sure its possible, especially if you fell near the top.  As such, the goal is to desperately try and distract yourself and keep your mind otherwise occupied as you run full tilt down the stairs.  While you always eventually think about your feet and mess up, you can try and get yourself close to the bottom before you do so.  The last trick is to avoid the wrath of the escalator monitors.  The escalator monitors, usually middle aged women who look like they hate their jobs and hate you, sit in little tiny booths at the bottom of the escalator and yell over the intercom at anyone they think is not behaving properly. The fastest time that we have recorded is 32 seconds which was done by my friend Syd (we're the only two who actually actively play this game), but I think the escalator was a shorter one PLUS he got yelled at by the escalator monitor.  Syd thinks the time should still count while I'm inclined to say that getting noticed by the escalator monitor disqualifies it.  Beyond that time though, the times drop off significantly, the second fastest time, also on the same questionable escalator, is 36 seconds.  My fastest time is 42 seconds, thought I definitely think I have it in me to go faster. 

The other game we play is a lot safer and a lot easier, but it infinitely more embarrassing.  The game is simple.  As soon as one steps on an upward going escalator you plant your feet on the step (you can't move them for the rest of the ride) and you grab the hand rail.  You win the game by making it to the top of the escalator without removing your hand from the rail or moving your feet.  The catch is this, the hand rails and the escalators move at different speeds.  The hand rails often times move significantly faster than the steps.  In most cases this would be fine, you simply move your hand whenever it gets too far ahead of you, or you could (theoretically) move your feet and follow your hand.  We don't do that though, and the results are often hilarious.  By the time you reach the top of the escalator you are often stretched out over several steps, impossibly leaned over, and dangerously invading the personal space of those around you.  Since there is no rule as to where you need to initially place your hand, it is almost always possible to make it to the top of the escalator without moving it, the question is more how willing you are to alienate and annoy those people around you.  I've ended up touching other people's hand, having my head perilously close to people's rear ends, and in one case, ending up being face to face with a rather un-enthused cat in the handbag of the woman in front of my.  Syd and I are working on rules to make the game harder, but for now it's simply fun to play, especially when you play with more than one person at a time.



Unfortunately, you aren't supposed to take photos in the metro so none of us have actually recorded any of our achievements in the Metro games, so I'll leave you with some fall photos of the park and canal near my apartment block.  I hope everything has a lovely end to their week and hopefully I'll have another post up by Sunday!

Whomp

So as usual I failed miserably to keep up with the blog, but I think this week I had a pretty valid excuse.  This week I tried to withdraw extra money (I use my ATM card for money here) but for some reason it didn't work.  This was, understandably in my opinion, quite a crisis, since not only did I not have money to pay for my metro card (I can't really get anywhere without using the metro), I had no money for things like food and no way with which I could get that money.  Unfortunately, I first noticed the problem around mid-day, which meant that back home where my bank is, it was four o'clock in the morning, giving me plenty of time to think up any number of horrible explanations as to why my card didn't work.  Rather than simply assuming that it was a simple mix up, I thought it was because perhaps my card was physically broken, my account had been hijacked and all my money withdrawn, and any other number of horrifying explanations. None too surprisingly, it was a simple mix-up.  Even though I had informed my bank that I was going to be in Russia through the month of May, they put a block on my account.  Luckily, though not without many hours of worrying, the problem has been resolved and I am back on my merry way.

A picture from the canal tour I went on (can't have a blog post without a picture!)

In this post I figured I would talk about my daily life a little bit and some about the area I live in, since both topics haven gotten the shaft in my futile attempts to cover everything big that is going on in my life here.  For the most part, my life here is pretty routine.  My commute to the university is about 50 minutes or so, so I'm up pretty early each day to be there by the time class starts at nine.  For the most part, classes are pretty standard, we have a class each morning in small groups of five people and then have a second period of class each day with everyone on the program (20 people) about things like literature, writing, or reading comprehension.  We all then take one direct enrollment class at the University.  The class I'm in, along with two of my friends, is called "National Security and Safety" and is all kinds of ridiculous.  The three of arrive on the first day of class to find a completely empty classroom (we were pretty early) so we all went in and sat down in the back of the class.  The class is at a pretty high level so we figured we wouldn't understand a lot of it, and since we are technically only auditing the class, we figured it would be best to be in the back of the room, an "out of sight out of mind" type deal.  As we are sitting there, a number of seemingly random students come in and ask if we have class in that room.  We of course answer yes, after which the students all seemed to get confused and leave.  As it turns out, they were all taking the class too, but since they didn't recognize us, they thought they had the wrong room.  The class has since been a series of such shenanigans.  For example, our real professor has yet to show to the class.  Instead, we have a substitute professor, who in my opinion cannot be more than fifteen years old.  I only know him as the tin man, because of the shiny suit he changed into before last week's class.  He actually showed up to class in a different outfit, but (this is only a theory) after seeing some of the girls in our class (some of whom are very attractive) he left for a a solid five or ten minutes, returning in a disturbingly metallic silver suit, in what could only be an attempt to impress his female students.  This week, he wore a black velvet suit (it looked like a leisure shirt), or as I called it, the "Grim Reaper at Home" look.  He also seems to hate America.  While I freely admit I miss a lot of what is being said in class, most of the parts I do understand are devoted to explaining why America is the source of all the world's ills.  Over the past month I have learned that the United States secretly supports all of Russia's competitors in global politics (China, India, etc.), that we are trying to take over Libya in an imperialist war, and something about using Star Wars (the Strategic Defense Initiative, not the movie) to attack countries with lasers.
My life at home is pretty quiet.  I spend a lot of my time doing homework.  When I'm not doing homework however I spend a lot of time with my host parents.  Most of the time, Natalia Evgenievna and I watch TV.  Russian TV is really bizarre, there are a lot of spinoffs of bad American TV shows and then some stuff that is just completely strange. By far the strangest, and most entertaining, show is one called "Давай Поженимся," which translates as "Let's get Married."  The show is a really bizarre form of a dating show, where one contestant meets three potential significant others.  The show is really ridiculous because it is presided over by a panel of "experts" who are all older women, who pass judgement on the potential candidates.  They have judges who are tarot card readers, zodiac experts, etc. who all do their various things on camera.  Then everyone seems to have friends or advisors with them whose sole purpose seems to talk over everyone else and confuse me. 
I'm going to wrap things up for now, seeing as I have already spent an unseemly amount of time writing this post, hopefully I'll write some more tomorrow!

Pskov: День своего убийства

Me outside the Pskov Kremlin

So as usual I have failed to keep the blog up to date, but I am going to try and post twice this weekend to 1. make myself feel better about missing last weekend and 2. try and write about everything that has been happening in the past couple of weeks.  The big thing that has happened since my last post was our trip to Pskov. Pskov is an ancient Russian city located near the Estonian border.  The city is old, having first appeared in Russian history over 1,100 years ago, when some prince or other is recorded as having married one Olga of Pskov.  I'm a little hazy on the facts, but from what I remember, Olga eventually became the queen of Kievan Russia and is now considered a saint.  Since then, Pskov has had a rather bloody history, even by Russian standards.  The city was attacked by just about everyone under the sun, including the Livonian knights, the Teutonic knights, the Finns, the Swedes, the Poles, and the Nazis.  The city was captured several times, most notably the Teutonic knights in the 1240's, but they were expelled by Russian forces under Saint Alexander Nevsky, Grand Duke of the Novgorodian Republic.  In the 1400's, the city was laid siege to 26 times within the space of a century.  The city still has a lot of the marks of all those wars, including the foundations and several restored sections of the city's ancient walls (at one point the city had five rings of walls), the ancient Kremlin, and at one corner, a series of sapping and counter-sapping tunnels built during a Polish assault on the city in the 1500's.  To make a really long story slightly shorter, the city withstood pretty much everything until the Nazis invaded in 1941.  Usually in the case of WWII, the Nazis destroyed most everything they could get their hands on, but in Pskov, that wasn't the case.  The city, while heavily damaged in the initial invasion, was only really destroyed when the Red Army retook the city in 1944 (a fact that most tour guides ignore or are reticent to talk about).  The Red Army bombarded the city for days before they retook the city and in the process leveled nearly 80% of the city.  By the wars end, a city with an original population over 200,000 was reduced to 250.

The wedding

Our trip to Pskov was significantly less violent.  To get to Pskov is a bit of a hike though, over six hours on a bus, so a significant part of our excursion was spent either waiting for, getting on, or sitting in a bus.  We arrived in Pskov last Friday around 3 PM.  The first day we went a tour of the Kremlin and then took a bus tour of the city.  The tour was was interesting (that giant first paragraph more or less sums up what we learned) and was relatively uneventful with two exceptions.  The first was at the beginning of the tour, when two of my friends and I were outside our hotel taking pictures of the Kremlin from across the river.  Right outside of our hotel was a group of benches, on which were sitting several homeless people (or so it would appear) who were clearly rather drunk, a feat that in Russia is rather unsurprising.  As we walked past one called out "We're celebrating!" What they were celebrating was absolutely unclear, since last Friday was not a holiday known to any of us.  We decided that the only real possibility was the celebration our imminent kidnapping and dismemberment in one of the many nearby abandoned buildings.  As such, we rather quickly moved on, since the area in front of the hotel played home to several stray dogs, a social caste in Russia which I have traditionally had a rather poor relationship with.  The second thing was a wedding that was taking place in the Kremlin's church at the same time we were taking our tour.  While it was often to get to watch part of the actual ceremony, the wedding party then proceeded to loudly take pictures at every area we wanted to go to, and then drove around the area continuously honking their horns which was more than slightly annoying.  The day ended with an evening get together of everyone in the program.  We drank tea and played games, most of which were games traditionally played by Russian school children.  While it was slightly corny, I had a great time.  The best part of the evening was the most enjoyable, in my perhaps somewhat biased opinion.  We played a game of musical chairs, which as a kid was a game I hated since I never won (contrary to what you may believe, being tall is not in a game that involves sitting down quickly); however, through a combination of determination and progressive (others might be inclined to use other, more abusive terms like "shady" or "cheating", but I think those are unecessarily negative terms, don't you?) tactics and won!  I got a nice little mug with pictures of sites in and around Pskov, I don't know what I am going to do with it, but who cares, I won!!!!

Печеры Monastery

A sign saying "Izborsk", about the most interesting thing the castle had to offer...

The second day we went to a monastery whose name roughly translates as the Pskov cave-monastery.  The monastery began centuries ago with Orthodox monks living within the caves of the area.  The caves are unique, they are apparently the exact right level of humidity and heat that they naturally mummify bodies.  As far as I can gather, the bodies from monks that are centuries old as still in the caves.  The most interesting part of the monastery's history (also the bloodiest) is the story from the time of Ivan the Terrible.  Ivan, as you may be able to guess, was the not the nicest of guys, and at one point suspected the abbot of the Pskov monastery of treason.  Ivan had the abbot beheaded, and his headless corpse carried to one of the shrines (my translation of what the tour guide said is a little unclear).  The path is now called the road of blood, and there is a ceremony each year to commemerate it, in which the path is lined with flowers.  The second part of the day we went to Izborsk, an ancient fortress near Pskov.  I was singularly disappointed with Izborsk.  I've always wanted to go see a real ancient castle but Izborsk was a cold, wind swept mud puddle with half a wall and a tower that you couldn't go in.  Alas alack, you can't win 'em all.  Anyway, that about raps up my trip to Pskov, tomorrow I am going to try and post again tomorrow and try to focus on more of my regular life, but we'll see!

I'm Back!

The pond near the dacha with the Stepanovi's son Yura, and granddaughter, Masha.

Well actually I have been back for two weeks, but being true to form, I haven't posted anything until now.  I'm back in St. Petersburg with the Russian Language Flagship Program, part of an overall government initiative to increase American proficiency in strategically important languages (Russian, Chinese, Arabic, Farsi, etc.).  I will be here in St. Petersburg for about nine months total, taking classes and eventually completing an internship with a company here in St. Petersburg (I'll talk about that in a later post when I've done some research about my internship position).
I'll try to be quick and give a quick run down on the first two and a half weeks of the program, and then try to be more consistent about posting in the future.  The first two weeks here have been pretty nice, I'm settling in nicely and making friends.  My host family are great kind people.  Their names are Vladimir Nikolaevitch and Natalia Evgeniovna Stepanovi, both are in their early seventies.  Natalia Evgeniovna works as a graphic designer and Vladimir Nikolaevitch as an engineer.  They have three children, all of whom are adults and have families of their own.

Some of the Bryn-Mawr/Haverford Flagship students

Peterhof

Over the past couple of weeks I've done quite a bit, so I'll for now just give a quick list of the big ones.  I've done a lot of the really touristy things, going to Peterhof (a palace of Peter the Great famous for its fountains) and St. Isaac's cathedral (has one of the best views in St. Petersburg).  But the big highlight of the first two weeks was going to my family's dacha, of summer house.  As some of you may remember, my brief with dachas is a rather sordid one.  My last trip to a dacha resulted in a dog bite and two months of rabies shots, so understandably, I was somewhat hesitant to try dacha life again.  I am proud to announce however, that I returned safe and sound from my dacha trip with no unpleasant encounters with stray dogs.  It actually ended up being a rather quiet weekend.  Arriving late on Saturday afternoon, we went swimming in a pond close by (an extremely cold pond) and relaxed the rest of the day.  Sunday we were supposed to go mushroom hunting, an idea that I have found both intriguing and vaguely horrifying for quite some time.  Unfortunately, I didn't get to try my hand at finding non-lethal mushrooms due to a day of rainstorms.  As such I spent the rest of the day inside, helping do housework and watching soccer.  Yesterday I went to a hockey game with friends, which as usual was quite a bit of fun.  In the past two years the league has changed quite a bit, the price of tickets has gone up about one hundred percent (tickets are now twelve dollars instead of six), which is probably a smart business but a bummer for me.  The team now has a band that plays during breaks in play and a bizarre "Pirates of the Caribbean" intro that I found rater strange and rather out of place at a hockey game.  But nonetheless it was a good time, SKA won 7-3.  Going to the hockey game yesterday meant that I didn't do any work yesterday, and so today is devoted to getting all of my work for tomorrow done.

Volgograd

The final city on our cruise was Volgograd, better know by its former name Stalingrad, and infamous for the bloody battle that raged there in 1942 and 1943. Our arrival to the city was an eerie one. The river was too shallow for our ship to dock, and we had to be ferried to the city in a smaller boat, the same crossing German and Soviet troops would have taken almost 68 years ago. To see the city is a surreal experience. The city that saw such violence, not only as Stalingrad in 1942, but also as Tsaritsyn during the Russian Civil War, is almost completely gone. In fact, the only two things that exist from Volgograd pre-1945 are the bombed out shell of a WWII Era storehouse, and a tree. The tree, and the Eternal Flame that burns near it, is where we started our tour of the city. The flame, one of two in the city, in my opinion, was not nearly as moving a testament to what the city has suffered through as this one tree. The tree, small and gnarled, was the only one in the city to survive the five month battle that raged here.
While the tree and the storehouse were both fascinating, the main purpose of our tour was the Mamayaev Kurgan Memorial Complex. Mamayaev Kurgan, believed to originally have been a Tartar burial mound, and appearing on wartime maps simply as "Height 102", was the scene of some of the heaviest and bloodiest fighting of the War. The hill overlooked the central train station, and would provide its possessor with clear sight and firing lines over much of the city. The hill today serves as a memorial complex to the battle. The most impressive part of the complex by far is the statue that stands at its center. Standing at 279 feet tall, "the Motherland Calls" is the largest free-standing statue in the world. The Motherland Calls depicts a woman, bedecked in Grecian robes and wielding a massive sword, apparently calling to an invisible host behind her. The statue was modeled on a Volgograd resident who is apparently still alive today, and apparently still bears a startling resemblance to the statue.
The statue, while impressive, was not the most memorable part of the park, that falls to the second Eternal Flame. This Eternal Flame is housed in its own rotunda, and has a 24-hour honor guard standing over it at all times. Seeing the flame was an intensely powerful experience. The flame, with flowers always laying at its base (the stream of ordinary Russians coming to pay homage to the dead is touching to watch) is enrounded by a spiraling ramp. On the walls are mosaic banners, each filled with hundreds and hundreds of names of those who died.
In such a beautiful (at least the chamber with flame), peaceful place, it is hard to imagine the horrors that occurred here. The Battle of Stalingrad began in September of 1942, with German Sixth Army under Friedrich Paulus attacking the Soviet 62nd Army under Vasily Chuikov. The Soviet garrison, and the citizens of the city (Stalin refused to evacuate the city's civilian population) were tasked with holding the city while a relief force was organized. The battle quickly degenerated into a savage stalemate. Fighting wasn't from street to street, or even apartment to apartment, but by room to room, hallway to hallway over a few dozen gutted apartment blocks. It was in this landscape of death and suffering that Hell may have actually come to this earth, nearly 90% of the city was leveled, and human suffering occurred on an almost unimaginable scale. It was during the Battle of Stalingrad that the Red Army perfected its barbaric "blocking units". Blocking units were detachments of Red Army soldiers stationed not far behind advancing Soviet units. If those soldiers broke and attempted to retreat, it was the task of the blocking units to gun them down. After the dust settled in January 1943 with Operation URANUS, the full scale of the carnage came to light. In addition to the city being almost completely leveled, over 800,000 Axis troops perished in the battle, Germans, Romanians, Italians, and Hungarians. Of the 110,000 Axis troops taken prisoner, only 5,000 would return home, the rest would perish in the GULags of Siberia and the rest of the Soviet Union. Soviet casualties were even more horrific, over 1,000,000 Soviet soldiers lost their lives, along with many thousands of civilians. "Height 102", was particularly hellish. The hill, and the train station below it, traded hands numerous times in those five months. So stained with human blood, legend holds that the hills soil remained dyed a dark crimson for years after the War's end. The amount of metal, gunpowder and blood in the soil made it completely inhospitable to life, and no grass would grow on the hill for decades. Even today, a few feet of digging will still yield the bloody harvest of War, bullets, shrapnel, and bone shards are still being pulled from the hill today. I remember standing on that hill with Hannah, the ethereal melodies of the Leningrad symphony drifting across the grass, watching the unceasing river of newlyweds, children, and normal Russians from every walk of life come to lay flowers by the Eternal flame and the numerous other graves that dot the hillside, and thinking that if any place on this earth is sacred, it was here. This one single hill where tens, maybe even hundreds of thousands payed the price for the collective failings of humanity. I had been most excited about visiting Volgograd when I heard of this trip, and Volgograd remains, by far, the most memorable city we visited on our trip.

Saratov

Saratov was the second to last city on our cruise. Getting off the boat we were greeted by some rather impressive graffiti displays on the wharf front. I don't know why this graffiti impressed me so much, but I was rather taken by it, which is why I deem to mention it here. While I believe Saratov (it might have been Samara, unfortunately the two cities tend to run together in my head a little bit) is famous for its chocolate and its associations with cosmonaut Yurii Gagarin, we spent the morning at Saratov's Victory Park, a park commemorating WWII, full of period weaponry and machinery, and with a beautiful panoramic view of the city. As a lot of you probably know, I love history, so the Saratov Victory Park was like a playground for me. We could climb on T-34 tanks, see armored trains, and see all of Saratov from the overlook. Unfortunately, I am ashamed to admit, my memory as to what we did after that blends with my memories of Samara, and as such I'm not going to try and sift through what I did and did not do. I do remember a member of our group getting lost, and the ensuing panic that we might not only lose her, but miss our boat to Volgograd as well. Kelsey, Bronwyn, and I were not going to have any of this. Team Ballingrad, as we billed ourselves, were going to get to Volgograd not matter what the cost, and we were going to beat everyone else there. I believe our idea included stealing a police cruiser, and Kelsey choking someone out with a shoelace for food. Why such an action was necessary to procure food I do not entirely remember, but it certainly sounded good.
Meanwhile on the boat, our never-ending war against our server Vera came to a head during the last few days of our cruise. Among our many spots of contention, pitchers of water was particularly contested ground. It had all started the first day or two, when I had asked dear old Vera for another pitcher of water. She looked at me and said she would bring it "later" and stormed off. Later never happened, nor did after dinner tea, a veritable crime in Russia. This war continued, us asking for water, and Vera not bringing it with various degrees of surliness in her responses. By Samara, enough was enough. In a daring coup, Kelsey and I seized another water jug from a neighbor table after finishing ours, and triumphantly placed it on the table for the flabbergasted Vera to see while I muttered obscenity laced insults at her as she promptly ignored us for the rest of the meal. The Water Jug Revolt had its intended affect, thoroughly cowed, Vera was quite a bit nicer, or perhaps she just liked the love poem our RD Nathan wrote for her. The message seems to have even creeped up to Denis at the bar, who seemed to be a lot more accommodating when it came to us ordering drinks. And as such we spent many a lovely evening at the bar upstairs, one night Nathan and I even tried our hands at break dancing. We were none to good at it.
One of the things I really loved about the boat was going out on the deck at night. The boat would cover the hundreds of miles between cities in the dark, and if you sat on the deck, you could see hundreds and hundreds of stars. It was quite something to lie on the deck and just watch the night sky.
My computer is running low on batteries, so I'm going to wrap this entry up for now. If I have the time I'll revisit it and flush it out. But for now, I'm done, three entries in one day!

Samara

The city of Samara was the next stop on our cruise. I remember that we started out the day at monument to some figure of the Russian Revolution, I sadly forget his name, but I know that a rather famous Soviet movie was made about him, and it ends with him being shot and killed as he attempts to swim across the Volga to escape the advancing White Army. The monument itself has a rather funny story. It was originally planned to face in one direction (East or West), but that made it look as though the soldiers were attacking the party headquarters across the street. Some party bureaucrat found that to be subversive and unacceptable, and as such, the orientation of the entire monument was changed, with the soldiers facing a different direction, with only their heads turned to look at the headquarters.
The next stop was the Stalin bunker. As the Wehrmacht swept through the Soviet Union in late 1941, the prospect of Moscow falling to the marauding Germans was a very real one. As such, Samara, a railway center and a major Volga river port, as well as a major producer of automobiles and military aircraft, became the war time of the USSR until 1943, when Soviet victory on the Eastern front had all but been guaranteed following the Battle of Kursk. During that time, a top secret bunker had been built in Samara to house Stalin and key political figures. The bunker is amazing. Dug under an apartment block in complete secrecy, the bunker was only revealed to the public after the fall of the Soviet Union. Even residents of neighboring blocks did not know of the bunkers existence. Apparently work was done completely by hand (most likely by prison slave labor) and done completely at night. Dirt was shipped out every morning in tracks and dumped outside of the city. Some rumors hold that all involved in the project were shot following its completion. What Samara is left with today is an eight story deep bunker, complete with all the trappings of the Kremlin. The bottom holds an impressive personal office for Stalin, replete with fake doors to appease the paranoid General Secretary (he never used the office, or even set foot in the bunker) and an impressive conference room for the entire Politburo. I enjoyed the bunker immensely, and it was definitely the highlight of Samara, at least for me. The rest of the day was spent poking around the city. Samara, following the War, was the center of the Soviet space program, and as such it is full of statues of Yuri Gagarin, and even a rocket pointed to the sky.

Ulyanovsk

Back to my Volga trip way back when in October, the next three days we traveled through a string of three cities, Ulyanovsk, Samara, and Saratov. The first city was Ulyanovsk, formerly know as Simbirsk, is most famous for the being the birthplace Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Vladimir Lenin. As such, the city remains as a sort of bizarre homage to its famous first son. The city itself is extremely quiet (I saw almost no one on the streets), and exhibits the same quiet melancholy that hangs over many Russian cities. The city is a decaying shrine to the leader of the Bolshevik Revolution, Lenin's childhood homes are either enshrined in a museum, or covered over by a huge looming structure on the city's central square. The broken and pockmarked pavement of the square, hung with faded banners and displaying a decorative pool now filled with grime and sludge, leads to the hulking Lenin memorial complex. A Soviet Ere monstrosity that engulfs two of the 19th Century homes the Ulyanov family inhabited. My feelings about the city were rather mixed. While I enjoyed seeing the childhood home of Lenin, complete with his bed and a family croquet set (glad to see someone else shares my love of croquet), I found the Lenin memorial complex to be not only cult-ish, but a bit creepy and a lot depressing. Other sites in Ulyanovsk were few and far between, the highlights being a very large bridge that spanned the Volga, and a monument to the Russian letter "Ё". Why Ulyanovsk was saddled with the great honor of having this monument no one I talked to seemed to know, but it was there and we saw it.

The End (Kind of)

So here I am in week 2 of life of post Russia, basking in the seemingly endless sunshine and warmth of tropical Beverly Massachusetts trying to finish up this blog. I last left off at the beginning of December after Katya's birthday. That leaves about two or three weeks of stuff, so I'll try to keep it as brief as possible. One of the major highlights of the last few weeks was our excursion to the Russian bath house, or banya. Banyas are quintessentially Russian, and in my opinion, are a must for anyone, even those who have absolutely no interest in Russian culture beyond consuming excessive amounts of vodka. Banyas have an endless history, and endless traditions associated with them. The banya we went to was a 'white banya', meaning the smoke from the wood stove was piped out of the building, as opposed to a 'black banya' where smoke is supposed to filter out through a hole in the ceiling. From what I can gather, the 'black banya' experience can be easily replicated by stripping down naked and setting the room you are in on fire. Obviously, 'white banyas' are more desirable.
The main room in the banya is the steam room. Unlike a "Finnish" banya, a dry heat bath house, the Russian banya relies on hot steam. The banya cycle then starts. Short periods of ten or so minutes in the steam room, alternated with either jumping in the snow, or a pool of water. The day we were at the banya was in the negative teens, with a healthy foot plus of snow on the ground, so I got to do both. The pool was the wildest part. Our pool was outside, so to get to it one first had to slip and slide over the ice. Once out of the pool, steam would come off your body in waves, and any water that dripped off of you would instantly freeze, whether it be to the ground (making a rather lethal ice slick) or the ladder leading out of the pool (often freezing your hands to the ladder as well).
Perhaps my favorite part of the banya however is the birch branches. It is a Russian tradition to beat ones self or ones friends with birch branches. I don't know why this ever struck someone as a good idea, but I found it to be a delightful experience. Not only do you get to channel all of your rage into beating your banya-mate, it feels great to!
The next week was the Baltica beer brewery. If you can remember back to the summer, I did an excursion to Balitca, which ended up being a rather delightful, if not slightly fuzzy day in my memory. This time around we were not so lucky. We arrived at the factory for the last tour (I have a hunch that this was planned) and as such, our "sampling" time was cut painfully short. But such is life I guess.
The last week was spent studying for/taking finals, which I feel no need to reminisce about here. Our time in Russia ended with a lovely banquet held on the last Friday. I won a beautiful Eдинная Россия headband, and took part in a significantly less beautiful reproduction of a scene from the classic film "Irony of Fate". Our plane flight home was also a nightmare, including, but not limited to, being diverted to another German airport because of snow, missing our flight, a mad dash across Frankfurt's airport to get on another flight, and my baggage being lost somewhere between St. Petersburg and Boston for nine days.
And that brings us to the present. This is not going to be my last entry, I still have my volga trip to finish up, so stay tuned!

С Днём Рождения!

The snow outside is preventing me from shoe shopping, and general laziness is preventing me from doing anything productive, so I'm going to try and crank out a blog post. Saturday the 27th was my host sister Katya's birthday. Alexander Sergeiovich came over an we had a little celebration. The celebration was a fun, but interesting one. I had slept in that morning (it's so dark here that all anyone wants to do is sleep) so the many obligatory celebratory shots of vodka largely served as my breakfast and lunch for the day. As I desperately shoveled down food in the desperate and ultimately futile hope that I wouldn't be on the floor by mid-afternoon, Alexander Sergeiovich took it upon himself to rather drunkenly explain how I needed to fix the world. In the future, Senator Thomas Hanley Mahoney (yes, I am going to be a senator) is going to socialize the United States of America. I was informed of all the evils of globalization and capitalism, and informed that only a closed, state controlled economy works. That was followed by something I couldn't quite follow about a green flag and the U.N. Needless to say a good time was had by all, though by that afternoon it was quite clear that I wasn't going to get any homework done that day. Instead, I went and saw Harry Potter with Lyuda. I enjoyed it, but at the same time I almost expected hobbits to pop out during the scenes where they were carrying the stupid amulet. That about does it for me tonight, I'm always tired it seems so I'm going to go to bed pretty soon, I have a lot of work to do to prepare for finals. Hopefully I'll write another post soon!

Никто не забыт, и ничто не забыто

In a rare stroke of motivation, I'm writing a blog entry before I have weeks of stuff to write about. Tuesday night Lyuda and I went to a CKA game with my friend Stephanie. The game was quite exciting. CKA feel behind by three goals by the end of the first period, but managed to fight their way back into it by the end of regulation. The game went to a shootout, where unfortunately CKA lost. We were all a bit confused by the way the shootout worked. Spartak (the opposing team) took more penalty shots than CKA, and CKA's captain took three of CKA's shots! It made no sense! We all had a bunch of fun though, and they even put us on the jumbo-tron!
This week has been bitterly cold in Peter (the predicted highs for Monday and Tuesday are 9 and 6 degrees fahrenheit), but on Wednesday, Hannah, Emily, and I decided to brave the cold and set out for the cemetery for the victims of the Leningrad blockade. I had already been to the cemetery, but I think it's a really important place in St. Petersburg and worth a second look. What should have been a short half hour walk however, turned into a 2 hour odyssey through swirling snow and bitter cold. Russia doesn't seem to get how useful street signs would be, and as such there are practically no markings as to what street one is actually on. After much staring at the map however, and an adventurous ride on the taxi bus, we arrived.
The cemetery was beautiful in the summer, but in my opinion, it may have even been more beautiful in the winter. We were alone in the park except for those workers clearing the paths between the burial mounds, and it was really quite moving to take in the cemetery in the quiet. As the snow swirled in the wind, you could pick out the faint traces of Schostakovich's "Leningrad Symphony" being played. While it is still debated whether the 7th Symphony was meant to be critical of Stalin's regime or the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, the "Leningrad Symphony" became a famous symbol of Soviet resistance and survival during the War. While the symphony was originally premiered in Samara on March 5th 1942, the most famous premiere was in Leningrad itself on August 9th, 1942, more than a year after the infamous "900 day Siege" had begun. Played by an orchestra reduced to only 15 members by starvation and death on the front lines, but filled once again by musicians pulled from the city's starving inhabitants, the performance was broadcasted over the radio across the Soviet Union, and in an act of defiance, over loudspeakers across the city, so loudly that even besieging Nazi forces could hear.
All in all a visit to the cemetery is a sobering experience. Over 600,000 victims are buried in the cemetery, most in mass graves, marked only by the year they were dug. There are literally hundreds of theses mounds, each with hundreds and hundreds of people in them. Even though we were all completely frozen to the core, I think we were all glad that we went. I had hoped to take pictures, as my camera hadn't worked last time we were there, but alas, my camera, the batteries, or perhaps both had succumb to the cold, and refused to work. So no pictures for this entry, sorry!
Thursday was Thanksgiving. Obviously Russia does not observe Thanksgiving, no matter how wonderful a holiday it is, so I decided rather than trying to recreate it and failing, I would just do something else. I ended up spending the evening with Lyuda, we went out to dinner and then went to the movies and saw "the Social Network", which while extremely difficult to comprehend in Russian at times, was still highly enjoyable. Yesterday Hannah's aunt and uncle met up with us for пишки, little tiny Russian donuts that are probably destroying my arteries. It was nice to meet them, and get out of the never-ending snow. Which brings us to today, Saturday. The snow is now entering it's fifth day and shows no sign of letting up anytime soon, but at least it's still a balmy 16 degrees outside! Got to appreciate the small things in life. I hope everyone at home had a wonderful, joyous Thanksgiving and that everyone enjoys their long weekend!
Much love,
Me

All Caught Up!

This is it everybody! Today is the day I bring my blog up to date! Nicola left on that next Sunday. It was sad, but at the same time she left before the weather go too too bad and before the sun decided to disappear for the rest of time. The few weeks since have been interesting ones. Lyuda and I have gone all sorts of adventures including hockey games (she now is obsessed with it) and the theater. Our last two theater trips have been to a students' theater in one of my favorite parts of the city. The first time we went with my friend Sashenka and her tutor Sasha, who was originally going to be my tutor. The play we saw was called "The White Cloud of Genghis Khan". The theater itself is kind of reminiscent of Harry Potter, in the scene where they're trying the Death Eaters, and the play itself was incomprehensible. The acting was good, but no one could figure out what the hell was going on. I gathered that it was the life story of SOMEONE (I thought it was Genghis Khan, but I was to be proven wrong) but who that someone was was unclear. Even determining that much was difficult, because actors who had played the younger someone kept coming back in different roles, and I had no clue who the story was following. The play ended with a rather odd dance piece as well, we were all thoroughly non-plussed. Lyuda and I tried again yesterday with a theatrical interpretation of the "Decameron" which involved a lot of people in leotards writhing rather gruesomely on the floor. While I felt they did a very good job being creepy and capturing the horror of the plague, and the acting was quite good, the play itself left something to be desired.
I've had a very cultural week this week, in addition to the two plays, my friend Hannah and I went to see Tschaikovsky's "Swan Lake" on Wednesday. Just like the "Nutcracker" the dancing was beautiful, as were the sets and costumes, well worth the rather modest $45 we payed for the tickets. This Thursday was also my 21st birthday. I had been rather torn as to how I would celebrate my birthday, but luckily events and commitments rather decided that for me. My birthday was rather quiet, because Thursday night I had an interview for Customs Week Co-Heads with Franklyn. I am very pleased to announce that we got the job! So come Spring Semester Franklyn and I get to start planning Customs Week! Friday was more of a day of celebration, several of my close friends here and I went out to a lovely dinner at an Italian restaurant, which was quite a bit of fun, even though their oven wasn't working, and they had no beer. And that about brings me to the present. Today for an excursion we went to a classical music concert at the Marrinksi concert hall for a performance of different pieces by Russian composers. Stachevember soldiers on, and I now sport a rather stylish "Southern Gentleman". That about does it from here, I hope I'll be more punctual about updating this in the near future!

Remember Remember the Month of November

What I didn't realize is that my last entry rather nicely left off pretty much right at the start of November, so hopefully in this entry I can really bite the bullet and get everybody up to speed. November has been a super busy month for me, which has been great for many reasons, including but not limited to the fact that staying busy distracts me from the fact that we're losing daylight here like no ones business (we already have less than eight hours of sunlight a day) and the weather is absolutely atrocious (today marks about the 20th day since I've seen the sun). I'm going to try and start at the beginning of the month and work my way through gradually, but if I remember things later I'm just going to throw them in.
At the start of November (actually the week before, but whatever) I started work at the "Soldiers' Mothers of St. Petersburg", a advocacy group that fights for Russian soldiers who have had their rights violated by the Russian Army, and helps draft age men assert their right to other forms of civil service if they are not draft eligible. The work is hard, and often times mind numbing in terms of the violence and suffering these young men, often times only 17 or 18, have been exposed to. I had originally hoped to volunteer at an orphanage, kick a soccer ball around with some kids for a few hours a week to relieve stress and give something back, but this is definitely better. "Soldiers' Mothers" does really important work (they currently have three cases before the world court) and it's really an honor to contribute in some way.
The first week in November we largely had off. That Wednesday was "National Unity Day", supposedly commemorating the day Kuzma Minin and Prince Pozharsky drove the Poles out of Russia to end the "Time of Troubles" in the mid-1600's. As luck would have it, that was the week my good friend Nicola came to visit. We had a lovely week together, and I think Nicola got to see Russia at its most Russian. One of our more interesting adventures was going bowling. After meeting up with my friend Kelsey and enjoying some of Russia's finer (IE cheaper) and more delicious (Jaguar, the finest "alco-energy drink Russia has to offer) beverages, we made a journey through the metro to Sennaya Ploschad, where we enjoyed another one Russia's favorite pastimes, eating at McDonald's. All along the way we had adventures. While purchasing Jaguars, a random Russian man approached Nicola and Kelsey. Kelsey knew the drill, say anything and everything to get the creeper to go away. As I leave the store and hand out the beverages, our new friend decides to befriend me as well. Rather lovingly holding an umbrella over my head, the man asked if we were Finns. I know the drill too, and launch into a story about how we're Canadian students (not American but close) who don't speak much Russian. What I hadn't realized is that Kelsey had in fact informed this same man that we were English bloggers in Russia writing something about blogs. Our dear friend finally made the connection that we were in fact not Finns, English, Canadians, but people who just wanted him to go away. After informing me that I was an asshole who spoke Russian just fine, our dear friend walked away, never to be seen again.
But that wasn't even close to the end of our adventures. The second bizarre occurence transpired at good Mickey D's. Since Nicola doesn't speak any Russian, she rather intelligently asked for me to order her chicken nuggets for her. I rather politely tell the lady at the counter that I would like a Big Mac, fries, and a drink, as well as Nicola's meal of nuggets, fries, and a coke. After staring at me for about 20 seconds, the girl behind the register simply starts laughing and tells me that I am in fact far too high to order chicken nuggets. This is where I got confused. First off, I was inebriated, not high, and two, WERE I to be high, wouldn't she want me to buy more chicken nuggets? From my experience, you tell a high person they want 100 chicken nuggets and they would probably agree with you. The girl however, didn't seem to understand the fact that beer and jaguar makes you drunk, or the basic rules of making a profit, and I was denied Nicola's chicken nuggets. Kelsey however, who valiantly agreed to try her luck accruing some chickeny goodness, apparently was just high enough, and got the nuggets no problem.
Our last adventure comes at the bowling alley itself. Even on a Wednesday night, the 36 lane bowling alley is completely packed, so we have to wait over an hour for a lane. Nicola and I decide we want to play air hockey as we wait. We turn the table on, but no pucks come out. Rather incensed at the prospect of losing 100 rubles to the air hockey table, I inform one of the bowling alley workers the table is broken, and that I would like him to fix it. After poking around the table rather half-assedly for about 12 seconds the dope looks at me and informs me there is nothing he can do, and walks away. I know that customer service doesn't exist in Russia, but this was too much for even me. I stop him and inform him that if the table doesn't work, than I want my money back. When he tells me he can't do that, I tell him he better get to work fixing the table. Rather flabergasted by this, he returns to the table, and again does nothing. He finally looks to me and tells me that I need to call the air hockey table and get them to fix it, or give my money back. I tell him that he needs to call. After about 20 seconds of this he points to the table and says that I can call using that phone. Now, I might be dumb, but I know that no air hockey table has a phone built into it. We go back and forth again, until he finally begins to walk away once again. This is the scene of my great victory; as he walks away I offer him a few choice phrases about the various things he can do with the male anatomy. Cowed, shocked, or both, he returns and offers Nicola and I a free game on the Nascar simulator. Great success.
And so the night went on. In my first experience with anything other than candle pin bowling, I bowled a rather horrible 22, but a good time was had by all.
The rest of the week was a success as well, we saw bears on leashes, bad Russian driving, and made an excursion out to Vyborg, a city on the Russo-Finish border that was the closest thing to sanity and the real world that I've gotten to in almost three months. Like all things Russia has come to possess however, Vyborg has seen better days. We spent the day climbing on ruins, imitating Russians and their rather preposterous photo shoots. I'm going to post this entry to stop it from being too long, but I will finish it soon!