Back in Black

So I’m back in Ekaterinburg after the Grand Tour, and while it feels good to be “home,” I returned with extremely mixed feelings.  Europe is so pleasant, friendly and easy, whereas Russia is generally pretty cold, both physically and emotionally.  I came home to find my internet company has gone over and my apartment smells even worse than before.  Of course, part of this melancholy might come from the fact that I was on vacation; I had no responsibilities except to have fun with my awesome friends.  Anything is going to feel difficult after that.  It was just such a harsh transition, returning to Russia and being immediately shoved on the subway and fined for not having our train tickets when exiting the station.  Still, it’s nice to be in a place where I speak the official language, if with a heinous accent.

The conference in Moscow was fun, and improved by our childish antics.  Highlights included: Lauren cutting the boys’ hair, dancing to 90s hits in a deserted club, watching Hedwig after singing the songs all over Berlin and spiking the mors (a sort of homemade cranberry juice) at the fancy Fulbright dinner.  It was wonderful to see everyone, inspiring to hear what all my fellow Fulbrightniks are up to and exciting to steal all their ideas.

Oh yeah - I never wrote about the end of our time in Europe.  On our last day in Prague, we met up with a friend of a friend of Jason’s, who gave us the most amazing historico-cultural tour of the city.  Can you imagine living in such a touristy city and still being willing to entertain three foreign strangers?  He taught us so much about the city and even gave us candy and Prague calendars.  Later that day we met up with my friend Lenka who had been living in Ekaterinburg.  Lucky for her, the task of explaining Prague was done, but she showed us even more cool stuff, like the senior show at the academy of art.  On our last night there, we followed our hearts and split up.  Jason went to the museum of Communism, Matt to read Kafka in a restaurant and I checked out the local puppet theater.  They were performing their smash-hit production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, an opera which, it turns out, he wrote for Prague.  I loved the theater, show, concept (a drunken Mozart puppet conducted the “orchestra”), everything, so much, even if I nodded off a bit during the first act.

From there we took an incredibly disorganized and uncomfortable train ride to Vienna.  We arrived at 6:30 a.m. with just enough time to glance around the city, regret not having more time there, and eat breakfast in the historic Cafe Central.  This restaurant, one of Trotsky’s favorite haunts, was exquisitely beautiful and the food was good too!  Then we hauled ass to the airport and flew back to Stepmother Russia.

So now I’m sitting in a free wifi food court, drinking a proper half-liter Russian beer and missing my travel partners terribly.  I still have about two weeks before school starts again, which is good since I have some serious sleeping to do.  Without internet at home I won’t be able to chat any time soon, but if you’re reading this, chances are you’ll be getting a postcard soon.

Much love from a most ambivalent Abbichka.

Pragnosis: Positive

A quick note from the Czech Republic before we have to czech out of our hostel. Prague is the most beautiful city I have ever seen! Every building is at least lovely, many stunningly gorgeous with all kinds of funny architectural details (this trip makes me wish I knew more about architecture). In some ways this is the most touristy city we've visited. Everywhere we go, we're surrounded by tourists, and all the locals speak enough English for us to get by. And yet, I maintain that there is a real hometown Prague. We didn't necessarily find it in these three days, but I'd be open to living here for a year and testing out my hypothesis...

The boys and I (Olga and Lauren punked out after Berlin) all agreed on the first thing we wanted to see here in Prague: the Kafka Museum. It was a beautiful museum, but heavier on the mood/experience than factual information. Jason said it felt like it was curated by literary critics and installation artists. Having read very little Kafka, I had a huge emotional response to the museum. Jason, having read almost all of his work, was somewhat disappointed. Today we're going for the real experience: Kafka's grave and monument in the old Jewish quarter of town. That was the only museum we've visited. This is really a city for walking, taking in the beautiful sights, trying to make out the Czech language, eavesdropping on Russians and engaging them in conversation when we can. Tonight we're taking a midnight train to Vienna, so before that we'll try to see the puppet theater production of "Don Giovanni" and eat some more delicious Czech food.

This was a really good choice for our final destination, since it's a compromise between Europe and Russia. Czech is a Slavic language written in Latin letters; Prague is a tourist city, but a slightly sketchy Eastern European one. All in all, a perfeck trip.

Auf de kaka gehauen

Guten tag faithful readers! I'm writing from beautiful, historic Berlin and classical music is playing in the hostel, so if this post seems more elegant than usual, that's why.

Berlin is awesome, yet so different from Amsterdam. There, we just biked around on every interesting, picturesque street. Here, on the other hand, the city is very spread out, we take the metro everywhere and after 3 days I still feel like I've barely seen anything. So far, my favorite thing about Berlin is seeing the on-going dialectic between the past and present. Everywhere you go, you see evidence of Prussia, Weimar, Third Reich and the GDR, all smashed up together but not exactly in conflict. Areas like Checkpoint Charlie and the death strip are now tourist attractions, and fragments of the Wall are now works of art decorating the city. On the whole, Berlin is incredibly balanced about its past: neither self-abnegating nor glorifying. I haven't been to many places in my life, but this seems like a rare quality.

So here are some highlights from this leg of the journey:
Watching Barack's inauguration over beers and nachos in an American-style diner.
An unbelievably thorough Paul Klee exhibit and a Jeff Koons exhibit that got us all asking the Big Questions about Art.
The East Side Gallery, the longest stretch of fragments of the Wall which artists were commissioned to decorate.
Humboldt University, where Hegel taught and Marx and Einstein both studied.
Markisches Museum, which was built to look like a church but serve as a museum, so that walking through the building is itself an artistic experience. They have incredible art and artifacts from pre-historic, ancient and modern German history, plus a cool exhibit about artificial lighting. There, too, the past and present peacefully coexist.

Outside the Markisches Museum is a tiny park that's home to two brown bears (Berlin loves bears!). Before going there, I asked a man, in my rudimentary but spirited German, where the bears were. He said they were sleeping and I found it very odd that this museum employee would know the bears' nap-schedule. Maybe two hours later, I remembered it was January and realized what he meant: the bears are hibernating. So I'll guess I'll have to come back to Europe in the spring to see Holland's tulips and Germany's bears.

Just one final note about how great our travelling company is. Everyone brings different skills and interests to the mix, and I think we bring out the best in each other. It's also strangely comforting being with other Americans who live in Russia. For one thing, that gives us much more street cred in Europe than just being from the states. But also, it's so funny to see how we've all been Russified, like how we all packed slippers and drink tea every time we come inside. Plus, we all break out, as Lauren said, "shit-eating grins" whenever we hear people speaking Russian on the street. This trip is making me see how very non-Western Russia still is, but I think I'll go back reinvigorated. But I sure will miss Europe's great variety of ethnic cuisine.

Well I guess I'll say auf wiedersehen. Just wanted everyone to know that we're taking care of each other and having quite a laugh. Ciao for now.

Delft Elf

Well, here's what we've all been waiting for. Abbichka Special Edition: European Vacation. I am writing from our Amsterdam hostel, the Hotel Annemarie, right on Museumplein. What can I say except everything you've heard about Amsterdam is true, but that doesn't even explain half of what's great about this city. It is so incredibly beautiful at every time of day and every part of the city. It's so warm here that we've rented bikes and spent all our time rolling around on the canals and cobblestone streets. Lauren brouight portable speakers for our iPod, so we just ride around playing tunes for everybody. The bike culture is probably the coolest thing about this city - everywhere you go there's bike paths and clumps of biked chained to racks/pipes/eachother. Amsterdam's architecture makes it so clear that New York was first colonzezd by the Dutch; the streets look like Wes Anderson's Brooklyn while stately homes and gardens call to mind all those Hudson Valley homes. We've gone to great museums, especially the Rijksmuseum, which illustrates that the Dutch has always been fun-loving people. Tomorrow, we're going to the Van Gogh Museum. My favorite way the museums here are so different from Russia is that they're informative and well-organized. Imagine. And instead of shooing you out at right closing time, a little bell begins to ding, like the bike bells on the streets.

Here is, I think, the main difference between Russia and the Netherlands: Dutch people are happy, friendly and not suspicious! Public services here are so fair and reliable, we're in shock. To buy train tickets, we just had to give him the money (passport and exact amount not required), then the train was right there at the airport! And you know, on the train and tram, they never even asked for our tickets. Dutch people smile!

Here's how we know we've all been somewhat Russified: we all brought travel silppers; we drink tea every time we come inside, 4 degrees celcsius feels downright tropical. The only area where Russia has it up on Amsterdam is the all-night access to groceries, including large quantities of cheap beer. We all got normal bottles of beer here, only they felt so small after getting used to liter bottles of Bochkarev. Also, Amsterdam is of course super-liberal, but I realized they still rely heavily on euphemism. Want some weed? Go to a "offeehouse"(not a cafe or a bar, there's no smoking there). Prostitutes? They're in the "red light district." I'm also coming to appreciate what it means that English is an international language, and training myself to not to say I'm from America, but the States. But lemme tell you, it gets us much more streeet cred to say we've been living in Russia since Semptember.

So Weils (etc.), Abmans, Bliumins, Cieplies (that's the plural of Cieply), Nelsons and anyone else who may be reading this, we are safe, happy, healthy, well-fed, exhausted and turning out to be a great team. Tomorrow is Lauren's birthday and we're having a Russian blini party in the hostel. Oora!

Next week: from Berlin.

Double Petersburger: Seconds

Before I forget all the glorious details, I want to write about The Magic Flute. Yet again, my overwhelming impression was that theater is much more alive and experimental in Russia than in the United States. If I saw Magic Flute at the Met, it would probably be a fairly traditional production. Here, however, it was somehow both modernized and timeless. The costumes of the principals were very simple: good guys in white linen, bad guys in black metal and leather. Chorus members looked like peasants and sat right next to us around the stage. Most beautiful were all the inventive Asian elements sprinkled throughout the opera like so many scallions on a bowl of peanut butter noodles. The dragon was a huge shaggy Chinese New Year beast, who, at the curtain call, was revealed to be two fourteen-year old kids. Garlands of leaves were strung throughout the performance hall, and the actors did moved all over the space. The Queen of the Night looked like the villainess from some 1980s cartoon, all purple and gray. She has the best aria, but Papageno was a better performer. He totally stole the show, and even gave us an autograph afterward. Did I mention the opera was translated into Russian? It would have been nice, if we hadn't been so excited to practice our burgeoning German study...

That night we went to a funny club called Zhopa, which means "ass." It was the kind of place I would have loved when I was 17. There were tons of teenagers making out and the music was mostly 1990s American pop. I had dancing for about an hour, but somehow managed to stay there til nearly 4 a.m. That's why I feel so gross today, but I'm engaging the germs in total war.

Well dear readers (especially Jason's and Matt's parents), this will probably be the last post for a couple weeks. We are heading to Amsterdam in a few days, thence to Berlin, Prague and one morning in Austria. I'll write from Moscow (with love), if not before. Wish us safe travels and we shan't disappoint.

One love.

Double Petersburger with Cheese

Reporting live from St. Petersburg, where all is well, except that I’m trying to fight off a cold before we head out to the Continent. Matt, Jason and I took a fun, alcohol-fueled 35-hour train ride here from Ekaterinburg. We arrived Friday morning to the apartment of fellow Fulbrightnik Lauren. Presently our Russian-born, Cleveland-raised friend Olga came over to make the best blini of my life (it’s in her blood; she once taught me how to make them over the phone). Having sat for so long, we were far from tired, so we set right out. On the first day, we visited the precious little Nabokov museum. Housed in the tiny apartment where he grew up, it mostly contains photographs, personal effects, like his Scrabble board, and a considerable portion of his butterfly collection. Adorable. From there we visited the Medni Vsadnik, the great central monument to Peter I. In the surrounding park, I pet and fed apple slices to an oppressed but still beautiful baby bear.

Walking back to Lauren’s apartment, we went through a tourist trap alley where they sell souvenirs and bizarre experiences. For her upcoming birthday, I made one of Lauren’s dreams come true, and bought her a photo opportunity with a tiny monkey dressed in a baby’s snow suit. I even bargained with the monkey-keeper, and got a second monkey ½ price! Unfortunately, another “merchant” had a hawk, who tried to escape and whacked me upside the head. Karma? Then, feeling thoroughly disgusted, we ran into a friend of hers who was on his way to the Hermitage. Since students get in for free and we all have IDs from our universities, we decided, what the hell, let’s go to the world’s biggest art museum. It was hard keeping such a large group together, but no one got lost for good. The museum is unbelievable, impossible to take in completely, but always satisfying.

Saturday was amazing. We got a very late start, but eventually went out for a walk and got some surprisingly excellent cheeseburgers (free unlimited ketchup and fountain drinks!!). In the evening, we decided to class it up and head to the Mariinsky Theater where they were doing The Magic Flute. The boys and I have been practicing our German in anticipation for Berlin, so we were all over Die Zauberflote. Unfortunately, we didn’t realize that the production was at the Little Mariinsky and accidentally bought tickets to that night’s performance of Swan Lake. Bogus! After trying to scalp our tickets, Olga explained to the box office lady that we didn’t speak Russian, and managed to get us tickets to the right show. We triumphantly hauled ass down the street and made it in time for the opera. Here’s the best part: the little Mariinsky is a huge, yet intimate space with central seating, boxes and surrounding benches for a little theater-in-the-round. Since we got there so late, we got to sit around/on the stage!

Uh oh, I’m losing battery power…promise to write more toute de suite!

Ekaterinbourgeoise

How much fun can three Americans have in Ekaterinburg in three days?  So much that I can’t even imagine what we’ll get into in Petersburg, let alone Europe...

Fellow Fulbrightniks Jason and Matt arrived here on Sunday morning and we leave tomorrow night for our grand tour.  While they’re here I’ve been trying to show them a good time in the capital of the Urals, and I think I’ve succeeded.  On their first day here we ran around the city.  I said some goodbyes, including to my dear Israeli friends who will go home before I get back here.  My attachment to them grew so gradually I barely even noticed, but now I know I’ll really miss them.  But, they said, they’ll wait for me in Israel.  Last night the boys and I had a bunch of my friends over and taught them how to play the drinking game King’s Cup.  It was quite possibly the first time the game has ever been played in Russia and in Russian (the kids here don’t need a game in order to drink large quantities of alcohol), but it was a big hit with everybody!  

Today was an excellent day for Americans in Russia.  We started by searching out cheeseburgers, and managed to find them, but the entire food court-style restaurant had no ketchup!  This was especially upsetting, given all the unexpected foods Russians eat with ketchup.  Then we walked to the Church-on-the-Blood, the site of the Romanov mass assassination.  Tomorrow being Christmas according to the Gregorian calendar, we caught a beautiful church service and saw people carving amazing ice sculptures outside.  From there we went to my favorite Beatles-themed Yellow Submarine bar where we fortified ourselves for the boys’ dream: walking on the frozen Iset river.  Incidentally, we learned the word Iset is Tartar for “smelly dog.”  After a stroll on the ice, which included writing “USA” in the snow, we went down to the local city of ice.

Most Russian cities do some kind of ice display around the holidays.  Ekaterinburg being such a huge metropolis, ours is an entire city made out of ice, with sculptures, slides, a labyrinth and other attractions.  Jason, Matt and I heard music from across the street so we went to check out the “dance party.”  After a few runs on the ice slides, we noticed no one was really dancing to the blaring music.  So we started our own dance floor, always trying but never succeeding to get others to join us.  We got a lot of attention, and in fact a man in a giant piglet costume danced with us for a minute, but we couldn’t get the party started.  One passerby, however, called us niformalni, which basically means “underground,” so that was cool.  Taking his comment as a cue, we went to the nearby artsy club/bar, 2KY, where we danced to a live band and DJs.  The boys lasted longer than me (maybe because they drank an alcoholic energy drink) and were happy to be in a club that wasn’t mainstream, even if we all complained about the hipsters just the same.

Tomorrow night we begin our 35-hour train ride to St. Petersburg.  I’ll definitely try to write from there, because after that, I’m gone!  See you on the dark side of the moon suckers!

Visualize, Actualize, Realize

Last Year's Man

Now that I’ve experienced New Years in Russia, I understand why they get so excited for it.  This was seriously one of the most fun adventures I’ve had in my whole short life.    I went with my friends Aigul and Katya to picturesque Kristal, a nearby village where Aigul’s mother lives.  Every year, the whole family gathers there to eat, drink, play games and make merry.  We arrived in the early afternoon, before most of the other guests.  There was a lot of cooking going on, so we decided to go to the nearby banya.

An explanatory word before I go on: Aigul’s mom, Venira, lives in a modern apartment building, so don’t get the wrong idea.  There are lots of little old wooden houses too, but Venira lives in an apartment complex near the tuberculosis hospital where she works.

So, the banya.  This is a traditional Russian bathhouse/sauna, built out of wood and some metal for the stove.  In the stove you boil lots of water and in the water place bushels of some kind of leaf (birch?) for a wonderful aroma.  (Until last year, Venira’s apartment didn’t have hot water, so they did all their bathing in the banya.)  I had never been in one, but I’d seen and heard a lot about them.  When we arrived, Aigul’s uncle Leonard was carrying big buckets of water to the banya and urged us to go see if it was hot enough.  We walked behind the apartments to where every tenant has their own banya and storage facility.  Hot enough tt was, so we stripped down and jumped in.  At first, it was awkward taking a naked schvitz with my student, more awkward still when she offered to give me the traditional beating with birch branches.  But honestly, the experience was so relaxing and refreshing, it took about one second for me to lose my inhibitions.  Anyway only Americans are embarrassed about being naked, Europeans don’t care.  We came out feeling so warm and wonderful, the walk back to the house didn’t even seem cold.

The guests, in addition to us, included a bunch of aunts, uncles and cousins who I never quite got straight, especially as the Russian word for cousin is “second-born brother/sister,” so they often just call each other brothers and sisters.  I fell in love with a three-year old hooliganka who was very shy with me at first, but by the end of our time there was yelling “Ebi!  Chase me!”  Venira also has two friendly orange cats who are mother and son, and who come and go as they please.  We started eating at 8 at night and didn’t stop til, well, they’re probably still going.  The menu was chicken, duck, assorted Russian salads (the best is called “herring under a fur coat”), cold cuts, cheeses, cabbage pie, home-made pizza and probably other things I’m forgetting.  We drank wine and champagne, the men drank vodka.  For dessert there was fruit, chocolates and my homemade oatmeal coconut chocolate chip cookies.  As we ate, we played games like mad-libs and held lotteries for embarrassing improvisations.  Venira dressed up like Grandfather Frost (the Russian Santa Clause character) and gave out gifts.  2009 is the year of the bull, so a lot of the gifts and games were cow-themed.  

The TV was on in the background all night, but set to a music video channel, not the traditional New Years movie “The Irony of Life.”  At midnight, President Medvedev congratulated us all on the holiday, although everyone assured me that Putin did it better.  Instead of “Auld Lang Syne,” they play the Russian national anthem.  We lit firecrackers at the dinner table, then went outside where we joined all the neighbors in shooting off fireworks.  At the end of the night, Venira’s neighbor with whom I’d sat at dinner, pulled me aside and gave me a volume of Pushkin as a gift.  At the time I didn’t understand why she was asking me if I had my own copies the Russian classics at home or only in the library, but I guess at some point in the evening she ran home and grabbed this book for me.  What a sweet broad.

We went to sleep, three on a pull-out couch and maybe 7 in each room, drunk, full and happy.  I awoke the next morning at noon to find all last night’s leftovers pulled out, plus some new dishes.  The next two days proceeded as the first night - games, food, drink, songs.  The family is from Bashkoristan so they sang a bunch of Bashkiri songs, and at one point Aigul even busted out the old accordion.  Now I’m back home and though I’m enjoying the peace and quiet, part of me misses the noise, the children, the cats.  Everyone urged me to come again, and those from elsewhere invited me to visit their towns.  Which is good, since I left my gloves there...

2009: so far, so good.