BAGELS

Turns out there is nothing as amazing as the taste of a REAL bagel with REAL Philadelphia cream cheese.
So what if it cost a little more than 5$? I got tomatoes.

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAGELLLLLSSSSSSSSSS

Thanksgiving and entertainment in Piter

So I'm too lazy to make these two separate posts so this will be one super-long, unconnected post.

Thanksgiving at Nathan's was great.  He lives about ten minutes from where I live which made it super-convenient.  He's definitely gone for the minimalist approach in his apartment, which is a nice alternative to what many Russians decide to do (ie over-crowd their apartments with trinkets that they don't need.  I'm lucky that Nina hates trinkets.)  We managed to get a turkey and even cook it to the point of yumminess.  The Russians were completely surprised that the boys were helping out in the kitchen.  Not only that they knew how to cook, but that they would offer at all.

Side note - chocolate chip cookies are surprisingly hard to make in Russia.  The entire freakin' country doesn't have vanilla extract!  I ended up just adding stuff until it tasted somewhat normal and used M&Ms instead of chocolate chips.  My poor host mom didn't understand the whole concept of cookies, trying to make them pretty.  When they came out of the oven all flat, and not the perfect little balls she had perfected - "Что это за гавно!?  Где мои красивеньки?"

We had pumpkin pie (SUPER good) as well has two coconut pies which were made with colored coconuts (because apparently they don't sell normal coconuts in Russia.....red and green...Christmas at Thanksgiving and all that....).  We also had some home-made wine, stuffing and other вкусноты.


And now for something completely different....

One of the best parts about living in St. Petersburg is the ability to just go to the theatre/opera/ballet whenever you want.  There are little ticket stands throughout the city.  My personal ticket stand is the one at the Mayakovskaya metro station.  The ladies who work there have a special kind of love for their work that one seldom encounters in Russia.  They know all of the theatres, all of the companies that work there, were the best views are, etc.   They’ll talk to you and help you find the best combination of price and place.  I even lost a ticket once and they offered to call up the director of the conservatory to let me in anyway.

But enough of me gushing about my girls.  What I really decided to write about is the dirty little secret of St. Petersburg.  Well, perhaps not so dirty.  Anyway, point of the matter is, if you go to the Marinskii or the Mikhailovskii you are ripping yourself off.  You’ll end up going on excursion to one or both for free (well, not exactly for free….It’s included in your tution…).  Sure they are both great, beautiful theatres.  At the Mikhailovskii, especially, you’ll get to see beautiful chandeliers and signs with hard signs everywhere.  The shows are all amazing (although, I’ve heard you shouldn’t bother to go see Romeo and Juliet), but it isn’t like you can go see the same thing other places for A LOT less.

My personal favorite places to go watch operas is the Conservatory.  Sure the building is a lot less pretty – something out of the Stalin era, most likely – but the shows themselves are quite good.  The sets are very well done, the singing is amazing, and all of the actors/singers are young and pretty (no fat lovers lolloping around on the stage).  My first opera was the Marriage of Figaro.  We were in the seventh row and only paid 350 rubles.  The second opera we decided to see was Evgene Onegin.  We got FRONT ROW seats for only 500 rubles.  Although, I’ve heard that their ballet is not nearly as good.

Also, if you are up for watching movies in Russia (not as bad as it sounds if the theme isn’t too heavy), you’re going to want to go during the middle of the day.  The prices change dramatically depending on when, where, and what you see.  Evening prices are higher and more popular movies are more expensive.  If you time it right, however, you can get very good seats for a complete bargain.  For example, I went to see the first half of the seventh Harry Potter for 160 rubles (a little over five dollars).

Most importantly, take your student ticket wherever you go. Offer it, even if they don’t ask for it and if there isn’t a sign for it.  When we were in Viborg, we offered our student tickets on the off-chance that they would take it (or at least mistake us for Russians).   We ended up getting an even steeper discount than Russian citizens (less than half of the normal price for tourists).

You can do quite a lot of things in St. Petersburg (this isn’t MOSCOW after all) if you know the tricks.  Don’t live your life by the guidebook – go out and explore! (or if you are chicken, ask your host families and tutors).

What is that mysterious ticking noise?

So as you walk along Nevsky and the little alleyways around it, you will here "the noise".  It's a metronome like sound that plays in the background just loud enough to be notice.

During the blockade of Leningrad, they would play this sound over the loudspeakers to let the inhabitants know that the city was still under control of the Russians.  Didn't matter what time of day or night, this sound was broad-casted throughout the city.

Apparently, they still play it.

Something somber to match the weather

Living in a city where most of the women wear nicer clothes than I will ever own and where most of the men drive nicer cars than I will ever drive, it’s easy to forget how they suffered ten/twenty/thirty years ago.  I’m not saying that Russia is rolling in the dough – I’m very much aware of the ridiculous lack of a middle class.  Every day I see how my host mom economizes (and she’s fairly well off) and yet it’s still easy to forget. 

For Americans, the phrase “food stamps” brings to mind the unemployed who are currently on welfare.  It’s certainly nothing the average American even has to consider and sometimes carries with it a certain shameful connotation.  For Nina and her family (as well as the rest of Russia), it was their day-to-day reality. 

As with most of our topics of conversation, I have no idea how it started, but I definitely remember her saying:  “Every month we would get a stamp for a kilogram of meat per person.”

As an American, I have no idea what a kilogram is in terms of pounds.  She takes out here cooking scale and fills up a glass that previously held jam with water.  It’s 1.3 kilograms.  She empties a little out – 1.1.  Again she pours a little out.  Finally, it read 1.07 kg.  “It’s still a little more than a kilogram, but you get the idea.”

This wasn’t just for meat; it was for everything: food, clothing, etc. – basically everything that wasn’t grown or made locally.  To exacerbate the situation, the stores were only open during working hours and the lines were the stuff of legend.  A person could wait up to three hours in line waiting for a loaf of bread or a carton of milk.  “My husband and I didn’t have time to go to the store.  What was I supposed to do?  Get myself fired?”

And so her little son, Alyosha, would go straight to the store after school and wait patiently in line for a good hour or two.  The phrase “little” refers to how he was then, not to how he is now.  He’s now a loveable, yet somewhat imposing (over-six-foot-tall) Russian bear.  Even now he remembers:  “I didn’t have a childhood mama.  I spent it all waiting in line.”

Once she’s started speaking about her son, she usually cannot stop herself from singing his praises for a bit (and not without due cause – he’s a great guy).  I get comfortable.  She tells me how they used to hand out food to the children at school.  Nothing much, mind you, just an apple or an orange or a candy or something.  Apparently, every day, while the other children were eating their snack, Alyosha would quietly pocket his own.  The teacher would come up to him and ask, “Alyosha, what’s wrong?  Don’t you like it?”

“I like it.”

“Then why aren’t you eating?”

“I’m taking it home to share with Mama.”

He’d do this every day.  It didn’t matter what it was.  He’d cut the tiniest piece of candy into two pieces – one for him and one for his mama.

Quick update

Went to Anna Akhmatova's apparetment.  Got to see the rooms that inspired a lot of her poetry.

Went on an outing to all of the places in Crime and Punishment.

Went to a museum where they have art done on the tip of a piece of human hair, poppy-seed, etc.  I kid you not.  You go in through this super-sketch stairway and then the museum is in a random apartment and you look at the art through microscopes.

Hockey: We were sitting right next to the team from Moscow.  And a BUTTLOAD of riot police.  SOOOO much fun.  Probably going again soon.

KuntzKamera:  Seriously disturbed shit.  Never again.

Although, when we left KuntzKamera we saw a bear outside the Hermitage, so it wasn't a complete loss.  Living the Russian dream.....

Going to see the Marriage of Figaro tomorrow and the Nutcracker on Wednesday.

Makes up for the freezing cold and total lack of sun.

Catching up and FIRST SNOW

So a lot of things have happened since I last wrote (if you can call that last entry an entry, I mean, really).

First off IT'S SNOWING!  Like honest-to-God snowing, not that mamby-pamby BS that we call snow in Virginia.

We went on our long cruise, which was quite interesting (although some of the tour-guides, not so much).  We visited Нижный Новгород, Казань, Ульяновск (where Lenin was born and grew up), Самара (where one of Stalin's bunkers is), Саратов and Волгоград (Сталинград, where basically the whole city was bombed to the ground by the Nazi's).

My impressions of the cities:
Nizhny Novgorod - an ok city, but a terrible tour guide and we spent WAY too much time there

Kazan - GORGEOUS city with a really interesting blend of Tatar and Russian culture.  The mosque there looks like something out of the emerald city from the wizard of OZ.

Ulyanovsk - besides Lenin, doesn't have much going for it, which explains why they are still completely obsessed with the man despite the fact that he was NOT all that and a bag of chips.  They also have a monument to the letter ё.

Samara - bunker was cool, could have skipped the rest

Saratov - cute little musical city, reminded me of singing with the choir at Middlebury

Volgograd - really sad, although the monuments are a little bit overwhelming.  It occasionally steps of the line of reverent remembrance into cult-like devotion.

Moscow - totally could have skipped my 4th visit there.  Over-rated city.  Got some Nutella though, so not a complete waste of a day.

I think the best part of it all was the fact that we shared the boat with a bunch of retired Germans and British people.  A rather bizarre combination of age-groups and nationalities.  It was super fun watching them dance in the bars on the boat at night.  Makes me sad that I can't really dance like that.  Our generation is not going to age well.....

But now I'm back :-)  Apparently having lost a lot of weight (although I don't really think so....)  My host mom is on the war-path and attempting to fatten me back up.

About picaso

If you guys want the links to albums I am sending out, give me a shout! (ie - leave a comment) 

I'll still post some pictures, but the process is soooo slow.