Author Archives: browninj

Those Magnificent Men and their Driving Machines

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We have already had several blogs dedicated to our means of transportation along the course of this trip. While in Russia we have traveled by jet, three types of boats, at least three types of trains, buses, trams, cars and vans of assorted sizes, but none of them have been quite as exciting as the UAZ (УАЗ).

UAZ

The incredibly reliable UAZ garnered the nicknames Буханка (loaf) and Таблетка (pill) due to its appearance.


The UAZ is a cross between the Volkswagen hippy van and a mountain goat. Production began in 1965 at the Ulyanov Automobile Factory (Ульяновский Автомобильный Завод), from which the vehicle draws its name, and has continued with slight modification to today. These are the vehicles found within the pages of National Geographic crawling up the mountain roads in Tibet. The UAZ is not simply a bus or a van. As a matter of fact, I was zealously corrected when I said we would be traveling by bus, and now I know why. These things cannot be stopped. They barreled 1 down roads that looked more like stormy seascapes than a dirt trail and would undauntingly charge up and down hills like intrepid little beetles.
Shore UAZ

An UAZ I found along the shore of Lake Baikal.


But it’s too easy to focus on the machine aspect of the UAZ and to ignore its human contents. The drivers of these vehicles deserve just as much attention and admiration as the engineers who designed and built the UAZ to drive through the apocalypse. My driver was a short man whose sober behavior seemed to contrast greatly with his argumentative eyes and hands that were covered in tough, suntanned skin punctuated by a series of long regular scars. Vladimir seemed to embody a combination of the stereotypes of the cunning Russian and the Russian who could kill a bear with his bare hands. Throughout the course of the six hour excursion, I heard him say three words: “здравствуйте/hello”, спасибо/thanks”, “пожалуйста/you’re welcome” with emotions ranging from quiet tenderness to quiet dismissiveness.
фото

There is a saying that in Russia there are no roads, only directions.


Regardless of whatever his backstory may be, Vladimir, like almost everyone else we have met in Siberia is an expert in his field. His lightning eye registered every change in the road, and his hands instantly directed the UAZ towards the path of least resistance. Sometimes this involved forgoing the road altogether. He was one with the vehicle, changing gears and adjusting the choke without the slightest betrayal of thought and coaxing the UAZ up extreme inclines that would have sent a less experienced driver tumbling down sideways along his unhappy cargo. Both the machine and the operator are in their element in this rugged landscape with patchy roads. But who needs roads when you have directions, a vehicle that can go anywhere, and the willpower of a hardened Siberian behind the wheel.
  1. I don’t actually know how fast we were going. The speedometer was going in laps that could match the rotational velocity of our wheels. (See video below)

The Melting Pot of Religion

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Historic Buryatia is a crossroad of religion. Native polytheistic shamanism was joined and accommodated by Tibetan Buddhism in the early 1700s. The Orthodox Church, originally discouraged from activities in Siberia because conversion would prevent tribes from paying their lucrative tribute to Moscow,  was also finally allowed to begin operations under the reign of Peter I in 1710.1 Old Believer schismatics were added to the mix several decades later when Catherine II removed them from parts of the western empire and placed them in Siberia because their reputation for being diligent workers along with their historic opposition to the seat of Russian power seemed an apt solution to Siberia’s underdevelopment.

Sacred Sight

One of the many sacred sites along the shores of Lake Baikal.


Old Believer Cross

An Old Believer cross visible from the same sacred site.


Dilara has already written a wonderful blog on the concept of Dvoeverie, or the dual faith that arose when Orthodox Christianity was introduced to the indigenous polytheistic religions, but Buryatia takes this further. In Buryatia, these four ways of worship intermix into a culture that allows for a large amount of interchange. At a Buddhist Datsan, Rada, our dedicated and fantastic guide, explained that religions are just different paths to the same God.2The Old Believer priest who led us through his museum seconded this message when, after crossing himself before his church, he turned to us and said pray in anyway that you feel comfortable.
Datsan

Part of the Ivolginsky Datsan, one of the many Buddhist temples found across Buryatia.


Strangely enough, this idea of mixing faiths seems embodied by the Soviet atheist museum that was located in Ulan-Ude’s Holy Trinity Cathedral. Here various elements of shamanistic rituals were preserved along side statues of Buddhist Taras in an Orthodox church. However, as Dilara yet again has noted in another post this juxtaposition took place as the government was trying to stamp out all religions in the region. In our few days here we have experienced all of these religions. We have visited Old Believers, circumambulated Datsans and given offerings to Baikal all in perfect harmony. There doesn’t seem to be any contest let alone conquest of religions, but rather peaceful coexistence and exchange.
  1. Anna Reid. The Shaman’s Coat. (Walker & Company, New York, 2003). 46.
  2.  In the case of polytheistic shamanism, the multiplicity of gods fits into the Buddhist hierarchy.

The Haircut

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Now that I think about it, I have a surprising amount of tolerance when it comes to allowing someone with sharp objects near my head. When I go to a barbershop, I say I would like my hair shorter, pretend to listen to whatever the haircutter says, and blurt out “yes, I’d like that very much thank you.” My hair always ends up shorter than before.
I had no reason to expect anything different in Russia, so I went to the barbershop located in the Main Building of MSU having prepped the words “покороче пожалуйста” “shorter please”; essentially all of the vocabulary I have ever needed in the States. I also went with my regular willingness to say yes to whatever the person with the scissors recommended. So I walked in to the Parikmakherskaya, said “yes please” to the first thing that was offered, and a split-second later realized that I had agreed to have my hair washed before the trim. It was ultimately a very relaxing experience once I got over the fact that a strange lady was massaging soapy water into my scalp. After that, I was led to a chair, executed my “shorter please” and agreed to have half of my hair cut off after explaining that my hair hadn’t been cut for a very long time. The stylist asked me where I was from and what I was doing in Russia and then a slew of short questions that I didn’t catch the first time and had to have repeated. I had a wealth of problems keeping myself from nodding my head furiously into her scissors when I understood one of these questions the second time round.

Parikmakherskaya

The long hall leading to the barbershop on the first floor of the main building.


Basically it was the same experience as I have had in America except with some added awkwardness that was mitigated by an added head bath for no extra cost.  And my hair ended up shorter than before.

Trash Talk and Culture Shock

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I hinted on this a couple other blogs, but, as one would suspect, there are a number of things in Moscow that are done differently in America. So I kept a list of the differences that I for whatever reason took special note of.
One of the ones I found the most surprising was the differences in habits with trash. Especially when coming from a Carleton dorm room with two trash cans and a recycling bin for two people, not to mention the multiple larger bins lining the halls, it is odd to be in an environment where they are so much harder to come by. Each dorm block here has one trash can, which seems a very reasonable amount, but the floor itself has no communal one. I only ever found one trash can at my homestay, and I had to scour a Petersburg train station until I found a small bin in a dark corner. Trash cans on the streets are mostly limited to parks or other green areas where people who come to sit and have a bite to eat might actually have something that they need to throw away and are much smaller than they are back home. In short, in Russia it seems as though trash cans appear out of necessity, while in America they are present out of convenience.

trash

Two of the saddest sights in the world: an empty box of sugar coated cranberries and an empty tube of Russian mustard.


Coming from Carleton, it’s easy to decry the fact that recycling is still in its infancy in Russia, but I think the fact that Russians tend to outnumber their trash cans while we Americans are outnumbered by ours sends an interesting message about waste. I don’t think I am personally wasting any less than I was in America, but having to leave the room to find a trashcan at least forces me to be at least a little more conscious of what I am throwing away.

Dorm Essentials

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Many blogs have already been written about food, but it’s such an integral part of my existence that I just want to pay a quick tribute to two uniquely Russian items that have made my culinary dorm life much more enjoyable. The first of these are клюква в сахарной пудре (cranberries in powdered sugar). They are exactly what they sound like, deliciously tart cranberries coated in powdered sugar to form a delectable snowball of flavor. Anna Mikhailovna first introduced me to these in our Cultural Idiom’s class, and I was overjoyed to find them in the nearby grocery store. Despite the fact that they are marketed exclusively towards милые дамы (lovely ladies), I’ve gone through two boxes and intend to bring some home. Apart from being fantastic on their own, they make a great sweetener when added to Muesli.
Клюкваклюква 2
The other item was also first introduced to me at Carleton (at one of the New Year’s parties), but I had forgotten about it until my homestay. Russian mustard is godly even when purchased at the cheapest price. Thanks to the tendency to use Indian mustard seeds and to add horseradish, Russian mustard has bite to it that is far superior to any of the “spicy” mustards I have encountered in America. It also comes in a wealth of varieties that I regret I didn’t have time to sample. The 200 gram tube I bought lasted about three weeks before being exhausted on various breads, pelmeni, shwarma, and sandwiches. This too will be following me home.

Lounging Life

Mustard on rye bread is the breakfast of champions. Russian breads are also fantastic. My favorite is a dark black Borodinsky, followed by the Krestyansky and Rzhevsky.


 

Pieces of Toast

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One of the things I dreaded the most leading up to my departure for Moscow was the homestay shift. But now that I am nearing the end of my time in Moscow, I realize that living for 10 days in a family was one of the absolute highlights of the trip. I was paired with a marvelous couple and their two dogs who all live in a Stalinist building that was a brisk 20 minute walk from my classes. My host father was hilarious and very down to earth, and my host mother was exceptionally kind, artistic, and full of wonderful information and suggestions as to where to go, what to see, what to read, and what to do. Naturally, there were a few miscommunications through the course of the 10 days. I somehow managed to imply that I am a fantastic singer and then my following denials were taken as being modest. At another point I vehemently denied having ever planted anything in our yard because I confused the verbs “to plant” with “to burn”. Miscommunications definitely did not characterize my stay, but all the same, I wanted to post about the very first misunderstanding that arose.

Brezhnev

The dogs were absolutely lovely. One was completely blind and just wandered around like a mild-mannered aristocrat, and the other was a whirlwind of energy. She had beautiful speckled eyebrows that are about as prominent as Leonid Brezhnev’s and she had a way of looking at you through those heavy brows that made you pet her unceasingly throughout every meal.


When I was filling out the form for homestay placement and information, one of the questions was “What do you normally eat when you are sick?” I carelessly answered toast, because my mother would insist I eat toast whenever I got sick, but I have never particularly liked toast. However, I think my host mother took this line to mean that I love toast passionately with all of my soul. Eager to accommodate my every desire, she made me two slices of toast with every meal and, if the first batch seemed too dark for her liking, she would make me two more. I didn’t want to offend her or waste food, so I ate all of the toast. After those 10 days and several dozen pieces of toast, I have begun to actually miss toast. I no longer associate it with the stomach flu, but rather with fantastic people, good conversation, and two wonderful little dogs.
Сербская брынза

Serbian Bryndza. A soft cheese that is an excellent topping for toast.

What can you do with a basic knowledge of Russian?

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Another thing that caught my eye at the Museum of the Patriotic War of 1812 was a glass case containing three 25 ruble bank notes from the early 1800s. One is authentic and two are extremely accurate counterfeits. Starting potentially as early as 1807, Napoleon began secretly printing 25 and 50 ruble banknotes to disrupt the Russian economy in anticipation of his invasion. There are two ways to tell the difference between the counterfeit and the real thing.
 
Russian students, take a moment to see if you can tell which of the following is real and which is fake:
 
50 Rubles
50 Rubles
 
The top one is fake.
 
The first difference is that Napoleon’s counterfeiters printed the signatures, but that would take a skilled eye to notice. The second difference is that his counterfeiters misspelled the word “государственной” (state) as “госуларственной”. So there you go, even after just one year of Russian, we would have been able to detect Napoleon’s fake bank notes.

When Ideology Collides with Tradition

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In what is turning out to be a Monday tradition I yet again set off for the All-Russia Exhibition Center before changing plans and ending up at the Museum of the Patriotic War of 1812. The regular exhibit was excellent, but what really struck me was the temporary exhibit on the “Myth of the Beloved Leader”. On exhibition were a myriad of visual works including various gifts given to Stalin and Lenin or their museums, personal items belonging to these leaders, and illustrations of their mythic status. Amidst the propaganda poster and socialist realist paintings was an interesting collection of lacquer boxes.

Meeting Strike

I.I. Zubkov’s 1927 “Strike in the Village”, The Russian Museum in Petersburg.


Lacquer miniature paintingon boxes first came about in the late 18th century as a derivation of icon-painting. The religious style of painting and techniques still closely resembled that of the icon, but the subject matter was more flexible. Things got more interesting following the October Revolution of 1917, when a government that had adopted an officially atheistic ideology consolidated power. Looking at these lacquer boxes produced in the early Soviet period, it seems as though the mythic form of Lenin and the utopianism of communism simply stepped into the spots left open by the dismissal of God and heaven. Lenin and Stalin, who both headed incredibly destructive anti-religious campaigns, ironically are depicted in the same manner of saints and the “Construction of the Kashinskaya Electrostation” could easily be a depiction of the construction of Noah’s ark if it were not for the telegraph poles (unfortunately I didn’t take any photos in this exhibit because I am cheap and did not want to pay the “photography fee”). [1]
Soviet-style Icon

Gretchen standing next to what appears to be a Soviet-style icon, made within the past 15 years, in the Suzdal Kremlin. The influence of tradition from ideology to ideology can be mutual, as demonstrated by this very interesting piece. The side panels depict the history of Suzdal, and I am not sure if this image was intended to be venerated, but the tangents to traditional icon formatting are blatant.


For comparison:
St. George Sinai

Icon of St. George and scenes from his life. 13th century, Sinai.


For the Motherland

The Soviet “For the Motherland!”


For more information on lacquer boxes (and if you would like to order a box online) browse this site.
 
[1] It should be noted that religious overlay is not isolated to traditional Orthodox Christian or Russian art. Another interesting object from the exhibition was a mosaic from Azerbaijan, which replaced the typical crescent on the minarets of a mosque with a hammer and sickle (tilted so that the sickle resembles the crescent).

Moscow as the Heart of Russia

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When we, as Americans, think about Russia we tend to conjure up images of bears, the Kremlin, St. Basil’s cathedral, and then vast empty spaces. It is the largest country in the world, but almost all of our concrete images of Russia, all that we imagine Russia to be, come almost exclusively from western Russia if not from Moscow and St. Petersburg alone. What is most interesting is that Russians also seem to envision their country in this western-centric manner; albeit with considerably less ignorance. In his book, Sacred Sea, about his journey to Lake Baikal, Peter Thomson observes that all train schedules are in Moscow time and infers that “all power in Russia, and all standards for time, culture, and thought, emanate from the seat of Russian government.”[1] Thomson generally has a flair for the dramatic when he writes about the Russian government, but my visit to the Glinka Museum for Musical Culture for the Night at the Museum events seemed to support his observations.

Glinka Museum of Musical Culture

The Glinka Museum of Musical Culture


The museum is a repository for instruments used in folk music throughout the world with particularly strong collections of instruments from Russia and the former SSRs. The special events of the evening included performances by an Ecuadorian flute and panpipe duo, a Brazilian Capoeria troupe, a self-styled Stilyagi Band, and a one-man Russian folk orchestra among many others. Traditions, costumes, and music were pulled from across time and the world to be presented to visitors in Moscow. What struck me most, however, was an exhibit on the history of the Russian National Anthem. At times it was military[2], religious[3], or simply very European[4], and often the national anthem fit into several of these categories. Most telling, however, was the national anthem under Boris Yeltsin, the “Patriotic Song”. Official lyrics were never chosen, but the only concrete places mentioned in the two main versions of this anthem were the Kremlin and Moscow. This seemed to me to be a very surprisingly blatant embodiment of the centrality of Moscow. Even during the presentation on the current Hymn of the Russian Federation, almost all of the images put to the music were from western Russia, predominantly Moscow and St. Petersburg.
The growth of the Russian Empire from 1533-1894
Perhaps the first real colonial conquests of Muscovy took place under Ivan the Terrible when he conquered the city of Kazan. Since that time, Russia expanded into a massive, contiguous land empire. The fact that it was contiguous leads us to tend to disregard Russia as a colonial power, particularly when compared to the overseas empires of Britain, France, or Spain, but the capital (Petersburg or Moscow) was very much the metropole of the empire and seems remain the very heart of the country. Moscow is a repository for the Russian Federation and, at least according to my observations from the museum, is considered from its own eyes as representative of the country as a whole. When we are in the periphery next week, it will be very interesting to see the shape of this relationship from the other side.
 
[1] Peter Thomson. Sacred Sea: A Journey to Lake Baikal. (Oxford University Press, 2007). 138.
[2] The March of the Preobrazhensky Guard under Peter I
[3] Prayer of the Russians under Alexander I
[4] God Save the Tsar set to the same tune as God Save the King by an English composer.

The Search for Shostakovich

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During the five hour break between classes today, I set off for the All-Russia Exhibition Center, rode one stop on the metro before deciding that I wasn’t up for the 13 additional stops, and got off the next time the train doors opened. I was at the Sportivnaya station and remembered hearing that Novodevichy Convent was close to that stop. So I naturally decided to set off to find one of my favorite composers, Dmitry Shostakovich, who is buried in the Novodevichy graveyard. Because this was a very spur of the moment decision, I hadn’t looked at any maps of this area in advance didn’t actually know where the convent was in relation to the metro station. Furthermore, once I got above ground, I quickly noticed that that there were none of the signs I had expected to point me the right way.

Novodevichy 2

The view that greeted me as I walked through the gates of the convent.


But after walking in a series of widening concentric circles centered around the metro station, I eventually found a landmark (the Olympic stadium) and was able to orient myself around that to find the convent. The convent itself is worthy of many a blog post and the grounds were exquisite with new growth, blooming lilacs, and tulips. I spent a while wandering the grounds and taking in the wonderful scents before I recalled my mission. I left the convent, without having a clue as to where the cemetery might be, but I walked along the walls until I found an entrance that happened to be the correct one. There is a map at the very front of the cemetery, which clearly divided everything into clean sections and states where the most well-known occupants are buried within those sections. To make a long story short, I apparently can’t read maps, because I scoured the graveyard looking for a section that I never did find and that Shostakovich was never buried in. Along the way, however, I ran across, Yeltsin, Khrushchev, Chalyapin, and Kropotkin to name a few. And after an enlightening revisit to the map, I realized my mistake and quickly found the composer’s tombstone. It was relatively modest, but I was exceptionally pleased to find that his musical signature was included beneath his name.
IMG_1026

Shostakovich’s tombstone with the DSCH (the composer’s initials when transcribed into German) motif found in many of his works.


It’s fantastic how you can set off to find one thing in Moscow and run across so much more than expected even if you never end up making it to your intended destination.