Final Day

Posted on June 10, 2014 by fernholzg

Goodbyes are hard. After a boat tour on the Moskva River, our group parted ways on the trusty Moscow Metro, where we tightly embraced and waved prolongedly through the windows to each other as our train cars pulled away. Only Chet, Almeda, Sahree, and I remained, but the four of us were determined to make the most of our last day in Moscow, and that we did.
In the morning, Chet and I met up with James, a fellow Moscow holdout, at Izmailovsky Market. From a distance, Izmailovsky resembles a bizarre Renaissance Festival storefront.

Photo from http://jdombstravels.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Jdombs-Travels-Izmailovo-Market-1.jpg.

Inside, it strongly reminded me of the quaint country flea market near my grandma’s old house, where I spent many a Saturday morning as a child. The spirit of routine and camaraderie amongst the shop keepers was uncannily similar. I can’t count how many times at Izmailovsky I saw grizzled old men shuffling from booth to booth, shaking their fellow vendors’ hands and shooting the breeze. I wondered how many sellers used Izmailovsky as their primary source of income. I also pondered whether they grew tired of trying to explain prices to non-Russian-speaking tourists every day. I imagine they do.
I left with far more souvenirs than my suitcases have room for, but the prices really spoke to me. I bought two wooden dolls, which I had been wanting this entire trip, from a woman who hand paints them herself. We got to talking and covered all the usual pleasantries, like where I was from and what I thought about the difficulty of the Russian language. Chet, James, and I somehow managed to meet up multiple times, and we eventually left the market, but not before I bought a Russian flag off the front of one stand and finally obtained the crown jewel of my souvenir collection: a track suit.
In the early evening, the four of us met up with Taya to stroll around the Kremlin one last time. Although we weren’t able to get into the Manege’s new exhibit for free, we did cover all the usual tourist bases. We watched one final changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown soldier and witnessed a new stage on Red Square being put up for Russia Day – sadly, we won’t get to see the finished preparations.

There’s always something going on at Red Square.

Having wandered across a bridge overlooking the Kremlin, we ate a delicious supper at Grabli. We became a bit turned around on the way to the metro and ending up facing the Kremlin again. We crossed the bridge, crossed the famous square, listened to an old man singing songs that we actually knew, and said farewell to that part of the city… for now, anyways.

Goodbyes are hard, but when you remember that the people and places you left are still there, waiting for you to return someday, they become a little easier. And the set of wonderful things you left behind on the way to your new adventure are the ones that will greet you when you arrive home.

The Thing About the Trees

Posted on May 26, 2014 by calderong

One thing I’ve noticed about Russians since coming here in April is their affinity for painting things. Street curbs, steel fences, and children’s playgrounds are all painted bright colors, lighting up streets and neighborhoods.

A Playground in the US

A Playground in Russia

Most interesting of all, however, are the trees.

Trees outside the Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir.

Walking through parks, I often found trees with their trunks painted white and wondered for what purpose.This seems to be a common practice, as I’ve seen it in Vladimir, Suzdal, Gagarin, and even in Ulan Ude, a city in the Eastern Siberian region. Was there a superstition I was unaware of? Perhaps the white paint kept life-sucking spirits away?
I finally asked Lera, an MGU student who had spent a year at Carleton, and the answer was actually a lot more boring than I thought. The white paint is actually an insecticide. It prevents bugs from eating away at the bark and damaging the trees.
I suppose this explanation is a lot closer to my guess than I let on, but it just goes to show that sometimes its not all myths and legends in Russia.

Moscow Evenings

Posted on May 23, 2014 by moreesandersa

In class at Carleton, we listened to a song called Подмосковные вечера, or Moscow Evenings. You can listen to it here. I thought it was a lovely song, about how nice it is to walk around Moscow at night. The first verse can be translated like this:

Not even rustlings are heard in the garden.
Everything here has died down until morning.
If you only knew how dear to me
These Moscow evenings are!

One of our first nights in Moscow, we walked out the Glavnoe Zdanie’s main entrance to look out over the Sparrow Hills. That was my first time seeing the city lights, and it was beautiful.

Gretchen enjoying the view of the city from the University’s Sparrow Hills overlook.

For the next few weeks, we were very busy, and the next time I really experienced a Moscow evening was on Victory Day. After a long day of strolling, we finally took the metro to the Sparrow Hills metro station, which is located on a bridge over the Moscow river. From the bridge, we watched the Victory Day fireworks light up the darkening sky.

Since then, I’ve found myself outside in the evening on many occasions. Tonight, Sahree and I went out in search of a riverboat cruise to look at the city lights. Unfortunately, the dock we went to had already closed for the night, and we didn’t know where to find another one. Instead, we took a walk along the riverbank. I think a night cruise is still in order, but we did enjoy ourselves.

We didn’t find a boat we could ride, but we did find a boat-shaped restaurant. It was far too expensive for us, so we ate imaginary burgers outside of it instead.

All silliness aside, I think I finally understand the feeling behind the song. There really is something magical about Moscow evenings.

What's that eerie sound?

Posted on May 22, 2014 by aldrichc

While our group was wandering about the Musical Museum in Moscow, we heard an eerie sound….

It turns out that the sound was coming from a theremin. There was a man playing it, and it was particularly strange because there was absolutely no contact between him and the instrument. It was surreal. Naturally, I had to know how it worked.

A child attempting to play the theremin.

Originally created by the Russian inventor Ле́в Серге́евич Терме́н (Léon Theremin), the theremin uses two antennas to sense the proximity of the player’s hands, which then controls oscillators for frequency and volume. All one needs to do is move his/her right hand relative to the right antenna to change pitch, and move his/her left hand relative to the left antenna to change the volume.

Near the beginning of the 20th century, Russian researchers were attempting to create proximity sensors. This eventually led to Theremin’s patent of the instrument itself in 1928. Often, the instrument has been used in soundtracks for horror films, leading to its association with an eerie sound.

Here’s an example of how it is played, courtesy of Léon Theremin himself:

Trains!

Posted on May 22, 2014 by moreesandersa

As you may already know, I like boats. It turns out that my interest in vehicles extends beyond boats, and into the realm of things with wheels. The most interesting type of thing with wheels, in my opinion, is the train.

A train which, incidentally, I saw from the deck of a boat.

Trains in Russia are much more common, and more useful, than the American trains with which I am familiar. Moscow has no less than thirteen train stations, with trains ranging from the rickety elektrichki that connect Moscow to its many suburbs, to sleeper trains that travel as far afield as Paris (38 hours from Moscow on a high-speed line) and Vladivostok (7 days from Moscow on the Trans-Siberian Railway).

The Moscow station we left from on our way to St Petersburg, which is confusingly called Leningrad Station. Photo from 1tv.ru.

We have ridden on a variety of these trains during our visit. We took elektrichki on our trip to Gagarin, and again when we went to Vladimir. These rides were fairly short, between two and four hours, with multiple stops along the way. Although we did ride one elektrichka with compartments for four, most elektrichki that we rode had large, open seating areas. On this type of elektrichka, people walk up and down the train selling a range of souvenirs and food.

Sahree enjoying the cheese pirozhok she bought from one of the food salespeople on the train to Gagarin.

Later, we had the chance to ride an overnight train to St Petersburg. I was very excited about this, since I’ve always wanted to try sleeping on a train, and I was not disappointed. On our way north, we rode in the lap of luxury, in sleeping compartments with only two people per room.

Kaylin’s and my sleeping compartment on the way to St Petersburg.

On the way back to Moscow, we had four people in the same amount of space (with bunk beds), but even though that was a little more cramped, I still thoroughly enjoyed the ride. In fact, I’m convinced that trains are almost as cool as boats.

Buskers and Underpasses: The Music of Moscow

Posted on May 22, 2014 by aldrichc

Virtually everywhere I’ve been in Russia there are likely to be a few street performers. Whether they’re playing the violin along the streets of Suzdal, a flute next to Catherine’s Palace in St. Petersburg, or a trumpet in a subway car, I’ve seen it all.

Naturally, one wonders if this sort of activity is discouraged as it is in many cities in the United States. As it turns out, there is even an association that many of these people belong to: the Moscow Union of Independent Artists. If one of the street performers is hassled, or even has to appear in court, the Union will be there to help them with any legal trouble that they may face.

As a result, one can see quite a few street players unabashedly playing their music for the world, and here’s a fantastic example of a violinist and a cellist doing just that in an underground street crossing:

Water Quality

Posted on May 22, 2014 by kaspers

Everybody that I’ve met so far in Moscow and in St. Petersburg drinks bottled water instead of water from the tap. The bottles we get are in increments of liters: I have nearly gone through four 5-liter bottles during my stay here. Ashan (they sell everying from nylons to kulich Easter bread) is the cheapest place to buy water, but it’s a bit of a hike, especially while carrying a large jug of water. Solution? If you don’t mind spending a few rubles more, the mini-marts in the Glavnoe Zdanie is much closer.

Somehow, I’ve managed to buy four different brands.

In Russian 150, I wrote a research paper about the drinking water quality of St. Petersburg but I only found one source that had been updated within the past five years. There have been water quality checks from outside sources, finding subpar results. Since then, Vodokanal (the company in charge of providing sanitized water to the city’s people) has implemented new technology and opened new water treatment plants. They assure that the water is safe to drink, but the population tends to buy bottled water despite this, perhaps out of habit.
In my paper, I did not research Moscow’s water quality, but the situation seems similar to that of St. Petersburg. At the dorms, we are told that even if the water tastes fine and we don’t get sick, there may be heavy metals (carcinogens) from the pipes webbing through the our homely monolith. We have chainiks (electric tea kettles) to boil water, but heavy metals don’t boil away.
It is impossible to know the water quality situation exactly – recent English sources are lacking and in St. Petersburg, Vodokanal does not make all of its statistics publicly available. Perhaps the water in both cities is drinkable and there are pipes (privately owned) that unintentionally add contaminants. We do as the Russians do; we drink bottled water. It is simply a safety precaution.

Red Square on Victory Day

Posted on May 22, 2014 by kaspers

After our adventures at Patriarch’s Ponds, Gretchen, Almeda, and I visited Red Square. It being May 10, the day after Victory Day, we watched workers take down the huge, metal-framed structures built for the holiday.

Taking it all down.

Returning to class Monday, at least two, maybe three, of our professors told us that it would have been better for us to watch the parade on Red Square on TV instead of craning our necks, standing on our tiptoes, and watching from a different part of the parade route. But for us, the goal was to experience the festivities in person and not through a screen. After all, we can always look online and see what we may have missed! And yes, I was curious: how had Red Square had looked like the day before, on Victory Day? The weather was perfect and the streets were packed. However, the following day was overcast, threatening to rain, and the streets were deserted.
Here are a few comparison pictures:

From http://rt.com/news/157780-wwii-victory-parade-red-square/.

The view above Red Square. From http://rt.com/news/157780-wwii-victory-parade-red-square/.

The view in front of GUM, a shopping center.

Red Square filled with people. From http://pbs.twimg.com/.

On Wednesday (May 21) I traveled back to Park Pobedy, Victory Park, to visit the Museum of the Great Patriotic War. It was sunny and uncomfortably warm, and as with Red Square on May 10, Park Pobedy was deserted except for a few people playing in the fountains.

May 21st. Not a holiday. All this open space was filled on Victory Day!

May 9th, Victory Day on Park Pobedy.

A Night at the Theatre

Posted on May 22, 2014 by fernholzg

During my time here, I’ve been to several theatrical events: two operas, a ballet, and a handful of plays. The last category gave me the most grief but was also the most educational. Listening to a play in another language made me realize some things about the craft of acting itself. Even though I did a lot of theatre in high school, I somehow failed to notice that actors speak slowly and with great pronunciation. The Russian language is filled with letters (particularly vowels) that sound different depending on which syllable of a word is stressed. And consonants can often become a jumbled mess when a native speaker is breezing through a conversation. At the theater, however, highly-trained actors carefully enunciate every syllable and tend to speak much, much slower than your average street encounter. How convenient for a foreigner visitor! It also turns out that the language of facial expressions is universal, and good physical comedy is always funny, even if you don’t perfectly understand the context. One of the most interesting things about attending theatre in Russia is the curtain call; that is, when everyone takes their bows. Here, the cast will usually come out in related pairs or groups (as in the states), but then they proceed to take several bows, run off stage, come back on stage, bow again, and so on and so forth. Family members and friends are often waiting in the front row to deliver their performers flowers, so as they take their final bow, you can try to guess whose spouses came to watch that day. Following are short synopses of two plays I saw that weren’t group activities. Братья – Theatre Gogol’. About four dysfunctional brothers and the misfortunes that befall them upon moving from their home village to the big city to find work. One of the brothers makes it big as a boxer, but at the cost of his prostitute girlfriend and sanity.

The main character and his lady friend; photo (c) Gogol’ Center.

Ветер шумит в тополях – State Academic Theatre imeni Bakhtangova, on the Arbat. Taya, Kaylin, and I were very fortunate to nab tickets to this one, since it was officially sold out. I bought a pair of tickets for about 1/4 face value, and Taya’s was given to her for free by a man standing outside the theatre. Kaylin and I had a tough time understanding the dialogue because the three main characters were old men in a nursing home, and one of them mumbled something fierce. The theatre is beautiful though, definitely worth a visit.

The old men. Photo (c) Gosudarstvennyi teatr Bakhdangova.

День палтуса – Содружество актеров Таганки. This was probably my favorite play of all; it’s a comedy about a woman whose husband is working in Peru. In the meantime, she’s having an affair with two different married men. Things get all tangled up and both men and their wives, as well as her best friend and her friend’s drunk husband end up in the woman’s house. The two ladies pretend that they’re operating a clinic so that the wives don’t find out. In the end, everyone decides to stop cheating and goes home to his or her spouse.

A City of Clashing Pasts

Posted on May 21, 2014 by akgundud

Moscow’s architecture is kind of offsetting to me and says much about its long and complicated past. On one hand, there are these beautiful neighborhoods in central Moscow that remind you of the 18^th and 19^th centuries. Russians have tried to preserve 19^th century Moscow as much as possible, and it is always strange to me when I can still see the very buildings in which famous writers such as Gogol, Pushkin, and Bulgakov lived. On the other hand, every time I try to take a picture of these beautiful buildings, I always end up getting a small shot of a tall Soviet era building or a factory of some sort. You can see it clearly in the picture below. I tried to take a shot of the buildings near the Moscow River, and while they looked beautiful in the afternoon sun, the Soviet-style tall building in the middle right side contrasted too strongly with the classical style buildings (I am not a huge fan of Soviet era architecture). In another picture, there were a factory’s smokestacks.

The picture with smokestacks.

The picture with the tall Soviet building in the background.

When I went to visit Andreevsky monastery in Kitai Gorod (check it out below!), it was almost laughable how strange the area was. Here was a beautiful and quaint monastery belonging to the 17^th century and next to it were trolleybus wires, cars, Soviet buildings, a metro station, and cars. I was thrown off a little bit, and it goes to show how much Moscow has expanded over the years. We don’t have anything like this is the United States. Moscow is a city that has chunks representing every century since the late 1100s, and now it supports a melting pot of architecture.

Andreevsky Monastery

When I first arrived here, I really did not like the clashes in architecture in Moscow; however, after visiting St. Petersburg and seeing how 19^th century/classical its architecture is, I learned to love the crazy, bustling, and diverse city that is Moscow, Russia. And even though I still don’t like Soviet era architecture, I can’t imagine a Moscow without its little old churches, former communal apartments, and classical (with sprinkles of gothic) style buildings.

Carleton Moscow & Beyond 2014

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