Blini, bad hair, and snow (oh no!)

Greetings from Russia, Land of the Flailing Mullet! Yes indeed, Russia truly is something of a "lost world" when it comes to hair fashion; here the mullet, the rat-tail, and numerous other bad haircuts of the 80s and 90s live on long after they have mercifully passed into extinction in most parts of the world. Mullets seem especially in style for young men, a fact I find exceedingly worrisome as I really need a haircut but my Russian is still so poor I fear I'll totally flub it when I try explaining what I want and I'll end up with a mullet too! It's such a hideous fate that I just can't face up to going to the barber yet, although my hair's gotten to the length I really can't put off getting it cut much longer!

Mabye I should just give in, get a mullet and truly embrace the culture. I thought it might be fun to make a Russian disguise - buy myself a leather jacket, grow a more substantial Uncle Joe-style moustache, and pick up an ushanka or one of those faded, battered caps that all the old Russian guys wear that make them look like stereotypical Soviet factory workers. Then I could really blend in... mabye I just want to dress up in a costume because it should be time for Hallowe'en, but they don't have it here, which is so very disappointing.

Today I was supposed to go with some friends to a big market/flea market in Southern Petersburg where I hoped to buy some Soviet kitsch and mabye a big Red Army greatcoat or something substantial to replace my flimsy ski jacket, but the weather was not cooperating. Actually today was the worst I've seen - screaming wind and near-horizontal icy sleet, that perfect combination for total misery! At one point it was even snowing, the first Russian snow I've seen, but certainly not the last... the West wind was so strong that it had blown the Smolenka river (that I walk over everyday on my way to the Metro) back on itself, raising the water level by a several feet overnight so that it completely covered the riverside walkway and looked not that far from flooding. Sanity prevailed and we decided not to go to an outdoor market today (though I'm sure it was still on - if the Russian merchants packed up for a little bit of bad weather, they'd never survive!) but instead opted to go downtown for tea and blini, one of the few really fabulous Russian culinary creations! Blini are usually translated as pancakes but really they're more like crepes, thin and light and filled with all sorts of delicious things like cheese, ham, and mushrooms or smoked salmon or even black caviar. There are also lots of dessert blini, with berries and whipped cream or bananas and lots of chocolate sauce. Just the sort of thing you need on a ridiculously cold day when they come hot off the grill!

Vybourg

Soo this Sunday I dared venture back into Karelia, the area just north of Saint Petersburg near Finland that you may remember from the gloomy description I gave of it when I first arrived by train. The landscape of northern wilderness interspersed by truly hopeless-looking villages and derelict buildings hadn't changed since then, and neither had the weather - low cloud and misty rain. The reason for my trip into this delightful place was that my friend Helen, who's from Edinburgh, and I had decided to go to Vybourg, a town of 81,000 near the Finnish border that we heard had a medieval castle and a cool old town that made it well worth a visit. I've never been to a real castle before, despite being truly obsessed with everything medieval for most of my childhood, so this was an important thing for me to see! Helen agreed, and having lived in the north of Britain all her life, surrounded by all sorts of crumbling castles and fortresses, (lucky girl!) she was definitely the best person to go with! So despite the lousy weather, we met up and headed by Metro to the Finland Station to catch the Vybourg train.

Buying tickets in Russian was interesting but we managed and found a very 1950s-looking train waiting for us! The train ride was quite the Russian experience. Our bench was as hard as a board (actually I'm sure that's all it was under the thin black cover) and as we sat and chatted for the 2 1/2 hours it took our train to creep (quite literally at times) to Vybourg, a steady stream of vendors of many things would appear and loudly make a short speech about their selection of ice cream, newspapers, or fresh cheese and then move on after making a few roubles, another seller immediately taking their place. It was like a 2 1/2 hour long live commercial break! It seems to happen a lot on Russian transport; the strangest was when a young man on the Metro pulled an electric toothbrush out of the pocket of his leather jacket and started his spiel, his voice getting increasingly louder as he tried to make himself heard over the rising squeal of the engine until he was yelling at the top of his voice, " ...massages the gums! Cleans better then any other toothbrush..." At one point the flow of merchants was interrupted when a man arrived in our coach with an accordion and started loudly singing folk songs! We both started laughing. How much more Russian can this train ride get? I didn't know whether if you gave him money it would make him stop or sing more! It was quite entertaining.

Vybourg Station was impressive, an imposing mint green building with huge classical columns and studded with giant wreathed Soviet crests, high Stalinism at its best - or worst? Soviet architecture is a bit of both; it's so incredibly ugly, especially monstrosities like the blocky, concrete 1970s Finland Station but at the same time you can't help but be deeply impressed by such pompous, monolithic architecture. There's a real charm to such buildings - they're so ugly, its cool!

I bought a map at the station and we walked through the rain in the direction of the castle, turning onto "40 years of the Komsomol (Communist Youth League) Street!" Soon we could see the castle's oddly-shaped white central tower rising above the mist. We took a little detour when we came to a market set up on the cobblestoned square of the old railway station - mostly just selling cheap clothes and shoes, although one booth was full of grubby-looking Lenin busts and other delightful Soviet kitsch. There was an interesting-looking round tower on one side of the square that we found out later was built in 1550 and was part of the old city walls, but when we went to take a closer look it turned out now to be just a restaurant! Leaving the market behind, we wandered through narrow back streets til we came to a neat old clocktower built on a ridge of exposed bedrock. At its base was the empty shell of a large brick building, ALOT of broken glass, and a simple jet black monument set up by the Finnish government to mark the mass grave of 108 Finnish soldiers killed during the war. There are reminders like this everywhere that Vybourg was not always Russian; only some 60 odd years ago the Soviets seized Karelia and Vybourg from the Finns after a humiliating "Winter War" in which tiny Finland put up a brave fight and stopped the giant Red Army in its tracks for quite awhile. The Finns took the town back briefly from the Soviet Union as German allies during World War Two but lost it again, whereupon Stalin had all the Finns deported. Now Vybourg's population is entirely Russian, but living in an old Finnish town - it gives the place a strange feel.

Vybourg castle was great - rather small, but very dramatic on its island and with that amazing central tower that you can climb to the top of for 20 roubles (less then $1). We decided that the rain and mist really added to the experience of visiting an old medieval castle - very atmospheric! Not that the castle was entirely medieval - it had been founded in 1293 but, like many castles, had been added onto extensively in the centuries since so that most of what we saw was later additions from the 16th to 19th century. There was a neat little museum that dealt with the history of the castle as it changed hands over the years as Sweden and Russia fought for control of the area. It also had a neat display about border control over the years (as Vybourg's almost right on the border with Finland) - there was a mockup Soviet-era border control post with x-ray machine and uniformed guards, plus a whole range of things that had been confiscated like a child's doll stuffed with American dollars, and a hollowed-out copy of the Communist Manifesto with a pistol imbedded in it! We also had a demonstration of medieval armour and weapons, though unfortunately I missed my chance to fire the crossbow, that would have been so great! All in all, my first visit to a castle was very enjoyable. We hung around in Vybourg for the rest of the afternoon, wandering the Old Town and following the impressive remains of the old city wall before catching the train home. Unfortunately the weather suddenly turned nasty at the very end of the day as we waited on the platform in the dark and poor Helen and I were totally soaked in a torrential downpour that made the 2 1/2 hour journey back a little less fun!

Sketchy experiences

This Wednesday marked one month in Russia for me! Despite all the warnings about how dangerous Russia is, I've really had very little trouble and only a handful of times I've actually felt threatened, besides everyday dangers like crossing streets filled with maniac drivers, which also gets the adrenaline pumping! Here are a few of my sketchier experiences:

On my first day here I had the misfortune to run into the gypsies. Near the Winter Palace, dressed in brightly coloured traditional dress and wearing all sorts of garish jewellry, a quartet of stereotypical gypsy women descended on poor old foreign me! I tried my best to break free of the closing ring of incomprehensible Russian pleas and flashing golden teeth, muttering nyet, nyet, nyet at them but they were oh so insistent. The craziest-looking one followed me for nearly half a block, schrieking "Mushchina, Mushchina!" at me before she finally gave up on me and I checked to make sure my wallet was still with me. Survived my first gypsy ordeal intact, thank goodness.

Sandra and I were on the Metro on our way to go see a Museum the second week I was here. Standing by the door was a man mabye in his 60s with a briefcase and nearby a couple of bulky-looking thugs in black leather jackets. When we arrived at the next station the roughs started to scuffle, pushing each other around and getting angry before one suddenly took off through the open door and ran towards the escalator, his accomplice close behind. I was trying to figure out what had just happened when the older man who had been standing nearby yelled, "Damnit, my wallet's gone!" in English and started cursing and looking desperately around on the floor of the car for it. I'm sure what happened was that these guys realized he was a foreigner, mabye heard him talk in English, and someone picked his pocket while he was distracted by the two guys "fighting." We both checked afterwards to make sure we hadn't been unwittingly robbed as well and decided to be extra careful on the Metro since then!

Probably one of the scariest experiences I've had here was my brief encounter with the Russian medical system. All foreign students at Saint Petersburg State University have to have an HIV test upon arrival at the university's very own clinic, cunningly hidden in a small building around the back of the giant OTTO Institute so that the poor foreigners get completely lost! Finally I found it and walked in, my spirits sinking quickly. It wasn't actually visibly dirty in there or anything, but in comparison to medical facilities in Canada it was pretty scary. Everything looked old and well-worn; poorly-lit rooms, tired linoleum, and walls painted in that old-fashioned institutional pale green. And the staff were so brusque and unfriendly, even rude - you'd think for a clinic that deals with so many foreign students they might bother hiring someone who speaks something other then Russian, but no! I really don't do well with needles anyways, but here I felt positively terrified as I sat waiting my turn, all the stories and rumours I'd heard of the grim state of the Russian medical system, improper sterilization, and reused needles coming back to me! I survived and got the required certificate but oh that experience instilled in me a deep dread of the bolnitsa, or Russian hospital. I will do my very best to avoid them at all costs!

Ogopogo!

This entry was supposed to have gone up on Wednesday, but for some reason didn't publish then - darn blog!

Last weekend Andreas and Sandra, my two friends from Munich went home to Germany. It's a strange situation here with friends coming and going all the time, since everyone at the language institute is here for different amounts of time, some only a month or two while others like me are here for half a year or more. They invited me to visit them in Munich, an offer I'll definitely take up! It's great how everyone's so happy to invite you to come and visit them in their home country when they hear you're planning to travel! We went out Saturday night to a bar just off Nevsky Prospekt as a sort of send-off for Andreas and Sandra. It was a really nice evening, though cut short by the fact that we had to leave at midnight becasue the bridges connecting downtown to Vasilievsky Island where I live are raised for a few hours every night for shipping and the metro also shuts down, so we had to scamper out to actually get home! It's kind of irritating; you either have to have an early night and be home by about 1am or stay out all night and come home at dawn. Or just stay on Vasilievsky Island, but there nearly as much there at night as on Nevsky.

I was surprised to find another Canadian at the bar that evening, the first one I've met here, a French Canadian guy from Montreal called Gerome. Despite his basic English and my terrible French, we talked and talked and talked - it was just so nice to finally meet someone else from home, even if he lives on the other side of the country and is a staunch Quebec seperatist! When I told him I was from BC he got excited and said that for ten years he's been trying to remember the name of some monster that lives in a lake in BC somewhere... did I happen to know what he was talking about?? Of course he was talking about the Ogopogo, the legendary monster that lives in Okanagan Lake right by Penticton! It was the strangest thing, talking in a bar in Saint Petersburg about the Ogopogo, of all things! Quite a coincidence he should ask about it, especially since I had just written a short paragraph about the legend in an assignment for class the day before (we had to write a fairy tale from our country and that was the best I could come up with!). And then to make things even more weird, the next day I was watching TV and just flipping through the channels when I came to a music video by a crazy Russian metal band called Strakh ("Terror") that was really awful BUT the song they were playing was called (in Cyrillic letters) O-go-po-go! Well if that doesnt take the cake, three Ogopogo incidences in three days in Russia of all places... bizarre.

More photos

The famous "Bronze Horseman" statue of Peter the Great on horseback, crushing the snake of treason. This apparently is THE place to take wedding photos - we counted almost 10 wedding parties there!

The "Sailor's Church," on our Dostoevsky walk.

The Cruiser Aurora - flagship of the October Revolution!
Bustling, glitzy Nevsky Prospekt, Petersburg's commercial centre.
The view of the city from the top of Saint Isaac's Cathedral on a (rare) clear day.
Leaving the Saint Isaac's rooftop.
Inside the Cosmonaut Museum.
Me and my classmates! From right: Helen, Ina, Andreas, and I.

Soldiers, soldiers everywhere

It's been surprising how many men in uniform are always on the streets here. At the Museum of Old Saint Petersburg it said that in the 19th century about 10% of the city's population were in the armed forces - I'd guess it's something comaparable now. They're everywhere: soldiers in olive drab, sailors with their tassles and striped blue and white shirts, chain-smoking traffic police in leather jackets, militisiya (corrupt? probably), and I dont know what else! So many are incredibly young, looking very serious but quite ridiculous in the already oversized peaked caps so many of them wear! Those hats really look silly, even on a full grown man. (the first Russian soldier I saw, while on the train from Finland, was wearing one of those and aviator glasses as he came swaggering along the platform, taking exagerrated draws from his cigarette - sooo pompous, it was hilarious!) I dont know at what age Russians have to serve their military service, but it seems awfully young. While buying stamps at the post office the door suddenly opened and a whole mob of teenage sailors came pouring in with their officer, probably to get their mail from mother! It reminded me of boy scouts.. The youngest I saw though was a boy on the Metro in camo fatigues who seriously looked no older then 9. You feel kind of sorry for kids like that, especially with what you hear about abuse and hazing in the Russian military. I dont think it's a good place to be, whatever age.

Being from happy, peaceful Canada, where it's rare to EVER see soldiers and even a cadet uniform attracts notice on the streets, the massive military presence makes me a little uneasy. One day I decided to walk a different way home and turned down a tree-lined side side street and saw a whole mass of soldiers, mabye 50, in full gear running down the street towards me - I quickly went back the way I came! I've never been stopped by anyone in uniform, thank goodness. I've heard stories about corrupt police asking foreigners for their papers and making up some "problem" with their papers to charge them a fine. Crooked cops are apparently a huge problem in Moscow, but not so much here, although Agnieska told me that in Saint Petersburg two of her friends were fined 2000 roubles (about $40) each for walking on the grass! To give you an idea of just how much that is for some people in Russia, I heard from a friend that her Russian roomate's father, who works in the Caucasus as an astronomer, makes 2000 roubles in one month!

Raskolnikov's Trail

Now a story for you Dostoevsky fans! Saturday I went with some friends on a Dostoevsky walk, which was just perfect as right now I'm reading Crime and Punishment, his dark tale of the murderer Raskolnikov, set in Saint Petersburg in the 1860s. We took the Metro to Sennaya Ploschad (or the Haymarket) which in Dostoevsky's time was a place infamous for its seedy taverns and illicit activities. Although it's still a commercial district, it's cleaned up its act since then and is now full of flashy stores with neon signs and a huge new shopping mall that was identical to any back home - they really are the same the world over! It's strange how with regards to clothing, the English language is so fashionable. You almost never see anyone wearing a shirt of jacket with a logo or script in Cyrillic; to be cool enough to be fashionable, it just has to be in English, no matter how much it doesnt make sense, yay Engrish! And yet despite this craze for English logos and designs, no-one in Russia actually seems to speak it! Only one language is fashionable here, much to my detriment.. I'm muddling along these days with Russian, but it's real tough going.

Back to Dostoevsky. We passed by at least 4 apartment buildings where he lived; apparently he liked to gamble and had to move around alot to escape his debtors! Interestingly, he set the action of Crime and Punishment in the area he lived in, which was then a pretty bad part of town and which doesnt seem to have changed all that much since then - still pretty filthy and oh the smell! We then went to the building where his character Raskolnikov lived from where he began his journey to the apartment of his victim, the old pawnbroker - although the story is entirely fictional, Dostoevsky's detailed descriptions are so accurate and true to reality that it's possible to know the exact buildings he wrote about! We then traced the murderer's trail as he trudged through the streets, axe under coat, pausing like he does to stare into the dark water of the Gribodeyev Canal (they're everywhere in downtown Petersburg, hence it's nickname The Venice of the North!). The best part was the pawnbroker's building - although nothing is marked, our guide book gave us the exact address of the flat and said that the tenants don't mind you coming inside to take a look, so we crept up the musty, dimly-lit twisting stairway that Dostoevsky describes so well. And there it was, Flat 74! Site of the murder, Raskolnikov's name in Russian scratched into a nearby wall by some literary graffiti artist! It was very exciting to see the actual place he was describing and compare it to what I had imagined. It's a very atmospheric place, especially on a grey day, like we've been having all the time lately - definitely worth a trip if you enjoyed Crime and Punishment!

A strange experience

You never know what you're wandering into, when you are new to a place and dont understand what's going on around you. I felt like that last Wednesday when Sandra, Andreas, Miriam, and I went downtown and, having left the glitz and bustle of Nevsky Prospekt behind, came to Mars Field, a giant manicured park. From far away I noticed a giant red Soviet flag flapping in the middle of the park, which of course we had to check out! At the center of the park sits a big granite monument housing an eternal flame to honour the heroes of the Revolution; around this a crowd was gathering, carrying wrinkled Soviet banners and memorial photos of dead young men framed in black ribbon. Some sort of Communist get-together... most of them were at least middle-aged a few of the men were even dressed in their old Red Army uniforms, Soviet medals pinned proudly to their chests. We walked right into the group, trying to figure out what was going on. There were mabye 50 people there already, with more arriving all the time, and a couple groups of militsia (police) standing off to the side, watching. I started to feel uneasy; everyone looked very unfriendly and most likely not real friendly towards foreigners - definitely a good time not to talk in English! Andreas was worried too, so we started to edge our way out of the sullen crowd, motioning the girls to follow and trying to look as Russian as we could manage! I dont know if that group was violently xenophobic, but they certainly could have been and it seemed like a good time to excercise some caution and leave. As we walked away, I looked back and saw the perfect photo - a forest of red flags above the light of the eternal flame, the golden spires and crosses of the Church on Spilled Blood in the background. Too perfect of course - I didnt have my camera!

Once a good distance away we asked two ladies what the gathering was for and they told us that it was because it was for the anniversary of the 1991 attempted putsch by hardline Communists and that the photos of dead men were those killed in riots. It's so bizarre that there are people here who look back longingly at Soviet times, for them a golden age when Russia was powerful and respected, when life had meaning and security. Nevermind the repression, the shortages, the lies and propaganda. We saw another small group on Nevsky Prospekt, one babushka carrying a giant sign that listed all the incredible feats and accomplishments of Stalin and the Soviet Union, comparing them to the terrible state of Putin's Russia today under "democracy." It was so totally ridiculous, you couldnt help but think, is this some sort of joke? But the women carrying the placard was dead serious. I'm sure that people like her and her comrades on Mars Field are only a radical minority in Russia, but the fact that they exist at all and aren't considered completely bonkers is kind of scary.

A few photos to start out with!

The beautiful view from my window! This is one of the very few photos I've taken so far, but don't worry I will get on it right away, I promise!


Peterhof: The group in front of the Versailles-style palace. The rest of the photos were taken by Andreas.


A little chapel at the gates to Peterhof.


The famous Main Cascade - it looks especially nice here because you can't see the pesky crowds!


Peter and the girls! From left, Ivanna, Sandra, Gosia, ohh cant remember her name, moi, and Agnieska.


Petting friendly street dogs.. yes I know it's not such a good idea but these two were so nice I couldn't resist!


Peterhof gardens.

 Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral, near Peterhof. Pretty impressive, inside as much as out. The staggeringly elaborate decoration and wafting incense gives Orthodox Churches a really ancient-feeling atmosphere, although this one was actually only a hundred years old - brand new really!

Peterhof

Like any good visitor to Saint Petersburg, I made a trip out to Peterhof Palace last weekend. Just getting to Peterhof was an adventure in itself as its mabye 50 km out of town in the countryside. Luckily I went with some friends who had been before, phew! First we took the metro - the station we got off at was called Avtovo Stantsiya and was pretty incredible - all done up in bombastic high Stalinist style as a shrine to the war dead of the Great Patriotic War, with roman columns, mosaics, chandeliers, and all sorts of heroic figures marching about on the wallswith red banners flying and shouting exclamated slogans. After the metro we got a ride in a marshrutka, which are strange little vans that act like buses and run regular routes but can stop on request anywhere like taxis. They're cheap and very fast, as they just zip through traffic, and everywhere in this city!

Peterhof is a gigantic Versailles-type palace surrounded by acres and acres (and acres!) of parkland, fountains, majestic promenades, and numerous smaller palaces and pavilions. We actually didnt go in the main palace as my friends were so disgusted that it would have cost us 150 rubles as foreign students, compared to 15 rubles only for Russian students! Even 150 R is only about $6 Canadian, but it was the principal of the matter! Plus there was alot to see anyways. Behind the palace is the famous Main Cascade, with all sorts of gilded figures and fountains everywhere, and unfortunately, huge crowds of tourists. I dunno.. Peterhof in general was nice to walk around on such a sunny day, but it wasn't really all that interesting. For one thing, it was way too crowded (you couldnt walk 10 steps without getting in the way of someone taking the hundredth million generic snapshot of the place) and so commercial, with new fees to visit each building and souvenir hawkers everywhere, that it really turned me off. Besides, I'm not much impressed by extravagant gold leaf and baroque decorating, it's way too overdone. I'd be much happier visiting some grim Stalinist monster building, a battlefield, or a ruined castle! Also, basically everything at Peterhof was just a reconstruction, as it had all been sadly destroyed during the war, like so many things. Everything there looked a little too perfect and although the reconstruction was well done, the place just didnt feel authentic. A little disappointing...

My favourite thing was Peter the Great's modest pavilion, called Mon Plaisir, which he used for entertaining guests privately. It was a really cute little building with just a few cozy rooms all done up in dark wood-panelling, with a very maritime theme, (Peter was obsessed with ships) and a great view through large windows of the Gulf of Finland. There were also trick fountains outside disguised like benches that would spray the unsuspecting visitor who sat down - apparently Peter had a good sense of humour!

Peesha Nasha

So, what do I think of Russian food so far? Well.. there's a Russian saying, "schee i kasha, peesha nasha" (or "cabbage soup and porridge, our daily meal"). That's pretty true, there's alot of both those things and in general everything is pretty boring - bland, oily, and heavy. Traditionally, the two biggest meals of the day are breakfast and supper, which I have provided at the apartment. Breakfast is always sausage, cheese, bread, blackberry jam (one of the tastier things!), yogurt, kasha, an omelet, and tea. Almost enough to get you through to dinner! Everyone drinks tea here with their meal, when I asked for a glass of water at my first meal here Mila gave me a weird look and afterwards asked me if I was an athlete, because only athletes drink water here! Instead it's tea, beer, or vodka, but not water!
Dinner's usually simple - some kind of meat (chicken or beef usually), some kind of carbs (potatoes, pasta, or rice), and the omnipresent salad of cucumber, tomatoes, and salt. To liven it all up, there is smetana, or sour cream, used on just about everything! And unlike Canada, where it's a choice between wussy 14% fat or wussier 7%, all sour cream seems to be 30% here, and the milk is like drinking cream, really! I was almost excited when Mila said she was making "spaghetti" for me one night, but it turned out to be just plain spaghetti noodles with a bottle of ketchup beside! So much for that.. Meals are so huge, I think she's made it her mission to fatten me up. There's a chance I'll actually put on weight here, though just like me, I'd say the chances are slim!
For lunch, I'm on my own. Usually I go out with friends from class to the stolovaya or a nearby restaurant. There's a good and popular vegetarian restaurant nearby - definitely a rarity in these parts! I dont think vegetarianism has quite caught on here, especially amongst russian guys - there doesnt ever seem to be more then 1 or 2 guys in there ever. Yesterday I went to Blin Blin Doughnut. It's like Russia's knockoff of McDonalds (tho of course they have that too), serving fast food borscht, blini (pancakes), and even cute little chicken kievs in cardboard takeout containers. It's a strange fusion - it really looks just like McDonalds inside, except that you can order Baltika or Nevska beer with your meal and instead of Ronnie plastered on the walls there are murals of healthy looking peasant women harvesting grain.. bizarre.