Из России С Любовью!

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Привет, Друзя!
(and a translation of the subject line: from Russia with Love 😉)

Well, another week has (almost) passed, and I've had more time to process Russia as a whole, after having dedicated much of last week to just figuring out how to survive. Things are going well, as I've figured out how to get by pretty well, whether by speaking Russian or pantomime. And my Russian itself is getting alot better, I've noticed. I can now carry on whole conversations with the english speaking staff at the institute almost entirely in Russian, and I can understand almost everything.

There have been a couple of things that required getting used to here, and I'll try and describe them for your benefit.

In Tver there are four forms of public transit, of which I've conquered only one. The tramvai (tram, or something similar) is an electrically powered train that runs on rails. I take this to school every day, as I live about a 30 minute walk away. There's also the bus, which i've ridden once with my Russian friends, the trolleybus, which also runs on electricity (and i've never braved) and the Mashrutka. These are little yellow vans, the name of which translates to "route taxi". They drive up to a bus stop with a number in their front window. If you're trying to go somewhere on the route, you wave them down and get in (if there's room). You then have to yell out where you want to get out as your stop comes close. As this requires both a knowledge of the taxi routes and a knowledge of where your going, I haven't even thought about trying it yet. Although I did at one point mistakenly call them Matrioshkas (the name of those famous nesting dolls) which provided a good fifteen minutes of entertainment for my host father.

Another thing that's been interesting to get used to is the way that people dress. Most places that I travel, I have to work to tone down my clothing and behavior so as to blend in as much as possible. Here, I have to make it more colorful and more exciting to blend in! Things that would be completely ridiculous in the states are de rigeur here. A couple of examples:
-Yesterday, walking to class, I saw a woman sitting on a bench, wearing a bronze tapestry jacket covered in gold sparkly embroidery. It had a giant, puffy, ruffly, shiny collar that stood up like something in a portrait of Elizabeth II. She was wearing it with denim capris and a pair of rhinestone encrusted, four inch high stillettos.
-A friend of mine got a haircut at a salon not far from the school. To say nothing of the fact that the hairdresser himself had a very impressive mullet, while I was sitting in the waiting room, a woman walked in wearing a tiny denim miniskirt with black leggings that ended midcalf, a tight black shirt and a sequin covered baseball cap.
-The day before yesterday was the birthday of one of the teachers here at the school. She showed up to work wearing a leopard print dress slit up to mid thigh.

All these outfits are, of course, accompanied by sky high heels in which Russian women seem to walk everywhere. I can only marvel at it, and come to believe what my friend Chloe told me a long time ago, that if you wear heels for long enough, it becomes uncomfortable to wear flats. Even so, I don't think that's a skill I'm going to acquire. I was initially dismayed that my servicable sandals and unassuming clothing would (oddly enough) make me stand out, but then I found a Columbia outerwear store in a nearby shopping complex. I was somehow reassured by this.

My Russian family and friends are incredibly kind and protective of me. They always want to make sure that i'm alright, that i'm eating enough - "Kushi!" (Eat!) is the constant refrain - and that I'm seeing and understanding everythign there is to see and do in Tver. And, although people on the street won't smile at you whatever you do, the people in stores and in general are very helpful when you ask for it. I was told that this is because Russians like to help the people they see as incapable. :-p Whatever the reason, I'm grateful.

The other day we visited the palace that Catherine the Great build as a stopover point on her trips between Petersburg and Moscow. It's now an art gallery with an assortment of works by artists, Russian and otherwise. The palace is slowly being restored, but it's definitely seen better days. At various parts, rotting plaster is covered with sheets, and in others, the wall is literally being held together with masking tape. Of course, during the Soviet time (an often heard refrain here), everything that bore any connection to tsardom was looked upon with distain. But that's only one reason.

The other is something more wide spread, and something else that I'm still trying to figure out here. In general, things in the common are incredibly run down. That is, the entry ways to buildings, the stairways, the elevators, are all smelly, dirty, poorly lit. Needless to say, on my first day here, I really wondered what I'd gotten myself into. I walked passed everything that, in Chicago, would tell me to run away (and probably call Ben for an emergency ride :p). But once I got up to the apartment itself, everything was very clean and cozy. When I asked my Russian friend why this was, she commented that things have actually gotten alot better since Soviet times with the advent of private property. It was interesting how she attributed the neglect to the same thing a University of Chicago Economist would.

Anyway, I should probably wrap up this email both because I'm having trouble constructing coherent English sentences and I have a lecture about Soviet film (which is fascinating, by the way).

Please also send me your address if you haven't already, so that I can continue my postcard writing habit...I found a couple of stores that sell old postcards from the soviet period. They're really interesting. My brother Paul will be proud, I'm also reading a history of the seige of Stalingrad, which has deeply ingrained itself into the Russian psyche (as part of, not world war II, but The Great Patriotic War as it was styled by Stalin). I'm also plannign trips to Moscow (to meet up with my cousin) and Petersburg within the next month or so. Plans are also coming together for the trip to Iran, for which I'll get my visa in Moscow.

Please do write, as I love to hear what's going on.

Much love!
-Lauren

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Comments

[JonathanCampion]

Tver.
Hi, I got a bit confused reading your diary - are you living in Tver or were you just stopping there on the way to Moscow? I lived there the year before last, I have so many fond memories and it seems as if I miss it more rather than less as time goes by. If you need any Russian advice, let me know, and keep the diaries coming, you write really well! Jon