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Blogs from Siberia, Russia, Europe - page 40
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January 27th 2008
So what have I learned so far? I am without inspiration at this current moment. It is a sunny but cold Sunday. We had rice porridge and jam filled pirozhki (yum) for lunch. I’ve read 50 pages of Harry Potter in Russian, and while my reading speed and general comprehension of Russian has dramatically improved since I got here, I don’t feel that I am making as much progress with my speech. The problem is probably that I need to spend more time preparing things to say so that I use the correct verbs/tenses/grammatical constructions instead of using Anglicized Russian. Yesterday’s English club lesson was probably the best one I’ve had so far. We started by playing Bibbity Bibbity Bop, an old Comedy Sportz game I learned in high school. Then we corrected the homework, talked ... read more
January 25th 2008
Let us, for a moment, talk about lettuce. That marvelous green substance, the chlorophyll standard of life. How I miss you, sweet green sustenance; iceberg, spinach, watercress, arugula, and broccoli and zucchini and squash and artichokes and peas in their pods, and celery and… all that there is now, and therefore all I can think of is potatoes. Not that there’s anything wrong with potatoes. The other night I actually had a dream that I was at a buffet and saw some artichokes… but they were not fully cooked, and still had the white and purple leaves attached. In my dream, I tried to explain that the white and purple leaves could not be eaten, nor could the thorns, but all I succeeded in saying was, “Those are poisonous! They have not been cooked properly!” For ... read more
January 24th 2008
Alright, so to continue on with my Saturday adventure. During banya I became acquainted with some of Sasha’s friends, two of which speak English. They were all very friendly pleasant people, and I may be wrong, but I believe they were also all members of an extreme sport club. Their club goes on excursions to different interesting hiking/climbing/etc. areas in the surrounding area. I will be joining them at their weekly meeting later this evening to discuss the possibility of a trip to a bi-level underground ice cave about 30km away. They were quite surprised to discover that I’m not afraid of camping out in a tent when it is -20ºC outside. I’ve decided that my new slogan will be, “Я ни переехала в Россию сидеть дома.” In other words, “I did not come to Russia ... read more
January 22nd 2008
One of the first things I learned when I began to study Russian was that Russia is a land of extremes. Extreme politics, extreme viewpoints, extreme temperatures… On Saturday, I had the opportunity to experience the extreme temperatures firsthand. Saturday, 19 Jan 08 was a holy day in the old Slavic (Julian?) calendar. I think we have the same feast day in the catholic church, and it falls on the 4th of January; however, I can’t remember which holy day it is….the annunciation… proclamation… baptism… something or other of Jesus… and somewhere in the world my old religion teachers are groaning in their nursing homes and immediately forgetting why they groaned. Regardless, Russians here in Biysk celebrate this holy day by jumping in the river to cleanse themselves of their sins. In the morning there is ... read more
January 15th 2008
So yesterday was my first day at the GCC, and although it was very tiring, I don’t feel that I did very much. I arrived at the center with Alisa at 8:30am and spent the first hour or so planning a lesson I will be teaching with Alisa today concerning actors, authors and feelings. That was fine. Then I was left alone for another hour during which I studied my Russian dictionary. After that, I met Katya and Anya, two other English teachers at the center. Anya teaches the most elementary classes (the ones still learning the alphabet), and Katya teaches the next elementary class. I liked Katya right away. She is my age and extremely energetic and interested. She started shooting questions at me so quickly all I could do was sit there with my ... read more
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January 13th 2008
Mini Tour of Moscow I’ve uploaded the pictures I took on 10 Jan 08 of the Red Square and a few of the buildings on the way there. Unfortunately, I was using my small camera and the batteries were very determined to die, so I did not get as many pictures as I would have liked, and the ones I did take were hurried and not necessarily framed as I would have liked. Still, you can see how beautiful the architecture is. There is a picture of Gostiny Dvor (and the inside Christmas decorations), which is the Russian equivalent of Macy’s. There are also several pictures of the main building on the square, the name of which currently eludes me. There is a picture of Lenin’s Mausoleum, and another one of his name, embedded in granite ... read more
November 28th 2007
With the Russian rail network covering some 8 time zones, the least confusing option available to the railway administrators was to pretend only Moscow Time existed, so timetables are all in Moscow Time and the fiction even extends to station clocks throughout the country. Thus it was disconcerting to drag my bags to Irkutsk station with evening pretty much nigh but the station clock was proclaiming it was just after midday. My sole cabin-mate on the overnight train to Krasnoyarsk was an older gentleman who slurped his tea, snored, and kept indicating he either had just vomited or was about to, with constant visits to the bathroom. Fortunately the vomit situation was never in the present tense. The TSH informed me that, during the journey, we passed within 1,000km of the location of the Tunguska Event ... read more
November 25th 2007
The train from Ulan Bator to Irkutsk was tattier than the one in which I'd arrived in Mongolia, and the unexpected bonus of toilet roll in the loos and a towel in the linen package was offset by the surliness of the provodniks/provodnitsas (carriage attendants). There weren't many passengers in my carriage and in fact only 1 in my compartment - Tatiana, a Russian professor whose teaching time was split between Ulan Ude in Russia and Ulan Bator. She thrust cups of tea and cheese slices on me, but declined my offer of chocolate biscuits, saying that only children ate such things. Note to self - bring caviar for the next train and hide the instant noodles. With a luggage limit for the entry into Russia, and a good proportion of the other passengers seemingly traders, ... read more
November 8th 2007
NOTE:We know this is a bit late in getting to you, but technology can be complicated....we're back in business....so here's 2nd installment. Hopefully our next letter to you will be in real time. Let us know if you are receiving the email notifications. DAY 2 OF THE VOYAGE Departure from Whitehorse was at noon . The day crisp and clear for our longest flight of 9 ½ hours to Japan. No better way to fly than Icelandic Air . Can’t say enough about their very special service. Big excitement occurred today as we crossed the International Date Line. It was quite a thrill. Champagne was served , the captain announced a New Year’s eve countdown and pouf…..just like that , we were in another time zone. At precisely 3:00 pm on Tues. Nov. 6th, it was ... read more
November 5th 2007
Here is an old one from October! Finally found a place where the computers will read our photos DVD. Hope to have more your way soon. Onwards we go. We spent four days on the train from Moscow to Irkutsk, in the Siberian part of Russia. It was definitely an experience but no where near as we thought it might be. Not having a shower for that long really sucked, but more from discomfort than anything else. Luckily there were no terrible smells to contend with. We had two roommates - Natasha and then Sergei, so we were lucky there was only ever 3 people in our 4 bunk room. Both our companions were a lot of fun - Sergei spoke better English so that was easier, but we still managed to communicate with them. To ... read more
