Once again, by the time I begin to update my blog, I've forgotten most of what happened during the previous week. Basically, last week was passover. In some ways, Passover in Russia was much easier than in the States. I expected it to be horrible, but since I was the only person I knew keeping Passover, I wasn't talking about it or complaining about it with anyone. Also, there is barely any corn syrup in Russian foods so I didn't have to worry about avoiding it. So, Passover was over before I knew it.
Saturday, the weather was so nice and although my friends were once again heading to the banya, I decided to go off on an adventure of my own. I thought about going to a museum, but I couldn't imagine spending all day inside. So, while looking through my "Lonely Planet" tour book, I found a three hour walking tour around these really nice park-like islands. It started on Kammeny island, which is basically where the rich of the rich Russian population lives. It was actually incredible to see. The houses were like mansions (some designed in new, over-the-top styles, and others which were restorations of the original architecture) -- each one with its own security guard. All the cars driving around were BMWs or SUVs with dark-tinted windows. It was like being transported to the subarbs, although these inhabitants were most likely politicians, organized crime, or some combination of the two.
After exploring that island, I crossed the bridge and payed the minimal fee to enter Yelagin island -- the park island without any cars. It was an incredible place to be when the weather was getting nicer. There were Russians everywhere -- walking around, picnicking in the grass (never thought I would see Russians sitting on the ground), playing volleyball, paddleboating, etc. There was even an army band which played music for the old ladies to dance to; this music ranged from old Soviet marches to the chicken dance. (I got a fantastic video from that one!) I stopped in an old summer palace for a little bit, but I mostly spent my time just sitting along the lakeside and reading, which felt really relaxing compared to my usual life of running all over the place. Eventually, I crossed off of that island and stopped by the Buddhist temple. I'd never been to a Buddhist temple before, and somehow I happened to stumble upon the end of a service. This service involved a lot of singing, banging of cymbals, and other things. I wasn't quite sure what was going on, but it was interesting. The temple was beautiful -- so colorful, I was surprised by the presence of a Buddhist population in St. Petersburg. It seemed small, but strong. After that, I headed back home, but it was definitely one of the most enjoyable afternoons I've had in this new, nice weather.
Sunday, was also a fantastic day, as I had convinced two of my friends (well, one didn't need to be convinced) to go see the Moscow circus with me. Since February, I had seen advertisements for this show, so I knew I needed to see it. First of all, the circus h ere is held in the actual "circus" building, not a tent. The building had very pretty architecture, but once you went inside, it seemed more like a circus tent (especially because of the strong animal scent). Overall, I enjoyed the show. The acrobats were fantastic, though some of the animal acts were lacking (specifically the goat act and the hedgehog act, animals that we personally saw no special talents in. The hedgehog's act was that he could pop balloons by walking into them. Hmm...) . The circus also featured a boxing kangaroo and a bear act, while although the idea of circus bears seemed depressing, they could actually do some incredible tricks. My Russian circus experiences are expanding every day...
After that, I broke Passover, and walked around Peter and Paul Fortress with Katherine where we saw someone almost run into the Neva in his boxers. From there, we met our group for the performance of "Master and Margerita" we were going to see. If you've read that book, you know it's really confusing (but great), but this staging of it was weirder than we could ever have expected. The first 15 minutes were silent, and to all of our knowledge, had nothing to do with anything in the book. We stayed for the first act (an hour and 45 minutes!) and decided to split. It was nice to experience a Russian play, but with the craziness of the play, plus us not understanding the Russian fully, we decided it would not be worth our time to stick it out.
From there, I went to pick up my parents. They arrived safely, but sadly, their luggage did not. We're still waiting on that luggage to arrive -- hopefully it will tonight. It's been fun having them here: staying in a hotel, getting to show off my knowledge about the city, etc. Today we walked around, climbed St. Isaac's Cathedral to see the spectacular view, and went to the Russian museum. It'll be a very busy week. Ok, well I guess we're heading to dinner now!
Hope you're all enjoying spring!
Monday, April 28, 2008
Monday, April 21, 2008
Happy Passover!
After a week of gray, rainy, chilly days, the sun is finally out. Hopefully this time it will stay. I talked to my host mom about the weather and mentioned that I wanted it to be sunny for when my family is here next week. She looked to the ceiling of our kitchen and prayed for good weather. Maybe that will work, who knows...
Once again, not much noteworthy happens during the week. I can't actually remember anything worth mentioning. This weekend, though, was the beginning of Passover. Earlier in the week I found the kosher food store, located next to the synagogue, and bought a box of matzah and some other kosher for passover food items. Generally, my diet isn't going to be very affected at home, as I mostly eat soup, potatoes, and eggs anyways. In explaining the holiday to my host mother, I just said it is "Jewish easter" and this fast is similar to their lent. That's basically how Russians see Passover. This morning, she told me all about an article she had read in some newspaper about Passover, and she explained to me how matzah is made.
For the first seder, I went to a student seder at the orthodox synagogue. It was the first time I was inside the synagogue and it is absolutely gorgeous. I'll have to go back again when it's not a holiday so that I can take pictures. The seder itself was fine, but slightly sub-par. Since it was a student seder, there were maybe 10 round tables filled with students. An Israeli led the seder in Russian, but as soon as we got to the festive meal part, he said goodnight, and we skipped the second half of the seder. But, I had two of my friends with me so we just enjoyed the free food. Most of the seder was in Russian, because I actually don't think so many Russians are familiar with, or can read Hebrew. Probably half of the students at the seder weren't raised in a Jewish home. It was a nice start to Passover, nonetheless.
Afterwards, it was my friend's birthday party so we all headed towards her house. Now that spring has begun, the bridges between the islands that make up St. Petersburg raise in the middle of the night. So, if you are on an island you don't live on, and the bridges go up -- you're stuck. So, I spent all of Saturday night at my friends house, leaving for home on the first metro -- 5:30 am Sunday morning. It was my first night doing the typical Russian stay out all night thing, although I'm not sure if that even counts because I was in an apartment, not in a club. Baby steps...
Sunday I woke up late, because I went to bed at 6:30 am. But, the day looked beautiful so I decided to get out of the house. First, I stopped by the Russian museum for an hour to check it out. Normally, I don't enjoy art museums but I actually really liked this one. It only has art by Russian artists, which I thought was interesting to look at; there are a lot of historical paintings. Also, they had a cool exhibit of Russian folk art -- toys, dolls, wood carvings, pottery, etc. I'll definitely go back in the future. The museum felt a little stuffy because it was so nice outside, so I got off the bus early on the way home and walked along the Gulf of Finland for an hour or so.
Sunday night, I attended second seder at the house of Alexander Lvov, a professor of Judaism at the European university in St. Petersburg. There were tons of people crowded around a small table, including a professor from U Mich, who was actually Heather Hogan's PhD advisor (Russian history professor at Oberlin...small world). The seder was mostly in hebrew this time, and extremely long. It didn't start until almost 11; I think we ate close to 1 am. I was exhausted, so I didn't talk extensively to people, although what I did hear seemed interesting. It's been very strange having passover not at home though, it's made me more homesick than usual.
One of the things that struck me at these seders were how things I associate with Jewish traditions might just be American Jewish traditions. Like food, for example. I'm used to having matzoh ball soup at seder. In Russia, you are still eating Russian food. Both seders had beet salad, pickles, and other traditional Russian dishes. The second seder involved a lot of hard liquor -- also something that's not as common in America.
Well, this week should be exciting. I have tickets to see Eugene Onegin tomorrow night, and this weekend I'm planning on going to the circus, and see the play of "Master and Margerita." My family flies in Sunday night and they'll be here all week, so I can't promise a blog update next Monday. Check anyways though.
Ok, enjoy the end of April! Wow, I can't believe it's here already.
Once again, not much noteworthy happens during the week. I can't actually remember anything worth mentioning. This weekend, though, was the beginning of Passover. Earlier in the week I found the kosher food store, located next to the synagogue, and bought a box of matzah and some other kosher for passover food items. Generally, my diet isn't going to be very affected at home, as I mostly eat soup, potatoes, and eggs anyways. In explaining the holiday to my host mother, I just said it is "Jewish easter" and this fast is similar to their lent. That's basically how Russians see Passover. This morning, she told me all about an article she had read in some newspaper about Passover, and she explained to me how matzah is made.
For the first seder, I went to a student seder at the orthodox synagogue. It was the first time I was inside the synagogue and it is absolutely gorgeous. I'll have to go back again when it's not a holiday so that I can take pictures. The seder itself was fine, but slightly sub-par. Since it was a student seder, there were maybe 10 round tables filled with students. An Israeli led the seder in Russian, but as soon as we got to the festive meal part, he said goodnight, and we skipped the second half of the seder. But, I had two of my friends with me so we just enjoyed the free food. Most of the seder was in Russian, because I actually don't think so many Russians are familiar with, or can read Hebrew. Probably half of the students at the seder weren't raised in a Jewish home. It was a nice start to Passover, nonetheless.
Afterwards, it was my friend's birthday party so we all headed towards her house. Now that spring has begun, the bridges between the islands that make up St. Petersburg raise in the middle of the night. So, if you are on an island you don't live on, and the bridges go up -- you're stuck. So, I spent all of Saturday night at my friends house, leaving for home on the first metro -- 5:30 am Sunday morning. It was my first night doing the typical Russian stay out all night thing, although I'm not sure if that even counts because I was in an apartment, not in a club. Baby steps...
Sunday I woke up late, because I went to bed at 6:30 am. But, the day looked beautiful so I decided to get out of the house. First, I stopped by the Russian museum for an hour to check it out. Normally, I don't enjoy art museums but I actually really liked this one. It only has art by Russian artists, which I thought was interesting to look at; there are a lot of historical paintings. Also, they had a cool exhibit of Russian folk art -- toys, dolls, wood carvings, pottery, etc. I'll definitely go back in the future. The museum felt a little stuffy because it was so nice outside, so I got off the bus early on the way home and walked along the Gulf of Finland for an hour or so.
Sunday night, I attended second seder at the house of Alexander Lvov, a professor of Judaism at the European university in St. Petersburg. There were tons of people crowded around a small table, including a professor from U Mich, who was actually Heather Hogan's PhD advisor (Russian history professor at Oberlin...small world). The seder was mostly in hebrew this time, and extremely long. It didn't start until almost 11; I think we ate close to 1 am. I was exhausted, so I didn't talk extensively to people, although what I did hear seemed interesting. It's been very strange having passover not at home though, it's made me more homesick than usual.
One of the things that struck me at these seders were how things I associate with Jewish traditions might just be American Jewish traditions. Like food, for example. I'm used to having matzoh ball soup at seder. In Russia, you are still eating Russian food. Both seders had beet salad, pickles, and other traditional Russian dishes. The second seder involved a lot of hard liquor -- also something that's not as common in America.
Well, this week should be exciting. I have tickets to see Eugene Onegin tomorrow night, and this weekend I'm planning on going to the circus, and see the play of "Master and Margerita." My family flies in Sunday night and they'll be here all week, so I can't promise a blog update next Monday. Check anyways though.
Ok, enjoy the end of April! Wow, I can't believe it's here already.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Midterms and Pskov
The sun has disappeared completely from St. Petersburg and has been replaced by gray skies and rain. Great. I can't wait until the weather reverses. Although I guess I'm not missing that much -- I heard Oberlin was hit by snow yesterday.
This past week hasn't been very interesting. I had midterms for my two Smolny courses, both of which were extremely ridiculous. For my politics class in English, we had to write an essay entitled "30 years after WWII: my view." For my world music class, we had to listen to 12 different pieces of music and pick what country we thought they were from. One student convinced our teacher to write the possible countries on the board, and when we noticed we had only studied 2 out of the 6, the teacher replied "this is more a test of your musical intuition." Needless to say, this has not been an extremely academically challenging semester.
Yesterday, I returned from an overnight in Pskov, a small Russian town south of St. Petersburg. It was an excursion with my group and while I didn't enjoy all of the sightseeing, it was fun to simply hang out with the entire group -- something that hadn't happened for a while. Pskov is a pretty old city and we did a walking tour of it in the rain, which was unpleasant. The next day we went to Izbork, an even smaller city, where we saw old churches and fortresses. It was actually kind of incredible because it really felt like we were looking at ancient Russia. Most of this part of Russia was swamp land, which was extremely apparent where we were. Standing in these ruins looking at the murky ground made us feel like we were in Ancient Rus', possibly trying to ward off a Mongol attack. Then, we went to a monastary near by, which in my opinion, looked slightly like Disneyworld. Sorry for the lack of pictures in the past month, I'll try to have some new ones up by the end of this week.
Other than that, not much has happened. Friday night I was left home alone (my host mom was very afraid that in 24 hours I would starve, so she cooked about 3 days worth of food for me). It was kind of nice to feel like I had my own place, so I invited some friends over and we made real American chocolate chip cookies. They were delicious and my host family really enjoyed them as well.
I think the craziest part of our trip to Pskov was simply riding our bus on small Russian roads for hours at end. They were possible the worst roads I have ever traveled on. And the worst outhouses I have ever had to use.
Ok, well I'm going to go try to find the kosher store so that I can buy some matzoh to eat next week. I wish everybody a happy Passover (if you are celebrating it), and if not, have a good week!
Hannah
This past week hasn't been very interesting. I had midterms for my two Smolny courses, both of which were extremely ridiculous. For my politics class in English, we had to write an essay entitled "30 years after WWII: my view." For my world music class, we had to listen to 12 different pieces of music and pick what country we thought they were from. One student convinced our teacher to write the possible countries on the board, and when we noticed we had only studied 2 out of the 6, the teacher replied "this is more a test of your musical intuition." Needless to say, this has not been an extremely academically challenging semester.
Yesterday, I returned from an overnight in Pskov, a small Russian town south of St. Petersburg. It was an excursion with my group and while I didn't enjoy all of the sightseeing, it was fun to simply hang out with the entire group -- something that hadn't happened for a while. Pskov is a pretty old city and we did a walking tour of it in the rain, which was unpleasant. The next day we went to Izbork, an even smaller city, where we saw old churches and fortresses. It was actually kind of incredible because it really felt like we were looking at ancient Russia. Most of this part of Russia was swamp land, which was extremely apparent where we were. Standing in these ruins looking at the murky ground made us feel like we were in Ancient Rus', possibly trying to ward off a Mongol attack. Then, we went to a monastary near by, which in my opinion, looked slightly like Disneyworld. Sorry for the lack of pictures in the past month, I'll try to have some new ones up by the end of this week.
Other than that, not much has happened. Friday night I was left home alone (my host mom was very afraid that in 24 hours I would starve, so she cooked about 3 days worth of food for me). It was kind of nice to feel like I had my own place, so I invited some friends over and we made real American chocolate chip cookies. They were delicious and my host family really enjoyed them as well.
I think the craziest part of our trip to Pskov was simply riding our bus on small Russian roads for hours at end. They were possible the worst roads I have ever traveled on. And the worst outhouses I have ever had to use.
Ok, well I'm going to go try to find the kosher store so that I can buy some matzoh to eat next week. I wish everybody a happy Passover (if you are celebrating it), and if not, have a good week!
Hannah
Monday, April 7, 2008
The weather is getting warmer!
Finally, it seems that the snow has stopped. My host mother says you can never be too sure -- it could snow in June here! But, I'm hoping for the best. It's been so nice to wear light jackets, sneakers instead of boots, etc. The downside is that the weather is great that I spend entire days walking around the city. Which isn't so bad, except it takes a lot of time away from doing homework and stuff like that. Also, the fact that it stays light so late at night has not helped my sense of time. I walk around until 9 pm and don't notice because it looks like 4:00 outside! And that's only going to get worse...soon it will be light at 2 am!
This past week, the orchestra I've been playing with had a concert. We had mostly been practicing tango music, but it sounded pretty empty, so I was a little confused. At the dress rehearsal (which was also the first time I heard that we were playing a concert), the conductor came out with an accordion. I guess he's a semi-famous accordionist and all the music we were playing was for him to solo with. My friends insisted on coming to my concert even though I told them it probably wasn't worth it. We were all in for a surprise because I didn't realize that the concert was a tribute to the accordion and had about 20 different groups performing. There were more accordions there than I had ever seen in my life. My friends had to sit through about 2 hours of listening to groups of accordions playing all kinds of music. I was shocked backstage as I watched 30 people walk in a line past me with accordions and balalaikas (Russian traditional instruments).
Another exciting moment of this week was that the olympic torch relay came through St. Petersburg! I went out to a corner where it was supposed to pass and waited for hours with hundreds of people. All in all, the torch went by very quickly, but it was worth the shared experience. It's not every olympic season that I'm in a city where the torch is going to pass through. It was interesting to see so much enthusiasm for the Olympics that are being held in China, when most Russians have such strong prejudices against the Chinese.
Yesterday, we had a group trip to see the opera "Ruslan and Lyudmila" with music by Glinka. It's based on a Pushkin poem, which is supposed to be enjoyable, but the opera was about 5 hours long and extremely boring. It was my first time in the Mariinski theater, though, and I was very impressed.
I'm sorry these entries have been getting shorter...I think I'm just getting busier!
This past week, the orchestra I've been playing with had a concert. We had mostly been practicing tango music, but it sounded pretty empty, so I was a little confused. At the dress rehearsal (which was also the first time I heard that we were playing a concert), the conductor came out with an accordion. I guess he's a semi-famous accordionist and all the music we were playing was for him to solo with. My friends insisted on coming to my concert even though I told them it probably wasn't worth it. We were all in for a surprise because I didn't realize that the concert was a tribute to the accordion and had about 20 different groups performing. There were more accordions there than I had ever seen in my life. My friends had to sit through about 2 hours of listening to groups of accordions playing all kinds of music. I was shocked backstage as I watched 30 people walk in a line past me with accordions and balalaikas (Russian traditional instruments).
Another exciting moment of this week was that the olympic torch relay came through St. Petersburg! I went out to a corner where it was supposed to pass and waited for hours with hundreds of people. All in all, the torch went by very quickly, but it was worth the shared experience. It's not every olympic season that I'm in a city where the torch is going to pass through. It was interesting to see so much enthusiasm for the Olympics that are being held in China, when most Russians have such strong prejudices against the Chinese.
Yesterday, we had a group trip to see the opera "Ruslan and Lyudmila" with music by Glinka. It's based on a Pushkin poem, which is supposed to be enjoyable, but the opera was about 5 hours long and extremely boring. It was my first time in the Mariinski theater, though, and I was very impressed.
I'm sorry these entries have been getting shorter...I think I'm just getting busier!
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