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.