The search is on! Now that I've got my internship lined up and the summer is fast approaching, it's time to find lodgings in the Venice of the North (aka Peter's Great Folly).
I've been looking online and found several places, but everything seems ridiculously expensive to me. Part of this is that my preferences are considered luxuries to Russians. A real bed, not a fold-out couch? A washing machine, you won't just hand-wash? A full kitchen? What extravagance! And so, the cheapest options are still at the upper end of my budget. Maybe I'll be able to negotiate down, but this is Russia--nobody's easily intimidated.
My honors' program--who will be paying my rent--has been extremely evasive every time I bring up concerns about cost. The general feeling of their end of the correspondence is "find something safe, not too expensive, that you like--preferably with a host family or roommate." My appeals that finding a host family or roommate when I have no connections here besides the ones my abroad program has provided have so far fallen on deaf ears. As have my frequent allusions to wanting more independence in the summer (and thus not putting much effort into the host family idea).
So if anyone has suggestions or words of advice on apartment hunts in general, or Petersburg specifically, please let me know! I've never done this before, so every bit of knowledge is welcome, ever that which is considered common sense among *real* grown-ups.
In other news, midterms have arrived. Not nearly as stressful as this season is at Conn, but still some added pressure. I've realized that part of my recent malaise is that I don't get a spring break while in Russia. It's odd, but I didn't miss it until I realized that after midterms we just go right back to class. This piece of news is almost as bad as when I discovered in 5th grade that because Canadians don't celebrate Presidents' Day, I would have to go to school on my birthday for the first time EVER. Okay, so it's not nearly as bad as that, but I've been reminiscing about Canada recently for some reason.
In a development that I'm sure will only interest my parents and the few other readers out there interested in my academic future, I've begun researching for my thesis. Yes, for once in her life, this procrastinator is starting a project months before she has to. At the urgings of my advisor, I'm reading up on translation theory and Russian literature. By which I mean I'm reading things in English about Russia. A lot of it is really interesting, actually, and the history geek in me is finally getting some attention after several years of lying dormant. This book in particular is fascinating to me, as it discusses "Russian Characteristics" that are still somewhat true today, almost 100 years later. [Note: it was written in 1912, 7 years after the first revolution and 2 years before the 2nd and 3rd]
On another unrelated topic, my program is taking us on a trip to the second biggest beer factory in Europe (behind Heineken) on Wednesday. Hopefully it'll be a more interesting tour than our excursion to the water treatment museum this past Wednesday. Seriously. We went to a museum dedicated to the water treatment center of St. Petersburg. For 3 hours we toured an old water treatment plant that has been turned into a museum discussing the methods and mechanisms of clensing water. THREE HOURS!
And then I went to Carl's Junior (a burger place slightly above McDonald's in the fast-food hierarchy). Which is the only thing that saved the day. Well, that and successfully navigating my way back to the metro stop from the clinic. New routes around the city are always a victory in my mind. A trait I've definitely inherited from my dad.
Yes, faithful readers (family members) I have once again fallen ill. Nothing as serious as bronchitis this time, merely a minor case of conjunctivitis. Which I somehow managed to self-diagnose. Seriously. I woke up after a nap Monday afternoon to goop in my eyes and thought "I probably have cunjunctivitis". Which was later confirmed by a doctor who gave me eye drops with anti-biotics and steroids in them. Think the steroids will improve my vision? I always wanted to have a superpower...
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
С днем святого Патрика!
Or, as it's said in the English-speaking world, Happy St. Patrick's Day! (A few days late, but give a girl a break, huh?)
As apparently the only person in my program, perhaps in all of Russia, proud of my Irish heritage, I decided to represent and wear my green jeans. The professor that I explained this to seemed rather puzzled that the color should matter for a holiday, but I think she just added it to the (presumably long) list of weird things Americans do. I had actually been planning to buy a green scarf for the occasion, but was unable to find a good one. Which leads me to the actual subject of this post: shopping in Russia.
As everywhere, shopping comes in many forms. In Russia, however, shopping for the same item at different stores can provide a vastly different experience. Excluding food shopping, which deserves its own explanation, one can buy stuff at a variety of places. The most obvious is the Western-style mall, complete with such stores as H&M, Zara, Adidas and Reebok. One of these malls is one block away from my class building, so needless to say, exploring has happened. The Galeria, as it's called, is a brand-new building that apparently only opened last year (the academic year students lament that it's become popular--they loved having their own private food court at lunch).
In terms that people familiar with the Boston area can recognize, the Galeria is like the new wing of the "Natick Collection", only bigger (4 or 5 stories and takes up close to a city block) and it has a grocery store, tailor, dry cleaner, pool hall/bar, TGI Friday's, a few sit-down restaurants and a bank in addition to the usual clothing, electronics and shoe stores. Shopping there is exactly like any mall anywhere in the Western world except that the signs are in Cyrillic and the prices all seem ridiculously high until you do the currency exchange rate calculation in your head ("3,000 roubles? what am I made of money? Oh wait, that's about $100, never mind").
The more Russian version of shopping is not evident in the city centre, which is one of the few reasons I'm glad to be living on the outskirts. As it's been staying light later (7pm!!) and I thus have more energy after getting off the metro at the end of the day (seriously, 4pm seems like noon!) I've begun exploring the neighborhood shops more. Something I've been meaning to do almost since I arrived.
Next to my metro stop is (what I think of as) a true Russian shopping center. In the complex are a few big stores, including Буквоед [book-va-ed], a bookstore that I'm sure will become my favorite place once I can actually read full books in Russian. Think of it as the Russian Borders/Barnes and Noble. There are a couple of other chain stores like McDonalds (with free wi-fi), something that from the outside looks like Target, and a few others, but most of the space is comprised of a uniquely Russian phenomenon--the tiny little hole-in-the-wall shop, amongst several others of its kind, that only sells one type of merchandise.
There are hat shops, shoe stores, fur coat closets, dress shops, and even a few shops that only sell men's dress shirts. The amazing thing to me about all these little places is the sheer amount of products they manage to fit into a space that's no more than 10'x10'. The most impressive of these is the hat shops. There are quite a few of them scattered around the 3 floors of the mall and except for the different women scowling behind the counter, you'd swear it was the same shop! Each has hats lining the walls, easily fitting 100+ into the tiny area as well as often having hat stands on the floor limiting your wandering space even further. As the kind of shopper who likes to feel merchandise and look at the price tags, but is also quite short by most standards, this set-up is incredibly frustrating to me.
Russians have a different system of shopping. When you see something you like, or want to look at, you ask the worker at the shop "девушка, скажите пожалуйста..." or "вы не скажете сколько стоит вот эту?" which literally translate respectively as "girl, please tell me..." and "you won't say how much that costs?" the polite ways of asking for help. The problem with this system, however, is that I'm still a bit shaky on my numbers in Russian and I'm also wary of letting people know by my accent that I'm not native. Of course, I'm sure my mannerisms give me away, but I like to pretend that I'm fitting in perfectly. I have decided, however, to get over my pride and buy one of those stereotypical "Russian fur hats" before it's truly spring so I can wear it for at least a few days.
A third and, in my view, stranger system of shopping here in Peter is Gostiny Dvor' (their transliteration). It used to be the site of a market where farmers and tradesmen would come with their goods. At some point in history, it got closed in and is now a huge building that covers a large city block. The odd thing about this place is that when they closed it in they basically made it into a continuous hallway. So to go from store to store, you don't window shop and then pick out where you want to enter, instead you actually walk through the stores on your way to things that actually interest you.
While wandering in Gostiny Dvor' last week, I experienced my first (that I know of) salesperson hovering to make sure I wasn't stealing anything. It was in a fur store, so I guess the merchandise is pretty valuable, but at the same time, what are the odds of me being able to walk off with something? Anyway, as part of my continual search for an affordable yet stylish yet stereotypical fur hat, I stopped in this store. Along one wall were a lot of hats, so I went over to get a closer look. The corridor that people walk through separated this small area from the cashier, but I didn't think that mattered. Five minutes later, when I just couldn't bring myself to pay $100 for a hat (is that normal for fur?), as I turned to leave, I noticed a rather surly employee glaring at me from the other end of the hall wall (about 10 feet away). Now, I hadn't seen her before this moment, but from her stance and the way she followed me with her eyes as I proceeded on, I'm pretty sure she'd been watching me for quite some time.
As a white girl from the suburbs, I've never encountered this attitude from a salesgirl before. I'm aware, of course, that this is often a major issue of racism in the US (blacks being profiled as likely to steal) but the distrust has never been aimed in my direction. Very eye-opening.
So that's my summary of Russian shopping, which I'm sure you were all riveted by. By the way, word to the wise: Russians often don't accept credit cards, even when the price is several thousand roubles. The tiny little shops in the mall near me don't even have machines that are capable of that sort of transaction, but more often than not, the salesperson just doesn't want to deal with the hassle.
As apparently the only person in my program, perhaps in all of Russia, proud of my Irish heritage, I decided to represent and wear my green jeans. The professor that I explained this to seemed rather puzzled that the color should matter for a holiday, but I think she just added it to the (presumably long) list of weird things Americans do. I had actually been planning to buy a green scarf for the occasion, but was unable to find a good one. Which leads me to the actual subject of this post: shopping in Russia.
As everywhere, shopping comes in many forms. In Russia, however, shopping for the same item at different stores can provide a vastly different experience. Excluding food shopping, which deserves its own explanation, one can buy stuff at a variety of places. The most obvious is the Western-style mall, complete with such stores as H&M, Zara, Adidas and Reebok. One of these malls is one block away from my class building, so needless to say, exploring has happened. The Galeria, as it's called, is a brand-new building that apparently only opened last year (the academic year students lament that it's become popular--they loved having their own private food court at lunch).
In terms that people familiar with the Boston area can recognize, the Galeria is like the new wing of the "Natick Collection", only bigger (4 or 5 stories and takes up close to a city block) and it has a grocery store, tailor, dry cleaner, pool hall/bar, TGI Friday's, a few sit-down restaurants and a bank in addition to the usual clothing, electronics and shoe stores. Shopping there is exactly like any mall anywhere in the Western world except that the signs are in Cyrillic and the prices all seem ridiculously high until you do the currency exchange rate calculation in your head ("3,000 roubles? what am I made of money? Oh wait, that's about $100, never mind").
The more Russian version of shopping is not evident in the city centre, which is one of the few reasons I'm glad to be living on the outskirts. As it's been staying light later (7pm!!) and I thus have more energy after getting off the metro at the end of the day (seriously, 4pm seems like noon!) I've begun exploring the neighborhood shops more. Something I've been meaning to do almost since I arrived.
Next to my metro stop is (what I think of as) a true Russian shopping center. In the complex are a few big stores, including Буквоед [book-va-ed], a bookstore that I'm sure will become my favorite place once I can actually read full books in Russian. Think of it as the Russian Borders/Barnes and Noble. There are a couple of other chain stores like McDonalds (with free wi-fi), something that from the outside looks like Target, and a few others, but most of the space is comprised of a uniquely Russian phenomenon--the tiny little hole-in-the-wall shop, amongst several others of its kind, that only sells one type of merchandise.
There are hat shops, shoe stores, fur coat closets, dress shops, and even a few shops that only sell men's dress shirts. The amazing thing to me about all these little places is the sheer amount of products they manage to fit into a space that's no more than 10'x10'. The most impressive of these is the hat shops. There are quite a few of them scattered around the 3 floors of the mall and except for the different women scowling behind the counter, you'd swear it was the same shop! Each has hats lining the walls, easily fitting 100+ into the tiny area as well as often having hat stands on the floor limiting your wandering space even further. As the kind of shopper who likes to feel merchandise and look at the price tags, but is also quite short by most standards, this set-up is incredibly frustrating to me.
Russians have a different system of shopping. When you see something you like, or want to look at, you ask the worker at the shop "девушка, скажите пожалуйста..." or "вы не скажете сколько стоит вот эту?" which literally translate respectively as "girl, please tell me..." and "you won't say how much that costs?" the polite ways of asking for help. The problem with this system, however, is that I'm still a bit shaky on my numbers in Russian and I'm also wary of letting people know by my accent that I'm not native. Of course, I'm sure my mannerisms give me away, but I like to pretend that I'm fitting in perfectly. I have decided, however, to get over my pride and buy one of those stereotypical "Russian fur hats" before it's truly spring so I can wear it for at least a few days.
A third and, in my view, stranger system of shopping here in Peter is Gostiny Dvor' (their transliteration). It used to be the site of a market where farmers and tradesmen would come with their goods. At some point in history, it got closed in and is now a huge building that covers a large city block. The odd thing about this place is that when they closed it in they basically made it into a continuous hallway. So to go from store to store, you don't window shop and then pick out where you want to enter, instead you actually walk through the stores on your way to things that actually interest you.
While wandering in Gostiny Dvor' last week, I experienced my first (that I know of) salesperson hovering to make sure I wasn't stealing anything. It was in a fur store, so I guess the merchandise is pretty valuable, but at the same time, what are the odds of me being able to walk off with something? Anyway, as part of my continual search for an affordable yet stylish yet stereotypical fur hat, I stopped in this store. Along one wall were a lot of hats, so I went over to get a closer look. The corridor that people walk through separated this small area from the cashier, but I didn't think that mattered. Five minutes later, when I just couldn't bring myself to pay $100 for a hat (is that normal for fur?), as I turned to leave, I noticed a rather surly employee glaring at me from the other end of the hall wall (about 10 feet away). Now, I hadn't seen her before this moment, but from her stance and the way she followed me with her eyes as I proceeded on, I'm pretty sure she'd been watching me for quite some time.
As a white girl from the suburbs, I've never encountered this attitude from a salesgirl before. I'm aware, of course, that this is often a major issue of racism in the US (blacks being profiled as likely to steal) but the distrust has never been aimed in my direction. Very eye-opening.
So that's my summary of Russian shopping, which I'm sure you were all riveted by. By the way, word to the wise: Russians often don't accept credit cards, even when the price is several thousand roubles. The tiny little shops in the mall near me don't even have machines that are capable of that sort of transaction, but more often than not, the salesperson just doesn't want to deal with the hassle.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Sasha 3
I have been thus dubbed by my fellow ACTR students, as there are 2 other Sashas who are Academic year students. As much as I complain at home about there being too many Alexes (Alexs? how does that pularize?) being in Russia takes the commonality of the names Alexandra and Alexander to a whole new level.
A breif list of the Sashas I've met (besides myself, of course): my host mom, the other 2 in the abroad program, my peer tutor's boyfriend, the guy who sold me my cell phone, several waiters, a main character of my favorite Russian tv program and innumerable other people who pass me on the street.
There really isn't a good comparison to make in the US, as most names in English aren't gender-neutral. Katherine for girls is popular, but there are plenty of Екатеринаs here as well. Michael for boys? but it's not gender-neutral and Michelle is not nearly as popular in the States as Alexandra is here.
In any case, you get the point. The most frustrating thing for me about all this is that I decided recently to ask people at home (not my family, they're already too used to "Alex") to call me "Sasha", as it's a less common nickname in the States. Plus, I like it. But now, with the legions of Sashas in Russia, I've again become a number.
Oh well, such is the life of Alexandras everywhere.
Until next time, Sasha 3
A breif list of the Sashas I've met (besides myself, of course): my host mom, the other 2 in the abroad program, my peer tutor's boyfriend, the guy who sold me my cell phone, several waiters, a main character of my favorite Russian tv program and innumerable other people who pass me on the street.
There really isn't a good comparison to make in the US, as most names in English aren't gender-neutral. Katherine for girls is popular, but there are plenty of Екатеринаs here as well. Michael for boys? but it's not gender-neutral and Michelle is not nearly as popular in the States as Alexandra is here.
In any case, you get the point. The most frustrating thing for me about all this is that I decided recently to ask people at home (not my family, they're already too used to "Alex") to call me "Sasha", as it's a less common nickname in the States. Plus, I like it. But now, with the legions of Sashas in Russia, I've again become a number.
Oh well, such is the life of Alexandras everywhere.
Until next time, Sasha 3
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Lessons from a six-year-old
Of the many things I've learned so far in Russia, probably the most practical lessons have been (inadvertently) taught by my 6-year-old host sister, Nastya. And not all of them have to do with language, or even Russian culture.
For example: growing up with a sister who is only 2 years younger than I am, I never really had the experience of someone constantly coming into my room asking "Whatcha doin'?" and not leaving even after I'd answered. As a fairly common theme in teen movies is the unwanted younger sibling getting in the way, I was, of course, aware that this happened to others, but it's not until recently that I fully appreciated what it meant.
In an effort to not be anti-social, I usually leave the door to my room open. This was fine when it was just my host mom and me living here while the other two were on their spa vacation (I'm really still unclear on what they did there--it wasn't that far away, so I don't know why they were away for 3 weeks), but now that Nastya has returned, the open door has taken on a whole new meaning.
As people who have had extended interactions with young children know, they aren't always comprehensible even when you're fluent in the language they're speaking. Something to do with youthful lisps and mispronounciations, I'm sure. In any case, while adults may know that kids are hard to understand, the kids themselves are rarely aware that someone who isn't their mother may have difficulty parsing their words. And Nastya is especially unforgiving if it takes me a minute to understand her excited babbling. The other day, when I returned home, she came running up spouting a fountain of energetic Russian at me. Actually, it was the day I went to the opera and had about an hour and a half to change, eat, and be on my way (aka I was NOT focusing on what she was saying). Anyway, Nastya ended her chatter with "Мы печем пиццу" [We're baking pizza].
As frazzled and distracted as I was, it took me a minute to digest her monologue. Apparently I took too long, as she repeated the phrase. Met once more with my blank stare (or perhaps furrowed brow as I tried to figure it out), Nastya yelled into the other room "Мама! Саша не знает, что такое пицца!" [Mom! Sasha doesn't know what pizza is!] To which, I of course responded "No, I know what pizza is!" I was going to explain that she'd just been talking too fast, but she was already bored of the conversation and returned to watching TV in the other room.
A brief explanation of my confusion: I had only just learned the verb "to bake" [печь] a few days before this, and it had only been taught in the context of blini. Thus, when Nastya used it describing pizza, it took me a moment to remember. Also, with the lisp she tends to get when excited, "pizza" was a nearly unrecognizable word.
More common examples of Nastya entering my room are when I'm on my computer and she comes in saying the Russian equivalent of "Whatcha doin'?" and doesn't leave. She's fascinated by everything I do, which is really sweet, but at the same time, it's not like I really do anything worthy of interest. I'm usually checking email, doing a crossword, looking at facebook, or reading a book or article online. All these activities are in English, by the way, which Nastya does not read, despite her assertions to the contrary. On the one hand, I'm glad that her reading over my shoulder is limited to her trying to identify individual letters, but on the other hand, if she could actually read English, she wouldn't ask me every few seconds "What's that letter?" or, more commonly, point to a key on the keyboard and ask if she's reading it right (which can actually be a challenge as I have cyrillic stickers on most keys thus each one has two letters--latin and cyrillic).
In summary, the most important things I've learned so far are: patience with myself even when others are impatient or make fun of me; and patience with young kids. If I ignore her for long enough, Nastya gets bored and runs out, usually with a toy of some kind in hand.
For example: growing up with a sister who is only 2 years younger than I am, I never really had the experience of someone constantly coming into my room asking "Whatcha doin'?" and not leaving even after I'd answered. As a fairly common theme in teen movies is the unwanted younger sibling getting in the way, I was, of course, aware that this happened to others, but it's not until recently that I fully appreciated what it meant.
In an effort to not be anti-social, I usually leave the door to my room open. This was fine when it was just my host mom and me living here while the other two were on their spa vacation (I'm really still unclear on what they did there--it wasn't that far away, so I don't know why they were away for 3 weeks), but now that Nastya has returned, the open door has taken on a whole new meaning.
As people who have had extended interactions with young children know, they aren't always comprehensible even when you're fluent in the language they're speaking. Something to do with youthful lisps and mispronounciations, I'm sure. In any case, while adults may know that kids are hard to understand, the kids themselves are rarely aware that someone who isn't their mother may have difficulty parsing their words. And Nastya is especially unforgiving if it takes me a minute to understand her excited babbling. The other day, when I returned home, she came running up spouting a fountain of energetic Russian at me. Actually, it was the day I went to the opera and had about an hour and a half to change, eat, and be on my way (aka I was NOT focusing on what she was saying). Anyway, Nastya ended her chatter with "Мы печем пиццу" [We're baking pizza].
As frazzled and distracted as I was, it took me a minute to digest her monologue. Apparently I took too long, as she repeated the phrase. Met once more with my blank stare (or perhaps furrowed brow as I tried to figure it out), Nastya yelled into the other room "Мама! Саша не знает, что такое пицца!" [Mom! Sasha doesn't know what pizza is!] To which, I of course responded "No, I know what pizza is!" I was going to explain that she'd just been talking too fast, but she was already bored of the conversation and returned to watching TV in the other room.
A brief explanation of my confusion: I had only just learned the verb "to bake" [печь] a few days before this, and it had only been taught in the context of blini. Thus, when Nastya used it describing pizza, it took me a moment to remember. Also, with the lisp she tends to get when excited, "pizza" was a nearly unrecognizable word.
More common examples of Nastya entering my room are when I'm on my computer and she comes in saying the Russian equivalent of "Whatcha doin'?" and doesn't leave. She's fascinated by everything I do, which is really sweet, but at the same time, it's not like I really do anything worthy of interest. I'm usually checking email, doing a crossword, looking at facebook, or reading a book or article online. All these activities are in English, by the way, which Nastya does not read, despite her assertions to the contrary. On the one hand, I'm glad that her reading over my shoulder is limited to her trying to identify individual letters, but on the other hand, if she could actually read English, she wouldn't ask me every few seconds "What's that letter?" or, more commonly, point to a key on the keyboard and ask if she's reading it right (which can actually be a challenge as I have cyrillic stickers on most keys thus each one has two letters--latin and cyrillic).
In summary, the most important things I've learned so far are: patience with myself even when others are impatient or make fun of me; and patience with young kids. If I ignore her for long enough, Nastya gets bored and runs out, usually with a toy of some kind in hand.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Happy International Women's Day!
In honor of the holiday, I did absolutely nothing. Which is sometimes the best way to celebrate. Yesterday I went skating and had tea at a cafe with some friends and a professor, had a holiday feast with my host family, and met up with one of the Russians I met at that meeting a little over a week ago.
Tomorrow I'm going to another rehearsal, where I'm going to try to come up with some questions to ask the director. Then a brief meeting for ACTR and it's home for me, to do all the homework I neglected the past few days. Watching The Incredibles in Russian with my host sister was clearly more important than preparing my presentation. Besides, Speech Practicum should be about thinking on your feet, right?
Shortest blog post yet, sorry for the lack of detail, I just don't have the energy for a long post. Maybe I'll tell more about the rehearsals in the next one.
Пока!
Tomorrow I'm going to another rehearsal, where I'm going to try to come up with some questions to ask the director. Then a brief meeting for ACTR and it's home for me, to do all the homework I neglected the past few days. Watching The Incredibles in Russian with my host sister was clearly more important than preparing my presentation. Besides, Speech Practicum should be about thinking on your feet, right?
Shortest blog post yet, sorry for the lack of detail, I just don't have the energy for a long post. Maybe I'll tell more about the rehearsals in the next one.
Пока!
Sunday, March 6, 2011
It's not over until the fat lady sings
Yesterday I went to my first opera, hence the title of this post. Amazing as it was, I was a bit disappointed that a few stereotypes were not fulfilled. No female member of the cast was fat (although a few of the men were quite толстый), the sets were rather minimalist, and the death by shooting didn't involve a big red handkerchief to represent the blood. I mean, in general, all of those things would be great, but for my first opera, I kind of wanted the stereotype.
The show we saw was Evgeniy Onegin, an opera written by Tchaikovsky based on the poem/book by Pushkin. I read the wikipedia article for both (in English and Russian) before watching the opera, so I had a vague idea of the storyline, but I think that to be an educated Slavic Studies major I'm going to have to read the original text at some point. When I have the language skills.
Overall I enjoyed the opera, but there were several scenes that were really boring. I much preferred the big crowd scenes to the monologues/dialogues that dominated the piece. The famous letter scene involves the main female character singing by herself for like 20 minutes. After about 3 I was ready for her to be done. There was actually a point about halfway through the piece where there was a pause in the music and everyone thought that the song was over, so they started clapping. The actress, however, remained in place with her arms raised, props in hand, and the lights didn't change so after a minute people got the hint. And the aria continued for another ten minutes.
My favorite scene was the ball in the third act, but my favorite moment was at the top of the final scene, at a serious, romantic moment, a gel fell out of a light above the stage. (For those who don't know, a lighting gel is the little piece of colored plastic placed in front of a light tint it.) I doubt that I was the only one who noticed it, but I suspect that most other spectators either thought it was done on purpose or didn't know how important the tiny piece of plastic actually was. Somebody got yelled at after the performance, for sure. Perhaps several someones.
*******
In other news, today is the final day of Maslenitsa. For all of you non-Slavists out there, Maslenitsa is a very old pagan celebration that originally lasted 14 days, but has since been shortened to 7. When Christianity came to Russia, the peasants continued most of their pagan traditions, sometimes with a new Christian twist to it. In general, though, the holiday maintains its pagan feel. No need for me to say all here, if you're interested do an internet search (the wikipedia article is sadly lacking, FYI).
In honor of the holiday, my program took us to the Russian equivalent of Sturbridge village/ Plymouth plantation to learn about old Russian traditions and how to properly celebrate the week. Which included, among other things, a couple of informative talks (that I mostly understood), several games, a drunken man in a bear costume who played the games with us, traditional dances, eating blini (they represent the sun--eating them is supposed to make spring come faster, though I'm still a little fuzzy on the logic of that), and sledding.
OK, so the sledding isn't really a part of the holiday, but it was really fun. As I keep saying, being a low-level language student and living in Russia, in many ways I've regressed to childhood. Field trips, class discussions of simple/everyday topics, grammar lessons, being told I need to bundle up more, having people worry about where I am if I don't call, etc.
Today I also got to watch a rehearsal at the Comedy Theater, but this blog post is long enough that I'd better save that story for another time.
The show we saw was Evgeniy Onegin, an opera written by Tchaikovsky based on the poem/book by Pushkin. I read the wikipedia article for both (in English and Russian) before watching the opera, so I had a vague idea of the storyline, but I think that to be an educated Slavic Studies major I'm going to have to read the original text at some point. When I have the language skills.
Overall I enjoyed the opera, but there were several scenes that were really boring. I much preferred the big crowd scenes to the monologues/dialogues that dominated the piece. The famous letter scene involves the main female character singing by herself for like 20 minutes. After about 3 I was ready for her to be done. There was actually a point about halfway through the piece where there was a pause in the music and everyone thought that the song was over, so they started clapping. The actress, however, remained in place with her arms raised, props in hand, and the lights didn't change so after a minute people got the hint. And the aria continued for another ten minutes.
My favorite scene was the ball in the third act, but my favorite moment was at the top of the final scene, at a serious, romantic moment, a gel fell out of a light above the stage. (For those who don't know, a lighting gel is the little piece of colored plastic placed in front of a light tint it.) I doubt that I was the only one who noticed it, but I suspect that most other spectators either thought it was done on purpose or didn't know how important the tiny piece of plastic actually was. Somebody got yelled at after the performance, for sure. Perhaps several someones.
*******
In other news, today is the final day of Maslenitsa. For all of you non-Slavists out there, Maslenitsa is a very old pagan celebration that originally lasted 14 days, but has since been shortened to 7. When Christianity came to Russia, the peasants continued most of their pagan traditions, sometimes with a new Christian twist to it. In general, though, the holiday maintains its pagan feel. No need for me to say all here, if you're interested do an internet search (the wikipedia article is sadly lacking, FYI).
In honor of the holiday, my program took us to the Russian equivalent of Sturbridge village/ Plymouth plantation to learn about old Russian traditions and how to properly celebrate the week. Which included, among other things, a couple of informative talks (that I mostly understood), several games, a drunken man in a bear costume who played the games with us, traditional dances, eating blini (they represent the sun--eating them is supposed to make spring come faster, though I'm still a little fuzzy on the logic of that), and sledding.
OK, so the sledding isn't really a part of the holiday, but it was really fun. As I keep saying, being a low-level language student and living in Russia, in many ways I've regressed to childhood. Field trips, class discussions of simple/everyday topics, grammar lessons, being told I need to bundle up more, having people worry about where I am if I don't call, etc.
Today I also got to watch a rehearsal at the Comedy Theater, but this blog post is long enough that I'd better save that story for another time.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)