Errata, Sundry, and Voronezh Take 2

I would like to start with some errata from the blog. Clearly this is not an exhaustive list, but it contains some large corrections.

Vova and Kirill study Lithuanian, and not Estonian as published (ask Peter about the Dutch/Danish fiasco of 2005), and Kirill most definately has not graduated.

Speaking of publication, I feel like I have adequately forewarned and otherwise explained my parents my actions in Russia (this preface inspired by feedback from my post : "Nothing to see here"), such that I am free to post any and all my adventures here with the understanding that I am indeed being more safe than you think, but maybe not as safe as you'd like, and that some cultural differences make things not as dangerous as you'd believe. I wish I were talking about love, but that's always more dangerous than you can imagine. But then again it's Love. Love is everything : dangerous, scary, fun, an education,an addiction, thrilling,and beautiful.

Anywho, I'm actually talking mostly about hitchiking. Once a state sponsored institution (you give the driver a receipt, the driver gets money from the govn't), and now still an undying facet of Russian culture, hitchiking is a godsend for people who want to spend as little money as possible (like me!). Within the city, every car that passes by you is potentially a cab to those hard to reach pockets of moscow not near bus, trolley, tram, or metro. Drop a couple hundred rubles and you're there presto! Outside the city, it's a great way to make a long trip a little less boring with someone to talk to.

Sure enough it's just as easy as it looks. You stick your arm out, wave it about, (do the hokey pokey?) and sure as flies on shit, there's a car at the other end of your arm.

Thus starts my second journey to Voronezh. I spent 60 cents to get just outside of Moscow, a couple steps outside the MKAD, on the highway joining Moscow to Voronezh, M4. I get picked up just at the start of twilight by a delivery truck heading just a little ways south, but I'm excited, anxious even, to hop into my first catch of my life, and with a spring in my boot clad step, I swing my backpack and myself into the cab. We quickly cover the easy vocabulary : where he's from, why in the world would I want to come to Russia, what I think of Russia, what he thinks of the States. It's amazing what you can force yourself to come up with in a foreign language when you're deathly afraid of silence. Why so fearful of silence? Just the principle, I'm getting a free ride from someone, I feel like I should repay them with entertainment. I didn't let the conversation lapse once. Go me and my improving(?) Russian! Though perhaps I was being selfish, and was using this as an opportunity to practice my Russian at his expense of having to listen to my horrible accent. Oops it's 71km and this is his exit! Time for me to hop out. Nice to meet you, good luck! I walk down the road a bit, my lonley thumb getting chilly through my gloves, then turn around so potential drivers can see my irresistable smile. I turn around, and there's a semi-truck headed straight for me. I jump on the other side of the rail and the truck stops. I open the door and the driver is red in the face from laughing.

This guy is a riot. I have never seen such lewd window stickers, nor have I ever heard more foul language in any language in my whole life. It was always male-member this, female-parts that, and I've-had-intimate-knowledge-of-your-mother-go-buy-some-eyes-and-get-your-heap-of-iron-off-the-road that. He started his journey in Berlin carrying BMW's somewhere far south to the Black sea. You're going to Voronezh? I can take you all the way there! And so he did, my remaining 400km. I now know all the good and crappy cafes along M4. I also know about his pug (the one he picked up in Poland), the 20 years he spent as an officer in the army, his two degrees (law and economics), and his miserable pension (did I mention he's a semi driver?). Never has 400km passed that quickly in my life (250 miles have, however). This guy was all over the map with questions and stories. Moskovskaya oblast turns into Tulskaya into Lipetskaya into Voronezhskaya oblast. We're not far from Voronezh and we stop at a cafe to grab a bite to eat. 50 rubles for all you can eat borsch, pelmeni, and xleb. We strategize where best to drop me off, neither of us know the city, so we call it a "we'll know it when we see it" thing. On the bypass I spot a marshrutka and this would be a perfect spot to debark. We make our farewells, and I make my first step on the last part of my journey to Voronezh.

And I count my lucky blessings, route 90 is frequent service downtown! I hop on the swedish bus (you signal and the Stoppen light lights up), and we're blazing down Leninskiy prospekt, across the river and here I am! I've made it! I'm in Voronezh! At last, I've vindicated my last failed attempt to make it to this fair, 2 million city nestled in the hills divided by a river (Remind anyone of someplace? Portland maybe?).

Anyways, I think the hitchiking part is already enough for my parents to handle. I'll cut the rest of the story short (including serendipitous irony), and give general comments about the hospitability of Russians, the beauty of Voronezh, and how it awaits me for yet another visit. I'll leave you with one more story.

I got a haircut in Voronezh for 200 roubles. That was easily the most terrifying experience I've had in Russia. I walk into the salon and five women immediately stop what they're doing and all turn to look at me.

"What do you want?" One of them asks

I try to explain that I want a haircut, without knowing what the word for haircut is... They look horribly confused, "So... What color do you want?" "Color?" "Yes, Color. Blue, red, pink, silver..." "no no no, I don't want any color, I want" And I procede to pantomime a pair of scissors with my hands accompanied by snipping sounds. "Ah, all you need is just a haircut? Have a seat!"

Now, before I walked into the salon, I spotted the immenent problem of describing exactly how I wanted my hair cut. So I spent some time constructing a beautiful phrase from basic vocabulary and grammar. I had it perfect. These were all words I knew how to pronounce, I even know which sentence intonation patterns to use. And there's no way that the meanings could be mistaken for something else. So I sat down in the chair and let it rip, "Not as short as policemen. Longer on top than the sides." She looks at me and says flatly, "I didn't understand anything you said." I was flabbergasted. Doesn't she speak Russian? What a poor woman, going through life not speaking the language of her peers and friends. How can someone live thus? As soon as the surge of righteous pity left my system, I felt devastated that my Russian skills after working so well the day before would fail me now in my moment of greatest need. I shrugged it off. I said, "Do as you like". No sooner had those words escaped my lips than did I realize that I might be walk away from a haircut with a mullett for the first time in my life since 1st grade. She recognized the futility of further discussion, took her scissors and went to work. I wasn't joking when I took one look in the mirror and said to her it's never been better (Oh, *now* she can understand Russian... Sheesh).

Moscow

I've got about an hour until my next adventure. Let me tell you about a typical day in Moscow.

I walk from my flat down Mozhaiskiy street with the metro station waiting for me at the end, the bright red M shining like a beacon. Just beyond Studencheskaya station, on a clear day, you can see the Russian Acadamy of Sciences, and as you approach Studencheskaya you see track after track leading to the Kievskiy train station, the terminus and origin for many south-western bound trains (Such as ones to Kiev). The metro from this station pops up above ground again as it crosses the Moscow river, from which you catch sight of the Russian white house, the imposing main building of Moscow State University, and a second look at the Kievskiy station.

Our university sits in a triangle formed by three metro stations, and we have a choice of two to debark. The first one leads to a ho-hum walk past another of the seven sisters : the ministry of foreign affairs, and down Arbat street, a 1km long pedestrian street once home to Pushkin and one of the oldest streets in Moscow. The second station (my favorite) leads you down Gogolskiy boulevard, a street split down the middle by a wide park. From a statue of Gogol to a sculpture of Mikhail Sholokov you walk down a cobblestone path arched by trees. Turning down Sivtsev vrazhek, you pass by a sculpture park and you're at our university in the heart of Moscow.

Class usually starts 15 minutes ago, so you excuse yourself and quickly and quietly sit down. We have a wonderful lunch lady, have a delicious lunch, and an hour later we sit for our second class. Do some chores, wanna come over to my place for some tea?, make some dinner, chat with my chatty flatmate (she's a girl... she constantly talks), do some homework, rinse and repeat.

Now I'm off to pick up a power cable from the last tennants of my flat who now live by the Patriarschiy ponds, see some friends at the dorm, and pack for my second attempt to get to Voronezh. This time I have valid documents, not just in theory, but in hand.

See you Sunday!

Learning about Russian culture is difficult. Especially when your friends tell you that they grew up on American culture. They read American comics, read American literature, grew up watching movies from Mike Nichols and Jimmy Jarmusch. Aside from being inundated with Soviet cartoons, I've been getting an excellent education in Ameican culture. Does it seem strange to anyone but me that all of my friends were born in the Soviet Union?

I went to Liza's English class this afternoon where we discussed stereotypes for different regions in the States. They were very interested in the differences between southern belles, valley girls, and jersey girls. As well as how hicks, hillbillys, and rednecks are different. Did you know that people from Arkansas are made from corn?

Aside from being filled to the gills with math here, I spend alot of my time learning alot about English (question of the night last night: what are the prepositions doing in "I've been out/up/down there"), Russian (who knew it would be so hard to ask for the piece of cheese on the left, no not your left, my left), and French (it's me and two frenchmen in my Russian class).

What else... The highlight of my new in the apartment was finding out that I can open the paint enrusted windows, and I am now able to open one bottle of beer with another. Oh man, if only my scholarship advisor could read what I'm learning to do in Russia. Oh wait she does.

Speaking of research, I found a professor here that does work related to what I'm currently doing with Holly. The only tricky part is staying out of his spit zone, otherwise I think we're going to hit it off real well.

Aside from falling голова over heels in love, I think that's it in the news department for now.

Nothing to see here

Remember how I mentioned that wedlock is slightly more unlikely than spending time in prison? It turns out that I was right.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. There's so much to tell and now that I have your attention, we should start from the beginning.

An autumn celebration, a night of horror : Halloween came to Moscow. After selfish prompting, my adopted mother in Russia, Peggy, graciously offered the use of her apartment for this night. We cooked, ate, and drank non-stop. Some of the food was good, like baked apples smothered in honey, raisins, nuts, and whatever else we could find. The pumpkin soup was a miracle, and the mulled wine divine. But the eggnog turned out less noggy and more like a bottle of Jameson with some raw eggs mixed in (but it was almost redeemed the next morning as it made a reappearance for French toast).

The most important part of the evening, however, was that this was the first time that I introduced the different groups of friends to each other. Up until this point, I felt like I was living separate lives. One with the other foreigners in the Math in Moscow program, one with the Russians at the dorm in which I used to live, another all together with the friends I've made outside of the dorm and Math in Moscow. It's emotionally exhausting at times to be constantly meeting new people. I was dropped in this city knowing no one, and it takes a lot of effort to get to know people, to let them get to know you.

Anywho, all in all, this night was a success.

You might have noticed that I mentioned the dorm in which I used to live. Where am I know? Deported? Not yet, you'll read about that in a few paragraphs. Under a bridge? Sometimes I find myself under bridges, but I have a real place to sleep. In a real bed. In a room, next to a real shower, which is right next to the kitchen with a very real stoven (stove/oven).

I've moved into an amazing apartment. As idle curiosity will be the punchline for the story about the police in Michurinsk, it is also the reason for this change. I have been on the lookout since I've gotten here for goodwill-esque stores. A place to buy clothes and gadgets cheaply. Of course, such a thing doesn't exist in Moscow. So I gave Craig's List a whirl. No one uses Craig's List. Well, almost no one. I looked through the housing section and saw a posting : 11500RUR Kutuzovsky 1 BR - Looking for a roommate. I emailed the gal, we meet up, see the place, the university sends someone out to look at the place and I move in shortly thereafter. My roommate is a manager for an art hall in Moscow that is the home of a contemporary dance troupe, that hosts cartoon festivals, film festivals, and much more. She's a riot, and the sweetest person I know. She can also read me like a book. Which is fine, but it gets unnverving when she decides it's story time and reads me aloud. She knows what I'm thinking, how I'm feeling... It's all very strange, but she's great. Катя is sort of like my Russian big sister.

So. About Michurinsk. Along the lines of wanting to find a cheap place for clothes, shoes, even haircuts, I was told that I should go to Voronezh. The home town to not a few of my friends here and even to a friend in the states. So I invite Bill and Наташа (also from Voronezh) to come with me. We start from Moscow at 730 in the morning and travel in a southerly direction. Much like a falling leaf we have no idea where we are sometimes, we backtrack, find our way, and continue on. One thing leads to another and we find ourselves on an electrichka (intercity, cheap, eletric train) to Michurinsk, already about 390km from Moscow. Voronezh is 460km, however Michurinsk to Voronezh is 150km. Anyways, we arrive after dark in Michurinsk at 8 in the evening. We check the timetables to find the next means of transport to Voronezh. The earliest is an elektrichka at 4 in the morning. We now have 8 hours to kill. We find the main drag, buy some supplies for the night and take on the city. We find a monument for wokers at Chernobyl, we pick up a stray dog along our walks, and we wander around until we find the other train station in the town. We sit down, relax, play cards, and eat.

It is the stroke of midnight (give or take a couple of hours) and in walks the militsiya. Here we are, a couple of Americans and a Russian with our feet on the chairs, our stuff scattered all across the floor, a bottle of wine, food and cards. One of them walks over and looks at each of us in turn.

"What are you doing here?"
"We're waiting for our 4 o'clock train."
"Oh, ok. Would you like some tea?"

We were completely floored. He brings out three cups of tea, sits down and starts chatting with us. His name is Viktor, he visits his mother in Chernobyl each year ("I'm telling you, it's completely safe there"), used to be in the military, and has a son my age. We ask him to tell us about the city (it used to be named Kozlov, and is now named after a Russian polymath, it's a fascinating town), and he has a great sense of humor (he had us going for a few minutes that he didn't believe we were foreigners). We were the first Americans he's met, and he was really interested in our opinions about things that we just didn't have the vocabulary to talk about. He got up to go back to his office in the train station and we continued to play cards.

He comes out again, and tells us he's sorry to disturb us, but he's just doing his job and may he please see our documents?

To make a long story short, we had the local and federal police along with the ФСБ (KGB with a new name), printing us, questioning us, and taking our statements all night and all morning. I slept in the cell (it was more comfortable), the other two in the lobby, and we walked out of the station after noon with 2000RUR fines each to pay and one infraction of statute 18.8 "Violation of a foreign national or stateless person, the rules of entry to Russia or the regime of stay (residence) in Russia" One more infraction and we're deported and can't return to Russia for 5 years.

вот. All is well, we're back in Moscow. Some details are clearly missing from the narrative, but if you are in the area, you've got a place to stay and we'll have to chat over tea.