"The Things Russians Say"

Yesterday Megan and I were chatting with Jenya in our usual Russlish. We'd somehow gotten on the topic of AK-47's, because Jenya didn't believe our translation of his Russian word to "machine gun" despite our repeated acting out of shooting a machine gun. So we looked them up on the wonderful world wide web.

Jenya then told us that he'd learned to shoot an AK-47 in high school, where he'd had a class on it. You had to be able to load it fast enough and then shoot it at a man-shaped target. Also in this class he learned how to properly throw grenades. If you didn't throw the grenade far enough, you failed the class. That's probably because if they had been live grenades (they weren't) and you didn't throw them far enough, you would have failed life.

He was really surprised that we didn't have classes like this in America. When he asked why, I just told him that Americans hate guns because they're afraid of them. This confused Jenya, because it's so easy to get a gun in America. You just go in a store and buy it. Here it's a lot harder. But should a Russian with a high school education ever happen to need a gun, he may or may not be prepared to use it... I still haven't quite figured out if Jenya was serious or not. 

A Typical Day in Russia

Ok, so today maybe wasn't typical. But it did feel very Russian.

I woke up this morning and Iuliia pointed out that it was snowing, just a little. During the night a nice white dusting had appeared. It always feels a little bit more Russian to me here when it snows. I spent the morning before I had to go to class doing some homework and looking out my window.

The first very Russian thing I saw was this: a group of boys who looked to be about 15 or so ran out of the building and started having a snowball fight. One of them had forgotten to put his coat on and just had a shirt. The other two were decked out in their jackets. Eventually one of them got a good shot and hit his friend in the neck. They chased each other up the walkway to school and out of sight of my window, where I'm presuming one tackled the other and they tired themselves out. They wandered back looking tired, formed a circle to chat, and pulled out their cigarettes. Classic Russia. I'm mostly used to people smoking now, but it still catches me by surprise every once in a while.

The second very Russian thing happened when I was downtown this afternoon on my way home from eating downtown. It was about 5:00 or so. As we walked through the central square two large fur-hatted policemen walked toward us toting a very drunk old Russian man. Between the two of them they were mostly just kind of lifting and dragging him out of the square. There was no yelling or fighting, just your average street drunk being carted off by policemen.

A note on the policemen: There are a couple different types of policemen around. They're more common to see standing on the street here and you see fewer cop cars. Mostly they just use the cars as roadblocks during rush hour traffic jams. But the great thing about the policemen is their outfits. They wear long coats and big furry stereotypical Russian hats and black gloves. They look so regal and old-fashioned. Especially since they all carry beatsticks, which freaks me out a little bit sometimes. But I've never seen one in action, which is good.

Anyways, I love seeing these odd sights that I know I would never really encounter in America. It's a different world here. Sometimes that's good, sometimes that's bad. It's just the way it is.

День Благодарения

Or, as we say in America... Thanksgiving!

As you might imagine, Thanksgiving's not really a thing in Russia... at all. But we Americans gave it our best shot and went out for family dinner last night. True, we had Georgian food and there was no turkey involved. But we did go around the table and say what we were all thankful for... good food, new friends, and the wacky opportunities we've had here in Russia!

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving (whether or not you celebrate this holiday) filled with good food and better company.

An Afternoon Out

Yesterday after class Megan and I went galavanting about town with two of our Chinese classmates, Sveta and Tolya (yeah... those are just their Russian names). Here's a few photos...

First we got hot chocolate! Yum. Then we hopped on the bus downtown.

We were kind of hunting for souvenir stores, but I got distracted by this pretty little playground...

And park area with arches labeled with what I think might be Vladivostok's sister cities around the world.

Megan and Tolya played on the merry go round.

Here's Sveta and me. She's from Dalian, China, and I'm from... well, not Juneau exactly... but Alaska! Our arches happened to be right next to each other.

Борщ и Блини

I know I might have complained just a smidgeon about Russian food, but I feel the need to add that when done right, Russian food can be absolutely delicious. Today we had another "master class" like the ceramics class we took a couple weeks ago. This time, it was on Russian cooking! We watched as a master chef (who we later learned is one of the best chefs in Russia... I think he might even have a cooking show) prepared borsch and blini. 

You've probably already heard of these Russian foods - they're two of the most common. I had never actually eaten borsch before... and man, was it delicious! Borsch is soup made of (in the order that I saw them go in the pot) cabbage, potatoes, beets, tomatoes, carrots, fried onions, meat, and seasonings including pepper, red pepper, garlic, bay leaves, and dill (Russians love dill). Borsch is usually eaten with a dollop of сметана = smetana = sour cream. Above, you can see my delicious bowl of homemade borsch and dream of its deliciousness. I've had a sore throat for the past few days, and that soup felt mighty good going down.

We also had blini, which are the Russian version of crepes. We watched the masters make a few then we each tried our hand at it... The instructors made it look so easy! My blini was not entirely round but had only one little tear in it, so I considered it a success. At the end of the cooking lesson we were all served an early dinner of the borsch and some blini that had been made earlier and filled (then rolled). One was filled with rice and meat, one with barley and mushrooms, and one with творог = tvorog = kind of like Russian cottage cheese, but creamier. 

It was a fun time, and delicious! I'm still full from it. I dare you to have a better dinner than I did today! 

СНЕГ!

Сегодня шла снег! Снег был красивый и белый. Я очень люблю снег!!!

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Снег = sneg = snow and it's beautiful and white and I love it.

Город

 I know you're probably yearning to see more of what Vladivostok actually looks like. Well, yesterday I went гулять-ing (= gulyat = the Russian word for just wandering about for the sake of wandering. The Russians are quite fond of this.) with some friends who needed to get to the train station to buy tickets for their Trans-Siberian journey. I, however, just wandered about taking some lovely photos for you. Enjoy!

In the middle of downtown there's a little square of outside markets.

It's starting to get a bit too chilly for outdoor fruits and veggies!

The great thing about being in Russia is that you don't have to wait until after Thanksgiving to start decorating for Christmas! Or, the big winter holiday here, Новый Год.

Eventually we made it to the station. In my opinion, it's one of the pretties buildings in the city. Later after walking around in the chilly outside, we got to warm up with some toasty piroshki from a street vendor. Yum!

The Real Downer...

Tonight I'm going to take a break from my exciting and artistic and culinary life to deliver a little heartfelt post to you all:

I love being in Russia despite all the goofy things that go wrong and all the things that seem weird to me (and maybe even moreso because of these things.) I love the people here and I love the Russian style of living and outlook on life. Everything here seems a little bit more in-the-moment, a little more carefree, and yet thoughtful at the same time. I'm always surprised by the weird mix of characteristics that make up Russians - their love of the countryside paired with their desire to move to larger cities, their academic focus on a specific career and their ability to live a life outside of school. The fact that they have so many odd rules and yet live largely outside of the law. I love it all.

But I feel like no matter how much I learn about Russians they will never really learn very much about me. I feel like language has always been a huge part of my personality. If there's one thing that I think I can do, it's hold my own in a conversation. I can talk fast and use big words and sometimes be a little intimidating with my speech, if I do say so myself. And I honestly think that's a huge part of who I am. So it's really starting to frustrate me here that I can't really convey these things that make me me to the people I meet here. Because I tend to be quite fond of them. Sometimes I'm amazed I have any Russian friends at all when I must look so stupid to all of them. And this might be taking it a little bit far, but I feel like the Russians that I do associate with don't really like me for the reasons I think people should like me for (these being mostly my sharp wit and entertaining speech habits) because those don't really exist here. It's weird.

It's not that I feel like I'm a different person here. It's not that I feel Russia has changed me significantly. It's more that a vital part of me is trapped behind the ever-present language barrier. It's not that I don't have interesting conversations here. (I do.) It's not that people don't like me here. (They do... or at least I think some of them do.) It's just that all of my interactions are like half-interactions where I can only represent the tip of the iceberg that is the intellect of Ithaca.

And that's the most discouraging part. As weird as the food here is, as unreliable as the hot water is, the one thing that I get most homesick for is just conversing with someone unhindered. Not worrying about understanding the words we're saying to each other is a luxury I may never look at the same again.

My Little Ceramic Friends

As previously promised, here's a picture of my little classical Russian toys:

I've been slacking on my mini-blog-Russian-lessons, so this seems like the opportune time. 

First, we have the куритца = kuritsa = chicken. I was disappointed with the painting of the куритца because I really liked it before it was painted. But it's still cute I guess.

Next, there's the лощадь = loshad = horse. The лощадь is my favorite! He's very красный = krasnie = red, and majestic. 

Last we have the рыба = reba (like the country singer) = fish. The fish is technically not really a traditional Russian toy figure like the chicken and the horse. But fish are all over in Russia, so I figured he should count! Never have I seen so many types of dried/smoked/somehow preserved fish in a normal grocery store. I'll take a picture for you all someday.

So there you have it, four new Russian words! Extra points if you can slip them into an everyday conversation just to confuse someone. I do that with English all the time... not to confuse people, but just because I now speak a highly adapted dialect called Russlish that comes from wanting to practice Russian and also trying to make people understand me when I don't know the words for things. But it's better than nothing!

Catch A Car

Before coming to Russia, one thing I was warned about was the "gypsy cab" phenomenon. Basically in Russia a lot of not-actually-cabs will pick people up flagging down a cab. Often in big cities these guys are involved in some illegal trade and can get you into trouble, or charge exorbitant prices... or whatever. But they really only exist in big city nightmares, and Vladivostok isn't a big city at all.

The public transportation shuts down here at about 10pm. There aren't very many cab companies around and it's always a long wait if you call for one. So the normal thing to do here is to stand on the side of the road with your arm out and wait for somebody to pull over. They aren't gypsy cabs at all really - they're just normal people driving about at night on no particular time schedule who are willing to stop and pick people up. They'll roll down their window and ask where you're going. You'll tell them and name your price. Usually we ask if they'll take us to the school for 100 rubles (about $3.00). If we're going somewhere downtown from downtown we'll sometimes find someone who will take us for free. I think it's a pretty effective transportation system, especially in a place where not very many people have cars and the heavily relied-upon public transportation isn't running. For you worry-worts out there: I've never flagged down a car on my own, only in a group. Partly because I don't trust my Russian to haggle down the price, but also because it's always smartest to travel in packs, especially in a foreign city.

So the other night when our Russian friends went to catch a car Jordan and I used the English phrase "catch a car" to describe what they were doing. They loved it. It really is a fun thing to say... so they practiced over and over... "catch a car, catch a car, catch a car..." it was quite entertaining. However, it was one of those classic moments I have here where Russians are so excited to learn English that I never really learn Russian. I'm still not sure how to say the equivalent phrase of "catch a car" in Russian. All I know is that if you stick your arm out into the road eventually some nice Russian will come along and take you and your friend wherever you want to go for cheaper than a taxi will. Thank you Russia.

Life As Usual

[This post is from Wednesday... Russian internet just didn't want you to see it until now.]

Not much to blog about these last couple of days... it's just been a normal week of school. This study abroad program really is heavy on the studying. Many programs through Lewis & Clark are more travel-oriented programs, where students get to galavant about with other kids from LC and see different parts of a country, studying here and there as they go. This language-intensive program is kind of the opposite. You're supposed to get permission to go to neighboring cities (or at least alert someone) and we have 2-3 classes/day. With homework too it gets to be a bit much sometimes, but hopefully the hard work will pay off. Although I know I've mentioned that I haven't made as much progress with Russian language as I'd hoped to, I still like to think that I'm improving a little bit! I think being around the language it's hard not to pick up a few things.

Anyways, tonight I'm going to take the night off from my busy life as a student to go out with my roommate Iuliia. It will probably look something like this:

I guess my advice to you all today is to take a break from your own busy lives and indulge yourselves a little. See the sights, smell the roses, and do the things you love.

As long as we're on the topic...

Looking back, almost all of my recent posts have somehow involved food. So I figured I'd take this opportunity to continue the trend and share with you one of my long-term projects for my time here...

So lots of things in Russia are weird. Not drinking the tap water is weird. Not having a standard side of cars for the steering wheel to be on is weird. The fact that people don't flush their toilet paper but instead put it in little baskets next to the toilet (not because the septic system can't handle toilet paper, but just because) is weird. 

But one of the weirdest things is to see normal American things transformed into weird Russian things. Like, for instance, simple Lays potato chips. They have Lays in Russia, which is cool because I'm a big fan of potato chips. But none of the flavors here are anything you'd even expect might exist in the world. I've been trying my best to sample all the weirdest and most wonderful types during my time here. Here's a few of the highlights:

Alright. I know you want to know how they all were.

Let's take it from the top left and work clockwise.

1) Красная Икра = Kracnaya Ikra = Red Caviar. These chips tasted nothing like caviar, but were rather odd and kind of sweet. They weren't horrible, but weren't my favorite. And I was really disappointed because I wanted them to actually taste like caviar.

2) Бекон = Byekon = Bacon. These are pretty much delicious. They taste like a little bit saltier and less sweet version of American barbecue flavored Lays. A friend told Megan and I that we had to try them when we got a chance because he'd had them... and we were not disappointed.

3) Белые Грибы со Сметаной = Beliye Gribie so Smetanoy = White Mushrooms and Sour Cream = Fail. These were horrible. I could hardly eat them. I love mushrooms... but these were so awful. Ugh.

4) Краб = Krab = Crab! These are my favorite to talk about because they're just so weird. Who would ever decide to make crab flavored chips? Also I love that they come in a pink bag. I feel like a pink bag of Lays would never exist in the US... because what normal chip flavor would possibly be pink? The chips inside this pink bag taste exactly like that fake crab stuff that is really some sort of fish rolled up. When I was a kid my mom would always put it in chef salads and it was decently tasty but mostly I liked to unroll it and turn it into a giant zigzag. Anyways, imagine that flavor plus potato chip. I think they were actually pretty good once you got past the initial shock. Others had mixed opinions. Some people thought they were awful. Perhaps it was my fond memories of salads past and my love of the pink packaging with a cute little crab on it that made me like the chips... I don't know. All this taste testing is hard work!

P.S. Although I've tried all the weirdest flavors, there are more odd Lays out there... stay tuned for further culinary updates.

HAMBURGER

For dinner last night Megan, Jordan, and I treated ourselves to a humongous delicious greasy real American burger at the Irish pub. I'm not sure if it's because I was starved for real food or just because it was an awesome burger, but it was one of the most delicious burgers I've ever eaten in my life! It had cheese as well as some magical sauce and some sort of bacon/ham hybrid too. Yummmmmm...

While we were waiting for our food three Russian men sat down at the table next to us. The noticed we were Americans so of course they wanted to chat. These particular Russians were really into Native Americans, and flipped out when Megan said she lived near reservations and knew about Jeronimo.

When our food came, we wolfed down our burgers like savages... and the Russian men asked why we were eating such horrible food! We were shocked. This was delicious food. We told them that it was like American food and we wanted food from our homeland. The guys were really excited for us to try Russian food (which we clearly already have) and enthusiastically bought us a plate of something that I forgot the name of. It was basically strips of raw but smokey-flavored salmon that we put lemon juice and pepper on and ate with black bread. Not going to lie, it was delicious. But we had already eaten a burger and had a beer......

I was SOOO FULLLLLLL. It was ridiculous. But worth it. This was probably the most satisfying meal I've had since being here. Often food in restaurants here comes in reasonable sized portions and I missed ordering something and having an impossibly huge plate of food delivered to me like always happens in America. The Russian admonished us that hamburgers are the reason Americans are fat... but we said they were delicious. And really, for the night, that was all that mattered!

Сок

While drinking my orange juice this morning I turned the carton around to be greeted by these two jokers....

This kid on the top... man. This wouldn't even fly as an acceptable school picture back in my day... and here he is on the back of a juice carton! It reminded me of in Tom & Jerry when the little girl's picture is on the back of the milk carton... except that instead of being lost these kids are talking about how much they love fruit.

And let me tell you, this guy ^^^ loves fruit!

The carton roughly translates to: Why do I love Fruit Garden?

Because delicous! (They don't really use articles in Russian).

The little girl's reason is something like: For beautiful fruits.

As you drink your juice this morning from a boring carton with no goofy children's pictures on it, ponder the many reasons that you love сок (pronounced sock). 

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In case you didn't figure it out from the contextual clues, COK = sock = juice.

Керамика

Ah, керамика... one of my favorite Russian words. Because it is the word for one of my favorite things in the world... ceramics!

Yesterday after all our regular classes, the American students met for a "Ceramics Master Class." I was SO EXCITED. For those hapless readers of my blog who do not know how fully obsessed with ceramics I am, I'm telling you now. I love it. Adore it. Dream of it.

Our adventure began with a descent into the bowels of the dormitory building, down to the basement floor where the laundry room is located. There, we opened an unmarked door and wonder of wonders, a tiny ceramics room was hidden inside! Who knew it had been hiding underneath my bedroom (a few stories below, but close) all along! It was wondrous! Anyways, we met with a ceramics master maker of traditional Russian toys/figures. She gave us a quick demo then we set to work making our own traditional Russian toys. I made a little horse, a little chicken, and a little fish.

Sadly, I took no pictures. Here's a picture I borrowed from the school website, though. Megan and Dylan, my LC pals, are hard at work. They each made a woman, like the one you can see in the foreground.

We made our figurines and left them there to be fired. Next week we'll go back and paint them all pretty traditional Russian-y. It felt so good to have my hands covered in clay again, and we all had a blast playing around with mud. Everyone's stuff turned out really good, too! I can't wait until my next journey back to this magical transient land hidden next to the laundry room and filled with strange figures. It's like a clay-dusty Russian Narnia. 

Выбор

Привет всем! -- Priviet vcem!

That means "hello all" in Russian. I'm going to try to incorporate more Russian phrases in my blogs so you can learn along with me! Feel free to practice at home with your friends. I guess I should give you the real Russian to look at and also the phonetic spellings... the title of this blog post is "Vibor." I won't tell you what it means... hopefully you'll be able to figure it out from the great story I'm about to tell.

So as you all (hopefully) know, yesterday was the election for the next president of the United States of America. You may have listened to it on the radio, watched the live election coverage from the comfort of your couch, or just heard the results on the morning news (depending on how invested you were). What do Americans stranded far from American news in Vladivostok, Russia do? Why, we get fancy invitations to watch the election at the consulate of course!

On Wednesday afternoon after our classes we donned our warm coats, gathered together and got on a bus to head to the consulate for the second time. It was COLD out, as it has been in Russia. But we didn't have to wait long (just long enough for a security check!) before we were in the nice warm consulate munching on snacks and watching the elections (live coverage!) on a big projector screen. It was extra fun because we kept switching between networks and the consulate people were coloring in their own map of how states voted. Interactive elections!

There were some Russian students there who we had met at a "round table discussion" in our RFE class. They'd held a mock election for non-US citizens at the consulate election party, and it seems Russians really love Obama. Of 53 voters 49 voted for Obama. Poor Romney. Anyways, it was nice to chitchat with new American friends and thoughtful English-speaking Russians. Even though I'm not super politically informed, it was neat to see people of all nationalities, ages, and occupations come together for an event.

It will probably be one of my fondest memories of an election. Partly because it was actually enjoyable, and partly because... well, how many people can say they watched the US presidential election from Vladivostok, Russia?

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Выбор = Vibor = Election. Literally means "choice."

Into the Woods

You might remember from my excursion to the Dacha that Russians love to go into the woods and make barbecue. So this Sunday, that's what we did once more! We found a lovely little piece of woods on the top of a hill. The view of the city (before we got into the dense woods) was spectacular. The woods, however, seemed a little dangerous to me as a place to build a fire. There were dry leaves galore and our fire pit was much too small. Also, our fire was built on a hill and all the embers kept rolling down. Smokey the bear would not have approved, but I tried really hard to safety-fy the area. I kicked leaves out of the way and even pulled up a couple of small trees (the Russians thought I was nuts). In the end though, we had a successful barbecue with no forest fires, delicious food, and fun friends!

Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner of Champions

So as you may remember, I often find food options in Russia slightly discouraging. Lately, my solution has been ramen. Ramen in the morning, ramen in the afternoon, ramen for a bedtime snack... so much ramen! As the winter weather has set in there's just something about a nice hot cup of soup that I can't get enough of. (Although they did turn the heat on in my room, so I no longer live in an icebox).

Now you may be thinking that I've become the classic destitute college student who eats ramen for every meal... but you're probably forgetting that I currently live in Asia, where even the dried comes-in-a-styrofoam-cup ramen is DELICIOUS. I even occasionally add vegetables like my mother taught me to.

Bon Appetit!

A Quick Note on Eyes

For those loyal followers out there, you might remember my post about my Korean friend Anton and our realization that Americans look at people more when they're talking with them. Well, if Anton was uncomfortable with how intently Americans look at him, he's doomed talking to Russians. I myself, being American, wouldn't really have noticed how intently Russians stare into your eyes when talking to you...

Except that, on literally more occasions than I can count on my fingers, I have been talking to a Russian and in the middle of a sentence he/she will interrupt me and ask, "Do you wear lenses?" I can't get over it. It cracks me up every time it happens. Here colored contacts are still pretty popular, though, and contacts are a little more novel, less everyday occurrence. But still. Never have I been talking with an American and been interrupted by the realization that I wear contacts. It's just one more of those quirky Russian things that I so greatly enjoy.

And Anton said I have eagle eyes.

A Real Russian Family

Yesterday I had my first experience with a real Russian home and family. Jeff, one of the Americans, is in a home stay here and we went over to his house after dinner yesterday to meet up with them.

When we got there, Jeff's host mother Ludmila welcomed us in with typical Russian hospitality. She made us tea, shared some cake, offered us socks, and plopped us down on the couch. Jeff's family has six boys, and it was the youngest's birthday. We got a tour of the house, which was very kid-friendly and quite charming. All of the rooms had cartoon characters painted on the walls - Monster's Inc, spiderman, and some other little Russian cartoons I didn't recognize. After the tour, we started talking about the boys' hobbies. Ludmila got out tapes of her son's dance recital and one played guitar for us. It was the sweetest.

I felt a little bit uncomfortable since Jeff and Jordan speak much better Russian than I do and I didn't always understand the conversations. I understood most of what was said, but even then I didn't really feel like I could formulate my thoughts well enough to contribute wisely to them. I mostly smiled a lot and nodded and enjoyed my tea. But it was quite charming having these Russians welcome us so warmly into their home.

This brings me to something we discussed in our RFE class the other day. That weeks' visiting lecturer was an American who's lived in Vladivostok for twenty-ish years. He mentioned that in his opinion there are two versions of Russians: the Street Russians and the Home Russians. The Street Russians are curt and sometimes pushy. They're not really concerned with anyone other than themselves. Home Russians, however, are the exact opposite. They're welcoming, concerned with your health, your hungriness, your comfort... everything. Although I think our professor may have been exaggerating a little, but after going to Jeff's house I see a grain of truth in this. It really warmed my heart hanging out with this cute little Russian family who truly seemed to enjoy having us (or at least Jordan and Jeff, who could contribute to intelligent conversation) there.

My experiences with Russian people thus far have been some of my favorite parts of being here. They're always excited to meet Americans and they love to talk about Russia, America... basically everything. They always seem to be having a good time. They can be bossy, overbearing, and difficult sometimes but somehow I find that a little bit endearing too. Maybe it's the anthropology student in me, but I love hanging out with Russians for all the weird things they say and do. Seeing the family side of Russian life for the first time gave me a new love of these people and their crazy, sometimes confusing, but overall good-hearted ways.

Холодильник

After that one freak day of winter all the snow disappeared, but the cold is here to stay. It is officially fur coat weather here in Russia, which I love, Not that I have a fur coat of my own, but it definitely feels a lot more like I think Russia should to have people walking around all bundled up in their ridiculously large furry coats and hats.

There is, however, one down side to the wintery wonder. They have yet to turn any sort of heat on in the dorms, and my room is very cold. The central heating in the building is on, so classrooms are warm and the entry to the dorms is normal. The dorm rooms are slightly colder, but most get some residual heat from the hallway and are tolerable.

My room, however, is located at the very end of the building where no heat dares to travel. It's about ten degrees colder than the hallway. We keep the curtains closed all the time to try to keep some of our meager heat supply in, but to little avail. Yesterday Iuliia came home to find me bundled up in my sweatpants, sweatshirt, scarf, hat, and hood. We literally remark on how cold our room is every time we come in. Basically we don't even need a refrigerator, we could just leave our food on the counter and it would last forever. No bacteria can withstand the icy confines of our living area.

I keep hearing rumors that soon they will turn on the heat, but soon I might go ask someone if they could just turn ours on a little earlier. When I emerge from my snow cave with blue lips and numb fingertips, I'm sure they'll be understanding.

A Lone Photo

I think part of the reason I've been less diligent about blogging lately is that I haven't been taking many pictures. When I have great new photos I'm always excited to share them! Plus, I think blogs are more fun to read with more photos. So here I offer the one and only photo I have taken recently. It's of Iuliia (my roommate) and I out the other night. 

Sexism in Russia...

Sexism in Russia is a topic that I've wanted to address on my blog for a while, but it's too daunting a task. There's no way to make you, my loyal blog reader, from the comfort of your probably fairly gender-equal home, understand the multifaceted monster that is gender relations in Russia. It's positively archaic.

However, I will share this one small anecdote with you that should help illustrate the cause of my dismay. It's not a usual occurrence in itself, but it is entirely characteristic of Russian culture. Read and enjoy, and hopefully appreciate your equal gender standing in society a little bit more........

So I'm not sure if I have written much about my Russian Far East class here yet. Basically, it's our only class taught in English. It's a twice-weekly lecture given by various professors and "specialists" about different aspects of the Russian Far East. They are all Russian, and some have better English than others. It's a difficult class because usually we're talking about subjects that the students don't have the Russian to discuss and the lecturers don't always have enough English to satisfy them. But we manage.

On Tuesday, we arrived at RFE to find not one, but two professors! And, lo and behold, one of them was male. Until that time I had had zero male professors. In fact, the only male professor I'd even seen was an American who teaches English here. Anyways, here they were, a woman and a man, whom I assumed were here to co-lecture our class.

The woman introduced herself and mentioned that the man was her husband. He didn't really introduce himself, just nodded a lot and occasionally added a word here or there. Today's topic was the economy of the Far East. She began to lecture.

But as she lectured (in English, which she was clearly not very comfortable with) the man would interrupt her in the middle of about every other sentence. Sometimes he would correct her English (which was really unnecessary because we understood what she was saying). Sometimes he would ask her skeptically where she got a statistic. Sometimes he would ask devil's advocate questions that weren't really helpful to our conversation, and only seemed to undercut her. A couple of times he flat out told her she was wrong. He also called her powerpoint boring on several occasions.

The woman was very patient and submissive and waited calmly while the man bashed her lecture. It was painful to watch. I have literally never seen adult professionals behave like this. It was like I was watching them have a marital dispute while discussing the different mining regions of the Russian Far East. It was wild. 15 minutes before our hour-and-a-half-long class was over, the man physically took the mouse from the woman, exited her powerpoint while she was talking about it, and tried to open something else on the computer. The woman took the mouse back and reopened her powerpoint. The man got so agitated that he simply left. He gave a little bow, announced his departure, and that was the last we saw of him. Those last 15 minutes were the most productive of our day.

So that was a weird and uncomfortable day of class. Yep.