I'm not sure how this happened, but I'm leaving Russia tomorrow, and I don't know if/when I'll return. In some ways, it seems like I just stepped off the plane, saw Russian everywhere, and thought, "what have I gotten myself into?" But it also feels like it's been a long time.
Weighing heavily on my mind are the amount of changes I'm about to go through, which seems so odd, because life is the same here as it was a week, a month, or even six months ago. In a way that's comforting, because I know life will continue as I've known it on this little corner of the world.
I've never been good at preparing to say goodbye to a place or the people in it. Despite the fact that I classify myself as a thinker and a reflective person, I'm never able to process my departure until it happens, sometimes not even until afterwards. I remember sitting at the final campfire on the last night of camp surrounded by crying girls, trying to will myself to cry. Even willing other sad thoughts and punching myself in the leg. But I wasn't ready yet, and not much has changed.
As with any ending, I've thought and talked a lot recently about "the lasts". The last time I see Red Square, the last time I frequent my favorite bars, coffee shops, and other haunts of Moscow. And of course, the last time I see the people I've grown close with over the past year. But I'm not quite so worried about these "lasts". My greatest memories in Moscow may be some of these times, but hopefully not only those. I'd rather remember the times that I didn't know would be memorable until later than the times I was so concerned with the future and how I'd think back on this experience.
I may post again when I've had some more time to think, and maybe found some closure. My mind has been split for a while: I'm living here and enjoying the experience and sad to be leaving, but I'm also excited to go back to America and embrace the next adventure. As well as drink water from the tap, have great iced coffee and Mexican food, and not be stared at for speaking English on the street.
In closing, I would say the biggest emotional response I have to leaving is that I'm proud of myself. That seems like a pretty self-righteous way to end this, but blogs are kind of self-righteous, and it's the truth. This experience was hard, and surprising, and dull and hilarious and odd and confusing and frustrating, and fun and new and exciting, and I'm pretty sure there was a month or two in the winter when I was vitamin D deficient and mildly depressed. But I grew, and I made it, and for that I am proud and grateful.
The end of April and beginning of May has been a busy busy time, and I know I won't be able to recount all of it here, but I'll try for the highlights. I've had family visit and we've toured around Moscow and briefly Saint Petersburg. It was great to get the opportunity to be a tourist in Moscow, and I ended up going to several places I hadn't been yet, and managed to check most of the things off of my Moscow bucket list. St. Petersburg was really cool. In a lot of ways, that city, along with the history and literature surrounding it make up what drew me to Russia in the first place. It was really cool to see all the landmarks, and beautiful architecture (of course made all the more obvious since I was traveling with an architect), and having a long weekend off of work was pretty great too. After returning to Moscow for a quiet week of work (the week between May Day and Victory day is considered a holiday for some and many people were traveling), I rounded out the last 3 weeks by celebrating Victory Day (the end of WWII) at Victory Park and Red Square. Here's the details:
April 19th-26th
Made an early morning trek across the city to meet my sister at the airport on the other side of the city. Went to the Space Museum:
Took some pictures of some of the designs for the first space ships before we were yelled at for taking pictures without buying a picture ticket, even though that opportunity had never been offered to us
My favorite part of the museum was definitely the women in Space room (all nationalities, not just Russian) and when Sarah unknowingly translated the Russian caption on a Hubble telescope picture because she already knew what it was.
Then we headed over to Gorky Park, which was majorly crowded because it was a beautiful day, and we waited in this long line for ice cream.
We spent a lot of time outside over the week because the weather has finally gotten nice in Moscow. I also bought a Rubik's cube that has different pictures of Moscow and a Russian bro tank (my dream purchase since before I moved to Moscow).
On to week two, I said goodbye to my sister and hello to my parents. Although they didn't have a long time in Moscow, they did manage to brave a walk, train, metro and reverse alone while I was at work, which I was very proud of. Again, the weather was lovely, so we walked around outside a lot, and saw this lifesize angry birds game, which sadly we did not play.
Then, after a comfortable 6 hour train ride, we were in Saint Petersburg. Since I usually spend my days speaking English, it was definitely a test of my Russian, but I was actually pretty shocked at how well I was able to communicate/understand my surroundings. I definitely had a period during my stay here where I felt that my Russian had gotten worse than when I was studying it every day in a university setting, but after this trip I don't feel that way anymore.
In Saint Petersburg we saw:
St. Issac's Cathedral, an absolutely beautiful church
The view from the inside
We climbed 200+ stairs to get up to the dome and see the city from above!
This super cool building is now a bookstore, formerly owned by the Singer family of Singer sewing machines
One of the coolest things for me to see was the statue of the Bronze Horseman, a tribute to Peter the Great from Catherine the Great, and symbolic of his triumph over nature, also the subject of a poem by the same name by Pushkin, part of which I memorized in Russian for a class.
A city built on a swamp and transected by canals, one of the best ways to see Saint Petersburg is from the water, so we took a boat tour.
They timed the audio headsets (in English!) to match the speed of our boat
The bridges are quite low, thankfully we had this graphic hint to remind us to duck!
Across the Neva river
Along one of the canals
The canals at night (after 10, because SPB is so far north, this time of year the sunset is quite late)
On day 2, we discovered the Hermitage, Catherine the Great's project to make Russia seem more European, the Hermitage houses some of the most amazing pieces of art from around the world, especially Europe, plus it is an absolutely magnificent palace.
Outside the Hermitage, Alexander's Monument, plus the general staff building
The Grand staircase was hard to capture in just a photograph, but it was pretty spectacular
I didn't notice the floors on first pass in some of these rooms because I was so focused on the art on the walls and the intricate ceilings. Fortunately we had to retrace our steps a few times, and then I noticed the beautiful woodwork in the floors
The General Staff Building archway
View of the Hermitage through the archway
From the Hermitage, we checked out Peter's response to Moscow's St. Basil's, the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood, so named because it was built on the place where Alexander II was assassinated.
You might think looking at so many churches would get boring, but with insides like this, how could it?
We also walked through this park next to the Church of Spilled Blood
In the mood for something different, we then scoped out the theater district, and decided to go to a musical called "Mister X". I could follow maybe 75% of the dialogue, but got totally lost every time they sang, which is perhaps not unique to Russian opera, as I can't remember ever actually understanding opera in English either. For a taste, here's a clip from the Soviet film that the play was based on:
Finally, on our last day, we checked out some Russian history at a museum that was built in the home of prima ballerina/mistress of Nicolas II, who fled to France before the Revolution, and then her house was host to Lenin's first public speech from the balcony.
Glass window inside the museum
Nearby was the northernmost Mosque in the world, which was also pretty neat!
Here's a couple of other things that were cool/funny:
The door to the metro says "Please hold the door". This is not a thing in Moscow.
Beautiful purses for cat ladies? Or lady cats?
This street performer was blowing bubbles for the crowd, but I mostly like this picture because of the wonder on the little girl's face
I know you're probably all sick of reading by now, and I probably should have split this into a couple of different posts, but I don't have a lot to say about Victory Day and I already mentioned it in my intro, so I'm just going to keep going.
Back in Moscow for Victory Day, and I have literally never been in a more crowded space than the Victory Park metro stop. I had to wait for 4 trains to fill up before I could even manage my way onto the metro for the 1 stop I needed to travel. Fortunately once we made it outside (like an hour later) the park was large, and although there were so many people around, it was still manageable.
Victory Park
Cotton candy! Obviously the true sign of a festival!
"Russia: Country of the Future"
"This is how I picture the Ministry of Magic would look, if you could see it, but it's actually one of Stalin's 7 Sisters"
Not much exciting news from the Motherland, but I think it's finally starting to get warm out. Of course, the last time I thought that it proceeded to snow all week. (April Fools, Moscow!) But this time it seems real. We've had a couple of sunny days, which have led to these pictures. Amazing how these 20-story Stalin-esque apartment buildings have become such a part of my normal landscape. How I can even think of them as beautiful. Anyways, I might be going on a day trip tomorrow out of the city, but for now, here's a sunset and a bright moon:
Over the past few weeks I've been asked, by Russians and Americans, family and acquaintances, what I think about Ukraine and Crimea, and I've tried really hard not to answer. Why? Because despite a large amount of news coverage and popular opinion, I don't feel like I really understand the situation. I know enough about Russian history (and just history in general) to know that this is oversimplifying things:
But that explaining recent actions as "fixing the mistakes of the past" leads to the heroification of Putin's administration. Plus, as an American living in Russia, spending half of my days playing games and doing crafts with kids (and learning grammar and vocab...but mostly games and crafts), how can I speak about what Russians think and Russians feel?
But tonight, in lieu of our normal lesson talking about "was/were" and the past simple of regular verbs, I had a long conversation with a student. We talked about many things, including life in America, and the fact that both of us have had people assume there are bears where we live (apparently rural Massachusetts and Russia are equally wild and dangerous...or at least equally misunderstood). We also talked about current politics.
I asked him what he thought about Crimea, and he told me that what the world sees today is not the whole picture. And I agree that looking at this region only in the present is a mistake. He said that Russian leaders like Kruschev and Yeltsin made a lot of mistakes in their time, and it's only now 20 years later (or more) that some of these mistakes are starting to be fixed. What should have happened, he said, is Crimea becoming part of Russia at the fall of the Soviet Union, but with everything that happened, it was forgotten about. Now, I think there must be more to the story than this, too. After all, the idea of Putin with a to-do list of mistakes to fix, that have been put off, but now that the Olympics are over he finally has time for it just doesn't work. Of course, there's been a lot going on in Ukraine recently, with the EU and political unrest and much more. So maybe I still don't really understand the situation. And maybe I'm still loathe to tell all you readers what Russians think, or even what I think, but I will say when it comes to the news coverage around the world of events like Crimea, "правда лежит где-то посередине" (the truth lies somewhere in the middle).
Have no fear, though, when we started talking about escalating sanctions between countries, my student told me a war between Ukraine and Russia would be like "a war between Boston and New York". Clearly he has never been to a Sox-Yankees game.
In other news, the past week has seen this weather:
But also possibly the nicest day since I've been here, 65F (19C) and sunny. I went for a walk and found a little bit of nature not far from where I live.
March 8th was a holiday here in Russia, and because that fell on a Saturday this year, schools, businesses, and banks celebrated it with a day off on Monday. But for those of you paying attention, I work on Saturdays instead of Fridays, but of course I, as a woman, couldn't be asked to work on the actual holiday for women. So, I got Saturday off as well, which meant a glorious 4 day-weekend. Which was well-needed because it's been a pretty busy few weeks of teaching. I took the opportunity for a short getaway (getaway getaway...stay away stay away). I traveled a short 6 hour train ride with some friends to the town of Nizhny Novgorod. We only spent 2 days there, but the weather wasn't too cold (and sunny!) so we walked around a lot. It was really great to see another part of Russia and just to travel. For the first time in a while, I'm feeling refreshed after the weekend, and ready to get back to work tomorrow. There's nothing quite so rejuvenating as sunshine and Springtime weather (it's supposed to be 52F today!)
Here are some pictures from the trip:
Maxim Gorky-Soviet author born in Nizhny Novgorod
This bank is basically Gringotts
Gringotts.
Hotel
"Give us housing! We're people, not rats" Protesting graffiti on the side of a run-down house
"Do we only have the right to housing?"
Russian Orthodox Church-one of many in the city
Cigarette cartons-city art.
A small chapel, this was originally at the gates of the city, though the city has now expanded
Our host brought us up to a balcony on the 14th floor of a building so that we could see the whole city. This is a view of the city's Kremlin (government center). It was once surrounded by a moat on three sides and the river on the last, to protect against intruders.
Aerial view of Nizhny Novgorod
The Volga River, view from the Kremlin
The Volga
This church rests on wood, and rises and falls with the river
