Something that was quite encouraging that happened this week (though it was certainly not encouraging at the time!) was that L----- (my roommate) and I managed to find the US embassy all on our own with very little to go on other than a suggested metro stop, the words "посольство США" (посольство, or embassy, will forever be engrained in my head now). The second day of orientation, a.k.a. about 8 hours after my last post, the whole group was to meet our director at Краснопресненская metro station (a reminder that a link on the cyrillic alphabet is provided to the right of this post) to walk to the embassy for our security briefing. On the way to the metro station though, L---- remembered that her passport was still in the room, so the rest of the group went on while we ran back to the hotel real quick (actually, I was wearing heals, so "running" in this story is used figuratively). This excursion was long enough to change the name of our destination in our heads, so we hopped back on the metro and upon arrival, misattributed the absence of familiar faces to our being at this point very late. So it seemed our only choice was to ask around for directions.
Nobody knew where the embassy was, which was our first clue that sometime had gone amiss with our journey. When we followed the policemen's directions and ended up at a train station, the attendants helpfully directed us to the bulletin board where a sign with the addresses of all of the embassies in Moscow was posted. As it turns out, all of the embassies were listed except the American one. Slightly perplexed, our attendent was determined to be helpful. Look here, see? If you can't find the American embassy the Canadian one will do in a pinch, right? Finally her coworker resurrected an old composition notebook from who knows when with an address of the embassy scribbled on the last page. Ever so grateful, we couldn't help but notice that this new address was between two metrostations that were wayyyy past the one we were suppose to go to (by this time we had discerned our mistake.) We will never know, but I have a sneaking suspicion that we were given the Soviet-era address.
Anyway, now that we had remembered the correct metro station, we decided to look around there first before checking out this new address just incase anyone was still there waiting for us after an hour and a half. No one was waiting, but a few inquiries quickly produced concrete evidence that we were very near the embassy. A little walking and there we finally were. The good ol' stars and stripes has never looked sweeter. However, we were still in Russia, which means that even though you may see the building, how to enter the building will remain a mystery. After getting shooed away from at least 5 doors we made it through the blast gate, airport level security, and were finally(!) dumped into a 20 minute wait at the counter for a representative. US post office meet Russian bureaucracy. I think you guys will find plenty in common. When the representative appeared, we eagerly asked her to tell us where the large group of Fulbrighters had gone. She stared at us. "Huh?" "You know, the really large group of young people, came in about 1.5 hours ago?" "Are you sure you are in the right building?" "Yes! This is the only US embassy in this city!" "Well we don't do stuff like that" "Could you call somebody to figure out who does do stuff like that?" "Um, I guess I'll ask my colleague to call" This is the shortened, condensed version, but at long last we made it to the security briefing in time for the closing remarks. Though the experience itself was pretty horrible, I learned three important things from it.
1. Russians react positively to tears.
2. The Russian word for embassy.
3. Though my Russian isn't up for discussion the meaning and significance of life, I've not been dumped here completely helpless.
This anecdote aside, Russia continues to be surprising. For example, even highway culture is different here. What do I mean by highway culture? I mean the way that in the States, interstates are set up for a specific purpose, i.e. the high speed transfer of people and goods between locations, and they are effectively isolated and used exclusively for this purpose. Here in Russia not only did I watch a girl cross a three lane exit ramp while texting, head down, to flag down a bus in the breakdown lane, but many opportunists like to take advantage of the large number of people who pass by to set up dried onion or watermelon stands in the backs of their station wagons. Driving on the highway therefore seems less isolated from the rest of the community around it, although the downside of this is that there will sometimes be mile long backups even at 11pm.
Also, the idea of "the collective" is still alive and well in Russian culture. We couldn't escape it even in teacher training. Plagiarism here is rampant, mostly because few students, and unfortunately few teachers either, see any harm in it. To help someone cheat and do better is to help yourself because of this idea of the "collective." Fortunately I do not need to be as vigilant about this as many of my fellow ETA's will be as I am not teaching a graded course. Though this collective spirit is not as strong as it was decades ago, corroded if you will by the enticements of individualism, it is interesting to see where remnants of this fundamentally different value system still produce tangible differences between Russia and the US. This conversation was a segment of a larger discussion on the current education reforms in Russia. Basically, the Russian government is trying to make its university system more efficient by closing 1/5 of the countries universities that are deemed "ineffective" and by appointing new presidents to the top tier universities. Yet another difference between Russia and the US. Imagine if President Obama were charged with selecting President Levin's successor!
That is all for now. With class starting on Monday I'm sure I will have many more struggles and adventures to share with you in the coming week, but in the mean time I have this to amuse you:
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| "It is forbidden to speak with strangers" In Patriarch's Pond. A reference Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita |
