Tastes of Russian

Here is the thing about Russia - it is very Russian.  While recognizing the inanity of that statement, it is still something that I am continually struck by.  It started right even before we had actually landed in Moscow.  Flying in over the suburbs, the structures and layouts were incredibly...Russian.  Dirt roads and small houses with chickens and cows surround a group of 14 story Soviet apartment tenements.  These buildings rise up in rows without any of the surrounding clutter that they would have in the States.

The Russian-ness of course amplified once we landed.  Flying through London, I was on a flight with a lot of Brits who, if I may generalize, seem to deal with uncertainty and chaos even worse than Americans do.  So, you can imagine the outcry and wild comments that went on when the passport control line labelled "foreigners" was closed.  What were we Westerners to do?  We couldn't go through the Russian/Belorussian line because we weren't Russian.  We couldn't go through the "close Foreign States" line because we weren't from the former Soviet bloc.  There was no line for us.  A fair amount of muttering arose when none of the airport staff proved to speak any English, and the whole mass of people having just exited the Boeing 747 stood milling around in the middle of the hallway, Americans, Brits and Irish alike (of course those passengers from other countries less reliant on rigid protocol had already gotten themselves through customs by now) until a consorted effort was made to shoo them into the line marked "Kazakhstan."  The British couple infront of me was complaining about how disorderly it all was, and had anyone seen anything like it!  Meanwhile, if I may briefly paint myself as a seasoned world traveller (a lie, but just go with it) I was just waiting there smirking.  At least in Moscow there were lines - even metal bars that determined the line's shape!  St. Petersburg's airport operates more on the globular diffusion principle.

Finally getting myself into the country with all my luggage, I entered the arrivals hall looking for L----- who would be waiting for me with a red scarf.  There she was infront of everyone, violently waving her scarf (and possibly sweating from the exertion) and yelling out "Keti, Keti?"  "Вы Л-----?" I asked and she nodded and smiled hugely handing me a gigantic bunch of purple daisies as the *whole crowd* of Russians behind her cheered and welcomed me to the country.  "We came to pick you up!"  Daunted by the prospect of cramming all of these Russians, myself and the luggage in a car for 2 hours, I was a little relieved when "we" turned out only to be two people, and the rest of the crowd was here to meet other people and were simply very happy to have me in their country.  Crossing 3 lanes of airport traffic was as close to death as I've been in a long time (Moscow drivers are horrible, or very talented if you consider that they all manage to stay alive) and we headed out of the city to Pushchino.

So how Russian is Pushchino?  (As if that could really be a fair question.)  Well, I'm currently living in a 2 room apartment with a stove that is determined to burn my fingers off one of these days, with pink stripped wallpaper, a closet-sized room with a toilet and another closet-sized room with the shower.  From what I gather though, I won't be staying here.  Sometime after I get back from the orientation in Moscow next week I'll be moving into the same apartment that the last Fulbrighter 2 years ago had.  I think there is a Chinese girl living there right now, but this is all very vague.  I'm not entirely convinced that it would be less vague if I spoke fluent Russian either, though that certainly contributes to the confusion.

That is another thing about Russia.  They speak Russian.  Very quickly.  And not terribly clearly.  And sometimes they mumble.  And the cars passing by on the street are typically loud enough to drown out the people next to you.  And I haven't met anyone yet who feels comfortable in English, so it has been Russian 24/7.  The good thing is that my Russian is improving very quickly.  The bad thing is that usually I can only get the most general idea of what people are talking about and there is usually an awkward 3 second delay when people ask me a question because I first need to catch up to the point where I realize they have asked me something, run what they said through my head a few times to see if I can devise the nature of the question, and then stare blankly at the person talking looking confused and shaking my head.  This happens a lot.

I have managed to get settled in though, with a lot of help from D-----, my (self?)appointed guide and soon to be language tutor.  He was good friends with the last Fulbrighter here, so much so that sometimes I feel like A----- (Fulbright ETA 2010) created a role that I just now need to step into.  Which has its ups and downs.  But anyway I now have a phone and internet, food, and have been registered.  I even managed to get the groceries myself, ask for a bag and give the correct about of change, and have registered with the town library so that I can take books out (in Russian, the only English books they have are Harry Potter #1, Canterbury Tales, and a few books in French that were mislabeled as English).

So it has been a little crazy the past few days, and finally today I have the day to myself to clean up the mess I had already made in the apartment, take some pictures of Pushchino, write a blog post, and work on the syllabus for the semester now that I have some more information about what I'm doing.  I won't start teaching until October 1st, and L----- and I still need to talk about details, but again I think I will be filling in A-----'s place, teaching two different groups, each two days a week in the evenings.  These are graduate students so it is not a formal class that they will register for.  Instead it will just be a class that is there for people who are interested.  Which means I will need to be on top of my game inorder to woo students into the classroom.  I have already met 3 women who will be there though, and they all seem very nice.

In order to keep this post from reaching epic proportions, I will end it here with a few pictures:

These are some of the newer apartment buildings behind one of the playgrounds.  Every group of apartment buildings has its own little kid playground, and there are also various public basketball courts (e.g. here), tennis courts, and football (soccer) fields around.  

Pushchino is built on a hill overlooking the Oka river valley.  In the distance you can make out Serpukhov, the nearest city, which I have yet to make it to.  

These are Silver Birch trees (берёза повислая, Betula pendula) and are pretty much everywhere. These are the trees that are so characteristic of Russian forests across European Russia and Siberia.  Expect to hear more about trees because I love them so much.