Russian Soups

Borscht - Russian soup made out of beets.  It is red.  And delicious.  When I was in St. Petersburg and it was a bajillion seventeenthousand degrees outside we ate cold borscht, a lighter version without the meat that is served cold.  I have had borshcht here in Puschino, after class one evening [as well as other times, but lets focus here].  Being a guest in Russia is a fine art of which I am quite the amateur.  On this particular occasion we all came and sat down while the hostess tidied up the kitchen and ladled out the soup.  Talk for a while, eat as much as you can.  As I was siting waiting for the hostess to take the first bite everyone else finished their soup, so that is a difference in etiquette that I've noticed so far.  I still haven't managed to kick the habit though, nor frankly, do I really want to.  After soup, bread, fruit and lots of tea, move to the other room and sing some Russian songs which the American doesn't know but which she really ought to learn very soon in order to participate in this frequent event.  Borscht is very Russian, but it also feels incredibly homey for me somehow.  I love soup, soup is a thing of winter in New England that I cherish, and fortunately it is very common here.  In my beginners class we are doing adverbs of frequency.  "How often do you eat soup for dinner?"  A class poll showed: "I always eat soup for dinner."  

Shi - Cabbage soup.  I'm not really a huge fan of cabbage, but turns out I like this anyway.  I think today may have been the first day I tried it.  After ballroom dance (today was the cha cha!) I was walking home with N------ but she mentioned that she was not actually going home, but rather to a contemporary dance class.  WHAT THAT EXISTS IN PUSHCHINO??? Sooo, I wasn't going home either obviously.  The class reminded me some of my high school dance days and provided some laughs and giggles, but most importantly it provided me with an opportunity to DANCE!!  As in, lets leap, turn and do some stuff upside down.  And after this class ended, we actually were headed home until I mentioned that I was really hungry and looking forward to cooking, which prompted (and I swear I wasn't even thinking about fishing for it) an invitation to eat shi.  So that was how I ended up in a Russian kitchen with a really crazy adorable (I kinda want to steal it) cat eating soup and watching soviet animation.  

Ukha - this is going to be the first Russian soup that I attempt to make in my apartment.  It is basically just fish and potatoes, but not in a chowder form like I am accustomed to.  I really enjoy grocery shopping here, because the market is loads of fun.  There are venders for most major food groups, including a guy in the back corner with supposedly legendary spices.  One of the produce ladies is starting to recognize me I think, I've had a few conversations with her that go beyond the price of her carrots.  This was the first fish I bought here, and as I wasn't quite ready to teach myself how to gut and clean a fish off of youtube, I searched around until I found some filets which I happily bought and deposited in my fridge.  Buying food and making it and then eating it is quite important I've discovered, and it really doesn't do to leave it to the last minute when you are late for work.  Having not yet mastered the art of planning when to eat, I find myself quite hungry sometimes, and here is another funny thing, I'm a little bit afraid of eating around other people here because I haven't yet figured out what exactly the etiquette is.  Apparently eating in lecture is incredibly offensive, whereas talking full volume on your cellphone while sitting right next to the teacher is not.  And I don't really know about eating while walking, and after classes in the evening if I end up doing anything social, chances are I will be starving since I haven't eaten in more than 7 hours, but I can't really eat a meal because thats rude to eat when other people aren't eating.  I think.  I don't really know.  Hence, I just avoid eating when I am not in my apartment.  And therefore, I am often hungry.  

And that, my friends, is my life according to the Russian soups (I believe I warned you about this becoming a food blog) coming to you straight from the Moscow in the Russia in a world.  And sometimes there are just a few too many misplaced articles in my day, but the world keeps turning.  And it will keep turning until Christ comes back regardless of how many mistakes I make during the day or how stupid I feel on an hourly basis or how lost I am or how inadvertently rude I am, or how many meetings I forget to show up to because my memory doesn't work here, or how many times I wish I were home where there are people who know me.  

"Finish each day and be done with it.  You have done what you could.  Some blunders and absurdities no doubt have crept in; forget them as soon as you can.  Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense.  This day is all that is good and fair.  It is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on yesterdays."  -R.W. Emerson

We found Russia on our walk last weekend.  This is about the extent of Pushchino's street art.  We go minimalist here.  

Cold window?  Oversized spectacle?  Brittle seran-wrap?  Red hat.

Frost is really beautiful, and last Saturday I was actually awake early enough to see it because I met a friend (one of the V------'s) at Pushchino's church and he gave me a little tour.  Which turned into us sort of joining in a joint funeral.  Which apparently I was the only one who found that a bit odd.  

It's a trap!!!!  Welcome to Pushchino's radio observatory.  One of our actual sights and attractions here, it really is quite impressive.  There are 4 total I think, but only one or two of them actually work now.  It is unclear how many were ever operational at the same time.  My first week here I got a tour of this place but my Russian was not [and still might not be] up to asking intelligent scientific questions about radiogalaxies despite the fact that I am really interested!  I really like being in a science town.  My advanced class wrote intro paragraphs for pretend grant applications and I really enjoyed reading them.  It even required me to go back and remember how photosytem I works - something I learned quickly during the senior year blitz and never really understood fully.  

This is a part of a telescope which is still in use.  Apparently when this moves to a different position the sound is so bad that movie producers have recorded it for special effects of horrendous accidents.  

Another use for a large radio telescope: since this is exactly a kilometer long, people like to use it to measure their runs.  Or at least one person likes to do this, and he was the one giving the tour.  

The radio telescope from a distance.  Visiting it on our walk last weekend, I felt a bit like a trespasser   Which actually, I was, but this is Russia and nobody seemed to care.  I probably wasn't suppose to take pictures of it either.  Maybe as an American there was a time when I shouldn't have even known it existed.  Though that is probably just me running into the Hollywood glorified Cold War train of thought, full of elegant spies and complicated intrigue.  Hollywood isn't real life guys.  Anybody who tells you otherwise is selling something.