Siberiwhat?

Well, I have been instructed to write about my Siberian experience by my grandmother, and I am definitely not one to let her down. :-)

I went into the school office one day to ask for a few weeks off in March. I asked politely enough, and when the girl at timetabling asked out of curiosity where I was headed I smiled whimsically. For the 100th time I said, "I'm going to Siberia." IN MARCH? Every head in the room turned around, asking me the same question I'd heard already, echoing in my head: WHY? The looks got more shocked when I told them that I was going to Lake Baikal, about the same distance from Moscow as California is to somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. Worse, by train - THIRD CLASS. And of course to top off the perfect madness of it all, I was a single foreign woman, traveling alone with what we could call pathetic Russian language skills.

And yet I went anyways, and of course, as I always, I wouldn't have it any other way. When you travel alone it's much easier to see things from a wider angle, where no traveling companion can distract you from what is happening in front of you. Instead you become so much more part of your surroundings, that instead of being some outsider, you get to participate in a world that is foreign from what you know and understand.

Vladimir and Bogolyubova

I don't think I need to remind you, dear reader, that Moscow is a big city. Although no one knows for sure, some people estimate there are at least 13 million people living in the metropolitan area, and some estimates are higher. As thrilling as city life is, sometimes it can be overwhelming. Everywhere you turn there is chaos, noise, people, cars.

Although many people love the city life, I have to admit sometimes I just want to run off somewhere where there is nature, and I can get away from the traffic and chaos of the Metro that I ride at least several hours every day. Which is part of the reason why my friend Luke and I found ourselves in Vladimir on a Monday morning, with our gear, unsure of what would happen next. Don't worry, we weren't ditching school, it just happened to be a holiday.

What followed was a pleasant surprise: as usual, with my low expectations, I was amazed at how beautiful Vladimir was. Like many of the other small towns outside of Moscow, the wealth of history is incredible, and the architecture can be breathtaking. When the town is tiny, with modest buildings that are only a few stories tall, the churches always stand out on the horizon, to impose themselves on the newcomer. As we drove by each town on our 3 hour bus trip, it was hard to decide which church we liked best. Each time we were sure that "that one was the prettiest," another one would show up on the side of the road, and we'd have to rethink our decision.

But by that evening, we had our answer. We knew quite well that there was one church better than the rest. Above all, Luke was determined to go to Bogolyubova. "Bugah what?" I had to ask a dozen times at least, the name was so ridiculous and impossible to pronounce. The town was so tiny, even in comparison to Vladimir. But nothing was as tiny as the church. It was probably the most humble four square church I had seen in Russia thus far, perched on its tippie toes on the corner of a frozen lake. It was so modest, so simple, yet as the sun began to set as the backdrop to a silent flurry of snow over this silent lake, we knew. What this church lacked in size in grandeur, it made up in natural beauty. The serenity and and simplicity of what was outside was 100 times more potent than anything could have been created by man. "If there was a time to believe in God, it would be now," murmered my new friend Diana, as we stood in awe, watching the sun set. All I could say was, "I love Russia. What a beautiful country."

Perhaps one of the best surprises was the people we met in Vladimir. Full of energy, our new acquaintances quickly became our friends, as eager and energetic to see their hometown through our tourist eyes. I realized, not for the first time, that as usual the stereotypes were wrong. Russians aren't always cranky and serious, like the ones that push me around on the metro every morning. In fact, these people we hardly knew eagerly shared their town with us, and invited us to dinner and to stay in their house! As we sat listening to Tchaikovsky on a record player in an old Soviet style apartment, I couldn't help but smile. This is the Russia you dream of, full of laughter, philosophical conversations, and Tchaikovsky. And that's when I knew that my adventures outside of Moscow could be some of the most rewarding experiences, bringing me closer to understanding a Russia outside of that big ever consuming universe that is Moscow.

The bill battle and Women's Day

I often wonder what it was like to be a woman in the past, even a few generations ago. We've advanced so much in modern days to try to make gender equality a reality. In America everyone seems to be so proud of how much power women have now, in the working world, and just about everywhere outside of the house. Although I'm proud of how much freedom I have as a woman, especially in America, I can't help but get confused at times over little things like paying the bill at a restaurant. It's true that back home I know that all of my guy friends are virtually broke and I always pay my way when we go out. But it's funny how much discussion has been brought up by this sore subject in Russia. "Men always should pay for a bill," stated my Russian girlfriends, "it's their job!" But I couldn't help but laugh in pity for my British and American guy friends who bemoaned their new task. "I don't want to pay for her, it's too expensive as it is in Moscow!!!!" And it's true, Moscow is REALLY expensive, especially if you want to have a nice dinner in the city center.

Coming from a girl who has always been raised to be independent and self-sufficient, it's no surprise that I'm somewhat shocked at times by the somewhat "old-fashioned" gender roles you see around Moscow. boyfriends can be very affectionate towards their loved ones, helping them over patches of ice, tying their ice skates for them, holding them close for warmth. It's no surprise that in Moscow "Women's day" is a huge hit.

It lands on the 8th of March, for International Women's day, which is conveniently a few days after the celebration of spring. Everywhere you walked that day you saw people dressed up in their best, and men waiting impatiently at every metro station with flowers in their hands. Even I got gifts from my students, and my housemate's flowers filled up our kitchen. As nice as it was, I couldn't help but wonder, what is the purpose of this day? Does it truly advance women in any way, or is it just a chance for men to "have an excuse to express their love to women," as my friend explained to me. I suppose it can't be a bad idea at least. I'll still pay for my half of the bill anyways.

The Beginning of Spring

When I woke up on March 1st, I could tell something was changing. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, the snow was slightly melting...oh, and best of all, my students all had smiles on their faces. In Russia, it was the first day of spring, and there was no arguing about the science of it. To be honest I think it's more that people want it to be spring here, and the desire to feel like you have conquered winter, once and for all. I just went with it, since I admittedly liked that sense of waking from hibernation, to open my eyes wide and see the world bright and new, just as I left it so many months ago. It's almost like waking from some strange dark, snowy dream. Only to see more snow. But at least it's sunny.

And of course, leave it to the Russians to celebrate. Everyone loves Maslenitsa week: "butter week" in Russian, to celebrate the beginning of spring. The purpose of the week is simple: eat lots of pancakes, which in Russia look like delicious crepes, that you can add anything to, from dried fruit to condensed milk, to sour cream, to salmon. On the last day of this week there are big celebrations in virtually every park, where there is music, concerts, people in bright colors, and of course, lots and lots of pancakes. In the end they burn a scarecrow, as a final goodbye to winter. And no, this is not a celebration run by the church, its roots run much deeper, from ancient times.

My friends and I were pleasantly amused at the huge collage of a bright sun at the Maslenitsa celebration behind St Basil's Cathedral. The sun was a lit up with flickering lights, with a huge smile on its face. We sort of bounced to the cheery music thinking happy thoughts about the spring, but by 20 minutes later we realized it was still cold!!!! As we ran off to the nearest warm place, we thought of how silly the whole thing was. It's a lie! there's still snow everywhere, and it's still below freezing. But nobody around us seemed to notice, they were so happy, and could you really blame them?

Sometimes I wonder how paranoid some people are here about getting sick. The more I talk to my students, the more they seem to confirm my suspicions: most Muscovites hate the idea of being ill. It all started when I met a girl at a bar who explained that she was on sick leave. "Wait, you're not working because you're sick, yet you're out at a bar," I mused, "You must be really ill!" "No, you don't get it," she laughed."My work gives me two weeks off for sick leave, regardless of how I feel. Last week I felt horrible, but now I feel fine, so I might as well enjoy myself, right?" Wow, that's a concept if I ever heard one, I wonder if it's more because the office doesn't want germs around rather than the company wants its employees to recuperate.

I've also heard from my lovely accounting students how many precautions you have to take with a newborn baby. After childbirth, you must stay in the hospital for over a week for observation. What? I remember my mother's story of how quickly she went in and out of the hospital when she had me, it only took one afternoon!

So you can only imagine my surprise when I went to the doctor's office. It was probably for the silliest reason imaginable: I'd punctured my finger with a piece of plastic from a thumbtack, and after a few days it had gotten infected. Not wanting to repeat the miserable situation I'd had on Reunion Island (I won't go into details), I decided to use my newfound Russian health insurance (all expenses paid by the company) to experience my first visit to a Russian medical facility.

At first it was confusing, as I entered the building, using whatever Russian I had to explain that I had an appointment with the doctor. As the receptionist snapped at me, the lady at the coat room smiled and helped me with my jacket and gave me the blue footies to put on, so I wouldn't track mud around the office upstairs. As I made it up the stairs, I was surprised: instead of seeing the typical colorful, cheerful waiting room I was used to back in the states, all I saw was a long pale corridor, that stretched for miles, with a scattering of couches from one end to the other. I signed my paperwork (fortunately the Russians don't believe in piles of medical forms, with 100 questions because I probably would have accidentally checked the boxes in Russian that say I'm allergic to everything and that I have 100 things wrong with me). Despite my perfectly clean tracks, along with everyone else's, the place seemed, well grim, with no personality, no warmth. I wondered if maybe I'd been sent to the wrong doctor's office.

Fortunately for me, my doctor could muster up a few words in English, and his drawing skills were impeccable. As he and his assistant took me into the operating room, I eyed the operating table with dismay. Why did I have to lie down under bright lights....for a finger? But the doctor was friendly, and asked me what my parents thought of my adventures in Moscow. He must be a father, I thought.

The good news was by the end of my "operation" I didn't need any medication, and I came to the realization that I had only waited 30 minutes: compared to my doctor at Kaiser, that was nothing! I walked back to the coat room, and impressed the lady with my few words of Russian: Spaceebo ee dasveh danya!

Going for a Moscow drive

Sometimes when you live in a huge city it's hard to picture the whole place pieced together. Sure you can stare at the map in the metro all you want, but it doesn't become real since you climb deep down into one station only to magically appear in another. The idea of walking places becomes preposterous since, even though it would probably take you only 10 minutes to get there, you're more than likely to get lost along the way. I'm somewhat ashamed to say that only now have I figured out how to walk to the school near Red Square from a different station than "Okhotniy Riad."

The best way to finally make sense of it all is to either: a- walk from one end of the city to another, which might take you 5 hours (not such a viable option when it's a cozy 3.2 degrees Farenheit outside). Or, option b- find a friend who not only has a car, but comes up with the crazy idea of using said car to travel around said city (aka Moscow). Option b didn't occur to me until my friend Igor casually invited me to go on a "drive" with him and his friend Tanya.

Moscow is a rather imposing city by day, and even more so by night. Everywhere you turn there are bright neon lights: on bridges, on buildings, on billboards, and on the few sky scrapers that Moscow has. The lights dazzle you from either side of the Moscow River, which winds its way through the city. Regardless of where you're driving, you always feel like you're going in circles, because you actually are! As many times as people have explained to me the circle pattern of Moscow, I still never quite get used to the fact that roads never stop here, and you can keep going in a loop forever if you want. Of course there are the spokes to this wheel, which run straight, but you have to choose the right one or else you will be lost forever.

The buildings themselves are quite impressive. There's not really a skyline, like in New York, since most buildings are on the shorter side. There are the 7 sisters, 7 uniformly imposing towers from the Soviet era, which circle somewhat around the "White House," (The USSR's response to the US's by being bigger and taller of course). But admittedly when you go to the part of town with the true sky scrapers, which didn't exist 12 years ago, you truly see the modern, flashy side of Moscow. The architecture is incredible, with every shape and size imaginable, and some pretty creative buildings too. There's one sky scraper where you can see a pulsing red light in the upper right corner: the beating heart of a large giant. Igor pointed out his favorite building: an every which way stack of blocks that blink lights that slowly change colors. We stopped and admired it from the bottom, right off the side of the large highway.

As we drove by, Igor pointed out interesting monuments, buildings, and parks, as I soaked in all of this newfound knowledge. Then he pointed out something that I would have never noticed, as obvious as it was: so many of the buildings we were driving past, regardless of style or age were....empty. "There's another apartment building. I guess buildings, really. Nobody lives there." He definitely had meant buildings, because the place was huge and Igor was right, no-one home. "A lot of Moscow is like that," explained Tanya, and when I asked why, Igor shrugged. He told me it was because the terrain in Moscow is swamp like, and the soil incredibly unstable. "Nobody can live there, it's too dangerous, but they can't afford to demolish it." Really? I wondered. Maybe there are economic reasons too, although the whole thing confused me to begin with, since I could see everywhere I turned more cranes building newer and taller skyscapers. As we finally made it to Sparrow Hills to look down on the city, Tanya and I admired the architecture as we danced away the cold. Igor took out his lovely SLR digital camera, aimed towards the city below, and...."Ah man, my batteries are dead!" More like frozen! We all laughed, glad to have an excuse to run back to the warm car we had left behind.

Buying vegetables has never been more exciting!

I'll admit...when I first got to Moscow, I was too afraid to talk to people. If they asked me for directions, I shrugged, at restaurants I just pointed, and at the grocery store I just handed them money. It was terrifying to think of even uttering a word in this crazy language they call Russian, which is often muttered at such a speed it's hard to tell whether someone is angry or happy.

So I cheated. In Moscow, like most modern cities, globalization has taken over, and super markets and department stores reign supreme, where you can find anything you want at Auchaun (a popular French super market that's about the size of Wallmart), or at least at the 24 hour mini-mart on every corner, including mine. It's great, you go in, you stare at the words for a while on the labels, fortunately the numbers are legible to even a naive American who can sort of divide approximately by 30 (the average conversion of a 30 rubles is 1 US dollar...or it was).

But ever since I started taking my Russian lessons, I've become a little braver, and have decided it's time to experience the true Russian market - Soviet style.

Back in Soviet days people had to wait in line for their rations, which were often handed to them by the clerks. It seems to me that the old style grocery store accommodates this well: you have to ask for everything. There are no aisles, there's not much you can just grab yourself in this large square store. When you walk inside, you feel like you're in a different era, with wooden floors and rickety old windows that probably have seen better days. And yet everything is neat and tidy inside because you have to politely ask one of the many grocers to grab you those tomatoes, or grab you that bag of flour. And if this isn't perfect practice for speaking Russian, I don't know what is. Today I asked for my two tomatoes (два помидоры, pronounced "dvah pohmeedooreeh") and was pleased when I understood how much they cost without looking at a cash register screen: 50 рублей.

I decided to use my newfound confidence to check out a "kiosk." In order to explain what a kiosk is, all you need to imagine is a box with a panel of doors/windows on one side, tempting you with anything from shampoo to purses to fruits to electronics. The one I found happens to sell my absolute favorite: лаваш (lavash), a bread that has made it into Russian culture, compliments of Georgia. With my poor Russian the baker deduced that I must be from either England or America. "Aha!" he grinned when I admitted I was American. "what, er, shtart?" "извините?" I replied. I gave him an apologetic smile. "Shtart, er, New Jersey, New York, California!" "California," I replied and he smiled. "Da....Arnold Schwarzenegger!" I laughed all the way home. California may be well known for its nice beaches and beautiful cities, but nobody will ever forget us, thanks to dear old Arnold.