Mikey and Janna's Visit

I miss my friends a lot here, so it was very nice to have Mikey, also an old roomate, and his wife, Janna here visiting on their cruise. Their family is quite large so they were able to get a bus to take them around the city. On Monday, it was great. I got to see the insides of the two churches that I'd been around a million times but hadn't yet paid to go see inside. I was reminded how much they rip off the tourists here. They'll charge you twice the Russian price, and then they charge you if you want to take any pictures. Luckily most of the time I can get away with being a Russian student (half the foreign student price) by showing my SPB State ID. My strategy is to say as little as possible. Here's a little picture of them outside the Church of Spilled Blood (where Alexander II was assassinated, they built a pretty church).
Yesterday they went to Moscow for the day and then today they went to the Hermitage. I met up with them at the SPB Artillery Museum, and we were then shuttled to a firing range on Vasilievsky Island that is used for army training and where they bring cruise tourists. I am sure if such a thing existed in the States we would have to sign about 30 waiver forms before even going inside. We got to shoot a Kalashnikov (AK-47) semi-automatic rifle and a Makarov pistol. Never in a million years would I have put this on a list of things I wanted to do in St. Pete, and of all people Mikey and Janna's family would have been the last I would have thought would want to do it. They claim they thought it would be more like laser tag. In any case, if you're going to shoot a gun for the first time, why not make it a Russian one?

Fire and Ice

This week I have to take an Economics placement test for SAIS so I don't know how much time I'm going to have to blog. Later this week I'll get back to some more regular postings, including an update on the English Discussion Club at YESOD and my friend Mikey and his wife Janna's visit (on a cruise ship).

This past weekend I went to a bar in the city called the Ice Bar where for around $11 you are given a Siberian outfit, are ushered into an ice-walled room with ice sculptures and ice tables, and are given one drink. It was kept at around 15 degrees fahrenheit. Brrr. I dont know if i would go back, but it was almost worth it for the picture. My friend Sandro managed to freeze his drink into one of the Ice sculptures by pouring it down the tube. We left quickly thereafter.


The next morning I went to the town of Pushkin, where the poet had his Dacha, and where Catherine the Great's palace is. It rained pretty much all afternoon, but it was still pretty to see. In order to get there, you have to take the Metro about 30 minutes south and then take a Marshrutka (sort of a Taxi). We had a little trouble getting him to stop where we wanted, so we also ended up seeing the palace at Pavlovsk, which Catherine built for her son Paul. It would have been a lot prettier without the rain.

Pavlovsk

One of the most amazing things about Tsarskoe Selo (Catherine's Palace), is that the entire thing was completely gutted out during the second World War, and the Nazis actually used the palace to store their military wares. The Russians knew that the palace might be occupied so they transferred almost all of the valuables of the palace to various places in Siberia. The one room left that they couldn't transport was the priceless Amber Room. The Germans reconstructed this room in Konigsberg but it was then lost in the chaos at the end of the war. E.ON Ruhrgas (A german gas company) was noted as playing a large role in a new restoration of the room that was completed in 2003. Although most of the palace is completely restored, much of the rest of the grounds are actually still under reconstruction.

The Amber Room

Outside of Catherine's Palace

Things at school are going well. Today I learned the word for a car crash and for getting hit by a car. I've managed to now find the Americans, including a girl from Parma, Ohio (now living in Woodley Park) and two OSU grad students. Go Bucks! Small world.

Georgian Shabbat - Part 2 ("Don't Worry be Happy")

Last night, as I mentioned last week, I went to a Georgian Jewish family's house for dinner. They live down the street from me in a modest little apartment similar to the one I live in. Yaakov, the man who invited me (turns out he's only 26) lives with his mother and father, his grandmother, his 6-7 month pregnant wife and his two children (1 and 4 years old). The house is filled with pictures of the rebbe and the family. He was quick to show me pictures of his wedding which took place in T'bilisi two years ago, and he was overjoyed ("Mazel Tov, Mazel Tov!") to find that I am also getting married. He insisted I send him pictures.

My night consisted of a combination of Hebrew, English, and Russian (this is after spending the day at the Hermitage with two German friends from class). Needless to say, my mind's on language overload today. Anyway, dinner began with Shalom Alechem, a tradional song sung at the beginning of the Shabbat meal, followed by Kiddush (blessing over the wine). The amazing thing is that one could walk into any Jewish familiy's home in the entire world and find almost identical customs of observing the sabbath (Same blessings, same main food items, same songs, etc). I had to take a step back and think again about how lucky I was tonight to find this community who welcomed me, in Yaacov's words, "as my brother" and one that within 1 minute of coming inside encouraged me to act in their home as I would in mine.

The salad smorgasbord consisted of marinated eggplant slices wrapped over a crushed almond/nut spread, two types of salmon (one with a spicy crust, one normal), cabbage latkes with a horseradish spread topping (one of my favorites), a garlic houmus type thing that looked exactly like chopped liver and tasted spicy ...like nothing I've ever tasted before, tomato and cucumber salad with parsely and dill, another beet/cabbage salad, cooked tomatoes with an egg white topping, and probably 2 or 3 other things that I can't remember off the top of my head. Main course was chicken and rice (it's very hard and expensive to get kosher meat here), and dessert was melons, cherries, peaches, and date-filled ginger cookies. It was all excellent and I was happy my conversational Russian is improving so that I could thank them properly for their hospitality and carry on a conversation with them.

There are supposedly 200 Georgian Jews in St. Petersburg, and, from what they told me, a very lively community of around 1000 Jews back in T'bilisi. There are also a couple rabbis here for the community, but they all are on vacation for the summer. Yaacov has his MBA from St. Petersburg State, also in Economics, but I couldn't really gather what he really does for a living. "Baruch Ha'Shem" (lit. Blessed is G-d, but figuratively it means that G-d will provide.") He would usually follow statements like this with "Don't Worry Be Happy." This was also his response to, "How is life for Jews in Georgia, or in St. Pete?" Unfortunately, now I have that song in my head.

As if the world couldn't get any smaller, his father, get this, used to be Minister of Energy under Shevardnadze, but unfortunately he speaks very very little Russian and he now works in a restaurant in the city. He didn't say much at all the whole night. I think it's partly since he is now relegated to working in a restaurant; Yaakov said there are just not that many jobs back in Georgia. Whether or not it's because of their affinity for Shevardnadze, they repeatedly called Saakashvili, Georgia's current Columbia and GW-educated leader, a puppet of the West. In all, it was a very interesting night.

Today I went on a great Dostoevsky walking tour with some people from the Consulate here. They're all very nice, and one of them is actually in my program. He and his wife have a great blog about their adventures. Be sure to check it out, especially a forthcoming post entitled something like "Russia: The Land that OSHA forgot".

Walking around town

The following are the top 10 most common sights you'll see around this city:

1. It's normal to see people walking around with a bottle of beer in their hand, even at 9 AM.
2. Trucks spewing (and I mean spewing) fumes into the air. There are definitely no low sulfur diesel restrictions in this country.
3. People making out.
4. If it's a weekend, in any scenic place you are bound to find a bride and groom taking wedding pictures. They will have their entourage with them and all will most likely be drinking.
5. Stray dogs. This is sad, but amazingly the ones near where I live know how to cross at the crosswalk.
   
6. Some sort of construction being performed by only about 2 of the 10 people that are supposed to be doing the work. The rest are taking a cigarette break.
7. Although I don't take the metro that often there are always people selling things. This week it was band-aids.
8. Cruise tourist groups. Very easy to spot. Some even wear nametags that say things like "Captains quarters."
   
9. On almost every block you'll find a Beauty Salon, a Pharmacy, a 24-hour convenience store, a shoe repair shop, and a Bar/Restaurant.
10. Mothers walking arm-in-arm or holding hands with their daughters.

And finally, some of the most beautiful architecture and historic sites in the world. Here's a new set of pictures.

The only statue of Catherine the Great inside of St. Pete. Here, she is surrounded/supported by philosophers like Voltaire and Diderot.

The State Russian Museum

Last year I went to an exhibit at the Guggenheim in NYC called Russia!, which showcased for the first time since the end of the Cold War a chronological set of Russian art in the United States. Frankly, I was blown away. For those of you whose concept of Russian art is Kandinsky and Chagall (as mine was), there were many other artist to discover. Plus, the exhibition was interesting in that it divided Russian art during the Soviet period into art sanctioned and not sanctioned by the state.

This afternoon I went to the Russian Museum, indeed in search of Kandinskys and Chagalls (even though they had very few), but more to see the art that couldn't make it across the ocean. It turns out that a lot of the art, especially from the Soviet period is on exhibition elsewhere. I wasn't disappointed though, and a number of the same pictures I saw today had been at the Guggenheim exhibit too. Here's one of them.

lya Repin, Barge Haulers on the Volga, 1870–73

Just FYI, what you read from here on out comes from the humble opinion of an artist's son. I can take nice landscape pictures and draw nice stick figures, but I'm definitly not an art critic. So, just bear that in mind. Really, though, I'm not going to critique much, I just liked the art. Second, for those of you who don't care about art-- don't worry. I am going to be writing about Russian cars, Russian fashion, and more Russian food in the next couple days.

Although a lot of the art was inspired by neo-classical, romantic, realist, and then impressionist movements it was the subject matter that was slightly different. The theme of "work" or "the worker" is pervasive during all time periods, as are landscapes. I'm a sucker for landscape pictures (clouds, fields, oceans, sunsets, etc) so I found that art impressive.
On a modern note, one of the special exhibits going on right now is about Malevich's black square. An informational thing at the beginning claimed that this symbol is the second most recognizable symbol in art next to the Mona Lisa. I'm not so sure that's completely true though.

A lot of the art showed lots of sadness. I counted at least five pictures that were simply just titled "Grief" or some variation of it. The art leading up to the 1917 revolution almost entirely portrayed the life of peasants.

Boris Grigoriev, Indigenous Land, 1917-18

I'm also not a huge fan of portraiture, but I thought a lot of the way people were being portrayed was similar to Manet, with a stark background and with the subject in his/her element. I don't know who took their cue from whom, but this picture was one of my favorites.

Leon Bakst, Supper. 1902

The rest of the pictures are posted on kodakgallery and you can take a look if you'd like.

In other news, I'm happy to report I have a brand new towel that doesn't smell like it's 20 years old, although the water still smells here. It's not safe to drink because its chlorinated. I'm beginning to get a little tired of potatoes and fish (when you eat it almost twice a day that's bound to happen), although variations on the theme, like the potato latkes that I had at the student center today, were quite tasty.

A Discussion on Human Rights with Russians

Last night I led the english discussion club at YESOD on human rights. We had a small discussion about the UN Declaration of Human Rights, which we passed out in Russian and English, and then drew some connections to Judaism and Jewish texts. We then broke up into little groups to make up our own non-profit organizations to try to "tackle" (a new word for most of the Russians) some of the problems (Darfur, Child Slavery, Freedom of the Press in Russia, spread of AIDS, and a couple others.) The Russians were quite knowledgeable about some of these world issues, but the concept of a non-profit was a bit foreign to them. We had to re-emphasize that the state was not trying to solve the problems, but instead might be the biggest challenge to being able to work.

There were a couple interesting observations that I made during the discussion club. First, when I asked everyone to go around the room and introduce themselves, the last person told me that he wasn't accustomed to this, and asked why we (Americans do it). I explained my hope was for them to find common ground, and to make for a more intimate discussion. I think they understood.

When the group presented the non-profit group to try to encourage freedom of speech in Russia, one of the girls challenged her as to where the money would be coming from. If that money came from the oligarchs (like the Abramovitch's, Gusinsky's, or Khodorkovsky's of the 90s), then that's not truly free speech, but is just speech subject to new interests. There was much debate about whether free speech truly exists in Russia today. Surprisingly many said it does.

Joe, my co-leader, asked the students if they trust the police here. Two (of the 12 or so that were there) spoke about apartments they had rented where police were running a heroin racket. One of them even had a judge living in the same apartment building and even she chose not to do anything about it. Both ended up just moving out because they didn't want to have to rely on the police. Others agreed they try to minimize having to rely on them. I was lucky the other day as I walked down Nevsky Prospekt (the main street) since two Asian tourists were stopped right next to me by the police. Luckily my documents are all in order, and I think I've been doing a good job of blending in (which involves not smiling a lot).

In all, I think we had a good discussion; the point is really to get them talking in English. A lot of them don't know each other outside the weekly meetings, so we're planning to all go out socially to get to know each other better.

Otherwise I've been adjusting to life here fine. Today is Tisha B'av, and I fasted a little bit. Now I'm going to go reward myself with a Blini (like a crepe or a blintz). This weekend I plan on seeing Carmen in the Mariinsky Theater down the street. It'll be in Italian, probably with Russian subtitles. I will be lucky if I understand any of it. On Sunday I'll be going to the city of Pushkin, or Tsarskoye Selo, the home of Catherine the Great's palace.

Peterhof Pictures

I took a day trip on Saturday to Peterhof, which is the Summer Palace of Peter the Great on the Gulf of Finland. You can click here to see just a few the pictures I took when I was there (trust me I took a lot more, but I'll spare you). I'm gearing up for another week of class after doing some intensive studying this weekend. I'll be blogging about some more substantive issues this week, but I should sleep a bit.

Georgian Shabbat - Part 1

On Friday night I decided to go to the Choral Synagogue again. Who knew that there's a Georgian Jewish community that meets in the small chapel upstairs. I have a feeling that the majority of the people that attended the shul last weekend on Saturday morning were Ashkenazim and most likely attend the nearby Chabad on Friday nights. I didn't realize it was Georgian until I saw a color weekly newsletter written in Hebrew, Georgian, and Russian. Why in the world would I know Georgian script when I saw it? Don't ask, let's just say it has to do with pipelines. I don't know how these Jews came to settle here in St. Petersburg; they probably came at some point prior to the fall of the FSU. They were very welcoming to me, and all of them came up to say Shabbat Shalom to me at the end of the services.

I have to admit it brought back a lot of memories from France. When I studied there, I also went often to a Sephardic synagogue, and there are a number of similarities to how that largely North African community conducted its services and this one. For one, the sephardic custom for Kabbalat Shabbat (welcoming the Sabbath) is to go around the room singing one line of the Song of Songs at a time. It's kind of a free for all: the man who is singing loud enough after about 5 seconds gets to finish the sentence. So, that creates a very confusing experience if you don't know where they are.

One big difference between this community and the one in France is the level of education about the Jewish prayer service and traditions. The man sitting next to me was reading a Georgian transliteration of it; there was no Hebrew at all in his book. A number of times in the service the men argued about how to complete a prayer or which prayer should be next. It is pretty amazing how suppressed these communities have been and how they are trying to re-learn the traditions of their ancestors.

I also remembered from France last night that I will never be able to replicate or sound like a praying Sephardi. The normal tune has a sort of staccato rhythm, with quick, unmelodic high and low notes, and with little fluctuations at the end of each sentence that have very little rhyme or reason. Let's just say that when I try to sing along I sound like a combination of a wet cat and an off-key yodeler. One interesting thing was that at the end of the service they all made their way up to the Ark cover and gave it a kiss. Then, one of the men, Yaakov, invited me to dinner next week. I look forward to filling you all in on the cuisine.

Not going hungry, that's for sure

My family will be happy to know that I'm not going hungry here. It's amazing how a European-"style" city has so many stores that are open 24 hours. Even the grocery store is open till 11 at night, which is completely the opposite from other parts of Europe where everything closes at 8 and isn't open on at least one day a week. Here, there are fruit stands on almost every corner, and I have a big grocery store that's a five minute walk away. Tonight my host mother (yes, I believe her hair is fuschia) made me some delicious Ratatouille and what are called Vareniki. These pierogi-like pouches come in many varieties, but she made the dough from scratch and then put (slightly sour and smaller than American) cherries inside with some sugar. It's served with a kind of sour cream called Cmetana, not sure if this is where the name for shmetna came from. Very very good, besides the pits that were in the cherries. But I'm not complaining. That's all for today.

Adjusting to St. Petersburg

Sorry it's been awhile since I last wrote, but it's been a time consuming couple of days getting adjusted to where my classes are and figuring out how to get around. They have these things here called Marschrutkas and they’re basically communal taxis that run around the city and will pick you up anywhere and drop you off anywhere for only one more rouble (about 4 cents) than taking a bus, tram, or the Metro. After taking 2 wrong busses yesterday I am finally beginning to figure out the system here. It makes it pretty convenient actually. I was able to get to the US Consulate today on the other side of town by only walking about 5 minutes total.
This is my view on the way to class:
So, my first class was a little over my head. I saw a bunch of the people that had taken the same placement test with me outside one of the classrooms, and looking at my schedule, not realizing that it was Tuesday, not Monday, I went to the wrong room. Today's class, the right one, was a little too easy/slow, so tomorrow hopefully it'll be just right.

I was told by multiple people here that I really ought to go to Talinn (in Estonia). I’ve had to deal with some [St. Petersburg State] University bureaucracy to both register my current visa (which everyone has to do) and then try to get a multi-entry VISA to go to an EU country. To do that you must have an AIDS test. So it’s a funny thing though in the clinic. You have to wear these little blue booties over your shoes to help avoid bringing dirt into the building. As it turns out since almost all the students around the university wear these really high pointy heels, they just break right through the little coverings. It's kind of amusing to see these women in heels (and miniskirts) walking out of the nurse’s office and holding a big wad of cotton over their arms. But after much contemplation, and after being told that to expedite my VISA processing at all it’s going to be an extra $60 (after having had the AIDS test of course), I decided there is plenty to see in this country. Tallinn’s not going anywhere.

For example, I realized yesterday, during my free time in the afternoon, that I am able to get into the Hermitage for free. After walking around the Summer Gardens and getting a sun burnt forehead, I took a little stroll through the museum. At most of the most famous museums in the world there’s climate control, but not at the Hermitage. I would assume that since it never really gets above 80 here they don’t really need it. But as I walked around hundreds of millions of dollars worth of art by Van Gogh, Matisse, Gauguin, and Picasso, among many others, I couldn’t help but wonder if the 85 degrees inside, let alone the sunlight shining directly on some of the paintings, was damaging them.

Church of the Savior of the Blood (Site of the assassination of Czar Alexander II)

A Matisse in the Hermitage:

The view from the Hermitage ( I hope to get up there again soon to take this picture properly):

On a different note, I have mentioned before that I'm getting involved with the JDC while I'm here and I've been asked to help continue an English discussion club for some 20-30 year old Russians (I'm told no one asks whether they are Jewish or not, supposedly they've been found through various online networks). They meet in a brand new building called YESOD, similar to a JCC in the states, and paid for primarily by the Cleveland Federation along wiht other Jewish Organizations around the world. It's the largest center of Jewish life in Eastern Europe, and it's pretty amazing that a community close to my hometown helped put it here. I'm helping lead the discussion with another American law student from Boston, and this week was our first meeting we ran on our own, without the help of the two JDC volunteers who are leaving next week. I can't really talk about my impressions of the group since I haven't had a chance to get to know them very well, but I hope to write more about it in upcoming weeks.