Russia

One more week and I will be en route home. I cannot believe it’s happening so soon. I am wrapping up my project here, learning the Sunday tropars of Znamenny chant to record and then perform this week, while mastering square notation and ancient church slavonic. Tomorrow I am traveling with my Orthodox choir to several villages to go on a kind of singing pilgrimage, as a part of the monastery’s mission. I spent the better part of today with my host mother and host sister. I will miss them all dearly. My elderly host father, he is 82, tried my peanut butter the other night. I wish I could accurately describe just how carefully he dabbed the foreign spread onto his tongue so as just to taste it and not actually eat it, for fear it might be an unpleasant experience and his perfect manners would be spoiled in the reaction he might be forced to let out and would then become knowledgeable to me. He smiled afterwards and thanked me. I explained we all ate this with jam as children. The previous night my host mother made blini, which are Russian pancakes that are almost the same thing as crepes, Russians feign any knowledge of what a crepe is, and I often wonder if the French would as well if blini were mentioned. 🙂 We had not had blini yet at home here and I had also not seen the jam that is so often spread on the delicious pancakes. My father, stooped down and from one of the low cuboards in the kitchen began to pull out huge glass jars, covered with wax paper and rubber bands. The jars were full of “jam”. He was quite excited as he opened them, spooning out a little bit of each for me to taste as I helped to cook the blini. The first bite was enough to make me aware that this jam was old enough to have begun to ferment. The taste of alcohol was pungent and sharp as I laughed and began to protest that in fact this must be old jam! Both my host parents agreed and when we all sat down to dinner continued to dwell upon my remarks about the jam. I ate cheese with my blini that night, I could not handle the jam. I have no idea just how old the jam was but my family had a wonderfully pleasant evening. 😉

I heard a tale from Riley the other night, of her host sister’s former boyfriend. Apparently he was diagnosed with Type I Diabetes, and it was decided by all members of the family, including himself, that it would be best for the two of them to end their relationship. Marriage for him, it seemed was out of the question, his life expectancy and the seriousness if not the stigmatism attatched to it, required this decision. When I heard this story I was immediately forced to remind myself as I have to time and again that I am not in a first world country. And even more, I am not in a third world country. Russia is truly one of the only countries that is actually a second world country. While children diagnosed with Type I Diabetes in third world countries face death, and most children in first world countries are able to live a halfway normal life, this idea of what might lie inbetween was aroused in my mind. Then I began to remember other things I have realized about my disease here. No one knows what my insulin pump is. When I go through security at airports, stores, protests, my pump is completely foreign. When I explain what it is, it still makes no sense to them. I realize this is because the technology that I take for granted on a daily basis is simply not affordable or even available here. While insulin and the necessary supplies to inject it, as well as blood sugar machines can be found in every Apteka, I have never seen anything in any Magazeen that would allude to its existence. While Type II is known by many, to be the American disease, Type I because it is an entirely different disease is not categorized with Type II in any aspect. If only America would do so as well! I hope to do some research when I return to the states about Diabetes in second world countries.

I will miss it here dearly, and hope that I can return someday and visit my host family. Tonight at dinner my father suggested that my family could come and live in their apartment, and he talks daily of me staying and going to Sivastople for the summer with them. I only wish I could invite them to visit America. It is unbelievably difficult for Americans to visit Russia and vice versa. The American government has consistently sent us notices of the “dangers” we face here, and I have no doubt that if they could they would not allow us to visit here under any condition, which is why we had so many problems with our government and the program from the start.  I can only hope that our relations as countries improve.

Well, it’s eleven and the sun is still out, but I should be heading to bed, as I must be on the metro by 5:45 tomorrow morning. I can’t wait to be back and to once again hear my language and see my alphabet!

I spent last week in Moscow. The seven of us shared an apartment once again and we spent several glorious days exploring Moscow and falling in love with the city. It was spring there and the weather was glorious and the dreariness of St. Petersburg, the sunshine and all cheered us and we soaked up the much needed vitamin d. Moscow, as everyone told us, was nothing like St. Petersburg. The city was one with a history that cannot be hidden. In the heart of St. Petersburg one can imagine, if you aren’t reading any of the signs, looking at the people, or rather, what people are doing!, then you can sometimes catch glimpses of what some may refer to be European traits. These traits lie only in the architecture, let me assure you, nowhere else. However, in Moscow it is simply impossible. Soviet times have marked this city with not only buildings but reminders everywhere of the former glory and horror that this country experienced. The shopping center in Red square, which can be seen in my photos on facebook, stands directly across from Lenin’s grave; Materialism opposite so-called “Marxism”. CCCP t-shirts are sold everywhere, the red star and emblem being purchased by tourists continuously as the people who lived through this era walk by, watching all they they might have revered and hated become plastic objects for those who could never understand their people. Soviet times are still fresh in the memories of those that lived through them, and the ignorance of outsiders and the new generation of Russians who have grown up in a different time is unbelievably evident. However what seems even more evident is the amount of brainwashing that we as Americans have received from our own government about Russia and the same from the Russian government to the Russians about Americans. Many people refuse to believe that we are from America, claiming we are too pretty and polite, in other words because we aren’t obese, stupid, rude, or loud all of the time. And it’s true, I’ve seen such Americans here, but I truly believe that Russians, out of basically every other people in the world, know that the government does not always represent the people! But I cannot deny that our government in America does represent the majority, my country re-elected Bush. Hopefully in the future these stereotypes and views will change.

On May Day in Moscow, Korinna and I marched in a political protest with the group “яблока”, the Russian Democratic Party. The website in english is http://www.eng.yabloko.ru/, if you are interested in learning more about the group. We arrived that morning, and seeing a group of people holding flags with this emblem, we headed towards them. Immediately we noticed that in order to stand in the park, we had to go through metal detectors and security. This is daily life here for most, we go through security to get into stores, not just to leave them. Once we were in, we began our journey. Police lined our path, almost as many police officers as people in the demonstration. For some reason however, I didn’t feel threatened. At home, in protests I have often felt worried if not scared of such security. Here though some of the officers were smiling at us, as they stood there enjoying the warm sun and activities that made their day more eventful than normal. When we arrived at the ending point to hear the speeches, we again went through security, and gathered to listen to several people speak, including a young mother who spoke a great deal about her children and the future she wanted for them. Although I could understand only parts of what was said I was honored just to be part of a protest and rally in this country.

Now I’m back in St. Petersburg working on my Independent Study Project and I am beginning to get used to the freedom and independence that this month has given me. I am studying the return to the Orthdox religion that an entire country of “atheists” has re-entered and once again it has become the primary religion. My focus is on the use of music used within the church. For years Znammeny Chant, the specifically Russian chant, was preserved in the Orthodox church until the opening to the west by Peter the Great and his female heirs would allow for Western music to shape and change the music in the liturgy of Orthodox services. Now there are many debates as to what kind of music should be used as these churches are turned back, from swimming pools and museums of atheism, to what they were originally built to be. Vladimir used Orthdoxy as a tool to unite Russia at the beginning and now with immigration, diversity, a declining population, a narrow economic base, and as of yesterday, a new President!, the country is struggling to once again find a unifying characteristic, something to keep it all together.

Medvedev was inaugurated yesterday, they do things quickly here, the voting took place while I was in Irkutsk, and now they have a new president, and of course a new prime minister. The almost royal ceremony took place in the morning while Putin and the group of candidates who lost the election looked on with stern faces. One can almost feel sorry for Putin, he’s gone from number one to number two, and if one understands just how much power the leader of this country has, one can barely understand how he will manage in this lower status.

The sun is just beginning to set now, it’s 10:40pm, and I am becoming quite fond of these semi-white nights. Unfortunately I will not be in St. Petersburg for the week or two when the sun never sets, but right now I am quite content with sunlight all evening! The flowers are beginning to bloom and the trees are starting to become heavy with leaves. I bought strawberries today and ate some of my peanut butter that I have been rationing these past three months 😉 I hope that things are well back in the states and that spring is also upon you!