First Night

Sunday Night
Well here I am in Russia. It is 9:30 pm and still as bright as day. Fabulous. I didn’t sleep at all on the plane, unfortunately—all 10 or so hours of plane that is. So I’m pretty exhausted. Four of us from the group were on the flight—O’hara, Lydia, David, and myself. So that made things a lot better as far as not stressing about so many little things like getting lost. It was a comfort to have O’hara and Lydia there as well since they are both 3rd year Russia students, so if we got into any kind of trouble… My impression of Russia from the air was that it was very green—full of fields, and then up popped St Petersburg. I was lucky enough to be sitting next to a woman who was originally from Petersburg, but who now lives in Cambridge with her husband who teaches Russian at a prep school. So she guided me through the slightly confusing, Cyrillic landing pass, as well as giving me her phone number here in case something bad happens to me.

Professor Golstein met us at the airport, after we spent an hour waiting in line at customs. Professor Golstein is a goofy guy with graying curly hair that he always twirls with his right two fingers and, who has a strange sense of humor (like telling me my Visa photos are lost at the Russian Consulate). He is married to my advisor, Professor Evodkimova, who will also be here for the summer with their 8 or 9 year old son, Fedya. It was nice to see him. After piling all our stuff into the Nevsky Institute van, including all of O’Hara’s incredibly heavy hockey gear (she’s a Brown varsity hockey player from Alaska and is playing for a team here over the summer I guess), we set off to meet our host families.

I was the last one to be let off, so I got to see a lot of the city just driving around, including a bunch of gorgeous cathedrals I can’t even remember the names of, not to mention Peter and Paul’s, St Isaac’s, the Hermitage, the Admiralty, and the like. This is an amazing city. Not much is over 5 stories high (I think there might have been a law against it for a while), so these monoliths of cathedrals and fortresses dominate the skyline with blazing gold domes and steeples.

Many of the cities buildings (particularly the ones built in the 19th century) are in disrepair, their yellow paint flaking and stained. It does lend a certain charm however. Seeing them in contrast to some former KGB headquarters perhaps made them seem a bit more charming than they normally would. This place is no Paris, and I have yet to really get the feel for the city. It certainly feels foreign, but surprisingly not as different as I was expecting it to be. Seeing everything written in Cyrillic is probably the weirdest part—after only having seen it in textbooks. The Neva is beautiful, even if horribly polluted. The native Russians, despite it being a hot day, were even smart enough to know not to venture even dipping their feet in.

It was an amazing feeling to look down this huge, straight prospect and seeing the needle of the Admiralty burning gold against the blue skyline. It is a strange feeling when you see such sites and travel along such famous streets as described by Gogol or Dostoevsky after only treating them as the kind of fiction you read in books. This place has felt like a fiction after having treated it as a student would—reading novels and looking at paintings and whatever. But to actually be here. The place still feels unreal.

There was a kind of beauty as I helped walk in some of my classmates to their families—standing in the courtyards surrounded by sallow yellow walls, gaping windows without screens, cats lying on the pavement and the soft snow of poplar pollen drifting in the heavy air. Until you realize how allergic you are to poplar pollen and that the cats probably have rabies. But you know what I mean.

Some of the home stay people others have seem a little sketchy. But the locations are phenomenal regardless. O’hara has a view of St Isaac’s, Lydia one of the Neva, and David lives on Rimsky-Korsakov street I think. David got placed with this lower class woman (according to Professor Golstein) and her 19-year-old daughter. I guess the woman wanted a boy. When I walked David into the house to help bring up his stuff, I saw his room, which was covered with pictures of the daughter in, at times, somewhat provocative clothing and compromising positions. There was also a lovely portrait in a red heart shaped frame placed conspicuously on the bureau. Not hard to guess what they want out of this deal. Haha. It will be interesting to see whether he is successfully seduced, or if he just blushes for the next seven weeks.

I am on Tverskaya Street in this “shee shee” area (as described so eloquently by Prof Golstein), which is a quiet, upper class neighborhood near the Smolny (amazing sight). The host family is all I could’ve asked for. Older (60’s), short, sweet, a good cook, very into literature (I think the wife may have mentioned something about her husband being a professor and all the languages he knows). Books and books everywhere. It is fascinating to see books I love and have read in English in 30-year-old Russian editions. I found a cool book of Brodsky stuff for example. They also seem to have good taste in movies and music (as I scoped out their shelves). The apartment is lovely and well kept, has wood floors, a cute little kitchen and a few rooms. I think a babushka lives here too, must be his or her mother. My room is very nice. Big and full of books and some old paintings and movie posters, old typewriters, what looks to be a tuba but much smaller, photography, records, and an assortment of dark blue bottles that are lovely and remind me of home.

Eena, my host mother, had made dinner already for me. Her husband, Joseph, had to go out and do something. Professor Golstein stayed and had dinner since I was the last one to drop off and he was probably hungry and bored and he seemed to really like this family. The food was surprisingly good and light. I have to admit I was very apprehensive of Russian food, based on what I had tried before. But we had a light brothy vegetable soup, dark bread, bliny, and sauerkraut stuff, among other things. My Russian is so awful, since I'm so rusty, and already struggle with the language enough anyway. It is kind of embarrassing. They talk so fast and I am so bad at Russian and verbal comprehension and basic conversation skills. It’s very different from a controlled classroom environment. I felt a little embarrassed, especially because Professor Golstein was there for dinner. Haha. My Russian will come back to me though, hopefully. Eena had me call my parents too; she had even gotten a phone card for me! They are very sweet people. I think this will work out well and a lot of my fears are already dispelled. I am thankful Golstein stayed though. So now it’s bed for me. I’m exhausted and tomorrow I have to find my way to the Nevsky Institute, and then it’s wandering around the city.