Peter, Pushkin, and Speedos

“He stood upon the banks of the Neva, staring dully into the green, but no—letting his gaze soar there, where the banks cowered, where the buildings of the islands squatted, and from where, above the white fortress walls, the pitiless spire of Peter and Paul, tormentingly sharp, reached up so coldly to the sky.”
-Bely, Petersburg

So I had class today for the first time, which did not go nearly as badly as I expected it would. I think having to speak Russian so much to my family prepared me for all the grammar review, while also reminding me of how many errors I had made while trying to speak to them. We have 3-4 hours of language a day, a combination of grammar, conversation, and reading classes. It’s a little overwhelming. There are seven people in my class, three of whom were in my class all last year. There are two Bulgarian girls as well who speak Russian pretty well, considering the close proximity between the languages. We had a very short “culture” class with Prof Golstein before we went on a 5 hour tour the city (half walking, half on a little bus). It was disgustingly hot and my legs and feet were caked in black filth by the end (in case you didn’t know, Russians do not let you wear shoes in the house, nor walk around barefoot or with socks—slippers are a necessity, and rightfully so, otherwise you’d track in so much dirt). We saw St. Isaac’s up close, the Bronze Horseman (if you’ve read the famous Pushkin poem, otherwise an enormous statue of Peter the Great), the Peter and Paul Fortress, the Eternal Flame for the Revolution (I think), this huge ship that was involved in the Revolution and most of the wars since (there was a Lenin look alike who stared straight at me, pointed to his head and then at me and then proceeded to hide himself behind a tree—kind of creepy), we also saw the Summer Garden, along with the Church of Spilled Blood. We also saw some former secret police headquarter, which had these huge gates—supposedly the last things you ever saw. There is too much to describe right now, but I will try to more later.

The Peter and Paul Fortress was interesting because it holds all the bodies of the tsars and tsarina’s. So I was able to see Peter’s tomb (which always has fresh tulips in front of it—tulips) and also a small room placed apart for Nicholas and his family, who were assassinated during the Revolution. The fortress was started by Peter so that it could be his ultimate resting place. It is a church, but rather atypical (not in a cross formation, and it has huge open windows—it is far too light for a Russian church). Besides, there are granite “caskets” everywhere in the church, so I don’t think it would work very well as a church anyway. I can’t believe that I was standing next to Peter’s body, his wife’s, Catherine the II’s, among all the rest. They were restoring the icon stand while we were there, apparently the first time since it was built hundreds of years ago. The icons were especially interesting, because the different biblical figures are made to look like members of Peter’s family. For example, Jesus is supposed to be Alexei, and the Madonna and child is Peter’s wife Catherine and his favorite son who died when he was just two years old. Kind of sacrilegious (considering there’s usually a set format for painting icons that has not changed for hundreds of years), but Peter wasn’t too big on Russia’s backward religious habits.

We hung around after seeing the hideous Shemyakeen (I don’t know how to spell it in English, so there it is phonetically), on whose lap I got a picture (it’s a modern statue of Peter the Great). We walked down the embankment by the Neva where a lot of people were sunbathing, and some were swimming even. Everyone wears speedos here, the guys anyway, and Prof Golstein said that if you wear long swim trunks then people will think you’re gay. Probably the most amusing moment was when Brittany gave O’hara (the Alaskan hockey player) 10 bucks to go talk to one of the most revealingly dressed hirsute speedo men who was walking along with his friend. Fearlessly she complied, and she ended up with his number. Maybe I’ll put up a picture of it if I can (the server here is really slow and doesn’t seem to work sometimes).

It was kind of a whirlwind tour throughout some famous sites of the city. The Bronze Horseman was impressive, although I do need to go back. We saw so many weddings today. I guess it is good luck for the just married couple to go all around the city to the famous sites and take pictures. We saw several couples along the Neva, at St Isaac’s, and at the Bronze Horseman. It was also the graduation day for some students from high school, so they were walking around the Bronze Horseman with sashes with the colors of the Russian flag on them. For a long time we had no idea what was going on or who they were (seeing as they looked like pageant girls due to the excessive makeup and skanktastic outfits). I found out that it’s good luck to walk around the Bronze Horseman after graduating (if you can’t tell by now, Russians are very superstitious, maybe I’ll talk about some more weird superstitions later). Seeing all these girls there kind of ruined the effect of the monument, not to mention that Peter had bird feces on his forehead. I will talk about him more later though. When trying to explain to my host parents that I saw the Bronze Horseman I resorted to my game of charades (since I didn’t know the Russian word for the statue) and ended up making near to the Nazi salute with my right hand (Peter holds his hand out but much lower). Immediately I realized what the gesture looked like, and the fact that they were probably Jewish, and pulled my hand down and eventually they got it. Oy vey…

So getting home wasn’t too bad, but that’s mostly because Prof Golstein talked to Eena for me, since I was going to be home later than I thought. It is confusing getting home, because so far I’ve gone there several different ways—by minibus, by trolleybus, by metro. This time I got off at Vostaneeya and had to find them. I cannot figure out this metro… There seem to be different platforms and all sorts of different entrances to different streets and different lines, and if you get on the wrong escalator, forget it. I wasn’t molested today, so that was already an improvement. I think my Russian parents must think I’m an idiot, because they both picked me up and dropped me off and thankfully draw maps for me and write things down all the time. Like I said, there are few street signs, and it’s difficult to tell what metro stop is which, and if you’re on the trolleybus or minibus, they don’t saw a word so it’s all up to you to get off at the right stop. Quite a few of the regions and buildings look the same, so that only makes it more fun. The last thing I want is to get lost in this city.

Dinner was a bit of a breakthrough for me. Eena knows more English than I thought, so when things get really confused we’ll use a mixture of Russian and English words—her daughters learned it in school so she picked some up. But besides the English breakthrough, I was actually sort of speaking Russian and communicating. WAHOOO. It was an empowering feeling, even though everything I said was probably grammatically incorrect. But they seemed to understand what I was saying. I also have started bringing a dictionary with me to meals. So that helped. I learned the word for crows (since they are so loud in the mornings) and for crying, since I was woken up at 2am by a Russian woman weeping loudly in the courtyard—which was kind of eerie, as I peered down through the half light that are St Petersburg nights. Everyday they ask me if the mosquitoes (kah-mah-ry) are bothering me. I don’t think they know that I brought a mosquito net with me that I drape over my window every night. But anyway, dinner. So Babushka ate with us tonight, which was interesting since I was worried she didn’t like me. She does not know any English, but said she knew German. I had asked Professor Golstein earlier in the day whether or not they were Jewish, since I expected so. Getting a positive reply I decided to tell them I was Jewish as well—a little conversation starter. They seemed pretty excited about it, and for once the babushka perked up and started trying to talk to me and smiling: asking me about gefelta fish, whether I was kosher, if I knew Yiddish, where my family was from, etc. There has been a long history of anti-Semitism in Russia, so Jews here have generally felt themselves to be more connected to being Jews than being Russian, so perhaps that’s partially why they perked up more. They must have suspected I was Jewish with my ashkenazi features and my last name. So that was a good experience.

I also showed them my pictures on my camera from my excursion, and Joseph bought me a bunch of maps and guide books to the city and cultural stuff here. They are such kind people. I have been overwhelmed by how warmhearted Russians can be, after much of what I had heard. Even my classmates who had kind of scary seeming house parents have been pleased with their families once getting to know them.