Скоро Весна или уже весна?

After that amazingly awesome time noted in the last post I'd like to state that things got both awesome and lame.

I had to take a night off work for the one concert, and the following Wednesday I took another night off work to see another concert called "Gregorian." It's a German group who does Gregorian chant styled versions of modern pop and rock songs. You can read about them here and watch some of their videos on youtube here. While they chant, they also have quite the theatrical styled musical accompaniment so don't expect it to be calm. Feel free to click on a number of their videos if you want. Our performance/tour was movie inspired so a lot of the songs came from the cinema such as the opening from "Chariots of Fire" where a filmed version of "gregorian monks" were running on the sand instead. Other songs were from Titanic, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Graduate, James Bond (Live and Let Die, but where instead of an agent pulling a gun and blood dripping for the "opening credit" it was a monk and an arrow). Overall it was a splendid performance. Sadly Daria had to leave at intermission for an interview that couldn't be rescheduled.

The lameness of the past two weeks is that Daria had to fly to Los Angeles on short notice last Friday to interview an agency on Saturday to leave LA on Monday and return here on Tuesday. This caused me to sell her ticket to the ballet at the Mariinksy Theatre (the grandest and most famous here in SPB) and her tickets to a psychology event she had for the weekend. So Friday night I went to the ballet with a student of mine (who bought the ticket Thursday night), and we saw a good performance of "The Little Humpbacked Horse." Quite well done, though I wasn't expecting as many children in the audience as there were. I'll say that I had to laugh because for 23 years of living in SPB this was the first time my student had been to the Mariinsky.

Sunday was a big celebration of Масленица (Maslenitsa), or Shrovetide, or shall we say, Mardi Gras, since in the Eastern Church began Lent this past Sunday and their Easter is the first Sunday in May. Part of the name comes from масло, which is oil/butter (same word here) and there's lots of gorging on pancakes. It's also a time to say goodbye to winter and to welcome spring. Many of the parks throughout the city had some sort of festival. From what I know of how people celebrate Mardi Gras in the US, this festival is much more family friendly and there are lots of events for children. Spectacles performed on stages, people dressed in traditional costumes, and the main thing here is to burn an effigy of winter called чучело, chuchelo, (which is a straw woman dressed in traditional clothing). People burn small individual ones, and then there are larger ones which are lit at night. We, however, left before night fell. I went with colleagues from work, and a few students from one of the other teachers joined as well. Our group fluctuated throughout the day, but a good time was had by all, even though one of the new teachers apparently didn't know Russia was actually cold b/c he was quite ill-equipped with a coat appropriate for September, canvas shoes and cotton socks, and without gloves, a scarf or a hat. Fortunately for him people were able to loan him items and he's still alive and well.

After leaving the park, we celebrated St. Patrick's Day in a pub downtown with legitimate Guinness, which was both delicious and reasonably priced.

One of my students told me Monday that he read this is the coldest March in at least 10 years. After what seemed like a fairly mild February, I was afraid that spring had come soon and all my cold weather would have disappeared. March has taught me otherwise. Many days have been quite frigid. Additionally the days have been getting longer and the sunshine tricks you into thinking it will be fairly warm. Then the zephyr comes from the north and laughs in your face. Well nips at your face really drying your eyes and leaving your cheeks windburned and lips chapped. Monday morning I took Karma for a walk and my thermometer said -11C. I thought, not bad and took Karma out. The wind told me I was unprepared and when I checked upon our return home it was -11 feels like -20. Oh windchill, how unkind you truly are. This is not to say it doesn't feel warm at times and I will admit it's a strange feeling to see your breath in -4 but feel as though you could sunbathe as you walk in the sunshine. The main lesson is not to trust what it looks like from the window.

My title is on this theme. It translates as "Spring is near, or is it already spring?"Officially spring is here, both from the perspective of Масленица and from the vernal equinox this past Wednesday. And sometimes it certainly feels balmy during the middle of the day. Snow and ice melt even when it's below the freezing point. Chemistry calls what is happening sublimation. And then the wind comes biting or the sun goes down and it feels as though winter has returned. The Fontanka is starting to show breaking ice though, and therefore, уже весна или скоро?

Don't be fooled by the blue sky. It was -7C for most of the daytime. Starting Масленица at ЦПКиО.

The first stage spectacle once you cross over the bridge onto the island that is the park.

From a distance you can see some magic games for the kids. And by games I also mean a really cool looking inflatable slide that must reach 10 meters high and many of us wanted to do it too. However, we surpass the height/age requirement.

A horse-drawn sleigh crosses our path.

We played a little frisbee on a pond until my colleague Joey heard some ice crack. I think it was just a top layer (sometimes you can find layers where air was trapped between), but we got off just in case (and played on a different pond later where more people were doing various activities).

Another event for children.

A member of our group (Katya - left) and some unknown person (right) pose with a large чучело.

Traditionally dressed woman on the right and my colleague Alina and I also dress up. Well, sorta.

Later, I demonstrate my machismo by defeating Alina in a pillow fight knocking her off her stump. I'll admit I felt the Russians were judging me for fighting against a woman, but I guess whatever. It's about fun and games and Alina and I were the only ones in our group who were excited about this event.

Our чучело. Someone in the group named her Masha.

Mash is not nearly as festive as this wintry effigy of another group.

But Masha was ours. I don't know what's going on with my eyes, but the other picture of us was not kind to Alina or Veronika. 

And Masha is burning away.

On the way out of the park we crossed the river instead of the bridge. We saw that someone else had made a snow angel so a lot of us decided to as well.

Alina and Veronika do likewise.

Outside the Tower Pub I prove to be a formidable Queen Regent.

Alina proves there's Guinness to be found in SPB.

Seriously, just an awesome weekend.

Where to even begin? I guess chronological order makes sense. At least from the past few days. This will be long however.

Thursday: Last fall I went to a rock show at a bar of cover bands covering 90s Russian rock. Last Thursday I went to the real deal, concert in an arena. It was off the hook to say the least (that is jargon for AMAZING!!!!!! for those of you who don't know what "off the hook" means).

Rock bands like ДДТ (DDT), (СПЛИН) Spleen, Король и Шут (КиШ - King and Fool), Ляпис Трубецкой (Lyapis Trubetskoi), and Lumen, played. All very different, all awesome. The main person from DDT looks like a middle-aged guy who works in the computer industry (polo, glasses, short beard, slightly portly, and doesn't have the energy one expects from the leader of one of the biggest - if not THE biggest rock groups of Russian history), yet he inspired such energy in the crowd. Phenomenal is all I can say. КиШ had more of a rock presence that was to be expected. I seriously cannot convey how awesome this concert was. But I will say that fans in the US need to learn to use road flares and sparkers at concerts instead of just lighters and cell-phones.

Russian rock is quite different and while some stuff had similar sounds to western rock, other aspects were quite different. I'd also like to say that while western rock has incorporated keyboards into rock (and even metal like Nightwish and Children of Bodom), and we incorporate brass instruments into ska music (which has a swing feel mixed with punk for those who don't know), there was some good brass usage in the metal portions of this show. Great use of the trumpet and trombone.

Friday was March 8th (otherwise known as International Women's Day). We had plans that turned into celebration by lying around the apartment. Actually quite a wonderful and needed day of rest.

Saturday, Daria and I went to Peter and Paul's Fortress (the original part of SPB). I've never been there in the winter. It also held a great exhibit about women through the Soviet era/Women's Day (although it goes until May). This was quite the fascinating exhibit about uplifting women and at the same time demonstrating the double burden of work and home that has been placed on women here. I had to laugh b/c a poster spoke about "earth and will" (volition type of will) and one of the songs from Lyapis had the chorus "bread, salt, earth, will." While I don't think the song was about women's things, it certainly retained the "this is what's necessary for everybody" basics of life. Or something like that. I don't know if I can really explain (or if I really understand). Great exhibit. Oh, and while we were taught that the USSR had the first person in space, we have the first person on the moon, etc, did you know they also had the first woman in space? That was not in my history textbook. What was also cool to see were photographs of women who helped rebuild SPB after the siege in WWII. There were more women doing work in the 40s and 50s than in the 70s/80s/etc, even in the USSR. Made one feel that women were more appreciated then, but who really knows.

Another exhibit found in a different part of the Fortress was of microscopic wonders done by a man known as the "Siberian Lefthander." Wonders like he put metal shoes on a flea, horseshoe style nails and all (Guinness book of world records). We saw "jewelry for insects" books written smaller than a grain of rice, portraits on walnut shells, but placed inside of a cherry pit, nanoscaled things poppy seeds, well ok, just look. Although, none of these were really as fascinating as what we saw in the museum exhibit. http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1831665_1748583_last,00.html

After that we went to an exhibit of medieval torture devices. Left one wondering how some of the items lasted until 1970s (like execution by sitting in a chair having a pole slowly drilled through your skull). I'll save you most of the other gruesome details. Although, not so torturous, good punishment for drunkards: wear a barrel around all day - punished through embarrassment. Forget revoking a driver's license for DUI, just make them wear a barrel. I promise, no one will drink and drive again. However, seriously, it's crazy that humanity can think up such horrendous ways to hurt each other. I'll refrain from offering any twisted things that have entered my brain. I really don't want to see those things practiced.

Following all the museums, Daria and I went out onto the Neva River (the main river that goes through SPB). I seriously cannot get enough of walking on frozen rivers, canals, lakes, the Gulf of Finland. Soon my time will have to stop though b/c it'll be too dangerous. Actually, yesterday pushed that. Some boat or another has clearly gone through the river and broken some of the ice to transport something. Its frozen back over, but you can see the chunks and in places flowing water still from the recent breakage. I walked onto a piece completely "separated" and re-frozen. We saw some people walk completely across the breakage. Later, a man came out with a bullhorn to tell people to not venture into that area. I was careful, but it was also dangerous.

Today, Daria and I heard an awesome sermon about how we all might possess small parts of each character from the parable of the Prodigal Son. Rather than some crazy exegesis of each character, you just have parts of each. I could elaborate, but really . . . you have parts of each.

After the service we used Daria's grandparents' old wooden cross-country skis and old leather boots (seriously awesome, and mom and dad, definitely thought of you with this stuff). Why didn't we dig these out earlier?????? We took the train out of the city and skied through the woods, total backcountry style. We then skied onto the Gulf (been my dream for way too long). We probably pushed about a mile out before we turned back (the wind was getting wicked, but more, it was the end of the day). I know Daria enjoyed it too, but I also want to thank her for appeasing my dream of doing that. Great day of skiing through sunlit filigree on the snow through the trees, and then into the vast open expanse of the Gulf of Finland. I hope we get to return. And seriously, those wooden skis were well made. I don't know the last time they were used, but they worked very well.

Just a great picture from within the building stairwell overlooking our snow-covered courtyard.

Poster about the Women's Exhibit at the Museum

Daria posing next to a poster about Women's roles in the defense of the country during WWII.

Me standing on the Neva with my back to the Hermitage and other historic buildings. And a snowflake in my eye.

Better picture of what the broken ice looks like and the flowing water you can see.

Me standing on an ice-flow. That large chunk that spans past the picture, but still in front of me is not connected to the main part we walked on.

My feet at the aforementioned ice-flow in the picture above. This would be at the bottom of the picture above if the camera spanned that far.

Daria's turn, but she stayed on the "connected part" not venturing onto the broken pieces.

Not our dacha, but what the dacha might look like in the winter.

And into the woods we go. Well, ok, we were already into the woods when this was taken, but it was better than the "starting point" picture.

Some obstacles you don't find in the city parks. Daria did well ducking under this fallen tree. She added some theatrics (intentional) that I appreciated unlike my lame, "let's get under this and get on the way" duck and ski.

Some beautiful forest around us. Can anyone say paradise?

And Daria leads the way onto the Gulf. Well, we were on it going parallel to shore here, but only about 20-30 yards out here.

But here I go off onto the horizon of the Gulf. You can see the curvature of the earth here, but also the sea of ice ahead. Daria posted on facebook that we're heading off into the Arctic here. Close enough I guess. Paradise number 2?

Thanks to batteries freezing I didn't get a picture off from the furthest point we were from shore, but I was able to snap this of Daria (that small dot in the middle), as she headed back toward shore while I fiddled with changing batteries. The wind was a brutal dry cold and while Daria could ski fine, there were issues standing still (not due to cold, but boot/ski issues), so she left. The winter child in me just loves that we're on the frozen sea.

At the end of the day, we are at the train station, and this was just a great picture of Daria. I'm posting it because I like it a lot.

And our train back to the city. I think it's neat that the sign tells you the current time (top) and the time of the train (bottom) and yes, the train got there at 18.28 and left exactly at 18.29. Very punctual.

My brain is like porridge, hehe.

Again I let two weeks slip by without writing a blog. For a short month February certainly was busy.

To begin with I want to share that two weeks ago we were at Daria's cousin's new apartment. I felt excited as I listened to them talk that I could understand quite a bit. Obviously not everything, and I didn't really participate, but I did understand quite a bit. Well, for the first couple hours. Then my brain turned to mush and words that I normally recognize were incomprehensible. In simple Russian, I can say мой мозг не работает, or rather мой мозг не работал. moi mozg nye rabotayet/rabotal. (My brain doesn't work/didn't work). I wonder if I can say мой мозг как каша (my brain is like porridge).

I will say the same also happened after yesterday's lesson which made it quite difficult to plan my lesson afterward. Fortunately it wasn't that hard of a lesson to teach.

I wanted to offer a little more insight into my thinking about "community" from the last post. Perhaps part of the reason that things feel more communal is that it's built into the language. I don't know, and could be wrong with all my speculations, but they are what I perceive. For example in English I say, "I met with Greg." However, in Russian I would say, "Мы встретились с Грегом," which translates to "We met with Greg," even though I really just mean "I met with Greg." There are other instances where I want to say things that I do with another person, but I use the plural "we."

On Mondays and Wednesdays I teach in a company and then take the metro to the school to teach an evening class. As I transfer from one line to another I wait in a station that has a variety of red hues from what appear to be shards of red pottery, although they glisten as though they're glass or marble. Sometimes when I stand waiting for my train, I think the walls are like fire especially because I usually stand next to where the name Маяковская (Mayakovskaya) is embedded with the same stones/shards in 3D. When you stand next to the letters and cannot see the whole word the jagged shape of the letters looks like flames frozen into the wall.

One of my biggest dislikes about the way things work here in Russia is the overabundance of plastic; and the bad kind. There are enormous quantities of thin plastic bags that really cannot be reused, or if they can, are only reusable for a short time before the rip. Sometimes the bags are necessary, but more often than not I don't need a bag for my bananas, or my 3 grapefruit, or maybe my croissant if I dare to buy one, but for example today when we were buying some milk our milk was placed into one of these thin plastic bags. Why? What makes matters worse is the amount of trash that is left on the street. Uncountable amounts of bags, plastic milk bottles, cigarette butts, beer bottles/cans, litter the streets and there are many that can be found frozen in the ice of the canals and the river. My thoughts immediately turn to all the fish in the sea that will find the thin plastic bags. However, while the US may not have nearly as much litter (although it does have quite a bit in certain places), I do not think we have any right to tell others how to be environmentally conscious considering our own shortcomings. I have also been pondering the amount of "out of sight, out of mind" aspect to our own wasteful consumerism. NYC sends its waste to Virginia by barge and to Pennsylvania by truck, but from my time with Citizens Campaign for the Environment, I know that more of that trash pollutes our waterways than we want to admit. I cannot say that Russia pollutes the environment more than the US (although there certainly is more litter here), but it is more in your face and therefore more on my mind. It makes me that much more conscious of wanting to change the entire system. However, can we change it considering how much of our "progress in industry" comes from destruction? Also, we need to remember: Reduce comes first; then Reuse; lastly, Recycle. Which reminds me, we buy way too much water here b/c it's bad to drink from the tap. In the house, we filter, then boil, then consume as tea. Or we buy bottled water to drink. Is the technological solution of better city-wide filtration the answer, or should we socially get over ourselves and be comfortable with boiling and reserving water on the side to cool or consume it while hot like in tea?

I wanted to share that sunlight here is crazy. As in each week there is an extra 40-45 minutes of sunlight. That's right. From one Sunday to the next we have an extra 40-45 minutes of light. This is of course what makes things like really dark Decembers to the White Nights in June/July possible considering that 26 weeks pass and so much light change happens. However, it's quite crazy to observe how much more light we have from one work week to the next and even without Daylight Savings Time (which drives me crazy), the body clock is hard to set.

Favorite new word: the verb "to giggle" is хихикать (hihikat). I like it because it sounds like heehee. Very onomatopoeic.

Additionally, I'm going to add some photos with no particular connection to this post or necessarily any other, although there might me some.

Daria cross-country skiing in ЦПКиО

The Georgian Church on our street corner (we live off to the right). You won't find any Russians attending this church though. Also if you look on the right side of the roof of the middle beige building you'll see some workers clearing the snow off.

Along the Alley of Sister Cities 

You might think this is a snow covered field into the horizon, but this is just the vast frozen Gulf of Finland.

The refreezing of someone's fishing hole that we saw on the Gulf. Don't know how thick it is. It's where I stood taking the above picture facing the western horizon.

Party tent near the gulf. There is a restaurant nearby that would have served as a nicer picture (historic stone and whatnot), but I was too lazy to walk all the way back around. The Restaurant and party tent are "Karl and Friedrich." You figure it out.

Snow Angel in the playground/courtyard of the Georgian Church above. We were walking home late on a snowy night a few weeks ago (camera says Feb. 9th) and I really liked what some neighborhood person had done. When I took Karma on her evening walk I brought the camera with me.

Daria in front of the Museum of Anna Akhmatova.

This shelf no longer looks like this, although the picture was taken fairly recently we did some recycling. From the left: A bottle of Balvenie 12 year (thanks to my brother Erik as a Christmas gift given through Daria picking it up in Duty Free on her way back here) - truly a delicious single-malt and a family favorite; a bottle of Dewar's 12 year blend (thanks to Daria's dad for my birthday last summer) - normally I'm not a blend guy, but I won't complain about this delicious mix (especially considering it costs more than I pay for many single malts although Duty Free may change some of that cost); a Macallan 15 year (curtesy of some students of mine who played me like a fiddle - I thought they were interested in me, but they were doing research on what to buy me for my New Year's gift); Aberlour 12 year also brought by Daria upon her return as a gift to myself (hey Scotch is ridiculously expensive here and some of those bottles aren't as full as the boxes look). The local Paulaner BrewHouse (German beer, but brewed locally for that particular pub) had a special during Oktoberfest and our scratch out card awarded us two bottles of their fine Hefe-weiss (other prizes included t-shirts, free food, or a free liter in the pub). Finally we have come to 3 various bottles of Medovarus mead: Classic style in a beautiful winter bottle; wild honey/style; and classic style in a regular bottle.

Log and community

It has indeed been a busy time the past few weeks. I would like to highlight a few events in a different manner than previously done and then write about a few thoughts I've had the past few weeks.

To start in no particular order:

Daria and I went to a balalaika (traditional Russian instrument I've wanted for a while, but have had no money to buy) concert. The guy was incredible and we bought his CD with over 3 hours of music. He didn't play much of the traditional tunes, but it was incredible nonetheless and well worth going. Just fueled my desire to buy and learn.

Last Saturday we went to the home of famed poet and member of the intelligentsia Anna Akhmatova. Well the room she had that she shared with fellow intelligentsia member Nikolai Punin and his family (through his invitation, not through forced commune yet) during the early Soviet years. This room had a beautiful view of the courtyard of the Sheremetevskij Palace and Akhmatova was tolerated as a scholar of Pushkin, but her poems were not published during soviet times because she held anti-soviet views. Eventually she was sent to a gulag, but she did return to this apartment.

After viewing her apartment we went to a modernist concert in the aforementioned palace (possibly the former duke's private concert hall). The two composers were there, although many musicians played. Some of the pieces were wonderful, but some I found, well banal. Maybe banal isn't quite right, as it was obvious they worked hard to write them, but they didn't appeal to me. But some of their pieces were great and included things like musicians hitting a hand drum stuffed into her belt as she played the flute or using the piano to knock on the door as the vocalist then opened an imaginary door before continuing to sing. Overall, a good performance.

Daria and I also went skating in a park where it was evident that they used natural ice (maybe with some added water, but certainly some was there before) on the walking path in the park. They put up barriers and the rink was about 15-20 meters wide, but probably 80+ long. No zamboni so it wasn't perfectly smooth and this was a new experience for me, but quite enlightening. I can skate backwards on a smooth rink, but I cannot on real ice. I now have so much more respect for the early hockey players and figure skaters before the modern ice rink.

Prior to the skating we were at the end of the park and walked out onto the gulf. Seriously, I cannot get enough of the frozen gulf. Saw the re-frozen part where someone had fished. We also went into a small zoopark and saw some foxes, deer, ostriches, and a goat escape his wooden pen because someone was illegally feeding the animals. The poor sheep left behind wanted the food, but couldn't escape.

I have also been sick, missed some work, had some Russian lessons on skype b/c I was sick and my teacher was sick. On Thursday I received compliments from two people that they can see my Russian progressing nicely. Neither are my students, but one is a person I speak to quite often on the way to the bus after work.

This evening (Sunday) we completed events by babysitting Nadia allowing Olya and Vova to attend the opera (Marriage of Figaro – Mozart). She is quite the wise child. Fortunately she’s also easily entertained with her favorite children’s cd.

Aside from events, I’ve spent the past few weeks pondering various things. One of the main things I’ve pondered is community. I don’t know if I can accurately express with words the differences I see and feel about community between the US and Russia. Certainly there are more people walking on the street and using public transit and public parks than I have experienced in the US.

I know that some of the differences come just from being in a city versus a suburban or rural area. However, there is something that I feel is different even more than that. The larger parks are always full of people playing with their kids, walking their dogs, walking without accompaniment, skiing, sledding, and quite a number of other activities. The smaller parks are full of kids always on playsets or slides. I’m sure people in places like NY or SF use Central Park and Golden Gate as well, but I perceive there is a community ownership of the parks in a way that Americans do not have. I suspect, although I am not sure, that this is left over from the American sense of the individual and the Russian concept left over from communism.

Additionally, there is an aura of community when people just walk down the street that lacks, even in other large cities. When I walk through NY I sense busyness and the hustle and bustle of a fast-paced life. When I walk on the streets of SF the ambience is of technology, youth, and hipness. When I was in college and went to Detroit I felt the hardness of working class life. Walking through the streets of Boston I feel a mixture of cerebral, working class hardships, and the spirit of the American Revolution. In SPB, I just feel community and communal ownership of the city. People in SF don’t walk the streets. They all drive. For an environmentally friendly city, the public transit sucks and there are cars everywhere. NY has public transit and lots of people, but the vibe is less friendly; at least from my experience.

Like I said, I can’t quite put my finger on the difference in feeling, and I really don’t know if my words did any justice. I recognize that I may be overgeneralizing quite a bit. I’ll also admit that my feelings may not be actual factual auras of the cities, but it is what I feel about here. Perhaps part of it is the legacy from communism; perhaps part of it is the apartments are smaller and there is less to do in one’s home so everyone is always out and about; perhaps part of it is city life that differs from the community of a small town like where I grew up. But I have been in many cities all across the US, Mexico, Canada, and all around Europe and I feel a sense of big city community that I haven’t seen elsewhere.

No down, no feather. To Satan's minion.

There is a transition at work right now. Many classes are ending and students will soon start their next level. My upper-intermediate class will soon be in advanced, but thankfully I will not be teaching them. While they deservedly have their reputation for being a difficult class (I was their third up-int teacher after they “fired” the first two and weren’t happy with me because apparently none of us are exactly like the teacher who taught all their previous courses – no duh, every teacher is different), I am more thankful that I will not be spending 12+ hours every Tuesday and Thursday with a schedule of: teach – Russian class – teach. My intermediate class (T and T evenings) took their final test on Thursday and I’m proud to report they all passed. My pre-intermediate class takes their test on Wednesday and I’m confident they will also prevail. We had to rush through their last few lessons to cover material in the book, but they seemed to grasp the concepts quite well.

Sadly one of my pre-int students will not carry on (actually he hasn’t been to class since the holidays) because he is in France for a semester abroad. I was glad that he and I, along with a couple other students, were able to grab a farewell drink before his departure. His personality will surely be missed in class. One of my intermediate students will also not be joining us for upper-intermediate due to time constraints and she wants to spend more time with her family. Completely understandable, but she will also be missed. Luckily we will still see her at the bar.

As noted last week, we had frosty adventures in Tavrichesky Cad. Sunday those adventures took us to a park where we went cross-country skiing. The park’s name translates to Central Park of Culture and Relaxation, but it is often known by its acronym, Ц П К и О, which sounds similar to “typical.” It’s not exact, but enough for me to remember the name of the park. Like Friday taking us onto the ice of the pond and canals, we skied on canals and depending on where you draw the line of the Gulf of Finland, we skied either on the Gulf or part of the river. It is certainly brackish water under the ice. Unlike English, Russian does not have a verb “to ski.” Rather you ride skis, кататься на лыже. That last word sounds similar to “luge” in English.

After an afternoon of skiing we went to the Philharmonic with Daria’s grandma and her free tickets. Once again I had to pay, but a whole 100 rubles, which is about 3 dollars. It's hard to believe that we can listen to Rachmaninoff (with an American soloist on the piano), and a later Russian composer whose piece was written in the 1970s.

Daria and I also started to read 2 pages a night in a Russian book to help me practice my Russian and to learn new words. I read aloud and she corrects my pronunciation (almost every word). I had wanted an abridged version of something like Dostoevskii or Pushkin, but their abridged works were still too difficult so I am currently reading a sci-fi/fantasy titled трудно быть богом, “Hard to be God.” It is about an historian from earth in our future that travels to another planet that is more like our medieval era. Overall it’s not terrible and actually still discusses some good philosophical issues. He is like a god to the people on the other planet and his role is difficult as he also tries to study them from a humanist, scholastic perspective.

It has also taught me a good phrase that one says when one is departing on a journey. Person 1) ни пуха ни пера.   Person 2) К чёрту. It literally means “no down (like goose down), no feathers” followed by “to the devil.” Oddly however, it’s a phrase for “good luck” on the journey. Perhaps a little more demonic version of “break a leg” (something bad meaning something good). And devil may not be best translation. Rather the figure is more like Pan from Greek mythology and has taken the role as one of Satan’s minions. When you speak of чёрт on its own he’s the minion, but in the phrase it carries none of the negative connotations, or at least none that I know of. However, in my mind all I can think of is some of the characters from Dante's "Inferno."

Lastly, I’m glad today got cooler. It warmed up the past few days and when the temperature sits around the freezing point it’s very bad to be on the street. Enough water melts, but then it still freezes and people fall everywhere. I took a spill on Friday and while mine wasn’t bad, I hate to think of all the elderly trying to walk on that stuff. The current temp is -7C, so I’m glad for that.

Daria's return, frosty adventures, and linguistics part 2

To begin with, Daria returned last Friday night/Saturday morning. The plane was supposed to land around 5pm, but due to a snowstorm in Germany (layover), it didn't leave Boston until later because they knew they couldn't land, thus arriving in SPB about 2am. This new arrival pushed the transportation costs to the airport and back from less than 300 rubles to about 2200 rubles because we were forced to take a taxi after the metro and busses close for the night. However, despite the late arrival, she arrived safely and it's great to have her back in Russia. The pets, grandparents, and me most of all missed her presence here and we're all glad for her return. (Added bonus, I got some of my aunt's caramel corn via air-Daria).

We rested all day Saturday sleeping half the day away. Before Daria's departure, she and I had been talking about replacing the bed here. We had a beautiful old futon-esque bed (where you store bedding underneath when it's folded up and therefore is more of a bed than what Americans think of as a futon which is more couch that can be a bed; these types of beds are common here in Russia and many European countries with small apartments), with a sturdy wooden frame, and it once had a solid straw/wood mattress (actually comfy straw, not unpleasant). However, it was quite old, possibly 50/60+ years. Therefore on Sunday, Daria and I went with Olya, Vova, and Nadia in search of bed and bought a new bed. We had hoped that the old bed would be moved to a different room since it would be fine for a two week stay, but grandpa decided to just throw the bed out. The new bed has done wonders for a better night's sleep. It is also futon-esque though so it's quite nice to sit on when propped up. The animals also love it quite a bit.

As for the frosty adventures, Daria met me after work today in Tavrichesky Cad. We had a wonderful walk through the park and we ventured down onto the frozen pond and walked all over the pond. There's also a strip where people cleared some of the snow off the top and you run on the snow and then slide on the ice-strip. There is a meme on vkontakte (Russian social website) that has a picture of such ice-strips with the comment "You know what to do." Well, Daria and I had a fun time running and sliding for a while. Additionally, we enjoyed watching people ski around and all the kids slide and/or sled down the embankment onto the canals/pond. Lots of wintery fun was had this afternoon in the park.

Daria skating on the pond.

You can also notice that I've learned how to put photos in the blog. In addition to the winter fun we had outside, I had a chuckle the other day about how people put frost on their windows to give a winter atmosphere. Here we get the real deal and it looks beautiful, especially as the light fractures and glistens.

Moving into the linguistics part 2 on a few things I forgot last week. First, I read an interesting article about how knowing more than 1 language is good at staving off later-life diseases like Alzheimer's.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/01/10/169066535/speaking-more-than-one-language-could-prevent-alzheimers

Secondly, I've been pondering over the past few months about business people learning multiple languages for their work. Many people around the world learn English for business, but why not encourage a majority/all of business people to learn two languages? Native English speakers should also learn languages like German or Japanese for business. With multiple people in a company knowing different languages, a company would be able to thrive with multi-national meetings/partners much better.

The last part of linguistics that I thought was interesting was that the word for 'pen' in Russian is ручка (roochka) which is also the same word for a door handle or a handle on a teapot. It is rooted with the word for hand рука. I hadn't thought about it for English, but we also share "hand" in "handle."

Until next time.

Holidays and Linguistics

So I'll start with how the holidays happened. We had this break that was a couple weeks long, and clearly which I did not write, nor did I learn how to post pictures or do links in the blog. I relaxed, took Karma on actual walks, watched TV through pirated streaming and watched DVDs of which every DVD had an intro about the evils of pirating movies and TV. I was a bad student and didn't do any Russian homework.

However, I wasn't a complete dud. I went out to the bar with some of my students so I practiced some of my Russian and they practiced their English. I also visited Olya, Vova, and Nadia. The day I visited them started with just Olya and Nadia. We went to a playground and Nadia was absolutely adorable playing and swinging and climbing up the steps to go down the slide and up the steps and down the slide and up the steps and down the slide. Wonderful. I spoke mostly English with Olya, but when Vova came home the conversation transitioned into as much Russian as we could muster and it was good. Nadia kept wanting to talk to баба (baba), the more endearing term "grandma" as opposed to the long form, grandmother. Vova kept trying to fake her out with the phone calls, but she kept asking to speak so they finally called and told баба that Nadia wanted to speak to her. It was mostly just short sounds and animal noises (grandma asks "what does a dog say?" Nadia replies "Af Af" -woof woof). Lots of animal noises for the phone call that Nadia insisted on happening. Wonderful day though.

New Years itself consisted of me hanging out with the grandparents while Daria was off in the US for interviews. We had a nice dinner of festive foods like winter salads while Karma feasted on some ham that grandpa kept giving from the table. And of course they gave me the lions share of the champagne, which doesn't work for me. Russian grandparents always make the younger generation eat and drink more. There are pictures in the meme world of "before grandma's house" and "after grandma's house" that change from thin to fat. Well, they kept making me drink the champagne until I put a stop to it and had the rest with a mimosa in the morning. But it was a nice New Years with good celebration, present exchange, watching Putin give the Presidential speech, and the talk show hosts to follow.

During the holidays I met up with a friend from the US who is Russian and who came for some of the holidays. It was nice to see a good friend whom I haven't seen since college graduation, even if it was for a short time and grabbing a coffee.

I also tried to venture out for things, but the weather was too warm for things like skiing and skating as it even reached +5 C over the holidays (although currently it has dropped back to -20 C). I should have skipped the TV and ran out to throw a frisbee wearing shorts and flip-flops.

Overall it wasn't an adventuresome holiday like I had hoped, going to visit places like Stockholm or Copenhagen, but it wasn't a bad holiday either.

As for the linguistic aspect of this post, well . . .

I guess, first off, I've realized exactly how big my vocabulary is. Usually I'm able to grade my language appropriately, but every once in a while the only way I can describe a more basic word is with bigger words. This doesn't work. This then requires the use of a translator to give the Russian equivalent. I only hope the context isn't lost as it sometimes can be. However, I really have seen a big difference even in the everyday English that I normally use and the specialized jargon that I know. Every once in a while I come across a word that is a beautiful word, but we rarely use.

For example, I posted of facebook about teaching the word "macabre" which resulted in teaching Russians their own word макабричевскии, although I'll bet, it's a new word for them, coming in from French and English influence. None of my students, the school administrators, Daria's grandparents, etc knew this word. It has to be borrowed from English or French and then Russianized, but they didn't know what it meant. We got past that, but still.

Other examples come when sometimes someone will ask me about a definition and the only example I can think of is one or two levels above them, not something to describe what they would know.

And then, the macabre came out b/c the lesson in the book was about Jack the Ripper and other macabre topics, so I took the instance to teach them about Edgar Allen Poe, the piece "Masque of the Red Death" and the song by Thrice "The Red Death" about the poem.

My intermediate students learned about 35 new words (how much they remember I don't know), but I loved a few easy explanations like "opulence" - very rich, "inebriate" - very drunk, or "ebony" black." A difficult passage quickly turned to something understandable.

As for my own linguistic ventures, well I'm having a horrible time with the variations of one verb that depending on how you change it is either "teach," "learn," "teach yourself," and a few others and then moved into the past and/or perfect. This verb is killing me. 9 structures not including conjugation (for I, you, he/she/it, we, you, they) of each structure. This one word is my Russian bane.

Overall I think I'm doing well with my Russian though and I do try to speak as much in Russian as I can.

However the best news is that Daria returns to Russia in a couple hours. And with that news, I shall end my post.