24 June 2008: Crime and Punishment

Having had to read Crime and Punishment for our culture class, it only made sense to go on a tour through the neighborhood where Dostoevsky and his egomaniacal protagonist lived. Here are some pictures from the excursion. Naturally, it was a melancholy, drizzly mess: perfect for the setting of Crime and Punishment. WARNING: SPOILER ALERT. If you haven't read the book and don't want it ruined, don't read further.

This is the apartment building where Dostoevsky and his brother lived and worked at a print shop they had. If I remember correctly, this is also the building where Sonia (from the novel) lived.








The apartment where Dostoevsky lived while working on Crime and Punishment. I believe his was the one with the balcony. He was a very religious man, and it is said that his preference for apartments on cross-roads came from his religious obsessions.




The plaque that says "In this house, in the years 1864-1867 lived Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. Here was written the novel Crime and Punishment."






Raskolkinov lived in this building, in a tiny little closet of a room with terrible yellow wallpaper. I would have gone a little crazy, too.





This is the building where the old pawnbroker and her sister Lizaveta lived before Raskolkinov bashed in their heads with an axe.





It was on this bridge that Raskolkinov contemplated suicide after his nasty deed.




The tour was interesting, but ended quite abruptly as our professor found a bar he was rather fond of. So that was that.

23 June 2008: Adventures in a Russian Shopping Mall, and Other Stories

This blog is starting to get a little spare on details. I’m writing about stuff that’s happened about three weeks ago; needless to say, my memory’s a bit fuzzy. I really should have been taking notes all along, but sadly all I have now are my daily journals for Russian class (themselves a bit spare) and my pictures. Lucky for you, this time-lapse view spares you the general decay of my mind. I think I’m catching the Russia. For now, however, my daily journal and my pictures speak only of happy things, so general unpleasantness will be lacking.

I decided to run to the apartment quick after classes today to drop off my computer and stuff before going shopping with Karis and Daniel. As I approached my entrance to the building, I found my way blockaded by a very small, elderly man looking generally confused. I was actually kind of surprised that my coincidental co-entrance with another resident hadn’t happened sooner. I respectfully stood back a few steps so as to let the old man “magnet” himself into the building. (I have four keys: one is a little magnet that lets me into the building, one is a gigantic skeleton key to let me into the gate on our floor, one lets me in the first door of the apartment into a weird little in-between, and the last lets me from the in-between into the apartment.) Well, Little Old Man seemed a bit confused. Actually, Little Old Man seemed not to have a key at all. As I was beginning to wonder how to displace Little Old Man so I could get into the building, hoping to leave him to his thoughts, he noticed me standing there. “Babble, babble, babble?”
“Um, yes, I live here?”
He made a gesture to open the door. The thought crossed my mind that the other residents of the building might not appreciate my letting in a complete stranger, but then he was very old, and very little, so I determined that anyone could handle him if he became unruly. My plan to leave him confused in the stairwell was quickly abandoned as he introduced himself, shook my hand, and started a lengthy story, in the middle of which he stopped to ask me which apartment I lived in. Okay, so maybe two weeks into my stay, I might have taken better notice of that particular detail, but I didn’t, so I made something up. Most unfortunately, my made-up apartment just happened to be the apartment of the woman our little old man was looking for. This led to another long string of questions involving someone named Galya and goodness-knows-what-else. Luckily for me, Irina happened to have introduced me to Galya (an unbelievable tiny, round woman with a pekingese) a few days earlier, so I replied that I did know who this person was. Also lucky for me was the fact that Little Old Man was so absorbed in his various stories that he didn’t notice the blatancy of my statement that I knew the woman I claimed to live with. The possibility of getting out of this without things becoming very awkward was rapidly vanishing when who pops in the front door but Maxim (dressed in his new checkered lilac blazer of which he was so proud.) The look on Maxim’s face translated roughly into “What the *insert favorite expletive*” I quite agreed. Maxim took control of the situation, but I wasn’t quite free, as I wasn’t sure whether it would be rude not to accompany the Little Old Man up twelve flights of stairs. It took a little longer than usual. At the end, he was very thankful for all our help (ha!) and shook our hands. I never really found out much more than I did from the old man. He was a guest of Galya and her husband, who wasn’t home. And that’s all I know.

I met up with Daniel and Karis at the metro station shortly after this little adventure. We made our way to Gostiny Dvor, an arcade-style shopping mall on Nevsky Prospekt. From what I understand, Peter the Great had it built for exactly this purpose (shopping!) back in the 1700s. Our mission: to find Karis a new purse/bag/thing. After finally figuring out how to get into the mall (trickier than you realize), we found ourselves in the “Bag Store.” How convenient! We found everything from tiny (and in my opinion, useless) clutches to gigantic off-road suitcases with built-in compasses, but no bag for Karis. All were either hideous, or outrageously expensive, or more often than not, both. We made our way all around the mall in our quest, to no avail. A side mission was to find some black shoes for me, since I left mine at Brown. Finding shoes that don’t look like they were stolen from a monstrous elf, a smurf, or Crocodile Dundee was kind of challenging. Finding shoes for less than 17,000 rubles (about $680) was even more challenging. We were probably judged a lot for walking through stores in our jeans and T-shirts, but that’s okay . . . we were judging them, too. Russian’s have a very . . . different . . . view of what’s fashionable.

After our failed, but educational expedition into the world of Russian fashion, we made our way back along Nevsky to the metro station. I found a high-end boutique in our city guide and thought, since we had so much fun gawking at the outrageous things in Gostiny Dvor, we might take a gander there. The boutique was appropriately named “Defile.” There was an abundance of articles whose purposes we could not discern. There was one shirt (?) in particular that just about gave Daniel a seizure. I wasn’t too far behind. The X-Files theme in the background was fitting, I think.

We made one last pit-stop before leaving the area. I’d heard of a Lutheran church I kind of wanted to see. Lutherans, in Russia? Sounded interesting, and interesting it was! We saw on the bulletin board outside that services were given in Russian and German. Hm, German. We noticed that the German name for the church was “Schwimmbadkirche” or “Swimming Pool Church.” Also interesting. When we got into the church, we had a heck of a time finding the way into the sanctuary. All we could find were a bunch of bulletin boards featuring pictures of the church from the days when the Commies had turned it into, you guessed it, a swimming pool. I was bound and determined to get in, so I asked the woman working in an office off to the side whether we could look in the church. Funny thing about that . . . in the second between opening my mouth to say something, and actually saying it, my brain pulled a funny little trick. Recalling that the sign outside said services were offered in German, my logic held that the people working in the church would speak German. Also, if the services were in German, then perhaps they would be used to German-speaking people coming in. Further still, I could pass for German to someone who doesn’t know any better. So, tired of not knowing what was going on in general, wanting for once to be in control of conversation, and really wanting to see the church, I did a bad thing: I asked the woman in German. I’m generally against forcing non-native languages on people in their own countries, but I feel slightly vindicated that, at the very least, it wasn’t English. It worked, though, as the woman (who didn’t speak German at all) was generally exasperated enough to just point the way upstairs. The church was laid out in good Lutheran style, that is, not laid out at all. The place was very peaceful, very quiet, and very white. And it still had that swimming pool feel.

One last note from the day concerns Russian superstition. Russians are a very superstitious lot. It leads to a lot of spitting, spinning, and the occasional digestion of “lucky” tramway tickets. As we came out of the church, we saw a black cat run across the path of a man in the square. He jumped. We giggled.

21 June 2008: Петергоф

Today we had another excursion, this time to Peterhof, summer residence of Peter the Great. It took us about an hour and a half, which, in a bus sans air conditioning, was kind of unconfortable. The palace itself isn't super huge, but the fountains are phenomenal. I've never seen such amazing fountains at a palace before. It's all run without machinery, but utilizes the principles of falling water: water falling from a certain height will automatically want to rise to that same height, so the engineers who made these fountains just diverted water from a high hill far away and let it gush up through the pipes. We got to see the inner workings of this (and got a little wet!), but the pictures aren't very pretty.

The sad thing about visiting palaces in Russia is that they were all largely destroyed during the Second World War, meaning almost everything you see, from the statues, to the interior décor, to the paintings, is a replica, or was taken from somewhere else. The promising implications of this, though, is that there are still some very talented artists in the world whose work can meld seamlessly with the masters of the past. (At least it's seamless to me. I can't tell the difference.)


My first sight upon entering the palace grounds. There were two such towers: one on the guest pavilion, and one on the chapel. If you look closely, the double-headed eagle, the imperial seal of the tsar, stands on top.







The view of the palace from the gardens. The red and yellow things in the middle were big balloons, part of the fountain-starting ceremony that takes place at noon.


The main entrance staircase. Only one woman could go up it at a time, given the size of the dresses. Peter did this on purpose, so that every person coming in would have an initial skepticism about the palace which would slowly develop into awe as they moved further within.









Not my throne.









The main dining room. I guess dinners could last up to eight hours or so. Given that women spent around five hours pruning for the day, that didn't leave a lot of time for much anything else.



This is the wife of Tsar Nicholas I, I think. If this is true, that makes her Empress Charlotte of Prussia. I dont' know anything about her; I just liked the picture.









This is the grotto under the palace and behind the fountains where Peter would carouse with his sailor friends.







The fountain entitled "Samson Tearing the Jaws of the Lion" or some such thing. Samson was the symbol of Peter, like Apollo was the symbol of the Sun King. The lion is supposed to represent King Charles XII (that's a lot of Charles-es), king of Sweden whom Peter defeated in the Northern War of 1700-1721. (See, I pay attention!) Peter started it. The jet of water coming out of this thing is around 60 feet tall. (It comes out of the lion's mouth.)

The palace with the fountains going.









More fountains. The Samson fountain is in the middle.









A nice-looking statue. Apollo? I don't know. Let's say it's Apollo, sound good?









Another pleasant statue. Don't know who this is. Hermes? Eros?



Yay, clouds.

20 June 2008: Аллей Паруса

"Hey, Drew, how are all the drunken Russians treating you?" "Have you gotten hammered yet?" "How's the vodka?" These are variations on a lot of messages I've been getting from people. I have been responding by explaining that I haven't met any drunk Russians (well, Boris was getting a little goofy, but that was just once . . .) and I haven't even seen any vodka. Something seems to be amiss. This is my standard response . . . until now.

Today was the day of Аллей Паруса (pronounced "alláy parusá"). It is basically a huge party celebrating the end of the school year for all the students. Imagine millions (this is not an exaggeration) of Russians, under the full influence of their favorite beverages, and very excited about the end of the school year, and you start to understand the chaos that descended upon the city. Karis, Dan-Bi, and I went with Galya, Boris, Katya, and Katya's brother Kostia down to the waterfront to await the fireworks. After waiting for an extended period of time, and after suffering the ravings of a very inebriated individual who seemed to harbor a certain displeasure towards Japanese people (which Dan-Bi isn't, by the way), the fireworks finally started . . . just in time for us to leave. I still don't really understand the rationale behind this, but that's okay. The fireworks we saw were very impressive, as was the accompanying light/sound show. They played Sheherezade, which is always a treat. The explosions reverberated throughout the city, setting off car alarms everywhere. Then car alarms set off more car alarms and the whole city rang with the joy of liberated students.


This is a boat. Or a "tall ship." I have no idea what it's called, but it's apparently the symbol of the city and only comes out this one day per year. I don't know where it comes out of, as I don't imagine it is very easy to hide such a ship. I asked what it's called, and someone said Аллей Парусал, but someone else said that that's the name of the celebration, and a third person said both. I looked it up, and it seems to mean a trail of ships, so who knows. As with most things Russian, no one really seems to know what's going on. It was very pretty in any case.

This is a bridge decked out in twinkle lights for the occasion. I was playing with the nighttime features on my camera . . . with limited success at holding it still. I thought this was kind of neat though.






Fireworks! I love fireworks. Please excuse the tree. Please excuse, also, my momentary forgetfulness: a video of the fireworks would have been so much more effective.

19 June 2008: The Russian Museum Part I, a Boat Trip . . . and my Birthday

Happy birthday to me . . . not that anyone knew. After all, we can't go around giving people more birthdays than they deserve. (There's a funny thing about that, actually. Forgive the long parenthetical, but I forgot when this story actually happened, so I'll stick it here. Irina and I were playing show-and-tell with our passports. That hawk-eyed lady instantly noted my real birthday and proceeded to interrogate me concerning the confusion. "You know," she said, "we would have celebrated it twice." I made a lame Russian joke about having one birthday per year, à la Cheburashka, but she found it humorous. She compensated for my lack of real birthday by giving me a three-hour DVD about St. Petersburg.) Okay, so I guess that's all that was going in that paragraph. Parenthees uneeded.



Today we had class in the Russian Museum for the first time. It was nice to learn about icons, those famous, depressing pictures you see in all Russian churches. Okay, so maybe they're not depressing for everyone, but saints and people always seem so very sad in all of them! Come on folks, cheer up! Our tour guide is really quite endearing in the sense that everyone hates him so much I can't help but like him. He is the stereotypical bone-dry art historian who talks at about sixty words per minute. The variety in length of his "um"s really gets me giggling on the inside sometimes. He knows a lot, clearly, but he talks so slowly. The docents have taken to whispering to us that we should ditch him and wander the museum by ourselves.



This is the oldest icon in the Russian museum. It came from Byzantium, which was the original inspiration for the Russian icon. The distorted facial features and unrealistic proportions are supposed to reflect the other-wordly nature of the subject. They're supposed to be windows into another world, but not a window in the Renaissance sense of perspective, but a window through which the subject looks at you. He didn't have anything to say about why they look so dejected.



Yes, this is a blue rectangle. There is nothing here, so it's best not to try to find anything. My camera was very upset at finding nothing to focus on. This is the sky, perfectly cloudless. So rare here . . .





We had a bit of time after the museum tour to ourselves before the boat tour. Henry knew of a pizzeria he had found in the city guide, so we let him lead us (in a round-about way) there. The pizza was delicious (and cheap!), but the ubiquitous cigarette smoke was irksome. Someone told me they might be outlawing smoking in Russia. I had to laugh at that one.

I made a funny blunder in the restaurant. The waiter came by with a tray of silverware and put it down in front of me before disappearing again. Knowing that I didn't need four sets of silverware, I took mine and started passing the tray just as the waiter descended upon the table once more and scooped it from my hand. So embarrassing. The others tried to console me by saying the restaurant really didn't warrant such service. Can't say it helped much.

Then the boat trip. It was a really nice evening to a really nice day. Here's a picture of the embankment of the Moika river. Pretty typical St. Petersburg view.

This is the St. Nicholas cathedral. I have yet to go exploring here, but would very much like to. I guess it was the only church open during the blockade of WWII.

The sunset was so nice after our boatride that I had to take the opportunity to photograph St. Isaac's. This is a statue of Nicholas I, which stands just behind the cathedral.





Beams of light dancing across the marble pillars . . .








And the cathedral itself. Can't say the picture does its scale justice, but at least I got it in the sun for once.







All in all, it was a pretty nice day. Lots to do with plenty of nice weather. As Karis and I were on our way back to our end of town, Daniel called to wish me a happy birthday, so that was a nice little surprise, especially considering all the confusion. This picture was taken out my bedroom window at about 12:30 AM.





Ah, the tour of consulates continues! Here we have Australia . . .







. . . and the Netherlands . . .







. . . and China . . .

. . . and Italy (well, the visa center, which I assume is the consulate).

18 June 2008: Concert Tickets, again, and a Failed Excursion

The Mendelssohn, Grieg, Dvorak concert was too tempting to pass up, so I headed back to the concert box-office today. Karis, Daniel, and Benjamin came with, so that was nice. Company's always good.

We had a free afternoon and we were already in the city, so we took to exploring. Irina had mentioned a photo exhibit she'd heard about from a friend, so we decided to go check it out. We got to the address Irina gave me . . . it led through a creepy looking archway into a super shady courtyard. Well, I thought, there are four of us, and I'm confident in our running abilities, so we ventured inside. It turned out to be a movie theater (this country is so random) and the photo exhibit consisted of about a dozen pictures around the lobby. Random, indeed. Some of them were nice, but I wouldn't say it was particularly fascinating. Then again, I don't know how much you can expect . . . in a movie theater lobby.

We'd heard a lot about the Alexander Nevsky Monastery from our teacher, so we decided to head down there. I guess it's super old, founded around the same time as the city itself. The cemetery there is home to St. Petersburg's greats: Dostoevsky, Tchaikovsky, and so on. (Home to? Does that work with dead people?)


When we got there, we were kind of disappointed to see that we had to pay to get in the cemetery. There was a really terrifying woman with an insane amount of frizzy hair, and a similarly impressive lack of teeth, guarding the entrance, so no sneaking in for us. I did manage to snap this picture from the outside, though. Could these be the tombstones of legends? We'll never know.

We were further disappointed when we had to pay to get into the monastery proper as well. Karis tempted the fates by cautiously approaching the main gates. The fates chased her away in the form of a very disgruntled-looking, bearded priest in a black cloak. We gazed forlornly into the river for a bit, and then gave up the expedition all together.

17 June 2008: Concert Tickets

So, Karis was telling me about this piano concert that her host mother is taking her to. She said that if I were interested, I could find tickets for really cheap at the concert hall box office. She showed me a calendar of events at the hall, and pointed out which concert she was planning to go to. Looks like it’s going to be Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” which I love (really, if you haven’t heard “The Great Gates at Kiev,” it’s a tear-jerker) and Rachmaninoff’s eighth romance for piano. I’m not quite sure I know what that is, so it will be fun to find out!

Looking at the schedule of events, I noticed that the philharmonic would be playing a concert of Mendelssohn (always fun), Grieg’s piano concerto in A minor (Grieg’s also great), and Dvorak’s “Symphony from the New World” (downright awesome). I knew I had to check out prices for this, so I kept it in mind to ask when I went down to the box office.

Well, after classes, it turned out that I wasn’t the only one going down to the box office. I’d say about a dozen people are planning on attending this concert. I don’t know how many of them really know what they’re going to see (one girl asked whether it was experimental music), but more exposure to classical music is always good. I’d say they’re in for a treat.

When we got to the box office, it turned out that the student price for the tickets we ended up purchasing was 100 rubles, or four dollars. Four dollars! Can you imagine? After everyone had bought their tickets, I went up and asked the [very sweet old] ticket agent woman how much for the concert featuring Dvorak and the rest. She said that there were three ticket prices: 100 rubles ($4), 300 rubles ($12), and 400 rubles ($16). I’ll be going back tomorrow to pick up that ticket up, since I was stupid and didn’t bring enough money today.

There was a very pleasant surprise waiting in the box office. Off to the side, there’s the “Chocolate Café” featuring beautiful creations of chocolate, mousse, fruit, and other tempting things; and a gift shop. Inside the gift shop, there was a bass quartet and a soprano giving a little cabaret performance. It was really fun to just happen upon that. Hooray for video! Check it out. (Sorry it got a little shaky in the first one; I was trying to figure out how to zoom in, but I found out you can’t zoom while filming.)





After buying the tickets, we went for a little stroll. This is our friend, Pushkin. This statue stands in front of the main entrance to the Russian museum, right next to the concert hall, and is usually covered with pigeons. Today, Pushkin has traded his pigeon hat for a pigeon parrot, and a pigeon glove.









The Mikhailovsky Palace, these days the Russian Museum. This is the Northern facade.















Our stroll took us to the Summer Gardens again. This is Ceres.














As you can see, it was a lovely day.