Of Farewells and Chocolates

Today was both quiet and fun filled.  Things started when we went to the University, not for classes, but for a farewell party, of sorts.  Владимир Алексеевич and a couple of staff members who had been involved in helping our class gathered coke, grapefruit juice, and a really rather yummy variation of pizza from the Caucasus region, put it in the teachers lounge, and basically we all got together and talked, mostly in Russian, about how things had gone, and about home.  The pizza came in three varieties: meat, cheese, apple and капуста, aka cabbage.  It didn’t involve any sauce, and it was sort of like a calzone it was stuffed into the crust.  It was very yummy, and highly filling.  We didn’t get any where near finished with it all, although I do believe the others cleaned out the meat option pretty well.  It was a lovely way for us to end the month, in my opinion.  I am going to miss my teachers, even if I won’t miss Татьяна Алексеевна’s thrice blasted scenarios.  The faculty has also been really nice and accommodating.  I hope wherever I end up in France is half so nice.
After the farewell party, the four of us set out to achieve a long cherished goal.  You see, next to the university, there is..... a chocolate factory.  It’s a very good chocolate factory, that makes very good chocolate, and it has a little store that sells chocolate in the form of candy and cakes.  Thus, we decided long ago that by the end of this trip, we were going to buy a cake.  And we were going to devour it gleefully.  So, today we finally did.  We wound up coughing up 64 rubles a piece to buy a торте кармен, which turned out to be a sort of cake with a cream filling.  The top was covered by a layer of milk chocolate, and (having now eaten my portion of said cake) was incredibly tasty.  I highly recommend Болшевик chocolates to anyone who finds themselves in Moscow.  One of their stores is on Leningradsky Prospekt.  Look for it hard enough, and I’m sure you’ll find it.
Post cake purchase, we headed back to the dorm for a while, and then Carley and I proceeded to the final adventure for the day: the statue park.  You see, there is a park filled with interesting statues across the street from Gorky Park.  It’s rather fascinating.  Some of the statues are beautiful and captivating.  Some are ordinary and less than captivating.  A good number are creepy and captivating.  But still, it was definitely an interesting place to spend an afternoon, even if some of the statues were a little freaky.
Then we headed back to the dorm.  End of story.


On a rather sobering note, today marks my very last day in Moscow.  It’s rather sad and depressing, but I’m almost glad to be going home.  Moscow suits me in some ways, yes, but not, I think, because of Moscow.  No, the Russian capital suits me because it reminds me of another capital city in a different country.  I like Moscow as much as I do because it is so much like Bratislava.  I mean, they’re not exactly the same, but they are similar enough with similar enough languages spoken in the streets that in a way, it feels like Bratislava.  So, I feel at home here, but not for the right reasons.  I feel like I haven’t been able to give Moscow a chance to really be itself because of that.  At the same time, my experience here has been so radically different from my adventures in Bratislava that there’s no way I could ever mix the two up.  I would never place Moscow’s traumatizing metro escalators in Bratislava, any more than I would place my late night walks home from two trolleybus stops early here in Moscow.  I would never mistake the обшежити for the panelok where I lived with the Klimešes or the Lapinovs.  Still, I’d like to come back here some day.  It’s a nice place, and I’d like to get to know it better.  I just hope I’ll have more than a month to do so.

Of Convents and Duckies

Saturday, May 26, we spent traipsing around the Novodivechy (hold me to that spelling, and it will certainly be incorrect) Convent.  It was pretty enough, I suppose, but I wasn’t a huge fan.  It has some lovely history attached to it, though.  Peter the Great locked his sister up there after she participated in some sort of rebellion against him.  If I remember correctly, it was built by Ivan the Terrible.  I have to admit, I find it rather ironic that a Tsar dubbed  the Terrible was responsible for the creation for so many holy sites.  Just have to point it out.  At any rate, the interior of the convent was closed to visitors because it was the weekend, so we just looked at the exterior.  As I said, the buildings were very pretty, but nothing spectacular.  I don’t have very many photos, more because the convent is one of the (many) sights that forces you to buy a camera ticket in order to legally take photos or shoot video.  That is not to say that we haven’t occasionally, errrr.... fudged that particular rule, but I didn’t really see much point in doing so for the convent.
After the convent, we went to the attached cemetery.  Now, this one was more interesting, as the cemetery is one of the more famous ones in Moscow, harboring the decaying forms of people such as Chekov, Yuri Gagarin, and what was that guy’s name again?  Boris Yeltsin, or something?  Maybe you’ve heard of them.  It was interesting.... for a while.  Then the parade of gravestones got to be just a tad bit... repetitive.  In other words, you can only go for so long staring at tombstones, no matter how impressive they are, until you start wanting to smash them, because it’s so boring, and your feet hurt so much.  It gets even worse when your camera card fills up- then you have nothing to distract you from the boringness of it all.  That is, of course, the problem with guided tours- you have to stay with your group, and you cannot jump ship as you so long to do when you feel the time is right.  Still, several of the gravestones were seriously impressive, so it wasn’t a complete waste.
After the cemetery, the group split up.  Carley and I headed around a nearby lake in search of a statue funded by Nancy Reagan.  You see, there are a lot of ducks on that lake (ok, so I think it’s more of a pond, but everyone else called it a lake, and who am I to question popular opinion?), and they contributed to some sort of good mood in Mrs. Reagan during her visit to Moscow with her husband.  Thus, she commissioned a statue in honor of the duckies.  It’s a mother duck followed by a small army of ducklings (with a military sense of discipline, apparently, as they’re all in a straight line).  The statue is quite adorable, really.  
And.... that’s all really.  We went back to the dorm and crashed, reveling in the fact that we didn’t have anything else to do for the day.

Of Fountains and a Lack of Coherence

Forgive me if I'm slightly less than coherent.  I'm moderately intoxicated at the moment, and  while I think I'm capable of stringing words together correctly, I might be wrong.  
... Don't look at me like that, it's perfectly legal for me to be intoxicated, in both Russia and the US.


At any rate, to recount day two of our St. Petersburg adventure, we went to the Peterhof.  The Peterhof (for the millionth time, don't hold me to that spelling) is the home of Peter the Great.  It was the castle that he built (or technically, it's the castle that his daughter Elizavaeta I built on the sight of the much more modest castle that Peter I built) outside of St. Petersburg.  It's a very lovely place, with huge gardens.  We may not have seen all of it, but we saw plenty.  Sergei (our tour guide) cheefully informed us that we had probably walked a total of five kilometers in the three or four hours we spent there.  


The Peterhof is stunning.  It's a huge yellow Baroque style building with lots of gold gilding.  It has the same sort of feel as Versailles, only significantly less gaudy and over done.  As we approached the front, we cooed and took pretty pictures of the gold statues that were all over the place.  Nadia and Sergei told us that it would be better to wait until later to take our pictures.  This was confusing advice, to be sure, but we followed it.  The reason why they wanted us to wait, we discovered mid-tour, was that those statues?  Were part of a really huge and gorgeous fountain.  One of many, as it turned out.  There are 150 fountains at the Peterhof, and most of them are very unique.  When I get back to the states (and a reliable high speed internet connection) I shall post some of the pictures, and describe the fountains.


While we were there, we also got to look around at the main building of the castle, which is in the process of being restored.  You see, the Germans landed there and totally trashed the place during World War II.  After the war was over, the Russians began restoring the place.  They've got a ways left to go, of course, but it's all in the interior.  The exterior is stunning.

You can't drive to get to the Peterhof.  It's on an island, and there aren't any bridges.  You must take a ferry of a sort.  The ride will last for a good 45 minutes.  It's a lovely ride, with lots of pretty views.  I highly recommend it.  We took the ferry, and while I personally think that the ride up was better as we got most of the back portion of the ferry to ourselves, gratis early morning hour.  On our way home, I wound up sitting next to some middle aged German guy who didn't think me worth noticing.


We had lunch on our way back to the hotel.  Nothing fancy, mind you, just the Russian variation on hot dogs from a stand near the Winter Palace, but they were very good, and not too god-awfully expensive.
Also on our way home, we stopped at what I consider to be one of the top scariest places in Russia:  The deepest metro station.  Well.  It certainly terrified me, although I don't think it had any affect on the others.  I can certainly tell you that it didn't bother the others anywhere near as much as it bothered me, but then, no one else freaks out because of heights.  It got so bad that Nadia (who was in front of me) turned around and asked if I was ok.  Carley had to explain that I was really afraid of heights, and the down escalator was freaking me out.

For dinner, we ate at a great little Russian food restaurant.  It wasn't  too expensive, and I even got a rather yummy traditional Russian soufle cakey thing.  I don't remember what it was called, but it tasted awesome.  After that, we were planning to go see the bridges open (some of the St. Petersburg bridges open like drawbridges at night.  It's rather nifty to watch), but we got a bit... sidetracked.  First, it's the Eurocup for soccer right now, and so we thought "Oh.  It's another two hours until the bridges open.  Let's pop into the Irish Pub across the street from the hotel and see if we can catch a game.  And maybe something a little stronger than soda." Note that this meets everyone, including Nadia.  You have, of course, anticipated the punch line:  One soccer match and a rather strong cocktail later and a half, it's pouring down rain, and we're all too late to catch the bridges anyway.  Oops.  Oh well.  It was probably more fun anyway, and certainly explains why I'm slightly less than coherent.   I'm pretty sure that meets my alcohol quotient for the night.


Aaaaaand..... that's about it.  I'm dead tired at the moment, and am looking forward to sleeping a little bit more tomorrow morning.  G'night!

Of Early Mornings and Rivers

Now, normally, I begin with a recap of one of the past events of this sojourn in Moscow, but today we are getting something just a liiiiittle different.  It goes along with the insanity that surrounds me for the nonce.  It's 12:33 am at the moment, and this is more or less what's outside my window:

Ok, so maybe it's a bit darker now, but it's still quite light outside.  You see, I'm not in Moscow at the moment.  I'm in St. Petersburg, and while I may not be seeing one of the famed "White Nights", it still stays light freakishly late. 


Welcome to St. Petersburg, a relatively young city by European standards at roughly 309 years old (for those of you who can't be bothered to do the math, that's 73 years older than the United States of America), the home of many Tsars starting with Peter the Great, and the cultural capital of Russia.  Here you will find wonders such as St. Isaac's Cathedral, the Winter Palace, and many others.  St. Petersburg is.... not like Moscow.  How to put this.... Moscow reminds me of Bratislava.  It's a bit grimy, the people can be a bit standoffish, and it's very Soviet in its monuments and architecture.  This isn't to say that the older architecture isn't there, it's just that it's not as visible, and tends to be collected into certain areas.  St. Petersburg, however, reminds me of Paris.  It's clean, it has the old style architecture, and the people are slightly less stand offish.  I'm not sure which I prefer.  St. Petersburg is nice, of course, but I like Moscow.  It suites me, somehow, although that may just be because it feels like my host city.  Still, St. Petersburg is definitely a great city in its own right.


Let's see.... this morning started entirely too early- Carley and I woke up at 5:00 am- so that we could get to the train station by 6:45 to catch the fast train to St. Petersburg.  Thus, we spent the next four hours cheerfully whizzing across the landscape.  Trains are such fun.  I love them dearly, and am happy to have the opportunity to ride one.  Alas, they aren't as much fun as the old school trains in Slovakia; they're much more like trains in France.  Oh well.  Nothing's perfect, I suppose.  I was the only one to stay awake the entire trip as well, which made things a bit dull at times.


After the train, we dropped our bags off at our hotel, and went and got lunch.  It was quite good, and pretty cheap.  I had a cream and bacon soup, tea, and some sort of blini involving chicken for 99 rubles.  Not a bad deal, really.  After lunch, we wandered down the main street, before eventually stopping in a fancy confectionery, simply because dang it looked pretty, not to mention yummy.  We all wound up buying macaroons of differing varieties because they were fairly inexpensive, and looked intriguing.  I had mango, and it was quite good.  As we walked around, I had the great joy of discovering that the batteries to my camera died.  Joy.  Thus, I spent the rest of the day using my cell phone to take pictures.  Those are going to be interesting to get onto the computer....


After walking around for an hour or so, we went back to the hotel to check in and freshen up a bit.   The hotel is nice, for all that the corridor door hates me and is therefore very complicated to operate.  After our little break, we met our tour guide (who thankfully speaks English), and went for a driving tour of the city.  We saw St. Isaac's Cathedral, Alexander's Cathedral (I believe that's the name), a monument to Russia's navy, and a former prison who's name escapes me.  Dovstoyevsky was imprisoned there for a time, as was Lenin's brother.  We walked along the Nivah for a while, and I even got the chance to stick my hand in it.  Thus, I have officially touched the Nivah River.  (Again, any and all spellings are subject to extreme butchering.  Don't trust them.)  We also got to see a rather nifty battle ship called the Aurora.  By "see", I really mean "passed by in the car and stopped for three minutes tops to take some pictures".  Still, we saw it, I have pictures, and as Nadia said, no trip to St. Petersburg is complete without seeing the Aurora.


That's about it, really.  After the tour, we got some dinner, and collapsed in mangled heaps in our rooms.  5:00 am wake up calls do not an active evening make.  

Of Souvenirs and Rain

As today is another quiet day, I shall recount the tale of the weekend, which is the same tale for both days, really.
You see, we went souvenir shopping.  There’s a really excellent souvenir market on the outskirts of Moscow.  There, you can buy your souvenirs for better prices than the expensive souvenir shops on say, Arbot street.  Thus, armed with vast quantities of rubles that we really should have been using to feed ourselves for the next week, we descended upon the market Saturday afternoon.
It was quite a good marketplace, really.  Lots of people, many of the salespeople willing to negotiate (slightly) on prices.  More so if you were Russian, of course, but still a bit for the many foreigners who came.  We had been advised to speak in Russian by the people who had told us about the place, so we were prepared.
It was chaos.  So many people, so many goods... so much everything really.  It was almost a trifle overwhelming.  But we were determined, and on a mission.  I think I kept my head the best.  I was positively frugal.  I think I spent a total of 2,100 rubles over the... well, I’ll get to that later.  At any rate, that equates to roughly.... $70.  That bought me souvenirs for multiple people including myself.  I think most of the others went far, far past the 4,500 ruble mark (about $150). See, Dad’s frugality has rubbed off on me!  All in all, we spent so much time hunting around for good deals that we ended up not having time to get everything we wanted.  Thus, we came to the only possible conclusion: We had to go back on Sunday.
The only catch?  Sunday provided the joy of pouring down rain.  I mean pouring as in, Endymion Parade at Mardi Gras in 2012.  We still went, because we did need to go.  We really did.  I, however made my plans to go in, get what I needed, and escape.  I had something like three things left to get, so it wouldn’t be too difficult.  Besides, the buckets of rain meant that I wouldn’t be tempted to stay and get something else that I really, really didn’t need to get.  And it was so.  I went in, I got what I needed, I got out.  I sent a text to the others telling them that I was escaping the rain and would see them when they were done, and hopped the metro back to Белорусская (that’s our station).  From there, I sloshed back to the dorm, and enjoyed drying out time, figuring the others would be back within an hour or two.  After all, it was our second trip, and it was incredibly soggy.  Three hours later, the others come back, and we absconded to an internet café for a good connection.  
You want to know the really crazy part?  The others went back there again today.  They may keep the market, as far as I am concerned.  I still have money to eat at the cafeteria for lunch instead of having to have two meals of ramen a day.  Frugality really is a good thing in this regard.

Of Panoramas and Departures

I have successfully managed what I had previously considered impossible: I have been seated and  ordered at a Russian café with minimal difficulty.  Thus, due to my incredibly good mood, I shall offer you a blog while I bask in my success.


Thursday marked our visit to the Бородинский Панорама (and seriously, if you’ve been holding to my spelling of Russian prior to now, in this case don’t).  The Panorama is... rather amazing, frankly.  I couldn’t get any pictures because they forbid picture taking unless you bought a rather expensive camera ticket, but it. was. EPIC.  Imagine, if you please, a circular room that is something like eight meters high, and fifteen meters around.  Then put on the wall a fairly detailed painting of a battle sequence.  Add to that what seems to be a continuation of the painting... in 3-D.  We’re talking the remains of burnt houses, a fake horse corpse, grass, the works.  It’s terribly impressive.  The rest of the museum pales in comparison.  It has ver nice exhibits, to be sure, but it’s nothing special.  
Now, as to why exactly we would have this panorama, it’s all very simple.  On September 7, 1812, there was a rather epic battle that took place outside Borodino, Russia (a small town not too far from Moscow).  Like most great battles in those days, your cause of battle was a power hungry Napoleon.  This battle was the turning point in the war between Russia and France, eventually leading to the Russians being able to kick the French out of the country.  It’s commemorated every year with a parade, to my understanding.  This year, due to the fact that it’s the bicentennial celebration of the battle, it’s going to be an incredibly huge deal.  Shame we won’t get to see it.  Oh well.  At least we got to see the Panorama.  The panorama itself was the centennial commemoration of the event.  French painter (something I find rather ironic) Franz Roubaud was commissioned to paint it in 1912.  It took him 11 months, a really rather impressive feat that deserves a commemoration in and of itself.


Thursday also marked Valentina Borisovna’s last day in Russia.  From Friday on out, the four of us were on our own.

Of Paintings and Icons

So, as we aren’t really doing anything today (and frankly, I say thank God) I’m just going to write about yesterday’s excursion to the Третьяковская Галерея, an art museum close to the center of Moscow (I think.  This is a rough guess based on how far we went on the metro, and what I could see in the distance.)  Now, art museums I know, gratis a mother who was very fond of dragging her children to any art museum she could and forcing us to wander through them for hours on end.  Sometimes this was fine, like when we went to a Degas exhibition when I was seven or eight, and.... other times it ended in two seriously bored and annoyed children under the age of twelve.  Actually, it usually ended in two seriously bored and annoyed children under the age of twelve.  The end result is that while I have grown to appreciate art museums more in the past few years, I am still very wary of them and have a tendency to ignore a good chunk of the art in favor of what pieces interest me.  I’m not very happy when I don’t get to do this.  
Guess what?  When your teacher is giving you a guided tour, and he’s running on a limited time frame, you don’t get to wander around at your own pace and pick your paintings.  
The Tretyakov Gallery (as it’s called in English) is smaller than most art museums that I’ve visited.  Perhaps that’s why it’s a gallery instead of a museum.  I’m a little hazy on the historical details, but if I remember correctly, it was originally someone’s private art collection, which has since grown through donations and the like.  It has some really interesting pieces, including several more prominent Васнецов originals.  This would be paintings like “Богатыри” and “Иван-Царевич на Сером Волке”.  I think “Витязь на рапусте” is there as well.  All the same, some very nice Васнецов paintings.  Of course, there were a lot of other paintings as well, especially religious icons.  Icons are very important in Russian, because of the Orthodox church.  A lot of them are really beautiful, and fully meriting of their own portion of the gallery.  We didn’t focus on them very much, which despite the similarity between most of them, is a bit of a shame.  Still, it was nice to wander around an art museum and take in the art.  I just wish that I could have wandered around on my own for a while, without having to worry about keeping up with the rest of the group.  
By the time Владимир Алексеевич had to leave, Susan and Katie were pretty much done.  Carley and I both had things we wouldn’t have minded going back to see again, but we were getting towards the end of our ropes as well.  So, we ended up leaving early.  I did get some nifty things at the museum store, as they were incredibly cheap, and I hold out hope that the Третьяковская Галерея will be on the list of museums that offer free admission to students on the third Sunday of the month so I can go in and take a look around on my own.  Maybe I could get a better look at those Васнецов paintings, and some of those icons.....


By the by, I finished Game of Thrones.  It wasn’t all that long, and no, I didn’t ignore Moscow for it.  Blogging, very possibly, but not Moscow.  On another side note, I have concluded that I will probably be writing on this after I return to the US.  Such is the price of not blogging consistently.