Area Youth Falls Prey to Narcissistic E-trend

Saturday, October 25, 2003
Sunday: Kazan. Dragon's blood and Dune!
Within an hour of arrival in Kazan, I already liked it better than Nizhny Novgorod. See, Nizhny Novgorod committed what is, in my opinion, the most dire of sins: it was boring. Three days there was pleasant enough, but I think that after a few weeks there, I would have thrown myself off that oh-so-old kremlin wall. I mean, we drove 45 minutes just to look at wooden spoons, people.

Kazan, like Nizhny Novgorod, is old as dirt. It's the capitol of Tatarstan, and populated by both Russians and Tatars. All the signs are in both Tatar and Russian, and for the first time since my arrival in Russia, I wasn't the one with the weird accent.

Tatars are historically Muslim, which I understand caused some tensions in the area when the two ethnic groups started living side by side, but not nearly as much as in other parts of the world. In fact, the Kazan kremlin, which is this surreal white confection overlooking the Volga, contains both a tremendous mosque and a tremendous cathedral. The white walls were constructed by Ivan the Terrible. Before that, they were wood and earthenworks.

On the initial bus ride around the city, I spotted this great statue. It's young Lenin; in fact, Lenin is so young here that the statue is labelled "Vladimir Ulyanov," which was the name he was born with. The great thing about the statue, though, is that someone propped a "men working" sign at the base of it. Beautiful.

We visited the city's oldest mosque. I felt a little awkward going inside - even with my hair tied up under a headscarf and my shoes off, I'm still a Catholic. I felt like I should go find a mufti and apologize for the Crusades or something. Interstingly, the mosque was constructed on a donation from Catherine the Great, who was considerably less of an asshat about religious freedom than her contemporaries.

The Kazan theatre academy's architecture is another nifty nod to religious unity. The mosaics at the top of the bulding depict the tragedy-comedy masks, but since in Islamic art you can't show people, just geometrical designs, the tragedy-comedy masks aren't actual faces, but colors worked into a design of lines, so that you can only see a kind of mask-like representation if you're looking at the mosaic from the right direction and have a vivid imagination. I wish I had a photo, but my camera chose that moment to run out of batteries.

In front of the kremlin, there is this monstrosity:

I have no idea what he represents. There is a monument behind him, not visible in the photo, dedicated to WWII heroes, but that really doesn't explain why this big muscular guy is wrapped in barbed wire.

Inside the kremlin, there is a big leaning tower. The legend of the tower is sort of morbidly entertaining: Ivan the Terrible wanted to marry a local princess. The princess didn't want to marry him, so she told him that she'd only marry him if he could build a tower taller than any building in the city in three days, assuming he wouldn't be able to pull it off. But he did, so she threw herself off the top.

See? That's why it's crooked. It was built too sloppily and quickly!

Apparently, if it leans any more, it's going to fall on the president's house. I wonder if he's at all worried about that.

After the guided tour, we were turned loose on the city. Sofia, Amanda and I wandered around in search of local cuisine and adventure. What we found was a landscape that looked like something out of Dune, especially after I tinted it orange on my computer.

We ended up eating at a Turkish restaurant, which was delictable. Based on the name alone, we also ordered a bottle of wine called "Blood of the Dragon." It turned out to be 17% alcohol but taste like grape juice - a dangerous combination. The alcohol dulled our wits enough that we actually went to see The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, dubbed into Russian. The movie is entirely devoid of logic! Why is Mr. Hyde a giant troll, and why does he agree to help them? Why is Nemo's submarine the size of the Titanic, and if it is, how does it fit into the canals of Venice? And didn't Nemo die at the end of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, anyway? As did Dr. Jekyll, if I recall? Where did the invisible man keep his face paint when he was invisible? And what the hell, Tom Sawyer? And why did the evil factory have onion domes? And ROBOTS?! And Nemo had a missile? A MISSILE?

The only redeeming fact about that movie was that the guy who did Sean Connery's dub did an exact rendition of what Sean Connery would sound like if he spoke Russian. It was uncanny.

the Kazan kremlin at night
- declared by Liusia @ 6:45 PM

Sat: Nizhny Novgorod Day 3. The Cult of St. Sakharov and the adventures of St. Princess Olga
After breakfast, we took a tour of Sakharov's apartment and visited the Sakharov museum. For those of you not ridiculously obsessed with history, Andrei Sakharov created the USSR's H-bomb, then decided that nuclear bombs were a bad idea and turned dissident. He was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1975.

I'm not a big fan of Sakharov. Yes, it was brave and risky to speak out against the Soviet Union and argue openly for human rights. On the other hand, there were a lot of people who did the exact same thing who did not invent an atomic bomb. I can't help but think that one of them deserved that Peace Prize just a little more. Of course, because they didn't invent an atomic bomb, when they protested, they got sent to a Siberian gulag or put in front of a firing squad, whereas Sakharov was "exiled" to a comfortable apartment in Nizhny Novgorod and kept under KGB watch.

When I read Timequake and discovered that Kurt Vonnegut shared my opinion of the matter, I wasn't sure whether to feel vindicated or worried.

Anyway, after we finished up touring the shrine to St. Sakharov, we headed back into the countryside to see an old-style Russian town.

Basically, it was a buildings made out of trees, surrounded by trees. It looked a whole lot like northwoods Wisconsin, except with more creative fretwork on the shutters.

My favorite thing there was the ginormous well. Operating it takes four strong guys, two of them pulling and two of them running on this huge wheel. I have, using my mad photoshop skillz, drawn a little yellow aol-eque running on the wheel. He represents a Russian peasant man, although Russian peasant men traditionally wore clothing.

After this, we had a few hours of free time before we had to catch the train out of the city. Sofia and I went to a nearby Russian Orthodox church. She was looking for an icon of St. Aleksandr Nevskii, who is known for drowning invading Teutonic soldiers. He is always painted wearing awesome boots. I was looking for an icon of St. Princess Olga of Kiev.

According to the chronicle-writing monk Nestor:
Around the year 900, Princess Olga's husband, Igor, was out gallavanting around the contryside demanding tribute from nearby kingdoms. Igor was not the sharpest arrow in the quiver, and when he rode up toward one fortress's walls, a guard shot him dead off his horse.

The neighboring prince was pretty pumped about this. He sent messengers down the river to Princess Olga, saying that he killed her silly husband, and would she like to marry him now?

Olga was pissed, but she knew better than to give a powerful neighbor the finger. So she told the messengers she needed to think about it, and asked them to go sit in their boat while she did so. Then, she had her guys dig a big trench, and send a bunch of them back to the boat. The guys picked up the boat and carried it into the city with the messengers in it, grumbing the whole way about how Olga was such a pushover and they couldn't believe she was marrying this guy and why did they have to carry the damn boat anyway, what, where they going to be slaves now on top of all the other indignities? Then, they pitched the boat in the trench and buried the messengers alive.

Olga sent word back to the prince that she'd recieved his messengers and was considering his offer, but she wasn't particularly impressed by his wussy messengers, so if he really wanted her hand, he should send a batallion of his best knights. The prince bought it entirely.

When the knights got there, Olga was all, "wow, you guys are pretty impressive! I accept the offer! Now, go to the sauna and get yourselves cleaned up, and we'll have a feast to celebrate!" And once all the knights were inside, she locked the sauna door and set the building on fire.

Having taken out the prince's best knights, she sent back word that she accepted his offer, and she and her retinue and all his messengers and knights were on their way to his fortress for the wedding party, so the prince should have a tremendous welcoming feast with lots of mead prepared to greet them!

When Olga and her guys got there, she had her guys wait tables at the welcoming feast. Her guys played at grumbling, "oh, we see, this is how it's gonna be then, Olga's totally sold us out, that bitch," and acted as surly as possible. But once the prince and his kinsmen were drunk on mead, Olga's guys drew their weapons and slaughtered them. Then Olga had two kingdoms, which she ruled successfully until passing them on to her son.

Olga got to be a saint because a few years later, she decided that she wanted a trade relationship with Constantinople. She headed down the river and chilled with the emperor for a while. He was impressed with her political savvy and general coolnesss. Apparently he had not heard about her previous exploits, as he asked her to marry him.

Olga, clever chick that she was, pointed out that she wasn't a Christian and therefore couldn't be married in Constantinople. The emperor was like, no problem, we'll baptize you straightaway! I'll get the Patriarch to do it! But Olga told him that she, as a princess, refused to be baptized by anyone other than the emperor himself. So he baptized her, and then was all, "Let's get married!" and she was like, "no, you baptized me, that means you're my father in God and it'd be incestuous!" And the emperor, instead of being all "Olga, you bitch," was like, "Hahahah, how clever," and sent her back to Kiev with a sweet trade agreement. So Olga was the first Christian Rus', which means she gets to be a saint automatically. Huzzah Olga!

Anyway, back in the year 2003, I found my Olga icon, but there were no Alexandr Nevskiis. We still had some time to kill, so we decided to wander around the kremlin wall.

This graffitti was inspired. Somebody originally painted "WHITE POWER" on the wall, but a later genius came along and added "BLACK-", turning a message of hate into a message of solidarity! Huzzah, creative Russian graffitti-ers!
- declared by Liusia @ 5:22 PM

Fri: Nizhny Novgorod Day 2. 1000 Years of Spoons!
9 am, we loaded into another bus and headed out of the city in search of a spoon factory. On the one hand, the spoon factory was pretty cool. On the other hand, a spoon factory? The hell?

But the excursion was livened up midway through the ride, when the bus starting making noises like it was about to explode, forcing us to evacuate into the Tatarstan forest.

Those of us with a more active sense of humor wandered around the forest, taking pictures of each other acting lost and terrified. We had just posed for a photo werein Sofia, Kait and I represented the confused and dim proletariat and Amanda embodied Lenin leading us to freedom, when the bus driver managed to do something that stopped the bus from exploding. Warily, we re-boarded. Whatever he did must have worked, because we made it to the spoon factory in one piece.

If you believe the factory tour guide, people have been making wooden spoons here for 1000 years. Outside the factory, there is a statue of a guy named Semyon Lozhkar holding a spoon. The Russian word for "spoon" is "lozhka," so we theorized that good ol' Semyon invented the spoon. Thank God for the people of Nizhny; without them we'd still be eating with our fingers!

I think the tour guide might actually have explained the statue, but we were too busy making fun of it to listen.

The factory was actually pretty awesome. They've branched out from the lucrative art of spoon-making into painting religious icons, making decorative cookware, and carving those little matrushka nesting dolls. Apparently everyone who works there is some kind of craftsman, as everything is hand-carved and hand-painted.

These craftspeople are geniuses. For example, someone made a kremlin out of vodka bottles! And dude, check out this plate!

Upon returning to the hotel, Katia, Kait and Amanda designed and created a Soviet version of clue, in which Trotsky is Mr. Boddy. The suspects included the poet Mayakovsky and Stalin's favorite actress, Liubov Orlova. Weapons included the hammer, sickle, poison, starvation, and, of course, a pickaxe. They even designed the board and made up all the necessary cards. Meanwhile, Sofia and I played chess. I won, but only because the chess set was made of matrushkas, and she couldn't tell her king and queen apart.
- declared by Liusia @ 5:21 PM

Thurs: Nizhny Novgorod. Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to freakin' tidy up the murder scene.
We arrived in Nizhny Novgorod bright and early, and unloaded into the hotel. The name "Nizhny Novgorod" means "Lower New City," which fellow Amerikanka Amanda decided was lame. She rechristened the city "Maximgrad" after Maxim Gorky.

Sofia and I checked into room 453. I'm sure I've mentioned Sofia before in the journal, but to reiterate - she's one of the other American Hertzen students, a Classics major, and extremely witty and sarcastic. For obvious reasons, we get along well. Anyway, the first thing we noticed upon entering the room was that we had a very dramatic and depressing view of the Volga river. The Volga is tremendous and impressive, but this time of year, the trees are nearly leafless and the brush is yellow-brown, and the sky is grey. It looked like Heathcliff should be out there banging his head against a tree.

Oh, Cathy, Cathy!

The second thing we noticed was the distinct aura of crime-scene that filled the room. A big section of wallpaper had been replaced on one wall, a smaller on the other. A large rug covered a random section of the floor. And there was some bloodsplatter by one of the lights.

Okay, so in the picture, it looks like a couple of squised bugs, but up close it was definitely a splash of rusty droplets. Creeeepy.

After check-in, our group loaded up into a bus for a tour of the city. We stopped at a couple of churches, but frankly, they weren't that exciting. The views were very pretty, though. Maximgrad is full of vistas.

Chkalov, who sailed to the North Pole or some grandiose pointless thing like that

The really impressive thing about the above church is that is it, for no readily obvious reason, entirely surrounded by cranes. Sofia, being the keen classicist that she is, suggested that it was perhaps a scheme to protect the church from attacking ships, like the devices Archimedes built along the Greek coast to thwart the invading Roman fleet. Sofia's theory makes as much sense as any other, really.

After the bus tour, we took a walk around the city. Where St. Petersburg has eradicated most of its Soviet architectural imagery, leaving only a few Lenins sprinkled about, Maximgrad is full of hammers and sickles. I'm not sure why I find that so appealing, but I do.

We walked around the city's kremlin. The protective wall and turrets are simple red brick. Humblingly, the walls have been there for more than twice as long as there has been a USA.

Inside the walls there are, of course, government buildings. There's also an exhibition of WWII vehicles and weapons. There's something reassuring about seeing tanks and bombers cemented to the ground and covered in climbing children.

Upon returning to the hotel, Katia, Kait, two Amandas, Sofia and I split a bottle of vodka and watched some really terrible American movie dubbed into Russian that featured Rutger Hauer as a blind samarai. Maximgrad does not have a particularly thrilling night life.
- declared by Liusia @ 5:20 PM

Wednesday: Poezd v ogne
Unfortunately, Katia didn't get around to doing the evil-eye egg test before we left, so my accursed status remains unconfirmed. However, I'm starting to think I should just leave it like that. That way, when bad things happen, I can say, "huh, must be the evil eye" instead of "Oh, my God, I am such a loser."

At 4, Hertzen University's horde of American students met up at the vokzal and loaded into the train to Nizhny Novgorod. We took up pretty much an entire train car, and I'm sure the Russians that filled the remaining five or so spaces were really happy about being stuffed in with a bunch of rowdy English-speaking undergrads.

Ah, the train. What can I say about the train? I've never ridden a real train before, and it turns out I wasn't missing too much. They rattle all over the place and the beds are too short. I was, however, glad to hear someone else make a joke about Dementors when the lights flickered and went out, because I had thought the same thing and was feeling quite dorky for it.

There was much playing of euchre and not much sleeping, as trains are cold and noisy. Ironically, my insomina made me better prepared to deal with this, as I am used to going around in a sleep-deprived zombie-like state, and can function on a few hours of uneasy dosing, albeit crabbily.

("Poezd v ogne" means "The train is on fire." It's a catchy Perestroika-era Akvarium song about this stupid train that is a metaphor for the Soviet Union. We, the listeners, are supposed to seize control of the train. Akvarium is basically the Russian version of U2, except even more pretentious. I can't help it, I love them anyway.)
- declared by Liusia @ 5:17 PM