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Saturday, December 06, 2003
Speaking of my English class...
Sometimes it ends up going a lot like this: Portrait of the Artist as a Middle-aged TOEFL Teacher

Okay, not really. But mostly because I don't know anything about Dublin.
- declared by Liusia @ 2:59 PM



More of the little things

In the classroom where I teach English, for some reason, there is a skeleton. I'm no forensic expert, but I'm pretty sure it's real and not a cast, which is really weird. First of all, actual human skeletons are really expensive. Secondly...the hell? It's just sitting in the back of the room, surrounded by potted plants and grinning evilly. Once I asked one of the administrators about it. She said, "Oh, there's a skeleton in your classroom? I guess there is!"

Walking to Amanda's apartment yesterday, I saw some truly excellent graffitti. I'm often impressed by the meaningfulness of graffitti, really. On the other hand, someone painted "Khui" (the rude word for penis) in five foot tall letters on the overpass by my apartment building. So I guess not all graffitti artists are deep people.



"against racism!"


I should sleep. I'm really crabby right now, and this insomnia isn't helping.

Anyway...smile!

- declared by Liusia @ 2:27 PM


Friday, December 05, 2003
It's the little things.
Sofia: "There's a rule against putting a preposition at the end of a sentence, eh? That's nonsense up with which I will not put!"

Today was, for a lot of little reasons, highly enjoyable. For one, we talked about the concept of the "Protestant work ethic" in one of my classes, and I got to laugh, because...yeah, I don't have one. I'm not sure if this is because I'm not a Protestant, or because I'm just an inveterate lazy ass. Possibly both. Someone was talking about how there's an inherent contract between employee and employer, and the only thing I could think about was my old job in one of UW's cafeterias, where I used to sneak off to the linen room in the basement and take naps in the big piles of freshly laundered tablecloths and towels. This brought a fond smile to my face.

Oh, I'll work. If I think something's important. The problem is that most of the time I can't be bothered to give a shit, because giving a shit would require, like, effort.

As I generally do on Fridays, I taught my English class. Sofia came along this time, as she has realized that as a classics major, she will probably end up teaching, and figured she should, you know, try it. Highlights included acting out the word "relay race," explaining the phrase "shut up!" and using Cardinal Richelieu as an example of the word "sinister." One kid kept insisting that she sleeps underwater, and since she's kinda weird, it's hard to say whether that was just bad English or she actually meant it.

You know, it's strange. I really enjoy teaching, although I firmly believe that children are little punks and want none of my own. I think this belief makes me more effective in the classroom, actually. Kids recognize schmucks, and will eat them alive, and actually, I like that. To insist that children are little angels is to disregard essential elements of the human character. People are not nice, and the primary difference between children and adults is that the children usually haven't yet learned to convincingly pretend that they are. At least you know where you stand with a little hooligan. I respect that. All I want to do is stick some knowlege in their head so that when they grow up to be evil dissembling adults, at least they'll be slightly less ignorant evil dissembling adults, and maybe will be better equipped to accomplish something other than useless malingering.

I also think that children should be instilled with a love of reading. When someone is reading, they're probably sitting still and being quiet, and when someone is sitting still and being quiet, they're not beating their wife or commiting genocide or poaching endangered species.

Wow, today must be Cynicism Day! Let's move on.

I also finished The Chronicles of Captain Blood. A large portion of the book was consumed in the form of Sofia, Amanda, Andrew and I reading scenes aloud in dramatic, silly voices, because that's really what the florid and silly prose calls for. And the book started to develop an increasing degree of homosexual subtext as it went on, which warms my heart. Arr. Man-lovin'. It be the way of the high seas!

I'm actually not sure why it warms my heart, but I suspect the reason is something like this: subtext is generally more intriguing than text, expecially in matters of the heart...and of the loins. In writing and film, sexual tension is almost always more interesting than actual sex. In the hands of a subpar writer, actual romance is vapid. Sex scenes get ludicrous. But authors are a lot more likely to be subtle when you get some gayness up in there, probably 'cuz they're wussies who don't want to offend people, but the net effect is that the gay bits sound a lot less ridiculous than the heterosexual bits, because the author hints instead of tells. Thus, the gay story is not told, and therefore doesn't end up sounding stupid.

In other happy news, Amanda, Sofia and I went to the good little tavern with the good pelmeni, and I had a brilliant revelation. One cannot get a mixed drink in this country, I realized, but one can get a glass of orange juice and a shot of vodka. Then, one can - wait for it - mix them together oneself. Yeah, shut up. My screwdriver was de-frikkin-licious, thank you very much.

Then we went to Amanda's apartment and watched terrible TV. We watched a terrible movie with vampires. Then we watched a terrible movie with Michael Douglas and Andy Garcia, who went to Japan for some damn reason. I don't know why, because we watched it with the sound turned down, and made up our own dialogue. In our version of the story, Garcia is a star investigator, but he's paired with Douglas because has a serious weakness: cannibalism. Douglas' job is to keep him from eating people, so that he can sucessfully solve the case. But Japanese "food" is so tasty!

I really think that most movies would be better if we wrote the screenplays.
- declared by Liusia @ 6:16 PM



A conversation I overheard in the taxi-bus
The characters:
a young woman, clearly a Petersburg resident
a young man, wearing a silly hunting cap with large ear flaps, clearly a tourist, albeit a Russian one, who was trying very hard to make the young woman laugh

man: Whoa!
woman: What?
man: What is that thing?
woman: (bemused) That's the Vostannya metro station.

man: It's super classy! Wow, Petersburg is so cool!
woman: Um...
man: Whoa! That's huge banner! (referring to the two story tall Edinaya Rossiya political party banner that, ahem, "graces" the side of a buliding in Ploshad Vostannya, and has this emblem on it: )

woman: Yes, it is.
man: Edinaya Rossiya is the party of bears, I see! The party of bears!
woman: (trying really hard not to laugh, as Petersburgers are supposed to be stalwart and grim in public for some reason) Of bears?
man: But bears don't vote! Oh, I bet they're metaphorical bears.
woman: (finally busting out laughing) Yes, metaphorical bears.
man: It's so symbolic! Like great literature! Hey, are we near Ladozhskaya metro station yet? (no. They weren't even on the right island.)
- declared by Liusia @ 4:47 PM



US Gov't to Americans: Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid
Yes, that's right, kiddies, it's time for another warden message. Here's what the friendly US government has to warn us about today:

St. Petersburg, Russia

December 5, 2003

This is a warden message for all American citizens. Please distribute it to
your American friends and colleagues. If you are a Warden, please notify
your warden group members who do not have e-mail. If you need emergency
assistance, please contact us by e-mail at acsstpete@state.gov, by fax at
7-812-331-2646 or phone us at 7- 812- 331-2600.

Media reports have raised concerns about possible terrorist activities
during this period of Russian elections scheduled for Sunday, Dec. 7.
Russian officials have reported to the U.S. Consulate General that they know
of no specific threats targeting any specific location and more
specifically, they know of no threats targeting American interests. Should
we become aware of any specific threat information, we will take necessary
action.

You should expect to see a heavy militia presence throughout this weekend.
The U.S. Consulate General encourages all American citizens to remain alert
to their surroundings and maintain a low profile during this period.

As the Department of State continues to develop information on any potential
security threats to Americans overseas, it shares relevant threat
information through its Consular Information Program documents, available on
the Internet at http://travel.state.gov.

Just another warning that terrorist could strike at any time, any place, without warning. Someone tell me again what the goal of terrorism is? Oh, right, terror. Way to go, US government, with your vague stupid warnings. There is a highly technical term for this kind of thing: playing into their hands.
- declared by Liusia @ 4:24 PM


Thursday, December 04, 2003
I just want to make two things clear.
1)The St. Petersburg Times is, in fact, an excellent newspaper.
2)I was on vacation when this article was printed.

- declared by Liusia @ 4:20 PM



Arr!
I'm reading a truly excellent book right now - The Chronicles of Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini. It's very short, and I'm going to be mopey when I finish it, which I will probably do tonight. For those of you not deeply engrossed in pirate lore, Captain Peter Blood is an (entirely fictional, I believe) Irish pirate who started off as a doctor, got mistakenly arrested in the aftermath of the Monmouth Rebellion and was sent to be a slave in the Carribean. But then he and a group of other slaves stole a Spanish sloop and began their utterly implausible adventures on the high seas. It's beautiful story, guys.

[Captain Easterling] turned his fury upon Blood, balancing the pistol ominously. "You sneaking leech! You college offal! You'd ha' done better to ha' stuck to your cuppings and bleedings, as I told you."
His murderous intentions were plain. But Blood was too swift for him. Before any could so much as guess his purpose, he had snatched up by its neck the flagon of Canary that stood before him and crashed it across Captain Easterling's left temple.
As the captain of the Bonaventure reeled back against the cabin bulkhead, Peter Blood bowed slightly to him.
"I regret," said he, "that I have no cup; but, as you see, I can practice phlembotomy with a bottle."


Upon what would happen to him, [Blood] scarcely dared to dwell. He knew the revolting cruelties of which a Spaniard was capable, and he could guess what a spur of rage would be the Spanish admiral's.


"It is Monsieur Jeremy!" she cried, and added, quite needlessly, thought Mr. Pitt, "I was not expecting you."
Jeremy [Pitt] took the hand she proffered and bore it to his lips, more or less mechanically, whist mumbling a greeting in his indifferent French. Followed an exhange of commonplaces, and then an awkward pause, at the end of which said Tondeur with a scowl:
"When a lady tells me I am unexpected, I understand her to mean that i am inopportune."
"No doubt a common experience in your life," Jeremy returned.
Captain Tondeur just smiled. Your practiced duellist is always self-possessed.

Blood also has this random and hilarious deep-seated hatred of the Spanish. There's actually a point in the book where he explains that he's mad at the entire universe for heartily screwing him over, and is therefore releasing his anger by waging a one-man war on Spain. Hee hee. Absolutely ridiculous. I highly recommend this book.
- declared by Liusia @ 11:31 AM


Tuesday, December 02, 2003
So, I went to Pskov and Novgorod. I should probably make a little photo-essay about it, eh?
Aww, I really like medieval stuff. I'm not some kind of stupid romantic who thinks it was all people in pointy hats and knights in shining armor; I know darn well that had I lived back then, I probably would have been scrabbling on the dirt right up until I died of the plague or in childbirth. At age 13. But, dude! Let's hear it for the moats! C'mon, I dare you to tell me you don't want a moat around your house.

I guess I can romanticize Russian medieval life a little bit, though. I mean, supposedly, in Kiev, they didn't even have corporeal punishment until that whole Tatar-Mongol Horde thing. So you were a lot less likely to be pressed to death under a church door for sleeping with the neighbor or stealing some bread! And women were a little less stomped upon; they could actually gasp own things, and inherit property. And thanks to trade and decent agriculture, there was a sizable middle class. And people could read, yo. There was actual secular literature! And the Rus' had this kind of goofy democratic system of governance, where all the reputable guys in town would get together and shout at one another until they came to some kind of grudging consensus about the public issue du jour. And they believed in bathing! Go early Russians!

For those of you who haven't had to read a thousand and one books on Russian history, here's the scoop. Don't worry, I'll be brief, and then we can get to my goofy pictures from Pskov and Novgorod. Once upon a time, the center of Rus' culture was Kiev, but the groups of Rus' were not united and lived in little princedoms scattered all over the place. Then Ghengis Khan came along, and Kiev got all screwed up, not only because they razed a lot of the city, but because the horde set up this tribute system that created warlords and bad governors. Then the power center migrated to Moscow. Then Moscow started acting like a big bitch and took over all the other princedoms, including Novgorod and Pskov. Ivan the Third totally stole the bell Pskov used to call its citizens to their democratic town meetings, and was all, "Ha, ha! You silly Pskovites, with your backwards archaic system! I'm stealing your bell! Now respect me as the God-chosen ruler and act more feudal! Get into the 16th Century, yo!" Okay, in all fairness to Ivan, Pskov had already screwed itself over pretty well, because it turns out that standing in a room and yelling at one another isn't the most effective form of self-governance, and the wealthy had taken advantage of that and formed an overclass and were milking the populace for all they were worth. Kind of like the modern US. But still.

In more recent history, last Wednedsay, Sofia, Sofia's sister Constance, and I caught the train to Pskov. When we got to Pskov, we bought a map. The Pskovites are really clever, I tell you - it's a pop-up map! You don't even have to fold it, because it magically goes back into place when you close the little booklet! Anyway, we used the map to navigate our way to the Oktyaberskaya Hotel. I had called ahead the day before and tried to make reservations, but the desk clerk laughed at me and said, "Silly, this is the dead season in Pskov! We always have openings, because it is rainy and ugly! Come over and we'll have a room free, no problem!" But as you can probably guess, when we got there, she was like, "Um, no. All full." (I don't know who all was staying there, because I didn't notice a single sight-seer besides the three of us the whole time we were in Pskov.) But she was actually tracked down a hotel that had openings for us, and was pleasant about it.

So, we flagged a taxi (actually, we started trying to flag down a taxi, but then a random Pskovite passerby told us not to flag a taxi, because that's more expensive, and pointed us toward the nearby taxi stand. Pskovites = really friendly.) And we gave him the address. And he drove us into the middle of nowhere and let us off in front of a tenement building. And we were like, oh, shit.

So we go inside. And this young man loitering near the door sees me and exclaims, happily, "Lenushka!" To which the only sensible reply was, "What?" And he looked kind of embarassed, and was like, "Oh, you're not Lenushka. Are you guys looking for the hotel?" And then he pointed us toward the elevator. We think maybe Lenushka was the hooker he was waiting for. Normally, you wouldn't be calling someone by a diminutive nickname if you can't even recognize them by sight. Sadly, that means that I looked like a hooker. Oh, well. Did I mention that the building is easily one of the creepiest half-abandoned tenements I've yet seen in Russia? It was.

So we get in the elevator, and the 9th floor is labelled "Hotel" in Russian. But the 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th floor buttons are broken. So we push the 5th floor button, and for some reason, it takes us to the 9th floor anyway. Perhaps the elevator is psychic. And upon exiting, we discover that the 9th floor is a cosmopolitan wonderland. Hiding in the tenement is the single nicest hotel I've been in since arriving in Russia. Clearly, it is a money-laundering operation or something. But our room was really sweet and really cheap. If you ever find yourself in Pskov, I heartily recommend the Hotel Sport, located at 51 Ulitsa Truda. The Mafia has a bed made up for you, and not with the fishies.

The next morning, we caught a bus back downtown and got breakfast, and hit up the bookstore to buy a local guidebook. We found a good guidebook, and we also found a singular treasure: a children's book called Master Pskov. It's hilarious. It's intended to be a history-cum-English primer, and as such, is written in both Russian and English. And it's in the style of Socratic dialogue, folks, with a precocious child asking an adult questions about the history of Pskov. And it's clearly Soviet-era, which ramps up the kitch even more. I particularly enjoyed the introduction. Here's an excerpt:

"Teaching history to our children must become one of the most important concerns of adults who care about the spiritual world of the new generations in Russia. The 'I don't know my parentage' Ivan is a person lost for all - his parents, his would-be children, and, of course, the state and society."

Thanks to Master Pskov, we learned several important facts, such as that the marketplace is called the "Old Torg" and once there was a battle called the "Hlebny Bunt," (hee, "Hlebny Bunt") wherein the common people revolted over the price of bread. Also, Pskov used to have a floating bridge that they would retract at night so that baddies couldn't sneak over the rivers and into the city. A floating bridge!

Leaving the bookstore, we immediately came across this:

Yes, that's right, kiddies, it's Saint Princess Olga! It turns out that Pskov is her birthplace. I was really hoping that the figures she's standing on are dudes she totally tramped, but sadly, closer examination reveals that they're just other historical figures.

It also turns out that Pskov is just rife with medieval churches. An old map of the city shows that it once had more than 70 just within the city walls, and a whole lot of them have been preserved. There was at least one, if not more, on every city block, all pretty and glowy white, topped with onion domes.

Of course, it wouldn't be Russia if there wasn't freaky stuff all over the place. For one, there was this giant disembodied head sitting on a wall. It's labelled "Jean." In Latin letters. Yeah.

And then there was this crazy monument to Russia's technological advance. There were a whole series of strange illustrations, but here are the highlights: a woman participating in a wet t-shirt contest while discovering the wonders of the telephone, and some cosmonauts discovering a giant disembodied head amongst the stars!



They really seem to have a thing for disembodied heads in Pskov. Hey, maybe that's who Jean is? An alien discovered by the Pskovites?

Anyway, then we went on to the kremlin. The kremlin was a lovely confection of medieval goodness.



It sure was nice of the Pskovites to put a clock up there so that the invading Teutonic knights would know what time it was. Hey, speaking of Teutonic knights, it's not far from here that Alexander Nevsky drowned them - the site of the battle on the ice is just outside Pskov. Alex was a clever fella, engaging the enemy on a lake. The Russians, with their light armor, were able to fight on the ice, but the Teutonic knights totally fell through and died. Hee.

Proving that Pskov is some kind of crazy Middle Ages throwback utopia, we were guided to the Trinity Cathedral in the kremlin by a helpful beggar. Frankly, we could have found it ourselves, since the cathedral is the biggest thing in the city, and visible for miles around, but he seemed pretty enthusiastic about it, and totally bowed when I gave him some rubles. It was silly. The cathedral was impressive, but like everything else in Russia, under restoration, so we elected to get out of there and climb up in the kremlin wall.

I'm pretty sure that walking along the kremlin wall is allowed, because it's pretty accessable. But I don't think climbing on top of the roof of the kremlin wall is strongly encouraged, on account of, you know, the possibility of falling to your death. But we found a hole in the roof and climbed up there anyway. So here's a picture to prove it. You may notice that the height of the picture indicates that I was clinging to the half-rotten roof boards for dear life. I was.


It gets dark early now, so we were forced to call it a day around 5 pm. On the bus ride back, we encountered a very exciting drunk crazy man. Shortly after boarding, he tried to kiss the condutor, saying, "Kiss me, my little rabbit!" She was like, "Uh, no, I'm on duty, sorry," and went and hid by the driver. So he came over by us, and proceeded to repeatedly punch the window, wailing to himself, "I'm alone! All alone!" like he was Lermontov or some damn thing. But he apparently wasn't alone, because I swear I also heard him say, "I can't help it! I'm but one, and the voices are so many!"

He also kept hitting his head on on of the overhead handles, which really surprised him every time he knocked into it. And rubbing the fog off the windowpane, muttering, "I wouldn't even recognize my own mother out there tonight!"

Then he started kind of wobbling back and forth, and almost fell on Constance. She was like, "Hey, careful there, buddy!" (in English, of course, as she doesn't speak Russian.) To which he replied, "Kiss me! Kiss me!" Now, despite not speaking Russian, Connie cleverly deciphered his intentions, and resisted. He grabbed her arm, so I stepped in, and told him politely not to touch her. That got his attention off of her, at least, because he proceeded to lecture me in Russian for several minutes. "Who do you think you are, cute little bitch, the princess of the whole world?" he asked. "Is there some particular reason you are not respecting my manhood?" And I really couldn't come up with a clever response to that, so I was just like, "Hey, just don't touch her, that's all I'm saying." I guess I should have used reverse psychology, because then he got really insistent about her kissing him, but then the bus stopped and a few helpful young men picked the crazy drunk guy up and physically threw him off the bus.

Upon returning to the hotel, the hotel ladies offered us supper, and when we demurred, they insisted, saying that it was included in the price of our stay. They told us to come back to the kitchen in a half and hour, but when we did, there was a swarm of guys around, watching soccer on TV. "Girls, you shouldn't have to eat with those men!" the desk clerk declared, and told us she'd have supper sent to our room. Of course, this made us giggle, but I guess it's possible those guys were the mafiosos. I would rather like the opportunity to get in with the mob, but I appreciate the desk clerk's concern. And supper turned out to be really tasty pelmeni, salad and tea, which is unpresidented in Russia. Hotel food is, by definition, unidentifiable and terrible! So, a pleasant surprise.

Then we proceeded to drink a lot of vodka, and to try to break open this loaf of bread that we'd bought in town. Readers of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels may be familiar with the concept of "battle bread." This was definitely it. Despite its small size, it weighted at least seven or eight pounds, I swear. We has to break it on the table. It turned out to be unleavened. And yet, somehow, tasty. On the other hand, maybe that was just the vodka dulling my senses.

The next day, we went to this cemetary on the other side of the Veliky river, on the hearty recommendation of our guidebook. The book recommended it at least three or four times. Sofia suspects that the book recommened it so many tmes because the author got tricked into going to the cemetary, and decided to pass the ridiculousness on to as many people as possible. I do have to say, though, that the place was absolutely worth a look. It was absolutely dismal, although not in a funny Gothic way, in more of a "weary passage of time" kind of way. Of course, the foggy weather and denuded trees certainly added to the atmosphere.

Totally grown over with moss and weeds and creepy vines, the whole lot of it. The one thing in the graveyard that didn't look like it had been taken over by decay and rapacious nature was this monument to the Pskovites who died in WWII.

"No one forgotten, nothing forgotten"

Ironically, weathering had rubbed the people's names at the foot of the monument into unreadabilty.

Then, there was this enormous bowl thing, which looks like aliens landed in it, then left it there for plants to crawl into. I have another picture of it with me next to it for scale, and the thing is, on it's lower side, at least as tall as I am. Is it a planter? Some kind of grave marker? Did it fall off an airplane?

This just cracked us up, because we have no sensitivity toward the dead. For some reason, when this person's family was painting the fence neon blue, they also painted the nearby rock neon blue. I like to imagine that the guy buried there was really into painting his pet rock, so his family did it as tribute to him.

Once we'd had enough of the weird abandoned cemetary, we hiked over to the Mirozhsky Monstery. It required a bit of over-land travel along a dirt path through a bog, as you can see, which made it cooler, because I felt like an intrepid explorer.

The monastery was very simple and very pretty, and I got the lady in the visitors office to unlock the church so that we could see the the frescoes (in another example of the people of Pskov being really sweet and friendly), which was a big thrill, because they're the originals from the 12th Century. The church is on UNESCO's list of protected historical monuments because of them. My favorite scene was one of Mary and Joseph hugging and making up after his initial being pissed off to find out she was pregnant. It was much more, I don't know, human than most Church art. Unfortunately, we couldn't gaze at the frescoes for long, because we had to catch our bus to Novgorod at 4 pm.

We got into Novgorod at about 8 pm, and checked into a hotel without much incident. We'd been a little worried about the hotel situation, as I'd been unable to make reservations, as for some reason Novgorod's phone system is currently seriously messed up. We tried calling hotels once we got in at the bus station, to find out which one would have a vacancy, but the phones weren't working even within the city. But luckily, the first place we tried to go to had an opening for us, and was inexpensive.

Our first stop on Saturday was the Novgorod kremlin, which was, in a word, wow. Apparently the walls were first put up in the 11th Century, but the residents kept working on them and adding towers and stuff for a few hundred years after that.



It was easy to imagine oneself back in time, especially since there weren't many people, and most of the time, the only noise was the cawing of the creepy, creepy crows that were circling the battlements.

Inside the kremlin, they had the usual Eternal Flame, although unlike the one in St. Petersburg, this on was actually burning. Weirdly, the picture I took of it makes it look a lot like the Hand of God that appears on the Pskov City Coat of Arms. But you be the judge:



"Liusia...take off your sandals..."

I'm gonna stop with the Moses and the Burning Bush jokes now.

Inside the Kremlin is the St. Sophia Cathedral, which if I read the guide correctly, is where Alexander Nevsky got himself and his buddies blessed before they headed off to drown people. The idea of hanging out where good ol' Alex used to chill made my day, for some reason.

We also took the bridge across the river to see the Yaroslav Court, which is the historic trading center of the city, and weirdly Roman-looking. I'd post a picture, but when they're scaled down enough to fit the blog, it's hard to make anything out, since it was pretty foggy.

Novgorod also has one of the more blatantly symbolic monuments ever made. It's a horseman. And he's posed exactly like the Bronze Horseman statue in Petersburg, except that instead of Peter the Great, he's a common Russian man, and instead of trampling on a snake, he's trampling a swastika. And honestly, I don't know what that thing on top of the pillar is supposed to be. I guess the statue designers figured the horseman was too overt, and decided to get all artsy with the rest of the thing. By the way, that's Sofia and Constance waving up there.

At 2:00 we went back to the kremlin to meet up with Amanda and Rachel, as we'd arranged before leaving Petersburg. BEcause Amanda's passport was stolen, she couldn't stay in hotels, so she decided just to do a day trip. Of course, when we met up, we had to do the obligatory pretending it was all a coincidence. "Whoa! I can't imagine running into you here, in the middle of Novgorod's kremlin, in front of the Millenium Monument!" "I know! How strange that we would all arrive at the exact same spot between 2:00 and 2:30!" "Must have been fate."

Speaking of the Millenium Monument, it's this big goofy thing they put up in 1862 to celebrate 1000 years of Russia. Here's a photo I stole from Novgorod's website:

It's chock full of silly figures representing highlights in Russian history. I really liked the angel hovering over Peter the Great's shoulder, pointing him toward the bold new future, and also the little scene of Catherine the Great flirting with her lovers. But my very favorite dude was the depressed-looking Tatar who is having his leg stomped on by Dmitry Donskoy. If Dmitry had every done that to a live Tatar, the Tatar would have kicked his ass. You and I both know it. It's only a symbolic Tatar. But if I were that symbolic Tatar, I would bite his smug kneecap, I would.

After a bit more hiking around, we saw Amanda and Rachel off at the bus station and headed back to the hotel. Sofia wen to ask the front desk woman for a wake-up call, since we had to catch the bus back to Petersburg at 8:50 am, and was given an alarm clock instead. The only problem with the alarm clock, though, was that it had to be, I kid you not, shaken once an hour to keep it going. Needless to say, we failed to give it the hourly shaking, and overslept, nearly missing our bus. But the bus was a half-hour late, so we made it, and were back in Petersburg by 2 pm.

It was a great trip, and honestly, just what I needed. I love Petersburg, but it's a little overwhelming. I hadn't realized just how much I missed the countryside, and the quiet of small towns and small-town people. Plus, lots of medieval architecture! Huzzah!
- declared by Liusia @ 4:44 PM



Fame!
Hee. The Télé-Québec website is using my blog as a référence for their "Russia: A Fragile Democracy" page. Of course, it does say that it's only recommending my blog because all the good Russian blogs are in Russian (I think that's what they say, anyway - my French skills are practically non-existant), but still. Check it: click on the tab that says "Références" and scroll down to the bottom of the page. I am "une étudiante américaine è St-Petersbourg."

For some reason, I think it's really funny that French Canadian TV has decided I'm worth reading. Maybe they'll give me my own reality TV show, or better yet, a sitcom. Who wants to be the wacky neighbor? You have to feign a Russian accent and call yourself Sasha. We can have a special holiday episode where I learn that the true meaning of Christmas is kholodets,* and then we can gather around the yolka** and sing the Soviet National Anthem.***

*Kholodets is the great Satan. Never, never eat the kholodets, people. I swear it took ten years off my life.

**"Yolka" is just the Russian word for Christmas tree, but they pretend like it's some really original Slavic idea. I'm telling you, Russia, we totally have yolkas back in the US. Some of 'em are made out of plastic, but still.

***I can, in fact, sing this, thanks to one of my Russian teachers back in Madison. Folks, if you're gonna register for Russian language classes at UW Madison, try to get the section with Kat Scollins. I'd call her class "the bomb-diggity," except that one can only use the word "bomb-diggity" sarcastically. It was awesome.
- declared by Liusia @ 8:59 AM


Sunday, November 30, 2003
Excuses, excuses.
Yeah, I know I haven't posted in almost a week. I went to Novgorod and Pskov, and it turns out they don't have internet cafes in Novgorod and Pskov! But now I'm home in Petersburg, and rest assured, you will see some pretty pictures of medieval buildings ASAP. Tomorrow, probably. Also, Jessica has kindly written a brief biography of Francois-Eugene Vidocq for your edification, which I will post tomorrow as well. Oh, and by the way - Happy Thanksgiving!
- declared by Liusia @ 12:37 PM

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