Rambling Toward December

October/November

Hello All! I'll start by getting the heavy stuff out of the way. There are good and bad things (in my opinion, since those are highly subjective terms) about human beings, no matter what type of culture they are displaying as they are huddled together on their particular hunk of land. Without being too generalizing, yet considering the collective understanding and shared experiences of a group of people can more or less be summed up by the broadcast range of national television stations, I think it's very important to understand what those understandings and shared experiences of "Russians" are.

For those not caught up on why I have quotes around "Russians", calling someone from Kazakhstan a Russian is like calling someone from Puerto Rico an American. The Russian Federation was made up of many groups of people, some that are now independent and some that remain. I'd leave it up to the individual to define what he or she is; I'd choose human. Anyway, most of the negative aspects of my experience here center around the hatred of 'the other' found in Moscow. I am told to fear certain people because they are from Central Asia or Chechnya or wherever. I understand this kind of thinking. It's easy to jump to that conclusion because acts of violence have been committed by people from such places. There was an airport bombing in January of last year that killed many people. People also point to 'everyday' violence, as well. However, taking it beyond awareness and into prejudgement for all members of a group horrifies me. (and not in a 'look at my lovely liberal values' kind of way, but a real 'this kind of hatred means scary ideas are winning out' kind of way) Besides, what could prejudice, or even mere awareness, have done to stop that bombing? Also forgotten, is what constitutes a crime. Did the burning down of sweat shop factory in Bangladesh a few days ago, killing roughly the same number of people, constitute a crime because of the unsafe working conditions? Are we told to "Look out for exploitative business owners if you are out late at night!"? Maybe we should. Forget about your wallet, you could end up stitching soccer balls in Calcutta! Anyway . . .it was just on my mind so there you go.

Bird House: I like that there are bird houses all throughout the city.

I mentioned the shared experiences of Russians before because I wanted to mention a very interesting one that, to me, helps explain their collective understanding. I'm sure we have some, as well. The State Fair, the bridge collapse, and Paul Wellstone might ring some bells in Minnesota. So, here we are (If you know these things already, give yourself a celebratory cupcake and take a mental break while the rest of us discuss.). They had a revolution in 1917 and established what was called socialism (a lie), specifically Communism. In order to keep this lie going, many people that didn't fit the mold or disagreed or stepped out of line or were married to the wrong person or were born to the wrong people or were poor and so on were put in a system of prison camps called the G.U.L.A.G. This translates to Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps and Colonies (In Russian:) Гла́вное управле́ние исправи́тельно-трудовы́х лагере́й и коло́ний. (ГУЛаг). Numbers killed in the GULAG were in the millions, with some estimates over 10 million. So that happened. After Communism, the economy collapsed in the late 80s and people were doing whatever it took to survive. Also, throw in two world wars (26.5 million Russian dead in WW2 alone) and it is evident that their history is very sad.

Sorry for all the background, I'll get to what I wanted to mention. So, with all that history behind them, and in the midst of economic and social upheaval, a man goes on television, Anatoly Mikhailovich Kashpirovsky, and begins doing a kind of faith healing. Kashpirovsky was a trained psychiatrist and somehow made it onto television. He tells Russians to sit in front of their televisions, or bring a bottle of water to the screen (take those healing powers to a friend!), and he will heal them. It got so out of hand that he actually tried to take away a woman's pain while getting surgery on television. It was no minor surgery, either. It was the scalpel on flesh kind of surgery. It failed, of course, but he was never really run out of town the way I would have wanted. I have been told that the reason that he was popular was because he was filling the role of the former Soviet government in taking care of people. Capitalism was not giving people the medical care they needed (Capitalism has always been more concerned with moving large amounts of money around anyway) and so they looked to this magical guy for help. You don't have to go too far back in history to find rabid superstition, so it is probably still here among us, waiting to stone the kid with epilepsy to death because he brings the village bad luck and evil spirits.

My kitchen (kook-nee-yah). I am making red peppers, endive, and avocado wraps using a thin shell. Russian wine is also very tasty. This kind tastes more like grape juice than wine. Ypa! (oo-rah) (cheers)

I like trains. (My cat's breath smells like cat food.)

  Positive Stuff Will Follow! I Promise! Here It Is!
I'm settling nicely here and really starting to appreciate Moscow. Like an orphaned, newborn fawn I have been taken in by a Russian family (in their eyes this is how they see it). They are vowing to protect me from the dangers of Moscow. I was asked over to dinner by a Russian friend I had made, Ivan (Vanya). His family do not speak much English and I do not speak much Russian, but Ivan and his cousin (called sister in Russian) both speak enough to translate. I had a meatless Russian meal and it was the business! My favorite part was the cabbage-and-carrot-inside-potato-things, the potato being like gnocchi. The soup was also fab. It was onion, mushroom, some kind of noodle, and potato. I can't eat at many places because I don't trust my Russian enough yet to guarantee there will be no meat, but the family assured me it was only vegetables.


Montessori fans! I went to observe in a 'sister school' to the school of mine that will soon exist. My (already) great friends from Canada, Danielle and Ian, live nearby and Danielle is the Children's House guide. Elizabeth (also great friend), from Portland, is the 1 1/2 to 3 guide. Later, I also got to help out in Danielle's classroom for three days and had so much fun. I thought the language barrier would be terribly difficult, but it was no problem. I could show presentations without language or do some sound presentations if they didn't have any English yet. The younger children were already understanding in English. Amazing.

My Russian is improving, but hearing is not the same as speaking. I would be happy to just know what is going on, though. I feel it is important to be around people speaking Russian. It would be so easy just to live in an expat bubble, especially with technology, but I would not learn very much I think.

I went to a cooking class to practice my Russian.

 I also have started spending a lot of time at the library. It is HUGE and there is a great atmosphere there. Ian and I went to see how to get a library card. We walked into one of many entrances with no idea of what we were doing. We were immediately ushered into a queue to begin registration. The Russian bureaucracy spread its glorious wings and enveloped us in Soviet Era paperwork. I am now on file and can use the library whenever I like. Happy reading, comrade!

Entrance to the Russian State Library (Lenin Library); I think the statue is Dostoyevsky.

Part of the library

One of many rooms

My hidey-hole in the library for working or reading

That's all I've got for now! до свидания!