Последние дни / Last few Days

               I decided to spend my last two weeks in Russia in our families dacha. In case you aren't aware, a dacha is a small house in a Russian village where Russians go to live on the weekends and during the summer.

              Someone told me, before leaving, that coming to Russia would be like walking into 1960. Before coming to the dacha for the first time, I thought she was crazy. Now I see the reason. When you walk down one of the 4 streets (yes, 4) in our village, it is hard to tell what time period you're in. If it weren't for the television satelites sticking out of a few of the houses it could totally be sixty years ago. The wooden houeses, kids playing in the street, old babushkas (grandmothers) sitting on their little benches and gossiping about the lives of the people they see walk by.

          The gossiping babushkas drive my host sister Yulya crazy. I can't blame her, seeing as according to their gossip, Yulya has been pregnant about three or four times and is currently planning to elope. Fortunately, the latest gossip has switched away from my sister, and onto the newest addition to our small village.

The american.

         Peoples reactions when they see me are really funny. The little kids don't understand what it means to be from another country, and ask why I speak strangely. An old woman thought I was lying to her, and actually got pretty angry. My favorite reaction of all though, is a friend of my sisters, who upon seeing me, asks my sister "Is this her? A real american! Can I touch her?!"

    Long story short, my last few weeks in Russia are good ones. My days are filled with working in the garden, swimming in the lake, and washing in the banya. My nights with cooking over bonfires, volleyball, and sunlight even at 11 o'clock.

When I arrived in Russia, the sun rose at 9:30, and set at 4:00. Now, as I'm getting ready to leave, it rises begins to get light at about 3 in the morning, and doesn't get dark again until a bit after 11. The drastic difference in the length of my days is cool to observe. It is something we totally don't have in the US.

Friends, fire in the wilderness, this is the way summer should be.

Probably the most awesome cup of tea I've had in all my time in Russia. Everything is from our garden.

РАДУГА!!! (I think its not hard to guess what that means)

Uh oh, can't cross the road right now. Too many cows.

                                            Summer in the village.

Кому: Будующим студентам обменов/ To all you future exchange students

I'm going home in 3 weeks. Seeing as that is the case, I've decided to make a post to all you potential exchange students out there reading this. I remember reading blogs myself, when deciding if I would go, and then again, where I would go. If you are feeling lazy, just read the points I put in bold, they sum up my advice.

          Firstly, I advise all you potential exchange students out there to think very carefully about your country choice. Think what you want to get out of your exchange, and pick accordingly. Russia for example, is not an easy place to live. The people are very hard to get to know. Most exchange students here go a whole year without making any Russian friends. If you would rather not face a challenge like that, it is better to go to a country where people are more immediately open.
        
         Say you don't get along with your host family. Say kids aren't so nice at school, or on the street. These are problems. If you have them, which you without a doubt will, my advice is to go to people in your host country for help. There is little your friends and family at home can do except worry, so with problems I'd turn first to friends, family or voulenteers in your host country. I would also give problems time, because they very quickly evolve, sometimes they even fix themselves. Even if they don't, a week or even a day later, you and everyone else tends to see them differently. Try to avoid frantic emails to parents or skype calls to friends. I had to learn the hard way just how very unhelpful they are.

           Being an exchange student, there are lots of times, especially in the beginning, where you want to do nothing but talk to your friends and family at home. While that is temporarily comforting, it is not the ideal thing to do. Firstly, if you talk to your folks at home while you have a bad mood, you'll worry them. Secondly, if you get in a habit of retreating to the computer it keeps you from fitting into the new culture. So, stay away from the computer, it'll be best for you in the long run. When feeling down on an exchange, I recommend finding a distraction, for example, I usually take a shower or play cards with my sister.  Although most exchange companies disagree with me, I advise you to bring a computer with you if at all possible. I didn't, thinking, that I'd be less likely to sit on it all day, but as it turns out, a large source of tension between my host family and I is my use of their computer. While I advise you to bring your own computer, I also advise you to use it as minimally as possible.

           Just because your host sister or brother studies in your class, that doesn't mean their friends have to be yours. Just because this one girl is really friendly to you the first few days, that doesn't mean you two have to be best friends for life. When making friends in your host country, pick people that you like. They may not necessarily be in the cool crowd, and they may not necessarily talk to you first. It takes some guts, but pick people you think you'd get along with, and start the conversation. I only started doing this now, during my last month. I wish I'd realized earlier.
    
           If you really want to learn the language, then do your school work. As tempting as it is to doodle, sleep, or read in class, try to stop yourself. The reading, writing, and speaking you do in school is unbelievably helpful in the learning of a new language. Of the exchange students I know in Russia, the ones who know the language best, do all their homework, and get graded on it.

            If there is one thing I could change about my experience, it would be the fact that I chose to go for only a semester. A year might seem overwelming, but almost everyone I've spoken to who choose to go for a semester regrets not choosing a year long option. Heres why: after five months in Russia, I finally feel confident with the language. I finally can understand my schoolwork. I finally have started to make close relationships with people. Just as I begin to realize what I've done wrong, and what to do better, just as I'm starting to fit in, its time to leave.  Of course, a semester is better than nothing, but if you can, go for a year.
           If you really want to learn the language, don't let people talk to you in english. Especially at the beginning. If you know someone who really wants to practice their english, make a deal with them. For example, Dasha, my host sister, wanted to practice her english, so I told her for the first 3 months we'd speak Russian, and once I'd learned Russian, we could speak english together. It worked pretty well. Now though, we almost always speak Russian anyways, because its easier to communicate.

If you are considering coming to Russia: Know what you're getting into. If I were to explain exactly how hard it is to live in Russia, you probably wouldn't want to come, and so I won't do that. I won't explain to you, because although it is incredibly hard, it is just as much worth it. You may not have fun here 100% of the time. Honestly, you probably won't have fun 75% of the time. Despite this, you will think and learn a whole lot, about everything.

To sum it all up, being an exchange student is not easy, but I don't know anyone who's regretted it. 

Один день в моей жизни / A day in the life

It's actually strange to write this, because school is already over, so this isn't what my days are like anymore. This is however, what it was like for about four months, so totally worth writing.

6:30-Hear my sisters alarm clock, she gets up, takes a shower and puts on makeup

My sisters alarm clock....

7:15- My sister comes into our room and says "Lindsay vstavay!" (Lindsay, wakeup!) and then I get out of bed.

7:45-After brushing my teeth, enjoying a breakfast of tea and an open faced sandwitch with cheese and kolbassa (not sure how that translates actually, its some sort of meat. It's strange because in the US I was a vegetarian and therefore I know the names of a lot of meats in Russian and not English), and getting my stuff together, this is when we leave for school. The walk is about 5 minutes, which is totally convenient.

7:50-Arrive at school, change shoes, and head off to my first class.

8-8:45-First lesson. Usually my first two lessons every day (except for saturday and monday) are with kids from the 2nd grade. I learn Russian and Reading with them. These are probably my favorite lessons of the day, because I understand what is going on and am able to do the work. They are adorable, and love talking to me.

2nd graders. In all honestly, I feel more comfortable their class than my own. Little kids are really awesome.

10-10:45- At this point, the third and fourth lesson, sometimes I go to study with the 10th grade, but sometimes I help out in English classes, or once a week, I study with the 5th grade. I go to a class called teknologia, which you'd think has something to do with technology, but in fact it is sort of a 'girls learn how to cook clean and sew' sort of thing. At the beginning I thought it was sexist, and I still do a little bit, but these necessary skills (cooking cleaning and sewing) are skills that I don't have, because my american school thinks that its sexist to teach me them. So in conclusion, maybe girls AND boys should take the class.

Yummy salad we made. Notice they all smile with their mouthes shut. People laugh at me when I don't.

11:45-12:00- This is where we have fifteen minutes to leave the fourth lesson, eat, and get to the fifth lesson. The food at school is not wonderful, it's edible, so no complaints.

12:00-1:45- The 5th and 6th lessons. I am all the time in the 10th class during these. The lessons in the 10th class for me are not so fun. I understand what the teacher is saying in Russian, but that doesn't mean I understand the material. The things they are learning in math and science are on a much more advanced level than what I learned in the US and on top of that, I came in half way through the year. Sometimes I listen and take notes, and others I write in my journal.

Heres my class. Funny story: When this picture was being taken, I smiled in my normal american 32 toothed way, and the camera man shouts "don't smile like this!" and immitated me. The whole class knew that only one person would do that. They all turned to me and were like "Lindsay!!"
2:00- By 2:00 I am home from school. It's a pretty short school day actually, but unlike in the US, literally all we do is study. Theres no chorus, or free block, or 40 minute lunch. Its one academic class followed by a 15 minute break, followed by the next academic class and so on. When I get home, it is usually my sister, my host mom, and I. My host mom, having gotten home from work at 6 in the morning, has just woken up at this point, and she eats breakfast while we eat a sort of second lunch sort of thing (you'll remember we ate at school). It is usually soup, followed by some other second dish. This could be kasha, or macarroni, or these balls of cabbage with meat inside them... but always something my host mom cooks, which is cool. Also, in Russia, almost ever meal is eaten with bread, usually brown. After eating, we drink tea and eat some sort of sweet food with it.

3:30-5:00- This is when my sister does her homework. I do mine too, but I don't do the homework that she does for reasons I previously explained. I do homework for the 5th class, and 2nd class, and also make presentations. I do a lot of presentations about america to the small kids in my school. Its lots of fun. It's crazy though, when I walk around the hallway where the 1st through 4th grades study I am almost always in the center of a cloud of little Russians asking me questions about my life and/or saying 'Hello! Hello!' one of the only english words they know.

6:00-9:00-During this time, I do one of three things.
1) Go out with the other exchange students in my city (if I'm going out with them, I actually leave home a bit earlier, probably around 3). We sit in cafe's and talk, or go to beautiful parks, or just sort of hang out in the city. Its really nice to be with them, because we are all going through the exact same experience.

This is Sofia (a girl from Austria also living in Nihzny) and I. Ironically we are in Moscow. Also in Nihzny there is Giacommo (Italy) and Quentin (France)

2) Go to visit my old host family. This is probably once or twice a week. When I go there, I usually drink tea and talk with Dasha (20 year old host sister) and my old host mom, and then go with Laura (9 year old host sister) and play set (the card game, I taught her) or dance. She loves choreographing extremely complicated dances, teaching them to me, and then getting very angry when I do one thing incorrectly. She reminds me very much of my youngest brother in the US in some ways. Afterwards, I usually eat dinner with them all together. "Family dinner" doesn't really happen in most Russian families (family time is usually drinking tea), but they like the tradition of eating dinner together, and afterwords, drinking tea and eating cake. By the time that is all over, it is usually 9:00, which means bed time for Laura and time to go home for me.

Guess who??

3) Go out to walk with my host sister (Yulya) and friends. In the winter, we would like stand in the staircases of apartment buildings because it was so cold, but now that the weather is nice, we can sit near school or at the playground near my house.

Yulya and I. Pretty much our relationship in a picture.

9:00-10:00- Yulya and I watch every week night, a russian tv schow called closed school. It's about a boarding school, but there is a secret facist regime sort of thing run by the director that is taking people and doing medical experiments on them. Its one of those so bad its good things.

10-10:15- Take a shower

10:30- Sometimes drink another cup of tea

10:45- Talk to Yulya for a little (we share a room) and then go to bed.

There's a small, frightened child stuck in the elevator!

I had a really cool idea to make a blog post of a tour of my home, but upon trying to upload it, I was told that with my internet connection, I'd have to wait 5 days before it was done.

So I guess I'll move on to plan b: Telling a few funny sories.

Being a foreigner who doesn't speak the language so well, you learn pretty quickly to laugh at yourself. Either that, or you have a pretty unpleasant time. So this is a post dedicated to the times I made a complete idiot out of myself (culturally).

1) Getting stuck in the elevator
   So I live on the seventh floor of a massive appartment building that was built a very long time ago. In order to go to and from to our appartment each and every day I get to take a ride on the lovely Soviet three by four foot elevator.
       Because its Russia, and the floor is dirty, you cannot walk around school in the same shoes you walked to school in. I however, forgot about this, and was sent home by our lovely director Svetlana (no she is actually lovely, just strict) to grab a second pair of shoes.
          As I got on the elevator to go up to our appartment, I heard it creak especially loudly, and got a little freaked out, but came to the conclusion that it would not be horrible if I got stuck on the elevator, because this was a Wednesday, and on Wednesdays I have Physics followed immediately by two blocks of Algebra.
            The problems didn't really begin until the way back. I get on the elevator, and realize, that at home I changed shoes, and am currently wearing the shoes that are only supposed to be worn inside school. I make the incredibly smart decision to change shoes in the elevator, and slipped a little just as it made its usual creek around the fifth floor. There was a loud bang and the elevator stopped moving.
        I'm usually not claustrophobic, but a three by foot elevator that you suddenly have no way of getting out of really set me off. I had to close my eyes, take deep breaths and imagine I was in a very large field of wheat until I calmed down enough to assess the situation. Just as I did so, the lights turned off. This actually helped me be calm, because I was unaware of the small space. I decided, that having no phone, my best option was to scream and bang on the door.
            After a few seconds I heard the voice of a grumpy old babushka living in my building. (Babushka literally beans grandmother, but you can call any old woman that and it isn't offensive).
Babushka: What are you banging on the elevator for?!
Me: It's broken.
Babushka: Why'd you break it?
Me: I didn't on purpose.
         After a bit more yelling at me and asking questions I didn't understand she called another woman and tells her "There is a little kid stuck in the elevator," She must have taken my incorrect speech and partial comprehension to mean that I was three. So then the other women starts saying: Don't be afraid, it's okay sweetie, I'm going to call the repair man to get you out, don't be afriad!"
          I figured it'd be really awkward to tell her I was actually not a child, and therefore just said nothing.
         So after about an hour the mechanic came, and he was also informed that there was a very scared little child stuck all alone in the dark elevator.
Then after about ten minutes, the door opens, I'm between the fourth and fifth floors, and I have to climb out.
Mechanic: That is not a small child.
            
2) The Playing Cards
        So my mom sent me a package full of souveniers from the US to give people as parting gifts. In the package was a pack of playing cards with pictures of Philadelphia on them.  So yesterday, as I was surveying the souveniers, I see the cards are still there, and decide, to give them as a gift to my Russian teacher, who helped me a lot preparing for my final exams.
       So today, I go to her with the cards, and a nice note with a picture I made for her, and beaming present her with the goods. She looks at me very strangely and after a few seconds says thank you, quickly puts the cards in her bag and tells me to leave.
       I retell my host sister what happened. She shakes her head and calls me 'durochka'. Its a sort of cutesy way to say 'you're an idiot'. She then informs me that in Russia playing cards have a very strong association with gambling, and that they are forbidden in schools.
I guess I'll have to explain myself tomorrow.

Now, since this has been a fairly photo-less post, and seeing I recently learned that my dad in the US treats my blog as a picture book, I guess I'll add a few pictures, fairly unrelated to the post.

Today was the graduation ceremony for the kids in 11th class which was actually quite cool. It is called the last bell, (as in school bell). The boy you see is in the 11th class, and the girl is in the first class. They are ringing the last bell to symbolize the end of her first year of school, and his last.

Needs no explanation. If only I had a shot of the inside...

                                        Some people from my class and I sitting near school.
   

С днём победы: The great patriotic war.

             World War II was a very long time ago.... Why should it deserve a post?

Thats a fairly logical line of thinking for someone who has never been to Russia.

             If you have been though, you'll know and understand that World War II. or as they call it here, the great patriotic war, always deserves a post by Russian standards. Even today, the country is filled with memorials, museams, and even has a holiday dedicated to the war, and the determination of the Russian people not to forget it.
           I find everyone's dedication to the memory of such a war incredibly admirable. The only thing that worries me slightly is that there is a bit too much of a focus in my opinion on the remembrance of Soviet victory as apposed to remembing those who died, or the attrocities commited. The holiday after all is called victory day.
           I had the privledge of visiting arguably the biggest and most extreme (you'll see what I mean by extreme in a moment) memorial of all in Volgograd when I was there about a month ago. It is almost like a city within its self. I will now give you all a virtual tour.

             The memorial starts out on the street, where there gigantic are red flags each symbolizing a city, that like Volgograd, was heavily affected by the war. The woman you see here is named Elena Ivanovna, she is one of our lovely voulenteers.

After walking by the flags, you come to these steps. Translation: For our soviet homeland, the USSR!

Then you come to the first square. It is filled with more flags and at the end a statue (which you see a bit of) and a pool (which you can't see).

After you walk past the pool in the fist square, which by the way, is symbolic of the Volga, a river which begins close to Yaroslavl (north of Moscow) and ends in Astrahan. It runs through Volgograd, and also, Nizny Novgorod, where I live. Anyways, after the pool, you walk up more steps, which are flanked by these incredibly cool stone sort of collages. They are covered with quotes from soldiers, pictures, and other symbols of war. From unseen speakers music from the war plays 24/7.

              We now arrive at the second square, which has an even bigger pool, also symbolic of the Volga. On the sides there are lots of statues, and at the other end.....

there are these walls. Which have carvings like the one you see now. Translation: Facist soldiers wanted to see the Volga. The red army gave them that opportunity. See what I mean by the focus on victory being unsettling?

There is a small opening in the carved walls at the entrance of which stands a guard, who is there 24/7 (not the same one, but you know what I mean). Then you walk through this tunnel which opens up into this underground memorial. On the walls are close to a million names of dead soldiers, and the fire never goes out. You can't see them, but in this place there are six soldiers, also on constant guard. No one speaks. There is no official rule, but when you're in the room, you can't really.

Then looming above it all is the gigantic stone statue of родина мать (mother of the homeland), who is a sort of Russian uncle sam. She is 87 meters tall, which makes the statue of liberty at 46 meters seem like a baby. This is a detail I'm sure the Soviet government took into account when they built it.

            The entire thing is unbelievable. Unbelievable that they'd build such a thing, unbelivable what it looks like, unbelievable how much the people respect it (there is no trash, and no graffiti in sight, but now that I think of it, this could also be due to frequent cleaning).

And this memorial isn't the only way they show their dedication. There are other, slightly smaller ones all over the country. Even in Nihzny, which was hardly touched by the war, there is a large memorial and also a fire which never goes out.

In addition to the memorials there is also a holiday, Victory day. This means
no school, and a parade and fireworks in every big city. The streets of both Nihzny and Moscow (where I went to see the parade), were both covered in banners and signs. Almost everyone wears orange and black ribbons, a symbol of the day. Even the bread we bought at the supermarket had a special wrapping that celebrated.

It is strange though, because a lot of people I've talked to seemed to only know about the Russian losses in the war. I was talking with a girl from my school, and she even didn't know that the United States took part. A lot of people have misconceptions about it actually, Russian and American. Still though, how could she think that? 300,000 American soldiers died in the war. This seems like a very large number. 300,000. How could she be ignorant of such a tradgedy?

I'll tell you how. Because 23 million Russians died, men women and children. When you think of it like that, it is quite understandable how someone could believe that the US took little to know part in the war, and its quite understandable how badly they want to remember.

Путешествие на Юг/Trip to the South

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. It is because I was on a wonderful 2 week long trip to the south of Russia! Our time was spent in the following way: 2 days on the train there, 4 days in Astrahan, 4 days in Akthubinsk, 1 day in Volgograd, and 2 more days on the train home. I was there with 17 other exchange students (out of the 100 total in Russia), from Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Thailand and America (it was surprising how nice it is to talk to another american after months and months of only Russians and other well, not american people). I could write everything we did, but it might bore you, and I also don't such an abundance of time on the internet (this is my host sisters computer, and the most common source of conflict between us is how often I use it). I decided that rather than write a short summary of every single thing I did, I would pick 5 highlights and describe them to you.


1) The train

In Russia they say that there are only three things to do on the train, sleep, talk, and eat. This is absolutely correct. For 34 hours both ways, that is absolutely all we did.Fhe train in Russia isn't like any train I've been on in america, though admittedly, I've never been on a night train there. What we had in Russia is basically one big cart, and there are subsections (there is no door, just a little dividing wall) with four beds on one side of the hallway which goes through the middle of the cart, and two beds on the other. This will become clear with pictures, don't worry. The cool thing is that since there is no separation, you find yourself in very close quarters with strangers and nothing to do. Basically you make lots of friends. For example, I woke up one morning to find that Giacommo, an Italian exchange student, had befriended this group of rather large middle aged russian men, and was eating some sort of seafood with them.

Eat, sleep and talk. In the photo Cecelia (Italy), Paige (US), Me (US), Jo (Thailand), Sofia (Austria), Giacommo (Italy), and Meike (Germany).

2) Salt-Lake: Did you know that the dead sea isn't only in Israel? I really didn't. Who would have any idea, that in the middle of nowhere (literally, it is an hour away from the small town of Ahtubinsk in South western Russia), there exists a lake with condions to the dead sea. The floor of the lake is almost all salt, just hardened, which means that if you decide to go swimming spontaneously, as we did, you will be in a lot of pain.
             They told us that it was going to be too cold to swim in the lake, so no one brought bathing suits. Turns out, when we get there, it is actually incredibly hot. So we all decide to just wade in a little. But, of course, wading in a little leads to splashing, which leads to full out swimming in your clothes (although I lost a pair of jeans, and still have cuts on my feet, I do not regret this decision). It was really cool, because, you don't sink. If you try for exapmle to stand on two feet or touch the bottom you will have a very hard time doing so and also probably hurt yourself (salt in eyes, salt in mouth, sharm salty lake bottom). Our problem however was when we had to get out of the lake, because in some parts, it is too shallow to swim, and like I said, it hurts your feet--a lot. It was a cool bonding experience though. We were singing the AFS theme song as a joke because it says "walk together, talk together all your people of the earth" and we were literally walking together (and wincing with each step). Like I said though, no regrets.

                                                 The lake, pre-swim. Note the feet, there are no shoes on them. Note the jeans, you will never see them again.

3 Jo figures out why hes in Russia
When we were on the trip we stayed in 2 temporary host families, one in Astrahan, one in Ahtubinsk. It was cool to see the sort of inside life of another russian family, because I figured out that although there are lots of similarities, different families live differently. It was cool to realize what things are "russian" and which things are more typical to my host family in Nizhny. Anyways, my host sister in Ahtubinsk, was really awesome. Her name is Vlada and shes about my age (a year older). She is totally not the usual russian teenager, because she is absolutely obsessed with Korea and Japan. When I first met her, she warned me not to freak out when I saw her bedroom, the walls of which are not visible because there are so many posters of korean popstars and anime, some of which she painted her self and with friends. It was really cool to see self expression like that, because most other russian bedrooms that I've seen are quite without presonality.
            So Vlada... Remember her, and now I'm going to tell about someone else I met on the trip, and then explain how they are connected. So on the trip with us there was a Thai boy named Jo (also an exchange student). He at first was really shy, but after a while completely opened up. When we were in Astrahan, we all had to presentations about our home country in a school there, and when Jo did his, it was visible that the students for some reason didn't seem to care. He was clearly sort of hurt by this. In Russia, it seems to me that there are two types of foreigners (actually in the US too). There are people like me, from the US or from Europe, and because we are from these richer countries we are considered cool and interesting. Then there are the people from Uzbekistan and Azerbajan who a lot of Russian people (not all Russian people but a lot) look down upon and are openly racist to. This is actually very comprable to the US, if you think about the difference between meeting someone from France versus Mexico. It is interesting that that never ocurred to me before. I had to come to Russia to realize such a thing about my own country. So for some reason, the kids at the school put Jo into the less fondly reguarded group of foreigners and were totally rude to him. He told me "I think they want to learn about Europe not Asia". I got the feeling by the way that he said it that this happens to him a lot.
          So I'm guessing you already in your head have some idea of how Vlada and Jo's stories connect, but I'll tell you the details. One night in Ahtubinsk, we were just all sitting in the park (Russian host siblings and exchange students). Vlada was there with some of her friends, who also happen to share her obsession with east asain pop culture. (This is a note to my broadway/glee/harry potter obsessed friends in Philly, it was really funny, how much Vlada and her friends reminded me of you guys, sure the obsession is different, but the things they do are quite the same). So we are sitting there, and Vlada flips on her phone to check the time, and the background is her absolute favorite korean singer. Jo happens to see the phone and points to it saying in russian "That's Jong Hyun!" which in fact is the name of the singer. Turns out, that although he is Thai, Jo is also quite obsessed with Korea and Japan. As you may guess, a conversation began there, and they became instant best friends. By the end of the night Jo, Vlada and her friends were doing the dances from Korean music videos that they'd both memorized. It was one of the coolest things I've seen in Russia, and made me realize why being a exchange student is worthwhile.

          At the end of the night, before we went home, Jo was jumping up and down saying "Ya nashol! Ya nashol!" Which means, I found, I found. Then he said something in Thai, which Ploy (another Thai exchange student, a girl) translated as "this is why I'm in Russia,".

                                          Vlada and I. This photo was taken by Jo, who showed us how to correctly do the peace sign.

The awesome thing(s) about Russian Language

I just got back from an AMAZING trip to the south of russia. But I don't really have time to make a long post about that right now, so that will come later. Please now enjoy this post about Russian language I wrote about a month ago but forgot to post.

         
  One of my favorite parts about Russia is a language. To people who don't speak it it probably sounds severe and awkward, but the more I listen to it the more I seem to find it to actually be quite a beautiful language. Its not surprising some of the world's most famous literature and poetry comes from Russia.

                  The first awesome thing about Russian: The creativity. With english we just have words and thats it, but in Russian, I'm not sure how to explain it, but you can mix and match, turn adjectives into nouns and nouns into verbs. The creativity of Russian is immediately visible when you look at Russian names. For example, lets take the name Анастасия (Anastasia)**. It is quite a common name, but the cool thing is, for every Russian name, there are an unbelievably large amount of nicknames. Look:
Настя (Nastya), Настинка (Nastinka), Настуля (Nastyoulya), Настюша (Nastyousha), Насть (Nast), Настюлка (Nastyoulka), Настка  (Nastka)
           and that's all I can list, but a russian person could probably supply you with a few more. Also you should know that it isn't just Anastasia, it is every single Russian name that does stuff like this. Another example would be Laura (my old host sister), who depending on the situation can be called Laurochka, Laurka, Lya-lya, Llyaloulka, Lyalousha, Lyalinka, Laurochoshka,  or Lyalka.

and Russian is even more awesome because this doesn't just apply to names, but also to pretty much every noun out there.
For example in clean correct Russian you would say
Ya hochy koosok torta. (I want a piece of cake) but Russians like to fondly adress their cake, and so rather than saying koosok torta (peice of cake) they say koosochka tortochki. Or if they really have a thing for the cake they could take it to the next level and say koosochishka tortitochki. It minorly resembles the spanish adding 'ito' to things to show they are tiny, but in Russian it doesn't really mean tiny, it just means that you feel affectionately about the object (in this case the cake and also the piece).


             You probably don't really believe that Russian is a beautiful language. I'll agree with you that it doesn't really sound graceful like french or spanish, but I think that what makes it beautiful is not really the way the words sound by themselves, but their meaning, and the meaning combined with the sound. I'll post a Russian poem, and a translation, and also a link to a youtube video so you can hear it, and when you hear it, sort of imagine the meaning in your head. It may not really click, but if you want to see what I mean, try.

Белый снег, пушистый          White snow, fluffy and soft
В воздухе кружится            Spins around in the air
И на землю тихо               And onto the silent winter
Падает, ложится.             It falls and lays still
И под утро снегом              And in the morning with snow
Поле побелело,               The feild is shrouded
Точно пеленою                Tightly embraced           
Все его одело.              by the snow, which is its clothing
Темный лес что шапкой       The dark forest with its snow-hat
Принакрылся чудной           is wonderfly covered
И заснул под нею            and it (the forest) sleeps under its clothes
Крепко, непробудно...       tightly embraced, it seems it will never wake up

Translating that for school a few weeks ago made me realize how weird Russian sounds in english.

 I also didn't totally literally translate, I went more for the feeling rather than 

the actual meaning of the words. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tilkivtE4fs (the actual poem starts at :30 seconds, sorry 

the video is strange, it was the only I could find.) 

The last reason (or at least the last reason I'll explain) why I like Russian Language is

the way that people phrase things. For example, in english, we have the phrase "haste makes

waste" right? The russian equivalent, which I heard a few days ago, is "If you do not work 

hard, you will not be able to get fish out of river". Another one that is really a pleasure

is "your elbow is close, but you can't bite it" this would probably be something along the 

lines of "so close but so far" in english. 

Well, Thats all for now, signing out from a very warm Nihzny Novgorod! 

**in case you were wondering, yes, like the princess. 

Деревня/Derevnya/Village

                So in Russia, most families, or at least most that I've encountered have two homes. One in the city, and another in the derevnya (village) which is called a dacha. This is the case because most people were born in small villages and at some point in their life moved to the city. My host dad for example, was born in Suneevo, a small village about 2 and a half hours away from Nizhny and came to Nizhny to study (my host mom was born in Kazakhstan, which at the time was part of the USSR, and also came to Nizhny to study, where she met my host dad, they got married, had 2 kids named Yulya and Artem, and eventually decided to host a 16 year old American girl named Lindsay).
    So we went to Suneevo over the weekend (it was my second time there, I also went during our week long break at the end of March) and stayed in the house that my host dad was born in (its been renovated a bit since). Cool though? If when I say village you are imagining an american style small town, you are not imagining correctly. When I say village, I mean village. I don't think we have villages in the US. It's funny, because Suneevo reminded me in some ways of Harmons, (a village in Jamaica where I've been). My host family got a kick out of my saying the Russia resembled Jamaica, and you probably do too, but I stand by my assertion.

My host parents.

A house in the village. This is what a typical house looks like. I'd post a picture of ours but I for some reason didn't take one.

                              These girls, Natashka (8) and Dianka(3), are our neighbors. They live in the village all year around. They are absolutely adorable. The younger one didn't totally understand what it meant when I said I wasn't from Russia. She kept asking "Why are you talking funny?".

                                        The downside to spring in Russia: Flooding.

                                                   Happy Easter! You'll notice there are some dyed eggs on the table. On the morning of easter about 8 different people came to us and wished us a happy easter, and gave us some of their dyed eggs, and we gave them some of ours. Also something minorly interesting, the white stuff (a sort of cottage cheese yogurt thing called pas-ha) you see on the table, they said that is the body of christ, and the eggs, which are traditionally dyed red, represent the blood of christ. I thought that was interesting because it minorly resembles catholocism.

This is one of the three streets in Suneevo, its our street. Aside from houses this village also has 2 small stores for food and a "club" which is a room with a pool table where kids hang out in the winter. I have no clue what the population is but I'd guess around 100.

Also AFS Russia had a contest, where you had to do something that demonstrated your vision of Russia. I wrote an essay, and got second place. The prize is going on a free trip to the south of Russia for 2 weeks (since I got 2nd place for me its 50% free). So I am leaving on Sunday, and am quite excited for a 30 hour train ride to a completely different part of the country!

Question and Answer/Вопросы и Ответы

So, lots of friends/family from the states have emailed me with questions, so I thought I'd dedicate a blog post to the answering of said questions.


How is the russian pop music?  Do the students you're meeting listen to american & european & african music too?
For the most part, Russian pop music isn't fabulous, but most american pop music isn't either (both of those statements are my opinion). The thing that I like about pop music though, which I think is the thing everyone likes about it, is that it is popular. Everyone knows it, and lets face it, its way more fun to sing with people than to sing alone (agian, my opinion).  People do listen to songs in other languages (mostly english) but it seems to me they listen to Russian songs most often. I'll post the youtube links to some songs that are currently popular here.
                               Город Сочи -heres a russian pop song that sounds like a pop song, but it sort of has a russian feel, or at least it seems that way to me. There are quite a few of this type. It is about Sochi, a very warm city in the south of Russia. You probably know it because the Olympics are going to be there. **after listening more closely to the lyrics I figured out it is about a guy who is leaving his wife and finding a new girl in sochi... slightly less charming, but still a cool song**

                                      
                              

                                              Около Тебя- Close to you...this song is everywhere. Probably has been number one in Russia since I got here.  Its an example of a russian pop song that sounds exactly like an american pop song, just not in english.

           
  Девушка по дорогу-Girl on the Street... This one isn't bad. Another pop song that sounds fairly american, just in russian.

It might also interest you to know that the most popular English song in Russia at the moment is probably "I'm Sexy and I Know It". Everyone sings it, and no one understands. They wonder why I laugh.
Are there any people there from other places in the world besides you?
Yes. I came to Russia with an organization called AFS, which sends students from all over the world, well... all over the world. AFS sent about 100 kids to Russia for a year program back in September, and they sent an additional 5 (one of which being me) in January for just a semester. These are kids from all over the world. I haven't met the majority of them, because we are all over Russia, but there are 4 foreign kids in my city appart from me. Sofia (from Austria), Quentin (from France), Giacommo (from Italy), and Marysabel (from Venezuela). Also there is a small town not far from where I live where there are four more foreign students that I've met. Andrea (also from Italy), Sandra (from Germany), Pim (from Thailand), and Fabiana (also from Venezuela). The girls from Venezuela recently went home though, which is sad.
Is there a place the teens hang out?
I feel like in Russia it is not very common for teens to go to eachothers houses. It happens, but not nearly as much as in the US. I think that is because as far as I've seen, most people here live in small (by american standards) appartments, which means a whole lot of people in a small space and not a whole lot to do. I also asked Yulya, and she said that friends almost never sleep over at eachothers houses. Lucky for Yulya though I sleep over at her house every single night.
             Every night though teenagers 'гулять'. The verb literally translates to 'go for a walk'. They just walk in circles around the appartment buildings where we live, or sometimes, when its cold, hang out in the staircases of the afformentioned buildings. It sounds sketchy, but its Russia, and therefore it happens.
Do they do valentines day or is that just for places with hallmark stores?
They do have valentines day. There was lots of card giving at school, and at home (this was my old family) our dad bought our mom roses and gave Dasha, Laura and I little flowers. We all had dinner together, and afterwards ate heart shaped cake. Although valentines day is celebrated here, it is nowhere near as big of a deal as protector of the homeland day or womens day. 
What are people most interested in asking you?
Do you live in a house or an appartment? Why? How many floors does your house have? Why? Do you learn Russian at school there? Why? Do you like McDonalds? Why? Do you like Russia better than america? Why?
In case you missed the pattern, in Russia, every question when answered, is followed with another question: Why.
At what temperature do the Russians consider  it  "spring"?  
 "Spring" began about a month ago, but as I write, there is still snow on the ground, and the temperature is around 35 farenheit. So I guess thats an answer for you.
What are groceries like? Is everything fresh? Do they have frozen foods?
For the most part, everything is fresh. I have no idea how, because its still so cold here, but in the stores they always have fresh food, and every I'd say three days we go and buy food to cook a soup, or some sort of dish, and the cook a large amount of that dish, and then eat it for the next few days, and then once we run out buy ingredients for another dish. Try to picture in your head. Where I live, there are four appartment buildings (gigantic) set up in a square, and in the middle of the square, there is a little playground. Then on the corners of the appartment buildings, there are stores. Within a 5 minute walk from my house, there are three different grocery stores, a pharmacy, and a store where you buy miscellaneous things such as hairbrushes and contianers.  These stores aren't like stores in america though. There is a counter, and you have to go up to the counter and ask for what you want, and the woman will give it to you. They do have frozen food, but normally we don't eat it. Normally, we eat home cooked food, every day. Its quite nice, though I can pretty safely say, that once I get back to the states, I will never again in my life eat soup.

How long does it take to feel comfortable in a language when you're immersed in it?
It depends on the person, the language, and the degree to which they are immersed. Of the 100 students in Russia on the year long program, there are some who after 7 months speak near fluent russian, there are others who literally cannot speak more than a few words.
Person: Some people are good at math, others are good at learning languages, others are good at sports, just depends on the person's natural language learning ability.
  Language: Russian for example, is way more similar to English than it is to Thai, making it significantly harder for a thai person to learn russian than for me. Conversely, Spanish is way more similar to English than russian, making it significantly easier for me to learn Spanish than Russian.
   Degree of Immersion:  If you spend all your time, reading, writing, speaking or even thinking in a language other than the one you're immersed in, then you'll probably not learn as fast.

Honesty/Chestnostz/Честность

I am going to take a post to describe what is in my opinion, the biggest cultural difference I've noticed between Russia and the US. In Russia, people tend to govorit pravda (speak the truth)...all the time.

EXHIBIT A
(with my old host family)
Dasha: Why did you cut your hair?
Me: I don't know, I just wanted a change.
Dasha: You are more beautiful with long hair.
Mama: I agree.

EXHIBIT B- in school, 7 year old Oleg has just recited a lengthy poem by heart, but mixed up a few words, and spoke rather quietly
Teacher: Class, how do you think Oleg recited?
Student: Very badly.
Teacher: Why do you think so?
Student: He said the words wrong.
Teacher: Why else?
Another Student: He recited quietly, and without emotion.
Teacher: Yes, absolutely correct. Oleg, becuase you did so badly, I am going to give you a 2 (the worst grade you can get in Russia, keep in mind this is in front of the whole class)
So, rather defeated, Oleg returns to his desk and the teacher calls on Nastya to recite the poem, she does.
Teacher: How did Nastya recite?
Student: Very well!
Teacher: Why?
Student: She knew all the words, and recited beautifully.**
Teacher: Correct. Nastya, I am going to give you a five 5, you're a good girl.***

At first I was really taken aback by such bluntness, but the more I get used to it, the more I think it is a good thing. Look:

Person A: Hi, How are you?
Person B: good, you?
Person A: Good.

How many times a day do you have that conversation? Tomorrow, if you want, count. Then think how stupid it is.
Why do we say everything is fine when it isnt?
Why do we say we like things when we dont?
Why do we say something was good when really it just wasn't?

I think its because we are afraid of offending people, but really, a difference in opinion or taste should not offend.

I am more of a compare contrast person than a we do it better here/they do it better there person, but this is one of the few times that I'll say it: I think the Russians are doing this right, and we are not.

*Just a little footnote, washing the floor means on your hands and knees with a cloth. 

**In the Russian language its not weird for someone to 'recite beautifully' its also not weird for something to 'smell tasty'.

***Again, in Russian this doesn't really sound abnormal.

Festival/Фестиваль

This past week I didn't study in my school, but rather in another school in my city. That is because at the school I studied at there was like an international festival, and all the foreign students in the area went to school there that week. It was cool to experience another school, and also fun to hang out with other foreign students.

       We each had to do a presentation of our country, a national holiday, and then do a song/dance that is representative of our country. Each foreign student was paired with a class of russian students and we prepared the presentation together. I did one on thanksgiving day. I wanted to do halloween, but with classic russian honesty, I was told that 'no that is a bad idea, do thanksgiving day'.
         Theres no candy or costumes, but I think it did in the end wind up being a cool presentation because no one knew about thanksgiving beforehand. For our musical number I was clueless as to what to do. I asked the people in my class for an opinion and they said they wanted to do a dance.

Just a question: faced with 25 Russian teenagers asking you to show them an american folk dance what would you do?

I will post the video of our dance, and preface it with nothing more than this: If you ever find yourself in Nizhny Novgorod, and everyone thinks that all americans are cowboys, its probably my fault.

Even if our presentation was minorly stereotypical, I think the school enjoyed it. Also, it is not as if there was no work done to break stereotypes, because going to school with these people and dancing with them for a week, they got to know me, a real american, so they get a picture of the real, and the presentational United States.

Also, all the foreign students for the finale did a Russian folk dance to a song called Katyousha. Its about a girl named Katya looking out at a lake waiting for a bird to bring her a message from the person she loves. Russia if nothing else is unique.

I'd love to also post the complete video of that dance, however the 8 year old I told to film didn't know how to work my camera (and I didn't do a fabulous job of explaining in Russian), and therefore I'll show you about 10 seconds of it.

Also I'm planning on doing a question and answer blog post, so if you have any questions about Russian, Russians, or Russia please email them to me in the next week or so: lindsaysaligman@gmail.com

C 8 Марта!/Si bosmoy Marta!/Happy 8th of March!

       Sorry I've gone a while without posting...I should start by saying:
 For reasons it wouldn't be right to go into in such a public setting, I have had to move to a new host family. It wasn't something I wanted to do, nor was it something something my host family wanted, but it had do happen.
        The good news is my new host family is also pretty great. I have a dad, Lyosha, mom, Irina, a 24 year old brother, Tyoma, and a 17 year old sister, Yulya. She's in my class at school, which is quite convenient, because now I have someone who can explain physics to me. None of them speak a word of english, so there is a lot of going back and forth with a dictionary, but I'm sort of happy about it, because what better way could there be to learn Russian? The other good news is they live in the same appartment building as my old family, so I can visit them as often as I'd like.

          So now to the main subject of this post. Remember protector of the homeland day? Well today was another lovely (and entirely religionless I might add) national holiday. It was womens day. It isn't like mothers day though, where you sort of kind of give your mom flowers and maybe call grandma... It's quite the legitamate day. Yulya about every five minutes was getting texts from every boy she knew wishing her a happy womens day. Tyoma got Yulya and I roses, and our parents got us chocolate.
          Yesterday there was a celebration at school too. We only had four lessons rather than six, and for the rest of the day we had a concert, which was one of the most russian things I've seen. It began with kids from the 2nd grade dressed as mushrooms doing a dance to a folsky song about grandma, continued with the girls in 11th grade reciting poems about being a woman, and ended with our middle aged male PE teacher playing the guitar and singing about how lovely women are. Only Russia.
       After our concert just the 10th class went to the classroom of our advisor and which all the boys in our class had decorated for us. They also bought us cake. So we drank tea, which they served to us, and ate cake. It was sweet, literally and figuratively.  Then they recited a poem for us, along the lines of 'beautiful, wonderful girls of the 10b class, we love you, and on this special day we want to give you gifts to show how glad we are to have you in our lives'. Then all the boys went and got gifts, and each one of them presented a gift to a different girl in our class. I got an apron and a spoon decorated with traditional russian patterns. "For to cooking!" a boy in my class enthusiastically explained. The whole thing seemed a little sexist to me, but the good kind of sexist, if that makes any sense. Its not like they are saying 'you are a woman you belong in the home' they are saying 'you are a woman and thats wonderful, we love you'.

                       He is singing about how wonderful women are. And this isn't creepy at all. Only Russia. I might add that this is the same PE teacher that forced us to run in circles for a half an hour and if we didn't go fast enough (or sometimes just because) he threw volleyballs at us.

Part of the concert

Маселницa и вех/Maselnitza iy vech/Maselnitsa and Milestones

The past week (Sunday to Sunday) was a Russian holiday called Maselnitze. It is a festival to celebrate the end of winter, and I think it also had some distant relationship with lent/fat tuesday before the soviet union came along and removed religion from the picture. If you were wondering about religion, most people here are Christian (eastern orthodox) but not very religious, or at least most people I've met. 

    On last Friday we got let out early from school, and all stood outside while these elderly men and women sang folksy songs about winter ending. There was lots of dancing and jumping. Then we played carnival sort of games in the snow, and afterwards everyone gathered around in a giant circle around a doll, and set it on fire. I'm not sure what the signifigance of that was, but it was a treat to watch. 

      On last Tuesday, I think it was, I came home to find that my host mom was making блины (blini), these extremely thin, extremely buttery pankakes that you can eat plain, with jelly, or with something called sweet milk, and tastes a little like caramel sauce but not really. I'm totally adding them to the list of things I need to learn how to make before leaving. 

       Another festivity was on last Sunday I went to a park in my city with a few friends from my class and there they also had a celebration of maselnitze. There was folk music, pop music, and lots of doll burning. It was quite the celebration, though the 20 foot tall slide made entirely out of ice made me question whether winter is actually ending. 

IF YOU EVER GO TO RUSSIA: Do not eat sharma (middle eastern meat burrito type thing). I made this mistake on sunday, only to find out by way of my host mother yelling at me when I got home, that the meat used is 70% of the time from a dog. Is that disgusting and horrible? To Americans, yes. To Russians, also yes. Its one of those things that, for better or worse, society convinces us of because we have dogs as pets and therefore love them, and therefore do not want to eat them. Dasha was joking around with me afterwards and said that I ate Richi (our dog)'s brother, upon which Laura made a face and proceeded not to talk to me for a few hours. Gotta love my host family. 

Milestones

1) Today was the first day that the temperature was above freezing. I can't believe I'm saying this, but seeing puddles in the streets kind of made me sad. I feel like it won't be Russia without the snow. 

2) It's officially not dark outside when school starts, I mean, it's still dark when I wake up, but progress is progress. 

3) My Russian is coming along. I'm now at a point where I understand about 70% of what I hear (this varies however with context, I understand a whole lot more when people are talking about what they did yesterday as opposed to politics or algebra). As for my speaking, I'd probably say I know enough Russian to get by, and then some, but I'm by no means fluent. 

Another interesting note: In Russia, the 23rd of Febuary is a holiday: День защитника Отечества. This translates to something like Protector of the Homeland day. It used to be called Soviet Army day, but that sort of had to change back in January, 1992. To commemorate this special day, you give boys of all ages (reguardless of whether or not they protect the homeland) presents and cards. 

Singing folk songs

Maselnitze

burning the doll

Me on the 20 foot ice slide. 

                                                        Happy protector of the homeland day!!!