Sorry for the long absence! It's not because nothing's happening, but rather because too much is happening. I've also been planning to write a blog post on the epic story of moving that I've been through, but the story keeps on going...I think it's finally over, so I'm going to go ahead and tell the story as if it's over, with the hope that this won't jinx me!
At the beginning of February, Kate and I signed a lease on a fantastic apartment in downtown Ulan-Ude. It's amazing - spacious, well-lit, and much more coherently decorated than most Russian apartments. The location is amazing - I'm a five minute walk from pretty much everywhere that I work, although for some reason I still continue to be as late for everything as I was before. It already had internet and cable already hooked up. Things like that can be a real chore to turn on here, so this seemed almost too good to be true. The owner, Taisia, seemed nice, normal, and relatively on top of things. When we signed the lease, we payed both the first and second month's rent. Taisia promised that if we did this, she would leave the enormous shiny refrigerator that dominated the kitchen. This seemed a little odd, but paying people ahead to cover moving costs is pretty standard practice here, so we went ahead.
Moving day rolled around, and Taisia called us right before we were planning to bring the first load of stuff over to let us know that she was still moving her things out. She asked very nicely if we'd be willing to wait a day to move in. It seemed like the nice-person thing to do, and we're nice people, so we agreed. Her request for another delay the next morning seemed a little excessive, though, so we got a little more assertive. When we got to the apartment, it all seemed in decent order....except the big shiny fridge, which was not working at all. She promised that she would send a repair man over to take care of it right away.
Three days later, a repair man had still not come, although we'd already called her once to ask what was going on. Her response, of course, was that someone would be over right away. Days went by, and rolled into weeks...one week, two weeks...she stopped answering out phone calls after a while. Meanwhile, the temperature outside got warmer and warmer, making our stopgap measure of putting all of the food on the windowsill and leaving the window less and less reliable. After three weeks without a refrigerator, we got so irritated that we called the realtor who had helped us find the place. I have no idea what she said to Taisia, but the next day, Taisia's son and nephew dragged in a battered old Soviet refrigerator that stank, but still worked. One step at a time.
This wouldn't have been so bad by itself, but when combined with her default on a number of debts, the overall situation looked pretty grim. A week after we moved in, Kate was at home one afternoon when she got a knock on the door from the hot water company. Apparently Taisia had not paid the hot water bill for somewhere on the order of a year, and owed them over a thousand dollars. We found out later that this is pretty common practice - most of our acquaintances don't actually pay their hot water bills. And because the company is legally prevented from turning off the largest part of each apartment's hot water use, the heat, the worst that can happen is that they'll turn off your hot water taps. On March 8, International Women's Day, they came to turn off our taps. In order to do this, they have to get into your apartment, and Taisia sounded shocked when she found out that we had actually let them in, but what did we know? So they came in, went into the bathroom and there was some clanking and then we had no hot water.
Kate called Taisia, who was simultaneously shocked, angry (?!) and apologetic. Instead of actually paying the debt, she called an acquaintance of hers over at the hot water company who called the hot-water-turner-offers, who marched right back over and turned our hot water back on. She may not have money, but at least she's got connections! But we are now under strict instructions to not open the door for ANYONE. Which of course would have meant that we wouldn't have opened the door for the hot water people when they showed up again to turn it on, but since it's ridiculous, we don't pay any attention.
Other people who have come looking for Taisia include
1) the electric company
2) a credit service which she had told to contact her at our home number after she had moved out
3) the municipal court multiple times for some sort of action against her husband
4) a policeman
We also had our cable turned off because it turned out that she hadn't payed the bill since December, and had our internet turned off because she listed it under a name that was not hers, and didn't tell us about that, which meant that the phone company credited our payment to the wrong account.
She doesn't want to tell us where she is living now because she's afraid that we'll tell someone who is looking for her, since we've made it clear that we have no problem giving her home phone number to all of these people who come bugging us looking for her. So she has to come here to pick up the rent herself. Now, it's pretty clear by this time that she needs the money, so you'd think that she'd actually show up to pick it up. You would be wrong. She called for four days telling us that she would be by "in the afternoon" or "after seven" to pick up the money, but we didn't see hide nor hair of her. Finally, she came by at 11 pm on a Wednesday evening nearly a week after she had originally promised to come by and went through a ridiculous and slightly insulting process of trying to check all of the math on the deductions we had made out of the rent for the bills that we'd paid for her. As the woman from the credit service said when I explained to her that we had been living here for months and Taisia had given her the wrong number, "zabavno," which roughly translates as "what a piece of work."
So next time all you renters out there are complaining about your giant rental companies, remember my tale of woe! Actually, now that the refrigerator crisis is a distant memory and we have our hot water back, it's mostly just funny.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
My Russian Ski Trip
In addition to everything else that I've done in Russia, I can now say that I've skied one of Russia's most elite ski resorts. Yes, Vladimir Vladimirovich (Putin) himself has swished down the very same ski slopes that I have, although he probably fell a lot less than I did. He said that skiing at Baikal'sk, located at the southern tip of Lake Baikal overlooking a massive bay and Russia's largest paper mill, is every bit as good as skiing in Switzerland. Again, I'm going to have to 
play the skeptic, but I did have a really good time. And that's me skiing below!
This is the third time that I've ever been downhill skiing. The first was on the gentle slopes of the ironically-named Afton Alps (can there not be good skiing outside of Switzerland?) in the bluffs overlooking the St. Croix River outside Minneapolis. The second time was on the bunny hill at Marshall Mountain outside Missoula, where I watched my Korean roommate mow down an entire post-Christmas tow line of small children as she desperately tried and failed to snowplow. Needless to say, we didn't make it past the bunny hill. We almost didn't make it off the bunny hill, given the looks from some of the parents. So I didn't exactly have a pile of experience to bring to bear. But I've always wanted to learn, so when my friend Carolyn, who's been skiing since she was 4 and is patient to a nearly inhuman degree, suggested that we all go celebrate Defenders of the Fatherland Day on the slopes at Baikal'sk, I was ready to go.
The skiing itself was wonderful. I've found yet another hobby that I cannot do in Illinois. After a couple of days of falling, I suddenly discovered that I could make it from the top to the bottom of the mountain without spending more time on my butt than on my skis. And right about then it was time to go home. Considerably more difficult than the skiing was mastering the t-bar lift. On Day 1, Kate and I fell off the t-bar no less than six times between the two of us. Once, we did so in spectacular fashion. After a couple of wipeouts at the base of the hill, we'd managed to get fairly far up the slope. All of a sudden, I realized that my upper body was moving much faster than my feet. As you can imagine, this was a very concerning development. I started to worry, and Kate kept reassuring me, saying, "You're OK, you're OK." My feet kept getting further behind me, and so a few seconds later, all that was left was for me to whimper, "But I'm not OK" and fall off the t-bar face first onto the trail, taking Kate down with me. We then had to slide halfway down the mountain trying desperately not to get run over by the skiers and snowboarders on their way up the hill. Shockingly enough, the Russian lift system is not designed for user safet or comfort, unlike what I imagine about Switzerland.
Day 2 brought thrills and chills. Markers in Russia have always been low quality, but I had never in my life thought that this quality issue would touch me so deeply. The three of us stood at the base of the mountain staring at a giant map of the slope and trying to decide where to go next. We saw a path that looked like it was colored green, which even in crazy Russia means "beginner," down a side of the mountain we hadn't been down, and decided to go for it. We got about halfway down it with a respectable number of wipeouts when all of a sudden we came to the top of a tiny rise after which it seemed like the mountain dropped straight into the lake. Turned out our nice little beginner trail was actually labeled black, not green. Even in crazy Russia with its not particularly serious ski culture, black means "advanced." We made it down with nothing broken, hooray, and I now have a highly inflated opinion of my own skills. A gold star for Carolyn for her confident coaching and emergency management!
Day 3 was our last day. Carolyn and I went skiing again, while Kate, much more dedicated to work than I, wandered around town and got the scoop on the notorious Baikal'sk paper mill, which is the source of all those reports that Lake Baikal is hideously polluted. The mill was shut down in November, although we're not sure if it's because of environmental reasons or the current economic troubles. We had planned to celebrate our last day and steam some of our aches away in a Russian steam bath constructed out of ice blocks on the frozen lake. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, the Russian banya is a two-step process: first, you roast yourself in a sweat room, and then you run out and cool off in whatever manner is available at the time. You're supposed to go through this cycle three times. Most of the time, I end up cooling off in a cold shower, although one time I did dive
into a snow pile. The option available at this place was a dip in frozen-over Baikal itself. I heard grown men shriek like guinea pigs when they jumped in. With masochistic bravado, I had promised Kate and Carolyn, who had said they'd dip their feet in, that I'd go in all the way. Fortunately, I was saved from my foolish, foolish words by a typically-Russian scheduling mishap, so I never actually had to pony up. Part of me still wanders what it would have been like, though. Instead, we sat on the shore of the lake, looked at the starts, and drank wine until the wine turned to slush in the cups and our feet got really cold. Best Defenders of the Fatherland Day ever.
play the skeptic, but I did have a really good time. And that's me skiing below!This is the third time that I've ever been downhill skiing. The first was on the gentle slopes of the ironically-named Afton Alps (can there not be good skiing outside of Switzerland?) in the bluffs overlooking the St. Croix River outside Minneapolis. The second time was on the bunny hill at Marshall Mountain outside Missoula, where I watched my Korean roommate mow down an entire post-Christmas tow line of small children as she desperately tried and failed to snowplow. Needless to say, we didn't make it past the bunny hill. We almost didn't make it off the bunny hill, given the looks from some of the parents. So I didn't exactly have a pile of experience to bring to bear. But I've always wanted to learn, so when my friend Carolyn, who's been skiing since she was 4 and is patient to a nearly inhuman degree, suggested that we all go celebrate Defenders of the Fatherland Day on the slopes at Baikal'sk, I was ready to go.
The skiing itself was wonderful. I've found yet another hobby that I cannot do in Illinois. After a couple of days of falling, I suddenly discovered that I could make it from the top to the bottom of the mountain without spending more time on my butt than on my skis. And right about then it was time to go home. Considerably more difficult than the skiing was mastering the t-bar lift. On Day 1, Kate and I fell off the t-bar no less than six times between the two of us. Once, we did so in spectacular fashion. After a couple of wipeouts at the base of the hill, we'd managed to get fairly far up the slope. All of a sudden, I realized that my upper body was moving much faster than my feet. As you can imagine, this was a very concerning development. I started to worry, and Kate kept reassuring me, saying, "You're OK, you're OK." My feet kept getting further behind me, and so a few seconds later, all that was left was for me to whimper, "But I'm not OK" and fall off the t-bar face first onto the trail, taking Kate down with me. We then had to slide halfway down the mountain trying desperately not to get run over by the skiers and snowboarders on their way up the hill. Shockingly enough, the Russian lift system is not designed for user safet or comfort, unlike what I imagine about Switzerland.
Day 2 brought thrills and chills. Markers in Russia have always been low quality, but I had never in my life thought that this quality issue would touch me so deeply. The three of us stood at the base of the mountain staring at a giant map of the slope and trying to decide where to go next. We saw a path that looked like it was colored green, which even in crazy Russia means "beginner," down a side of the mountain we hadn't been down, and decided to go for it. We got about halfway down it with a respectable number of wipeouts when all of a sudden we came to the top of a tiny rise after which it seemed like the mountain dropped straight into the lake. Turned out our nice little beginner trail was actually labeled black, not green. Even in crazy Russia with its not particularly serious ski culture, black means "advanced." We made it down with nothing broken, hooray, and I now have a highly inflated opinion of my own skills. A gold star for Carolyn for her confident coaching and emergency management!
Day 3 was our last day. Carolyn and I went skiing again, while Kate, much more dedicated to work than I, wandered around town and got the scoop on the notorious Baikal'sk paper mill, which is the source of all those reports that Lake Baikal is hideously polluted. The mill was shut down in November, although we're not sure if it's because of environmental reasons or the current economic troubles. We had planned to celebrate our last day and steam some of our aches away in a Russian steam bath constructed out of ice blocks on the frozen lake. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, the Russian banya is a two-step process: first, you roast yourself in a sweat room, and then you run out and cool off in whatever manner is available at the time. You're supposed to go through this cycle three times. Most of the time, I end up cooling off in a cold shower, although one time I did dive
into a snow pile. The option available at this place was a dip in frozen-over Baikal itself. I heard grown men shriek like guinea pigs when they jumped in. With masochistic bravado, I had promised Kate and Carolyn, who had said they'd dip their feet in, that I'd go in all the way. Fortunately, I was saved from my foolish, foolish words by a typically-Russian scheduling mishap, so I never actually had to pony up. Part of me still wanders what it would have been like, though. Instead, we sat on the shore of the lake, looked at the starts, and drank wine until the wine turned to slush in the cups and our feet got really cold. Best Defenders of the Fatherland Day ever.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Etegilov
Thanks to a connection that my Russian teacher has at Ivolginsk, the big Buddhist temple outside of Ulan-Ude, I received a rare privilege - a personal audience with Etegilov, the 14th Pandito Khambo Lama, or governmentally-endorsed head of Buddhism in Russia. He didn't have much to say.
Etegilov has quite a history behind him. He was the Pandito Khambo Lama in post-revolutionary Russia, and unlike most religious leaders at that time, actually had some staying power, in that he didn't get arrested, thrown out of office, or killed. He stayed in his position until about 1927, which was a pretty good year to leave, since it was shortly before the beginning of the purges that took out most of the country's remaining religious figures, including the vast majority of Russia's Buddhist lamas.
Etegilov went much more peacefully than his counterparts. According to the story about him that everyone in Ulan-Ude can recite, he told several of his subordinate lamas that he would slip into a deep state of meditation, and that once he had stopped responding to the world, they were to pack him up in a crate, bury him in a secret location, and disinter the crate every few decades to check on him. He then proceeded to do exactly what he said he would do. He entered a state of such profound meditation that his mind reached enlightenment, yet his body continued to live despite not responding to any external stimulus.
The secret of Etegilov's location was preserved throughout the Soviet period. The lamas who had been entrusted with the knowledge and managed to make it through the purges checked on him at some point in the 1960s, and found that he was still meditating. He was reburied and practically forgotten until 2002, when the currently-presiding Khambo Lama found the last remaining person to know his location and had the crate dug up again. Instead of discretely checking on him and placing him back in the earth, the Khambo Lama widely proclaimed Etegilov's achievement of perfect meditation. The intact state of his body, rigidly holding its lotus position, was upheld as a sign that he was still alive despite his being nearly 150 years old (he had been 70 or 80 when he entered his state of meditation). Etegilov was placed on display at the temple on holidays, with monks caring for his body and changing his garments daily.
A whole array of proof of Etegilov's continued life has been added to his story. According to several people from Ulan-Ude who I've asked about this as well as the monk who showed us around the temple, the chief coroner from Moscow came out and performed a variety of medical tests on Etegilov that demonstrated that his fingernails and hair were still growing. The word of the chief coroner is evidently deemed insufficient proof for the doubting, so a statement about his evidence is inevitably followed up by a statement that "Western scientists have done tests too, and they also think that he is alive." It's never really specified who these Western scientists were (I've heard that they were British, German, and French) or exactly how they proved that Etegilov is still alive, but he now has the stamp of approval of "Western science."
Etegilov continues to be shown on holidays, and a beautiful new temple in honor of him and intended to showcase and shelter his body has been built in the temple complex. Enthusiasm about him has waned a little - although nearly everyone that I've talked to, except for Boris, the head of the international center at the university, believes deeply in Etegilov, he no longer attracts the crowds that he once did. Kate has been to the datsan several times on public holidays when he was on display; the first time, in 2004 or 2005, entire busloads of people came from cities hundreds of miles away over the miserable Siberian roads to see Etegilov, and the crowds were far more than the monks had planned for, leading to a near stampede. Things have calmed down a little since then. Kate's husband, a Tibetologist specializing in Buddhist philosophy at Indiana University (and a "Western scientist" whose stamp of authority I will believe) says that he only knows one other situation like this when an actual body was the subject of display and worship in Buddhism, and that happened about 700 years ago in Tibet itself.
Etegilov was looking very orange and very mummified when I saw him. He reminded me unfortunately of Russia's other famous corpse-on-display, Lenin, in this respect. I'm also unconvinced by all of the medical evidence that is trooped out in favor of his miracle. Having heard from Russian doctors that being within the range of sound of a ringing silver church bell is enough to prevent HIV infection, and having seen numerous confirmations on Russian TV by "Western scientists" of all sorts of paranormal phenomena from UFOs to ghosts, I just don't find it persuasive. What I do find amazing is the level of belief in Etegilov exhibited by everyone from self-identified Orthodox to non-practicing Buddhists to monks. Everyone except for Boris, who swears that Etegilov's crate was packed with salt. The idea of meditating yourself out of the world and all of its sufferings, especially the disaster for religion in Russia that was Stalinism, is a very powerful one here. You just have to be the Pandito Khambo Lama to pull it off.
Etegilov has quite a history behind him. He was the Pandito Khambo Lama in post-revolutionary Russia, and unlike most religious leaders at that time, actually had some staying power, in that he didn't get arrested, thrown out of office, or killed. He stayed in his position until about 1927, which was a pretty good year to leave, since it was shortly before the beginning of the purges that took out most of the country's remaining religious figures, including the vast majority of Russia's Buddhist lamas.
Etegilov went much more peacefully than his counterparts. According to the story about him that everyone in Ulan-Ude can recite, he told several of his subordinate lamas that he would slip into a deep state of meditation, and that once he had stopped responding to the world, they were to pack him up in a crate, bury him in a secret location, and disinter the crate every few decades to check on him. He then proceeded to do exactly what he said he would do. He entered a state of such profound meditation that his mind reached enlightenment, yet his body continued to live despite not responding to any external stimulus.
The secret of Etegilov's location was preserved throughout the Soviet period. The lamas who had been entrusted with the knowledge and managed to make it through the purges checked on him at some point in the 1960s, and found that he was still meditating. He was reburied and practically forgotten until 2002, when the currently-presiding Khambo Lama found the last remaining person to know his location and had the crate dug up again. Instead of discretely checking on him and placing him back in the earth, the Khambo Lama widely proclaimed Etegilov's achievement of perfect meditation. The intact state of his body, rigidly holding its lotus position, was upheld as a sign that he was still alive despite his being nearly 150 years old (he had been 70 or 80 when he entered his state of meditation). Etegilov was placed on display at the temple on holidays, with monks caring for his body and changing his garments daily.
A whole array of proof of Etegilov's continued life has been added to his story. According to several people from Ulan-Ude who I've asked about this as well as the monk who showed us around the temple, the chief coroner from Moscow came out and performed a variety of medical tests on Etegilov that demonstrated that his fingernails and hair were still growing. The word of the chief coroner is evidently deemed insufficient proof for the doubting, so a statement about his evidence is inevitably followed up by a statement that "Western scientists have done tests too, and they also think that he is alive." It's never really specified who these Western scientists were (I've heard that they were British, German, and French) or exactly how they proved that Etegilov is still alive, but he now has the stamp of approval of "Western science."
Etegilov continues to be shown on holidays, and a beautiful new temple in honor of him and intended to showcase and shelter his body has been built in the temple complex. Enthusiasm about him has waned a little - although nearly everyone that I've talked to, except for Boris, the head of the international center at the university, believes deeply in Etegilov, he no longer attracts the crowds that he once did. Kate has been to the datsan several times on public holidays when he was on display; the first time, in 2004 or 2005, entire busloads of people came from cities hundreds of miles away over the miserable Siberian roads to see Etegilov, and the crowds were far more than the monks had planned for, leading to a near stampede. Things have calmed down a little since then. Kate's husband, a Tibetologist specializing in Buddhist philosophy at Indiana University (and a "Western scientist" whose stamp of authority I will believe) says that he only knows one other situation like this when an actual body was the subject of display and worship in Buddhism, and that happened about 700 years ago in Tibet itself.
Etegilov was looking very orange and very mummified when I saw him. He reminded me unfortunately of Russia's other famous corpse-on-display, Lenin, in this respect. I'm also unconvinced by all of the medical evidence that is trooped out in favor of his miracle. Having heard from Russian doctors that being within the range of sound of a ringing silver church bell is enough to prevent HIV infection, and having seen numerous confirmations on Russian TV by "Western scientists" of all sorts of paranormal phenomena from UFOs to ghosts, I just don't find it persuasive. What I do find amazing is the level of belief in Etegilov exhibited by everyone from self-identified Orthodox to non-practicing Buddhists to monks. Everyone except for Boris, who swears that Etegilov's crate was packed with salt. The idea of meditating yourself out of the world and all of its sufferings, especially the disaster for religion in Russia that was Stalinism, is a very powerful one here. You just have to be the Pandito Khambo Lama to pull it off.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
The Trans-Siberian Railroad
After a wonderful New Year's spent together in Moscow and Tver' seeing the sights and stuffing ourselves in a 3-day food marathon with some Russian friends of mine, Jacob flew back to the U.S., leaving me to return to Ulan-Ude with fellow researcher Kate on the Moscow-Beijing train.
5,500 or so kilometers and 82 hours later, I arrived in Ulan-Ude.
I have a new appreciation for Russia's size. Flying for a long time (it takes five hours to get to Ulan-Ude from Moscow by plane) and still not being anywhere near all the way across it gives you a little sense. But actually having all of that countryside pass by your window is something entirely different. The really shocking thing is how very uniform the country is.
Mile after mile after mile, all we saw was tiny village after tiny village, interspersed with large tracts of birch and pine forest. And it was flat. We crossed the Urals at night, so I missed them, but judging from the way the train was moving, all they really are is big hills. Flat on one side, flat on the other. All the way to about kilometer 4,800 or so, when things got hilly as the approach to Lake Baikal began.
It didn't actually seem anything like 82 hours stuck in a tiny compartment, with 20-minute breaks to walk around when the train stopped every 5 or 6 hours. Four times, I woke up in the morning after a good ten hours of sleep and sat around in my pajamas drinking coffee and watching the landscape roll by for 45 minutes. Granted, it would have been better if the coffee had been something other than black Nescafe, but you make do with what you've got. Then breakfast - a difficult choice between bread and cheese, instant mashed potatoes with cheese and hot sauce, and ramen noodles. After which I was forced to make the dreadful choice of how to amuse myself: read a book (thanks to Jacob, I was working my way though Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test)? read some essays (Kate's husband brought over an issue of Harper's full of trenchant political criticism)? work on my current craft project? or just stare blankly out the window? Followed by some cookies, a little chocolate, perhaps a mandarin orange or two. More tough decisions about what to do. 4:00? Beer in the lounge car. 11:00? Fall asleep gazing out the window into a landscape lit up by a full moon reflecting off of the snow. Very Dr. Zhivago.
It's amazingly easy to while away three entire days like this. After a while, it seems like there isn't anywhere else that you could possibly be other than inside the compartment or standing on a train platform. Because the car attendants lock the bathrooms at stations (Russian train toilets flush straight onto the tracks), I found myself in pretty bad shape at one station post-4-pm-beer. Kate and I dashed down the platform and found at bathroom, at which point I suddenly realized that I was inside the first actual "building" that I had been in for days. My voice echoed strangely and I felt very small and unsheltered.
When we got back to Kate's apartment this afternoon, we found out that in our absence, some sort of accident had caused hot water and heating outages to our neighborhood when the temperature was about -25, that one of her downstairs neighbors had left a window open and then disappeared for a month so that when the hot water went out, his pipes froze, causing pipes in other parts of the building to burst, and that the building superintendent, in an effort to thaw one of Kate's radiators, had plugged in a space heater and nearly burned the building down when she walked off and left it. Compared to all of that, the train car and its happy, lazy pursuits seem like heaven.
Check back - I'll be putting up pictures from the train trip.
5,500 or so kilometers and 82 hours later, I arrived in Ulan-Ude.
I have a new appreciation for Russia's size. Flying for a long time (it takes five hours to get to Ulan-Ude from Moscow by plane) and still not being anywhere near all the way across it gives you a little sense. But actually having all of that countryside pass by your window is something entirely different. The really shocking thing is how very uniform the country is.
Mile after mile after mile, all we saw was tiny village after tiny village, interspersed with large tracts of birch and pine forest. And it was flat. We crossed the Urals at night, so I missed them, but judging from the way the train was moving, all they really are is big hills. Flat on one side, flat on the other. All the way to about kilometer 4,800 or so, when things got hilly as the approach to Lake Baikal began.
It didn't actually seem anything like 82 hours stuck in a tiny compartment, with 20-minute breaks to walk around when the train stopped every 5 or 6 hours. Four times, I woke up in the morning after a good ten hours of sleep and sat around in my pajamas drinking coffee and watching the landscape roll by for 45 minutes. Granted, it would have been better if the coffee had been something other than black Nescafe, but you make do with what you've got. Then breakfast - a difficult choice between bread and cheese, instant mashed potatoes with cheese and hot sauce, and ramen noodles. After which I was forced to make the dreadful choice of how to amuse myself: read a book (thanks to Jacob, I was working my way though Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test)? read some essays (Kate's husband brought over an issue of Harper's full of trenchant political criticism)? work on my current craft project? or just stare blankly out the window? Followed by some cookies, a little chocolate, perhaps a mandarin orange or two. More tough decisions about what to do. 4:00? Beer in the lounge car. 11:00? Fall asleep gazing out the window into a landscape lit up by a full moon reflecting off of the snow. Very Dr. Zhivago.
It's amazingly easy to while away three entire days like this. After a while, it seems like there isn't anywhere else that you could possibly be other than inside the compartment or standing on a train platform. Because the car attendants lock the bathrooms at stations (Russian train toilets flush straight onto the tracks), I found myself in pretty bad shape at one station post-4-pm-beer. Kate and I dashed down the platform and found at bathroom, at which point I suddenly realized that I was inside the first actual "building" that I had been in for days. My voice echoed strangely and I felt very small and unsheltered.
When we got back to Kate's apartment this afternoon, we found out that in our absence, some sort of accident had caused hot water and heating outages to our neighborhood when the temperature was about -25, that one of her downstairs neighbors had left a window open and then disappeared for a month so that when the hot water went out, his pipes froze, causing pipes in other parts of the building to burst, and that the building superintendent, in an effort to thaw one of Kate's radiators, had plugged in a space heater and nearly burned the building down when she walked off and left it. Compared to all of that, the train car and its happy, lazy pursuits seem like heaven.
Check back - I'll be putting up pictures from the train trip.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Big Events in the Archive
A few weeks ago, the National Archive of the Republic of Buriatiia, where I spend way too much time, celebrated its 85th anniversary. This august event was accompanied by all sorts of celebrations. A couple of the senior archivists got awards for their service to the state; there was a little conference at the National Library, and a TV crew came to put together a little snippet about the archive for one of the morning news programs.
All of this happened shortly after Jacob got here. As you can imagine, I wasn't so keen to bury myself in the archives the way I normally do, so I'd told the archivists that on the big day, I wouldn't be there. Instead, I went to the university, ran a couple of errands, and made plans to meet Jacob by Lenin's head for lunch.
At 11:15, just as I was putting on my coat to go meet Jacob, I got a phone call from one of the archivists. She said that a TV crew was there doing interviews, and that Zina Fedorovna, the head of the reading room, had told them that a FOREIGNER was working there and suggested that they might want to interview me. My research success and the archive being a pleasant place for me to work all depends on how much Zina Fedorovna likes me, so I picked Jacob up at the Head and we set off for the archive.
To give you a little background, Zina Fedorovna is a force of nature. She is in her late fifties, and has been working in the archive for 30 years. She knows everything. She also looks very grandmotherly. This can be deceptive, though - if she doesn't like you, she will boss you around and terrorize you to no end, and if she does like you, she will talk to you constantly while you're trying to work, pausing every ten minutes to say, "But I should let you work", after which she leaves for two minutes and then comes back with another question. She also loves polyester pants and big grey cardigans. She simultaneously terrifies me, inspires me with awe, keeps my research running in an orderly fashion (she likes me), and makes me laugh to no end.
When we got there, Zina Fedorovna set us down together at one of the tables in the reading room and brought the TV crew in. She introduced me to them as me, and then told them that Jacob was a "very important computer science specialist from America." The crew then decided that they wanted to get some footage of me "working" in the archive. So they brought out a pile of documents that I had already decided were boring and useless, and asked me to read through them, pointing out interesting things to Jacob, who pretended to type notes for me about documents that he couldn't even read while playing chess on my laptop. So much for verisimilitude. I guess I should be greatful, though - it's not every history grad student who gets a "very important computer science specialist from America" as a research assistant.
Once all of this was done and the reporter had asked me a couple of questions, they headed upstairs to do another interview. I took care of a little paperwork that I needed to get done before heading out. Somewhere in the process of all of this, Zina Fedorovna decided that I needed to get a copy of my interview and the footage of me from the camera crew, even though I insisted that I was sure I could record it myself. Again, not wanting to disagree, I went along. We headed up an elevator into the previously mysterious interior of the archive. When we got out of the elevator, I could heard the report ask the director of the archive, whom she was interviewing in a room off the hallway, what the oldest document in the archive was. The director replied it was from some time in the 17th century, at which point Zina Fedorovna squawked out, "It's from 1658! The girl wants a copy of the interview!" The reporter and the cameraman yelled back, "You're bothering us! Go away!" Zina and I went back down the elebator, me trying to restrain my laughter while she ranted about the director's inadequacies, chief at this point being that she didn't know about 1658.
Needless to say, I didn't get my copy of the interview. I tried to tape it the next day, but when it was on TV, but due to technical difficulties with a DVR recorder, I didn't even get to watch myself, let alone make a copy. So much for my moment of fame. My Russian teacher said she saw me, though - I guess that's something.
All of this happened shortly after Jacob got here. As you can imagine, I wasn't so keen to bury myself in the archives the way I normally do, so I'd told the archivists that on the big day, I wouldn't be there. Instead, I went to the university, ran a couple of errands, and made plans to meet Jacob by Lenin's head for lunch.
At 11:15, just as I was putting on my coat to go meet Jacob, I got a phone call from one of the archivists. She said that a TV crew was there doing interviews, and that Zina Fedorovna, the head of the reading room, had told them that a FOREIGNER was working there and suggested that they might want to interview me. My research success and the archive being a pleasant place for me to work all depends on how much Zina Fedorovna likes me, so I picked Jacob up at the Head and we set off for the archive.
To give you a little background, Zina Fedorovna is a force of nature. She is in her late fifties, and has been working in the archive for 30 years. She knows everything. She also looks very grandmotherly. This can be deceptive, though - if she doesn't like you, she will boss you around and terrorize you to no end, and if she does like you, she will talk to you constantly while you're trying to work, pausing every ten minutes to say, "But I should let you work", after which she leaves for two minutes and then comes back with another question. She also loves polyester pants and big grey cardigans. She simultaneously terrifies me, inspires me with awe, keeps my research running in an orderly fashion (she likes me), and makes me laugh to no end.
When we got there, Zina Fedorovna set us down together at one of the tables in the reading room and brought the TV crew in. She introduced me to them as me, and then told them that Jacob was a "very important computer science specialist from America." The crew then decided that they wanted to get some footage of me "working" in the archive. So they brought out a pile of documents that I had already decided were boring and useless, and asked me to read through them, pointing out interesting things to Jacob, who pretended to type notes for me about documents that he couldn't even read while playing chess on my laptop. So much for verisimilitude. I guess I should be greatful, though - it's not every history grad student who gets a "very important computer science specialist from America" as a research assistant.
Once all of this was done and the reporter had asked me a couple of questions, they headed upstairs to do another interview. I took care of a little paperwork that I needed to get done before heading out. Somewhere in the process of all of this, Zina Fedorovna decided that I needed to get a copy of my interview and the footage of me from the camera crew, even though I insisted that I was sure I could record it myself. Again, not wanting to disagree, I went along. We headed up an elevator into the previously mysterious interior of the archive. When we got out of the elevator, I could heard the report ask the director of the archive, whom she was interviewing in a room off the hallway, what the oldest document in the archive was. The director replied it was from some time in the 17th century, at which point Zina Fedorovna squawked out, "It's from 1658! The girl wants a copy of the interview!" The reporter and the cameraman yelled back, "You're bothering us! Go away!" Zina and I went back down the elebator, me trying to restrain my laughter while she ranted about the director's inadequacies, chief at this point being that she didn't know about 1658.
Needless to say, I didn't get my copy of the interview. I tried to tape it the next day, but when it was on TV, but due to technical difficulties with a DVR recorder, I didn't even get to watch myself, let alone make a copy. So much for my moment of fame. My Russian teacher said she saw me, though - I guess that's something.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Jacob's Guest Entry
Our day trip to Kyakhta was a worthy microcosm of my journey so far. The town is in many ways similar to small boom-towns out West. Kyakhta is currently suffering under a state of sad and slow decline. Yet during the 18th and 19th centuries as Russians were moving eastwards into the vast hinterlands of the Russian Empire, Kyakhta was fabulously wealthy. The source of the wealth was the tea trade which provided most of Russian and some of Europe with its tea. Caravans would come out of China to this border town between Mongolia and Russia. Then with the advent of the Suez canal, the tea trade disappeared from Kyakhta. The remnants of the wealth are still visible through the decayed but once grand houses, the ruins of Churches that were once large and richly decorated and a museum, which was the main destination of our trip.
The journey to Kyakhta is also worthy of description. Most transport here is available through a fleet of privately operated vans and buses that run designated routes with fixed prices. These vehicles are known as marshrutkas and have quite a bit of character. Our marshrutka was typical. It was a van that seats 12 and was decorated with delightful trim and tassels all around the windows. The color scheme was reminiscent of the crayons with bizarre names to children, such as fuchsia, cyan and magenta. The soundtrack was nonstop Russian Euro-pop. The inside of the windows were covered in a thick layer of frost as the outside air temperature was about -20 degrees Fahrenheit. So in order to see the Asian steppe during our three hour trip, we had to scrape off frost for a 30 second view before the small hole began to fog up. The passengers were a mixture of Buryat and Russian and were generally kind and interested to find Americans in their midst. The Buryats are local people who are quite similar in language and culture to Mongolians.
Once in Kyakhta, we hurried to the museum in order to escape the cold. We used the still common outdoor pit toilets and then finally began our perusal of the museum. Jesse has explained that many Russians seldom get outdoors and hence receive much of their exposure to nature through the natural history wings of museums. Taxidermy is still much loved in Russia and this museum did not lack for stuffed animals. In particular, the museum had a large collection of natural oddities and freaks, such as five legged animals, 2 headed animals, an animal with eyes but no head (I was also confused about how this was possible) and Siamese twins. Jesse did mention a strain of Russian thought which held that through understanding the exceptions of nature, you gain a true understanding of nature. Apparently, one of the czars had a penchant for such animals and the gems of his collection are on display in St. Petersburg. There were also many 'typical' animals of Russia, such as bears, boars, wolves and nerpa seals of Lake Baikal.
After saying goodbye to the two-headed lamb, we went to another wing and were greeted by pictures and stories of the merchants and explorers who moved eastwards with the Russian Empire. There were a number of natural scientists dispatched by the czar to catalogue the flora and fauna of the new lands, map and do basic ethnographic work. Russian explorers even competed with the British for access to Tibet. I particularly liked the pictures of the merchants with their camel caravans laden with tea and of the town square filled with tea bricks. I could get a feel for the town in its heyday when the Mongolian, Chinese and Russian cultures intermingled along with their money.
The last two wings of the museum owed their richness to Stalin's religious persecution, which involved looting and then closing churches and temples. One wing held looted artifacts from the local Buryats' Buddhist tradition, which is Tibetan in origin. The colorful but fierce ceremonial masks and serene Buddhas were in stark contrast to the harshness of the surrounding steppe. The final wing held looted artifacts from the local Orthodox churches, only one of which is not now in ruins. Of greatest interest was a very nontraditional icon painting of the nativity. The painting had none of the typical stylizations of Russian iconography, but instead seemed indicative of the contemporary tastes of that day with its realistic style.
After a brief walk through the main street in town, we decided to escape the cold and hurried into a restaurant. By this time, we were quite cold, as the museum was a poorly heated large concrete and stone building. After standing for 2 or 3 hours in such a building, one can get a deeply set chill. We found two restaurants and neither of them was marked as such on the outside. After entering each restaurant, there was an empty vestibule with a number of doors from which to choose. The wrong door might lead to the kitchen, broom closet or bathroom. We only knew these buildings contained restaurants through the recommendations of people on the street. But, the restaurant we chose was warm and the food was surprisingly good.
The day ended with a three hour drive back to Ulan-Ude in a marshrutka. The conversation included some discussion with the driver's friend about American icons such as Barrack Obama and Mike Tyson, along with repeated affirmations of Russian-American friendship.
The journey to Kyakhta is also worthy of description. Most transport here is available through a fleet of privately operated vans and buses that run designated routes with fixed prices. These vehicles are known as marshrutkas and have quite a bit of character. Our marshrutka was typical. It was a van that seats 12 and was decorated with delightful trim and tassels all around the windows. The color scheme was reminiscent of the crayons with bizarre names to children, such as fuchsia, cyan and magenta. The soundtrack was nonstop Russian Euro-pop. The inside of the windows were covered in a thick layer of frost as the outside air temperature was about -20 degrees Fahrenheit. So in order to see the Asian steppe during our three hour trip, we had to scrape off frost for a 30 second view before the small hole began to fog up. The passengers were a mixture of Buryat and Russian and were generally kind and interested to find Americans in their midst. The Buryats are local people who are quite similar in language and culture to Mongolians.
Once in Kyakhta, we hurried to the museum in order to escape the cold. We used the still common outdoor pit toilets and then finally began our perusal of the museum. Jesse has explained that many Russians seldom get outdoors and hence receive much of their exposure to nature through the natural history wings of museums. Taxidermy is still much loved in Russia and this museum did not lack for stuffed animals. In particular, the museum had a large collection of natural oddities and freaks, such as five legged animals, 2 headed animals, an animal with eyes but no head (I was also confused about how this was possible) and Siamese twins. Jesse did mention a strain of Russian thought which held that through understanding the exceptions of nature, you gain a true understanding of nature. Apparently, one of the czars had a penchant for such animals and the gems of his collection are on display in St. Petersburg. There were also many 'typical' animals of Russia, such as bears, boars, wolves and nerpa seals of Lake Baikal.
After saying goodbye to the two-headed lamb, we went to another wing and were greeted by pictures and stories of the merchants and explorers who moved eastwards with the Russian Empire. There were a number of natural scientists dispatched by the czar to catalogue the flora and fauna of the new lands, map and do basic ethnographic work. Russian explorers even competed with the British for access to Tibet. I particularly liked the pictures of the merchants with their camel caravans laden with tea and of the town square filled with tea bricks. I could get a feel for the town in its heyday when the Mongolian, Chinese and Russian cultures intermingled along with their money.
The last two wings of the museum owed their richness to Stalin's religious persecution, which involved looting and then closing churches and temples. One wing held looted artifacts from the local Buryats' Buddhist tradition, which is Tibetan in origin. The colorful but fierce ceremonial masks and serene Buddhas were in stark contrast to the harshness of the surrounding steppe. The final wing held looted artifacts from the local Orthodox churches, only one of which is not now in ruins. Of greatest interest was a very nontraditional icon painting of the nativity. The painting had none of the typical stylizations of Russian iconography, but instead seemed indicative of the contemporary tastes of that day with its realistic style.
After a brief walk through the main street in town, we decided to escape the cold and hurried into a restaurant. By this time, we were quite cold, as the museum was a poorly heated large concrete and stone building. After standing for 2 or 3 hours in such a building, one can get a deeply set chill. We found two restaurants and neither of them was marked as such on the outside. After entering each restaurant, there was an empty vestibule with a number of doors from which to choose. The wrong door might lead to the kitchen, broom closet or bathroom. We only knew these buildings contained restaurants through the recommendations of people on the street. But, the restaurant we chose was warm and the food was surprisingly good.
The day ended with a three hour drive back to Ulan-Ude in a marshrutka. The conversation included some discussion with the driver's friend about American icons such as Barrack Obama and Mike Tyson, along with repeated affirmations of Russian-American friendship.
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