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.