Despite our dear nearly-departed president's claims to the contrary, our greatest cultural export isn't freedom/democracy/liberty. I think it might well be Halloween, which I've been able to celebrate not once, but twice so far this year (with an invitation pending for a third!). And it's not even October 31st yet.
Last Friday, Carolyn, the third in our little trio of Amerikanky, and I were invited to judge the annual Halloween competition between English classes at Buryat State University. I'll admit to a little trepidation at first, mostly because the Russians feel strongly that there always has to be a winner in something like this. Since I grew up in the warm fuzzy days of supportive education, I want everyone to win. At least everyone (including me!) got cake at the end.
The contest was amazing. And, consequently, really hard to judge. The students sang, danced, performed skits, made stunning posters, and came dressed up in extravagant costumes that demonstrated how much more goth Russian Halloween is than our Halloween. The most impressive thing that I heard was a complete rewrite of an entire verse of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick In the Wall" (for obvious reasons, "We don't need no education/teacher leave those kids alone" wasn't so appropriate) sung in unison by 15 teenagers with really funny mock British accents. The most impressive thing I saw was a guy who wore an enormous jack-o-lantern on his head; it was so large that he had to have a friend lead him around the hall because he couldn't see. And then there was the trivia contest - they could name the architect of Westminster Cathedral and the capital of Wales, but the question that stumped everyone was the one about the name of the American national anthem.
The next night, Kate had Carolyn and I, a couple of her Buryat friends, and the ever-helpful head of the International Center, along with their wives and kids, over for a little party. We broke out the markers and construction paper and made decorations. Kate even found a pumpkin to carve, albeit a green one. We bobbed for apples (yours truly was first up - I did a much better job than when I was 6), and even had an ersatz trick-or-treat that resulted in my having to sing "I'm a Little Teapot," complete with gestures, in order to get my candy. There's nothing like a minor embarrassment to make chocolate taste better.
But in the middle of all the joking and laughter there were a couple of solemn moments that made me very happy to be here. Two of Kate's guests gave beautiful and classically long toasts, one in Russian and the other in Buryat. They are both academics, and their toasts impressed on me just how isolated from the world they sometimes feel living in an out-of-the-way place like this and not having the salaries or connections to get out into the wider world. That, in turn, made me feel incredibly lucky to have the opportunity that I have and the chance to meet people like them who are so eager to welcome foreigners and exchange ideas.
Still no serious snow, and still solidly above freezing in the daytime, apparently unlike both Montana and Minneapolis. And yet I keep getting chided, by everyone from my landlady to my Russian teacher to the security guard at the archive, for my "inappropriately light" coat. As I've been told, "This is Siberia, you know."
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
A Delighful Bit of Trivia...
It snowed for the first time yesterday. I went to the archive around noon, and the sky was sunny and it was warm outside. By the time I finished work there and headed off to a meeting, the temperature had dropped 15 degrees, the wind was blowing, and fat flakes were starting to fall. Fellow American researcher Kate and I decided that we had to go out for a beer to celebrate/mourn the arrival of winter; we ended up at a fast food place named "Happy Land." I can't say that being in Happy Land did much to fix things, but the beer certainly did.
I figured that this would be a good point at which to introduce you all to Ulan-Ude. In many respects, it looks a lot like other Russian cities that I've spent time in. It's got that same lovely mix of brightly-painted (yellow and pink are favored above all) 19th and early 20th century buildings, appallingly ugly apartment blocks, enormous decaying industrial complexes, shiny new shopping cnter that upon closer examination are blighted by crooked staircases and leaking pipes, and neighborhoods dominated by quaint old wooden houses. It also has a very standard Russian central square, an enormous cement plaza that is surrounded by government buildings (inside one of which is my archive), a giant theater that is continually closed for remodeling, and Happy Land, comically enough. Like all standard Russian central squares, at the very center, on an elevated platform, is a Lenin
sculpture. This, however, is not just any Lenin sculpture
Yes, Ulan-Ude is the proud home of the world's largest disembodied head of Lenin. As opposed to the hundreds and thousands of other Lenin statues around Russia, which capture poses such as "Lenin thinking" (hands behind the back, head looking slightly down), "Lenin giving a speech" (right foot forward, right hand in the air, mouth open), and "Lenin striding purposefully into the future" (self-explanatory), Ulan-Ude just has a giant Lenin head. It's about 25 to 30 feet tall, typically serious (I have yet to see a statue with Lenin smiling), and ends halfway down the neck. The eyes are drilled holes, which can be a little eerie at times. The crown is occasionally spotted with pigeon crap. All in all, it's quite a sight to behold. And I get to walk in front of it on my way to work every day. It also makes a very convenient meeting spot - say, 7:45 at Lenin's head?
Although I won't put the Lenin head on this list, there are some peculiarly beautiful things about Ulan-Ude. The local population is part Buryat, and the Buryats are closely related to the Mongols. Some architects who try to capture a local flavor in their designs pattern their buildings after yurts, or, oddly enough, what looks to me to be a sort of hat that I've seen in pictures of turn-of-the-century Buryat dignitaries. Take, for example, the local Mongolian consuate. It's octagonal, and after going up for a couple of stories, has a hat-shaped dome resting on top of the octagon. It's also painted several very pleasant shades of purple. The city is built on a rivery valley nestled among some low mountains. The lowest point in the city is also one of the oldest, a features a large Orthodox church with a couple of extremely shiny, recently-refinished gold and blue domes. Because of the way that the city has grown up the valley sides around this point, if you're looking downhill, you're nearly always looking down at the church. I learned the other day that Ulan-Ude claims to have more sunny days every year than the Crimea, Russia's version of souther California, and because of this, the church domes are nearly always shining.
All in all, it's a pretty nice place to be.
I figured that this would be a good point at which to introduce you all to Ulan-Ude. In many respects, it looks a lot like other Russian cities that I've spent time in. It's got that same lovely mix of brightly-painted (yellow and pink are favored above all) 19th and early 20th century buildings, appallingly ugly apartment blocks, enormous decaying industrial complexes, shiny new shopping cnter that upon closer examination are blighted by crooked staircases and leaking pipes, and neighborhoods dominated by quaint old wooden houses. It also has a very standard Russian central square, an enormous cement plaza that is surrounded by government buildings (inside one of which is my archive), a giant theater that is continually closed for remodeling, and Happy Land, comically enough. Like all standard Russian central squares, at the very center, on an elevated platform, is a Lenin
sculpture. This, however, is not just any Lenin sculptureYes, Ulan-Ude is the proud home of the world's largest disembodied head of Lenin. As opposed to the hundreds and thousands of other Lenin statues around Russia, which capture poses such as "Lenin thinking" (hands behind the back, head looking slightly down), "Lenin giving a speech" (right foot forward, right hand in the air, mouth open), and "Lenin striding purposefully into the future" (self-explanatory), Ulan-Ude just has a giant Lenin head. It's about 25 to 30 feet tall, typically serious (I have yet to see a statue with Lenin smiling), and ends halfway down the neck. The eyes are drilled holes, which can be a little eerie at times. The crown is occasionally spotted with pigeon crap. All in all, it's quite a sight to behold. And I get to walk in front of it on my way to work every day. It also makes a very convenient meeting spot - say, 7:45 at Lenin's head?
Although I won't put the Lenin head on this list, there are some peculiarly beautiful things about Ulan-Ude. The local population is part Buryat, and the Buryats are closely related to the Mongols. Some architects who try to capture a local flavor in their designs pattern their buildings after yurts, or, oddly enough, what looks to me to be a sort of hat that I've seen in pictures of turn-of-the-century Buryat dignitaries. Take, for example, the local Mongolian consuate. It's octagonal, and after going up for a couple of stories, has a hat-shaped dome resting on top of the octagon. It's also painted several very pleasant shades of purple. The city is built on a rivery valley nestled among some low mountains. The lowest point in the city is also one of the oldest, a features a large Orthodox church with a couple of extremely shiny, recently-refinished gold and blue domes. Because of the way that the city has grown up the valley sides around this point, if you're looking downhill, you're nearly always looking down at the church. I learned the other day that Ulan-Ude claims to have more sunny days every year than the Crimea, Russia's version of souther California, and because of this, the church domes are nearly always shining.
All in all, it's a pretty nice place to be.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Finally Here!
Well, I've finally made it to Ulan-Ude! And yes, there is indeed already snow here. Granted, it's on mountains that have a little elevation over the city, but still...Although according to the taxi driver who gave me a ride from the airport, they have a "very long fall" here, so maybe there's still a little hope.
Getting here went pretty smoothly, which was a good thing, considering everything that happened before I left the U.S. For those of you who I said goodbye to in mid-September, you may remember that I had quite a bit of trepidation about actually getting out by my scheduled departure date of September 18. Turned out, that was warranted, although the problem came not from the Russians, as expected, but from our very own Fellowship Office at the University of Illinois. It's a very long story, but in short they screwed up in a really spectacular fashion. Ever since then, I've been collecting horror stories about them from other people, so for the unaware, fi you ever have to deal with them, be very afraid. As a result of said screw-up and my own desire to attend a friend's wedding, I ended up leaving the U.S. on October 6, and just got to Ulan-Ude on the 9th.
I flew into Moscow and stayed there for a night before flying on to Ulan-Ude, so I got the inexpressible joy of taking a taxi all the way across town between the airport and my hostel twice in two days. The traffic there is so appalling, it took 5 hours to make the two trips. Pretty funny, considering that my flight from Chicago to Moscow took all of 9 1/2 hours. Although there was an excuse for one of the days - it was raining, and apparently Russians can't drive in the rain. OK, maybe that's a little harsh. Part of the airport was flooded, there was so much rain, but that's also very Russian. I think we passed 6 ender-benders on the way in, all of which caused traffic jams for a mile or so behind them. And in classic Russian fashion, instead of pulling over to the side of the road, they just stopped exactly where they were to wait for the police, who are hardly prompt. So the four lanes of traffic (1 1/2 of which were inevitably blocked by the accidents) that the drivers made in the road that was really only built for three lanes just oozed around the damaged cars ever so slowly and then sped up a little, until the logjam behind the next accident. It took 3 1/2 hours to go 25 miles.
I inflicted my jet-lagged self on fellow Russian history grad student Steven Jug my first night in Russia. We went out for dinner at a Mexican restaurant not too far from Red Square (Mexican - Red Square, if you're thinking that these two things should not be anywhere near each other, you're right). I went there when I was here in 2002, and left after there was no wait staff to be seen for 20 minutes. The food was OK, although if it was an enchilada, I'm a frog. The real winner, though, was the decor, which I must have missed during my previous visit. You know those super-idealized posters of Native Americans that inevitably involve lots of beads, feather, fringed deerhide, long black hair blowing in the wind, and pastels? That's Mexican on Red Square. And then it turned 8:30. They played Madonna's greatest hits album straight through, and then a waitress dressed in a black tank top and hot pants with - wait for it - a suede gunbelt that looked like it might have been sold with a 6-year-old's Halloween costume kit but which was full of shot glasses came out and started offering tequila around. For those of you who know him, imagine the look (or studious lack thereof) on Steve's face.
Other than that little slice of the surreal, things have been really pretty uneventful. I'm here, settled in, de-jetlagged (14 hours of time difference!) and now trying to deal with all the paperwork surrounding getting myself registered here in Ulan-Ude and my visa extended. Once that's taken care of, I'm ready to plunge into the archives! So after months of waiting, it's finally here....
Getting here went pretty smoothly, which was a good thing, considering everything that happened before I left the U.S. For those of you who I said goodbye to in mid-September, you may remember that I had quite a bit of trepidation about actually getting out by my scheduled departure date of September 18. Turned out, that was warranted, although the problem came not from the Russians, as expected, but from our very own Fellowship Office at the University of Illinois. It's a very long story, but in short they screwed up in a really spectacular fashion. Ever since then, I've been collecting horror stories about them from other people, so for the unaware, fi you ever have to deal with them, be very afraid. As a result of said screw-up and my own desire to attend a friend's wedding, I ended up leaving the U.S. on October 6, and just got to Ulan-Ude on the 9th.
I flew into Moscow and stayed there for a night before flying on to Ulan-Ude, so I got the inexpressible joy of taking a taxi all the way across town between the airport and my hostel twice in two days. The traffic there is so appalling, it took 5 hours to make the two trips. Pretty funny, considering that my flight from Chicago to Moscow took all of 9 1/2 hours. Although there was an excuse for one of the days - it was raining, and apparently Russians can't drive in the rain. OK, maybe that's a little harsh. Part of the airport was flooded, there was so much rain, but that's also very Russian. I think we passed 6 ender-benders on the way in, all of which caused traffic jams for a mile or so behind them. And in classic Russian fashion, instead of pulling over to the side of the road, they just stopped exactly where they were to wait for the police, who are hardly prompt. So the four lanes of traffic (1 1/2 of which were inevitably blocked by the accidents) that the drivers made in the road that was really only built for three lanes just oozed around the damaged cars ever so slowly and then sped up a little, until the logjam behind the next accident. It took 3 1/2 hours to go 25 miles.
I inflicted my jet-lagged self on fellow Russian history grad student Steven Jug my first night in Russia. We went out for dinner at a Mexican restaurant not too far from Red Square (Mexican - Red Square, if you're thinking that these two things should not be anywhere near each other, you're right). I went there when I was here in 2002, and left after there was no wait staff to be seen for 20 minutes. The food was OK, although if it was an enchilada, I'm a frog. The real winner, though, was the decor, which I must have missed during my previous visit. You know those super-idealized posters of Native Americans that inevitably involve lots of beads, feather, fringed deerhide, long black hair blowing in the wind, and pastels? That's Mexican on Red Square. And then it turned 8:30. They played Madonna's greatest hits album straight through, and then a waitress dressed in a black tank top and hot pants with - wait for it - a suede gunbelt that looked like it might have been sold with a 6-year-old's Halloween costume kit but which was full of shot glasses came out and started offering tequila around. For those of you who know him, imagine the look (or studious lack thereof) on Steve's face.
Other than that little slice of the surreal, things have been really pretty uneventful. I'm here, settled in, de-jetlagged (14 hours of time difference!) and now trying to deal with all the paperwork surrounding getting myself registered here in Ulan-Ude and my visa extended. Once that's taken care of, I'm ready to plunge into the archives! So after months of waiting, it's finally here....
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