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.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
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.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Thanksgiving
Anyone who's ever been away from home on a major holiday knows that it can be a rough time. Especially a holiday like Thanksgiving, where so much of the fun of the holiday revolves around tradition. It's impossible to duplicate the relationships that make togetherness on a holiday important, and depending on where you are, even carrying out the rituals that surround the holiday can be difficult. For example, the phone calls home this year left my mouth watering with an insatiable desire for turkey. All of this leaves you with a choice: either you try and have a real Thanksgiving, big dinner and all, or you discard tradition and make the holiday special by doing something out of the ordinary. In the past, the latter has always worked out better for me than the former, but this year has broken my streak.
In a moment of optimism and extreme ambition a few weeks ago, Kate, Carolyn and I decided that we should invite the people to whom were indebted for making our lives in Ulan-Ude much easier over for a real Thanksgiving dinner. Unfortunately, when we started making a guest list, the numbers quickly hit unrealistic levels - we are very indebted. After some hard choices, we came up with a guest list of 18 people that matched our dish and seating capacities, planned out a menu, set a time and date, and got ready for a party.
That part was easy enough. The five hours of frantic cooking and ingredient-substituting that proceeded the arrival of all of our guests was the really hard part. Here's a few of the challenges that we faced.
- There is no turkey to be had in Ulan-Ude. Actually, there is one, it's just in the zoo. Seriously.
- Sage, rosemary, and thyme are equally absent. Good thing for Simon and Garfunkel that parsley is popular.
- No measuring cups or spoons. We picked a teacup and designated it the standard, and eyed everything according to it.
- The average Russian stove is about 1/3 the size of an American stove, and one of the racks from ours was missing, so it only had one shelf. In retrospect, maybe it's a good thing that we didn't find a turkey, because juggling two pies and the stuffing was hard enough.
- The average Russian kitchen, while plentiful in stock and soup pots, is sadly lacking in casserole dishes. The result: a stock pot full of cabbage braised on the bottom and barely steamed on top.
- The average Russian apartment has no interior ventilation system, relying instead on small windows. The kitchen was about 85 degrees by the time we were done. It smelled really good, though.
- Green pumpkin. Yes. The pumpkin's shell was green, which turns the part of the inside that's close to the rind a rather funny and unappetizing color.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Three Things I've Learned...
The last two weeks have been very busy, so even though I haven't had much time to write, I've had several very "educational" experiences that are worth writing about. Here are a few of the things that I've learned over the last two weeks.
1) There is no night bus to Ulan-Baator.
I came to Russia on a three-month student visa that was supposed to be easily extended once I got here. Ha. My visa, and those of the other two Americans, expired November 12. The university applied for our extensions in early October, but by the time our old visas expired, there were still no new ones in sight - the local immigration office had not even processed the documents that the university had submitted to them in August, let alone ours. Being in Russia without a visa is difficult, to say the least - no traveling, no hotels, and if someone official decides to hassle you, which has been known to happen, you could have a very large problem ending with deportation, which for me could be a career-ender.
Early last week it looked like everything was going to be fine. The immigration service had told the university that our visas should be ready by the end of the week. Kate and I were elated, since both of us were planning trips to Moscow for New Year's that we'd been on the verge of calling off. Things to an abrupt turn for the worse the next day, though when the immigration service told the university that they'd have to send our documents to Moscow for further inspection and verification, and that they might be ready within several weeks. Here, those are pretty chilling words. They made us nervous, and things got worse when we contacted the Fulbright Office in Moscow to get a second opinion. They told us that they were "very concerned" and were contacting the U.S. Embassy to ask for their intervention.
We were sure that we were about to be thrown out of the country. No more work on the dissertations that we're becoming extremely attached to, no more career in Russia, possibly no more fellowship funding. Over scotch and lots of chocolate, I suggested that the only benefit to this would be a tragically romantic bus ride through the night and across the border to Ulan-Baator, Mongolia. Kate burst even this bubble by informing me that there was no night bus to Ulan-Baator.
Fortunately, the story has a happy ending. I'm not sure I understand what happened, and I'm still a little confused about the "further inspection in Moscow" thing, but the people at the Fulbright Office in Moscow are evidently very persuasive, because they called the immigration service here and within three days, we had our visas. Mine still doesn't have the right date on it, but at least it doesn't end until July 10, so not only can I go to Moscow, I can afford to have my papers sit at the bottom of a pile for months on end.
2) Beauty contestants in Russia are exactly like their American counterparts.
Friday (the night that we got our visas) was the evening of the hotly anticipated Miss and Mr. University 2008 contest. You might be curious how a bunch of college students get selected as beautiful enough to participate in a beauty contest. The answer is that they don't. They volunteer. Or, as we found out later, are bludgeoned into doing so by their parents, many of whom are on the faculty.
The whole affair involved a whole bunch of costume changes (a James Bond spy thing, men in kilts, formal wear, swimming suits, the girls wearing outfits that they thought depicted women in men's occupations - most of them went for the sexy plumber look - and the funniest, the guys in flower costumes). The best part, though, was the question and answer session.
QUESTION: What should Russia do to deal with the problem of orphans?
ANSWER: I think the government should give people more money to adopt, because if people adopt, there won't be so many orphans.
QUESTION: Could you give us a mock tourist ad announcement for Buriatiia?
ANSWER: Welcome to Buriatiia, our lovely republic. The nature here is wonderful, and you should be sure to visit the industrial complex in the south. There are also many rare animals in Buriatiia, including the omul [a fish species unique to Lake Baikal]. The omul is the only fish in the lake.
QUESTION: Really?
ANSWER: Er, no, in the world.
QUESTION: What is the meaning of life?
ANSWER: The meaning of life has three components. The first component is family. As a future mother, I think that family is very important [continues on for a minute or so]. The second component is [actually, I don't remember what the second component was - I was a little bored]. The third component is... A
t this point everyone in the audience starts clapping so that she'll stop talking. This girl was acclaimed as the smartest one in the competition - I guess I'm a little confused, but given the competition.
3) What small-scale Russian pig farming looks like
Last weekend Kate and I went to Tarbagatai, a small town about 40 miles from Ulan-Ude. We'd planned to just spend Saturday walking around, and then come back that evening. On the bus there, we met an extraordinarily gregarious 19-year-old student studying to be an E
nglish teacher. She was really excited to get a chance to practice, and also to show us Tarbagatai. She invited us to come over to her family's for dinner. They taught us to make pozy, the local dumpling variation, as well as pelmeni, the more nation-wide dumpling variation, stuffed us so full of meat and dough that we could hardly walk, and then invited us to stay the night, which we did because we were having so much fun (and could hardly walk). Considering that they had to send their sons off to the neighbors' to make room for us (I didn't realize this until later), it was an extraordinarily generous gesture. They raise a few pigs, and in a further extremely generous gesture, sent us home with about six pounds of a national delicacy, salo, or pork fat back with salt and garlic, which neither of us know what to do with and is consequently sitting in my freezer awaiting a more appreciate audience.
PS-when we took this photo (me and Tanya in front of a gate to a cottage in Tarbagatai), it was -10. It's warmer now, but boy does that give me something to look forward to!
1) There is no night bus to Ulan-Baator.
I came to Russia on a three-month student visa that was supposed to be easily extended once I got here. Ha. My visa, and those of the other two Americans, expired November 12. The university applied for our extensions in early October, but by the time our old visas expired, there were still no new ones in sight - the local immigration office had not even processed the documents that the university had submitted to them in August, let alone ours. Being in Russia without a visa is difficult, to say the least - no traveling, no hotels, and if someone official decides to hassle you, which has been known to happen, you could have a very large problem ending with deportation, which for me could be a career-ender.
Early last week it looked like everything was going to be fine. The immigration service had told the university that our visas should be ready by the end of the week. Kate and I were elated, since both of us were planning trips to Moscow for New Year's that we'd been on the verge of calling off. Things to an abrupt turn for the worse the next day, though when the immigration service told the university that they'd have to send our documents to Moscow for further inspection and verification, and that they might be ready within several weeks. Here, those are pretty chilling words. They made us nervous, and things got worse when we contacted the Fulbright Office in Moscow to get a second opinion. They told us that they were "very concerned" and were contacting the U.S. Embassy to ask for their intervention.
We were sure that we were about to be thrown out of the country. No more work on the dissertations that we're becoming extremely attached to, no more career in Russia, possibly no more fellowship funding. Over scotch and lots of chocolate, I suggested that the only benefit to this would be a tragically romantic bus ride through the night and across the border to Ulan-Baator, Mongolia. Kate burst even this bubble by informing me that there was no night bus to Ulan-Baator.
Fortunately, the story has a happy ending. I'm not sure I understand what happened, and I'm still a little confused about the "further inspection in Moscow" thing, but the people at the Fulbright Office in Moscow are evidently very persuasive, because they called the immigration service here and within three days, we had our visas. Mine still doesn't have the right date on it, but at least it doesn't end until July 10, so not only can I go to Moscow, I can afford to have my papers sit at the bottom of a pile for months on end.
2) Beauty contestants in Russia are exactly like their American counterparts.
Friday (the night that we got our visas) was the evening of the hotly anticipated Miss and Mr. University 2008 contest. You might be curious how a bunch of college students get selected as beautiful enough to participate in a beauty contest. The answer is that they don't. They volunteer. Or, as we found out later, are bludgeoned into doing so by their parents, many of whom are on the faculty.
The whole affair involved a whole bunch of costume changes (a James Bond spy thing, men in kilts, formal wear, swimming suits, the girls wearing outfits that they thought depicted women in men's occupations - most of them went for the sexy plumber look - and the funniest, the guys in flower costumes). The best part, though, was the question and answer session.
QUESTION: What should Russia do to deal with the problem of orphans?
ANSWER: I think the government should give people more money to adopt, because if people adopt, there won't be so many orphans.
QUESTION: Could you give us a mock tourist ad announcement for Buriatiia?
ANSWER: Welcome to Buriatiia, our lovely republic. The nature here is wonderful, and you should be sure to visit the industrial complex in the south. There are also many rare animals in Buriatiia, including the omul [a fish species unique to Lake Baikal]. The omul is the only fish in the lake.
QUESTION: Really?
ANSWER: Er, no, in the world.
QUESTION: What is the meaning of life?
ANSWER: The meaning of life has three components. The first component is family. As a future mother, I think that family is very important [continues on for a minute or so]. The second component is [actually, I don't remember what the second component was - I was a little bored]. The third component is... A
t this point everyone in the audience starts clapping so that she'll stop talking. This girl was acclaimed as the smartest one in the competition - I guess I'm a little confused, but given the competition.
3) What small-scale Russian pig farming looks like
Last weekend Kate and I went to Tarbagatai, a small town about 40 miles from Ulan-Ude. We'd planned to just spend Saturday walking around, and then come back that evening. On the bus there, we met an extraordinarily gregarious 19-year-old student studying to be an E
nglish teacher. She was really excited to get a chance to practice, and also to show us Tarbagatai. She invited us to come over to her family's for dinner. They taught us to make pozy, the local dumpling variation, as well as pelmeni, the more nation-wide dumpling variation, stuffed us so full of meat and dough that we could hardly walk, and then invited us to stay the night, which we did because we were having so much fun (and could hardly walk). Considering that they had to send their sons off to the neighbors' to make room for us (I didn't realize this until later), it was an extraordinarily generous gesture. They raise a few pigs, and in a further extremely generous gesture, sent us home with about six pounds of a national delicacy, salo, or pork fat back with salt and garlic, which neither of us know what to do with and is consequently sitting in my freezer awaiting a more appreciate audience.PS-when we took this photo (me and Tanya in front of a gate to a cottage in Tarbagatai), it was -10. It's warmer now, but boy does that give me something to look forward to!
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Election Day
This is the second American presidential election that I've spent in Russia, and this one was vastly better than the last one. The last one ended with tears and a desperate rush to McDonald's for milkshakes during which we got so much sympathy from our taxi driver that he actually gave us the ride for free. Celebrating was much more fun!
Although watching the results was great, even more entertaining has been the Russian TV coverage of the election. I'd estimate that out of a half-hour newscast, they've been giving at least 5 minutes of coverage to the election every night for the last few weeks, and given that the Russian government vastly favors Obama, the press, of course, does the same. The spin they've put on things has been somewhat more unexpected. So for your entertainment, I offer the following excerpts from the main Russian nightly newscast, Vesti.
1) Faceoff
Vesti has been pitching the election as a sort of championship boxing match. They show little 15-30 second pieces patched together of clips of Obama and McCain excoriating each other and looking very angry, often pointing fingers. The clips are placed side by side and running simultaneously. Kate says she saw one like this in which Vesti kindly provided taglines to point out the various oppositions between the candidates. Across pictures of the candidates flashed the following:
MCCAIN/OBAMA
Republican/Democrat
Evangelical/Protestant
Iraq/Yugoslavia
When "Iraq" and "Yugoslavia" came on the screen, pictures of exploding rockets flashed behind the candidates. What Obama, Yugoslavia, and war have to do with each other, and how that stands in opposition to McCain and Iraq, I'm not entirely sure. Not to mention this whole Evangelical/Protestant opposition.
2) Raceoff
My contribution to this lovely little bit revolves around the Russian media in general's extreme emphasis on Obama as "dark-skinned", "black-skinned", or more rarely, "African-American." Nearly every newscast about the elections starts with a sentence like, "the dark-skinned senator from Illinois strikes another blow against his opponent, John McCain." The newscast two nights ago featured the statement that
"Ninety percent of the dark-skinned population of the United States is read to support the African-American senator from Illinois. He dresses sharply [features a picture of Obama wearing a standard politician suit] and speaks well. It is no wonder that he attracts so much support in a society where image is everything."
I don't even know where to start with that one, so I'll just let you ponder.
3) Russophobia
The final nugget comes from the election-day coverage of McCain's defeat. Vesti featured biographies of both Obama and McCain. For the 45 seconds that they gave McCain's entire political career in Congress, the tag at the top of the screen read "McCain's Politics, or Russophobia."
Anyway, I guess the moral for the day is that it's good to be aware that we're often viewed differently in different parts of the world than we see ourselves. Sometimes, though, this has nothing to do with us, and everything to do with them.
Although watching the results was great, even more entertaining has been the Russian TV coverage of the election. I'd estimate that out of a half-hour newscast, they've been giving at least 5 minutes of coverage to the election every night for the last few weeks, and given that the Russian government vastly favors Obama, the press, of course, does the same. The spin they've put on things has been somewhat more unexpected. So for your entertainment, I offer the following excerpts from the main Russian nightly newscast, Vesti.
1) Faceoff
Vesti has been pitching the election as a sort of championship boxing match. They show little 15-30 second pieces patched together of clips of Obama and McCain excoriating each other and looking very angry, often pointing fingers. The clips are placed side by side and running simultaneously. Kate says she saw one like this in which Vesti kindly provided taglines to point out the various oppositions between the candidates. Across pictures of the candidates flashed the following:
MCCAIN/OBAMA
Republican/Democrat
Evangelical/Protestant
Iraq/Yugoslavia
When "Iraq" and "Yugoslavia" came on the screen, pictures of exploding rockets flashed behind the candidates. What Obama, Yugoslavia, and war have to do with each other, and how that stands in opposition to McCain and Iraq, I'm not entirely sure. Not to mention this whole Evangelical/Protestant opposition.
2) Raceoff
My contribution to this lovely little bit revolves around the Russian media in general's extreme emphasis on Obama as "dark-skinned", "black-skinned", or more rarely, "African-American." Nearly every newscast about the elections starts with a sentence like, "the dark-skinned senator from Illinois strikes another blow against his opponent, John McCain." The newscast two nights ago featured the statement that
"Ninety percent of the dark-skinned population of the United States is read to support the African-American senator from Illinois. He dresses sharply [features a picture of Obama wearing a standard politician suit] and speaks well. It is no wonder that he attracts so much support in a society where image is everything."
I don't even know where to start with that one, so I'll just let you ponder.
3) Russophobia
The final nugget comes from the election-day coverage of McCain's defeat. Vesti featured biographies of both Obama and McCain. For the 45 seconds that they gave McCain's entire political career in Congress, the tag at the top of the screen read "McCain's Politics, or Russophobia."
Anyway, I guess the moral for the day is that it's good to be aware that we're often viewed differently in different parts of the world than we see ourselves. Sometimes, though, this has nothing to do with us, and everything to do with them.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)