Yes, yes, ladies and gents, the Russian winter has indeed arrived. It blew in on Friday morning, and continued to blow all day, depositing at least half a foot of snow, if not more, and blowing me all over the place as I stumbled about, grateful for my wonderful new winter coat. I trudged over to Grossmart around 1:00 to snag some lunch (they sell a Korean-made ramen that I've grown rather fond of), and felt totally hobbit-like as I trudged through the snow. You know that scene in The Fellowship of the Ring (either book or movie, as it was in both) where the Fellowship tries to climb Mt. Caradhras, and the hobbits especially are nearly buried in the snow? Okay, obviously the snow hasn't reached that sort of mythic depth as yet, but I felt like a hobbit. And being buffeted about by the wind didn't help matters. The walk to Grossmart and back (normally no more than 15 minutes round trip) took over half an hour.
Apparently Friday was a particularly bad winter day, even by Vladimir standards. I rather expected the locals to shrug it off as just another day in Russia, but when classes started, I realized something different was going on. My 4:00 class of mostly disinterested teens is usually packed (as their parents make sure that they come to every class). However, at the start of class, only half of the group was present. The remainder did manage to straggle in throughout the course of the class, flushed from the cold, with tales of having walked for blocks because the busses weren't running. Yes, Vladimir's public transportation ground to a halt in the midst of Friday's snowstorm. My second class had only three students; my last class had five. Youngmee's last class had only one student.
Now, it is entirely possible to walk from my apartment to the American Home (I've done this many times) but the idea of walking home (a 30 minute walk in normal weather) in Friday's not-so-lovely weather was not all that appealing. Brooke and I set out together in the hope of finding some sort of transportation home. We did find one trolleybus... disabled and all but buried in the snow. Sigh. But, as there were people waiting at the bus stop, we decided to wait too. Soon, along came a marshrutka (a minivan that follows the same route as the busses)... and everyone waiting at the bus stop crammed into it. The thing was seriously at least double its planned capacity, and no one (other than Brooke and myself) seemed to think that this was in the least bit odd. But hey, at least I didn't have to walk home.
The wind had blown a layer of snow under the cracks in the windows in the second floor hallway of my apartment building.
In the morning the day was beautiful: the sun was shining, the sky was bright blue, and the world was covered in a beautiful fresh blanket of white. And it was -12C outside. I decided that -12C or not, I was going to walk to work. I took a couple of pictures of the snow banks and of the snow collecting on tree branches. The day was so beautiful and perfect. I wish I could have spent more time outside. But, as usual, I had woken up late, and since we had English Club in the afternoon, I was destined to spend the bulk of my day inside the AH as usual.
The sidewalk along Prospekt Lenina
Snow-covered ash trees (I believe) along Prospekt Lenina
English Club is essentially AH-speak for get-students-to-come-help-plan-our-parties, and the goal of this meeting of the English Club was to plan next week's Christmas Party. (Side-note: I have weird feelings about Christmas. On one hand, it's kind of hypocritical to keep celebrating it as I'm not a Christian. But on the other hand, there are so many heathen-pagan influences in the whole modern day celebration that it is entirely possible to have a secular Christmas. Er, xmas. Besides, I am a big fan of the idea of a holiday where people get together with and give gifts to the people they care about.) Anyhow, the AH is having a Christmas party next Saturday (even with an agnostic-pseudopagan and a genetically Jewish atheist on its staff), which will probably turn out to be a lot of fun. The party will (aside from a few mentions of Jesus/Christ/etc in some carols) be a secular xmas party, involving dancing, feasting, gift exchanging, singing, and most likely an appearance by Ded Moroz (the Russian equivalent to Santa). Preparations during English Club took the form of Games Committee, Decorations Committee and Music Committee. Brooke and I were in charge of decorations, meaning that our group made wreaths and candles and paper chains and snowflakes (all from construction paper) which will be used to decorate the place come next weekend. The caroling group, led by Youngmee and Joanna learned a rather comprehensive collective of carols, backed up by Joanna on guitar. After they learned their songs, they came and serenaded the decorations committee, which turned into a rather boisterous and fun group-sing event.
After English Club, (and after attaching myself to the computer for a few hours), a group of us (accompanied by Layla and several Russian chaps with exceptional English of the sort which makes me embarrassed to speak in Russian in their presence) wandered over to Biblos (a Greek-ish / Middle Eastern-ish restaurant in the center) where some of the group smoked a hookah as we chatted about pointless things. Upon departing Biblos, we were accosted by two drunken Russians who hit on Youngmee... by saying hello to her in very formal Korean (anyeonghasimnika)! This kind of threw everyone off for a couple of seconds. ("Is he so drunk that he is slurring his Russian to the point that it makes no sense whatsoever?" followed by Youngmee and Jane realizing, no, that's Korean...)
After Biblos, the bulk of the group began discussing a venture to some hillside for sledding, but I decided to go home. The same weird thing that has recently occurred in my brain causing me to possess the new life goal of becoming a professional hermit has caused me to become substantially less interested in things like night-time-sledding-in-sub-zero-temperatures. I think what I mean to say is that I'm getting old, and that I am valuing comfort over excitement. And, as it had started snowing again, I rather felt that I should maneuver home lest the public transportation grind to a halt a la the previous day.
I didn't leave my house on Sunday. The weather was back to its common Russian winter state of grey, although it was several degrees warmer (albeit still below freezing) than Saturday, but I simply had no need or desire to go out. I stayed in bed until 2:00, and finished reading 1984. (This course of action was encouraged a good bit by the rather splitting sinus headache I awoke with, and which never really went away.) I am embarrassed to admit that I had never read 1984 before. I love, love, love dystopian novels (with We, Brave New World, Animal Farm and Ape and Essence being several of my all-time favorites), and I have wanted to read 1984 for many years. Really, I should have simply gone to a library somewhere and checked it out, but instead I have been waiting to find it in a thrift store or at a yardsale or something. Instead I found it a few weeks ago in Layla's room, and asked to borrow it. I only started it a couple days ago, as I'd been reading Middlesex (I'll get to that in a minute; don't worry. Damn, I should really have named this site From Russia With Unrelated Book Review), and I found 1984 riveting and if any of you, for whatever reason haven't yet read it, go and do it. I'm not going to bother writing any sort of review or analysis of 1984; there are plenty enough of them out there if you're interested. I will comment that reading 1984 shortly after finishing Anne Applebaum's Gulag (which I reviewed a while back) is unbelievably eerie. 1984 was first published in 1949... I wonder how much access Orwell had to the goings on in the machinery of the GULAG system in the Soviet Union - after all, it was shrouded by secrecy - for so much of what happens in Oceania very closely paralleled the Soviet system in incredibly creepy detail. And then there's the telescreen, a device in every room of every apartment, which can never be shut off, which continuously spews forth political dogma while monitoring the residents of said apartment. I believe I've mentioned before the Soviet-era radios that still remain in most Soviet-era apartments... the radios which can never be shut off. (I believe that Russian Journal even mentions the radios prompting Soviet denizens into coordinated morning exercises, just as the telescreen does at the beginning of 1984.) My apartment still has one of these annoyingly never silent radios, now owned by Radio Rossii, and sponsored heavily by some sort of Moscow-based pharmaceutical company, forever urging me to call 974-64-04 to learn how to get a good night of sleep or how to unclog my capillaries, or some other such bit of medical nonsense. I hear that phone number so many times every day that it has been forever ingrained in my mind. I can only imagine what it would be like to have that thing spewing political propaganda. I would also like to comment that the little description of 1984 on its back cover reads: ...a startlingly original and haunting novel that is completely convincing... Completely convincing, yes. Startlingly original, not exactly. I mean, even if Orwell did not intentionally base Oceania on the USSR, wasn't Zamyatin's We written first? Mmmm?
Okay, while I can easily relate 1984 to my current location of Russia, Middlesex, the tale of a Greek hermaphrodite growing up in the United States has no relation to Russia other than that I read it while living here. Brooke lent me this book, and it was definitely interesting and weird. I thoroughly enjoyed it, although the end kind of left me wanting something more out of it. This book is not simply the story of a hermaphrodite, but it provides the historic and genetic histories of various individuals, culminating in the birth of a hermaphrodite. I found the segments on the war between Greece and Turkey and the riots in Detroit to be almost as fascinating as the tale of the hermaphrodite h/im/erself. This probably isn't the book for everyone, although if you have any of the same tastes I have, you will probably enjoy it.
The view from my window yesterday afternoon...
