I am now back in America, but have one more post I need to do covering the last week that I was in Russia!
My last post was on May 29th - so I'll start from after that point!
On Saturday, May 30th, we had a free day. Unfortunately I didn't really take advantage of this the way that I should have. Instead of going out and exploring the city, I slept all day. Literally. All. Day. Until the evening when I joined Anne and Ben on a trip to the nearby mall for some food. We ate at the Starlite Diner - a restaurant modeled after old-time America. So, naturally, I had a cheese burger, fries, and a giant milkshake. I mean, what else was I supposed to eat?
On Sunday, May 31 we had the honor of having a meal at the famous Pushkin Cafe, whose history dates back to the 18th century when a nobleman from Saint Petersburg relocated himself to Moscow and built a mansion on Tverskoy Boulevard. (I had gotten to eat here last year and was very excited to come back!)
Fast forward to the 1960's, when French singer Gilbert Becaud released a song entitled "Nathalie." Part of the song goes like this:
You can listen to the song here:
While waiting on our food, we had the opportunity to take a tour of the cafe/mansion. My favorite part of the tour is when we visit the second floor, where the library is located. It's filled with tons of old books, including a book containing a piece of paper written on by none other than Pushkin himself!
After the tour we headed back down to our tables and had a meal consisting of porridge, a meat pie of sorts, and dessert (mine was creme brulee)
After the graduation ceremony, we took a nice boat tour of Moscow.
My last post was on May 29th - so I'll start from after that point!
On Saturday, May 30th, we had a free day. Unfortunately I didn't really take advantage of this the way that I should have. Instead of going out and exploring the city, I slept all day. Literally. All. Day. Until the evening when I joined Anne and Ben on a trip to the nearby mall for some food. We ate at the Starlite Diner - a restaurant modeled after old-time America. So, naturally, I had a cheese burger, fries, and a giant milkshake. I mean, what else was I supposed to eat?
On Sunday, May 31 we had the honor of having a meal at the famous Pushkin Cafe, whose history dates back to the 18th century when a nobleman from Saint Petersburg relocated himself to Moscow and built a mansion on Tverskoy Boulevard. (I had gotten to eat here last year and was very excited to come back!)
Fast forward to the 1960's, when French singer Gilbert Becaud released a song entitled "Nathalie." Part of the song goes like this:
Elle parlait en phrases sobres
De la révolution d’octobre
Je pensais déjà
Qu’après le tombeau de Lénine
On irait au cafe Pouchkine
Boire un chocolat
The lyrics roughly, and I mean roughly (thanks Google Translate) translate to:
She spoke in simple sentences
From the October Revolution
I thought already
After Lenin's tomb
We would go to cafe Pushkin
Drinking chocolate
Becaud wrote the song after giving a concert in Moscow and having an interpreter named Nataly, to whom he dedicated the song. Muscovites began wondering where this mysterious Cafe Pushkin was located. So, finally, in June of 1999, in the same mansion that had been built on Tverskoy Boulevard, Cafe Pushkin came to life.
While waiting on our food, we had the opportunity to take a tour of the cafe/mansion. My favorite part of the tour is when we visit the second floor, where the library is located. It's filled with tons of old books, including a book containing a piece of paper written on by none other than Pushkin himself!
This is an actual piece of paper that Pushkin had written on.
It is a tradition for women to stand between these two cat statues, touch their noses, and make a wish.
Me making my wish.
After the tour we headed back down to our tables and had a meal consisting of porridge, a meat pie of sorts, and dessert (mine was creme brulee)
After our meal we all purchased postcards to send home to our families. The cool part about writing these postcards is that we were provided with a candle, feathered pen and inkwell.
I lasted four words before I switched to a more modern pen, aka the one I had bought at the school store a few days prior.
Outside Cafe Pushkin
After our meal, we had originally planned to go to the flea market, but it was after 5PM and it was closed, so instead we headed to the Arbat to visit the Hard Rock Cafe and pick up the t-shirts a few of us had been wanting to buy. We immediately found ourselves lost trying to locate the metro station to get to the Arbat. I asked a young couple walking our way on the sidewalk if they could tell us how to get to the Arbat. They turned out to be an incredibly sweet pair of people and were very excited to hear that we were from America. Not only did they give us directions, but they walked us all the way to the metro, which turned out to be a bit of a hike, swipe their metro cards so they could get inside just to show us on the map which line to take and stop to get off on.
Old Arbat Street
Old Arbat Street
After visiting the Hard Rock Cafe and getting our souvenirs, we decided to head back to the dormitories. We followed an incredibly ill-placed sign that was pointing left, saying the metro was in that direction, when in reality we should have gone straight. We wandered down a side street off the Arbat and found ourselves in a cute little neighborhood with a pretty church, apartments, and a park. Once we passed the park, we came to the conclusion, that after seeing no sign of the metro anywhere, we had gone in the wrong direction. I approached another young couple sitting on a bench in the park and asked them where the metro was. They gave me directions and the guy asked me where I was from. I told him America, and he gave me a huge grin, flashed me two thumbs up and in English yelled "COOL!!"
It's moments like this that I think all Americans need to witness. So many Americans are convinced that every single Russian in Russia hates America and Americans. But in reality, this is completely untrue. It's a sad stereotype and idea constantly shoved down our throats by the media that we believe because we are too ignorant to know otherwise. I have said it before, and I will say it again - the individual people are not their governments. They are not the media. They are not the false beliefs and the stereotypes. They are individual people with thoughts and opinions of their own, and very often, ones different from those constantly being broadcast in front of us.
The next day, Monday June 1st, we had class with Sasha. Part of our lesson involved going to a nearby grocery store and picking out a new food and/or drink to try. Sasha recommended some chocolate milk to me, and technically it was new to me, because I've never had Russian chocolate milk. So, I certainly didn't argue. We also took the opportunity to stock up on snacks to keep in our dorms (and in the case of my roommate and I, toilet paper). I bought a bunch of Russian chocolate to bring back as souvenirs, and a bottle of cognac for my friend. It took a lot of willpower to not just drink it myself, because I'm a total sucker for Russian cognac.
Apparently this is chocolate cheese?
After we left the grocery store, we headed back to the dormitories. (Oh, by the way - that chocolate milk? The best chocolate milk I've ever had. ) After resting up for a bit, Rebecca and I decided to go to Red Square to watch the sunset and see what it looked like at night. We were able to witness a gorgeous sunset, see the GUM mall all lit up, and get some great pictures.
These are a few lines from Pushkin's novel Eugene Onegin painted on the wall in the metro at the stop for Red Square. I had been trying to get a picture of it without people walking by for the entire trip and I finally got one! I think those are some of the most beautiful lines that Pushkin has ever written.
Now, onto Red Square!
On Tuesday, June 2, after class, our teacher Lyuba took us to ВДНХ, or VDNKh in English. VDNKh is described by Wikipedia as being "a permanent general purpose trade show and amusement park in Moscow." The acronym ВДНХ stands for vystavka dostizheniy narodnogo khozyaystva, or, in English, the Exhibition of Achievements of the People's Economy. It's also known as The All-Russian Exhibition Center.
The entire area of VDNKh is approximately 1,475 square miles in size - bigger than the size of the country of Monaco. On the territory sits countless pavilions, fountains, the Cosmonaut Museum, and nearly 400 buildings.
The Propylaea, or the central gate entrance
Statues on top of the Propylaea
We headed through the gates, and what we found on the other side, well, is probably the single most terrifying thing I have not only ever seen in Russia, but in my entire life. The picture I took of it perfectly captured the creepiness and really just speaks for itself.
Am I wrong when I say that he basically looks like he
should have a bloody butcher's knife in one hand?
Oh, also, there was a dinosaur. No big deal. We stood there and watched it harass people for a few minutes, sneaking up behind unsuspecting park-goers and nudging them with his snout and scaring the crap out of them when they turned around to see what had touched them. It was pretty amusing.
The Central Pavilion
The "Friendship of Nations" fountain. The fountain consists of 16 golden female figures, each representing one of the 15 former Soviet Republics. The 16th statue is representative of the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic, which was a republic that shortly existed during the time of the Soviet Union from 1940-1956. In 1956, it was transformed into the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Today (since 1991) it is known as the Republic of Karelia, a federal subject of Russia.
After walking around for a bit, we headed to the Cosmonaut Museum. I only have one picture of it, and it's from the outside:
Being girls, my roommate Anne and I didn't have much interest in the museum, so we did a quick walk-through and then proceeded to spend the next 30 minutes raiding the vending machine in the lobby of the museum and taking advantage of the open benches that were just inviting us to sit down and relax!
Wednesday, June 3, we had class as usual, and had a really fun lesson revolving around Russian music. Our worksheets included the lyrics to the songs Antoshka and the Crocodile Genya birthday song, both of which I learned in my Russian class back in the states.
Antoshka is an old Soviet song about a boy who is too lazy to work in the communal garden picking potatoes for a meal, and then expects to sit down and eat the potatoes that everyone has picked. His friends sneakily invite him to come eat, but serve him a frog instead of potatoes.
English translation of the lyrics:
Antoshka, Antoshka
Let's go dig potatoes!
Antoshka, Antoshka
Let's go dig potatoes!
Dee-lee dee-lee, tra-lee va-lee
We didn't cover that [in school]
That wasn't assigned
Antoshka, Antoshka
Play the accordion for us!
Antoshka, Antoshka,
Play the accordion for us!
Dee-lee dee-lee, tra-lee va-lee
We didn't cover that [in school]
That wasn't assigned
Antoshka, Antoshka
Get your spoon for lunch!
Antoshka, Antoshka
Get your spoon for lunch!
Dee-lee dee-lee, tra-lee va-lee
That, friends, I can handle
I certainly won't refuse!
The Crocodile Genya birthday song is from the cartoon Cheburashka and is basically about how birthdays only come once a year.
Here's a rough translation of the lyrics:
Let the pedestrians run clumsily
On the street by the puddles
And there is much water on the road.
They cannot understand, that this day is not simple
And the reason I'm so merry today...
Chorus:
And as I play my accordion
And people gaze at me
What a pity....
The Birthday only comes once a year...
The magician will soon come on his blue helicopter
He will show us a free film.
He will congratulate me and I'm sure he will
proffer 500 chocolate ice-cream...
On the street by the puddles
And there is much water on the road.
They cannot understand, that this day is not simple
And the reason I'm so merry today...
Chorus:
And as I play my accordion
And people gaze at me
What a pity....
The Birthday only comes once a year...
The magician will soon come on his blue helicopter
He will show us a free film.
He will congratulate me and I'm sure he will
proffer 500 chocolate ice-cream...
After class, I headed back to the dormitory and hung out, waiting for it to be time to meet up with my friend Anastasia, who I met when I was in Russia last summer. About 2 and a half hours before we were due to meet, I decided I would head over to the book store Dom Knegee (House of Books) that I visited last summer, since it wasn't too far from Red Square. I took the metro to what I thought was the Arbat station, but wasn't (though I was close!) I got directions from a super sweet woman that turned out spoke fluent English and only had to walk about ten minutes from where I came out of the wrong metro station to find it. I spent some time in there wandering around and then took the metro at the Arbat station, located just a few blocks from the book store to Red Square and met up with Anastasia.
We walked around Red Square for awhile, and then left and made the trek (yes, trek, it felt like forever!) to where she had parked her car. She jokingly told me she had had "trouble finding parking" - aka she parked like a 30 minute walk from Red Square! She drove us to a restaurant called Cafe Golyubka and I had Georgian-style chicken, which was SUPER good.
The sunset on the way to Golyubka. We have a running joke about driving in Moscow. Last year she picked me up at Domodedovo Airport were I had flown into after visiting the city of Novocherkassk and drove me (it took us almost 2 hours) to another airport in Moscow, Sheremetyevo so I could catch my flight back to the US. I told her how scary I thought driving in Russia was. Her response was "What? This is totally normal!" Every time something scary happened (which was several times.. including one VERY close call) on our way to the other airport, she'd just shrug her shoulders and say "нормально" which basically just translates to normal in English.
I brought it up again when she was driving us to the restaurant and she got a good laugh out of it, and continued her tradition of just shrugging and saying "нормально" every time I covered my face with my hands, thinking we were about to die.
If you think I'm exaggerating, here's a little video (not taken by me) of what it's like to drive in Moscow and how it's totally normal to drive. Basically, acknowledging the existence of traffic lanes is more of a suggestion than a law.
After dinner, we walked across the street to Novodevichy Convent, which is a very famous place in Moscow. The convent was closed because it was late, so we walked around the park outside of the convent, chatting. Anastasia only speaks a little bit of English, so we spoke Russian almost the entire night, periodically using Google Translate to get our point across. I love though that even though we don't really speak each other's language, we have still become such good friends.
Outside of Novodevichy Convent
Outside of Novodevichy Convent
Thursday, June 4th, was not a fantastic day for me, so I don't have a lot to say about it. I felt completely out of it - exhausted, sluggish, could barely keep my eyes open during class. Everyone went to the Tolstoy Museum after class but I went back to the dormitory and basically slept until Friday morning.
On Friday, June 5th, we sadly had our last day of class. We received our certificates of completion in a small ceremony with a class of adults from Finland who had come to study Russian and who were also "graduating" that day. We were also given lots of chocolate and champagne in celebration! In Russia can you can totally drink alcohol at school!
My certificate of completion. I now have two!
We brought Lyuba and Sasha a thank you card for everything they had done for us.
Some of us also wrote additional notes to them and stuck them inside the card :)
After the graduation ceremony, we took a nice boat tour of Moscow.
Christ the Savior Church from the boat
The Kremlin from the boat
The Kremlin from the boat
The Kremlin Clock and Saint Basil's Cathedral from the boat
So, it wouldn't have been our last night in Moscow without one last trip to Red Square. Ben, Jessica, and I wanted to see it one last time before we left. Because I'm a five year old at heart, I brought along a stuffed animal that had bought at the Moscow State University school store.
We headed to the metro from the university and as we headed onto the platform, the train began to pull in. When I saw it, I freaked out. It was none other than the Red Arrow train! (The one I obsessively talked about in an earlier blog post).
The two men sitting on either side were not impressed with my antics.
Neither were these people either, apparently.
Outside the State Historical Museum at the entrance to Red Square
Outside Lenin's tomb
Chilling at Red Square!
Outside Lenin's tomb
At the Kremlin clock
Saint Basil's, of course!
The GUM all lit up
Very beautiful sky :)
Well, that's it! My second trip in Russia was a huge success. I feel like I learned way more Russian than I did last time. I also became more confident in my ability to use it in situations such as asking strangers for directions or help. I learned to navigate the metro and even mastered standing without having to hold on! I went off on my own for the first time, and then on multiple occasions after that - something I NEVER would have done last year. I had to prove to myself that I could handle being on my own in Russia, since very soon, in a few months, I will be living in a foreign country and have to become completely self-reliant. It's a scary thought, but a step I need to take in order to grow more as a person.
If you had told me before I started at UCF that I would end up minoring in Russian, studying abroad there twice, and then moving there to teach English, I would have thought you were insane. It's amazing how the pieces in life end up falling together, and how you end up being right where you're supposed to be.
So, at that, here's one adventure down, and here's to embarking on many more in the future!
