Adventures in Russia: May 2015

Wednesday after class, Sasha gave us a short tour of Moscow State University. The tour wasn't long because we had to be at the US Embassy for a meeting with some of Dr. Kourova's (our Russian professor from the states) friends/contacts there to speak about our experiences in Russia.

MSU was founded in January of 1755 by Mikhail Lomonosov, a scientist and author that made many contributions to the world of science, literature, and education. MSU has the claim of having the tallest educational building in the world (that would be the main building, where our dormitories are located). The main building is also a part of the "Seven Sisters of Moscow," which are a collection of seven skyscrapers built in the Stalinist style. The main building was constructed by thousands of gulag inmates. It stands at a whole 787.4 feet tall! Until 1990, it had the honor of being the tallest building in Europe.

As of 2009, MSU, which is one of the most prestigious institutions in Russia, has 39 departments and 15 research centers. There are more than 4000 academics employed at the university, as well as a support staff made up of 15,000 people. As for the student body, more than 40,000 students are enrolled at MSU as undergrads, and 7,000 "advanced degree candidates" are also enrolled. Each year, MSU hosts about 2,000 students, graduate students, and researchers who come from all corners of the world to work and study at MSU short-term - like us!

After the tour we met up with Dr. Kourova and headed to the US Embassy. We had a short meeting with the press secretary, Will, and had a really interesting conversation about Russia and its relationship with the United States. Will said that Russia was "something hard to love and something hard to hate." Russia definitely has its faults, from its aggression towards the United States, its horrific treatment of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community, the current economic crisis, the invasion of Crimea, and more. However, Will said about Russia that "It will stay with you for the rest of your life."

Will is right. Russia is something that will be with me forever, no matter where I end up or what I end up doing. Despite its faults, Russia is an amazing place. You can't judge a population by the actions of its government, and understanding between our two countries starts at the level of the individual. Through programs like Getting Closer, our grant program with the Grot school, as individuals we're able to work together with young Russians who will make up the upcoming generation of adults and bridge the gaps between our countries. The average Russian (students, adults, strangers on the metro) has shown me nothing but kindness, and I have done the same in return. It may seem like an impossible task, but one by one we can make a difference and build a better relationship between the US and Russia, just by being willing to try.

The next day, yesterday, we visited the Tretyakov Gallery. Lyuba dropped us off there with her friend Katya, and then left and had Katya take us around the gallery. She would describe different pieces of art in Russian, and it was our job to find what picture she was talking about based on the description, and write down what hall we found them in.

The Tretyakov gallery's foundations go all the way back to 1865, when merchant Pavel Tretyakov began collecting works of art from "modern" artists at that time with the aim of creating a large collection of them with the hopes that one day he might have enough to create a museum of national art. Today the gallery holds more than 130,000 works of art.

Outside of the gallery.

Lyuba and I inside.

Ben and Katya.

Portraits and busts.

A famous portrait of Pushkin.

With a portrait of one of my favorite fairy tales, Tsarevich Ivan and the Grey Wolf.

After we finished up at the gallery, we all took the metro back to the Universitet stop and walked about 5-10 minutes to a nearby 4-story mall that houses a grocery store. We picked up some much needed items - like toilet paper - and while we were in the mall I got to visit one of my favorite stores that as far as I know, we don't have back in the states: Lee Cooper. It's a clothing store and I got some really cute shirts from them last year, and was able to get 4 new ones this year!

Today we had a free day, so after class, I headed to a bookstore (by myself) called Biblio Globus. Lyuba had told me about it, and it was located close to one metro stop after the stop for Red Square, so I decided to check it out. There was another bookstore on New Arbat, House of Books I had planned on visiting, but it's a bit of a walk to get there and I was feeling lazy, so I decided to check this place out.

I accidentally passed my stop because I wasn't paying attention, so then I got off at the next one and went to the other side of the platform to catch the train going back in the other direction to Lubyanka station, the station I mentioned in my last post that was the target of a 2010 terrorist attack.

When the next train pulled in, I couldn't believe it. It was the Red Arrow train! The Red Arrow metro train is a special train that was introduced in 2006 in honor of the 75th anniversary of The Red Arrow (actual) train that runs from Moscow to Saint Petersburg. This was the train that was bombed in the 2010 terrorist bombings of the Moscow metro. The bombings took place in March and by June, the train was back up and running.

The Red Arrow metro train

Lubyanka Station

Inside Biblio Globus.

Dr. Kourova is currently in the city of Novocherkassk, about a 3 hour plane ride away, so it's up to us to entertain ourselves this weekend. Not sure what we're going to do - I know the Arbat is on the list, as well as the flea market of things we want to do before we leave, so we might go to those places this weekend. We'll see!

Things this post will involve:

1) Hanging out in a lilac bush for the sake of a photograph my professor wanted
2) A meeting with Stalin, Lenin, and a very bad Putin impersonator
3) An adventure in the metro
4) Asking around about Chechen terrorist attacks without realizing I was outside of the FSB (formerly KGB) headquarters
5) My suspicions about now being watched by the FSB due to my actions listed in #4
6) Apparently totally freaking out a metro employee
7) My room at MSU probably being bugged, due to numbers 3-6
8) Other good stuff

Okay! Where to begin?

Sunday night we got back to Moscow and headed directly to Moscow State University, where we will be studying until June 6. Monday morning, Sasha, one of our teachers who I spent a lot of time with last year as a student, met us at MSU and took us to school. We study at MSU's Institute of Russian Language and Culture, which is located... well.... not on campus. Getting to school requires about a 20 minute 1+ mile walk to the trolley, then a ten minute or so trolley ride, walk a block or two, turn right, and you're there! Here's a few pictures of the nicer part of the walk:

Sasha will be our teachers on Mondays and Wednesdays, and all of the other days, if I heard correctly, we'll have Luba as our teacher - another girl who works at the school. Sasha is only a few months younger than me and Luba is 26, so it's really great to have such young teachers, as they're always a ton of fun!

Our first day went well. The theme of the day's class was getting to know each other/introductions. So, it was pretty easy but a great review. We had two breaks - one for rest and one for lunch. During the longer break, my friends Ben and Anne and I all decided to go for a walk and get some fresh air. We discovered a park near the school that, well, seemed nice on the outside. In reality it was filled with shirtless men smoking and a pond filled with floating litter consisting of beer containers and cigarette butts.

After heading back and finishing up class for the day, our Russian teacher from the states, Dr K, picked us up and we went to Red Square. Dr. K has put me in charge of the group of students here at Moscow State, and as a test to make sure she could trust me to lead everyone around, she said I had to get us from school to the University metro stop and on to Red Square. I remember the route well from last year, but I was still pretty nervous because she was watching my every move. However, I got us there without a hitch and was very proud of myself! It had been a good year since I had done all of this, so I was surprised I remembered it all.

The metro has become easier and easier to navigate with each day. Last year, I didn't pay much attention because there was always someone else in my group who had figured out the metro and knew what train to get on and at what stop to get off. This time though it was my responsibility to know the where's and when's. It's been great though because I've learned so much about how to read the map and how everything works, so I feel completely comfortable navigating what at first glance appears to be a nightmare of a metro.

Here's a map of the Moscow metro - I'll be talking more about the metro later on in this post.

We strolled around outside of the Kremlin in Alexander Gardens and got to see the changing of the guards, which happens every hour. The guards are out guarding the eternal flame, which every city has one of. There's also a lot of different WWII monuments, a stone for each city that played a large role in the war.

The view right when you come up out of the metro.

In front of the eternal flame.

A memorial to the Romanov family.

Here's where Dr. K made us climb into the bushes and pose for an all girl's picture. Thankfully there were no bees.

We headed out of the gardens and onto Red Square and were given some free time to roam around and do whatever we wanted. I went into the Goom (the giant mall on Red Square) and did a little shopping. When I was finished I came outside only to find three very famous "people" near our meeting spot.

He doesn't even look close to Putin. The guy I got a picture with last year was 100x better.

Tuesday, we had Luba as a teacher. Luba is short for Lubov, which means "love" in Russian. Our lesson consisted of a review of our introductions and learning about the history of Moscow. I should mention that our teachers speak Russian and ONLY Russian with us. The dictionary I brought has definitely come in handy.

During our break, Ben and I, against our better judgement, decided to go for a walk back at the park we had discovered Monday. At first, everything was fine. It was filled with families, children, and lots of sun bathers (Since Moscow obviously has no beach!) We were about halfway around the loop that goes around the pond when a gunshot went off somewhere very close to us - we couldn't see where, but it was so loud my eardrums vibrated. With Russia being, well, Russia, nobody even flinched. Ben and I, however, decided to take a shortcut back out of the park and get back to school. We decided we won't be visiting that park anymore.

Once we got back and finished up with class, Luba and her friend took us to the Arbat, also known as Arbat Street or Stary Arbat (Old Arbat). The Arbat is a huge street, a little over half a mile long, filled with restaurants, souvenir shops, the Hard Rock Cafe Moscow, street vendors, and more! It's one of the oldest surviving streets of Moscow, having existed since possibly even before the 1400's.

Arbat Street is also the site of the Man-In-A-Sochi-Bunny-Costume-Almost-Kidnapping-Me-But-Sasha-Saved-Me incident that occurred last year when I visited. We won't talk about that.

Old Arbat

Graffiti wall on Arbat Street, also known as the Tsoi Wall, dedicated to dedicated to musician Viktor Tsoi and his band, Kino.

Our group with one of our teachers, Luba.

Pushkin's house on Old Arbat

A statue of Pushkin and his wife.

After heading through the Arbat, which we plan to come back to as we all want to eat at the Hard Rock Cafe and get t-shirts, Luba and her friend dropped us off at the Fulbright office in Moscow, where we met the head of the Russia

At our meeting, we got to meet the director of Fulbright for Russia. It was quite a neat experience, and I got to meet with some of the people I had been corresponding with since finding out I was receiving Fulbright. We talked with them about our project with the Grot school and our experiences in Russia so far.

After leaving, we took the metro home. Well - eventually home. We were at the Pushkinskaya station on the purple line (shown below), and had to get back to the red line, where our stop "Universitet" is. Walking through the Pushkinskaya metro, I saw a plaque with the year 2010 on it, and immediately thought about the 2010 metro bombings, which I will explain in a minute. However, it didn't register to me immediately, for whatever reason, that that was probably a plaque dedicated to the victims.

To get back to the Red Line, we took the purple line to the station Lubyanka. Our professor was not going home with us, so she gave us the directions, and when she said "Lubyanka" I got... well, excited isn't the best word for it, but very intrigued and interested, as Lubyanka station is the location of one of the 2010 bombings.

So, a background on the bombings: On March 29, 2010, two women carried out suicide bombings during the morning rush hour, 40 minutes apart, at the stations of Lubyanka and Park Kultury. At least 40 people were killed in the attacks, and over 100 were injured. These are both on the red line. For reference, here's the picture again from earlier:

The red line runs diagonally from the top right hand corner to the bottom left hand corner. Our stop, Universitet, is the second from the last in the bottom left hand corner. In the middle of the map, where several lines come together to make a diamond shape, is the stop Okhoti Ryad, the location of Red Square. To get there, you stop at Park Kultury, one of the locations of the bombing. I think we've only gotten off there once though. But for some reason, the station Lubyanka was always very prominent in my mind when thinking about the bombings.

The locations of the blast - Park Kultury at the bottom, Lubyanka at the top.

It was quickly determined that the bombings were carried out by women who were Islamic extremists from Chechnya, located in the Caucuses of south Russian. Here's a map of the location, colored in red:

In a nutshell, Islamic extremists from Chechnya and if I remember correctly, neighboring Dagestan as well, have been carrying out terrorist attacks in Moscow with alarming frequency. There have been 10 terrorist attacks in Moscow in the past 15 years. Most, if not all of these attacks have been carried out by Islamic separatists from Chechnya, which has been fighting for independence from Russia for decades. A timeline of terrorist attacks in Russia can be found here and more information on terrorism in Russia can be found at this location.

Anyways, onto the story. I have these weird fascination with the Caucuses, particularly Chechnya, mostly in terms of the different ethnicities and groups that make up the population, particularly in the realm of genetic genealogy and the unique culture and practices. My favorite book, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra takes place in Chechnya and is worth the read if you have any interest in the area. So, anyway, when I heard my teacher say Lubyanka, I wanted to try and find the memorial that I (mistakenly) believed to be located at the station, based on pictures I had seen of what I later realized to be just a makeshift (temporary) memorial set up after the bombing. I later realized the 2010 plaque I had seen at Pushkinskaya was probably a plaque (why it was at that station, I'm not sure) in memory of the victims.

So, I asked my group (there's 5 of us, including me, total, not including our professor) if they would be okay with exploring Lubyanka station for the memorial. I explained the story behind it and it piqued the interest of everyone, so we agreed to check it out. Once we reached Lubyanka and got off the train, we began looking around. Seeing nothing above ground, I asked the attendant who mans the security station at the bottom of the escalators where the Lubyanka memorial was... I received a long answer in Russian that I didn't understand plus an upwards hand gesture, and decided it was best to take the escalators up to the surface to look around. There was nothing in the above-ground area of the station, so we went outside and I found a group of 3 guys around my age, probably a little younger, standing around smoking. I went up and asked them if they knew where the memorial was and they weren't sure what I was talking about, so on my translator on my phone I typed "Memorial for Chechen terrorist attack" and they looked really surprised, but went ahead and tried googling it for me anyways with no luck. At one point, one of the boys walked away and asked a police officer if he knew, and he said it was probably back down in the metro, if I understood correctly.

Later on, I would learn that the yellowish building across the street from us was the FSB headquarters. Aka the former KGB.

What does this mean?

I was wandering around asking about a terrorist attack outside of the home of the "re-branded" KGB.

Yeah, pretty sure my dorm room is bugged now.

So, we went back down into the metro and used the underground crossing to get to the other side of the street, where another entrance to the metro was, not connected to the entrance we came out of. I asked a few people above ground if they knew about the memorial... nobody did. So, we headed back down underground and I asked an attendant if he knew. He said if we went down two levels, it would be there (the metro, though underground, has different levels). We tried doing that but found nothing. I leaned over a security barrier and one point and talked to two metro workers - one standing, one sitting behind the barrier. Later, one of the students on our trip, Jessica, told me that the metro worker sitting down was looking at me with a face of complete and total terror, as if I myself was about to blow up the metro station.

Oops.

So, what did I learn?

1. Don't shove a cellphone with a translation of "memorial for Chechen terrorist attack" into people's faces in Russia. People will think you're either a) crazy or b) a terrorist.

2. And make sure you're not outside of the KGB building when you do it, for the love of God.

End of story. More information on the 2010 metro bombings can be found here.

We made our way back to the area of the metro we needed to be in to take the red line back to our Universitet (University) stop. I decided during the ride back that I wanted to go to Red Square. Everyone was going home so I'd be going alone. We had just passed the stop for Red Square though, so I got off at the next stop and hopped a train backwards one stop. Somehow I ended up coming back up above ground around the corner from Red Square, in front of the Bolshoi Theater. Thankfully I knew where I was though and just had to walk back over to Red Square. I spent about an hour wandering around, taking photos, and doing a little shopping.