Ilya gets a hamster, and other events from the past week.

Important events of the last week that all collided together into one big festive week:

Iliya Gets a Hamster: 

For most of February I lived in two places: my freeing cold dorm with its Soviet-style kitchen and a bathroom door handle that falls off every time you touch it, and then I also practically lived with my colleague Angelika and her family.  In fact, I have recently spent more time at Angelika’s than in the dorm.  Considering they have a very nice, warm apartment, great food, and a washing machine I think one can understand why.  Angelika’s family consists of: her, her husband Boris, Ilyia (11 yrs) and Kiril (16 yrs).  Babushka Svetlana is also often here, and they have a cat, Nora.  Oh, and me.

The point of this story is that Ilya got a hamster two days ago. So now there are seven of us in this small two bedroom apartment, and it’s quite comfortable.  Ilya named the hamster Ham.  Before Ilya got Ham, we had a great conversation about what we would name him: quarantine (on the basis that the school’s quarantine forced them to get the hamster), Harry (starts with an H..), Steak (Nora’s dinner), Beef-Steak (obviously a brainstorm off of steak), and Hammer (the influence of MC Hammer, of course).

In his 48 hours of life, Ham the hamster has been attacked by Nora twice, held by nine different people, swam in a plate of maccaroni, and got lost among the empty bottles and boxes on the counter.

Did you know, one year in human life is 25 years in hamster life.  Thus, Ham the hamster and I have a lot in common.

          

Maslenitsa:

So this is the Orthodox holiday, carnival, celebration in preparation for the big fast before Orthodox Easter.  Essentially it’s “Pancake Week” which was officially recognized by http://www.allrecipies.com thus making it a legit holiday.  So everyone during the week makes massive amounts of pancakes, or blini.  I ate probably fifty.  Maybe not that many, but it was probably close; I’m all blini-ed out for 40 days. At the end of the week, or Sunday they have a big festival where they burn a straw doll, have native song and dance, and eat more pancakes.  It’s also “forgiveness day”, where Russians ask all their close friends and relatives for forgiveness.   Many of them go to church and ask for a blessing to begin their fast, because if they really want to fast it’s very difficult and they must ask for support.

So why is it so difficult?  Well Russians give up everything: very strict fasters cannot eat anything made or created by animals and they must only consume fruit, vegetables, and grains.  Some also give up the three sins: alcohol, cigarettes, and sex. This being said, amongst the younger generation there are less strict “fasters”…  as you can imagine.

  

    

  

Day of Russia’s Protectors (and Boris’ Birthday):

This is a day to essentially remember those who served Russia.  However, it has turned into a “men’s day”, where all the men are recognized, gifts are given, and lots of phone calls to grandparents are made.  Iliya, Angelika’s son received a nice wallet from his lady-classmates.  That being said, he’s only 11 years old and has definitely not served, at least not in the way this holiday was original intended for.  So today I sent out massive texts, wishing my male friends “с праздником”, or happy holidays.

As for me, I didn’t have to work.  Also it was Boris’ birthday. He relaxed fully.  Not typically being a drinker, he went out on Wednesday night and came back very very happy, refusing to let his mother-in-law leave the house, hugging every member of the family (including Nora), and talking about “Russian Traditions”.

On Thursday at 1 pm I joined a friend for whiskey and pancakes and we jammed to The Roots.  And at 4 pm I went to this fancy French restaurant (with “original” French cuisine), where all of Boris’ family danced, toasted to Boris’ health and success, and ate like Napoleon probably did.

      

    

why every one should remain a child at heart…

Today this little boy and his grandma got on my marshrutka.  There was a seat next to me and across from me.  The older woman sat next to me, and the little boy jumped up excited on the seat across from me and tightly grasped onto the handle attached to the back door.  While looking out the window, he told everyone in the marshrutka about the ambulance behind us, and how one time when he drove past the hospital he saw so many ambulances!  When it was time to get off, grandma called out for the driver to stop. The boy however wanted to go to the store first, so he told the driver to stop at the store.  Everyone chuckled and the boy utter a loud thank you when they exited.

Almost simultaneously, another couple got on with their son.  For awhile he was riding silently, bouncing around in his winter onsie and cute hat with a bear on it.  Then the dad switched seats to sit across from him.  The boy immediately got agitated and started to wiggle off his mom’s lap.  He ran from mom to dad and started bawling, sobbing, so loud.  Then, the nice babushkas and older ladies on the marshrutkas just looked at him, I swear they did it all at once and that was it – the boy stopped and stared at them.  The ladies then complimented him, “aw what a good boy!” “such a good little boy!”  and we all started giggling; then the boy started giggling, and the entire marshrutka was laughing.

Cupid hit Astrakhan head on

I suppose Valentine’s Day, from a pedological perspective is a great excuse to exercise your creative juices.  Consider them exercised, overlooking of course the lack of students due to bad (-4) weather and extended (two week) quarantines.

Valentine Day’s Eve I stayed up way past my bedtime filling out Valentine’s Day Cards, which I brought from America, to give out to my students.  I was hoping to see lots of familiar faces today, and so I filled them all out, hoping to give them all away.  It was great fun, reading corny Harry Potter and Toy Story punch lines and filling cards with mini-tattoos and stickers.  I doubt my students would have gotten as big of kick out of it as I did, and naturally I only ended up giving away twenty.  Then, I made two hand-made Valentines for an exchange Angelika and I set up in her class.  Angelika made cookies, and I dumped boxes of sweetheart candies into a give away bag.

  

 

 

 

 

My day started with horrible technological problems and I was stressed out by 845am.  I arrived a frustratingly seven minutes late to the first class: a small private group of four students in the 7th and 8th grades.  My presentation didn’t work, so I proceded to just lecture a bit about Valentine’s cards, specifically the ones I brought from America and their traditions.  Then we filled out lovey-dovey MadLibs, which they throughly enjoyed and I had them make Valentine’s for their mothers.  I was really shocked at their creativity.  One kid made this really sweet card where he glued sweethearts and candy (you can sort of see it below) and a matching magnificent envelope, where he glued together two pages and rolled down the first one, creating sort of a scroll.

Next was a university class with Angelika.  We read poems, one student even wrote his own, exchanged valentines, talked about love and first dates, and filled out more adult-like MadLibs.  Interestingly enough the theme was a Love Letter and most of the letters were “sent” to the shyest girl in the class.  Overall we had a great time and I think they enjoyed it quite a bit.

  

 

 

 

My Valentine’s Day ended with a trip to the circus, accompanied by my British friend.  We fully enjoyed the show, which was this eclectic mix of costumes, actors, and a display on LSD.   We topped off the circus by toasting at the local pub to her last night.

… if I get one more “so how do you find our weather?” I just may…

Michigan has SNOW and COLD WEATHER and WIND.

It seems as though a general assumption in Russia is that no one has weather like they do. Being from Michigan, I understand that this is far from true.  Ironically it’s practically spring In Michigan right now and I must explain to my students that this winter is quite an anomaly, thus feeling like a huge hypocrite.

That being said, I have about had it up to HERE with questions regarding weather.  I mean my purpose here is to enlighten local Russians about American culture, which I suppose includes American weather.  But in all honestly I cannot wait until winter is over and I can move onto a new set of vocabulary and forget these horrible phrases like: как тебе наша погода? (how do you find our weather?) or замерзла? (are you frozen?) почему ты так легко одевалась? (why have you dressed so lightly?) ты болешь?! (are you sick?!?)   On the other hand, I’ve been able to use great phrase; like when people ask me how I am, I respond: Я сосулька (I’m an icicle).  Or: моя комната морозилка (my room’s a freezer).  They love this.

And it’s true! My room could possibly be about 20 degrees (F).  The other day I finally realized that the real problem was the empty room next to me, to which I have zero access and which I know is letting in ghastly amounts of cold air.  My friend brilliantly suggested that I close the door between my room and the entryway, logically keeping out more cold air than if it was open.  This has helped, but makes it extremely cold and disgruntling to use the bathroom, shower, or even make tea.  The other morning I brushed my teeth with hot water and heard the water crack the ice in my drain.

This cold weather has definitely changed the city.  One would assume that a city would be ready for this weather and adequately prepared for its arrival.  However, as it has reached the -20s this past week, most of the schools in Astrakhan have been closed in what they call a “quarantine”.  Administrators literally walk through the school counting heads, and if there are too few students, they just close.  Supposedly there hasn’t been a year without a quarantine since some of my colleagues started and it always comes in the beginning of February. As the semester just started on Monday, what’s the point of starting if you know that the next week a quarantine will take place?  It makes about as much sense as American universities starting four days before labor day and then giving students four days off.  Had I known a more timely arrival of this quarantine I could have taken a second month off.

Outside the schools, the city has pretty much turned into a provincial village.  The sun sets about 5:45 pm right now and although I love these days that have normal substance and sun, by 6:30 there are so few cars on the road you could count them; marshrutkas stop early; and pedestrians are slim to none.  Everyone orders taxis because they don’t want to wait for a marshrutka.   The snow doesn’t help the situation either so the taxi prices have gone up from $3 to $4.50.  Taxi drivers even know some of their passengers’ names.

Yesterday was supposedly -36 celsius (at -40 it evens out).  I stepped outside and wondered who was taking these temperatures.  It was great out!   Really, its simply the numbers that intimidate you and taunt you while you lay in your wam bed. My обогреватель (space heater; also another Russian word – and item – I can’t wait to throw in the trash) also decided that -36 was too intimidating and decided to stop working.  I almost cried myself to sleep last night, scared of freezing while in slumber, when he suddenly accustomed himself to the cold and turned back on!

I have a new roommate and it’s an angry fish

Rikki is busy.

There’s a lot to touch on but I’ll focus now on my past day.  This all begins with the British girl that I got so excited about meeting. Turns out this wonderful British woman is a photographer. The Russian photographers did a great job of stalking her and thus I’ve found out that she has had a few pictures published by the Times and a full article in a British magazine.  (www.chloedewemathews.com)  So, Chloe is in Astrakhan to shoot some pictures (a whole different story that will further be elaborated on within the next few weeks). She got super involved really quickly with all these different groups, including some local photographers, one in particular that has taken quite the keen liking to her.  Yevgenii, which after asking for a name the Russians like to say “it’s Eugene, Eugene in English!” after which I laugh because Eugene is such a funny name, after which they look at me really oddly while I am demanding that they just stick with the Russian name, BUT Yevgenii loves nature and gets an offer to go on a fishing trip.

Now, Chloe doesn’t really understand Russian.  She knows some basics and can get some ideas across in really broken Russian, but if you’re talking technical details she can’t tell a fishing trip from a university costume festival, and so she believes she is truly supposed to go on some underwater fishing trip. Chloe invites me along.

As were in the car, Yevgenii is telling me our true motive: to photograph eagles.  Poor Chloe; poor Rikki; happy happy Yevgenii. Yevgenii’s friend owns a farm about an hour outside of Astrakhan.  As part of this farm he dug man-made lakes, filled them with fish, and created a sort of preservation for eagles.  And were off in Yevgenii’s Path-Finder through these fields, just looking for great eagles to photograph.  We would stop every so often and Yevgenii and Chloe would jump out of the car to photograph something.  I would remain in my cozy seat, sitting on my feet trying to keep them warm after my previous venture into the snow.

Next thing we know there’s a “fishing trip” going on, which is essentially them catching bulk amounts of fish.  The “underwater” part consists of the workers wearing waders and wading in water above his waste as he tosses fish into a net.  One guy is throwing fish into the net bare handed; he’s the one who offers us vodka and tells us it’s “Russian Tradition”, as always.  Yevgenii throws some fish in his car; they’re flopping around.

Next thing you know we meet Yevgenii’s friend Vasili, and get invited to his friend, Nikolai’s Basa Otdixha, or spa/hotel for dinner.  Turns out this guy is maybe some deputy for the Astrakhan region.  We have a truly Russian table and I ate goose, pelmini, chicken, potatoes, and of course cabbage.  They kept pouring us more and more shots of vodka and even though Chloe and I would sip ours, they would continuously top off our shot glasses.  Before we left we ate three times.  How do they maintain figures?

We attempt to cover our return path in the same twenty minutes it took us to get to the Basa.  It hasn’t stopped snowing all day.  On the way back we get stuck in the newly fallen foot of snow.  A big blue 80′s volkswagen (“jeep”) comes to rescue us.  Yevgenii is flying through the snow and bottoming out his car; we get stuck again.   I “athletically” sprint back from our last spot of dig out, trying to hail down the blue jeep. Fail.  But success on the eventual self dig out.  We get stuck again; another Path-Finder of sorts flys past us to the left, blowing snow back under our car and not stopping to help us. Assholes. Chloe and I are swearing up a storm.  We eventually dig ourselves out.  I’ve lost practically all my toes and a few of my fingers.  Yevgenii gives each of us girls a fish and tells Chloe how much he loves her.

And now this fish is pissed off and flopping around my floor because I am suffocating him with a plastic bag.  Poor thing.