Being Russian: Past and Present

Yesterday, we went to the Russian Museum after classes. We intended to go the Ethnography Museum too but we ran out of time (and it was actually closed). The Russian Museum houses more modern art, 1800s through the present, but really modern things like realism and cubism are prominent. The great thing about the museums here is that even if you don’t really appreciate what they have inside in terms of art, they all have free entry tickets for students of the Russian Federation. And our student IDs say that we are students of the RF. Win. The museum was interesting but honestly in some of the rooms the ceilings were more beautiful than the art on display. Although there were some paintings in one room that I found particularly interesting. After the Seige of Leningrad and many of the other tragedies that befell Russia during WWII, artists were amongst the first (besides soldiers) to reenter the damaged cities. There were paintings of the artists’ first impressions of what they saw, and the devastation portrayed in there is intense.

After a run through of the museum, we hit up Stolovaya Nomer Odin (Number 1) for dinner on the cheap and called it a day. A young Russian woman (my age) by the name of Amelina has been staying at my host-mom’s apartment for the past few days, and when I got home from sightseeing for the day, we hung out. We watched an American movie dubbed into Russia, ate ice cream, had tea, ate cookies, had tea, finished the movie, had tea, talked until 1:30am, had tea, and went to bed. She’s cool and it’s nice to have someone my age around to hang out with at home, even if it is only for a few more days. This morning we had Russian cocoa-puffs and oranges with our coffee for breakfast while we watched Russian MTV morning edition. All and all the situation probably looked hilarious, but it was a great way to start the day and we had a great time talking about the music videos we saw.

Today was gross. It was chilly and rainy all day. Our original plan of “let’s go to Petrogradskaya Tuesday if the weather is nice” turned into “rain or shine, bitches.” We hauled ass up to Peter and Paul Fortress where, once again, our student IDs afforded us free entry to the museums and the cathedral. We really only wanted to check out the cathedral since that’s where the Romanovs and their descendents are buried. The cathedral was beautiful, and it was so cool to see all the tombs of the once-royal family. We were doubly fortunate because right as we pushed our way into the cathedral it started to absolutely pour. “The sky opens up and drops everything” pour. “Thunderstorm in N.C. in the summer” pour. After seeing the cathedral, since the weather was persistent on continuing to drizzle, we went to Alexander Park near the Gorkovskaya metro station where there is a mini-Petersburg set up with 3 foot high replicas of all the major landmarks laid out like they are in the city. Since it was raining, the fence that encloses the mini-Peter was locked, but we want to go back another day and take Godzilla style pictures!

Since it was cold and drizzling, the only logical thing to do was to buy ice cream and find some place dry to eat it.  So we settled ourselves down under a Baltika 7 umbrella by an ice cream stand. There we were confronted with a group of drunk Russian college students (probably celebrating the end of their exams, this is the last week for them) who overheard us speaking English and wanted us to settle their dispute over what “to justify” meant. Attempting to explain the notion of justification to 8 drunk Russians who speak broken English was no easy feat, but Hannah did it with grace and style as Kara and I laughed our asses off.

Later I went out to dinner at a Eurasian restaurant that had great sushi, definitely something I’ve been craving since I got here. I had a spicy eel roll, some greens, tea, and a desert sushi (kiwi, strawberries, bananas, and chocolate wrapped in a blini and cut up sushi style). A roll only cost about 210 rubles or about $8 which is pretty good for sushi. And it was totally worth it! I’m definitely going to go back sometime with the girls! I stopped by the Piyatorechka (Russian grocery store) on my way back to the apartment and stocked up on snack supplies for the next week and half or so. And I bought a bag of Skittles. Yes, they cost me 64 rubles ($2.30). Yes, they are the best damn bag of Skittles I have ever tasted. And yes, it was totally worth it. If I can’t have peanut butter, I might as well have American candy in Russia!

Oh! And on the way home I saw the largest mosque in the Saint Petersburg area. It’s a city landmark. It’s a HUGE mosque, with glided domes and beautiful blue ceramic mosaics on the walls and Arabic script suras tiled into the mosaics. You can’t go inside unless it’s service time, but even seeing it from the outside was stunning!

But now it’s time for sleep, as there is yet more class tomorrow! Hugs and love to all as usual!

xoxo