The Great Patriotic War

Today was essentially a love-on-Russia fest. (Not that that's a necessarily a bad thing!) Austin and I met up at the Kievskaya metro stop this morning to make our way over to Victory Park and the Museum of the Great Patriotic War (WWII), the excursion we missed while in the Caucasus. The sky threatened rain all day, but Moscow held out for us! I managed to get a picture of the Moscow Metro today (in which photography is forbidden by law), so in case you guys were wondering what it looks like, here you go!

Moscow Metro, Kievskaya Station

Victory Park was created in stages since the 1960s by the Russian government, first to commemorate victory of Napoleon and later to commemorate victory in WWII. Today the significance of the park and accompanying museum is predominately of the Russian victory and sacrifice in WWII. The park has multiple monuments to the people and soldiers who fought and lost their lives and live through the war and the German occupation of Russian territory, especially that of the Blockade of Leningrad (St. Petersburg). It's very hard to describe in words what the park and museum express. Russia took some of the largest hits and highest death tolls in World War II, and often that is forgotten by the rest of the world. But Russia certainly hasn't forgotten. If you don't know much about Russian involvement in WWII outside of the very basics, I suggest you do some reading and learn about it. What the Russians did in WWII is often covered up and tampered down by the other allied forces. I personally believe they deserve more credit than they have thus far received, but only the continual review of history will tell. So, in order to compliment my inability to describe the experience of Russia's war past, here's some pictures!

Fountains at Victory Park

St. Georges Cathedral

Victory Monument

Museum of the Great Patriotic War

Open-air Artillery Museum

Monument to Defenders of Russian Soil

Monument to Victory over Fascism

Before we ventured into the museum, we happened upon something quite awesome, if I do say so myself... OMG TANKS!

The museum itself was very cool! There was so much original material from WWII, like Nazi memorabilia taken by Soviet soldiers, original documents from the time, uniforms and artillery, and a documentation of propaganda development. The most amazing thing, hands down, was the Hall of Memories and Sorrow, which commemorates all the people who suffered and died in the Soviet Union during WWII. Photography was forbidden in the museum, but I snuck some shots because I just couldn't resist!

Hall of Glory (Hero of the Soviet Union recipients)

WWII Soviet propaganda posters

Nazi memorabilia left behind in the USSR

Nazi regiment flags and Iron Crosses surrendered in Russia

The museum was very moving and made you think a lot, as most WWII museums usually do. Having seen the Blockade and WWII museum in Petersburg, this visit added to my comprehension of the Russian view of the war. Feeling sufficiently somber, we decided to make one last stop on the way home to honor making fun of everyone's favorite little man target in history: Napoleon. The Russian Triumphal Arch was built in the 1820s to commemorate Russian victory over Napoleon in the War of 1812. I sense some sort of European Napoleon-Arch theme going on here on this continent...

And now as I head into my last week in Moscow, sightseeing and going to class for finals, I'm starting to muse over my time here in Russia. But I'll leave the philosophical stuff til a later ending post, for now it is time for me to do homework and study! Enjoy the pictures!

Love and Hugs to all! xoxo

(6 fulls days left in Russia!)

Of Tsars and the KGB

Today we had an excursion to Tsar Alexi Mikhailovich's Palace in southern Moscow. At this point I should probably be some sort of an expert on Russian palaces. However, this one was different. Alexi's palace is a traditional style wooden palace with tiled roofs from the 17th century. What actually stands in Moscow today is a complete restoration of the place done in the 21st century at the behest of the government. Taking pictures inside the palace costs extra, and since I'm shiesty like that, you guys get some pictures of the absolutely stunning exterior and my description of the interior. The interior of the place reflects changes in time from Alexi's reign to the start of Peter the Great before the capital was moved to St. Petersburg by Peter. The original place design reflected that of the old culture where the home was thought of as the "world." So, the ceilings were often adorned with stars, carpets often bore flower/garden patterns, and flowers paintings covered the walls in the image of the garden of Eden. The colors are very rich, usually with lots of red, a favorite color of the Russians since the word for red stems from the world for beautiful in Russian. All the molding is gold gilded and the doors were extravagantly decorated. The chandeliers were beautiful, and everything in the estate had an air of luxury. So, here's some pictures of the beautiful traditional outside:

 After the tour, Hannah and I decided to hit up the local Moscow marketplace, Izmailovo, for some goodies to return to the States with. We wandered around the market for a few hours and bartered with the vendors in Russian for things that caught our eyes! I'm now done with my shopping here and not looking to spend any more money in Russia. I got a good haul, but I'll just leave you all with these pictures of Izmailovo Market and the best of my haul...

The "Kremlin" at Izmailovo

Izmailovo Market

Soviet Era KGB lapel pin, and yes, it's real

After such an adventurous day, we rewarded ourselves with Cokes and ice cream on the trek back home. It took us a hour on the metro and the 30 minute walk from out metro station to make it back to MosGU. Blah. But now we're back, it's Saturday night, and we officially have a week left in Russia! I'm going to miss this country, but now I'm ready to come home and see everyone that I miss so badly!

Love and hugs to all! xoxo

(7 full days left in Russia!)

Day of Russian Heroes

I believe that Ludmila thinks our class is sufficiently insane after today's class. She asked us to come up with advice for foreigners in Russia and in the US (in Russian of course), and we came up with some weird things. Actually we spent most of our time explaining US cultural norms to her in Russian and how to apply/why we chose the advice we did. Needless to say, hilarity ensued. Oh well! All in the name of maintaining sanity during our last week in Russia!

Today our list of things to do was short and sweet, just the way the Moscow weather likes it! We rode the metro over to Pushkinskaya to see Pushkin Square (Пушкинская Площадь) and the very regal monument to the Russian poet himself. It's a popular meeting place in Moscow and people still leave flowers at the base of the monument to show their continuing appreciation for the great writer. A quick but beautiful sight!

Hannah chillin' in Pushkin Square

Monument to A. Pushkin

Me taking a break at a beautiful fountain in the Square

After this we headed over to Leninskii Prospekt to check out the infamous ever-huge monument to the first Russian cosmonaut,Yuri Gagarin. We came up from the metro so that we had a lovely view of the monument's back. After several minutes of debating and staring at the giant traffic circle/highway between us and the statue, we decided that seeing the monument from the back was awesome enough and to locate some (what else) ice cream. So here's a picture of what the statue looks like from the front that I pulled from the web:

The weekend us upon us again, which here in Russia usually means drinking and sightseeing really cool old buildings. Tomorrow we're going to a palace within the limits of Moscow. But before then and before the evening festitivies begin dinner is to be made and laundry is to be done! So farewell from the motherland for now!

Love and hugs to all! xoxo 

P.S. And out of the millions of people (11,514,300 as of 2010) living in Moscow right now, who else do we see on the metro but one of our fellow Americans, Atticus. After an American exchange in the metro and lots of staring, calculate the odds of that!

P.P.S. I got carded again today. American documents to the rescue! I like to think our super nice demeanor and constant "спасибоs" endeared us to the poor cashier who had to read my English language passport. Heh.

(7 full days left in Russia!)

Soviet Stores & Jazz Music

Adventuring seems to be the name of the game this week, which in and of itself, is a miracle since it's too ungodly hot here to be alive. Well, scratch that. Moscow is not as bad as home right now, but when there's no A/C and your window barely opens and it becomes too hot to sleep at night over and over again, straddling the border between sleep and reality gets a bit old. Fast. In order to combat the heat during and following yesterdays final culture lecture, Hannah and I scurried across the street from MGU to our local Soviet store. Soviet stores are non-western food stores. As in everything is behind a counter and the counters are organized by product type. You have to be able to ask for what you want by name, and in some cases, how much of it you want. To the newly Russified foreigner this can be mildly terrifying. And despite having lived in Russia for eight and a half weeks now, I have successfully avoided Soviet stores (mostly because I prefer to do my own damn shelf-picking). Ice cream is probably the least intimidating thing to ask for (and one of the cheapest at only 22 rubles), so with our command of Russian and dire need for morojenoeh, we accomplished our mission. I seriously don't know what I'm going to do without Russian ice cream when I come home. It's definitely one of the things I'll miss.

As usual now, our nights are concluded by swatting moths out of the air in our room (because for some ungodly reason Russian people don't seem to understand the concept of screens) and attempting to fall asleep before 3am in the stifling Moscow dorm heat. Oi. I'll never understand.

Today was more class, more torture over participles (not really), and my individual lesson, in which I talked about the crazy-ass phobias that Muscovites have because of the article my prof. gave me to translate. Some days I just look at her and say "Ludmila, schto eta?" Then she shakes her head, laughs at me, and goes off in rapid Russian (which I follow so well now, it's scary). That's pretty much Ludmila in a nut shell. And she can wrangle all of us. Pretty much why I think she's awesome.

This evening we headed across the other side of campus into the birch forest that is eastern Vikhino to the Kuskovo Estate for a summer evening jazz concert. The estate is beautiful and the music was wonderful: four Russian guys who knew their jazz. Hannah said it was arranged a lot like Coltrane and I second that motion. A wonderful way to spend the evening, if I do say so myself. The insanity began just as the concert ended with the longest clap of thunder I have ever heard in my life. Hannah and I sprinted down the estate stairs and onto the (beautifully landscaped) grounds where we were greeted by 30mph wind gusts. In one of the open garden areas the wind kicked up so hard that we were blinded by leaves and dust and other earthly objects. It gusted so hard just then that I actually grabbed Hannah and turned her towards the wall in a there's-a-bomb-cover-the-person-next-to-you sort of way. Hilarious in hindsight. But in the end I loved it; I've always loved how it feels before a storm. And now it's pouring and thundering away. Maybe now we'll get respite from the heat! 

So before I go and do my homework for tomorrow, here's the only picture I have from Kuskovo Estate:

9 days left on Russian soil! Love and Hugs to all! xoxo

Lost in the Lubyanka

Contrary to this post's title we didn't get lost today... well, not really. As we all know, you should never rely on Rachel for directions. We did, but we made our way around Moscow bravely, so I'm taking it as a small life victory!

Today's goal was to get out and hit the town since I'm now back from the Caucasus and we only have a 2 weeks left here in the motherland. The agenda for today was long and intense since my individual lesson got switched to Thursday instead of this afternoon. Hannah and I set out for downtown Moscow at about 2:30pm, taking the metro from Vikhino to the Lubyanka Station with every intention of finding the infamous Lubyanka Prison, stationed on what else but Lubyanka Square. When we emerged from the station, I knew exactly where we were. However, despite our valiant efforts and wanderings, we found ourselves lost to the mystery of the Lubyanka: in this case, where the hell it was. Upon later research, I learned that we emerged from the metro right beside the Lubyanka Prison and had even commented on the beauty of the building. I had thought that was the Lubyanka but decided I was wrong. Lessons learned in school, never change your answers! As a result, I do not personally have a picture of the Lubyanka (maybe not possible either due to the police stationed outside) but here's a good picture I stole off the internet!

Lubyanka Metro Station (I took this one!!!)

 Lubyanka Prison, infamous headquarters of the KGB

After seemingly abandoning our search for the KGB headquarters, we hopped the metro back to Ploshad Revolutsii, headed for the Red Square. I've said before that the Red Square is my favorite part of Moscow, and today's visit only reinforced that feeling. We took some more pictures since the sun was out during our visit today, then we decided to take shelter from the 95 degree heat inside of GUM, the old Soviet State Department Store turned giant sprawling designer store mall in the Red Square. 

We wandered around for a while, looking into the windows of stores where we would never be able to afford anything unless we sold a kidney. We left GUM sufficently air-conditioned and went hunting for ice cream (which has it's own block on the food pyramid here in Russia). Sitting on a fence and eating our ice cream, we realized that we were right next to Aleksandrii Saad (Alexander Garden) and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. We went into the garden and our investigation was well rewarded!

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier & The Eternal Flame

Changing of the Guard

Leningrad/Saint Petersburg

Chilling with Kiev

The Kremlin behind the walls

We walked all the way through Alexander Garden and ended up down by the Moscow River. So, we decided to trek down to the Kropotkinskaya metro station to go back to campus as it was then hot and late. On the way, we came upon the Khram Khrista Spassitelya (Cathedral of Christ Our Savior) which is the largest Orthodox church in Russia, seating about 10,000 people at once. It's where all the bigwigs in Russia go for their holiday services and such, meaning Putin pulls up pimping in his limousine every now and then. The church is absolutely stunning, especially with its gold gilded domes in the afternoon sun!

Cathedral of Christ Our Savior

We wound down our adventurous day by grabbing schwarma (kind of like an Arabic gyro on lavash bread) for dinner at a stand by our metro station. Then we went and bought four liters of water and a liter of coke at the RUS Mart because we were literally dying of thirst. It was hot today, and as an east coast resident, I feel like I can complain about it here! Now we're back, showered and resting, ready to continue adventuring the rest of the week! The plan has been laid out, so more is to come!

Love and hugs to all! xoxo

To the Ends of the Earth

(Or How I Went to the Northern Caucasus and Lived to Tell the Tale)

I know I haven't posted at all recently, but I have an excellent excuse! This past week I spent the majority of my time from Wednesday through today traveling to and spending time in the Northern Caucasus, specifically Kabardino-Balkaria and its capital, Nalchik. 

Austin and I left behind the scenery of Moscow from our dorm at 2:30pm on Wednesday and took a bus to Kabardino-Balkaria. 27 hours later we arrived in the capital city of Nalchik after seeing lots of this as soon as we left the city of Moscow:

We arrived at Nalchik late in the evening on Thursday whereupon we promptly started making rounds around town, meeting various members of Sonya's family. We were very warmly received when we finally reached his apartment, and after showering to get the bus-ness off of ourselves, we sat down to a huge dinner. In the Caucasus the culture is very hospitality and family centric. People welcomed into dwellings as guests are fed enormous amounts, offered endless comforts, and usually said to be under the protection of their hosts. And, damn, did we eat. A typical mom, and a Caucasian one at that, Sonya's mom gave us endless amounts of borscht, plof, salad, ram's meat, fruit, and bread. And vodka. Oh yes, there was vodka. The tradition of toasting throughout the meal is still alive and well in the Caucasus!

The next day we set out to see the mountains and the natural beauty that the Caucasus are so very famous for. I live in the mountains at school, and may I just say, I have never seen anything so beautiful! As you walk, you can practically feel how old the land around you is. There has actually been a decent amount of talk around the academic community in the past few years that the Caucasus may be the seat of man. The highest mountain in Europe, Mount Elbrus, in Kabardino-Balkaria, is believed by some to be the base of the myth of Mount Olympus in ancient mythology.

Our first stop was the Голубое Oзеро (or "The Blue Lake"). Nestled into the rising mountains, the Blue Lake is extremely clear, a stunning blue color from the surface, and a diving destination. 

 

After cooling off on the banks of the Blue Lake since temperatures we're reaching an East Coast norm of 95 degrees, we headed deeper into the mountains. The scenery was absolutely breathtaking and now I understand the lifestyle basis upon which Caucasian cultural ideas were built, which Dr. Isaenko has always been telling me about.

I will also leave you with this awesome graffiti that is close to my heart, as I do, as some of you know, closely study Chechnya and the ongoing insurgency that is overtaking the region's history.

"Grozny" -- capital of Chechnya

Dinner this day was a quiet affair, and then we all went out to celebrate Sonya's cousin's 18th birthday. Which should have been a hint because the celebration continued all weekend. However, the next day gave us some respite. We explored Nalchik and decided to go swimming. I cannot possible tell anyone how overwhelmingly happy this made me. I miss swimming so much; it's such a hallmark of an American summer. Needless to say, my outlook on life improved greatly after indulging my inner fish.

Certified International Swimmer :)

The remainder of the day was taken up by a massive Caucasian family dinner to continue the celebration of the cousin's birthday. We journeyed through Nalchik to an aunt's house where the living room had been transformed into a dining hall with a table absolutely covered in food. Everything you could imagine and then more. Sonya's family was wonderful and so gracious to have us and to stuff us full of food. They encouraged us to speak Russian as much as we were able to and were very patient with us when we forgot words. It really was the best practice I could have asked for. And of course, in keeping with tradition, there were toasts and shots of vodka all around the table. For several intimidating moments it was my turn to toast in Russian, but I made it out alive and to a happy table. And I'm just going to say this now: Caucasians can drink. Well that and when they found out I'm Ukrainian that only added to their filling of my glass. Oh the irony! 

If anything I find that I am at a loss for words to describe my trip and to do it justice. It was an experience of a life time and I have returned with an even greater love for the Caucasian people in my heart. Everyone we met was very congenial, bright-eyed, and so gracious to us. Whether it is all cultural impetus or not, I am duly impressed and forever grateful for their hospitality. 

So thus went my adventure to the Caucasus. I have returned without losing a limb to an IED or being shot by an insurgent. (Though I did see a tank rolling down the street my first day there.) I already miss the Caucasus, and I'm so glad that I've chosen such a wonderful and rich place to devote my studies to. And now that I've taken up a good part of your time regaling you with tales of the ends of the earth, I will only leave you with the red Russian sunrise...

Hannah and I have an impressive plan laid out to end our time in Moscow with a sight-seeing bang, so more posts to come!

2 weeks to go! Love and Hugs to all! xoxo