The Ryazanskii Prospekt

2008-05-08T12:00:00.007+04:00

Horse Races

The racing season opens after the May 1st holiday and I went with the two other Rostov (Region) Fulbrighters. A total loss of 110 rubles ($4.50), which is little enough that it's almost like winning. Anyway, some pictures:

Cossack Riders Before the Races

You Should See What She Did with the Horse After...

Беги сука первая!

Two for One Bets on #6

2008-04-26T14:31:00.000+04:00

Poem about Boy Meets World

I can't believe that

Cory and Topanga wed;

just...unexpected

2008-04-24T11:58:00.003+04:00

A Star is Bernstein (Part 2)

This is sort of old news by now but a couple weeks ago I went to Salsk, a little town a few hours south of Rostov. This is where the Soviet government gave many foreign communists land to build communes. So I went there thinking that I would get to the biggest commune, Seyatel. (The name is a play on words; in Russian this means "a planter," you know, a dude who plants, but most of the settlers were Finn- or Russian-Americans from the greater Seattle area. Get it? It turned into the "Stalin Collective Farm", then the "22nd Party Congress Collective Farm" and has now returned to its orginal name as a semi-private company.) When I got there, though, I realized the people who were supposed to meet me had some other ideas, none of which involved going to the farm. They didn't know what it was, actually. They thought I was coming to give a talk at their school. The local press came so at least I got in the newpaper and on tv. In terms of research not very fruitful, but this gift from the children's museum did expand my art collection:

2008-04-03T13:07:00.005+04:00

April Fools?

Last year I had a post with an idea for miagkii znak/tverdii znak (soft sign/hard sign) tattoos. Like all ideas I have that seem too good to be true, I let this one simmer for nearly a year. Well, the idea was as solid as it seemed and here's the result:

2008-02-28T12:52:00.003+03:00

SMS Me

If anyone wants to send greetings to me via my cell phone (or to other friends in Russia who use MTS) for free, go to this website. You can get my phone from Facebook or email me, I guess, although that seems like a lot of work.

2008-02-27T11:02:00.007+03:00

Little Bear

I watched Dmitrii Medvedev in Serbia on TV and I realized for the first time he's really, really small. I looked it up and he's about 158 centimeters which is a little more than 5'2", according to several internet sources. (Obviously, not official but none give him more than 166, which is 5'4".) Putin is only a little taller at 168. Then again, he's at least as tall as Stalin (158). Anyway, a photo:

2008-02-21T12:33:00.003+03:00

Foreigners in Russian Basketball

I took a break from script writing to do a little research on Russian basketball. It had always seemed strange to me that so few foreign players played basketball in Russia, especially considering the foreign players I have seen are much better than their Russian counterparts. As it turns out the answer is pretty archaic. The answer is in the by-laws of the Russian Federation of Basketball's "Rules of the Championship of Russia among Men's Clubs" (my translation):

77.2.1: A team's roster may include:

· In Division A [the better league, like the NBA]:
-for clubs/teams taking part in the European Cup, no more than seven (7) players of category E or A, of which no more than 2 players from category A.
-for clubs/teams not taking part in the European Cup, no more than five (5) players of category E or A, of which no more than two players from category A.

· In Division B [the better league, like the NBDL] can be no more than two players of category E or A.

77.2.1: A team's technical roster may include: · In Division A [the better league, like the NBA] can be no more than seven (5) players of category E or A, of which no more than 2 players from category A.
· In Division B [the better league, like the NBDL] can be no more than two players of category E or A.

77.3 For clubs in Division A, at the same time in the course of a game no more than three (3) players of category E or A can be on the court.

In the case of violation in the course of a game, then the game must be immediately stopped and the necessary substitions made.

77.4 A team's roster can include only one player with dual-citizenship, one of which must be Russian and he must have the right to play for the national team of Russia.

So what is a E category player and what is a category A player? The glossary lists E as "an athlete with European citizenship...unable to play for the Russian national team." Category A is "an athlete with non-European [that is, American or Argentinean or Australian, you get the idea, the A stands for something] citizenship...unable to play for the Russian national team." In short, you can have seven foreign players, two of which can be non-European (usually American), five can be on the bench in a game and three can be on the court at the same time.

Some teams have circumvented this. Putin made sure CSKA point guard, John Robert Holden, recently gained Russian citizenship meaning that he counts now as a Russian on the floor and CSKA can field another foreign player. (He was also able to play for the national team in the European championship this fall and, in fact, made the winning basket. His interview was given through a translator on Russian television.)

2008-02-17T21:42:00.003+03:00

Truth in History

According to private critical reviews, the story about Stalin's stand-up comedy and Lenin was "really funny" but my idea for a Lenin romantic drama, "also funny, but not as much." The old adage goes, it's funny because it's true.

This is actually a good point to stop and talk a little about a past movement in historical writing. A lot of radical historical comedians up until the middle of the last century took the "funny because it's true" theory to mean that various historical events did not occur because they weren't funny. Diseases we know now to have been devastating were rarely considered historically provable (an exception is the plague--Chaucer is funny) and Native-American history (a bummer) was the realm of pseudo-historians. In fact, the period in American history from the end of the so-called "Era of Good Feelings" (hilarious for obvious reasons) to the time when abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner was beaten mercilessly by pro-slavery Congressman Preston Brooks in the Capital Building was an unverifiable, boring void.

In the 1960s, Paul Venn invented a diagram which systematically proved that while things that are funny are always true, true things are not always funny. This revelation unleashed a deluge of works on not-funny subjects such as the Holocaust, polio and slavery among others, which were thought to be false previously.

(The verity of polio was controversial before Venn. Some historical comedians considered President Roosevelt's affliction ironic because the formerly freewheeling Roosevelt gained the austerity while confined to a wheelchair that led to his election. Thus, some argued, if Roosevelt's polio had been funny, the disease happened. Others disagreed, citing the fact that the disease itself was not funny but was the cause of humor. Was it not more likely, they asked, that Roosevelt's disease was a proven entity, like scoliosis or plague?)

Getting back to Lena's Vladimir, I realized it wasn't as funny as the history of Lenin's death because it wasn't as true. In the former, I presented some linguistic evidence that young Lenin was involved in a torrid love affair with a woman named Elena and that, in the course of the Revolution, he chose to have her killed for political crimes in spite of his love for her. Stacked against the rock hard archival evidence I produced to prove my theory about Lenin's death, the evidence for Lena's Vladimir was a little soft.

Over the last week I was working in the Ulyanovsk State Archive and, though I was unable to find conclusive evidence, I found the following correspondence between a certain E. Andreeva and a "Vladimir," without a doubt, Lenin (my translation):

Andreeva to Vladimir
June 3, 1889

Dear Vladimir,

Your words brought hope to my heart. Inside you burns a revolutionary fire as red as the hair that covers your loins. Come hither as soon as you can leave the socialist front. [Emphasis mine--F.B.]

Love,
E. Andreeva

I emphasized the word "socialist" in the last sentence to point out the ideological difference between the lovers. Andreeva considered socialism to be the end goal of the future revolution, while Lenin, by this time a devoted Marxist, considered socialism a stopping point on the way to communism. Forbidden love if I've ever seen it.

2008-02-15T12:08:00.003+03:00

On Russian Commercials (and The Irony of Fate: Continuation)

I've been rethinking my life decisions on joining the history writing profession. If Lena's Vladimir (tentative title) doesn't work out, I'm thinking about getting a degree in television advertising sociology, writing a book or two on societal values reflected in commercials and then selling out to the first consulting firm that offers seven figures. Here's a preview:

1. "Aluminum--The Civilized Container"

Scene: A movie theater. From left to right, two half-liter green glass bottles, one half-liter grey aluminum can and one plastic bottle of indeterminable size (either one liter or 1.5 liter) sit in the balcony row.

Plastic bottle (moves forward part of lid upward): Burrrrp.

Glass bottles (leaning into each other's seats): ClinkClinkClinkClinkClink.

(Theater darkens)

Can (top comes up): Click. Shhhhhh.

(Glass and plastic bottles jump and then sit down motionless.)

Announcer: Aluminum, the most civilized container.

I like this commercial because it's pretty much true. Glass bottles always have waste (the cap) and are potentially very loud and messy. A plastic bottle is no less than a liter and up to five liters. Plus, most beer that comes in plastic bottles is not good and if you aren't sharing or drinking fast, it's going to go flat. Aluminum cans leave no waste, they aren't loud and they are usually of a size that will not go flat before you can finish.

After I had seen this message a dozen times or so, I started to wonder who put it out there. The can and glass bottles both look like Baltika 7, a quality light beer, but the labels aren't visible and that particular beer does not have a plastic bottle variety. It's possible Baltika is trying to drive people to its aluminum can variety products; it recently put out a 1 liter can version of Baltika 7. Maybe Russia has experienced a rash of murders by broken beer bottle in movie theaters. (It's obvious why you would want to discourage people from drinking from plastic bottles.) Maybe the aluminum lobby finally got up the balls to take on those assholes at Big Glass.

2. Mayonnaise

I have a couple commercials in mind here, but the main thing I want to point out is that Russia is the only country I know of where mayonnaise is sold with sexy commercials or a blockbuster film.

Example 1: An attractive young couple has just moved into their new apartment. The woman gets out a bag of mayonnaise (pictured below), squeezes out a dollop onto her partner's fingertip and inserts finger with mayonnaise into her mouth. The couple goes to the bedroom, the woman carrying the mayonnaise behind her back.

Example 2: In The Irony of Fate: Continuation (which, is a travesty. This is a sequel to the Russian equivalent, in the sense that it gets played every New Year, to It's a Wonderful Life. The original is a social commentary, a good comedy and does a good job maintaining the illusion of realism through character interaction, even though the plot is a little far-fetched. The sequel is a slick, shallow picture about the children of the original characters. It's a Vh1-esque nostalgia-fest packed full of the most blatant advertising I've seen since Independence Day but none of the substance of the original. [Independence Day, for that matter, also had more substance although I do think that Linux would clearly have been more compatible with the alien operating system.]) an old lady makes a salad, which in Russia is usually a bunch of random ingredients--beets, carrots, ham, eggs, garlic etc etc etc--smothered in mayonnaise. She squeezes out the whole bottle of Calve, which is running a media blitz right now, then tastes and makes the "mmm-good!" face. Later, another lady tastes, then squeezes some more mayonnaise in and makes the "mmm-better!' face.

Could it not be that the preponderance of mayonnaise on television and in the store has catastrophically lowered the age of death in Russia? Is it not so that mayonnaise from a bag, clearly a more efficient container, has made the stuff so accessible that it is sexually corrupting young Russia? What I'm really trying to say is that mayonnaise is a big, sexy deal in Russia.

2008-02-11T10:44:00.000+03:00

More about Lenin (a love story)

This is a revelation I had a couple months ago when I was talking to a lady I work with named Elena (shortened, Lena) about Lenin. I mentioned Lenin's room and she said, "My room?" I said, "No, Ulyanov's." She said, "Oh, I was confused there for a minute."

The confusion comes from the fact that the Russian adjective lenin means Lena's, so when I said "room of Lenin" (which sounds fine in Russian but may have been weird in context) she heard "room Lena's" (which sounds weird in Russian but works grammatically). She said that she frequently had trouble with these kinds of mix-ups, since people talk about Lenin a lot and people also talk about her in the third person frequently. (She's an avant-garde performance artist who has turned her life into an act she calls "Third Personal.")

But since Lenin's name is a pseudonym, what does that mean about him? This crappy website talks about two possibilities that have been ruled out: a reference to the Lena River as opposition to Georgi Plekhanov (real name), whose one time pseudonym referred to the Volga River, and the Lena execution, which happened after Lenin used the pseudonym.

I'm going to put forward here a totally unverifiable story about Lenin falling in love with a girl named Elena when he was young (before he met Mrs. Lenin, whose name was Nadezhda) and then using her name as his pseudonym as a sign of everlasting love/youthful lust. I'm also going to write this as a movie script, sort of like that bad Chris O'Donnell, Sandra Bullock movie about Hemingway in Italy, but with Lenin. And yes, plenty of nudity. Also, I think the end of the movie will be Lenin personally signing her death sentence, or personally watching Dzerzhinsky or Trotsky do it, and crying. (They had to kill her because she was a Social Revolutionary, not a Bolshevik.) Maybe she escapes, but probably not. I'm still working out the kinks. Any suggestions for the role of young or old Lenin?

2008-02-07T12:52:00.000+03:00

A Story I Can't Put on the Internet; Seth Update; A Story I Can Put on the Internet (About Lenin)

Well, my days of flying under the radar registrationwise caught up to me and over the last week I was led into the Kafkaesque world of Russian justice, if only a for a day or so. On a side note, when I described to a friend the situation at the local police/registration office as кафкаский [kafkaskii], (which isn't a word) I mispronounced the word and it came out as какаский [kakaskii] which sounds more like poopy (also not quite a real word).

In other news, I signed away my life for the next five or so years to the University of Toronto's History department. I think most people knew who read this knew that but I confirmed it recently so why not post it.

The last story is related to my start as a professional historian. While digging through some 1920s Rostov Party documents I found an important missing piece of Soviet history. That Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky struggled for power and that the former benefited from Lenin's demise before Trotsky could fully establish himself in power is quite well known. Some "conspiracy theorists" have even supposed that Stalin went as far as to kill Lenin for political benefit. This theory was unsubstantiated...until now.

Stalin was well aware that he could not kill Lenin in a way that would leave evidence. This precluded most conventional means of murder. At the Tenth Party Conference in March, 1921, Stalin overheard Trotsky tell Marshal Tukhachevsky that Lenin had "laughed himself silly" that night and would be in no condition to speak the next day. Stalin deduced, correctly, that if he could tell a stunningly hilarious joke, or several very funny jokes, Lenin would laugh himself to death.

Perhaps the most intriguing facet of Stalin's plot is that it forced both Stalin and Trotsky to play to their weaknesses. Stalin, a noted and ruthless political tactician, was dour with a very dark sense of humor. (Funny hmm rather than ha ha .) Trotsky, on the other had, was known as "the original Marxist brother" and Lenin himself frequently called Trotsky "the funniest Jew I know." This coming from a man who knew a lot of Jews in his lifetime.

Stalin's first attacks (the self-deprecating and avant-garde "Black Ass Series," largely written by up-and-coming Georgian Party member Anastas Mikoyan) came as a complete surprise to Trotsky and sent Lenin to the hospital several times. Trotsky's first attempt to foil these assaults was to calm Lenin by saying "that's not funny" or "respect the solemnity of the Kremlin." Lenin, however, frequently mistook these remarks as deadpan follow-up jokes, inducing even more laughter.

Eventually Trotsky gained the upper hand by ensuring that Lenin's wife, who had no taste for racial humor, (even if it was true) was always in the room when Stalin was around. By 1923, Trotsky had practically defeated Stalin's plot by introducing the Lenin's Little Interns program, for which a rotating group of 11 year-olds followed Lenin around the clock. (Stalin had practically defeated himself with the self-written bomb, "You Might Be a Communist If..." which Lenin dismissed as "hokey" and "too populist" for his taste.) In fact, Soviet history may have taken an entirely different path if not for the Donskoi Oblast Union of Municipal Service Workers.

On March 23, 1923, the Union named Lenin an honorary pipe fitter--just the weapon that Stalin needed. At that point in Russian humor the technology of inuendo was underdeveloped. (To this day, most Russian humor is relatively crude.) Yet a young Vyacheslav Molotov was cracking sides with the insinuation that Lenin's honorary pipe was located in his pants. Stalin managed to spirit Molotov to his Moscow dacha before Trotsky had heard of the new weapon. Over the next three months, Molotov developed a routine hilarious to adults yet undetectable to children.

In a final affront to what he thought was a defeated opponent, Trotsky invited Stalin to speak at the Lenin's Little Interns' alumni meeting in August, 1923. Stalin's act ("If the Pipe Fit, Get to It") proved a fatal blow to Lenin and sent several of the Little Interns--the oldest of whom were 14-- to the hospital. Particularly damaging were the bits about "Comrade Lenin laying more pipe in Buriatia than railroads," followed by the slanty eye face, and the one about Lenin's expertise, or lack thereof, in dealing with Mrs. Lenin's plumbing.

For the next five months, Lenin languished in the hospital, occasionally showing improvements but falling to pieces every time Stalin's name was mentioned. On January 21, 1924, Stalin bribed a busty nurse to serve Lenin, along with his lunch, a wrench, and suggest that she was leaking. This was more than Lenin's fragile health could stand. His last words, barely discernable through violent laughter, were, "Stalin, you are the king!"

2008-01-24T21:19:00.000+03:00

A Few Notes

I've been out of Rostov for the last month or so on vacation in Barcelona and researching/being sick/dicking around in Ryazan. I’ll try to upload a couple pictures when I get back to Rostov and reasonable internet.

1. Dmitrii Medvedev's last name derives from the Russian word for bear. If he was English, his name would be Bearman or something like that. Pretty good in of itself but even better when you realize that Edinaia Rossia's mascot is a giant polar bear. Anyway, when I came back from Barcelona, roughly a month after leaving Rostov and contact with Russian media, Medvedev was all over TV and Putin was relegated to the third or fourth news story of the day, instead of number one, like he had been before.

2. I was working in the Ryazan library regional history department (which is terrifying, because I am flying under the radar registration-wise, using an expired library card and copious amounts of blat--that is, name dropping--to get access to materials) when three middle-aged, bearded academic types entered and filed into the staff office. The regular workers in the department are about ten 35-60 year-old women--as far as I can tell only three of them do anything--and all of them, except the oldest lady who does the most work, went into the office. The last one added mysteriously, "Don't let anyone in here!" Librarian sex/cocaine party?

3. When I got to Ryazan I had been traveling for about a week. For adventure's sake I took the long way from Barcelona: a flight to Bremen, then a flight to Riga, then an overnight train to Pskov and then another overnight train to Moscow. Somewhere in there I caught both cold and flu so by the time I got to Ryazan, things were pretty bad. I had a fever of 103, and not the sexy kind like in the song. But the worst part wasn't being sick, it was being tended to by the lady I'm staying with, a friend's mother, who is a doctor. The trouble is she's also a Russian mother which means she has a whole repertoire of folk remedies in addition to being a real doctor and it was sometimes hard to tell what was real and what was bullshit. I couldn't eat the porridge with a full stick of butter but I did drink the vodka with hot pepper.

2007-12-30T21:00:00.000+03:00

Emblems

Here's the last (and my favorite) article of the Soviet Constitution of 1924:

Article 11:

On the emblem, flag and capital of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

70. The governmental emblem of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics consists of a sickle and hammer on the sphere of the earth, lit by the rays of the sun and framed with wheat stalks, with the inscription in 6 languages named in statute 34: "Workers of the world, unite!" On top of the emblem is a five pointed star.

71. The governmental flag of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics consists of red or scarlet cloth, with the image on the top corner near the flagpole of the gold sickle and hammer and under it a red, five-pointed star, framed with gold edging. The ratio of width to height is 1:2.

My question: will I be purged for accidentally dyeing my flag crimson?

Addendum: If you don't think this is funny yet, think about this. I was in the Ryazan Party Archive last year, doing what I usually did--looking through documents in a somewhat random fashion and finding funny shit--when I found the minutes to a conference in 1918 about propaganda for peasants. An important issue, but not pressing for the delegates. Their debate in the first two pages (representing a day) focused on the food and time for lunch during the week-long conference. The latter issue was settled in a 10-5 vote for 2:00pm rather than 4:00pm. When I related this to the university office secretary she laughed at first, but then I told her that the vote meant a difference of two hours and she said, "Oh, well that's a different matter."

2007-12-11T13:05:00.000+03:00

Scenes from Rostov

In case you can't make out the figures, this is Karl Marx Square, where I live (That is, for now, I had a fight with my landlord over the consistent absence of water and am moving, unfortunately.) and on the left is a New Year's Tree stand, with Russian Santa, Papa Frost. A little history behind the statue. Before the Revolution the stand held a statue of Catherine the Great. She granted Armenians the right immigrate from Turkey to the area Rostov in a village called Nakhichivan, which eventually was incorporated into the city. After the Revolution you can guess what happened. Anyhow, you can see why I think this is funny.

This is a performance by a group of young supporters of Edinaia Rossia. Their mascot, a man in a polar bear costume, also was present. This performance repeated all across the city (and presumably the country). The music sounded like "The Final Countdown" by Europe, but not as awesome, mainly because the Detroit Pistons' starting lineup couldn’t make it (although Rasheed Wallace reportedly does support Putin's plan). The girl looking at me taking the picture was not, contrary to appearances, questioning the conventional wisdom of the sitting government, but was wondering why I wasn't dancing (she was).

2007-12-07T14:29:00.000+03:00

A Naive Spy

I mentioned in a previous post that I'm doing research on political rehabilitations. My plan was to start with newspaper articles and, once I got a feel for how rehabilitations had been handled before, to get an interview with the Military Prosecutor for the Northern Caucus Military District (Военная Прокуратора СКВО).

The papers came up with a few interesting tidbits: in the mid-nineties, a woman received 6.5 million rubles--roughly $1,000 according to the exchange rate in the same newspaper or $2,000 dollars today, after the monetary reforms--for being incarcerated for political crimes under Stalin and another woman received half that amount; yet another was (and perhaps still is) receiving 107 rubles ($4.25) per month as payment for the execution for her father for political crimes. In total, of all petitions for rehabilitation, something like 4 million throughout the country, roughly 20% were rejected.

So, how does rehabilitation calculus work? In short, I have no idea and probably never will. My guess is that it works a lot like financial aid for grad school in the US, with the Military Prosecutor's office acting as admissions. My first attempt to get in touch with the office was through the military newpaper. Although they wouldn't give me the guy's email address or phone, they did give me his name and their politeness gave me the hope, sweet hope, that he would be willing to answer a few questions.

In fact, they had told me to look for him at the office at the military base downtown. My plan was to go down there and ask for an appointment or, even better, be given an audience with the man immediately. After I wrote up a list of questions in case of the latter, I told the people in my office where I was going to their horror. Occording to them, going to this base would probably lead to me being shot, or at least ridiculed. Since I fear humiliation more than death, I decided to head their advice and let my secretary call his secretary and to try to make an appointment.

The following is their conversation, half of which was reported to me:

My Secretary: Hello, can we have Colonel so-and-so's office. This is Southern Federal University.

Their Secretary: What do you want?

MS: An American student wants to set up an appointment to ask about the process of rehabilitations in Russia.

TS: You know that all Americans are spies.

She got me! Anyway, here's some secret spy shit from Rostov.

"The Plumber's Beloved"

"Meat Products"

2007-12-03T18:40:00.000+03:00

A Predictable, Clean Finish to a Dirty Race

The parliamentary elections finished without a hitch for Edinaia Rossia, not surprisingly. The communists, who are the largest minority now, and Yabloko, a center-liberal party, have alleged some violations of the elections and have produced a list of fairly detailed complaints. While I have no doubt these things happen, this is energy misplaced. The violations are mostly limited to one or two districts or, at most, a city and are small things, like confusing ballots or voting without registration. These things probably should be investigated, but though a change of several thousand votes may swing a Duma seat from one party to another, it means nothing for the small parties.

Yabloko is grousing up the wrong tree. By and large Edinaia Rossia let the TsIK (Central Election Commission) do its work counting votes and do it openly. (I thought it strange that 99% of Chechnya voted for Edinaia Rossia but this can probably be explained by a combination of fear of the central government, fear of the local leader (a former rebel now Edinaia Rossia's leading candidate in Chechya), respect of the local leader and the fact that current and future government is pumping lots of money into rebuilding Grozny.) So if Yabloko shouldn't complain about the way the elections turned out, what should they complain about?

1. Putin's role in the election: According to the Russian constitution, the President must be party-less. So how can Putin head Edinaia Rossia's candidate list? Other political parties brought this to a judge's attention to no avail; Putin is the top candidate but not officially a member of the party. Okay, but what happens when Putin wins? He simply refuses the office and continues to be president or stops being president to become a Duma representative, much like what would have happened had John Kerry won the presidential election (only the opposite). While this legal decision is understandable, it clearly misinterprets the spirit of the law, which intended for the president to be a mediator between parties rather than a partisan supporter of one or another party.

2. Raising the percentage to enter parliament: This election required a party to receive more than 7% to have any candidate in the Duma; the minimum previously was 5%. The effect of this is two-fold. First, a party like Yabloka is unlikely to get 7% of the vote but could possibly get 5%. Ditto for the Agrarian Party, a former faction of the Communist Party. People who would have supported Yabloko or the Agrarian Party voted for a larger party, primarily Spravedlivaia Rossia (a left-wing pro-Kremlin party) and the Communist Party, respectively. In addition, some people just didn't go to vote at all.

The second effect of this change is that the four parties which enter the Duma will divide up the roughly 10% of seats representing the population that didn't vote for them. By percentages, Edinaia Rossia, the Communists, LDPR (a right-wing nationalist party) and Spravedlivaia Rossia should receive 284, 50, 38 and 36 seats, respectively. As it is, they will receive around 308, 58, 44 and 40, respectively (all the votes are not counted yet so don't quote me on these figures, not official but the best I can do). Had, say, Spravedlivaia Rossia lost 2 percentage points to Yabloko, the approximate distribution of the three remaining parties would be 345, 60, 45, respectively. As such, Edinaia Rossia has really stacked the deck against smaller parties contending for Duma seats and strengthened their own majority by taking the seats that would represent small parties.

On a side note, Yabloko, the Union of Right Forces and Grazhdanskaia Sila are also to blame for their failure in this respect. As the leader of the latter admitted on television last night, the three parties are similar enough that have no reason not to combine into an opposition block. In fact, simply combining their results gives them around 5%, which would have likely inspired and mobilized the non-voting opposition.

3. The removal of the protest vote: Before 2003 Russians could cast a protest vote against all parties. If this option receives a majority, the whole process repeats itself. Hard to imagine this would actually happen but when a large percentage votes against all it at least shows public dissatisfaction. While some of these protest votes may have funneled into, say, Spravedlivaia Rossia, Yabloko, etc., more likely is that these people just stayed home.

4. Edinaia Rossia's use of the media: As I mentioned in previous posts, Edinaia Rossia campaigned in the guise of regular programming, in particular on news programs and "special reports" on protests, while other parties were relegated to late night commercial spots and ridiculous debates. It's hard to compete when the first half of the news covers the campaigns of Edinaia Rossia candidates, followed by sports and the weather.

Non-Edinaia Rossia parties are pointing these things out, too, but in a much more muted fashion, while they are putting voting fraud--a relatively minor problem--in the forefront. I can see the same thing happening in the presidential election whenever Putin reveals his preferential successor. Anyway, here's my favorite poster from the election:

2007-11-28T14:46:00.000+03:00

Governor Cowlick

Breaking news: The governor of my province's name, Чуб (Choob), means cowlick. A childhood photo:

2007-11-26T11:37:00.000+03:00

Бархат.ru

In response to the protests in Moscow and Petersburg, which received a lot of press for the arrest of Kasparov, the very next day the channel Rossia (owned by the government) produced a program called Бархат.ru (trans. Velvet.ru, a reference to soft revolutions in the former Soviet Union). For those of you who understand Russian, check it out. It's hilarious and disturbing all at once. For those of you who don't, a brief synopsis: first, riot police practically beg the protesters to keep moving, then reporters go "undercover" to various "anti-government organizations" that tell them all the dirty tactics. They also character assassinate 25-year-old Maria Gaidar (daughter of Egor Gaidar and head of an opposition group) for celebrating her birthday at a bar.

If this was not Orwellian enough, an opposition party, the Union of Right Forces--led by the reformers of the 1990s--has commercials that effectively serve as the two-minutes hate from Nineteen Eighty-Four. In the commercial, Nikita Belykh, leader of the party, claims that 1990s Russia was poor but free, as pictures of people waiting in line for food flash across the screen. According to US government estimates the economic collapse in the 1990s was more devastating than the Great Depression in the United States. If you wanted to drive people away from your party, that's the way to do it.

2007-11-15T12:50:00.000+03:00

Russian Election Debates

A number of things happened in the past month that prevented me from web logging my experiences and opinions. 1. I got awesome new business cards. 2. Work on an "odd-couple" novel about an American student-teacher and a Russian prostitute who have to break the Tolstoy riddle--or else Vladimir V. Putin may die of poisoning! 3. Incredible laziness. 4. Too cheap to pay for home internet anymore. (This is also related to point 3, because the place to pay for internet is about a mile walk round trip from the bus stop.)

I've also been watching a lot of the official political debates that come on at 11:00pm after the new pan-European War and Peace mini-series (which is awful). Each debate last a half-hour and pits three political parties against each other to political-thriller-movie background music. Each day at least two of the parties are different so every party is represented, with the noticeable exception Edinaia Rossia (United Russia), the party in charge of the country.

The majority party, which controls the government which controls the television stations airing the debates, has obviously not been excluded. I'm going to guess that the party refused to debate for three reasons: first, they could only lose authority by allowing other parties to question them face to face; second, because they already have power, the campaign basically runs itself and the candidates, all active officials, are involved in government related activities; third, if someone with real power condescended to debate, them people might watch the debates.

The debates, then, are virtually meaningless, although hilarious. They also tend to discredit legitimate political parties with meaningful programs by association with people like far-right nationalist demagogue, Vladimir Zhirinovsky (on Bush here), who screams "LDPR! LDPR! LDPR!" at the end of every debate in which he participates. He also said that LDPR's slogan "What's good for Russians is good for everybody" was changed from the previous because he wanted to make sure all nationalities were included. In every debate the representative of the Union of the Right Forces, Boris Nemtsov, poses the same question to every party, "[Says that pensions are too small, the army is weak, too many dogs in the street, etc] what party is responsible for this disgrace?!" and the person from the other party says Edinaia Rossia, because they do control the government but the answer means nothing.

That question is actually the strongest appearance of opposition in the debates. The second strongest party, Spravedlivaia Rossia (Just [as in fair] Russia), "opposes Edinaia Rossia" but votes for the legislative program to show solidarity with Putin. The Communist Party refrased their explanation but voted for the same program. (Severely criticizing it!) I suppose it's not any better in the US, although the cult of personality Putin has formed around himself (and his barrel chest) does not seem to be a factor in Bush's case.

The real opposition is of two types: the kind that is ridiculous and uses pie-in-the-sky advertising such as the Union of Right Forces and the Democratic Party of Russia, whose advertisements of a future newcast from 2020 with Russia in the European Union for some reason play more than any other party's; or the they are realistic but get very little airtime like Yabloka or Grazhdanskaia Sila [Citizen's Power]--which has an awesome video their website, complete with creepy mustache.

2007-10-12T13:30:00.000+04:00

My Long Island Bride, Rehabilitations, Nudity

My work in the newspaper archive is going pretty well. The lady there has delivered on the promised photographs of her grand-niece-- an 18-year-old New Yorker who has probably never heard of her great-aunt except as one of the relatives in the old country. On the plus side, the girl is quite a looker and, the woman whispered conspiratorily to me, "She has Jewish blood." I think it may work out.

The research I'm doing is on the meaning of political rehabilitations in post-Soviet Russia. In short, people who felt they or their relatives were repressed under the Soviet Union can petition to receive compensation in both moral and financial forms. The former comes in the form of the removal of the title "Enemy of the People" and the latter comes in the form of a paltry sum of money or free bus passes.

In recent years, the rehabilitation process and its publicity, in Rostov at least, has been led by the military. Thus, most of my reading has been in Военный Вестник Юга Руси (The Military Herald of Southern Russia). My main goal was to try to find how long the military has been in control of this function (not long, it seems), so I have been combing through each week's newpaper since 1991.

Now, I found very little on subject until 2003, but the newspaper itself is highly entertaining. Besides pulp novels and the latest in drinking technology, it publishes lewd cartoons. And what I noticed was that on March 8th--International Women's Day--they publish a very nice cover story thanking the ladies in uniform but on the back page they have the dirtiest cartoons of all. Enjoy!

"Happy Holiday, Kind Women!"

And a happy holiday to you, too, Brave Men! (Same issue)

2007-10-02T17:33:00.000+04:00

Reading Тихий Дон (The Quiet Don)

I'm not going to bother describing Тихий Дон, but I will tell you this: I'm doing Cossacks under the Soviets research, making this book unavoidable for me, but it's easily the hardest thing I've read in Russian. It's also 1500 pages long. The characters, especially the father, speak in a weird Cossack dialect that is almost indecipherable and I'm barely plugging away at about 6 pages an hour, when I pay attention. The only thing that keeps me going is knowing that the old man is going to get killed by the Bolsheviks (that may not be true, but I'm pretty sure he'll die soon), who I pray will bring order to the novel.

2007-09-24T23:10:00.000+04:00

What persistence and a pretty face can and cannot get you

My utility problems have continued. After a glorious few days of everything working, I lost all water except for an occasional trickle about a week ago. It appears as though the city has turned off the water. My daily calls to my landlord, who can verify if the city has turned off my water or if he has not paid the bill, are not working. He won't pick up the phone. Not a good sign.

On the plus side, I argued for about fifteen minutes with a librarian over my right to look at five years worth of newspaper articles (which you are supposed to request by quarterly volumes) and she called her boss, who assented on the condition that come to the back room and find them myself. Boss lady, an older woman, noticed that I was not Russian.

Seth: Yeah, I'm American.
Keeper of the Newspapers: Oh, I have a sister, well a cousin, in New York. (Russians often call a cousin a brother or sister without using the adjective that denotes cousindom) You're so young and handsome!
Seth: Aw, shucks!
Keeper of the Newspapers: I have another sist--, cousin who is unmarried, and has no children.
Seth [rolling eyes shamelessly with mouth agape]: Yes...
Keeper of the Newspapers: You come on Tuesday to look through more newspapers, I'll bring a picture. Okay!

This is sort of a dilemma, because finding the newspapers myself was much faster than requesting them a quarter at a time but I tend to be anti-granny-matchmaking. Can I sell my heart for more convenient access to Pravda? I think I'll wait until I see the photograph.

2007-09-10T15:50:00.000+04:00

Life in Remont

I really like the title of this post, because it seems like it could be the title of a story about someone who lives in Russia whose home is being worked on (remont translates roughly to the noun repairs) but who is also having some kind of emotional trial unrelated to the strains of living in an apartment where the appliances don't work well. Maybe an injury should be involved as well; I did, after all, teach Hemingway half of last year.

Well, I am living in an apartment which is undergoing a serious repair process. Fortunately the mental and semi-metaphorical physical injuries are non-existent. I have, though, spent a parts of a week without hot water (5 days), gas (4 days), electricity (3 days) or a toilet (2 days), and the last, I assure you, has been enormously strenuous, because Russia is notorious for not having decent (or any) public restrooms free or pay.

However, I think the worst part has been the bathing aspect. Now, I'm not a shower snob; I'll take cold showers, even enjoy them, because sometimes the knowledge that a worldwide lesbian conspiracy exists is too much even for me. The shower doesn't work at all though, and my attempt to boil water in an electric tea kettle for a bath was ended in the electricity dying. In fact, after a week in hot, dusty Rostov, sweating buckets while riding public transport, I thought about entitling this post "Smell-o-gram" instead. Basically, I smell like someone who has been working at the Quaker Oats factory in Cedar Rapids all day, ran a few miles down a dirt road behind line of cars picking up dirt the whole way and then tried to cover it up by rolling deodorant all over his body. I bet the real Old Spice Man smells like me, only fishier.

2007-09-04T11:14:00.000+04:00

A Human Zoo

In the absense of a desire to describe what the Russians would call otpusk (the nearly universal summer vacation, usually one month or longer, that Russians receive), I'll keep it short by saying that being at home was pretty awesome in comparison to Russia. In particular, wi-fi was an almost unfathomable luxury. Sopranos finale was not what I expected and was quite good. I went to London to see the Juice on my way to Moscow and that was a pretty awesome trip; they really do drive on the wrong side of the road! Boston, even with Garnett and Ray Allen can't beat San Antonio, Dallas, Phoenix and maybe Chicago or Detroit.

I arrived in Rostov about a week ago and, without much else to do, have been pacing myself at about one errand a day, except Sundays, which is race day. (Please note I have added a Gambling Results section at the side, which is primarily to let me know if I'm getting carried away.) After the errand is completed, my day is open to relaxation and yesterday I went to the zoo.

The Rostov Zoo is surprisingly well stocked with animals, and exotic ones at that, but not particularly well staffed. Also, the zoo makes a lot of American zoos look quite spacious, all of which means you can get incredibly (dangerously?) close to a rhinocerous, or a tiger. The staff that you do see around the park have adopted a sort of fatalistic mentality: the sign does warn against goring.

I made my way eventually to the monkey cage, where a throng of people, some of whom had jumped over the fence that separates the cage from the sidewalk, were screeching. This I actually took to be mockery of the monkey, but apparently not. Something was hilarious! That something was that one of the intrepid school-children perched upon the fence had lit a cigarette and given it to the monkey, who was deep in flavor country when I arrived on the scene. When asked how they had trained the monkey to smoke, said the children of the monkey, "It taught US to smoke!" I didn't get a good shot of it exhaling, but here's one of it stubbing out the butt.

Later, I was sitting by the bird pond, contemplating what I had seen (Had the monkey really corrupted those children? Did it also drink and would it try to introduce this habit to the children as well?) when I heard a father shout at his daughter, "Get over here!" Pretty standard, except this girl was 2 or 3 and the dude was standing on bridge over the duck pond, where he had been for a half hour. Obviously, little girl was a little antsy. What I couldn't make out, was why this man was so fascinated by the bird pond. After a little investigation (I switched benches for a better angle), it appeared as though he was fishing in the pond, albeit with only the line (on a kite reel) and the bait.

The guy eventually gave up, and got ready to leave. The girl said to him, "Num Num," which is Russian child gibrish for, "Time to eat." Pretty cute. But not to dad, who was really sick of feeding this girl, especially on a day when he paid 80 rubles to get into the zoo and didn't even catch a fish. Immediate reaction: one spank. They went off on their way out of the park, but he started walking briskly ahead of her, then hopped the fence surrounding the pond and broke off a stick from the wooding on the edge of the pond. The first thought that entered my head was, "That can't be what I think it is. Did he just cut a switch?!" Yes he did. Although I did not see, I did hear. Quite a bit of parenting. The monkey probably taught him.

Monkey ashing his cigarette

2007-07-07T17:57:00.000+04:00

The Rostovskii Prospekt?

I'm pretty sure anyone who reads this knows by now that I'm moving to Rostov-on-Don next year, doing the same thing as this year. If you didn't know, the secret is out. I was just in Rostov moving my stuff and here are some awesome things about it:

1. Race track
2. Warm weather
3. Close to Crimea, where I want to vacation

The Don region is Cossack country, so this week I'm saying goodbye to the peasant heartland of Russia. It's been a fine run. A little boring at times. Frustrating (see posts on plagiarism and homelessness). All in all, pretty good. So:

Goodbye Theater Square (view from my apartment)

Goodbye Basketball Team

Goodbye Students

Goodbye Ryazan Kremlin

2007-06-30T18:33:00.000+04:00

A Vindictive Post
or
Seth: 1 Russian University System: 100

In my last act as a teacher at Ryazan State University, I gave a credit test on US History. I wrote the test, and it's a pretty good one, in my opinion. The only problem is that I gave it to another class of students earlier in the year. Having spent a year in the Russian academic system, I know that more than half Russian students cheat in ways that would be unacceptable in US institutions. Therefore, I should have changed the test slightly to counter the possibility that students from the previous class would leak the test. As the saying goes in Russia--they have it in Iowa, so they must have it here in Russia--"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, can't get fooled again." But I did get fooled!

At the test my foolishness was not quite great enough to miss two students in the back who I had never seen before. They explained that they should be allowed in because they had been sick. They spoke with such assurance that I thought it was a normal situation and let them take the test. About an hour into the test, I realized that most of the students had not learned the information on the test but had memorized answers they knew would be on the short answer section and the letters in the multiple choice section; the biggest clue was when I saw a student mouthing a mnemonic, "Brad And Angelina Can Do..." Well, something like that.

After a couple days of fury, I calmed down and decided to pass the students who had attended class. In my defense: 1. This was only a pass/fail class and they had done other coursework; 2. They gave some thought to their short answers and essay; 3. It's not my job to reform Russian undergraduate education.

Having come to this decision, I came to work with my zachet (pass/fail test) pen, ready to write "pass" for everyone. Almost everyone. I had done a little homework and learned that students have to show a special document to be admitted to a test if they missed an egregious number of classes. Neither of the two had the document. In addition, they didn't bother to learn the mnemonic (Jennifer Aniston fans?) or memorize the short answer answers. I think my favorite was the last multiple choice in which both chose the option "Taliban" to answer the question "Who assassinated Abraham Lincoln?" In any case, neither had come close to passing, no signing was done and they went away without a fight.

You may be asking, "Hey, but weren't these girls sick? Isn't it unfair to take your frustration with Russian education out on two sick girls?" Believe me, these girls were never sick. I mean they carried their own IVs up the stairs. Next question. "Didn't the Taliban try to assassinate Lincoln in the Jean Claude van Damme hit Timecop?" No, it didn't. As you can find in the grossly long summary of Timecop on Wikipedia, the villain of the film was a '96 presidential hopeful trying to contribute to his campaign fund by purchasing stock on the cheap during the Great Depression. I think the Taliban-Lincoln(-Booth?-Oswald?) idea has a lot of potential, though.

2007-06-26T22:28:00.000+04:00

A Belated Post on Kalmykia

As the title says, I'm about a week and a half late and much of my memory has been wiped clean after a visit to Kazan to see a buddy, Kyle. Anyway, I'll try to hit the high notes.

1. On a 40-hour train ride, bring an excuse: I took the train from Ryazan to Moscow to Elista. Elista is at the very end of the line leading to the Caucasus and I assumed that I would check out the landscape and get some reading done. The landscape from Moscow to Rostov (the first 25 hours) was roughly the same as everywhere else in European Russia and the steppe, upon which Kalmykia is situated (see the brown patch of land leading up to the Caspian Sea) is very telling but also not much to look at.

The main problem, though, was the entertainment factor. I rode in the platskart which, for the uninitiated, consists of 6 cells with 3 pairs of bunk-beds in close proximity. My two-day roommates ended up being two very nice women, a housewife and a lab doctor, a quiet married couple on the side bunk and Evgenii, a soldier. The former brought a series of crossword puzzles to amuse themselves; Evgenii brought only the standard kielbasa and a gigantic knife. As the train ride progressed, it became more and more clear that I was to be Evgenii's entertainment. After he wore out his curiousity about American life, our lady companions' travel plans and his own arsenal of jokes (two, as it was), he turned to desperate measures, including asking for a page by page summary of a novel I was reading and, after commandeering my iPod, the meaning of each song. Worst of all is that he wouldn't elaborate on his mission "to get some guys" in Elista.

2. Fulbright English and Physical Education Teaching Assistantship: The camp was designed to be a two week intensive English learning experience, which is great on one hand but a waste of summer on the other. My role at camp was teaching "American Sports Culture." After a day of a really ill-fated attempt to teach the history of baseball, I decided to take the kids (ages 11-16) outside to play sports. With only two gloves and a bat, our baseball was limited to me lobbing pitches to them. The academic ease of my class, along with my devilish good looks and rapier wit, scored me popularity points with the kids. I like to think that this led to the Kalmyk media frenzy around me, although it was more likely that my nationality and Michelle Kwan guaranteed my new found celebrity.

3. Kalmykia is an enormous fire hazard: Elista is situated on an extremely dry piece of land with sickly green grass. While I was there, the temperature topped out at about 40 Celsius (about 100 Fahrenheit) and the water service is notoriously inconsistent; water is turned off weekly in some homes and dormitories. Also, almost all men smoke and largely use wooden matches rather than lighters. All in all, this seems like a dangerous situation. This is probably why, in a rural town of 100k where roosters crow at 4am in the dead center of town, the fire department has four shining new trucks. I saw them in action, too, when a grass fire started near the school.

4. Michelle Kwan "Win One"[pronounced, "Wan"]: This was the chant that the US State Department English Language Office came up with for the kids to shout at her as she approached. My crowning achievement was vetoing it along the prospect of reading the poem of the previous post. In short, the Kwan thing was a little disappointing. Her speech sounded like a bad college admissions essay. She was also shorter than I thought she would be and, therefore, I dashed my plans to make a move on her. My favorite moment was when she was placed in the same realm as Lincoln, MLK and Putin, among others. (I think Lenin may have been thrown in.)

5. The elusive Iliumzhinov: The main disappointment, though, was not meeting Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the head of the republic. Kalmykia is growing a really solid cult of personality around Kirsan; almost all the people I talked to said the exact same thing: "Kirsan is as corrupt as any politician, but he's been good for Elista." I have my doubts about the latter, although Elista gets a ton of media recognition and, for its size and location, a robust tourist industry, all of which is based on Iliumzhinov's crazy proclamations and chess fanaticism. Even though I didn't get to shake the man's hand, I did see his famous white Lincoln Towncar at the Akvarium concert on Independence Day.

All in all, Elista was a lot of fun and a lot like the rest of Russia, if you replace Orthodox cathedrals with Buddhist temples. Here are a few pictures for good measure:

The Charm of Kalmykia: Buddhism and chess in the main square

The Main Temple

Inside the Main Temple: Big Buddha

The Magnificent "City-Chess": A condo complex oasis in the middle of a barren steppe

2007-06-15T16:41:00.000+04:00

A Poem for M.K.

The figure of Kwan
Skates triple spins through my head
Glide hither, Michelle

2007-05-30T13:22:00.000+04:00

To Kalmykia and Beyond...

As the school year winds down in Russia, the summer camp season is starting. Therefore, I'm heading to a camp in Elista, the capital of the Kalmyk Republic, an ethnic republic on the Caspian Sea. If that isn't interesting enough, the head of the republic is crazy. He believes that, based upon the prediction of Vanga, a blind Bulgarian fortuneteller, Kalmykia will strike oil in the Caspian Sea. In addition to his Kalmyk leading duties, he's the president of the FIDE, the international chess federation, and has made chess a mandatory subject in Kalmykia's schools. He also claims that he's been abducted by aliens. The best part is that I know I'll get to meet him. My drawing power may not be quite enough, but he's certainly going to want to meet Michelle Kwan, who is visiting the camp on the last day. The only question is, does Fulbright have interplanetary fellowships?

2007-05-23T19:30:00.000+04:00

The Russian Pastime

One of the benefits of my parents' visit was that they brought baseball stuff. As a William J. Fulbright English Teaching Assistant, I am contracted to propagandize the American way of life in any way I can, and since repeated rants on the plagiarism have not accomplished this mission, I decided to offer the bat rather than the stick.

Inspired by the unorthodox teaching technique of Robin William's character Mr. Keating from The Dead Poets Society (which we had just finished watching) I decided that instead of movie class, we would have a hands-on language lesson in baseball. I ordered my students to grab notebooks and head to the park. Since the only boy in my class left for study abroad in the US, our team consisted of 10 girls and me. Immediately, a problem appeared: Russian girls tend to wear nicer clothes to school than their American counterparts, including high-heel shoes. Also, my students all "accidentally" left their notebooks at the university. I hadn't really expected to teach anything, but it's kind of impossible to explain baseball without some visual aids.

I ended up drawing the basic rules in the ground, showed them how to throw and gave a demonstration in hitting, which nearly resulted in a concussion. Eventually they decided that shoes off was the way to go and they all seemed to get the pitcher-batter-catcher relationship. I even taught them how to play pickle. Over their pleas to play lapta, the weird, not-fun, Russian version of baseball, I think they were enjoying it. At least we weren't sitting inside watching The Breakfast Club.

And as the cultural bonding started for my students, I got my own dose. An old lady started accosting my students. They pointed me out and she began accosting me.

Old Lady: I understand you are the teacher and you should know that this part of the park is the source of all of Ryazan's oxygen. Your horseplay will ruin it for everyone. You must stop playing now!
Me: All right, the period is almost over anyway. We're going.
OL: Wait, I'm going to report you. Give me your surname, name patronymic.
Me: Бернштейн, Сет Франклин
OL (Confused look): ...

Then she walked away, shocked that I would give such a blatant pseudonym instead of my real name.

2007-05-12T20:27:00.000+04:00

Bad news for people who like bad news

This article is a little old but worth posting anyway. Journalists at a network of state owned radio stations in Russia must air 50% or more good news. On the plus side, weather can be considered good news and because Russians are fond of snow it seems like only the rainy days will be tough. In general, though, with salaries growing in all sectors and babies popping out at a rate sure to deal with the so-called demographic crisis, Russia's future is looking bright. I think that took care of my quotient for the day.

2007-05-03T20:14:00.000+04:00

News and Reviews

My parents came a week ago Tuesday and will be leaving tomorrow morning from Petersburg. This was the first time my parents had been abroad and suffice it to say that Russia is not the best introduction to foreign travel. I feared the worst but it wasn't so bad. In Moscow we went places where they needed a translator on days I didn't have classes and other days they stuck to tourist stuff. Then they came to Ryazan where I showed them "real Russia," that is, Russia without any tourist attractions. We left on an overnight train for Petersburg the next day, where we were met by a snowstorm. I may have pictures later. Anyway, some highlights:

-Dad, after seeing two women walking arm and arm, leaned over and asked, "Gay?" The same question was later posed to two of my female co-workers in Ryazan over dinner.
-Mom, a 60 year-old software editor suffering from mild agoraphobia, took the metro during rush hour.
-On their first day alone, dad's Russian lessons on cassette paid off and he was able to order coffee. As he explained it, all he had to do was ask for someone who spoke English and then ask them for coffee.

I thought I would also review various Russia/foreign travel related products and services. I only got to the computer stuff but I'll try to do hotels later.

Computer Stuff:

SkyLink: A cell phone company that has lately been pushing internet service through its cell phone network. How I found this company is a pretty good Russia story. My apartment's previous inhabitant, and owner, died and her daughter inherited the place. The real estate was valuable enough that my landlady paid whatever "fees" had to be paid to get the paperwork pushed through and her name as an owner. All other services (water, gas, phone), though, also required a similar payment to change the name. Since they all worked, my landlady saw no point in paying $200 to change the name. However, when I tried to get DSL, neither I nor my landlady could penetrate the bureaucracy of TsentrTeleKom without reregistering the phone. So, I had been using internet cards and going through dial up until April. Recently SkyLink opened up a Ryazan office offering high speed wireless and I jumped at the chance to get rid of dial up. Basically the whole thing works like a cell phone except you buy a modem with a USB output instead of a phone. In short, it cost $250 to set up (mostly the cost of the modem) and the service costs $.04 per megabyte. Good if you just want casual but fast internet but very expensive if you are trying to download anything.

IrisPen: This is a text scanning pen which I thought would make my life in the archive easier. It hasn't. This scanner is only good for materials printed on white paper, in modern fonts and without errors. You also need a strong, steady hand and practice. It does work in Russian (along with other major languages) and has some use at Russian libraries, where checking out books is much more difficult and sometimes impossible. I find myself more and more using this for amusement. For the same price (about $100), I could have had more fun with a breathalyzer.

2007-04-16T20:01:00.000+04:00

Various Notes

1. The first purpose of my posting, reporting on Ryazan basketball, is over. Ryazan State U had a pretty rocky year, finishing with a losing record, but they turned up the intensity and made it to the finals, beating the Military Academy's team by over a hundred points. Then they lost big to the Medical Institute in the final. I should note here that the only foreigners from non-Soviet countries (primarily from India and Africa) study medicine in Ryazan and the team was primarily made up of international students. Makes me wonder if MedInstitute enjoys an advantage from athletic superiority or from not drinking and smoking in the locker room. A little of both I imagine.

2. The Juice was set loose briefly in Moscow when Iowa City's Orion came to visit last week. Unfortunately between travel complications and the recent addition of 7 classes to my weekly schedule I only saw him for 2/4 days. Despite time restrictions, the tour of Seth's Moscow was reasonably comprehensive, finishing on Saturday with a lesson on swearing in Russian at the horse track.

3. In response to some comments. I also remember the Brad Eric cooing myagkii, and I still have nightmares about him shouting "TVYORDII!" and then crushing the cat he had so recently been stroking. Leslie, if you say "Million" like Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies, it comes out about right. KK, please address me as Seth Jamesovich.

2007-04-08T22:31:00.000+04:00

Formalities

The Kulturologia department at the university asked me to participate in a round table discussion of academic standards. My job was to give the American point of view on cheating, in particular plagiarism. I had a lot of awesome things to say about plagiarism, because I have battled with it all year in my classes. My presentation shocked the crowd, as plagiarism in Russia is rampant and acceptable; according to one of the speakers 80% of students plagiarize and you can buy "10000 Term Papers!" disks at any bookstore. A couple choice quotes from the round table:

"I remember one test where I stuffed a text book, not that big, down the back of my pants in the hopes that my teacher would leave the classroom during the exam."--Head of the Department

"In America, is there a prize such as 'Most Honest Student'?"--5th Year Student

A few days later one of the girls in the 1st year who organized the round table came by the staff office where I spend most of my days to give me pictures they had taken. She came in and loudly said [in Russian], "Hi, Seth! How are thou? Here are some pictures of thou with us!" Heads turned and coffee mugs fell to the floor. I had actually noticed before that she addressed me informally and had thought it a little strange, but not strange enough to say anything. When she left Valeria Aleksandrovna, the office secretary in charge of watering plants, told me, "Seth, you are a teacher and she is a student. You deserve more respect than that."

Anyway, here are some of the pictures:

Me making a mean face in preparation to blow Russian students' minds

Teachers raise their hands in response to the question, "Who hates their students?"

Me and Miss Informality. Maybe this picture gave her the wrong impression...

2007-04-01T21:20:00.000+04:00

Softening and Toughening

Yesterday I was stopped by the police for the first time in Ryazan'. I believe this may put me in double digits for total number of times stopped by Russian police and it is the fourth city where I've been pulled aside. I had my passport with me so it wasn't a big deal and by now I understand that I match the police profile for "illegal immigrant" when I don't shave.

That said, I lose things too often to carry my passport around and I really hate shaving. I've decided I need to soften my image a little. This means doing the little things. If I don't have time to shave, I should try to wear pastels. I'll stop for cotton candy, popcorn or ice cream. Maybe I need to get a man-purse.

You're probably saying, "Hey, that sounds great! But what if you run into some toughs who don't think very much of your softer attire? Will you just abandon the ice cream and the man purse?" I thought about this, too. I'm going to get a tattoo. Two tattoos, actually, on my biceps. On the left, Ь and on the right, Ъ. For those of you who don't read Russian, the former is the Cyrillic unvoiced soft sign (which turns a normally hard sound, like the "l" sound in "mill" to one more like "million") and the latter is the Cyrillic unvoiced hard sign (which turns normally soft sounds hard). When I run into those hoods and they want to throw down, I'll just rip open my button-up and flex ol' Ъ, and I think that should do the trick.

2007-03-28T20:44:00.000+04:00

More Bad Grammar

The title of the last post contains a grammatical mistake, proving that I use bad grammar not only in my second language, but also in my native language which I am supposed to be teaching....

2007-03-27T20:47:00.000+04:00

My Bad Grammar and Bad Taste in Russian Music is Discovered

For the purposes of this entry, familiarize yourself with this man, Dima Bilan. Obviously, the first thing you’ll notice is the mullet. (Side note: Russians love mullets.) His music is sort of like an overproduced version of Justin Timberlake, or maybe would be better described as Russia’s belated answer to Ricky Martin. For some songs, his writers have come up with an English version as well as a Russian version or vice-versa, as in the case of “Never Never Let You Go.” His followers are mostly 10-25 year-old girls.

Mr. Bilan snared me with a relatively famous tune, “Время-Река,” or “Time is a River,” which has a second verse that would not sound out of place in Radiohead’s The Bends. Needless to say, however, it’s still music for teenage girls. A half verse:

Как же сложно может быть (How hard can it be)
Невозможно все забыть (It’s impossible to forget it all)
А также можно по течению плыть, плыть (But it’s also possible by the course to swim, swim)

At my weekly Russian lesson, we went over a phrase with the modifier “в течение” which means “in the course” or “during.” I asked why not “по течению,” (the same noun, “current” with the preposition “around/about/by”) and the jig was up. As I know now, the latter modifier is only used when you are talking about swimming. It was also very prominently and recently used in that song. My Russian teacher didn’t mention directly that she knew where I picked up the phrase but when she nearly quoted the last line of the lyrics above, then winked and tried to hold back her mocking laughter, it was pretty clear that she knew.

I don’t care what she thinks. Maybe I find Bilan’s metaphor of time as a river eloquent. Maybe I’m writing an article comparing the song, which contains the lyric “Я утону, пойду к дну” (“I’m going to drown, to go to the bottom.”), to Maksim Gorky’s На дне (At the Bottom). Maybe I like listening to music where the singer isn’t shouting the words monotonously, like the leader singer of almost every Russian rock band. If I ever decide to grow a mullet, though, please intervene.

2007-03-20T16:51:00.000+03:00

Banging Hookers

Well, all the results of my graduate school and Fulbright application are in. For those interested, I'll probably be staying on my Fulbright in Russia for another year. For those more interested in my continuing adventures in Ryazan', this means that I can finally talk about the filthy shit I've been doing the last half year. It also means I can swear.

Actually, and unfortunately, nothing too debauched has happened, but I will qualify my actions in the next story. I've made vague references to people living in the stairwell of my building. In principle, I have a lot of sympathy for the homeless. From childhood, I hadn't a whole lot of experience with the homeless, but I had watched a lot of TV and I knew that they were good, kind people whose lives had gone wrong, like in Home Alone and Home Alone II.

The reality of living this lady everyday for three months of winter was really unpleasant, from the bags of trash in the stairwell to the cat she kept which peed everywhere. A couple days after we put in the new lock she was back again. As I noted in a previous post, the combination is not hard to figure out if you're desperate or have time. I couldn't quite figure out what was so attractive about this location in particular, nor could I figure out why no one was doing anything.

In Russian the verb "to pee" sounds a lot like the verb "to write," and the infinitive is the same with a different stress (PIsat' vs. piSAT'). This is a very common mistake for foreigners. I stepped in a puddle one day coming home so I gave the homeless lady a talking to about controlling her cat. Then I ran into my next door neighbor who owns his apartment and has lived there forever. I also had heard him in the stairwell alternately yelling and talking very congenially to this lady. So I said, "That cat pees everywhere.... You heard me. Pees. Tsssssss."

About two weeks ago I found out why my neighbor had mixed feelings toward her. I was fed up with the lady living on the steps, in particular because winter had basically ended, so went to tell her that I was going to call the police if she didn't find a new place. She turned around and said, "I'm going to call mom!" I said, "My mom?" She said, "No, mine. MOM! MOM!" She looks like she's about 55 years old, although I wouldn't be surprised if she was 10-15 years younger. At this point I was convinced she was crazy. I called the police who came surprisingly quickly. She told them her mom lived in apt 29. The lady in 29 vouched for her. The mother said that she won't let the lady on the steps live in the apartment because she doesn't have a job and she drinks but that she feeds her all the same. The police said they couldn't do anything because she technically lives in this building. Now she's gone. As my laundry lady said, "When spring comes, behind every bush lies a bed." Maybe she just went to her dacha for the summer.

2007-02-12T23:42:00.000+03:00

Hair and Jesus in the Det-Dom

A student of mine volunteers every Saturday at a Det-Dom (children's shelter for orphans or those with parents incapable of taking care of their children). I found this out last semester when she told me she was not coming to my Saturday class anymore. At the time this really annoyed me, but it turned out not to be a big deal because I moved my class to a different day anyway. She still skipped the class relatively often. On a side note, it astounds me how people who do volunteer work are often incredibly irresponsible in non-volunteer life (i.e., school or work).

At the Fulbright mid-year seminar a lot of people caught Det-Dom fever from a presentation given by a grantee. I didn't. I don't particularly like children; however, I like doing volunteer work and my teaching schedule this semester is really light so I asked my student if I could go with. She agreed. At our next class, she informed me that this was a Christian volunteer organization. Says she, "We play with the kids and then we talk about God." As a rule, I dislike religious volunteer groups. I find it rather involuntary to offer help (juice boxes) on the condition that your client must listen to your religious opinions and repeat them before the help is forthcoming. I agreed to come anyway, mostly in the hope that I could meet with the administration and set up my own time to come.

The situation went from bad to worse when I met up my student and I found out that the Det-Dom is located in Pronsk, about an hour and a half from Ryazan by car. She took me to the group's shed on the edge of the city. Before we could leave, the group had to find a specific episode of The Flying House, a cartoon about a time traveling house whose inhabitants use it to hang out with Jesus. This involved an hour watching six tapes of the cartoon in fast forward. I tried to lighten the mood with various time travel jokes, but my references to Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure were not well received. (Another side note: I was treated to the episode of The Flying House where Judas betrays Jesus. I don't know the full background of this show, but I would assume the kids in the show went back to a backwater province of the Roman Empire for Jesus. Thus, they should know the Bible or at least the part with Jesus. Aren't they as guilty as Judas because they didn't tell Jesus of his future betrayal? Last side note: I'm not particularly familiar with the new testament but apparently one of the Marys washes Jesus's feet with oil and her hair. Disgusting and awkward for both parties, in my opinion.) Between the philosophical differences and the amount of time it was going to take I almost wimped out but I couldn't muster a good excuse and so I went with them.

Aside from a somewhat awkward ride there and back, it was really fun. The kids were great and took to me, mostly because the teachers and volunteers nearly all female, meaning I'm the closest they will get to a male role model. I couldn't really gage their living situation but they seem to be living a relatively normal life at least in comparison to some of the horror stories I heard about other orphanages in Russia. One very noticeable particularity was the boys' haircuts. A few boys had a normal haircut (as long as two inches of hair), the rest had buzz cuts. Of the boys with buzz cuts, most of them also had two inch long bangs hanging down over their foreheads. My student and two other volunteers did proselytize through activities, but some of their efforts were thwarted by the kids. My student had the children make a picture by coming up one by one and drawing a single thing. While the first three kids drew geometrical shapes on the sides of the poster, the fourth bravely put the sharpie in the middle of the canvas and drew a smiling Satan.

2007-02-08T11:35:00.000+03:00

Lapses in Judgement

Because of the break, my sense of time and scheduling was a little messed up. Thus, I had (and still have) been missing a lot of basketball practices. Power forward and muzhik, Vovan calls me up to belatedly celebrate both the New Year, his birthday and general lack of hanging out. I, bearing The Godfather w/ Russian subtitles and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (thanks, Mom), meet him and another player on the street, and I don't really remember a whole lot afterward (sorry, Mom).

The next morning I wake up to my door buzzer and the hum of two women discussing whether anyone is home. The ladies want money to give the guy who is going to install the new door lock to the apartment building. They're also surprised and pleased that I didn't make an attempt to clothe myself. I can't really think so I reach into my coat and hand them whatever bills I have. They take 100 rubles and, giggling, stuff the rest into my underwear. I lay on the couch sleeping or reading most of the day.

Night falls and I still feel terrible, so I gather my strength for the 200 meter walk to the grocery store for a beer and M&Ms. I'm pleased to see that though the smell in my stairwell lingers, the source of the smell seems to be gone. As soon as I close the door behind me I try the combination, the old combination, and it doesn't work. I'm not distraught at this point. I get my beer and candy. Returning to my door, I try the combination again and it still refuses to work. By this time, it's roughly 10:30 on a Wednesday night and no one comes after 20 minutes. No one is going to come either for the next hour and a half, or longer for all I know. It's -15 degrees celsius. I'm wearing really thin, canvas, 200-ruble shoes and no socks. Or gloves. Or a hat. So, I resort to my romantic comedy education and start throwing peanut M&Ms at 2nd story windows, concentrating on those with their lights on. After a few successful shots at one of these windows, it opens and a little girl in her pyjamas pops her head out: "What do you want?" "Open the door. I live here." "What?" "Little girl, give me the code, please, it's freezing. I forgot to wear socks." "Try 140...or 150." "No good. Can you open the door yourself?" Little girl goes inside for a couple minutes and then returns, "No, I'm alone. Good night." I suppose that was a smart move on her part but I don't understand why she had to go inside to make that decision if she was alone. The door code is a three number combination where no number is repeated. This means that the first number can be one of ten, the second one of nine, and the third one of eight. Thus, there are only 720 combinations. I did this calculation as I warmed my hands before trying every combination until I got the right one, a little more than halfway through the possibilities. This calculation is wrong now that I think about it. There are less. It was cold, sue me.

2007-01-21T14:48:00.000+03:00

Private Bureaucracy

This is a sort of banal history. Last week I bought a computer mouse at Tekhno-Sila (trans. Techno-Strength, very comforting to the security minded indeed). Upon arriving home, I realized I had bought a mouse with the wrong connector. Now, the mouse cost 359 rubles, which is about $13 but I'm on vacation and the store is a ten minute walk, so I decided to exchange it:

Trip 1: Forgot the receipt

Trip 2: I make sure I have the receipt. Then I go to the information desk, where they tell me I need to go to the cash registers, on the other side of the building. At the cash registers, the lady shouts that I have to talk to Sergei, the kontrol'er, the ONLY person who can complete this transaction. Sergei, the kontrol'er is near the entrance, distinguished from his yellow-polo clad minions by his purple shirt. I explain that I need to exchange the mouse. He's willing to help, but he needs my passport (?) to document the transaction.

Trip 3. I make sure I have the receipt and my passport. I find Sergei and he remembers me. He reaches into a cabinet for a stack of forms. I give him my passport. Sergei meticulously fills out every form from my visa information and, dissatisfied with my middle name, officially renames me Seth Jamesich. The form needs my passport's issuer and date of issue. This has not been translated into Russian so I have to show Sergei where it is on my passport. I even translated the organization into Russian, but Sergei doesn't need my translation, as he is very carefully writing "New Orleans Passport Agency" in Latin script. Sergei can transliterate English, French or German. This is why they pay him the big bucks. This is why he gets the purple shirt. I get my passport back and go to get the replacement, while Sergei continues filling out the duplicate forms. When I get back, he has just finished the paperwork and has started putting it into the computer for electronic storage. Finally, he prints off the the last form and has me sign. He explains, "This form is to prove that you brought back the merchandise. This form is to prove that you received your new merchandise. This form is to show that you verify the information from your visa." Finally, we get to the cash register, where the final transaction must take place. Sergei looks at me with wet eyes: "Well, I'll leave you with her now." Me: "Thank you, Sergei. You're a gentleman and a scholar." Sergei: "Please...come again." So I am left with cashier Valeria, who reaches into her cabinet for a stack of papers....

Long story short, it took me about an hour to exchange the mouse without having to wait in any line at all. In other news:

-I spent a nice half week outside of Russia in Riga. Not that Riga is that great but my hotel had free cable internet and there were no stray dogs on the streets.
-Ryazan' Transit authority has outraged the population by raising public transportation prices from 5 to 6 rubles per bus ride (from 20 to 25 cents, approximately).
-My apartment building's lock broke (three months ago) and the homeless/drunk population continues to use my stairwell as a public bathroom/hotel.

2006-12-25T17:41:00.000+03:00

Merry Christmas

Here's some pictures from the Christmas party I had for a group of my students. Good, clean, Russian fun which included a rousing tableside performance of the first verse and chorus of "Jingle Bells" repeated over and over again.

Candid Shot: Tanya and Natasha have a heart-to-heart while Ann and Vasya play music and Nastya and other Tanya dance.

At the table clockwise: me (with bowl haircut), Natasha, Tanya, other Tanya, Ann

At the other side of the table: Lera, Me, Nastya, other Lera

Preparing for dinner, Natasha, Tanya, other Tanya, Nastya, yet another Tanya, Ann

Of course, no Christmas would be complete without an exchange of gifts. My students gave me a very nice photo album for Christmas. I gave them a government required exam.

2006-12-10T13:35:00.000+03:00

Soviet Camaraderie

Wednesday I went to a historical conference commemorating the 65th anniversary of the battle for Moscow. I was supposed to give a speech on something like "American Historical Memory of WWII." The whole idea made me a little nervous for a couple reasons:

1. Lots of old soldiers, loyal Soviets, angry pensioners. These are people who may not be so receptive to American perspective on WWII, no matter how much I qualify it by saying it's not my own personal perspective.
2. Speaking to crowds is not my forte, especially in Russian.

More than this, I had no idea what the conference was going to be like, aside from the fact that it was in Mikhailov, a town 60 kms west of Ryazan with about 100,000 people, whose only claim to fame is that it was one of the places the Germans were stopped. As it turned out, the conference was basically my university's History Department plus the old soldiers and, according to the schedule, my section of the conference was on WWII general history. Unfortunately, I was transferred to the "Battle of Moscow Memorial" Section, the section I feared most of all.

In all actuality there was nothing to fear. The conference was rather poorly organized, in that they scheduled 15 speeches in 2.5 hours, meaning each speech was supposed to be 10 minutes or less. Obviously, this didn't happen. Also, at the sections no one was well known enough to attract any interest. So the only people there were the speakers, who were just waiting for their turn to talk. My favorite moment was when the toothless 80 year-old former soldier, carefully watching the time on his cell phone, exclaimed, "Excuse me! Everyone has 10 minutes and you've just passed the 11th!" My speech went over well, in part because it was on a very different subject than the other presentations. Also, I did it in 8 minutes.

2006-12-03T12:02:00.000+03:00

A Star is Bernstein

Last week my students invited me to the theatre with them. The play was "Krotkaya," an adaptation of a Dostoevsky short story. The theatre group was a trio from Skopin, a small town south of Ryazan. The play was pretty weird, modern theatre from the provinces, and between the strange performance and my unfamiliarity with the story, I didn't catch a whole lot.

After the play, my students and I were standing outside the hall, talking about the play (ie, my students explaining the play to me), basically alone because all the other spectators had gone to get their coats. Then I saw a camera crew from Ren-TV, a Russian network, coming toward us. I explained to my students that I didn't want to be on TV but, of course, the first thing they said was, "We came to the theatre with our foreigner teacher," and the camera turned on me. They showed it at 7:00pm the next day. I didn't say a whole lot, I think it was something like this: "Yeah, I teach English at the University. I didn't really get the play but it was good, a little strange. I don't know." I fully expect to get a weekly cultural analysis segment with that kinda insight and charm.

2006-11-24T09:57:00.000+03:00

History

I'm applying to grad schools for history now and while looking for various information I found this document, the preface to my term paper for Junior Honors History. It's still as relevant as ever:

Forward:

When I started this paper yesterday, I had no idea anyone would read it. Yet, in spite of all the distractions, I believe I wrote the finest historiography of the Burr Conspiracy. Ever.
Although I conceived papers that struck home before, (Bernstein, “King Arthur vs. Rethro: Attack of the Barbophile,” Kenyon College, 2002. Bernstein, “Art History, Fart History,” Kenyon College, 2001.) my own writing, until yesterday, had never brought me to tears. In many ways, Burr’s life mirrors my own. We are both renowned ladies men. We both killed famous politicians. We were both possibly guilty of treason (Depending on whether your definition of US soil includes Jenna Bush).
Burr is my inspiration, regardless of speculative history that has tried to place his life into the neat framework of my own. However, this work would not be complete if I did not express my gratitude to friends and accessories. Foremost, I would like to thank the kid from Jerry Maguire without whose shining example, I may not be alive today. Secondly, I would like to thank Sam Bowie for his mediocre strength in the face of speculation (PS. Sam, we finally did it!). Last (but not least!) I would like to thank Delta Burke for guiding me into manhood.
On my final note, I would like to thank Gerald McRaney in advance for not taking me to the street and breaking me.

2006-11-21T09:46:00.000+03:00

Note from the Russian University

I thought I would post some differences between American and Russian universities. In general, going to college is a job in Russia rather than a way of life, like it is in American. Russian universities rely on a large number of class hours relative to American universities and far more in the major subject. Monday thru Saturday there are four class period of 1.5 hours each. Students have classes five days a week and an average of three classes a day, meaning a little more than 20 class hours a week. On the other hand, Russian students have less than one hour of homework for every hour of in class time. Almost all of their classes are in the major subject, or failing that, in a related subject. For example, my third year groups have four English classes, six second foreign language classes and five lectures on foreign history and economics or teaching.

Students generally enter the university at 16 or 17 meaning the first year of college in Russia replaces senior year at American high schools. As you might expect, a lot of Russian students lack some of the general knowledge American high school graduates have but have an excellent background in their major subject. When they enroll they are placed in a group of 9-12 students and assigned their academic schedule. For language students, this also means an assigned third language. Some of my students were extremely (and not particularly pleasantly) surprised to find that this year their group had been assigned to learn Japanese.

The age of Russian students also means they are sometimes not as mature as you would expect college students to be (maybe my expectation of college students is too high). Last week I was in my history class, listening to a lecture about the origins of the first False Dmitri. This is a first year class on Ancient Russian history with the very youngest students and I was sitting in the back row, trying not to interrupt anything. This girl sitting in front of me repeatedly turned around to take a peak at me, finally placing a notebook near me on the desk. Inside the notebook was this note:

2006-11-11T14:56:00.000+03:00

Ryazan' State University vs. Radio-Akademia

I'm going to try my hand at sports reporting:

The Ryazan' State University Basketball Club's season was off to a rough start. After a much celebrated overtime victory over the Med-Akademia, the team fell in its next game by double digits to the Engineering Institute. But more was on the line besides a victory. Anton, a sharpshooting small forward practicing with the University, was playing for the opposition, Radio-Akademia. Tensions were clearly at a peak between the two teams.

Volodia and Mekhin Warm Up

In the first half, the bulky center from Radio-Akademia dominated Ryazan' University's wiry big man, Aleksandr Kuzmin. The University's fast break attack could not compensate for the enormous disparity in foul shots and the treacherous sixth-man, Anton, added off the bench scoring from the three point line. At the break, the score was 38-30, in favor of Radio-Akademia.

Sergei Efimov Drives

In the second half, the University regrouped behind power forward and captain, Volodia and small forward Artyom Mekhin. Behind by as much as 15 in the second half, the two combined for 18 points from the long range to catch Radio-Akademia with 3 minutes remaining. The other Volodia, the backup center, fouled out on an intentional foul call, giving Radio-Akademia four free throw shots and the ball; however, Radio-Akademia went cool from the line, missing nearly all its free throw shots in the fourth quarter.

Volodia from the Top of the Key

With half a minute remaining, Mekhin made a clutch layup, giving the University its first lead of the game, 60-59. The next possession, Radio-Akademia searched for a way to regain the lead, nearly turning the ball over with five seconds remaining. After a time out, Radio-Akademia went to its main option, who got a questionable foul call at the end of regulation. Despite the free-throw woes they experienced, Radio-Akademia's point guard sank both free throws, winning the game 61-60.

Coach Arkhipov Talks It Over

After the game, captain Volodia was reached for comment, "Well, [censored], that sucked. Let's go get some beers."

2006-10-31T14:58:00.000+03:00

Living Large in Ryazan

Oksana from the Fulbright office came to visit and I had the unfortunate dilemma of figuring out something to do in Ryazan. It's just kind of a working city without places of interest. So, of course, we went to the Ryazan Kremlin, the one place you can count on every Russian city to have. Here's the cultural lesson I gave:

Ryazan is one of the older Russian cities, among the first to be incorporated into Muskovite Russia. The first Ryazan was actually about 60 miles downriver (on the River Oka) but the Mongol-Tatars destroyed it in the 13th century. New Ryazan was Pereslavl-Ryazan. It has all the trappings of a regular Russian city: nice Kremlin, lots of blocky cement buildings with Russian neo-classical buildings interspersed, good bus service. The city itself is quite small, about the size of Iowa City but with a larger population (about 500,000). The downtown area is basically a triangle from Victory Square, where the electronics firm Eleks recently declared victory over high prices, to historic Lenin's Square, where Lenin finally admitted to himself that he was really bald, to Theatre Square, where nothing important has ever happened. It's all pretty well built up but as you get outside this area there are the Soviet style apartment buildings and older wooden houses further out. No fast food places. On Sundays the Central Market has chickens and rabbits for sale. It's famous personalities include the poet Sergey Esenin and behavioral psychologist Ivan Pavlov.

Last few weeks I've been exploring the city more, teaching, living, not posting. Here are some highlights:

-Students in Group E go nuts for the song "The Distance" by Cake, which got two encores, after which they borrow the disk to make copies and still haven't returned it two weeks later
-Students in Group E not so crazy about "Frankly, Mr. Shankly" by the Smiths or "Kate" by Ben Folds Five
-Set up on a very blind date with a high school student by a teacher at the university
-The basketball players suggest that we go to the banya to relax...and get prostitutes
-I learn how to tactfully refuse unwanted invitations
-Apartment move in finally complete with purchase of couch, shower curtain and toilet seat

2006-10-05T19:52:00.000+04:00

Retraction

I am now in possession of my watch, so I take back my nickname for the Ryazan University team. They can be the Wildcats. John R. Tunis would be proud.

Good news aside, I've been assigned to play with what is clearly the B Team. Coach actually called it something different but I didn't catch it so I don't know if it was comforting or insulting. Anyway, my thinking is that the rest of the guys are inferior players but in my case he just wants to give his full attention to eligible players. Right? Silver lining is that I'm the biggest guy both in height and weight so I can pull out my Shaq game. The Dredle patended post spin hasn't made this many appearances since Amish Electricians scrimmages.

Also, to my fellow teachers С Днем Учителя! These school holidays all seem like excuses for teachers to take bribes of flowers or candy in exchange for excusing absences or letting students go early. As for me (to borrow my students' only phrase to preface a personal opinion or experience), the film class gave me a nice pen and I let them go early. I figured that they had been good enough to humor me playing See No Evil, Hear No Evil that I owed them anyway.

2006-10-03T20:22:00.000+04:00

Lyceum #4

As recommended by the Fulbright Organization, I contacted a school to arrange to give lessons/speeches for higher level English classes. When I went there to set things up, the teachers seemed half enthusiastic; it's nice to have a native speaker but it would be better if I were British, or Australian. They gave me some vague instructions about coming anytime during a six hour period on Tuesdays and that I could talk about anything I want.

When I came to Russia, I prepared a couple one-shot lessons for situations like this. Unfortunately, they're about history or baseball and students just aren't interested. Basically, the audience breaks off into two groups: the students, who want to know what Americans think of Russia (Do they, you know, like Russia? or do they "like" like Russia?) and the teachers, who want to know about "American Values." Today, they had a lesson on addiction and after I talked about 12-step programs, the teacher started to grill me. My favorite question was when she asked if American values included conquering the world. My second favorite was if I had tried drugs and, if so, did I hear colors. My answers, all lies: no, no and no.

2006-09-23T13:30:00.000+04:00

Ryazan State University Pirates

I started practicing with the university's basketball team last week and much to my surprise, comported myself pretty well on the court. The players are a year or two younger than me all about my height, with the exception of Sanya, the center. Half the players are named Sergei and the other half are named Aleksander. It’s made life a little easier. The practices are kind of informal; we start with running, a couple jumping/shooting/defense exercises and then a scrimmage. In the games I play a Reggie Evans-esque role: lots of boards, a couple points, a couple fouls. No Goosing.

Everyone’s been really helpful explaining the exercises if I don’t understand but in general it’s not too hard because basketball is a lot of nouns and not much grammar. I asked the coach if the team has a mascot or a nickname and apparently they don’t; however, after the second practice I went back to the locker room to find that my watch and socks (!) were gone. I’m more perplexed than mad because someone went through my gym bag where I had left my wallet, passport, etc, and decided that, in addition to a watch, men’s hosiery would make the plunder complete. I’m not going to let it discourage me (although I will leave my stuff in the office) but I have decided to give the Ryazan University team a nickname.

PS. I know it was a Sergei.

2006-09-19T15:39:00.000+04:00

Proud to be an American

Before I came to Russia I received the same round of briefings as the last time. In general, these orientation events are designed to scare you a little bit or as time fillers. They tell you about what the political climate is like in Russia, how you can expect people to react to your nationality and, should they react badly, how to make everyday items into weapons. With respect to the second topic, I have encountered very little anti-American sentiment directed at me personally except at a truck stop somewhere between Yaroslavl and Moscow. With all this in mind, I was completely unprepared for my reception at the history class I'm auditing, a lecture on Medieval Russia. I walked in, sat down in the back right corner and heads started to turn. Clearly, I was out of place. After about 5 minutes of this the professor walked in, introduced me as his American Colleague and the entire class (about 70 people) broke out into spontaneous applause! Pretty easy crowd. Turns out they were just fans of my work.

2006-09-15T19:53:00.000+04:00

Teaching Rushmore:

Three times a week I have movie classes with three different groups. Although I was encouraged to play films that portray American or British values (To Kill a Mockingbird, Twelve Angry Men, My Fair Lady), I decided to balk at tradition and show something a little more contemporary. My students are in the third year where the topics for the semester are Theatre and Education. What could be better than a movie about a 15 year-old who writes plays?

Most of the kids like it, mostly for the drama with Ms. Cross and Max (my classes are about 90% female). They get most of the jokes and are, I hope, learning grammar and vocabulary. Some moments they just don't understand, in particular the conflict between Max and Dirk and Magnus. The lynchpin to this (for those of you who have not seen the movie) is that Max claims that Dirk's mom has given him a hand-job. A lot of the movie won't make sense if you don't know that word. This brings me to class today, where I felt a little like a dad with his 9 year-old son, trying to explain what a hand-job is without being too specific and while trying to avoid gestures. "It's something you do with your hand in a bed or a car, really anywhere. And it's a man, or in this case a boy, and a woman and they're touching.... Let's just say that Max said something bad about Dirk's mom." I suppose that this was enough. Maybe some of the girls really did understand and will let the others know in hushed whispers. Otherwise, I guess they'll never be able to get jobs making overdub scripts for porn.

2006-09-14T22:40:00.000+04:00

The Meeting About Basketball

The Ryazanskii Prospekt is a triple entendre. It's literally a street in Moscow, figuratively my prospect of living, teaching and studying in Ryazan for a year and the never-to-be-written novella about a basketball player from Ryazan (Think The Scout but with Harrison Ford as the Albert Brooks type character. Who else could do the Russian accent?).

I've been here two weeks. It's good. Got some good, non-offensive stories. Sometime I'll go back a little bit if things are boring. Yesterday I had expressed an interest in playing basketball while in Ryazan. My host University, Ryazan State University, has been really great about providing everything I want, so I shouldn't have been surprised when I was told later that day that I had a meeting with the Dean of Physcultura at 10 the next morning.

I went with my advisor, the head of the linguistics department, who is very small (5'3" at best), a distinguished, cultured, older scholar. The Dean of Sports turned out to be a hulking man (6'7", maybe 280 pounds, two of which were made up by his moustache). Think of a Southern defensive lineman turned AD with an almost incomprehensibly masculine voice. I love the contrast.

I suspect they were under the impression that I had played college ball or even high school ball, an impression of which I firmly disabused them. We talked about the position I played (small forward) and when I can play, what it will be like, etc. And as every story should have a punchline this one does, too. The Dean told me he had a friend who had played in the NBA, for the Portland Trailblazers. I was hoping it was Terry Porter but at heart I knew who it was. The Dean turned around the signed, framed photograph on his desk to reveal number 11, Sabas himself, Arvydas Sabonis.