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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

A Poem for M.K.

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

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....

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.