Wishing you a hearty привет from Moscow!
It was a stressful journey on such a cramped and crowded
747....
I’ve been here for nearly two weeks and am comfortably
settled in my flat. Whilst I did love my slightly retro apartment in Odessa, it
is exciting to have somewhere that is equipped with more than one fork. And
there is a TOASTER. My excitement knows no bounds. TOAST.
I’ve found myself settling in here much quicker than in
Odessa (although taking that extra time was 100% worth it to get to love that
special place), and have put it down to two main reasons:
1. Friends. Crazy Russianist friends. It is the
best thing to have two of your favourite people launch themselves upon you as
you walk into the arrivals hall of Domodedovo airport, and it is wonderful to
have such entertaining tour guides.
2. The metro. I LOVE that there is a metro here.
Although I did come to love my Ukrainian marshrutka rides (and became pretty
adept at yelling at the driver to open the back door), they are not necessarily the easiest things to use.
Praise God for easy to read metro maps and fixed stops and 60 journey tickets.
Just to make up for saying possibly bad things about Odessa,
here is a photo to prove my real emotions:
Whilst I’m here I’m doing an internship at the law firm
Linklaters. Work has so far been uneventful and everyone seems nice, but my
time hasn’t been terribly work-filled due to the wonderful timing of public
holidays in Russia last week. This has meant ample time for fun things, mostly
revolving around drinking beer in various Moscow parks.
Here is a little snapshot of the last 12 days or so:
Jamie and Rhiannon took me on the obligatory trip to Red
Square, which did not disappoint.
It didn’t take long until we took a nostalgic trip to a
Ukrainian restaurant, complete with dancing.
Faye and I have been to Hillsong here a couple of times,
where we got to celebrate Easter no.2, as Easter is celebrated later here. Our
Russian got a good workout as, save song lyric translations on the screen,
everything is in Russian.
We then paid a visit to Patriarch’s Ponds of Master and
Margarita fame (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTnFTlVQe4Q here is an adaptation)
#literaturegeeksontour
First ever hashtag, felt wrong. It shan’t be happening
again. To get over that shame we went to the zoo (classic post-church activity,
I’m sure)
May 9th was Victory Day, we missed most of the
military parade but headed into town for more of the festivities.
I enjoyed
joining in with this troupe singing Katyusha, a wartime song (take a listen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sy1K9U4MJkg)
The highlight of my victory day was listening to some old
women sitting outside singing Katyusha at 11pm. That was when it sank in that I
am, indeed, in Russia.
The weather has been glorious, so it would have been rude
(and indeed churlish) not to have had picnics in the park.
Jamie and I went to explore Sokholniki park and enjoyed some
excellent dancing.
We had a mini Cambridge reunion in Izmailovsky park, complete
with the world’s thinnest baguette and little Faye with a big beer can....
....and then indulged in some souvenir shopping at the market
near the Izmailovo Kremlin, which is a very surreal wedding complex cum
open-air museum.
Oh and TWINS!
And Jamie and Rhiannon’s home. No joke. This is Moscow State
University.
1. Sitting behind me on the plane was a British guy
and his Russian girlfriend. As we were coming down to land, out of the plane window
we could see lots of very grey forest. “Darling, is that forest all dead?” “Yes,
it’s normal in Russia.” We then flew over a blackened airport runway that appeared
to still be in flames. “Are we landing there?? Darling, is that runway on
fire?!” “Yes, it’s normal in Russia.” I know I sure felt positive as we touched
down.
2. None of Moscow’s 3 main airports are located at the
metro station Aeroport. Thankfully I
didn’t have
to learn this the hard way.
3. "Polish?" "No,
I'm British." "Polish accent. Hmmm yes, Polish." "Poland is
great, but no, I'm British." "Hmmm Polish."
4. Walking near Gorky park and
we stop at a coffee van which advertises ice tea and coffee. “An ice tea
please.” “No.” “Ice coffee?” “No.” “Is there anything with ice?” “In principal.”
All in all, an excellent time so far.
This said, my so far very short stay in Russia is slowly
confirming my suspicions. Prior to coming to Cambridge, and turning down a
place to do French and Croatian at UCL, I had convinced myself that Russian was
just as ‘me’ and that my heart would come to leap with joy at the very prospect of writing and discussing an essay on Pushkin.
Not to say at all that I have never felt enraptured by our study material- errr
HELLO http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoZ7e8iBbno and once again http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgUstrmJzyc
, but I rarely seem to be quite as in to it as some as my contemporaries who
really seem to have it on their hearts to penetrate this culture. This is
perhaps the issue with having very clever friends (who at least are kind enough
to commiserate with me ;) )
All this is rather confusing. How can you be exactly where
you hoped to be and feel in exactly the wrong place? I know this is what it has
all been leading up to, I know how incredibly lucky I am to be here, and I am
having a lovely time. But I don’t think Russia has my heart. Somewhat
surprisingly to me, far from disappearing from my vision in favour of the
excitement of Russian, French has remained a part of my day to day and still
excites me every time I hear a French tourist or a cheesy French pop song on
the radio here.
Before I get too sentimental, perhaps I should consider that
the reality is that it’s more to do with Russian being so bloody hard. Oh, and brie.
While I ponder some more, I invite you to get excited for
Eurovision 2013 which is this Saturday! What you should really do is come over to
my flat for my now traditional Europarty. There will be excellent music, houmous
and Greek pride. Don’t you laugh, it’s dissertation research and therefore
intellectual, okay?
Enjoy.
