things I miss about America

It’s more than halfway through the semester; I feel justified in making this list. As a whole, I’m not pining for my homeland, and I don’t hate living in Russia, but there are definitely certain things I miss.*

1. Climate control. My bedroom is always hot. Always. I don’t know how to fix it. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night because it’s so stuffy, and I long for the days of windows I can actually open.
2. Chipotle. I mean, it’s so good, and it’s healthy, and it’s cheap, and I can get two meals out of one burrito bowl. There is no equivalent here.
3. Fiber. Speaking of good, healthy food: I miss having green things as a consistent part of my diet. I really do. Fresh spinach, celery, broccoli, tomatoes... yes, I know tomatoes aren’t green.
4. Throwing toilet paper in the toilet. If you want the toilet to flush, that TP has got to go in a trashcan. It’s just weird. And then sometimes you forget, and then you fear you’ve broken the plumbing system.
5. Dryers. We have washing machines in Russia, yes. Dryers? No. So all of my clothes have to hang dry. And then they just feel kind of crispy. Crispy clothes are not super comfortable, you know?
6. Not feeling guilty for speaking English. When I have the opportunity to speak Russian here, I feel like a bad student if I don’t. I would like to be able to use my language without a voice in my head demanding I speak Russian. This is especially true when skyping with friends who don’t speak Russian.
7. Free water. If I want drinkable water that I don’t have to buy, it requires an elaborate filtering/boiling system. Otherwise, I just have to pay. And in restaurants, paying is the only option… you can have up to 120 rubles squeezed out of you for .2 liters of water. For perspective: that’s $3.50 for 1/3 of a Dasani bottle.
8. Normal climate. Throughout the course of today alone, we’ve had hurricane-like winds, hail, snow, rain, and perfectly blue skies. All at different times. And here it’s spring-ish, but you never really know… it’s even less stable than ND weather.
9. Bare feet. You can’t go barefoot here, ever, any time. Even in the summer, going barefoot outside is just not acceptable. And barefoot indoors… heaven forbid. You might catch a cold, or at least end up with really dirty feet (despite the fact that we always wear slippers, and Russians clean floors obsessively).
10. Peanuts. –are expensive here, when they exist at all. My life without peanut butter and pretzels in the mornings, without two bags of trail mix per week, without peanut butter crackers always in my purse… is sad.

So rest assured, I will be returning to America.

*People go without saying. Don’t get upset because you are not on this list.

Ukraine from the language-learner’s perspective

This may just be the most dangerous blog post I’ve ever written. –Not that it’s dangerous in the same way Akhmatova’s or Mandelstam’s poetry in the Stalinist era was dangerous. It’s just that usually I talk about very benign topics to which no one has any emotional reactions (except maybe when I talk about dill), and Ukraine is… tricky.

First, on the whole, from the perspective of an American in Russia:

No one is telling me the truth. Russian, British, and American news sources are all reporting vastly different things, and rather than sweating over which one is the least biased, I’ve landed on the decision that they’ve all got their own agendas, and the fact is that I cannot fully believe any of them. Why? Because all of them claim, “Ukraine wants x,” or, “The Ukrainian people want y.” But who is Ukraine, anyway? This isn’t 1984; people all have their own opinions. Any article that claims to represent the feelings of the whole country is just kidding itself, and I don’t need to bother myself trying to figure out if it’s true.

That’s interesting. That’s journalism. That’s politics. What I’m really interested in is the connection between the situation in Ukraine and language, specifically the Russian language.

Prepositions

The Russian language has two prepositions roughly equivalent to the English “to,” namely, в and на.

В is used for enclosed spaces… it’s the preposition used to refer to stores, churches, pretty much all buildings. It’s also used for countries, because while the whole country is not under some kind of ceiling, there are specific boundaries/borders which define the space.

На is used for open spaces… it is used when talking about going to the market, to the beach, etc. And interestingly enough, it is also used when talking about Ukraine.

I asked one of my professors about this in class at the beginning of the semester. Why do people refer to Ukraine using на? Isn’t it kind of weird, politically, now that Ukraine is its own sovereign entity, with borders just like any other country?

She explained to me that Украина (Ukraine) is pretty much straight from the Russian у края (by the edge). The word “край” (edge) always takes на, because an edge is not an enclosed space. Therefore, it is proper to say на in reference to Ukraine. It is not a political question, but a linguistic one.

This consideration does elucidate an idea about Ukraine inherent to the Russian language: it is more an edge than it is an enclosed territory. And every time a Russian talks about Ukraine, that is blatantly obvious.

Cultural Identity

On a less technical note, something I’ve realized since being here is how much of the Russian culture is tied up in its language. From Pushkin to Lenin, all that is considered genuinely Russian was delivered in that very language: the French speech and literature of the Imperial Court is considered to be separate from what is truly Russia, just because it was French.

Even for Americans, it’s hard to think of something being written or spoken in French and being representative of Russia, and much more of something being written or spoken in Russian-the-language and not being representative of Russia-the-country. For example, Nabokov was not actually particularly Russian. He left the country at the age of 17, and all of his writing was done elsewhere. Still, we consider him Russian, just because he wrote in that language.

Lest you protest that it is the same for other languages, think: what other great empires have connected their language so closely to the source country? When literature is written in English in India or South Africa, that literature is not considered British. When literature is written in French in North Africa or Canada, it is not tied to France-the-country. When literature was written in Latin anywhere in the ancient world, it did not mark itself forever as Italian.

Russian is different. You couldn’t have Russia-the-country without the Russian-the-language. And the argument goes, you can’t have the language without the country.

That’s one of the reasons this Ukraine/Crimea situation is so difficult for Russians. If they speak Russian, especially since they’re right next-door, they must be (inherently, essentially) Russian. After all, 20 years ago the border between Russia and Ukraine didn’t really mean anything. The gift of Crimea to Ukraine in the 50s definitely didn’t mean anything. By reabsorbing the Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine, Russia would only be offering integrity to those people whose life’s blood and cultural thought is Russian.

My conclusion? The Ukraine question goes deeper than economics. It’s intriguing to see it happening from this side of the line, to talk to people from Russia and Ukraine about what’s going on… specifically, to talk about it in Russian. I wonder if the conversations would go any differently in English?

how language learning is going

You may remember, one of the things I was most excited about and one of the things I was most terrified about was language acquisition. It deserved both of those.

I love the Russian language. I appreciate the way it sounds. I enjoy making up words based on patterns of word-formation I’ve observed… and then having them be real and correct words. I’m even starting to like the weird varieties of syntax and intonation.

But all of that said, the Russian language is hard. Listening takes a lot of energy, especially when you’re listening to an educated person who is going to play with syntax for stylistic/poetic purposes. Speaking takes even more energy, because syntax isn’t worth beans if you can’t put the words in the right cases and, even more importantly, put the stresses on the correct syllables.

I’ve now been in Russia for almost exactly half of my semester. We arrived 8 weeks and 2 days ago. We leave 8 weeks and 1 day from now. So how are things going with this wonderful and treacherous attempt?

Well, when I got here, it was hard for me to put sentences together. As one of my friends on the program put it, I “would say a word or two and then motion the rest of the sentence, and kind of hope that people understood.” Also, it was very hard for me to listen to Russian selectively. If I didn’t understand every word in the sentence, I got so caught up in trying to figure out the ones I didn’t know that I couldn’t have told you which words were actually important to understanding the meaning. Reading was hard for the same reason.

Now, halfway through, I have a few milestones to point to and say, “Yes, I have improved.”

1. Yesterday, I pulled off a complex unreal conditional sentence, and I realized that I wasn’t translating from English to Russian in my head.
2. Several people have told me that I speak “almost without an accent.” Granted, all three of these instances were after 2-3 fairly simple sentences, the vocabulary for which I felt comfortable enough with to speak at a normal pace with normal intonation (nothing to break the rhythm of a sentence like pausing for 10 seconds to say “um” and try to remember the next word). But still.
3. My first week at church, I understood about 20% of the sermon. This week, I’d say I was up to 85%.
4. AND I know my numbers well enough to follow along when we’re flipping to 15 different passages in the space of 3 minutes!
5. There were three whole sentences in my last essay on which my tutor made zero corrections.
6. I have yet to successfully give directions to someone, but I have successfully told several people how I really don’t know my own way around, and they should ask someone else.
7. I have complained at a restaurant, and they understood me and fixed it.
8. I can now understand about 23% of what Nastya says, as opposed to maybe 6% in the beginning. (But even Andrei and Natasha say they sometimes don’t understand her, she talks so fast.)
9. I’m pretty comfortably at a 2^nd grade reading level. I made it about 100 pages into my host sister’s book from 3^rd grade, and I need a dictionary occasionally, but not too often.
10. I have attended a девичник (girls-only social gathering), which included such things as casual conversation, Pictionary Telephone, and a role-playing/improv game. I participated in everything, and even landed the lead role in the role-play for my team… and didn’t feel half as scared as I did two months ago when just walking into a café and ordering tea.

On a more formal level: classes are going well. I’m getting good marks. I’m getting to the point where I know most of the vocabulary my teachers use on a regular basis, and I have to work harder to learn new things, which is good.

Except in Politics. If I learn anything there, it’s new. I take notes and then go home and translate them, because I don’t know any of the vocabulary. I have a midterm for that tomorrow. As I write this, I ought to be either studying or sleeping, but I’m sure I’ll be okay…?

when I like Russia better than America: food

Note: The following blog post has been affected by the (empty) stomach of its writer.

Probably at least once a day here, I think something along the lines of, “Man, I’m going to miss this when I go back to America. I wonder where the closest Russian grocery store is to me.” Or, “Next on the to-buy list: Russian cookbook.” From what I hear, this is abnormal, but I don’t much care. Вот пожалуйста, some things I’m super thrilled about:

1. soup. In Russia, soup is not a cup of flavored water with some cardboard/chicken material and a few soggy noodles floating around in it. It is flavorful and filling, and I can’t say much more beyond (a) I want to continue eating soup for two meals a day, forever, and (b) Hizzy 2014, weekly soup-making parties, who wants in?
2. black bread. There’s this really cheap, really dense, really spongy black bread that is sold absolutely everywhere, and it’s delicious. Especially with soup.
3. dill. To all of you who despise the stuff: I want to understand, but I don’t. They say it’s an acquired taste, but since coming here I have never had a problem with it, and between meals I probably consume 2 tablespoons a day. Whenever I smell dill in the kitchen, and my heart smiles.
4. chocolate. The stuff we eat in America is a stain on the name of chocolate. And that doesn’t just go for regular chocolate bars… the candy here is amazing. There’s this one that is fabled (but I have not yet tried) called Золотая Лилия (Golden Lily), which is nougat smeared with Nutella and then dipped in dark chocolate. These things are possible because the candy market here is not dominated by two companies, as it is in America… so people with good ideas can just go ahead and make their candy. Voila! Deliciousness.
5. pickles. I have never in my whole life enjoyed pickles. There are pictures of me as a small child eating a pickle and making the most revolted face (why did my parents do/document this? good question). But when my host mom put some pickles on my dinner plate, I wasn’t about to toss them, so I tried them… and what do you know, they’re an entirely different vegetable here than in America! I think they use less vinegar.
6. macaroni. Butter and salt, friends. That’s how they serve pasta here. It’s like they know me or something.
7. sour cream. It’s so thick and tasty, and it’s in everything! I absolutely love sour cream. Wow. Of course, maybe drawing a comparison between the lowfat stuff my mom buys and the full-fat health-hazard I’m eating here is unfair.
8. tvorog. There is no good translation for this food. It’s a milk product with a texture sort of like feta and a taste sort of like sweet cheese, but in both aspects better than their American counterparts. It’s amazing. I like it in pastries, with blini, or just scooped in a bowl with sour cream and jam.
9. cutlets. I actually don’t know if this is the right translation for what I’m talking about, because I’ve never had an American cutlet. I do know that my host mom makes these amazing fish cakes, and I want to continue eating them forever. Her meat cakes are also delicious. I don’t know what sort of seasoning she uses, but somehow the texture and the taste just work.
10. sirok. Again, there is no translation. I could have filed sirki under chocolate or tvorog, but they deserve a category of their own. A cirok is basically tvorog-product mixed with anything from chocolate, to coconut, to cream that tastes like donut glaze… and then dipped in chocolate. Words do not describe the beauty of this food. It’s probably my favorite new-thing I’ve tried here.

There we are... I will be attempting to make or buy all of these things next year, so if you're in the mood for Russian food, let me know. We'll try it together.

around center city

One of my greatest feared-regrets regarding my semester (read: something I was worried I would fail to do and then would regret later) was the failure to learn the city in which I live. I know that it’s very possible to live in a big city, tell yourself you’ll see all the important things later, travel to other cities on weekends, and then end up with a tragedy akin to leaving Paris without seeing the Louvre.

I have taken active measures to avoid this situation, which means (a) I have only left St. Petersburg once since getting here, but (b) I have spent many, many hours walking around the city. I don’t feel like I know the city, but I know the city well enough to know that I don’t know it—if that makes sense. Soon to follow is a list of places I’ve seen in and around the historical center of St. Petersburg, along with a few perhaps-enlightening comments.

Despite the fantastically long time it takes, I’m going to attempt at uploading a few pictures to go with this post. (Update: okay, two. Two will have to do.)

1. Leningrad Blockade Street Museum. This is not the official Blockade Museum (we are going there on an official excursion later in the semester). For the 70^th anniversary of the fall of the Blockade, they set up a “live street” with machinery, poetry, propaganda posters, etc, related to the blockade.
   
2. Alexander Nevsky Lavra. It’s a monastery + cemetery… where lots of famous people are, incidentally, buried. We visited the church (huge!), tried to buy monastery bread (they were out), and began to enter the cemetery (after seeing the price to get in, we decided to come back when we had our student IDs).
3. The Hermitage. Of course we’ve been there. It was our first stop after we got our student IDs! Hurrah! I tried to make it a weekly thing (Hermitage Tuesdays, right?), but many various things have gotten in our way, and we’ve only made it twice. So now I’ve seen like 3% of the museum.
4. Church on Spilled Blood. You all know this one. It’s iconic. It’s gorgeous on the outside, and the inside isn’t bad… the problem is that almost none of its church-y-ness has been preserved. There are plaques about the history of the building, and there’s a shop where you can buy religious trinkets.
   
5. St. Isaac’s Cathedral. You can climb 270-something steps to the top, and on a clear day you’ll be able to see the whole city. Unfortunately, a day that is clear both weather-wise and schedule-wise has not yet come to us. The inside has been turned into a very interesting museum—and certain parts have been restored to actually look like a church. The walls are covered with gorgeous Romantic-era-looking paintings. Apparently, the restoration of these paintings began during the Soviet era (after they moved the Museum of Atheism to another building). I’m shocked that they went ahead and did that, because all of them are very obviously religious.
6. Bronze Horseman. Yes, it’s a statue. But it’s the statue of St. Petersburg. It’s that guy who founded the city, after all (Peter 1). I like it because you have your typical Messianic imagery (his horse is trampling a snake’s head) in a way that is sneakily practical… the back of the snake is supporting the weight of the horse’s tail.
7. Dostoevsky Apartment Museum. What a wonderful little place. He only lived there for like 3 years, but who’s counting. It was one of 8 places he lived in Petersburg, I think. Those authors moved around a lot. Downstairs of his flat, there are some rooms dedicated to his works. They were substantially less interesting without the audio tour (because most of the objects did not have any sort of plaques), but I was still happy. There’s a Dostoevsky bust positioned right overtop of his Bible, open to Matthew 3, with his notes in the margins!
8. That Place Where Dostoevsky Almost Died. So he was sentenced to death for some crime related to his writing, but at the last moment was “pardoned” and sent to Siberia instead. The moment before death is one that shows up in almost all of his writing, so I wanted to visit the square where it happened. There is no special marking in the place noting the event.
9. Yusupovsky Palace. This is the place where Rasputin slightly more than almost died. (Okay, so he actually died in a river, but whatever.) It looks more like a fancy Italian house than a proper palace from the outside, but inside it’s gorgeous. Aside from the creepy wax figurines of Rasputin and his murderers, anyway.
10. Nabokov Mansion Museum. The video in the museum notes that Nabokov had the happiest life in Russia of any Russian writer. It’s probably true. Dostoevsky has an apartment museum? Psh. The first floor of the place where Nabokov grew up is his museum; the other two floors now have people living in them. And that first floor is bigger than D’s whole apartment. It holds a selection of Nabokov’s butterfly collection, first editions of all of his books, his personal Scrabble board, three pencils he liked, one of his ties… all sorts of knick-knacks. Too much? Maybe. But maybe not.

I have been working hard for my title of “экскурсовод” (excursion director). Just kidding. Usually I plan things here like I plan them at home… decide what I want to do, let other people know I’m doing it, and invite them to join me if they want. And then end up running late for whatever it is I planned. Heh. But I think we’ve seen a good number of interesting Peterburgian things over the past 7 weeks, and a good amount of the inside of a trolleybus to boot.

what learning Russian is teaching me about English

Learning a new language is a pretty straightforward way to expand your mind. Different languages have different ways of expressing things, different words for the same concepts, or the same words for different concepts… sometimes you’ll find a word for an idea a word for which does not exist in your own language. There. You are one concept richer.

But beyond vocabulary and syntax, learning Russian has convinced me of one thing: English is far more of a mixed language than I ever realized, and maybe that’s why literary culture in English-speaking civilization is declining.

Allow me to explain. Russian is almost entirely a Slavic language. Yes, there are some words borrowed from English or French, but the grand majority of Russian words came from Slavic roots. From a language-learning perspective, I’m glad about this, because there’s less vocabulary to memorize, and because word formation is very logical and predictable if you know the root word. From a culture-learning perspective, I’m also glad about this, because the smaller vocabulary and more closely connected words lend themselves to be repeated more often.

For example, take the root хран. It in itself is not a word, but it forms into сохранить, хранение, and other words. So this one root pops up when I’m talking about saving a file to my phone (сохранить), when I’m talking about salvation in the religious sense (also сохранить), when I’m talking about a museum curator (хранитель), or when I’m talking about a locker (камера хранения). These meanings begin to build up on each other, and between poems, articles, conversations, road signs, lectures… the cross-referential potential is enormous. I haven’t even tried to memorize any Russian poetry (yet), but I can’t hear or see a word with the stem тревож/г without being instantly sent back to Pushkin’s На холмах Грузии.

This ability to cross-reference based on even a single word, more even than vocabulary acquisition, is why I think it’s important for English readers to be familiar with Latin, Greek, French, and German. If I don’t know where my words came from and cannot identify where else they are used, will I ever really know what they mean beyond the instinct of having grown up with them?

But, of course, to ask someone to know all of these languages and their accompanying literary traditions… is ridiculous. It just isn’t going to happen. At this point the English anthology alone is too vast to come close to familiarity with it, let alone adding all of the classical world plus German and French. Our lexicon now is gigantic, and the same idea has 5 potential root words (all from different originating languages).

The English language has expanded to the point where cross-referential and even analytical value has to be on the sentence-level; it is rare that a word in itself is sufficient to carry any weight. I'm enjoying studying a language that is deeper in the specifics.