VT Memorial

This post is not chronological, I just wanted to put up some photos of our Virginia Tech Memorial that we hosted tonight. We're all thinking about our friends and extended family at Tech. Bruce and I, both native Virginians, hosted the memorial, and Mike, Doug, Julien, Renee, Bruce and I all lit candles for our lost brothers and sisters at VT.

These were the candles in my room.










And these were in Bruce's room.

Question contest

Now that I'm nearing the end of the semester (3 weeks to go), I am proposing a little contest to encourage further exploration of Russian language and culture. Over the next few days, I will be accepting questions by e-mail for consideration. The top ten questions will be answered on my blog and will receive a red soviet pin. Even if your question doesn't make it into the blog, all submissions will receive a green pin. I've already gotten great questions about comestibles, the alphabet, and the definition of 'jank'. So fire up your imaginations and send in questions about Russian history, language, culture, or even my trip. I hope that, in addition to friends and family, I get questions from people I haven't met that have found my blog through the UVA link or otherwise.

Make sure you e-mail your questions to jakegunst@hotmail.com and include your name, location and how you found my blog. If you want to remain anonymous, let me know that, too. Everyone wins, so no reason not to ask a question.






I have 10 of these, which will go to the 10 best questions.











Everyone else will recieve a green pin like this. Both types of pins are about the same size and have a hammer and sickle and are from the 1970's.

Blini Day in Ropsha

Before I begin with the strange adventures of Friday, February 16^th, I want to pick up an ellipse I left in the last entry. Blini Day is, as I said, the culmination of Blini Week, the week proceeding the Eastern Orthodox season of Lent. I always try to explain the Russian historical and cultural aspects of my blog entries. So, I knew that Blini day somehow parallels Mardi Gras (a last chance for excess before Lent), but I had trouble explaining why. After much intense research (30 seconds on Wikipedia), I discovered a terrific explication: “The reason that pancakes are associated with the day preceding Lent is that the 40 days of Lent form a period of liturgical fasting, during which only the plainest foodstuffs may be eaten. Therefore, rich ingredients such as eggs, milk, and sugar are disposed of immediately prior to the commencement of the fast. Pancakes and doughnuts were therefore an efficient way of using up these perishable goods, besides providing a minor celebratory feast prior to the fast itself.”
Pancake Day is celebrated in the UK, Ireland, Poland, France, and many places. Samantha, our token Anglichanka (Англичанец/Англичанка/Англичанци – Englishperson), made pancakes to celebrate. They were delicious. One difference is that the English Pancake Day and Mardi Gras (French for Fat Tuesday) are both celebrated on the Tuesday preceding Ash Wednesday, while Blini Day is celebrated on a Friday. To Roman Catholics, and most of the western world, Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, then continues, for 40 days (not including Sundays) until Easter, however, on the Eastern Orthodox calendar, it begins on a Monday ('Clean Monday'). This brings up a subtlety of modern Russian culture: weeks begin on Monday. All calendars in Russia, (including the United Russia Poster that I found, and now adorns my room) start each week on Monday. Therefor, Monday is the logical choice for the beginning of the season of Lent.
Blini Day, arguably like our Christmas or Easter, is a Christian holiday with overtones reflecting the residual paganism of the geography. Christmas occurs annually during the Roman festival of Saturnalia. Easter, and many of the traditions surrounding it, occurs over pagan fertility celebrations, Carnival, and Shrove Day (now Pancake day). So, as far as holidays and their religious ties, it's not important to know where it came from or what came first-- just know that it's all mixed up. This is important to know, because, although Blini Day is part of Russian Orthodox Christianity, sometimes the festival seemed like a weird druid ritual.
Enough erudition! Onto the Adventure!
Friday was a weird day. We got the day off school (for the holiday), so, instead of sleeping in, a group of us (Keith, Dallas, Marty McFly, Yvette, Jesica, MaryMichelle, Katherine, and I) gathered at 7:30am to hop the Metro. Academicheskaya, the closest Metro station to where we live, is near the North end of the red line. We rode all the way to the southernmost station (a long way away), where we met Mikhail, the volunteer director at The Hermitage. Then we took a van an hour outside the city, to a small town called Ropsha. We were led out into the woods and into a set of ruins that was once a famous Romanov summer home. The crumbling, graffiti-covered walls were not at home in the snow-covered forest, in the middle of nowhere. Though, it apparently made for a sweet hang-out for local teenagers. After a quick breather, we continued to follow Mikhail deeper into the Russian wilderness. If you remember the part of The Hobbit where they have to go through Mirkwood Forest-- it was just like that, plus about 3 feet of snow. The ground wasn't flat, we constantly had to walk up and down small ridges, and we walked intermittently through pristine snow.
Finally, we came across a horse wearing a blanket, and a crowd of children and their chaparones. Many of the older youth were dressed in very old Russian garb that looked like how you might imagine a gypsy would dress, and several of them wore some type of floral pattern, or laurel-like wreaths. The adults organized the youth into a huge circle, then the eight of us, were stuck in wherever we fit. The costumed older youth put on a skit, and one girl, who was covered in leaves, stood on a stump and orchestrated the convocation.
After this, we broke up into smaller groups, a few Americans to each. At one station, the children took turns flipping a rubber pancake in a pan. At another, they rolled down a hill through the snow. Story goes that Keith got an award for his rolling ability. This isn't quiet fair because I heard that he does Varsity rolling at Mercyhurst, giving him the distinct advantage over elementary-school aged kids. After rolling, the kids ran out onto a frozen pond and wrestled and threw snow. Children took turns riding a horse-drawn sled. When I rode it, we got hit with branches all the way down the path, and at one point the horse broke out into a brisk trot, causing a sharp increase in ricketyness. My group went to one station where they sang a song about blini, accompanied by a guitar, a balalaika, and an assortment of home-made percussion instruments.

For about four hours in the blistering cold, we visited each of the stations with a posse of several young students. The cold didn't seem to be bothering the schoolkids, but when everyone was called back to reform the huge circle, we were eager to finish outside and go anywhere indoors. The older youth continued their play, which ended with all the children chanting... something. So the kids are chanting and two boys run out of the woods carrying a woman made of straw, dressed in a dress, shawl, hat and scarf. Then things got really weird. The brought the woman over to the fire and lit her up. As I stood, watching a life-size figure being burned, I wondered “What kind of weird pagan ritual am I taking part in?” It took three and a half minutes for the woman to burn, then the students threw some black knots into the dying fire, and the play was concluded. We found out later that the woman represented Winter, and as Spring comes, she melts (or burns) away, to everyone's joy. But, from the numbing cold, we could tell that the end of winter was not yet in sight.
The youth leaders cleaned up the snowy campsite, and the children started marching back out of the woods. We crossed an empty byway, into a tiny collection of houses. All along the way the children impressed us with their knowledge of English words and simple sentences. They all found it hilarious when anyone shouted “Little Fish!”. The most proficient of the youth, a twelve year old girl, served as a translator for such important topics as “What do you eat with blini?” Past the houses was their school building. At this point, most of our group was suffering hypothermia, and I found myself wondering which of my toes was the most important. Once inside, we stashed our coats in the coat room and were dragged into the cafeteria. Yvette, Marty and I sat at a table with three little girls, all about 8 years old. While we waited on our blini, we discussed such topics as foods, colors, and 20^th century Russian Literature. The little girl with yellow pigtails (pictured below) asked me if I had a daughter. Yikes! Gunsts' don't have daughters anyways, though. Women came around with trays and we each got 2 blini with sweetened condensed milk and black tea. Them janks was good.
We finished our blini and took our dirty dishes into the kitchen to be washed. Then, one of the schoolchildren took Yvette and I on a tour of the school. The best part was that this little 8 year-old wore a blazer while he showed some of the best features of his school. Yvette compared him to a real estate agent. We saw the library, where they have several aisles of children's books and reference books. Students were running us around the school to show us their gymnasium, classrooms, play areas, and their auditorium stage. Eventually, word got around that Katherine needed all the Americans back downstairs, so we all filtered back to the coat room to get our coats. Before we could leave we had to hug each little kid about a thousand times and promise that we would be back to visit. Kids were clinging onto us as we said good-bye. Jesica said they almost cried when she finally left, but guess what, they did cry when I left. Booya.
After we said our last goodbyes at the school, Mikhail led us through a neighborhood and down a byway towards a big building in an open field. The complex, made up of the main building and several facility structures, is one of the oldest fish hatcheries in the world. Inside we learned a little about the history of the hatchery, including a famous visit by Peter the Great and Katherine the Great. The posted information was funny because they kept using the phrase “fish culture”. Technically that is a correct literal translation, but still, “fish culture” sounds funny. Just after we got warm, we left the building and walked to an area where they had dozens of tanks holding different kinds of fish, in many different colors. The fish we saw were very big, usually between 12 to 24 inches. We walked from pool to pool until one of the weirdest events of the day transpired.
Two women exit the building, with a net and a wooden basket stand. One of them scoops up about a dozen fish, one at a time, out of a pool. Then, while holding one the fish down in the crate, proceeds to SMASH IT OVER THE HEAD WITH A HAMMER. I kid you not. It was one of the weirdest things I've seen in Russia. After she killed the fish, the women put them in plastic bags, and brought them back into the building. Watching a woman crack fish skulls was weird enough, and the sound was absolutely nauseating. Needless to say, I got the entire thing on film. It won't be posted here, because it's gross, and not very inciteful.
We left the fish hatchery, and walked back up the road, where we caught the van back to St. Petersburg. On the way back towards the city, Mikhail pointed out the estate of Vladimir Putin. The window was foggy, and it was fairly fleeting, so I didn't get any good pictures. However, it was a cool side note to our trip back. We also saw the mansion, and other buildings, including the visitors' village (where important figures, Presidents, etc. stay when they visit Putin).

UPDATE: Since the children at Ropsha enjoyed our visit so much, Mikhail is working on arranging trips for us to go back to visit and help the students practice their English.

Ah, a 7am sunrise over the smokestacks.

So... turns out it's illegal to take photos on the metro. Before I knew that, I took this photo to show what the most ornate station in St. Petersburg looks like.

We followed this path deep into the rural woodlands.

These are the ruins of one of the Romanov summer homes in Rophsa.

Children line up and march off to their different stations.

This is the sled we got to ride on.

Dallas, on the bottom left, poses with all the performers.

This is the cafeteria table where we ate blini. The girl on the left is the one that wondered if I had a daughter.

I posed with the Ropsha kids in this play-area.

Hugging goodbye to the students in Ropsha. Yvette was almost the same size as them.

Katherine is just so motherly. The dashing young man on the right was our Real Estate Agent.

Jesica, Keith, Yvette, Dallas, Marty, MaryMichelle and Katherine stood out in the fish hatchery, looking at two women scooping out fish.

This was the strange fish collection right before they brought out the hammer.

St. Pete: Day 20 (Dinner with Keith's Family)

Let me take a moment to talk a little about Keith. Keith is a Junior at Mercyhurst College in Meadville, PA. He lives in Erie, PA and has an interest in International Intelligence, which I believe is the name of his major, too (Mercyhurst is popular for having this unusual major). Keith has been my roommate for almost three weeks now, but soon he will leave the beautiful halls of IMOP to reside with a family in the homestay program. This is sad, because, other than his heroin addiction and his constant desire to snuggle, Keith has been a great roommate.

On Thursday, Keith, Jesica, and I were invited to dinner with Keith's homestay family. At 7:00pm, Katya, the 19 year old daughter of the family, met us in the IMOP lobby and walked with us 15 minutes through the snow to their apartment. Katya studies at another University in St. Petersburg, and I think lives mostly at her Grandmother's apartment, but regularly visits her Mom and brother. The mother's name is Tatyana, but goes by Tanya (Russians, even more so than Americans, often go by diminutive names like Chris for Christopher, Charlie for Charles, Alex for Alexander and Jake for Jacob). The son's name is Kiril, perhaps after St. Cyril, the Greek monk who first designed the first Russian alphabet (by the way,although we pronounce the name See-rul, the Russian spelling and pronunciation is Kee-rel). We entered the house, sparing no time to linger over the doorstep (which is traditionally considered bad-luck), and removed our shoes. Katya and Tanya then offered us slippers to wear over our socks, to wear inside the house. Before dinner, we discussed, in broken Russian and English, our studies and our trip experiences, and learned about the previous students they have hosted.
One of Tanya's friends joined us for our Lasagna dinner. One unique thing about Russian dinners is that you will eat your food with no drink, then, post-meal, drink tea. I suppose your stomach ends up with a similar food:beverage ratio, but the 'bite, bite, sip' habit. Also, Russians prefer their drinks served hot. As you probably know, Europeans in general don't enjoy beverages with ice (nor do they enjoy free refills). In fact, while I was in Kirov, a woman told me that drinking cold drinks was bad for your throat. Afterwards we enjoyed a delicious and traditional dish (which a rare combination): Blini.
A blin (blīn, blīnī [m] / блин, блины ) is a thin pancake, like a crepe. Usually blini are served with jam, syrup, butter, or sweetened condensed milk. Often blini are eaten with fruit, chocolate syrup, whip cream, even ice cream. You can put almost anything on a blini. One time, when I was in Moscow, I ordered a blini with a shower curtain on it--they brought it. Our dinner with the family fell right in the middle of Blini Week (which culminates with Blini Day, on Friday). More on this holiday in the next entry.
After dinner, we returned to the living room to watch the news (it's been weeks since we watched television), and continue our discussion in broken Russian. Katya is very interested in studying Spanish, but hasn't gotten the chance yet. So for a while we listed some boilerplate Spanish phrases that every American knows:

¡Hola!
¿Cómo estás?
Muy bien
Donde esta la biblioteka, Pedro?

Funny enough, none of us had actually taken any Spanish, but she loved even the most basic phrases. I guess we don't realize the linguistic benefits associated with our proximity to Mexico. Spanish generally isn't offered in Russian schools, so most of the population has zero exposure.
Tatyana and Katya were excellent hosts, so when they time came to leave, I wished I had participated in a home stay. However, home stay is a bit of a roll of the dice, and I dig the international dorm, so no regrets. Katya walked us out to the bus stop, where we caught the bus back to IMOP. Since our dinner, we've made plans to go back to visit. Also, Tatyana and Katya love going to the monthly Marine Party at the US Consulate, so once we figure out the logistics, hopefully they'll join us for that.

From left to right: Keith, Jesica, Kirill, Tatya, Me, and Katya sitting down below.

Getting ready to leave.

Marty McFly got dressed up to go meet his family.\

He looks nice.