Jake in St. Petersburg

VT Memorial

2007-04-24T00:10:00.000+04:00

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

2007-04-22T15:15:00.000+04:00

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

2007-04-18T21:55:00.000+04:00

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)

2007-03-20T06:38:00.000+03:00

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.

St. Pete: Day 19 (The Political History Museum)

2007-03-20T04:49:00.000+03:00

The Political History Museum in St. Petersburg recently made the front page of The St. Petersburg Times for its' popularity. The photo to the right, of Dallas and me, was not published in it. The Times is my favorite newspaper here for two reasons: it's in English, and its free. I read it every week. The museum is located within a stone's throw of Rabbit Island, the site of the Peter and Paul Fortress and the Peter and Paul Cathedral, the first construction in St. Petersburg and the burial place of Peter the Great (which is notable, because almost every other Tsar is entombed in a church within the walls of Kremlin). Anyways, the museum has a bunch of cool stuff. We had a tour guide, and saw the whole museum. The exhibits were pretty cool. The building that hosts the museum was originally a state building during the Imperial days, and was stormed during the 1917 revolution (more on that later), and was, for about 3 months, the site of Lenin's office. One thing you might notice in my photos (and also, I've found, in Russian and Soviet History and Culture, really) is that there are a very select few individuals (Alexander Nevsky, Peter the Great, Vladimir Lenin, Yuri Gagarin...) that are deified, either figuratively or literally. In some ways, these figures have been idealized to such an extent that many of their characteristics and their real-ness has fallen away with the passing of time, and what is left is a list of perfect characteristics and values that they embodied. This has been the subject of much discourse between the students here. Like the palaces, and the Hermitage, pictures are far better documentation than my words, so below are some of the great exhibits:

This is the entrance to to the Museum. It says "[The] State Museum [of the] Political History of Russia"

These two photos are totally different, but I thought they looked interesting side by side, and I'll explain why.

On the left is a stained glass image of Lenin, which is in the Lobby of the Museum. I liked this because it reminded me of something I heard at the Phi Theta Kappa Honors Institute this fall. A professor from Eastern Shore Community College in Melfa, Virginia came to speak about "Power and Religion", although the topic could more comfortably fit into a multi-volume series of books. In his lecture he said something profound that I had never thought about before: One recurring theme was that every society had a Godhead of some kind. But what about a Marxist or Leninist Communist state? In such case, he explained, the state replaced other figures as the Godhead. So, the reason I liked this stained glass is because it is reminiscent of old Churches and Cathedrals, BUT instead of Jesus or Mary, it's Lenin. So, I thought this was a vivid way of demonstrating the speakers' point of the State replacing religion as a societies' Godhead.

On the right is Tsar Nicholas II. If you look closely (double click to open the image fullscale if you'd like), you see several vertical lines in the portrait. When the building that houses the Museum was stormed by revolutionaries in 1917, the portrait was slashed. The painting was restored, and the holes mended, but the marks were left because they are easily as historically pungent as the painting itself. Fate gave Nicholas II the short end of the stick. A horrible accident, known as The Khodynka Tragedy marred his coronation, where thousands of peasants were trampled to death by a crowd of 50,000. Then, famine and war exacerbated his reign. His only son, Alexei, was plagued by Hemophilia, which led him to seek the aid of Rasputin (not someone an Imperialist wanted to be associated with). Nicholas II abdicated his throne in February, 1917, giving up all power and right to the Russian Empire. But then, even after he abdicated, he and his family moved to a secluded home in Ural Mountains, where he and all his children (4 daughters and 1 son), his wife, 3 servants, and his physician where taken into the basement and shot, multiple times in the head and chest. The order to execute came from the Supreme Soviet, with the explanation that mounting white imperialist powers were approaching Yekaterinburg and would try to restore them to the throne. The bodies were found in 1991, and were reburied twice (1991 - state burial, 1998 - Christian reburial in the Peter and Paul Cathedral) after extensive DNA testing. The bodies of Tsarevich Alexei (Tsarevich, literally "son of the Tsar", is used to denote the heir to the throne) and The Grand Duchess Anastasia were never found. Which, along with interesting results of autopsies, led to doubt of the events as reported, and the legend of Anastasia, which sparked a movie by Disney. Like I said, fate gave Nick II the short end of the stick.

(I'm pretty sure that diversion rivals Mr. White, both on length and... factiveness)

Now, the reason I put these side by side is because I think it shows a contrast of the old and the new. The old (Nicholas Romanov II) stepped down from power when the new (Vladimir Lenin) took power in 1917. The images look very different, but the two men were born less than two years apart. You can also see the stylistic difference between the two, Nick's portrait was lifelike and artistic, Lenin's was very stylistic, saturated, and vivid. Just a thought.

The museum was filled with old propaganda posters, which the RSFSR (The palindromic name of the USSR between 1917 and 1922) and the USSR churned out like ball bearings (which were then melted down, and made into other ball bearings). I bought a small print of a poster similar to this in the giftshop, which has a smiling communist baby and reads "Happy ones are born under the Soviet Star!"

This was a podium used by the President during press conferences during soviet times. Who could resist this photo-op?

This was super cool. In this display is the passport, ID, and Uniform of Yurii Alexeiivich Gagarin. Gagarin was, and is, one of Russia's greatest heroes. He was the first person in outer space, and the first to orbit the earth. He survived, and became a legendary figure. He is buried in the wall of the Kremlin (a very elite privilege), and is on some 2 ruble coins.

What can I say? Brezhnev was a passionate, passionate man.

In one part, there was a telephone that would tell you jokes in Russian. I have no idea what it is in relevance to, and I only got parts of the jokes, which made them that much funnier. On the left are Jesica and MaryMichelle.

I was going to send this to my Mom, with the caption 'My Dorm'. This was one of the exhibits, showing what things were like during the soviet days.

This wasn't in the museum, just on the way back to the Metro. I'm standing outside a huge, beautiful Mosque. Many people don't realize that Muslims make up about 10% of the Russian population (although they are mainly located in the Volga and Caucasus regions). The rest of the population is almost entirely Russian Orthodox, although most subscribers of Russian Orthodox do not practice.

St. Pete: Day 15 (Pavlovsk)

2007-02-25T12:25:00.000+03:00

Pavlovsk was awesome, honestly. We hopped the coach and passed Pushkin (the town where the Katherine Palace is located), continuing south to Pavlovsk. Once there, we dismounted and took a short walk to the towns' namesake-- the palace of Pavel I. I haven't completed my Romanov genealogy, but I'm pretty confident that there wasn't a Pavel II, so the I is a little optimistic. Our tour guide to the palace called him Emperor Paul, noting the English version of his name. I prefer to call him Pasha (the Russian diminutive name for Pavel), or sometimes Pashenka (an even diminutiver name), cause he and I are just informal like that. The palace (also called the museum) was very classical in design, in the Hellenic/Roman sense. For example, the front terrace was trimmed with busts of every Roman emperor. But, as I've said before, St. Peterburg, Peter the Great, and the Romanovs were very into western European culture. This is why they always pulled in Italians to design their palaces, and fill their halls with European art.
(If you can't tell, in the above photo, a marble statue is feeding me grapes)
The palace itself was a gift to Pavel I from his mother, Katherine II, when he begot his first child. (By the by: Mom, I want a palace when Turok is born) Katherine II, sometimes referred to as 'The Enlightened Despot', was actually a German princess, who married into the Romanov dynasty. Pavel was the Great Grandson of Peter the Great, of which he was very proud. One thing about Pavel is that he established a house law that was totally rediculous. I mean, honestly, Primogeniture? That's wack, dude, wack. I digress...
Just like the Hermitage, I shelled out 100 rubles ($4) to take photos in the museum. The rooms were small compared to the Winter Palace, and very ornate. Upon entering one of the bedrooms, someone in our group commented that they could never get to sleep in a room that was so busy. Statues lined every corridor, and paintings where hung everywhere they could fit a brush. The ceilings had some of the most amazing murals I've seen (granted I've never seen Mike's Sistine Chapel). After we finished the tour, we sat down for lunch at the cafe adjoining the palace. We were then given time to explore the ground if we so desired. I can only describe the grounds as a winter wonderland. I had to explore in increments, because it was so cold outside, but it was well worth it. Sleigh rides were available, but it was a little cold and expensive for our group. I'd be game for it another time though. The forest was blanketed in powdery snow, and there were long paths going deep into the woods. On an adjacent hill, townspeople were sledding and skiing. More on sledding later.
Readers, if any of you come to St. Petersburg, whether for business, vacation, study abroad, or whatever, make sure you leave the city. Even though Pavlovsk was freezing cold, it was an incredible sight.

The front entrance to Pavel's Palace. Around the statue is a make shift Ice Rink. Somewhere exists a video of us looking like idiots. If I find it, I'll post it.

I don't know if I explained it well in the Hermitage post, but this is a similarly styles design. The bearded man is a statue in the wall, and the ceiling is painted to look like the statues continue high into the air.

Looking through an entrance way at the end of a corridor.

A breakfast table in one of the bedrooms.

Here's one of the classical halls (instead of Baroque, which makes up an equally large portion). There's that, and the tops of Doug and Jesica's heads.

This is the most famous painting in the Pavlovsk Palace. Anywhere you stand in the room, it appears the arrow and cupid's eyes are staring right at you. It's supposed to mean that no one can escape love.

Looking out from the front door of the palace.

Down one of the many wooded trails. This one was a path for the sleighs.

One path goes over a slippery bridge.

I put this up to show the winter wonderland-ness. I actually had to put my camera into the snow to get this angle.

A note on Photos:

2007-02-23T11:55:00.000+03:00

Readers:
I was talking with Katherine yesterday, who wondered if she could use some of my photos in a presentation she is giving next month on the AIFS program. By the way, I will help her, of course. She liked some of the photos I put here on the blog, but didn't realize that if you click on them, they will open full size (6.0 megapixels). I just thought I'd point it out in case anyone else didn't know about that feature. Now I think is also a good time to say a very special "Thank you" to my Gramparents, who gave me this awesome camera for Christmas.
Most Sincerely,
Jake

P.S. Here's some photos.

This photo was taken out the coach window on the way back from Pavlovsk. I really liked this sign, which marks the southern border of St. Pete city limits. It says "St. Petersburg: Leningrad - Hero City" (hence the medals to the right). The catch-line at the bottom could also be translated "Leningrad is the Hero City", because Russian doesn't use intransitive verbs in the present tense. This sign also represents an interesting bit of St. Petersburgian history: In 1991, after the fall, the citizens of Leningrad took a vote to see if they would continue to use Leningrad, or they'd restore the original name of St. Petersburg (Happy Pancake City was also in the running, but recieved zero votes) St. Pete won by a narrow margin, with 54% of the vote. The catch phrase 'Leningrad - Hero city' provides some consolation to those who take pride in Leningrad's proud history. St. Pete derives it's heroism from the Siege of Leningrad, an 29-month seige from the Wehrmacht that began in September 1941. During the seige, 800,000 of Leningrad's 3,000,000 died. Also notable is the red shield, which is the seal of St. Petersburg. It consists of crossed anchors, and a scepter topped with a two-headed eagle. The two-headed eagle was actually a symbol of Russian Imperial power (Tsars), but is still used today as a National Symbol. The anchor pointing left is a sea anchor, the right one is a river anchor, which is important because it refers to both St. Petersburg's geographical location and it's role in History. Peter the Great commissioned the city to be built so that it would be A. a window on Western Europe and 2. A port city, as he was a real nautophile.

If you've never seen an entirely frozen river before, here it is. The mighty Neva, which winds through St. Petersburg, freezes for several months of the year. During this time, the bridges don't rise, which makes nocturnal cross-urban travel easy. In the summer, the bridges open for several hours every night, after the metro closes. So, if you're on the other side of the Neva of where you want to be, you're gonna have some time to kill. Also, the 'White Nights' (a period in the summer when it never gets completely dark at night, due to St. Petersburg's latitude) occur during bridge season, so its not at all weird for people to stroll about in the wee hours of the morning. Another thing is that Russians, in general, go to bed later than in the US. Of course, we college students enjoy late bedtimes, but in Russia, midnight is a typical bedtime for anyone. Being stranded is not a problem at this time of year, but it may be in the future, and will make a good story.

To the right is the Russian National Library. Supposedly, my literature class will be going there later this spring to peruse the section on very very old books. What we hope to see is the libraries collection of books copied, by hand, by monks. Copies are usually very large, as big as a tabletop, and are written on pressed leather or even birch bark. As Orthodox Christians love to do, the monks spattered the books in gold and jewels. Our professor said that sometimes they let us in to see the books, but sometimes the don't (TIR), so we'll see.

Days 8 and 9 (Jake and Katherine go to Finland)

2007-02-20T16:52:00.000+03:00

Just to let everyone know: on this day, February 4th, my little brother turns 16. Happy Birthday, John John.
Sunday night I said goodbye to all my friends from IMOP and jumped a metro to the center of town with Katherine Wells, our wonderful RD, to catch the night bus to Helsinki. The bus was dark and quiet, luckily it was only about a quarter full, giving us plenty of room to lay out. At midnight we stopped at a gas station to grab some food and stretch. Later we stopped to pass through Russian customs. After they stamped my passport, it was the point of no return--since I only had a single-entry Visa, if I wasn't able to get my student Visa in Helsinki, I wouldn't be allowed back into Russia. At 2:00am we got out and went through Finish customs, and got back on the bus for another few hours. We rolled up on Helsinki City Center about 5:00am. We walked over to the Train Station, where I was able to give home a ring and let my parents know that I was not in the country they sent me to, and, of course, to tell John John 'Happy Birthday'.
As I'm sitting in Helsinki Train Station, I realize that Finnish doesn't sound like English or Russian, in fact, it sounds like something you would hear in a Star Wars movie. Upon further research, I found that Finnish is just weird like that. I expected Finnish would fall under the category of Scandinavian languages, which are an off-branch of Germannic (and therefor Indo-European), but instead, Finnish falls into a catagory of Finno-Ugric languages, which are not part of the Indo-European language family at all. Indo-European languages, if you don't know, include everything from Slavic (Russian, etc.), Hellenic (Greek), Romantic (Latin-based, such as Italian, Spanish, French, etc.), Germannic (German or English), even Hindi, Urdu (There ya go, Hadi), and Persian. Finnish is related to Estonian and Sami, Livonian, Komi, Mordvin, Mari, and Yukaghir languages. What's notable about Finno-Urgic languages is that inflection (declension and conjugation) only makes up part of their grammar. The rest is Agglutinated (like Korean), which means that its morphology consists of morphemes affixed to the base of the word. Basically, this means that Finnish words are really, really long because of the prefixes and suffixes that are added as words change form. I only expect Ted or Mr. White to understand this paragraph, so for everyone else: Finnish is just weird.
Katherine and I ate breakfast, then she said she had some business to do (at 6am??), so she'd meet me back in the same spot at 7:30. I had to go to the bathroom, which proved to be a fun time-killer. In true American fashion, I went price-shopping for the cheapest bathroom. The cheapest one I found was a Euro ($1.31), so I waltzed into the nearest fancy hotel and pretended to be a guest. I asked the counter attendant where the bathroom was and she pointed to the right. The hotel bathroom was a dream: big, quiet, and covered in Marble and track-lighting.
Katherine met me again and gave me a public transportation pass. Then we hopped a tram over towards the Russian Embassy. Standing in line we met an Englishman named Paul who teaches in St. Pete. He was really cool and friendly. Katherine said she doesn't meet other English people very often. We also met a girl who goes to Emory and a guy from Montana who imports cranberries for a company that sells to all-natural food places. After waiting in the freezing cold for the embassy opened, we went in and got searched, then I got a form from the counter attendant. I filled out the form in its entirety, then waited in line, and gave it to the attendant. She circled a spot in red ink in the corner of the form that said "The Russian Embassy of _______", then pointed to a table in the waiting area. "Are you serious?," I thought. "That's seven letters, and I have to wait in line all over again?" So it goes. After turning in the form, we walked to a bank a few blocks away (you can't pay for your Visa at the embassy apparently), then returned and stood in line again. Eventually they took my passport to the backroom for my new Visa. I now have 4 Russian Visas in my passport.
We said goodbye to our new friend Paul, then jumped the tram back to City Center (Stockmann's/Train Station). Stockmann's is a huge department store that, from what I've heard, has it's place in the culture of Helsinki. Katherine told me that she had some AIFS business in the west end of town, so she was going to let me go for a few hours, and said that it was imperative that I meet her back at the train station at 2:45.
So begins my solo adventure in Helsinki. I stood on the corner for a minute, wondering what I should do from here. After all, my previous studies and my study abroad trip are all about Russia, not Finland. I had no idea what there is to do in Scandinavia. I decided a good starting point would be to go back and look at everything cool that whizzed by the window on the tram earlier that day. So I walked down a few streets, photographed some statues, saw a cool cathedral, and strolled down to the Gulf of Finland. One interesting note about Helsinki is that it has more coffee shops per capita than any other city in the world. So if you want to open a coffee shop, don't go to Helsinki. It's a saturated market.
I perambulated central Helsinki for a while, taking pictures and marveling at the cleanliness of the frozen city. Whenever I got cold, I wandered into a shop or a mall. One shop had a stack of Reindeer pelts up to my belly button, no exaggerating. Although not as bad as London, Helsinki is an expensive city. The only thing I bought there was a small Finnish-flag patch for my backpack. By the way, my Jansport zipper broke again, so I need to send it in to get it fixed (not from here, obviously). I love that backpack.
So after seeing central Helsinki, I decided that, with 2 hours to go, I would put my public transportation pass to good use. I hopped a bus and rode for a while. Eventually I got out and felt the freezing Scandinavian wind on my face, and thought "I have no idea where I am... mission accomplished!" I started walking towards where I thought city center was, but, seeing as the bus took many turns, I didn't really know where that was. So I wandered and wandered. Before I knew it, it was 2:45, I was late to meet Katherine, and I had no idea where I was. Now is a good time to say that the population of Finland is much nicer than Russia. Also, many Fins are fluent or near-fluent in English. I asked some school kids where the train station was, and they suggested I hop the tram. At the tram station I talked to another guy, who was a native Estonian (also a Finno-Urgic Language, by the way). Since he was going to somewhere near city center, he offered to escort me most of the way there. He could tell I was from the States by my accent, and was a big fan of the US (hoo-rah). One of his friends moved to Boston, and he is looking forward to going to the States one day. I told him if he was ever in Virginia, look me up.
I was only about 20 minutes late meeting Katherine (which she was thrilled about). We hopped the Russian train back to St. Petersburg, which takes about 5 hours (3 less than the Bus). The coupe was a 6 seater, and our company included a Professor from Novgorod State University and his wife. I supposed Katherine and I are a bit of an odd pair-- American Student and an English woman, both involved with the State Polytechnic University in St. Petersburg, coming from Finland. They were very interested in why an American student would study abroad, and what experiences I had had in Russia. What I thought was strange was that they directed all questions about me to Katherine. When I could, I would respond in Russian, otherwise I would ask Katherine to translate. Eventually I fell asleep in my bucket seat as birch trees covered in snow whizzed by the window (I took a short video).
Upon returning to the dorm, I got a warm reception from everyone. Many of them wanted to come with me, but our multi-entry Visas haven't come back yet, so they couldn't. Maybe in the future I'll return to Finland. Until then, as the Fins say: hey hey.

2 AM: The Russian-Finnish Border

5 AM: The empty streets of downtown Helsinki

7 AM: Light appears on the horizon over the Helsinki Train Station

9 AM: Outside the Russian Consulate of Finland

This is a tram, an electric train that accounts for most of Helsinki Public transportation. There are also busses and a metro system, but it only has one line.

I spent many hours wandering Finnish streets just like this. At the intersection you can see a white cathedral (also pictured below)

Ah, the Gulf of Finland-- ripe for a morning swim.

Here is the Helsinki Cathedral, which was built in honor of Russian Tsar Nicholas I (hence the statue). The Cathedral was completed in 1852, before Finland declared independence from Russia (1917).

Two Finnish stamps on my passport. As you can see, the entering stamp (->) shows that I took a automobile, the outgoing (<-) shows that I took a train.

St. Pete: Day 8 (The Katherine Palace)

2007-02-20T15:04:00.000+03:00

On Saturday, we piled onto a coach at 10am to trek south to Pushkin, a town about an hour outside St. Petersburg proper. There we visited the Katherine Palace, a non-residential palace given to Elizabeth I of Russia, which she named after her mother, Katherine the First (Katherine the Great). I understand that the Romanov dynasty is difficult to understand when presented in tiny chunks like this, but rest assured that I have a lineage chart in the works that will stretch from Peter the Great to Nicholas II. I, perhaps like some of you, need to see the entirety of the family tree to understand the chronology of things. Anyways, Empress Elizabeth maintained the Katherine Palace as a place to throw parties. Elizabeth tore down the original palace to build a more extravagant palace built in the Rococo style (designed by her court architect Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli).
Without going into too much detail, I think now is a good time to point out that our first week in Russia has had its share of adjustments and discomforts. Urban Russia is not like the streets of Richmond or London. Students are sometimes held at knifepoint on the Metro, dorms are often broken into and raided for laptops and cameras. But, as some in our group have so accurately have put it: The Katherine Palace reminds us why we came to Russia.
The exterior of the palace is painted in a bright blue, and adorned with classically styled golden figures. As is customary in many of the museums and palaces we visit, after you check your coat, you must put covers over your shoes. Just like with the Hermitage, whatever I write will be feeble compared the photos of the architecture and interior design of this incredible building. I'm sure many of you have heard of the Katherine Palace's famed 'amber room', which is a room entirely encrusted with amber. Amber paneling lines the entirety of the room and is carved in many places to present a very ornate display. The extravagance of the Katherine Palace brings up an important point on what I like to call “balla-tude”. Wikipedia used the words “obscenely lavish” to describe the palaces adornments. Although the palace shows the egotistical and immodest nature of the Russian Tsarina, today everyone can enjoy her patronage of the arts.
At the end of the tour, we ate in the cafe and we were given some free time to enjoy the beautiful snow covered grounds. MaryMichelle and Yvette and I strolled down the groves and through gardens. At one point, my suitemates ambushed me, resulting in a snowball fight to end all snowball fights. No matter what they may say, I straight-up dominated that battle. I reigned a hellfire of snowballs upon them in Biblical proportions. We also ventured out onto a frozen pond, which was a little scary, but mostly just awesome. A staircase leading down the water was trimmed with a low railing. Below is a video of the antics. After a few hours exploring the grounds, we piled back in the coach and returned to the dorms. According to Katherine, we will be returning later in the Spring to see the Palace in full bloom, which will be very exciting.

The Cerulean walls of the Katherine Palace. White and Gold statues adorn the entirety of the exterior.

This is the Great room, which is now available to rent out for parties (if you're an oligarch). On the right you can see Doug craning his next to see the mural on the ceiling.

This is one of the doors in the Great room, also known as the Hall of lights. Mirrors and gilded statues encrust the entire room.

One of several dining rooms (I believe this one is only for eating lunch). The huge blue and white fixture in the corner is a stove, which is part of an elaborate heating system.

This is called the red room, because the interior designer used red foil as a wall decoration. According to our guide, it was the first time foil was ever used as wall decoration. Between the metallic stripes, the wall is lined with white silk. In the bottom of the picture you might see a specially crafted writing desk and bookshelf which was a special gift to Elizabeth.

This room is called 'The Roman Room' due to its classical ornamentation. The portrait on the right is Peter the Great, and I think the one on the left is Elizabeth.

This room is called the Chinese room. All the walls are covered in silk with a Chinese pattern. In the top of the photo you'll see an especially unusual portrait of Elizabeth I. Even the historians at the Katherine palace think its weird that a Tsarina would have a nude portrait made.

Looking down the corridor, you can see the linear layout of the palace. Also, each of the rooms adjacent to the point I photographed from were matching colors. Each room in the palace had its place in a theme, based on which was a pretty unoriginal nomenclature (ie.. the blue room, the pink room, the green room...)

Although visitors aren't allowed to photograph the Amber Room, there's no rules on the superfluity of Amber goods in the giftshop.

This is a photo of Katherine Palace's Amber Room that I took from a website just so you can see what it

A note on post frequency:

2007-02-20T14:41:00.001+03:00

Readers:
I prefer to keep a small buffer between activities and their posts, which allows me to dwell on the information I learned and reflect on what was most important. It also allows me to do a little extra research on bits that I found particularly interesting (such as Norman Foster). However, Internet connectivity at IMOP is unreliable, which means I may go days without having Internet access. Currently, I have run out of credit on my account and am waiting to renew. So sometimes posts are completed far before they hit the blog. As always, I appreciate your patience in updates and your interest in my studies and my travels.
Most Sincerely,
Jake

St. Pete: Day 7 (JFC Jazz Club)

2007-02-12T13:28:00.000+03:00

Honestly, today was a little bland. Nina gave us plenty of homework, so a large part of the day was dedicated to that. Also, a few of us trekked to the Grocery Store for luncheon meat, Sosliki, and Ramen; you know, the essentials. I only brought a little shampoo, soap, and body wash, so that I would have to stock up on Russian shower products, so I got some new Shampoo called 'Shamtu' and some body wash called 'Fa'. So far Fa has been alright, but Shamtu just takes away all my shine and bounce! Travesty!

Things definitely picked up after it got dark. The best part of the Friday was going to this 'Jazz Club' called JFC. In Russia, jazz, as I have come to understand, is a fairly inclusive musical term. The performing band was, I think, more influenced by Latin music than typical jazz. However, they were very into improvising (jamming), which is I think often associated with Jazz music. But, improvisation and collaboration (synergy) is probably why live music is great to begin with. You should really judge for yourself, though, so I'll post a 30 second clip that I took while I was there. By the way, the whole time I was dying to shout “Meester Byorgany! Iazz Flute!”

<-- Mike, Jesica, and Doug before the show started. --> The Band, live.

<-- Ron Burgundy!

St. Pete: Day 6 (The Winter Palace)

2007-02-09T15:03:00.000+03:00

Thursday was a fun day for our group. It's our third and last Russian class of the week, and electives haven't started yet. Manus and Renee traded up classes to 3^rd level, and Jesica and Kelsey have come up to two, which means we're now all AIFS students. One thing about Nina is that she's almost fluent in English, but some of her thoughts don't quiet translate. Today, I think she meant to say that she felt bad for Bruce because he was sick, instead she told him “I regret you.” We all laughed, and Bruce said “That's OK, my parents do, too.” I love this class.

We all gathered at the end of the hall at 14:00 to take a trip to the Hermitage. Let me tell you a little about the Hermitage: It's the second largest art museum in the world, behind the Louvre. The Winter Palace, as it is also known, was the home of Katherine the Great who chose not to venture out much in the Winter. Because of this hermit-esque characteristic, the palace became known as the Hermitage. The palace is made up of 5 connected buildings. I heard something from Mr. White that was something like “If you wanted to see all of the pieces on display in the Winter Palace, each for 20 seconds, you'd need to spend 8 hours a day, 6 days a week, for 5 years. Also, only 10% of the collection is on display at any time.” I may have butchered that last stat in its retelling, but the point remains: this jank is big.
We arrived to the Palace in the bus and got out in a huge square, surrounded on all sides by extravagant buildings. We stood in a soviet bread-line for about 20 minutes to get into the museum, where I paid 100 rubles to get a photo license (so you guys better appreciate these pics). The palace its self is breath-taking. Huge marble staircases, Golden thrones, extravagant inlaid wood floors (with up to 16 types of rare wood), and intricate crystal chandeliers adorn the Czaress's palace. One room, the grand throne room has an elaborate painted ceiling which is reflected exactly onto the floor with inlaid wood, except without the orthodox churches symbols, so that they wouldn't be walked on.
The art was amazing. The Hermitage has works from Rembrandt, Matisse, Titian, Van Gogh and all the Ninja Turtles. And, as I've already said, the palace itself is a piece of art. I don't know if my words are going to help much at this point, so here's some photos for you to review (understand that a lot of areas in the museum are non-flash only, so many photos are dark or blurred).

<-- The Alexander Column sits in the middle of Palace Square.
--> The gigantic facade of the Hermitage

<-- MaryMichelle, Yvette, and Keith walking through courtyard into the Palace.
--> Many of the staircases in the Hermitage are built in the Baroque style, with an interesting mix of Painting and Sculpture. The walls are covered with ornate sculptural details, and the ceiling is painted to look like a continuation of the walls.

<--The grand throne room, you can see that the molding matches the inlay on the floor.
-->Check this jank out. Each vaulted ceiling surface in this
hallway reflects a story from the Bible.

<--Much of the Hermitage's collection consists of applied arts. In fact, most of what is in storage is applied art that there is no room to display.

-->On the right is Litta Madonna, one of two painting in the Hermitage's collection by Leonardo Da Vinci. *Insert any applicable Dan Brown joke here*

<--This statue is called Crouching Boy, I think. It is the only Michelangelo piece in the Museum, and it is not finished. I offered to finish it for him, but the guard did not find this funny.

--> It might look like it from the photo, but I did not use flash on this painting by Rembrandt. My camera was on 'high sensitivity mode'. You can see an Angel stopping Abraham from killing Isaac.

<-- This is a huge painting by Matisse. My favorite part is that it appeared in the background of some of his still lifes.

-->I dunno who made this jank, but it was probably my favorite. A cropped version is now the background on my laptop.

St. Pete: Days 3, 4, 5

2007-02-08T16:58:00.000+03:00

Monday was our first day of academia here in St. Petersburg. I woke up around 8:30, while it was still dark, so I could eat breakfast with everyone and be at the placement test at 10:00am. The placement test was mostly open ended questions, which allowed students to give as complex or as simple answers as they wished. This was good because it let you practice Russian at your comfort level. I went out on a limb in a few places: for example, using 'kotori' clauses to make complex sentences. Another thing the test forced me to do was think of creative ways to use my limited Russian vocab and grammar, so it was an interesting little exam.
(to the right is me on the metro)
After the test we went back to the dorms, which are in the same building (4 flights down, down the hall, 3 flights up). Some of you may already know, but one requirement to get a student visa in Russia is that you have to get an AIDS test. Although we already performed blood tests back in the states, we had to get another AIDS test Monday afternoon. Turns out they don't trust American AIDS tests, which is funny, cause we don't trust Russian AIDS tests! Doesn't matter what immunizations you receive in the States, getting a needle in your arm abroad is never a good thing.
We piled in the van and drove to a grimy building downtown, where nurses clustered around the doorways, puffing cigarettes and mumbling in Russian. I don't think any of us were feeling good at this point: I'll be honest, I have moderately low confidence in Russian medical hygiene. I volunteered to go first so that A. I could get it out of the way and, most importantly, B. so I could come back and say things like “the first needle doesn't really hurt” or “they just cut you and let you drip into the vile”. Mom: don't you miss running commentary like that? Ah boy. Sometimes you gotta laugh to keep from crying. The test actually was fine. It was quicker and more painless than the test I got in the US, and they even took less blood.
Tuesday was our first day of class. I checked the board first thing in the AM to discover that I had been placed in level 2, which is comparable to RUSS 201. Going into the test I knew that if I only placed into level 1, I would be fine with that. Starting fresh would give me an edge and not make me worry about recalling things I learned years ago. However, level 2 has an even better set of benefits. Of course the challenge is far more satisfying, and the class size is a whopping 4 students: Mike and Bruce (my suitemates), a Greek guy named Manus, and me. Our teacher, Nina Matelevna, is a charming little woman who sometimes goes on rants in Russian.
Wednesday we eagerly awaited the arrival of 3 new students, who had the misfortune of missing the first week (see Alisa), including my roommate, Keith. Keith is a junior at Mercyhurst College in Erie, PA. We celebrate his arrival along with Dallas Lapoint, who is from Vermont, and Kelsey, who is from Wisconsin. Tonight we also met Emily, a Canadian who lives in the door to the right, and Samantha, an English girl who lives down the hall. What can I say? Us native English speakers hang tight!
One of the cool things about our dorm is that its across the hall from the weight room, and Bruce just bought a dart board, which is a lot of fun. I've gotten really good at darts, and I'm gonna post a picture of one round I played against myself. Now, if you don't believe that I threw all four of those from 12 feet away, I'm not going to hold it against you, because its pretty unbelievable, but I did, so, there.

Mr. White, you might like this. It's a home improvement store near our dorm (metro stop Akademicheskaya) called Domovoi. We bought a pan there to increase our ability to cook. Like many stores in Russia, it requires you to pay for plastic bags.

Nina and Mike in Russian class. Russian meets for over 3 hours, 3 times a week, and is very intense. You might not be able to tell from the photo, but the classroom is probably 12' x 8'.

There it is. Believe it or not. Two bulls-eyes and two of what I call 'Bull's Cornea's'.

St. Pete: Days 1 and 2 (City Tour)

2007-02-07T14:26:00.000+03:00

The next day we woke up very early in the morning to make our way back to Heathrow. We got through security and we were off to St. Petersburg. Somewhere over Denmark or Sweden, I foolishly commented to Yvette that there was no snow on the ground. No less than ten seconds later, the patchwork of green fields succumbed to a patchwork of white fields. We landed in Petersburg in a blizzard.
We arrived in St. Petersburg in the early evening. Katherine Wells, our resident director, met us at the airport and took us, via minivan, to St. Petersburg State Polytechnic University. Stepping out into the frozen Russian air, I quickly realized that Petersburgian air has less air in it. It's a little hard to explain, when you take a deep breath that satisfies like a shallow one, but, as we've grown accustomed to saying, TIR (this is Russia).
We pulled up to the IMOP building, the center which houses our dormitory and academic facilities, and Katherine said “You'll need to take the elevator up to the fourth floor and take the stairs down, because the elevator doesn't go to the 3rd floor for some reason.” TIR. After settling in, we got a packet of information and Katherine told us a little about our new lives and basic dormitory guidelines.
That night was mostly spent unpacking and settling in, although we got to meet Alison, who goes to University of Alaska at Fairbanks (go nanooks, right?). Ali, as she's called, is doing a whole year here, so she was able to give us some advice on life in St. Pete.
Sunday we awoke for breakfast, and piled back into the van for a city tour. The tour guide told us “St. Petersburg is named after Saint Peter. Many people will tell you our city is named after Peter the First, Peter the Great. Do not listen to these people. They are liars.” Our main stop was the Peter and Paul Fortress, one of the first constructions of St. Petersburg. Some interesting information about the fortress is in my video update (which should either be below or will be once I can figure out how to upload it).
One of the most boggling things about St. Pete is that the river, the Neva, is frozen. I can hardly believe that such a huge river can freeze. It's much wider than the James, probably closer to the Potomac in girth. It's incredible.
We drove around in the van and saw some amazing buildings, one of which was Katherine the Great's school for girls, which is a beautiful blue color, and of course we saw the Church of the Spilled Blood, which is probably (correct me if I'm mistaken), the second most recognizable Russian Church, behind St. Basil's in Moscow. After the tour, we went to the Hotel Europa, a luxurious hotel in the middle of the city to change some money.
After we got back to IMOP, most of us spent a fair amount of time looking back through our Russian books, and notebooks in preparation for the placement test on Monday morning, filled out some forms for Katherine and finished settling in. Apparently there was a small problem with my visa when AIFS took them to the consulate back in December, which means I need to get it fixed, HOWEVER, in order to reissue a Visa, I need to go to a Russian consulate. So, I need to leave the country to do this, which means sometime soon I need to go to Helsinki in Finland to renew it.

An equestrian statue of Nicholas II in front of St. Isaac's CathedralThe famous Church on the Spilled Blood

Jesica and I next to a modern statue of Peter the Great. Although is thought to have been an oddly proportioned man (barrel chest, tiny round head, spindly fingers), I think this statue takes it a little too far. Still, who doesn't love Uncle Pyotr?

On the right is our entire group up to this point. From right to left: Marymichelle Londraville (Masha), Natausha, Marty, Mike (Mesha), Me, Yvette, Jesica, Doug, and Heath. Sometime soon I will post blurbs on our group members to flesh out the dynamic characters that they are.

London, Part 2

2007-02-04T15:11:00.000+03:00

Happy Birthday to Susan Lange Gunst! Today, the 25^th of January, 28 years ago or so, my Mom was born. I hope you have a good one, Mom!!!!

After getting settled into the Regency Hotel early on the 25^th, I got about 5 good hours of sleep and showered, before Bruce and I decided to explore South Kensington and change some money. South Kensington is like the Bel Air of London, with the nicest 'flats' and cars. I took pictures of a Ferrari, a Maserati, a Bentley, even an Aston Martin Vanquish DB9, which is the same car, in the same color, as James Bond's in Die Another Day (without, of course, the invisibility mode). Later, we met up at the Hotel Restaurant with Hannah, our London coordinator, for drinks and appetizers. We were all pretty famished at this point, so Hannah suggested a traditional English pub, where we could get a good meal, called The Haverford Arms.

When we first went in, the doorman was wearing a kilt and greeting everyone jovially. After finishing my Angus burger, I went to find him again for a picture. However, he had changed into his regular clothes (“3 hours as a Scot is too much for an Englishman”, he admitted). Instead, he took me back behind the bar for a special photo, of which I am very proud, with our “'ands on the pumps!”. Afterwards, we went back to hotel and got some sleep for the big London tour the next morning.

I mistakenly set my travel alarm for 7:45pm, which meant that we were awoken by a telephone call 5 minutes before the tour bus was picking us up at the Regency. The tour was amazing. London is an incredible mix of organic urban planning-- where buildings pop up wherever they can squeeze in, and wide open parks. We saw so many magnificent things in just a few hours: The Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, The Parliament building, London Bridge, Tower Bridge, churches by Christopher Wren, and Piccadilly Circus. The tour lasted from about 8:45 to 1:00. 30 St. Mary Axe is a very modern building we saw that was designed by Norman Foster, one of England's premiere architects. After I read a little about it I discovered that it was built by Skanska, who also did an amazing job of building the extension to Duke's divinity school, and I think is a company we've used at VCCS.

After the tour, we were dropped off in the center of London to spend the rest of the day doing whatever we wanted. We convened for lunch, where we discussed the potential problem of Jake Martell and I sharing the same name. Because his last name is Martell, Mike suggested he go as Marty. Other Jake hated that name, so ever since he has gone by McFly, a reference to the 1985 Robert Zemeckis movie: Back to the Future. You can note here that, strangely, there was never any talk of changing my name, which will be funny in a few days. After lunch we moved as a group towards London Bridge. I stopped to pick up a scarf for Shelley, and half the group kept going. So then it was Mike, Natasha, Yvette and I, making our way down to the Thames (maybe we'd see a whale!). As we walked south along the river, we entered old London, originally called Londinium, which was founded by the Romans over 2000 years ago. Today Londinium, which is only about one square mile, houses the financial district. When we got to London Tower, Mike and Natasha went their own way, and Yvette and I decided we would make our way back to South Kensington seeing some cool sites along the way.

We crossed the tower bridge and walked through the south side of London towards the borough. What we didn't realize was that London tower to the Regency hotel was comparable to the Appalachian Trail, so we ended up taking The Underground, also known as The Tube, to Hyde Park, across the street from the Wellington Arch. Hyde Park was very cool. At the entrance was a huge statue of Perseus. The overcast sky, green sweeping lawns, and almost endless paths lined with trees was all very English. We walked past a lake and stopped by a small modern art gallery, which was a little weird, but had a pretty funny gorilla statue outside.

After perambulating the park, we moved south towards the Victoria and Albert Museum, which was cool because it had an extensive collection of classical art, and also an interesting exhibit on Muslim art. In Islamic tradition, art does not include images of people or animals, to prevent confusion with any type of idol worship, which was prevalent in Mohammad's time, especially in the Kabba. Because of this, most of the art there was in tile-work, calligraphy, or floral or geometric patterns. Over the front entrance hung a huge blue and green glass chandelier, which was also very cool. After leaving the museum we walked back to the Regency to see if we could find our group members.

Dulles to Heathrow

2007-01-25T12:04:00.000+03:00

As I'm typing this, I am flying about seven miles in the air between what I think is Greenland and what I think is Ireland (United Air's progress report map is a little hard to read). Other than a dull pain in my belly button, this flight is going great. My past transatlantic flights have been on Lufthansa, a German Airline, which was not nearly as nice. We have seven movies, each looping on their respective channels. So far I've watched The Last King of Scotland (a movie about Uganda), and Rejected (which starred Justin Long, from one of my favorite movies, Dodgeball). It hit me during the last movie that I should be watching The Queen, because, really, I should be spending the next two days learning as much as I can about England, and all things Anglican. However, it has not started yet.
So far, I've met three of my fellow students: Bruce, from William & Mary, and Natausha and Mike, who are both from Pitt (connecting through from Pittsburgh, naturally). They all seem really cool, and I got a chance to meet Bruce over a delicious meal from the Wendy's right next to our terminal. Exciting stuff. I'm looking forward to meeting the rest of our crew tomorrow in London.
The day started off bright and early at 9:00am. I spent most of the morning packing, which I had not started. Then I did some last minute application things, hopefully most of the busy work associated with applying to transfer is done, just a few essays to complete at this point. I dropped off some forms to Dr. Cohen and Mr. Peterson (Thanks, guys!), then we hit the road. Dad and I drove up in the Mustang, making pretty good time thanks to my McQueenian motor skills. At the airport, we had a little issue with my bag, which was 57 pounds, 7 over the UA regulation. However, I only packed one checked piece of luggage instead of two (why overpack? ...knock on wood). Jeff said, if it's an issue, just forfeit the $50, but, in a moment of MacGuyver-like ingenuity, I through some books and my boots into a laundry bag I brought. Now I have two check-ons: a regulation weight duffle and a 7-pound laundry bag.
We're supposed to arrive in Heathrow at 6:20am and shuffle over to our hotel. I'm really looking forward to: a) a bed and b) meeting the other 12 students on our trip. Updates will follow.
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We've landed and took a van over to The Regency Hotel. Right now we're just waiting for our room to open. I just met another guy on our trip, Jake, who studies at St. Thomas. It's about 9:10am, so not much is open. More later.

Waiting to take-off from Dulles

Mike, Natausha, and the other Jake on the way from Heathrow to our hotel

Jake and Bruce chillin at the Hotel

That's British for Elevator

Test Post 2

2007-01-22T03:37:00.000+03:00

Main Street (Richmond, VA)

Test Post

2006-12-29T04:59:00.000+03:00

This is the web log I will be using while in St. Petersburg.