Down the Rabbit Hole

The second I climbed out of bed this morning, I knew today would be a rough day in Petersburg. My feet and knees still ached from all the walking I did yesterday. Just wandering around the hostel and standing in the shower made me grunt and groan like a tired old lady. Youth certainly doesn't last long, does it?

But today was my last day in Russia, the very end of my trip, and I was determined to make the most of it. So I took the metro to Nevskyi Prospekt and continued my free tour of the city, in spite of my throbbing leg pain, in spite of almost 90-degree heat and glaring sunshine. And with the right mindset, I was able to enjoy it all. It only takes a few minutes of sitting on a park bench beneath the imposing grandeur of the Admiralty or a few seconds of listening to a street musician squeeze folk songs from an accordion to forget my wretched feet and lose myself in the greater experience of St. Petersburg.

One of my more interesting encounters today was with a pair of tourists who stopped me near St. Isaac's Cathedral and, with a crippling accent in Russian that offended even my ears, asked me: "Excuse me... do you know... what time?" I told them in Russian what time it was, to which they responded with blank stares, trying to puzzle out what I had said. So I repeated the time in English. At this, the young couple went into ecstasies.

They were newlyweds from Vermont on their honeymoon, and for some reason, they had expected everyone in St. Petersburg to speak English. They were so overjoyed to hear my American accent that they practically wanted to kidnap me and take me with them as a personal translator and tour guide. So I sat with them for half an hour, going over maps, pointing out cheap places to eat, giving them instructions on how to ride the metro, suggesting which sights they absolutely had to see and which weren't worth the time or money.

It struck me then how well I have come to know St. Petersburg and how lost I would have been without knowing the language as well as I do. Throughout the trip, I have been kicking myself for being so clumsy at Russian, feeling like even after three years of learning the language I still know nothing. But now I realize I've been hard on myself. I speak Russian pretty well. I would still hesitate to call myself a fluent speaker, but really what I'm lacking is productive vocabulary, coming up with the words I want to say when I want to say them. I understand what's said to me so clearly that often, when remembering a conversation later, I have a difficult time believing it wasn't all spoken in English.

And without that, at least, this would have been an entirely different trip—most likely, a tale of increasing frustration and decreasing sanity as I discover how important being able to understand and communicate really is, much like the couple from Vermont had discovered.

Soon after we parted, I headed back to the hostel, gathered my things, and made my way to the airport. To get there from the hostel, I had to take two lines on the metro and a city bus while carrying all my luggage, which altogether took almost an hour and a half. Surprisingly, this wasn't as bad as it sounds. The metro wasn't busy, so I got to sit down; I took breaks when I was tired and didn't stress out about it. I got to the airport early enough to kick back, rest my long-suffering feet, and read a the first couple chapters of Alice in Wonderland. So, not bad at all. I only spent 42 rubles to get to the airport (about $1.50), very cheap compared to the 800 or more ($26+) I would have had to pay for a taxi from the hostel.

As my plane lifted off, I watched St. Petersburg growing smaller and smaller in the window. It seems so different now than it did a month ago when I first landed. Or rather, I seem so different now. It's not that I've changed all that much; it's that I have learned so much in the past month that I see everything differently. I learned new places, new people, new food, new customs and routines, new words and phrases and sounds. I learned the differences between a rural city and the glubinka, between Russians and Veps, between young and old, native and foreign.

But even more than that, I learned about myself. I've been told that the best way to get to know someone is to travel with them, and traveling by myself, I have come to know myself like never before. And with this knowledge comes confidence. Confidence in my ability to adapt to new and uncomfortable situations. Confidence in my Russian skills. Confidence in knowing that I can get all the way to Russia, through the biggest cities and the deepest interiors of the countryside, all by myself. I can choose and conduct my own research, formulate my own English lesson plans, and arrange day trips as I please. And when I'm done with it all, I can get myself back home.

Perhaps this is the most important thing I gained from this experience (though admittedly, I'm dying to go through the material I collected on the Veps people). I feel older, calmer, more capable. And with a suitcase full of souvenirs, a camera full of pictures, and 30-some completed Veps attitude surveys, I've gotten a lot out of this trip.

Now I'm sitting in the airport in Helsinki again, where I will spend the night. My flight leaves at 7:30 tomorrow morning, so I picked out a comfy lounge chair next to a power outlet and made it my own. There is free wifi, and I have plenty of movies and books to keep me busy if I can't sleep.

Tomorrow, I fly to Chicago with a short stop in Paris, and from Chicago I take the train back to Ann Arbor. This is the last night I will spend abroad, the last night of my trip. My head is dizzy with impressions. The situation is made even more surreal by the bouncing Finnish language, surrounding me on all sides, and the white night skies of Helsinki. It's like my own adventure in wonderland, and soon, it too will come to a close and seem like it was nothing more than a dream. And what a strange and wonderful dream it's been.

Sunburned in St. Petersburg

I arrived in Petersburg around 7 o'clock this morning, thoroughly shaken by a long night on the road. How I managed to hail a taxi and tell the driver the address of my hostel, I have no idea. But I made it there with all my things, which included the world's heaviest suitcase, packed with a month's worth of gifts and a personal library about the Veps people.

Of course, check-in at the hostel wasn't until 1 p.m., so I just dropped off the majority of my things and wandered back out into the city to try to think up something to do with myself for the next five and a half hours.

What I actually did with myself remains a mystery to me. The part of today before I finally got to take a shower is all a blur of sore feet, greasy hair, and fleeting impressions of buildings and rivers. I took a lot of pictures, so I must have had a decent time. But as soon as it was near 1 o'clock, I headed straight back to the hostel to shower.

When and where did this happen?

I love hot showers. Somehow, ten minutes of hot water on my face corrected everything ten hours on a bus had done to zombify me this morning. Resurrected, I headed out into Petersburg for round two.

First, however, I had solve the small matter of my heavy suitcase. I am certain it exceeds airline weight limits, which would mean paying a hefty fee at the airport. Also, I can't drag the thing myself further than fifteen feet without taking a break, which would make it difficult to get to the airport from the hostel without hiring a taxi. I would probably have to hire yet another cab in Chicago to transfer me from the airport to the train station, rather than dragging the monstrosity with me onto the city trains. Which means money, lots of money.

So I gathered all the books and heaviest presents and went to the post office to mail them to myself. I didn't anticipate how expensive it would be (nearly $40!), although it is probably still cheaper and certainly simpler than the ordeal I would face taking them all in my suitcase. In the process, I befriended most of the workers in the post office, who sympathized with my ridiculous plight and goofy accent. When I was in need of a return address in Petersburg to write on the packages, some random post office customer offered hers. We exchanged phone numbers in case something goes wrong, and she told me she was proud of me, for some reason.

I had thought this kind of unsolicited hospitality was only found in the provinces, but even in Petersburg the locals are willing to bend over backwards to help me out, all just because I try my darnedest to patch a few sentences together in their language.

Anyway, after spending way more money at the post office that I had expected, suddenly all my plans for enjoying Petersburg seemed excessive. A trip outside the city to Peterhof, paying bus fare and steep admission fees at the fountains? Not gonna happen. Attending a performance at the Mariinsky Theater, paying twice the normal ticket price because I'm a foreigner? Heavens no.

I decided to enjoy what I could of Petersburg for free, which meant looking at attractions from a distance, taking pictures, and walking. Lots and lots of walking. It was hot and sunny all day, so I sunburned to a medium-well. With the help of Google maps, I estimate I walked around 5 miles this evening alone (this morning is excluded, since I have no clue where I went and how I got there). I walked across three islands, and when my feet finally refused to go any further, I took the metro back to my hostel. The total cost for my evening in St. Petersburg: 135 rubles (22 for the metro, 113 for dinner at a cheap cafe). That's about $4.50.

It's too bad I don't have pictures of the beautiful fountains at Peterhof or a ticket stub from the Mariinsky to take home with me. But I did gain another souvenir that's easy to carry—my sunburn. And my feet, at least, know where I've been.

Tomorrow, I'll likely do the same thing. My flight leaves St. Petersburg at 6:50 p.m., which means I have to figure out something to do all day so I don't go crazy waiting. At this point, it is difficult to psych myself up for another day here. As soon as I left Vytegra, my mindset changed to "homeward bound," and suddenly, having free time in a beautiful, historic city seems like punishment, an unnecessary detour.

But maybe I'll feel more enthusiastic after a good night's sleep in a bed, instead of curled up in a bus seat. I'm glad to spend the extra time here, if only just for the hot shower and soft bed before starting my long journey home tomorrow.

Bye Bye, Vytegra

I woke up early this morning, feverishly conscious that today was my last day in Vytegra and feeling like I had mountains of work to accomplish in very little time. Like a tornado, I attacked my bedroom, packing, organizing, folding, repacking. Then all of a sudden, at 10 a.m., I was done. I had packed up everything, finished and sealed up, 11 hours before my bus was set to depart.

Luckily, the sun was out again today, so I was able to pass the majority of this time outdoors. In the process of running errands, like buying snacks and dramamine for the 10-hour bus ride to Petersburg, I ran into about 3/4 of my acquaintances in Vytegra, who were also out running errands in the nice weather. Some of them were people I see everyday; some I hadn't seen since my very first week here. They were all sad to hear I was leaving and promised to come to the bus station to see me off.

Today being Monday, most everybody I knew had to rush off to work, so my last day was a tad lonely. I walked to the city's northern border and contemplated the landscape there. It was all trees and grass, just like rural Michigan, but it was somehow quieter, a deeper sense of isolation. Or perhaps I was projecting my own feelings onto the countryside. Being the only American living out here, one of very few foreigners, and not quite fluently speaking the language, I have been inescapably conspicuous to the locals, yet entirely distant from them.

Yes, it's definitely time to come home.

When I got tired of walking, I soaked my feet in the cool river and finally finished reading Heart of Darkness. That's where one of my students, Elya, discovered me. She told me she wanted to meet me at the station too, in order to say "bye bye." I have a feeling that, to Russians, the phrase "bye bye" sounds terrifically funny, because they almost always snicker when they say it. I even started to giggle at it. The sounds of my own language amuse me now.

When I got home, Ruslan was waiting for me. I had thought I offended him last night (I should be so lucky), but he acted as naturally as ever—that is, gloomy and untalkative. But I actually enjoyed his company. When he demanded that I tell him "something interesting," I decided to practice making snarky remarks at him, like, "It's interesting how boring you are today, Ruslan." Apparently, this was all he wanted in the first place, because we spent the next hour making wisecracks about each other and having a wonderful time. Fun guy, that Ruslan.

We were only interrupted by the arrival of Tamara Pavlovna and dear old Uncle Venya, who had come to throw me a small going-away party and escort me to the bus station. It couldn't have come off more perfectly. Venya recited a poem he wrote about our travels through the glubinka—I'll have to post it when I get the chance to translate it. It was quite funny and well-written (as best as I can tell). The four of us reminisced about my various adventures in Vytegra and beyond. It was a fantastic way to look back on my trip.

We celebrated for about an hour. I only wish Nina Evgenyevna had been there to give me a proper sendoff. I had tried to wake her, but she had gone to a funeral in the morning, which in Russia apparently means the poor 60-year-old woman was bound to come home screaming drunk. So we let her sleep it off. Too bad; she was an excellent hostess. I would have liked to hug her goodbye.

By the time we got to the bus station, a small crowd had already gathered there to send me on my way. Ivan and Marisha, all of Nina Evgenyevna's friends and family whom I'd met, our neighbors, workers from the museum and the Children's Craft House I worked with during my internship, a Veps woman I met doing my research. If I hadn't been so overwhelmed by it all, I would have taken a picture. It would have been the perfect memento—every aspect of my trip smashed onto one bus platform.

But we were running late, and I had to quickly board the bus, leaving barely enough time to say goodbye to everyone. Just as we were about the leave, my student Elya came running onto the bus to give me a hug. The last words I spoke in Vytegra before I left were in English, addressed to her: "Bye bye." Then we took off.

So now I'm bouncing violently on my way to Petersburg, the dear city of Vytegra some 100 km behind me. I have finished everything I had intended to do there—internship, research, language practice—and so much more. Yet it seems almost unfair that I have to leave, that these people will go on living their lives and I will go on living mine, thousands of miles apart. I hope I will come here again and attempt to pay back some of the hospitality they've shown me. Someday. When I have enough money and a stomach of steel to deal with these roads.

Onward to Petersburg.

The Wind Down

Unfortunately, yesterday's beach-friendly weather was too good to last, and I've spent most of today trapped inside by rain and attempting to hide from my neighbor, Ruslan. He dropped by the first time today at 9 o'clock, shortly after I had woken up, and made it impossible for me to get anything done in preparation for my tutoring sessions with Elya and Sasha.

I entirely don't understand why Ruslan keeps coming to visit me. He drops by, but has nothing to talk about, so just sits next to me in silence. Every so often he'll say, “Tell me something interesting.” As if an interesting, well-phrased story in Russian was sitting on the tip of my tongue, and I was only waiting for an invitation to dazzle him with my second-language conversational prowess. My typical response: “Umm.”

If I actually do try to start a conversation with him, he gets frustrated waiting for me to finish my sentence and interrupts me, incorrectly guessing what I was trying to say and forcing me to repeat myself several times until I give up entirely. When he talks, he is absolutely merciless in his choice of vocabulary and refuses to slow down or rephrase anything if I don't understand. Yesterday he asked me to explain to him the system by which people obtain licenses to drive different types of vehicles in America. Yeah, while I do that, why don't you go fetch me a cup of snow from the top of Mt. Everest.

So I've stopped trying to talk to Ruslan, and in general I behave as rudely toward him as I can to get him to leave. Ruslan tells me he doesn't like me when I'm grumpy, and that I'm always grumpy, yet he keeps coming over, untalkative and unrelenting, waiting for me to tell him “something interesting.” I'm certain he is as bored with me as I am with him. Yet he is always here. Suffice it to say, there are some types of people out here I just don't understand.

Of course, not everyone here is as frustrating for me as Ruslan. The majority of people I've met are interesting to talk to, patient with my still-developing language skills, and sensitive to when I have better things to do than sit around trying to entertain them. And then there's Ruslan.

There's always Ruslan.

The bright spots in my day were my lessons with Sasha and Elya. Today is my second-to-last day in Vytegra, and these were therefore my last sessions with them, so it was bittersweet. Elya brought me a gift on her flash drive: an audio book of the Master and Margarita in Russian (she didn't even know that it's one of my very favorite books). At the end of our hour together, she made a short speech about how glad she was that I agreed to be her tutor and that I've helped her so much with English. She just about made me cry.

Sasha, whom I've been tutoring longer, was even harder to part from. Earlier this week, I had designed a special lesson on the theme of Abraham Lincoln and the abolition of slavery in America. I read her an article about his life and showed her various video clips on the internet, everything from documentaries to Family Guy. Then we read “O Captain! My Captain!” and discussed how it related to Lincoln's assassination. She followed this all astonishingly well and really seemed to enjoy it, but when we got to what I thought would be the most interesting part of the lesson, comparing Abraham Lincoln to Russian history (in particular, to tsar Alexander II, who also emancipated the slave class in Russia and was also assassinated), Sasha had confessed she knew nothing about it.

But today, she surprised me by coming fully prepared to talk about that part of Russian history. It seems she had spent the last couple days researching the theme, wanting to impress me. She practically gave me an entire history lesson on 19th century Russia. At the end, she recited a poem about Alexander II from memory. Then she told me she was sad to lose her first American friend. Oh, how I'll miss these students! They're geniuses, both of them.

As soon as Sasha left, Ruslan showed up again. He can see my house from his apartment window, so he knows when I'm home and when I'm not busy. He came in, turned on the Twilight movie that was premiering on TV dubbed in Russian, and waited for me to entertain him. When I complained that I was bored of just sitting around, he told me to watch the movie, because I'm a girl and girls like Twilight. So I chased him out of the house and locked the door. Nobody makes me watch Twilight.

So I had a rather uneventful day to bring my trip to a close. All my work is officially finished; I have done everything I came here to do and a whole lot more. I even finally learned how to get rid of people (yelling and pointing at the door works in any language). Tomorrow evening, I leave Vytegra. So soon. Finally.

Youth Day

Today was the perfect recipe for relaxation in Russia: it was Saturday, it was 85 degrees and sunny, and it was the Russian national holiday of Youth Day. This means that Vytegra had a lot of partying to do.

I was woken up this morning by my phone ringing. It was Tamara Pavlovna, inviting me to go to the beach with her and her husband “to relax.” At this, I sprang to life and ran out to buy a swimsuit. I had to go to several different shops to do this, but with the help of Sasha, whom I ran into at the market, I finally found one that fit.

On my way back home, I ran into Ivan and Marisha, who were also out buying swimsuits. They invited me to go swimming at their dacha (cabin in the country), but I had to decline, since I had already agreed to go with Tamara Pavlovna. Too bad. I would have liked to see a dacha and to hang out with people my own age.

By the time I got home and made certain that my new swimsuit did indeed fit, Tamara Pavlovna and her husband had already come to pick me up. We rattled down the awful country roads for forty minutes, until there was suddenly a clearing in the trees, and the stunning Lake Onega opened before us. I am always impressed by how beautiful lakes are in the sunshine, their blue waves glittering as far as the eye can see.

On the beach, Tamara Pavlovna told me not to be scared of the water, that I didn't have to go out very far if I wasn't a strong swimmer, and if it was too cold I didn't have to go all the way under. I smirked and dove right in. I grew up on a lake. The water was a little cold, but nothing I'm not used to. And after you swim out twenty or thirty feet, the rocky lake bed turns to sand. It was a refreshing swim.

By the time I got tired of swimming, Tamara Pavlovna and her husband had found a spot on the beach that wasn't crawling with people and mosquitoes. They laid out a picnic while I stretched out in the sunshine to dry off. And as far as picnics go, this one knocked the socks off any that I've been a party to. We had smoked fish, salad, potatoes, fresh fruit and vegetables, cookies, and, of course, tea. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't drunk it myself. On the beach, in almost 90 degree heat, they put together a campfire and boiled water for tea. It's official: Russians will drink tea anytime, anywhere.

Даже на пляже (even on the beach)

Right as we finished eating, a cloud appeared overhead. I had just enough time to say, “I think it's going to rain,” before the rain started. We made a run for the car, and by the time we had packed in all our picnic supplies and climbed in the car ourselves, the rain stopped. Oh, Russia.

So we got home a little earlier than expected, which gave me enough time to take a nap before the festivities started in town. For Youth Day, the city hosts a free movie, a multi-band rock concert, and dancing at the club late into the night. Several times throughout the day, strangers on the street wished me a happy holiday, just because I'm part of the youth. It was a good day to be a young person in Russia.

Originally, Ivan and Marisha had invited me to go to the celebration with them, but at the last minute, they had decided to stay at their dacha instead. So I went to the concert by myself, hoping I would recognize someone there. No such luck. Everyone at the concert looked so gloomy that I started to feel gloomy myself. The only people having fun were the middle-aged men who had come just to get embarrassingly drunk, take off their shirts, and dance wildly in the square in front of the band.

Now I understand why Ivan and Marisha decided to stay at their dacha. The weather was nice, so at the dacha, they could relax peacefully and in good company. At the planned celebration, however, there was nothing to do but watch half the population get drunk while the other half—the underaged crowd the holiday was supposed to be for—stood around impatiently, most likely counting the days till they would be old enough to drink alcohol themselves. There was no place for the teens to dance with all the drunk old people thrashing around. What a shining example to set for the youth of the country. No wonder alcoholism is rampant here.

Disappointed, I went back home. When I walked in the door, Nina Evgenyevna told me that Ruslan, the neighbor I had made friends with, had dropped by asking about me. Apparently, he was angry I hadn't taken him with me. No sooner had she told me this than Ruslan himself walked in the door, having seen me come home from his apartment. He chastised me for going without him, gave me chocolate, and ushered me out the door again to go back to the holiday.

My second round at the festivities was about as exciting as the first. The concert had ended, and now everyone was dancing in the square to loud Russian pop music remixed with a techno beat. Ruslan and I stood at the edge, just watching. It was too loud to talk, but Ruslan obviously had no interest in dancing. Three times while we stood there, teenagers from the local schools approached me, saying they recognized me, and asked me to come dance with them. I would have gone (it would have been a lot more fun than standing around), but Ruslan was there, looming protectively by my shoulder, refusing to do anything but watch other people dance. So we stood in silence until our feet hurt and went back home.

Today, I saw the good and the bad of how Russians relax. The good half is the way they enjoy nice weather, stretching out on the beach and bringing tons and tons of food. I could get used to long afternoons of swimming, picnics, and beach naps. But the bad half—drinking excessively in public, right in front of teenagers and even little children—makes me downright angry. If the weather is nice tomorrow, I may go to Ivan and Marisha's dacha, or I may go to the beach with some of the girls who had wanted me to dance with them. Just as long as there is no more public drunkenness and no more surly, do-nothing Ruslan to deal with, I'll be happy.

Home Away From Home

In spite of predictions of rain for the rest of the week, today was sunny and 75 degrees, and it seems like the whole city spilled out onto the streets to enjoy the weather, myself included. With only a few days left in Vytegra, my trip is winding down and my time is my own, so I spent it outdoors in the sunshine with everyone else in the city who didn't have to work.

Adding to this was a large group of tourists who came to Vytegra for the day. They traveled in mobs from museum to museum, from the Sretensky Cathedral to the Soviet-era submarine, dropping litter, getting lost, and in general being a nuisance.

When some of the tourists stopped me to ask for directions, and I was actually able to explain how to get where they wanted to go, I started to realize how Vytegra has come to feel like a home to me. I know where things are located, which stores are open around the clock, the names of people from different organizations, which cafes are cheaper and have friendlier staff. I even get impatient with out-of-towners. To all outward appearances, I'm a local—until I open my mouth and garble a few words in my silly American accent, that is.

At some point in the morning, I noticed a mother and teenage girl wandering around the cathedral yard, looking lost. Feeling indulgent, I asked them if they were trying to find the entrance to the bell tower. They were, so I showed them where it was and decided on a whim to go check it out myself. I'd already been up there, but this time the weather was nicer, and I was able to take pictures.



Afterward, at lunch, I was introduced to a totally different aspect of life in Vytegra I'd never noticed before. The cafe I normally eat at was closed "due to reasons" (their sign didn't say which reasons), so I went to a different restaurant not far away. Despite it being lunchtime and the streets being full of people, this restaurant was completely empty. The food was delicious, almost exactly the same as at the cafe that was closed, so I could think of no reason why they had no other customers.

Later, Sasha, one of the students I tutor in English, explained it to me. When I told her where I had eaten lunch, she wrinkled her face and exclaimed, "How can you eat their food?" I told her I thought it tasted fine. She shook her head. "No, I mean, how can you eat their food?"

Evidently, the restaurant I had eaten at was run by Caucasians, immigrants from the Caucasus region. Muslims, most likely. Sasha had nothing good to say about them. They come from far away, she told me, and take all the best jobs. They are rich and stingy, dark-skinned and ugly. We don't like them.

Before this, I wouldn't have pegged Sasha as being prejudiced. In fact, at our last lesson, she told me how embarrassed she was by white supremacist groups in Russia, that such racists make their country look bad, and it is wrong to think some people are better than others because of the color of their skin. So I was shocked to hear her so quickly dismiss a whole race of people.

But when she explained further, I started to understand. Sasha's father works for Caucasians. She says that he works long hard hours for them and hardly gets paid a dime, while they sit back and get rich. It seems that the immigrant Caucasian population has formed something like a merchant class here, moving in from the south and running obviously profitable businesses while native Vytegorians (Vytegorites?) struggle to find jobs. So to Sasha (and to a lot of others here), the Caucasians symbolize greed, and she has learned to resent them as a unit based on the position they have taken in society.

This is the first time I felt any sort of racial tension in Russia. I do remember seeing at the open-air marketplace that a couple of the stands were run by women with black scarves wrapped around their heads (Russian women tend to wear more colorful headscarves if they choose to wear one), and a friend of mine warned me to be careful talking to them. Perhaps she only meant that they drive a tough bargain.

Even so, I'm saddened to see racial resentment in this quiet little city. I had heard a lot about problems in Chechnya, in the Caucasus region, in Georgia and so on. But I thought that here, so far removed in the north, people could live peacefully with each other as one. Of course, that was just naivete. Fairy tales, as Ruslan said. Anywhere you go, people will make up reasons to hate one another.

Having learned this, I see Vytegra somehow as a different city. Not necessarily worse—rather, more real, more lifelike. Just like in any city in the U.S., you can find people who are racist, small-minded, willfully ignorant. You can find them here too.

Thus I came to realize that I'm not a local, like I had felt this morning. I'm just a well-informed visitor who can carry out a short conversation in Russian. Many of the nuances of life in Vytegra and in Russia in general are still lost on me, and they will likely remain that way.

Part of me wants to seek out a Caucasian family and get to know them, to find out what their lives are really like, but I only have three days left in Vytegra. This trip was about the Veps people. If I want to find out about Caucasian peoples across Russia, I guess I'll just have to make a separate trip.

Between Babuski and Schoolkids

Perhaps the one thing lacking in my trip up to this point has been contact with people my own age (I'm 20). I have sat and reminisced with elderly women, and I have joked and played with schoolchildren, but I haven't just hung out with young adults like me. The closest I had come is the two students I now tutor in English, who are 15 and 16, and they constantly prove what a difference 4 years in age can make by saying things like, "Yeah, there's drugs, alcohol, teen pregnancy, and whatever... but the biggest problem for teens in Russia is parents. Parents are the worst. They just don't understand anything."

Honestly, I never really had any hope of finding anyone my own age, because the fact of the matter is, in Vytegra, there really isn't anyone my age. As soon as kids graduate high school at 17, they flee to the big cities in search of higher education, jobs, and modern conveniences. Between the ages of 17 and 30, there is a noticeable gap in the population here, as in most of rural Russia. So I gave up on making friends my own age.

Until last night. Out of nowhere, I got a call from Ivan, who drove our van to Oshta toward the beginning of the month. He (age 29) and his wife Marisha (age 24?) wanted to take me to the nearby Andoma Mountains and "hang out." So I agreed. They picked me up around 8 p.m., blasting loud rock music from their modern, German-made car, and we hurtled down the winding roads at 150 km/h (90 mph?) into the countryside.

They showed me the training school for the M.Ch.S. (Ministry of Emergency Situations) where Marisha is studying to become an accountant. They also train firemen, paramedics, and soldiers there. It was an interesting sight, especially since I gathered that access there is somewhat restricted. The guard at the gate was reluctant to let us in so late at night until he heard I was American; then he insisted that I go take a look.



From there, we went to the Andoma Mountains, which defy description. The picture below hardly even does it justice. We sat on the cliff overlooking Lake Onega and talked about absolutely everything within my vocabulary and a few things outside my vocabulary that could be explained by gesturing wildly. We even told jokes. It was nice to relax with people I could so easily relate to, even if they were still a bit older than me.



Ivan and Marisha dropped me off back home after midnight and promised we'll hang out again. And after the rough roads, I fell asleep instantly.

Today I was similarly surprised. After spending the bulk of the day translating at the Children's Craft House, I came home to find I had a guest, Ruslan. He had been invited by Nina Evgenyevna, who had sensed that I wanted to hang out with people closer to my own age. Ruslan is 27, so still a bit older, but he was also very easy to relate to.

We spent a good chunk of the evening at his parent's apartment playing Modern Warfare 2 (in Russian) on his computer, while he struggled to explain to me what on earth I was supposed to be doing. We laughed uproariously at my constant blundering. I kept accidentally shooting at the soldiers on my own side. But to be fair, I'm bad at video games in English, so I was bound to fail in a different language.

At his mother's insistence, Ruslan also showed me pictures of Chechnya, where he had been deployed in the army and from which he has only recently returned. It was the only time during the evening he stopped smiling and cracking jokes. I tried to ask him what it was like there, but he did not want to talk about it. All he would say was, "Everything you have ever heard about Chechnya is a fairytale." And that was that. I guess it's better to leave war to the video games.

So it's been a busy couple days, but I'm happy that I'm finally making friends here. Unfortunately, I leave Vytegra Monday evening, so that doesn't leave a lot of time for hanging out. Of course, there's always email, and I finally broke down and registered for Vkontakte (Russian Facebook). Thanks to the internet, at least, I can keep my new friends.

How (Not) to Pack for Russia

The two days before I left, I drove myself crazy trying to figure out how on earth to pack for a month-long trip to Russia. Even if I were to do this again, I think I would still feel almost as lost. So the most helpful thing I can do is make a note of what I was grateful to have with me, what I missed, what was a burden, and what I was glad to have left behind. And again, I like countdowns.

Top 5 Best Things I Brought to Russia
5. Small vanity mirror - You can't always count on having access to a mirror, and I prefer my hairdos not to be the product of blind guesswork.
4. Travel-size rolls of toilet paper - Public bathrooms often don't supply toilet paper, so I always carry some in my coat pocket. Also, now that I have a cold, it doubles as tissue.
3. Umbrella - Near as I can tell, in Russia, if there is no snow on the ground, that means rain is possible that day.
2. Extra garbage bags, shopping bags, and ziploc baggies - For whatever reason, bags are hard to come by in Russia. At the store, you frequently have to pay if you want a bag. The small baggies help my personal sense of organization, shopping bags are convenient for carrying things, and I use a garbage bag to throw my dirty laundry in.
1. Sleep mask - Without it, I never would have survived the White Nights of June.

Top 5 Things I Wish I Had Brought
5. Hand sanitizer - Actually, I did bring some, but I think it became the only casualty of my encounter with a pickpocket in the metro, so I just wish it hadn't been stolen. They don't sell hand sanitizer (anywhere that I can find), and I really miss it. Soap and water in public bathrooms is even rarer than toilet paper.
4. Better shoes - I brought a really good pair of stylish, waterproof high-heeled boots that are similar to what a lot of Russian women wear, but for many reasons, they weren't practical in the glubinka. The tennis shoes I brought, on the other hand, are not waterproof, as I came to discover. For the entire week I spent in the glubinka, my feet were wet from rain and mud puddles.
3. More versatile wardrobe - Layers, layers, layers. Sometimes it's cold. Sometimes it's hot. Sometimes it's cold then hot then cold in the same day. I should have brought more over- and undershirts.
2. Room in my luggage to take gifts back home - I brought more stuff than I needed, and now I'm stuck dragging it back with me. To this I must somehow add the mountain of books given to me, a painting, and tons of Vepsian crafs.
1. More gifts from America - I brought gifts for my hostess here, for Tamara Pavlovna, and then a bundle of 4 small American flags to give to kids. This lasted me about 4 seconds. Now when people give me gifts, I can't reciprocate with a little something from America.

Top 5 Things I Wish I Had NOT Brought
5. Towel - A lot of the time, the towels they give you at hotels in Russia are small by American standards. Knowing about this and not wanting to deal with it, I brought my own. Looking back, it is easier to get used to the obnoxiously small towels than to worry about dragging my own with me wherever I go, especially after it's already wet.
4. Books - I brought reading material in case I got homesick for English. Little did I know, my blog has worked fine to satisfy my longing for the language, and I don't have time to read. If I did have time, I would read in Russian. I could use the practice, and nowadays, if I do read in English, I have a difficult time switching back to Russian when someone wants my attention. "Yes, what did you—erm, da, chto?"
3. Flip flops - The ground is always wet.
2. Water bottle - This was useful on the train and plane, but in Russia, the tap water is too dirty to drink without boiling it. Since I've arrived, I've bought bottled water instead.
1. So many clothes - Russians, like Europeans, tend to wear the same outfit every day until it's dirty. That means you can get away with bringing only 2-3 outfits for a long trip if you like, and just wash your clothes in the sink as needed. You may be thinking, "Ew, gross, I'm not doing that," but trust me, it's much better than dragging a suitcase full of a bunch of different outfits everywhere when no one expects you to change your clothes daily.

Top 5 Things I'm Glad I Didn't Bring
5. My retainer - I have enough trouble with the many fricatives and affricates (sounds) of Russian without a retainer impeding me. My orthodontist will be furious.
4. Credit Card - Most places only accept cash, and my credit card company would charge me $5 per transaction if I tried to use mine abroad.
3. Swimsuit - The water is too cold for swimming, but the Russians who want me to swim don't accept that as a good excuse for not jumping into freezing cold water. However, they do understand the excuse that I simply don't have a swimsuit with me.
2. Shampoo, conditioner, soap, etc. - They sell these things in Russia for a decent price. If you are going to the provinces, buy conditioner while you're still in a large city like Moscow or Petersburg, since they don't always stock it.
1. Hair dryer, flat iron, etc. - Even with a transformer, it would have fried. If you need a hair dryer, buy one when you get here, or if you're staying in someone's home, borrow theirs. They probably have one—most people hate going to bed with wet hair and will yell at you if you try.


In general, less is more in my experience. If those of you planning trips to Russia have questions along the lines of "Do they sell X in Russia?", ask. I'm happy to tell you what I know or find out for you.

"Bryn, how do you say 'Great Patriotic War' in English?"

This morning I woke up to the sound of Nina Evgenyevna's voice. “Brinochka, today is the 69th anniversary of the start of the war,” she was telling me with a measure of importance. After several seconds of brain fogginess, I realized she meant World War II, and doing some math, I figured out that the anniversary in question most likely marked the day German troops first invaded the Soviet Union.

This is very revealing of the different attitude Russians have about World War II. For me, it's something I read about in textbooks in grade school, a horrific war that took place thousands of miles away. Beyond Pearl Harbor and the Aleutian Islands, no part of it was fought on our own soil. When people say simply “the war,” WWII is not even the first war I think of (our current occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq comes to mind first).

But for Russians, “the Great Patriotic War” (what they call the portion of it fought on their own soil) is always conversationally relevant, because it actually crossed their border. Even this deep into Russia, I see monuments to fallen soldiers everywhere, still decorated with ribbons and flowers almost 70 years later. Many of the people I've spoken with have memorized dates, numbers, locations, and names relevant to the war and, given the chance, will fully educate you, as if they're a professional historian. They know which towns, which buildings were destroyed, which of their relatives died by enemy hands.

To me, WWII is the subject of programs on the History Channel. To them, it's their own history. For the first time, I've realized how lucky I am to live in a country that, aside from a few tragic incidents, has fought all wars abroad for almost 150 years.

This fact was made even clearer to me when I went to work today at the museum. My official work today was to practice translating museum tours orally from Russian to English in preparation for a group of tourists arriving later this week—possibly one of the most difficult tasks I have ever undertaken. Although I understand the majority of everyday spoken Russian, what I actually take in is the idea, the gist of it. I understand the who, the what, the where, and the when, and can ocassionally pick up on the how and the why, but I rarely understand every single word. And even if I do, I get so mixed up by the end of the sentence that I can't remember what I was supposed to be translating in the first place. Compound this with the out-of-the-ordinary and technical vocabulary related to museum exhibits and... suffice it to say, this will take much practice.

We were working through exhibits chronologically, but my training derailed as soon as we made it to the 1940s. The woman and two students I was working with decided to explain the whole history of World War II relevant to the Vytegra region. I wish I had been able to pay closer attention, but I was linguistically exhausted after a couple hours of translating, and as soon as the subject switched to the war, they all started speaking so quickly that it sounded to me like machine-gun fire.

Luckily, before long they guessed correctly that I was tired and sent me home, where Nina Evgenyevna promptly put me down for a nap. This is another thing I like about Russia. Napping is not the least bit shameful. All I have to do is stretch out on a couch, and someone comes to put a blanket on me and tells me to take a nap. This even works in other people's houses. Similarly, they encourage eating between meals (перекусывать – to have a snack). There is no such thing as spoiling one's appetite here. When I'm hungry, I am fed. When I'm sleepy, I take a nap. I feel perfectly spoiled.

On the other hand, sometimes all this spoiling crosses the fine line into presumptuousness. Recently, I caught a cold, and as soon as Nina Evgenyevna discovered this, she declared, "I will cure you," and hasn't given me a moment's peace since. Taking mystery pills, gargling some foul medicinal concoction, soaking my feet in hot water... I'm not sure which is more dangerous: catching a cold in Russia, or letting Russians find out about it.

But now that I have patiently indulged her endless list of remedies, Nina Evgenyevna and I are vegging out in front of the TV, watching “Let's Get Married,” a game show she assures me she loathes yet watches religiously. On it, a man (the groom) is presented three brides. They do various things to get to know each other better, and then the groom's panel of friends help him decide which one to marry. What a ridiculous way to take such a serious step. Nina Evgenyevna keeps telling me to put my computer away, that I'm working too hard, and that I need to eat more candy and yell at the TV with her.

Sounds like a deal to me.

10 Useful Russian Words, and Other Advice for Travelers

(I had another day off, so like a good linguist-in-training, I spent the day thinking about words. These are my musings.)

Since the moment I landed in St. Petersburg, I have been collecting new words. Most of them are instantly forgotten in the overflow of impressions, but a few stick out in my mind as being especially useful. Here is a small piece of my collection, the words that I hear the most often or most often want to remember. The list is intended for beginner and intermediate language students who already know the basics, and it is by no means comprehensive. But I'm still going to write it like a countdown, because it's just more fun that way.


10. негазированная - negazirovannaya = still, uncarbonated
For whatever reason, Russians prefer to drink carbonated water. To me, carbonated water is an unwelcome assault on my nose and mouth. I hate accidentally buying газированная вода when all I want is a cold, normal bottle of water. Always check that what you are buying is негазированная, or ask for it без газа (without gas).

9. скидка – skidka = discount, sale
For obvious reasons, it's nice to know that you are getting a good deal on something. If you're visiting a museum, ask if there are student discounts (скидки для студентов). I recommend getting an ISIC card if you're going to St. Petersburg (probably useful in Moscow too), because they will want proof that you're a student, and your university I.D. may not be good enough.

8. просто так – prosto tak = just 'cause
I like this phrase simply because I get tired of explaining things. My Russian skills peak at about 3 pm and then plummet dramatically as the day goes on. Russians are very curious about why you're here, why you study what you study, why this and why that. By 9 pm, my answer shortens to просто так, just 'cause.

7. местный, местная - mestnyi, mestnaya = local (adjective or noun)
When I was asking for directions in Petersburg, I often got the cursory response, "Я не местный," and then the person I had asked would disappear. It means they're not a local and can't give good directions, so they're not going to waste your time or their own. So if someone asks you for directions, you only have to say "Я не местный / местная," and you're off the hook.

6. хватать / хватить - hvatat' / hvatit' = to be enough
I remember learning this verb in class, and then I promptly forgot how to use it. But it comes up in Russian conversation very frequently. "Соля хватит?" (Is there enough salt?), and so on. I believe it never takes a subject and always requires genitive case, but like I said, I forgot how to use it. I've been trying to learn by listening, which is difficult. Russians mumble. I'm at least sure this sentence is correct: "У меня денег не хватает" (I don't have enough money).

5. замерзать / замёрзнуть - zamerzat' / zamyorznut' = to freeze / to freeze to death
Often, Russians express themselves with a cold efficiency that hearkens of Soviet times. But when it comes to personal comfort, they get colorful and exaggerate. You're never just hungry; you're starving. Likewise, you're never just cold; you've frozen to death. If you are dressed too lightly by Russian standards, expect to hear the following sentence a lot: "Вы не замёрзли?" (Aren't you frozen solid?!)

4. Оставьте меня в покое. - Ostav'te menya v pokoe. = Leave me alone.
Okay, so it's a sentence, not a word, but it's still very useful. In Russian class, they tend not to teach you how to get rude. But sometimes you need to be, especially since Russians, by American standards, seem rather nosy. Even if you're trying to be a good sport about it, it's likely to wear on you after a while. When you've had enough, you need a way to ask for some space. This sentence isn't necessarily rude; it depends on your tone. If you really need to get your point across, like if a drunk person is following you home (it happens), try something like "Отойдите" (get away, back off), but be wary: this version is very rude. I've only used it once, and it garnered a strong reaction.

3. общаться / пообщаться – obschat'sya / poobschat'sya = to associate, to hang out
This word gets thrown around all the time, and the dictionary definition "to associate" doesn't quite fit, in my opinion. Russians will say it when asking you to hang out. Another common construction: "Мы по-русски общаемся?" (Can we converse in Russian?) I am occasionally asked this question after people find out I'm American, but before they find out I can speak Russian alright, usually when someone else (Venya) introduces me.

2. кушать - kushat' = to eat
I hear this word every day about a hundred times. It's not the word for "to eat" that we learned in class, but it might just be the most important word in the language. "Кушай, кушай," they tell me every couple hours: "Eat, eat." The word есть will work fine in all the same circumstances, but be prepared to listen for "кушай," especially if you go visit a babushka.

1. ой — oy = oops
This isn't even a word; it's a sound. It may seem strange or dumb to adopt a sound into your vocabulary, but imagine the following scenario. You are eating at someone's house, and while they're back is turned, you spill a glass of milk. You probably don't want to spend the time to construct a sentence like, "Lyudmila Aleksandrovna, I knocked the milk over!" And the American "oops" just doesn't quite cut it in Russia. Better just say "Oy!" like the Russians do. If you are especially upset, you can repeat it ad infinitum: oyoyoyoyoy.


Those are just a few words and expressions that have come in handy for me, but more important than words is how you approach the language. Don't just listen; talk, even if it's wrong. The best advice I can give to unloosen your tongue is to take advantage of the free word-order in Russian. It's your biggest ally. Get sloppy. Spit out words as they come to you, even if it seems like the wrong order. You'll get your point across much faster and much easier than if you try to phrase everything perfectly, the way you would if you were writing the sentence down.

I adopted this system after about a week in Russia, and suddenly, it was like the floodgates were opened. I started answering in complete sentences and telling full stories. Yes, sometimes it comes out as word salad ("To America friends I package to send can yes?"), and frequently it will sound to Russians rather off, but they understand that you're a foreigner, and most are quite patient with even the silliest mistakes. It's much better to take the risk than to stick to one-word answers. You'll make more friends that way.

And one final piece of advice: carry a small notebook and pen with you at all times. Write down new words when you hear them in Russian and look them up in the dictionary later when you have time. When there's a word you want to say but don't know in Russian, write it down in English to look up later. It's not practical to expect to write down everything new, but if you're getting 1 out of every 100 new words, you're doing yourself a huge favor. I try to remember to read through my list once every night before I fall asleep, and it's surprising how helpful it's been to me.

Also, such a notebook will make an interesting souvenir from your trip. My little collection of words reads almost like a diary. After ol' Uncle Venya took me on a surprise trek through a forest, my notebook acquired a cluster of words like, "mosquito," "bug spray," "bite," "to suck," "itch," "poisonous," "ivy," and "rash." More recently, I have come down with a cold, and my collection now includes, "to gargle," "contagious," "tissue," and "congested." Years from now I'll be able to read through these words and remember what a ridiculous time I had explaining to Venya why I didn't want to go on a boat before I knew how to say "I get seasick," or how confused I was when several women were cooing and gesturing toward my ears before I understood the word for "braids."

"Тесьма"

So that's what I can say, based on my experiences. I have good days and bad days in Russian still. Sometimes it seems like my tongue has a twenty-pound weight hanging from it. Sometimes I start talking too fast, and then my Russian comes out with English words randomly inserted (most often the word "like" slips in, a habit I've been trying to break in English). A couple times, I completely failed to make any sense or thoroughly embarrassed myself by confusing words (what I had wanted: "obmen valyuty" = currency exhange; what I actually asked for: "otmena valyuty" = abolition of currency). But I keep a good sense of humor about it, and for the most part, people have been impressed with my middling Russian skills.

So be brave and take chances. You'll probably do better than you expect.

Home Again

Today, I left Petrozavodsk by bus at 7:50 in the morning and arrived in Vytegra shortly after 2:00. I bought the very last ticket available, so the bus was completely packed and, of course, uncomfortable, but I made it back without mishap. Except when we stopped to ferry across the river and I had to fight a goat for my cookies. I kept the cookies, but now I have a dirty goat hoofprint on my coat and goat slobber on one of my bags. I will never ceased to be amused by the surprises waiting for me in the glubinka.

As if to prove that I was right to come back early, it's been raining the entire day. If I tried to explore more of Petrozavodsk, I'd be soaking wet by now. So, although short, it was a good trip. I think I spent a total of $10 on food, movie tickets, museum admission, and souvenirs yesterday, and today I spent $10 on a bus ticket home, so it was very nearly a free trip as well. And until I leave Vytegra for good, I don't have to ride any more buses! I look forward to a whole week without traveling anywhere.

At Large in Petrozavodsk

Located just five degrees south of the Arctic Circle is the beautiful northern city of Petrozavodsk, little more than twice the size of Ann Arbor. It is the capital of the Republic of Karelia (one of Russia's 83 federal subjects, sort of like a state) and is more than 300 years old, having been built along the shores of Lake Onega as a manufacturing site. Its name comes from the Russian tsar Peter the Great and the word for factory, zavod. Although, one resident I spoke with suggested more poetically that the name means, “Peter behind the water,” (za vodoi = behind the water), which would also make sense.



This was the city I explored on foot from 10:00 this morning until 7:00 tonight. At first, I wasn't sure what to do. The only reason I had wanted to come here is because the majority of Veps live in Petrozavodsk, but their local population (about 4,000) is entirely swallowed up by the urban population (260,000). So I knew I had almost no chance of finding the Veps here. Yet I wanted to do something, so my hosts dropped me off by the shore of Onega this morning and told me to take a cab back when I was done exploring.



And off I went, without a map or any clear-cut ideas as to what I was actually doing. The obvious first choice was to explore the lake shore, and possibly from that alone, I fell in love with the city of Petrozavodsk. The weather was on my side, warm and sunny with no chance of rain. I might have stayed there all day, but a loud group of American and English tourists drinking kvass spoiled the serenity of the beach, and I set off down the main road.

Petrozavodsk reminds me a bit of Ann Arbor, in that there are trees everywhere and you are always either walking uphill or down. This afforded me some astounding views of the lake and made it very easy to navigate. I spent most of the morning souvenir shopping, but I was put off by the high prices, so I quickly changed tactics.



After lunch, I visited an art exhibition for 15 rubles (50 cents), where I impressed the attendant with my Russian. At first, she had been standoffish, but after I made the effort to jerryrig a couple sentences together, she dropped everything she was doing to help me figure out where to go next. Students of Russian: you can make a lot of friends quickly in Russia simply by proving you can say more than da, net, and spasibo. The exhibition attendant gave me directions to the scenic Round Square (think square as in piazza, not the shape) where the museum was located, the best place to start looking for information about the Veps.



The museum was full of information, but not the kind I was looking for. All I found was a couple old maps that located the Veps people in the region since the 9th century. In fact, the Veps have been here since at least the 4th century, so this was nothing new. The museum attendants were interested in why I had come all the way from America to study the Veps, but they had no advice for me. One happened to know the Veps Culture Society I had tried to contact before, but, she said, they were closed on the weekends. The University of Petrozavodsk, which offers a comprehensive Veps language major, is also closed on the weekend.

After that, I gave up on finding any information on the Veps in Petrozavodsk. If I had been able to plan my trip here, it might have worked out better, but the weather would likely have been a lot worse. So I decided to take what I can get: a beautiful day in an interesting city as nothing more than a tourist.

I spent the afternoon wandering as far as my legs would take me. When I got too tired to walk anymore, I went to the theater and saw Killers. I had wanted to see Toy Story to find out what Woody and Buzz sound like in Russian, but I missed it by twenty minutes. As for Killers... it was an excellent way to sit down for two hours.



Not long after the movie, I ran out of steam and found a taxi. I told the driver the address to take me to, and he looked at me in perplexity. I panicked, thinking I had said or done something terribly wrong. After a moment, the driver asked, “You live here?” I said no, I'm American, and he started laughing. He said I had pronounced the name of the street so well (Pityakanskaya) that I sounded Russian, but I pronounced the street number like a German. Go figure.

We talked the whole way back to my lodgings, and the driver only accepted 100 rubles from me for the ride. Denis, my host, assured me that 150 or more was the going rate, so once again, being an American that can clumsily spit out a couple sentences in Russian has worked to my advantage.

But now I'm exhausted, and I feel that I discovered for certain there is no actual research I can do here in Petrozavodsk, at least not this weekend. I explained this to my hosts, and tomorrow morning they're driving me to the bus station to go back to Vytegra a day early. I'm sad to leave such a beautiful city behind. Maybe I'll have to come back in grad school.

And Off I Go

Today I was enjoying yet another in a series of days off. Since Tamara Pavlovna is out of town, I had nothing expected of me until Monday—a welcome break from all the to-do of last week. Nina Evgenyevna invited me to accompany her to a celebration honoring the library's 140th anniversary, and out of curiosity I agreed.

From the celebration, I concluded that Russians really like to throw parties. It lasted almost two hours. People sang and recited poetry they composed specially for the occasion, and two children's dance groups performed. They had a couple powerpoint presentations prepared about the history of the library, and awards and flowers were given to the library staff. I can't imagine anyone in America throwing such a party for the anniversary of a building, even if that building is 140 years old.



After the celebration, the sun came out, and it warmed up to almost 80 degress—the warmest it has gotten since I've been in Russia. So I decided I wanted to see how far I could walk by myself. I packed up some water and some cookies (I'm addicted to this one brand of Russian cookies with Jonathan Swift's Gulliver,walking among the Lilliputians, printed on them), and I set off toward the locks.

I had hardly gotten started when my phone rang. It was Tamara Pavlovna, calling me on behalf of Nina Evgenyevna. “Go home,” she said. “They're waiting to take you to Petrozavodsk.”

Now, I had mentioned something about wanting to make a trip to Petrozavodsk, but no definite plans had ever been made. So I was a bit surprised, to say the least. I hurried back home and, sure enough, they were waiting for me.

Nina Evgenyevna explained that she had called her son and daughter-in-law, who live in Petrozavodsk, and their son is away only this weekend. They said I can sleep in his bed, free of charge. That's a lucky break, considering I was expecting to have to book a hotel room for some $40-50 per night.

Even luckier, one of Nina Evgenyevna's friends was driving from Vytegra to Petrozavodsk that night to visit his son, and he take me along for free. That saved me a $10 bus ticket and having to sit for six or seven hours on a shaky, uncomfortable bus that would most likely trigger my upchuck reflexes yet again.

The friend, Yura, was planning on leaving at five o'clock, which Nina Evgenyevna found out at four. So I rushed to pack a bag for a couple nights, swallowed a bowl of borsch in about 30 seconds, and left with Yura for Petrozavodsk.

By car, it's a much shorter ride than by bus, a little less than five hours. Made lively by all the sunshine, I stayed awake for the entire ride, made conversation with Yura, and observed the courtesy among Russian drivers in the countryside. On the difficult roads out here, the drivers all look out for one another. For instance, when a car approached behind us, Yura would watch the road ahead and signal when it was safe for them to pass us.

At another point, a series of oncoming cars started flashing their headlights at us, and suddenly Yura slowed down under the speed limit and put on his seatbelt. A minute later, we passed by a police car, hidden by a bend in the road. Once it was out of sight, Yura started flashing his lights at oncoming cars to warn them of the policeman ahead. Evidently, people across the globe unite against cops.

As we drove into Petrozavodsk, I was immediately awed by the scenery and the size of the city. It's nothing like what I expected. I have a lot of exploring to do. Of course, tonight it's already late, and I'm tired from the long car ride, so I will get acquainted with this new city tomorrow.

Two Hundread Pictures!?

Today I had another day off, but it has been dreadfully cold, windy, and rainy all day. So I spent my time uploading all the pictures I've taken so far during my trip (click the image on the right to see the album). The reason there's so many is that, last week, Venya carried my camera for me and appointed himself the trip photographer, taking pictures of whatever interested him. If I had been in control of my camera, there would be a lot more pictures of landscapes and buildings, and a lot fewer of me screwing up my face in a "Seriously, Venya, stop taking my picture" sort of expression. But at least for the next two weeks, my camera is back in my own hands, so I will post more interesting photos as I take them.

Halfway Point: Finally Already

Today, I got a day off. The only thing on my schedule was to visit the museum director, Tamara Pavlovna, and tell her how my trip went. I had wanted to go alone, but Venya insisted we go together at 11:00. When I showed up on time, Venya had already been there half an hour, telling Tamara Pavlovna everything about the trip, so there was nothing left for me to tell.

But Tamara Pavlovna was smarter than to believe everything he said. I complained about Venya's unnecessary trip into the countryside after I had already wanted to go home, pointing out we could have hitchhiked from Vinnitsy on Sunday and returned to Vytegra two days sooner. Tamara Pavlovna agreed with me and thoroughly scolded Venya.

“What were you thinking, dragging her from village to village when there's no cell phone connection and no running water? You worried her poor mother to death. Her boyfriend probably already found a new girl. She has work she's supposed to do on the internet; she missed a whole week of it.” And on and on.

After a couple days of failing to explain to Venya why the two-day extension to my trip was a problem, it was cathartic to hear Tamara Pavlovna champion my cause. So I let go all my bitterness and started to focus on how much Venya helped me during the trip. Before long, all was forgiven, and we were laughing and telling anecdotes about our travels—the 89-year-old woman who told me she fell in love with me, and the schoolkids in Shyoltozero who dubbed my random traveling companion “Uncle Venya.”

Now that the stress of traveling has passed, I can say it was a good trip, and I'm glad Venya was there to help, even if sometimes we completely failed to understand each other. It happens.

The rest of the day, I spent doing what I wanted to do, which was mostly wandering around Vytegra and eating cookies in the park while the sun was shining and the air was warm. I met an old woman in the park who claimed she could barely tell I have an accent. I think she was hard of hearing.

In the evening, a student dropped by, and we had an impromptu English lesson, practicing talking about the weather and family. She is 15 and very committed to taking lessons from me, because she wants to work as an English translator when she grows up. She plans on coming every other day until I leave Vytegra. I find that I really enjoy working with students on their English, and the pay is decent, so I'm happy with this arrangement.

So I had an easy, relaxing day. It strikes me that my trip to Russia is halfway over. Two weeks from today, I board a plane to fly home. I halfway feel like I've already been here for an eternity, and yet I also feel like I only just arrived. I'm homesick, yet there is still so much more I want to see and do before I leave. It's strange how two weeks can feel interminably long and inscrutably brief at the same time. When you travel, time doesn't fly; it runs in circles until you get dizzy.

At Long Last

I'm back home in Vytegra. I have bathed, eaten, changed into dry clothes, and checked my email. I feel sane again.

Our hostess last night in Nemzha is the reason we got back. Her name is Galina. She teaches Russian grammar at the middle school and is a single mother of two: Sasha, 13, and Dasha, 10. Despite numerous hardships, she has done very well for herself. She has a modern two-story home and a car of her own. Venya and I met her when we stopped to ask her for directions, and she offered us a place to stay for free. She fired up the banya for us to bathe in and even let me sleep in her bed, while she shared a bed with her daughter.

I felt I had to do something to repay all the hospitality, and when I learned that her children needed help with English, I knew exactly what to do. I started talking to them, half in Russian and half in English. Dasha was much braver about answering in English than her older brother, so I asked her to go get her English workbook. For the rest of the night, Dasha and I worked together on English pronunciation and vocabulary while Sasha sulked nearby and made sarcastic comments, like a normal teenager.

I'm proud of one exercise I came up with to practice the English “th” sound. This is a difficult sound for Russians, and they usually approximate it with an “f” instead. To break Dasha of this habit, I told her to hold onto her lower lip, stick her tongue between her teeth, and, without letting go of her lip, repeat after me: “think, thought, through, lather, nether, death, tooth...” She thought it was a fun and silly game, and it actually worked. So there's linguistics for you, replacing a labiodental with an interdental by brute force.

Galina was so happy to see us working together and was especially interested in my pronunciation exercise. Before I knew it, she had brought me a grammar book as a gift, and she and I worked on my Russian for a little while, a useful refresher for me. She helped me practice the Russian soft “L”, which I have never pronounced right before. I think I finally got it, though it will require more practice before I consistently get it right in speech.

We were so absorbed in our bidirectional language lesson that no one wanted to go to bed (except Venya, who felt left out). We finally went to bed around 2, so we all slept in late. When we finally woke up, Galina made a delicious, fresh breakfast and told Venya and I that, as payment for Dasha's English lesson, she would drive us to the bus station in Vinnitsy so we could finally get home.

When we got to Vinnitsy, I was surprised by the museum director, who wanted to give me a tour of the Veps museum there. She apologized for being too busy to talk with me during the holiday on Sunday. The museum itself had nothing I hadn't already seen at other museums, but the director told me a lot about the Veps people of the Leningrad Oblast, which I didn't know much about.

When Venya and I left the museum, Galina was waiting for us outside with another car. She had found us a driver who would take us to the crossroads some 25 km away. At the crossroad, we could easily hitchhike back to Vytegra and get there much faster than by bus, which wouldn't arrive until tomorrow morning.

So that's what we did. We wound up riding with lumber truck driver all the way back to Vytegra. His cabin was terribly uncomfortable, but we got here quickly, without paying a kopeck, and without me getting carsick on an old, shaky bus. So I'm happy.

Of course, we could have just as easily hitchhiked home from Vinnitsy on Sunday, so I'm still annoyed with Venya for leading me all across the countryside for no reason. But that's all over now, anyway.

I'm so glad to be back in Vytegra. Before my little trip, I had thought of Vytegra as a small, rural town in the middle-of-nowhere. Now it suddenly seems like a lively center of urban life. I can't imagine how I'll react when I get back to Ann Arbor after this.

Glubinka

I am not in Vytegra. Not even close.

Venya and I left Ladva for Vinnitsy on foot, because there is no bus. I felt bad for treating Venya so coldly last night. After all, he meant well. It's all just communication failures and cultural differences. I decided to learn from the hardy Russian spirit and try to enjoy the experience.


So what if it's 9 km to the next village, and we have to walk and carry all our things? At least the weather is marvelous. So what if the mosquitoes are eating me alive? The bite marks are just free souvenirs from Russia. So what if it has begun to rain? I haven't been able to bathe in days; I could use a shower. So what if Venya forgot his umbrella? At least I have mine.

...Actually, Venya was carrying my computer, so I held my umbrella over his head while I got drenched by the rain. All my extra clothes, all the presents I have received—everything was torrentially soaked in the downpour. But Venya and my computer stayed dry, and I was filled with resentment for Venya anew.

We did manage to hitchhike part of the way. I can hear my mother's heart skip a beat from here, so let me reassure everyone: hitchhiking in rural Russia is safe. Not a lot of people have their own car, so it's common practice to pick up strangers and give them a lift to the next village. Every time we flagged down a ride, Venya told them that I was an American, and our drivers were so shocked and interested that they almost wanted to drive us all the way back to Vytegra themselves, all 140 km or so. But of course, they had their own schedules to stick to.

So we didn't make it to Vytegra today. In fact, we didn't even make it back to Vinnitsy, where we can catch a bus to Vytegra. We only got about half way there, a little more than 20 km, to the village of Nemzha. According to Venya, it's best to stay the night here and get to Vinnitsy tomorrow, to Vytegra on Wednesday.

I'm still trying to figure out why we left Vinnitsy in the first place, since that is where the bus to Vytegra is. I had thought we'd be back in Vytegra by now. I keep asking Venya why we left, and he keeps assuring me it's better this way. When I object, he says, “She doesn't understand” and stops listening. Whenever I say something that bothers him, he says, “You don't understand” and pretends its a simple communication failure.

I am trying to be patient, but my mood is evidently dependent upon sunny weather and the availability of the internet—both of which are lacking. Not to mention the fact that in the glubinka (“the depth,” what Russians call the extremely isolated parts of the countryside), there is no running water, so I haven't bathed since Saturday. The family we stayed with last night in Ladva had a very simple home, consisting of a kitchen and one other room, where Venya, the three residents, and I all slept. Lacking privacy, I was unable to even change into clean clothes.

All this underscores the differences between me and provincial Russians like Venya. Venya is perfectly content with our arrangements and is in no rush to get back home. He doesn't change his clothes, as he only brought one outfit with him for the week long trip. When he wants to bathe, he strips to his underwear and swims in the alarmingly cold rivers and lakes nearby. He doesn't use the internet often and doesn't have a cell phone. He is well-accustomed to this way of life. I'm not. I haven't yet given up on personal hygiene and internet access, so I'm very impatient to get back to Vytegra.

However, my trip into the glubinka hasn't been entirely unpleasant. I have met such interesting people. Out here, they talk with a strong provincial accent that even I can pick up on. It's slower, a bit lilting, and easier for me to understand than city Russians. The villages we've traveled through are so beautiful and peaceful, a scene of pastoral life I didn't think existed anymore. Every now and then, I forget where I am, but I have only to look at the hand-built wooden houses and bridges to remind myself how far I've come.

"Glubinka" (village of Nemzha)

So I'm earnestly grateful for this unique experience—I just wish I could get on the freaking internet.

A Day Without Digestion

At 7:00 this morning, I gathered my things, donned shoes still wet from yesterday's rains, and left Shyoltozero by bus to a Veps holiday in Vinnitsy.

I had been invited to the holiday by Zinaida Strogalshchikova, the head of the Veps Culture Society and the author of dozens of books about the Veps people. I had contacted her by email before I came to Russia, and she agreed to meet, talk with me, and possibly take me to Petrozavodsk, the capital of Karelia and the site where the majority of Veps live. I emailed her earlier this week to confirm our plans, but immediately afterward I began my journey deep into the Russian countryside beyond internet access. So Venya and I blindly left for the holiday, not knowing if anyone would be there to meet us.

The bus ride to Vinnitsy was long and bumpy—so bumpy, in fact, that my acute sense of carsickness kicked in. When we stopped to ferry across a river, I had only enough time to pick out a happy-looking bush before epically unloading my breakfast onto it. Then we got onto the ferry, which triggered my even more acute sense of seasickness. Halfway to Vinnitsy, and I was already perfectly miserable.

After the ferry, matters worsened when the second bus of our convoy broke down. We had to cram two already tightly-packed buses into one. Me and my bedraggled stomach were crushed into a corner as we squeezed two bodies into each seat. Some people had to stand for the remainder of the journey, which was nothing short of heroism on such an unsteady road.

But rather than complaining, the bus passengers took it in stride. In fact, they sang. A man toward the front had just enough room to get out his balalaika, and for the rest of the journey, the entire bus belted out folk songs without shame, occasionally in 3-part harmony. Even the driver sang. When they forgot the words or the careening of the bus upset the balalaika, everyone laughed and made jokes.

I truly admire this aspect of the Russian spirit. They don't have the same hang-ups we have about singing too loudly or not well enough. And they face adversity with a cheerfulness I simply cannot comprehend. Bad roads, breakdowns, lack of internet connection, lack of indoor plumbing and running water... Nothing seems to get them down.

I don't want to give the impression that provincial Russians are “simple” people. They quite often maintain profiles on social networking sites (Kontakt, instead of Facebook); they text each other; they have digital cameras and flash drives. But they are more accustomed to these things suddenly breaking down than we are. Living in the glubinka (read: middle-of-nowhere), they experience a lot of hardships, so they've learned to be hardy. And when they're forced to stand for two hours on a bumpy road, they have a singalong.

Of course, I didn't know any of the words, so I simply listened and concentrated on not repeating the same gastrointestinal stunts as before. Then we arrived in Vinnitsy.


The short version of the holiday in Vinnitsy: it was a let-down. It was all souvenir stands, beer vendors, and cheesy entertainment for tourists—much like our fairs back home. None of it was authentic. Nobody spoke Veps outside the canned performances.


I later learned that the festival wasn't even a real Veps holiday. It had been created in the 80s to inspire interest in Veps culture. The city itself is largely Russian, not Veps. In fact, a Veps woman explained to me that the name Vinnitsy comes from the Veps words for “Russians” and “settlement,” though she couldn't come up with a Russian translation. My translation: Russkograd. (It made the Veps woman laugh.)

For once, Venya and I agreed; neither of us was interested in the festival itself, so we set out in search of Zinaida Strogalshchikova. Our search was short: the first person we spoke to, the director of the museum in Vinnitsy, told us Strogalshchikova wasn't there. She never comes to the festival. But she had informed the museum director “a delegation from the University of Michigan” was coming and that they should help me out if I needed anything. So they fed us tea and sandwiches and sent us quickly on our way.

At least we got a free meal.

Seeing that I was disappointed, Venya tried to cheer me up by taking me onto the river on a tiny, wobbly boat. In the rain. Immediately after eating. I told him I didn't want to, but he insisted. After he saw me yack earlier today, I thought he would understand. Not so.

Next, again in spite of my best-worded protests, he decided we should walk on the suspension bridge across the river. While it was windy. And jump on it to make it sway. This time, I even tried to physically run away from Venya, but he grabbed me by the arm and said, “Don't be afraid.” Fear wasn't the problem. An inner-ear imbalance was.

So I delivered my lunch to the Oyat River. Nearby children screamed.

3, 2, 1...

At this point, I decided I'd had enough of Venya. I had told him yesterday that, no matter what, from the holiday I wanted to go home to Vytegra. This confirmed it. I asked him when we were leaving for Vytegra. “Tomorrow,” he said. So I asked where we would spend the night. “With Evgenia,” he said.

Feeling a bit peeved at Venya, I didn't feel like starting a conversation along the lines of Who-Is-Evgenia-And-Where-Does-She-Live. I assumed that she lived in Vinnitsy. Big mistake. When we met up with Evgenia (a sweet old Veps woman) and got on a bus with her, I let myself believe she lived 5-10 km away. Wrong again.

Turns out, Evgenia lives in the village of Ladva, 46 km away from Vinnitsy in the opposite direction of Vytegra. That meant almost 2 hours of riding on the bus. On bumpy roads. I don't suppose I need to remind my reader how my stomach likes bumpy roads.

So by the time we got here to Evgenia's house, I was miserable enough to refuse to eat dinner. Apparently, I looked the part as well, because I've never seen a Russian babushka agree to let someone skip a meal before. She told me to lay down instead. So I've spent the last couple hours on a couch, my head throbbing and stomach spinning. I'm watching channel 1 (of 2)—a salacious and poorly-scripted soap opera with infidelity, kidnapping, amnesia, surprise pregnancies, divorce, a custody battle, the whole nine yards. There is no internet or cell phone reception here, so I can't tell Tamara Pavlovna where I am and why I won't be back to Vytegra tomorrow, as expected.

As for the current thorn in my side Venya, until he says, “We're on our way to Vytegra,” I'm giving him the silent treatment. It's childish, yes, but it's the best instrument at my disposal for communicating my impatience, since, unsurprisingly, I can't speak Russian very well after puking twice.

So tomorrow, we go to Vytegra. I hope.

Trick or Treat: Shyoltozero Edition

Finally, I am able to access the internet again! I already feel more sane. I uploaded the blogs that I wrote in the interim and adjusted the dates to match when I would have posted them, if the internet connection in rural Russia weren't so unreliable. Even now, the only place I can get a signal is sitting on top of an old Russian peasant stove in my hostess's house.

Where once peasant babushki sought refuge from cold Russian nights, an American college student finds the internet.

I will likely lose internet access again soon, but you can be certain that I'm still writing. To tell the truth, the process of blogging every night is therapeutic. After spending the whole day trying to think in Russian, if I didn't take time to go back over the day's events in English, I certainly would never be able to remember anything that happens to me. And a lot of stuff happens to me here.

For instance, today Venya and I had free time in Shyoltozero to visit the Veps families here, which meant another day full of eating and meeting people. We only managed to visit 4 families, because everywhere we went, we were so nicely received that it was hard to part from the new friends we made.

At one family, I impressed them with my knowledge of Soviet cinema—thank you, Nina Shkolnik, for making us watch so many movies in Russian class. Venya is finally letting me talk for myself a little bit, so the Vepsian father and I spent a full half hour talking about the movie Brat (Brother) and how much the actor Sergei Bodrov, Jr. looks just like my cousin. Now I'm supposed to send them pictures of my family as evidence.

As we were leaving another home, an elderly Veps woman mentioned to me that her granddaughter, who is my age, loves to travel. So I gave her my phone number and address in America and said, "Send her to me." And most likely, she will. In a few months, I fully expect a Russian woman to show up at my doorstep unannounced, needing a bed to sleep on and tea to drink. And after all the hospitality I've received, I would be glad to pay some of it back.

At another family, I talked with a Veps woman who was 89 years old, sharp as a tack, and physically quite strong. Venya wanted to take a picture of the two of us together, and at first she protested. Then he explained to her that it was "proof that America and Russia are friends," at which point she squeezed me so hard I thought my ribcage would snap in two.



What is interesting to me is how different the situation with the Veps people is here in Karelia. During the Soviet Union, it was illegal to speak indigenous languages in most places, but the Republic of Karelia was granted more autonomy and speaking Veps was never forbidden. And what a difference it has made! Back in the Vologda Oblast (where Vytegra and Oshta are located), the language is all but dead. Here, people still speak Veps to each other on the street, although now the language is only spoken among the elderly and a few children who learn it in school.

Of the Karelian schoolchildren I've spoken to, every single one of them has said that Veps and Finnish are much easier to learn that English. Keep in mind that Veps has eighteen noun cases. I can't even imagine! Russian's six noun cases have left me constantly tongue-tied, stalling to find the appropriate ending for each word. But the schoolkids say that they get worse grades in English than in Finnish and Veps, so I guess that is good for the Veps language.

Nevertheless, although the situation here is much more promising, nearly everyone I spoke to today said that there was nothing to be done; the language is going to die. Veps—the language that has thrived in this region since the 4th century, the language that developed a specialized vocabulary to explain the intricacies of reindeer-herding, the language that has a special greeting for bears—has only a couple decades left of existence at best.

I can't say I'm surprised. Across the world, indigenous languages are becoming casualties of globalization. But the more Veps people I meet, the more I am able to glimpse into their lives, the sadder it seems to me that their people will soon disappear, blending into the ever more homogeneous societies of the world.

However, I came to Russia to see if there was anything that could be done to prevent the death of the Veps language, and I'm not giving up yet. And no matter what the prognosis is, I'm glad I came. I'm keenly aware that I'm one of very few Americans to meet the Veps people, to hear their stories and eat their food. If that's all that I can come away with, that's enough.