tolstoy's estate

So yesterday I spent the day at Tolstoy's Estate, which I cannot spell so I won't even try. It translates to "clearing in the forest" or something. It was a 3 hour train ride from Moscow (a nicer train than the commuter train, aka we got to sit down the whole time). It was incredibly beautiful and large, with extensive forests and fields, ponds, a river, a garden and a greenhouse, stables for the horses, and of course Tolstoy's house along with a guest house and his grandfather's house. It was a grey, drizzling day but the rain subsided a bit for us. The leaves were just beginning to change from green to orange and yellow, and horse driven carriages gave people rides. Also, there were TONS of people being married there, so you'd walk around and all the sudden see a bride holding her dress up so it didn't get muddy (a fruitless activity- it was incredibly muddy). We saw the room where he wrote War and Peace, we saw the couch where his wife gave birth to most of his 13 children, and other things like that. We walked through a field to see the river and took a detour through the woods. It was absolutely gorgeous, I can see why he preferred it there. We saw his grave, which was just a green mound sloping up from the ground, very understated (especially compared to Lenin's).

Anyways, I'm currently writing from the kitchen at my home, apparently we have an antennae I can use to connect to the internet. It's a little disconcerting, though, because as I write my host mom is cooking eggs and listening to Alla Pugachova on the radio, turning occasionally and asking me how everything is at home. 

Anyways, soon I'll be able to post pictures for you, so just hang in there. 

A Darker Side of Moscow

Hey everyone, hope you're all well. I cannot say the same for myself, as this weekend I did have a very scary experience in Moscow. I went out to a bar with a girl from our group Saturday night. Another girl joined us and they expressed an interest to go to a nearby club. I agreed, though I said I needed to leave at 12:30 in order to catch the metro home (it closes at 1). We got there and danced, and one of the girls began to leave in order to catch the metro. I wanted to leave too but the third girl begged me to stay. I saw that she was drunk and did not want to leave her, so I agreed to stay. She had another drink at some point and then became beligerent, at one point kicking and punching the ATM where she thought (wrongly) her card had been eaten. I had to physically restrain her because I was afraid we would be arrested. She began to scream and curse loudly in English. At this point, I knew she was profoundly drunk and I needed to get her home. I eventually got money from the ATM and around 4:30 I asked her to come with me in a cab, that I would pay for her and take her home. She refused and became angry, telling me in so many words that I needed to leave. She had eaten something and seemed like she had sobered up to a point where she would be ok, and because I was exhausted from struggling with her all evening, I said goodbye and left her. This was around 4:45 in the morning. I walked to the metro to see what time it opened, was accosted by two drunken men and grabbed by the arm, but got away and went back to the club. I called a cab and left the club at 5:30, going home and going to sleep. At 11 am I was woken by a call from our resident director, the man in charge of our program, and informed that the girl I had been with had been found unconcious on the steps of the American Embassy around 5:30. She is lucky to be alive and unscathed, she still has her money and passport and she was not raped or assaulted. As far as we can figure, the amount of alcohol she consumed finally caught up to her and she passed out in the club. Because I was outside and would have seen her being dragged out by clubgoers, I believe club-officials found her and took her out an employee entrance to the American Embassy. She believes she was drugged. I am consumed with guilt for leaving her, and I know I should have called my resident director at 4:45 when she wouldn't come in the taxi with me. At the time I wasn't aware just how drunk she was, and didn't want to wake him unneccesarily. He has assured me that she is responsible for her actions that night and that he understands why I left her, and he doesn't blame me. My friends tell me it was good that I stayed as long as I did, and if I hadn't she might be dead. I appreciate them telling me this, but I can't stop blaming myself.

Moscow, for now, doesn't interest me, it terrifies me. I hate to be on the metro, I hate to talk to people, I hate people. I hate to be out after dark. I want to go home, but I know I have to hold firm for now and try to regain my excitement for Russia. At the same time, I know I handled things the only way I knew how that night, and I did something really incredible, which was order a taxi on the telephone (only took about 20 minutes....) I know I'm strong enough to handle myself and this city, but I just don't want to anymore.
I'm sorry that my account this week doesn't paint a lovely picture for anyone. Maybe soon I can write something cheerier, and tell you all about "MosFilms," the Moscow Film Studio where we are going Friday. Or maybe I'll feel better after I see Tolstoy's estate on Saturday, where he lived and is buried. And next week I get to look forward to a reprieve from school when we take a week long cruise down the Volga river, and see Volgagrad.
Stay safe everyone, much love from me

The State Library and Lenin's masoleum

Hello everyone, another awesome week in Moscow and I hope everything is going great for all of you as well! As you can probably guess from the title, this past week I went to the Russian State Library, formerly Lenin's Library. It's the biggest library I've ever seen in my life, and apparently one of the biggest in the world. All that AND it still mostly goes by the card catalog system. I saw a cathedral sized room of card catalogs, and that wasn't even all of them! Pretty cool, and the reading room is so big and beautiful with great views and a nice statue of Lenin reading a book to encourage you while you study or do research.
But even better than the Russian State Library, in my opinion, was seeing Lenin's mummy- a lifelong dream of mine. Once you get passed security and check your cameras, you walk right next to the Kremlin wall, where many people are buried, and finally get to enter Lenin's masoleum. It's pitch black in there, the only light being in spots where military guards stare ominously at you, chastising you if you whisper or put your hands in your pocket. You descend further down these stairs that you can hardly see, and finally enter his "tomb," where the leader himself lies in a very communisticly red open casket (that sort of looks like a sleigh). It was unreal to think that I was staring at Lenin's real body. I got to see him for all of 30 seconds and then was hustled outside to look at the graves of other Soviet officials, including Stalin. Apparently for many years Stalin had laid to rest with Lenin, but they moved him out back a few years ago. I feel like that might really piss Stalin off, but apparently your wishes are ignored once you're dead in Russia. Lenin wanted to be buried with his mom, but he's stuck for the ages being gawked at by morose mummy junkies like myself. Oh well.
Besides that I took a tour of the city in a bus, and also walked one of the ring boulevards around the Kremlin. That was neither fun nor interesting, our tour guide would tell us things I could've figured out myself, like "this is a statue of Gogol" (like we couldn't read the large, well placed letters G O G O L). It's so, so cold (about 40-50 degrees). I know I sound whiny but they refuse to turn on the heat until October, and my apartment and especially my room are freezing. This is exacerbated by the fact the Russians have this thing about "air circulation," and my "Russian Mom" comes into my room and opens the window when I'm not home! I go to bed wearing long underwear, sweatpants, and two layers of shirts.
School is going very well also. Our teachers are very personable, very genuine, and occasionally very insulting. One teacher the other day was going over a word list in Russian and asking what they mean in English. We had no clue, they were all political words, but he insisted you could derive the meaning no matter what the word. When we said we didn't know, he threw up his hands and said "did they TEACH you english in the United States? If you want to study Russian, you have to know ENGLISH first. Dont you KNOW english?" this from the man who told us that "one fourth is not the same thing as one quarter." Well, what can you do (except nastily deride him behind his back)...
I've got to run, I've got American-Russian club this evening! Much love, hope you're all safe and sound, feel free to email me at ell012@bucknell.edu. I only get to check about once a week (I'm working on wifi but lets just say it's going badly!)

Hey Everyone

I decided to start a blog so I could let all of you know what I'm experiencing (and perhaps more aptly "dealing with") here in Moscow. It's only my second week here and already I've seen, done, and been through a lot of things. And been yelled at in Russian just about everyday, so, there you go.
I'm going to Moscow International University, my group has about 25 people in it. We're split up into smaller groups named after Russian cities, mine is "Astrahan." With only 2 years of studying the Russian language, I'm in a considerably less advanced group! Some people in the program are in grad school or have been studying Russian for 6 years. We are only allowed to speak Russian to each other in school or at lunch, which has also been hard. We're getting better, but sometimes there are slips.
I live pretty near the school, it's a 20 minute bus ride in the morning, but an hour after school because traffic is so bad in the afternoon. I'm really lucky, most of my friends must travel 40 minutes to an hour to get to school. I live near the metro station "Sokol" with a woman named Marina and her dog Tosha (I think "Skinny" in English). She's really nice and feeds me way, way too much. After a week of being stuffed just about every hour of the day, i resolved to eat a smaller lunch or just have tea or coffee at school. This helps because by the time I get home I'm really hungy and I'll eat all my dinner, which makes her really happy. If you tell her you're full, she won't believe you. She says "Emychka (pet name for me), you can't be full. That portion was a perfect amount for you," or "but rice isnt cheap, why do you want to waste it?" There is no arguing with her, her friend came over for dinner and told Marina she didn't want salad. Eventually, the friend ate her salad like she was supposed to. As Marina says "It's my house, if I say eat salad you have to." The one thing Marina apparently doesn't really eat is sweets, which I love. My usual dessert is fruit compote, a fruit drink made from boiling fruit together and adding water, then you refrigerate it and ladle it into cups with fruit bits at the bottom. It isn't terribly sweet, but I like it. But I miss ice cream! Maybe this will be good for my figure, I've already lost some weight from all the walking! Besides that, the food is really bland, with only mayonnaise or ketchup to spice things up.

My initial hope that I would look Russian and blend in has now been replaced by the hope that I NOT look Russian. This is because I get asked for directions allllll the time, I guess because I'm a woman and look pretty harmless. Usually I listen to the quick stream of Russian, understanding nothing, then sort of smile and say "Shto?" (what). They repeat it and then I either say "Sorry, I don't understand" or "Sorry, I don't speak Russian well." Once I forgot to say "well" and told a woman that I don't speak Russian at all. She gave me a weird look.
We also take "excursions" every Friday, and sometimes into the weekend. I've been down the Moscow River on a boat and also went to Borodino to see the reenactment of the decisive battle between Napoleon and the Russians. Apparently there was no real decisive victory but the Russians are still really proud of this battle. We were all really excited for this trip, but our excitement dwindled after a 3 mile walk on a hot, cloudless day. We were all wearing jeans because we only prepared for cold weather, not hot. Then the battle reenactment was long, and there was no audio accompanying it so you might understand what is going on. Then another 3 miles back, and on to the elektrichky, the commuter train, which was packed with people. We stood for the 2 hour ride back to Moscow and I got heat sickness and had to sit on the floor of the train with my head between my knees, while a 15 year old boy was smoking and SPITTING on the floor. It was NOT fun. But tomorrow I get to see Lenin's Library, and the day after, Lenin's mummy!
Well, that's it for now. I'll try to write again next week, I'll probably only make it out here once a week, it's sort of far. Much Love