Heather Worley Living in St. Petersburg, Russia
First, I would like to welcome Cindy Bickford and the Jody Owens
family to the list. Howdy!
Second, a disclaimer. As I look back over some of the letters I sent home
at the beginning of the year, I'm starting to realize I was a little bit off
on some things. This doesn't worry me too much, but I would like to say
that you should not take me to be an authority on Russia. These are simply
the impressions of an American college student living in Saint-Petersburg for
the first time. I should also mention that, for the most part, I'm exposed
to a very limited segment of Russian culture - that is, college students.
I'm pretty sure everyone who knows what life is like at American colleges would
agree that college students are not all there is to American culture.
I also bring this up because I bought a travel journal written by a Russian
woman who lived in America for several years, working as a nanny. I was
just curious what a Russian's impression of America would be. Everything
she learned about America she learned either from her clients (neurotic rich
people) or from daytime talk shows, neither of which is incredibly representative
of America, in my opinion. For example, she had a boss who was so picky
about cleanliness, that if she set dishes from the dishwasher on the table before
stacking them in the cabinet, she had to re-wash all of them - the entire load.
She provides this as an example of how paranoid about germs and dirt Americans
are. She also cites several plots from soap operas as proof that the given
situations are acceptable in our culture. Reading this, I became horrified
at the thought that there are Russians out there reading that book who think
it's all true of all Americans, and they may never learn how absurd it all is
because they'll never get to go to America or know an actual American.
I also read an insert in the local English-language newspaper about Christmas
traditions around the globe, and they basically said that Americans don't really
have Christmas traditions, we just all send each other cards. And that
each evening in the Christmas season, the family chooses a card and then sits
down together at the table to talk about the person who sent the card and share
memories of them, blah blah blah. I've never heard of anyone who does
this. And they didn't even mention Christmas carolling, parties, leaving
cookies and milk for Santa, Christmas dinner, etc. So don't put too much
faith in travel books.
I should add that there are things I've deliberately left out, for various reasons.
Some things I don't how exactly how to explain; some things I feel are different
but am not sure how or to what degree; and others I know simply will be misunderstod,
because they can't be understood without being experienced first. Russia
is different from America in a different way from the way France and Germany
and England are - but American attitudes being the way they are, we react by
regarding the French as sophisticated, the English polite, the Germans friendly,
and the Russians - just weird. (Really, it's funny that we most admire
the two European cultures that look down on us the most...) I'd rather
give you a somewhat incomplete picture than lead you to draw an inaccurate one.
I just don't know how to explain things some times so that they won't be taken
the wrong way. And as Evgeny pointed out to me this week, it's better
to approach new things in life simply by observing and trying not to judge.
I can say something about Russia is good, or that it's bad, but that is just
comparing it to America, really. It's better to judge something on its
own terms, or not to judge it at all.
And now, on to my latest adventures.
Tuesday night was Old New Year - that is, New Year according to the old (Gregorian)
calendar. Russia just switched to the calendar the West uses (the Julian
calendar) when the Bolsheviks came to power in 1917, but the Orthodox Church
never switched. Russians use this as an excuse to have a few extra minor
celebrations around the big New Year's celebration. New Year's is like
our Christmas, and, unless you're actually a devout believer, the other three
are just a chance to invite over a friend or have a nice dinner and make some
toasts. So they have Western Christmas (25 December), New Year (1 January),
Russian Orthodox Christmas (7 January) and Old New Year (13 January).
I'm sure pretty soon someone will come up with the idea of adding Chinese New
Year, and that way there can be a fifth holiday.
Natalya and Evgeny invited over an old college buddy from Murmansk who's passing
through town on the way to see his daughter. They chatted until the last
possible second - a minute more and the man would have missed the last metro
- and ate and drank tea. Overall, a fun evening. I really had a
hard time understanding what the man was saying, because he doesn't talk very
clearly. Russian men have a horrible tendency to mumble. I've noticed
that women here are much easier to understand, at least in terms of clear pronunciation.
My linguistics professor back home always says that women are better speakers
overall - not only in terms of pronunciation, but also vocabulary, usage, grammar,
etc. - so if you're doing research into a language, most likely most of your
consultants will be women, but you have to have male consultants, too, or else
your research isn't as valid. So I guess it's just men in general, not
Russian men in particular.
Anyway, he mentioned that in Murmansk right now it's completely dark 'round
the clock. Apparently it's like that for about two months, and then in
the summer there are two months without nights. I hadn't realized it was
that far north. I don't think I could handle living there. This
far north is bad enough.
Wednesday I went to see the peacock clock in the Hermitage. It's a clock
created in the 1700's for the Russian royal family. The main part of it
is a four-foot-tall golden peacock standing on a tree stump. To its right
is a small owl in a cage, at its feet is a small mushroom (with the roman numeral
of the hour on the cap), and to its left is a golden rooster. They wind
the clock every Wednesday at 5:00. Some bells start to chime, the owl
turns its head, the peacock fans its tail, raises it head, and does a little
pirhouette, and then the rooster crows. It's quite cool. When the
clock is working as designed, this happens every hour, but they only set it
in motion once a week for purposes of preservation. Around 4:15 a crowd
started to gather, and by 5:00 there must have been 200 people in the room.
All the little kids sat on the floor in front of the rope barrier, and when
the peacock fanned its tail they all cried out "WOW!" in unison.
After it was all said and done, the employee who wound the clock said, "That's
all. Thanks." And then everyone applauded and there were even
a few bravos. All in all very festive.
Thursday, Friday and Saturday, I did little other than try to get ready for
Spain - laundry, last-minute shopping (all my socks have holes worn in the heels!),
etc.
Friday night, I went to a club with Adrianne and Ben. Adrianne saw an
ad for it in the St. Petersburg Times (the local English-language paper).
It really didn't seem like the kind of place the average reader of the Times
would be interested in. It was all high school students, punks and garage
bands. But we had an interesting moment when Adrianne fell down the staircase
(because it was slippery - she hadn't even had anything to drink), bruised her
knee, and then passed out from the pain three minutes later. Ben quickly
found a pulse, so at least we knew she wasn't dead, but we still had about five
very frightening seconds before she came to. I've never seen anyone pass
out with their eyes open before.
Anyway, that's about all I have time for right now. My plan leaves in
less than four hours!
Love to all -
Heather:)
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Men'she znaesh', luchshe spish'. The less you know, the better you sleep.
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