Belated Postings

I've just posted to this blog three times--I haven't been within Internet-range in five days, and yet I've had some adventures I wanted to record, so I'd typed them up earlier and they just got uploaded. So don't stop reading at this post!

I'm at Ira's--we're supposed to finish the basic manuscript revision today, while I'm washing my laundry in her machine (the one in the apartment where my room is doesn't work, not a huge surprise) and re-charging my cell phone battery.

I spent 5 hours at the Military-Medical Academy's Fundamental Library yesterday, scanning stuff. Thank God for modern technology.

Post for Wednesday, July 8, 2009

I’ve never liked claw-foot bathtubs. Claw-footed furniture of other varieties I do like, but to me, bathtubs ought to be firmly grounded, not perched on little stalks above the floor. I know there are a lot of girls out there who disagree with me, but they might well see my side if they’d had to deal with the bathroom situation with which I am living at present.

The tub here is not precisely claw-footed—maybe claw-feet were too bourgeois for the Soviet manufacturer—but it is that style. It’s metal and stands on six-inch v-shaped legs. You have to really hike up your leg to get into it. I don’t know if it’s the fault of the floor or of the legs, but it does not rest solidly, but rocks when you are in it. The rocking motion, far from being soothing, is jerky, and has disrupted the plumbing, which was probably never good in the first place. Of every spoonful of water that goes out the drain, half leaks onto the floor. There’s an old grey rag-mop in one corner of the bathroom, and so after I’m clean, before I step into my taputchki (house slippers), I have to try to swab the giant puddle off the floor—or spread it around evenly, since a rag mop isn’t the most absorbent thing on the planet—without getting myself or my fresh clothes dirty.

This is bad enough, but last night when I was in the kitchen scrubbing dishes I discovered that there was no hot water. I turned on the tap with the red dot, and there was a loud hissing and gurgling sound, but nothing came out the faucet. The cold water did still work. I habitually bathe (shower) right before bedtime, but I just couldn’t bring myself to deal with chilly water, so I sponged off the salient details (as my mother would say) and went to sleep semi-dirty, hoping that things would have resolved themselves by morning.

Morning came, but the hot water stayed off. I felt icky, and my hair needed washing besides, so I boiled an entire kettleful of water and borrowed two of the larger pots from the kitchen. Balanced across the back part of the tub is an old warped board, about 10 inches wide (there’s only a European-style spray nozzle on a hose instead of a real showerhead, so I suppose the idea is that you could sit on the board while you are rinsing off—not that I would), so I put the pots there and filled them with the boiling water, and then mixed in cold from the nozzle. Then I washed myself, and my hair. It was a callisthenic process. Every time my weight shifted, the tub rocked, and the water sloshed over the sides of the pots and over the side of the tub. And the drain leaked more than ever. Positively oceanic puddles.

When I’d finally finished tidying the bathroom, returned to my room, dressed, and was brushing out my (clean) wet hair, I overheard my apartment-mate talking on the hall phone, expressing frustrated disbelief. I opened my door, she replaced the receiver and turned to me.

“The hot water’s off.”

“I know,” I responded. “I had to boil water to bathe.”

“It’s going to be off until July 20,” she said.

Well, crud.

At least it’s supposed to be back on in two weeks. The last time I was here in St. Petersburg, staying with Maria, her building managers cut off the hot water for a full six weeks (allegedly for “remont”). But then, I had a 10-liter bucket to fill with water from two kettles (rather than a single kettle and two glorified saucepans), and the tub didn’t rock or leak.

I’m looking forward to proper plumbing (and my apartment’s having its own hot water heater) when I get back home to Virginia. And not having to worry about putting on house-slippers to trot between bathroom and bedroom—if I didn’t wear them here, the soles of my feet would be filthy by the time I got to my bed. Eww.

Post for Tuesday, July 7, 2009

I did do something useful and scholastic today. While I was listening to Stephenie Meyer’s The Host (which I enjoyed--all 23+ hours of it), I continued to type up the handwritten notes I’d made at the library—almost everything in Russian, so it was excellent Cyrillic-keyboard practice, if nothing else. That ate up several hours, so I didn’t feel quite as guilty about my laziness as I would otherwise. The more information I get into the computer, the better. And The Host was the last bit of distraction I brought with me—I’ve long since erased all the games from the hard drive, and there is no internet access here (I immediately had dumped the dialup connection information which the youthful hackers had punched in to my laptop Saturday evening—I just didn’t feel right using it), so it’s research or nothing.

I thought it was going to be nothing when I showed up at the bibliographic section of the library Monday afternoon and was immediately taken downstairs, ushered through the Harry Potter stacks and down a long corridor to the far end of the building by Natasha, a nice 40ish ash blond woman who wears Capri pants. She ducked into a low apse, knocked on the plain, thin wood door there and humbly asked—using name and full patronymic—if she might be allowed to enter. She then waved me through, into the Inner Sanctum. From the world of JK Rowling, I felt as if I had time-warped back into that of Dickens, with a bit of Soviet caricature tossed in for good measure.

The room which we entered was long, tall and narrow (about 30 feet long, 14-foot ceilings, 8 feet wide), giving a disorienting sensation of immense space after the almost-crouch required to get through the door. The sudden change in scale made me feel small, magically reduced, like Alice, from being practically too big to fit through the entrance to being a dormouse in a giant’s room. And, I was dazzled—the only light came from a huge double-framed window, at the far end away from the door.

The furniture of the room seemed likewise designed to enhance visitors’ insignificance. A large heavy old desk of some dark wood was set under the window, perpendicular to it. Shoved up along the other two walls was an assortment of antique chairs, a stiff horsehair sofa tucked in among those on the right. The chairs were built for majesty, not comfort, their arrangement such that anyone in them would be awkwardly exposed, all fidgets obvious. The middle of the room was a bare avenue leading up to the desk, where a slight, neat middle-aged woman sat. On the window sill by her left arm, a radio played 1960s Russia music. She watched us approach without a word.

Having shepherded me this far, Tatyana quickly bowed out, and I was alone. Not sure of the protocol, I hesitatingly introduced myself—my Russian rusty and my voice squeaking—and opened my backpack to retrieve my paperwork. The woman still looked at me, saying nothing. Slowly, deliberately, she removed her glasses. Shaking slightly, I laid my letters on the corner of her desk—the hard-won letter from the European University professor which was inadvertently addressed to her deceased predecessor, and the letter from my former Georgetown University advisor. This done, I retreated backwards to perch conspicuously on the edge of the sofa, while her icy eyes surveyed me critically, like I was a bit of common bacteria on a petri dish.

Then, picking up one, then the other, then the first again, muttering, the director looked at my letters. Clearly dissatisfied, she fixed me with a razor-edged stare, barking something about “specifics.” This question took me aback, a second of processing was necessary. I fumbled with my backpack, although nothing more illuminating was to be found there. “What—specifically—do you plan to look at here?” she interrogated me. I must have resembled a frightened rabbit while I stuttered out in ungrammatical Russian, “It’s just my first look—I don’t know what you have…” She cut me off, reached for a red phone at her elbow. She barked into the receiver. “Pavel Alexandrovich, come to my office!”

I filed away the patronymic for future use—on Friday, the man had introduced himself to me only as “Pavel,” and I hadn’t known if it was proper to ask his patronymic right off, or if that would be rude, though to address him simply as “Pavel” also sounded incredibly casual, Western, impolite. At the same time as I was cataloging this personal data, I was relieved. Pavel was a pleasant man, probably in his mid-40s, short, slim, dark-haired, with rimless glasses and a friendly manner—he had been patient with my slow Russian statements and clear in his explanations of how the catalog system worked, tossing a heavily-accented English word into his rePavels every now and then. English or no, I got the impression that we were communicating clearly, that he understood where I was coming from and what I was after. So, to have him summoned down to face the formidable woman at the desk—at least somewhat on my behalf—made me infinitesimally less nervous. A tap on the door, and he entered.

Pavel Alexandrovich seemed as comfortable as it was possible to be given the architecture of the office. He sat down in a chair on the wall across from my sofa, one seat removed from his boss. She grilled him as to what I had seen on Friday, what exactly I was looking for. I kept silent, looked suppliant, and sent hasty prayers for mercy heavenward. And for a moment or two, I was able to see the humor in the situation. A tiny part of my brain remarked that this was a somewhat ludicrous scene, in the absolute sense. Here I was, in this picturesque Victorian mausoleum across from a woman who seemed to have been lifted from a bad Cold War novel, red phone and all, wondering whether I would be permitted to read books in a library. It was pretty silly to get worked up about it all.

Pavel repeated what I had told him on Friday. The director still didn’t look happy, referring again to the papers I had given her—“It doesn’t say that here.” There was a pause. More apologies and explanations were evidently in order. “I am sorry that the letters weren’t more precise,” I began. “The next time, I’ll make sure—“
She cut me off. “I have given you access to the collections.” And she actually seemed to smile kindly at me.

Uh, ok.

Practically genuflecting, I picked up my letters—which she pushed across her desk in my direction—and followed Pavel Alexandrovich out the door.

“I felt like a chicken with a cat,” I confessed to PA as we went back in the direction of the catalog room. I hope that I was not butchering a traditional colloquial expression.

“I don’t understand this women’s business,” he responded. Irrelevantly, in my opinion.

Since my way was now clear to read at the library, I decided to start asking PA questions as we walked. “Is there a copy machine?” I wanted to know. He grimaced, “We have one, but it’s broken.” Two lady librarians, sitting on either side of the corridor, overheard. “There’s one in the gynecology department,” they grinned. “I am not going to the gynecology department,” he retorted. Whereupon they burst into laughter, and I chortled (I was going to say "giggled," but those who know me would probably say such a delicate sound is not in my range).

Upstairs, PA showed me the reading room. It’s a large salon, clean and military-neat, with perhaps 40 two-person desks in rows, the space lit by fluorescent bulbs and a trio of giant paladian windows that look out over the Neva River. We crossed the room to the nearest window and he told me to look out. The view was stunning—you can see all up and down the wide section of the river, from Palace Embankment (the Hermitage), the Admiralty’s golden spire, the domes of St. Isaac’s Cathedral, to the Rastralnyi (Prow) Columns on Vasilevsky Island, down to turquoise-blue Smolny with its white baroque trim. A lovely panorama of the city. I wished I had my camera with me [I haven’t been carrying it lately, particularly to the Military-Medical Academy, as I wasn’t sure what the security would be like, and didn’t want to be toting something questionable. But there are no metal detectors, no security other than a fatigues-clad teenager at each of the two entrance-gates who is seemingly responsible only for controlling vehicular traffic. And PA told me not only that I could bring a camera (and use it to photograph library materials), I could tote in my scanner. There were a couple of young guys on their laptops in the reading room—no concern about high-tech gadgets here. I’ll have to bring my camera for river-view pictures on another sunny day].

The library request desk was in a salon adjacent to the reading room. It was crowded with potted plants and glass-fronted bookcases. A largish middle-aged woman with deep magenta hair sat behind the circulation table at the front. “This is our colleague from America,” PA introduced me. I felt as if I were being given a better title than I deserved. He turned to me. “You give her your request slips,” he instructed, “And your passport, and she gives you the books and keeps your passport until you return them.” Not sure that I immediately wanted to check out books—although the call slips were filled out and in my hand—I hesitated over giving her my passport a second or two until she looked at PA in frustration. “Does she speak Russian?” she asked. “Yes,” he responded. “Well, thank God!” she said. “That’s a relief.” I immediately made up my mind—rather than look any more mentally incompetent than I already seemed, I’d check out the two books (though I wasn’t finished going through the card catalog yet, and I had wanted to tackle one project at a time). I forked over my passport and thanked the lady gravely.

Then I went back to my spot in the catalog room and sat down to scan the first book I’d been given. I was happy to see that my written comprehension has decidedly improved over the last 6 years. I’m not to the understanding-every-line point yet, but I could scan the book rapidly (in true advanced-graduate-student fashion) and get the gist. I took almost 4 pages of notes, including copying down the bibliography (Russian scholarly works don’t seem to have the same relentless footnoting and endnoting that is common to those in the West, and so it was actually a relief to find a list of sources at all, though none of these were specifically tied to any charts or quotations in the manuscript). It’s a start—this book on the diseases that afflicted the Russian Army during the WWI Caucasian campaign was published this year by a medical doctor, and the references included a couple of fond-numbers in the Central Military History Archive in Moscow, which I hope to visit on this trip.

When I went back to return my checkouts and retrieve my passport, the magenta-haired woman at the circulation table had decided that I was nice and intellectually competent after all, because she began asking me how I liked St. Petersburg, and what my field of study was. I told her I was researching for my history dissertation. “What do you want with us here?” she wondered. I explained. That opened the floodgates. Like many Russians, she is a history buff, and she proceeded to talk about the horrors that her people suffered over the 20th century, from Stalin’s arrests of millions to the countless numbers lost in World War II—“The Americans and the British didn’t defeat fascism,” she said firmly. “The Russian people did.” She went on, “America is young, it didn’t have war on its soil—we’ve been overrun constantly, ever since the Tatars.” She recommended a book about the Leningrad Blockade (she said it captured the truth about the events, whereas PA, when I showed him the title afterwards, dismissed it as “50% artistic”). She seemed pretty upbeat about the future—“Putin was one kettle of fish,” (her gestures spoke volumes), “But Medvedev is young, liberal.” She was pleased that he and Obama had met this week and seemed to get along well. “We need good relationships around the world.” I just kept nodding and listening. I liked her, and it was good to hear someone talk to me in an uninterrupted stream of Russian with the expectation and assurance (not entirely misplaced) that I was able to follow what she was saying.

Back in the catalog room, PA told me that he belongs to the Science House, a society housed in a former palace, to which he would be happy to take me on a nice day—tomorrow (today) after he got off work. I did try to call him this afternoon to tell him that I was not going to be coming over, but the cell phone number that he had given me on Friday rang and rang without an answer.

Thus far, everyone at the Fundamental Library has been thoroughly nice. Even the scary Soviet dragon lady was pleasant in the end. I hope that I can make myself get moving early tomorrow and take advantage of that happy working situation. After all, one should get the Fundamental over with first…

Cats and Archive

Just as Nature Abhors a Vacuum, it is an equally true law of the universe that Cats Abhor a Closed Door. Unbeknownst to many Oblivious Persons, going about their lives in ignorance, the Cosmos As We Know It would crumble were cats unable to migrate from one side of a door to the other (either by persuading a human being to open the door for them, or by somehow figuring out how to open it for themselves). That this is a Law unto the Infinity of Space was demonstrated last night by the unexpected appearance of a Feline Extraterrestrial in the apartment, who proceeded to enter and nose about in my room.

This exploration was observed and resented by the Cat Who Fetches Widgets, and confrontations ensued. Having battles royal in my bedroom when I am trying to get some shuteye is not my idea of fun ‘n’ games (particularly when I am not being paid to keep an eye on the participants), so I risked the Safety Of All Creation for the first time last night by locking my door, thereby preventing the natural process of feline migration from occurring. I had tried first using a 5-liter bottle of water as a doorstop, but this proved ineffective—a furry shoulder shoved aside both door and doorstop, and in seconds my makeshift bed was co-occupied.

The new Martian cat is big and ginger, the long fur on its body shaved off because it had developed horrible mats, but its tail, head and feet left unclipped. When you run your fingers over where it has been shaved, it feels like warm, thick-pile silk velvet, but to the eye it is a bizarre-looking creature with a sagging potbelly, feathery tail, skinny neck, and fuzzy mukluks. The Widgetcat does not seem too territorial—he only asserts himself when Martiancat messes about in my room. The implication is clear: this is My Person, who Plays With Me. I could tell what was involved in the sibling rivalry when I lay down last night (before I determined that I had to lock the door to rest properly) and Widgetcat jumped up beside me and dropped a widget next to my arm and meowed. We played several rounds of fetch-the-twist-tie before I put him out.

Yesterday I went to the Military-Medical Academy for the first time. I walked up and asked the uniformed teenager at the gate where the library was. He told me to go ask the officer up the walk (who was deep in conversation with another young man. I interrupted them shamelessly—it’s amazing what blisters on your big toes will motivate you to do), probably figuring that if my way was to be barred, it might as well be by someone higher up the pecking order. The officer waved me down the street and to the right, and once at the end of those directions’ usefulness, I stopped a woman who looked like she knew where she was who pointed me to a red sign on a nearby building. St. Petersburg people are nice about giving directions.
So I went in and upstairs to the third floor, where a woman directed me back to the second-floor landing, to an unmarked steel door with a buzzer next to it. I buzzed three times before another little woman answered and beckoned me inside. It was like a storehouse. There were heaps and stacks and cabinets of dusty books and magazines everywhere. I explained, haltingly, who I was, and showed her my documentation.

“What books do you want?” she asked. I told her I didn’t know yet, and she said, “Let’s go to the catalog,” leading me off. The gallery through which we then passed looked like something out of Hogwarts, three stories tall, with layers of floating catwalks between bookshelves which soared into dim space dozens of feet overhead. I couldn’t help but gasp, saying “It’s like paradise!” (Ok, for me as a bibliophile, it would be.) “Nineteenth century,” the lady remarked.

We went out through a side door and up a regal staircase (there was a fountain playing in the vestibule below) to a fluorescent-lit room lined with classic wooden card catalogs. The bibliographer, a short dark man who introduced himself as Pavel, asked me to sit down and tell him about my research interests, and did I have any questions? There were several card catalogues, hundreds of drawers of typed and handwritten index cards, in the room—only acquisitions after the late 1990s are online (computers were next door)—one by subjects, one alphabetical by author, and so forth. Pamphlets with lists of new acquisitions (I noticed one of those listed was a book that I had managed to get through Georgetown ILL—doubly reassuring to find that the Military-Medical Academy also considers it worthwhile!) were in a box on the wall. Pre-Soviet dissertations are in their own, separate card catalogue. Soviet-era dissertations are catalogued with the rest of the library’s holdings. Pavel pulled out a drawer with the label “Military Medicine” and showed me that it was grouped chronologically by war, most recent conflicts first. Civil War, then World War I—the latter section much larger than the former.

Pavel was just leaving (it was 2 PM Friday afternoon), but he said that during the academic year the library is open until 7:30/8 PM every night (the term lasts through the end of July), and I could stay and use the card catalogue even though he was gone. If I had more questions, here was his cell phone number. He’d be back Monday afternoon. So, I plunked myself down at one of the three desks in the room and started hand-copying the cards from the “Military Medicine” drawer.

It was simultaneously comfortable and weird to be sitting there working in the catalogue room. Comfortable, because card catalogues were part of my 1970s/1980s childhood library life, and I still like to squirrel myself away in the LOC alcove with the same neat little wooden drawers (retained, but not updated) forming a protective wall around me. Familiar, because the 30-foot ceiling had the same new, square foamboard tiles that were recently installed in the Georgetown ICC. It was welcoming, even, because the staff was all thoroughly pleasant. But it was weird because the college-age students were in Russian military uniform, as was a trim green-clad officer of about my age who came in to consult the library holdings on plastic surgery, establishing himself at the desk behind mine.

This juxtaposition of the familiar and the strange continued when a young cadet came out into the hall (an adjoining room was apparently a reading area) to have a long heart-to-heart with his mom on his cell phone, and a couple of boys in blue we-just-stepped-off-the-set-of-The-Hunt-for-Red-October sailor suits (complete with the striped shirts with the large square collars) walked through carrying backpacks. And there I was, an unsupervised American, wearing decidedly civilian garb, getting writers’ cramp from copying off card after card on the subject of Russo-Soviet Military Medicine.

After about four hours, I thought my wrist was going to be irrecoverably damaged, and I decided to leave, first thanking Natasha (another librarian who’d been rushing around in and out of a room at the far end of the corridor the whole time I was there), and telling her I’d be back on Monday. She took another look at my documents and remarked that the person to whom the European University letter of request for admission is addressed—whose name I’d found on the archival ministry website—had, unfortunately, been dead for several years! The woman who is now in charge will be in on Monday, to decide my fate (that is, whether I will be given a reader’s card and allowed to see the actual books I request). I hope that the error as to the name of the library director will not prejudice her against me!

Getting out of the building proved more challenging than getting in. I couldn’t go back through the Harry Potter library (the door was locked, the employees probably long gone home for the weekend) so I descended the stairs to the first floor, by the fountain, where a gaggle of young women in bright surgical greens and fresh white lab coats was gathered in front of an ATM. I looked around: no obvious exits (the courtyard-side door next to the fountain bore a sign that said something like “electrical closet”). There was a sunny palatial atrium through a large arch to my left, so I went that way. And stopped. Other than the original antique entrance from Pirogovskaya Naberezhnaya—which was obviously blocked—there were probably six doorways leading from the foyer, and all seemed to go off into other parts of the building, through which I had no desire to wander. Nothing to do but ask (again) for directions. I turned around and approached the women at the ATM. “How do I get out?” They looked at me like I was nuts (I mean, I had gotten in, didn’t I?) and gesticulated down and to the left. So I followed two short flights of stairs into what looked like a basement, where I again didn’t see an obvious means of egress (don’t these people believe in “exit” signs?! What would happen if there were a fire?).

Another group of young medical people was standing there, and I asked them the way out. Again, I got odd looks—“Just go that way!” Away into a labyrinth of close, blind, tiled rooms I went, turning left, then right, then right and left again before eventually emerging into the outdoors behind an ambulance. Apparently, the library is cheek-by-jowl with a hospital. It’s possible that I left through the morgue! Happily, from that point, I knew where I was, and I limped painfully to the metro station and home.

Tomorrow, I think I’m going to wear tennis shoes to church. Both pairs of heels have given me blisters—they are comfortable as dress shoes go, but clearly not designed for the urban hiking I’m doing—and I expect that after the noon service (that’s one thing I like about Russia—at least in St. Pete, people are late to bed and late to rise, like me) that Ira and I will do something recreational, like visit the Hermitage or some other lovely spot. Maybe we’ll just go back to her apartment and work on the Two Motherlands manuscript—she text-messaged me yesterday that she’d finished revising the final chapters I’d sent her, and it would be nice to have the last bit done.

I had hoped that the American Consulate here would be having an Independence Day event, but this evening I called the main number and the message said, “You have reached the American Consulate in St. Petersburg, Russia. The Consulate is now closed. If you are an American citizen who has been arrested, or are in a life and death situation, please hang up and call…” At which point I decided to hang up and not call anybody. My sweet little semi-toothed apartment mate is apparently cooking chicken and potatoes for dinner, and has already pressed tea and goodies on me. It’s overcast outside. Why not stay indoors?

I'm Legal

A nice guy at Ira's church let me print out the document just now (it's on my email, Mums, if you ever need to access it). Now, it's off to the archives.

I didn't go home last night. I ended up sleeping on the loveseat in the kitchen of my old tutor. She and I met up about 8:30 PM, went grocery shopping and then to her house, where the computer guy finally showed up to fix her crashed laptop at 9:45 PM, then two girls from Finland arrived, and we sat around drinking tea and eating sweets until 1 AM. Whereupon it was bit too late, white nights or not, to go home alone.

Must scoot. All well. Got asked for directions again, in Russian, so I think I'm starting to blend--or at least appearing to know where I am.

Wednesday’s Post: Досведания Бублики

I’d forgotten one aspect of the middle aged to elderly Russian character (or at least of those dear persons with whom I am most familiar) which could be irritating were it not so perversely amusing: the constant yammering about “preserving the strength of the organism”—that is, the various and peculiar practices that one must follow in order to stay healthy. And there are some odd ones out there: Never sit down on a stone step (even briefly) because you will get chilled. Do not drink cold liquids from the refrigerator, because you will fall ill—drinking cold liquids to cool off on a hot day is dangerous. If you get a runny nose, stop eating immediately and lie down, so that your body will devote its energies to healing itself, rather than to digestion or other activities. Don’t sleep for long periods if you don’t move, because it is not good to remain in one attitude for too long—instead, arrange to wake up mid-sleep and rearrange your position. And yet, so many of the Russians I know are not in the best of health. I think it’s because of germs and pollution and poor overall nutrition, if not uncomfortable habits such as the aforementioned health practices.

The air pollution was terrible today. I walked only about 4 miles, but my lungs were stinging by the end. It’s not just the automobile exhaust and that almost everybody is smoking cigarettes, it’s the grime and the airborne fluff from the molting trees that you inhale with every breath. The purpose of my exercise was to go to the local travel office which has a relationship with GoToRussia.com (the folks who issued my preglashennia and arranged for my visa processing), to have them register me with the Federal Immigration Service per Russian law. I went there on Monday by metro and bus with Ira, but when I’d told the girl in the office (who was really nice) that I’d already paid for the registration through the GTR people, she’d said to wait for them to send her a voucher confirming the transaction before she processed the paperwork. Well, today she emailed me to say that the GTR people had *not* confirmed my payment, and that I needed to come by to fork over R1200. Another few hours of unregisteredness, and I’d be illegal. So, to enjoy the sunshine and get some exercise while I was squaring myself with the authorities, I decided to walk over. Plus, I wanted to test my geographic memory, which thus far has been working beautifully (Homing Pigeon “Я” Moi).

Since I’ve got blisters from yesterday’s 7-mile stroll in heels, I put on tennis shoes and loped off. The shortest way was right by the old Bolshoi Dom (the “Big House”), as it was colloquially known, and yes, it is what it sounds like—the Stalinist former KGB building that looks as forbidding as its reputation. Ira told me that she never, ever, thought she’d go in there under happy circumstances, and then last year, when she was translating legal documents for a computer hacking criminal case co-prosecuted by the American FBI and the Russian FSB, she ended up being asked up to the offices of the computer fraud police (for whom she was working), which are in that building. She said the people who work in the fraud office are really nice. The building still looks scary, though. Very 1984-ish. And the fact that you know that quite a few people were executed in the basement (and/or temporarily incarcerated there for “political” crimes back in the bad old days before being shipped off to the gulag) certainly makes for an unpleasant aura.

I made it safely to the travel office having only once been addressed by a stranger, and that in Russian—a skinny blond girl asked me if I knew where a certain restaurant was. I didn’t. I’d take her question as confirmation that I looked local, only the student manning the desk at the European University of St. Petersburg (where I stopped to get my archival-admittance documents yesterday afternoon) addressed me in English without hesitation, and I was wearing almost the same outfit then as I am now. But I’ve seen more women in skirts and dresses today. And today I wasn’t wearing lipstick, just like most of them aren’t, so maybe that helped.

I could kick the GoToRussia people. Not only did they not do the needful as far as corresponding properly with the travel office here about my registration pre-payment, it was their likely failure to shred my faxed request to charge my credit-card for the same a month ago that resulted in the number being stolen the week before I left.

I navigated back home by bus and metro—no problem. Still, I’ve noticed another thing from the old days that is gone which I sorely miss—the buluchnaya, or bread shop. Now, in Soviet times the food shops, what there were of them, were split up by type—there was the meat and fish store, the dairy store, the candy store, the cake store (all the same flavor, very socialist), the drinks store, the vegetable store. You had to stand in long lines at each one, and you never knew what or how much they would have. The payment system was obnoxious, too—you’d struggle up to the counter (there weren’t open shelves where you could grab stuff yourself) and tell the harassed, short-tempered woman there how much of an item you wanted, then take the chit she gave you up to the bored-looking, usually rude cashier in another little booth, where you would pay, and then the cashier would give you a receipt, which you would take back to the original counter to retrieve your purchases. It was still mostly like this in 1995, when I came to Russia for the first time. But the bread was wonderful, cheap, and plentiful—fresh baked daily at one of the city factories. There was bul’ka, which was a white bread, khleb, which was the classic strongly-flavored black bread, and other tasty baked goods like the glazed pryaniki (great with tea!), sushki (little skinny dry bread rings—so much better than pretzels) and—my favorite—bubliki (fat soft lightly-sweetened bread rings, less chewy than bagels).

The indirect ordering and payment system had mostly vanished by 2003, when I came back to St. Petersburg, and a couple of the buluchnaya on Nevski Prospekt had disappeared, the premises taken over by expensive boutiques (more’s the pity). But there were still bread shops off the main road, and bread kiosks on the corners where I could get my carbs fix. Well, now there doesn’t seem to be a buluchnaya left! And though there’s a small “Diksi” supermarket (or the equivalent) on almost every street where you pop in, carry a basket or push a shopping cart through the aisles, paying at the register (yes, they even have discount cards, that scourge upon the face of grocerydom) for all your self-served purchases (bananas to bliny, soup to nuts), the great bread is gone. You can get little pre-packaged bags of pryaniki and sushki, but the loaf bread’s all sliced stuff like you see in American stores and nary a bublik have I seen! I’m going to suffer from major withdrawal. For Peter-and-Paul’s sake, what *is* Russia without bubliki?!

Quick Post

Tomorrow (Friday), after I am finally able to get my registration printed out (it was sent as an attachment via email, but the only ink Ira has in her printer is a very pale yellow, which is totally illegible), I plan to go to the first of the archives. I wanted to have some notion of what I was getting into, so I scanned in a book on my subject prior to leaving the US, but I hadn't read much of it, and so have dedicated the past day to scanning through the thing. I have also slept a good bit--the jet lag finally catching up, I suppose.

Ira's two daughters are here, and so I need to go to the kitchen and be sociable!

Muddling Along

4:30 AM. After some initial shyness, the apartment cat has decided I am the best thing since borshch. My surge protector had two black plastic twist ties (to which my family gave the specific name “widgets”—I was confused for years when I heard other people use this term for non-twist-tie-related items) wound around the cord, and these are apparently the best cat toys ever. From about 3:30 AM local time (remember, it’s light outside), we’ve had a game of fetch going (interrupted by my necessary excursion to the bathroom for a shower—I went to sleep around 9:30 in my clothes). I toss a tie, and it is brought back to me, again and again. At present my tuxedo-wearing furry friend is curled up next to me on the couch/bed, watching my typing fingers—many of which are now wearing shallow scratches from a set of extremely sharp claws (he puts the widget down for me to throw, but when I am picking it up, it is sometimes too unbearable to see it move without snatching at it). Oops. I guess the game wasn’t over. He just jumped down and brought me the other widget, laying it next to the first and looking at me significantly. Ok, Ok. Here we go again! [Yes, I am Purelling my abused hands to keep away feline-borne infection).

The contriteness in my letter to the Russian professor (and prayer!) had the hoped-for result. He accepted my apology and agreed to meet me this afternoon at his office, where the archive-introduction letters will be waiting for me. I hope that he is not too chagrined upon hearing my halting Russian to think this is a good idea, supporting me in writing and all.

Later today I am supposed to go over to Ira’s church to use the Internet, where I will upload this post to my blog. It turns out that the Dell people, in a fit of remarkable foresight, made the powercord for my laptop so that it will handle from 100-220v, dispensing a steady output from this input range. So, I can indeed plug the computer (with an adapter) directly into the local current without frying the computer or flipping the circuit breaker. Can’t use my surge protector, unfortunately—that overloads the system in a dramatic pyrotechnic flash. There aren’t any unsecured local wireless networks (that really would be too much to ask!), but I can work offline.

It’s curious what things have changed and what has remained unchanged since my last stay here in the former Leningrad. I am delighted (and surprised) that the public transport system is now electronic passcard enabled—really cuts down on all the worry about tokens and tickets. The bus conductors have little digital readers for the cards and much more cheerful expressions—formerly they looked harassed, what with the constant dispensing of change and paper tickets. Many of the buses are new, but the great old subway cars (built by factories which had won the Order of the Red Banner) are still in service. The famous statue of Lenin outside Finland Station was vandalized last year (I don’t love the man by any means, but I think that was a pity—it’s a historic landmark), but the enormous heroic mosaic inside of the metro station of the same leading the people to Soviet victory is still in place, totally ignored by all the commuters bustling through the gates. There are little touch-screen computer screens in the metro stations where you can pay your cell phone, utility and other bills by credit card, but the metros still have the same comforting smell of metal and engine lubricant, and are cleaner than I remember they were last time. The escalators still plunge down more than 250 feet in the old city center (for those of you familiar with the DC metro system, the Petersburg escalators make the Rosslyn ones look like the short and pokey contraptions they are), but there are no more irritating auditory business ads afflicting the ears as you speed up and down, just a simple message about “please assist other passengers and keep the metro system safe”—the sort of announcements with which DC travelers are all too familiar.
The inner courtyards of downtown apartment buildings here have been substantially renovated (the muddy potholes and broken gates are gone, replaced by new gates and neat paving stones), and parking and lines on the roadways have been regularized. Traffic is normal urban heavy, but now in designated lanes. Fines for hitting pedestrians are now enormous (formerly, if you got hit, it was pretty much your fault from the point of view of the drivers), and so driving behavior is much more reasonable. Crosswalks are better marked. I’ve seen both sexes driving—it doesn’t seem to be the male-dominated preserve it once was. There are still some Ladas on the road, but the other cars aren’t all expensive Mafia-owned Mercedes anymore—Kias, Hondas, Fords, and so forth are the norm, I’d say.

The so-called “fat years” of high oil prices have been good for the local economy in many ways—there are modern new apartment and office-buildings dotting the cityscape (the area near the airport has been particularly built up). Pollution remains prevalent, though—buildings are dusty with soot—and there are many pieces of fine architecture that remain unrestored, some with plants growing from the cracks in the concrete balconies. I saw the local militsia beckon over several dark-skinned men in the metro and demand their papers, so racial profiling is still going strong. I hope to keep my head down and avoid catching the official eye, although within a day or so my registration should have gone through and I’ll have no reason to be concerned about being pegged an illegal.

I met my apartment-mate Mina last night, a friendly short blond woman with two teeth and a daughter (now living in the Netherlands with her Dutch husband and 1 ½ month old baby) who shares my first name. I had such a difficult time understanding her questions! I hope my Russian language conversational facility returns soon—it’s ironic, I’ve understood almost all of the official exchanges heretofore, but someone starts asking me informally where I was born, how long I’m staying in Russia and so forth and I’m totally at sea. Mina introduced me to her two adolescent grandsons, one of whom has short dreadlocks, and told me that they would soon have a computer which I was welcome to use. I made a bit of semi-comprehensible small talk (the boys grinned when I remarked that “email is very important”) and then excused myself to rest. In a few minutes, there was a tap on my door, and Mina beckoned me to “come meet my daughter.” Huh?

I followed her into her room, and there on a webcam was her daughter in Holland, holding the grandbaby. High-speed internet video connections are a wonderful thing! And clearly Russians have embraced such technology with enthusiasm. The grandsons were watching a Russian-dubbed episode of “South Park” on the TV. I rolled my eyes and they grinned at me. The other Katya spoke perfect English, and apparently her mother had told her that I didn’t speak Russian worth a darn, because when I told her I was going to be doing archival research, she expressed concern: “The archivists don’t speak English.” Argh. I think I must sometimes radiate an aura of incompetence. Sometimes this is a good thing, and sometimes it’s a bad thing. Good because people will often take pity on me; bad because they wonder what on earth I’m doing, claiming to be a Russianist, let alone one at a fairly advanced stage of her academic career. I ain’t got the mad linguistic skills, that’s for sure. Well, hopefully I can muddle through.

Story of my life, muddling. I am a muddler. And usually muddled.

Arrival in Russia

Ira is off at court (where she's been serving as a translator) assisting at the deportation of an American who overstayed her visa. I am taking the time to do some online puttering.

Arrived safely in St. Petersburg late last night, after several delays, lost luggage, much running around airports for new documentation and boarding passes with a couple of random Russian acquaintances (made in the mutual cheerful frustration around the baggage claim in Moscow). It was still afternoon-bright outside, despite the late hour--the White Nights are at their height.

Installed in decidedly down-at-heel flat on top floor of century-old building where random electrical wires festoon the vestibules. Only one bulb in the three-light chandelier in my room works, as one is broken off in the socket and the other is simply cracked.

I chose this room over the larger, brighter alternative as that door did not lock. Got Grigorii, the slightly rank, chip-toothed owner, to replace the small-room's cot (the fabric suspended from the springs looked so old and rotten I didn't think it would support my weight) with the couch from the big room. The couch is similarly ancient, and missing one side (the arm and the feet are gone at that end, so it sits at an angle), but I expected it would be a bit more sturdy and comfortable than the camp-bed.

I did sleep excellently last night, despite the White Nights (wrapped my head in a scarf to shade my eyes, as the sun never truly set) and the fact that I had blown the fuse in my room--dropping the whole apartment into darkness--trying to plug in my surge protector. Need to figure out the system (using all the converters I brought with me) before attempting to attach my computer to the unstable Russian electrical network.

Woken up at three by a horrible crash from the (unoccupied) large room next door. Had been forewarned upon my arrival at the flat that there was a cat in residence (although the animal had not yet shown itself, and the only evidence of its real existence was the penetrating smell of tomcat urine in the toilet-room), and so was not alarmed by this. Cat later came into my room (which can be locked, but only by a key, and I didn't want to trap myself needlessly) and explored the premises, before hooking its paw back under the door, reopening it and departing. Otherwise, the night was undisturbed, cool.

I was initially less melancholy today, as Ira helped me get to the travel agency to register my passport (all foreigners must register their addresses within 3 business days of arrival) and to obtain electronic metro and bus passes (so much easier than the old paper ticket and bronze "zheton" system) at the Victory Square and Lenin Square metro stations. I also had my two housekeys and the "magnetofon" pass to the building copied (peace of mind--I don't know that the flat owner has duplicates, and I'd hate to get into a spot). And I acquired a cell phone (bought a new sim card for one I borrowed from Ira's eldest daughter, whose husband--I just found out, after asking about the number of "Murmansk" souvenir magnets on her refrigerator--designs submarines).

Felt like I was spending cash like a drunken sailor, to use a navy-related metaphor, but on necessities. I put my groceries (bought at a "Diksi" corner supermarket) on my Visa card. The ruble is trading at about 30 to the dollar. My grocery bill was R192.96 (a 400g bag of sushki, small loaf of bread, two petite cucumbers, a couple of bananas, 1 kg of sugar cubes, 1 liter of apple juice, 1 kg of kefir, and a roll of budget toilet paper). A 50-ride metro card was R720, the month's bus pass was R635, the keys and magnetofon cost me R480, and I got a key chain for R600. So, of the several thousand rubles (from changing $100) with which I began the day, I have several hundred left. But the rest of my stay's in-city transport is paid for.

I was made somewhat more melancholy this afternoon by coming to Ira's house to check my email and discovering that the professor here in St. Petersburg on whom I was relying for his formal archival introductions had sent me a sharp note saying that as he hadn't heard from me until a couple of days ago (though he did say that he'd heard previously from Silverman, who I'd asked to serve as an intermediary), he _hadn't_ written the letters for archive-access, and besides, he was going out of town as of 2 PM. I responded with what I hope was an appropriately apologetic and conciliatory note asking for grace. We'll see what transpires.

The weather's lovely. Although I am happy I packed all sorts of necessities like paper towels and soap (the apartment has nothing, not even toilet paper supplied--thank God I brought a few rolls, because it was way too late to go shopping when I got in last night), I did not think to bring a kettle, pan or utensils. There are no dishes, either. Ira is going to lend me the basics.

Though I couldn't have anticipated the lack of food-related supplies at the flat, I could kick myself for not bringing more pants. Whereas in the olden days, Russian women wore nothing but dresses, the pendulum has now swung to the other extreme, and I could count on one hand the number of women I've seen in skirts. Even middle-aged and older ladies are wearing pants these days. I'm going to stick out like a sore thumb in my long, brightly-patterned (and hand-washable) cotton skirts. And I really did want to blend in!

It's past 4:30, but the sunlight looks like 10:30 in the morning. I am starting to fade from fatigue. I think I'll call it an early night (once Ira gets back and I've made it home safely with my shopping bags) and hope that archival access is possible tomorrow.

I'm OK--A General Wellbeing Bulletin

My credit card information may have been stolen last week, and I may have tiny yellowish bruises all over my skin from knees to ankles, but I was not in the metro crash this evening that killed at least 6 and injured many others.

I didn't hear the phone calls asking if I were OK because I was first at the gym, and then at a trivia tournament where I was incorrectly guessing the names of old Rolling Stones songs. I am Truly Sorry for panicking the family thereby!