Grind

Moscow is not an easy town for tourism. As wonderful as our hosts have been this is a bit of a daily grind here. Many reasons for this:

1. Cyrillic: Graphically a beautiful alphabet and it adds a definite mystery to the place; it is fun to run across a Ctarpuk3 (or something like that) and find its really a Starbucks – but it can be dangerously inconvenient. This is because place names are pretty important in getting ones bearing in a new place. Even in unfamiliar languages you can pretty easily retain the idea that your metro stop is Marienplatz or Pont Neuf, but with Cyrillic you either remember a string of unfamiliar symbols (or a few of them) but there is always enough confusion and doubt to make you miserable wondering. Occasionally you will find transliteration into our alphabet, but that is pretty rare. Knowing the Greek alphabet helps, but really doesn’t make it. If you come to Russia, study Cyrillic on the plane ride in.

2. Signage: Not there. For example, after the ballet we went into the metro with Irena (one of our hosts) who knows but rarely uses the metro. We go into one of the larger downtown metro stops, likely one most frequently used by tourists because three or four of the lines come together in this station. So you enter and go down the usual impressive escalator and there is a platform – but not the correct line for us. Then there is a stairway to a lower platform; still not the right line. Irena is confused and asks the man in the box. Down the lower platform is a tunnel leading further on to another junction of several tunnels, and down some more stairs to another platform and up, through another tunnel to what actually turns out to be our desires line “3”. Absolutely none of this is marked. Had I been alone there would be absolutely no way I would have figured this out for myself. I would know (by staring at the Cyrillic) that this is the right train station; my map would have promised me line #3 but it would simply appear to be not there. You need to hope the man in the box (a) speaks English (highly unlikely) and (b) wants to help (not very likely). This brings us to the next difficulty:

3. Demeanor. The Russians I have met have been wonderful, kind, polite and friendly in every way. The street demeanor is a very different thing. Interestingly enough, during Kerry’s presentation yesterday she got the Russian students talking about stereotypes and one of the main points about Americans is how we go around grinning and nodding and smiling all the time and for absolutely no reason at all. So, we are as different from them as they are the other way. In crowds they do not speak – even crowded subways can be totally silent – and they tend to push on ahead (or through or cut into a line) with a kind of determined push. It does not send off any kind of a comforting vibe to the stranger, and one gets the impression they are ok with that. This might be one thing out in the districts, but it is equally the case in Red Square or Arbat Street or even with the staff in the tourist hotel.

4. Papers and Officials in Boxes: There is a great deal of official paper here. In some places you might be tempted to simply lose that extra form from behind your declaration form when you land at the airport. Better not do that here. There are additional pieces of paper certifying your residency at your hotel. Papers attesting the fact that you applied for and received your visa which you must keep with your actual visa (go figure….), pieces of paper that must be presented to the hotel staff along with your room key to get breakfast (more on breakfast – see below), papers to get you into the school. It is quite extraordinary. They are equally given to controllers who sit in boxes or behind little windows or turnstyles who will then dispute the efficacy of this paper. This happens even to Russians. For example, our host had to argue with the guard at the school to allows us to use one entrance to the school building rather than another (but later relented); the students with us at the Pushkin exhibit yesterday were turned away by the lady at the turnstyle because they should know better than to wear their jackets inside a building. There is a lot of paper; it all counts; its validity can always be rejected in which case one is plumb out of luck unless you are prepared to argue about things in Russian. There are people in boxes everywhere here, checking to make sure things are in official order and you can never assume their cooperation (even if your paper is in fact in good order). It is a place that like paper and likes bureaucracy.

On Friday, we are having a little ceremony for students here who have participated in Global Modules. Our hosts suggested that presenting students with a little certificate attesting to their participation and completion would be a nice thing. Scudder eagerly complies with this; inkjets and heavy paper make this an easy request to satisfy. But it puzzled me why this would be desired. The GMs are fine things, but they are really on the order of a class exercise and activity. Now I understand exactly where they are coming from; this culture likes official paper. If there is such a certificate at the end it does a great deal to legitimize most anything.

5. Food: I have known from some experience that Russian food can be quite good. I’ve had a few excellent bowls of borscht, the appetizers and dumplings that first night were very good. So, good stuff is out there – but not that reliably available. The food we have gotten at the hotel has been really dreadful – greasy, overcooked, dry – reliably bad. Out of an entire banquet running across and down two walls of the breakfast ball room, the only palatable breakfast items I can find are orange halves, and a kind of deep fried English muffin patty, perhaps a rather greasy crepe. The milk is warm; the vegetables boiled or heavily vinegared/pickled, the salami is greasy and tasteless; the bread is cheap and dry; the cheese is flavorless and has been left out too long. They proffer hot dogs as a kind of breakfast meat, and if you get one of the omelets it is unlikely to be fully cooked (see (3) above). Don’t hope for coffee – but the tea is good.

On the other hand, we have had some very good meals in restaurants – and I expect you will find they cook excellent things at home. They have some great recipes. I have become a fan of borscht. I understand their breads are exquisite. So, I suspect this really is a product of a reliable lack of quality in cheaper or medium priced public eateries. Much of what is proffered to the public as a prepared meal is pretty poor stuff. The best solution is to get back to basics. The orange half at breakfast is ok. Tea is a nice drink and it is hard to mess it up (although watch out for some of the cheaper fruited teas they set out). Sliced carrots, sliced cabbage or a bit of cucumber is what it is – and if you can find it reasonably fresh on the buffet, go for it. They also make a simple cooked wheat (or is it bulgur) which is fine and filling. Keep it simple and you are ok.

I’ve been at plenty of hotels with a breakfast bar that isn’t even trying – you see this as much in the States as anywhere. Still, usually a look around will find you a Starbucks or some bakery or shop that will proffer something decent and easy at a fair price; I don’t get the impression that is a reasonable expectation here.

6. Smoking. Nearly everywhere. Sitting in the hotel lobby checking email, your eyes begin to sting after about ten minutes. Tobacco smoke comes through the wall of the hotel – you can even distinguish between rooms with people smoking cigars and cigarettes. Even at the nicer restaurant people are likely to light up at the table next to you. It’s strange to think how far the US has come on this. Oddy enough, school is the one place where I do not see this; just the reverse of the States where campus is the one place that I see lots of smoking.

One of my travel mates has a friend who lives here. He says that Moscow is a great city, but points out there are a few things you need to work through - knowing a bit of cyrillic, getting used to a few different patterns of human interaction - and the city itself really is amazing.

Photo: This is one of the long long down escalators into the metro, which really does live up to its reputation as without a doubt the finest one you are ever likely to encounter. Every station is done up in a different architectural style and decoration. The trains run every two or three minutes. Police patrol it regularly and it is meticulously swept clean. Very nice.

School

This was a second day largely filled with school stuff. One more of those tomorrow but after that I think we have a bit more time scheduled for our own Moscow experience. Some of the students are going to take us around to some different parts of the city, take us shopping, and the Chair of the English Language department is having us over on Friday. Nice prospects.

Jen and Gary and I delivered our second and final student presentation this morning. So, I guess this is a good time to make a few remarks about the school and the students.

As I mentioned yesterday, the school is pretty run down. An old institutional place – actually an armed services academy that consists of about six or eight connected buildings. You can walk around the entire campus following indoor corridors and staircases. It looks as if a wall hasn’t been painted nor a length of flooring replaced in fifty years. There is obviously not a lot of money being passed around in state sponsored higher education in Russia.

That being said, this is actually one of the better funded schools. I gather it receives a great deal of interest and support from the current government as a hope for carving out some high end education for the first or second tier of students here in Russia. All of the students are required to have quite advanced abilities in English and one other language by the time they graduate, and the students do deliver on this requirement. Even the second year students have excellent English skills, and the third year students have really superior skills.

I’ve gotten something of a tutorial on how the state university system works. It is the state universities that really have the best reputation here (because they are supervised and quality checked by the state – clearly one different sort of attitude than we would find in the US). All of the state universities are really administered under this system. So, although there are local schools, smaller and larger, some (like the Higher School of Economics) with various campuses around Russia – they are all ultimately answerable to the state university system. So, they are not institutionally as distinct as, say, St. Mike’s and Champlain College. They are differentiated by their faculties (which refers more to the college and degree program, not the people teaching the college). Various schools will have an exactly defined program of study that takes you to exactly this small array of degrees. For the HSE this would include degrees in business, international business, finance, etc. The degree is a five year program, and my impression is that students begin it at a level slightly more advanced (academically if not by age as well) than US students.

The classes we have worked with have really been impressive. The students are completely attentive and engaged and engaging. You notice an initial hesitance, but once they start talking they have a lot to say. They are well informed. For example, the second year students understood points from the US Constitution like the electoral college. The third year students could give a succinct explanation of the Republican and Democratic party and were up to date on current issues. They are polite – have boundless energy – and seem to enjoy a really friendly, if slightly more formal relationship with their teachers.

So, class has this impressively energetic, focused and engaged feel to it despite the fact that the paint is practically falling of the wall. It is good testimony to the fact that a school is more than its facilities.

Since Sunday, we have been guided and ferried around Moscow by a nice group of third and fourth year students. They’ve met us at the hotel in the morning, driven us to restaurants at night, taken us on walks through Red Square and the Kremlin, gotten us to the Pushkin museum today – and generally been good company. Most of these are the students are coming to Vermont next month, so we’ll have the chance to return the hospitality.

I’ve been part of two presentations to students here and both of these I partnered with Jen Vincent and Gary Scudder. Yesterday we met with a second year class and talked broadly about differences between Russian and the US politically and socially. We asked them about their impressions of US culture and fielded their questions. This was much the case with another presentation today, only at a slightly more elevated level with the third year students. We talked a bit about health care policy – comparing the US and Russian systems, and I spoke a bit about the political dimensions of this recent legislation in the states. Jen was there to handle economic dimensions of these kinds of issues. In both cases, it was a good experience mostly because the students really were forthcoming with their own questions and reactions. I am quite impressed.

The Russian tuition system might be an encouragement here. I gather the size of a students scholarship/funding for education is largely determined by performance. Excellent grades are rewarded by substantial or complete scholarship funding; poor grades are met (if not with expulsion) with reduced support.

It’s this sort of connection with the school that makes this kind of travelling great; you get to interact with people you would never run across were I simply staying downtown and visiting Red Square or the Pushkin before touring along to St. Petersburg. We commute in and out from the college to the hotel with other Muscovites, and generally get something of an inside view of what goes on here.

My impression is that it is not all that easy to be a Russian these days – and that brings me to the topic of the Moscow grind. This is not an easy place to function – and for a tourist particularly so. Perhaps I will get into that more tomorrow.

Photo: Nope, not the school I am talking about. This is the entrance to one of the buildings off of Red Square. I haven't been taking pictures these past two days - so I'll make a point to carry my camera tomorrow.

Tutus

An exhausting but rather wonderful day. We tucked in to the business end of the trip. After another breakfast at the Soviet style breakfast bar – AND a quick check on the news to hear about the vote on the healthcare bill and the surrounding dramatics, we were met by Olga and Gradya(?) and guided through a busy metro line and a bit of a winding walk to the Higher School of Economics.

My first impression is that schools here have wonderful students and miserable facilities. I gather the school is located in a former Soviet military academy – and that maybe one part of it was an old palace with a staircase trodden by Napolean. The building/campus is remarkable for its size – if that is the way to describe this complex of connected buildings with corridors that go up and down and off at right angles without any limits that was able to see.

Katya and Irena – our real hosts – a professor and the Chair of the foreign language faculty at the school – met us at the top of one of those flights. It was a very friendly greeting; they have clearly put a lot of work into our visit.

This morning we saw a series of powerpoint presentations from one class of 2^nd year students introducing (in impeccable English) the school, the studies, the social life, a brief review of the curricula vitae of their Dean (whom we met subsequently). After lunch in the school “cantina”, Jen and I taught a class of second year students who were studying American politics and culture. Our aim is mostly to be here to answer their questions, so we did just enough introduction and presentation to get them talking about America and Russia and spent the hour talking about a variety of questions on everything from time management to gun control. We also did our Champlain thing by asking them to work in groups to answer some questions for us. Very easy, very forthcoming – and they even knew what the electoral college is. The only problem was that class wasn’t long enough. We were pulled out of it to go meet and talk with the Dean.

The Dean is a very important individual here. The school is really a new college organized to train economic and political scholars and leaders, and the Dean is really the director of the entire institution (another teacher, Boris, later on filled me in on how the universities are organized here). He has a long and quite distinguished career in politics and economic policy in the old Soviet Union and today he advises Putin. Also, my impression is that Russia is given to it hierarchies – and so he is treated with a great deal of deference around school. Our college President, let alone our Dean, should have it so good. So, we talked about education and geopolitics and our little Global Modules program for awhile.

Later in the afternoon, Scudder and Betsy made a presentation on the GMs to the language faculty and there was a nice reception.

Too much to write about… I’ll get back to my thoughts about the school and student later. The facilities really are run down; the insides look like a 1950s school that has received almost no upkeep for the last thirty years – grooves in the stairs, cracked linoleum, repaired repairs of fixes on the door handles – but the students seem extremely capable and hard working and friendly, and the faculty is also running at full tilt. An impressive place.

More on that later. Tonight we took a long walk through some spitting snow and a brief metro ride to the ballet to see “Swan Lake”.

This was my first ballet –and I went in a little worried because (1) I had done absolutely nothing to teach myself about what’s up in this (or any) ballet and I had meant to do that before coming here, and (2) I was really quite tired after a long day in unfamiliar places and quite a hike across strange territory and I heard.

It was really great. I honestly did not think I would be engaged in it for the full three hours but it was really fun to watch. The four swan dancers did there thing in the first act, there was that great ballroom scene in the third, the storm in the fourth – quite amazing to watch. I am entirely sold. The theater was beautiful and the dance was excellent (“one thing we are still proud of” Irena remarked).

An equally long and complicated walk back to the right metro stop – and here I am back again, hoping I can catch enough sleep to do it again tomorrow. Jen Vincent and I are teaching a third year class in the morning.

Photo: No new pictures yesterday. I'll bring my camera to school later this week to get some photos. This shot is of one of the folklore statues near the front of the Kremlin.

Downtown!

Very impressive day. We toured the major sites: Red Square and Kremlin as well as a “country house” of one of the old aristocratic families. The weather was such as it is in March (rainy, a kind of on and off drizzle) but the truth is that is much easier to take than bright sunshine of Istanbul in July.

The hotel breakfast this morning certainly had variety – but I’d say the Istanbul comparison might play the other way. I slept like the dead last night, about ten hours solid. So, I feel pretty much caught up with the local time. That was easy this trip. Around eleven Irena, one of our student guides, met us, along with Karina (from last night) and we were ferried off for a day of the sights.

This morning we went to an old county estate of one of the aristocratic families – Sheremetov. Interesting place. It was really an estate designed mostly around hosting large balls. At least the central hall seemed that way. I gather the family lived in some of the smaller building around the estate. There were chapels and various houses, orangeries, lodges clustered around immense gardens and landscaped ponds. The interior of the main house was especially nice for its parquet floors (amazing designs out of contrasting woods), and some other really nice pieces of furniture. The gardens and landscaping – again, this is a sloppy time in March – were left more to the imagination, but those were beautifully set out.

I’d have to say Red Square was the most impressive thing today. Perhaps that is because the pictures I’ve seen of it lowered my expectations. In reality the size of it and the way it is anchored by these spectacular buildings, each of which more or less command their own space and need a big setting, all made it enormously impressive. For example, St. Basil’s – the multi domed colorful church we’ve all seen in pictures – it’s really a spectacular building not only in its details but also its overall shape, it fills up a space like Red Square very nicely.

The Kremlin wall runs down one side. This is the place that we know from the old photographs of the politburo lined up near the wall by Lenin’s tomb for the May Day parades. The other side is dominated by the GUM (pronounced “goom”) or State Department Store. Amazing place. I’ve seen these very old glassed covered arcade malls before, but never on this scale. There are three tiers of stores rising up on mezzanines joined by arched iron work scrolled bridges covering two long arcades of high end shops and cafes. We stopped there for a coffee and pastry late in the morning – very nice.

After wandering by St. Basil’s Cathedral, Lenin’s Tomb , a perpetual flame monument for the World War II dead, and a kind of flowing pool filled with sculptures depicting various Russian folk tales and fables, we got to the Kremlin around four in the afternoon. That gave us some time to explore some of the sites there – particularly the Church of the Annunciation used by the old royal family. This was an intensely decorated, although rather small, interior crammed floor to dome with beautiful wall paintings and an enormous iconostasis of old and beautiful icons. In the church of the Archangel, across the way, you have the tombs of many of the Czars and other Russian royals.

We had dinner at a buffet place just off Red Square which offered a chance to try a variety of different dishes, which was nice. I am very impressed with what the Russians do with dumplings – all kinds of filling and sauces.

On the way home I got my first glimpse of the impressive – both by reputation AND (I can now say) in fact – Moscow subway. The stop by Red Square (Kruschkaya?) was lined with marble and filled with bronze sculptures (mostly military themes).

So – as you can tell – today was a rush of new sights and impressions, an excellent way to start. Again, it makes a huge difference to have these students helping us around. I don’t get the sense that Moscow makes a point to cater to tourists, so having someone to point out how to make it through the subway, etc. is a big help. The guide books say it makes a big difference to learn a little about Cyrillic letters before coming here, and unless you have guides like these, that does make a big difference. The little Greek I once studied helps with some of the letters (think “rho” not “p”) but that only goes so far. In most strange places the sound and spelling of the words is usually all to clue you need to get by, but here – without familiar letters – that doesn’t work. The help has been essential.

Tomorrow will be nice in a different way. We finally get over to the college and get a chance to talk to some students and teachers in their classes – and that will be fun.

Photos: The top picture is of the interior of the GUM arcade (built in the 1890s) just below that are some of the domes of St. Basil's Cathedral.

First Things

As I write this, our first full day in Moscow begins. We arrived here yesterday around mid-day, which left enough of the rest of the day available to get settled into the hotel and form some first impressions, and have a great first dinner at the David Denisov (Denis Davidoff) Restaurant –chosen for its most traditional Russian fare. Our hosts have been wonderful. It’s nice to have a landing like this really well managed – and they’ve been great.

The flight over on Aeroflot was fine – about as comfortable seats as you can expect from any coach level service, movie screens behind each seat. I think I must have even been able to sleep a bit as those wee small hours seemed to pass fairly quickly. On landing passport control was pretty quick (contrary to what the guide books prepared us to expect) and ALL the bags made it here from Vermont in good condition – so, good travel.

Nikita – a fourth year student at the college met us and with impeccable English distributed maps, metro passes, contact phones as we piled into a van for a trip to the hotel. The Ismail Beta is where we are staying. It’s part of an enormous hotel complex built for the 1980 Olympics (and, now that the US is fighting its war in Afghanistan hopefully our visit here will make up for that bit of Olympic history). The hotel is good – nice rooms, wifi is free in the lobby and you can also pay for an in rooms service, there is breakfast buffet included – everything we need.

The drive in from the airport was pretty long, though, and the van was hot – I am actually forming the general impression that Russians like to keep building warm. The weather seems to be a wet mid-thirties, which is ok but we are often warned to bundle up. It is not a particularly pretty time of year – grey brown snow melting into slush and wet ice doesn’t make anything look great, but this notwithstanding I am forming some good first impressions of the place.

As Nikita points out, Russians live in apartment blocks. This conjures in our minds immense Soviet towers and pavement- and perhaps you can find some of that, but actually what I am seeing is more like five or ten story building arranged around green spaces like a college campus. I am eager to get a look at the city center (I will be heading there in about fifteen minutes).

Rather than succumbing to the temptations of an afternoon jet lag nap, Scudder and I wandered off to some of the shopping spots behind the hotel. Nikita came with us just long enough to make sure we knew where things were and helped us change some cash. We looked at a few shops and got ourselves a bowl of borscht - the standard beet and cabbage soup – which was really quite good. On the way back to the hotel – leaping over icy puddles of snow melt – we negotiated buying a few bottles of water (voda) in a little store nearby that sells mostly cakes, candy and dried fish. Feeling flush with accomplishment and interaction we got back to the hotel in time to clean up for our dinner rendezvous.

Dinner was wonderful. Two more student guides met with us – Karina and Dennis – second year students at the college. They drove or taxied us to the restaurant and pointed out the especially Russian things on the menu. The best thing I had was called a “two pea” soup – which actually did involve a few types of peas,but mostly it was like a good leek and potato soup and had a nice grilled lamb chop set right in the soup bowl. My kind of soup. Then an entree of a kind of stuffed dumpling, pirogi, garlic toasts – a nice Czech lager – trying other people’s stroganoff – all good stuff!

All in a very nice start! Made it back to the hotel around 10 PM and slept like a log until 8:30 this morning. Actually, I feel pretty much with the time zone right now – a successful transition.

Today, I am just about out the door right now for the big turista day: Red Square. Keep tuned for more later – and pictures.

Photo: This is above an entrance to the Church of the Annunciation in the Kremlin.

Idlewilde

It begins: an entirely new direction for the Golden Horn. Balanced blogging requires some exploration of the other side, and here is an opportunity to explore the ancient rivals of the Turks – the Russians.

It was an easy take off this morning. Went into the office for an hour or so before hitching a ride to the airport. The one irritation of this getaway is that we are expecting temperatures in the 30s or 20s in Moscow with snow melting into slush. Burlington Vermont, on the other hand, was expecting to shatter some warm weather records – maybe even get up to seventy. So, it felt sad to haul out the winter coat and fleece vest and generally get ready to bundle up again. Almost left the coat in Burlington airport, so perhaps there is some subconscious resentment about that too – but the trip promises to be fantastic.

Easy flight down. The plane was filled with a track team from Middlebury heading out to SanDiego – who were busily doing online library research in the airport and competed with each other over crossword puzzles on the flight down (students like this do exist?). Other than the man in front of me with the tattooed bald spot on his head (the track team thought that was pretty cool) – nothing remarkable.

So, here we sit for our long layover in JFK airport. Scudder, Jen and I got some good work done on one of our presentations – Kerry and Betsy doing much the same for theirs. Our flight is direct to Moscow on Aeroflot (the track team had enthusiastic recollections of Aeroflot apparently because it distributes free alcohol regardless of age). Hopefully it will be a comfortable flight and I will not arrive too fried, but generally I do not agree with long air flights overnight.

I am still getting clear about the schedule of what is coming up over the next week. I believe we are met at the airport in Moscow and taken to our hotel which was constructed for the Moscow Olympics and had the notability of being the largest hotel in Europe (something like 4000 rooms). We can do a little sight seeing or perhaps just catch up on sleep; some sort of dinner is arranged for Saturday evening.

My impression is that most days we have four or five hours of sessions with students in classes or perhaps with faculty; perhaps another two or three formal receptions of various types, but this should leave us some additional time to see the city both on our own and with some guidance from our hosts. The chief soiree should be the Bolshoi ballet dancing Swan Lake on Monday.

This is also the end of a very busy week. Lots to do at school, so I have not really had the time to think much about what is coming up although yesterday I was finally feeling that growing travel excitement.

OK – time to go find some kind of lunch/dinner meal so we can have a good bite before the flight. Next stop: Moscow.