3 Museums x 12 unknown Russian folksongs = 36 professors and a long bus ride

Entry 12: September 4, 2011

            Sunday, October 2...the day of the Grand Excursion. Although the official meeting time was at 9 am, Ludmila had told me to be a little early because the older ladies tend to like to fight for good seats. She also said that they would first all try to sit with a seat to themselves, but would eventually realize that they had to share. She wanted to make sure the Valya (full name Valentina) and I would get to sit together, so she had told us both to be there early.

            I arrived around 8:40. The morning was very cold, and I was glad I was wearing several layers with a scarf and had brought gloves. I was also wearing the knit creation my mom and I have named “hat bands” which you may have seen around. It's sort of like a winter headband, but instead of being one circle, it has a button which fastens it in the back, meaning you don't have to pull it down over your hair and then battle out the ensuing static. Also, it's wider in the middle, where it sits over your forehead, then it is in the back where it fastens. Therefore it sort of looks like you're wearing a had from the front.

            I could see some people inside the university, but I decided to wait outside. Valya arrived shortly after me. I had been under the impression that Ludmila was coming with us, but it turned out she was not, and I was super thankful for Valya because, on top of her being wonderful company, I didn't know any of the teachers who went along. The troop that waited inside came out a little before nine, and as the bus pulled up, everyone rushed forward. Every person who lives in America should be forever thankful that we have the concept of a line. Even though I know that to get anywhere in Russia you have to be willing to push your way along, just like everyone else, I always feel really bad doing it.  The bus had two doors, one in the front, and one towards the middle. The middle door opened first, and most rushed for that, but Valya went for the front door, and snagged us the second row seat. Everyone settled onto the bus (which looked just like the tour motor coaches used by Princess and Holland. I would have mistaken it for the same model except that all of the exit signs and warnings were in Dutch, I believe), and roll was taken. At around 9:05 we started out on our way. Down by the Kremlin we picked up our tour guide for the day.

            A note on Russian tour guides: if you have been to Russia, you know that Russian tour guides have the ability to talk nearly endlessly, and often do so in a very official, sometimes monotone sort of way. It does not mean that they do not convey interesting information, but it seems to me that in America, tour guides try not only to give information, but also to entertain. Russian tour guides don't usually feel they have to entertain. I'll never forget my unconventional Russian guide I had when I was in Moscow a few years ago. As she took my group through the Tretyakov Gallery, if there was a picture she wanted to show us that had a Russian tour group in front of it, she'd just pass it by and show us something else because she said they could very well be standing there listening to the history of not only the painting and the painter but the paint itself for hours. We laughed, but later discovered she was only half joking.

            Valya and I had been chatting before the guide arrived, but we listened to her for a while after she joined us. Then Valya told me she didn't really like the guide and felt she wasn't telling interesting information, so Valya and I talked about music, movies, life, school, anything we could think of. She was going to play some music for me, but her MP3 player was dead. Thus we just talked, which was really good practice for me. I didn't speak a word of English the entire day, and believe me when I say I listened to nearly 12 hours of straight, and practically continuous, Russian.

            When the guide first arrived the lady in front of me, who was one of the organizers of the event, asked her when we were getting tea. The guide said she was unaware we were supposed to have tea, only lunch. This started a small debate back and forth, to which Valya and I listened and tried to hide our smiles. It was finally decided that we would make a stop on the way to the first town where we  would find the “last civilized toilet” for a few hours to come, and there was a cafe there where people could purchase either tea or coffee. The guide then listed the run down of the available “facilities” we would have available to us throughout the day, and talked about how several of the places we would be going were “derevna” (the country, backwoods) and “not civilization,” all of which I found highly amusing.

            At the first stop, Valya and I went into the cafe, glad to not be standing the the long line for the toilet. I snagged a table as she went up to order coffee. We both throughly enjoyed the coffee, even though it wasn't that great, because we were both not really fully awake yet. Sitting in comfortable seats on a warm bus to the continuous talking of a guide without much varied inflection does not help you wake up very easily.

            We arrived at the first stop around 11am. I must say, I was quite impressed with our driver. He could drive that bus on roads I wouldn't want to take a small car on. The town was called Мстёро (Mstyora, which is pronounced sort of like M-store-uh, with the stress on the long “O”). It is known for it's lacquer miniatures. The museum had a room of Russian icons, which seem to be a staple in every Russian museum, and then the remainder of the first floor was comprised of the lacquer boxes. I love Russian lacquer work. Scenes from nature, history, or fairytale seem to come to life on the intricately painted boxes. They have so much detail on them. Valya and I started out listening to the guide assigned to us at the museum, but ended up going away from the group and looking at things ourselves.  The second floor showed curtains and cross-stitch. We tended to stay in the same room as the guide, so we could listen on, and learned several interesting things about the images on the curtains. You could definitely tell that many were from the Soviet Union as they had a space theme in honor of Yuri Gagarin. I've never seen curtains with so many lace rocket ships. One of Valya and my favorites was one that had a cosmic scene that seemed to alternate planets and flowers in the sky.

            After we finished the museum we still had a half-hour before heading off to lunch, so we went over to the monastery across the street. We took some pictures outside, but it was bitterly cold with the strong wind, so we soon sought solace inside. When you entered there was a coat hanger of head scarves for women to tie on their heads. Valya and I each put one on and walked around the church. Valya asked me if I believed in God, to which I answered yes, and we each talked about our faith for a bit.

            Upon leaving the church, we took a few more pictures outside, and then hurried back to the warmth of the bus. A little after one we headed off to another town for lunch. The tables were set for us in the hotel when we arrived. We checked our coats, and then Valya and I went to put our purses down, reserving seats, before going to wash our hands. Apparently, 20 some other women had the same idea, so we had to wait for a long time. When we got back to the hall, most people were already on the first course.

            A typical Russian dining experience is as follows: The table has plates of bread on it for you to have during your meal. There were also some pirozhki, which are like a sweet bread that are usually filled with something. You begin with a salad. Ours consisted of boiled egg, cucumber, a little carrot, and, as always, lots and lots of mayonnaise. Then the first course is soup. We had a borsh with some sort of meat in it. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't as good as the wonderful borsh I had had at Katya's a few weekends past. After that you get the second course which was meat and potatoes and some sort of cold, pickled something that I decided to pass on. I was pretty full anyway. After that is finished, the tea is brought out, and we had the pirozhki which were filled with a cherry filling.

            There were also bottles of water on the table, and, to my delight, a few of them were uncarbonated. While waiting for my soup, I ended up opening one, and that's when I noticed that I was getting some funny looks. Valya asked me if I usually drank water when I ate, and when I said yes, that's when I learned that they don't think that's good for you, which I briefly talked about in the previous entry. Thus, despite my great desire to drink my fill, I waited until after lunch to drink more water. After lunch we hopped back onto the bus, and set out for our next museum.

            The museum was in honor of a Russian song writer. On the way there our guide said that to get into the museum everyone had to sing one of his songs, and thus everyone on the bus was thinking of his songs and they practiced singing them. Valya and I not only did not know a single one, we had not heard any of them or of the song-writer himself. Luckily, they still let us into the museum. It was pretty small, and run by only five ladies. There were two rooms, the first of which was a hodgepodge of the life of the museum's namesake and some artists that followed. The second room had the history of the 21^st Centuries Russian music, but instead of walking around, we were asked to sit down in the chairs set up in the middle of the hall.

            We were there for nearly two hours, and not only did they sing all of the namesake's songs via karoke, but they also went through the decades, singing Soviet songs, Russian boy/girl scout songs, and all sorts of different ones. Once again, Valya and I didn't know any of them, as they were before our time, but we had intentionally sat in the middle of the back row so we didn't have a microphone every put in front of us.

            When we left the museum, much to our dismay, we found it had somehow gotten even colder. Halfway to the bus we were stopped by our next “excursivod” (tour guide) from the city who had a binder of pictures, which she tried to show us, but was not terrible successful as there were nearly 40 of us. We were sooo cold and terribly thankful when our main guide decided that it would probably be better to hear the excursivod talk over the mic on the bus instead of into the wind in the freezing cold. Apparently we had taken more time at the museum than was expected, so the excursivod was trying to make up for lost time by talking insanely fast. We stopped at one lookout, and a brave few, including myself, stepped out to take some pictures. By this time it was a little before five o'clock. The excursivod talked in length about the famous cucumbers grown in the city.

            We arrived at the next museum and went into a small unheated building before the main museum. There was some sort of machine in there from the early 1900s, but Valya and I were some of the last few to enter the building, so the machines name and function had already been told when we got there. We never did figure out what in the world it did. After twenty minutes or so, we entered the museum, which was supposed to be closing. However, since we arrived, it had to stay open, and the ladies who worked there waiting to tell you what you're not allowed to do or get too close to were none to happy about having to stay late. Because they were closing the museum, they wouldn't let us wander, so all 40 of us had to stay in the same room. Thus, you couldn't really see anything. At one point I got distracted by some piano music, while the group entered into a side room. The room was too small to get everyone inside, so I stayed in the room I was in and looked around, which I much preferred. Then, when they exited the side room to stay in the main room, I got to go into the small room.

            You have to pay to take pictures in a Russian museum. I didn't pay and thus didn't take pictures, but I'm pretty sure that the majority of the photos snapped were by people who didn't pay. Rules in Russia are truly more like guidelines than actual rules. The museum itself I think would have been very interesting if we would have been able to see, but the amount of us they stuffed into a room made it rather enjoyable. At one point, a few ladies tried to go ahead to the next room in order to take pictures before everyone arrived, and they got yelled at. When we got on the bus, we had to wait for those who wanted to use the bathroom to arrive...and it took about a half hour to get through everyone. I don't know why Russian museums seem to never have more than one toilet, but they should really do something about it.

            Therefore, we didn't leave the town until almost 7pm, and it was a two hour drive home. Valya and I exchanged numbers, and she said she lives pretty close to the university so we plan to hang out in the future. The coming week is exams for the students, so we're not going to do anything until exams are over, but I anticipate doing things with her in the future. She said next time we'll practice her English.

            I was very glad to get home and be able to wrap up in a warm fleece blanket. I had planned to go to sleep early, but I decided to read a little first. Unfortunately the book was excellent.....and I read the whole thing in one sitting. So much for a good night's rest.

           

            The Koreans were still up when I finally went to bed, and there was one guy that kept coming to their door and talking very loudly. They seem to never sleep. I discovered this morning that they have a new roommate, so now there are three girls who live next door.

            Monday was a long day, mostly because I was really tired, which was completely my fault. I worked on some homework and talked with a student (in Russian) who came by. I went home, switched purses, and then headed to the telephone company to put more money on my phone, as it said my account was at 235 rubles, and I had only put down 200. However, after I put down 200 more, I realized that that was not what I owed, but my balance. Maybe they give you a certain amount to start out. Now I have 435 rubles on my phone, which I highly doubt I will use up. I'm going to try to get the internet connected on my phone, as the little USB modem the girls in my dorm lent me is no longer working. I think it's because it's a new month now. I'm going to try to get someone to help me with dealing with Beeline, the phone company.

            I also stopped by the store and grabbed a few things. I wanted to go to the produkti to grab the pelmeni I like, but I was too tired by the time I got home, and I still needed to do some laundry. I know that somewhere in the dorm there is a washing machine, but I'm not sure where it is. I could ask, but I never feel like I have enough laundry at a time to warrant paying for the washer. Also, I'm not sure what the quality will be, so I'd rather wash things myself. I figured out how to stop up the shower, which has about a foot of a tub-ish area, and washed my things there. My conclusion: jeans hold an extreme amount of water. When I get home today, I'm going to use the radiator in my room to help me dry my jeans.

           

            On a final note, the Brays want me to come visit them in Moscow next weekend, and I'm thinking of going. I've been trying to find some who could go with me, as I don't really want to travel to Moscow by myself, but thus far I've been unsuccessful. Jackie was just there in the summer and doesn't want to spend the money to go...so we will see.