St. Petersburg
I've just returned from McDonald's where I had breakfast. I must say that I puzzled over the menu for a bit trying to find an Egg McMuffin or some other breakfast item. I couldn't find it so got two muffins, yogurt, and tea. As I sat chomping on my expensive muffins I looked at what the other patrons were eating. Nobody was eating breakfast stuff, so maybe I didn't miss that on the menu after all. The person who appeared to be the manager was an attractive young woman named Ekaterina. She brought each child that entered the restaurant a small toy. Out of the 20 minutes I was in the fast food joint she was only in the back for maybe 3 minutes. It seems unusual to me for the manager to be so involved. This probably means that she wasn't the manager, but who knows. Maybe working at McDonald's in Russia is a good career option. Oh yeah, they do birthday parties too. What more could you ask for?
Enough about the fine, family-friendly, flavorful establishment aka Mickey D's. My weekend excursion to St. Petersburg was without a doubt the best thing I've done in Russia thus far. Now I am challenged with how to describe it adequately. I'll go with the chronological approach and try to hit on the following broad areas in some detail: family, religion, my Russian language, living conditions, transportation, and then of course all the sights.
When I found out that I would be able to travel without my passport which was (and still is) off getting registered, I wanted to stay with Inna and Pavel Kudelich. Inna is the eldest in the fearsome clan of Tomenko brothers and sisters. I met her and her husband when they visited the State-side half of the family back in 2001. Anyhow I tried to call her but had difficult figuring out how to operate the phone long distance. Then when I saw somebody I forgot to ask. To make a long story shorter, I didn't end up calling until 18:40 Thursday evening. Yet when my train rolled into St. Petersburg a little over 12 hours later Pavel was waiting for me. This was just my first taste of how Russian people look after family and friends. We traveled back to the Kudelich apartment and had some breakfast. I was asked where I wanted to go and what I wanted to see. Knowing only a small bit about St. Petersburg, I allowed them to decide what I would see. I should have accepted the offer to catch a few winks, but fought off sleep. The weather was overcast yet Inna, Sasha (her son), Sofia (her niece), and I set off for The Great Catherine Palace of Tsarskoye Selo. We had missed the train, so milled around the inside of Vitebsky Railway Station. I played (and lost) a game of Uno while we waited. Interestinlgy enough with the way vowels are reduced the pronunciation is different. I am having a difficult time trying to phonetically write it down... The first syllable is eew or ooo (like the sound you make when you see something disgusting) and the second is nah. Ooo-nah. Maybe. So then on the train. We boarded maybe ten minutes before it left. Soon after we sat down somebody entered the train behind me and started talking very loudly and rapidly. I didn't quite understand what was happening and before I knew it I was holding an ice cream cone. Inna insisted that I try it; it was her favorite kind of cone for the train ride. Maybe five or six other salesmen pedalled their wares on the train before departure. Everything from newspapers and food to umbrellas and handkerchiefs. The ride was pleasant enough and before too long we got out and stepped into a nice drizzle. Which soon turned into a downpour. I have never seen quite so many people try to board a bus in my life. It was truly something to behold. My guess is that if there was a horrible accident and the bus rolled five times everybody would still be in exactly the same position unharmed; we were wedged in nice and tight. Sasha felt a bit sick to his stomach so we got off and walked the rest of the way to Tsarskoye Selo. En route I saw the first of many wedding processions I would see.
After getting tickets and hanging our wet coats we joined the back of the line for the next available tour. Who should step up behind us but Robyn, Chad, the cat lady, and Nella - my traveling buddies. Oddly enough this was the only time we saw each other the entire weekend. The mansion had many interesting things to see. My tour guide sucked. She was undoubtedly the most worstest guide I've ever had. To her credit she did speak Russian quite nice and fast, albeit too fast for me to derive any meaning. I saw my first of seven Peter 1 I would see over the weekend. The Amber Room was quite impressive, but smaller than I had imagined (the link at the bottom of the article has pictures but the music is rather annoying). Outside again the drizzle continued and we walked the grounds. The outside facade was actually quite beautiful in spite of the rain. Inna took my picture, but I forgot to ask for a copy of it so here is Sofia looking at the front of the building. It must have been close to four when we left the premises and the children (me included) were getting hungry. Not too far away a nice cafe invitingly called us in from the rain. Usually I'm pretty quick about deciding what to order, but I've taken quite awhile to decide what I want in every restaurant I've been in over here. Lunch finished; we proceeded back to the apartment.
The building that the Kudeliches live in is about 100 years old. It kind of looks it too. Home is where the heart is, so their apartment would be perfect (close to the metro station, the train station, and a McDonald's), except for the neighbors (an elderly couple). If I remember the terminology correctly, they live in a communal apartment. Each family has two rooms and a shared kitchen and bathroom. I don't suppose I know all the ins and outs, but it was fairly obvious that each family would have been much happier without the other. For example, instead of ringing the apartment door bell to get in, whoever was on the outside called the person on the inside's cell phone and asked to get in. The one time I came to the apartment with somebody else, I asked her to call the cell phone instead of ringing the bell, but I must have used an ambiguous verb or not been specific enough because she rang the door bell anyway. I think that everytime I rode the elevator I was told how Deric got some spray paint cans and covered over the graffiti on the inside. Nice job. Pasha and Sasha started the movie Troy (in Russian of course). Inna tried to turn on subtitles for me maybe ten minutes into the movie and ended up starting the movie over accidentally. It ended up not having subtitles, but that was okay. I played some bingo type game with Sofia and Inna. It was as good for me as it was for Sofia. In it a number is drawn out of a bag and called then you get to cover up the number on your board. Whoever's board is covered first wins. Sofia used it for number practice and I used it for Russian practice. The way she figured out what the numbers looked like helped me a bit. She would say, "Thirty-six, three and six." A round of tea and Pavel went with me to his brother's house where there was an extra bed. What was the first thing we did upon arrival? Sit down for some more tea. For those of you not acquainted with the term 'tea' it actually means several cups of a scalding hot beverage and the equivalent of a small loaf of bread in small sweet rolls and chocolate something-or-anothers. Pavel stayed only a short time and then left me with his niece Yulia and nephew whose name I'm not so sure of now, but I think it was Vanya or Valya or something like that (I'm much better now, but sometimes these names sound weird to me and I have a horrible time remembering them - I wonder how it will be when I need to learn a whole classful of names every few weeks). It was relatively early when we arrived, maybe 9 or so. The idea was that I could get some sleep. But honestly, who wants to sleep when they can make a fool of themselves speaking a foreign tongue? Vanya spoke no English and Yulia knew a few words, but Vanya was interested in talking with me. Usually when I ask people to repeat what they said slower they slow a little bit. He was funny in that he really slowed down. Like the classic Austin Powers lower soundbyte. It was funny, but we did discover something useful before sacking out around midnight: we were both riding the train back to Moscow on Sunday night. Except when we compared tickets his left a day earlier than mine. A quick consultation with the calendar revealed that he had purchased a ticket for the wrong day. So my first short day (6:15 - 23:35) in St. Petersburg came to an end. I think that I heard and spoke more Russian in one day than ever before. And I lived to tell about it.
Sabbath morning I dragged myself out of bed at 9:30 maybe. Sleep does feel nice. After an excellent breakfast courtesy of Yulia the three of us headed off towards the church. It was maybe fifteen minutes away. I tried to learn the name of another tree along the way. We arrived a few minutes late, but didn't miss anything. Sometimes I have a difficult enough time staying awake in my own church where the sermon is fairly engaging (and in English). So I had quite a time managing to keep my eyelids separated without resorting to toothpicks. The vocabulary used in a sermon I would imagine is fairly specialized and while I can say, "Yes, two beers please," in Russian just about all I know of religion is how to say church and God. Fortunately, Inna had thought about this and introduced me to a friend of hers that offered to translate. This went fine for the first three minutes until the lady sitting next to us told him to shutup. So I picked out a few words here and there and watched the kids fidgeting. I was surprised that I was able to keep up with singing the hymns. Except for some funky pronunciations (at least compared with those around me) I did well. Sabbath School follows church. Again Inna invited me to join the English lesson study, but I declined as politely as I could in Russian (which probably wasn't very polite) and stayed with what appeared to be a collegiate group. Frankly, my comprehension was extremely low. But you gotta start somewhere I reckon. There were a whole bunch of jokes being tossed around that I just smiled and nodded at. Following the service kids ran wild outside on the playground. Here is a short movie of Sofia on the swings waiting for me to take her picture.
Now that I think about it I'm not so sure who the people are that we went to lunch with. At the time I thought they were somehow related to Pavel, but now I'm not so sure. In any event they had two boys and I can't remember any of their names. We went to eat at a blini restaurant. I was stuffed. I was really stuffed. It was kinda cool. I was standing right beside all the other kids watching the people make the blinis. After lunch Nina and I waited for my translator from the morning to arrive on the subway and we hoofed it through lovely St. Petersburg's downtown while everybody else went back to the apartment. There was one thing that I wish I had taken a picture of and didn't. So now I need to go back so I can get that one last shot. It was of a sign that said 900 kisses or something like that. I asked why not 901 and nobody knew for sure. I am rather looking forward to having my picture taken with that extra 1. Any volunteers? I know we didn't see everything but we did see a good deal. Here is a car parked in the middle of an intersection. Why? I haven't a clue. The entry into the Palace Square. Directly behind me is the Alexander Column and behind that the Hermitage. A rather cool orange thing in front of a bus parked curbside next to the Hermitage. We saw maybe a million wedding celebrations going on around town. Here is the remnants from one day's worth on a small ledge at Brizhevaya Square which overlooks the mouth of the Small River where it joins the Big River. Here is a picture of Inna and I facing my bottle collection. And one can't forget the nice cuddly bear doing its thing. After the sun got fairly low in the sky we headed back to the homestead and ate watermelon. I felt like the typical wasteful American because everybody else ate their watermelon until there was no red visible. Even Sofia. Different cultures have different ideas I guess. When I was a kid, my Mommy told me that you shouldn't eat the white part because it would make you sick. Technically, they weren't eating the white part. I always interpreted the white part to mean the part where the red part turns into the white part and the white part. Enough about the part part of the white red. At least we all agreed on not eating the green part, no? I didn't realize how late it hat gotten to be. After some tea, Pavel and I left for my sleeping spot. Got there a few minutes before midnight. Thus closed my second day of mucho speako russkio.
Note: I'll return to edit this post and fill in the last day later. Right now I'm tired of typing and thought I'd share what I have so far.
Enough about the fine, family-friendly, flavorful establishment aka Mickey D's. My weekend excursion to St. Petersburg was without a doubt the best thing I've done in Russia thus far. Now I am challenged with how to describe it adequately. I'll go with the chronological approach and try to hit on the following broad areas in some detail: family, religion, my Russian language, living conditions, transportation, and then of course all the sights.
When I found out that I would be able to travel without my passport which was (and still is) off getting registered, I wanted to stay with Inna and Pavel Kudelich. Inna is the eldest in the fearsome clan of Tomenko brothers and sisters. I met her and her husband when they visited the State-side half of the family back in 2001. Anyhow I tried to call her but had difficult figuring out how to operate the phone long distance. Then when I saw somebody I forgot to ask. To make a long story shorter, I didn't end up calling until 18:40 Thursday evening. Yet when my train rolled into St. Petersburg a little over 12 hours later Pavel was waiting for me. This was just my first taste of how Russian people look after family and friends. We traveled back to the Kudelich apartment and had some breakfast. I was asked where I wanted to go and what I wanted to see. Knowing only a small bit about St. Petersburg, I allowed them to decide what I would see. I should have accepted the offer to catch a few winks, but fought off sleep. The weather was overcast yet Inna, Sasha (her son), Sofia (her niece), and I set off for The Great Catherine Palace of Tsarskoye Selo. We had missed the train, so milled around the inside of Vitebsky Railway Station. I played (and lost) a game of Uno while we waited. Interestinlgy enough with the way vowels are reduced the pronunciation is different. I am having a difficult time trying to phonetically write it down... The first syllable is eew or ooo (like the sound you make when you see something disgusting) and the second is nah. Ooo-nah. Maybe. So then on the train. We boarded maybe ten minutes before it left. Soon after we sat down somebody entered the train behind me and started talking very loudly and rapidly. I didn't quite understand what was happening and before I knew it I was holding an ice cream cone. Inna insisted that I try it; it was her favorite kind of cone for the train ride. Maybe five or six other salesmen pedalled their wares on the train before departure. Everything from newspapers and food to umbrellas and handkerchiefs. The ride was pleasant enough and before too long we got out and stepped into a nice drizzle. Which soon turned into a downpour. I have never seen quite so many people try to board a bus in my life. It was truly something to behold. My guess is that if there was a horrible accident and the bus rolled five times everybody would still be in exactly the same position unharmed; we were wedged in nice and tight. Sasha felt a bit sick to his stomach so we got off and walked the rest of the way to Tsarskoye Selo. En route I saw the first of many wedding processions I would see.
After getting tickets and hanging our wet coats we joined the back of the line for the next available tour. Who should step up behind us but Robyn, Chad, the cat lady, and Nella - my traveling buddies. Oddly enough this was the only time we saw each other the entire weekend. The mansion had many interesting things to see. My tour guide sucked. She was undoubtedly the most worstest guide I've ever had. To her credit she did speak Russian quite nice and fast, albeit too fast for me to derive any meaning. I saw my first of seven Peter 1 I would see over the weekend. The Amber Room was quite impressive, but smaller than I had imagined (the link at the bottom of the article has pictures but the music is rather annoying). Outside again the drizzle continued and we walked the grounds. The outside facade was actually quite beautiful in spite of the rain. Inna took my picture, but I forgot to ask for a copy of it so here is Sofia looking at the front of the building. It must have been close to four when we left the premises and the children (me included) were getting hungry. Not too far away a nice cafe invitingly called us in from the rain. Usually I'm pretty quick about deciding what to order, but I've taken quite awhile to decide what I want in every restaurant I've been in over here. Lunch finished; we proceeded back to the apartment.
The building that the Kudeliches live in is about 100 years old. It kind of looks it too. Home is where the heart is, so their apartment would be perfect (close to the metro station, the train station, and a McDonald's), except for the neighbors (an elderly couple). If I remember the terminology correctly, they live in a communal apartment. Each family has two rooms and a shared kitchen and bathroom. I don't suppose I know all the ins and outs, but it was fairly obvious that each family would have been much happier without the other. For example, instead of ringing the apartment door bell to get in, whoever was on the outside called the person on the inside's cell phone and asked to get in. The one time I came to the apartment with somebody else, I asked her to call the cell phone instead of ringing the bell, but I must have used an ambiguous verb or not been specific enough because she rang the door bell anyway. I think that everytime I rode the elevator I was told how Deric got some spray paint cans and covered over the graffiti on the inside. Nice job. Pasha and Sasha started the movie Troy (in Russian of course). Inna tried to turn on subtitles for me maybe ten minutes into the movie and ended up starting the movie over accidentally. It ended up not having subtitles, but that was okay. I played some bingo type game with Sofia and Inna. It was as good for me as it was for Sofia. In it a number is drawn out of a bag and called then you get to cover up the number on your board. Whoever's board is covered first wins. Sofia used it for number practice and I used it for Russian practice. The way she figured out what the numbers looked like helped me a bit. She would say, "Thirty-six, three and six." A round of tea and Pavel went with me to his brother's house where there was an extra bed. What was the first thing we did upon arrival? Sit down for some more tea. For those of you not acquainted with the term 'tea' it actually means several cups of a scalding hot beverage and the equivalent of a small loaf of bread in small sweet rolls and chocolate something-or-anothers. Pavel stayed only a short time and then left me with his niece Yulia and nephew whose name I'm not so sure of now, but I think it was Vanya or Valya or something like that (I'm much better now, but sometimes these names sound weird to me and I have a horrible time remembering them - I wonder how it will be when I need to learn a whole classful of names every few weeks). It was relatively early when we arrived, maybe 9 or so. The idea was that I could get some sleep. But honestly, who wants to sleep when they can make a fool of themselves speaking a foreign tongue? Vanya spoke no English and Yulia knew a few words, but Vanya was interested in talking with me. Usually when I ask people to repeat what they said slower they slow a little bit. He was funny in that he really slowed down. Like the classic Austin Powers lower soundbyte. It was funny, but we did discover something useful before sacking out around midnight: we were both riding the train back to Moscow on Sunday night. Except when we compared tickets his left a day earlier than mine. A quick consultation with the calendar revealed that he had purchased a ticket for the wrong day. So my first short day (6:15 - 23:35) in St. Petersburg came to an end. I think that I heard and spoke more Russian in one day than ever before. And I lived to tell about it.
Sabbath morning I dragged myself out of bed at 9:30 maybe. Sleep does feel nice. After an excellent breakfast courtesy of Yulia the three of us headed off towards the church. It was maybe fifteen minutes away. I tried to learn the name of another tree along the way. We arrived a few minutes late, but didn't miss anything. Sometimes I have a difficult enough time staying awake in my own church where the sermon is fairly engaging (and in English). So I had quite a time managing to keep my eyelids separated without resorting to toothpicks. The vocabulary used in a sermon I would imagine is fairly specialized and while I can say, "Yes, two beers please," in Russian just about all I know of religion is how to say church and God. Fortunately, Inna had thought about this and introduced me to a friend of hers that offered to translate. This went fine for the first three minutes until the lady sitting next to us told him to shutup. So I picked out a few words here and there and watched the kids fidgeting. I was surprised that I was able to keep up with singing the hymns. Except for some funky pronunciations (at least compared with those around me) I did well. Sabbath School follows church. Again Inna invited me to join the English lesson study, but I declined as politely as I could in Russian (which probably wasn't very polite) and stayed with what appeared to be a collegiate group. Frankly, my comprehension was extremely low. But you gotta start somewhere I reckon. There were a whole bunch of jokes being tossed around that I just smiled and nodded at. Following the service kids ran wild outside on the playground. Here is a short movie of Sofia on the swings waiting for me to take her picture.
Now that I think about it I'm not so sure who the people are that we went to lunch with. At the time I thought they were somehow related to Pavel, but now I'm not so sure. In any event they had two boys and I can't remember any of their names. We went to eat at a blini restaurant. I was stuffed. I was really stuffed. It was kinda cool. I was standing right beside all the other kids watching the people make the blinis. After lunch Nina and I waited for my translator from the morning to arrive on the subway and we hoofed it through lovely St. Petersburg's downtown while everybody else went back to the apartment. There was one thing that I wish I had taken a picture of and didn't. So now I need to go back so I can get that one last shot. It was of a sign that said 900 kisses or something like that. I asked why not 901 and nobody knew for sure. I am rather looking forward to having my picture taken with that extra 1. Any volunteers? I know we didn't see everything but we did see a good deal. Here is a car parked in the middle of an intersection. Why? I haven't a clue. The entry into the Palace Square. Directly behind me is the Alexander Column and behind that the Hermitage. A rather cool orange thing in front of a bus parked curbside next to the Hermitage. We saw maybe a million wedding celebrations going on around town. Here is the remnants from one day's worth on a small ledge at Brizhevaya Square which overlooks the mouth of the Small River where it joins the Big River. Here is a picture of Inna and I facing my bottle collection. And one can't forget the nice cuddly bear doing its thing. After the sun got fairly low in the sky we headed back to the homestead and ate watermelon. I felt like the typical wasteful American because everybody else ate their watermelon until there was no red visible. Even Sofia. Different cultures have different ideas I guess. When I was a kid, my Mommy told me that you shouldn't eat the white part because it would make you sick. Technically, they weren't eating the white part. I always interpreted the white part to mean the part where the red part turns into the white part and the white part. Enough about the part part of the white red. At least we all agreed on not eating the green part, no? I didn't realize how late it hat gotten to be. After some tea, Pavel and I left for my sleeping spot. Got there a few minutes before midnight. Thus closed my second day of mucho speako russkio.
Note: I'll return to edit this post and fill in the last day later. Right now I'm tired of typing and thought I'd share what I have so far.
posted by Troy on 14:00
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Please feel free to share the link with anybody - Маша, RUSS101 students, or whoever wants it. As for Moscow's coverage, it will be coming in a few days.
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