21 March 2009

I decided to go to services at the Hillel last night. I wasn’t feeling particularly religious or anything, but I have never been and I had no plans. Originally I was going to go to the gym, but I hadn’t slept well the night before so I took a nap after class that ended up going much later than planned, so it meant I had to do one or the other. I chose services. On my way there, I saw a dead body on the sidewalk…
Walking from the metro to the building, I noticed a gap in the sidewalk where there were no people, and saw something laying on the ground that I assumed was garbage. As I got closer, I realized it was a body, laying face down on the pavement, face-planted and with the legs from the knee down hanging over the curb at a strange angle, rigid and shoeless. There was a small sheet of white plastic covering the back of the head and a portion of the person’s back, and there were two cops standing over the body smoking and talking. While I’m not 100% sure that this was a dead person, I’m fairly certain. When I was on my way back to the metro after services, the body was gone.
I’m not sure whether or not I liked services…it was a strange experience for me. It wasn’t overly religious, and it was very friendly…but for whatever reason I didn’t really enjoy it. I don’t think I’ll go back.
I met up with Jordan today. He’s the guy I met at the consulate back in January when I was picking up my visa. He was in the city for a week, and told me he hadn’t done any sightseeing other than one afternoon at the hermitage and walking past the Church on Spilled Blood, so I told him he had to do something else before he left. We had a really full day.
We met up around 11, and planned out our day. First we went to the Naval Museum (Jordan is in the Marines, but he was interested and I didn’t mind). It was alright…not really what I’m into, but they had a lot of artifacts, models, and pieces of boats from a few hundred years ago
After that, we had a quick lunch, and headed up to the Peter and Paul Fortress…but didn’t make it inside. Across the street we saw a big exhibit of artillery cannons and tanks, and Jordan wanted to take a look. We went and walked around, and realized we were at the War-History Museum, so we went inside. That was another really interesting museum. They had armaments and armor dating back to the early 1700s, and as recent as the 1970s. At one point we were in a section showing letters from various presidents and prime ministers around the world to the Soviet Union congratulating them for victory in world war two (interestingly, instead of ‘The Allied Forces’ as we call it, in Russian it is the ‘Anti-Hitler Coalition’). Above the letters, they had a French, British, and American flag from the 1940s. A family walked by as we were looking at the exhibit, and a little kid, probably four or five years old, pointed at the flags and said “is that one ours?” and both parents at the same time quickly snapped back ‘NO!’ and without thinking I said ‘no its ours’. The father looked surprised, and asked which one. I pointed to the American flag. ‘That one’s yours?” “Yes, its ours.” And then he congratulated us, and all of us laughed (except Jordan who I don’t think knew what was going on). It was a fun exchange.
Afterwards, we went to the State Museum of Russian Political History. I enjoyed that one most of all. Unfortunately, because we had already had a relatively full day, we got there with only 45 minutes before closing. We rushed through, and towards the end one of the women told me that if we come back in the next two days with our ticket and tell the cashier that we weren’t able to see the whole museum, they will let us back in for free. I think I will definitely come back on Monday after class, there was a lot more I would like to see.
When we first got there, we ran into two of Jordan’s classmates. They told us they had been there for a while, and were reading some binder that described all the exhibits in English. I took one, and the woman watching the room told me I didn’t need it, and that there were explanations in Russian on all the exhibits (I had already spoken to her briefly when I walked in to find out how much time we had to tour). I put it back, and as we headed to the next room she came after us and told Jordan’s friends that there were different binders for each room. I think if I wasn’t there to translate she would have followed them all over the museum trying to get them back…
In one of the rooms they had two telephones set up, and directions in both English and Russian to pick up the receiver and listen to a ‘funny story’. I picked it up, and listened to the story being told (only in Russian). I asked the woman watching the room why they had instructions printed in English if the man telling the story spoke only in Russian. She told me that they had the translation of the text in the English binder for the room, but I told her that I wasn’t asking for a translation, but I was asking why they would encourage people who don’t speak Russian to pick up the phone. She thought it was amusing and told me to write it in the guestbook. She said I was the first person to ever ask that.
After that, we cut across the Michaelovskii Garden, past the Russian Museum and then down Nevskii Prospekt just to show Jordan the street, and we stopped off in a shopping center (one I never noticed before) and went into a café and had a drink. The cashier seemed particularly interested in Jordan, so we invited her to sit with us. I acted as translator between them as he asked her all kinds of cultural questions, and strangely the only question she asked us was how to say творог in English (a kind of cheese). Apparently they get a lot of foreigners in the cafe, and she never knows how to tell them what is in the pastries.
Overall, I really enjoyed myself today. I had a good time with Jordan, and I had a chance to see a lot of new things. I hadn’t been to a museum in a few weeks, and if I hadn’t made plans with him, I was going to go myself. I doubt I would have gotten to see as much, though. Tomorrow I’m meeting with a friend and going to Pavlosk.