The 8th of March

Since I am not at the archives today, I have the time to explain why I am not at the archives today.

Today is the 8th of March, or International Women's Day. In fact, this is the 100th International Women's Day, as it was first celebrated by the socialist movement in Russia in 1912 and 1913. International Women's Day in 1917--March 8th by the Gregorian calendar, but still February by the Julian calendar in use in Russia--was the spark of the first, February Revolution in Petrograd.

It was an official holiday in the Soviet Union throughout its existence, although the practice of making it a non-working day dates, apparently and not a little oddly, only from 1965. It has spread to other countries, mostly but not exclusively those with a history of communist rule. In Russia it is colloquially termed "March 8th" and the most common gesture is to give the women in your life flowers. In fact, you can't walk anywhere today without people selling flowers, carrying flowers, delivering flowers.

In fact, it's a nice tradition in my opinion because it expressly celebrates all women, including friends, coworkers, and others, not only women only as mothers or partners as is the case with the respective American holidays.

On the other hand, much like Mothers' Day and Valentines Day, the danger is that by devoting one day to them, we forget to express our appreciation for others the rest of the year.

So, do something nice for the women in your life today, on March 8th, but also don't about the people who are important to you on June 8 or September 8, too.

Blinni and a(nother) Russian Institution

Yesterday was a Saturday afternoon. We spent it, as we usually do when the weather is overcast and a little cool, at the American Home. It was a little unique because we began pulling our personal things out of our little cubbie-holes and storage spaces, only to be confronted with the fact that we either have to cart home to the States or get rid of a lot of STUFF! It's going to be interesting.

We also made a nice dinner which included Russian blinni (Thanks for cooking blinni, Molly!) and followed it up with another Russian favorite, some Cheburashka cartoons. Cheburashka is a little creature of unknown origin who cutely popped out of an orage crate and makes an appearence in four short stop-motion animation films from the Soviet '70s. He's cute; befriends an easy-going crocodile names Gena; is sometimes foiled by the quasi-evil, but strangely grandmotherly, Shapaklyak; and learns many life lessons. It's cute, and despite the fact that there is barely an hour of existing films, he is wildly popular over 30 years after his creation. (If you look closely at Olympic footage, you'll see him as a sort of mascot for Russian teams in both of the last two Olympiads.) You can read more about him here: Wikipedia, giver of knowledge.

This is also the source of one of may favorite sentences in the Russian language, which goes like this: Жил в городе крокодил. Его зовут Гена. Он работал в зоопарке крокодилом. (There lived in the city a crocodile. His name is Gena. He worked at the zoo as a crocodile.)

So, with that our semester is winding down. My parents and sister are in London now and will be here on Saturday to visit, which is still hard to believe. These next two weeks are going to be crazy!

Sunday Day-trip

I had forgotten how nice it is to be able to drive places on your own schedule! After months of public transportation we took a little trip to Sergeev Posad, by car! Natasha who works here at the AH, Joanna, Eric, Molly and I joined some of our students and friends, Larissa, Marina, her son, and a co-worker of Marina’s on a road trip. Sergeev Posad is a small town northeast of Moscow that is home to one of the most famous and beautiful monasteries in Russia, The Trinity-Sergius Monastary. We were there on Sunday during mass which was very interesting. As you can see, I took tons of pictures.

After thoroughly checking out the monastery, we drove a few miles to Abramtsevo. It is a small estate that in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was owned by a wealthy Moscow industrialist who invited artists like Repin and Vasnetsov to the estate, a sort of artists’ colony. In addition to pleasant woods, a beautiful stone church, and some pretty wooded buildings, there are museums and workshops for things like painting, woodworking, and ceramics. We spent some time wandering the grounds and, you guessed it, taking more pictures.

After Abramtsevo we drove a short while and stopped for a picnic lunch and some relaxation. On the way home, we went via the little town of Radonezh. It’s a small town with a church and a spring that is famously connected to St. Sergei of Radonezh, who was the founder of the monastery in Sergeev Posad. It’s a very pretty place and we took the chance to have a dip in the spring-fed stream and drink some of the water from the spring that is believed to have cleansing powers.

In all, it was a relaxing, beautiful day that I think we all really enjoyed. I know that I'm enjoying summer, but the time is going very fast. We have barely three weeks left to teach! Yikes!

Day and Night

I have a quick, not to deep observation about life in Russia. The days are getting much longer.

The last two mornings I have awoken to find it broad daylight outside. Sleepily rolling over, I see that my alarmclock tells me it is 5:30 and I can sleep another several hours. On the other end, in the evening it the sets and it begins to get dark around 10:00, and that with over a month to go before the solstace. I can prove it: I took this picture last night just before 10 pm.

Nature is cool that way. We are finally making up for all those days when it was dark when class began at 4:00 pm.

...and Monday Morning

I've got a picture from last week's trip to Bogolyubovo. Picture credit to Molly.

Also, another picture from a while back when we were in Moscow, also one of Molly's.

Russian language news seems to play it as a few members of a "radical opposition," painting anyone who would oppose the current order as an extremist. For those who can read Russian there is Rambler.ru which makes things sound orderly.
On the other hand, there is The Moscow Times on this weeekend's festivities, which seem chaotic. Also interesting is this story, by a photographer who was swept up by the police and then released. I wasn't there, so I'll leave it to you to decide.

P.S. The NYT

Also, let's save polar bears by killing them.

Exams and Things

Exams began today. It's always fun: Our students cheat. We try to catch them. It's pretty much like the circle of life, but without an accompanying Elton John song. The adults can sometimes be worse than the kids. I had to take away the exam of one middle aged guy because he was constantly talking to the person across from him. I leave you with another picture from me on vacation in Moscow. This time next week, I'll be doing the same in Petersburg. Ain't life cool?