Week 1: The Smiling and Nodding

I don't know how many of my readers know much about the Russian language, so I will provide a sample of the Cyrillic alphabet just to give you a taste.

As you may have noticed, it is a mash of Greek characters mixed with some Latin ones that are phonetically different from their English counterparts with a few completely random characters (that I would guess came from Byzantium) thrown in for good measure.

If the alphabet gives you any indication, speaking and listening to Russian also is very difficult.  My last two teachers in the states were Americans by birth so they both spoke much more slowly and with a funnier accent than the native Russians I am now encountering.  This brings me to the overarching theme of my first week here: smiling, nodding and saying "Da" (yes).

I know enough Russian to ask questions and buy things, but my main problem lies in the fact that after I say something like "I want to buy bread." they respond with a string of quick sentences asking, I would imagine, what kind of bread I would like to buy?  Do I want it in a paper or plastic bag?  Did I find everything I was looking for?

Out of this string of sentences I will recognize a few words towards the beginning of the statement, but in the time it takes me to process those words I have missed the entire last 2/3rds of what the person said.  And there are the times when the sentences just fly over my head completely.  I feel like a caveman, just pointing at stuff and grunting to obtain the basic necessities of life.  It's frustrating, but in a motivating "I wanna learn more" sort of way.

I touched down in Sheremetyevo on the 5th of Feb at 11 am Moscow time, jet lagged and ready to sit down and rest.  However this would not be the case as we spent an hour and a half pushing our way through the Moscow lunchtime gridlock and then had to walk around the Lomonosov building with all of our bags for another 2 hours getting the proper forms filed for our dorms.  Needless to say I was not a happy camper.  My first view of MSU was astounding though.  It is one of the buildings in the Seven Sisters project commissioned by Joseph Stalin in an effort to keep up with the western city skylines.  Eight skyscrapers were originally planned for construction, but due to funding issues one was scraped.

(Front of the Lomonosov Building)

Moscow had just seen record snowfall and there was (and still is) about 3-4 feet of snow on the ground.  I ended up staying up until a normal bedtime to combat the jetlag and went to sleep.

The next day we explored the area surrounding MSU and enjoyed looking at the gorgeous architecture of the school.  It is a cross between the Gothic and Russian Baroque styles raised to new heights by American steel girder technology.

                                               (Side View of the Lomonosov Building)
The next day our lovely onsite coordinator Marina Rozina took us to the place everyone thinks of when they think of Russia, Red Square.

(Me Gigin 'em in front of Saint Basil's Cathedral)

Red Square was originally named Beautiful Square back in ancient Russia and the wide brick clearing was used as a marketplace for traders and hunters.  In old Slavic tongue, the words beautiful and red were the same (krasnaya).  Much later as the language was transforming into what we now consider Russian, people felt their should be a distinction between the two words so beautiful became krasivaya, but the name Red Square (Krasnaya Ploshad) stuck.

(Another cathedral in Red Square)

As I stood in the center of this massive brick square I was overwhelmed by the weight of history pushing in on me from all sides.  Here I was standing in the same place that all the greatest men of Russian history had consolidated their places in eternity.  Stalin had given speeches here.  Lenin was laid to rest right there.  Ivan the Terrible had this palace built.  Peter the Great had stood right here.  It was a very introspective moment as I contemplated if anyone after my death would geek out over something as small as being in a place where I had been.  It made me reevaluate my complacency in life; my own self-depreciating laziness.  These men didn't sleep in until 2 o clock in the afternoon.  They were up at dawn, rallying their troops for battle or debating with economists or meeting with foreign statesmen.  These were men with purpose, not men with the tendency to fall asleep at 3 am, watching cartoons with their hand still inside a half-eaten bag of Dorritos.

I made a resolution there to live my life with a greater sense of direction and vigor.  I feel that it would be hard for anyone to see such a monumental testament to human initiative and not reconsider their own attitude towards living.  I'll leave you with that food for thought.  I am about to leave for a lecture on Russian Politics, so until next time poka!

DH