January Break

Ever since my trip to Nefteyugansk, things have been pretty quiet. It’s been very relaxing and stress-free, but I’ll admit that a part of me is a little disappointed that I didn't travel anywhere else between Jan. 4 and Jan. 23. I had plenty of time (and still have some) between my Nefteyugansk and Vladimir/Moscow trips but I opted to stay in Tyumen. I’d love to see more of this country but, at the same time, I don’t really like trip logistics and having more than two trips in one month would get to be a little much for me. Anyway, with that said, I've still had some fun in Tyumen over the last couple weeks. I can give a rundown of some of the things I've done other than the copious amounts of sleeping, computer game-playing, reading, and tea-drinking.

First off, my boss/coworker, Irina, invited me over to her place for dinner and to discuss some issues with the textbook we've been getting ready for publishing. If I forgot to mention it before, the textbook is for graduate students who need to learn legal English. Anyway, she made classic Russian salad (which has a totally different name in Russian than it does translated in any other language: оливье or “olivye”) and she made stuffed bell peppers. All of it was really good and we topped it off with tea and leftover New Year’s desserts. Before working on the textbook, she showed me around a bit and showed me a few pictures from her son’s recent wedding. Also, for the road, she gave me a jar of her own gooseberry jam, which I haven’t yet tried (I’m waiting for my raspberry jam to run out).

The next day, Irina, Svetlana (my colleague who takes me to Metro for groceries sometimes), Roman (their acquaintance), and I went to Yalutorovsk (Ялуторовск) for a for a little half-day excursion. We went for a few reasons. First, the town is only about an hour away from Tyumen so it was easy for Roman to drive us there. Second, the town is small by Russian standards (between 50,000 and 100,000) and has only one site worth seeing: a Tatar fortress museum. Third, that day was January 7^th which is the Orthodox Christmas. The drive was really beautiful. About a half of the way there, the highway was lined with snow-covered pine trees and I had this sudden urge to go for a hike. The other half was wide open fields which were… less beautiful. Anyway, when we got there, we had to ask a few pedestrians for directions to the fortress. On two occasions, the people who helped said either right or left at one point but indicated with their hand the other direction… Nevertheless, we eventually found it.

In this image: wooden tower, spiked wall, wooden sculptures, and church
just outside the walls.

We bought our tickets and had an excursion throughout the entire complex. We walked up into the gate-tower, saw a model of what the fortress actually looked like in its entirety, visited a workshop where they make small cloth dolls and toys, stopped by a view exhibits that displayed what life was like hundreds of years ago in the area (huts, medieval weaponry, etc.), and had really delicious, yet unusual tea in a replica Russian home from a couple hundred years ago. While the tour was pretty interesting, I've been on a few similar ones in my time in Russia over the last couple years. The most interesting part was just to see all sorts of neat wooden architecture.

The central square inside the fortress museum.

We were told that there would be some sort of performance and we only had an hour to have lunch. We got some advice from a museum worker where we could go that would be good and fast. We ended up at a fairly nice looking place. It was clean, had nice tableware, and was reasonably well-decorated. The one oddity was a stripper pole in the corner. Then again, it isn't all that odd. I’m in Russia after all and their words for cafe, bar, club, and restaurant are a little looser than ours in English. The thing that bothered me the most about our lunch though was that we broke one of my golden rules: “You don’t mess with the people who handle your food.” I wouldn't say anyone from our group was explicitly rude to our host/waiter, but we were definitely a handful. When I say “we,” I mean Svetlana and Irina. Roman and I were a little more laid-back. The two ladies were just trying to make sure that we had the right balance of necessary drinks and food and that it would be quick enough to return in time for the performance. It resulted in badgering the guy a little bit to make sure he did his job as effectively as possible. We all had pelmeni (dumplings) and they were good but not outstanding. I don’t know for sure if he spit in our tea or anything, but I really doubt that he did. So we ate our lunch pretty calmly but we were late by about 10-15 minutes. It didn't matter too much (being late in Russia never really does) and we still got there during the start.

The final part of the children's program.

As it turns out though, the performance was specifically for children, which is not what we were promised. We paid attention for the first ten minutes or so and then kind of just walked around and took more pictures. Nevertheless, it was nice to have some music and liveliness in the background, even if it was childish. There was a wooden slide that they cover in ice in winter and we took a few trips down that. It was a little lopsided though and I found myself grinding against the wooden railing a couple times. We also stopped in the souvenir shop and we all got our obligatory magnets (the most popular and cheap souvenir in Russia). That brings my magnet count up to three. They also had one tradition in this fortress. If you walked around the central square three times, your wish would come true. So we all had a go with that too. Finally, it was time to go.

Getting back into town, Roman, Irina, and I decided to continue our day at Casa Mia, an Italian joint that I visited once before with Nadya, her husband, and two others. Since Roman smokes, we sat in the smoking area of the restaurant. In general, smoking is much more popular in Russia than in the US and I've experienced a noticeable amount more second-hand smoke than I’m used to back home. Anyway, my first experience in this restaurant was average. That is, I ordered some sort of fettuccine alfredo last time and I wasn't impressed. This time, however, we ordered everything to share as a group and the food was fantastic. We had thin-crust margherita pizza, lamb, raw salmon with pesto, and lasagna. It completely changed my opinion of this place for the better. The conversation was great and I picked up a few new words. Although, as I write this, I can only recall one of those words. Really, it’s pretty difficult for me to retain as many new words as I encounter. I know I've made progress in some respects, but it’s disappointing nonetheless when I realize how many knew things I’m taught and how relatively few I actually remember.

Ice sculpture of train

On one of the colder days recently, I decided to finally go out and get a new sweater. It’s winter in Siberia and having a choice between only two sweaters is just not satisfactory. I had plans to go to the a couple of the main shopping centers in the middle of town and, along the way, I walked through a center plaza by the circus. This is where the city puts up its big ice sculpture display for the winter. I strolled through and was impressed by the all of them! I know it's nothing specific to Tyumen. I saw similar ice sculptures in Yalutorovsk and Nefteyugansk, for example. However, it's something you don't see in the united states as widespread as it is here. They know that once they finish the sculptures in December, they'll stand tall and avoiding melting for months. Also, the amount of ice they use is pretty incredible. Then again, they are not in short supply in Siberia. I see it as a way for the city to get festive and to give kids something to do (see slides below). I snapped as many good pictures as I could before the cold finally got the better of me and forced me inside. I browsed in ЦУМ, which is basically a mall of high-end, formal clothing stores and overpriced home décor. I didn't find my sweater there. I then searched around in the area a little bit for a shopping center that I visited once with Niklas and Nikolai. This building is approximately four stories with a bunch of small clothing shops crammed together. The choice was much bigger and more reasonably-priced here. I only tried on sweaters in one store but I found the right fit for me. The sweater was just what I was looking for. I had a short chat with the girl in charge. She was intrigued that I was an American teaching in Tyumen and told me a little about her English education. I think I even got a discount, but I’m not really sure.

Ice slides in the center of town

Recently, I also met back up with Nikolai and he introduced me to a couple of his graduate student buddies. We went to a bar/restaurant called Yermolaev (Ермолаевь), which is actually a local chain of breweries. They’re students of history, religion, and politics and the conversation, therefore, often followed one of those topics. At times, I understood and contributed. Sometimes, I was completely lost. Part of this was undoubtedly due to the fact that they knew more than me about many of these topics, but also because, as Nikolai often pointed out, they spoke with very conversational and unclear Russian. Again, this was great practice for my Russian. The restaurant itself, like I said, has a few installations throughout the city. This one in particular is in a kolkhoz theme. In other words, the theme of Soviet farms. Given their education, this location made perfect sense. It was also pretty cozy, but like in Casa Mia, I got a bit more second-hand smoke than I would've liked.

A few days ago, I also had my first experience in a coffee shop called Maxim (Максим), which there are also a lot of in the city. Pavel, my primary contact here, invited me out for food and coffee and to discuss my upcoming role in the Model United Nations club this spring. I had a fairly tasty Caesar wrap and the coffee was good, but the real highlight was the warm apple strudel with vanilla ice cream. Without a doubt, I’ll have to get it again. It also reminded me of one of my favorite scenes from the film “Inglourious Basterds.” It’s the scene when the main Nazi antagonist (not Hitler) is in a restaurant discussing a movie premiere. Anyway, the plot isn't important. In that scene, he has strudel and ice cream and every time I see it, I get a strong urge for some of my own. Maxim got it pretty close. I have no doubt that it’s still better in Germany or France. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed it.

Something else to note. This is about the fifth day now without internet. On the one hand, I've probably made some better use of my time lately. I've been reading more (in Russian) and I've gone out to a few cafes by myself to read, have coffee, and check my email. On the other hand, it means I've also spent more money eating out, communication between friends has become more complicated, and it has put more job search temporarily on hold. Going to cafes has its allure though. I've always been a sucker for baked goods (see strudel paragraph above) and coffee and this has been a good opportunity to get out of the house to try different coffees and desserts. Regardless, I’d like to have the internet back in the dorm sooner rather than later. I now have just one week remaining of downtime in Tyumen before leaving for Vladimir and Moscow for a week.

A Russian New Year

I've got a lot of ground to cover with this post, so I'm hoping my memory doesn't fail me. I'll start with Christmas Eve. At the economics/management building they held a Christmas festival with different groups of students representing different international Christmas traditions, songs, and food. Among the different countries represented were the United States, Germany, Russia, Mexico, China, Italy, France, and Cuba. Most groups presented in Russian, but some were brave and did some parts in the native language, like France and Germany. Ours was in Russian (even though about half of the things I said were in English). Oddly enough, the Italian group decided to present in English. I didn't really understand their logic. Our group basically just set up a small skit with a typical American family and their Russian guest and used this scenario to describe some common American Christmas traditions. It was my job to play the role of Santa Claus and to help introduce a game for the audience. We had six volunteers come up to have a present-wrapping race... while wearing mittens. I handed out a few candy canes that were actually made of clay and not candy (a couple of the students made them since you can't find real candy canes here). With a couple students, I also reenacted the M&Ms television commercial where Santa and the M&Ms bump into each other. Finally, we sang "The 12 Days of Christmas" and held up some hand-made posters depicting all 12 gifts. Finally, once all of the groups presented, it was time for people to mingle and eat all of the different dishes. In our group, one student recruited their grandmother to prepare a whole chicken (not quite a turkey or goose, but close enough) and pumpkin pie, which was my idea. I'll admit, I was a bit worried that the pie wouldn't turn out right since Russian don't make pumpkin pie. My worries were only partly in vain. It didn't taste quite like typical American pie, but it was really really delicious nevertheless.

A Russian dance at the Christmas festival

After the festival, some of the other teachers and I had a small Christmas Eve party in one of the offices. I wasn't the only foreigner either. Anthony, the American English Language Fellow, and David, a professor from England, were also there. We had champagne, cookies, and caviar. I'm beginning to learn that I'm not a huge fan of caviar. Also, the teachers even had a few gifts prepared for us. I got a beautiful tea cup and saucer of a wintry Tyumen. Today was the first time I ever saw David since arriving in late September. It's because of this that I was surprised to find out he lives in the same dorm as I do.

Christmas morning. Another typical morning. A part of me found it unusual to wake up and not celebrate Christmas morning like usual with family. On the other hand, it wasn't all that strange because it simply didn't feel like Christmas. Knowing that everyone around me treated the 25th like a normal day and waited for New Year's Eve with anticipation extinguished my typical Christmas cheer. As such, I treated it much like a normal day. I was invited to sit in on a first-year class that celebrated the 25th with holiday songs and cake. After lunch, I had one of my own classes. Look at me, working on Christmas! But really, it wasn't work at all. I went to a cafe with two students who came, Olya and Anya. We had coffee and talked about all sorts of things. Like the last time I was at Traveler's Coffee with both of them, I had a good time. We talked for much longer than the class was scheduled to last. I just remembered that some random woman walked by and said something very unexpected. I already can't remember what she said but it was something along the lines of "I love you," "I love America," "You're the best," or something like that. I got the feeling she wanted to use the few English words she knew as soon as she recognized I was American. That kind of stuff happens.

A trio singing a Christmas song in the class I visited

On Thursday, I had my final class of the semester with a group from the economics building (for real this time). Only three students came, Tanya, Mila, and Margo. I was pleasantly surprised when I realized they brought tea, cookies, and cake. It was my last class but it was also the first time one my classes turned almost completely into Russian. More than half of the conversation was in Russian. I didn't know if I should slightly push for English or just practice my own Russian. As a result, I flip-flopped a lot and just threw out Russian and English at random. When we decided to wrap-up, they got out a singing Grandfather Frost figurine (the Russian Santa Claus) and sang with him. They then gave it to me to keep as a gift.

On Friday, we had a New Year's teachers' party at the economics building with the entire foreign language department. We had champagne, juice, pizza, and fruit. I also added my own spin to the party by bringing some of the salsa I prepared the day before. The salsa, by the way, turned out great. Everybody liked it and I got one request to reveal the secret recipe. The only male teacher in the department besides me dressed up in a classy Grandfather Frost costume, led a few games, and passed out gifts to everyone. Everybody pulled a slip of paper out of a big to determine their random gift. My "random" gift happened to be a Tyumen-specific wooden container. What a strange coincidence that the foreigner got a Tyumen gift... It's actually pretty neat though. My collection of gifts seems to be piling up at this point.

Later that day, after the party, I had to make sure I was ready to leave by 3:00am for our train. I went out to buy a gift and card for the Gruzdovas. I also wanted to pick up a little Christmas present for myself. I went to the book store and browsed until I was satisfied. I ended up picking a book of short stories by Robert Louis Stevenson... in Russian of course. After that, I just had to make sure I got everything packed and all of my trash thrown out. I had to have a few cups of coffee to make sure I stayed up until about 4:00am. After that, I was free to sleep on the 12-hour train ride to Nefteyugansk.

We all took a taxi to the train station around 3:00am. I had a couple bags and some food for the ride. The food included some leftover chocolate cake, leftover crackers, and the salsa for the family. They turned the lights on for us inside the train for a little bit so we could make our beds. For those who don't know, we rode in плацкарт which is like one of the cheaper ways to travel long distances. Everybody is given either a higher or lower "bunk" which functions as a seat but can be converted into a bed (they give a pad, pillow, and bed sheets). Since it was late, we all went to bed right away. We woke up with a few hours left so we had some food that Ira brought, such as bread, sausage, and cheese. We also played a very popular Russian card game called "Fool" (дурак). I'm still getting the hang of it. Since Nefteyugansk doesn't have its own train station, we stopped in Пыть-Ях which is a smaller city. From there, one of Marina's friends picked us up in his car to take us the last hour of the trip (Marina = Ira and Katya's mom). He's a typical male Russian driver. He likes to go fast and he's fairly aggressive. Fortunately, since I'm writing this, it's clear he didn't kills us. When we got to town, I was a little disappointed that the trees weren't quite as small as I had expected. Some were still pretty tall but they were clearly shorter, narrower, and weaker than the trees in Tyumen because of the northerly climate. Also, I should note that everything everywhere is covered in a healthy layer of snow. For the last three hours of the train ride, we saw nothing but snow-covered pines and birches.

From the start, I was never underfed. Marina always provided an abundant supply of delicious food (not to mention fairly consistent access to candy). Some staples, such as bread, sausage, and cheese, were frequently available. During my stay, she made a few different soups (mushroom soup, borsch) and a potato and beef casserole-type dish among other things. I'll detail a few of the key events of my trip, but it's also important to mention that a large portion of our stay was lounging around, watching television, and just general relaxation.

One of the first things I did was help Sasha put up the artificial Christmas tree and then help the girls decorate it. I suppose this makes up for my absence and lack of help at home this year. We also went to the city's primary market. I'll tell you what. You don't see markets in the US like you do in Russia. Or at the very least, they're not as widespread in the US. Some of the vendors are indoors with small shops containing toys, home improvement materials, to fresh produce. Some vendors also set up shop outside near the primary buildings. When you're this far north, I imagine operating one of those booths isn't exactly a pleasant experience. I went with Marina, Ira, Sasha, and a family friend and we spent most of our time in the meat and cheese area. While Marina stood in line I kept myself entertained watching the butchers hack apart frozen cows and looking for weird items like cow tongue and cow tail. Actually, Marina did prepare cow tongue one night, but I never tried it...

On the 30th, we went to the movies to watch С Новым Годом, Мамы (Happy New Year, Moms) which is like this year's primary holiday feel-good film. Since it was a family movie, the script wasn't too complicated and I understood practically everything! It wasn't a great film by any means and they even overdid a few scenes, but on the whole, it was still a decent holiday movie with some heartwarming and/or funny moments. We also blatantly brought in outside food and drinks. I mean, we had to hide it in purses, but it wasn't hard and we busted all of it out as soon as we got it with no worries of getting caught.

On the last day of 2012, much of the day was spent preparing all of the dishes for the big New Year's Eve dinner. Marina did most of the work with the two girls frequently helping a little more than Sasha and I did. I peeled some potatoes and cut some cucumber so at least I didn't feel like a complete slouch. We made enough food to last for about a day and a half after the 31st and there were a lot of different dishes: fried salmon, raw salmon with cheese, spicy Korean noodle salad, red caviar, jerky, pork, mandarin oranges, and a couple other casserole-type salads. I'm probably leaving out a few things, but this is the majority of what we had available at the table. Speaking of the table, we moved it from the kitchen to the living room and put it in front of the TV so we could watch the New Year celebrations and the presidential speech. As the current President of Russia, Vladimir Putin recorded a small New Year speech in which he talked about loving one another and looking forward to a new year full of opportunity. Unlike the ball-drop in New York, the countdown sign of the new year is watching and listening to the big clock on Red Square ring twelve times. Also, like everyone else, we brought in the new year with champagne and a toast. After that, we promptly put on our winter gear to go outside and watch fireworks. There wasn't any city firework show, but instead it's much more common for people to buy their own fireworks and set them off themselves from the parking lot, yard, or roof. This was an extremely impressive and memorable moment for me. There were constant displays of fireworks from each micro-neighborhood of apartment complexes for at least twenty minutes. We could hear the fireworks immediately overhead loud and clear while also watching different fireworks going on around us from all directions. We then went back inside for gifts. This was the first time in my life I got a present with Дед Мороз (Grandfather Frost) written on it instead of Santa Claus. After getting three gifts, I felt a little bad for only getting them a little cat figurine and a card. Nevertheless, I think they really liked it. I got a much-needed warm scarf, socks, stocking cap, toothpaste, a t-shirt, and a book of Christmas stories and poems. Since I never seriously celebrated New Year's Eve in the US, this might just qualify as the best New Year's Eve I've ever had. At the very least, it's among the best to date.

Since we were up until about 4:00am, we all slept in as needed. As it happened during the whole trip, Sasha and I got up before the girls did. Also, before they ever went anywhere, they had to pretty themselves up. As a result, Sasha and I were pretty restless on New Year's Day. We experienced some unusual and pleasantly warm weather (around 29-30 F). We decided it was a perfect opportunity to walk around and see the city. We went to the center of town and saw a bunch of ice sculptures and slides made of ice for kids. I waited in line with a few kids to get my picture on an ice throne between Grandfather Frost and Snegurochka (his helper). We also walked to near the river's edge and saw some old-style wooden buildings and some churches. On our way back, we got a little turned around and had to ask for help. We waited for a bus but after waiting a bit impatiently, we continued back on foot in the general direction of our neighborhood. Even though it wasn't that cold, I was starting to get pretty chilled and ready to get back in the warm apartment. Once we finally got back, we got a couple cups of hot cocoa and rested. Later that night, the four of us (Sasha, me, Ira, and Katya) played a word game in which you had to get your partner to guess as many words as possible from a list of words. I actually did better in Russian that I thought I would even though we my team still lost (both times we played).

On the throne between Grandfather Frost and Snegurochka

Ira, me, & Sasha

On January 2nd, we went to a recreation area / park called Парус (Sail) to go sledding. The sledding hill is basically a snow-covered embankment that leads down to a frozen-over river. We rented a three-person inflatable sled and went down several times and, on occasion, narrowly missing people climbing back up. When we had our fill, we set off to look for Marina and her friend in a cafe in the park. On the way, we stumbled on a small zoo within the park that I didn't even know existed. Before I knew it, I was looking at a couple African lions. It was an excellent, unexpected surprise. We also saw sheep, wild pigs, bears, foxes, and wolves. This was only the second time in my life I heard a lion make noise. I'm always impressed by how far the sound carries without any effort from the lion. However, for the first time in my life, I heard a wolf howl. It was amazing and eerie at the same time. After strolling through the zoo in the dark, we finally found the cafe and sat down for tea and shashlik, which is basically just super delicious grilled pork with onions. That night, we watched some holiday movies. Although I don't remember exactly on which days we watched certain movies but I do remember what we watched. We watched some Russian movies like Ёлки 2 (Christmas Trees 2), Брат 2 (Brother 2), and Ирония Судьбы (The Irony of Fate). We also watched some American movies, such as Happy New Year and Christmas Vacation. That night we also played a game of charades where we had to act out films.

Looking back up the sledding hill

January 3rd was the last day for me and Sasha. We didn't have a full day either. We had to leave around 6:00 or 7:00pm. This was a very low-key day. I packed up, lounged around, and watched some TV. The girls escorted us back to the train station with our overly-aggressive driver. The train ride itself was much worse than the trip to Nefteyugansk. The train car was hot and this time I had a top bunk, which is considerably tighter and less comfortable. I also didn't sleep consistently like I did last time. This resulted in being kind of rested but also achy and a bit drowsy at around 7:30am when we arrived. Because I had no almost no food and most of my clothes were dirty, about the only productive things I did were making a trip to the store and doing laundry. Other than that, I was very lazy.

I consider this trip a huge success. We had great food, watched good movies, relaxed, and played games. Also, I got more consistent practice speaking Russian than I normally do. And finally, they had a cat named Кузя who made the trip ten times better. He's a cute orange softy who likes to talk. I had been without the company of a cat for too long. As I write this, I'm back in Tyumen and it feels like life is more or less back to normal even though I'm still technically on break. In general, I had a fantastic time in Nefteyugansk and a wonderful holiday.