6

Kazan--city of a million in the south of Russia, about 800 kilometers from Moscow, the capital of Tatarstan, a port on the Volga river. I spent a memorable five days there with the Middlebury group, eating Tatar food, wandering the boulevards, riding bicycles, trying to find a bookstore, and, most notably, enjoying my first Russian banya.



Anarchy in Tatarstan.
This is a shot of the city's main thoroughfare, a tourist-shop-lined boulevard that I must have traversed at least twenty times. It wasn't, to be honest, tremendously attractive as far as main streets go, but there was something Tatarskiy about it. Vendors selling fezes, most likely. Looking closely you can see the orthodox church that seems to anchor the whole street, the black spire in the middle of the picture.
You might ask why I don't take more color pictures. Between the landscapes and the unashamedly garish paints people choose, Russia is a nation of brilliant colors--to my eyes, at least, far more so than the U.S. Well, this is a picture of a forest near the Volga. The centerpiece of our trip, a bicycle excursion to a dacha out beyond the suburbs, wound through this forest for 20 kilometers. I will say without reservation that, in autumn, the sunlight slicing obliquely through the canopy and illuminating the ash leaves, this was the most fantastic forest I've ever been in. It was like a wood from an old Russian fairy tale, or a scene from Lord of the Rings--an element of fantasy enveloped the whole place. A very Old World scene. We emerged periodically to find a tributary of the Volga, lined with wooden dachas, lying serenely before us. And, alas, this picture simply does no justice whatsoever to the way it actually was. I've found that this is a recurring disappointment, and that's why I stick to b&w. One of the Volga's long, slender fingers. I only saw the mighty river from afar, but the sunlight was pouring down in shafts from holes in the clouds, like a blessing.
I mentioned fezes--Kazan is an interesting place, especially for the capital of a Russian principality, because it's history is in large part Muslim, in addition to Russian Orthodox. This is the city's principal mosque, situated inside its famous Kremlin. When we went inside, after donning surgical slippers to protect the floors, we saw that it is as extravagant as its exterior suggests. Our tour guide, standing there on the left of the photograph, talked so quickly, despite our numerous "please, slowly, please!" that it was hard to make out much of the history.
It was a joy to ride a bicycle again. I ride one everywhere on Davidson's campus, and after a couple of years of doing so walking places seems like a pitifully slow waste of time. It's time to read some Thoreau, I suppose. Here's our group, lined up at the gate while our guide, Rustan, cajoles an old babushka to let us pass.
Apologies for the darkness here: inside Kazan State University, a huge portrait of Lenin holding up a scroll reading "prav" (right, correct). We come to Rustan. As you can see, he's a small man, maybe a shade over five feet tall, and here he's cooking up some shashlik for our post-excursion feast. He lived for a long time in Kamchatka, I believe, and now leads a sort of tourist camp in Kazan. More than anything, he is the type of man you probably associate with Russia, in demeanor and behavior. He called me California, evidently because he thought Florida and California were the same place, and the vegetarian in our group vegeTABLES, stress on the tables. The night we stayed at the dacha was my first experience with a Russian banya, and Rustan ran it. I can't think of a more Russian activity. First we sat crammed in a small room built around a brick oven, in which Rustan would periodically pour water fortified with beer, and endured temperatures that must have been over 110 degrees and air that smelled of scorched beer and sweat. Opens up the pores, he said. I've never sweated so much--even training in Florida in the summer. Every once in a while we would retire to an adjacent room, where there was a hearty selection of meat, cheese, bread, and vodka. This went on for an hour and a half or so, and finally the night culminated in a frozen jog through the 0 C air down to the even colder river, where we all, of course, plunged in, and darted back to the banya. I was apprehensive, to be sure, because I have trouble even with the ice baths at Davidson, but Rustan was right: it really wasn't very cold at all, as long as you got back to the banya hastily. The body works itself up so much that it builds its own armor, I guess. There is a Russian work, kaif, which corresponds roughly to "high," in the sense of "sky-diving produces such a high." Here's to Rustan, and the Russian kaif.
He's drinking from the fountain, I think. Or stealing coins.
A longitudinal view of Kazan's kremlin. Kremlin simply means fortress in Russian, although the one in Moscow is certainly the most famous.
The central tower and the Tatar breaking free from his fetters.
And a final shot: some Moscow statues, pidgeons and their droppings.

5

At this moment I'm drinking a half-liter can of kvass, brand Ochakovo, because I forgot that kvass really doesn't taste all that good and smells absolutely abhorrent. But I actually kind of like it. It's not as sweet as Coca-Cola and tastes like you've been sowing wheat all day. Actually, when I got here someone told me that Coke was thinking about producing its own kvass because its cola was having trouble competing. Coca-cvassa.
More about beverages: yesterday I ran for the second time with the world-notorious Hash House Harriers, Moscow chapter, a self-proclaimed "drinking club with a running problem," British through and through. You're thinking, I know it, that it should have been founded by Russians drinking vodka. (The Moscow chapter does cross country ski in the winter). But no: it is about as British an institution as you can find, and you can read all about its formation here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_House_Harriers. The basic premise is a hare hunt: two or three "hares" set off with a bag of flour, marking a trail that's often hard to follow, and the rest of the pack, whoever opts to show up that day, come along later and try to successfully follow it to its conclusion. The Moscow bunch is composed largely of expat British and Americans and Russians learning English, with a few odd internationals here and there, and ranges in "youthfulness" from me to, say, about 55 or 60. So it's not the fastest run ever, you can imagine, and I'm not chalking it up under marathon training or anything, but this group is out of control--wild, notorious for a reason. I've seldom laughed so hard. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
During the run there's typically a game stop, something like tag or duck duck goose, after which everyone drinks some beer, which someone has been altruistic enough to lug along in a backpack. Then we set off again, losing and finding again the trail, and eventually the run's over. I've been able to get a decent number of miles in the past couple of times by circling back at each checkpoint and running back to the front. A habit which, as I'll get to right now, is bound to bite me in the ass in the least competitive running group ever assembled. After the run, when everyone's patting each other on the back, the club circles up in an assembly called down downs. In which there an enormous number of rituals and songs and behaviors and observations and rules (the only rule is that there are no rules) and hilarity and it would be impossible to do it justice here. But, in short, the grand master, with a mad hatter hat, gives out silly awards and penalties, after each of which the offending parties group in the center of the circle and, in time to a pub song, swig a cup of beer. The penalties and the way they are presented, the way the British accent perfectly complements British humor, are, no exaggeration, side-splitting. So many acute senses of humor in one place. Offences, to give a few examples, can include: front-running (yours, truly), putting your hand in your pocket, misleading the group, saying the word "think," and so on into perpetuity. There's really no end to the things you can do wrong, and nobody cares because it's just as much fun to be the offender as it is to laugh at the offenders. By the conclusion even the saints are swaying a bit. The funniest part, of course, is the way the grand master handles the whole thing. The guys who have performed the role so far have been astoundingly funny. The songs are also good: "He might be appreciated by his mother, but he's no use at all to us..." or "Try to drink it down but it goes the other way/ drink it down, down, down, down..." Don't worry, as I'm sure you must: I'm not becoming a dipsomaniac.

4

It was a thrill last night to explain why the statue of liberty is green. Of course, I had to look up the word for "copper," and the grammar of my explanation probably went something like this: "Because it's from copper, and when rain goes copper will become green." But, acuity aside, it stirred up the patriotism lying in a leafpile somewhere in my torso, and I was able to imagine, probably for the first time, what that statue means by its stance there, the first--if only symbolically here in the jet age--American structure arrivals see on their way into the harbor. Most of all I wondered how the statue must of appeared before it patinated.

I've found that young Russians, too young for the cold war, are usually pretty eager to quiz me about the U.S. They ask sharp questions. "Do you drink vodka there?" I mentioned something about Grey Goose. Konstantin had never heard of the stuff, and stuck to Smirnoff and Stolichnaya, he said, among a billion alternatives. He thought we mostly drink whisky. "Do you agree that Russia has the prettiest girls?" I stuck up for the American South and the Mediterranean but conceded a three-way tie. "What do Americans associate with Russia? Fur hats, vodka, Stalin?" I added snow and ice fishing. "Elvis. I love Elvis, man." Graceland, TN. I've been there.

It's a natural question because, it's true, American culture has sowed its seed. Widely, and not always in a manner conducive to the general good. Like an oil spill, the crappiest and most slippery constituents travel furthest, and I don't really know what to make of American Pie in every theater and a MakDonaldz on every street corner. One impression I certainly get is that it would be fairly easy, at least at this point in Russia's economic swing and compared to in the U.S., to make a killing here. I might be wrong about that. But my instinct is that it wouldn't even take very much creativity, just killing off some principles. Chick-Fil-A, for example. I don't think the world needs any more fast food restaurants, but Russians would dig Chick-Fil-A, for sure. Of course, it might be easy to reap the profits if you manage to start something up here, but I imagine it's a nearly impossible task to get approval through official channels, that is to say, the Kremlin. Now that I think about it, perhaps that's why the things that do traverse the Atlantic (some part of my brain is flashing "low culture," but I don't want to say it) are what they are: they're slippery enough to diffuse around the barriers. But enough of this. I apologize: my rants are always unapologetically elitist. Tomorrow I plan to run for the second time with the Moscow Hash House Harriers, so I should have some good yarns to spin.

3

At long, long last, I hear, I have a few frames of Moscow for you.  A small, small slice of the big village.

Here's a view of my street, looking south (I think) toward the center of the city and my apartment.  Moscow has an incredible diversity of cars: steering on the left, steering on the right, Japanese, American, Italian, Russian, Yugoslavian, sedans, smartcars, Hummers, military caravan vehicles, armored Mercedes, tanks.  They're all incredibly dirty all the time, however--a reminder of how sooty the air is.
I was starting to wonder where the Moscow impoverished live before I found a few shacks set up on the church's land.
And here's the park, an immense stretch of lawns and trees and brick paths, that rolls lazily by my apartment building and continues to wind its away I don't know how far.  One of these days I'm going to make it a long run and try to reach the end.  Here you can see a few other older walkers and, if you look closely, a little girl feeding an enormous flock of pigeons.
Here--I couldn't resist--is the casino Десперадо, which means, you guessed it, Desperado.  English and French words are apparently very good commercial draws, although you get the impression they became kitsch hip a long time ago.  For example, I see a lot of handbags and t-shirts that say things like: "Alternative x choose the only necessity alternative lifestyle.  Every thing is the best choice for everyday life."  It makes for a jarring effect in an otherwise completely cyrillic universe.
A look down the street that runs behind the building.  On the right you can say the entrance, the podezd, that goes up to my apartment.  
The neighborhood orthodox church.
I have a funny story about this place.  My hosts, Rodion and Olga, have a large black dog of some Italian stock named Stanley, and one evening we all went out for a walk in the park.  My Russian is still not good enough to keep up with native speakers in conversation with each other, and probably won't be for some time, but Rodion definitely told me, as we approached the lake, that to swim in it would be to risk falling extremely ill.  Then, having stopped somewhere along its shore, he began to throw a branch in for Stanley to fetch.  Nothing out of the ordinary there, I expect, but the next minute he was in his underwear and making for the center of the lake.  Had to take advantage of the warm weather, he said.  The funniest part of the whole thing was how, as Rodion swam out farther and farther from shore, he would call Stanley out to him, and the dog would dutifully and loyally make his clumsy way out there.  Rodion's head was floating out in the middle of the dark lake, whistling and calling, and Stanley's head would slowly, painfully slowly, progress until they met.  Finally, at what must have been the deepest point in the lake, it took the dog a comically long time to swim all the way out.  It's odd, come to think of it, how much watching that dog labor all the way out there had me in stitches, but it was certainly a very merry time.  Sure enough, the next day came the rain and the cold.
My address.

This photograph doesn't do the scale of the neighborhood justice.  Maybe if I had some kind of special lens.  Standing in the park, however, this cluster of apartments seems more like a mountain range.  Mine is sort of behind the yellow structure in the center.

Yes, an old Soviet facade.  This was a crazy place, maybe the craziest place I've been so far.  It resembled a park, or maybe a promenade, and all the main structures were these old Soviet monuments and pavilions.  But at ground level it was a flea market.  Capitalism gone wild.  Shirtless dudes rollerblading all over the place and merchants selling every kind of knockoff ware.  The place gave you quite an incongruent feeling in your gut--a good symbol, perhaps, of the direction Russia's taken in the past twenty years.  

2

No photos today--a slow, cold rain has persisted straight through four days and it doesn't appear to be departing for another two or three. If it's raining when you wake up and look out the window, bring an umbrella for the day. Earthworms are drowning all over the sidewalks, although the pariah dogs are the truly pitiful victims, shivering under all the bus stops.

1

I've been in Moscow for nearly a week now. I live in the city's northwest corner, in a neighborhood called Mitino, with my hosts Rodion and Olga, two generous and lively young Muscovites who run a company setting up weddings. Weddings, I've been told, are a big deal in Russia--much larger in scale and duration than "American weddings." Four semesters of college Russian under my belt and I can converse somewhat freely on weddings and other useful subjects, although it's still certainly necessary to carry a little dictionary around the city in my back pocket. Plus, thieves might mistake it for a real wallet. Altogether, my Russian is good enough to know that my hosts are very funny, and I can always expect a laugh and a cup of tea when I return home after classes.
On this subject: I'm studying with Middlebury College at the Russian State School for the Humanities, abbreviated (in Russian) RGGU and called simply "er ge ge oo." It's certainly small by American standards--it occupies about a block--but it has a pleasantly stern Soviet air, and I feel in its age it's quite loosened up, like a miserly father who spoils his grandkids. My classes, 90 minutes a piece, are Russian grammar, Russian stylistics, Russian phonetics, Russian culture, and a literature course, which will likely be on Gogol. The classes are completely in Russian, of course, and the professors--and this is probably the most devilish part of this whole enterprise--range in their speed and clarity of speech from slow and distinct, explaining words that we probably don't know, to, as far as I can tell, simply treating us (the 7 students in my program) like the real Russian students walking around the place. But, all in all, they're an entertaining bunch, and they have the experience to realize that simply trying to avoid getting your toes stepped on on the metro is homework enough to start with. No class on Fridays, so I ought to have some photos up in the next few days.
Oh, and for the curious--when I got here it was a splendid 30 degrees C and sunny, but summer departed three days ago and on its coattails were 10 degree temps and drizzle. No, no snow yet, don't worry.