Not Middlebury: November 2008

So...sitting at home on Friday and Saturday nights is starting to get to me. Back home I wouldn’t I caroused often on the weekends (though I can’t really recall how I spent them during pledge it’s sort of a blur now) and I’m certain that I spent my fair share of nights at doing nothing or just sitting about, but there are people back home. Here it’s a bit like there’s know one. I mean there’s the Midd kids, but getting them to do anything is like pulling teeth and Russians seem to be a wholly different story. I mean Anya and her buddies are quite nice, but rather boring; it was as though the invited me out to practice English and were to afraid to try and practice, rather we merely sat about doing nothing. It’s almost a Russian theme. In other news, I’m getting marginally better at playing guitar and significantly better at chess, while my Russian language skills deteriorate and I procrastinate my studying.

By now I think I made a critical error at the beginning of the semester or perhaps it’s merely my personality, but I really ought to have been more active in seeking out an activity like basketball, a choir, or even an internship, but an internship would have been a pain here. Everything is just too damn far away and there really is little here worthwhile in terms of industry. Oh well, I ought to be able to make the best of the situation until Moscow and there I get some sense of a new beginning. Ideally I’ll be playing rugby again and be working at something.

On our trip to Mongolia I met two fairly friendly Russians Kostya, who seemed rather kind and moderately interesting if a bit obtuse and Pasha, who struck me as a sort of sleazeball from the get-go grew on me and then just went completely insane. The thing with Kostya was that in passing he mentioned that he had two wives – one in Irkutsk and one in Omsk, which seems to indicate that such practice is hardly remarkable, but still kinda unnerves me. I mean apart from that he seemed a pretty admirable guy construction engineer and site manager studying to climb the corporate ladder, but that one little fact just stuck out. Pasha on the other hand, we met on our return from Mongolia to Irkutsk and he invited four of us to the dining car to partake of the hoary Russian tradition of drinking on the train, as such we ordered our vodka, an apple juice chaser, and some bowls of salyanka (a soup, which he derided as rubbish). There he behaved amicably and as host would, but he began to rag on the waiter a bit more than I’m used to. Anyway having already discussed how little he drank generally (seems a universal refrain Russian males in denial about alcoholism...that’s not entirely fair, but I’ll let it stand...perhaps Russian women would too) he proceeded to drink until belligerence at which point he verbally assaulted the waiter for no reason and not much later began to get a little overly friendly with the girl in our group – I should note here that this sort of behavior is not really remarkable in my experience thus far in Russia, women are more inclined to put up with creeps here...likely because of supply and demand. Perhaps that last comment was uncalled for. Continuing onwards there is little to say Pasha drank more, started getting patently aggressive (he punched me in the kidney and cursed at the waiter) and continued his advances. Generally, I just have a negative impression of Russian men, I’ve met a few who seem relatively good guys, but I’ve had so little interaction with them that it’s a non-issue. There were two at the MezhFak who gave me a weird vibe, but were alright and there are a couple in our history class who aren’t half bad...actually it’d be worth it to invite them out for a drink or bowling or some such thing...it’s getting too cold to wander about, though today was remarkably warm (I was walking about without my coat this evening and barely noticed its absence).

Enough negativity, I still have two trips to recount, no?

I guess I’ll start four weeks ago when our group headed out to Severobaikalsk and recount it and my impressions in as much as I remember:

After sitting down on the wrong marshrutka for the umpteenth time, I somehow arrived at Liza’s (our program director) on the eve of our departure. Everyone inside was watching a dubbed version of the Humphrey Bogart classic The African Queen (at least that’s what I believe it’s called), which they were thoroughly mocking and didn’t recognize Bogart (how is it possible!). Anyway I tried to convince them of the movie’s worthiness, but it was largely in vain as we soon had to depart for the train station to begin our first and wonderful 32 hour train ride. Railway is an interesting means of transportation in many ways it’s more efficient and convenient than automobile travel (sometimes even more comfortable), but here it was an experience. To me it was almost as (if not more) unpleasant as the Mongolian train we took to Ulan-Bataar (more on that later). We had tickets in platzkart, third-class barracks style arrangements with beds/seats that are not particularly soft and sheets that are not particularly clean. The air alone in the wagon made me feel dirty...and no I’m not trying to be elitist, but objectively I was dirtier after that train ride than I am in a week with moderate exercise and without showering. Apart from the filth (in no part diminished by the horrendously unhealthy food we were eating...thank God for boiled eggs) there was a family of two young boys, a toddler girl, a babushka and a mother. This was a first revelation for me regarding Russian standards of parenting. (As an aside, I do live in a family with a 4yo daughter and largely the parenting at home is what I might expect apart from the girls amount of self determination and the considerable amount of candy she is permitted to eat) The children were essentially permitted to do as they would so long as they didn’t kill themselves or hurt their fellow passengers.

Examples of their offenses:
1.Little girl driving up and down the corridor in a squeaky plastic toy car
2.Boy and girl playing catch with sing-a-long teddy bear
3.Portable baby toilet that they placed in the middle of one of our group’s coupes rather than with their (admittedly it was not my coupe, but come on...really!?)

Anyway, it wasn’t really so bad, they turned out to be friendly enough and wanted to play at cards with us...Russian cards. As of yet I only know of three Russian card games: durak – literally translated idiot, to be fair there are three variants of this game I played and it is mostly a mindless dream, the height of strategy is getting your competitors drunk that you might cheat; pyanitsa – lit. drunkard (I think drunken woman), a variant of war with trump...which means that the winner is the player with ace of trump, but the 6 of trump can take the ace...nonetheless if you wanted to use your head you would have to memorize your opponents hands and place your cards to beat theirs...a fruitless endeavor; and durachka – basically are variant of Uno. For a culture that respects/respected chess so highly it is very surprising that people don’t play intelligent card games...but I suppose the stereotype of the Russian spirit is that of a gambler. Speaking of cards, I managed to try and learn to play Whist, Hearts and Spades again, sadly Kevin is much more attentive than me, which means I tend to lose because it’s not really sporting to play together against the others, who have little conception of strategy...especially when they learned the game in Russian. The only trouble with the train was the fact that alcohol was not allowed on group trips, a foolish rule if you ask me, but no one ever does.

Socializing with the Russians on this train wasn’t awful once I got past the fact that they love to discuss things about which they nothing as though they were experts (Americans abroad love this too). Economics is the big culprit because often elder Russians will bring up how much better life was under Soviet Union and that they should try to reform the old system. This is moderately laughable because they don’t understand and can’t be made to understand that the inflated standard of living that was enjoyed under the Soviet Union was supported by debts and sale of natural resources and not actual economic development (say nothing of corruption and repression), i.e. the Soviet Union’s fall was inevitable. Sadly, this seems similar to what is being realized back in the states now – increased consumption funded by debt issued on collateral with volatile (and inflated) prices...I suppose at least we still have the world’s reserve currency and a fall of the dollar would destroy most of the global financial system based on foreign holdings of American debt and dollars. I’ve been meaning to think about how the dollar might be edged out of its special status and how a new global financial system might function, but haven’t had the time to research it.

Well, that was an interesting tangent. After we reached Severobaikalsk and dropped our things at the bed and breakfast we set off on two short hikes. The first lead us round the coast of Baikal to a pteroglyph(?). On the whole it was a pleasant and pretty hike along the cliffs covered in autumnal leaves (a rather uniform gold). The day was perfectly clear. Afterwards we began our route back towards the bed and breakfast and stopped off at a small trailhead leading up a steepish mountain. This was the site of a Soviet labor camp that mined mica for export to Europe. The rest of the group found it rather more emotionally powerful than I did, either for their greater familiarity with Soviet history or my initial rational (rather than emotional) reaction to it. The mica there was pretty, though Liza claimed it dangerous (although I’m certain that in small quantities it’s harmless) and the view spectacular. The signs describing the significance of the spot were disappointing – poorly translated and in poor repair. Upon our return we ate a quick dinner, caught up on the sleep that we thought we had gotten on the train, and were promptly provided with a TV in our room. Oh...and I showered....never felt cleaner in my life...well, maybe after Philmont.

The next day we were scheduled to sail across Baikal to a tourist camp with hot springs, but for various reasons it was impossible (inspections, weather, etc.) so the trip was delayed twice and instead we hit up the hot springs in a “resort” hamlet in Goudjikit, which was pleasant. We followed that up with and excursion to Kholodnoye where we attempted to fund a second Gulag and learned about the native peoples at a small museum in the schoolhouse. That day ended much as the day before it, although we watched a serialization of Heavy Sand, a chronicle of a Jewish family in Soviet Russia.

On Tuesday we actually made it across the lake to the other hot springs...I honestly can’t remember what they are caller now, but they were fine – although generally too hot or too cold. The camp itself reminded me of a Boys and Girls Club summer camp – it was a really kitschy place and completely abandoned...the season was over. The captain of the boat and his crew decided to join us...they didn’t wear swimsuits – but I guess that’s the Russian way. I would like to hit the banya again...oh well, maybe in Listvyanka. The boat was pleasant...I generally like boats and when I had had enough of taking repetitive photos and being cold it was a great opportunity to read Master and Margarita...in Russian, which I finished. I feel as though I understood the better part of it, but not necessarily the allegory, simply because of the simple strangeness of the novel and my weak knowledge of Soviet history. We returned and finished the day much as the others.

Wednesday was special. It was to be our overnight trip to the Pereval, which was a sort of high valley where geologists formerly searched for ores and indigenous peoples farm deer. For the beginning of our trip we returned to Kholodnoye and met our driver and his mashina. I’m certain you are all familiar with old military trucks with benches in the back covered by a tarp? That was this truck. Our driver was a professional hunter and trapper, an interesting guy who asked us an interesting question about the musical groups we listen to, “What do they sing about?” I suppose that’s the same psychology that governs Christian rock and perhaps governed blues. Nonetheless it’s not something I’ve recently thought about. So we set off on a four hour journey across rivers and on the worst of roads...it was just an experience...I loved it, but it was a hell of a pain on my back and butt. We stopped at a shamanistic holy site and paid our respects to the spirits much the dismay of certain people present.

We arrived and there were no deer to see, they had dispersed because of the snow. We lunched and wandered about the abandoned settlements. I took many a picturesque photograph. It was quite beautiful in its decay; it would have been a great place to wander about as a young boy. Back at the cabin we played cards and talked a bit until dinner; there I learned to play durachka and pyanitsa when the owner had no interest in learning Spades...I’m not sure he could have handled it. We also met one of the deer herders, he asked one question and gotyelled at by our tour guide and remained quiet after that, a shame. Dinner was tasty – fresh rabbit! I do love game. The old man owner was perhaps a very sad lonely man, but he was an extraordinarily unpleasant one fitting the already described stereotypes of Russian men – drank too much and flirted inappropriately. Additionally, he spoke matom (Russian slang/cursing) and was rather offended when we did not understand him. When we retired for the evening we somehow crammed 10 people into the small room...I’m still not entirely certain how, but it was quite a feat. The next morning we set off to try and find the deer ourselves as it had snowed again, but we succeeded only in seeing quite a beautiful countryside and playing with snow. Then we returned to Severobaikalsk and my stomach was quite upset. We flew out the next day and ended up in Irkutsk not long after.

Irkutsk between out trips was rather unremarkable. My birthday came and went; we met the German students and planned for Mongolia. Not much else happened. I suppose I got flabbier...that’s unfortunate. Oh yeah, we also had dinner with the program director, which was at a rather tasty Uzbek restaurant and watched a typical substandard Russian blockbuster drama romanticizing the life of Kolchak.

After two weeks we set out again on the train, this time for only 16-18 hours it’s not terribly important. Anyway we set off for Naushki, a border town between Mongolia and Russia. The fun thing here is that we had tickets only to the border and had to figure out the crossing ourselves (tickets through to Ulan-Bataar were approximately 90 dollars). I don’t rightly remember the details of the train, merely that we had a bottle of wine at night and I drank three beers for breakfast. It was a pretty easy train ride, I didn’t feel as dirty, but I was damn hot because of the heating. At Naushki we exited the station and found a few cabs to take us to Sukh-Bataar, the Mongolian border town, where we wanted to catch our next train – to Ulan-Bataar. The price wasn’t awful – about $23 per car, but we didn’t get to our destination. The cars dropped us at the border, where we were obliged to sit on border taxis. The problem here wasn’t really the money (we should have paid less) the problem was that our group traveling in the other car didn’t sit down with us in the van, rather they sat in another car at the behest of a loud and grabby Asian woman. This lead to problems. Crossing the border was pretty simple...actually, if I wanted to illegally export something out of Russia that’s probably where I’d do it. The problems we first noticed when the car our companions were in had to pushed through the border. Later we learned their driver was not only drunk, but also largely illiterate. What fun! Having made it through the border, we found ourselves in need of a third car, but before we successfully managed that we had to deal with our companions’ driver who kept changing terms on them and was largely incompetent. We paid the asshole off...heck we were still ahead by a couple hundred roubles a piece over the full train fare. After stopping by our third driver’s home so tha the could chat with his wife and try to convince us to stay the night with them and drive down in the morning, we wound up in Sukh-Bataar at the train station.

Part II of the Journey. At the train station none of the clocks appeared to be accurate and we had trouble learning when the ticket office would open. As such we sat there and began to speak our first words of English to each other after a few long months of Russian. We waited probably four hours, ate a little bit and just tensely lounged about. When the ticket booth opened and we were up to buy tickets we learned the only tickets available were general tickets – i.e. fight for your seats. So we confusedly wandered about, looking for our wagon, asked some Australians for help, but they didn’t know anything. When we found our wagon, we fought our way on and occupied as much space as possible. In the end we got lucky on two accounts: we got our own coupe and got to sit on our things. We were fairly comfortable until some young hooligan Mongols came and started invading our personal space – falling asleep on me and other such unpleasantries. In the end, I drove him off with a skillful combination of sleeplike motion and elbow jabs. I don’t know everyone else seemed to dislike that train more than me, but I slept less than they did and had someone fall asleep on me, it just wasn’t that awful. I suppose the other Mongols just talked all night which was indeed a nuisance. Eh! So what?

Anyway we arrived and couldn’t find our ride to the bed and breakfast so we walked. Turns out she was waiting on the Russian side of the train, while we were on the Mongolian side like bad tourists. Anyway we had some tea and bread wandered about Ulan-Bataar...I don’t remember eating lunch, which is possible...no wait, we finished off the train food and stopped by museum of Buddhist art, which was cool, but I was exhausted and in no mood to note the symbolic subtleties of the paintings and statues, nor the techniques. Even in my most energetic of moods it’s a draining task for me. So we returned to the hostel and went out for dinner at a Mongolian barbeque (which aren’t supposed to exist in Mongolia) and I had the great honor of eating so much that I was banned from the all-you-can-eat buffet (additionally, I tried the horse...it was – I want to say gamey, but that’s not quite right – I’d eat it again, but no rush). Ah! How I loved YC’s back when I ran cross country. We returned and I went to sleep, David and Chris decided to be social.

In the morning we left for the countryside, where each day we travelled and had one activity or another (occasionally maybe a short rest stop at a point of interest). The first day we drove 4-5 hours to a rather pretty spot at the base of some mountains. On the way we stopped for a lunch of stir-fry with a fried egg on top and Mongolian tea. Mongolian tea is probably a love it or hate it sort of thing; it’s not really tea it’s more like salty warm milk, but I really enjoyed it. To prepare it – as I observed it – you heat water, toss in some tea leaves, salt the tea, add milk (any fatty milk, I believe that I liked yak milk best), and allegedly they add sheep fat to the tea. However, I never observed them add it, nor tasted anything to make me think that the might have. Strangely, I found it really quite tasty and I probably try making it back home sometime...though yak milk and sheep fat (maybe just the milkfat??) might be hard to find. Mongolian dairy products are really just something else entirely. They make rather tasty cottage cheese (more similar to tvorog than ours), butter cream, and allegedly they yogurt is great, but we didn’t have the opportunity to try it. Additionally, kumiz was an interesting taste, especially in that we drank it by the bowlful. Kumiz is fermented mare’s milk, it reminded me of sourdough bread – Liza (when we came back) said it reminded her of alcoholic cheese, but I’m not sure that’s accurate. Strangely, it seemed more popular amongst our group than the tea since it was such a strange taste...or perhaps not strangely, being that it was moderately alcoholic (akin to beer). Apparently nomads drink it all day long in the summer and take great delight in their children drinking until drunk and passing out...or that was what our guide seemed to be telling us (she spoke English quite well for only two years of study, but she had the wonderful habit of placing “the” in front of every noun). As long as we’re talking about Mongolian food, they make essentially Indian fry bread and simple noodles, though I’m not certain of the origin of the wheat (both currently and historically), and they served us a curious sort of omelet...it was a bread omelet. Simply a piece of bread inside of an omelet; I don’t really know how I feel about that, but at the time I was thankfully for the protein. I don’t eat enough eggs here (at home I’d eat up to 4 every morning).

At our first camp, we were welcomed with fresh tea and told to wander about the hills whilst we waited the arrival of the camels. Yeah, camels. I guess I dig camels, but they are rather ornery. On the positive side, these didn’t smell bad like the vast majority in the states. The Mongolian camels are of the Bactrian (two hump) sort, which is apparently suited to cold climates, but each time I tried to ask our guide a follow up question about anything she always misunderstood or just didn’t know the answer. So currently, I have know idea what the humps are for or why they are so aptly suited to the climate. David was extremely excited and nervous about the camels...it almost seemed an obsession, but it was one of the more entertaining themes of our trip. He kept quoting a postcard he had received that read, “Camels are living dinosaurs because they are large and slow moving,” or some such thing, but you certainly can’t fault that logic. Despite David’s excitement, Kevin and I were selected to take the evening ride while Aubrey, Kris, and David would take the morning ride. We went riding for what seemed about two hours rather close to sundown and we rode on the steppe until we reached a tourist camp abandoned in the off-season, which our host joked, ”Ulan-Bataar!” and Kevin jabbed back, “New York!” He didn’t speak English or Russian – he understood a bit of Russian. He had an entertaining habit of turning back to us and inquiring about what we presumed to be our well being...he seemed reassured when we flashed him the thumbs up. Apart from that he whistled and sang a few tunes, but rare continued them very long. Unfortunately we had ridden out to the West and so when we returned and the sun was setting we, rather than riding into it rode away from it...at the same time, I suppose we didn’t have to deal with the glare. It got cold as we rode back, Mongolia gets very cold at night, but we made it back without freezing to death. Our group had continued their wandering and drank a bit of tea. We dined and went to sleep. There is an interesting trait that we recognized about our hosts; almost universally they felt obligated to stuff or ovens full of coal/wood that not freeze. Unfortunately, this made the yurt unbearably hot...I believe that it was at least 95 degrees in there at some point.

On the second day we breakfasted (and got butter cream!) and the other group went out on the camels in the other direction. Kevin and I wandered about a pretty cool looking rock formation that reminded me of the Boulders in North Scottsdale. We climbed about and sat about and found a dead hedgehog. The others returned and we set off for our second destination. We lunched near a river and explored the semi-desert. More interestingly we took a rest stop on top of a cliff overlooking another river, where the Communists had executed many a Buddhist monk – a solemn place indeed and it got to me a bit more than the work camp. We arrived at our camp rather late in the day, still light, but the sun was starting edge behind the mountains. We were in a valley whose surrounding mountains were wooded. A river flowed not far from our yurt and one of the mountains was an inactive volcano, which was responsible for the black rock that littered the valley floor and made our approach rather bumpy, but no where near so as towards Pereval. We again were greeted with tea dined and went to sleep in great heat...we may have played cards.

The next morning were to ride horses, but the horses and horse guide were late, so we passed the morning throwing rocks onto the frozen river and playing soccer with a toddler who made up interesting rule variants as we played. When the horses finally arrived after lunch, we saddled up and headed off. Mongolian horses are significantly smaller than European horses, which resulted in us appearing as though we were twice the size of the horses. They were pretty horses, mine I called James and he was rather well behaved and intelligent. Most of the other horses had some sort of issue or another. Aubrey’s horse was not to be trusted, Kevin’s lagged behind, David’s wanted to go home and play with the other horses and Chris’s just didn’t want to go anywhere. For some reason, my horse along with Aubrey’s was lead a the beginning, but soon enough I was riding on my own (Aubrey unfortunately wasn’t so lucky). In general the horses were more comfortable than the camels, but trotting and the extended ride got to my loins eventually. I’m not entirely certain whether I managed to gallop or not, the others certainly did after we returned, but I surrendered my horse to rest a bit. Anyway we rode to two different waterfalls one small, one large and then journeyed to the other end of the valley and outran the sun back to the yurt. The first waterfall was unremarkable, but would have been a wonderful place to swim in warmer weather (it was a bit like Bristol falls without the green), but the second waterfall was beautiful. It was partially frozen and produced a marvelous aura of white and blue. The evening was as the previous with a bit of stargazing to escape the oven.

Our last official day of touring took us to Kharkhorum – the capital of the Mongol Empire and, in effect, the world some 1000 years ago (a bit less, but whose counting). It’s a typical Mongolian city (not Ulan-Bataar) of wooden houses and yurts with no obvious commercial buildings and a surplus of abandoned industrial buildings. In addition, there is a monument to the Mongol Empire – a traditional shamanistic/Buddhist rock pile with three panels depicting the expanse of the empire at different points and Mongol warriors. The real gem of the city is the Buddhist temple, which was somewhat destroyed by the Communists and recently refurbished. It contained colorful statues and paintings and reminded me that, though I kind of understand the basic precepts of Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism is a strange beast unto itself. It has a very complicated mythology that seems outside the scope of what I understood Buddhism to be...it’s far more like a Western religion...I think. The highlight of the day was the dust storm that blew over us from our arrival in Kharkhorum, a characteristic feature of the Mongolian landscape and quite pleasant. We yurted it again and played cards into the wee hours of the morning.

This last day was boring, it was a long drive back to Ulan-Bataar and within an hour of the city our driver forgot to fill up the tank, so we sat for a few extra hours while he went for gas. Back in the city the last day passed quickly we ate some interesting, but not great foods (though we did find almost real pizza) and saw dinosaur bones at the museum. The exciting point was out excursion to the market where ushanki – the stereotypical Russian fur hats were the order of the day...Kevin and I restrained ourselves, but it was a rather interesting place. The bus to Ulan-Ude was much more comfortable than our previous train excursions and because we failed to get tickets for the train immediately to Irkutsk we passed a night and morning in Ulan-Ude where we saw the world’s largest head of Lenin...that day he wore a yamaka (or however you spell it) of snow; I giggled. The city seemed cleaner than and newer than Irkutsk, but there was little else of interest there. When we passed the night in the train station we somehow had to take a luxury room and a normal room, but the luxury room, though heinously more expensive was convenient for us to play cards and drink some malt liquor (we even tried it with cola, pretty nasty). Unfortunately, I lost again.

The train back was comfortable (because were in 2nd class – coupe) and we met some friendly Russians and Chinese. I’ve already talked about Pasha. In our compartment there was a crazy Chinese woman and her sons or relations of some sort...I think they were going to Moscow to sell imported cigarettes (they had a backpack full of them), but the boys showed us some good magic tricks, which helped to pass the time and after a peaceful alcoholic nap we arrive in Irkutsk, hustled off the train and hurried home.

This last week was rather unremarkable...delightfully short and pleasant. I am suspect that our wi-fi spot is actively trying to block us from using their internet...(internet in Mongolia was better and cheaper! I may just have to by a wireless modem if it will work in Moscow). My babushka got sick and so we’re fending for ourselves now and I’m entertaining the little girl. My house mother started bringing her boyfriend home, who reminds me of certain people back in the states, but he doesn’t seem quite so off as the bad examples I’ve met. He has a car import-export business....which seems very...sketchy, but Russian. That’s all for now folks tomorrow to the swimming pool.

Not Middlebury

Monday, November 24, 2008

One of the nice things...

Monday, November 17, 2008

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Bond, Booze, and Basketball

Sunday, November 9, 2008

4 Weeks in 5000 Words (a long awaited update)

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