4:00 p.m. Thursday here. Megan and I are in the "Cafe Max" Internet cafe on Nevsky Prospect (the main thoroughfare in the city). It's upstairs, clean, and spacious, with a view out tall windows down on the busy activity below. We just had a wonderful lunch at Kazhan, a restaurant specializing in Georgian food. We had two appetizers: a bean salad and cabbage and eggplant stuffed with nut paste, followed by a "cheese pie," a wonderful warm pastry filled with cheese and potatoes, and finally dolmas and grilled garlic chicken. Ooff! Georgian food is fabulous.
This morning we went to the Russian Museum and saw some of our 19th and 20th century favorite Russian paintings by Serov, Roerich, Petrov-Vodkin. We also saw an exhibit by Filonov, a very striking but overlooked avant-garde artist of the early 20th century. His paintings were never exhibited until the 1980s because the Soviets tended to censor anything that was too modernist -- anything that drew attention to its own artifice or was abstract. They preferred realism for political reasons. Filonov was certainly no realist, with his wild and disturbing depictions of man's dark interiors.
Yesterday we walked up Nevsky from the Youth Hostel, got tickets for a couple shows (ballet and music), had bliny (crepes) at a coffee house, and passed through Gostiny Dvor (an upscale shopping center dating fromt the 18th century and Catherine the Great -- the first indoor mall!) on our way back to Megan's apartment. We made it just in time, as a big rain storm barreled in. We rested and puttered around her place while it poured out. In the evening, after the rain abated, we ventured out to an unusual bar I had read about, just a block away, called "Money Honey." If you can believe this, it specializes in rockabilly music -- every night of the week at least two bands play music until the wee hours of the morning. In his Russian accent, the lead singer belted out Elvis, Johnny Cash, and other classic country and rockabilly stuff. He even held his guitar high and slightly tilted downwards, like Elvis, and was accompanied by a guy with a telecaster in heavy reverb, an upright bassist, and a drummer. They even dressed the part, with hair slicked back with Brillcream. Hilarious, but they actually sounded great. The Russian bar-goers put down their giant glasses of pivo to dance, as did we after mustering our courage. The bar was decked out in paraphanelia of the American south and west: confederate flags, cow skulls, photos of Elvis, images of Harley Davidsons and bald eagles. Fun times! It's funny what other cultures respond to from the U.S., creating whole subcultures such as this one around rockabilly in St. Petersburg. We both loved it and are determined to return at least once more before I leave.
Switching cultural gears, tonight we'll go see a performance mixing Russian classical--ballet and opera numbers--with Russian folk (such as Cossack) music and dancing in the Capella, a beautiful old hall. Tomorrow we may go to a museum about a poet, such as Pushkin or Ahkmatova (in the place where they lived).
It has been pleasantly mild here (in the 70's); I guess I timed it just right again. I am wishing I had my guitar here, though I wouldn't have wanted to check it on the plane and I don't know if I would have been allowed to carry it on with my shoulder bag as well.
Hope all is well out in the real West, where nobody wears brillcream anymore.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Finally in an apartment: slow posting
I do mean to update this about once a week at least, but for the past ten days I haven't been able to use a computer for enough time to be thoughtful. My friend Nikita, who has been letting me jump on his computer for email, does some freelance work as a graphic designer and has been working under deadline on design of a website for a stevedoring company! It looks pretty cool.
I finally have a settled place to live on my own, and will get internet access of some sort soon, probably modem dial-up (Nikita has DSL, or whatever that is called, since he's online so much). That was quite an experience! So that will be my topic for a few minutes.
Months ago, I reserved a studio apartment near the main downtown street. Somewhere about June, I found out from the university that I had to get special forms from the landlady in order to stay there legally and still have the university register my residence. (All foreigners are required to register their place of residence with the local police station and office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs-- this was pretty lax in the 1990s but got strict again this spring and summer right before the summit.) The landlady refused to do these forms and I panicked, although many people assured me that once I got here things would be OK after all. Everything would have worked out, but the landlady got tired of dealing with clients and decided to sell this apartment-- so I couldn't stay there anyway. Recently prices for any nice apartment, or any apartment at all near the city center, have jumped hugely.
An American friend and specialist on city development here said that prices jumped because there have been recent changes to regulations on mortgages which allow them to be more widely available for more buyers. She thinks that mortgages allow prices to go up, because people can pay more over the longer haul... Be that as it may, she and her Russian husband have been trying for two years to buy a place here, and keep getting bought out by someone who comes with cash and buys the apartment they want. She said they missed out on two places this summer, once because a guy from Moscow offered $40,000 above the asking price, and once because a guy from Kazazhstan did something similar.
So, I then had a similar experience... My agent Irina found another place for me downtown, and I was to see it about 10 days ago at 2pm. Half an hour before we arrived to see it, someone rented it for a year! Makes more sense for the renter, of course.
Meanwhile, Irina had hooked me up with someone named Sveta who said she could show me someplace south of the city that would be for $500. I had to go see it at 7am on a Saturday. As it turned out, she was giving me a look at it but promising nothing. A family of four arrived right after I did, evidently right from the train station, and rented the place for six days. I was later really glad that Sveta didn't want to rent it to me. It was really close to my good friends on Moskovsky Avenue, but very dreary and unloved-- not a welcoming place to return to alone!
Irina tried one more thing, which has worked out: a two-room apartment right near Sennaya Square, which is amazing transportation wise, right near the center. It's the first time I have lived so centrally and it makes me very aware of what a CITY I am living in-- lots of people, cars, noise, dust. However, the apartment looks into an interior courtyard of one of the old nineteenth-century buildings, so it's amazingly quiet. It's for 700 dollars per month, more than I thought I would pay but in light of the recent price-jump quite logical. "Two-rooms" here means that there's a kitchen (big, with a couch), plus two other rooms for living-- and this one has a huge hallway. My friends and I were trying to guess when the building was built, how the interior was divided up when... The whole apartment is probably bigger than our place in Eugene, I feel like I'm living in a train station because I have to walk so far (relatively) if I forget something in the bedroom that I want in the kitchen. There are good grocery stores right near me, though, and one of the biggest outdoor food markets is also very close. I know at least we can get spicy "Korean carrot salad" there if we want it-- Nikita bought some a few days ago.
The previous renter before me was a young man who could have been from anywhere else... He was a programmer and was here on temporary contract; I got lucky because his work was just finishing when Irina called him. His renting the place indicates a new kind of market for living space here -- the idea of living somewhere temporarily, along with a robust supply of temporary housing such as we have at home, was NOT typical of the Soviet period. People moved around sometimes but would often live in worker dormitories, or if they moved they got a company apartment and generally stayed (if they were lucky enough to get to big city especially). Alexander was one his way back to the Urals somewhere-- he didn't say exactly.
When I asked him whether the washing machine needed any kind of special detergent powder, he said, "I just buy regular Tide." Lots of Western brand names are in abundance here.
Right now I'm in a comfortable internet cafe on Nevsky. Scott arrived last night so we are heading for a day of strolling and sampling the numerous coffeehouses that have sprung up since 1999, and 2001 especially. The "Ideal Cup" chain, started by someone who visited the US and liked Starbucks, competes with "Koffee Haus" for customers and for having the most cheerful wait staff... something that is still quite a relief and an oasis from more reserved service in many places. I'll leave him some time to check his email too... 70 rubles, or almost 3 dollars, for an hour of internet time. Don't know how that compares...
More soon I hope! Thanks for checking and for writing notes.
I finally have a settled place to live on my own, and will get internet access of some sort soon, probably modem dial-up (Nikita has DSL, or whatever that is called, since he's online so much). That was quite an experience! So that will be my topic for a few minutes.
Months ago, I reserved a studio apartment near the main downtown street. Somewhere about June, I found out from the university that I had to get special forms from the landlady in order to stay there legally and still have the university register my residence. (All foreigners are required to register their place of residence with the local police station and office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs-- this was pretty lax in the 1990s but got strict again this spring and summer right before the summit.) The landlady refused to do these forms and I panicked, although many people assured me that once I got here things would be OK after all. Everything would have worked out, but the landlady got tired of dealing with clients and decided to sell this apartment-- so I couldn't stay there anyway. Recently prices for any nice apartment, or any apartment at all near the city center, have jumped hugely.
An American friend and specialist on city development here said that prices jumped because there have been recent changes to regulations on mortgages which allow them to be more widely available for more buyers. She thinks that mortgages allow prices to go up, because people can pay more over the longer haul... Be that as it may, she and her Russian husband have been trying for two years to buy a place here, and keep getting bought out by someone who comes with cash and buys the apartment they want. She said they missed out on two places this summer, once because a guy from Moscow offered $40,000 above the asking price, and once because a guy from Kazazhstan did something similar.
So, I then had a similar experience... My agent Irina found another place for me downtown, and I was to see it about 10 days ago at 2pm. Half an hour before we arrived to see it, someone rented it for a year! Makes more sense for the renter, of course.
Meanwhile, Irina had hooked me up with someone named Sveta who said she could show me someplace south of the city that would be for $500. I had to go see it at 7am on a Saturday. As it turned out, she was giving me a look at it but promising nothing. A family of four arrived right after I did, evidently right from the train station, and rented the place for six days. I was later really glad that Sveta didn't want to rent it to me. It was really close to my good friends on Moskovsky Avenue, but very dreary and unloved-- not a welcoming place to return to alone!
Irina tried one more thing, which has worked out: a two-room apartment right near Sennaya Square, which is amazing transportation wise, right near the center. It's the first time I have lived so centrally and it makes me very aware of what a CITY I am living in-- lots of people, cars, noise, dust. However, the apartment looks into an interior courtyard of one of the old nineteenth-century buildings, so it's amazingly quiet. It's for 700 dollars per month, more than I thought I would pay but in light of the recent price-jump quite logical. "Two-rooms" here means that there's a kitchen (big, with a couch), plus two other rooms for living-- and this one has a huge hallway. My friends and I were trying to guess when the building was built, how the interior was divided up when... The whole apartment is probably bigger than our place in Eugene, I feel like I'm living in a train station because I have to walk so far (relatively) if I forget something in the bedroom that I want in the kitchen. There are good grocery stores right near me, though, and one of the biggest outdoor food markets is also very close. I know at least we can get spicy "Korean carrot salad" there if we want it-- Nikita bought some a few days ago.
The previous renter before me was a young man who could have been from anywhere else... He was a programmer and was here on temporary contract; I got lucky because his work was just finishing when Irina called him. His renting the place indicates a new kind of market for living space here -- the idea of living somewhere temporarily, along with a robust supply of temporary housing such as we have at home, was NOT typical of the Soviet period. People moved around sometimes but would often live in worker dormitories, or if they moved they got a company apartment and generally stayed (if they were lucky enough to get to big city especially). Alexander was one his way back to the Urals somewhere-- he didn't say exactly.
When I asked him whether the washing machine needed any kind of special detergent powder, he said, "I just buy regular Tide." Lots of Western brand names are in abundance here.
Right now I'm in a comfortable internet cafe on Nevsky. Scott arrived last night so we are heading for a day of strolling and sampling the numerous coffeehouses that have sprung up since 1999, and 2001 especially. The "Ideal Cup" chain, started by someone who visited the US and liked Starbucks, competes with "Koffee Haus" for customers and for having the most cheerful wait staff... something that is still quite a relief and an oasis from more reserved service in many places. I'll leave him some time to check his email too... 70 rubles, or almost 3 dollars, for an hour of internet time. Don't know how that compares...
More soon I hope! Thanks for checking and for writing notes.
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Incidentally! RE 'rejected' comments
If anyone receives a message saying "your comment has been rejected," please know that I did get it and read it. "Rejection" means that it was a personal note and not something that I thought you wanted to add publicly as a general comment or question.
If you do want to "participate" by commenting or questioning, you are welcome! I don't promise to have the time to answer directly, but would appreciate tips, ideas, and questions that might bring out other interesting details. Thanks for reading!
If you do want to "participate" by commenting or questioning, you are welcome! I don't promise to have the time to answer directly, but would appreciate tips, ideas, and questions that might bring out other interesting details. Thanks for reading!
Resting on the Fourth Day
The weather since my Tuesday evening arrival has been sunny and hot, with
rain constantly promised but never arriving. Unusually for Petersburg, it
hasn't rained all summer; there are even fires in the forests and peat bogs
north of here. The air is fine in the city (apart from the usual city dirt
and car exhaust) but it is humid and warm in between the buildings.
The experience of my first two days makes me want to ask everyone to go
immediately to the nearest international students they know and ask: What
procedures did you have to go through to come to the US? What did you have
to do when you got here? Daytime was the hardest time for me at first anyway
(since 11am here was midnight at home), and so at the end of Wednesday and
Thursday I was exhausted. Fortunately the office accepted my transcripts and
the letter from the university clinic attesting to my good health. However,
I had to go get another AIDS test done because the U of O clinic didn't send
my results on an official certificate; I also had to buy a local insurance
policy because the international package I bought couldn't specify a local
clinic where I could get help in case of need. I wrote a short autobiography
in Russian (about myself and my parents), filled out a questionnaire, signed
a statement of the rules, and got 14 photos made. I signed up for a Russian
language exam, Level 2, that will take place next Wednesday and Thursday.
When I had done all this, I returned on Wednesday; signed more papers, paid
my tuition (at a higher exchange rate than the current one!), and was added
to the official list of international students. This allowed me to return
and talk to the woman in charge of dormitories, who had to give me an
address before I could see the passport registration office. She couldn't
really decide what to do with me, because she didn't yet have a list from
the geography department of room requests, and anyway the woman who manages
all that was out of her office that day... She chose one partly at random
and sent me to the passport office. In the middle of that procedure I went
off somewhere else and paid the visa and invitations fees, then came back
and finally got an official stamp and a form saying that they will keep my
passport until September 22nd. Paying any of the fees meant going to a
different building, getting a payment form in one room, and then going
downstairs to the cash desk where I got receipts. I felt rather
bureaucratized, but surely people who come to our universities have to do
much the same thing? And last night Nikita told me the story of how he ran
all over creation getting all his exams done for entering graduate school
here, and made me laugh: his experience was MUCH worse than mine and
involved a great deal more arbitrariness. Only about two people were really
genuinely rude to me in the old Soviet way, and my host mother said that I
should be proud-- that meant that they probably took me for a Russian.
I am staying with old friends, Valentina who is near 60 but still completely
youthful, and her son Nikita who is in his early twenties. Their apartment
is enclosed inside the inner courtyard of a building off a busy central
street. The windows look out to the yellow wall and windows of the back
section of the building, but that part of the courtyard has some bushes and
flowers growing in the corners and the late sun reflects down on us, so it
doesn't feel as enclosed as it sounds. Right outside the outer gates are
rows of beautiful old buildings with a variety of new snappy bright retail
shops. Lots of foot activity. I have seen several bicycles, although there
are no bike lanes at all and cars must be going at least 45 or 50 mph along
the street. The metro is quite crowded as usual. Lots of the public
transportation has been removed to make life easier for cars.
Yesterday I saw the geography professor who will be my adviser while I'm
here. He was giving a lecture on Petersburg development to a group of 28
Dutch geographers -- in English. Interesting maps and information. We went
on a short walking tour of the neighborhood right around the Geography
Department and saw a new shopping mall inside a 19th century tobacco
factory, a new pedestrian zone that has become mostly elite housing lined by
a wide variety of shops (see the photo below of cafe chairs along a
tree-lined street), and an inner yard where you could tell by the window
treatment where communal apartments remained. He pointed out the church at
the south end of the pedestrian street, which is being vigorously remodeled
and looks great. It was definitely relaxing to be around his optimism --
although he can't be just a professor, he has a couple of businesses on the
side, including consulting and a tourist company. He is right, at least,
that that part of the city is dynamic and drawing lots of people and shops.
It is a place some of my poorer friends can't bring themselves to enter, but
a lot of people seem to be enjoying it.
This coming week will probably be devoted to pursuing the question of my
permanent housing and to my Russian exam. I just hope I haven't forgotten
all my verb forms and grammar details! The Wednesday part will last 3
hours...
Sunday, August 13, 2006
A rather poor map
Here is a barely adequate map of Petersburg! I will try to get a better one. At least it's in English.
I don't yet where I will be living, but I may live in a big dorm (where I lived in 1990) a little to the right of where the number 6 is. A close friend with whom I'll stay the first few nights lives near the intersection of Moskovsky Prospekt and the Obvodny Kanal (a few blocks to the right of the 3).
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Photos from August 2005
Here are several photos from a three-week trip that I took last summer. New buildings and overwhelming outdoor advertising outside the metro stop on Vasilievsky Island; a Chinese restaurant that also sports a Coca-Cola sign; a Starbucks-like German coffeehouse on a new pedestrian street, also on Vasilievsky Island.
Just before departure
Arranging a four-month independent research stay has entailed negotiations, phone calls, and email exchanges with the Russian consulate in San Francisco, the International Admissions office of St. Petersburg State University, and a helpful (if helpless in the face of new regulations) apartment rental agent. At least my visa arrived in time... Stay tuned for updates on the rest of my arrangements and Russian bureaucracy, post-Soviet style.
As many visitors and natives have noted, St. Petersburg is one of the most imagined cities in the world. Writers, scholars, and artists have layered it with character, shape, and myth. I know something about this from my studies of literature and my "training" from many friends and acquaintances. What interests me now is the changing material environment -- how will this affect the image of St. Petersburg cherished by so many?
I have questions about how Chinese investment and immigration will test this self-image; how 'average' Russians are coping with specific changes to the material environment, such as new construction and reduced public transportation; how new architecture leaves traces on the landscape that point out to external influences and new connections to a globalizing world; how people's use of cherished space is changing, and what new attachments they may be forming to modified spaces.
I've enabled commenting on this blog, so please send questions and comments! I will probably not respond directly (I only have four months!) but I will appreciate your thoughts and ideas.
Here are a few pictures to give you an idea of what I saw last August, places and signs that I'll keep observing this fall.
As many visitors and natives have noted, St. Petersburg is one of the most imagined cities in the world. Writers, scholars, and artists have layered it with character, shape, and myth. I know something about this from my studies of literature and my "training" from many friends and acquaintances. What interests me now is the changing material environment -- how will this affect the image of St. Petersburg cherished by so many?
I have questions about how Chinese investment and immigration will test this self-image; how 'average' Russians are coping with specific changes to the material environment, such as new construction and reduced public transportation; how new architecture leaves traces on the landscape that point out to external influences and new connections to a globalizing world; how people's use of cherished space is changing, and what new attachments they may be forming to modified spaces.
I've enabled commenting on this blog, so please send questions and comments! I will probably not respond directly (I only have four months!) but I will appreciate your thoughts and ideas.
Here are a few pictures to give you an idea of what I saw last August, places and signs that I'll keep observing this fall.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)