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...
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