An Excursion to Fr. Nikon's

On Monday, I visited a monk with the Klassens and their German guests. He lives on the outskirts of Tomsk. He lives by himself, but constantly has visitors. Here are some pictures from the trip:
http://picasaweb.google.com/engineeria/ExcursionToFatherNikonSHermitage#

Valentin Aleksandrovich Serov

On Friday in class we discussed the Russian artist Valentin Aleksandrovich Serov (1865-1911). I really enjoyed the following paintings.

My host mother and her girlfriends

(From left to right: Svetlana, Natasha, Olga)

Photo taken in Olga's store

Reality Check

When I dropped by my host-mother's store today, I was met by a homeless person. He was completely drunk. He just sat on the sidewalk and stared off into the distance. Flies swarmed his face. One foot was bloody with cuts. He wore a thicket, dark jacket, even though it was well above 90. He had no teeth, a scraggly beard, and blood-shot eyes. My host-mother called the police. They arrived after about half an hour later. I asked Olga, "What are the police going to do with him?" "They'll take him somewhere else?" "And what then?" "He'll just sit in another place." And I sat there in the store, having stuffed myself with tvorog (a Russian pastry), blini, salad, and soup. I felt like vomiting it all back up. How can one be so indifferent to such suffering? A few hours have passed since this encounter, and nothing has changed. That man is no doubt lying in a park somewhere craving his next drink. I'm sitting in front of my laptop, worrying about my future, my needs, my wants, my career. Life just continues along. Sometimes I find this fact very difficult to deal with in the face of such misery.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince... in Russian!

Yesterday, a number of the American students studying in Tomsk went to see the new Harry Potter movie.  My friend Steve and I decided to treat the occasion with the formality it deserved.

A question from Dad

What is summer like in Tomsk? On the one hand, it is the pleasure of strolling past old, ornate wooden buildings, the shy smile of a local Tomchik who has never met an American before, the refreshing taste of kvas on the way home from a long day at school, and the stillness of a city still asleep in the early morning hours (that's when I like to run from my apartment to "Lagerny Sad", a park that overlooks the River Tom).

On the other hand, it is also the traffic jams on Prospekt Lenina, an overwhelming presence of body odor, and the constant struggle of living with bugs.

An incomprehensible English phrase

Every day I eat lunch at the "Univer City" Cafe with my Russian language comrades. And every day I am served lunch by a waitress wearing a black shirt with the following written on the front in English: "We must eat our suckers with the wrappers on." Over the course of my brief stay here in Siberia, I have been struggling to understand what this might possibly mean. Perhaps there is some deeper esoteric significance. In any event, it gives me something to muse about during grammar class... I mean - as I walk home from school to meet my fate chez Konyshevs.

The Memorial Museum of Political Repression

Tomsk is home to a unique museum in Russia. Most Russians are not interested in remembering the horrors of Stalin - the gulags, the purges, the "Five Year Plans". However, here in the heart of Siberia, there is one tiny underground museum that witnesses to the atrocities millions of people suffered during the Soviet Union. Alexander Solzhenitsyn was the first guest. It's located in a former KGB building, where political prisoners were interrogated and locked up before being executed. The layout of the museum is quite simple. It consists of a couple of rooms with photographs of those who perished and an example of what a typical cell was like. I was immediately drawn to a picture of a young priest, his wife and three children. They looked so calm and peaceful in the photograph. I tried to imagine what it must have been like for this priest to be separated from his loved ones, to sit in a cramped little cell with twenty other prisoners, to endure the stench of unwashed humanity in the final hours of one's life, and to be led out of this hell to be shot.

The temptation to wallow in depression in moments like this is great. And for this reason, I'm grateful for a certain person, who shall remain nameless, who opened the hatch of the cell directly onto my face, leading to a bloody nose. It provided some much needed comic relief. I just hope my nose won't become gangrenous.

An All Time Low

Sometimes when you are living abroad and studying a language intensively, you just need to do something completely mindless in order to remain sane. Such a moment occured a couple of days ago. Instead of doing my grammar homework, I decided to go watch a movie with my friends Steven and Tyler. Unfortunately, we did not consult the schedule at the theater beforehand. It turned out only one movie was playing at a convenient time - "The Offer" starring Sandra Bullock. The plotline - a Canadian business woman faces deportation from the States. She pretends to marry her male assistant so as to keep her job. At first, the couple can't stand each other, but over the course of a weekend in beautiful, sunny Sitka, Alaska, they fall in love. Of course, the story ends happily with much smooching.

I had all ready watched this movie in a previous attempt to find a distraction from studying. This left me with an unenviable choice. I either had to put up with a chick-flick that was barely passable the first time around, or head home to deal with opinionated Russian women. I chose the former. It pains me to admit, but I watched "The Offer" two times in the span of little over a week. For those of you who have seen the movie, I think you will understand what I mean when I say I've reached a new all time low.

Happy Independence Day!

To family and friends:

I wish you a peaceful, restful, and delightful Fourth of July. And as you chow down on all manner of tasty things (burgers, hot dogs, corn on the cob), don't forget about us ex-pats abroad in foreign places. We have no concrete plans to celebrate the holiday in Siberia, but as I mentioned earlier, things happen spontaneously here.

Our group just returned from Novosibirsk, where I attended my first opera (Prince Igor - 4 hours long), ate the most disgusting shwarma in my life at the highly questionable "Grill Master" next to the hotel (what was I thinking?), and learnt all about the intricacies of trains at the "Museum of Railroads". My favorite exhibit was the "hospital coach" on one of the Soviet trains, where they showcased the surgical instruments used during World War II. Suffice to say, I'm awfully grateful to be living in 21st century America!