November 13th

My lovely city (the blue building is a Women's Monestary near my house- this is a photo from across the Voronezh River).

So, I know it seems like it’s been no time since I returned from the Kafkaz (it’s been what? Eight days? My life is one tragedy after another…) but I’m off again in a couple hours. It’s my first self planned trip so it will probably be fraught with poor planning and disasters, but then again, that’s what life’s about right? So anyways, I’m heading to Irkutsk; described a long time ago as the “Paris of Siberia” (I suppose that’s like describing Boise as the “New York City of Idaho.” Some things just can’t be improved by words…). But who knows, I may be pleasantly surprised. Leg one of this trip is a bus trip from here to Moscow (from 11 PM to 7AM…). We are spending the day in Moscow and then we’ve got a flight from Moscow to Irkutsk. It’s a 5 hour flight plus a 5 hour time difference, so I’ll be 13 hours (11?) from the East coast and I’ll be closer to California then New York. Also my first official foray into Asia… It’s just five of us West Point guys going, so it should be a pretty good time as we’re all down for a good adventure. Hopefully I’ll be full of stories when I return (and still alive…)!

In other news, Dmitry Medvedev gave his State of the Union address the other day and my hozyaika and I were listening in on the radio. It was all rather too much for me so I had to ask her what was being said. The first thing she mentioned is that all he ever did was talk and talk and talk. She mentioned that he was totally missing one of the biggest issues facing Russia (as a retired State employee, she might be slightly biased): pensions. Currently, government employees receive a 40% pension, but it is widely understood that 40% of the already tiny wages received by civil servants (padded by bribes while in the service) is not enough to live off of (hard to take bribes once you’ve retired. I’ve always said that). As the speech went on, Medvedev touched on the fact that Russia’s economy is totally based on raw materials right now and there really isn’t a whole lot of production going on here. Take one look around and this becomes readily apparent. Everything here, from medicine to food to furniture is produced in Finland, Germany, China, etc. The only native products I see her are the tragically sad Lada cars. You can judge a city’s wealth based solely on the percentage of Ladas in the streets (maybe 10% in Moscow, around 70% in Voronezh). But it is hurting the economy and making everything more expensive in the process. Medvedev moved on to the brain drain that happened in this country and is haunting it still. He said that 50,000 highly educated Russians are now working in America alone and that he has a plan to lure them back to the Motherland. We’ll see about that. Olga Arkeedevna didn’t seem so impressed (bear in mind that she was translating all of this from complicated Russian to my Russian and she was liberal in adding her own opinions). Medvedev also talked about the rapidly shrinking population in Russia, something that will leave this country wrecked in 20 years if not checked. In fact, in the Voronezhskoe Oblast, with a population of 2.5 million, the population is shrinking at 25,000 people a year because the death rate has far outstripped the birth rate. So, the government is begging people to have 3-4 kids (I’m sure you’ve heard the gimmicks. You know, give the family who has their kid closest to midday on Victory Day a free tractor and stuff like that…). Well, Olga Arkeedevna was explaining to me that Russian’s will never have both parents work while there are kids in the house to be raised. Thus, there is no way to have 3-4 kids and still support them with only one parent working (or drinking full time as many men do here). It’s something of a Catch-22 and thus, again, she was not impressed. Well, I’ve gotten a bit carried away and I really need to go pack (I leave in an hour now…)! So long!

November 11th

Many Russians do have a sense of humor...

I’ve got a pretty Russian Voronezh Moment of the Day for ya’ll so I’m going to make a brief foray back to the old format. So, legitimate blog-piece first. Last night, as we were sitting at a bar having a good time, this older gentleman came up and said “Hello.” I assumed he was Russian and was confused by the weird accent he had. Well, it turns out he wasn’t Russian at all, but a Northern Irishmen from Belfast who’s been living in Voronezh for 10 years now. His name is Brian and he’s probably about 60. He’s probably the most foulmouthed, down to earth, Irish, fun man I’ve ever met. He’s the owner of an internet café and a pub here in town and he had quite the insight on foreigners living and working in Russia. His place, called the Shamrock (a bar) has closed and re-opened in a different location three times in these ten years. What happens, according to him, is that he gets about a two year grace period (thanks to generous bribes to the right local officials). As soon as the place gets successful, then no matter how much he pays anyone, the police will make up some blatantly bogus charge and sue him for enough money to shut down his place. Three times this has happened and three times he’s opened a different place in a different location. He had a friend in St. Petersburg who owned an American burger joint called City Bar. It had such a great reputation that I spent one hour of my precious time in that city looking for it. But, it was closed too. The landlord of the place had owed a ton of money to the city in taxes and such, but when the authorities saw that one of his clients was a foreigner the city tagged the debt on him instead, suing him for every penny and sending him home broke. I was fairly unsurprised, but I wasn’t sure how much I believed it. That is, until about 30 minutes ago when I was walking through town talking to Brendan Fox. This tall blond girl that I’ve never seen before came up and asked “Are you guys Americans?” in about the most Texas accent you could imagine. We were taken aback to say the least… It turns out that she was a Baylor University student who came to Russia on a semester abroad in the ‘90s. She loved it so much here that she dropped out of college and moved here permanently. She lived in Voronezh for nine years and started a new life here. I (half jokingly) said that a bunch of us were just about ready to quit school and just stay here too. She got this panic stricken look and said, “No, take it from me. That would be the worst decision in your life.” Ok… It turns out that she, much like Brian, had started a business here. For the first year everyone was her friend, helpful and kind, etc. But as soon as she became successful, all of a sudden, she was not only competition, but a foreigner to boot. She said she got used, cheated, back stabbed, harassed by the police until finally after nine years she broke down and returned to America. She’s back here for a week collecting her things and getting her paperwork sorted out. Two of the same story in less than 24 hours, and both were totally random occurrences. I think God is smiling on my blog and just wants to give me something to write about.

Voronezh Moment of the Day

So, I was on my way home today with Amy and we were walking along one of the main roads here in Voronezh. It was only about 2 AM so there were still a good amount of cars on the road. We came around a bend in the road and in the middle of the eastbound lane were two guys fighting to the death. One guy had the other by the head and was smashing his face into the pavement and making the most disgusting sounds ever as the bones in his face broke. There were cars swerving to avoid them and just as I was about to rush into the road to pull them apart (yes, this is easily the worst impulse idea I have EVER had. SO MUCH could have, and probably would have, gone wrong) a passing motorist jumped out of his car, hauled the one guy up and pushed him away. At this point both of the guys jump up and sprint away into the darkness in opposite directions. They were both COVERED in blood, one guy had a gash from his forehead down to his chin, and the guy who’d been being beaten when arrived, his face was a mask of blood. There was even a puddle of blood on the street that was a dark brown stain when I walked by the place on the way to school this morning. Absolute insanity. And the ladies who work at the 24 hour flower shops were all clustered by the edge of the street while this was happening as if watching a sports match. Oh Russia, why?

November 9th

This is a picture of my Russia scarf which is much like my "Fakel" one. I am drinking mineral water in this photo to clear up any concern...

Again, this won’t be a very deep or informative post, but it’s another small blip from my life here. We went to my second home last night (the bar Pivasii) to watch the Chelsea-Manchester United football match. It was me, Stuart Coffee, his Russian friend, Olga, and Amy, one of the Brits who happens to be a huge Chelsea fan. Stuart and I had decided to take a night off after three rough nights of getting home around 5:30 AM. All of the staff at Pivasii know us and one especially, Alyona, has seen us at our best and worst, from day one to the present. Her favorite pastime is cutting us off when she thinks we’ve had too much to drink but then caving in. One night, one of our party asked for his 8^th or 9^th shot of vodka and she gave him a shot of beer (which he didn’t even notice because he spilled it all over himself…). She’s pretty awesome and she’s even dated one of our number for a bit. Anyways, as frequent customers we also get the perks of having a table reserved for us on the nights when there’s big matches on, and usually within two minutes of getting there Stu and I have two Hanz Wheelers (beer) waiting for us (that’s Ganz Beeler in Russian… no “h” and no “w” in cyrillic). Anyways, wow I’m off topic… So tonight, we waved off the beers and ordered Pepsi instead and told Alyona that we were not going to drink tonight. She was most pleased/shocked. After the game, we were just getting ready to leave and head home when I got a tap on my shoulder. Sure enough, Russian bro, inbound. He’d been attracted by my scarf which marks me as a fan for the local Voronezh team “Fakel Voronezh.” They were really good 20 years ago, but now they are in the lowly Russian Second Division with little hope of escape. There season ended with me unable to see a game, but I bought the scarf anyways. It turns out these three guys who were sitting behind me were HUGE fans and just had to invite me round to their table for a chat. I tried to fend them off because I’m never a fan of being alone with potentially bizarre bros, but they were mighty persistent and I eventually gave in. My Russian was on fire tonight plus one of the guys thought I had some sort of mental handicap so he spoke r-e-a-l-l-y slowly, which is not a bad thing in the least. Anyways, they talked to me about Fakel, taught me the songs (Sinie, Bilie, Lalalalalalalalalalala. Sinie, Bilie, Lalalalalalalalalalala. Ogooooooooooooooooon! This probably looks super easy, but each “la” and about half of the “o’s” had different notes so it was tricky). We moved from there to whether I would fight in Afghanistan if I got conscripted and then whether I would fight Russia if Obama told me too. And what if Bush had told me to? And why Bill Clinton was the best president ever (answer? MONICA!!!! That was awkward…). After that, I heard all about their take on why Russia, China, and America are the only superpowers (I agreed out of politeness, but I have my reservations about this statement, which I’ve heard before here). I was actually having a great time and when they insisted that we drink to football bringing people from different places together (something I totally agree with, more on that later. Until then: thank you Phil Baki for nurturing my love of that sport, it’s served me incredibly well in my time here) I readily accepted. We got four shots of vodka (again, I had to fight for them with Alyona who kept reminding me that I wasn’t going to drink tonight. The guys I was with were mostly just confused…).These guys were convinced that one shot of Vodka would just about kill me (honestly, at this point it would probably take about 6-7 to do me in) and they were just so impressed that not only could I drink it without melting, but that I didn’t even need juice as a chaser (only lemon slices). Not to be immodest, but I’ve been called a real Russian man enough times to make it slightly worrisome. I’m flattered and I am here to learn the culture, but I also don’t want to die at 50 of liver failure… Neither here nor there. So, at this point I’m in danger of spending the rest of the night hanging out with these guys against my better judgment when this random 40ish year old man walks up. I assume he’s a friend of the guys I’m with but he sits down and introduces himself to everyone. The Russian bros I was with had just gotten Russian bro’d. The irony was priceless. I was with a Pasha, Masha, and a Viktor, so when I introduced myself as Chris, this guy was just so confused (not a Russian name). Pasha said that I was from America. The man glares at me, spits on the table, says flat out: “I don’t like America. In fact, I hate America.” This is the first time anyone has ever said that to me here and I was quite shocked. He then proceeded to spend 20 minutes (probably longer but I stopped listening) talking about, point by point why he hated our country. It was mostly lingering Cold War stuff, as he’d fought in Afghanistan against American armed mujahedeen, probably enough to get anyone’s back up. He also mentioned us bringing Russia to its knees in the 90’s economically and supporting that traitor Boris Yeltsin. It was all pretty interesting, but he’d killed the mood of brotherhood and fun so I decided to get out. Never a dull moment…

November 7th

Lermontov's duel site memorial in Pyatigorsk.

d) Pyatigorsk – Kislovodsk’s bigger cousin, this city is the home of Lermontov. He was exiled here from St. Petersburg for writing poetry offensive to the Tsar and here he wrote his best poetry and his famous novel “A Hero of Our Time.” It was also here that he died. He had made a joke in poor taste to his best friend at a party here in Pyatigorsk and his friend had challenged him to a duel. The next morning, the duel took place. Lermontov shot first, firing into the air, not wanting to kill his best friend. His friend then shot him through the heart, killing him instantly. Chivalry… Not a whole lot going on otherwise… It snowed and was cold (the babushkas at our hotel in Kislovodsk insisted then personally inspected that we all wore our hats and scarves. You have to love this country).

Yours truly in front of some water and not at the football match described below.

e) Football – We played a pickup game, 5 v 5, against some of the guys who worked at one of the sanatoriums near our hotel. After our abysmal basketball showing, we were eager to not get embarrassed. We didn’t, and we managed to pull out a fair game. I had a few great saves as goalie and then came on to score the winning goal with a superb volley off of a high pass. I was pretty proud, especially after my zero point, zero rebound, zero assist basketball game… Plus we got to hang out with some Russian bros and they invited us into their employees break room in the sanatorium (the break room was in an abandoned fallout shelter from the 70s, replete with quadruple steel doors) for tea and biscuits, Russian style.

November 6th (Part Deux)

A friend from Kislovodsk. No relation to the post... sorry.

Ok, this is a bit of a non-sequitor as far as this blog goes, but you’ll have to forgive the lack of anything cultural in this post. This is a little blurb from my daily life, so I figured it has its place. Ok, so last night at dinner I was talking about how in the Caucasus literally all eleven of us got sick within two days of drinking the mineral water. My hozyaika always says that if you eat an onion everyday then you’ll never get sick. Sure enough, I hadn’t had any onions that whole trip and I made the joke that we were all sick because we weren’t eating onions. Well anyways, my hozyai (Gina), who just LOVES mocking me mercilessly (envision a cynical, bitter little Ukrainian man), asked me if there wasn’t a market for me to buy onions there. Of course there was but I said I’d only bought bread and cheese and beer.

“And vodka.”

“No, I didn’t buy any vodka.”

“Sure.”

“No, really! I didn’t!”

“Yeah…”

“I stopped drinking vodka two months ago.”

“That’s what they all say.”

“Seriously! You remember the last time I drank vodka.”

“Right, when I found you making salsa pancakes in the kitchen at 4:30 in the morning.”

“That might have been me… I don’t drink vodka anymore.”

“Sure.”

“Ok, you win.”

“I know.”

Well, I guess the fact that he eats dinner with us now is a plus, although often when I start telling a story about my day he’ll get up and turn the radio volume up… I don’t know why his antics don’t infuriate me, instead I think he’s got to be the funniest guy I know. For whatever reason, my Russian always seems to fall apart when I talk to him and he takes endless delight in making me feel like an idiot. We have an odd relationship to say the least…

Facial Hair

I'm growing a mustache. Please, don't laugh! Ok, I'm sorry, I'm a little sensitive... hopefully it'll darken up and actually show up in a photograph... Thought ya'll should know. Not sure why, but probably for the same reason that I'm on my computer at 5:30 in the morning. Probably time for bed...