Mafia-style blini-week

I have been decent Russian during the past week: while it has been a Maslenitsa (which means more or less Butterweek) I have been eating at least 10 blinis, cakes, Georgian cheesy khatsapuri and drinking enough beers. I have buttered myself (literally) up for the future suffering because like all good thing, also crazy-eating-holiday has to come to an end.

Tomorrow, on Monday, we who live under Orthodox calendar and rules will start a Lent. That means no meat (well, I don't eat it any way), milk products or eggs  (I think I'll break this rule), dancing, partying or listening other than godly music for 40 days. Like all the believers (for most young Russians, it's only a good way to get into bikini shape, not so much obeying religious rules), I'll make my own version of Lent. Suvi-Lent means no meat (easy), lot of thesis writing (harder), only few beers now and then (fundamentalist absolutism is never good) and lot of sports (which will complicate the rule #2). And because everything is faster now than back in the days when Lent was invented, I will cut back Lent from 40 into 14 days. I should be able to do that, especially now when my favorite excuse not to study flew back to Bern. And he will be reason to brake the Lent again in 14 days.

Beside copying the Butter-eating-feast I have had some other all-Russian experiences like mafia-style car-crashing and friendly babushkas giving me advice I want to hear and advice I don't need to hear. The mafia-show happened when I was buying yet another blini at nearby blini-kiosk. I was ordering some fish-egg (roe) and chocolate-banana blinis from a lovely blini-devushka when I heard huge noise behind my back. I turned around and saw super-fancy Lexus-car being smashed against the traffic signs and obstacles which were meant to keep the cars away from the pavement. Car was speeding (although reversing) to the sidewalk and hitting everything that got on its way (luckily no children or street dogs). Finally the car stopped and young man climbed out of the car, without any fuss and called somebody which turned out to be the cars owner. After half a minute the car owner run to the accident scene and started to shout like hell. Both men were well-dressed and looked a bit like mafiosos (at least in my imagination where fancy cars and shouting rich-looking men are always a bit scary). I sneaked little by little behind the blini-kiosk because I was sure that one of them will pull out a gun and start to shoot around. My heart was bouncing but only until I saw how people around me were behaving. Woman baking blinis juts kept on doing her work, two old gentlemen sipping beer next to me kept speaking like nothing happened and overall nobody juts reacted in any way! Like I was the only one who saw something strange happening!

Maybe I have just seen too many James Bond -movies (ooh, Daniel Graig) or maybe I have lost a bit of my sense of security in Russia compared to my last exchange here. My honeymoon with Russia is officially over because I don't see the country through rosen glasses any more. Things which were interesting before are easily just annoying now and the poor alcoholics you meet on streets are somehow more visible than before. Sure I had world pain (maailmantuska, doesn't translate well in English) also before but now it bugs me more often. For example every time I see this one blind neighbor of mine buying vodka from the produkty (corner shop) and then stumbling his way home in the middle of crazy Russian traffic, I have to fight not to cry. And when I see old ladies cleaning streets with brooms size of a toothbrush I feel so bad that I'm here only to study and party and still get crazy amount of money (from EU and Finnish government) which is more they will never earn in their shitty jobs. Time to time I try 

to ease my world pain by buying potatoes and herbs from babushkas who are selling their datsha-produced vegetables and jams on streets, but it don't really help. You cannot make money-caused anxiety go away by using more money. But maybe the babushkas will get some beneft form it and at least I get some bio-vegetables and home-made conserves. Even if I'm more reserved on the security in Russia than  before I have to say that there have been at least one huge improvement in security: they drop snow from roofs (at least from some of them)! Before you really had  to be aware when the snow was melting, because TV-size icicle falling on your head kills you faster than Lada driving 100 km/h. I also found out why they have chairs on the streets (look at the picture on previous blogging): they just mark danger zones where ice is falling with bands tied into old chairs! 

Not to give too grey impression on Russia, I have to remind that most of the stuff happening here is still relatively good. Culture never disappoints and on Friday I saw probably the best opera ever when we were watching Madame Butterfly at Mariinsky theatre. Like always at Mariinsky the set was amazing and singers world-class, but the most intriguing thing was babushka who sold programs, checked tickets and was doing all the other general stuff as well. When we bought program she insisted that we go and see exhibition about "the best ballerina ever" before the opera starts. Of course we obeyed her advice and politely looked pictures of the Soviet-era megastar. When we went to our seats and took pictures of the gold and crystall shining Mariinsky hall, babushka was there again and said that take pictures only before the show and whispered with a proud voice "they say, that this is the most elegant hall in the world". She was so charming because obviously she is totally in love with her working place. Only superlatives were words strong enough to describe the place, so proud she was.

My other favorite babushka works at my gym's cloakroom. You have to leave your jacket there and usually when you get your stuff back she's too lazy to walk to you get the numerok so you have to yell your number at her. Of course she realized that I'm not Russian from my pronunciation so now every time when I get there she tests my Russian: "Devushka, say this in Russian. Again. Good!". She's really nice

but now I have an extra pressure when I go to gym. In addition to have energy to train, I have to also be willing to practice Russian with babushka.

Beside the last day of Butterweek, today was also the local elections in Russia. In St. Petersburg they have divided city into maybe 1000 voting districts which means that people living at my street can only vote candidates living on the same street and on few street next to us. So there will be probably hundreds of members of that city parliament which actually has only little power in city business. The biggest decision maker is still the governor which is appointed by president (before Putin governors were elected). Obviously citizens know how much (or little) power those candidates have because the turnout was around  15 percent according to the local online-newspaper. Like on could unfortunately assume, the election wasn't fair: big part of the opposition parties candidates were disqualified already before the elections. Authorities said that the signature they collected in order to be a candidate were fake and even when people who had singed on the support list went to court and said that its really their signature, court decided that they were fake. Plus the militsija went through the apartments of the candidates and the ones who signed so in future nobody will sign anything ever again, because it causes such problems. Nice way to eliminate the opposition and also the ones who could support the opposition.

Happy Lent to everyone and feel free to leave comments!