Stalin's samovars

Our Russian teacher entertained us again last week by telling real life curiosities from Soviet way of life. Discussion started as a civilized conversation about history but ended to crazy laughter. We were discussing about Valaam monastery (Valamon luostari) which used to belong to Finland before WWII. Stalin's Soviet Union got the monastery i

sland together with lake Ladoga in the peace treaty and Stalin decided to kick the monks out and bring the wounded war veterans in to the monastery. In Stalin's Russia invalids and handicapped peopl

e weren't allowed to live in the cities because they didn't represent ideal Soviet worker. Solution was to hide them in to far-away islands and the ones who had lost both their legs and arms in the front were send to Valaam. Those poor armless and legless people were called samovars because "you could put them onto shelfs like teapots". Our teacher was telling this story with a poker face but none of students could avoid laughing to this awful, awful story. Every day life was so dark during the Soviet times so the jokes about had to be even darker. As awful as the jokes are, I still love them! One of the best characters of Russian people is their sense of humor, it's black and tragicomic but it always reveals the real thoughts of the Russians.

Even if the humor is coal-black the city is getting brighter. The first symptoms of spring are already visible: my favorite street dog moved back to close-by park where it spends summers and ice is falling down from the roofs. Even the sun has shined the past three days. But the most visible sign of spring is the up-coming Women's day which is one of the biggest holidays in Russia. Here (and in Ukraine and in Azerbaijan) Women's day is an official holiday while the rest of the world hardly notice the

 holiday. This year 8th of March happens to be on Sunday so the the official celebrations started already today: on TV president Medvedev is hosting a dinner for women (probably the only day of the year when women are invited to Kremlin) and men are flowering 

their colleagues at work. Family members and the loved ones receive their flowers, chocolate and gifts only on Sunday.  Women's day was originally created by some German communist feminists but today the holiday is everything else than celebration of women's emancipation, it's more praise for traditional gender roles in which women are women and men are men. But like my teacher said: "Everything eventually turns upside-down in Russian". She also said that I should celebrate the day as a day for "wonderful women, which we all are". Monday is naturally public holiday because here all the weekend holidays are compensated during the next week after holiday. I'd like to have same system in Finland too!

I have been celebrating my womanhood by shopping at local beauty mecca for Russian women Rive Gauche (рив гош, whose plastic bags every self-respecting Russian women use for carrying her most valuable things) and visiting local hairdresser where I got first-class service. Some people say that Russians can be sloppy and do their work ineffectively, but when it comes to beauty the quality is excellent! I have never got as accurate haircut in my life (except the previous one I got in Russia), the girl was cutting each hair one by one and the result was more than satisfying. You can see the same trend in aerobics: you have to always do your best or the instructors will come and kick motivation in you. All things are not that effective here (read: I still haven't got my visa and the argument with the administration has been going on already 4 weeks) but at least I can be happy about my new hair style and growing muscles.

In addition to Women's day celebration I have been efficiently breaking my Lent promises whole week. Unlike I promised, I have done only few things for my thesis and instead of studying I have concentrated on partying. On Wednesday we (three Finnish girls) went to a house party which was in tsarist-style decorated super cool apartment. It was a hard core -student party but only new friend we managed to make was yet another Finnish girl. For some reason I

only meet nice Finnish girls here instead of making Russian mates. Well I got one new Russian friend (the boy whom I met in bar which is apparently the only place to meat new people) and we met once on a walk which started a bit confusingly: this Russian maladoi tselovek (=young person, which is what they call young men here) fell down on a slippery street which was a bit funny because he got so embarrassed. After he survived from his shame (it took quite a long time) it was nice to speak some Russian but with my language skills I can keep up a conversation max. 2 hours. If I meet him again, I don't have any new things to tell him, at least not in Russian.

Another slipping from my Lent happened yesterday when we went to see Stereo Total at A2-club. This German-French crazy electro-duo was best entertainment I have experienced for a long time! The artists as well as (Russian part of) audience were dancing like maniacs and the whole atmosphere was refreshingly sincere (compared to rock-police and -snobs which you meet time to time at Finnish clubs). Of course after gig like that we had to continue party to another bar (to the Other Side to be exact). We were trying to get a typical black cab (illegal taxis which you can hail and stop any where any time to get a cheap ride; usually they are Ladas driven by Caucasian men) but this time we got a ride from a stereotype of a novyi Russkiy business-man with his fancy big car. Car was bought from the Vladivostok so the wheel was on the wrong side and our driver was a bit lost. But extra sightseeing tour didn't mind while sitting in a comfy car with fur seats and East-oriented techno on the back ground! Life in Russia can be quite nice time to time even if Lent promises fall in parts.

In pictures: Typical view from my home street: man drinking beer and reading wall-newspaper and girl with bunch of flowers; glimpse to my University and Medveved with the ladies