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!

Balalaikka and wall with the color of Putin's eyes

Past few days have been relatively positive here in St. Pete (an awful American nickname for the city). On Friday we had the privilidge to participate concert at the state university of St. Petersburg which was an interesting experience also for extra-musical reasons. Some things sure are better here than in Finland and cultural life is one them.

Every year before stepping onto main stages of Russia, famous group Terem-kvartet plays preview concert for students. Tickets for their concerts cost easily up to 50 euros, but students can enjoy their music for free at the state University concert hall (why don't we have hall like that in Tampere?). Although I was a bit skeptical (=didn't want to spend my Friday evening at some classical music concert) their music was surprisingly good. The group played classical (i.a. Swan lake) and modern (Mission impossible) film music with traditional Russian instruments: they had normal size balalaikka, giant balalaikka and accordion + some weird guitar-type instrument which I couldn't recognize. Music was great, and players were super-talented but the most interesting thing in the concert was the crowd.

In St. Petersburg it's totally normal that young boys and girls (here they start university at the age of 16-17) go to listen classical music with their friends. Even at the opera you may see teenage groups with their hair hanging in front of their eyes (big hit especially among emo-rockers), in their Converse-shoes and in super-tight jeans enjoying the classical music. Although teenagers may be reserve their emotions in everyday life, at the cultural events Russians don't hold back their compliments! At the Terem-kvartet concert girls ran up to the stage to give roses and kisses to the players, audience stood up to applause and everyone was obviously trilled by the music. You can leave that kind of ecstatic moment only with a smile on your face.

Beside the cultural trip among the teenage Russians, the State University was a sight already as such. Our Russian teacher (who invited us to the concert) teaches not only us at the European University, but also students at the State University.  Salaries at the universities are even lower than the salaries of school teachers so in order to make your living, you need teach in two different places. After the concert Irina Aleksandrovna (you call teachers here with first name and with father's name) showed us "the longest corridor of St. Petersburg". Indeed, everything is bigger in Russia: the corridor was 800 meters long! Pictures of great men (scientist and artist) were hanging on the walls of the corridor. On the other side there were book shelfs after one another. In places like that you can really see still see some glimpses of the great tsarist country which Russia used to be (now the country is only a wanna-be superpower). Or could you imagine corridors like that in Nordic welfare states where all the big and glamourous are only tacky instead of being impressive?

After teaching at the State University over 30 years, Irina Aleksandrovna has many real-life anecdotes from the university. Her favorite topic is to complain how students (especially Chinese exchange students; btw, there's usually a small racist even inside the most-educated Russians) are getting more and more duraks every year, how they don't know history any more and how the general stupidity is taking over the whole country. The funniest stories are of course from the Soviet time.

When Mikhail Gorbatshov was nominated as the new General Secretary of USSR in 1985 he made his first official visit to St. Petersburg. Like all good Soviet leaders he visited of course the main university of the city and also the home "of the average Soviet family". So one morning when Irina Aleksandrovna went to work, she realized that the whole classroom was renovated and re-painted during the night and there were suddenly flowers growing on the back-yard of the university (it was still winter time). She was confused what's happened until somebody said that Gorba is going to visit the university. Of course Gorbatshov saw only the renovated classroom and met only students which had been up the whole previous night in order to practice what they should say and do at the meeting with the new leader. Also the average Soviet "family" of mother, father and two children met each other the same morning when they met Gorbatshov.

It's easy to laugh to the Soviet times but the biggest joke is that nothing has really changed. Usually when official leaders or important business men visit St. Petersburg they have some meetings at the sub-urban village in the middle of the beautiful nature. In addition to the state residency, in the middle of the small sub-urban village there's a sky-blue wall greeting the important visitors. What is behind that wall is real Russia, which is unsuitable for the foreign eyes. According to my teacher the blue wall was built to hide the poor people's shelter and the governor of St. Petersburg Valentina Matvienko ordered that the wall should be painted "with color of Putin's eyes". No need to say, whose ally Matvienko is. The same absurd theatre (see previous blogging) is going on in Russia which started after the Communist revolution.

Beside the cultural experience, the second positive surprise of the week was Russian TV-news. All the big TV-channels are under state control so the topics of the news they broadcast are quite limited. So it was a big surprise when there was story about the Anna Politkovskaya trial on the Russian news channel. And on top of everything, they let the representative of Politkovskaya's family speak freely! Until now Politkovskaya has been persona non grata on Russian main media. In fact I heard rumours that Putin forbid to mention Anna's name in public television which is easy to believe because after Anna's murder, Putin said "the dead of Politkovskaya has caused us more harm that her living". Nice, ice-cold attitude.

I could only cheer for a moment of the quality of TV-journalism when things got back to normal. The next piece of news was about president Medvedev in Siberia. The breaking news of that story was that "Medvedev visited aquarium and he liked especially the seals there".

Otherwise life has been quite easy and nice here. The biggest backlash of the week was the European fog and storm which held Thomas as a hostage in Paris for a night which delayed his arrival to St. Petersburg for a day. I was near mental breakdown when I got the message "I will come only tomorrow" because within the same 5 minutes my beautiful winter boots broke down and the cash registers of the shop were I was collapsed. Luckily I was on my way to my Finnish friends place for a brunch. Good company, good food,  rehearsing Russian verbs and girls dying my hair pulled me back to the bright side of life. Hang-over Saturdays are awful alone, but in company they are one of the best days in life!

Trust, Mistrust and Distrust

My love-hate-relationship with Russia has been more hate-oriented lately. Although I study at the European University of St. Petersburg, things have been very Russian.

Earlier this week I went to ask for my multi-visa (they gave us only onetime-visa when we came) when the devil in me got out. According to all the official papers, it takes two weeks to make the multi-visa so I went to the administratsiya ask for my

 documents little over two weeks after I gave my passport, HIV-certificate, four photographs (which I had to make twice because there first ones were wrong kind) and after paying 400 rubles to some random bank. Of course it was obvious that the multi-visa wouldn't be ready yet but I wanted to just check in which phase the visa-process was. What I didn't know, was that they had done absolutely nothing with my papers. All the documents which I gathered with te

ars (the first visa was already a big fight with extra-payments and second passports) and blood (HIV-test) just lied on the floor of the office in a plastic bag! That wasn't all; the visa handler didn't even have planned to take our documents to the immigration office in near future. I snapped because I'll leave Russia for Switzerland in three weeks and I really need my visa in order to get back to my studies after the holiday. Her answer to my rage got my mood even worse: "I'll go to Moscow tomorrow so I won't deal with the papers any more". Me: "So, why the fuck couldn't you take the documents already two 

weeks ago?". She: "Well, öööh, well..". She didn't understand my anger at all, for her it was totally normal to hold the papers in her office and to do nothing. Finally I had to give her a copy of my flying ticket in order to get the visa on time because "Oh Suvi, you should have said you need your passport that soon, it will be a bit difficult now".

What a durak (idiot in Russian) or actually, what a balvan (absolute idiot)! The whole situation was totally absurd: I was furious, she had know idea why and even when I explained and explained, she couldn't understand why she should do something anything faster (the whole conversation was in English so I cannot even blame my bad Russian). But like my Russian teacher said "You don't need absurd theatre in Russian, the whole life is one big absurd theatre".

Beside getting angry and hating Russia (at least for a day), I have learned that the worst thing to do here is to loose faith (which I did in that visa office). What would be the right thing, would be to trust that balvan visa-maker to do her job, because one of the biggest problems in Russian society is general distrust on everything. People don't trust politicians, so they don't vote.  Russians are suspicious toward the authorities, so they don't report crimes to militsija but ask mafia to get their stolen property back (this I learned at t

he mafia class two years ago). Media is under state control, so newspapers (excluding few independent) and television tell only lies which leads to that people don't follow news any more. Plus nobody knows what kind of nuclear waste may have been buried to Russian forest, so people rather buy Finnish food and cottages at Finnish lakes. Schools are getting poorer all the time due to lack of money, so the rich ones send their children to study abroad. Poor children just end up having bad education.

At the end, all the mistrust and distrust on everything make people passive members of society. No matter what you do, nothing changes. On the other hand nothing can change before people start to trust their society and its institutions again (or in Russia, for the first time). I know it's a lost fight already but I decided to trust Russia(ns) instead of gaining more distrust. According to my previous experiences everything will work out finally. First you need tears, rage, shouting, begging and sometimes money, but eventually I have always got everything I need here in St. Petersburg. Like a real example from my previous exchange proves. I wanted to participate courses which I wasn't "officially" allowed to take. First I asked my exchange coordinator: "No, no, absolutely no". Then rector: "No, your exchange is only for these and these cours

es. No, no, no.". Finally, almost crying I went to ask professors if I can participate their courses. "Of course, come on in". That's how it goes; first they make you to hate them and finally when they have broken your spirit and you're falling into pieces, they finally say "yes" which on that moment sounds like a biggest amnesty you ever got. Like your death penalty was just cancelled. So, at the end you can just love them. This hate-love-hate-hate-love-love-relations get you hooked which is the reason I keep coming back here (at least until now it has been possible, let's see what happens this time with the multi-visa).

After deciding to swop all the mistrust into trust, I found myself enjoying Russia a bit more. Today I needed to buy more coffee filters for which you have to walk to the other side of the city center because that's one of the few (or two) places you can find them. Instead of being pissed of by the fact that I had to walk 1,5 hours back and forth for coffee filters, I decided to enjoy the trip and take pictures on the way. Finally we ended up in a nice coffee shop with two other Finns playing board games and enjoying the sunny side of Russia. At the end, life is not so bad here. Just have to remind me about that time to time.

Kivulias, mutta kaunis kotiinpaluu

Ilmeisesti blogin aloittamiseen tarvitaan veret ja lihakset seisauttava kipu, jotta malttaa istua aloilleen kirjoittamaan. Tuskani johtuu kaikkien ennakko-oletusten vastaisesti urheilusta eikä juhlimisesta. Viime Pietarin-komennuksesta oppineena liityin kuntoklubin jäseneksi heti, enkä kolmen kuukauden juhlimisen tuhoamana ihmisrauniona.

Alan kuitenkin epäilemään, että välillä juhliminen on urheilua terveellisempää. Heti ensimmäisellä jumppakerralla pikkushortseihin ja vaimonhakkaaja-paitaan puketunut ve

näläisbodari pakotti ottamaan liian isot painot ja nostamaan niitä vielä senkin jälkeen kun olin laonnut maahan muutaman kerran. Kun sanoin, etten pysty enää, bodari tuli vääntämään kädet ja jalat oikein päin ja huusi "Etkö ymmärrä?". Ilmeisesti "en pysty" on tuntematon ilmaisu.

Toinen urheilukokemukseni menneeltä viikolta on astetta lempeämpi, kun käytiin pelaamassa futista yliopiston professorien ja muiden opiskelijoiden kanssa. Todellisuudessa joukkue oli kuitenkin täynnä venäläismiehiä, joilla ei ole mitään tekemistä yliopiston kanssa. Kaverit oli vähän hämmentyneitä, kun pari suomalaistyttöä liittyi seuraan. Aina kun yritin ottaa pallon vastustajalta, reaktio oli "anteeksi, anteeksi, ei kai sattunut". Ilmeisesti Venäjällä naiseen ei kosketa väkivaltaisesti (tai lempeästikään

) urheilukentällä. Onnistuin pari kertaa viemään pallon, mistä seurasi aina kehuja mukavilta professoreilta. Epäonnistumista puolestaan seurasi jäätävän tappavat katseet ja katkerat huomautukset muilta joukkueen pelaajilta. En tiedä uskallanko mennä enää ensi viikolla.

Venäläiseen elämään on ollut muutenkin helppo sujahtaa aikaisempien oppien perusteella. Nyt jo tietää, että "puhu tyttö!" on normaali avausrepliikki kaupassa ja että kaikki lopulta onnistuu, vaikka vastapuoli hokee "ei, ei, ei". Yhtenä esimerkkinä 100 euron tinkaaminen salijäsenyydestä. Totesin vain, etten maksa tätä summaa enempää, jolloin tyttö peredumala (=mietti uudelleen) ja antoi pyydetyn alennuksen. Samoin taksilla ajellessa hinta tippuu aina, kun kieltäytyy vain maksamasta pyydettyä summa (kannattaa tosin hoitaa neuvottelu ennen auton hyppäämistä). Taksilla baarista baariin ajelua on tosin tullut harrastettua verrattain vähän, sillä opinnot kahmivat suuren osan vapaa-ajasta. Ja vapaa-aikaa ei juuri ole, sillä jokapäiväiset rutiinit vievät jopa tuntikausia päivässä. Eilen kävin pankissa, hakemassa passikuvia ja kaupassa. Reissuun meni 3 tuntia, jonka jälkeen olin liia

n väsynyt aloittamaan opiskelua.

Vaikka arki väsyttäää, opinnot ovat supermielenkiintoisia. Venäjän kieltä on 8h viikossa ja ikävä kyllä kahdessa 4 tunnin jaksossa. Mut valittiin tuntemattomasta syystä korkeimpaan tasoryhmään, jonka opettaja on varsin uuvuttava. Aluksi olin ihan innoissani, kun opettaja kertoi paljon venäläisestä kulttuurista ja yhteiskunnasta sekä laittoi meidät lukemaan Nojava Gazetaa. Irina Aleksandrovna on tiedostava (käy pienellä opettajan palkallaan lähes joka päivä teatterissa/konsertissa/baletissa), minkä vuoksi tunneilla puhutaan mm. pahaa Putinista, arvostellaan Venäjän nykytilaa ja muistellaan kaltoin kohdelleita neuvostotaiteilijoita. Kaikki oli kovin mielenkiintoista, kunnes parin ekan tunnin jälkeen tajusin, ettei Irinan puhe lakkaa koskaan. Hän puhuu, puhuu ja puhuu. Me opiskelijat ollaan hiljaa ja ärsyynnytään salaa ja lopulta ihan avoimesti, kun ei saada puhua melkein mitään koko tunnin aikana. Viiden hengen ryhmässä keskustelu olisi ihanteellista venäjän opiskelua, mutta sen sijaan kuunnellaan, mitä kirjailija x teki vuonn

a se ja se ja miten joku asia sanottiin vanhalla venäjällä. Olisi kiva oppia nyky-venäjää ennen kuin siirrytään muinaisslaaviin.

Koska opetus on opettajan monologia, olen iloinen uudesta venäläisestä kaverista, jonka kanssa pääsen itsekin ääneen. Tapasin vladivostokkilaisen kaverin baarissa viime perjantaina suomalaisbändi Jessen keikan yhteydessä. Kai se yritti ensin iskeä, mutta kun kerroin, että mulla on "ystävä" Suomessa, se tyytyi siihen että ollaan vaan kavereita. Toivottavasti se ymmärsi oikein, koska ilmeisesti poikaystävä ei ole drug (=ystävä) vaan maladoi tselovek (=nuori ihminen). Venäjäksi kommunikointi ei olekaan niin helppoa, kuin silloin baarissa muutaman kaljan jälkeen kuvittelin.

Muuten oon hengaillut epäilyttävän paljon suomalaisten ja muiden länkkäreiden kanssa. Eilen oltiin kansainvälisillä

 dinnerillä yhden jenkkisotilaan (?) luona. Sillä on Pietarissa mukana kolme lasta ja vaimo ja ne asuu järjettömän kokoisessa kämpässä. Kiva ammatti olla töissä Yhdysvaltain armeijalla, parin vuoden välein pitää muuttaa ja itse ei saa päättää asemamaata. Kesäkuussa kaveri lähtee Irakiin, perhe onneksi saa palata jenkkeihin. Illan ruokatarjoilua oli jännittävää: venäläiset toi kuivattuja kaloja (katso kuva), saksalaiset perunasalaattia, singaporelainen kiinalaista soppaa, suomalaiset hapankorppua oltermannilla ja amerikkalaiset mm. selleriä maapähkinävoilla. Ruokaa oli ihan järjettömästi, mikä väsytti kaikki lähtemään suoraan kotiin ilman minkäänlaista baareilua. Tänään vuorossa georgialaista ruokaa kavereiden kanssa. Pitän

ee varmaan taas skipata baareilut, ettei vahingossa eksy joihinkin Valentine's Day -pippaloihin, jossa pitäis olla rakastanut tai vähintäänkin valmis rakastumaan. Mukavaa ystävänpäivää kaikille:)