Easter Sunday

It seems very strange for me to think that this last weekend, was my last weekend in Petersburg. Next weekend I'll be in Pskov, weekend after that at Tanya and Seryosha's dacha, and in just one weeks time beyond that I'll be leaving for the United States.

Though I unfortunately have a bit of a head cold I've spent this last weekend trying to absorb as much as I can of the city. It makes me sad to think that soon I will be leaving it.

I want to come home, there is much that I miss about the U.S. - I just didn't expect that I would feel such a sense of loss over leaving Russia.

To me it seems as though I finally started to figure out this country only a few weeks ago, and now I have such little time to savor it. Perhaps it is the knowledge that so soon I will be gone that makes my time here so precious.

The big things I know I will remember. It's all of the little details that I've been trying to imprint on my mind in the hopes I will not forget them.

One of those little details comes from something I heard over and over again before I left for this country. That Russians are a very cold people, at least on the street, and because of this on the road on the metro their faces are like stone.

I thought that when I first came here. But after the months of living here, I realize that this is not true. I can look at another passenger on the bus, or metro, see some one on the street, and the faces are not alike to me. One only needs to take a moment to pay attention and it becomes obvious who is having a good day, who is worrying, who is upset, who is day-dreaming, and who is happily in love. Perhaps in public the Russian people are not as openly expressive as Americans, but emotions are not fully hidden.

Saturday I spent the day at Pushkin (Tsarskoe Selo) with other American students. While I am not particularly fond of the Catherine Palace - it is far too gaudy (especially in respect to the Yusopov Palace that I visited on Sunday) for my tastes- however the grounds were pleasant. Combined with a sunny warm day it was a wonderful way to pass the time.

Sunday started off with Easter and the traditional greeting "S Praznikom, Kristos Voskrese" - "Celebrate, Christ is Risen." We had a treat of Kulich with breakfast - kulich is a kind of bread made only for Easter. I sort of learned how to make it on Friday when a group of us went to Nathan and Lumilla's for this purpose, but I went home before it was done, feeling tired. It is a rather elaborate process.

We also cracked "perchki (?)" or easter eggs before breakfast. There is some sort of a game associated with the cracking of the eggs that I didn't quite follow, as I apparently beat Seryosha at it and later in the day, Olya beat Dima after carefully selecting her egg as a "winner". All of them were amused by my explanation of an American easter egg hunt. They thought it sounded like fun for children but I could tell they really weren't certain what the point is... then again I really don't know why we hide eggs and chocolates for kids to find either. It really has nothing to do with Christ's resurrection.

Here easter is much more centered around religion, and around remembrance as Tanya explained to me a few days ago that often people go to the cemeteries to remember loved ones with flowers.

There were a lot of flowers and ribbons decorating the cemetery in Pushkin when we drove by it on Saturday.

I am finding that speaking Russian has it's pluses and draw backs and is certainly cause for an amusing story or two.

I went to the Yusopov Palace on the Moika sunday afternoon. I'd tried going to the one on the Fontanka a few weeks ago, however that is apparently now a building somehow affiliated with SPbGU and not a museum.

As one is required to take an audio-guide with them trough the museum I decided to go with an English language guide just so I could get more out of it, and because I was worried the quality of player would not be great. For some reason the idea of wandering through yet another palace with a crappy recording in Russian while my ears are plugged up form my head cold just didn't seem appealing.

I managed however to create great confusion at the ticket office. The tourists in front of me were not native English speakers but also apparently didn't speak Russian. So they got along with broken English and were given audio-guides in the language they wanted.

I came up and asked for a student ticket in Russian and showed my studiencheskiy billet. Normally this gets me the foreign student price, however the woman responded with "You are a Russian citizen?" I told her "no"... to which she had to take my ID to look at it, before handing me a student ticket with the "Russian Federation" price. I then asked if I could have an English language audio-guide which confused her. "You speak Russian... you want Russian language."
"Yes I speak Russian, but I'd like to listen in English. Could I please have English? it would be better/easier for me than Russian."
"You speak Russian but you want to listen in English?"
"Yes"
"Oh, I understand, good practice."

So I guess with a head cold my accent is less or something and so I'm now a Russian student studying English....

I was also mistaken for being a Russian when I went to Savior on Spilled Blood and sent (once again with a Russian fed ticket) on a Russian language tour of the cathedral.

On my way back to the metro to go home I had a woman ask me for directions, I didn't hear her and asked "where?" She gave a pause and looked me up and down before asking "I'm sorry, but are you not Russian?" I sadly shook my head and said "No, I'm sorry." She gave a sigh and walked off.

Before heading home I stopped at a kiosk to buy ice-cream. It's the cheap kind that comes in the plastic packaging - sort of like the kind one can buy at Costco or some place like that in the states. Still it tastes good. I think ice-cream - even the cheap kind- is made with real cream here so it has a very satisfying flavor.

I walked along Nevsky with my ice-cream cone in hand and realized how much I've begun to feel at home in this country. I tried to picture myself wandering down-town Seattle with an ice-cream cone as my leisurely Sunday afternoon pursuit and failed. As much as I am going to miss this city and miss the people that I have come to know, I am also realizing that there is much that I have yet to explore in my own country and in the cities where I live. If I can learn this much about a completely foreign city in 3 months, I really ought to improve my knowledge of Seattle and Spokane.

I wish that there were some way to make the two countries closer together. Though they are half a world apart by geography, I can no longer make them half a world apart in my mind.

[Four new photo albums have been added to the photo gallery. Due to how they were transferred, we do not currently have the information text that describes each photo. Hopefully we can fix that after Gwen returns home ... Ed]