YOU LOOK BEAUTIFUL IN A TUBE TOP

I’m sure I’ve talked about Russian culture before, but new things always happen, I meet new people, and learn new things. Or maybe, the things that I already thought are reinforced. Like we know that hospitality in Russia is just a different kind of story altogether than it is in the US. Here’s an example to prove that. Sasha and I were helping out in the informal English conversation group led by Arse, a dj that she met when she asked him to play a song. He heard her accent and asked her to come help in this class, to which I accompanied her. Maybe Sasha was already the type of person to accept requests like this, but I feel like I would ordinarily been too tentative to go to this class. Most of these situations turn out just fine though. And even if we end up watching a Christian mime show in the sketchy part of town, things are really okay (story later).

So we’re at our second meeting of this class, which is seated around a table spread with cookies, cakes, and tea. Someone offers me tea, and I politely decline, citing that I can’t sleep when I drink tea at night. Someone else, not hearing this, offers me tea. I again decline. “Why?” comes the shocked response, and I again give my answer. One of the students from last week overhears this and offers me juice. Sure. He asks me what kind, and I say that anything is fine. What kind of juice do you like, he asks me again, and I say whatever they have is fine. But no, he is going to the store to get me juice. My response to this is absolutely not. I could never ask someone to get me something just because I don’t want what they have. There was literally a several minute argument over whether he would go, which I was doomed to lose. A few minutes later he came back with cherry and orange juices because he didn’t know which I would prefer. I had some of both. It was just so amazing to me that I didn’t even think twice about saying no to the tea, but doing so meant I was inconveniencing someone else? I don’t really know if, next time I am in a situation like this, should I accept the tea? I feel like that’s not the right answer because no one was trying to make me feel bad, they just wanted to make me comfortable. I guess a Russian would have no problem accepting the juice, so that’s probably what I’ll do. Some of the little niceties are really wonderful. I love getting helped in and out of my coat, but I will never be the person who stands there waiting for someone to put my coat on my me. And maybe I wanted to put on my shoes before my coat, but if someone is standing there with my coat, it’s going on first. So I’m kind of mixed, but I do like that politeness here is not rejected because of how the other person might react. No one has any doubt about my coat-putting-on aptitude. It’s just nice. Same goes with other things. I can carry a heavy box, an older lady probably can stand on the metro. Offering to help is not pointing out someone else’s helplessness, but rather just saying that you respect them and want to make their life a little more pleasant.

So I help out with two different English classes. One is through a CIEE connection. I am visiting a class of fourteen-year-olds to help them with conversation. They have a teacher who takes charge, and I just help out a bit. I probably help more to the people who I go to the metro with because we actually have real conversations. Their English is good but not great, so I have to slow myself down and use simple words when I tell a story. One thing that I find myself doing is trying to help them by wording things in a way that one of my English-speaking Russian friends would do. But this is not at all what I should be doing because they want to learn to sound like native speakers, and here I’m a native speaker imitating people who are learning the language. Usually I am able to stop myself before I do this too badly, but it reaffirms my theory that I will come back from Russia no better at Russian, but with a Russian accent.

My other English class is the one that Sasha and I help Arse with. (We don’t have the heart to break it to Arsenni that his nickname is a mild curse word in Britain). The people are closer to our age for the most part, many a few years older. It is a very informal conversation group with cool people. The first time we went, Sasha was looking for someone to go salsa dancing with and I was looking for somewhere to do crafts. We met another girl named Sasha who is a salsa-dancing, clay-sculpting psychologist. The only way she could have been more perfect is if we brought a third friend who needed help with mental issues. Last Thursday, Sasha and I travelled with Vova (Vladimir) to her clay-sculpting class. I made a lovely women’s day card for my host, and Sasha… Sasha did her best. Vova then invited us to the theatre, which we were excited to attend. On our way into the metro, I expressed my concern that I would have trouble following a russian play. Vova reassured me with the fact that it was mostly in pantomime. Actually not so reassuring. The clay sculpting was at the top of the blue line, the theater, at the bottom of the green line, in what everyone agrees is the sketchiest part of Peter. We get out of the train and walk along a brick wall topped with barbed wire for what seemed like miles, guessing what was on the other side. We finally arrived at an unassuming brick building. Sasha translated its placard, informing me the building had something to either with faith or with ham (the former). The first half of the mime show was quite entertaining. The mimes were very talented. The second half, however was where it got weird. This is where the religious theme got into it. Hard. For example, one sketch involved an interpretive dance while an American country-style song played. The song had the aural version of subtitles, so after the country guy would sing, a Russian women would interpret. And all the while a mime acted it out. The last section was called “Black and White,” where white represented all the good in the world, such as family, friends, god, children, and prayer. Black was the opposite. The sketches alternated between happy stories about family, god, and jesus, and “black” numbers where death metal, drugs, suicide and sadness were all major themes. The performance ended with a group prayer. The night probably should have ended there. It did not. The “white” of this story is that we learned several new dance moves, but it was not exactly what I was expecting for a night at the theater.

Feeling a private debriefing was necessary, Sasha and I ditched the group and went to Teremok, a Russian fast food restaurant, and got some blini and beer. If you weren’t aware that in basically every other country fast food places have beer, now you know. Teremok closed, though, so we took our beers on the road and met unofficial Katya at an English pub called Liverpool. It was full of foreigners in the 35-55 age demographic. We ordered beer and settled in to tell unofficial Katya about our adventures, when three glasses of champagne arrived, with no indication of who sent them. No one was making eye contact, no one came over. We continued to sit at a booth and chat, when we were joined by a fifty-something rotund British construction foreman who was celebrating his birthday. We talked to him for a bit. During this time, I think, another set of champagne glasses were dumped on our table by the waitress, looking less than pleased. Probably because the bar was supposed to close at midnight, and it was approaching one. We were also joined by a late-thirties German man named… Axel (I don’t know how to spell it, but it sounds like axle but with an “ah” at the beginning. Since I don’t know let’s go with a more german looking spelling…Ahchßüll looks good, nein?) The bar finally closed, and we looked for somewhere to go a little more interesting. Ahchßüll and friend were also in the same position, and somehow decided to accompany us to wherever we would go (dumskaya, of course) even though they were far too old for any of the places we go. Basically the only interesting thing about them was that they were from Westphalia, but after we got past the “I like your treaty” discussion, our relationship went downhill. That did not stop them, however, from wanting us to show them where to go. We crammed into a cab where the free booze inspired me to share my vast knowledge of the German language, which does not extend past “ja” “nein” and “pflaumenmus” (aka plümenjam). I also had trouble controlling the urge to shout “Nehemt ein schtük papier heraus!” the longest German phrase I know, which means “take out a piece of paper,” but sounds like the angriest Nazi ever.

Haha I seriously think German is a beautiful language and when I overhear Romy’s phone conversations, I am so jealous. It’s also a fact though, that when Sasha and I quote the above video via text, our signal for a german accent is all caps. Dumskaya was as it usually is, as we stood around a bit awkwardly in a group that had two unwanted members. We gained one new surprise member, who was a former CIEE student in Petersburg doing his masters. Katya left for home, Sasha, new guy, and I ditched the Germans for another bar, where we had a pleasant time, and then I caught a gypsy cab home.

The only consequence of the night occurred with the fact that my phone doesn’t know the time, I have to program it in, so when the battery comes out, it forgets the time. I dropped my phone at one point and didn’t bother to reprogram it, so the time was several hours off. It was both a blessing and a curse because it was really great to roll over and check the time in the morning to see that I had hours left to sleep. On the other hand, it was wrong, and I didn’t, and I rolled into school quite a bit late.

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