woke up early to the sound of incredibly hard rain assaulting from all directions. i am sleeping in an attic, so it was pounding on top of me as well as at the windows.
but the rain saved me from confusion: the moment i woke up i knew exactly where i was
27.9.06
tallinn
i always feel somehow relieved when i arrive in tallinn. i dont know why. perhaps it is my memories from when i was younger and arriving here always meant a shopping holiday away from russia, where, in those days, there was nothing. maybe because the place always seems so civilised: the streets are clean, the people friendly, and no one pushes and shoves. maybe because my family has good friends here who always showed me around and made me feel at home. i dont know.
the train ride was the usual russian train experience. there were two really cute ethnic russian actors who had been performing in moscow. they were young, and spoke fluent estonian and thus had citizenship. then there was an elderly ethnic russian pensioner who had been sent to estonia to work in a factory in 1970. he never learned estonian and consequently is citizenship, traveling with one one of those grey passports the estonian government started giving out in the early 1990s. it reads "Alien Passport" and announces in estonian and english that "the bearer of this passport is not an estonian citizen" and so on. the dyed gave me chocolat. the guys and i tried to explain to him where my country was. he didnt get it. he had noticed i spoke russian with an accent and assumed i was ethnic estonian. i explained that i wasnt, but i dont think i managed to convince him. slava, one of the young guys tried to draw a map....but that didnt seem to work either because dyed's final verdict was "nu, mi zhe vsye sovietski ludi v kontse kontsov." at that the guys and i concluded there was no point in explaining further.
25.9.06
the lasts all over again
every time i move to a different place (which is every few months) i have to go through this ritual of The Lasts. this is The Last Time I Will Do This This Time Around.
it is a depressing but i suppose necessary ritual.
so saturday was the Last Meal with the Chos. it was already an incomplete meal: hyun soo wasnt there. we went to the korean restaurant in the mezhdunarodnaia hotel and went over board eating. we had all my favourite foods including bibinbop....mmm...then there was a particularly interesting dish: korean pizza (as the chos described it) made from octopus. the little suckers on the tentacles looked a bit odd, but caitlin claimed it tasted alright.....hyun ho was being a little comic and entertained us all. afterwards caitlin and i said goodbye to masyamba, who left a few hours later for budapest.
next stop was Last Coffee with My Supervisor. we met at tratakovskaia and caught up on my research and his institutes needs. i now have a series of requests/ tasks to bring up to my other english supervisor (who is actually australian) when i see her on wednesday. my old supervisor is a funny guy, talking to him always makes me giggle. my favourite part of the conversation was when he asked me what my current supervisors' specialties are. so i told him that my first supervisor is interested in postcolonialism and masculinities. my old supervisor thought about this and asked "muzh est?" ie: has she got a husband? when i told him my second supervisors specialty is child suicide, he just looked completely confused.
yesterday was The Last Brunch and Bimbo Shopping With Caitlin. we over ate and overspent to mark the occasion. we had omlets and sirniki at a cafe near her house and then went down novi arbat to sultanna frantsuzova where i bought a suit and a jumper, telling myself that they would be a lot more expensive in london, and i mean, a girl always needs a suit!
today is The Last Trip to the Book shop, The Last Coffee With Caitlin, The Last Round of Drinks With Igor and The Last Restaurant Adventure With Vladimir and Oleg.
these lasts are tiring me out. i just went through them all 4 months ago when i left london! and i am sure they will all repeat again soon.
but life moves on, next stop: TALLINN
it is a depressing but i suppose necessary ritual.
so saturday was the Last Meal with the Chos. it was already an incomplete meal: hyun soo wasnt there. we went to the korean restaurant in the mezhdunarodnaia hotel and went over board eating. we had all my favourite foods including bibinbop....mmm...then there was a particularly interesting dish: korean pizza (as the chos described it) made from octopus. the little suckers on the tentacles looked a bit odd, but caitlin claimed it tasted alright.....hyun ho was being a little comic and entertained us all. afterwards caitlin and i said goodbye to masyamba, who left a few hours later for budapest.
next stop was Last Coffee with My Supervisor. we met at tratakovskaia and caught up on my research and his institutes needs. i now have a series of requests/ tasks to bring up to my other english supervisor (who is actually australian) when i see her on wednesday. my old supervisor is a funny guy, talking to him always makes me giggle. my favourite part of the conversation was when he asked me what my current supervisors' specialties are. so i told him that my first supervisor is interested in postcolonialism and masculinities. my old supervisor thought about this and asked "muzh est?" ie: has she got a husband? when i told him my second supervisors specialty is child suicide, he just looked completely confused.
yesterday was The Last Brunch and Bimbo Shopping With Caitlin. we over ate and overspent to mark the occasion. we had omlets and sirniki at a cafe near her house and then went down novi arbat to sultanna frantsuzova where i bought a suit and a jumper, telling myself that they would be a lot more expensive in london, and i mean, a girl always needs a suit!
today is The Last Trip to the Book shop, The Last Coffee With Caitlin, The Last Round of Drinks With Igor and The Last Restaurant Adventure With Vladimir and Oleg.
these lasts are tiring me out. i just went through them all 4 months ago when i left london! and i am sure they will all repeat again soon.
but life moves on, next stop: TALLINN
22.9.06
this city is too small
sometimes moscow really does seem like a village.
yesterday masyamba and i went back to our kafedra to meet one of our old professors. i had a funny feeling going into the building and up the stairs, past the stairwells of smoking students, where my group used spend out breaks. things look pretty much the same, some details have improved (there was no shit only the walls in the toilets) but the rest was as before. our professor was a bit strange with us (angry that we didnt stay in mother russia for aspirantura?) but thrust an invitation to the serbian embassy in our hands and insisted we go. i couldnt, as i had work, but masha did....and ran into my old supervisor in the process.
i meanwhile headed of to work. i got to the centre with sometime to kill and decided to stroll up tverskaia which was on my way. as i got to the coffee bean near pushkinskaia i heard a voice shout my name....and there in front of me was my ex-flatmates ex-girlfriend. she had just arrived in moscow the day before after THREE YEARS in new york. so we had a coffee. we never had much in common, and now less than ever. she has developped this annoying habit that many russians who have lived a couple of years in the west have of interjecting english idioms into their russian, to the point where they are completely incomprehensible. this tendancy is made worse when they misuse the idioms. for example "oi, new york, eto bilo vobshe, znaesh, over the top..." or "i potom ya dumala oh my god shto nado delat?" so the conversation went on like that and after 45 minutes i was all too glad to escape to work.
but today things got stranger. i bolted out of the office at 10 am to go to the post office. i was running to the metro and concentrating on my ipod when someone grabbed my arm. it was robert.
robert and i went to mgy together. we sat in classes together with shurik, viktor, masyamba, and ivan, all day every day. but after we graduated, masyamba and i kept up, but we both left the country and lost touch with the boys, all of whom stayed here in moscow....but now it seems that robert and i WORK IN THE SAME OFFICE BUILDING! he is on the 4th floor and i am on the 8th. pity i am leaving soon, i would have liked to have caught up more properly.
yesterday masyamba and i went back to our kafedra to meet one of our old professors. i had a funny feeling going into the building and up the stairs, past the stairwells of smoking students, where my group used spend out breaks. things look pretty much the same, some details have improved (there was no shit only the walls in the toilets) but the rest was as before. our professor was a bit strange with us (angry that we didnt stay in mother russia for aspirantura?) but thrust an invitation to the serbian embassy in our hands and insisted we go. i couldnt, as i had work, but masha did....and ran into my old supervisor in the process.
i meanwhile headed of to work. i got to the centre with sometime to kill and decided to stroll up tverskaia which was on my way. as i got to the coffee bean near pushkinskaia i heard a voice shout my name....and there in front of me was my ex-flatmates ex-girlfriend. she had just arrived in moscow the day before after THREE YEARS in new york. so we had a coffee. we never had much in common, and now less than ever. she has developped this annoying habit that many russians who have lived a couple of years in the west have of interjecting english idioms into their russian, to the point where they are completely incomprehensible. this tendancy is made worse when they misuse the idioms. for example "oi, new york, eto bilo vobshe, znaesh, over the top..." or "i potom ya dumala oh my god shto nado delat?" so the conversation went on like that and after 45 minutes i was all too glad to escape to work.
but today things got stranger. i bolted out of the office at 10 am to go to the post office. i was running to the metro and concentrating on my ipod when someone grabbed my arm. it was robert.
robert and i went to mgy together. we sat in classes together with shurik, viktor, masyamba, and ivan, all day every day. but after we graduated, masyamba and i kept up, but we both left the country and lost touch with the boys, all of whom stayed here in moscow....but now it seems that robert and i WORK IN THE SAME OFFICE BUILDING! he is on the 4th floor and i am on the 8th. pity i am leaving soon, i would have liked to have caught up more properly.
20.9.06
18.9.06
aigul in moscow
this weekend was mainly spent obsessing over my paper. natalia went to St Petersburg with some friends, leaving me a note instructing me "not to over-thesis" which i think represents the interesting addition of a new verb to the english language.my exciting social activity was going for lunch with masyamba and aigul, who was visiting from kazan. we went to a japanese place on tverskaia and i stuffed my self on sushi. actually saturday turned out to be a bit of a CEU day. as i was walking into my flat on my way back from lunch, the phone started ringing. i assumed this would be my fathers routine saturday afternoon call, but no, it was filip calling from bulgaria. i hadnt spoken to the guy in 2.5 years, since i left budapest. it was a bit wierd to talk to him after all this time, but he seems to be doing well, still partying with the bulgarian contingent from CEU. then later in the evening i had a 1 hour chat with marko on the phone. he is in leipzig on scholarship for a month, after which he is going to berlin for awhile. it is amazing how one year can have such an impact on you life, but my year in Hungary certainly did, some of my closest friends come from that year, and i miss them all very much now that we have spread out to all corners of Europe.
16.9.06
need...sleep
went out last night to ZH.Z.L. and Diagalev. Diagalev was way better than ZH.Z.L.....but still they are all abit the same..the food at ZH.Z.L. was really good though. in the end i was the only girl at the party (big surprise) and the guys at my table spent most of the time talking about the women dancing. very few guys dance here (since they are all in suits) so the dance floor generally gets filled with women wearing very, um, creative attire. i went to bed too late and got up too early. i am having to bind all my fotocopies, because the russian post sends only books, not papers (which become books when you stick a plastic ring around them, logically) so i keep having to go to this internet place that binds things together. i think the people who work there have decided i am insane, which is possible. everytime i got there with yet another mound of papers the employees all seem to try to hide. i suppose no one wants to get stuck with the job of making holes in hundreds of sheets of paper, which is understandable. but there is nothing i can do about, other than tell them to blame the babushka at the central post office. i have already sent about 30 kilos of books out of the country, and i have still a mound of 20fotocopied books that need to be bound and sent out as well. by the time all this is dont, probably not only the internet cafe employees will be ready to kill me, but justin as well, since these things are all going to his address.i will put you in the acknowledgements section of my first book, justin, i promise.
but today is a nice day (sunny, although very cold) and i am off to pushkinskaia for lunch with masha and aigul. i have to enjoy these sunny days while they last....
15.9.06
social obligations
i have suddenly been invited/required to attend a series of parties at various moscow clubs. the problem with going clubbing in this city is it is often more stress than pleasure, and i dont really see why i should overstress myself at the weekend when i am stressed already during the week.
for some reason, moscow clubs feature men in expensive suits who arrive in SUVs, preferably hummers. as they are wearing flipping suits, obviously they cannot really dance. so instead people sit around and stare at each other, seeing whose suit/ skanky outfit cost more. oh, and then there are the obnoixous bouncers who gave moscow its reputation for feis control. so the whole thing is pretentious and i see it as a bit of a drag. and in addition to all the supposed flash and pretention, the people still sometimes behave like peasants. vladimir, oleg and co. has decided to make a party in my honour at zhizn zamechatelnih ludei...and i cant really miss my own party. then another company has decided to have a party celebrating its 10th birthday at diagalev (reserving three tables cost 15,000 dollars, with a discount. and that is just for the reservation and a complementary champagne.....the food is extra....extra like in the hundreds) and then i am supposed to go with collegues/friends to first....unfortunately i am going to first this weekend, not last weekend when apparently madonna was there.....oh well.
i just got a bag at furla...it is consolation for having to go to these places. Kashmar.
for some reason, moscow clubs feature men in expensive suits who arrive in SUVs, preferably hummers. as they are wearing flipping suits, obviously they cannot really dance. so instead people sit around and stare at each other, seeing whose suit/ skanky outfit cost more. oh, and then there are the obnoixous bouncers who gave moscow its reputation for feis control. so the whole thing is pretentious and i see it as a bit of a drag. and in addition to all the supposed flash and pretention, the people still sometimes behave like peasants. vladimir, oleg and co. has decided to make a party in my honour at zhizn zamechatelnih ludei...and i cant really miss my own party. then another company has decided to have a party celebrating its 10th birthday at diagalev (reserving three tables cost 15,000 dollars, with a discount. and that is just for the reservation and a complementary champagne.....the food is extra....extra like in the hundreds) and then i am supposed to go with collegues/friends to first....unfortunately i am going to first this weekend, not last weekend when apparently madonna was there.....oh well.
i just got a bag at furla...it is consolation for having to go to these places. Kashmar.
11.9.06
Свадьба на Воробьевых в прошлую субботу
i realise that fotographing others fashion mistakes does not make me a better human being, but some of them are just too ripe not to share, underwear being worn as outer wear (or not being worn at all) includded. these pictures are particularly scary as they are taken right outside my old university.
Выпускница средней школы 2006
caitlin and i have become obsessed with recording, collecting, and exchanging images of Moscow Fashion Mistakes.here are some of my favourites, this girl cant be more than 16.....
bimbo days
my sundays are so unproductive. and i have all kinds of excuses i use to justify this, but the truth is i just enjoy it.
i met caitlin at Stockman's at 11 and we had a coffee to give us the strength for some shopping. we looked at towels and bed linens and all sorts of other exciting items before heading for our usual sunday brunch. this time we went for Chinese, which was a bit of an odd choice for shortly after noon, but the food was really excellent. we had tofu and really spicy baklazhani. it was incredible, but very heavy at such and hour. i dont think they alcohol we ordered with it helped!
afterwards we trotted down novi arbat and stopped (naturally) at sultanna frantsuzova, but with the exercising of some self control, we didnt buy anything. next stop was ohotni riad, but the place was over crowded with scary dyevs and after a brief stop at karen millen, we decided to escape. we went to small talk where we attempted to flush the chinese rocks out of our stomachs by drinking endless pots of tea and gossiping. then some cambridge boys showed up. one of them (jesus college, what more need be said?) was nominated last year by Cosmopolitain magazine as one of moscows most eligible bachelors. the guy was perfectly polite, intelligent and decent, but if that is supposed to be one of the top 100, it is definately time for me to leave town! i dont know what it is about these eton- cambridge guys, but they are truely the antithesis of sexy.
no offense meant of course to my loyal cambridge readers!
i met caitlin at Stockman's at 11 and we had a coffee to give us the strength for some shopping. we looked at towels and bed linens and all sorts of other exciting items before heading for our usual sunday brunch. this time we went for Chinese, which was a bit of an odd choice for shortly after noon, but the food was really excellent. we had tofu and really spicy baklazhani. it was incredible, but very heavy at such and hour. i dont think they alcohol we ordered with it helped!
afterwards we trotted down novi arbat and stopped (naturally) at sultanna frantsuzova, but with the exercising of some self control, we didnt buy anything. next stop was ohotni riad, but the place was over crowded with scary dyevs and after a brief stop at karen millen, we decided to escape. we went to small talk where we attempted to flush the chinese rocks out of our stomachs by drinking endless pots of tea and gossiping. then some cambridge boys showed up. one of them (jesus college, what more need be said?) was nominated last year by Cosmopolitain magazine as one of moscows most eligible bachelors. the guy was perfectly polite, intelligent and decent, but if that is supposed to be one of the top 100, it is definately time for me to leave town! i dont know what it is about these eton- cambridge guys, but they are truely the antithesis of sexy.
no offense meant of course to my loyal cambridge readers!
8.9.06
thank god it is friday
i asked my supposedly advanced business students to explain to me in their own words what "team building" means.
pasha: "team building is when you are with boss drinking."
Denis: "team building is when you are with collegues drinking."
Sergei: "team building is when boss is drinks buying."
lena: "team building is what they are doing in the american companies."
groan. at that i clenched my jaw and reminded myself it is friday.
pasha: "team building is when you are with boss drinking."
Denis: "team building is when you are with collegues drinking."
Sergei: "team building is when boss is drinks buying."
lena: "team building is what they are doing in the american companies."
groan. at that i clenched my jaw and reminded myself it is friday.
6.9.06
mid week report
i havent been inspired to write much lately. perhaps because i have so much i need to do for my supervisor. i submitted my 30 page literary review to her today and now i have to get working on my first chapter. it should be about 50 pages and it is due in october. i am paniking.
meanwhile i am desperately photocopying everything i see in the library that might be of interest. everytime i thing i really have everyting i discover a new source that i hadnt investigated previously. i dont know when this will all end, but that point seems a long way away from here.
hyun soo left today.
his invitation arrived from canada, but the embassy here in moscow said it would take a month to process the visa, whereas the embassy in seoul said they could do it within a week. a 12 year old korean is, after all, an unlikely security threat. so this evening hyun soo is getting on an airplane all by himself to fly to the otherside of the planet. he may not come back to moscow for a very very long time. his family plans to leave the country by january, since his father died, there is no reason to stay here. moscow will not be the same without the chos. i have known them for years, since the boys were teeny tiny. i remember trying to teach hyun soo how to tell time correctly in english. now he speaks with almost no accent and is jetting around the world to a posh canadian boarding school. amazing.
i, meanwhile, should get back to writing.
meanwhile i am desperately photocopying everything i see in the library that might be of interest. everytime i thing i really have everyting i discover a new source that i hadnt investigated previously. i dont know when this will all end, but that point seems a long way away from here.
hyun soo left today.
his invitation arrived from canada, but the embassy here in moscow said it would take a month to process the visa, whereas the embassy in seoul said they could do it within a week. a 12 year old korean is, after all, an unlikely security threat. so this evening hyun soo is getting on an airplane all by himself to fly to the otherside of the planet. he may not come back to moscow for a very very long time. his family plans to leave the country by january, since his father died, there is no reason to stay here. moscow will not be the same without the chos. i have known them for years, since the boys were teeny tiny. i remember trying to teach hyun soo how to tell time correctly in english. now he speaks with almost no accent and is jetting around the world to a posh canadian boarding school. amazing.
i, meanwhile, should get back to writing.
3.9.06
история двух кошечек
i love my weekends here in moscow, they are so lazy. the library is closed on sundays, so i have the ultimate excuse not to do any work.
today i got up slowly and stumbled down the street to have coffee with igor and his friend tom who is visiting from london. they were in the same law programme there. meanwhile, tom, in his 10 days here had managed to pick up a dyev from naberezhni chelni, and she showed up as well. the poor guy made all the usual mistakes. his food arrived just as she sat down and he started eating (ie, he didnt wait for her to order and get her food) ...the usual dyev related misunderstandings. apparently he didnt even know he was supposed to pay. igor and i just sat back and giggled, occasionally exchanging glances.
afterwards i met caitlin for yet another sunday brunch and gossip. we went to small pleasures, but the menu was different than the last time we were there, and there wasnt much choice for the gluten intolerant. oh well, not much i can do about that!
the rest of the afternoon was lazy. i picked up a copy of garfield 2 in the metro on the way home and watched it over a platter of justin-supplied junk food. the film is SO CUTE. i know many of you will read this and groan at my bad taste, but really it is adorable. it is like the parent trap, BUT FOR CATS!!!! it is even better than the last garfeild, which i saw in a paris theatre with yaelle and about 100 saudi 10 year olds....(what else could you expect on the champs elysees?) in the new one, garfeild goes to england and trades places by accident with a (feline) prince. i kept rolling about laughing it was so funny. my copy is in russian, but i can only imagine that the film must be even funnier in english with the different accents and all.
and by now you are probably marvelling that any university would accept a garfield watcher into its phd programme, but really i recommend this film to all!
on that note i should probably get back to my work....
today i got up slowly and stumbled down the street to have coffee with igor and his friend tom who is visiting from london. they were in the same law programme there. meanwhile, tom, in his 10 days here had managed to pick up a dyev from naberezhni chelni, and she showed up as well. the poor guy made all the usual mistakes. his food arrived just as she sat down and he started eating (ie, he didnt wait for her to order and get her food) ...the usual dyev related misunderstandings. apparently he didnt even know he was supposed to pay. igor and i just sat back and giggled, occasionally exchanging glances.
afterwards i met caitlin for yet another sunday brunch and gossip. we went to small pleasures, but the menu was different than the last time we were there, and there wasnt much choice for the gluten intolerant. oh well, not much i can do about that!
the rest of the afternoon was lazy. i picked up a copy of garfield 2 in the metro on the way home and watched it over a platter of justin-supplied junk food. the film is SO CUTE. i know many of you will read this and groan at my bad taste, but really it is adorable. it is like the parent trap, BUT FOR CATS!!!! it is even better than the last garfeild, which i saw in a paris theatre with yaelle and about 100 saudi 10 year olds....(what else could you expect on the champs elysees?) in the new one, garfeild goes to england and trades places by accident with a (feline) prince. i kept rolling about laughing it was so funny. my copy is in russian, but i can only imagine that the film must be even funnier in english with the different accents and all.
and by now you are probably marvelling that any university would accept a garfield watcher into its phd programme, but really i recommend this film to all!
on that note i should probably get back to my work....
1.9.06
the update
for those of you who have been waiting nervously on the edge of your seats, let me put your mind to rest: hyun soo got accepted to boarding school!!!
i was so nervous waiting for the answer that it was as if i was the one who had applied. but yesterday morning we got the email that he had been accepted, so as soon as his visa gets processed he will be on a plane for vancouver! i really think it is a great opportunity for him, i even envy him in a way, since the school looks really great.
i meanwhile am going back and forth with my supervisors to figure out what i will do over the next few years..it is scary when you see your life being planned out further in advance than you are used to thinking. but i suppose my supervisors are right to be thinking ahead. in the meantime i am really just worried about this exam in october. if i can just get through that i will be content, at least for a little while.
i was so nervous waiting for the answer that it was as if i was the one who had applied. but yesterday morning we got the email that he had been accepted, so as soon as his visa gets processed he will be on a plane for vancouver! i really think it is a great opportunity for him, i even envy him in a way, since the school looks really great.
i meanwhile am going back and forth with my supervisors to figure out what i will do over the next few years..it is scary when you see your life being planned out further in advance than you are used to thinking. but i suppose my supervisors are right to be thinking ahead. in the meantime i am really just worried about this exam in october. if i can just get through that i will be content, at least for a little while.
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