Daily Life: Part II

A day in the life:



The cell phone I purchased here is much better than the phone I had back home. It's a white Samsung slider that gets service everywhere, has a battery that lasts for a week, and has a very well thought out interface. It also comes with Ukrainian, Russian, and English language capabilities. I have mine set for Russian, though a lot of Russians text in English, so we have some interesting conversations with an American replying in Russian to a Russian's text in English, and so on. The Russian mobile phone system is also a much more simple and fair deal. To start with, you buy a phone and a SIM card, which comes preloaded with about 100 rubles. You pay only for outgoing calls and texts at a rate of 1 ruble per minute for local calls, and 1 ruble per text. You don't pay for incoming calls or texts, and there are little pay as you go machines in and around every metro station for adding money to your card. My phone even displays how many rubles I have left, updating right after a text has been sent or a call made. Prices are cheaper here if you consider the fact that you're paying the full price of the phone, and not getting a contract signing rebate like you do in the states.

Anyway, I digress, I told you that long story to tell you this one:
I use my phone as an alarm clock, because the alarm function is perfectly designed. You can save multiple alarms, choose which days they are active, and decide whether or not to allow the snooze function on 'em. Also, I can leave my phone on vibrate mode, and the alarm will still make noise. I have no motivation in the mornings, so I keep my 8 am M-F alarm with snooze disabled, and leave my phone charging on my desk [below], forcing me to get out of my bead [above] to turn it off.


My morning ritual begins with a smoke and some world news, after which I collect my towel and a change of undershirt and boxers, and head to the bathroom for a 10-15 minute shower. Luckily, my host family showers at night, so I'm not monopolizing the bathroom [below] with my long showers. Russians aren't too water conscious on the whole, so there's no bother there either.


After my shower, I come back and put my jeans and long-sleeve shirt on, and head into the kitchen. My host mother is usually gone by now, but there are pots of food and soup on the stove, so I fill up the hot water boiler, set it going, and light the gas under a couple pans. Everything is usually ready all at once, and my breakfast of hearty Russian food, usually a meat (beef, turkey, etc.) mixed with a starch (potatoes, rice, pasta). I love dipping the thick Russian bread into my soup, because it's so dense it acts like a sponge, retaining a lot of the soup without going completely mushy and dropping back into the bowl. Tea is consumed at every meal, and often in between. After my 15-20 minute feasting, I wash my dishes and go back to my room to collect my school bag.



The final step before heading out the door is switching from my тапочки (tapochki - slippers reserved for wearing around the house so as not to track in dirt/sludge) to my sneakers. The weather hasn't progressed to the point that I need to use my ridiculous insulated, Gore-Tex, rubber-grip-soled boots. As I understand it, there's going to be a middle period when neither are really perfectly suited to the extensive walking everyone does here. The solution is сапоги (sapogi), ankle-high leather shoes with a pointed toe. They're water-tight, formal enough for university, but not as big and ungainly as boots.



A couple turns of my key, the thick bolt slides back on the outer door [above], and I'm out in the stairwell [below].



I rarely see or hear anyone else on my way down. On the two occasions I have run into someone, it's been a fellow ACTR student who lives a floor below me.

Walking out this door, through that courtyard, and under the archway, I come to the intersection where Furshtatskaya meets Lityeiny.


Mornings are an rushed time here, and the cross walk leading away from my building doesn't have a light, so I stick a tentative leg out into the first lane of traffic, and eventually a car slows down enough for me to leap out in front of it, assuming the driver is alert and will stop for me. Usually by now, the lead cars in the neighboring lanes going in the same direction will have caught on as I continue my forward progress, and I can make it halfway across the street without stopping. Rinse and repeat from the beginning to handle the opposing traffic, and you're across the street.

[taken looking back across the street - well, forward really, because I took this on my way back at night, when the street was much less crowded, and my photographing would neither impede foot traffic nor give myself away to too many]

Chernishevskaya metro station is now just a 7-10 minute (or one-cigarette, for those measuring distances and times by more unorthodox means) walk down Furshtatskaya, which is one of the more beautiful streets in the city. Mirroring the nearby parks, there is a median in between single one-way lanes bordered by grass, trees, benches, and streetlights. As with all of the center of St. Petersburg, the buildings are juxtapositions of classic architecture, and modern demand:


I'm note quite sure what this building is. There are no signs on it, and it's been under renovation for as long as I've been here.

Recognize that store? I'll give you a close up.

For those who can't read Cyrillic, it's a transliteration of "Papa John's." There are ONLY three of them in the city. I haven't eaten there yet, because it's actually pretty expensive as far as fast food goes here, but I plan on it someday.


Just a night time shot of the median. You can't quite make out the benches, but the ornate railings, trees, and streetlights should be visible, and the relative width of the walkway apparent.

Taking pictures in the metro is forbidden for reasons unbeknown to me, so I can't show you that portion of my commute. There are separate entrances (вход) and exits (выход) to the small above ground portion of the stations where old ladies shell out tokens at 20 rubles a piece. Here you can also add money to your SIM card at the aforementioned machines, add money to your проездной билет (commuter card, same price as the tokens, just purchased in bulk and more convenient than stopping every time to buy a token), or pay for another month's use of your student commuter card, which is cheaper than the normal metro fare and allows free bus use.

I get off at the Маяковская station to a view of the vast intersection of Nevsky Prospekt, Ligovsky Prospekt, and a few other smaller streets. A short walk down Ligovsky - long enough to smoke a Russian cigarette, but too short for an American Spirit or Nat Sherman - brings me to 46 Ligovsky, the location of our satellite campus of the Russian State Pedagogical University Herzen.


This foreboding sheet-metal door opens into the courtyard below.




The buildings may seem a bit dilapidated, but no more so than anything else off the main streets. The interior of our building is well furnished with modern style classrooms, complete with whiteboards, Western style toilets, and photocopiers.

Well, that's all for today, and probably the next few days until I find something striking to report on.

Daily Life: Part I

This is the easiest post to get out of the way, as it requires no abstract thought - not something I'm capable of after 5 hours of sleep on two successive nights.

Let's start with the apartment: It's really nice - it's in an upscale region within seven minutes walking distance of the Чернишевская (Chernishevskaya) metro station, which is one to two stops (to the northeast) away from the center of the city, and one stop away from our campus.

[Excuse my rudimentary Photoshop skills: The oval is the center of town. The purple dot is where I live. The metro station I've circled is the one I use to go to classes, because the campus is only a 5 minute walk away from that particular exit.]



The apartment building is a moderately sized concrete structure across from the southern end of Фурштадская Улица (Furshtatskaya Ulitsa) on Литейный Проспект (Lityeiny Prospect). To get into the central stairwell, I walk south under the archway of the apartment building opposite mine, to a big red door that opens to a magnetic disc attached to my huge house key. (In Part II, I'll explain and take pictures of my route to and from school, as well as document the school itself. I'll be sure to include the stairwell, the elevator I never use, the big red door, etc.) My host family's apartment is on the third floor, so it's no big deal to use the square staircase to get up there, especially given the lack of exercise I've been allowing myself. My key fits into a thin, wide slot in the thick metal outer door, and after two or three or even four turns, the bolt moves back, and I'm into the apartment. I've heard most families also lock their inner door, which looks a lot more like our domestic American doors, but mine never does. Anyway, so the door opens up to an entrance hall, where I exchange my street shoes/boots for my indoor slippers, and I trudge on through the hallway. On the left is my host mother's room, which I've never entered, only seen, and for this reason I feel uncomfortable photographing it. It's very clean, but full of plants and lots of furniture, primarily due to the additional necessity of being able to accommodate my host mother's mother. To the right is a little niche with the door to my room, and, to the left of that, the door to my host father's room. Again, I don't feel comfortable snooping around his room with a camera, though I have been in there, because the large family tv, DVD and VHS collection, family photographs, etc. are all there. The hallway ends in a narrow passageway leading off to kitchen on the left, with the separate doors to the toilet and bath areas facing you.


[The entrance.]
[The hallway]

[The most I've seen of my хозяйка's (host mom's) room]


[The kitchen]

[View of my room from the doorway]


[My bed, which is about 4 inches too short for me, but extremely comfortable. I slept on my back in the States. Now I sleep in the fetal position. It'll be appropriate once the nights start getting colder.]
[My work area. To the right is the immense wardrobe, which I didn't bother to photograph.]


My host mother works in a cafeteria somewhere, and my host father works in security, but based on the size and luxury of the apartment, I'm guessing neither of them are low on the company ladders. My suspicion is that my host mom was a cook of some sort at some point, because her cooking is so damn good, but I think she's risen through the ranks since then. My host father doesn't wear a bullet proof vest to work, and isn't exactly a young rough 'n tough guy, though he was in the Soviet army, and served in their little excursion into Afghanistan. They're both great people, and it's obvious they care about my well being. It's not uncommon in Russia for a host to make sure her guest eats his fill, doesn't go outside with wet hair or without his umbrella, and to cook for him. I've managed to persuade her to let me do the dishes, but it's still pretty apparent she's uncomfortable letting me do them if she's in the room with me. My only concern is that I don't feel like I'm spending enough time talking to them, and am more just using them for a place to stay, rather than a cultural exchange. I know I'm looking too much into it, because they're very hands-off, having already raised three sons. It manifests itself in different ways - the father's serious inquiries into why I haven't brought a girl home yet, the mother's habit of making two or three dishes and one or two pots of soup for me to eat at my leisure over the course of a few days. Based on some of the horror stories I've heard from other kids, about how they're little old host grandmother stays up 'till 4 am until the student comes back on a Friday or Saturday night; or how some families are in constant conflict due to arguments between angsty teenagers and their parents, I think I'm pretty well off. Sometimes I don't even see my host family for days at a time, because they're off enjoying the nice weather at their dacha (country home). They're also both smokers, so for them smoking indoors goes unquestioned.

I think I'm beginning to get too documentational (I know - not a word), and not enough observational, so I'll stop here. More to come tomorrow, or the next day.

Introduction

My intent for this blog is (to try) to give my close friends a glimpse of what I'm experiencing in St. Petersburg during my semester abroad. I can't pretend to know what life is like for the denizens of St. Petersburg, so my goal for each post is to describe one or two intimate facets of my own life here, and/or to relate small, interesting phenomena, coupled with my own observations. I don't take my camera with me wherever I go, but if a post is premeditated enough, there will be pictures of what I'm describing. I'll also post pictures of our weekly excursions to cultural and historical landmarks when I get around to importing them from my camera.

Blogs are a naturally self-absorbed endeavor, as is apologizing regularly or at great length, but I can't resist making a blanket apology this one time in advance for going into too much detail in some posts, not enough in others, irregularity or tedious regularity of posts, etc. Hopefully this will end up being more than the stereotypical blog, at least as long as I'm in St. Pete. I'll make my first post in a few hours, after I've finished my homework for tomorrow.