Stranger In a Stranger Land

Life in Russia

2009-08-12T23:22:00.001-07:00

So much has happened. Let’s start with my schedule:

There are few things more satisfying than seeing slow sustained progress. We work so many hours each day that I often feel delirious and its all I can do to keep the engines churning. I’ve found that routine helps. I’ve never valued 10 minutes so much. I’ve begun meditating 10 minutes in the morning and at night and I find it helps me fall asleep faster and helps me from waisting energy throughout the day. There are more reasons to be frustrated here than I care to enumerate so keeping from blowing one’s top can be crusial to making it through a day. A day goes as follows:

Classes are usually 45 minute stints with 15 minute breaks, but during the breaks I’m either eating stretching, sharpening my pencils, or sketching, usually eating. I always carry food with me. Sculpture, drawing, lunch, and Russian are all in different buildings. If you are late to lunch there will be a line so long and slow you will surely be late to Russian – this is only good if I haven’t finished my home work and am doing it online (so to speak) If you are late to Drawing the door will be locked and Claudia the matronly woman with the died red hair will make all kinds of groans before she heaves her weight from her chair and galumphs to the door to open it. When she does if you are me you smile and say excuse me. She gives a sullen look and lets you pass with a silent understanding and quietly you make your way to your malbert(G-d, I’m loosing my English). If you are anyone she doesn’t like which is everyone who doesn’t give her mandarins when she’s sick and asks about her family regularly she screams at you in Russian and threatens to tell the head of the foreign department that you are cutting class and not a serious student. There are many people like Claudia in the school. It’s unclear what her position is. She is a cleaning woman/ doorman/ superintendant. She actually wields a certain kind of power and is very good to know of you are looking for materials or trying to get past locked doors, but I digress. The point is its difficult and important to make it to each class ontime.

Here’s is the official daily schedule:

9:15 – Sculpture (two 15 minute breaks – at 10:00 and 11:00)
12:00 – rush to Drawing
12:15 – Drawing (one 10 minute break at 12:55)
1:55 – rush to lunch
2:00 – eat
2:20 rush to Russian Class
2:30 Russian (one 15 minute break at 3:45)
5:30 finished – with class.

At 5:30 the work really begins. We are expected to work for three hours a night on compositions. For the sculpture students this means making small maquettes or figurines – many of them. It’s actually quite fun and the exhaustion passes with food and tea. The work itself gives you momentum. The sculpture teacher rips them apart when he sees them- sometimes literally. For example – he gives us a themes – at first they were more abstract “a meeting of two people or animals” I started with an old familiar theme Cain and Abel, highly dramatic and for me overly conceived. I worked for uncountable hours trying to get all the proportions right and creating highly dynamic movement and even some facial expressions. He looked at it and said what I’ve heard more than anything else from him, “Eta, ni nada!” [Don’t do this] He took a knife and cut my sculpture in half separating the two figures which wasn’t difficult since they were composed independently. He took the two pieces and said here’s one sculpture and here’s another but they don’t fit together. Since the results were not pleasing to him, he choose a simpler theme- one person who is discovering something. I began making children since I’m working with them on Sundays fell on the idea of a tree stump. I made a lot of stumps and children around them discovering nature or each other. He liked one and told me to make a larger version which he was less than thrilled with. Finally he stopped making us think so hard and lowered the bar- just make people working – really simple carrying a pail or in the field – nothing too cerebral just make something simple that holds up as a sculpture. (Of course all in Russian – he is very good at pantomime and using the limited vocabulary we know) I made a woman neading bread. He took one look and drew a silhouette of what he saw. The woman was directly behind the table so the cutting board became the focal point and from many angles. This is a no – no. While it does have a main façade a good sculpture must be interesting form every angle and “plastic” which is sort of the opposite of disjointed. The picture he drew of my sculpture accentuated the lack of these qualities. As I looked from his sketch of my composition to the actual piece I saw how boxy and bland it was I could swear his sketch resembled a tombstone. Sure enough he scribbled an epitaph on the stone and I finally understood the word he kept saying – my sculpture was dead. Well, I didn’t come to be coddled.

Sculpture is a small department here and our class has grown from 3 to 7. Each addition of Chinese students has made Gabriella the French/Cicillian roll her eyes and give me this look that says, “Fantastique! Now what we are going to do?!” The newest addition is half Korean and while he doesn’t speak English his Russian isn’t half bad. This is a huge boon for the Korean students who now have a translator. He also has some balls and hasn’t let Gabriella push him around which has made me respect him. He is very serious, but not so skilled. I’m snterested to see how he progresses. Unfortuneately I am still not learning from the other students in any of my classes. Many of them don’t listen to the teacher’s advice and continue to make the same mistakes. I don’t know why.

My mediation practice began the day I screamed at a developmentally challenged individual for being slow. Yes, I blew up at a retard. I walked into class late after oversleeping, in a terrible mood, preparing myself for castigation from the teacher and instead found no teacher and a new model posing for a portrait. Most models here are crazy like everywhere but they are amazingly still and stay that way for 45 minute stints - more than twice the expectation for the states. This one was different. I have a bad sense of smell (a great asset in this country) but even I could tell Sasha was in the room with my eyes closed. Maybe in his twenties, unshaven, portly, slovenly, hair in uncombed matted clumps, Sasha was unlike the other models. His eyes meandered through the room and his head followed his gaze. His hands rubbed each other incessantly and he was actually rocking in his chair. I looked at the other students and we shared baffled looks. For some reason I broke. Before I new it I was in his face screaming in Russian “Is this your first time modeling? Your first day? Can you stay still for even one minute?!” He said nothing, but seemed to recede within himself. “Don’t you speak Russian?!” I demanded, still no response. Soon after, the teacher came and asked Sasha if he’d had his breaks. As soon as I heard his clipped monotone speech and saw his eyes dart to the floor like a child afraid of authority I understood my mistake. At the end of the day he asked Gabriella to zip his coat for him. I decided I was going to hell.

I grew to like Sasha and felt so bad about the first day I began buying him his favorite yogurt drink on the breaks. Once I understood why he was moving I treated him like one of my youngest students, speaking softly and asking him to focus on a single spot on the room. Strange boyish smiles would creep across his face at times and no one new why, but he is always on time and tried his hardest to do what was asked of him.

Female Russian nude

2009-08-10T19:49:00.000-07:00

First Year Academic Work

2009-08-10T19:05:00.000-07:00

First Year Sculpture Class (Good ol Boys)

2008-10-28T13:36:00.000-07:00

House is clean

Been here a month now. Got a temperpedic bed and loving it. 2x as expensive as in the states but I spend too much time on my feet and too little time horizontal for it to be anything but good sleep. We live across the street from school in a very spacious apartment. I have a large room as do Kaspar and Iliya and we also have a small eat in kitchen and a very large living room, which we use to entertain a little but mostly to work in. I draw and work on compositions (little mackets) Iliya and Kaspar paint and draw. It’s nice to work with others. We help each other a lot: giving ideas, reminding each other to get away from the work so as not to miss the obvious. I hope to finally begin to learn to model form with better hatch work and a better understanding of how light plays on the form. It’s very delicate work to find the hundreds of variations of tone within the light and then the multitude of shadows mixing with reflected light. The trick is in part to keep the darks and the lights separate. We all have a tendency to forget that the reflected light, say under the jaw on the neck, is in fact darker than the darkest part of the forehead. Anyway, my class consists of 14 guys and 1 girl. The girl is from Siberia and very sweet but quite insane. She recently shaved her head and looks a lot like a very skinny Sinead O’Connor. She has very bony features, which makes everyone want to draw her because the anatomy is so well defined on her. She also carries a gardner snake around and kisses it often. She works late into he evening with me in the studio and likes to listen to Radiohead. She asks me to translate but I often don’t understand the lyrics myself. She is helpful, keeping me informed of changes in our schedule and I like her ambition. She works hard and has tried to double all of our assignments. She burns out though and stays up all night only to miss a lot of class because she is so tired.

There is Andrey who is very kind and patient and knows English well enough. He is very centered and has learned sculpture from his parents. He’s not bad but not as good as he thinks. Our sculpture teacher is wonderful and comes consistently 3 times a week and stays for 2 hours helping each student. He has specific comments and I understand on average half of what he says – I miss a lot of specifics and sometimes loose the train but he speaks with his hands and face and brings an electricity to the room. He’s in his fifties with young bright eyes. I think he enjoys teaching. He is unusually open and supportive being sure to tell us what’s effective about our work before telling us what needs improvement often with a comforting hand on the student’s shoulder.

Our drawing teacher is very famous but hasn’t arrived at school because his mother is very sick. Instead we have a teacher who I sat in with last year so he knows me. He’s in his tale 30s or early 40s and very serious. He also gives good specific advice and is patient, drawing when I don’t understand what he’s trying to explain.

The other students are horrendous draftsmen. It’s strange. they are generally lakadaizical about their work. The whole department is this way- I don’t understand. They are always late to class and often hung over. There are a handful who are serious and I spend more time with them. There is one particularly irksome character form a small country village. He has dark hair a large square jaw and a physique born of physical labor. He also has a chip on his shoulder and is probably an alcoholic. He comes in hung over often in the morning and drunk in the evening. I ignore him and work with my headphones but have had to shout at him once when he was making fun of the Chinese student very loudly during class instead of working. They are all in their early 20’s except one guy who is 30 and who I can count on to keep everyone in line – Arkadi. He has a large brow hanging over small dark eyes and an unkempt scraggly beard. He is generally filthy but a good worker and very helpful I’m glad he’s in the class.

A mime is a terrible thing to waste.

2008-10-28T13:34:00.000-07:00

So last year there was a model who I started to fancy. (This story doesn't end well just so you know.) I had painted and sculpted her at the academy 2 summers previously and we remembered each other. This was early on and I still didn’t know much Russian but I had been listening to language tapes and I knew how to say “why don’t you have dinner with me tonight?”. I found myself walking to school with her as we lived close to each other and she was very patient with my language - even buying a small dictionary for me after a couple of difficult conversations. So one morning I figured why not and I used my one Russian phrase, “She looked shocked” which I thought meant I had made a mistake but she told me she would love to and complimented my accent.

A few days later we met in the evening and she looked quite beautiful with makeup and a nice floral dress. She took me to a club and on the bus there I learned through the dictionary that she had been married but was divorced and she seemed very happy to be out. She kept using a word I couldn’t find in the dictionary that I later learned meant deserve. She felt that she deserved a night out on the town. I also learned that she had been a dancer during Soviet times but after Peraskroika like many people didn’t know how to find a job and was now modeling to help make ends meet. It was actually rather easy to understand her and it slowly dawned on me that her training was not just dancing but miming. She was a bit older than me I think and had very light blue eyes and high cheek bones with short blond hair that displayed the curve of her well formed skull which I had already spent countless hours trying to replicate in clay.

We got to the club and I tried talking over drinks. I told her I liked her blouse but mispronounced it. She laughed and blushed and showed me the word I had said which meant chest. I told her I liked that too. I asked if I could “write” on a scrap of paper she had but put the emphasis in the wrong place which changed my verb from “write” to “urinate” which she couldn’t stop repeating and giggling about. Having proven my willingness to humiliate myself in the name of communication we began dancing. Now the club was filled with people younger than both of us, scantily clad and drunk. They dance as they do everything, without subtlety. Halter tops are very high. There are a lot of bad mullets and overdone poorly coordinated dancemoves from an MTV video. I tried to focus on her. Her moves were well executed and practiced but somehow anything but sexy. She reminded me of an extra from a Eurythmics video but with a sense of humor she kept breaking into mini mime routines and then laughing. I laughed too but was beginning to be a little horrified. There was something very sad about her. Her eyes didn’t smile with her mouth, they remained languid and made her look ill at ease. I later asked her what she did when she wasn’t modeling and she said it was a secret, but I think she was a stripper. I began having nightmares about her as a marionette and decided I probably shouldn’t see her again but she kept SMSing me on the weekends and when I finally stopped replying she stopped showing up to class. Everyone was very angry with me because they hadn’t finished drawing/painting her and she just one day didn’t show up and never came back which I was blamed for – perhaps rightfully so.

From Russia with love

2008-10-28T13:20:00.000-07:00

So on my way to Estonia. I try to avoid mishap. I buy my ticket 2 days in advance for the 7-hour bus ride. I ask the woman who doesn’t speak English to draw a little map to show me exactly where to catch the bus.

Two days later I arrive at 8:45 am. I’m nervous because I don’t see any bus that looks large enough to be mine, but after circling the area twice I see a group of people forming that look too happy to be Russian and sure enough I hear that elfin sing song of Estonian. I see one friendly looking young man with a cello case and ash him “to Estonia?” in Russian and he smiles and nods (Estonians speak Russian for the most part) – having been under Soviet rule until relatively recently). It’s the smile more than the nod that tells me I’m in the right place. It’s already cold but I don’t mind. I’m heading to Estonia to meet my new roommate Kaspar and his family there. I just found a new apartment in Saint Petersburg in remarkable time - 1 day and its across the street from the academy so I won’t be battling the swarms of commuters on the subway each day and will hopefully get some more sleep this year. Things are looking up and it’s actually sunny.

I get on the bus after some confusion with an old lady who doesn’t know where to go, where to sit, where to put her baggage etc. The bus driver is very kind and patient with her and the other passengers are too. I’m shocked but remind myself that these are not Russians. However the bus driver leaves and a new one who is Russian arrives with the familiar dour expression of resignation on his face. I settle into my seat and fall asleep. I awake 2 hours later as we pull into a gas station and suddenly remember 15 years earlier being on a bus in Spain and having the bus leave without me because I spent too long in the bathroom. I hesitate for a moment before deciding to leave the bus to buy something to eat. I follow the bus driver into the small convenience store and get shoved aside by a large gruff man who looks like a little kid who needs to go to the bathroom. He’s sort of hopping around from foot to foot looking feverishly at the baked goods and cutting everyone in line a clumsy rush for first dibs on the coffee. I see another young man sitting to eat his breakfast and figure we have more time than I thought. I decide to but one of each kind of baked goods because it’s a long ride and I can’t figure out what they all are anyway. In the corner of my eye I’m aware that the bus driver has left with a large bottle of water, but I still see the bus and the guy eating so I’m relaxed.

The woman gives me the wrong change and I ask her to check it again and she realizes her mistake and fixes it and I walk out side feeling good about my communication skills.

Adrenaline floods my system as I see a large empty parking spot where my bus used to be. I look left and see the bus pulling away and start running as fast as I can. I do a mental check and realize I have my passport but not my bag. Thank god I didn’t bring my computer. Then I try visualizing myself reaching the bus before it gets back on the highway, but it dawns on me as my legs begin to ache that I’m not going to catch it and suddenly I’m running top speed on the highway’s dirt shoulder screaming and waiving my arms frantically (somehow not dropping any baked goods). I start considering my plight with a useless out of range cell phone and I hear honking behind me but ignore it hoping for some response from the bus. It only accelerates onto the highway and speeds away. The honking continues persistently behind me and I realize I’m probably blocking traffic and risking my life. I look back and see a large black car pull up and the window roll down. The man asks me something in Russian that I think I understand and I say yes that’s my bus. He gestures for me to get in and I do. I catch my breath and he starts speeding up, passing car after car on this bumpy two lane high way that probably hasn’t been repaved since it was created. Despite the billions Russia is making on oil, like the US it’s government is not terribly interested in maintaining infrastructure.
The driver gestures for me to roll down the window and flag down the bus driver. As we pass the bus I see the bus driver’s blasé reaction to my frantic gesturing. He frowns and shrugs and pulls the bus over to the curb. I thank my driver think about offering him money but realize it might offend him. He smiles and I consider trying to tell him he’s an angel, but figure I showed just get to the bus as fast as possible. As I get on people look confused and the young man who was sitting next to me with the cello asks in English where I was and I explain. “Oh I was wondering where you were,” he explains.

As my heart rate returns to normal I remind myself that the man in the black car was Russian too and then promptly devour my flaky baked lunch.

inner peace

2008-05-01T01:22:00.000-07:00

The level of lunacy here has reached such heights we don’t notice it any more. It’s like indigenous people in the Andes who have developed barrel chests to allow more oxygen in their lungs to account for the lack of oxygen at higher altitudes. People here have a larger category of what’s funny in order to metabolize the lack of mutual base respect people have for each other. I recall my Russian teacher in NYC telling us horrendous stories of death and calamity between cackles at the humanity of it all. I never understood how she could laugh but now I’m starting to see that there is sometimes nothing else to do. My first Russian friend here from the synagogue told me a story of his first landlady. He was giggling before he uttered his first word and crying, he was laughing so hard by the end. It seemed he had an ever-escalating series of quarrels with her that led to her stealing most of his furniture, but he kept living there and they are still acquaintances somehow. This story was in response to my problems with our new landlady.

She is named Maria (the most common name here strangely) early to mid twenties, pretty, fond of plastic rubber duckies, square – pants sponge bob paraphernalia, and lying. Married to a 50 something burned out hippy from Oregon who told us a twenty-minute story about trying to find good cinnamon buns in Saint Pete. Anyway, we were eager to move into their apartment. A sponge painted firelight fresco of yellow and orange usher you into a large sun drenched kitchen overlooking one of the main squares right next to the subway and with a splendid view of the ever present golden arches. Mickey D’s in the house – so to speak. They even let us pay in dollars and included all the utilities even Internet. Sounded perfect. They would be moving to the states and it seemed only fitting to rent their flat to compatriots. (She would soon become an American citizen)

The catch was that there was a lot of stuff they needed to move into the “storage room” (their bedroom) and Maria would be doing that for the first few weeks after we moved in. Fair enough. Those weeks stretched into months. She came three times a week and rearranged our dishes, left the vacuum out as a hint I assume to vacuum more often. It was true that we could have been keeping the house tidier but with our heavy schedules it was very difficult to motivate to mop. It wasn’t so bad if we didn’t see her, but that changed too. . .

One Saturday night I stayed late at my studio working on compositions for our upcoming abxot which is like an exhibition of our work for the teachers to grade. It was 9 pm and I hear an unfamiliar loud and slurred form of Russian. I look up and see a wet smile spread across a pockmarked ruby face as a drunkard takes three unsteady steps into my workspace. Behind him I hear the high-pitched shrieking of the babushka who may live in the room next to my studio where they fire the sculpture. She is lucking at the staggering man to get out at once! He reaches a grimy gnarled mitt into a paper bag and retrieves a bottle of wine. In retrospect I think I should have noticed Bacchus knocking and invited him with open arms after my 12-hour work day (on Shabbat no less) , but instead I was filled with furry which I barely contained. I politely declined his offer and gently ushered him to the door. He never spoke and never lost his smile except once. Five minutes later I had settled back to work trying to learn the anatomy of the bull for my composition of Gilgamesh’s battle with it. I heard the familiar frantic fretting of the babushka and the shuffle of unsteady feet. I was using a knife to better model the heavy musculature of the bull’s shoulder girdle when he entered the room again.

Someone is angry with me every day. The teachers for having to repeat themselves, the models for having to sit still, the woman behind the counter for having to count out tokens at the subway. They hate you for making them work. They hate you for making them take your money and give you change. If your currency is in too large a denomination they sometimes will flat out refuse to sell things to you. Lines are not the shortest distance between to points here, they are a mass of people pushing and elbowing like school children. It is difficult to overstate the lack of common courtesy here. It just doesn’t exist. In the face of this onslaught of stress, work keeps me sane and my studio is a sanctuary.

With the defilement of that sanctuary a floodgate of frustration loosened and impulsively I rose to my feet, knife in hand. My opponent’s wet smile dried up quickly. The man regained his brand of composure and implored me to join him in revelry. Again I should have seen this as one of the many pies in the face we receive here and hastened to taste the burgundy custard but instead the bull sculpting knife led the way. I bellowed for him to get out now, speaking more with my blade than my tongue! Finally I had to physically throw him out of the studio and slam the door shut, frantically locking it as he pulled and twisted the door handle from outside.
To me it was Russia on the other side of that door jerking the handle trying to get in. I felt invaded in the one place where my treasured peace and focus in work can go largely uninterrupted. 10 deep breadths later I was trying to channel wrath into the bull’s attack stance. The subway stops running at midnight so I went home eventually looking forward to a little peace there finally.

10 minutes after getting home and starting to work on a drawing I needed to finish by Monday I hear the peculiar and familiar noise of the door unlocking. Now Ilya my roommate is on vacation in NYC and the only other person with the key is Maria. Did I mention that personal space is also a rare commodity? “Surprise” is how she introduces herself and her friend who will be spending the night. Now in retrospect I see that again I could have played this differently. By now I could have been drunk and here are two young Russian girls at my door after midnight on Saturday, but all I’m thinking is I want to work and why am I paying this woman rent if she thinks she still lives here. At this point I completely flip out and scream at Maria telling her she has put me in a terrible position as I don’t want to put to young women out on the street on Sat night, but this can never happen again. She has the expression I’ve seen on many 3rd graders after I’ve told them to go to the principal’s office and the two quiet girls apologize and tiptoe into her :storage room”

Gabriella, the French/Italian girls, had her own housing problem, which makes mine pale. She lives with another young French girl in a flat with a shared bathroom. They share it with a crazy old babushka. Many of the old people here are truly insane as their world has changed too fast and perestroika left little room for social welfare and really created the worst form of capitalism here. At any rate this old woman began to believe that these young French girls work for the KGB and were spying on her. As a good citizen I suppose she decided to call the police who actually showed up and demanded to see their documents. In the end they had to move and then move again 2 days later because when Gabriella went to brush her teeth in her first new place her sink crashed to the floor killing one of the many rodents in her new abode. I haven’t seen her newest place but I hear its more fitting for a couple of French/Russian spies.

Chinese New Year

2008-04-25T15:02:00.000-07:00

Finally got online at home again. This is an old blog but figured I'd through it up any anyway:

So it’s been many New Years in a row. The Russians celebrate New Years on Dec 31 with the rest of the West and on Jan something because of the Russian Orthodox Church which is still on a slightly different calendar and Chinese New Year was last week.

Since 90% of our class is Chinese they really have no choice but to give us a few days off. I expected to sleep for 3 days but not with as full a belly as I ended up with.

I ran into Marcela who lives near me. (She’s the Austrian- although born Croatian and Russian grandmother) and she invited me to celebrate with her classmates. She was sort of punished because she refused to go to the Russian classes (and so didn’t pay for them). Her punishment was to be sent to the evening drawing class. She is the only European in that class. She understands Russian because her grandmother was Russian and she speaks German, English, French, and Croatian quite well. Since the Chinese are generally hopelessly lost when it comes to Russian and the translator went back to China the teachers are going crazy trying to communicate. Marcela often gets a largely disproportionate amount of their time simply because she is the only European and the only one who understands their rants. To boot the painting teachers this year are new to the Pod course and so have only taught Russians before and they are flabbergasted at the low skill level and slow progress. It’s hard to exaggerate the tenacity with which these teachers teach and with which the Russian students have been taught usually for at least 10 years. They go to art school for 6 years and then Art College for 4 and then come to the Academy if they are accepted.

Anyway I thought I knew none of these Chinese students but I went with Marcela anyway. It turned out this was the house of the students I take sculpture with. Some of their parents were there too, all the way from Mongolia. The spread was ridiculous. There were at least 20 people around the table and when I asked whom we had to thank for such bounty they all pointed at each other. They had been cooking for at least 12 hours. There were 400 hand made dumplings and you know I tried to eat them all. There was a glistening fried whole fish as the centerpiece swimming in ginger. I was so happy to see the fish head that I went straight for the eyes and the cheeks with surprised smiles form our hosts who enjoyed my gusto. Of course I held back a little and didn’t start gnawing on its gills like I normally would have. My reserved nature was adventuresome for them. Diced checked with hoards of garlic and red pepper was uncovered after two kinds of soup, one of which included some kind of femur bone. I couldn’t help myself when I saw that I picked it up and had flashbacks from my last life as a dog as I raked it clean with my incisors. It helped that they have a custom of making the guest drink a toast with each of the hosts. That meant 20 drinks without a break and I already started drinking vodka. I couldn’t go back to beer and I couldn’t repeat my birthday when I was bed ridden for two days with the worst hang over of my life. So I took tiny sips and ate two dumplings after each one. Yes that meant 40 dumplings and they weren’t small.

I think the best moment was when we started singing. We tried to find songs we all new. Communication was generally very difficult between poor Russian and poorer English, but they new the Beatles. We got through “Yerow Submaline” and a bit of “Micherre my Berr” with straight faces and finished it off with one they all new quite well. The A,B,C’s Yes at the top of our drunken voices we bellowed “Next Time wont you sing with me” It was a beautiful moment in Chinese American diplomacy.

Saha's B-day

2008-02-12T09:41:00.000-08:00

About a month ago I went to Sasha’s 55th B- day party. You've seen the movie clip. The last two summers Sasha taught me and other students sculpture in his studio. He teaches with a humble gentle humor provides a much needed counter point to the harsh tactics of the professors at the academy. Despite the demands on my time I have started working with him outside the academy on the weekends.

The party was in his studio and it really strengthened my resolve to stay in Saint Pete. His friends are all artists and while they are accomplished in their fields they have no airs, no condescension, which unfortunately is the norm at the academy. They are fun loving genuine hard working people with bad teeth and wide smiles. No pretense, no glamour, all humor and love. Some of them have been struggling through together for some 40 odd years and its heartening to see them supporting and enjoying each other so much after so much time. The group included a couple of other sculptors along with some painters, some theater designers, an accordion player and his wife a singer. The musicians were the last to come and while we waited, people drank and Sasha opened gifts. His first gift was a set of fake ears. The whole night Sasha wore these gremlin ears and it gave him an impish look as he tore through wrapping paper and danced and sang. Most people brought artwork as gifts. A landscape depicting an autumn day with an impressionistic painterly hand, a couple of poems about Sasha which I hope to understand one day because they had people weeping with laughter, a sculpture of him and his wife as a sailor and virgin (which got a big laugh), a pair of binoculars wrapped in a box made to look like huge binoculars, and enormous merriment. When the musicians showed up the party really got in motion. The woman’s voice was powerful. When she hit the strong high notes and held them I could see her tongue vibrate in sink with the muscles in her high cheekbones. The studio isn’t large and the sound waves she created were enough for a large auditorium. I could feel them reverberate in my chest as well as hers. Her husband was extremely theatrical as he sang and played. Though he walked around the room more and more, his wine glass remained balanced on his accordion as he forced the air through the instrument’s lungs. There was a lot of dancing too. Some stomping sort of river dance that came from Moldova with many slow tongue and cheek pirouettes.
I understand about 1 in ten words now and I do a lot of guesswork, but when your clapping and swaying arm in arm with a group who is pretending to be on a sea ship as they sing there isn’t much to be translated. At one point the accordion player emitted a huge steamboat sound from his instrument, which added to the fantasy. With red noses and twinkling eyes we laughed and stomped and swayed and sang. It was quite a night for basking in the glow of our tenth round of vodka. I managed not to get sick though because of the food.
The table was spilling over with it. Hot buttery mashed potatoes. Two large plates of hard and soft salami cut in ovals and layered in circles on the borders of the dish. At the center of the salami was what I first though was sliced cheese in a circular array. I thought of the Jewish Russians I’d been with the week before who didn’t mix meat and dairy and mentioned it to Lena. She said with a laugh not to worry the whole plate was meat. It wasn’t cheese at all, but the star attraction – pig lard from Sasha’s mother’s pig at the farm. On closer inspection I saw that it was atop ham. The center included such soft succulent ham encrusted with pickled garlic – almost unbearably delicious. These high fat content dishes were not only delectable but also necessary. I soon realized that my vodka intake had to be balanced by meat in order to keep up with the Russians. There was also a kind of gelatin with pork and cabbage eaten with very spicy horseradish – my mouth is watering as I describe this. They had a layered dish with potatoes and herring, which I loved too. Also Pickles! Pickled cucumbers, pickled tomatoes, pickled cabbage, and pickled garlic –pickle heaven. Lena asked if I wanted salad. I thought good some roughage to work all this meat and fish and lard through. It turned out to be a salad of small cubes of meat, potatoes, mayo, croutons and who knows what else. There was anther “green” salad, which consisted of some lettuce drowned in cheese dressing. I was glad to get my roughage though. When I was in high school one teacher always called me slim Jim. I’d like to see him again after a couple of years of this.

New Model

2008-02-12T09:39:00.000-08:00

The Four Jewish New Years

2007-12-31T09:59:00.001-08:00

Chanukah

2007-12-31T09:58:00.001-08:00

Simchat Toorah

2007-12-31T09:57:00.001-08:00

Bresheet

2007-12-31T01:42:00.001-08:00

Students at Sha'arei Shalom Hebrew School Depict the First 6 Days of Genesis

Cusia

2007-11-27T14:07:00.001-08:00

Russian party at Sashas Studio

2007-11-27T14:06:00.001-08:00

My old Sculpture Teacher turned 55 and had a party last weekend at his studio

close call

2007-11-27T12:52:00.000-08:00

11/22/07

Unfortunately the temperature has fluctuated and at times it rises above freezing. This along with the enormous vehicular congestion and lack of emissions regulations makes for a lot of black sludge. This in turn covers stubborn black ice, which laces the ground unevenly. With precarious steps I work my way across the street looking both ways many times as the cars don’t bother slowing down in this anti litigious society. I realize halfway to school I forgot to bring my second drawing for the student exhibition today and resign myself to the return journey and a late start at sculpture. Being tired and a bit despondent at the notion of trekking an extra 30 minutes through the treacherous unsalted streets, I wonder how many old ladies have broken their hips this week. Just as I finish this thought I see a man with a peg leg hobbling down the road, not a prosthetic but a wooden peg. I half expect to see an eye patch, but just think “there go I but for the grace of. . .” just then I’m interrupted by the sliding sound of rubber on ice and then a crunch of metal and a moment later I process what I just saw. A bicyclist was hit and run over. He lies entangled in gears and spokes. The back tire looks like a huge dirty potato chip and I think the car went over his leg too. I go to help him up and stop, realizing I can’t communicate with him, can’t call an ambulance, and wouldn’t know how to say anything except “Excuse me, this man very bad.” If I could. Luckily others more suited to assist come to the man’s aid. I see the peg leg man looking too and wonder if he’s thinking “there go I but for the grace of . . .” I’m already late so I head home and get my drawing. When I come back to the spot I’m very relieved to see the bicyclist standing and talking to the motorist.

Sneek (Snow)

2007-11-27T12:51:00.000-08:00

11/21/07

The past two weeks have begun the cold. It has crept into my bones slowly, dropping a degree or two each day. I pass a few canals along the way to school each day and I’ve been waiting to see how long the ducks will continue to paddle in them. First, only the narrow sections of the canals froze over. The surface was speckled with imprints from fallen leaves and webbed feet. Trotting over the bridge to cross the Neva (the largest canal – really a river) each morning, I look across the water and see fast approaching icebergs elbowing each other as they rush like the busy commuters above. A few days later the burgs have mended their differences and stitched themselves together like a patchwork quilt with varying shades of off white and blue-green. It snows 5 days straight sometimes with huge clumps of cold fluff drifting past our window as we sculpt. It covers the tops of the leafless tree branches and ornate black iron gates around the school giving beautiful contrast to an already exquisitely designed block. Our school is mammoth. Stalwart and stout it stand a full square block overlooking the Neva with two now strangely snow covered sphinxes as sentries. I’ve been told they are actually from Egypt. On my way back I see the Neva once more. With all the new snow it looks less like a quilt and more like potatoes Gratin. Yes, when it’s cold I eat even more.

First Night

2007-11-12T12:58:00.000-08:00

Sept 20th 2007

Last night I arrived without a hitch to the Saint Petersburg airport, but was very stubborn getting to the apartment. I spent an hour and a half harassing many people to try to get either a phone card or internet access and a plug. All I got was a plug and nice lady who let me use her phone to call Katya the old friend of my Russian sculpture teacher who I'm staying with. Then refusing to pay $150 dollars for a cab (they think we're all wealthy) I got on the wrong bus with my bags and then refusing to take a $75 dollar cab after the bus I got on the metro during rush hour and walked for another hour from the metro to Katya's place. She was very worried because it took me almost 5 hours to get there from when I called her at the airport. Ah well, I saved money and felt triumphant. I'm tired though. She is very kind. I'm sleeping in her studio which is cold at night but long underwear helps. She cooked lots of yummy chops and mashed potatoes and potato pancakes with jam from berries they picked at their Dacha. Delish.

Today I'm trying to find the reform Synagogue here and to get my phone activated. I bought an electric toothbrush too. I figure I'll try to counteract the pack a day of cigarettes and exhaust I'm breathing. Despite the smell of sulpher in the water and the grey sky, I'm very happy. I feel like I'm finally home.

Cusia

2007-11-12T12:57:00.002-08:00

THe first person I actually met upon entering Katya's house wasn't Katya or Misha or their Babushka aunt it was Cusia. An enormous under bite with one glistening yellowed tooth propping up his oversized jowls, Cusia came a runnin when that door was opened. Immediately Katya's warm smile broke into a snarl much like Cusia's and she began yelling at him a slew of curses I have yet to learn along with one word I knew, "Sabaka." She told me not to worry about him he was not used to strangers and didn't like English very much. With deep guttural growls he was forced back into her room only to launch himself into the door with a loud clatter as the glass panes in the frame shook against Cusia's significant body weight. I began wondering if Cusia was Russian for Kujo?

He is a British bulldog who as it turns out is very sweet. Cusia now nestles his haunches in my lap when I come home and awaits a good back scratch which always elicits a kind of purr much like a cat if the cat were mated with a bullfrog. At night though when I stagger to the toilet and walk past Katya's room I hear the inevitable heavy footfalls of a good guard dog speeding towards the door, then Katya screaming "Cuzia nyet!" and his head slamming full force into the wooden door. I'll miss this abode and Cusia most of all.

Making Friends

2007-11-12T12:57:00.001-08:00

Well, success so far. I found the Congregation. At first the guard wouldn't let me in but I found a window and did jumping jacks until someone noticed me and came outside and explained it was only the stupid americansky. I went into a very large complex surrounded by walls and cameras (felt a little like entering Israel) and discovered about 12 people sitting in heated debate about what I'll never know. A nice guy in his 20's spoke English and offered me a Kipah which I accepted gladly. Then conversation ended and we went into another room with a makeshift Bimah and a number of chairs arranged in rows. The Rabbi asked me my Hebrew name and my parents names. My Hebrew name? Jim I guess. More people arrived because this was the actual service ending Shabbat. A nice mix of ages and very friendly. One grizzled man spoke to me in Russian, then Hebrew, then Yiddish and finally when I had repeated 3 times I didn't understand in Russian (my most practiced phrase) he took my hand, beamed at me and said very loudly and slowly like to a child Sha-lom. Then he sat down.
The room filled. I became uncomfortably warm as my wool undergarments weren't meant for a heated space like this. As I wiped the sweat gathering in my beard I heard my "Hebrew name" being called and realized with horror I was meant to go up and read from the Torah. I stood up cursing my long underwear and dripped my way to the Rabbi. THis was my bar mitzvah all over again. Luckily I was wrong. I was only to read the blessings before and after the torah portion. The Rabbi smiled and whispered not to worry; the Hebrew was transliterated below, but then caught himself. The Cyrillic below it was harder for me than the Hebrew. I muddled through it remembering some of the singsong and went back to my seat only to stand and sweat for 2 hours as we read close to 40 pages of Hebrew and Russian together. I was excited to learn I could follow along in both languages without too much difficulty(of course with very little comprehension), only loosing my place when I paused to pull my collar forward and let the heat from my now drenched chest rise and prevent my collapse.

Afterwards I met Eliana an exquisitely beautiful girl who speaks Russian English and Spanish fluently. She was shy at first being only 7 years old but warmed as I showed her the animated clip I made of the kids from the Brooklyn Synagogue the week before. At first she wouldn't speak. I tried English and spanish. Finally she spoke English in a heavy Russian accent and her mother shot her a glance and the accent slipped away into a Boston accent. Her father the Bostonian worked at the American consulate and her Russian mother was a "cross cultural and life coach" which gave me the creeps for some reason. They were very kind though and after hearing my story they asked to see my work and introduced me to another artist there from Muchina the rival and far more modern art school here in Saint Petersburg. I am now working with her to develop an art curriculum for the religious school. She makes beautiful calligraphy in Hebrew, but is having trouble finding a proper teacher because she lacks balls. I'm formulating a plan to go with her to the Orthodox community with copies of her work. If they're not all idiots someone there will see her talent should not go undeveloped because of her sex. There's another part to that story which involves Katya the woman I'm staying with but that's for later.

Stay tuned for more adventures including getting blood drawn, going to the wrong bathroom after trying so hard to avoid it, and being sober in the wrong place at the wrong time.

P.S. God bless America for bringing so many Citibanks and McDonalds to Russia. One for withdrawals and one for deposits.

Made In China

2007-11-12T12:51:00.000-08:00

The course I’m in now is not the first year of the academy. Instead it is an intensive year to prepare me for the battery of tests at the end of the year which will decide who enters the Academy. This prep course uses the same teachers as the regular school but is focused on honing basic skills and weeding out those who are not up to snuff. It also generates 100% of the funding for the school since it’s free for all Russians who are accepted. Before perestroika there were very few foreigners and the school was funded by the state. I have a feeling Putin will eventually reinstate this policy as much of his decision making is bringing Russia to the good/bad old days. The prep course is split into Russians and foreigners so I don’t spend my days will locals. Instead The Chinese monopolize the majority of my daily interactions. There are 3 or 4 sections with between 20 and 30 students in each. There are approximately 100 students in total in the prep course. There are maximum 20 spots available for these students in the regular school so you would think the competition would be very high and going in I thought the Chinese would be more advanced than me and more disciplined. There is a strong artistic connection between China and Russia and many of the teachers here go to Russian regularly to teach and to work on commissions. I assumed the Chinese would be well versed in the Russian Classical tradition, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Because they are the primary source of revenue they let anyone come into the foreign student prep course. The Russian prep course is far more competitive it I’ve been told. Here’s a description of the first day of school.

The first day we gathered in a room and I noticed more white faces than I anticipated. Of 30 students 6 weren’t Asian. The other 2 or 3 sections are entirely Asian with the vast majority from China many fewer from Taiwan and fewer still from Korea. The Koreans are the worst off. There is a Chinese translator and enough of the English speakers speak and understand enough Russian to translate for each other, but the Koreans must struggle with the little English they and the Russian teachers share and learn their Russian very quickly.

The Chinese don’t speak enough English for me to know any of them very well, but I’ve looked a lot at their drawing. I draw with them 2 hours a day in the same room 12 of us shared last summer. Now there are thirty. The teachers only get to each student about every 3 days because there are so many of us. In the regular school this also happens because despite the smaller class size the teachers come twice maybe 3 times a week. They look, give comments and the students are expected to work on what they’re told to do until the teacher returns to check on their progress. In our prep course we have two teachers. One is Vladimer Alexandravitch the drawing teacher I had the last two summers. He is a rotund man who works and speaks at a feverish pace carrying a handkerchief at all times to dry his bald sweating head. He can draw like a monster and I’ve seen him accomplish what I couldn’t do in 18 hours in a few minutes. He is He keeps an orderly studio and demands full attention scolding students for talking or listening to walkman or even drinking water while he’s there. He has a clear method and a stern effective teaching style that I take to well. He is something of a celebrity teacher here. He has Repin’s old studio as his own to work in and usually teaches 5th year students. This means he is in a consistent state of disappointment and frustration as he struggles to teach us the basic assumptions his normal students have had for probably 10 years already. He works hard though and tirelessly repeats himself, which has helped my Russian. When asked last summer how we Americans compared to his Russian students he said he had three kind of students: the kind you have to tell only once and they immediate do what he says, the kind who must be told over and over and over and still they just don’t seem to get it, and finally us.

He comes only every other day, sharing his teaching responsibilities with another drawing professor twice his age. This one has all white hair and a white mustache, slight of build and gentle in nature. When he first saw my drawing he said nothing for a long time and I expected him to take my pencil and simply show me what was wrong, but instead he told me everything has form even the clouds and that I had to keep this in mind when drawing and he left. I was a bit crest-fallen not because I wanted praise but because I wanted more precise direction. However I realized that I had been drawing tentatively anticipating the teachers castigating stare and hadn’t made enough decisions myself for him to correct. He was essentially telling me to be brave and find the volume in my drawing it was still less concrete than even a cloud.

It’s nice to have two teachers and generally they steer you to the same conclusions but occasionally they have completely different preferences and end up fighting with each other on your page. One tells me my compositions have the head too big and the next day the other teacher asks me why it’s so small.

There is a big range but they almost all share the same strengths and weaknesses just in varying degrees. They have the devil’s patience when it comes to shading and detail work, but they don’t consider the big picture much. The first few days we were sketching in order to create a good composition and the Chinese did it because they were told to, but almost none of them used it when beginning their real drawing. We are all drawing plaster casts of heads from famous sculptures and theirs were relatively haphazardly placed on the page and from different angles than their sketches. One kid was drawing his head way at the top of the page because he was tall and didn’t bother to raise the easel to the proper height. Like many he had a very heavy hand and drew very dark effectively equalizing all the shadow tones and flattening his drawing. I knew what was coming.
Anyway when he saw the results of this tall Chinese student’s drawing of Apollo’s plaster bust set in extremely heavy pencil and crowded into he top of the page I recognized the familiar roll of the eyes and deep sigh. after the flurry of “what the – is this?” type questions Vladimer Alexandravitch took the strange rubbery eraser they use here called formaplast and rubbed the whole thing out. He then redrew a sketch in a more appropriate compositional space on the page with proper lights and darks of the big forms. And so it went for many of them. They seemed to ignore much of the feedback they got and went right ahead in their comfort zone of tiny detail all done with the same intensity. In some ways I think they have more to unlearn than learn. Details are seductive and far easier to render than the whole form, but if they are in the wrong place or drawn without any tonal relationship to the whole drawing then the artist is wasting their time and this is the great challenge for us all: to avoid wasting time and do what we know we must do in the proper order from large to small. As the teacher often says when I too slather the eyes in a drawing with heavy soft 6b graphite, “In a house do you build the windows before the walls?” I meekly shake my head in agreement and hand over the formaplast wishing farewell to the last 6 hours or work.

In sculpture I have lucked out. There are only 6 of us and so we all get to see the teacher whenever he comes. He is excellent as are all the teachers. Hilariously blunt. Quotes include (translated loosely from the Russian and hand gestures I understand “She is a young woman [pointing to the motionless model] why did you make a babushka?” “Ah today you made a balloon sculpture with no edges and little air.” Then he makes a the sound of a balloon popping and the air hissing out of it as he points vigorously to the deflated sculpture. When first seeing Gabriella’s who tends toward harsh overly modeled features exaggerated in proportion and size,” Please more likeness to the delicate young woman in front of you and less of Arnold Schwarzenegger.” Like many Russian men you can smell the testosterone in the room when he enters, but really he’s a fantastic sculpture and if not patient an honest and thorough teacher. Unlike the drawing class where the Chinese have some skills that are more refined than my own I’m being reminded only what not to do from my classmates in sculpture and I usually know what the teacher will tell them. Still he has such a solid sense of anatomy and such a sure hand, it’s a real pleasure to watch him repair our work.

The first day of drawing included the normal rush to find a good vantage point of the subject. I found a nice ¾ view with enough room to move back a few feet from my easel(a luxury in this packed room). Next to me is Zhi a very friendly Chinese kid with more English than most. He looks like a teenager to me with a fair bit of pubescent acne and long spars black hairs growing in strange configurations around his upper lip and jaw. He speaks Chinese, Russian, and English with the rhythm of a car with a bum starter, tripping over hard consonants and after multiple failed attempts finally sputtering out long phrases with little to no pauses between words. It doesn’t stop him though and he practices Russian with great determination. He is in my Russian class and I hear him often making a strange gargling sound, which confounded me until I realized he was practicing his rolling Russian R. The language is hard enough for English or French speakers, but the Chinese don’t have the same set of phonemes to work. I still have trouble distinguishing hard and soft “sh” sounds, but the Chinese can’t even distinguish between L/ R or B /T/ D sounds in Russian. It makes me appreciate how much steeper my climb towards fluency could be. Unfortunately Zhi also has many nervous ticks and we stand inches away from each other when drawing. If he’s not cracking his neck, or jerking his elbow sometimes quite close to my face, he is always making this uncontrollable sound. It’s a deep resonant guttural clearing of the throat followed by an even more intense snort. He has no control of it and practices this set of utterances at least 3 times a minute with no predictable rhythm. A little like Chinese water torture. However I’ve grown to like him. He is very sweet and works hard to keep peace between the fiery Sicilian French girl and the Chinese she finds disgusting. Also at some point the bald drawing teacher looked at Zhi’s impossibly black shading and just shook his head in disgust and moved on. Zhi waited and went to the teacher with such pleading eyes and innocently furrowed brow that when he said “P P Prease prease t t t terr me howicanmakeitbetter” the teacher who understood not a word took pity and went to work with the eraser.

“My life has become a pencil” - Iliya

2007-11-12T12:47:00.000-08:00

My roommate. A good kid. One foot in Amyereeka and one in Ruski land. We met at Bridgeview in Queens 3 years ago and he traveled here with me two summer's ago. He also went through the prep course I'm now in last year and was accepted into the first year of the Academy. Because of this he knows the ropes and had helped me tremendously not only through his russian skills but his navigational skills through the murky waters of the school's interpretation of administration. He’s known what he wants to be for longer than most and he’s got the talent and drive and brains to not only attain great technical ability, but to maintain his artistic identity on the face of enormous institutional pressure to conform to “tradition”. As my understanding of the Repin Academy has become more nuanced I see some of its flaws and pitfalls as well as obvious benefits. Ilya is in the painting department so he knows their particular bias. It seems two generations ago there was a teacher who is now quite old. This painter taught most of the teachers who now work at the Academy and he taught not only a skill set but a style of painting which is rather drab and flat and a real break from the work I love best from the academies painting department which was around the turn of the century which I think was when Russia really began finding its own voice artistically. At any rate I don’t know what the biases are in the sculpture department, but I’m keeping a look out for them and reminding myself to trust my own voice before blindly following directions.

The Euro

2007-11-12T12:44:00.001-08:00

Gabriella
-a young woman whose mother is French and father is Sicilian. She is the one I spend the most time with because we share Sculpture class and Russian class, which both meet 3 hours a day. I wasn’t sure we’d see her again after the first day, but she has stuck it through despite being near tears regularly. Unfortunately, she had little to no understanding of what she was getting herself into and is constantly appalled by the “Russian way” of doing things. I find it difficult to keep my patience with her, but I reacted similarly 2 years ago and keep reminding myself of that.

Adrien
-the one armed Frenchman. Highly insecure, self denigrating and fast-talking. He came 3 months before the end of last year and so didn’t finish the prep course and is repeating it. He speaks passable Russian and has been wonderfully helpful as a translator. He’s young and I think very lonely. His poor self-image is maybe due to one of his arms which hangs mostly unused from his shoulder from a car accident many years ago. Its difficult not to stare at it especially when he wears a t-shirt. He can only move his pinky and bend slightly at the elbow. The musculature slims to almost nothing from the elbow to the wrist, which displays the complicated bone structure of the forearm as it twists with his movements. I gave up trying not to stare and asked him about it. He says he would do sculpture if he had the use of both arms. He’s kind. I hope he finds a girl friend. He lives with the Chinese in the dorm, which I haven’t visited but sounds very cramped much like a youth hostel.

Marcella
is a woman from Vienna. Tall, lanky, with a sharp nose adorned with what look like bifocles from the fifties, she wears all black and is quite talkative with a strong command of English. She is the intellectual type who I learned during our first lunch does two hours of yoga each morning from 4 to 6, eats only raw food and prefers rain to sunshine. I thought she was in the wrong country until I heard the last part. I’m a little wary of vegetarians, but beggars can’t be choosers and she is very smart and has a Russian grandmother so understands but cannot speak Russian. We stand next to each other in drawing and she translates. It seems she has read a lot about art but practiced very little. She is a beginner and so I give her pointers when I can. To her credit she has already improved in the first two weeks, but she is still in over her head and she knows it. She talks of leaving already, but I hope she will stay. She told me the art school she graduated from in Vienna taught her no skills and the head master and head mistress got married and are now both undergoing sex operations and photographing the process for their next installation piece. No comment except to say I feel I choose the right foreign country to study art.

Andre
is Dutch and went through the prep course last year, but also hadn’t done any art before that and so didn’t pass the test. He is 37 and it shows by comparison to the average late teens early twenties of the rest of the class. He has a determined and realistic outlook taking most adversity in stride. He lives here with his Russian girlfriend and works extraordinarily hard. His Russian is quite good and even his drawing is passable especially for one year. He has an aggressive side which he has harnessed well. He used to ride motorcycles and box.

Kasper
Is from Estonia, which has less than a tenth the population of NYC. He’s 19, but with a good head on his shoulders. He has studied Russian and been to Russia enough to know what to expect. I like him and talk with him about politics and life in Estonia. Since it was taken over during Soviet time he has a good understanding of Russian culture from that era.

Getting blood tests

2007-11-12T12:39:00.000-08:00

So despite having to get blood work done before I arrived as part of the visa application, the man at the foreign student office told me to go the hospital and have it done again. I guess they’re worried about what might happen in the airplane lavatory. After a lot of hand waving and pointing at various spots on my map, I headed to what I realized later was a maternity ward. With myriad entrances the first problem was figuring out which door to choose. One of the signs had a word that sounded like diabetes so I went where it pointed and got lucky. I was greeted by many young Asians talking quickly and holding cotton to their folded forearms. This was a good indication as the vast majority of my classmates will be Chinese, Taiwanese and Korean. A kind woman took my coat at the coat check and remarked at the Velcro loop on the inner neck lining chuckling as she slid it over a rusty hook. What the joke was I’ll never know. I saw lines forming so I got on one. After watching a woman pull out a wad of many thousands of dollars worth of rubbles and fork it over I figured I was probably in the wrong line and sure enough the woman at the counter motioned to the adjacent counter and asked a question over and over a little slower and louder each time. I began sweating and gave her my passport smiling pathetically at the line which had doubled behind me during her monologue. I realized I needed to use the bathroom too, adding even more urgency to the interaction. She nodded at the computer, passed me my passport, and pointed to the back of the other line. 45 minutes later and 800 rubles poorer I had gotten through both lines again and had a piece of paper and a general direction a guard had given me. That’s $32 American and I realized now why I had to do this redundant test. I saw other young people with similar slips of paper waiting outside one office so I sat with them. I saw that they all had plastic bags over their shoes and wondered where I should get mine. I went back to the kind lady at the coat check with the Velcro joke and pointed to my feet and said Gudyea or where? She pulled out two balled up pieces of plastic from under the counter and asked for 5 rubles which I gave her. Back in the waiting area all the young people had left so I went into the office. The woman shook her head and spoke curtly, but took pity on me when I told her I didn’t speak Russian very well. I realized later that this was during her break. She took my blood and I sat back down at which point my bladder announced it was time to find a toilet. With no Mcdonald’s in this hospital I wasn’t sure what to do. There was one door with a “W” on it. It had to be water closet and not women, but only women were going in and out. I looked down the halls and realized there were no men. In fact most of the women were well into their third trimesters. Desperate to relieve myself but equally desperate not to be thrown out for being a pervert I saw a familiar woman. It was the coat checker. I pointed to the room and at me and asked “mushina?” man? She shrugged and said “canueshna nyet?” Thanks to Pimsler this one I knew. “Why not?” So waiting to see women leave and after peeking into a surprisingly clean empty room I ventured past the “W”. There were two stalls and two sinks. The stalls had full doors so I figured this was coed after all.

I went into one stall, peeled off my long johns and stuffed them into my backpack. When I came out I heard someone in the other stall. As I was washing my hands a wman in her 40s or 50s opened the stall door and looked at me. Her face went from white to red and the hands started waving and so many consonants flew from her mouth and at such speed I was speechless. Finally I gave her my usual I’m sorry I’m a stupid American speech and she frowned and gave a dimissive humph. Ah well one day I’ll be able to string all those consonants together too.

Dinner

2007-11-12T12:38:00.000-08:00

Katya and Misha just came over to our house for dinner. I roasted two chickens of course. It was difficult buying only two. The woman at the market kept saying “tree moznya?” (Three maybe?) And went so far as to plunk a third one down on the scale. “Nyet, dva prejalsta.” I said at least four times before she finally relented. The potatoes and onions were harder. I waited on a long line with many annoyed people my temperature rising as usual, my sweat mixing with the soil covering the potatos and onions. As I got close to the register I noticed there was no scale and I guessed what was coming. The teller gave me that look I’m so familiar with at this point. A mixture of exhasperation, disgust, and sheer disregard. Then the usual flurry of angry clucking and pointing. Off the line I went with my bags of potatos and onions dripping dirt behind me. Then there was another line just to use the scale, which luckily had pictures on it next to the words. Finally back on the previous line at which point the woman gave me a knowing smirk, and nodded a kind of agreement with each printed label I had stuck to my filthy potatoes and onions.

It was so nice to have company for dinner. I roasted the chickens over potatoes, onions, and carrots and used all the spices I brought from home. We started with the usual plates of cheese, ham, and smoked salmon. I made a salad with finely diced cucumbers, onions, tomatoes, and radishes. For desert: juicy ripe pears and plums, although Katya preferred cheese bread and honey with her tea and cigarettes. It was rewarding to be able to be the host after being their guest for so long. They told us stories about their days in the academy and a bit about some of the teachers there now who they know. Misha recalled his childhood when Saint Petersburg was much colder and his mother slathered goose fat on his face to protect it from the wind. I asked if he could smell the goose fat and if it didn’t make him hungry all day. Katya liked that one and broke into one of her laughing coughing fits between cigarettes. We finished off the night with Cognac and cigars and that satisfied smile of a full belly and the afterglow of a house warming.

My Host Family

2007-11-12T12:35:00.000-08:00

9/27/07

Realizing I preferred not to live alone even for 10 days before my English/Russian speaking roommate arrives, I arranged with my sculpture teacher to stay with her old friend. After weeks of nudging her, she finally called Katya in Saint Petersburg during a break in class and after 10 minutes told me it was all set. I had a place for sure in her son’s old room. She knew just when my flight was arriving and would be waiting for me with hot borsht. Also she told me not to bother speaking with Katya directly as everything was decided. When I did decide to call and first spoke to Katya from NYC a few days before I arrived she said immediately upon realizing who I was “Are you here?! Now?! No? Oh good, when will you come? Really? This Friday! Hmm. . . This may be problem, but Don’t worry”

When I arrived wearing only jeans and a tee-shirt of the first Russian astronaut (I know Matt I just couldn’t return it) she was not only horrified at my late arrival from the airport but at my miniscule attire. “You will die of cold and sick!” Whisking me inside she introduced me to 2 men from Serbia who were staying until Monday(in the her son’s old room). As it turns out one of the men was searching for the grave of his grandfather who’s name I didn’t catch. He was born in the late 1800’s and was a naval officer who chose the colors of the Russian flag. This Serbian man had met with a number of biographers of his grandfather, but none could agree on where or even when he died. It struck a chord in me though as part of this relocation is about finding my own roots. At any rate until Monday I would be sleeping in Katya’s art studio. I also met her husband Misha who warned me with a laugh at my clothing that “Best to sleep with 2 shirts. You will wake very cold.”

Katya is an embroiderer and her studio is near her apartment. After eating delicious borsht as promised I was taken to the studio a few blocks away and given 4 keys: a magnetic one for the downstairs that looks like a round watch battery on a piece of plastic and 3 others that look like keys looked a hundred years ago. Saint Petersburg is always it seems this mix of ancient and modern. Every house has at least two doors to keep out the draft and often a pad lock for good measure. She showed me to my bed past various wooden looms, wondrous strips of gold and silver ribbons, and hundreds of multicolored threads spooled from cotton, wool, and silk. Arabesque designs and posters of Persian patterns hung scattered across the room yellowed into a camouflage with the dingy walls. I loved it. She led me to a wall covered by a large Persian rug, which folded down covering the bed. It was surprisingly comfortable. If anyone has been to my mother’s apartment you know I felt right at home.

Katya has an interesting background. Half Jewish/ half “Russian” which means Christian. Her parents are both artists. Her mother’s painted ceramic tiles adorn every room in her house and are very reminiscent of Chagall with jesters and horned animals flying about in each frame. Her father was a figurative sculptor and her grand father was one Perez Markish a very well known Yiddish poet, contemporary and close friend of Chagall himself and Picasso as it turns out. Unfortunately Stalin murdered him in 1952 along with a number of other Jewish intellectuals in a well-known massacre.

Tomorrow is Sukkot a time when Jews build the Sukka a roofless dwelling to remind them of the makeshift homes Jews lived in during the Exodus story. Like most Jewish holidays it is an amalgamation of customs layered over the years and has come to include an invitation to ones ancestors to reside in the dwelling. I have spent many hours talking with Katya about her past and she told me of a symbol made by a monk a few centuries past. It is a menorah with a cross growing from its central branch. This it seems is Katya’s image of herself and as such she worries that she will not be accepted in the Jewish community with a Christian parent. However she did three years ago find a red haired Rabbi at the Orthodox Synagogue only blocks from her studio who agreed to help her find a Hebrew text to embroider on a triptych she has been working on for years. This Rabbi knew of her grandfather and promised to pray for him every year. I’m determined to go back and find the red haired Rabbi. I thought I’d try to entice her to Sukkot as a way to invite her grandfather into the dwelling but she demurred. My new plan is to introduce her to Anna the Hebrew calligraphist I met at the reform Synagogue and have them both go find the red haired Rabbi to see if he wouldn’t make an exception to the rules and teach Anna to develop her considerable talents. I think the do gooder in Katya will bite. Both she and Misha her husband are involved in an alternative political party and have just voted Kasparov the chess master of all people as their candidate to run against Putin. Misha told me he met him 2 days ago – Kasparov that is.