Kids special blog: The TSIRK (Circus)!

Every large city in Russia has a resident circus, and Izhevsk is no exception. Hannah and I went with colleagues from soc--Ilana and Martina (the dean) and her son Yuri. Big fun was had, here are some highlights...

The building was amazing, and like going to Cirque in Vegas had a great surround stage, and a large number of apparatus in the ceiling. Most of the acts didn't use them, however. One of the first acts was this couple who used two guys and a board to both spring from and/or be thrown into the air where they did a series of flips and then came down on the board again with two feet. Hannah's photo caught her in mid-air.....

and here is a sequence of him, taking off, in the air and landing...

The circus band played all night long, and there was a laser light display that accompanied most of the acts as well!

Next came a family group of acrobats and fliers, who sent the youngest members up in the air by jumping on a spring board....For the finale, they had one guy on a single stilt who was tossed in the air on a stick, did four flips in the air and landed...quite impressive really!! Here's the sequence in photos....

Every circus has its main stars, and in Izhevsk, it's these two guys who are both jugglers and animal trainers....Here they are with a couple of fans...a young man and his baboushka (grandmother)...

They are also the lion and tiger tamers. Their animal act is the grand finale....Ladies and gentlemen...in the center ring...

And yes, that lion jumped all the way over to the other wheel with the guy on his back! He complained pretty loudly the whole time, as would I.... Hope you enjoyed the show. Goodnight everyone....

Village visit and a hatless banya

Thanks to an invitation by Marina the dean, we were able to spend a couple of weekend days in a Russian village--although this was a town of 5, 000, it does look and feel quite different than an equally sized town in the United States. Here's a little travelogue....although all I have available are pictures from the first day...

On the way, we had a typical rural experience--the car broke down, so Marina and Andrei (a Math prof with connections in the area, so he came as well) did an admirable job of locating a ride for Hannah and myself--although it wasn't on this attempt here to contact a truck by Andrei, or to find cell phone signal by Marina! Eventually an older guy and his sister (he sitting in the front, she in the back) who currently were living in Izhevsk, (but were from the country) stopped and gave us a lift. It was really good that Hannah spoke some Russian....

The real problem was that neither they nor we knew where "the Americans" were supposed to go once we got to the village. Hannah and I had heard we were supposed to go to the school, but had no details on WHICH school or where it was...Our companions had no clue either, but we all knew that to find a school look for Lenin, generally painted gold or silver. We found him behind this salute to the year of the family, and they dropped us off. While it was a school, it wasn't the correct school, so Hannah and I had about 20 minutes of wandering free in a Russian village trying to find where we were supposed to be, and wondering what the village officials would think of our roaming unescorted.... We were found, however, as it wasn't THAT big and we did kind of stick out a bit....Our escort turned out to be Mary, a student from Izhevsk who was from the village, and whose class we had just spoken in on Thursday. She escorted us to the school, where we talked with a couple of the classes. Following that little bit of work, we were served lunch with the head of the English program in the school. A great lunch, with Louis Armstrong singing in the background. Around the table were Marina, the head of the school program, Mary who served as interpreter, myself and Hannah.

Following lunch, we headed out to explore the town. The structure of the town was considerably different than that of American towns; it was strung out along a paved two-lane highway.

It was really hard to tell quite how big the town was because of the different layout. Also, while there were walking paths, they often were made of lumber and wound through open areas between the axis that shot off of the mainroad that had houses on either side. All of the roads off of the main road were dirt trails, and many had potholes. The path led us to a local museum and traditional crafts center, where Udmurt culture, weaving and other arts were still being taught and passed down. We then walked for about 40 minutes or so out through the town and into the countryside. As we walked through the town, we could see many, many gardens. Although we found a good small "all-purpose" store, carrying all kinds of goods and even furniture, most people clearly grew their own basic foods.

Around this particular village there was little or no independent agricultural activity. What you see here is a small farming village of one of the collective farms. The former state farms are still owned and operated as collective farms, but no one claimed that anyone connected with farming had any income. In fact, in the school class we visited, I was assured that ALL of the students in that picture would leave the town, and any that returned would return for the few good jobs in the school, in what is equivalent to county government positions in the U.S., and as taxi drivers to bring people back and forth to Izhevsk (about a two hour drive one-way). Although we saw some sprouted winter wheat and some guys working with a small tractor to dig up potatoes, we really didn't see any thing indicating large-scale agriculture except the size of the fields. Also, although we saw many stacks of hay, there were no large herds of cattle just the occasional lone cow tethered in a grassy area...

We arrived at the dacha (small country house) of a local education official, who generously treated us to a dinner party and let us enjoy an evening banya!! Our hostess Olga is waving over the dinner spread here. There was an amazing amount of food, much of which you can't see here, including grilled meat, ham, salads, breads, etc., and included an extensive series of beverages--juice, water, beer and vodka. It's true that vodka became a pretty big component of the evening. Drinking vodka in Russia is a somewhat intense social experience, but great fun. I also learned what the common use is for the tomato and horseradish puree that the baboushas sell on the street in Izhevsk. (Hannah and I used it as a base for salsa for the Mexican party because it was so similar.) This sauce is commonly had by the spoonful in between hits of vodka--it gives you a strong hit of salt, and (supposedly) lessens the impact of the alcohol. I can't say that hypothesis was firmly proven in my case...

The Russian banya is an unusual experience, but a great one. It's similar to the Finnish sauna, except you add hitting each other with birch branches to sitting in extreme heat and steam and sweat. I've gotta say, it does feel amazingly good, although there were a couple points when they stoked up the banya to the point where I felt like my skin was going to come off even WITHOUT the branches--and I had neglected to bring my banya hat so my head and scalp were really hot to the touch! What's the point of a goofy hat if you forget it when it's needed?

We ended up getting a lift to a nearby new building, with nice sleeping quarters. It was actually a combination guest house and party rental area. The man who owned it also did a lot of construction on the growing number of dachas in the region. It was very nice, light birch wood everywhere.

Getting up the next morning was a little difficult. However, our hosts were kind and generous to a fault, and we were invited to the home of one of the sociology students, who also came from the village. Her parents were amazing. Her mother made us traditional savory Udmurt pancakes, cooked in a wood oven in the house. We had lots of tea, compote and many other taste treats! I was able, with Hannah's help, to ask some questions about the overall attitude in the town toward the future of rural areas. The answers were much what you hear in the U.S...."We've got to find a way to grow good jobs in this area" "We're losing all our young people to the cities." While I know from O'Brien and Patsiorkovsky's research that, in other areas of Russia, private farming is adding to the incomes of some rural people such a trend isn't apparent here. There may be potential for a form of agro-tourism, but the dacha system puts a really different spin on that possibility too. Putin instituted a strong series of rural supports which mostly helped the elderly (who desperately needed the help), but now those worst off in rural areas are families with children. It's quite a challenge.

I go to the RSS (RUSSIAN Society of Sociologists meetings) this week. The way it worked out is not at all exciting--I'll spend 34 hours on the train total, compared to 26 hours in Moscow total--but I am still very interested in learning more about sociological approaches here.

MosCowboys...my recent adventure to the west

West of Izhevsk is a little place called Moscow...

So these images of the American West continue to be pervasive! The title here came from a placemat in a restaurant that we went to for a meeting lunch....This is a casino on the "new" Arbut in the central city of Moscow. It's a huge street that ends in Red Square.

Moscow, like most world cities, is very different than the rest of the country. As everyone knows, Moscow is now officially the most expensive city in the world--or at least the central city is. I'm confident though that with 12 million people, everyone is paying more for housing, etc...

I was in Moscow for meetings, but those really only lasted one day. In the evening we enjoyed a reception, and on the way I saw the Yuri Gagarin stature--no picture yet as we couldn't bring cell phones or cameras earlier in the day and I never got a chance to go back to the hotel to get mine so missed the shot! The very kind Becca from the Fulbright office took pity on me, and got the shot, and will e-mail. I haven't received it yet. But the statue is so very cool--Art Deco meets Communist Worker...fantastic!

The "Old" Arbut has now been closed to traffic, and is generally filled with tourists, street musicians and artists, souvenir shops (some very expensive of course), as well as Starbuck's, McDonald's, etc... While I was there during the week, and not during peak tourist season, some of the flavor still remained. There was a guy who was doing street entertainment with a trained raven, and this excellent accordian player, who was taking a little break and looking through his music deciding what to play....

For me, like everyone else in the world, seeing the Kremlin and Red Square was an amazing experience. I always forget how many cathedrals are in the Kremlin walls, there are five large and medium, and I think another small one in a building not open to the public. They are mostly restored on the outside, although the interiors are still in various stages of refinishing. There are priests in attendance as well. Most of the Chinese tourists were lined up to have their pictures taken standing next to the black robed priests--a couple of women started it and the rest came running over for a picture, it was quite funny actually and the priests took it in stride.


My batteries started to run out on the camera, so as I continued into Red Square I made some expedient choices on photography, rather than going for great shots. I got some pretty good ones, however....Here's looking at Red Square from the museum entrance--St. Basils' back on the left, the Kremlin clock tower back on the right...You can get a sense of the depth and energy of the place, I hope...




However, some photographic choices were less flattering to their subjects.






For example this self-portrait by St. Basil's--I just didn't want to NOT have any shot, you know?
I do have some better shots of St. Basil's on its own, so no worries....












I was running late, and hadn't yet stopped back in to ГУМ (GOOM in pronunciation), the famous Russian store. In the Soviet era, it was notorious for being very large and very empty. My colleague Carolyn had visited Moscow in 1971, and had gone to ГУМ, and seen the long lines of women in gray waiting to get bread. Now, of course, the "government universal store", which is what the letters stand for, is a massive, generally expensive, amazing space with high, high dollar items on the first and second floors anyway. There were all the usual suspects for stores: Feragamo, Levi's, Cartier, Versace, kabillion more designers than I've ever heard of so can't name (sorry Jane!)....This store we saw on Sunday night as we walked through, and I took a picture because, as child of the American 1960s, I kind of enjoyed a sense of irony in its name given its location. It was entirely gone on Wednesday, however....


The most beautiful thing about the ГУМ, however, is its amazing architecture. As someone who loved Benjamin's discussion of the Arcades of Europe, it's hard not to see it as the grand remnant of one of the first palaces of consumptive culture. From its early industrial era inception, to its various adaptations through the Soviet era and now into the very epitome of the modern capitalist mall, the building has quite a history.

And, by the way, you can find camera batteries up on the third floor at the west end of the south wing in the video store, if you go past all the movies, up to the counter and lean around the right hand side past the I-pods and the video game controllers so you can see them hanging on the wall behind the light....



A final note: To get back and forth to Moscow is a 17 hour train ride each way. I'm settled here in Izhevsk, but I have to say, when I get on the train the sheer audacity of what I'm doing can seem a little overwhelming. I mean, I'm traveling in a country with 11 time zones, and I speak little to none of the language. I only hope that other travelers in the world with little language skills are treated as kindly as I have been. For example, on the train out to Moscow, a kind businessman named Andrey and his colleague were surprised and delighted to have an American in their cabinet. Andrey struck up what conversation he could with the English he knew, as I was of so little help with any Russian. We didn't quite communicate clearly on some lyrics to the 70s song "Venus" (you know, "I'm your Venus, I'm your fi-yyyer, At your desire"). The troubling passage was "She's got it, yeah baby she's got it" which Andrey had seen translated as "She's garret, yeah baby, she's garret" and really wanted me to let him know what garret meant. My explanations were that he hadn't seen a proper translation and that well, it could be a part of a house....These were not convincing to Andrey, and given my lack of other language skills I can see why. The next morning (pre-coffee!), he asked if he could take my picture to show his son. Despite my concerns of frightening children on an international scale (I recall baby Emma's reaction one Christmas break), I acquiesed. I then gave him my card to show his son as well. Yesterday, I received an e-mail with my picture and one of Andrey, his wife and child. What nice people. Please be nice to the nonEnglish speaking travelers that you meet, as I know you all are--such kindness has been a life saver to me....

Playing catch-up

Here are some random observations and events in the last two weeks....


The night of the 450th included a wonderful fireworks show, and all of the fountains in the central square were flowing and lit! That was the first time I had the opportunity to see them, as they are drained early in the fall to prevent any damage from freezing. Also, here is a picture of me with the other fabulous translator who works with me, Marina.



















Remember I told you all about the crocodiles? Here is what the workers' coats looked like and got them the name of 'crocodile' which they detested....














They were stuck with it though! Here is the crocodile on a bench statue that sits in Izhevsk today. It's usually covered with kids--or an American tourist or two, but that's another shot for another day ...


















Arissa, one of the English teachers at UdSU had a Mexican party, which was fun and colorful. The company was great, although I have now established on 4 continents that I am incapable of producing any sound resembling music--I'm not sure that's a good thing, but a fact nonetheless....

The weather has varied quite a bit. We've had a light freeze already, but most of the time it's been in the upper 40s or lower 50s. Recently, it's been very warm. Russians tend to wear coats all of the time, part of the formal nature of dressing. However, Hannah and I remain amazed at the quiet resilience of the Russian child. They are perpetually covered, even if parents are wearing jeans and miniskirts. It's not been unusual even in September to see infants in snowsuits, splayed out in carriages with no possibility of arm movement. On a walk the other day, we saw this stoic little guy and his dad--full snowsuit, wool cap and snowboots at 58 degrees....