Christmas day in Russia

Translation: Thank you very much!

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!

In Russia, New Year's is celebrated more than Christmas, and of course their Christmas is on January 7 and pretty much denotes the end of the holiday vacation. For New Year's, however, many of our traditions are the same. It's a time to gather with family, to exchange presents, and to celebrate with family and friends.

Most communities will have ice sculptures and ice castles in their central square, and Ulan-Ude and Izhevsk are no exceptions. However, in Izhevsk, it has been exceptionally warm (for winter) until recently so they're a little behind on their ice-building. These pictures are from Ulan-Ude. I believe I might have mentioned that it was quite cold in that region so their building was proceeding apace...

There are the usual rounds of holiday parties as well, which is always fun! I owe special thanks to my wonderful colleagues in the Sociology/Philosophy/Anthropology department, who have been generous, kind and always helped me to learn more about our discipline and life in Russia. The University is in session all this week, but those of us in the International dorm will have our own Christmas Eve dinner tonight. Hannah and I will host a small "Xmas/farewell party" tomorrow night as on Friday it's off to Moscow, and then to Greece!

So to all I wish a very Merry Christmas, from a gal in odd booties with her SVD-7 (which she can't shoot as noted in previous post), and a Happy New Year! I present one last poorly done video, to acknowledge the upcoming destination as denoted in a recent movie ... See you all in the New Year, much love, Meredith

A Russian Miscellany

It's been a very eventful four months, and here are some photos that were missed up until now...

First, a salute to the brave students of the Gender and Development course at UdSU. Many thanks to (standing) Yuri, Roman, Masha, Masha, Irina, Julia, Masha, Julia, Sonja, and (seated) Nastya, Guzel and Dasha. Apologies to Farida for such a bad picture!

Thanks too to Masha, Masha and Nastya for big pizza fun and for whipping me at air hockey.....

I will miss the giant figures of the Soviet sculptural style--They make Micheangelo's David look quite puny in physique!

Moscow may have the cowboys, but Tatarstan has all the cowgirls, with very colorful boots...

This is the winner of the overdressed child search...Dateline September. Just looking for a breeze. Don't worry baby, it'll be winter soon...

For the last four months, I've lived an oddly mediated existence, with most of my interactions occurring through interpreters. While videoing some ice floating down the river Kama in the village of Sarapul last week, I inadvertently caught some of that on record. You'll hear first the voice of our guide, then the (to me) familiar voice of Marina explaining what was said. I'm not sure what will happen when I have to directly interact with the rest of the world again. I have a feeling that Marina and Farida (and very often Hannah) can be much more tactful than I!

Last, life is so funny sometimes....Much to my surprise, not only have I shot a Kalashnikov rifle and a "SVD-7" sniper rifle but I also have an opinion on them. The Kalashnikov is indeed a wonder of engineering--minimal kickback, excellent siting, easy for everyone to use. No wonder it's on four African flags, and the guy has received awards both from Khadafi and the Texas Sheriff's Association! Re: sniper rifle--way too complicated! Even with the wooden rest there is no way I could hold it steady enough to get anywhere near the target. I have increased and deep respect for the biathalon athletes....

Buryatia, Buddha, and Baikal

So this past week I visited the city of Ulan-Ude in the state of Buryatia in the region of Siberia. Buryatia, like Tatarstan, is an autonomous republic within the Russian Federation, but its wealth comes more from agriculture, natural gas and tourism, as opposed to primarily petroleum. Here is the obligatory itty-bitty Meredith shot--but with the world's largest Lenin head! He's especially striking with fresh snow accents.

It was cold when we visited; the temperature ranged from

-20 to about 10 above F. I learned on my return, however, that those of you in the northern Great Plains had the same weather, so nothing new there!

Buryatia is a fascinating place, situated just north of Mongolia. The Buryati people are descendents of the Mongols, but have also been "colonized" in a way by the Tibetan Buddhists--or rather, I should say that the Eastern Buryats are primarily Buddhist. The Western Buryats still follow a naturist religion. I'm told,

however, that the lamas and the shamans will frequently refer a person to the other if they feel help is best found in the other spiritual world, so it is a peaceful coexistence. The Buryats are known as intellectuals and artists, and they remain enthusiastic in both areas. We had the opportunity to attend both a traditional play at the national theatre, and a concert including 'up-dated' traditional music. The orchestra was comprised of traditional instruments as well, like the harp seen in this photo (it's played horizontally however, rather than as pictured). The voices were strong and operatic, also a form of updating although Buryati music tends to be more melodic, in the Western sense, than some other Asian music. Here's a little clip (no video, bad sound....again....) of a duet that was sung. Most of the songs were about horses or love (no pickup trucks, though), and I suspect this is a "sorry baby I gotta go" kind of ballad, but can't say for sure (Carolyn or Helen, please feel free to correct this representation!)

We (I and Helen, another Fulbright scholar based in Moscow) were visiting Carolyn (Fulbrighter in Ulan-Ude)

following her generous invitation at orientation. Carolyn is from Alaska, so was already well acclimated to the natural surroundings. One of her colleagues, Paulina, was equally generous in introducing us to Buddhism and her husband, the colonel, ended up driving us to two of the primary datsans in the city area. Above is a close up from one of the prayer rounds. Buddhists leave small coin tributes in multiple places as part of prayer. Generally, prayers are seen more as "activated" rather than stated. Therefore, when visiting the datsan, you often walk around the building, stopping to turn prayer wheels, or hang prayer cloths as you go as seen in the following photos....

The monks also chant prayers, and people donate so that the monks will include them and their loved ones in the prayer. The belief is that the prayers of monks (and, generally, of men) are more effective, so the job of the monks and lamas is to conduct prayers

for health, long life, aversion of evil, etc. for the rest of us. The prayers are chanted for a period of 1 1/2 to 2 hours (note: there may be many variations on this, but this is what I saw) and people may come and go at any time during the prayers. Here is a little video from the largest temple complex (with all the usual caveats--poor photography, lousy sound, and jumpy photographer). Also, just barely audible is a bit of the prayer chant (sounds like metal clanging and droning) which was broadcast into the grounds from the tantric buddhist chants in the datsan shown at the right.

One of the most prominent sights in the region, however, is the world heritage site Lake Baikal. It is the world's largest and deepest fresh water lake, and has immense importance both culturally and economically. It's stunning. And it's quite cold there in December.

We were very lucky again in Carolyn's colleagues, as her dean arranged for her husband Boris to take us up to Baikal for the day. One of the students, Vitaly, also came along to translate. Vitaly noted that he had never seen Baikal in winter, but we chose to think of this trip as providing him a wonderful opportunity, rather than being crazy people who dragged others out in the cold. And it was cold! But again stunning. The lake is so long and deep that it moves almost like an ocean, even if you can see the other side. It is said to freeze completely over in January, but it is amazing in the creation of "ice dunes" and the tinkling of little ice crystals from the crashing waves. The video below mostly reflects the bellowing of the wind, although you can hear the water. The little appearance by Boris at the end gives a scale to show you just how windy it was--and remember that it's about -10F....It was really, really cold, but stunning (have I mentioned both of those things already?). I'll let the wind and the waves make the last statement...

School Days

We've had the opportunity to visit several schools while here in Russia, one in each of the villages of Siltie and Tercy (Western phonetic spellings), and one in Izhevsk. The Siltie school was already mentioned briefly in the Village post, and covered the equivalent of our middle school and high school, sort of. (The Russian system actually only has 11 years of primary and secondary education, so the students complete that level more quickly. The current university system has 5 years, although the Bologna structure will change all of that.)

In Siltie, we spoke with a couple of classes, one of students about to graduate, and the other to about middle school age students. In both cases, our purpose there was to make sure that they had the opportunity to hear native English speakers. While it's true that the content of what we said mattered somewhat, it was clearly secondary! In Siltie, the students and teachers were all working hard on the Saturday of our visit, although school lets out in early afternoon, when we went off to lunch with the lead English instructor and Louis Armstrong as mentioned in the previous post...

Tercy is actually in Tatarstan, even if just barely over the border, but therefore has the benefits offered from a previous oil money windfall. The school was brand new, and the adminstrators, teachers and students were all extremely proud of it, as they should be. They were extremely pleased that their small village had been able to get the funds, thanks to the hard work of the senior administrator, a quite formidable woman. We had a much more organized and extensive tour, as we had more time at the school than in Siltie as well.
Our visit began with a breakfast with the administrator, English teachers, and other teachers who were connected with our contact, Rosa, from the Social Work department. (I had done 4 lectures for that department, and provided the faculty with English articles on topics of interest, so this wonderful invitation was extended.) Here you see a big plate of chuk-chuk, a tatar sweet of fried dough and honey. It's really good, especially when home-made like this plateful!


The school also noted Tatarstan, Soviet and modern Russian history on the "Wall of Fame" which was part of our tour. Also included, as is found in many of our U.S. rural small schools, was a salute to the many members of the military from the school who were doing their service in other parts of the country or the world.



In Tatarstan, there is a very strong effort to revive and focus on Tatar culture. This school curriculum included 6 hours of Russian language per week, 6 hours of Tatar language per week and 3 hours of English language per week. A visiting English teacher from a different school mentioned to me that she thought that was too much emphasis on Tatar, that "we're all Russians." Ethnic pride was clear in this school, but so was national pride so I didn't necessarily see a conflict. There are also other ethnic groups represented in the school--Mari (forest and grassland groups), Udmurt and Russian. The teaching of the Tatar language has a much higher emphasis than that found in Udmurtia, though, where the Udmurt language is an optional course and never offered for more than 3 hours per week.

Another innovation in their school curriculum was the inclusion of an ethics course for all students, drawn from the teaching of a Tatar scholar/emir (the Tatars are generally Muslim). This class was taught in Tatar, and included both religious and secular teaching, although the primary text was religious/philosophical in content.

This same teacher presented for us a "master class" (they used the English term) to demonstrate methods of instruction and learning. It was very interesting, and of course I tried to video a bit. Here are two excerpts. The point of this lesson was to teach students about the love of country and motherland.





This teacher explained that she always taught through the use of emotions, which is apparent here through the use of poetry, music and reading. It was also clear that the Russian classroom still follows more traditional models; we could see that the children are very used to standing and reading aloud, listening closely and raising their hands to speak. All the children are in uniform, and the boys are all wearing traditional headwear. (Not all boys in the school do, just Tatars.) The class was taught in Tatar (many of the Russians in the room couldn't understand what was being said either). As noted previously, the main element being modeled was the use of emotion to teach. Therefore, the students were guided--through a series of exercises, one short activity and listening to music and reading the text--to an understanding of the love of a person for their motherland. (I'll be interested to see what thoughts all of you teachers may have on this process, as incompletely represented as it is.... )
As usual the day ended with performance and food! We went from the master class to a general assembly with most of the older students, which included a brief talk and question and answer period, then a (yes, participatory) demonstration of Russian country games which thankfully required no musical ability on my part. However, we did have to dance (no photos, so sorry....), and then had the pleasure of watching our hosts dance most expertly. Both the young girls in the school and teachers and women from the community performed both Tatar and Mari dances. Here is a bit from the Tatar dance...

Our teacher from the master class was also our hostess for lunch, which was incredible. We followed that up with a luxurious country home banya (no vodka this time, which did wonders for hydration).

This past Thursday, we had a quick visit at a school for gifted science students in Izhevsk. It mostly entailed coming and sitting in a class to talk with the students, but again the content of our talks was much less important in some ways than letting the students hear us speak.

When we stopped to ask for questions, the students were predictably shy. (We were told that most of the science students are even less interested in being interactive than the general student body and really prefer a lecture.) When no one was forthcoming, a teacher noted to us that one of the students had lived in America, and asked him to speak. He had an interesting life story, that we learned as we had opportunity to talk with him more than once during our time there. He was born in Russia, but his parents divorced when he was a baby. When he was four, his mother took he and his sister and emigrated to St. Paul, MN. He lived there until he was 14, at which point he got into some trouble at school and was involved with friends who were already in trouble with the police. His mom sent him to meet and get to know his father in Russia "for two weeks." After he had arrived here in Izhevsk, she called and told him that he would be in Russia for two years, until he finished secondary school (or the Russian equivalent). By the time we met him, he was clearly fluent in Russian, although he said that when he was first there he just watched TV all day. He will be finishing Russian secondary school in June, at the age of 16. His plans were to move back to St. Paul in the summer, after he finished school. Apparently his mom had found him an apartment next door to her (for $600 a month) and he planned to just work and make some money for a year or so. Then, because of people his mom knew, he wanted to go to St. Catherine's and become a history teacher. I wish him well. I can't imagine how hard the shift from St. Paul to Izhevsk was for a 14 year old boy, although he credits his mom for making the right move to straighten him out.

It's true, as Hannah has said, that when we do meet other Americans here, which is rare, they always seem to have such interesting stories for how they got here....