Entry 22: The Debeardening 2: So this is What it Sounds Like when Wolves Cry...

Almost cut my beard the other day... No, actually, I really did. Truth be told, I don't really like the way I look in a beard, and one can carry around only so much dill and sour cream on one's face (saving it for later, of course), before a summer face-warmer starts to seem impractical. But after I decided that I would definitely shave off the beard, I realized that I was in something of a bind... you see, one can't just flat-out shave off a beard with an ordinary razor. I've done it before, and it took a change of about seven blades, which I wasn't about to buy this time around. I would have to use clippers or a trimmer or some other such machine first, none of which happened to be at my immediate disposal. Fortunately, however, one day I noticed Alyosha (Natalya Mikhailovna's daughter's boyfriend) shaving with an electric razor and asked if I could possibly borrow it to finally shave my beard off. He told me that he'd willingly oblige, but that it would be better to use clippers, which he, fortunately, had along with him. So I clipped my beard as close as possible and then went back home and shaved the rest off with my razor, finally glad to be rid of my light, fluffy burden.
My students, some of whom didn't recognize me immediately, had mixed reviews of my new look: the girls were all overwhelmingly in favor of it, while most of the guys said I looked cooler with the beard. The tie was broken, however, when the old women on watch at the dorm raved about how much better I looked minus the beard (that last phrase would be a good name for an indie band, except that beards have been pretty popular in indie bands lately). Since I'm mostly trying to impress 15 year-old girls and 55 year-old women, I consider my disembeardment to have been a wise decision. Nevertheless, submitted for Your Readership's approval is a picture of me in profile at the height of my bearditude, letting my freak flag fly.

P.S. Also, I'm assuming that, this time, Gold didn't get a ladder to the face, although it would be an interesting twist of fate if he had.

Entry 21: What Happens in Belokurikha... Gets Posted on my Blog, or "Havin' it Your Way in the BK"

So, LE Russia decided that we would have a mid-point break in Belokurikha, a resort town not far from Altaiskoye, known for its skiing, spas, and nightlife. Apparently, it's a fairly big getaway destination for Altaiskians, who get a big kick out of riding Belokurikha's ski lift, going to the indoor Aquapark (which only has two waterslides, but people here, accustomed as they are to swimming in cool mountain lakes and springs, are fascinated by the concept of chlorinated bodies of water), checking out the 4D Theater (the sort that you'd find at your garden variety Busch Gardens [or Duff Gardens], for example), and generally reveling in the presence of more than one night club (there are 5). Since one of our volunteers lives there, and the BK (as it is often called by American Altaiskians, by which I mean me) is the next town over, I arranged to get there a night early and stay with her and her hostess, in order to reap the full benefits of nightlife and speaking English with another native speaker, the prospect of which made my over-palatalized tongue water. So, we arranged for the father of one of my students -- who works as an electrician and a taxi driver (it's not uncommon to have two jobs here to supplement one's income: Natalya Mikhailovna sometimes works as a notary) -- to pick me up after class and take me to the bus station in the BK. I was greeted by Isabel -- the other volunteer -- and Tanya, whom Isabel sometimes calls a friend for politeness and brevity's sake. Tanya is a 20 year-old student of hospitality and hotel management in Barnaul (the Altai region's largest city), who Karina (Isabel's host) set Isabel up with in hopes that they would both benefit from a little practice in each other's language. That, of course, would be fine enough, but Isabel thinks that Tanya, who sports low-cut, semi-transparent shirts and gaudy silver-plated Playboy bunny necklaces (I suppose "gaudy" was superfluous) is too much of a "typical Russian girl." And indeed, she does have that quintessential Russian girl trait of loving to have her picture taken, artificially posing for every one, and then asking to see the picture afterwards to make sure it captured her good side. Also, Isabel thinks that Tanya, who starts every sentence with "In Barnaul..." -- as though it were the center of the universe --, is boring. Well, actually, she was initially willing to give Tanya the benefit of the doubt and assume that this was due to the language barrier, but Karina later confirmed that what Tanya said in Russian was also none too interesting.
So anyway, the three of us went back to hang out with Karina and help her prepare for her birthday dinner, which was to consist of Hawaiian-style open-faced sandwiches, with cheese, ham, and pineapple (and mayonnaise, although we specifically made some for me without it), cucumber and tomato salad, and "sandwiches" consisting of only eggplant and tomato -- now, while I've gotten to the point where I can tolerate open-faced sandwiches being called "sandwiches" (I personally believe a "sandwich" has to have something between two things that are alike), I simply will not stand for a breadless no-faced sandwich being referred to as anything of the sort. And, naturally, there was vodka... Not picking up on any of the vibes we were throwing her way, and completely going against all rules of tact and social decency (Russian as well as American), Tanya invited herself to Karina's birthday dinner (I should add that Karina doesn't like Tanya either), though, fortunately, she left to go home afterwards, when Isabel, Karina, and I were heading out.
We tried to go to the 4D Theater, though that turned out to be closed by the time we got there, so, instead, we decided to go drinking in the park -- yes, you can do that in Russia! So, we took a taxi to the resort zone, an area right at the foothills of the mountains where all the hotels and spas are, and lugged along a bag of beer and chips. The chips in Russia, it might be interesting to note, are Lays, like in the US, but they often have such decidedly Russian flavors as "Dill", "White Mushroom and Onion", and "Red Caviar" (seriously!). Anyway, things get somewhat blurrier as the night goes on, but I remember that, by the time I got a call at 10 AM to join the rest of the group for a picnic, I was in no state by be eating, socializing, or even generally walking around. Instead, I lay around in bed with Karina's cat for a good part of the day, trying to hydrate with boiled water (and often scalding myself), until I called Brett (our group leader) at 4 and told him I was finally up for doing something. "Perfect," said Brett, "we just finished our picnic, and now we're coming back to your place." Turns out, I had missed the entire group event (I can only imagine what sort of group activities I missed out on), and most of the volunteers had already gone home. Fortunately, however, Brett and Alfred (a volunteer in Novoaltaisk), along with Dasha, our program coordinator, decided to stay the night. Well, to be more specific, Brett and I decided to spend the night, while Alfred and Dasha were planning to stay out all night until their bus came at 5 AM.
So I met up with the group, and we headed out to go find a place to have dinner. I was pretty adamant about getting some Chinese food (we're actually not too far from the border with China, so, who knows, it might be good), but after taking a look at the pricy menu in the "Chinese Kitchen" (which was complete with standard smiling Buddha and happy dragon, but without any actual Chinese personnel -- just a silly Russian baba in a kitschy jade dress), we decided to find somewhere else, finally settling on an Armenian restaurant (also with high prices and conspicuously devoid of any representatives of the appropriate ethnicity -- this really is a tourist town). "What will you have?" our waitress asked. "Beef shish-kabob." "Oh, we're out of beef." "Ok, then I'll have this pizza." "Oh, we're out of pizza too" (pizza comprised a quarter of the menu). "I'll have the rabbit stew, then." "I'm sorry, we don't have rabbit either." "Fine, then I'll just have this rice pilaf." "Ok, that'll be 45 minutes." Fortunately, my pilaf did have beef (apparently, they were only out of kebab-able beef [that's fun to say!]), but, unfortunately, it turned out to be mostly giant pieces of fat and coated in a nice greasy sauce -- not exactly the most appetizing post-epic-hangover meal. So, we supplemented our food with ice cream, which I suppose also had a high fat content but more than made up for this defect by providing us with a generous dose of nature's most essential nutrient -- deliciousness. We were anxious to hit up a club, but, aware that the clubs didn't open for a couple more hours, we dolted around for a bit, checking out stores that advertised "Korean clothes and apparel!" and "the latest in fashions from Poland!" and watching a man limping around in a giant evil-looking bear costume (I noted that he looked as though he had cerebral palsy), mauling and otherwise terrorizing innocent tourists. We found a path called "The Road to Health," which was supposed to help your feet by having you walk on dirt, then stones, then more painful stones, and finally, prickly pinecones (operating on the principal that whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, I guess). I had a fairly easy time of it, owing to my light frame, but Alfred, who's a bit bigger-boned than I, found the experience to be a good deal more painful. "Come on, Alfred," Dasha cheered. "I'm trying, I'm trying," he returned in a clearly pained voice, though eventually managing to make it through due to sheer strength of will. I suppose Alfred serves as proof that the Road to Health really is paved with good intentions...
Finally, 9 o'clock rolled around, and we were ready to hit the clubs. Unlike in Altaiskoye, we had a wide array of clubs to choose from (5!). First, there was "Dancing" (spelled in English, though sometimes spelled "Dansing", and, in any case, invariably pronounced with a thick Russian accent as "Done-scene-k"). We noticed that the "c" in the sign was burnt out, which we figured might have been an intentional move on the part of the owners to hedge their bets, since signs were ambivalent about whether the word was spelled with a "c" or an "s". Next, there was "Rest" (my translation, this time), which we figured was a good place to go take a break after too much "Dans/cing". Then there was "Ruslan," which we never found, and "Bowling" (pronounced "bow-ooh-lean-k"), which was apparently an overpriced bowling alley with a bar and dance floor (like "Lucky Strike", I suppose). And last, but certainly not least, there was "Paradise" (also spelled in English), which was supposed to be a strip club, but advertised karaoke as well. We were attracted by the prospect of karaoke at "Paradise," but when we went in, we found the place to be a bit sketchy, and, after a brief chat with the proprietors, Dasha found out that it was actually a strip club where people pay to get up on stage and use the pole! ...Like open mic night, only with stripping. Being a bit turned off (the mark of a bad strip club), we went to check out "Dans/cing". Apparently, their program also included stripping, but it was something of a moot point anyway, as the club was closed for a private party. "Ruslan" and "Bowling" were out of the question, due to the conspicuously inconspicuous location of the former and the outrageous cover charge of the latter. So, we went to go check out "Rest", which we found out had a reasonable cover charge, though its program for Saturday night also included a striptease (meaning that literally all our options involved stripping of some sort). So, we went to "Rest" and took our seat at a table underneath a big TV screen showing Russian music videos, and not far away from the stage, which was particularly remarkable for its big, prominent pole (that's what she said?).
We hung out for a while, drinking Russian champagne and ordering sushi -- which turned out to include a bit too much cream cheese and caviar for our American palates -- whilst we waited for the place to fill up a bit. We watched music videos and played a game to see if we could find one that didn't feature a half-naked woman... it took us an hour, but we finally succeeded. Meanwhile, the dancing started up (I had mistakenly thought that dancing would be restricted only to "Dans/cing"), but after about half-an-hour, the emcee, a somewhat pudgy 40-something woman, announced that the program would begin. First up, she announced, was the titular (funny word, by the way) heroine of Pushkin's short story, "The Queen of Hearts," (she could have been featured in a "Ladies of Literacy" calendar... she certainly used her allusion) who turned out to be a tall blonde with a red cape and well-glittered buttocks. While "tasteful" isn't quite word I would use to describe the performance, I can at least say that it didn't seem creepy: the artist (using the term very loosely) didn't strip completely and didn't come up to the audience (which even included more women than men), but mostly stayed on the stage and did a choreographed routine. Next up, our emcee announced, was the SpetsNos, the Russian equivalent of the Green Berets. Out came a muscle-bound man in fatigues and a ski-mask, with a wand tied to his waist. He began doing push-ups to the head-banging krautrock in the background (Rammstein, I'm guessing) before air-humping the pole in the center of stage and brandishing his wand phallically. Finally, he pulled off the ski-mask to reveal one of the most absurd mullets I've ever seen. I hope the reader doesn't judge me too harshly when I say that I enjoyed the male stripper's performance more than the female's -- it was just flat-out hilarious. After that, there was a break for more dancing, followed by more stripping, this time with the she-stripper as a traffic cop, and the he-stripper as a biker (somehow even more homo-erotic), followed by more dancing, and then... the big finale! This time, they spared no expense and pulled out all the stops: our two protagonists played an angel and a demon (a possible Dan Brown reference?) and strip-danced in tandem, chasing each other up and down the pole, and finally coming out to the dance floor for the striptease's climactic denouement, which -- spoiler alert -- involved pyrotechnics.. and partial nudity, naturally (there also might have been some adult themes, as well). Somehow, within the final act, our performers managed to wrap up all the loose ends and answer all the questions left open in their previous routines (with the exception of what they look like fully naked)... I can only hope for a big-screen adaptation some day.
The next day, after Alfred and Dasha left, Brett, Isabel, and I puttered around for a bit before my bus came, meeting up with two German teachers who were curious to meet these Americans they'd heard so much about (and Tanya, who, yet again, invited herself). Ira and Anya (pictured right, with Brett and Tanya on the left), for so they were called, were both 23, but, not surprisingly, looked about 30. Everybody here, it should be noted, looks older than they actually are... my students thought my 50 year-old mother looked about 38 and couldn't believe that my grandmother was over 80 ("Impossible!" they cried. "She's not hunchbacked and has all her teeth!"), while some of my 15-17 year-old students, I might add, might as well be called "jailbait". We told the two pedagogues about how strange it was that we had looked at all the clubs, and all of them featured a striptease in some way, shape, or form. "Oh, every club has stripping on Friday and Saturday night," Anya replied matter-of-factly. "It's just what they do around here." Truly, we're not in Kansas anymore...

Entry 20: Vasya Forever! or "My Kingdom for a Horse!"

So one day, realizing that all we had for the day was an extremely boring text, and that I had to do something to hold my students' interest while we went over a long list of vocabulary, I decided that I would give all my students new names (other tactics to keep their interest include dancing on tables and eating their papers [seriously]). Well, at first I just flat out pretended like I didn't recognize one of my students and made her introduce herself (I must've done a good job acting -- she seemed truly put off), and then I started calling all my students by different names. First, I just started calling them each other's names, and then I got a bit more creative: Natalya Mikhailovna, Dostoevsky, Prime Minister Putin, William Shakespeare, Michael Jackson (I can't escape him!), Dima Bilan (Russia's most famous pop singer -- he won Eurovision, which, apparently, the United States also participates in [I can't imagine we take it seriously... I'm guessing we just send William Hung every year]), Megaphone Beeline-ovich (which I formed out of the names of Russia's biggest mobile phone service providers), and Ksenia Sobchak (a scandalous Russian reality-show star affectionately referred to as "The Russian Paris Hilton"). All that thinking on my feet and I was pretty tired by the second time we went around the room. Once I got to Nastya, I had no idea what to call her, but then her cotabulatrix (the girl who sat at the same table with her) said "Nastya" in a low voice, which I misheard as "Vasya" (a short form of the male name "Vasily"), and by which I thenceforth proceeded to refer to her, as the rest of the class somehow found it pretty hilarious.
So, borrowing an idea from a Portuguese class I once had, I decided that we'd try to go around the room and create a story together, sentence by sentence. Not surprisingly, a number of our newly renamed classmates made it into the story, and, much to my surprise, we actually ended up producing a long, semi-cohesive narrative with everyone's participation. Having said that, I propose to reproduce our story in its entirety, with explanatory marginalia:

One day, a long time ago, Natasha [one of our students] was walking with her friends – Vasya, Fedya [Dostoevsky -- "Fedya" is short for "Fyodor"], Michael Jackson, William Shakespeare, [Ksenia] Sobchak, and Dimka Bilan.
Approximately one week ago, Ted and I [this part was written by David, our most ambitious student, whose sentences have a habit of rivaling those of William Faulkner] met all of these guys, and Michael Jackson began to dance for us on the table, and Vasya said, “Wow! Shakespeare, please write down everything that’s happening!” and, after that, Sobchak took her horse and kissed it, and, after that, the horse gave her a wedding ring, and then Dimka Bilan began to sing “Da, dum da dum, da dum da dum" [I think they meant the wedding song].
And so, Vasya and Natasha left with them, and then went into a VIP room, and… [they insisted on the ambiguous three dots] Vasya gave a star to Natasha.
And, after that, Fedya took some vodka and gave it to the horse, and, after that, everyone started crying, “Горько!” ["Gor'ko" - "sour"; what people cry at a wedding to get the newlyweds to kiss, although it stands to reason that the prospect of a sour kiss would more likely be something of a turnoff].
After that, Vasya began to cry, “I’m a pervert! And I want you, horse! I want to have a lot of children with you! And I believe that their names will be ‘Vasya’s horse’”.
Dostoevsky got wasted and hit Vasya with an axe. He quickly went home and started writing. Shakespeare and Ksenia Sobchak walked their dog in the park and talked about songs and musical groups. After Vasya’s escapade, Dimka Bilan and Michael Jackson organized a dance battle; at this moment, Vasya appeared with a bottle of “Putinka” vodka [a pretty shitty brand] and cried, “I want both of them!” Vasya and Dimka Bilan drank a lot of vodka and got into a fight. After that, Vasya hit Dima with a stick while Dima was sleeping.
And then Dimka took international stars like Metallica, System of a Down, Avril, Nirvana, and Rammstein and tried to sing songs in their style, but, during the song, he began to cry. All of the rock stars called him a little girl. Dima thought everything would be ok, but, since he doesn’t have a good voice, they killed him [one of our more goth-y students thought up this part].
Michael Jackson kissed Sobchak and said, “Excuse me, I love your horse!” Sobchak slapped him in the face and went into the other room. Dostoevsky, who likes to write short stories about love, wrote a story about himself (and his horse). Sobchak and Natasha went for a walk in the street and meet Dimka Bilan.
Vasya is a punk. Since Vasya killed our friend Dima Bilan, Michael Jackson knocked Vasya down with a full bottle of vodka. Since Dima Bilan is well-loved and admired, he rose from the dead and sang, “Dimka Bilan forever!” Vasya got intoxicated, because the vodka was shitty.
After that, Dima Bilan became a zombie. But then the horse kissed Vasya, and Vasya rose from the dead, but Vasya told the horse that he didn’t loved him, and that he would make sausage out of him. Since Dostoevsky was an alchemist, he raised all of our heroes from the dead. Vasya sang “Vasya Forever!” to his beloved horse.
And then Vasya, Dima, Sobchak, Fedya, Michael Jackson, Shakespeare, Natasha, and the horse got married and lived happily ever after.
THE END

Ok, possibly not as coherent as I remembered it being, but likely all the better for it. Considering the Russianity of the story, the reader may not be surprised to note the strong presence of vodka, an allusion to "Crime and Punishment", and the presence of that certain peculiar proclivity rumored to have caused the death of Catherine the Great -- you know the one I'm talking about...

Entry 19: The Rural Juror

So, one day one of my students asked me if I knew any tongue-twisters in English. Of course, I know the standard ones about Peter Piper (who supposedly picked a pack of pickled peppers, though there are no eyewitnesses to verify this claim) and Sally selling seashells (although it always seemed to me that the sea shore was the least profitable place for one to be selling them... you don't sell wild berries in a berry field [sorry, berries on the brain again]), but it seems to me that these aren't really difficult, at least for Russians, who have no problems minding their "p"s and "s"esses. So, inspired by an episode of 30 Rock I had seen, I decided to see if I couldn't craft my own tongue-twister around the impossibly ugly phrase "rural juror". So, here you have it, the fruit of my labor (loins?), which did indeed prove nearly impossible for my students -- particular those who've retained the Slavonic habit of rrrolling their "r"s -- along with my Russian translation, which my students found particularly hilarious:

A lurking rural juror lured and murdered a puerile Ural burger server and a nursing neural surgeon out of pure furor at a urinal in suburban Burma.


Скрывающийся сельский присяжный поманил и убил ребяческого уральского человека, приносящего гамбургеры и нянчащего неврологического хирурга от чистого фурора в писсуаре в пригороде Бурмы.

Say that five time fast (in both languages, if possible)! [I can just imagine Mike trying to read the Cyrillic -- "ckpabibayow, backwards "N", backwards "N" with a squiggly, ca, backwards "R"]

Entry 18: From Russia Without Love

"There is no love," Natalya Mikhailovna proclaims today on a particularly cold morning over a breakfast of soggy bread and baloney-like 'sausage' -- "Only habit." I've just brought over a long letter I plan on sending to Maddie (my fourth, although one envelope also had a postcard I had written earlier). "In vain," the embittered fifty-something divorcee continues sententiously, "You'll just fall out of love. Live a bit longer, you'll find out." "Well, I don't want to find out. I prefer to believe in something, at least... In love." "I've lived long enough not to believe in anything anymore," Natalya Mikhailovna declares resolutely. So it goes in Siberia... I've enjoyed my time here, but I wouldn't want to stick around too much longer. People don't age well, and, besides, I want nothing more than to be getting back to my Maddie as soon as possible, Russia be damned!

Entry 17: The Kid's Aren't Alright

What's surprised me most about the younger group of children is how developed their personalities already seem to be, even though they're only between 7 and 10 years old: there's Lera (who I spend the most time with, since she often has lunch with me and Natalya Mikhailovna)-- the sassy one, Katya -- the quiet overachiever (though she did draw this picture of an anthropomorphic heart getting drunk... only little girls in Russia!), Alyosha -- the unflaggingly optimistic hunting enthusiast, Vitya -- the sensitive, ever polite one, Sonya -- who seems shy at first, but already has a great sense of humor (she makes the funniest faces when she messes something up), Zhenya -- the jokester who always makes you want to say, "Oh, that Zhenya!", Denis -- who'll talk your ear off about anything without letting you get a word in edgewise, and Sasha (the boy -- we have a female Sasha too) -- the absent-minded one who constantly tries to tell jokes but can't get one right to save his life. I almost feel like I could make some sort of Mickey Mouse Club inspired Siberian pop group out of them... "-98 Degrees", or something like that. I've grown extremely fond of all of them, and they, it seems, feel similarly towards me -- whenever we go to the cafeteria, it's always a battle to decide who'll sit next to me, and it usually ends up with about ten of the fifteen children sitting on the same bench with me, all of us pressed up tightly one against the other, packed like sardines in a rush-hour subway car (mixed metaphors?). Some of them have even started grabbing my hand when we leave the classroom and dragging me with them to make sure they'll get a seat right next to me, but even this, too, has proved problematic, as everybody wants a hand unto themself, and, not having been raised near any Soviet nuclear plants, I, unfortunately, have only two.
Sometimes the children get a bit out of control, refusing to sit down and throwing shit around the room (not literally... they are still a more highly evolved form of primate, after all), but, generally speaking, they're all fairly well behaved, and, if I have any problems, it's not with any individual, but with the class as a whole. There is, of course, one exception -- Seryozha. Seryozha -- probably the youngest in the class -- not only seems to fail to realize the great boon a good education in English (even bad English... or happy English) will one day bring to his career (I suspect he'll have a wide rang to choose from: everything from janitor, to fishmonger, to coke mule), he also seems intent on torturing both me and all the other children, throwing tantrums, screaming, biting, and everything else short of throwing his shit around (literally, this time).
Earlier, our tactic was just to try to ignore him, or even literally push him out of our way, but one day I noticed Natalya Mikhailovna acting a bit differently... she had him sitting down on her knee and was trying to read him a book I had brought from home for the children -- "Frog and Toad Together" (its companion piece, the highly praised "Frog and Toad Separated," helps teach young children about dealing with same-sex, inter-species divorce). He was behaving surprisingly well, sitting still, listening intently, and even asking relevant questions. At that point, it dawned on me... maybe he just needed attention. Soon, he came over to me at the computer, and I decided to show him on a big map of the United States where I had lived. He seemed surprisingly interested in the map, and was particularly fascinated to see how many inhabitants lived in each city (although I took issue with this particular statistic -- I was pretty sure DC and Boston both had over a million inhabitants each, though I haven't had the Wikipedia access to supply me will my usual steady diet of trivial knowledge). "Do you know how many people live in China?" he asked me. "Four billion," I bee-essed, having no idea, but hoping that might shut him up. "One billion," he said, then proceeding to tell me how many inhabitants there were in Russia, and then the particular environs of Altaiskoye. At this point, I had an idea. "Do you know how much a video game costs in America?" I asked (all children here play computer games, as they can get pirated versions for just a couple dollars). Seryozha cocked his head slightly, clearly intrigued. "Fifty dollars," I told him, and before I could make the conversion, he said, "Wow! That's 150 rubles!" As suspected, our little terror had something of a knack for math. He then began asking about the prices of everything in America, from computers, to electronics, to houses, and I, doing my best to estimate the prices of goods I had, myself, never purchased or even thought about buying, obliged, just glad to have him not trying to bite me for once.
Once lunch time rolled around, my usual girls came to grab my hand and claim me as their own, but, this time, Seryozha staked (stook?) his own claim: "I want Ted to sit with me," he said, wresting a thumb free from one of the girls, and, during lunch, he sat across from me, with me doing my best to pay special attention to him, while he, once again, behaved surprisingly well. Afterwards, Natalya Mikhailovna told me that Seryozha came from an unusual family situation: his mother, apparently a strange enough bird as is, pays absolutely no attention to him and cares only about her 1 1/2 year-old daughter. One day, Seryozha had even asked his father and grandmother if they could possibly get a new mommy. Not especially surprising, then, that he acts out so much and begs for attention, and, even though he makes my life pretty difficult sometimes, I still can't help feeling sorry for him... every child deserves a loving family and a decent childhood.
Tragic though it is, Seryozha's situation is not an isolated one. As a matter of fact, I've noticed that a lot of the children around here come from "broken homes" -- and although this may be my mother's favorite euphemism for families with divorced parents, I'm talking about something much more serious. Natalya Mikhailovna's niece, for example, lives with her grandmother because her parents decided to abandon all their responsibility and abscond to Portugal (on the Trans-Iberian, most likely). Sasha (the girl), who I've mentioned in a previous post about the death of her uncle, also lives with her grandmother, because her parents are off trying to make money in Vladivostok. The aforementioned Lera and her sister also live with their grandparents. In their case, the mother ran off to St. Petersburg, and the father still lives in Altaiskoye but has absolutely no desire to care for his two little girls (who, by the way, are two of the most adorable little girls I've ever seen)... he even has a second wife (19 years old!) and another daughter, both of who he also seems to care very little about (Natalya Mikhailovna suspects he's even got his eye on a third wife). Little Alyosha's father is apparently a bigamist, living two separate lives with two different families at the same time. I imagine there's a lot more going on that I haven't heard about (I just know secondhand through Natalya Mikhailovna's embittered gossiping), but I think the examples I have from my young students alone serve to paint a pretty vivid picture: a culture of irresponsibility and a lack of family values or a desire to commit to anyone but oneself (sorry if that sounds like a very Rush Limbaugh-y thing to say). Now of course, this should be taken with a grain of salt: I've met some amazing, loving families (and their children have, accordingly, turned out to be very well-adjusted), but I've just been extremely disappointed to discover that small rural towns, at least around here, are not so idealistic and Capra-esque as they've been made out to be in all those films by that one director... the name's not coming to me right now, although I remember he made films with Jimmy Stuart... ah, yes, Hitchcock. Yes, sadly, Altaiskoye isn't as idealistic as that small town in "The Birds". Apparently, the Altai region is one of the few in Russia that has managed to escape the much-feared Demographic Crisis (picture "Children of Men", only the desolate streets are covered with dill and sour cream), but it's only a tragedy that many of those who have children here -- and such wonderful ones at that -- couldn't seem to care less about them. I'm only half-joking when I say I almost feel like adopting them all myself (with the likely exception of Seryozha). Funny, I never gave any thought to having kids before, but I think that, teaching here, I've reached the conclusion that I would definitely like to have some of my own some day.

Entry 16: Battle of the Sexes, a.k.a. Men are from Omsk, Women are from Tomsk

So, as hinted earlier, it's been a bit more difficult getting the older students to participate and enjoy class than it has been with the younger children. The main reason for this seems to be that, whereas activities with the younger children often involve more of a physical, visual, or otherwise nonverbal component (drawing, games with a ball, etc.), activities with the older children are, as a rule, strictly verbal. Standard activities in most English classes around here include reading texts and translating them, answering text-based questions, and doing grammar exercises from a textbook... unfortunately, it seems that half of this is that teachers only want to prepare their students for their entirely written university entrance exams, and, even more unfortunately, it seems that the other half is due to the fact that English teachers themselves don't know the language well enough even to engage their students in conversation. None of them seem to have ever been to an English-speaking country (which I don't fault them for... visas alone can be $1,000-2,000 around here; also, I've met some teachers who speak excellently despite a lack of experience abroad), and there are precious few opportunities for interaction with native speakers, so they end up having to rely mostly on materials, which, as I've noticed, use very clumsy, unnatural language at best (though, what's worse, they're often just plain erroneous). Apparently, one of the best primary- and secondary-school textbook series is called "Happy English," which, as I told Natalya Mikhailovna, almost sounds like something you'd find on a menu in a Chinese restaurant.
This is all just a very roundabout way of saying that the older children need something different: something more active and more social, though still comfortable and not intimidating. With that in mind, I often try to come up with original games and activities for them, though this sometimes takes a great deal of thought, and I only manage to come up with a truly interesting activity every once in a while. I remember one day, I was about to put the students into two groups so that they could debate something that I could tell wasn't really going to work out anyway (the existence of UFOs, or some such drivel [I, by the way, believe entirely in UFOs -- I do not, in the least, doubt the existence of flying objects that go unidentified]), when one of my students asked if we were going to divide the class into boys and girls. I liked his decision and decided I was going to try to use the natural competition and sexual tension between high-school-age students to my advantage: instead of the originally planned debate, the topic of our debate would be "Who is Better: Boys or Girls?" I figured that, aside from just my none-too-selfless goal of keeping the class occupied and interested for a good amount of time, I could finally make some sort of contribution to the world at large and settle the age-old question once and for all. The rules were simple: each team would offer an argument for their sex or against the loyal opposition every turn, with the order of turns to be decided by the flip of a coin. Since Natalya Mikhailovna had already freely admitted that she believed boys to be girls' superiors ("Girls are naughty," she argued; "That can be one of their best qualities," I countered), I was to preside as impartial judge... sure, I might be a boy, but, seeing as most of my mothers, sisters, and girlfriends had been of the female persuasion, I wasn't entirely indifferent to plaints of the less-unfair sex.
It turns out I had no idea what sort of epic battle was in store. The debate ended up spanning two days of class and lasting about 4 hours (a long enough time for a debate of any sort, let alone in one's non-native language)... what's more, not a single side even once filibustered. The debate started out tame enough -- boys make up ninety-something percent of all government officials in the world, girls make up a larger proportion of the population, only boys are allowed to serve in all capacities in the armed forces, girls live longer than boys -- but things quickly got desperate, and, consequently, more interesting. I'll leave you with some of the highlights, including...
The bizarre:
-Only boys can be gay
The scatological:
-Boys can write their name when they go to the bathroom
The blatantly sexual:
-Girls can please men in saunas
-Boys never say they have a headache
-Girls don't involuntarily raise the blanket in the morning (this one took me a while to get)
The just plain shocking:
-Boys don't have slits below the waist
And, perhaps my favorite, the illogical, but somehow irrefutable:
-Boys are better than girls because they don't want to sleep with boys (though I argued that this was not always the case)
In the midst of such heated debate, we took a break for lunch, per usual, but this time, the girls were none too amused... although usually more than willing to get everyone's lunch and bring it to the table, they went on strike and got only their own lunches. Fair enough, but they somehow left out their impartial judge... "Oh, now they'll pay," I thought to myself, but, as I went up to get my own food, I heard girly giggling and turned back only to find that my portion had mysteriously materialized right in front of my seat. I guess girls are indeed as smart as they argued they were...
We went back to class and I realized that, having come to the end of the second lesson of debate, it was finally time to put an end to the madness. Fortunately, both sides were starting to grow weary and desperate at the same time, so I decided to settle the debate as fairly and amicably as possible... by an appeal to a higher power (a method I knew all too well from my AA 12-step program). So, we flipped a coin, with the boys calling the side (since the girls had called it at the beginning), and... who won, you ask? O dear reader, I am always most appreciative of your interest and inquisitiveness! Methinks it may not displease you to find out that the female sex is not only the fairest (...they never once cheated during the whole debate), but also, hands down, the best. There, I said it... the question has finally been resolved once and for all. And, strange though it may seem, I'm not the least bit upset about the outcome... You see, I've always got the option of defecting (those heels do fit me perfectly, after all).

Entry 15: The Death of Oleg Anatolevich, or Four Wakes and a Funeral

Not long after I came to Altaiskoye, I had the bittersweet opportunity of being privy to yet another Russian cultural experience: the process of death and grieving. Natalya Mikhailovna had a neighbor, Oleg Anatolevich, who died in a car crash two weeks ago at the age of 40. Perhaps the saddest part was that, according to Natalya Mikhailovna, he was something of an alcoholic, if a friendly and benign one, and had died from his own negligence and irresponsibility. There's something about such a shameful, ignominious death that only adds an additional layer of sorrow, depriving the deceased's loved ones of the sort of consolation they might otherwise be able to salvage from so dreadful an occurrence.
The day after Oleg's death, his family held a wake in his apartment, outside of which I managed to take a picture of his coffin and Orthodox cross which was to mark his grave, though I felt somewhat ashamed, as though I were exploiting his death for the sake of a souvenir or curiosity -- I can only hope that the picture can help lead so some sort of enlightenment and understanding that might offset or justify any disrespect I may have paid to the deceased. The Orthodox cross, as you can see, looks like the cross used in any other sect of Christianity, except that it has two additional bars. The smaller one running horizontally across the top symbolizes the sign the Romans hung to mock Jesus -- "Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum" or "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews" The larger bar that hangs aslant across the bottom symbolizes the paths taken by the two criminals who were crucified alongside him: Dismas and Gestas, if memory serves me. One of them accepted the divinity of Jesus and was told, "You will soon be with me in the Kingdom of Heaven"; the other, it turns out, wasn't so lucky.
Several days later, Oleg's mother, Aunt Lyuda -- who had been a good friend of Natalya Mikhailovna's -- came over with her granddaughter Sasha (a student of mine) and began immediately discussing all the grim details with Natalya Mikhailovna. It turns out that Oleg was the only person Aunt Lyuda had to help her with all the difficult labor that had to be done (harvesting crops, chopping firewood, etc.), although Sasha -- bless her heart -- tried to console her grandmother by saying she would try to do all the work. Aunt Lyuda has another son -- Sasha's father -- who lives out in Vladivostok and wanted to be able to make the funeral, but he was serving in the army and couldn't get a break until weeks later. According to Russian custom, the family of the deceased has pominki (which my dictionary translates as "funeral repast", although I don't currently have an English-to-English dictionary to translate that phrase; basically, it's a memorial feast in the deceased's honor) several times on particular days (the 3rd and 9th, and the 40th, as well as one or two other days I've forgotten), although Aunt Lyuda doesn't know if she'll be able to find the money to pay for it all, especially as she has to buy memorial spoons to give out to everyone at one of the memorial meals.
Apparently, superstition has it that the spirit of the deceased leaves for its final resting place only on the fortieth day, after the morning process has finally come to an end (Aunt Lyuda also has to wear a head scarf for 40 days as a sign of mourning; there's also an Armenian custom that male friends and family of the deceased don't shave their beards for forty days [their women, on he other hand, don't shave their beards even then]). Lyuda believes that the spirit of her son is still with her, and knocked a bottle of kvass (a nonalcoholic fermented beverage with a taste similar to that of beer) -- his favorite drink -- out of her hand as a way of letting her know about his presence. She also recounts a story about a man she knew who got remarried within 40 days after his wife died: apparently his wife appeared to Aunt Lyuda and another woman in a dream on the same night and spoke the same exact words, and that very night, the overeager husband was literally thrown out of his bed by some sort of supernatural force. All in all, an extremely unfortunate affair. I want to offer some words of consolation to Aunt Lyuda, but I know neither her nor the customary phrases well enough to find anything to say. Oh well, hopefully what I've written can serve as some sort of humble tribute. May you rest in peace, Oleg Anatolevich.

Entry 14: The Beardening 2: Lycanthropic Boogaloo

So, before I came to Altaiskoye, I was flirting with one of life's essential questions: to beard, or not to beard? I remember when I first got to St. Petersburg, there were a number in my group who thought they should just grow out beards the whole time they were in Russia. Russians, they reasoned, all have beards, so why not blend in? In point of fact, beards don't seem to be particularly popular in Russia, particularly among the youth, who are, invariably, clean-shaven. I was one of the people who thought it to be a stupid idea in the first place, based as it was on kitsch and misinformed stereotypes, and thus didn't break from my usual regime the whole time I was there. Plus, I was single... at least theoretically, there would be somebody to try to impress. But before I came to Siberia, I gave the question some serious consideration: I don't particularly like the way I look with a beard (there was only one other time when I grew one -- two years ago on a dare, only for a month), and I wouldn't like to subject a loved one to it either (although Maddie is amazingly supportive of what I choose to do or not do with my facial hair), but shaving is a hassle, particularly when they don't have your razorblades in Siberia (they're expensive enough in the US), you have no idea where to buy them, and you don't have hot water. Also, I'm not particularly trying to impress anyone... my most constant companions are a fifty-something year-old woman and elementary- and middle-school-aged kids living in an area where men usually don't take care of themselves as well as in America anyway (which I'm told is the result of population dynamics... there's a larger percentage of females here, which means that women have to dress up and try to compete for men, while men act like slobs and die young, which only keeps the cycle going). Still, I use deodorant and don't wear the exact same clothes two days in a row, which puts me well ahead of the curve.
So here I am now, fully bearded, although I do shave my neck and clean it up, so as at least not to seem a total slob. So far, reactions have been surprisingly favorable: my friend Isabel, another volunteer who teaches in the next village over, said she liked it, although she almost didn't recognize me at first, and one of my students, feeling it, said it was soft and that it suited me. It's funny that, quite contrary to stereotype, my beard is something of a novelty, and I have yet to see a single man in Altaiskoye with even so much as a mustache. The other day, I gave my students the task of drawing a picture of a classmate, and many of them decided to draw me. I was surprised to see pictures of myself with a beard, and even more surprised that, in general, the pictures bore a striking resemblance to the late, great Billy Mays -- peace be upon him. I guess my friend B'Hawk was right: I just need to start yelling everything I say, and the transformation will be complete.

Entry 13: The Snozzberries Taste Like Snozzberries!

So I'm become convinced that, although the official currency of Altaiskoye is the ruble, were some Greenspansky in charge of the Federal Russian Federation Reserve of Russia to discontinue it entirely, Altaiskoye could do just as well with its current unofficial currency: berries. Being located in the far south of Russia -- almost on the border of Kazakhstan -- the Altai region has an excellent climate for growing almost anything, and, being in the middle of zhopayob Russia (my extremely vulgar translation for "bumf***"), everyone here has a garden that they tend, if not an entire farm or nonadjacent piece of land that they also cultivate. Nevertheless, so many different types of fruits, especially berries, grow wild that, apart from merely living off the bounty of their own gardens, people go out and pick fruit too. As a result, in the summertime, when everything, both wild and domestic, is ripe for the picking, people gorge themselves on berries and give them to neighbors, loved ones, or people they want to thank. The streets almost seem to overflow with fresh berries! I've even seen people giving berries to their dogs, not to mention all the children I've met who'll just go and hang out in the garden or climb a tree and eat berries till their bellies swell and their teeth turn black. I have to say, there's something I find very natural and comforting about this custom, which, like many of Altaiskoye's simple pleasures, sometimes makes me feel like I've stumbled into some sort of Western Siberian, Twilight Zone version of Mayberry (only, in The Twilight Zone, this would be a commie plot ending in my disaster).
And let me tell you what berries I've had! In the course of a mere two days, I ate: strawberries, wild strawberries (which, as shall be explained, are entirely different), blueberries, raspberries, golden raspberries, black raspberries (which I had previously suspected to be an conspiracy of the frozen yogurt industry), gooseberries (which Maddie and I had tried for the first time only two weeks hence and which apparently have two or three varieties), black currants, red currants, white currants, cherries, golden cherries, and something called cheryomukha. Although my dictionary translates this word as "a type of cherry", in my opinion, it's nothing of the sort: tiny and dark purple-blue, cheryomukha has pits almost the size of the entire fruit. It grows on a very tall tree in huge bunches and has a slightly sour taste, turning your teeth sticky and black if you eat too much. Bear in mind, these are only the berries I've seen in the short time I've been here. I suspect that there are even more out there, likely also never before even witnessed in the US of A.
One day, the parents of one of my students (the one who created that no-good Zhenlandia, in fact) decided to take me, Natalya Mikhailovna, and NM's niece Katya with them to collect wild strawberries. We headed beyond Altaiskoye, beyond the even tinier village Kamenka (which even Altaiskians regard with a certain snobbism), and beyond all civilization entirely, driving through the hills until we came to came to a large lake, named "samolyot" ([air]plane), because of its long, bewingиd shape. As the car came to a stop in a grassy field atop a wild hill with a sky-blue lake in the background, I thought to myself, "I almost feel like I'm in a car commercial -- only we're driving a shitty Nissan." Nevertheless, if I closed my ears (not quite as easy as closing one's eyes), I could easily imagine myself to be in the middle of Montana, where we were hauling boulders up a hill or performing some other such Sisyphean task manly enough to be worthy of a car commercial. But, alas, we were to be picking berries in a field of chamomile flowers (you can make tea yourself!), an activity which, I had to admit, wasn't helping boost my machismo too much.
That being my first thought, my second was: where are the berries? I had expected bushes or something fairly distinctive, but all I could see was grass all around; it seemed like we'd have to walk a ways before we got to any actual berries. Fortunately, that turned out not to be the case. We walked a couple paces, and then Natalya Mikhailovna stooped down and, out of nowhere, pulled up a tiny red berry. "Here," she handed it to me, "wild strawberries." I stared bemusedly at the pinkie-nail-sized berry, squinted for a moment, and thought to myself, "well, I'll be... I guess it is a strawberry." Wild strawberries, it turns out, are much smaller and pinker than your garden variety, with a stronger, sweeter taste, and they grow in small clumps quite low to the ground, so that we had to brush back the grass in order to see them. Nevertheless, the whole hill was covered with them... you'd have to try extremely hard not to crush some with every step. By sundown, Natalya Mikhailovna and I returned home with a full bucket of wild strawberries, which we were all too happy to add to the vast collection of other sundry berries that lined the kitchen in pans, jars, and bowls. In a place like Altaiskoye, it's almost as though it's raining berries, and you're just rushing around, grabbing every container to try to catch them.

Entry 12: Yerevan the Terrible: Ain't No Party Like an Armenian Party

So, one of the first days of teaching, right after I had just finished my fifth meal of the day with Natalya Mikhailovna, my benevolent, beneficent, and generally benign benefactress gets a call from one of her former students. After the call ends, she turns to me and says, "Hey, do you want to get barbecue at the house of one of my former students?" I look at my half-eaten plate of boiled cabbage, pat my stomach, find it responds with a surprisingly robust growl, and nod affirmatively. She lowers the receiver and lowers her voice correspondingly; "they're Armenians," she says with the sort of whisper and questioning glance that almost makes me feel like I should reconsider. "Sure!" I say, "I prefer them to Russians anyway!" Those who know me personally and not merely virtually (or even those who know me virtually in even greater depth) might recall that I've already had a series of nothing but pleasant experiences with Armenian hosts in Rostov-na-Donu. And generally speaking, although I often find that Americans and Russians have more in common than either does with your average Pietro, Bjorn, or Jean from Europe proper (side note: funny that Russians don't consider themselves "Europe" in the motherland, but, the moment they come to the US, they start having "European parties" or opening "European bakeries" and the like, where "European" is just a trendy euphemism for "Russian"), I find Armenians to be much more like my family: dark-skinned, family-oriented types whose idea of a good time is sitting around the table, talking and eating all night.
So off we went, meeting David (NM's former pupil) along the way, until we came upon a huge rectangular grill, situated next to a large, covered table, which, in turn, was situated in the middle of a large group of seated people. Natalya Mikhailovna and I were received very warmly by the group, which included David's parents, his brother, his aunt and uncles, and several cousins who all appeared to still be in their 20s. Someone at the table introduced his/herself with an Americanized name, to which David's aunt responded that her American name was Julia Roberts, which was then Russified to Dzhulietta Robertovna. I took my seat and was immediately greeted by a table covered with barbecued chicken and vegetables, bread, lavash (a type of Armenian flatbread -- I've seen it in the US before though), cheese, herbs (including cilantro, which I'm always shocked to encounter in Russia -- between that and the sour cream, I could probably whip up some decent Mexican food), vodka, and some very tasty Moldovan (Moldavian?) wine, which my hosts proceeded to pour me.
The occasion turned out to have something having to do with one of the cousin's infant daughter, who had the distinction of bearing the incomparably awesome name "Gwar" (just like that shitty rock band!). Although only seven-months old, the precocious Baby Gwar (doesn't that just roll off the tongue!), could already dance б la Armeniene, flipping her palms out and moving her outstretched arms rhythmically to the singing of Uncle Agassi (who not only shares a name with the famous tennis player, but is also just as bald). After a desert course of home-made cake, madzon (an Armenian sour yogurt resembling Russian kefir'), and tea from wild strawberries, it was time for the ritual around which the whole celebration centered. A carpet was brought out, and a variety of different objects were spread across it. Baby Gwar was then placed in the middle and showered with something that resembled grain or seeds (although it might have been a product made from beets that I've encountered around here). The object Baby Gwar picked first, it was explained to me, would portend her future calling. We all watched in anticipation, although Baby Gwar, without the least hesitation, reached out and picked up the pencil. Everyone rejoiced: a scholar! Who could imagine a more noble calling! "Maybe she'll be a linguist," Agassi noted to me by way of aside.
The night went on, with my hosts graciously continuing to pour me more Moldovan wine. Finally, somebody brought their car around and cranked up the stereo, that we might all bask in the music of Tata Simonyan (an ьber-famous Armenian singer who now resides in Los Angeles). At this point, some of David's relatives (notably Dzhulietta Robertovna and David's cousin Hagop) got up and started dancing, roughly the same way as Baby Gwar had, but with some fancy footwork thrown in for good measure. Someone invited me out there, and I too started to dance, trying to mimic the others. After a couple pointers, I got the hang of it but decided to sit down soon after... dancing can be quite strenuous exercise, and this holds especially true if you've just eaten your sixth meal of the day. At this point, I realized that I had drunken almost the entire bottle of wine myself, while Natalya Mikhailovna had had absolutely nothing (figures -- I get stuck with the one teetotaler in all of the Russias). The night ends, and the next morning, I get up to have breakfast at Natalya Mikhailovna's. "Does your head hurt?" she asks me with a look of genuine concern. No, as a matter of fact, it most assuredly did not.

Entry 11: Putting the "Chool" in "School"

So, I'm teaching summer English classes at the technical school (which specializes in such subjects as the production of milk products [which I realize is both repetitive and repetitious, and possibly even tautological] and food service management) for six hours a day. An average day goes as follows: wake up, have breakfast at Natalya Mikhailovna's, teach a group of younger students -- ages 6 to 12 -- for three hours (with a lunch break in the cafeteria), have lunch at Natalya Mikhailovna's, teach a group of older students -- ages 12 to 17 -- for three hours (with another break for lunch in the cafeteria), have dinner at Natalya Mikhailovna's, have a bit of free time (though I might use it all up planning lessons or writing blog entries -- it's all your fault, Gentle Reader!), go to sleep, do it all over again. As you can imagine, it's quite an exhausting schedule, perhaps not even so much because I have to teach two groups of hyperactive students of widely varying ages in the middle of the summer, as because I have to expend even more energy eating at least five times a day. "You eat so little!" Natalya Mikhailovna exclaims, adopting an accusatory tone, at every meal (which consists of about four courses -- I invariably have dessert even with breakfast). I can only counter that, at three lunches a day, I'm not really in any danger of starving to death, to which Natalya Mikhailovna just shakes her head...
On my first day of school (perhaps the first one where my mom didn't take pictures of me beforehand), I hadn't the least idea what to expect. "Natalya Mikhailovna's a professional," I thought; "I'll just sit back and observe, and jump in once I feel comfortable that I know what I'm doing." Nothing doing. Natalya Mikhailovna had to meet with the parents to decide a number of supposedly pressing questions (how to get me to eat yet a fourth lunch, most likely), so I was left completely alone with about 12 elementary-age children, who knew very little English, and absolutely no plan. I began introducing myself, giving the kids name tags and hoping introductions would buy me a lot of time. They didn't. I tried to explain something about myself, but, seeing that the subtleties of contemporary United-Statesian geography would likely be lost on a group of 8 year-old Siberians, I decided to avail myself of a handy visual aid: a projector hooked up to a laptop. I opened up Microsoft paint and started drawing and labeling. That led to me trying to draw various geographical vocabulary to the children, which somehow led to me creating my own country -- "Tedlandia." I created a flag for my country and then passed the task on the children, getting them to come up with their own countries, with flags, geographical features, etc., which they would then have to label in English. The lesson turned out astoundingly well, with the children getting pretty creative -- my favorite turned out to be the Maxlandia Federation, which shared a border with Zhenlandia (though I hear they've since closed it to prevent freeloading Zhenlandians from coming over and stealing their jobs; nevertheless, Maxlandians still go over to Zhenlandia to get drunk on holidays). I got the children to present their countries (most of which resembled Russia to a suspicious degree), at which point Natalya Mikhailovna came back, and we were able to finish the lesson together. By the time we finished, I was extremely satisfied... I had come up with a very successful lesson on the fly, and all the children had been simply delightful -- friendly, energetic, creative, and eager to learn. Maybe this whole teaching thing isn't so hard after all, I thought.
Then it came time to teach the older children. I assumed things would be even easier with them, since they knew more English, and I wouldn't have to come up with games to keep them entertained. However, as I started teaching (Natalya Mikhailovna had again gone off on some errands... soon to become a reoccurring event), I realized that they knew less English than I expected. Despite years of studying the language, having never come into contact with a native speaker, some of them had trouble answering even the most basic questions, like "What is your name?" and "How old are you?" Needless to say, getting them to speak or participate in activities was like pulling teeth -- everyone was scared and insecure in their abilities. Also, I found that I had to keep them entertained just as much as the younger children, which turned out to be even more difficult, since I had to do it without the aid of crayons, balls, and other such aids. At lunch, there was awkward, almost sepulchral silence, and I found that my attempts to engage the students in conversation were met with one-word answers, responses of "what?" or, in the worst case, "chto?" As the lesson ended, and the students began rushing out faster than you could say "disillusionment," I thought to myself, "Well, perhaps there's still a lot of work to be done before I go buying myself a 'World's Greatest Teacher' mug..."

Entry 10: Overheard in Altaiskoye

So, before the first day of classes, I had to go down to the police station to get registered (everyone, including Russians, has to get registered in every city they stay in for more than three days, for the purposes of national security, apparently). As I was waiting for my registration to come through (Natalya Mikhailovna said it would be no problem, as the father of one of our students worked there), I heard someone say very distinctly in a loud voice coming from one of the officer's rooms, "F*** your mother!" Further context and provoking factors are still yet to be determined.

Entry 9: A Room of One's Own

So, although Natalya Mikhailovna is my host(ess), I stay in the dormitory (obshchezhitie in Russian, which means something like "shared/communal living") across the street and I go to Natalya Mikhailovna's, for the most part, only for meals (which still comprise the better part of my day). Our dormitory is obviously of Soviet manufacture: the visitor is greeted by a grey box of an edifice with nary a trace of ornamentation, save the single utilitarian sign, which looks as though it were stenciled on poster-board with colored pencils as a last-minute primary-school science-fair submission. Upon entering, one finds the interior to be slightly more colorful, but somehow even less inviting: some sort of dull sea-foam green and metallic cadet blue lining a dimly-lit corridor, its only differentiating feature being something of a toll-booth from which a hunched, troglodytic woman keeps watch and occasionally glowers as you go by.
By Russian standards, the bathroom I use is neither particularly great nor awful, although it's absurdly big to have only a lone toilet sitting in the corner. Also, the thing about Russian toilets is that they have something like a mantle, from which your excrement stares at you offensively until you've flushed it (I've been told this shelf was designed to allow the agrarian populace to collect it for implementation as manure). Also, one doesn't flush toilet paper in Russia.. you put it in a small waist-basket usually found right next to the toilet (which, naturally, makes Russian bathrooms even more malodorous than their American counterparts and, invariably, attracts flies). Moreover, Russian bathrooms don't have toilet paper: If you're lucky, they'll have scraps of newspaper, but most of the time, you just have to bring your own.
My room is surprisingly big, and not completely lacking in amenities, though not necessarily the amenities you would expect... or need... for any reason. In order to determine precisely what these amenities consist of, I've decided to take inventory, as much for my own benefit as for Your Readership's. In my room, you'll find:
1) A door, covered in wallpaper, but lacking a handle on the inside. Side note: I would sometimes spend 15 minutes trying to get this door open, attempting to use my key for leverage and getting a little help from a rusty nail stuck to the door. After telling Natalya Mikhailovna, she locked the carpenter in my room until, after about 10 minutes of struggling, he gave in and finally agreed to make a handle for me (that's how you get things done around here). The next day, I got locked in the shower for 20 minutes, because that room also didn't have a handle on the inside.
2) A sink, with a lone patch of wallpaper surrounding it and the hot-water handle torn off (lest you be misled into believing that there's hot water to be had)
3) A bucket, the purpose of which both I and Your Readership can only guess
4) A set of drawers, full of silverware, a near-empty jar of Nescafe, and a broken handle (aha!)
5) A vase full of dead, dried flowers
6) An "Ocean"-brand refrigerator
7) A shelf full of notebooks and quizzes from the Altai Technical School of Food Production
8) A radiator
9) A very sweet, heartfelt card from 2007 congratulating Ekaterina Ivanovna on her graduation
10) 11 plates, 2 teapots, three teacups, and 7 shot glasses
11) A blue and yellow hand towel with a bear holding balloons that says "Happy Birthday!"
12) A table covered with a tablecloth with pictures of rolls and croissants on it
13) A dresser with hangers and:
14) A green flag with a drawing of a cup on it
15) A ruler with a paper goat's face attached, and
16) A bag with flip-flops and pointy, leather high-heels that somehow fit me perfectly (see photo); I'll have to wear them out sometime when I go to Altaiskoye's only club.

Entry 8: Dom, Sweet Dom

Finally arriving at Biysk was almost something of an anticlimax... true, we had been traveling for days now and had long been in expectation of the time when we would finally see the place that was to be our home for the next six weeks, but it seemed that, by the time we arrived, we had just started getting used to life on the train: our greasy hair had just gotten to the point where it was making dreadlocks on its own, our bodies had finally adjusted to a steady diet of pirozhki and beer, and showers now seemed like a thing of the past. And, perhaps most importantly, we had all started to really get to know each other and develop something of a rapport. It now seemed extremely strange to have to leave the people we had literally spent 24 hours a day with for the past few days of grueling travel, commiserating and spilling our guts about every detail of our life, every deep secret and embarrassing story.
So, it was not without an admixture of sadness that we deboarded the Trans-Siberian, excited to meet the hosts who were so eagerly awaiting our arrival -- and we found it to be quite a large contingent indeed. Once again, Michael Jensen appeared as we disembarked, dancing past all of us to some vague semblance of "Beat It". Much to my surprise, my hostess, Natalya Mikhailovna, introduced herself immediately, which she explained was due to the fact that she had to spend a good time preparing my documents (including photo IDs), and then we were acquainted to our program coordinator, who then introduced (or, in my case, reintroduced) us to our hosts. We were given local SIM cards to allow us to make calls at/from our new places, and then Natalya Mikhailovna and I abruptly took leave of the group as they went to go purchase tickets for the train ride home (I would be flying separately, due to a glitch in my visa invitation letter that precluded me from staying as long as everyone else).
Biysk turned out to be just about as hot as DC, and we sped off through blazing asphalt streets, exiting the surprisingly colorful city (it reminds me of the last episode of Seinfeld, where George wants to go to Russia, and Elaine tries to dissuade him, arguing that it's bleak. "Not in the summer," George rightly counters. "No place is bleak in the summer.") and heading down roads that bisect vast open fields of potato plants and sunflowers, all set against the backdrop of misty, blue rolling hills. As we approach Altaiskoye, Natalya Mikhailovna explains that it's the longest village in Russia: 17 kilometers long, though only a couple kilometers wide (at its widest part). And indeed, as we make our way through the village, it becomes clear that there's really only one main street that goes almost the entire length of the village (the only paved road, I'm told, although, curiously enough, there's a tiny asphalt factory as you enter the village). I chalk it up to pretty poor planning (imagine if the town were large enough to have traffic!), but it seems that, being situated in a valley between some fairly large hills, the town can really only get so wide before people start having to live in slanted houses.
After a bit of driving down Altaiskoye's main drag -- "Soviet Street", not surprisingly -- we get to Natalya Mikhailovna's apartment -- a fairly spacious loft in a complex of twelve apartments. Natalya Mikhailovna shows me that the apartment is exactly across the street from the dormitory where I was to live, which, in turn, is right next to the technical school where I was to be teaching, which, in turn, is right across from the post office where I would be sending my mail and using the internet -- I would say something about it being a small town if John Mellencamp hadn't already used the phrase enough times for the whole human race to do without ever using it again entirely. Suffice it to say, I had no need to ever leave a one block radius (though Altaiskoye, of course, doesn't have blocks), should I never have the desire to do so.
Altaiskoye looks pretty much as I expected: a somehow fractionally congruent juxtaposition of almost tsarist-era wooden village houses with folk engravings around the windows in combination with entirely featureless grey Soviet-era buildings, with the occasional exuberant half-naked anthropomorphic statue to pay tribute to the beauty of the human form as it labors towards the second coming of Communism (I forgot to note that, on the train, I had recourse to witness such beautifully Soviet slogans as "Glory to labor!" and "In laboring, man is beautiful and worthy of praise!"). It's a village where East meets West and cosmopolitanism comes into direct conflict with simple village life. Sometimes these contrasts manifest themselves in very subtle ways, and other times you almost have to avert your eyes: a boy in a 50 Cent shirt picking wild strawberries miles away from the nearest house, a satellite dish on a house with a thatched roof, or (as in this picture), a herd of cows grazing in front of a gas station, blocking the path of some irate motorists. The most amazing part to me is actually how quickly I've come to feel at home here... I found myself having an almost out-of-body experience today as I realized how completely alien my surroundings and situation would seem even to friends of mine who've spent time in Moscow or St. Petersburg. Yes, Siberia is a unique, entirely idiosyncratic animal, naturally wild, but, nevertheless, not entirely incapable of submitting to domestication.

Entry 7: Every Russian Dance Now!

The next morning, we find ourselves glad to be approaching our final destination. We reach Barnaul, the capital of the Altai region, and hang around the train station for a bit while they switch our car. The conductress didn't want us to leave, for fear that we wouldn't be able to find our car after it had switched tracks, but we turned out to be a bit more clever than she'd given us credit for, which we let her know in no uncertain terms. After reboarding, I spend most of time looking out the window and watching the scenery go by: Beautiful rolling hills and gentle valleys covered in birch trees and chamomiles.
Finally, Brett decides that it's time to accomplish our biggest trip goal for the Trans-Siberian Railroad: host a dance party and get Russians to join us. We bust out the iPod and speakers and get it all set up in the corridor and then get down to business. Our first song, we decided, would be the macarena, as it had massive international popularity and a simple dance move to along with it. Who could resist that sensual Latin beat or those undertones of nostalgia now inextricably attached thereto, or those pre-kindergarten dance moves specially designed to make even the biggest Klutzy Klutzerovich feel at home? Russians, apparently. We danced single-file in the hallway, reveling in our absurdity and gathering a large number of curious, questioning glances from bemused lookers-on, but no actual participants. Fine, we expected as much. Our next song was "Jai Ho" (the Pussycat Dolls version), which allowed for a lot more leeway, so far as dancing style is concerned. The saying goes: "give a dog enough rope, and he'll hang himself," although, so far as my dancing goes, it's something more like "don't tie a dog up at put him on suicide watch, and he'll hang himself". But it didn't really matter; I'm pretty sure a large part of our goal was to make complete fools of ourselves (successfully, it will be noted, by anyone who has the opportunity to see footage [!] of the event). Ever the diplomats, we obligingly removed ourselves from the path of passing conductresses only to secretly grind up on them behind their backs.
There was the most adorable little five-year-old girl named Sara, whose parents were a German man and an Argentine woman, who was quite curious about the whole matter. We could see her bopping along to the music in her compartment, but she resisted all attempts to get her to dance with us. At long last, Devan succeeded in convincing her, and she joined us for a Latino song which we had selected specifically for her pleasure. Once "Thriller" came on (with all of us doing the famed zombie dance), our good friend "Michael Jensen" came out in full force... I still haven't exactly figured out whether he was drunk, a bit touched in the head, or -- most likely -- both. Also, we got Michael Jensen's friend to dance for a bit, though reluctantly -- Devan's doing, yet again. All in all, it turned out to be one of the better dance parties I've been to in quite some time (excepting two particularly amazing dance parties in in late January which turned out to be of great consequence ; ) ) [sorry that emoticon came out double-chinned, but I suppose even emoticons are not immune to America's growing obesity epidemic].
Eventually, a less-than-amused conductress crashed the party and made us return to our compartments. We noticed that Sara was still bustling about outside and invited her to come hang out with us. At this point, she had already overcome the better part of her shyness and thus willingly obliged. An extremely clever girl, Sara proceeded to show us how high she could count in English, Spanish, German, Japanese, and Majorcan [someone noted that all of us volunteers spoke very diverse languages, but that Sara knew all of them], and played peekabo with us, as well as a hand-game she called "Нndio, Mapache", and one where she repeatedly poked at my hand and said "pico, pico, pico" before surprising me [or so we let her think] and tickling me as hard as she could. Sara showed us all her impressions of animals and the sounds they make (including a particularly adorable cow, where, spreading out her fingers and opening them from her face, she made her eyes as wide as possible and said "Mwaaaaaaaaa!"), and starting to get quite attached to us, started jumping from person to person, putting her arms around our necks, hugging us, and showering us with kisses. Words can't even begin to describe how cute she was, so hopefully this picture can give you a better idea than can my description. As we finally pulled into our stop in Biysk with Sara around my neck, I thought to myself, "If any of these kids I'm going to be teaching are half as adorable, friendly, and clever as Sara, I've got some extremely rewarding work ahead of me..."

Entry 6: On Making Friends and Laying Pipe

As night falls, we find ourselves skirting around the border of Kazakhstan (had we actually gone through Kazakhstan, we would’ve had to bribe some less-than-sympathetic border guards). The girls get a new roommate, although this one turns out to be significantly more benign: an older gentleman named Volodya (he insisted on this very informal form of address) traveling home to his wife and kids in Kulunda after working as a watchmen for construction of the new oil pipeline. Volodya, unphased by a group of loud Americans, treats us all to tea and sushki (ring-shaped pretzel-like goodies). Speaking a bit more with Volodya, I find out all sorts of technical aspects about his work (which is not to say I understood them all): about how northern Siberia is very swampy, and they thus have to fill areas with sand before they can lay down boards/slabs and asphalt -- and only then can they start laying pipe (so to speak). Also, apparently bears are a big problem...
We make a long stop in a town called Karasuk, and we all get off to buy some beer (naturally, the train ride’s a lot more interesting with a little social lubricant). I’m not sure if it’s a big town or not, but as we head into the station, I overhear one guy say to some others “Imagine, foreigners, in Karasuk!” Most of the people in our group leave before even buying anything, out of fear that they’ll miss the train, but Wilson and I keep our eyes on the prize. Ever the pragmatist, Wilson buys two two-liter bottles of “strong” beer -- which he tries to justify in front of the cashier by claiming it’s not only for him -- while I decide to go for style: two one-liter bottles of Sibirskaya Korona with lime! (motto: “The ‘Corona’ of Siberia!”; alternate motto: “The Sovetskoye champagne of beers!”). We return to the train only to find that our comrades have made friends with a couple Russian young men who have decided to join us in trying to pass the time drinking and otherwise generally conversing (What else ya gonna do? You’re on a friggin’ train!).
It turns out these guys are all tank-drivers in the army and are headed to the far East for special training... apparently the Chinese have been claiming Russian lands along the border and show no signs of stopping without a little persuasion. The most senior of them, Aleksei ( a lieutenant), mentioned that he had served in the conflict with Georgia, but when I pressed him further on the matter, he only noted that he had seen many women and children die horribly, and, visibly choking up, said that he wouldn’t say any more on the subject. In any case, I make friends with one of his subordinates, a tankist who decides to give me a Soviet tankist badge as a souvenir... having little to give him in return (I already gave my Georgetown International Week t-shirt to Aleksei -- I figured it was a good symbol of international friendship, even if there wasn't any Russian on it), I decided to give him my GU Id card (I have two of them), which turned out to be present enough for him. Aleksei brought out a 5-liter gas tank of cognac ("contraband," he says), which we all proceeded to drink together in commemoration of our friendship, and Aleksei's friend Anya (who turned out to be from Altaiskoye -- the village which was to be my final destination) also joined us.
In the mean time, our friend Volodya, preparing to disembark, noticed at one of the stops that his sneakers were missing. We searched high and low for the longest time without any result, although we eventually realized that Wilson had misappropriated the shoes for his own purposes, using them to walk around outside at one of our longer stops. Although I was visibly embarrassed, Volodya said it was nothing to worry about and offered me a cucumber, which I, greedy for vegetation, proceeded to attempt to eat immediately. "No, wash it!" Volodya yelled at me by way of farewell. I took his advice, and proceeded to join my comrades. We were then joined by a fat, drunken Armenian guy from the next compartment, who proceeded to sing us the music of the late "Michael Jensen", as he called the King of Pop. All in all, yet another night without sleep... so it goes on the Trans-Siberian.

Entry 5: Cecilia, You're Breakin' My Heart!

So, the night after our orientation, I didn't sleep at all. I just remember that by the time we had finished our orientation and telling each other stories, the sun was already on its way back up... which is not to say that we had been staying up the whole night -- during the summer, the sun stays up 'til about 10 and then starts rising again at 3 (which is not particularly late for young, out-of-sync adventure-seekers). It's quite the opposite of the end of our semester in St. Petersburg, where the sky would still be black when I went to classes and black again by the time I got out at 4. At that time, I would've given anything to have 19 hours of daylight, but when you've been traveling for days from the other side of the world, endless sunlight can only throw you off all the more. No matter, we passed the time with more story-telling until about 8 or 9, when the dining car (which we hadn't yet explored) was finally open (our stomachs had been pretty out-of-sync as well).
There was this one woman on the train who worked for the dining car and would come around each day selling various comestibles (pirozhki - little pies with potato or cabbage filling, pigs-in-a-blanket, drinks, chocolate, yogurt, etc.). We liked her because, though likely somewhere around 50, she always wore a pleather skirt with fishnets and had the most ridiculous mouth full of gold caps -- also, she was the only worker on the train who ever smiled at us (instead of yelling). One time, she came around and was offering pirozhki and pigs in a blanket. Wilson tried to order a pirozhok s sosiskoy (a pie with a hot dog), but he tripped over a syllable, and it came out as pirozhok so siskoy, which means something more like "a hot dog with a tit", and the train lady had to try really hard to contain her laughter. I think her name was Cecilia, but after that, we eternally dubbed her sosiski (hot-dogs).
So anyway, Sosiski came by one morning, and, apart from chiding us for not coming to the discotheque they had set up for her birthday party the previous night (to which we had all been invited but hadn't gone to because our orientation went so late -- one of those deep regrets I may carry all the way to the grave), invited us to all follow her down to the dining car. We, having kept vigil all night, were all terribly hungry and thus agreed. We had to walk through about 7 train cars to get there, but it wasn't too terribly inconvenient, so long as you weren't the last person in line (that meant you were the one to close all the doors behind us) -- plus, it reminded me a lot of one of those levels in Goldeneye (either that one on a Russian train, or that one in the Aztec temple). We followed Cecilia until we finally got to the dining car, which actually turned out to be pretty nice, as it was the only car on the train where you could have an unobstructed view on both sides of the car at the same time (provided you were cross-eyed, I suppose) -- a particular treat, as we had just started heading through the birch-covered steppe around Omsk.
So we (six out of seven of us) sat down and started pouring over the menu. I was particularly excited about the prospect of eating my first vegetable in days (not counting airplane pickles) and ordered a salad -- without mayonnaise, which didn’t take (in fact, the salad turned out to have almost none of the ingredients promised, though the fact that it contained some sort of vegetative matter was enough to please my now less-than-finicky palate). Having successfully evaded a drunkard’s furtive ass-grabbery (from one of the two middle-aged men splitting a bottle of wine at 9 AM), Sosiski came up to say hi to us, at which point Wilson decided to put her on the spot: “Which one of us is your favorite?” he asks. Sosiski glances around carefully, looking everyone over, and then suddenly comes over and hugs me, messing my hair affectionately, at which point I blush completely. Apparently, if 50-something Russian train conductresses with gold teeth, bleached hair, pleather skirts, fishnet stockings, and smoker’s breath have a type, it looks something like me...

Entry 4: The Worst-Case Scenario Guide to Learning Enterprises

Towards evening, as the impenetrable pine forests of the taiga gave way to the rolling foothills of the southern Urals, we decided to hold our (mandatory) orientation. Though not uninteresting by any means, I believe the only matter of particular interest to come out of it was the following story, which Brett proposed as a worst case scenario, to be avoided at all costs:

Apparently, a couple years back, one of the volunteers in the Learning Enterprises program in Mexico started having a romantic relationship with his (that's right, his) host father. Although this particular volunteer just looked upon the relationship as something casual, he and his host father were using terms of endearment that suggested that their relationship was, in fact, something more serious. When it came time for the volunteer to leave, his host father showed up with baggage of his own. "What's going on?" the volunteer asked. "I'm coming with you," his host father replied. When the volunteer tried to refuse, his host only insisted and claimed, "well you called me [such-and-such a term] and insisted that I was your [such-and-such]". Again, the volunteer tried to defend himself, insisting that he was only following the father's example. But alas! all was in vain. The host father had left his wife and children and ended up stalking the volunteer all the way to his home town in the US. The incident completely ruined this whole village in Mexico, and Learning Enterprises had to get rid of that program (one of their biggest and oldest) entirely. So far as I can tell, there's not much of a possibility of that happening in our program ¾ at least not with my situation ¾ but it's always best to be forewarned... in Russia one has always to be especially vigilant.

Entry 3: Borsch Tartare

Our journey began with finding our compartments, which proved to be slightly smaller than I expected/remembered, but otherwise pretty comfortable. All in all, there were 7 in our group -- 4 boys and 3 girls -- and, due to entirely counterproductive rules of decorum, it was allotted that all the boys should sleep together in one compartment while the girls would sleep in a different compartment with a complete stranger. It would look too bad for our organization, the reasoning went, if boys and girls in our group were to share a compartment... nevermind the fact that the consequences could be all the more dire. At any rate, the girls' roommate turned out to be a man named Renat, a Tatar construction worker in his forties (though he looked to be in his late twenties) on his way home to Kazan (what could be sketchy about that?). Upon finding out that it was the birthday of one of the girls in our group, he proposed that we celebrate in some way as befits a birthday celebration in Russia... I trust you, dear reader, can already see where this is going. Yes, he brought us vodka, and pickled mackerel to go with it. So we drank and talked for most of the night, with me serving as interpreter for the most part. Finally, as I head off to bead, one of the girls goes off with Renat and, as I find out later, makes out with him. Apparently, she had no intention of taking it any farther than the one minute it lasted, but he thought otherwise, hassling her and attempting to crawl into her bunk until she finally decides to seek shelter in our compartment. Well, I hate to say I told you so, but let's hope Learning Enterprises has learned its lesson this time.
At any rate, we found ourselves in Kazan the following morning and bid goodbye to Renat, who had had the good sense to simply keep quiet all morning and affect a look of remorse or some such other feeling approximating guilt. Kazan, as the reader may or may not already know, is the capital of Tatarstan, one of many autonomous republics within the Russian Federation that allows an ethnic minority to remain semi-independent and in control of its own affairs. The Tatars are a people of Muslim faith and Mongol-Turkic ancestry, descendents of the great Mongol horde that swept across the endless steppe in the 9th century and began demanding tribute from the native Slavs. I suppose the situation has almost come full circle now, as the Russian government allows the Tatar people to remain autonomous, so long as they render tribute in the form of taxes and otherwise generally comply with national demands. As a linguist, I was quite pleased to have the occasion to meet with specimens of the Tatar language -- which I had mistakenly assumed to be nearly extinct. Renat mentioned that the Tatar word for "thank you" was rakhmy, which I assume is derived from the Arabic rakhman, meaning "Lord". Moreover, in a small town called Agryz (a Tatar name, I assume), I also had the good fortune of seeing the language in print: here's a sign for a convenience store which reads ashamlyklar. I was very pleased to note that the word on the sign exhibits the vowel harmony (all the vowels are back vowels) and the -lar/-ler plural ending characteristic of Turkish and its relatives (I should note that the Russian is also in the plural). It's encouraging to know that ethnic minorities still exist and are able to preserve their language, traditions, and general way of life. As this is a topic which interests me greatly, our reader should expect to hear more about it in later posts...

Entry 2: Talkin' Trans-Siberian Blues

The Trans-Siberian Railroad ¾ not to be confused with the far less impressive Trans-Iberian (stretching from the cork fields of Lisbon to the sangria rivers of Madrid) -- is both a far more impressive and far less impressive experience than people seem to realize. So far as I can tell, people seem to think about the experience the same way they think about backpacking across Europe: you travel from city to city, exploring each one as you go along at breakneck speed, getting into innumerable adventures along the way, meeting a variety of people from all over the world (even accidentally killing them, should they make sexual advances at you) and, eventually -- so the logic seems to go - finding yourself... whatever that means. After meditating upon the subject for some time (the reader may recall that I had several days on a train to devote to such pursuits), I believe I've finally hit upon the underlying misconception whence stems this entirely erroneous, overly-romanticized image: that the train was made for adventurers
As a matter of fact, the Trans-Siberian Railroad was made to serve an entirely utilitarian purpose -- getting people, primarily Russians, from one place to another as rapidly as possible (I'm reminded of the joke about "MARTA", the name of Atlanta's public transportation system, standing for "Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta"). Now, obvious though this premise may seem, I feel as though most people don't necessarily understand its significance, nor all implications emanating therefrom: the train rushes along , not stopping in any one city for more than an hour (you certainly won't see anything more than the train station, provided you're not keen on missing your train and booking a new one), almost all the people you're liable to meet will be Russians going about their everyday lives -- certainly not looking to make an adventure of the experience -- they won't be riding for the whole length, and I can assure you that, one way or another, you will spend much of your time in abject discomfort. You will not be able to take a shower the whole trip, you will not be able to take your time in the bathroom -- or use it at all when the train is stopped -- you will be sleeping intermittently or irregularly, due to Russia's nights being either extremely long or extremely short, you will have a hard time procuring food of any substance outside of the dining car, and you will be hassled by train workers for just about everything you do or do not do. I remember a good friend of mine once proposed that we both take the Trans-Sib the summer after we graduate... I indulged him by saying I would, secretly thinking that it sounded like the world's most boring vacation and assuring myself that it would never happen. Nevertheless, here I am, taking the Trans-Siberian the summer after I've graduated and enjoying the experience massively... Why?
Despite all that I've just said, riding the Trans-Siberian Railroad has been, without a doubt, one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I've met scores of diverse, fascinating people, seen many different cities in trans-Uralic Russia, witnessed the dramatic progression of the landscape from Europe to Asia, and, perhaps just as importantly, gotten to know the people in my group extremely well. No experience seems to be able to bring people closer together in so short a period of time than being trapped together in a small compartment in a far-off land, being forced to find a way to while away their time together by telling stories, playing games, drinking together, and generally commiserating. Indeed, though I've only known these people for several days, I feel as though I already know most of them better than many people I've known for years. I only hope that my next few entries can give you, dearest reader, a more in-depth illustration of precisely all the ways in which the real Trans-Siberian experience -- or, at least, what you make of it -- far surpasses its stylized, idealized counterpart.