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...
