RUSSIA
Post-Soviet Russia is probably one of the least understood societies in the world today, a third-world country disguised as a first-world industrial power. And yet, now that the cold war is supposed to be over and Communism has "fallen", interest in Russia and the Russian language is waning, a trend I don't fully understand. Here I'll answer a few of the most frequently asked questions about Russia that I've encountered, and I'll provide a few links as well.
Why Russia?
"Why did you want to study Russia??" people ask me all the time. (I can even hear them add mentally: "Of all the dismal places in the world. . .") I have been asked this question hundreds of times, and I still can't answer it very well. In fact, neither can my fellow Russian Area Studies majors. The best explanation I've heard comes from my friend Dan: "It's a f***ed up country and we want to know why!" He put it a little crassly, but the sentiment is true. (Dan, incidentally, is now studying at the Defense Language Institute in California.)
I myself first got interested in Russia about six months before the attempted coup d'etat in 1992. My high school (Joel Barlow, in Redding, CT) hosted a group of Russian students from Kalinin (now Tver') for two weeks as a sort of cultural exchange. A teacher asked me if my family would take one of these students into our home, and we agreed. Yuliya Redko was 13 years old and spoke only a few words of English, but somehow we managed to become fast friends. When she left, I suddenly found myself with a personal interest in the history and current affairs of Russia. I took a Russian history class my senior year, and I was hooked.
Why Middlebury College?
I went to Middlebury College expressly for the Russian language program: it's the best in the country for its size. I spent my junior year (1995-1996) in Smolensk, a city over a thousand years old, on a program called the American Collegiate Consortium. The ACC sent students from the US all over the former Soviet Union. It was a chance to study somewhere other than Moscow or St. Petersburg, which have been steadily Westernized since the break-up of the USSR.
Isn't it awfully cold in Russia?
Honestly, Smolensk was no worse than Middlebury (Vermont) in January! Seriously, though, winter temperatures were about the same as in the northern US or southern Canada. The main difference is that winter starts in early October and doesn't end till mid-May. Spring and summer are warm, however. I managed to turn myself a nice shade of brick after a day of sunbathing near the city walls in late May!
What's the food like?
Black bread, tea, homemade jam, cabbage, macaroni, and of course, the ubiquitous potato. Russian chocolate is fantastic, though, especially the Babaevskii factory. Red October isn't bad either.
What about those lines you always see on TV?
The long lines everybody associates with Soviet shopping are definitely no exaggeration. Shopping for more than one item can be a real hassle. There's a different place to go for each thing you need: the bakery, the grocery store, the market, the dairy store, and various little booths, or kiosks, along the way.
Before you start, remember to bring your own bags -- they are rarely provided, and never for free. Just in case bring a couple more than you think you'll need.
First stop: the market. It's important to get there early, before people run out of the good stuff. You could take the tram, but in Smolensk, I always walked. The tram is always packed at four times its capacity, and if you're stuck at the wrong end you could get squashed going down the steep hill. The market lies just over the Dnepr river, about a mile and a half from our dormitory.
Once you reach the market you will see that, contrary to popular American opinion, there is really no shortage of foodstuffs in Russia. You can get anything if you have the money. Today we will pick up a bucket of potatoes for about 7500 rubles, a handful of carrots for 1000 rubles, a roll of toilet paper (resembles brown paper bag) for 2000 rubles, and for a treat, a kilo of bananas at 10,000 rubles per kilo. This all gets stuffed into one plastic bag. If you're lucky and you know where everything is, this might only take about half an hour, but let's wander around a bit.
Inside, the market is even more crowded. There are rows and rows of vendors. One section is for fruits and vegentables, which are piled high on the tables next to sets of scales. You can usually ask to try a slice before you make up your mind to buy. There's a section for meat and poultry. Often the vendor will display the head of the animal whose flesh will later grace someone's dinner table; sometimes you see a man hacking away at an entire frozen cow with an axe. The meat is always fresh, but quality and prices vary greatly. There's also a section for fish, and for bread (much cheaper to buy it at the bakery), and for chocolate, flowers, and gifts. It's a huge mish-mosh of people and food, not highly recommended for claustrophobics, but exciting in its own way.
On your way out you pick up a warm fried cabbage-filled pirozhok to eat on the way back to town, which seems much farther away when you are walking uphill. Sometimes I take the tram from here, but not often. About halfway up you pass the cathedral, beautiful in green and white. A little further on is the bookstore "Dom Knigi," and then you're back on Lenin Street, where the rest of the shops are. (Hopefully you've missed the lunch break from 1:00 to 2:00, when all shops close, otherwise you'd have to kill an hour before you could finish your shopping.) Now is when you have to worry about lines.
The bakery. First you decide what you want: one loaf of black bread, one of white. You wait in line to tell the cashier. She prints out a receipt, and you give her 1300 rubles for the black bread and 2500 for the white. You take the receipt and stand in another line in front of the bread display, and finally you reach a window. You hand the woman your receipt, she very graciously hands you your bread, and you are elbowed out of the way as soon as you pop them into your bag.
This repeats itself at the produkty store. You tell the cashier that you want: one bottle of milk, one package of macaroni, one jar of peas, and a kilo of kutlety, which are similar to hamburgers, only fried. The cashier gives you four different receipts, one for each counter, and you stand in four more lines. When you finally get back to your dorm room with aching arms and feet, you put the stuff away and make a pot of tea.
It may sound petty, but a successful shopping trip, when I found everything I needed without getting significantly ripped off because of my accent, is one of the more satisfying experiences I had in Russia.
Did you have a good year in Russia?
Probably the most frustrating question I have been asked. I had good times, I had bad times. I'm glad I went. I would go back, but hopefully more independently. I usually tell people that it was a hard year, a challenging year, and an interesting year, but not necessarily a happy year. Russia today is not a terribly happy place. Burdened down by their glorious imperial history, their recent disillusionment in the government, and their absolute ignorance as to what the future holds, the Russians I knew were all just barely keeping their heads above water. But it is still a country of extremes: ecstasy and despair, hope and cynicism, persistance and apathy. My fascination is fueled by my belief in the potential of Russia and her people to become great again.
Here are a few links for interested folks:
