update: i am alive. i'm just knee-deep in vocabulary right now. i will spill all the beans about the anniversary celebrations and the madness of being here right now, but not until after next thursday.

best study break i've had in a long time: eastern standard time. there are few things that can lift my spirits like a fantastic ska show. the last one i saw comparable to last night's show was the toasters back in '98, the weekend before high school graduation. i feel old. especially since i recognize the names of maybe four bands that played at this year's hfstival. urf.

current music: rancid/"junkie man"
posted by kat thompson at 8:39 AM

i'm throwing out most rules of grammar and syntax for this post. i'm sorry if a lack of subjects/predicates/prepositions frightens you.

past week in a nutshell: free outdoor concert last friday behind the hotel around the corner from my apartment. good bands, good and cheap beer, but lines were way too fucking long. i will never wait an hour for two beers again in my life. witnessed what happens when you supply teenagers with said cheap beer and send them all back to the metro together - fights abundant left and right. saw two kids get beaten to death. it was weird - felt like i was standing outside of myself, watching myself watch my other self watch what was going on. [actually, that's a pretty good way to describe how i've been feeling all week] after all that, drank some more beer and watched the sunset from the banks of the river in front of the apartment. full darkness doesn't descend upon us now until almost midnight. freaky. but cool.

saturday: cut my hair again, drank some more beer. sunday: went book-shopping, picked up my pleasure reading through the end of the summer, was bummed that i couldn't find a decent copy of bulgakov's 'heart of a dog'. monday: bought myself some tapochki for home. they're almost a little too girly-girl for me, but i was sucked in by the color - deep cobalt, almost purple if you look at it in the right light. also bought a new camera battery and some film, to capture the insanity that is going to be this city over the next week. there's this sense bubbling around like something's going to happen - the excitement is very much palpable. this is cool. yesterday: saw the exhibit 'russian paris' in the russian museum. makes me want to hop on the first flight to paris. [a lot of things do, actually, which is a bit scary] exhibit was comprised of art from 1910-1950 done by russian artists who emigrated to paris. only two works from kandinsky, but enough by chagall to keep me happy. i am in love with his 'blue landscape'. today: ran around taking photos of stuff that had been under scaffolding, also got my own picture taken by this guy working for kodak, who's doing this thing where they go around taking pictures of st. pete residents for free as a present to the city. i get to pick up my photo tomorrow; if i can, i'll scan it in here. but i fear i look like a sillybones, since i'm sitting on this wall with my hair blowing all over the place. [oh hey, you can see my new haircut in this picture]

tourists are everywhere. the weather's nice, progress in studying for this test is going well, although i'm wobbling back and forth far too often between 'idiot, you'll be fine' to 'idiot, you know nothing'. as i do before every test i've ever taken in my life. i saw this poor kid on rollerblades faceplant into the pavement yesterday - when he got up, half his face was covered in blood; he must've broken a nose or some teeth, but he didn't want any help. the store at the end of my street makes the best chocolate ice cream i've ever had, and i am not exaggerating. rice salad is good, but not when you overload it with garlic. i painted my toenails the other day for the first time in a long time. summer is coming soon. i am going to have to work hard to not punch in the face the next street artist who offers to either draw my picture or show me their collection, but does this in english. i wrote bob levey (columnist for the washington post) an email yesterday, and to my great surprise he wrote back. he writes in small letters too, which is somewhat comforting. job searching is damned depressing - i'm coming to terms with the idea of waitressing at long last. that doesn't please me, but it'll pay the bills.

i still can't believe i have a nephew named xander.

well, back to studying, i suppose.

golubchik moy, yesli tyi chitayesh eto - tebya lyublyu i ochen skuchayu po tebe. nadyeyus, shto vsyo khorosho s toboy. obnimayu i tseluyu.

current music: pearl jam/"black"
posted by kat thompson at 10:38 AM

1) if you're a ska fan and are going to be around d.c. on june 28, i strongly advise you to head down to the state theater in falls church to see the best ever russian ska band, leningrad. it doesn't matter if you don't get the russian - they're a great band nonetheless. and if you do get the russian, you can pick up an entirely new vocabulary from them. go see them. i command you. :-)
1a) when dave gahan's solo album 'paper monsters' comes out in the states, run, do not walk, out to buy it. i read an interview with him where he compared it to 'violator', and while i don't quite think it's that seminally important, it's a far better album than i would have expected. take heart: the first single is not the best song on the album. it only gets better.

2) twice in the past four days i've been stopped by women asking me about my religious beliefs. i fall for it every time, since they approach me like they're gonig to ask me what time it is or where does this bus go, and then they say 'can we talk to you for a minute?' and it doesn't occur to me until i've already asked 'about what?' that they're going to ask me if i believe in god. since this is exactly the type of thing i don't want to talk about with someone on the street even in my native language, i've been using the 'i'm sorry, i don't speak russian' excuse to get away from them. but i know they know somehow that i'm lying and that i'm just trying to get away from them, and i hope they're not going home and cursing my name to whatever god they pray to. although one of these days i might just tell them i'm catholic and see if they try to convert me to whatever it is they believe in. or an atheist. or a pagan. or a jedi knight. ::looks at kim::

3) last night we had our first thunderstorm since, i think, i've been here - it was awesome! i haven't seen one in, what, nine months? since i was in an eleventh-floor apartment, we had quite the vantage point from which to watch the storm roll in - seemingly out of nowhere the rain and the wind galloped in and bent the trees halfway over, and this poor spider outside the window had to cling onto his web for dear life. [i think he got blown away, but i can't feel too bad for him because he's a spider and all spiders are evil] after the wind calmed down, the lightning began. it was all over the horizon and at least one tree got knocked over. and then the wind kicked back in, and the rain picked back up, and our power almost went out. ok, so it doesn't sound so exciting, but after six months of winter [btw, our heat was just turned off on monday] it's cool to finally see weather that's more summerlike in nature.

4) ...which is why i was less than charmed when it went back down into the low 50s today and i left my umbrella at home, and on my way to lunch it started pouring. however, the cool rain felt really good on my sunburned scalp, and it seemed to also bring out the smell of my shampoo somehow, neither of which i really minded.

5) someday i'm going to publish my treatise on relationships in russia and how astoundingly different they are from the circus we call dating back home. justin is inadvertently providing me with some rather interesting information towards this end - he's dating our former grammar teacher - and it's almost too bad i'm not pursuing a thesis on this sort of thing. some of the stuff that's considered normal here is mind-bending... but i'll let that sit and brew for a bit. besides, i should start studying for this whole TORFL thing at some point - i did buy the book for it on tuesday, so i might as well use it. (TORFL = test of russian as a foreign language. i'm not allowed to leave without taking it)

6) if i'm not blogging as much as before, it means i'm either working (i got a job offer freelancing for a translation company) or studying for this test. the weather's nice at home, so what are you doing inside on the computer anyways? ;-)

current music: dave gahan/"stay"
posted by kat thompson at 10:32 AM

i'm back from moscow, and my feet are sore and swollen and blistered, and my face is the reddest it's ever been this early in the season. oh, but what fun! here goes:

-if you're under the impression that russians don't live a little in the past, you need only to see what they do on victory day, which was friday. my jaw hit the ground around 1:30 in the afternoon and stayed there until about 4 - unfreakingbelievable. christine and i wasted most of the morning running around various metro stations near red square trying to find an exit to the city that was open, and by the time we finally found one and got close enough to red square (after zig-zagging through various side streets that had been blocked off) it was close to 1:00. we ended up across the street from the state duma, which ended up being a pretty good place to see the parade. my lord - i've never seen so much red in one place in my life. the parade seemed dominated by the communist party supporters, although there were two or three other parties represented, but not in the sheer numbers of the communists. somewhat alarming was the youth antichrist movement, followed almost immediately by the anti-antichrist movement, all clad in black with huge flags of jesus. less alarming but more amusing were some anti-american and anti-british banners and a paper-maiche shark covered in red, white, and blue that the communists were carrying; both amusing and alarming were the nearby babushkas screaming at little kids carrying the russian tricolors and denouncing them as fascists. somewhat more alarming was the sheer amount of banners and placards proclaiming glory to the veterans and the hero city of moscow, especially those praising stalin and lenin as the protectors of the soviet union. now: i understand honouring those who died in the second world war and i know that i'll never have the same appreciation for the end of that war as a russian would - more russians died in that war than brits and americans combined - and i understand that the soviet union as an instrument of the state ceased to exist a mere 12 years ago, but frankly it scared me to see how alive and well soviet sentiment still is today. this is probably because i'm from a country that went from thirteen colonies to world superpower in a little over 200 years, so i'm used to a fast-moving history. oh, but i'll save that rant for another day.

-outdoor kiosks were not selling beer anywhere near the center of the city on victory day. while this was an extremely good idea based on the high numbers of extremist groups and veterans with probable propensities for getting drunk and telling war stories for hours on end in the vicinity, it was mildly annoying to have to go out past the circle line to find something to drink. (no mom, water wouldn't have done.)

-differences between moscow and st petersburg: the moscow metro is cute. i can't think of any other word to describe it, but i find it endearing that at every stop there's an announcement reminding passengers not to forget their things. in st p, we only get those announcements at the end of a particular line. also, the doors on the moscow trains open before the train has actually come to a stop, such that if you're not careful you can end up flying onto the platform. the ads are hilarious; they've all got the same woman in the metro uniform with the red hat smiling over such messages as 'good weather at any time of year!' and 'there is an exit!', with a little heart in the corner of the ad meaning 'i love the metro'. cute cute cute. also, i know i'm the only person who's a big enough dork to notice this, but the moscow trolleybuses all have chains suspended from their front bumpers, such that they drag along the street and make noise whenever the trolleybus moves. i'm still trying to figure out why this is - they're not big enough to be towing chains, i don't think, but i can't see any other purpose for them. lastly, and this is sensible because it's just a bigger city, but moscow is much more full of crazy people than st pete. this includes the gypsies - i saw more of them in one day there than i have in the last month here. i also learned that there exists a gypsy mafia in moscow, and that beggar children will curse at you in many languages if you refuse to give them money. oh, and that running away from them doesn't necessarily mean they'll leave you alone.

-may/december couples are rife in moscow. i didn't notice them so much until stephanie pointed many of them out, and then it seemed like they were everywhere. i don't think i have to expound on the reasons for this too much - pretty much the same deal as it is back home.

-christine and i were walking across the bridge to gorky park on saturday when it hit me: for years i had no idea what the third word of the scorpions' "wind of change" was. i'd always mumble "follow the musquat down to gorky park", but as we were walking over the bridge it occurred to me that we were crossing the moskva river, and lo and behold, there was gorky park to my right on the embankment! i thought - holy crap, i get it now! and then i felt really, really stupid.

-what did we do? let's see: friday we walked around most of the neighborhoods adjacent to red square and saw lots of stuff in passing - the state duma, the entirety of the kremlin, the lubyanka prison, the bolshoy theater, many statues and residences of famous people - and then we went out to the VVTs, or the all-russia exhibition park northeast of the city. i read somewhere that this was like russian disneyland; it's got pavilions devoted to various exhibitions from different fields of science. however, the main reason to go out there was to see this awesome monument, erected three years after yuri gagarin made his historic flight into space. it's pretty damn cool, but not as cool as mother russia down in volgograd. after that we found dinner at a cafe with stephanie and her friend natalie, and then turned in early to rest up a bit. [ha!] saturday we paid our respects to lenin, walked around most of the alexander gardens and the outside of the kremlin - happening upon a marathon in the process; don't ask me - saw the cathedral of christ the saviour, explored the neighborhoods northwest of the kremlin including the arbat (it was the place to be in bohemian times) and the pushkin museum of art, and then went to an excellent georgian cafe for dinner, followed by the first glass of cider i've had in nine months and more than a few drinks at an unfortunate expat bar called rock vegas. it thinned out around 2:30, so we caught a cab home, but the security guards at the hostel door weren't pleased when we came a-knocking at 3 (it was one of those places where you turn in your key evey time you leave). whoops. on sunday we conquered the hangover monsters and saw much of the south of the city, including a lot of cool churches (i love it when they ring their bells - and it's cool because most pedestrians will stop and listen such that a small crowd is normal. they don't do that in st pete!), the tretyakov gallery of art, and gorky park. we met stephanie again for dinner and cider before our train left at half past midnight, and that was that. the weather was beautiful - we lucked out completely; the only time it rained, we were inside the tretyakov. given the chance, i definitely want to go back and spend more time there; it's a little sad that i won't be spending the next two years there in school, but what can you do. happily, stephanie and her family are coming up here next month, so hopefully i can return the favour of her hospitality and drink-treating.

and i can't not mention the really big news of the weekend: my sister gini gave birth (albeit five days early - what, you couldn't have waited?! ;-) ) to a beautiful baby boy on saturday the 10th! xander james popko is six pounds and four ounces and is eighteen and a half inches long. mom sent me pictures, and he is adorable, and mom, dad, and baby all look like they're doing well. i can't wait to meet this kid when i come home. yay!

that's all i've got for now - i should do my homework at some point, but reading about moscow and all the things we did in retrospect is much more interesting....

current mood: ouch (sunburn, woo!)
current music: beethoven's fifth (stupid cell phones that play it repeatedly...)
current mission: to annoy charlie as much as humanly possible with these 'current' things (this is what you get for opening your mouth, dear...) ;-)
current place i'd rather be: myrtle beach, sc (if not only for the bourbon and the dumb things i suspect heather is doing right now)

posted by kat thompson at 11:53 AM

disturbing things:

1) tomorrow is victory day, which from the ridiculous amount of decoration i've seen being put up in the past day alone makes me think that this is the biggest holiday aside from new year's. while i can't exactly blame the residents of the city for going so all-out in their celebrations, it seems a bit over-the-top to be drenching downtown in red flags and hanging huuuuge murals congratulating the 'hero-city' from as many bare building facades as possible. [leningrad was one of i think eight russian cities designated a hero city after the war was over] i'm almost glad i won't be around for the spectacle, though red square might not be any less insane. oh well.

2) i was witness to the single worst traffic jam in history this afternoon. i stupidly decided to take a bus downtown after class instead of the metro - ok, my reason was actually valid, but in retrospect i should've sucked it up and gone for the metro instead - and what normally takes about five minutes today took almost thirty. the route goes from the main street one block up from my building down three blocks and then turns right onto another main street, and then turns left onto the embankment next to the neva. [in case anyone has a map, i'm talking from the 8th-9th linii down bolshoi prospekt to syezdovskaya liniya, then onto universitetskaya naberezhnaya] on a normal day, even in mild traffic, this will take no more than five minutes, but today, it was pure chaos. i wish i'd had my camera to capture the fun that was at the intersection of the turn onto the embankment - it's normal for people to drive in the wrong lane if it's free of oncoming traffic, but this was simply unlike anything i've ever seen before. the line of vehicles trying to turn left onto the embankment was crisscrossed by vehicles trying to turn both left and right from the embankment, and there were eight trams backed up along this street, even further reducing the available space in which people could drive. basically, no one was going anywhere and a lot of accidents almost happened because at least three people often jockeyed for the same tiny space. (in the end, the SUVs tended to win, grrr) i stuck it out on the bus rather than getting out to walk because i wanted to see the cause of all this stupidity - and you know what it was? one effing cop car parked at another intersection, not even blocking the road, just parked there like someone important was about to pass. of course, no one did pass because we couldn't move, but this beat any and every case of rubbernecking i've ever seen on the beltway. truly amazing.

3) there's a new TV show on that makes me wonder if putin won't have a dark-horse contender in next year's presidential elections. there's a superbly trashy talk show here called 'okna' ('windows') and its host is this greasy guy named dimitri nagiyev, who has quite possibly the most unecessarily sleazy wardrobe i've seen over here. the guy's a walking ad for hair pomade, and he wears the most ridiculous sunglasses - they're trendy, but huge and rather dumb-looking. he's a bit of a cult hero here, not least because he lives in st petersburg. so, he's got a new show whose purpose seems to me to be to boost his rep as some samaritan. it's called 'vremya deneg', literally, 'time for money', and the premise is as follows: each episode, three people appeal to an in-house jury and lay out the reasons why they're the person best suited to receive 30,000 rubles [about $1000] at the end of the show. it could be because their kid is sick and needs a life-saving operation, or they're unemployed and they need money to cover rent, whatever. after each person testifies, two or three of their friends or relatives come out to testify either against them or in favor of them receiving the money, and after comments from the audience (no show here is any good without audience commentary!), the jury votes for whoever deserves the money most. now, obvious questions of whether or not this is a good use of 150,000 rubles a week aside, i find this show disturbing because it seems to be making this nagiyev guy out to be a god. the just, benevolent, omniscient god in a suit, tie, tiny reading glasses to make him look smart, and a snappy new hairdo. the show's music is sappy and slow to tug at your heartstrings, and the show's title graphic has a white dove in the middle, heavenly rays of sun bursting out from behind the letters, and is accompanied by a female soprano's voice impersonating that of an angel singing on high. honestly, the first time i saw it i thought of 'touched by an angel', and almost choked on my soup at the thought.

i don't know. maybe i'm reading too much into this, but the slickness of all this packaging a) reminds me a bit too much of home and b) really makes me wonder if this guy would ever run for president. i bet he'd be elected on the basis of his hair alone.

not-so-disturbing things:

1) well, sort of... megan left for home on monday, which leaves me not entirely alone, but without my strongest base of support here. oh well.

2) but rather than sit around and mope about that, i'm going to moscow with christine this weekend. mmmm, not doing any homework... :-)

happy mother's day, a few days early!

current mood: just kinda around
current music: moby/"evening rain"
posted by kat thompson at 10:22 AM

ladies: forget whatever cosmo or elle told you was 'in' for spring. i have seen the future of fashion, and it's purple hair. it's not subtle, and if it happens to match your faux fur jacket, so much the better. i figure, three sightings in one day can't be pure coincidence... right?

i'd like to say i've had a fun-filled past few days with my friends from moscow, but stephanie lost my phone number and they're leaving tonight. whoops. guess it's a good thing i'll be heading down there next weekend, so long as the train-ticket gods are nice to me.

dima's gone skinhead, i think: he shaved his head clean on tuesday and has been sporting the leather jacket and the 'i'm-a-playa' necklace consisting of a huge silver cross suspended from an even larger silver chain. he was shaving his friend's head as i left earlier today. maybe he's starting a gang?

here's a note for the more juvenile-minded among you: there are few things as satisfying as dropping a hard-boiled egg twenty-one floors and watching (and hearing!) it go smoosh on the pavement below. here's a note to the person who owns the car now covered in hard-boiled egg: we're sorry that our aim was so bad the first time.

it's kentucky derby day and for the first time in, good lord, seventeen years i'm not watching it? (the first winner i remember was ferdinand in 1986) my completely uneducated pick is scrimshaw. there you have it.

time to get my aching and blistered feet home... today was the first day of decent weather we had all week, so i spent most of the day running around and taking pictures. and being blinded by women with purple hair. it's the little things like that i'll miss about this country so much...

current mood: tired
current music: stone temple pilots/"cracker"
posted by kat thompson at 11:08 AM