Amazing Adventures of Avrelia F in Moscow. Part IV

[avrelia]

You probably will be surprised, but I haven’t forgot to finish my Moscow stories. I just didn’t write it. After so many days I am coming back to the last part of my Moscow visit.


I tried to write something meaningful, but when I tried to write something meaningful it turns silly – so I discarded several beginnings of the end of this story. And now I am just picking up where I stopped the previous part.

It was May 9, 2004, and I was alone in my apartment. My parents were in the summerhouse for the long weekend, my sister was with her friends for the long weekend, I was all by myself, and happy about it.
May 9 is a big holiday in Russia, Victory Day, celebrating the victory in WWII, or, as it usually called in Russia – The Great Patriotic War. Why this date? On May 9, 1945 Germany signed its capitulation to USSR. It signed general capitulation – to the Western powers – on May 8, but USSR representatives weren’t present, so we have it May 9. I love this holiday, even though it usually means just one extra free from work day and generally turns the first half of May into non-stop festival of doing nothing useful. Once it was a happy and sad, but rather clean-cut victory: we were attacked, we defended ourselves and other nations, and we won. Victory, yay! It is not just as clean-cut nowadays, but it still happy and sad. And, actually my own existence now depended on the victory then. Going on a tangent here, but when I am thinking about it, I am amazed how much my own history, the history of my family is interwoven with the history of my country. I am not sure I would exist if the events – big, noticeable events from history books - turned another way. And I kind of cherish my existence. So, yeah, we won the war. Together with other nations. And I roll my eyes at all declarations that USA single-handedly won the WWII. And, honestly, I don’t feel particularly bad seeing in Moscow treasures found by Schliemann in Troy. In a better world they would be in Turkey, and the Parthenon Frieze in Athens, and all other stuff where it was created. But in our world things happened the other way. We only can try do better the next time. By the way where did the antiquities from the Iraq’s museums go? Has anyone seen it since that days?
Sorry, I went into some strange place. Feel free to ignore. Let’s return to the sunny morning May 9. I was sitting before the TV and watching the military parade, a tradition for this day. I usually don’t watch it, but after several years, it was quite interesting.

Then I met with my friends, and we went to the small Botanical Garden in the centre of Moscow. Moscow has another Botanical Garden, vast green island on the north-east of the city. This one was originally organized (in XVIII c.) in order to grow healing herbs, and was called appropriately, “Aptekarskiy Ogorod” – A Pharmacy Garden. The name stayed, though the herbs were changed for rare plants as in XIX c. the garden changed the owner. For many years in XX century it was derelict and neglected, but lately – nice surprise – it has been renovated and pretty. You saw the pictures.

Another day’s gone. What was I doing in the last two days in Moscow? Walking mostly. Here and there, seeing friends and places that I haven’t seen before. Shopping. Books, shoes, lingerie, what ever else I decide will make more sense to buy in Moscow. Prices there are not exactly low, nut some things are still cheaper.

Went to a café with my parents. One of better developments in Moscow in the last years is that lots of affordable places to dine out appeared. Because in my university years it was a serious problem – to find a place to eat outside of home – mine or friends’. Striking contrast with Saint-Petersburg, where one can have a cup of coffee and a piece of cake in every bakery.

Saw a school friend. Her five-year old daughter is lovely and adorable, and talking non-stop.

Walked some more. I find it curious, how much time this visit I spent walking Moscow by myself. It felt good, though by the end of the visit I was in somewhat frenzied state of mind: “Oh I won’t have time to go there and there!” Well, so what? Moscow is so many places, to visit them all would take an absurd amount of time, yet here I would remember some place and wish to see it, even if I didn’t have any particular purpose being there, or even if I don’t like much the place in question. So I walked – but my pictures say it better than I do.

The same thing with the food. Here I might have dreamed of something that is hard to find in Canada, so when I was in Russia I could get it and eat it, only – at that particular moment I didn’t want to eat that particular food. But at least I bought and eat my favourite cake “Ptichie moloko” (Birds’ milk) It was as good as it should be. My visit was fully successful. ;)

Going to the end of the story, I am again struggling not to miss anything of importance. I’ve already talked about books, have I? I bought a load of books that look at me now and demanding to read them, even if I have too many other books to read. And I don’t know when I will read all book I have. And I still want more. And I begin a sentence with “and” way to often. Please stop me.

Packing things up was hard, so I allow my mother to do it instead. Well, I never sure how much food I can safely bring with me to Canada – with the custom regulations that generally don’t allow it. I’ve never had any problems with chocolate, but other stuff – I prefer to cheerfully say that I don’t have anything. Letting my mother to pack left my conscience in much better state. Yes, I know, it’s stupid. I want to bring my cheese to Canada without declaring it. It’s silly. Call me apple-green mammoth. Anyway, I took some cheese, some bread, some tea, lots of chocolate and my favourite cranberry liquor.

And then I was in Canada. Eventually.

So, here is the thing. If I love Moscow that much, what am I doing here? Thank you, this is a good question, I am working on the answer. I’ve never planned to live outside Russia for a long time. I rarely plan anything, but that’s another problem. My husband got a job offer one day – to work in Vancouver – and we decided why not? Go, see Canada, see the world outside. May be I should have planned better, because you know, I feel that I’ve lost four years doing almost nothing. Well, I had lots of friends, I learned English, I learned lots of other probably useless things, read a huge amount of books, embroidered a cushion cover, learned to drive, saw lots of beautiful places and weird animal, got obsessed with BtVS…
I cannot discount all those things. But I still cannot figure out what do I want from my life. And here is the thing: I want to do something meaningful here. Out of stubbornness, I guess. Just going back to Russia won’t make things right. I have to fix my life here. Besides, I kind of love the idea of living wherever I wish to live at the moment. This was, by the way, partly a comment to gobi_rex's latest post that I never got around to post as a comment. So, I am in Canada now. I think – temporarily. Although, as modern Russian wisdom has it: nothing is as permanent as temporary.

Wow, I’ve made it!

Comments

[fer1213.livejournal.com]

When I married my husband, I only moved to a different state, not a whole new country, culture and language. It sounds like you've adapted extremely well for only being in Canada for four years. But there's still and always will be that pull of "home", isn't there?

I've really enjoyed your retelling of your trip. Thanks for sharing it.

[avrelia.livejournal.com]

I am glad you enjoyed it. It could have been done better or sooner, but I am happy I finished it and can now focuse on other things.

The pull of home - yes, it is here, it probabbly will always be here, but as time goes by I feel that I am not really at home anywhere anymore. I think it will pass eventually. ;)

[gobi-rex.livejournal.com]

Damn, there's a lot I should comment on. [gobi stretches her fingers]

So, in the order as they appear:

About Victory Day. Yup, once it was very clear cut for me, too. And now it isn't. I have a lot of mixed up feelings about WWII in general and how things were handled by all the countries involved. Still, when I think about the war, I associate it with my grandparents (both of whom passed away in the last 3yrs... and I was stuck in the US, so another load of guilt right there). I read "Molodaya Gvardiya" as a teenager and I tried to be objective given the general consensus at the time that it was a very skewed propaganda novel. But it touched something inside of me, my grandparents were from the same region as described in the novel, and I couldn't help imagining them in place of the characters. It all becomes personal at some point. I've heard my grandparents' stories and I've heard stories from people on the other side (Germans and Poles) and I concluded that war is a terrible thing and that nobody really wins.

I used to walk a lot in Moscow, too. If I was lucky and my friends would be in town when I visited in the summer, we'd visit the museums and exhibits and all the parks. When I wasn't so lucky, I'd walk around by myself, shopping or just wondering around, visiting childhood routes. When you only have several channels on the TV, it forces you to get out of the house :)

Oh my God, the food! For me, it's the dairy. Packing on the way back is a nightmare, I'd always get loaded with alcohol, dried mushrooms, chocolate, dark bread, various gifts... that's the annoying thing, you always haul stuff back and forth and most of it is not even for you. Once I smuggled grechka/buckwheat (it's available in Oregon hippie stores, but it's not the same).

More later.

cont.

[gobi-rex.livejournal.com]

I never planned to live outside Russia either. I visited my mother for one summer when she was working in the US and I ended up staying for one more year and then another and another. Back then, I couldn't fathom returning and having to live without my mother, as I already had in 7th grade (and it wasn't my best time). As time went on, I became more and more apprehensive about being able to survive in the Russian educational system and succeed at the university in Moscow, so I stayed here.

I agree, going back won't necessarily fix your life. "Loving the idea of living where you wish to live" - right on.

It may feel like you lost four years doing nothing, but I don't think that's really true. You experienced life in another country, saw your homeland from the outside perspective, learned new skills, saw new places... and don't forget Buffy. I don't think it's a waste at all.

Re: cont.

[avrelia.livejournal.com]

I miss Russian dairy products in Canada. Even when I can buy something in a Russian store here, it is not the same. I do, however, buy buckwheat in Russian stores – both in Vancouver and in Toronto it is not a big problem.

You experienced life in another country, saw your homeland from the outside perspective

Oh, I am. A whole new perspective – on Russia and on the world in general is the thing that I appreciate the most out of this four years. Plus, all the people that I would never meet otherwise – from many different places. There are a lot of things on the “plus side” of the balance. But the identity crisis is mean, honestly.

[avrelia.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I couldn’t answer at once, but I am very happy to talk to you about this.
When I think about WWII in an abstract way, on a level of countries, politics, and strategic decisions, it is one thing – I am searching for a balanced perspective there. But when I am thinking in personal terms, about my family – it was about survival, and the victory has it grand and unblemished meaning. And I have enough of family members who didn’t survive, and those who did – often survived by mere chance. So I feel it too close to home not be happy. But, yes, war is a terrible thing from all sides of it, and hearing stories from other side touches me as hard.

And Molodaya Gvardia – yes, I read the book (it was in a school program after all), I visited Krasnodon ( I have relatives there) when I was a child, and I remember how I perceived the story at the time. When I was thinking recently about it – they were a bunch of teenagers who wanted to do something – something useful, something heroic, and they did it. May be it wasn’t useful so much as stupid on a big scale, but they were real, and then they were idolized but propaganda in unprecedented proportions.

Stepping aside from WWII, I had a terrible experience in Vancouver once. I was in on of the workshops for newcomers to Canada that are so abundant here and provide good opportunity to meet various people and talk English. So in my first couple of years in Canada I was a regular participants of such things. So, when the meeting starts, everyone introduce themselves – name, country, something else. Fine. So, we went to introduction, and that lady introduced herself: “I am __, I am from Afghanistan, my father and brother were killed by Russians…” I really wanted to hide under the table at that moment.

Moving on…
When you only have several channels on the TV, it forces you to get out of the house

I begin to think it is a good thing. As opposed to having to pay for sixty channels, only ten of which being watchable. On the hand, freedom of press…

[gobi-rex.livejournal.com]

I agree with you about WWII. The abstract and the personal is very different for me, too.

About Molodaya Gvardiya. It was also on our reading list, only I read it ahead of anyone else in my class. And I left at the end of 8th grade, so I don't know if my class studied it formally later. Whenever I tried to talk about it with my friends and my older cousin, they'd make a lot of dismissive noises and that was that. On the part of my classmates, I think it was a reaction not so much to the subject matter, but to our old timer literature teacher. And probably also teenage rebelliousness and the reaction to the general atmosphere in the early 90s, the feeling of the changing tide and I don't know what else. I think some people got so caught up in rejecting everything communist related, they didn't notice the other aspects of the issues. Sometimes I wish I stayed around to observe my classmates some more.

And you're right. The characters were real and I understand why the acted the way they did. I remember wondering how I'd have acted in their situation.

Yup, the TV situation is not perfect anywhere.

[gobi-rex.livejournal.com]

Ahh, now to the juicy part, i.e. your workshop experience.

I know exactly how you feel. And it's still a very sore issue for me. I didn't have an experience like yours, nobody said something explicit like that in my presence, but I was sensitive/paranoid to it anyway. Also, I think my personal reaction to this issue is rooted in my own tendency to assume the worst. Remember Buffy in Conversations with Dead People and her inferiority complex about her superiority complex? Well, that's kind like how I feel about being from a country which did various nasty things to other nations. And at the same time I understand that you and me can not be held responsible for what was done under our flag, it's just plain ridiculous.

When I entered American high school, there was a Polish boy two years older than me. He came here on an exchange program and ended up attending Harvard (smart lucky bastard). We were in the same advanced science classes (big surprise) and we had common nerd friends, but we didn't become very close, mostly because of my insecurity about being a Russian. He didn't seem to have a problem with it, perhaps he was polite, I don't know.

Then in college, people would constantly point out to me: so and so is from this and that (USSR) republic, you should meet. And I would smile politely and do my best stalling donkey impression.

In my third year economics class we had to introduce ourselves and I found out there was a girl from Prague. That was the first and only time I opened my mouth in that class (fortunately, class participation wasn't required). We never talked to each other and she never gave me any reason to think she felt any animosity towards me personally, but all the same. She was in another economics class the next year and same story. The accent is a giveaway (although I've been told that mine sounds more like a Baltic accent) and I didn't want to push my luck in her presence.

So yeah, I'm screwed up. Please, don't follow my example. It's probably my insecurity combined with sensitivity to other people's experiences. Curiously, I didn't seem to have this problem when I first met my mother's German and Polish colleagues.

[avrelia.livejournal.com]

Thanks, but I already did this mistake all by myself. I believe I got over it. A great help in the matter was our friends – a Romanian/Polish couple with whom we can and do talk about politics and history – in general and between our countries.

But I can relate to feeling slightly paranoid about being Russian in North America. It is not so much particular people who ask silly questions (how many times one can listen to “How cold is in Russia?” and “How’s your communism?” – but at least I am not being asked about our vampires as the aforementioned Romanian guy): I can answer silly questions and explain climate conditions and the political situation in Russia. It was more of a general undercurrents that were felt – that’s why I sometimes wasn’t sure if it was really here or it was just me being paranoid – opinions that Russia is a weird place, populated by weird people, and rarely a good thing can be expected from there. Beside Tolstoy, Dostoevskiy, caviar, and vodka.

[gobi-rex.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the undercurrents can be tricky. In my experience, the questions are a pretty good indicator of how much the person really knows. I understand that culturally it's much harder for Westerners to understand and relate, and I don't expect people to know the finer points, but just in general.

When I'm feeling especially flirtatious or devious, when people ask where I'm from, I ask them to guess In my experience it's a good way to separate the oafs from the rest (Some people have to think hard to figure out where Russia is located). What's unnerving is when some people can tell just by seeing my face.

What makes me mad is when people have an agenda/opinion of their own and it shows in their questions. For example, recently I was standing in line at the bookstore and was pulled into a conversation with a big burly guy, who (after asking about the cold climate), proceeded to talk about Russia's tremendous natural resources and from the way he was speaking, I concluded he was in the logging industry. Several years ago I had a similar conversation with an academic advisor at the university, who flat out told me that Russia should invite American oil firms to extract all the oil and thus generate much needed revenues.

Heh, it all depends on the person. I've had some great conversations with people I met only for a few moments and I've had conversations I couldn't wait to end.

This reminds me that I constantly have to fight and defend and explain the stereotype of Americans when I visit Russia.

[avrelia.livejournal.com]

Absolutely – Russia isn’t any better in stereotyping other nations. But it was living in Canada that drove it home – having to represent all Russians here to people who’ve never seen one, and then read or listen to nonsense that Russians say about themselves and the others.

I think if I had to learn about Russia through the media coverage here, my view would be as distorted. That’s where those strange undercurrents and leftovers from the cold war reside. I am often angry about the public opinion, not the people I am talking to – I can explain something to a person, or dozen, but to change the public opinion… It would be cool though. ;)

What's unnerving is when some people can tell just by seeing my face.

I learned how to spot a Russian (and a person from the former USSR in general) in Canada soon enough. Lots of people that I know can. Never sure is it good or bad – to be easily recognized as Russian.

[gobi-rex.livejournal.com]

When I consider the news coverage America gets in Russia and vice versa, I'm not surprised the opinions on both sides are the way they are. It sucks though.

Yup, I wish I could change public opinion, too. isn't there a saying that the masses tend to be more foolish than the individuals?