Last Two Weeks

Last week our Kirovian counterparts came to Kazan for a four-day visit. These are the students, also on our program, who spoke no Russian at all when they came to Kirov, a smaller city 16 hours north of us. We showed them the ever-impressive Kremlin, took them to the Intellect Cafe (an excellent establishment with chessboards and free refills on tea), and went bowling. Then the next day we went to an art museum, a skating rink, and to a Tatar-language play at the Theatre Kamal. Then the next day we went on an excursion to Bulgar, home of the ancient Bulgars who settled Kazan and whose descendants now live in Bulgaria. We walked around the new Bulgar, a sizeable village, and the old Bulgar with its ancient ruins. We also waged some epic snow fights, made animal friends, and had an amazingly quiet few minutes by the banks of the frozen Volga. The next day we went to Boogie-Woogie Pizza, another excellent find, and then we said our goodbyes. The next day, as part of our birthday celebrations for Kelsey, we watched "Kniga Masterov," or "Book of the Masters," the first Russian Disney film. It was an interesting combination of Russian and Disney fairy-tale elements: Baba Yaga, mermaids, princesses, the water of life, and happy endings all around.

Swine flu has overtaken the city, so this past week all the students except us have been "quarantined," meaning they don't have class. On Wednesday, this crazy dance teacher coerced Sam, Ian and I into working lights for a concert for the rector's birthday. I use the word "concert" loosely, charitably. It turned out to be three and a half hours of speeches, set to the ubiquitous disco remix of "Pirates of the Caribbean," interspersed with occasional karaoke numbers. Doing silly things with the spotlights soon lost its charm. We thought it was done, and then the rector got up and made his own speech, which was actually pretty good...the man had something to say about being a teacher.

After all this ridiculousness, we went to see "Czar," a kind of psychological thriller about the life and craziness of Ivan the Terrible. It was gory and incomprehensible.

Friday night I had a gig at The Leprechaun, Kazan's only Irish pub. It was pretty low-key; I just played my limited Irish repertoire for about half an hour.

Today I went and saw an excellent concert of folk music and culture. Really great stuff. It was mostly folk singing in various regional styles. It was all pretty loud and strident, with interesting harmonies and vocal techniques.

So that's been the past two weeks for me. Just over a month remains. I have nothing profound to say right now. I'm having a great time.

Working with our Russian student-tutors, who help us tackle challenging grammar and review the stuff we already know.

The view from the Kremlin at sunset, which happens at 3:30 in the afternoon these days.

Bulgar - home of the ancient Bulgars. These were some fun ruins.

Us on a tank at Victory Park.

"Everybody's Waiting for the Next Surprise"

I think Halloween is something you have to experience to understand. Friday night I was the guest native speaker at an English language "conversation club." The theme was Halloween, and we talked about Halloween traditions and symbols. Everyone spoke really good English, but it was still hard to convey the spirt of Halloween and the idea of scaring people and being scared for fun. People mostly know what Halloween is here, but they don't have the same kind of associations and symbols as we do. For instance, when the little kids saw us carrying pumpkins, they said, "Are those real pumpkins? Are you going to eat them?"

On Saturday we created an American Halloween party of epic proportions at School 165. We carved pumpkins with our Russian friends. (When we smelled burning pumpkin, we remembered to tell them to scoop out the insides.) We cut out bats and pumpkins and witches from wallpaper. Ben and I made an impressive spider web. We dressed up in various costumes, ranging from vampire to "person with a mouse on his shoulder" to President Medvedev.

When our guests arrived, our friend Ilsur made a speech to his "dorogiye druzya." We had a trick-or-treat trail for the little kids and showed the big people the Russian version of The Nightmare Before Christmas. Then the students at the school performed an English play, which involved rhyming couplets and impressive costumes, and we performed our play, a Russian version of Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin that barely held together until the arrival of our friend Diana and her pinata, which was meant to look like a pumpkin but ended up being a kind of ghoul in the Colombian national colors.

After that we took our guests out into the hall for games such as Spooky Musical Chairs (the kids ran around while I played "Danse Macabre" on the violin), Bobbing For Apples, Fortune Telling, Pin the Nose on the Witch, and Mummy-Making (wrapping up little kids in toilet paper.) Then there was the costume contest, and then the party fizzled out. Sam and I recited Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven." (Sam was the Raven.) We raised over $4,000 rubles for the orphanage. We smashed the pumpkins on the snow-covered Russian sidewalk. It was the best Halloween I've had in a long time.