General Update

Some of you have asked what Russians think about Americans, and what they have to say about the election and those kinds of things.  These are questions that commonly come up when I meet strangers and engage in conversation with them.  There is no standard answer, some have approached our group and told us that they simply don't like Americans, but this is not common, however others, although they might not agree with the American government, which I don't either on a lot of issues, don't seem to have any problems with Americans themselves. Common questions are what do you think about Russia's relationship with America, who did you vote fore in the presidential election, what do you think about Russia's conflict with Georgia, so on and so forth. I usually just answer honestly. 

I think Russia and America's relationship obviously isn't very good right now for several reasons, namely Bush's plan to put a missile defense system in Eastern Europe and NATO's involvement in Eastern Europe. First off I don't understand the need for the U.S. to have a missile defense system in Eastern Europe. Bush says it is to protect our European Allies from a possible attack from rouge states such as Iran, Syria and North Korea. I think we could come up with a better strategy for accomplishing the goal of protecting our European Allies, such as simply selling a missile defense system to  interested European buyers and strengthening disarmament policies on those rouge states.  Nevertheless, the missile defense system sends the wrong message to the Russians, they think the system is to target Russian missiles and defense sites. Plus Russia feels like it should be the one protecting its backyard, not the U.S. And I kind of agree. The U.S. surely wouldn’t be happy with Russian putting a missile defense system in some Latin or South American country to protect it’s allies such as Venezuela and Cuba from a possible attack for the U.S. We, the U.S., should first worry about our own national security interests and threats, and right now I don’t believe those above mentioned rogue states pose such a threat that needs a missile defense system in Europe. But that’s just my opinion. However it will be interesting to see how things will change, if at all, when Obama takes office.

Most Russians that I have talked with supported Obama.  And they too are curious to see whether relations will improve as a result of his election.  I think they will.  As for the Georgian issue, I’m not sure why the U.S. is so supportive of a country with a lunatic for a president.  I mean I understand the geopolitical interests the U.S. has in supporting the development of democracy and wanting an ally in that region of the world, but Saakashvilli isn’t very democratic from what I’ve read and heard about him. But that is something you never hear about in American media. Such as how Saakashvilli has increased authoritarianism in Georgia, how he harasses, intimidates, and even arrests his opponents and accuses them of being corrupt and allied with Moscow, how the judiciary freely admits that they are forced to judge based not on principles of justice and fairness, but on the commands of the prosecutor’s office, or how he sent riot police to gas and beat protesters at anti-government rallies in 2005 and 2007, not to mention low levels of press freedom and a slew other issues.  I also don’t believe most Americans know the whole story of how the conflict unfolded, mainly because Western media doesn’t portray those aspects, they simply play Russia as the aggressor and leave it at that.  But like I said I’m interested to see how things might change when Obama takes office.  I think Bush has created a bad reputation for America in the rest of the world, and I hope Obama and the new administration can change that.

Yes Cindy I did take that picture. I don't really miss ice tea that much, and as far as cold beer and saturday football, I really really miss college football.  Cold beer is no problem here, I mean the temperature is below freezing here anyway, so the beer is always cold.  Instead of drinking cold beer and watching American football, we drink cold beer and watch European football (soccer). It all balances out! And for those crazy mom questions, Katya is a Russian student that was assigned to me, she's not a girlfriend, haha, we just hang out and speak Russian together.  It's a program created so American and Russian students can become friends and can work on their English and Russian.  I'm definitely going to get dad a traditionally Russian hat, even though he'd probably never wear it. They are cool souvenirs anyway. I'm not sure if they are coming to visit though? I wanted them to, but I haven't heard anything. Do you know something that I don't know Cindy?...

I went snow skiing in Siberia for fall break! What did you do?

We had our fall break this past week and as you can probably tell from the title of this entry, it wasn't your typically fall break. Yes it's true, I went snow skiing in Siberia, but that is only a fraction of the story.  

The weekend started with the whole group taking a trip to Moscow, which was one of the scheduled excursions of our program.  Moscow is an interesting city, but I had been there before and wasn't as excited as everyone else was.  Moscow has been ranked the most expensive city in the world for three straight years.  Home to 74 billionaires, more than any other city in the world, Moscow's capital is 42% more expensive than America's most expensive city, New York. Official data for Moscow reports a population of 10.4 million people, however unofficial daytime estimates are between 12 and 17 million people.  Moscow is quite different than St. Petersburg.  I think of Moscow as strictly business and St. Petersburg as more artsy and cultural, and definitely more beautiful.  But Moscow has its astounding attractions too and it is well worth visiting.  Moscow is an interesting place to visit, but I would much rather live in St. Petersburg.  

On Sunday afternoon me and three others set out on a long and interesting journey to say the least.  We boarded a train from Moscow to Irkutsk, a 2,609 mile trip.  That translates into 84 hours on a train. Take a minute and try to imagine what that must have been like. You'll never truly understand until to do it.  The car we were on had about 50 people in it I believe.  There weren't private cabins either, just bunks grouped in fours. It's hard to explain how the car was set up.  Just imagine a car with about 50 bunks in it grouped in fours with four beds on one side and two on the other side with a small hallway down the middle. Of course there wasn't much room or privacy for that matter, not to mention no way to shower and the small and quite disgusting bathrooms.  And this was for 3 and a half days, 84 hrs.  It sounds like it would be a miserable experience, however I have to say that I really enjoyed it.  It wasn't that bad, unless you're one of those who has lots of needs.  We stopped in numerous cities along the way and saw the beautiful Russian countryside between Moscow and Irkutsk.  By the way, Irkutsk is the biggest city in Siberia near beautiful Lake Baikal, which is the largest freshwater lake and deepest lake in the world.  Some people were on the train with us the whole way, some even longer, while others got on for a day or so and got off along the way.  We met several interesting people during they trip, which provided excellent opportunities to practice our Russian.  Such occasions involved us invited people to play cards with us and trying to explain to them how to play the game.  And in return they tried to teach us some Russian card games.  We met some extraordinarily nice people on the train, I was a bit surprised at their hospitality and willingness to help us when we didn't understand something or were confused about how something worked.  And of course they were very intrigued about why four American students were on a train headed for Siberia.

After 3 and a half days on the train, when we arrived in Irkutsk we were all ready to get off the train and to see something different.  We took about a three hour bus ride to a town on the southwest corner of Lake Baikal called Baikalsk.  It was dark when we got there so we really couldn't see much at all, just that were was a lot of snow outside and that it was very very cold. The temperature got down to -19 C, which is about -1 degrees fahrenheit.  It started to snow pretty heavily not long after we checked into our rooms, and when we woke the next morning about a foot of fresh powder topped the base that was already there.  The town of Baikalsk is very small and is located in the mountain right on the lake. It scenery was amazing.  Our hotel was right at the base of a ski resort so on our first full day we decided to go skiing, which turned out to be the best decision I think we made on the whole trip.  The skiing was perfect. None of the slopes were groomed and we skied on fresh powder up to our knees all day.  The view of the mountains, the town, and the lake from atop the mountain when we were skiing was enchanting, quite possible the view I have ever witnessed.  I tried to capture it with a photo, as you can see from the the first picture, but the photo really doesn't do any justice to the actual view. You had to stop for a minute on the mountain and really take it in, looking around appreciating natures beauty.  You can probably tell from the second picture that I wasn't very prepared for a ski trip.  I had no ski pants and I had to ski in my jeans and two layers of long johns. I was certain that after one run my legs would be soaking wet, or frozen, and I would be miserable. However, the snow was really dry, probably because it was about -11 C at the time, and skiing in jeans was no problem, except for the strange looks I got from all the Russians there, but I didn't care. Everything was incredibly cheap too.  Renting skis and a lift ticket from 10-5 together only cost $50. The places I've been skiing in America $50 would barely get you a lift ticket for half a day.  The hotel was crazy cheap too, roughly $15 a night and it wasn't a shabby place either, quite comfortable.  We were in Baikalsk for two days and in Irkutsk for one day until we flew back to St. Petersburg on Sunday.  The whole trip was amazing, well worth it.  I always tell people that if you only go to St. Petersburg or to Moscow you don't see the real Russia.  Those are important parts of Russia, but in order to see the real Russia you have to travel in between, and after taking an 84 hr train ride 2,609 miles across Russia from Moscow to Irkutsk, I think i've seen the real Russia more so than before.