Russian Philology

Well. I thought I might add a few more posts, but if I ever do they'll have to be retroactive. I'm in New York now, and so I think it's time for a last comment on Russia. You'll forgive me, I hope, if it's a little technical at the beginning.

Russian verbs have what are called two aspects: perfective, and imperfective. The perfective is for finished actions--anything that has had or will have a definite result. So the imperative (command form) of the Russian word for "forgive" is used for "sorry"--it's простите (prostitye), and means "forgive me"--you know, just this once.

The imperfective aspect is for processes--actions that aren't finished yet, don't or won't have definite results, or that will go on for an indefinite length of time. The imperfective of the word for "forgive" is also most commonly used as an imperative--it's прощаете (proshchaetye), and it means "farewell."

That's all.

Cruise

So. The cruise went something like this:

Sunday, we boarded the ship (the St. Petersburg) at about six, and it left at about seven. It probably held about 200 people; the cabins smelled a little funny, and the bathrooms had an arrangement that involved screening off the toilet and then hosing yourself off in front of the sink in order to shower. Interesting.

That night we traveled up the Neva and part of the way across Lake Ladoga. We also learned that anything we might want to know about the cruise (there’s a meal now, this is tomorrow’s schedule, the souvenir kiosk is open these hours, the ship is leaving in ten minutes, there’s a master class on ballroom dancing in the disco-bar, the souvenir kiosk is now open, etc.) would be announced over the loudspeakers (which are everywhere, and loud). Repeatedly.

How we grew to hate the announcer-lady.

Monday we woke up relatively early (breakfast was at 8:30 or 9:15 every day), and stopped at a village whose name I don’t remember. If I did remember the name, I wouldn’t tell it to you; the place deserves to have its naming privileges revoked. It bears about the same resemblance to a traditional Russian village that a renaissance fair does to the middle ages. I think that actually covers it; I spent most of my time there skipping rocks.

Which reminds me: swimming is apparently a favorite Russian pastime (at least, away from the cities); we saw people swimming in various places all along the banks of the Neva, and there were beaches in every place we stopped. That said, the beaches are usually more about rocks than sand, and the water is cold. In the middle of the summer, the water is cold.

The weather was beautiful, though. It was clear and warm (a little bit hot, even) every day, and clear and cool (cold, since we were moving) every night. Plus, the northwestern Russian countryside is beautiful—forest as far as the eye can see. I thought I might take the opportunity, far from any light pollution, to get a really good look at the stars, but this didn’t work out as well as I might have liked. The sun set at 10:30 or 11:00, and at 1:30 it was still twilight. We’re well past the white nights now, but as far as I can tell twilight still lasts all night. Oh well.

Tuesday we stopped at Petrozavodsk (which is on a lake other than Lake Ladoga). ‘Petro’, from Peter I (who ordered the town built at around the same time as SPB), and ‘zavod’ from the Russian word for factory (which is apparently what the town was supposed to do). It was nice enough in spite of that; the residential section was very green. It was also very boring. We started the morning with a tour of...the city’s monuments. Sculptures, that is. God only knows why it has so many. After that, we had about fourteen hours to do I don’t know what. I spent some time sitting in one of the parks, and then a lot more time wandering around aimlessly. I think we were all a little concerned after those first two days.

The third day was better. Our stop was the island of Kizhi, which is home to the remnants of an old village, and a couple of very large wooden churches from the 17^th or 18^th century. Really—very big, lots of onion domes—at least, on the larger one. It is kind of leaning, though. The tour there was actually informative, and the island was very pleasant. A few wooden buildings (as previously mentioned), a swimming hole, some trees, and a few buildings way on the other side where all the people who maintain the island live. Unfortunately, we only had a few hours there—just enough time for me to find and annoy some sea birds.

In the evening, Anna Aleksandrovna (the director of the program) gave those of us who were willing to listen to it a lecture on Russian folklore and religion. After that, she came out onto the deck to discuss reading with us.

This is a metaphor. I did not invent it. I think at this point she has spent more time-per-person interacting with us over drinks than in any other setting. This may be an exaggeration, but it’s not a very large one.

The fourth day we visited a monastery near a ‘genuine Russian village’ (Anna Aleksandrovna’s words, translated), then spent some time hanging around said village. The village was basically a collection of houses in the middle (well, on the edge—of course it bordered the lake) of a forest. Among might be more accurate—the forest didn’t precisely end just because the village began; it just kind of gave way to underbrush. The houses were about evenly split between ones that were in terrible repair, and ones that looked more or less modern. Even some of the shabbier-looking ones tended to have things like satellite dishes, though. There were a lot of gardens, but not very many yards—grass (and weeds; lots of weeds) tends to be cut with a scythe. This was the case in Petrozavodsk, too—I saw several groups of city workers going around with scythes. Gas-powered mowers and weed whackers just aren’t common, I guess.

The last day we stopped on an island called Valaam, which is basically a large chunk of granite in the middle (near the top) of Lake Ladoga. It was great—all pine forest and rocky beach. I don’t think it has much of anything on it besides churches and monasteries. A couple of farms to support the monasteries, some seasonal residences for tour guides and people. Oh, and apparently an extension of the logging industry, which operates right next to the main monastery. Russia has such a beautiful countryside, and the Russians do such terrible things to it. I don’t think they’ve really developed any kind of environmental consciousness; I went a long way along the shore of Valaam, and I found bottles and bags and cigarette boxes along all of it. Ah, well. Valaam still nearly redeemed the trip by itself.

I’m really, really tired of tours, though.

That’s it. We got back to SPB this morning, and now I’m here writing. Or maybe in New York posting. I can almost taste the free wi-fi.

I can’t imagine how that would work.

PSA

I intended to write something substantial today, but I remain easily distracted.

Since I just finished classes but won't be home for another week, you may have guessed that there is still more to our program here. Well, there is. The last week is devoted to a cruise along the rivers and lakes of Northern Russia, to various naturally and culturally well-endowed sites. We'll be stopping at four relatively old Russian towns over the course of the five or six days of the cruise, where we'll have tours and free time. We're bringing our usual tour guide (Natasha) with us, so I maintain the hope that she will be conducting our tours, since she's fantastic (I may have mentioned that. It bears repeating; she makes "tour guide" look like a respectable profession). Also, everyone's been saying how beautiful the scenery is, so I have high expectations.

That said, I'm leaving in about ten minutes, and will of course be completely out of contact for the next week. As far as most of you are concerned, anyway. Never fear, though--I'm not done updating quite yet.

Finals

Friday was the last day of classes, so we naturally decided to commemorate it with a big, long test. That was what I had thought, anyway. The test was relatively short and easy, though (especially when compared to the initial test--no competition, there), and even the conversation section was easy. (Here I plead luck: it was supposed to be based off the themes we discussed in class, which were things like "the Russian education system" and "the Russian economy" and "Russian health care." Seriously, stuff I could make two or three intelligent comments about in English. Well, my question was "what would you tell Russians from Moscow about St. Petersburg?" Like breaking a toothpick.)

After that we had one of our Friday-afternoon gatherings, where they did things like tell us how where to meet for the cruise, confirm who was going home when, and tell us how we're going to get to the airport. Oh, and pay us. All in all, very useful.

Since it seemed appropriate, we commemorated the test by renting out a Georgian restaurant for the evening. Georgian cuisine, from what I can tell, is very well respected in Russia, and not without reason. Georgian wine is also very well respected, and there was plenty of that, too. The natural extension of this is that lots of toasts were made--the teachers toasted us (those of them that were there--two had some excuse that I don't think anyone ever actually heard), we toasted them (individually, and with flowers), plus some change. We may have also sung every single one of the songs we learned for phonetics, in some cases more than once. I have some of this recorded. I'd like to point out, though, that just because English doesn't have a 'we-exclusive' form (neither does Russian, in case you were wondering) doesn't mean I'm not using it.

By the kind of coincidence that I tend to think of as hilarious, Friday was also the birthday of the most reserved student in our program, who therefore got dragged into far more dancing and singing than she obviously would have preferred--after she was forced to make a speech, in which she thanked the teachers for presenting her with a large important test on her birthday. Hopefully she secretly found it as amusing as the rest of us did--and if not, hopefully she'll come to forgive eventually.

There was also a lot of dancing, which ranged from amusing to amusing. That's supposed to mean that some of it was more or less decent, but if I'm going to call the bad dancing amusing I have to admit that I found the good dancing amusing too.

All told, I think I was there about four and a half hours, and I was about in the middle of the departures. After that, I went with Tyler and Larissa (you remember them from Moscow?) and some others to meet with Misha (Misha is a boy's name--and he's done with his studies in Moscow for the moment), et al., to go up onto a building roof. This, apparently, is an essential part of life in St. Petersburg. It turned into a fairly tedious production, though, so by the time we got up to the roof those of us who needed to get home by any kind of public transportation had to turn around pretty much immediately and go catch the last train on the metro. The view is nice, though.

Today I went to the Russian Museum (earlier than I would have liked, but I agreed to meet someone there) and the Russian Ethnographic Museum. Both of them are pretty cool, and the second one's a communist monument, too. I don't think I have anything special to say about them, though.

I'll think of it later. I just know I will.

In between museums, we had lunch at the Stray Dog, which I'm afraid only means anything to Tatiana Aleksandrovna. Her favorite poet is Anna Akhmatova, you see, and Anna Akhmatova and her friends (also poets, because bad things come in groups) used to hang out at that cafe. I'm afraid it'll have to serve as a substitute for going to the Anna Akhmatova museum, which I may have said I'd try to do. Oh well.

That's all.

Russian Etymology III

This is more of an interesting coincidence than a piece of actual etymology, but all the same:

желать (zhelat) is to wish, and

жалеть (zhalet) is to regret.

That's not all, but the rest will have to wait for tomorrow. It's late.

Russian Etymology II

In Russian:

правда (pravda) is truth.

права (prava) is right, just like the noun in English.

править (pravit) is to direct.

правительство (pravitelstvo) is government.

Vegard

Exciting news! The Englishman has been replaced by a Norwegian student, and Emma is once again staying with her brother. The Norwegian's name, as you may have already guessed, is Vegard. Roughly. I've only seen it in Cyrillic so far. I was afraid, at first, that I was going to have to communicate with him entirely in Russian--but he's European, so of course he knows English too. That's probably an unfair generalization (though I hesitate to call any generalization which can be paraphrased "lucky bastards!" unfair); but in Norway, at least, English is taught from first grade on. So.

Vegard is here studying Russian, naturally enough, and has already taken six months' worth of it at home. I'm going to go ahead and suppose that all the studying of English taught him how to listen to foreign languages, because he already seems to be doing a lot better than I was when I got here. Not as well as I'm doing now, though. Anyway, it seems that things are coming full circle, since I will now be here just long enough to make things easier for someone else who will be living here for a while. I got to explain to what to expect from and how not to offend Emma, and I started to explain about the white nights (in connection with the question of whether or not the streets are safe at night) before I realized that he comes from the land of the midnight sun.

It should be interesting--but I'll give him until tomorrow before I start grilling him about Norway.