Watch this young Ukranian girl “drawing” the story of Ukraine during World War II, accompanied by Russian songs of that period.
Incredible Sand Artist
September 28th, 2009 by Oksana IngleBig Cultural Differences in a Small World
September 4th, 2009 by Oksana IngleONE DAY IN SARANSK (RUSSIA), my American friend, who would help all the poor and heal all the sick if she could, says to me: “Please talk to someone. The girl I am staying with is going to the U.S. in two weeks through the “Work and Travel” exchange program and she does not know where she is going to work or where she is going to stay! She is asking if I know anyone in New York who can help her find a job for four months. I used to know someone and of course I will ask them to help the girl, but please talk to someone!”
Some things are acceptable
I talk to the Dean of the School of Languages at Saransk University and explain the situation. She says she will fix it because whoever is responsible for that program is not doing their job. I also speak to the parents of the girl. They have called a relative living in the U.S. who will meet their daughter and look after her if it is needed—if she cannot find a temporary job. Her father adds that she can come back any time, that she doesn’t have to stay for four months, if things don’t work out. As he tells me this, his daughter, who sincerely wants to visit the U.S. and study English there, stares at me naively, unaware of the deep water she is about to step into.
That was three months ago. Today, I get an email from my daughter’s kindergarten about the Mount Pleasant Police (just across the river from Charleston) being called to investigate a 21-year-old ice-cream vendor who gave a ride to a 12-year-old boy after selling him some ice cream. Purportedly, the vendor, who is Russian and in the U.S. on a student-exchange program, “demanded” that the young boy get in his van. Also purportedly, the vendor claimed that he simply offered the boy a ride because there was a lot of traffic on the road, and that such a gesture is common in Russia, which in my experience is true. In Russia, pedestrians regularly catch a ride, which is cheaper than a taxi and a way for drivers to earn some extra cash. Everyone there knows how it works.
Tonight, at the weekly College-of-Charleston Russian Club gathering, I happen to speak to one young man who is clearly Russian and who tells me, when I ask, that he is a Russian university student here on a four-month “Work and Travel” exchange program. After spending three months in North Carolina selling ice cream from a rented van, he is in Charleston for his final month.
Of course, I suddenly realize it is him. I mention the incident with the police and ask him, “aren’t you aware of the tension and fear that exists in the U.S. about child molesters and kidnapping?” He says, blinking with his naïve blue eyes, that he did not even think about it; that the young boy he sold ice cream to was headed in his direction and so he offered him a ride, just as he would have done in Russia.
I certainly don’t know all the facts, and I just met this young man. But it sure sounds like a typical example of a foreigner visiting the U.S. without being aware of the consequences of his actions in a different culture.
As it turns out, my friends in Saransk have had many similar experiences. Just one example was when a couple of male students from the Middle East killed a goat one day and brought it’s carcass to the apartment where they were staying, leaving bloody stains on the stairs of the apartment house—which, of course, terrified the neighbors who then called the police. The students explained to the police that they wanted to cook dinner and invite their friends. So they did what they would normally do at home, only to find out that it was shocking and unacceptable in a Russian (or any other) town.
The world’s doors are opening quickly for students, but they should not be naïve when traveling abroad. •
My New Friends in Saransk
August 20th, 2009 by Oksana IngleIT IS EASY TO FORGET, HERE IN MODERN SARANSK, with new architecture and students and professors speaking fluent English (with a slight British accent), that I am in Russia. At the same time, Saransk reminds me of the old beloved Russia that I remember from my childhood. It is still in many ways untouched by western civilization.
During my visit, our host coordinator Olga (our “fairy” who makes all our wishes and requests come true) arranges for me to meet one of the professors of Russian literature at the university. She escorts me to the Department of Philology where not one, but five teachers are waiting with tea, chocolates, and cookies on the desk.
In the office of the Russian literature professors
It is a Russian tradition to offer your guests a cup of tea with sweets. We talk for two hours. They ask me about the life, education, and customs in the USA. Unlike their English Language colleagues, they have never been abroad and they want to know first hand what’s out there. I ask them to share with me their teaching methods and course material. As I am leaving, they present me with a pile of their own books (which I am still making my way through, with great pleasure).
Next day, it rains buckets while two of my new Russian professor friends, Lena and Sveta, are giving two of us a tour of churches. As we are trying to say goodbye—for the third time—my umbrella begins to leak badly, my feet are getting wet, and I start shivering. But in true Russian style, we continue standing in the middle of the walkway talking.
One evening, Lena invites me to her home for dinner. She and her 4 year-old son come to the university to pick me up. Lena’s mother has set a festive table in the small kitchen of their apartment, where eight of us (including Lena’s father, two other professors, and one of their teenage daughters) will sit shoulder to shoulder during the meal. They talk to me as if they have always known me and that I have simply been away for a long time. The ladies are very sweet. The father, a distinguished doctor of philological science, looks noble, wise, and stern at first, but then warm—which reminds me of descriptions I have read of the great Russian author, Leo Tolstoy.
At Lena's home after dinner
It starts getting late, so Lena’s mother invites me to spend the night in their home. I tell her that my apartment is a 5-minute ride by taxi. They call the taxi and when it arrives, the ladies escort me downstairs and outside to the taxi. Lena’s mother insists on paying for it because I have been their guest. I realize that, after more than 10 years in the United States, I have forgotten how good it feels to be the honored guest in a Russian home.
Days later, on the platform of the train station getting ready to board for Moscow, I ask one of my students what he liked best about being in Russia. He says, “Professor Gomer once told our class that the soul of Russia is its people. At the time, we thought, oh sure. But now I understand it. The people here are awesome. They invite you over, feed you, and spend time with you.”
As he says it, I think dearly of all my new friends. •
Getting to Know Saransk
August 18th, 2009 by Oksana IngleAN ENGLISH PROFESSOR AND FIVE STUDENTS from Mordovian State University meet us at the renovated train station. All of them are pretty and attentive. They take us to the university. After filling out all the formal papers we have a four-course lunch feast at the professors’ cafeteria. Then the old cherry-red university bus with curtains shading all the windows delivers us to our host families.
Our C of C group with our Saransk hosts
We meet for classes in a tiny class room with big windows, a lot of plants, and fine china cups. Our new friends from the English language department provide us with lots of tea. We just have to be sure to buy plenty of piroshky (a little white bread filled with cabbage, potato, jam—loved by each of us) and sweets to go with it. Every day at least two students and one teacher are always available to assist us. On the weekends we see 10 and sometimes even more of them.
The professors we meet at Mordovian State University, besides being helpful colleagues and extremely well versed in their areas of expertise, are warm and welcoming hosts. The students, many of whom speak several foreign languages, have traveled to the USA and England. At every turn they are here to help us.
Here we are in the chocolate factory (yum, yum)
After classes we go to concerts, tour the town, and visit local museums, the chocolate factory, historical villages, and the nearby monastery. We eat out a lot because the food is tasty and inexpensive (especially compared to prices in Charleston). We are invited to authentic private bath houses at the homes of our hosts. Girls first. Massaging and slapping each other with leafy birch-tree brooms in a humid, hot, wooden room. We feel like true Russians.
Our C of C students charm a lot of people by saying hello in Russian and trying to have a simple conversation. At the reception desk of the Foreign Language Department the faces of older ladies hearing “zdravsvuyte” (hello in Russian) immediately change from apathetic to warm and then radiant. We go to our favorite souvenir and book stores, where sales women have gotten to know us and are waiting for us. It seems they like that we not only buy a lot, but that they get a chance to ask us about America, to hear a lot of English, and to hear our American students struggling to speak Russian.
In front of a statue of Pushkin
On the street, we see little girls in pony tails, wearing bright dresses and adorable hats, holding the hands of their simply dressed parents. College girls are trying to be stylish by imitating western European fashions, but they still look very Russian. Why? Because in spite of their sexy summer dresses and 6-inch heels, they are carrying large bundles of groceries in well-used plastic bags. Old women are ambling everywhere. Not many old men. Grade-school children in uniforms, unaccompanied by their parents, are safely skipping for blocks and blocks to their school—a sight we rarely see in America now.
The people in Saransk are as interested in us as we are in them—so much so that a number of articles are written about us in the local newspapers. Our students are admired for studying Russian and for coming all this way to a little-known city and university. The papers are also eager to know what we think about Russia, whether we are enjoying our stay in Saransk, and if we will come back.
The question for us, however, is not if, but when. In fact, we are looking forward to repeating our visit again next year, but to travel through St. Petersburg instead of Moscow. •
5 Days in Moscow
August 11th, 2009 by Oksana IngleMOSCOW WELCOMES US with the warmth and first blooms of Spring, and the festivities of the celebration of the ninth of May—the day of victory of the Second World War.
After charming, provincial Charleston, any European capital would look huge. So does Moscow: The Kremlin with its museums, and Red Square with its sloping terrace, which, as I walk on it, makes me feel like I am crossing the globe. Across the street is the Bolshoi Theatre, with the world’s best ballet, where we will see “Giselle.”
Some of our group on Red Square
Our group of seven is staying in a newly renovated hostel, a 20-minute walk from the Kremlin. We occupy a 4-room apartment with kitchen in an old building with almost two-foot-thick walls on a quiet street. Each morning we have a Russian language class, then breakfast, and then we head out to tour Moscow till late in the night (early morning). The students are delightful company: curious, interested to learn, easy, punctual, polite, and always in a cheerful mood. I will go to sleep at midnight with my earplugs, knowing that they will be laughing and eating Russian sweets and snacks in the kitchen till 4 in the morning—as I used to do with my friends 20 years ago.
According to the “Vastness of Russia” newspaper, 80 percent of Russia’s money is circulating in Moscow. 80 percent of all the decisions are made in the capital. 80 percent of Russia’s cell-phone subscribers. 80 percent of Russia’s homeless. Over 50 percent of the foreign exchange balance. And 50 percent of all imported cargo clears customs here.
Tverskaia: the main street in downdown Moscow
Even without knowing the numbers, it is obvious that there is a lot of money in Moscow. It is considered the most expensive city in the world. Its population looks more mixed and contrasting than I remember even three years ago. The latest models of expensive cars are stuck in traffic. A young black man speaks Russian with no accent while giving away free newspapers at the entrance to the metro station. Asian men are mowing the lawns and working construction jobs. A lot of young women in high heels are wearing stylish European outfits. There are chains of fast food restaurants with expensive, tasty food. Moscow looks to me like a cosmopolitan Russian-style city. It will keep us busy and dizzy for 5 days.
Megan boarding the night train to Saransk
After that our destination will be a town the size of Charleston: Saransk—the capital of the Republic of Mordovia. Just a night train southeast of Moscow.
(Thanks to Megan for these great pictures.)
Returning to St. Petersburg
August 5th, 2009 by Oksana IngleI LOVE TO GO BACK TO RUSSIA as a tourist for a month or two. This time I have the luck to accompany some students in the Studies Abroad Program to the country that I still call mine.
St. Petersburg, May 5th. In the international airport I have a warm feeling of coming home. It looks almost like Charleston airport. The grounds next to the airport used to be green. Now there are malls. Chilly air. Dark trunks of trees in the fresh, green mist. Excavated brown soil around a newly built highway and viaduct.
When we get out of the car next to a 9-floor apartment house, my 5-year-old daughter asks on which floor is the bedroom of her cousin. This little American child will very fast get used to sharing a bedroom with her cousin and her aunt; a room which during the day serves as a computer and TV room.
Going down into the metro
The next morning we take a metro to go to downtown. St. Petersburg metro is the deepest and one of the most beautiful in the world. Some stations are over 100 yards below the ground. Once I saw an old man crossing himself before stepping onto the escalator leading into the deep hole, saying: “God speed! I am going under the ground.” Today I see middle-age people in the metro with grayish-greenish faces—after almost no sun all winter—staring into their newspapers, books, or at some invisible point in front of them. Next to them, college girls, with their bronze tans from the tanning salon, are chatting like birds.
On the metro platform
Finally, we are on Nevsky Prospect—the long and wide main boulevard of St. Petersburg, with its four lanes bordered by noble facades of old palaces, theaters, and stores. We go to the Russian Museum which was the first state museum of Russian fine arts in the country, established in 1895 under the decree of Emperor Nicholas II (the last Russian tsar). There is an exhibition of Russian-American emigrant painters, but we head to the main halls. After a couple of hours, overwhelmed by the richness of the splendid art, we try to go for a stroll, but it is so cold and starts to rain.
Savior on Blood Cathedral
We make a circle around the gorgeous fairytale-like cathedral, the Church of the Savior on Blood, and come to a café named the Coffee House which, as a sign of the times, has its English name written phonetically in Cyrillic.
They Americanized “Дом кофе” into “Кофе Хауз”
We have a delicious cup of tea and cake. The prices in St. Petersburg are about the same as in the USA. Only the bread and milk products still cost three time less. For 3 days I will be a tourist and my own tour guide. Then it will be time to take the 5-hour train to Moscow where I will meet with my group of students from the College of Charleston. ~ ~
St. Petersburg — City of Dreams
August 1st, 2009 by Oksana IngleOnce you’ve seen the view of this city from the sea, you can’t forget it. It’s not just the morning air on deck chilling your face, or the salt water lapping against the hull. It’s the marsh grass bending in the waves. It’s the seagulls gliding and screeching, and the lone figure of a fisherman on shore. As you get closer, it’s the colorful buildings tucked next to each other with their classical columns and shining rooftops in a skyline dotted with churches.
It could even be Charleston, but this city is not by the warm waters of the Gulf Stream. It’s on the Gulf of Finland next to the Baltic Sea. It is St. Petersburg, Russia which, like Charleston a few decades ago, dressed itself up for a 300-year birthday that it celebrated with art, music, dance, and theater from May to June—the same time Spoleto occurs in Charleston. But the festivities go longer into the night in St. Petersburg because it is the beginning of “white nights” when the sun sets for only two hours a day and the city takes on a special glow.
St. Petersburg from the Neva River
Hundreds of thousands of tourists visit St. Petersburg each year but few of them, even those from Russia, know its rich history: a history veiled during the Soviet era and a history still being rediscovered since the Berlin Wall came down.
The city began with Peter the Great, who grew up detesting court life in Moscow before inheriting the throne in 1696 at age 24. Only one year later he journeyed to Europe as the first czar to leave Russia in 600 years. During an epic visit to Holland, Germany, and France, Czar Peter recruited architects, artisans, and craftsmen to return to Russia and help build a city that would rival those in the west. He was a persuasive presence: six-feet seven-inches tall, with coarse dark hair, severe eyes, a striding gait, and abundant energy. He was extremely demanding but he was also fair, extending opportunity to anyone in whom he saw promise.
From an early age, Peter loved the sea and boats so it is not surprising that he left Moscow and went north to the Gulf of Finland. It was there, in 1703, that he stood in the marsh of the Neva River, gallantly set down a large stone, and declared that here would be the city of Sankt Piterburkh, in honor of his patron saint and with the Dutch spelling he had learned on his trip to Europe.
That same summer, 20,000 workers built the Peter and Paul Fortress (imagine Fort Sumter with a cathedral in the middle of it) and by the end of the following year they had completed the first shipyard. Peter’s dream of a port that would open traffic to Europe looked possible. Ten years later, in 1712, it became a reality when he moved the Russian capital from Moscow to St. Petersburg.
Peter’s curiosity and enormous energy propelled him to master ship building, as well as 13 other professions. He himself built, not only the first house in St. Petersburg, but many beautiful boats, and he regularly took part in the major construction projects of his new city. He envisioned St. Petersburg as a cultural haven as well as a great port, and to achieve this he sent hundreds of Russians to Europe to study the science, architecture, customs, and languages. He dressed his feudal countrymen in European clothes and taught them western manners.
The Winter Canal
Known by his subjects simply as Peter, he would carry scissors and stop men in the street to trim their long coats at the waist, to shear off their traditional beards, and to insist that they wear the buckled shoes then fashionable in Europe. Ladies in unthought-of of low-cut dresses had to attend formal balls which he organized once a week.
On his first trip to Europe, Peter recruited Italian architect Dominico Trizzini to design the city plan and palaces of St. Petersburg. Trizzini was one of many Europeans who would animate the blueprint of Peter’s dream into a city like no other in the world — a masterpiece of architecture, colorful buildings, and wrought-iron splendor, not unlike Charleston.
Also like Charleston, early St. Petersburg was repeatedly struck by floods and fire. So many wooden structures burned that the houses and embankments were eventually all built in stone. The floods, produced by a combination of ice melts and high winds, surged the Neva River as high as 13 feet, devastating the city. Although Peter once considered building canals to relieve the flooding, it was only later under Empress Catherine II that the city would be laced not only with canals, but with their 300 vehicle and foot bridges, each unique in its design, handrails, and statues.
After ruling for 29 frantic years, Peter died at 52—according to one version—as a result of diving into cold water to save a group of sailors. He was buried in a white marble coffin in the Peter and Paul Fortress he helped build. He had actualized his dream of creating a European city that would connect his country to the west, yet little did he know that in 200 years that connection would start to break; that Vladimir Lenin, with a dream of his own, would seize power in 1917 and that St. Petersburg, as Leningrad, would become a symbol of the Soviet Union.
Today, after the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, a renewed and renovated St. Petersburg opens its doors to the world. The city is alive and spirited again, perhaps the way Peter imagined it would be as he stood in the marsh that day with a stone in his hands and a dream in his heart.
When you visit St. Petersburg, by all means catch a boat onto the Neva River and witness this spectacle—this city of dreams—from the water. You will think of Russia in a new way, and you will never forget it. •
The Hermitage — Magnificent Art
August 1st, 2009 by Oksana IngleIn 1917 when armed Bolsheviks entered the czar’s Winter Palace in St. Petersburg to seize control of Russia, they were not thinking about the world’s largest collection of art inside. After all, it was Imperial art assembled over 150 years and had never been seen by the public. How could they possibly know that 10 million visitors a year would someday tread the same grand staircase that they climbed so anxiously that October night?
Although construction of the palace began in 1754 under Empress Elizabeth, daughter of Peter the Great, it was her successor, Catherine II, who made it look like an art gallery. Legend has it that young Catherine was walking through the palace one day when she stopped in front of a painting of “The Descent of Christ From The Cross” which had been a gift to Elizabeth. After admiring it for some time, Catherine ordered the paintings in all the Imperial residences to be brought to the Winter Palace. It was 11 years before the first museum in the United States was established in Charleston.
The Hermitage Museum
To bolster the collection, Catherine asked her ministers and foreign agents to buy all the best paintings abroad and send them to her. She subsequently purchased huge collections in Europe, gradually assembling thousands of paintings, marble statues, cameos, coins, and armor.
Most visitors walking through the Hermitage today are too overwhelmed by the art to realize that each of the 1,050 rooms is unique in its architectural moldings, window casings, ceiling design, floor paneling, and chandeliers. The building itself has 1,786 windows and 117 staircases, and stretches for nearly a kilometer along the Neva River. Seen from the outside, with river water reflected in its massive windows, the blue and white facade of this Russian-Baroque masterpiece seems to float above the ground.
This visual effect was the genius of Italian architect Bartolommeo Rastrelli who served as court architect during Elizabeth’s 20-year reign. The Hermitage — then the Winter Palace — was the fifth and final palace he designed. Rastrelli went to Russia as a boy when his father was recruited by Peter the Great. He knew only Russia for most of his life and he studied Russian orthodox churches, famous for their onion-shaped domes, to master his art. Soon after Elizabeth died in 1761, he fell out of favor because the new empress, Catherine II, preferred classical architecture. It is said that Rastrelli then traveled to Europe but returned to Russia penniless and died there.
Wrought iron work
The word “hermitage” is French and means “a secluded place.” Peter the Great had admired these formal garden retreats when he visited Europe and wanted them as a standard element in the homes of Russian noblemen. But it was Catherine II who built a pavilion in the Winter Palace known as “the small hermitage” where she could entertain private guests (who spoke French and wore French fashions) at lavish parties where servants were not allowed and where she could relax and forget her rank. Catherine later built a theater and a large pavilion (“the large hermitage”) and the name apparently stuck when the Soviets turned the Winter Palace into a national museum.
Perhaps without knowing it, Catherine II brought alive Peter the Great’s dream as she assembled her art collection and extended the palace. For in doing both, she drew emissaries, aristocrats, poets, and artists to a city that would become the leading cultural center outside Europe, and which would later attract people from as far away as South Carolina, such as Henry Middleton who in 1891 became Russian Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary and spent 10 years in Russia. That was also just the beginning. St. Petersburg would eventually be the home of Pushkin, Dostoyevsky, Tchaikovsky, and Shostakovich and would boast 250 museums, 80 art galleries, and 50 theatres.
The Hermitage itself includes masterpieces by Rembrandt, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Picasso, Matisse, Rubens, Titian, and El Greco. It is especially recognized for its Italian Renaissance and French Impressionist works, its Greek and Roman antiquities, and its Siberian and central Asian pieces which comprise one of the world’s largest collections of gold, jewels, and armor. To stop and actually look at every piece of art in the Hermitage, however, your vacation has to last for one year and you need to spend eight hours a day in the museum.
As you climb the spectacular white-marble staircases and step into the grand halls that were designed for thousands of guests to waltz at a time, it is hard to imagine this architectural wonder as a hospital during World War II, complete with operating rooms, a laboratory, x-ray facilities, and a dining hall. It was then, during the infamous 900-day German siege, that 650,000 citizens starved to death and 16,000 more died from bombing and shelling. Altogether, 40 million people died in Russia during the war as thousands of art works lay quietly in store in the Ural Mountains where they had been taken for safekeeping.
Survivors say that St. Petersburg was even more quiet. The streets were empty, there was no electricity or running water, and it just happened to be the coldest winter in St. Petersburg’s history. Due to the severe weather, the sea air, and no heating, all the rooms in the Hermitage were severely damaged by humidity and frost. The once gorgeous palace had been reduced to a war-torn relic of shattered glass, cracked walls, and buckling floors.
Today, however, tourists shuffle from one splendid room to the next, pausing to peer out the tall windows and gaze at the city’s cathedrals, parks, bridges, and squares onto a shimmering Neva River that sweeps downstream, reflecting today’s history of the “holy city” of Peter. •
Want to study Russian abroad ?
March 1st, 2009 by Oksana IngleWatch this video of my recent visit to St. Petersburg and Moscow (and remember to move your cursor away from the video after you click the start arrow):
