Step 5: School No.1 and the Disco Fever

This is the day that we visit our first school. It was constructed in 1933. The halls had a funky smell, but nevertheless, it was a nice, solid building. It is a small school but there is a multitude of them spread over the Vytegra area; all the grades of the area are in one building. A bunch of schoolboys saw our approach and went inside before us. We entered the principal’s office to stow our coats and were met on our reemergence by the school’s cultural club in a song. They performed a similar tradition as the woman at the museum. I wished that I got a picture of this, as it was well-performed, but alas. We were then introduced to our chaperone’s for the day (of them I remember Marina, Masha, Vlada and Ludmila).

We then went to the second grade English class. These kids have been learning English for a semester. They’re in the same boat as I am, as I had only learned Russian for one semester. They performed a kid’s play for us in English about a bunch of animals that find a house one after another and keep introducing themselves to one another. For their age and how long they had to learn English, their performance was quite good. Over the course of the week, Pat-Joseph and I kept referring to this play and its contents as a meme, often quoting “Who lives in the house?” and “I am a (insert animal name)”.

After we watched the play, Joseph, Jill, Emily and I went to observe one of the cadet classes. The cadets are basically pre-military (similar, I think to our JROTC), and place a high importance on physical education. The class we were observing, however, was drawing. The subject was to draw a guard tower, after viewing the various guard towers of the Kremlin hill Fortress in Moscow. The drawings were quite good. The cadets then took guesses of which one of us four were cadets their first guess was Joseph, then me, but they were surprised to learn that it was Jill and Emily who are cadets in Air Force ROTC.

Alina and I (and others, I remember) then went to observe the English class; different class than that did the play. Before class started I noticed some of the school kids taking pictures of me with a digital camera, and I clapped them with a shot from my own camera. The theme of the class was family members, and the children brought in photos of their family to present to the class. The presentations were simple, as to their age, but they pulled it off. Another of our group, Jill I think, showed the class pictures of her family. While she was talking we had just managed to get our internet thumb drive to work (which we had been wrestling with since yesterday), and I was scrambling through Facebook to gather my own family photos. I managed to scrape together pictures of my nuclear family, and showed them off to the class.

After a brief lunch, we saw another presentation of Olonia (the school's ethnography research group) as they did traditional dances from the Vytegra area. One song that I got a picture of one meant for when a woman becomes engaged, and has to leave her friends. The songs were intermixed with recitations of poems by Klyuev, the famous poet of the Vytegra region (d.1937). After the presentation, we were taken into the Olonia’s ethnographic museum, which was inside the space of a class room. The club went to travel around the region and collect these artifacts. The leader of the group, a teacher, also dressed traditionally, explained portions of the traditional dress (she's in the right margin of this photo) and gave us an explanation of the layout of the peasant house. The basic layout of a peasant house is that there were two important corners. The first is the red corner, where religious icons are displayed on shelves and the most important guest was seated. Diagonally opposite of the red corner is the stove, which is constructed in a fashion that had a clear flat space that is moderately heated by the fires of the stove. The Olonia group also gave us bread that was knotted to resemble larks, and we got a cook book of traditional Vytegran dishes (in Russian, unfortunately).

We next visited the home-economics room, where we were instructed in making ribbon flowers. I think that our hosts were amused by our bumblings with needle and thread. After this amusing endeavor, we visited the school Museum of Military Glory (…cool thing, for a k-12 School). It is also evident that the town, and even the school students, values their military history, they displayed a section about their class of ’41, which left as a group for the front line with their teacher. None of them returned. I didn’t get a picture of this display, but there is a monument to them and to the losses in the Chechen war in the front of the school.

We visited the school's geological club, which is called Globus. They showed a brief presentation of what they do, which I sadly do not have pictures of this period, as while the classroom was full of students, only a smaller portion were members of the club. Bryn and Jill gave their presentations. We also answered several questions from the student body, including questions on the culture of the middle-name, and what we though of our president. We were told to expect this last one, but it was still hard to answer. Danielle explained it well, though.

Later we had a small sort of tea-session with the teachers and our chaperones. Two were not at this session, which is why I am still having trouble with their names. During the tea session, Masha demonstrated her singing, which was nice. I learned that she intends to become a customs officer. Remembering my experience earlier (see Step 1), I joked that Customs Officers in Russia were all scary. General laughs all around. Masha's response was that she'll be the exception.

We left the school and headed home. We had only a few hours break, as we were invited to a gathering of the towns alternative youth organization. This gathering consisted of a mini concert of student music groups, and then a discotheque. I tried to play the usual wall hanger, but eventually Masha managed to drag me (almost quite literally) to the dancing group.. One thing led to another, and I ended up leading a Congo line. Ethan and Jill would later keep reminding about how I was “tearing up the dance floor”. At 10pm there was an announcement and almost immediately the dance hall emptied. I learned that there is a strict curfew in Vytegra and everybody under 18 has to be at home before eleven or face a steep fine. Unfortunately, this age bracket includes almost all of the students from the school. Thus, without a socialization crowd, we went back to the hotel, accompanied by our ever-present chaperones. I stuck with Pat-Joseph, and two chaperones that I did not name above (I am really sorry for forgetting, if you are reading this). We left them outside the hotel and retired to our rooms.

BONUS TIME!!
Listening to Alina's translation of the Olonia leader's explanation.

Us checking out the Olonia club's artifact collection. Pat-Joseph, Emily & Chelsey.

Working in the Home-Economics room, under the watch of the older students.

Chelsey taking a picture of the concert hall to grasp in vastness.

Dance-party circles. our mass is on the left.

Pat-Joseph avoiding dancing.

Jill and a dance partner at the end of the night.

School 1

Day 5
Today has been an incredibly long and exciting day. We have done, seen, and experienced so much today that it is hard to think about everything or really reflect on just a couple things. We had breakfast at 8:30, then another interview with the local news paper at 9:00, and then it was off to school. We visited our first school today, which had 615 students and grades K-12 all in one school. After school, we had dinner, and then the local youth (many of the kids which we met at the school) set up a program/dance for us at the cultural center in town. So, our day was very busy and tiring, but incredibly interesting.

The traditions and the culture of this town continue to astound me. When we entered the school this morning, which was in excited chaos due to our arrival, we were greeted with the warmest faces and the nicest “hellos”. Also, we were welcomed with the same traditional ceremony as yesterday with the bread and the salt. The cultural group at the school, which consisted of about twenty girls of various ages, was dressed in traditional dress and they sang a traditional welcoming song for us before presenting us with the bread.

The story behind the tradition: salt is supposed to be very expensive and there were times when it was very difficult to afford salt, so people went without, but when they had guests over, they would bake them special bread and put salt out on the table for them, despite the hard times.

The excitement in the school from the second graders all the way up to the principal was amazing to see. I have never felt like such a celebrity; they were in awe of us; we were so foreign to them, and they had so many questions for us.

The entire school seemed to stop and revolve around us for the entire day. They prepared plays, songs, dances, shows, crafts, exhibits, tour guides, special lunches, tea, movies, slide shows, and gifts for us! We received so many gifts from all the students, teachers, and school groups, and we were of course invited to tea and snacks and given more and more food. I felt very welcomed, and many of the girls took a strong liking to me for some reason (of course no one was even remotely as popular as Ethan, who they all fell in love with instantly!). The students were so outgoing and brave; they seemed so comfortable with talking to us, spending time with us, and sharing their lives with us. Meeting this school was truly amazing.

The dance after the school with all the youth of the town was also very interesting. Three of the girls who were always around me at school really wanted to sit with me, so the four of us all shared two chairs, and needless to say, it was very uncomfortable, but they were so happy! It seemed like the entire town was there to welcome us and show off their talents for us. There were films and slideshows of the town and the students, and there was a big concert with many of the local bands followed by a dance/rave. Very interesting.

Today was the first day when I got to really use my Russian a lot, and even though it was really tough at some times, it was really exciting and beneficial, and I know they were very happy to see me try to speak with them in their language. Other than the deeply rooted cultural ties which we have experienced, I think the most interesting/amazing thing that I noticed today was again the hospitality. The entire school welcomed us so warmly, and the students/staff liked us so much and became so attached to us. It was so hard for my three new friends to leave me at the end of the night, because they just wanted to hang out longer and talk more. I couldn’t believe the level of excitement that there was for us. I don’t think they really get too much contact from the outside world or travel very much, so it was like we were bring a part of the world to them; we shared our stories and our lives with them, so they could see a snapshot of what American life is like. We showed them pictures of our travels around the US, our home towns, the University of Michigan, our families, our friends and our lives; we described Ann Arbor and life on campus, and told them what it is like to be a student in America. By doing this I think we helped to broaden their horizons and learn more about the world which they don’t get to see (at least not yet), and I love that we could do that for them.

But I think the really amazing part is that they are doing the same for us. We would not have the same cultural experiences if we were merely tourists for a week in St. Petersburg; the students (and others in the town) shared their culture with us as they dance/sing for us, show us their traditional costumes, teach us their crafts, offer us their traditional foods and explain their traditional beliefs to us; they are opening up their world to us and showing us what life in Russia is really about and how it really is. We are amazed by each other, and we both have the opportunity to grow and learn because of each other.

Also, I think they have a fear that we will forget them, and the gifts are just as much a way for us to remember them as they are a way to welcome us, even though we could never forget our experiences here. When Katya was giving me gift this afternoon she said, “just so you think of us and don’t forget about us when you’re home”. I appreciated the gift, but I did not need it in order to not forget her and the rest of the school; these are important memories that will stay with me forever, and I hope that they know that.

Last thing: dinner tonight was very good! Crepes filled with the local farmers’ cheese with sour cream and homemade jam. Delicious.

1:00 am, time for bed.

Step 4: Handshakes and Work

Today, we got up early to meet the local administration. The government building was not even a stone's throw away from the hotel, on Lenin Prospekt. It’s still named such because they don’t have the disposable funds to change the street name. The Mayor of Vytegra, Treasurer, et al. essentially welcomed our delegation to the town. Accompanying us to this meeting was a reporter for the local newspaper, which is covering our visit. The newspaper is called “The Red Banner”, which is also holdover from the Soviet Period. We also took pictures with the local dignitaries, one of which was used for our introductory article. The pictures below are not the ones.





After the meeting our next stop on our trip was the museum that we’d be doing our first bit of volunteer work during the course of our stay. On the way, we passed a church, which I learned was the original location of the local museum during the Soviet era, but has moved now that the property returned to the church. We were greeted at the museum, which is now partially housed in the ground floor of an apartment complex, by an old woman who was dressed in local traditional dress and carrying a round loaf of bread and a dish of salt. This was part of a tradition of welcome and hospitality. The guest tears off a bit of bread, dips it in salt and eats it. Our host commented on how we Americans take such small pieces.

We then toured the museum, which included geographical, zoological, and anthropological histories of the Vytegra area.



The Vytegra town was originally consolidated by the will of Peter the Great, who wished to use the area’s rivers for ship building. Other than monarchical will, the Vytegra area was built up by mercantilism. Also displayed in the museum was a collection of artifacts through the ages. The town of Oshta, near Vytegra, is proud that it was a front line area in World War II, the only one out of its entire region. There was a display under the twentieth century section for the female students who searched for landmines following the German retreat, many of whom were killed in their work.

We left the museum before we started our work and drifted towards another café. However, we decided to stop by the partially restored church. I didn’t get any pictures of the interior, save for a large icon, which apparently was rare, as it depicted in the center Christ at his Crucifixion, with the thieves and murderers (that’s how it was explained) around him. This large icon was painted blue and used as a sign by the Soviets, but is now restored.

We then climbed the bell tower for the church, which is still under the jurisdiction of the museum. It was so cold in the tower that there was an enormous amount of frost on the railings. Once we reached the top, I saw a fantastic view of the town.




After exiting the cathedral, I managed to get a picture of a militsiya jeep, which had been in front of the church since we'd got to the cathedral. I still a bit paranoid about police forces (I'm Irish, what can I say...). We ate lunch in a cafe, which was fantastic.



We returned to the Museum. Joanna and I were to start digitizing audio sources that the museum had. However, the digital recorders that we had brought with us from Michigan came without audio wires, even though Alina had apparently requested them specifically. So, while Alina and Joanna trekked out to go find some audio cables, I mulled about a bit, checking up on the other teams, and your all-basic-thumb-twiddling. Once we got audio cables (I regret not going out to get them, I was bored out of my skull) Joanna and I got to work. Over the time that we had left, we managed to record a tape of a Russian music performance, and recorded memoir of a commander from the First World War who’d met Lenin. This last source was odd; as it had been updated from whatever it was originally recorded onto a 70’s era audio cassette. The problem with this that it was recorded at a different speed than the conventional audio player, and the audio was played back at high speed (think “Chipmunk”).

We eventually packed up and went back to the hotel. I don’t remember anything fantastic about the evening. By the way apparently the phones we bought to use out here are bollocks. We are using a different phone plan than the area we’re in (Saint Petersburg, instead of North West region). Basically, it cost many more rubles to make a call than in Saint Peters. Another note about today: we tried to get an internet card so we could work on our presentations and make our blogs, but for some reason the money that Alina posted to the card hasn't shown up. Ah, Woe.

Bonus time! More pictures from the top of the tower.

Really old bell.


Emily a-laughing while taking a picture. I can't remember who she was taking a picture of, though....

Chelsey, Danielle, Pat-Joseph, and Bryn.

Pat-Joseph making the victory hand pose and joking with me about the cold.

First day in Vytegra

Day 4

Today was our first day in Vytegra! We started with an early morning with an 8:30 breakfast at the «Бистро». Before coming to Russia, I was very skeptical of the food, and I wasn’t sure if I would really like it, but I must admit that I have thoroughly enjoyed the majority of our meals! And breakfast this morning was no exception. We had farmers’ cheese patties (which looked like potato pancakes) with sour cream, Russian salads, cheese sandwiches, salami sandwiches, jam, and tea.

If it sounds like a lot of food, it is. I enjoy trying everything, even the things which I have not liked so much, but it is very difficult to make it through a whole meal, even with the foods which I really like. There is just so much food for every meal! I really find this aspect of the Russian culture interesting and foreign. A host must offer food to the guests or else they will be considered (or consider themselves, for that matter) very rude, just as a guest would be rude not to accept the food offered. This is just very different from in America, I think. Hosts and restaurants go to such extents to please guests even when they may not have the means to, and food is very important! This is why I’m trying my best to eat as much of everything that is offered to me as possible, though it is getting harder and harder because I am still so full from the day before, and each meal just keeps adding to the fullness! But I don’t want to look like a rude guest, even if I’m not so fond of what I am eating, so I do my best to eat a lot.

Even in the Museum today while we were working, the ladies working there were so hospitable and welcoming to us, and they continued to offer food to us in order to make us feel truly welcomed. The first thing they did when we entered was offer us a traditional Russian bread, which is dipped in salt, while the woman was smiling and wearing a very traditional Russian dress. The bread was very good, and she just kept insisting us to take more; she said that we were too bashful and reserved because we did not take as much bread as possible; I suppose that’s a big cultural difference. We don’t want to take too much and seem rude for overindulging, but the Russians see it as rude if we are reserved. It is a cultural difference which we are quickly learning to overcome. Later in the afternoon, after lunch, the very nice ladies of the library prepared delicious tea, cookies, lemons, and candies for us! They were very good, even though we were far from hungry!

I think that this aspect of the culture more than anything else that I have experienced so far really demonstrates the Russian hospitality that we have encountered. They want so much to welcome us and open up their culture to us and show us who they are and what they do. It is amazing to be here as an American and be so welcomed; it seems like most of the world isn’t quite so welcoming of us all the time. It is really neat and interesting to see that the schools and the students are going out of their way to prepare things for us and make plays and set up tours for a whole day; the city council set up a meeting with us just to welcome us to the city and introduce themselves to us; the press has set up meetings with us to get to know us better and introduce us to the town and welcome us; the museums have set up tours for us and welcomed us very warmly! The amount of kindness and welcomeness here has really surprised me and makes me feel more comfortable about being in a place which sometimes seems so foreign to me.

I really find it amazing that so many people have so much to offer us in terms of tea and food even when we know very well that budgets are tight and it is not easy for them to do so. I think that says a lot about the culture and about what is truly important to these people who have a great deal of pride in both their city and what it is they do. We seem to be stirring things up quite a bit despite the short length of our stay here.

So today, as I said earlier, we had breakfast at the bistro, and then we went to meet with the city officials and the local press. Next we visited the museum for the first time, toured it, and had an orientation to our jobs there. Jill, Ethan, and I were supposed to translate some of the labels on the history exhibit into English. After our orientation we went for a walk and saw the local cathedral, which was just amazing to see. We got to climb up to the top of the bell tower for a splendid (but very frigid) view of the entire city! Then we went to a little café and had a good and filling lunch (every borshch which I have had has been exquisite!). Then we got to work in the library. We had dinner at the bistro and then a reflection session, which got us very excited for tomorrow when we will visit our first school!

Step 3: The Road to Vytegra

We got up and packed in a rush, as breakfast was at 9am, and we were to load up at 9:30am and hit the road by ten. This is probably the part of the journey in which I am supposed to make notes of the difference between the metropolitan sphere of Saint Petersburg and the provincial realm of Svirstoy and Vytegra. Anyway, we loaded into a tour bus, with two older drivers and a younger boy. It apparently took them ten hours to get to Saint Petersburg. We drove for a bit, took a quick break at a bus stop (also to charge up phone cards), and hit the road again. At about 3:00pm we reached the town of Svirstoy and had lunch in a small café (borshch, corn, buckwheat, and fish patties). We then tried to visit the monastery, and, when we approached what we believed to be it, we were confronted by a Russian Orthodox nun, who told us that it was close. We had gotten to a nunnery and the male monastery was further down the road. There seemed to be a little confusion about which monastery we were heading to. It turns out that the town has/had two. We then trekked to the newer-looking one (“looking”, as the newest building was constructed at the beginning of the 20th century), and tried to find a guide. Another point of confusion, the guide had already gone out with another group, and we had past each other on the road. We caught up to the guide and secured a partial tour, as Alina had to translate the guide for us. The older-looking monastery was built by the brethren following of the Saint Alekandr, who lived in a hut, which is inside what is now the other monastery. The older monastery is out of shape, as it was claimed by the communists during the Soviet era and used as a mental hospital. We went inside the cathedral, and saw the wall paintings, including one depicting the trinity, and another mirror to it depicting judgment day. The variety of icons on the sacristy gate was astounding. I didn’t say this at the time, but I was pretty sure that I saw one move out of the corner of my eye. The various buildings of this particular monastery were built during different centuries, primarily the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. We then migrated over to the other monastery, the one that houses most of the areas important to the mythos of Saint Aleksandr of Svir'. As we crossed the gateway, the bell of the monastery started to sound its call to the faithful, a dreary tone for the season of lent. Our first stop was to visit this tiny little building that houses the spot on which the Saint received his vision from God, which links them to Abraham, who was the first one to receive a visitation from God (Aleksandr being the second). I have some sand from this location, which I am embarrassed to write that I have sealed in a common shopping bag. Ah, woe. By the time that we stepped out of the hut, the bell tower, which was the final addition to this particular monastery, had begun to ring a different tune. I managed to get a video recording of the bell tower about halfway through this tune, which I will attach. The next part of our journey through the monastery took us into the proper religious building in which we walked into a Russian Orthodox mass. I was a bit uneasy about our intrusion into this religious setting, probably because my own religion is practically the twin brother of the Eastern Orthodox Church, from which the Russian Church descended. In side this temple, we saw the relics (full body; first class relic) of Saint Aleksandr, who, despite his remains being captured by the Soviets and housed in a government military lab until perestroika, remained primarily uncorrupt. I thought that this was amazing, as the Saint died in the 16th century. As we were in the relic chamber, a babushka approached us and said something that I did not catch. Alina simply asked us not to pay her any mind, as the babushka was apparently not in her right mind (note: I should ask Alina what the woman actually said, just for information sake, although I have a faint idea).

After that, we visited the monastery shop and it was probably after 5:30 that we boarded the bus to continue on to Vytegra. By the end of the tour the weather began to turn afoul. I fell asleep on the bus after trying to press through the reading for my already late midterm paper, but we reached Vytegra at 10pm. We then checked into our hotel which had dorm-like rooms, and we trekked across the village to the café in which we were to have dinner. The place was also a bar and had no shortage of drinking Russians. A male patron actually came (almost burst) got toin to our separate dinning area and asked (as I later found out) where we were from. He was dispatched rather quickly and we continued with our meal.

The meal consisted of some vegetables, mashed potatoes and a meat patty. We then left the bar, as it was almost past closing. I am not sure how near on which side of closing it was as we arrived later than expected and by the time we left the other patrons were hanging out in the foyer of the restaurant. We were planning to have a group party tonight as celebration for surviving the long bus ride (which actually took longer in getting from Saint Petersburg to Vytegra by bus than it did getting from DTW to Saint Petersburg by airplane). We briefly stopped at the grocers to pick up supplies that consisted of chocolates and other groceries. The grocers was also home to this adorable tawny cat which I have a few pictures of, as we as a video of it becoming most attentive of Chelsey’s boot tassels. We left the grocers heading back to the hotel. Unfortunately this took us through the crown of post-drinking patrons of the Russian restaurant that we dined at. We picked up a few shouts of something that I didn’t understand, and two tails that I was nervous about and tried my best to keep an eye on. We made it bgot toack to the hotel, tails included, and we tried to get up to our rooms as fast as we could (note: I am not sure how much the entire group was aware of the two men following us), and the men tailing us were, more-or-less, stopped in the lobby (I heard that they were still there when Joanna went down to the lobby for something-or-other, but were chased off by the woman who worked at the reception, who knew them by name). We apparently attract so much attention because we are new faces to the county. Joseph and I, who now share a room, as Ethan volunteered himself to take the single (odd number of males, as the rooms are apparently in doubles or singles), moped about for a bit until midnight, when we all gathered in Alina’s front room (she had a suite) and watched the Olympic Hockey between Canada and the USA game. We also went over the events that will make up our stay in Vytegra. Apparently our visit attracted a bit of media attention, as we will be covered by the local media when we meet the local government administration tomorrow morning.

After a while, the party began to part ways, and Joseph and I retired to our room. My work at the museum will involve the digitization of the museums audio collection. My major thoughts for the day involve the idea that provincial Russia is pretty inaccessible to tourists during the winter (which is when I believe the best time to see “Russia” ), the religion in Russia is pretty grounded in hagiographical tradition, and that the religious traditions of Russia are making a sure recovery after the Soviet period. Notes from {Party of Hats/Café Silent} --I STILL need to find a cookbook that contains the stuff from this trip, it is absolutely delicious and I think it would fit in well at the co-op. As for folk-music for Chekhov, I have noticed a stark difference between the metropolis of Saint Petersburg, where Serebryakov is thought to be from, and the provincial portions of Russia, which isn’t identical but similar to the region that the estate is said to be located in. Michael Makin notified me before the trip that northern provincial Russia wasn’t populated by landed gentry as much as the south was. The north was mainly controlled by the merchant “bourgeois” class, but, meh, it is all the same to me, according to the environmental and living conditions that the characters would have been subjected to year after year.


BONUS TIME!
Video of the Chelsea and the Vytegra Cat.

day 3- ten hour trip

Day 3

Trip to Vytegra: long trip- 12 hours

We stopped at a very beautiful monastery on the way, which helped to break up the trip. This stop was great, because we got the opportunity to see what a real Russian church looks like in the Russian style, rather than the European style of the cathedral we saw in St. Petersburg. There was a big difference between the two alters and the way the two were set up! And we also got blessed sand, so all in all it was a very good stop. It was very late when we made it into town, but I was very impressed with the hotel when we got here! Danielle and I actually have outlets in our room and a mirror! The rooms are clean and have two beds, bathrooms, closets, tvs, desks, and storage (everyone else has a fridge, but somehow we missed out on that one, ha). It's much more than I was expecting; pleasant surprise :)