I’m not quite sure what day it is anymore. Flying five hours east, five hours in Moscow’s future, it’s hard to keep track, and harder to stay awake, especially during tours of town (in freezing weather) and the nature museum where we’ll be working. The apartment problem has turned into quite the intrigue: last night Marina called the parents, sounding furious that we were not given what we had thought we would get. The phone was passed between Melissa and Sveta, our host mother, with no clear resolution. After finding out today (from an American working at the office of an ecological NGO called FIRN) that an apartment in town costs only about two hundred rubles/month we emailed Marina, at the least to find out how much money we should give them (1800 dollars was the original price). But when Melissa tried to send an email this evening she happened to notice Marina had emailed Sveta, moye mama. It sounded like Marina was now angry with us, not with them; in fact, it seemed that Marina was even apologizing for the inconvenience we were causing. Oy vey, unclear. We’ll talk to IREX tomorrow; who knows what’s going down.

It doesn’t matter; we’re on the other side of the world now.

And in this moment of transition, of an obvious sliding between persons, I'm wondering again: how much is my sense of openness, my glasnost, actual, and how much of it is a convenient cover for some deeper concealment, some secrets about me? There are things I don't want to face, but my self-insistence that I face them,and my belief that I do, often proves false--especially when time and space exist for thoughts and memories to wash around my brain, without the need for explanation or words.

Siberian Air #2105

As we cross eastward in the dark ether, gently rocking across the wings, the thin line separating earth and everything else slowly becomes the origin for an increasingly colorful display. The future. The gentle contours below, what I thought were the plains and hills of Siberia, are actually some of the most expressive clouds I’ve ever seen. I know this for certain because of an eerie effect: the sun shining from below the horizon. Clouds had formed a fake horizon just above the real one, leaving a hole for the sun to shine through, fiery orange. As cold as it is all the way up here, this would not be a bad place to die.

First impression: while we were told we would have an apartment to ourselves, it appears that we are living with a family, all three of us and a gentle, wiry naturalist papa who picked us up and arranged some breakfast (largely prepared in advance). Small apartment on the outskirts of Ulan Ude—the very out outskirts, but Siberia nonetheless. Looks no different than any number of flat Eastern European places I’ve envisioned, notwithstanding an immanent snowfall; but so far, it’s just sunny and dry looking outside.

Over a cottage cheese like dish, chai, cheese, eggs, breads and biscuits, Papa talked of his work at the ecological organization where we’ll be working (children, eco-tourism—tourism in Russia meaning any domestic travel outside of one’s home town, the only travel of its kind available under the old USSR), his interest in Lake Baikal (big—over a thousand miles big), and some details regarding our work (okay, rough possibilities). One of those things is going to Lake Baikal. I can’t wait.

Wonder what will happen with Genya…will he be able to stay with us here? We’ll see; papa’s son is home from university now too, a potential problem considering it’s his room we’re sleeping in. There are kniga skhoola from floor to ceiling, old animals, guitars, toys, a giant politicheskaya karta mira sovetskaya on the wall. I’m on the top bunk once again.

Feeling tired after our last seminars and classes, I thought I would go back to the room and take it easy until later, when many of us had said we would go to a club. But someone was looking at the Moscow Times and glancing over a shoulder I happened to notice that Hillary Hahn was playing at the MMDM (Doma Musika) with the Philharmonic. I decided I was going and managed to get a group to come, despite various plans to go to a botanical garden, go to a bar, go to a Mongolian restaurant, all of which inevitably involve wandering around and doing nothing with big groups. Anyway, seven of us made the march to the metro, past the broken sidewalks and apartment buildings and anonymous neon lit cafes. After some directional mishaps underground, and problems crossing the street (these problems would pursue us all night, later when we were with the whole group) we managed to find the theater. Well, we couldn’t miss it, gorgeous, epic glass giant that it was. The concert was sold out, but we managed (with Melissa’s help) to make a deal with some scalper outside: 200 a piece (talked down from 300), with 4 minutes until showtime. Nevermind that the tickets were originally 50 rbl. – we’re talking seven dollars per – but as we were about to enter we noticed that the date was a day ahead. Devestated and humiliated, we pondered what to do before Dylan and Melissa marched back, all the way down the wide palatial stairway, to have a chat with our salesman. But they insisted it didn’t matter, and sure enough, it didn’t. Also, the show didn’t start for half an hour. Eto Russyia.

The music was great—Paganini’s Violin 1—and Hillary excelled. She was so sweet, so precise, amazingly lively and forceful in her moments of silence, plucking, crescendos. After a lovely Sarabande by Bach for the encore, we heard Mendelsohn’s Italian Symphony, not as interesting, but led by a truly Russian maestro, Vladimir Spivakov, who earned almost as much applause and flowers as Hillary before launching into some Mozart (and perhaps Berlioz? Puccini?) encores with the full orchestra. Powerful.

The intermission was a trip; ultra-rich mingling over hors-d’erves on the mezzanine, caviar and champagne, colorful suits. After a schwarma, we met the rest of Team America in front of Lenin’s tomb and spent about forty-five minutes meditating on what and where to go next before actually heading to Club Propaganda. Well, “heading” is a very debatable term in the context of a traveling troupe of 20 non-Muscovites. We were being led by Olga, the very nice IREX woman (girl) who decided to hang out with us. But instead of heading to Kitai Gorod (Chinatown) we ended up moving towards the Arbat—the opposite side of Red Square. Anyway, she felt so bad she cried, and we comforted her before heading back to the Kremlin for some street beer and then a lively ride back home on the metro. Spoke to Megan the whole way home about her Fulbright in Ukraine, her Ukranian heritage, garbage, literature, and Ukranian orphanages, with a brief break for three policemen who pulled a group of us aside outside the station. Fortunately, Doug, passportless slipped away, thus avoiding who knows what of bureaucratic hell and probably a bribe. Anyway, the problem of our registration was soon resolved (we were only in Moscow for two and half business days, not three), and we were on our way, down the dark, torn up streets to a last loud night in the dorms before our various adventures.

September 24, 2005

After a long day of learning Russian conventions, Russian culture, and Russian itself, I jumped on the metro with a crowd of Americans (we’re at the farthest possible Metro stop to the south of the city on the purple line) to meet Evgeny at red square again. One thing first: I learned today that, in addition to this peculiar Russian obsession with size, Russians tend to place more faith in the individual than in the group than Americans do, despite our claims to rugged individualism and their claims to communism, etc. When the iron curtain fell, it fell hard, and the professor who gave one of our historical/cultural lectures today compared now to the golden age of the soviet union paraphrased a quote from Gone with the Wind: yes, we were slaves, but our masters fed us.

Anyway, what’s been left in the wake of the 90’s? In the wake of a proto-fascist presidency? Neon signs everywhere. Despite its Las Vegas pretensions and seamy, grosny nihilism and carelessness, Moscow is gorgeous this time of year. It’s light jacket weather all of a sudden.

Had conversation with Eugene about sincerity, honesty, etc—being true to one’s self, and the importance of this in conversation, and the importance of conversation in this. The night before he made the point that Russians are frank but not sincere. The difference is direction: sincerity is glasnost with others, frankness is demanding that others are sincere with themselves. Eugene is frank kanyeshna—he insisted that’s what he was—but I hope i’m being sincere with him and me. We traded first love stories, talked briefly of other love (we didn’t really talk of Kolya)

Found a 50 ruble bill on the siiiidvjxvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

Look it happened again!

Found 50 rubles in an underground passage, not far from a young woman who was lying on the stairs with her собака who we had passed earlier (on the way to Moo-Moo, a good cafeteria-style place we list in Let’s Go). I wanted to give her the money, but Eugene said no, we’re capitalists now. He was joking sort of, but this was Russia. Most needy people don’t ask for money, they demand it with persistence equal to that of centuries of workers, peasants, reformers, and Soviet planners. Some minutes later these three teenage girls approached us, ponytails and neon, and asked (in Russian) if we wanted to play a game. Nyet, we have to go, he said kindly. They insisted: the game was just, do you have five rubles. The exchange rate now is roughly 30 rubles to the dollar. Large beers cost 20 rubles, metro rides 10. They were so cute, and though I had some worries that they were being pimped out like the kid (probably) who harassed us the night before, I reached into my pocket as Evgeny was fishing around for change and pulled out my 50 rbl. bill. Malchik did they squeal in joy. Some one else probably needed it more, but it’s really hard to say that in a country so impoverished.

September 24, 2005

Tonight went with Melissa to meet Evgeny at Red Square; and though we were late, Evgeny was there sure enough, holding a bowl of kashi and carrying his old backpack. We went 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Russians like their towels and personal space and general living situations small and everything else huge. This is the surefire the state has managed to build pride for almost a century: just keep going bigger. The largest chunk of platinum. The largest square in the world; the largest city. Buildings so large that I would have tired myself out just trying to imagine their size. This Monument to Peter the Great, on the river near the sculpture garden of the national gallery, blew me away.

Colorful, bulbous, moving St. Basil’s Cathedral was unreal. I just couldn’get over the fact that I and Evgeny and maybe 50 other people were standing nearb99up99.

So yes Americans may put a premium on size, but some Russians obsess over it as a point of pride.

[Excuse the above absurdist digression—this is what little sleep and my writing aspirations do to me.]

September 22, 2005

Though I was reminded again and again that I was sitting in the exit row (even by the colorful but dour Russian lady, Lubov Sarkhova, an erstwhile Brighton Beach resident who was sitting next to me reading Charles Dickens) the flight to 8.5 hour flight to Moscow was uneventful. I didn’t get much sleep, so the tiring influx of information threw me into a real fatigue as serious as that of the buildings on the way back from the airport. Huge apartment complexes that seem to be skinking into the ground, with boarded up windows, broken fixtures of all sorts, etc—mixed in of course with the occasional IKEA store and gaudy shiny shopping mall, flashy billboards of all sorts. Not exactly what I expected, but close. Buses on the freeway full of sullen-looking people, under a grey sky about to break open; shacks covered with corrugated metal; the ubiquitous apartment complexes, spotted with color, spreading out like children’s blocks about to collapse on each other.

The campus on which we’re staying—the Moscow Humanitarian University—is unsurprisingly not very human in its architecture. The typical Soviet style you know, the handsome people everywhere, the guys in leather, the girls in short skirts despite a hint of brisk wind, stare at us with a look of disdain. But that, Matt says, is just the Russian way—it’s not actual disdain but a curiosity that still feels a bit…desperate? Interested despite itself, despite a sense of native pride amidst a group of 30 Americans? I tried to enjoy my first Russian borsch in the cafeteria, a dismal Midwest high school affair, but it didn’t quite fulfill it’s initial promise. Almost… looking forward to more of the beet root. Tracy, a Peace Corps veteran (there are a few here) who served in Turkmenistan, told John and I of the crazy dictator there, whose recent reforms include abolishment of lip synching and men’s facial hair. Someone find that proto-fascist country some real enemies soon or dinnertime rice plats or fuchsia might be the next to go….

We had dinner with an official from the university, who delivered a number of toasts and told a joke, little of which I could hear due to the acoustics of the room and my seat at the very end of the long table. Tried to enjoy the chicken and cabbage and mashed potatoes. We had wine and pastries for dessert!

John snores loudly, assertively even. But that’s khorasho. I think it makes my sleep that much deeper.

I expected our liaison from the State Dept. to be a boring and un-engaged bureaucrat with only a few minutes to spare to officially endorse our program (his department had already signed our checks). Instead the cultural affairs official was a fun, even goofy guy, offering his comments on our various hometowns and host towns as we American and Russian cultural and historic “preservationists” went around introducing ourselves (also contrary to my expectations, none of us Americans have any expertise, save Melissa, a fellow Ulan-Ude-er; a couple of the Russians have had some professional experience in museums and out on the countryside and reki). When a real Ude native and Buryatan, Irina, heard my comments about understanding links between nature and culture, she lit up and advised that I check out the role spirituality plays in everyday Buryat life. Shamanism—not a religion, she pointed out—holds Mother Earth and Father Sky reverent, much the way the American Indians do. The State Department dude joined in, adding to his already enthusiastic comments about Ulan Ude with an anecdote about an exchange program that recently took place between American Indians and native Buryats (a Mongolian tribe that settled in Russia centuries ago). “They look alike even—you can just see it when they stand next to each other.” Irina, who’s a tour guide and English teacher in the city, said she remembered the exchange of Cherokee Indians. “They crossed the land bridge; they are the same.” Still smiling warmly, she said “we are all brothers,” without sounding hokey.

On today’s panel—alongside a preservation lobbyist, a curator at the Holocaust Museum, and a city director of preservation—Dr. Don Jones of US-ICOMOS, the NGO responsible for heritage and cultural and monument preservation in the country, mentioned the Indians too, noting that when Russians had come to Washington last year with the program, they took special interest in the native culture. His own interest is related to the question I’m after: how do cultures unite natural preservation with historic and cultural preservation. It was the topic of his anthropology dissertation I think he said, but unfortunately, he left the Russian embassy (later that night) before we had a good chance to talk.

Met a young guy named Arkady Gregoriev from Moscow: I gave him my dad’s number because he’s going to New York. Dad said he wouldn't mind taking the Russians out to dinner in exchange for sharing a piece of his mind.

September 19, 2005

Today, on this first day of orientation, all the volunteers, Russians and Americans alike, gathered in a meeting room at our Holiday Inn to hear a talk by a director at the Points of Light foundation. We were told, in measured, non-dramatic tones of the importance of our work, how the US-Russia Volunteer Initiatve was born at the 2000 Bush-Putin summit, and how significant volunteerism is in American history. At that point he began an empty and even misleading account of the volunteer in “our great land,” a phrase that his equally useless promotional video hoisted up. His opening rhetorical question sounded promising: “Who were the first people in America?” If this had just been a group of Americans, I would have been only bemused by his response, which followed Russian suggestions of “Columbus,” “the Spanish,” “entrepreneurs,” “Spanish,” etc, and was echoed on his first powerpoint slide:

The Origins of Volunteerism in the US

- The settlers and pioneers.

- Rugged Individualism

- Life on the plains

- Community

- Benjamin Franklin

…

Let’s pass over the little problem of “US” (which did not exist for centuries after the earliest European explorers landed) so we can get to some missing bullet points, no pun intended. Yes, I understand what your question should have been, Mr. Lighthead—who were the first Europeans in America? But in a “history of volunteerism,” and before an audience of United States neophytes, I would think that more care for details would be appropriate. Can you at least mention the natives, Mr. Pointy? Presumably they were some of the people that early American “volunteerism”—with its community spirit and “helped” out. And if so, I would have liked to hear your definition of volunteerism. Let’s pretend they were volunteers of a sort; but doesn’t their version of volunteerism (if such a thing can even jibe with the notion of “rugged individualism”) present a sharp contrast with ours? Doesn’t it teach us something about the importance of paying attention to the cultures which we seek to “help”? Doesn’t it present one of the biggest questions of first world humanitarian support: who gets to define what “help” means? Here’s the beef, but also, here’s the ideology. Here’s another, better way of life. That question is presumably answered by the liberal democratic system which we eagerly seek to export; and of course that exporting might sometimes end up bankrupting that idea to begin with. Isn’t that America’s foreign problem? How do you do good but not do harm? How do you help others? Perhaps by learning how not to help yourself simultaneously.

And this is to say nothing of his omission of the women’s and blacks’ suffrage movement (Jane Addams, Hull House, etc) the real beginning of American volunteerism (not without its own selfishness and problems of course), which eventually helped spawn the civil rights movement. I think it was less a history of volunteerism than a demonstration of old Soviet historiography. Na zdrovie!

Of course, I had to say something. Diplomatically of course.

After I went shopping for books (La Prisonnaire for Eugene, Everything is Illuminated for me) and grabbed some food and two cups of ice cream on M street in chic, Cambridge-like Georgetown, John came back to the room. He's a very nice guy, easygoing, and sensible: immediately he said, "You want to grab a drink?" Ummmmmmm hell yes. We sat downstairs at the bar for about two hours while the Emmys played on the tv, which have never seemed so...important, or self-important. TV quality has really changed lately, largely thanks to HBO, but I don't really feel like I'm missing much, or will be. John and I spoke about Russia, his time there -- studying and working at the US embassy in Moscow -- and his current work as a computer technician. He's a real russophile, aiming to get into the foreign service since he left Russia five years ago. He's never been to Ulan Ude, but he's seen Irkutsk, and he said that when he stepped out of his sanitarium to to visit Lake Baikal on New Year's, his eyelashes turned white.
I've got lots of layers, but somehow I don't think I've packed warmly enough.

arrived at 2:30 in the empty hotel room. nothing doing here. the way over had a bit of excitement because I wasn't sure I was going to the right place--I mean, I knew I was, but the information I've received by email, the preparations and the phone calls, didn't quite convince me that everything was in the right place. Plans may be firm and detailed, but on paper they don't always seem quite real. Was I actually supposed to be taking a flight to Washington, DC this morning? Can I sit here? Was this already paid for? That's all you need to see? The number is right? Right. Reality checked in right before I did--three women in the lobby speaking in Russian. This is actually happening.

Did I just leave home for three months, with a near future as tangible and real and white as this piece of paper: "Flight" and "Orientation," "Moscow," "Ulan Ude"?