Birthdays, Italians, and yes, more mushrooms!

Hello, friends!

This is your shamefully negligent Tolyatti blogger finally posting her long-overdue update. It’s been a month since I last checked in over here, and probably the most hectic one I’ve ever known. This weekend, however, the excitement has died down a bit and I’m finally able to take a moment and write to all of you. I hope you enjoy the following tidbits from my new Russian life.:-)

New digs!: I now am renting my very first apartment! Living alone has been really great so far…I love being able to cook and clean on my own schedule. (And for those of you who have been exposed to my rather poor housekeeping skills, yes, I am keeping it well, relatively, clean). Aside from being wayyy bigger and relatively cheaper than any housing I’ve had before, this place has the added perk of being in a really wonderful location. It’s located on Мир street (this means either “peace” or “world”), which is kind of like the main street of my district. So, there are always a lot of people, and it’s really close to all the best supermarkets, bars, etc. But¸ my district is small enough that it’s not too noisy at night. Best of all, it’s located right next to a ЗАГС (ZACS) which is, as my fellow RPSS people know, is where the Russians go to get married! It’s sort of like their equivalent of our city hall, only much more popular than churches. So, every weekend, I get to look out my window and see happy, beautifully-dressed Russian people celebrating a marriage. Actually, there’s one going on right this very second! As an added bonus, my landlord and I get along great. He is really fascinated by the fact that I’m an English speaker, so in our 99% Russian conversations, he will always use the few English words he knows, like “bad/good”, “money”, and “OK!” And he always says it like he’s explaining something or facilitating the conversation, as if out of all the words he saying, these words are somehow the words that I don’t know in Russian. It’s great.

Hangin’ with the Italians: The last week in September was a very exciting week for Tolyatti State University, as it played host to a sort of international convention. Due to the city’s close association with Fiat, Tolyatti is BFF with the Italians, and thus hosted a joint Russian-Italian engineering conference. Because they all speak pretty good English, I was invited to go along with them on all of their excursions that week, mostly just for fun but also to pitch in with translation if need be. The Italian delegation was a mix of older professionals and younger student-types, and we all had a pretty great time. First up was a trip to the neighboring city of Samara, another Volga city most famous for its WWII-era production of Russian planes and tanks. Samara is also home to my friend Andrei’s university, the highly respected Samara Aerospace Engineering University—so he’s quite literally a rocket scientist. His teachers were people who worked on Soviet-era sputniks, how cool is that!










Samara is also where I saw the first non-Russian people I’d seen all month….a Peruvian flute band! (Anyone remember that South Park episode? They really ARE taking over the world!) Anyways, the Russians were totally into it, and were dancing in the streets.


My second excursion with the Italians was a three-hour Volga river booze cruise. Sadly, I don’t have any photographic evidence of this event because I was totally unprepared for it: I was walking back from class when Lena (my university coordinator) saw me and threw me on the bus, saying “you won’t want to miss to this”…and she was right! I’ve never met anyone from Italy before, and I obviously don’t want to make a vast generalization about an entire nation of people, but I have to say that from my limited experience, Italians sure know how to party! They had hours upon hours of Italian drinking songs in their collective arsenal, and it wasn’t long before the cruise was one big Italian-themed party. Soon the Russians (who were also on the cruise) joined in with their own songs, for a rather interesting riverside Battle of the Bands. The greatest moment occurred when, much to the surprise of both parties, the Russians and the Italians actually had the SAME drinking songs! Different languages, but the same songs. It was decided that these must have been WWII-era songs, back when Stalin and Mussolini were tight. All in all, it was certainly a night to remember.

My Russian birthday: As most of you know, my birthday was a few weeks back. Being new to these parts, I really wasn’t expecting much of the day. My colleague had an extra ticket to an orchestra concert that night, so I thought it would be a low-key birthday. I was wrong. Though I think I only mentioned my birth date maybe twice since being here, word had somehow gotten around. I was (and still am) overwhelmed by the kindness of my new community on this day. The entire day, I was showered with candy, gifts, cards, phone calls, and best wishes from students, colleagues, and friends alike. Two of the faculties I work with threw little mid-day tea parties for me. For those of you studied Russian, this will be exciting news: they sang the birthday song!! You know the one, “Я играю на гарможке...”. In this respect, the Russians are way cooler than us. We just sing a lame “happy birthday to you,” they have an entire song that features Soviet children, harmonicas, and a friendly crocodile. The song ends with….”unfortunately, birthdays only come once a year,” how true!


At the concert!

The next night, some of my friends threw me a birthday party! We went to a bar first, where, as per the Russian tradition, I received birthday toasts. My new friends went above and beyond, and actually took the time to write out English toasts for me. Here are a few of my favorites:
“Happy Birthday.
You are very special
And you deserve the best.
I wish you a wonderful life
Filled with love and happiness,
I hope others bring you joy
Just as you have brought to me,
Then you can whether any storm
And be all you want to be.”

“Don’t worry about another birthday. Remember, a fine wine gets better with age…and we get better with fine wine!”





Later we went back to my friend’s house (that’s her bunny, Kroshka, in the picture below by the way!) and played some games. For my fellow Rochesterians, remember the whole “you have a name of a famous person on your back and you have to ask questions to guess who it is” game that we always used to play at my house growing up? Well, we played that! We also played a funky Russo-English version of charades. It was a truly great birthday, and believe it or not, it’s still not over…I wasn’t able to see a couple of my friends that week, so we have a belated birthday bowling date tomorrow:-)


Phew! That was a lot of information. How are you all doing? Are you still with me? Congrats if you’re still reading at this point, or if you’re just skimming and your eyes have landed on this paragraph because it’s shorter than most. Either way, thanks! I appreciate it!

Moscow Madness: Just hours after my fabulous birthday party, I was up and making my way to Moscow for our Fulbright orientation. While this was a good opportunity to get some more information on what we’re doing here, it was a great chance to see my fellow Fulbrighters again, and to spend some quality time with native English speakers! We spent a fabulous three days seeing the city, and I returned to Tolyatti totally sleep deprived but totally stoked to have hung out with these great people.
Some Moscow highlights:
*Seeing the US ambassador to Russia! He visited us during our meeting. Seemed like a very down-to-earth and nice guy.
*Successfully haggling (in Russian) with vendors at Moscow’s famous Ismalova market. I got this great set of Soviet propaganda posters for about 50% off the original price.
*Being teased (in Russian of course) by a security guard (who are usually very serious) at Lenin’s mausoleum about my gigantic purse. “Why could you possibly need such a huge purse? What do you have in there?” (I show him) “I’ve got a dictionary, my wallet, a notebook…” “Ok, ok, go ahead, big-purse girl!”
*Lenin himself. This was my first time seeing him. I’m glad I did but if I never do again, that will be ok with me. It’s definitely a little disconcerting.
*Red square at night: This was a far better decision than going to a bar or club. This has really got to be one of the most beautiful places on earth.










Out and about on the town: Back home in Tolyatti, I’ve also had my fair share of evening adventures. Last weekend, I actually ended up at the same club on Friday and on Saturday. Saturday was a fashion show, meaning that every half an hour or so the DJ would stop the music and some girls would walk up and down the dance floor, wearing what is, I assume, the latest in Russian fashion. Friday night had a different theme. It was “1930s Chicago”. That’s right, as in Chicago, Illinois. I was totally intrigued by this theme, and what we would discover when we got there. Here’s what the execution of the theme entailed: the scantily-clad waitresses were in their usual scantily-clad attire…only this time, they had bowler hats! My friend wanted to go because she thought that there might be some jazz music. There wasn’t. Just bowler hats. No worries, despite the lack of gangster-era paraphernalia, it was still a really great night!

I’ve really enjoyed going out in Tolyatti. The people are usually pretty friendly and the places feel really safe and sketch-free. My favorite part, however, is when people hear me speaking and realize that I’m American. The girls will inevitably do this: approach me, tap me on the shoulder, and say very politely in English “do you like this club?” The boys’ approach is a bit different. They will hear me speak abruptly turn around and shout “You speak English?” and then when I confirm, they will say whatever English words first pop into their head. “You speak English? Umbrella!” “You speak English? George Bush!” And my favorite: “You speak English? The lesson is over now, Goodbye!” (only it wasn’t goodbye because he kept talking…) Good times:-)

Mushroom picking, part two: The most commented-on part of my last blog post was definitely the mushroom picking. So, you’ll be happy to know that I have since had the opportunity to go again! The pictures are below. I am with Lena, and my two new BFFs Roma (her son) and Pasha (her stepson)







Tom Cruise=win, DMB=fail: fun discoveries with Russian students. Probably my favorite part about being a University instructor is having the opportunity to gauge my students’ reactions to things I show them and discuss. The things that have made the transatlantic leap over to Russia are very surprising. For instance, the Russian students adore Tori Amos but have never heard of Dave Matthews. They know the 1950s Billy Wilder movie “Some Like it Hot” but have never even seen an advertisement for “The Notebook”. When I show them something they had never seen or heard before, I never know what to expect. For instance, my students absolutely loved Top Gun and Armageddon (yes, even with the horribly stereotyped Russian Cosmonaut). Yesterday, I showed “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?” at my weekly movie club. About 50 students showed up, and, even though they didn’t fully understand the dialogue, they went crazy for the movie. I had less success, unfortunately, on my class about “jam bands”. We listened to and discussed Dave Matthews, Phish, OAR, Third Eye Blind, and Guster. Sadly, for the Russian students only Guster made the cut. When asked to describe Third Eye Blind, one of my students wrinkled her nose and said “It sounds like the soundtrack to an American teen movie.” Not exactly high praise. So, for some of my absolutely favorite bands, I have bad news: if you ever do a world tour, you’re going to have to skip Russia.

One last surprising discovery. I had a class recently about Russian stereotypes of Americans. I asked everyone to write down the first five words that came to their head when they thought about “America”. Some of the most common words were “Bush,” “Obama,” “Fast-food”, “New York City,” and “The statue of liberty.” However, there was one answer that was by far the most common: South Park. Given that South Park is a sometimes-stupid, sometimes-smart Libertarian farce, I was surprised that it would have such a following in this formerly-Communist country. But, I would say that this is the MOST popular American TV import. Russian MTV shows at least five episodes a day, and let me just say this: if you ever have a chance to hear Cartman dubbed into another language that you happen to partially understand, please please please do not pass up this opportunity. You won’t regret it.

Ok! Well, as you can see, there’s never a dull day in Tolyatti! that’s it from me for now…thanks so much for reading, and of course your comments are always welcome. Пока!