Merry Christmas Everyone! December 25 has come and gone, but I still have not had Christmas in Russia yet. Christmas in Russia is on January 7, because the Russian Orthodox Church follows the Julian calendar, and not the Gregorian calendar. But even then, New Years in Russia is bigger than Christmas. That is because during Soviet times, there was no Christmas. But New Years is when everyone gives gifts here. They still put up Christmas trees though, but instead of “Santa Claus” they have “Ded Morroz” or “Grandfather Frost.” And then I also heard that there is “Old Christmas” on January 14, but I don’t really know what that is yet.
So it has been a long time since my last post, almost a month, but a lot has happened during this past month. I departed the United States four months ago today. It is strange to think that I have already been here for four months. But it is also strange to think that I have been here for only four months. Four months is already a long time—already longer than most people spend away from home in a foreign country. It is already four times longer than I spent in France last summer. I am already over one third of the way done with my exchange. I have lived four months in a foreign country- and that’s amazing in itself. The even more amazing thing will be that I will be doing this for another six or seven months. I am still just at the tip of the iceberg.
But even during the last month a lot has happened. I am now living with my second host family, the Murzakovs. I was supposed to move on Dec. 15, but that was during the week, so I ended up moving on Sunday the 13th. It was hard packing up everything, mostly because since I arrived, I have added a lot of bulky winter clothes to my wardrobe, and I could barely fit everything into my bags. When I left the Nazaruks, I left them with some gifts- an American flag, and also a photo album that I made with pictures I took here in Russia. They really liked it. I now live with the Murzakovs. They are not Rotarians, but friends of the club, and their oldest daughter, Anna, is now a youth exchange student in Michigan. They live on the 9th floor of an apartment building right in the heart of the city. This is a great change from my last host family, because now I can walk everywhere, and I don’t need to take the bus half an hour into the city every day. My host parents, Yuri and Lena, own a couple of perfume shops in the city. They also have a younger daughter, Ira, who is still in school. They also have a dog, Masha, and a cat, Jessica, who looks like a sphinx, and has no hair. They are all very nice and they are a great family. I have my own bedroom here.
Last Saturday, I also did something a little crazy, kind of fun, very Russian, and completely cold. One of the Rotarians here owns a banya which is right next to the river Amur. For those of you who don’t know, when you do Russian Banya, you sit in the hot Banya for a while, and then you go into a pool of cool water, or if outside, you rub snow all over yourself, and then get back in the banya and repeat. Well I topped both of those methods. Once we sat in the banya for a while, we then ran onto the frozen river, and dunked ourselves into a hole in the ice. There was a ladder on the edge of the whole, and I climbed down until I was up to my chest in the river water, took a deep breath, and then dunked my head under water, blew out all the air and opened my eyes under water. I then did that four times in a row. The air temperature that day was -10 or -15 with the wind, and the water temperature was a toasty +3 degrees. It was still just about the coldest thing I have ever done. It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences, but I’m glad I did it. As part of the tradition, I also drank some of the cold river water, kissed the flag of the sports club of the people who do crazy stuff like this all winter, and kissed the metal ice-breaker pole (my lips almost got stuck to it).
On that same day in the evening, we had our Rotary New Years Party. It was at a Ukrainian restaurant, and there was good food, and Ded Morroz came and led the festivities. It was a great time, and a lot of the Rotarians gave me gifts for New Years. The club bought me a new pair of ice skates so I can go skating all winter. They also bought me a pointy hat made of wool with a red star on it (you use it for banya, so when it gets really hot, it shields head and face from the super hot air), and also got other gifts like a photograph of a statue, signed by the Rotarian who made that statue. It was really nice that they gave me all those gifts.
At the university last week, it was the anniversary of the English faculty, so all the students in the English faculty did a lot of presentations recreating stories from famous British and American writers and playwrights. They invited me to sit on the jury and judge the presentations. It was actually really good, and it was funny to see famous English works, such as “Fall of the house of Usher” or “Romeo and Juliet” acted out, but with a twist of Russian humor. This week, I went back to the group and made a presentation to them (in English) about Rotary, Rotaract, and a little about myself.
The language. I continue to get better and better each day. I am now starting to think in Russian, and sometimes if I try to think of English, a Russian word pops into my head first. My host parents also speak a little English, so sometimes when I don’t know a word, I can ask them and they know. But I am able to speak more fluidly now, and also add emotion into my Russian. I’m not translating things in my head anymore, I just know the idea of the word or I can just picture the object in my head without thinking of it in English first. I am also learning words and phrases that I am having a hard time translating into English. The meaning and connotations are perfectly clear to me in Russian, but I can’t always find a word or even a phrase in English to describe it. It’s strange. I’m also starting to be able to read stories from books and understand them. In my opinion, being able to read in a foreign language is one of the most rewarding things. I like reading anyway, but reading in a foreign language is great, because when you read, you actually have to form the picture of what’s going on in the story in your head, and if you are able to play this story in your head from reading a foreign language, it means you are really starting to “get” it. I also got mistaken for a Russian the first time since I arrived. We were at the banya, and I said something about living in the US, and some guy asked me where in the US I lived. I said that I lived in Ohio, but that I was born in California. He said “Oh, you were born there! I thought you just visited there. I though you were Russian.” I think that being mistaken for a native of whatever country you are living in is the greatest compliment that an exchange student can get. It is also kind of funny when people ask me how many years, or from what age I have studied Russian, and I say “four months.”
I also went to the movies a couple times in the past month. I went to go see the new movie “2012” about the end of the world. I was able to understand a lot of it.
I also went to go see the movie “Avatar” in 3D. If you have not yet seen this movie, I recommend that you go see it. It not only has amazing visuals and special effects, but also has a good story. If you are an exchange student, or will be an exchange student, I especially recommend that you see this movie. It has a theme of moving to a new world, trying fit in with a new culture and balance it with your old culture at the same time, and also of eventually becoming a part of and fitting into your new culture. I recommend that exchange students go see it. You will like it.
I also heard that back in the US, there is a boondock saints 2, and that it was better than the original (which I find hard to believe), but unfortunately, that movie is not here in Russia, so I’ll have to wait until I get back to see it.
On Christmas Eve, I decided to cook some spaghetti for my host family. I had never cooked spaghetti on my own before, but I had watched and helped my parents make it many times back home in the US. I used onion, red and yellow pepper, garlic, ground meat, tomatoes, tomato paste, sugar and red wine. I let it cook for a few hours. It was delicious. I even made some garlic bread to go with it. It was kind of funny, because my spaghetti sauce was pretty international, made with ingredients from many different countries. There were vegetables probably from China, Iranian tomato paste, Russian “farsh” which is like ground meat made from beef, pork and other stuff, spaghetti noodles made in Italy, and some sort of Scandinavian cheese to top it off. Then on Christmas day, I just slept in, because I decided not to go to school (yes we had class on Christmas day). That evening, six of the Rotarians took me to the Banya again, and we relaxed there, and then we went to a restaurant afterwards. That was about as much as I celebrated Christmas, but it was nice.
According to the statistics, I should be experiencing the lowest point of my exchange right now, being around Christmas. But I am at one of the highest points right now. It seems like thinks just keep getting better and better. If I’ve already made it through the hardest uphill part of my exchange, things can only get better, as it will be all downhill from here on out.
December 21 was the winter solstice, the darkest day of the year, and the official start of winter. On the 21st, the sun rose at 9 AM, and then set again at 4PM. It was our shortest day of the year, only 7 hours of daylight. However in the summer, I heard that on the longest day of the year, the sun will rise at around 4:45 AM and set around 10:15 PM – 17.5 hours of daylight.
But the darkest gay of the year has already come and gone. It can only get brighter from here on out…
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
The Rotaract Club of Blagoveshchensk
Well, I have only been here for three months now, and I have already become president. But don’t worry—I won’t be taking over for Dmitry Medvedev anytime soon—I am now the president of the newly created Blagoveshchensk Rotaract Club. A few weeks ago, Galina Gusarevich, the current president of the Vladivostok-Eco Rotaract club, sent me an email asking if I would be interested in helping to create a Rotaract Club in Blagoveshchensk. For those of you who don’t know, Rotaract is like Rotary, but for college students and young professionals ages 18-30. I of course agreed to help with this new club. I made a speech to my Rotary club about it at one of their weekly meetings. There were mixed feelings about starting Rotaract from the members of the club, but the president supported it. I went online on the Rotary International website and read all I could about Rotaract to learn how it works.
Then, on Friday, November 27, five members from the Khabarovsk Rotaract club arrived in Blagoveshchensk. There was President Dmitry Burchak, and five girls from his club. We met them at the train station, and five different Rotarians hosted each of the students at their home for the weekend. On Friday afternoon, we made a presentation at a preventative medicine clinic run by one of our Rotarians. There is a lecture hall with a projector and screen there where we made our presentation. We had about 30 young men and women from different universities around the city come to our presentation. They listened to us present about Rotary and Rotaract for over three hours. We explained what Rotaract is, what it does, and also told about what the Khabarovsk club and other clubs around Russia have done. Even I presented (in Russian) telling them who I was, and that I wanted to help create Rotaract here in their city. At the end of the meeting, we invited them to help with the public activism project that we would be carrying out the following day. We also asked them to attend the training session we would hold on Sunday, to start to train new members how to run Rotaract. We received a strong and interested response from all in attendance.
But we didn’t stop at just trying to create a Rotaract club: on Saturday morning, we made a presentation about Interact at School #5 in Blagoveshchensk. Interact club is like Rotaract, but for “high school” students ages 14-18. I was a member of my high school club back in the States for four years, and I served as president of my club during my senior year of high school. We made our presentation at school #5 for a class who had studied English for a long time, so I presented in English about what my club has done, and also why they should join Interact. We also invited them to come to the training session on Sunday. On Saturday afternoon, we carried out our activism project called “Quit Smoking—Eat Vitamins”. We went to the shopping center owned by one of the Rotarians, and offered the people there the option to exchange their packets of cigarettes for an apple. We had about 15 students show up, both from our presentation the day before, and from school #5 to help us carry out this project. In the three hours we were there, we collected over forty packets of cigarettes. As we were leaving, we were stopped by a young journalist from the Amurskaya Pravda, the biggest newspaper in the Amur Oblast. She questioned us about our project and about Rotaract. A few days later, a large article, complete with a color picture, appeared on page 3 of the newspaper, telling about our project and explaining what Rotaract is—essentially giving us a huge amount of free advertising for our club. And here is the article (it even talks about me a little, and I'm in the picture): http://ampravda.ru/2009/12/01/024083.html . On Sunday, we carried out a seven hour training session for Rotaract and Interact at the med-center. We carried out a mock-meeting and went into further detail about how the two clubs work. We also had a brainstorming session where we split into groups and though up potential projects for our club. Then on Monday, we made yet another presentation about Interact, this time at School #13. That afternoon we did another social project where we asked people on the street about social problems that they would like to see improved in the city. We wore badges with the Rotaract logo and introduced ourselves saying “Hello, I represent Rotaract club, a social organization for youth, and I would like to ask you a small social question.” We collected a lot of data from these people, which will help us decide which projects we can carry out to help the city. That evening we had a meeting together with the Rotary Club, and we established our Rotaract and Interact clubs in the city. It was decided that I should be president of the Rotaract club for the first year (until July 1 when the rotary year ends). I already have a lot of experience, having been a member and president of my school’s Interact Club, and also having been with Rotary with the exchange program for over two years now. Even though I don’t speak Russian fluently, I am learning very fast and already have a good command of the language for as little time as I have been here. Plus, I will be able to more easily communicate with Rotary International during the developmental phases of the club. I will be using my experience to help get the club started, but this will also give me a lot of valuable experience. I will be working closely together with the secretary and president-elect of the club, Anton Kasyan. This pair of Anton and me will be really effective during this first year of the club, as I know what needs to be done, and Anton knows how to implement it. We are also working closely together with the Rotary club of Blagoveshchensk to get the club started. They have provided us with an initial meeting place, PR, and also sponsored the visit of the Khabarovsk Rotaract Club. We already have a lot of interested members who are eager to get started right away on service projects. We already held our first meeting on Saturday, with another meeting planned for this Wednesday. Initially, our Rotaract Club and our interact club will meet together, until each of us have a stable membership base. Our first priority is to get chartered and officially recognized by Rotary International. I think that we will have very successful and active clubs here in Blagoveshchensk. We have many factors in our favor. When Dmitry burchak was here, he commented that he thinks we have a great environment for Rotaract and Interact because our city is “small, compact, and young.” I completely agree with him. In addition to this, we have a very active and supportive Rotary club here to help us get started. The relationship between the three clubs here in Blagoveshchensk will be a mutually beneficial relationship, as we can use the Rotary club’s experience and professionalism, and they can use our energy and activism to help with their projects and goals. We are already trying to recruit members from the different universities and areas in the city. Next week, I will be presenting to the students in the English faculty at my university about Rotaract.
Personally, this will be a great experience for me. This is like a practical application of International Relations, the subject that I will be studying in college when I return to the US.
The visit of the Khabarovsk Rotaract club has already created a very strong bond of friendship between our club and theirs, and we plan to continue to work together in the future. We will start taking part in district Rotary and Rotaract events, such as the Rotaract district conference in Chita, and the Rotary district conferences. Once we get established, we will also then travel to other cities in Russia to help start Rotaract and Interact Clubs there, like the Khabarovsk club did for us.
Then, on Friday, November 27, five members from the Khabarovsk Rotaract club arrived in Blagoveshchensk. There was President Dmitry Burchak, and five girls from his club. We met them at the train station, and five different Rotarians hosted each of the students at their home for the weekend. On Friday afternoon, we made a presentation at a preventative medicine clinic run by one of our Rotarians. There is a lecture hall with a projector and screen there where we made our presentation. We had about 30 young men and women from different universities around the city come to our presentation. They listened to us present about Rotary and Rotaract for over three hours. We explained what Rotaract is, what it does, and also told about what the Khabarovsk club and other clubs around Russia have done. Even I presented (in Russian) telling them who I was, and that I wanted to help create Rotaract here in their city. At the end of the meeting, we invited them to help with the public activism project that we would be carrying out the following day. We also asked them to attend the training session we would hold on Sunday, to start to train new members how to run Rotaract. We received a strong and interested response from all in attendance.
But we didn’t stop at just trying to create a Rotaract club: on Saturday morning, we made a presentation about Interact at School #5 in Blagoveshchensk. Interact club is like Rotaract, but for “high school” students ages 14-18. I was a member of my high school club back in the States for four years, and I served as president of my club during my senior year of high school. We made our presentation at school #5 for a class who had studied English for a long time, so I presented in English about what my club has done, and also why they should join Interact. We also invited them to come to the training session on Sunday. On Saturday afternoon, we carried out our activism project called “Quit Smoking—Eat Vitamins”. We went to the shopping center owned by one of the Rotarians, and offered the people there the option to exchange their packets of cigarettes for an apple. We had about 15 students show up, both from our presentation the day before, and from school #5 to help us carry out this project. In the three hours we were there, we collected over forty packets of cigarettes. As we were leaving, we were stopped by a young journalist from the Amurskaya Pravda, the biggest newspaper in the Amur Oblast. She questioned us about our project and about Rotaract. A few days later, a large article, complete with a color picture, appeared on page 3 of the newspaper, telling about our project and explaining what Rotaract is—essentially giving us a huge amount of free advertising for our club. And here is the article (it even talks about me a little, and I'm in the picture): http://ampravda.ru/2009/12/01/024083.html . On Sunday, we carried out a seven hour training session for Rotaract and Interact at the med-center. We carried out a mock-meeting and went into further detail about how the two clubs work. We also had a brainstorming session where we split into groups and though up potential projects for our club. Then on Monday, we made yet another presentation about Interact, this time at School #13. That afternoon we did another social project where we asked people on the street about social problems that they would like to see improved in the city. We wore badges with the Rotaract logo and introduced ourselves saying “Hello, I represent Rotaract club, a social organization for youth, and I would like to ask you a small social question.” We collected a lot of data from these people, which will help us decide which projects we can carry out to help the city. That evening we had a meeting together with the Rotary Club, and we established our Rotaract and Interact clubs in the city. It was decided that I should be president of the Rotaract club for the first year (until July 1 when the rotary year ends). I already have a lot of experience, having been a member and president of my school’s Interact Club, and also having been with Rotary with the exchange program for over two years now. Even though I don’t speak Russian fluently, I am learning very fast and already have a good command of the language for as little time as I have been here. Plus, I will be able to more easily communicate with Rotary International during the developmental phases of the club. I will be using my experience to help get the club started, but this will also give me a lot of valuable experience. I will be working closely together with the secretary and president-elect of the club, Anton Kasyan. This pair of Anton and me will be really effective during this first year of the club, as I know what needs to be done, and Anton knows how to implement it. We are also working closely together with the Rotary club of Blagoveshchensk to get the club started. They have provided us with an initial meeting place, PR, and also sponsored the visit of the Khabarovsk Rotaract Club. We already have a lot of interested members who are eager to get started right away on service projects. We already held our first meeting on Saturday, with another meeting planned for this Wednesday. Initially, our Rotaract Club and our interact club will meet together, until each of us have a stable membership base. Our first priority is to get chartered and officially recognized by Rotary International. I think that we will have very successful and active clubs here in Blagoveshchensk. We have many factors in our favor. When Dmitry burchak was here, he commented that he thinks we have a great environment for Rotaract and Interact because our city is “small, compact, and young.” I completely agree with him. In addition to this, we have a very active and supportive Rotary club here to help us get started. The relationship between the three clubs here in Blagoveshchensk will be a mutually beneficial relationship, as we can use the Rotary club’s experience and professionalism, and they can use our energy and activism to help with their projects and goals. We are already trying to recruit members from the different universities and areas in the city. Next week, I will be presenting to the students in the English faculty at my university about Rotaract.
Personally, this will be a great experience for me. This is like a practical application of International Relations, the subject that I will be studying in college when I return to the US.
The visit of the Khabarovsk Rotaract club has already created a very strong bond of friendship between our club and theirs, and we plan to continue to work together in the future. We will start taking part in district Rotary and Rotaract events, such as the Rotaract district conference in Chita, and the Rotary district conferences. Once we get established, we will also then travel to other cities in Russia to help start Rotaract and Interact Clubs there, like the Khabarovsk club did for us.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
November and other Interesting Stories
Well, right now, it seems like the only thing in Russia that isn’t frozen is the time. I have already lived here in Russia for almost three months, which means that already I am over a quarter of the way done with my exchange year. I still have eight months left in Russia, and a lot left to do and see, but even in these three short months I have lived here, I have already accomplished so much. The month of November went by particularly fast for me because half of the month was spent without school under quarantine. Although this slightly slowed my progress with the language, it allowed me almost three weeks of free time in which to work on other aspects of my Russian life.
A couple of weeks ago, I started attending the meetings of one of the many youth service groups in Blagoveshchensk, called TEMA. This group carries out various service projects around the city, including working with children, cleaning the city, and various other goodwill projects. It is a very friendly, energetic group of young people. I don’t understand everything at their meetings, but they help me with the language and tell me what I need to know. It’s not all work however. For example, this past Sunday, we all went ice skating together. This was the first time I have gone ice skating since I was very young, so I had pretty much forgotten how to skate. At first I was pretty unbalanced, but by the end of the night, and several falls later, I had gotten the hang of it again. I really like ice skating, and it’s good exercise too, so its good that I still have all winter in which to go ice skating.
One of the other things I have been working on is establishing a Rotaract and an Interact club here in Blagoveshchensk. For those of you who don’t know, Rotaract and Interact are both service organizations which are extensions of Rotary for college students and high school students, respectfully. One of the Rotaract members from Khaborovsk emailed me with the idea of starting a Rotaract club here in Blagoveshchensk and asked if I would like to help. I, of course, said yes. I made a speech to my Rotary club (in Russian of course) about starting a Rotaract club here. There are still some mixed feelings about it from some of the Rotarians, but the president of the club supports it, and everything is already in motion to get the clubs started. A group of Rotaracters from Khabarovsk is arriving in Blagoveshchensk on Friday, and we will be giving presentations at one of the local universities and schools. We will try to gauge the interest in the program and look for potential members. There will also be a training session on Sunday for people who are interested in becoming officers and leaders in the club. I have been reading up on the two programs and outlining ideas for them. This will be an interesting project, and maybe by helping establish these clubs, I can use some of my previous experience with Rotary and in Interact club back home to help these clubs be sustainable and leave behind a sort of legacy. I am excited to help with this project.
Last Friday, I also went to the concert of Alexandr Vikolob, our music teacher at the university. He is a singer-songwriter, and we listened to him perform some of his own original music, and some covers of other songs. It was a great concert and I really enjoyed it. However, there is an even more interesting story about my adventure in getting there. The concert was held at ОКЦ, which is in the center of the city, and a little under a half an hour bus ride from my current host family’s apartment. The concert started at 7 PM, and I was supposed to meet some people there at 6:30, so I left my apartment at 6:00 to get there on time. Before I continue, however, let me quickly explain how the buses in Russia work. Of course there are the normal large city buses, but there are also маршрутные такси (or taxis that follow a route). They are basically big vans that can hold up to 13 passengers. They follow a specific route, but anywhere along the route, you can tell the driver to stop. They are faster than normal busses, and they come usually every 5 or 6 minutes. I was on the bus, and we were not quite halfway there, when suddenly the bus driver stopped at one of the bus stops and made everyone get off, and then drove away. I’m sure he explained why he did this, but I didn’t understand him. But no worries, I thought, the next bus will be here in about five minutes and I’ll just get on that one. Sure, I might be a little late, but Russians are usually not really concerned with being exactly on time, so they probably won’t notice. However, the next bus that went by was full. While I was waiting for the third bus to come, of course, a train had to go by and block the road from where the buses come for five or ten minutes. I had never seen a train go by there before, and of course, the first time had to be when I was already running late. Finally the train went by and the third bus came—also full, of course. I was beginning to panic, so I just got on the next bus that came. It was a different number with a different route that I had never been on before, but it would take me within a few blocks of my destination. I was sitting by the door, and at the stop before I needed to get off, someone didn’t close the door when they got off, so I closed it. But I guess I closed it a little too hard, as the door then got jammed, and the driver started yelling at me in Russian (which you don’t want to have happen). He took a crowbar, got out of the bus, and pried the door back open and shut it again, gently. Usually on the buses, you can’t get the doors to close all the way, so you have to close it hard, but I guess I picked the wrong bus to do that on. Once it was fixed, I apologized to the driver, and asked him to stop at the next stop. However, I think he was still mad at me, because he didn’t stop at the next one, and only stopped at the one after that because someone else has to get off. By now it was already past 6:45, so I proceeded to run the remaining three blocks to ОКЦ. I arrived at five till seven, out of breath, trying to explain to the others, who had been waiting for me since they arrived at precisely 6:30 (of course), why I was late. I think all they understood from me was something about a bus driver, a train, full, a different one, a door, and running. Oh well. I made it to the concert, and they forgave me. But I think the thing that I will remember more from that night is not the concert, but the bus ride there, which seems to remind me of some saying about “life’s not about the destination, but about the journey.” Right.
Well, now for the weather report on the 10. Already, it has reached -25 degrees Celsius (about -13 Fahrenheit for all you Americans). For those of you who don’t know, that’s cold. It’s cold enough that you don’t want to breathe through your mouth, but if you breathe through your nose, everything in your already-running nose instantly freezes. It’s an interesting sensation, but you get used to it after a while. I can’t wait to see what will happen when it reaches -40… But unlike in Ohio, where in the winter it snows and then melts, creating a big slushy mess, here in Russia, when the snow sticks, its here to stay, probably until the end of winter. It is constantly below freezing, and unlike in Ohio, they use sand on the roads instead of salting them. This means that everything isn’t destroyed by salt by the end of the winter, but the roads look really dirty. After our first major snow a few weeks ago, all of the streets in the city were literally sheets of ice for at least a week. The condition of the roads would be enough to shut everything down in Ohio, but here, nothing changed. Russian drivers may seem to be a little reckless at times, but they are also very skilled drivers (for the most part), and even driving on sheets of ice, managed not to create pile-ups at every intersection.
Now for my language report. As I said before, my progress slowed a little bit because we weren’t in school for a few weeks, but I have still made a lot of progress since my last report. Even though we weren’t in school, I was still speaking Russian all the time and watching Russian TV and whatnot. During our break, I watched more TV than I usually do. But even now, I am starting to understand more and more. I like watching Russian comedy shows when they are on. I am beginning to understand some of the jokes and laugh at them, which is a big step in my language progress. One of the things that I’ve found out is that they like to talk about Obama a lot, and also Hillary Clinton. Since we are right across the river from China, we also get a couple of Chinese channels broadcast. The name of their channels is “CCTV”, which is kind of interesting, and slightly ironic, considering the fact that there is still government censorship of the media in China, and they named their TV station “Closed Circuit” TV. One of their channels basically just shows the Chinese military doing drills and exercises all day. The other channel has some strange medieval-china soap opera-ish show, and also a cooking show titled “A Delicious Dish of Dog”. I’m not kidding. But anyway, back to my language. We are now back in school again, so I’m getting back into the swing of that. Also, the daily journal that I have been keeping since I arrived in Russia, I began to write completely in Russian, which is a big step and also good practice for me. I’ve also learned some interesting new Russian words and “Russian-isms.” For example, the Russian word for “roller coaster” is американские горки, which literally translates as “American hills”. Also they call the “at sign” (@) собака, which means “dog” in Russian. Some other interesting observations: раб means “slave” and работа means “work (as in your job)”; the Russian word мир means both “world” and “peace”; the verb пытать means “to torture” and the reflexive verb пытаться means “to try (literally- to torture one’s self)”. Also in Blagoveshchensk, there is a chain of malls called Хуафу “Huafu” which is owned by a Chinese company. I was told by my host mom (who studied Chinese) that Huafu in Chinese means “The wealth and prosperity of the Chinese Nation”. It s just kind of funny, because nobody here knows that they’re shopping at a mall named after the wealth and prosperity of China. Also, the three different “Huafus” in the city are named “Big Huafu”, “little Huafu”, and then, of course, there is “heavenly Huafu”. I just found this kind of humorous. I continue to get more comfortable and automatic with the language every day. I can now have conversations with people on the phone. I have begun to think in Russian, I am also now sometimes having dreams with Russian words and sentences in them.
Everything is still going great here in Russia, and I am still not homesick. I have been in contact with some of the other current exchange students from our district, and who are also in Russia right now, and it is always fascinating to hear about how their lives are going. We are still just now entering the beginning of winter, and I have many cold months ahead of me. But I think that if I can survive this Siberian winter fine, I’ll be able to make it through any other challenge in front of me. It still almost seems surreal that I am actually doing this. Molly McKinney, who was an exchange student to Germany last year, told me two days before I left for Russia, that once I return to the States, the past year will just seem like a dream. It already is like a dream, but a good dream, one that I don’t want to wake up from—at least for another eight months…
PS- today is Thanksgiving! The only reason I remembered is because on the news this morning it showed Obama doing his presidential turkey ceremony at the white house.
I have uploaded new pictures from the past month. I have created a second picasa album for these as each album can only hold 500 pictures. You can see these new pictures by clicking on the slideshow for my first album and then clicking on the link to view all of my albums. The second album is titled "russia pictures part 2". I have also uploaded some more artistic photos.
A couple of weeks ago, I started attending the meetings of one of the many youth service groups in Blagoveshchensk, called TEMA. This group carries out various service projects around the city, including working with children, cleaning the city, and various other goodwill projects. It is a very friendly, energetic group of young people. I don’t understand everything at their meetings, but they help me with the language and tell me what I need to know. It’s not all work however. For example, this past Sunday, we all went ice skating together. This was the first time I have gone ice skating since I was very young, so I had pretty much forgotten how to skate. At first I was pretty unbalanced, but by the end of the night, and several falls later, I had gotten the hang of it again. I really like ice skating, and it’s good exercise too, so its good that I still have all winter in which to go ice skating.
One of the other things I have been working on is establishing a Rotaract and an Interact club here in Blagoveshchensk. For those of you who don’t know, Rotaract and Interact are both service organizations which are extensions of Rotary for college students and high school students, respectfully. One of the Rotaract members from Khaborovsk emailed me with the idea of starting a Rotaract club here in Blagoveshchensk and asked if I would like to help. I, of course, said yes. I made a speech to my Rotary club (in Russian of course) about starting a Rotaract club here. There are still some mixed feelings about it from some of the Rotarians, but the president of the club supports it, and everything is already in motion to get the clubs started. A group of Rotaracters from Khabarovsk is arriving in Blagoveshchensk on Friday, and we will be giving presentations at one of the local universities and schools. We will try to gauge the interest in the program and look for potential members. There will also be a training session on Sunday for people who are interested in becoming officers and leaders in the club. I have been reading up on the two programs and outlining ideas for them. This will be an interesting project, and maybe by helping establish these clubs, I can use some of my previous experience with Rotary and in Interact club back home to help these clubs be sustainable and leave behind a sort of legacy. I am excited to help with this project.
Last Friday, I also went to the concert of Alexandr Vikolob, our music teacher at the university. He is a singer-songwriter, and we listened to him perform some of his own original music, and some covers of other songs. It was a great concert and I really enjoyed it. However, there is an even more interesting story about my adventure in getting there. The concert was held at ОКЦ, which is in the center of the city, and a little under a half an hour bus ride from my current host family’s apartment. The concert started at 7 PM, and I was supposed to meet some people there at 6:30, so I left my apartment at 6:00 to get there on time. Before I continue, however, let me quickly explain how the buses in Russia work. Of course there are the normal large city buses, but there are also маршрутные такси (or taxis that follow a route). They are basically big vans that can hold up to 13 passengers. They follow a specific route, but anywhere along the route, you can tell the driver to stop. They are faster than normal busses, and they come usually every 5 or 6 minutes. I was on the bus, and we were not quite halfway there, when suddenly the bus driver stopped at one of the bus stops and made everyone get off, and then drove away. I’m sure he explained why he did this, but I didn’t understand him. But no worries, I thought, the next bus will be here in about five minutes and I’ll just get on that one. Sure, I might be a little late, but Russians are usually not really concerned with being exactly on time, so they probably won’t notice. However, the next bus that went by was full. While I was waiting for the third bus to come, of course, a train had to go by and block the road from where the buses come for five or ten minutes. I had never seen a train go by there before, and of course, the first time had to be when I was already running late. Finally the train went by and the third bus came—also full, of course. I was beginning to panic, so I just got on the next bus that came. It was a different number with a different route that I had never been on before, but it would take me within a few blocks of my destination. I was sitting by the door, and at the stop before I needed to get off, someone didn’t close the door when they got off, so I closed it. But I guess I closed it a little too hard, as the door then got jammed, and the driver started yelling at me in Russian (which you don’t want to have happen). He took a crowbar, got out of the bus, and pried the door back open and shut it again, gently. Usually on the buses, you can’t get the doors to close all the way, so you have to close it hard, but I guess I picked the wrong bus to do that on. Once it was fixed, I apologized to the driver, and asked him to stop at the next stop. However, I think he was still mad at me, because he didn’t stop at the next one, and only stopped at the one after that because someone else has to get off. By now it was already past 6:45, so I proceeded to run the remaining three blocks to ОКЦ. I arrived at five till seven, out of breath, trying to explain to the others, who had been waiting for me since they arrived at precisely 6:30 (of course), why I was late. I think all they understood from me was something about a bus driver, a train, full, a different one, a door, and running. Oh well. I made it to the concert, and they forgave me. But I think the thing that I will remember more from that night is not the concert, but the bus ride there, which seems to remind me of some saying about “life’s not about the destination, but about the journey.” Right.
Well, now for the weather report on the 10. Already, it has reached -25 degrees Celsius (about -13 Fahrenheit for all you Americans). For those of you who don’t know, that’s cold. It’s cold enough that you don’t want to breathe through your mouth, but if you breathe through your nose, everything in your already-running nose instantly freezes. It’s an interesting sensation, but you get used to it after a while. I can’t wait to see what will happen when it reaches -40… But unlike in Ohio, where in the winter it snows and then melts, creating a big slushy mess, here in Russia, when the snow sticks, its here to stay, probably until the end of winter. It is constantly below freezing, and unlike in Ohio, they use sand on the roads instead of salting them. This means that everything isn’t destroyed by salt by the end of the winter, but the roads look really dirty. After our first major snow a few weeks ago, all of the streets in the city were literally sheets of ice for at least a week. The condition of the roads would be enough to shut everything down in Ohio, but here, nothing changed. Russian drivers may seem to be a little reckless at times, but they are also very skilled drivers (for the most part), and even driving on sheets of ice, managed not to create pile-ups at every intersection.
Now for my language report. As I said before, my progress slowed a little bit because we weren’t in school for a few weeks, but I have still made a lot of progress since my last report. Even though we weren’t in school, I was still speaking Russian all the time and watching Russian TV and whatnot. During our break, I watched more TV than I usually do. But even now, I am starting to understand more and more. I like watching Russian comedy shows when they are on. I am beginning to understand some of the jokes and laugh at them, which is a big step in my language progress. One of the things that I’ve found out is that they like to talk about Obama a lot, and also Hillary Clinton. Since we are right across the river from China, we also get a couple of Chinese channels broadcast. The name of their channels is “CCTV”, which is kind of interesting, and slightly ironic, considering the fact that there is still government censorship of the media in China, and they named their TV station “Closed Circuit” TV. One of their channels basically just shows the Chinese military doing drills and exercises all day. The other channel has some strange medieval-china soap opera-ish show, and also a cooking show titled “A Delicious Dish of Dog”. I’m not kidding. But anyway, back to my language. We are now back in school again, so I’m getting back into the swing of that. Also, the daily journal that I have been keeping since I arrived in Russia, I began to write completely in Russian, which is a big step and also good practice for me. I’ve also learned some interesting new Russian words and “Russian-isms.” For example, the Russian word for “roller coaster” is американские горки, which literally translates as “American hills”. Also they call the “at sign” (@) собака, which means “dog” in Russian. Some other interesting observations: раб means “slave” and работа means “work (as in your job)”; the Russian word мир means both “world” and “peace”; the verb пытать means “to torture” and the reflexive verb пытаться means “to try (literally- to torture one’s self)”. Also in Blagoveshchensk, there is a chain of malls called Хуафу “Huafu” which is owned by a Chinese company. I was told by my host mom (who studied Chinese) that Huafu in Chinese means “The wealth and prosperity of the Chinese Nation”. It s just kind of funny, because nobody here knows that they’re shopping at a mall named after the wealth and prosperity of China. Also, the three different “Huafus” in the city are named “Big Huafu”, “little Huafu”, and then, of course, there is “heavenly Huafu”. I just found this kind of humorous. I continue to get more comfortable and automatic with the language every day. I can now have conversations with people on the phone. I have begun to think in Russian, I am also now sometimes having dreams with Russian words and sentences in them.
Everything is still going great here in Russia, and I am still not homesick. I have been in contact with some of the other current exchange students from our district, and who are also in Russia right now, and it is always fascinating to hear about how their lives are going. We are still just now entering the beginning of winter, and I have many cold months ahead of me. But I think that if I can survive this Siberian winter fine, I’ll be able to make it through any other challenge in front of me. It still almost seems surreal that I am actually doing this. Molly McKinney, who was an exchange student to Germany last year, told me two days before I left for Russia, that once I return to the States, the past year will just seem like a dream. It already is like a dream, but a good dream, one that I don’t want to wake up from—at least for another eight months…
PS- today is Thanksgiving! The only reason I remembered is because on the news this morning it showed Obama doing his presidential turkey ceremony at the white house.
I have uploaded new pictures from the past month. I have created a second picasa album for these as each album can only hold 500 pictures. You can see these new pictures by clicking on the slideshow for my first album and then clicking on the link to view all of my albums. The second album is titled "russia pictures part 2". I have also uploaded some more artistic photos.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Russian Post... maybe it would have been faster if they walked it here
Well, today, Saturday, the package that my parents sent to me five weeks ago arrived. Five weeks! But I was lucky. They said it usually takes about 2 months from the US. Here in Russia, they don't deliver the package to your door, but they deliver a notice to your mailbox that you have to go to the post office to pick it up. And it is a Russian tradition that whenever you receive one of these notices that you got a package from home, you have to dance to get it. So I did a little jig. Actually picking up the package was surprisingly easy though. We just went to the closest post office, gave them the notice, and signed a piece of paper. I havent opened the package yet, but I think it contains the much needed autumn warm clothes that I needed a month ago that will be very useful now that it is sub-zero and snowing. Haha. But I was really excited to receive the package. The reason that the government post is so slow here is that all mail that comes into and leaves the country has to be processed through Moscow, which is on the opposite side of Russia. DHL could have had it here in 2 weeks, but it would have cost about $400 I think. So it was worth waiting, and now that I know that my packages wont dissapear into a black hole or fall off the truck somewhere between Moscow and Blagoveshchensk on a deserted stretch of siberian highway, I wont have to worry for five weeks the next time my parents decide to send me something. Thanks parents! (PS if you send me another package now, it might arrive by the holidays...)
UPDATE: I opened the package and somehow my parents knew that it wouldnt arrive until winter so they sent me a lot of warm winter clothes. I really loved getting the package and thank you a bunch for sending it! All these warm clothes will really help.
UPDATE: I opened the package and somehow my parents knew that it wouldnt arrive until winter so they sent me a lot of warm winter clothes. I really loved getting the package and thank you a bunch for sending it! All these warm clothes will really help.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Thanks a lot, H1N1!
Quarantine. It's what all of out schools have been doing for the last 2 and a half weeks. There was a large breakout of the flu in Blagoveshchesnk, and therefore, all the schools in the city, including my university, closed on October 28, and will not reopen until the 16th of November. At first it was just the normal flu. Then ther were a few dozen confirmed cases of swine flu here in my city. So I have been without school for over two weeks now. But I havent gotten sick yet, so I guess the quarantine worked. It was just kind of strange to see everyone walking around in surgical masks everywhere. But then I found out that it was strange for the Russians too, as this is the first time that they have ever worn surgical masks in public too. But don't worry, it's quieting down now, and I'll be starting back at the university on Monday.
Meanwhile, I have been busy, still learning Russian, celebrating halloween (which still isnt really big in Russia-- when we walked around in the streets all dressed up, most people just looked at us funny), and working on starting a Rotaract club here in Blagoveshchesnk. So I've been staying busy.
Meanwhile, I have been busy, still learning Russian, celebrating halloween (which still isnt really big in Russia-- when we walked around in the streets all dressed up, most people just looked at us funny), and working on starting a Rotaract club here in Blagoveshchesnk. So I've been staying busy.
(The newspaper headline is "Swine or not Swine?")
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
The Hunt for Red October
Привет товарищи! It has been almost a full month since my last blog post, but don't worry-- they haven't sent me off to Siberia yet... wait a minute... scratch that last thought. And despite the title of this post, October hasn't been very red either. That is, except for the first week of the month. October 11 was Election Day in Russia, and for that first week, there were campaigners (including the communist party with all their red flags) all over the place. It seemed like everything centered on the election--- all the billboards, radio and TV ads, and just about anywhere there was space was covered with political ads. My host dad ran for the city duma (council) as an independent candidate, but did not win.
Despite "Red October" not quite living up to its namesake, the autumn here has been filled with the brilliant yellow, red and orange colors of the falling leaves. Autumn here was really beautiful, but even as I write now, autumn is already over, and old man winter is waking up. It has already dropped below 0 degrees Celsius, and we have already had snow that stuck to the ground. Needless to say, I have found out that our idea of "winter" clothes is a lot different from the Russians'. I have been told that in the winter, it will be in the -20s and 30s Celsius, and even occasionally dip into the -40s Celsius (-42 degrees is where the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales meet, so you can get an idea of how cold it will get). I thought that my wool pea coat that I brought with me would make a fine winter coat, but if you want to see something similar to what we will be wearing for coats in the winter, turn on the Discovery Channel and take note of what they are wearing when they show people on an expedition to the South Pole... So I have been slowly building my winter wardrobe. One thing that was really nice though, was that when I went to go buy some winter boots at a shoe store that one of the Rotarians here owns, he gave me a 3000 ruble ($100) pair of boots for free!! It was so nice and I was very grateful.
Also at the beginning of the month was the 60th anniversary of the Peoples' Republic of China. And since China is right across the river from us, we got to enjoy their beautiful fireworks display.
I have also now been to several Chinese restaurants here. The Chinese food here is so much better than the "Chinese" food we have back in the states. Delicious!
Some of the Rotarians also took me horseback riding last Sunday. It was the first time that I have ridden, but it was great... but the next day I was so sore from riding. There, when we were riding, I met Alexandr Sergeievich, a young talented musician who plays guitar and piano, sings, and writes his own songs. He also teaches a music "class" at BGPU (My university), and when he found out that I was interested in Music and also played the piano, he invited me to come. So I went. It is not really a "class" but more like a lot of students who are interested in music who come together to play and sing. So I am now kind of in a choir, and it also gives me a chance to play piano sometimes. We meet two nights a week, and so far, it has been really fun. Plus, I think that singing in Russian will help me improve my language skills. It’s also fun because sometimes we sing songs in English, and the other students get a kick out of when I belt out some Beatles or "Johnny B. Goode" in English. But it's great.
School: Well some of the Rotarians met with the rector of the university, and he said that I could continue to study at the University for free so that's good. Earlier, I had wanted to transfer to one of the local secondary schools, primarily I think because I just wanted to make a large group of Russian friends. But now I have realized that the University class will be best for me. I'm basically getting 25-30 hours a week of free Russian language class. So I think I will stick with the university.
The past few weeks, the flu has been going around the university, and a lot of students have been getting sick. Last week, it was so bad that one day, we only had three students in the class. Our teacher said that right now, the hostels are more like hospitals. But I have remained healthy and flu-free through it all. The only kind of medical issue I had was that I just yesterday started wearing my contacts again, after maybe three weeks without them. My eyes got really red for a while, and I thought that maybe there was an infection on my contacts. At home (in the US), every night after I would take out my contacts, I would rinse them under hot water before putting them in my contact case with solution. And when I got to Russia, I continued to do the same thing. However, the only thing is that they don't drink their tap water, and it didn’t connect that it probably wasn’t a good idea to rinse my contacts in that water either. But I have learned.
This past weekend, I also went on a small excursion with my Russian language class to a "nature base" 30 km outside the city. It was me, my Chinese classmates, my teacher, and her young son and niece. We cooked food, walked around a pond, hiked through the forest, and enjoyed the nature. It was really fun and beautiful there.
One cool thing was that I found Tabasco here in Russia! It may not sound like a big deal, but I really like Tobasco, and their pepper sauce here is not spicy compared to our standards of spicy (It is like that with their mouthwash too... while ours actually stings when you use it, theirs is like mint flavored water). I looked all over for tobasco, and I finally found it one day at a store, so I had to buy it. And the best part is, I don't think my host parents like it, so I get the whole bottle to myself!
Russian: My Russian has improved so much in the last month. I can now hold actual conversations with people (on familiar topics). I talk with my host parents all the time. I can even talk a little bit to strangers and salespeople now, so I'm not completely helpless. Russian grammar is hard, but it is like one of those 2000 piece puzzles that you spend several months putting together. At first it seems impossible, but then you start connecting pieces, recognizing patterns, and it starts coming together. You don't put it together on your own-- that's no fun-- you recruit friends and family to help you assemble it. And its not likely that you will get bored of it-- it will keep you busy for a while. And then when you have finally completed it, you see all those pieces in a new and beautiful way. That's kind of like how Russian is. But I have slowly been falling in love with the Russian language. It is a very intricate, descriptive, and interesting language. English can not even come close to the depth of the Russian language, and I look forward to mastering this language. For example, in English we have the verb "to go". But in Russian they have different descriptive motion verbs. There is "to go by foot" (идти), "to go by conveyance" (ехать), "to go somewhere and then return on foot" (ходить), "to go somewhere and return by conveyance" (ездить), "to go on foot on one specific occasion" (пойти), "to go by conveyance on one specific occasion" (поехать)... you get the idea. And there are verbs like that for flying, swimming, going by boat, and riding too. And then there are also the Russian words that describe actions and concepts that we don't have a single word for in English. Some of my favorites are: слепец (one who fails to notice the obvious, also "blind person"), замучивать (to torment the life out of, to bore to death), and my favorite: добивать (to deal the final blow, kill, finish off; completely smash). Russian is full of descriptive words like these. And then there are many words that have identical or almost identical dictionary meanings, but mean very different things in different contexts. As you can see, Russian is like a challenging but fun puzzle that I am putting together.
Until we meet again! До встречи!
(Check out my new pictures!)
Despite "Red October" not quite living up to its namesake, the autumn here has been filled with the brilliant yellow, red and orange colors of the falling leaves. Autumn here was really beautiful, but even as I write now, autumn is already over, and old man winter is waking up. It has already dropped below 0 degrees Celsius, and we have already had snow that stuck to the ground. Needless to say, I have found out that our idea of "winter" clothes is a lot different from the Russians'. I have been told that in the winter, it will be in the -20s and 30s Celsius, and even occasionally dip into the -40s Celsius (-42 degrees is where the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales meet, so you can get an idea of how cold it will get). I thought that my wool pea coat that I brought with me would make a fine winter coat, but if you want to see something similar to what we will be wearing for coats in the winter, turn on the Discovery Channel and take note of what they are wearing when they show people on an expedition to the South Pole... So I have been slowly building my winter wardrobe. One thing that was really nice though, was that when I went to go buy some winter boots at a shoe store that one of the Rotarians here owns, he gave me a 3000 ruble ($100) pair of boots for free!! It was so nice and I was very grateful.
Also at the beginning of the month was the 60th anniversary of the Peoples' Republic of China. And since China is right across the river from us, we got to enjoy their beautiful fireworks display.
I have also now been to several Chinese restaurants here. The Chinese food here is so much better than the "Chinese" food we have back in the states. Delicious!
Some of the Rotarians also took me horseback riding last Sunday. It was the first time that I have ridden, but it was great... but the next day I was so sore from riding. There, when we were riding, I met Alexandr Sergeievich, a young talented musician who plays guitar and piano, sings, and writes his own songs. He also teaches a music "class" at BGPU (My university), and when he found out that I was interested in Music and also played the piano, he invited me to come. So I went. It is not really a "class" but more like a lot of students who are interested in music who come together to play and sing. So I am now kind of in a choir, and it also gives me a chance to play piano sometimes. We meet two nights a week, and so far, it has been really fun. Plus, I think that singing in Russian will help me improve my language skills. It’s also fun because sometimes we sing songs in English, and the other students get a kick out of when I belt out some Beatles or "Johnny B. Goode" in English. But it's great.
School: Well some of the Rotarians met with the rector of the university, and he said that I could continue to study at the University for free so that's good. Earlier, I had wanted to transfer to one of the local secondary schools, primarily I think because I just wanted to make a large group of Russian friends. But now I have realized that the University class will be best for me. I'm basically getting 25-30 hours a week of free Russian language class. So I think I will stick with the university.
The past few weeks, the flu has been going around the university, and a lot of students have been getting sick. Last week, it was so bad that one day, we only had three students in the class. Our teacher said that right now, the hostels are more like hospitals. But I have remained healthy and flu-free through it all. The only kind of medical issue I had was that I just yesterday started wearing my contacts again, after maybe three weeks without them. My eyes got really red for a while, and I thought that maybe there was an infection on my contacts. At home (in the US), every night after I would take out my contacts, I would rinse them under hot water before putting them in my contact case with solution. And when I got to Russia, I continued to do the same thing. However, the only thing is that they don't drink their tap water, and it didn’t connect that it probably wasn’t a good idea to rinse my contacts in that water either. But I have learned.
This past weekend, I also went on a small excursion with my Russian language class to a "nature base" 30 km outside the city. It was me, my Chinese classmates, my teacher, and her young son and niece. We cooked food, walked around a pond, hiked through the forest, and enjoyed the nature. It was really fun and beautiful there.
One cool thing was that I found Tabasco here in Russia! It may not sound like a big deal, but I really like Tobasco, and their pepper sauce here is not spicy compared to our standards of spicy (It is like that with their mouthwash too... while ours actually stings when you use it, theirs is like mint flavored water). I looked all over for tobasco, and I finally found it one day at a store, so I had to buy it. And the best part is, I don't think my host parents like it, so I get the whole bottle to myself!
Russian: My Russian has improved so much in the last month. I can now hold actual conversations with people (on familiar topics). I talk with my host parents all the time. I can even talk a little bit to strangers and salespeople now, so I'm not completely helpless. Russian grammar is hard, but it is like one of those 2000 piece puzzles that you spend several months putting together. At first it seems impossible, but then you start connecting pieces, recognizing patterns, and it starts coming together. You don't put it together on your own-- that's no fun-- you recruit friends and family to help you assemble it. And its not likely that you will get bored of it-- it will keep you busy for a while. And then when you have finally completed it, you see all those pieces in a new and beautiful way. That's kind of like how Russian is. But I have slowly been falling in love with the Russian language. It is a very intricate, descriptive, and interesting language. English can not even come close to the depth of the Russian language, and I look forward to mastering this language. For example, in English we have the verb "to go". But in Russian they have different descriptive motion verbs. There is "to go by foot" (идти), "to go by conveyance" (ехать), "to go somewhere and then return on foot" (ходить), "to go somewhere and return by conveyance" (ездить), "to go on foot on one specific occasion" (пойти), "to go by conveyance on one specific occasion" (поехать)... you get the idea. And there are verbs like that for flying, swimming, going by boat, and riding too. And then there are also the Russian words that describe actions and concepts that we don't have a single word for in English. Some of my favorites are: слепец (one who fails to notice the obvious, also "blind person"), замучивать (to torment the life out of, to bore to death), and my favorite: добивать (to deal the final blow, kill, finish off; completely smash). Russian is full of descriptive words like these. And then there are many words that have identical or almost identical dictionary meanings, but mean very different things in different contexts. As you can see, Russian is like a challenging but fun puzzle that I am putting together.
Until we meet again! До встречи!
(Check out my new pictures!)
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