Russia, Part III: Astrakhan State University

Dear People:

Well, I've been in Astrakhan for a week now and there have been some ups, a lot of downs, but things are mostly calm at this point. My first few days here were pretty hard; I had some communication (and food) problems with my host family; the fact that I was extremely tired and stressed out didn't help a lot. But things are much, much better now, so thanks for your thoughts and prayers!

I am slowly beginning to understand more of what people say, but it's hard because Russians speak so fast! If I don't hear my host family (or anyone, really) the first time, then they automatically assume that I don't know what they're saying and start speaking in English, which is precisely what they're not supposed to do--that's the whole point of being in Russia! The friends that I made in DC and St. Petersburg still speak in English a lot, so it's been really difficult to switch back and forth and I usually give up after awhile.

School started on Monday; we were greeted with five different tests--listening, speaking, reading comprehension, grammar, and something else. Or maybe it was just four tests. Anyway, they were really hard because the instructions were in Russian, which ended up being harder to understand than the actual test! Needless to say, I am in Group Number One--one being last, not first. We had a five course lunch (every course but dessert had meat in it) and then the most horrifically boring lecture I have ever listened to. The teacher speaks really slowly and enunciates every single word, so it takes her about five minutes to finish one sentence--and she was talking about linguistic theories of history and culture. I wrote down most of the words I didn't understand but then I ran out of both paper and patience. Tuesday we started our actual classes, which are Reading, Listening (Phonetics), Writing, and Grammar, with an afternoon lecture. Our phonetics teacher is very kind and gave us a song to learn for our homework. Our grammar teacher is also really nice, but she makes us read (so it's like our reading class) and then we just read and answer the exercises in the book. However, on our first day, she gave us 8 pages of homework and we had an excursion to the symphony that night! It's hard to go home and do homework when you've been out for 14 hours. In our writing class we also read (we read a lot, but I still sound horrible!) and we're learning about official and non-official speech. In reading, we (surprise) read essays about the Astrakhan and the Volga river, so I'm not only learning a lot of Russian vocabulary, but also a lot of geographical diction in English. What fun.
I have to take the marshrutki to class, which are little vans which have 10 seats in the back and two in the front (excluding the driver). It costs 9 rubles each way and the drivers make money off of how many passengers they have, so some of the drivers just pack people in and they have to slouch (it's too low to stand) and they also drive really fast. You have to hail it like a taxi and they don't stop at every stop, so you're supposed to yell "Ostanovka ostanovite, pozhalyusta! (stop at this stop, please)" The only problem is that I've had a hard time recognizing my stops (everything kind of looks the same), so I am in a constant state of fear for most of the trip. My host mother rode it with my on the first day of class, but I've taken it myself each time after that.

Some things here are just crazy. On our first week, after about 24 hours of travel (total) and adjusting to various time zones and life in Russia, our Russian program leaders made us go on a cultural activity almost every single day! We got here on a Saturday, had a tour of the city on Sunday, had classes, lectures, and a meeting all day Monday, went to the symphony Tuesday evening, went to the movies on Wednesday, and they had two more activities planned Thursday and Friday but our group leader, Tim, told them that we were too tired! This week they're making us play sports (seriously, are we in elementary school?). They kept asking us what sports we play, so I quickly looked up how to say "I generally abstain from physical exertion." Now I just have to figure out how it's pronounced.

This past Saturday we had the best excursion so far--we took a bus to the border of Russia and Kazakhstan (we were about 19 km away) and met the consul of Kazakhstan and toured a tomb of a famous Kazakh poet and writer, toured a museum of Kazakh culture and history, and then were served a 5 course meal of Kazakh food and drink in a tent-like structure while they played music, sang, and danced for us. The food was delicious and I especially liked the tea. Sunday was our first free day since I left Seattle; it was nice to relax and not be on a schedule.
It's funny when I realize that Russians are also nervous about the language barrier--we are supposed to join clubs with other Russian students, so one guy was explaining the point of his club (I guess it was like Russian jeopardy), but he got so nervous that no one understood him that he started rambling about the differences between Russian hockey and the NHL. Definitely not something that was in our area of knowledge, even in English! I decided to join the Russian Cooking, Dancing and Singing club...not sure if we're supposed to do it all at the same time, though. :)

It's pretty hard not knowing how to say things. One of my friends wanted me to go over to her family's house on Sunday, so we had to have our host sisters talk to each other, because neither of us could communicate precisely what we wanted to say. Sometimes I feel like I'm about five years old--even my little host brother, Dima, intimidates me! We played cards on Sunday (the game 'war') and aces, jacks, queens, kings and jokers were high only when he played the card, so he kept winning the game...and I couldn't even protest. :) It was funny.

The women in Russia primarily wear skirts, dresses and high heels, so I feel very under dressed most of the time (before we left, they told us to pack light and that we'd only need one nice outfit...that was totally wrong). I had to explain to my host sister that in Seattle, women rarely wear dresses unless it's a special occasion; but that I love dresses. We went shopping on Sunday: the 'big store' we went to was just a large area with room dividers which made up the stores and most of them were packed with dresses and shoes. It was amazing! I always knew I loved Russia. I bought a really pretty black and white dress; when I got home, my host mother, Valya, and sister, Natasha, made me put it on with my black heels and then put red jewelry on me and took a bunch of photos. Dima also wanted to take pictures and I have to admit--I like his the best! They wanted me to wear it to class today so that I could "walk around like a princess" and "look Russian," but we've had another long day..it's the theater tonight. Maybe next week.
This weekend we are going on a whirlwind tour of Volgograd--we leave Friday night on an over night train, will be there all day Saturday, leave Saturday night to come back to Astrakhan and yes, are supposed to go to the theater on Sunday night. We'll see how that goes! I am excited to take the train; it will be quite an experience.

In other news, I was accepted to the University of Glasgow (in Scotland) for an International Masters program in Russian, Central and Eastern European studies. However, I don't think I got the scholarship that I applied for, so I can't go. But it was an honor to be accepted.
Oh, and I am currently uploading photos, but unfortunately, I can only upload five at a time and it is painfully slow...so they will be posted sometime before I leave, haha.

Well...that's all for now. Have a great week!

Cheerio,

Maria