I was just trapped in a small elevator for 20 min.

This is a short post with a few pictures of the "literary sojourn" my friend Matt (one of the grad students on the program - Andrew, you know him) and I took. It took a lot of walking, and backtracking, and backtracking the backtracking, and running into authors' houses that are closed for repairs - but the 5 hours of walking (short for a day out in Moscow) was worth it, I think.

Here's Mayakovsky, who's place I haven't visited yet, but his statue was around. He looks strapping. And....

Gorky. His place was the coolest I've seen so far. I wouldn't want to LIVE there (too cool for me), but apparently neither did he. He spend his last years here, where I was told he was put by Stalin when he got a little loose with his words (maybe, I might be a little off). But he was a big supporter of simple surroundings in accordance with communism, and he was put here - in lavish surroundings (leather, art nouveau architecture) and it bothered him. The staircase looked like something out of a Tim Burton movie. Unfortunately, I'm too cheap to pay the extra money to take pictures inside - so try to look it up online. Here's a picture of the outside, though.

I think these two were pictures of the outsides of Lermontov and Chekhov's places - which were closed for repairs.


Here are Blok and underneath him is the less important Tostoy, Alexei (which I shouldn't say, that sounds sad).


And we went back to Patriarch's Pond - but I was on the other side of it this time. Instead of Bulgakov, they have a statue of this old moral fairy tale author who I don't know anything about. But here's a picture of him.

And beside him stood a row of smaller statuettes depicting what I can only guess are illustrations of some of his stories.





And finally, here are two pictures of me by the pond....


The end.

Я хулиганка

Prologue: Everytime I'm in here [Kofehous], Air is playing - just noting.

It reads that I'm a hooligan above because most of the pictures in this post were 'illegally' taken. Or I just didn't really have 'permission' to. But I sneaked (snuck??) them for your sake…any maybe mine, a bit.


Here's some of the famously majestic metro system they're so proud of (and rightly so). Most of the stops look like this – big chandeliers, mosaics, statues, memorials, &c.



My technique was to ready the camera behind a column, then whip around, take it, and stuff it back in my bag. In this last one, this guy's looking right into the deadlights. Also - instead of walking through intersections to cross the street (which would be deadly, what with the awful, AWFUL Russian drivers), there are underwalks that go underneath the streets to the other side. Most of the time, there are either tiny stores lining the walkways or performers of some kind. Here's a video I took a couple of weeks ago of a little orchestra. Check out the guy yawning before he saw I was recording....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBjwvlhSf70

Here are some photos I took of the holy little town of Sergeiv Pocad (I hope I didn't butcher the alphabetical translation). It was another opportunity to take a trip out of Moscow. You could take them if you bought a photo permit, but I just slunk off and took them from the sidelines. I know what you're thinking. 'God, Tricia, we're so tired of seeing brilliantly beautiful cathedrals.' Right, me too.




The rest of these pictures were allowed. Here's one I took in Tula on our way to Tolstoy's. It's my favorite cathedral I've seen so far because it had black domes, and it looks very sinister.

They also had this bust of Karl Marx – and someone's spraypainted the Russian word for brother by his name. Not far from here was a huge statue of Lenin, which was kind of weird actually.


And here's the WWII memorial they just built near our dorm. It's not huge, and I'm not sure why they chose this deserted alley for it to go.


Oftentimes when they're repairing buildings or making additions, instead of just displaying a model of what it will look like out in front, they'll drape the building they're working on with a carp that is painted as such. Like this….


And finally, here was the only picture I got of Tostoy's estate before my camera died. Nothing of the stables or woods or meadows that looked like they were out of 'A Land Before Time'. But this was a lovely pond near the entrance.

I want to live like that.

p.s. a gentle reminder that any and all of the pictures can be cliked on and enlarged to see better details....

i see dead people

And you can, too!!

So, I skipped out on school for my birthday and went first to Pushkin's apartment (the one he lived in with his wife), then Gogol's memorial, and finally to this gorgeous cemetary where Chekhov (see above with his wife and..child??), and many other famous Russians are buried. Unfortunately, I keep forgetting the name of it, but there's a lovely monestary attached to it. So here's....

Eisenstein's grave (the filmmaker)
And Mayakovsky's, Bulgakov's, Gogol's, and the Tretyakov brothers (who's art gallery I visited the other day)....




So this cemetary is now topping my list at favorite places of Moscow. I'll definitely be returning since I got there late, and they just let me run in for an hour without charge. But I was so frusterated with the limitations of picture taking, I took a little video, too. Please ignore the narration - except for the part where I express a desire to have a bench next to my grave to people can hang out with me when I die. Go ahead and note that in my will....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1gAj7ir71I

Oh, and here's two other graves that I just thought were especially neat - although, really, the graveyard was just congested with cool graves.



Here's the statue of Pushkin and his wife (quite a romantic pair in Russian literature after he died an early death in a duel for her honor).


This is the great statue in the middle of the Gogol memorial rooms. I was looking at it when this Russian lady came up, took me to one side of it and said, "Cheese" and smiled, then ushered me to the other side where she made a frowny face. I looked at for a moment before I realized, Oh..yeah, I see..they made one side to make it look as if he's happy and the other as if he's gloomy. When I turned around to say something to her, she was already at the gate, and she just looked back and smiled. It was hard to capture as far as camera lighting was concerned, but I tried my best. See if you can tell....



Alright, so that was my 21st birthday day, but as for my 21st birthday night - I was behaving myself, showered and reading politely in my room, when some friends came by with cake, wine, champaigne, roses, and some presents. Two of my teachers sent something along - Vladimir Ivonovich gave me a baby matroishka, and the jovial morning teacher gave me a little bag with candy and a lion statuette (because I'm a Leo??). And my friend, Nicole, got me a stuffed Vinnie Poox - the Russian version of Winnie the Pooh that everyone should try to look up because it's very funny. In fact....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuBzKV6XgvA
There, now you don't have to do the work. But mine sings, too. Something about honey....
Anyhow, here's a picture of my back and some people and my birthday cake....

And here I'm performing the ritual 21st birthday floor rolling, where I sacraficed my dignity to become a woman....

All I remember is putting the rose stems in my mouth and insisting, "I'm dashing, I'm dashing!!"
Anyhow, that's that.

I went to Tolstoy's country estate, which is in Tula not Moscow - so not only does it top my Tula list, but also my overall Russian list so far because it was a dream. I can't describe it's beauty - and my camera ran out of batteries, so I'll have to steal other's pictures.

Bye : )

happy birthday

to me.

This isn't actually my cake, I just found it online..but it's actually my birthday. Even though I'm not in the States, go ahead and celebrate. Take the day off. On me.

I thought I'd spend some of my day here.

This is Patriarch's Pond, which might be familiar to those of you who read the Master and Margarita, as it was the opening setting. And in keeping with Bulgakov tradition, there's a cafe on the corner nearby with depictions from the book on the dor and walls. It's a living room sized place with live music at night and a very festive atmosphere. It's called Cafe Margarita - here's a little clip from the other night I took.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CcVfDQ_0DQ

I tried unsuccessfully to scan the room (it was pretty dark). And also try to ignore the last shot of my cheese platter. I'm not sure why I thought that was important.

This is a short, self-congratulatory post, so I'll just add this picture of Russia at 11pm at night. White Nights (the time of year where, because St. Petersburg for example, is so far North, if the sun sets at all, it's only for a moment) was not long ago - end of Spring, beginning of Summer. So the sun still sets pretty late and breaks around 3am or so.

And another picture - one of old architecture next to a new building. Neat.

Have a good Tricia-day : )

PETA in Russia (or lack thereof)

So, many of you are undoubtedly aware of the harsh Russian winters and the furs they’re accustomed to wear because of them. Vegetarianism also isn’t a widespread custom, though like in many places, it’s a growing one. Anyway – I’ve seen a lot of really awfully treated – or at least humiliated – animals. I thought this picture and video might touch you, Alex, because they’re some of your favorites.

Here, in front of Red Square, are some hawks and monkeys (in dresses) that you can take your picture with.
And this is a link to a video of some tied up bears who were trying to rub off the collars around their necks – they were displayed in front of a huge marketplace I went to the other day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlLt8Tgh_ts

On a lighter note….Russian women. Hot bodies draped with the slightest of clothing. I can’t compete because I don’t have any provocative clothing. Fortunately, I don’t have such a problem with this because I haven’t developed an attraction to the mullet, not yet.

This is a picture of two girls from class and my peer tutor, Julia, who’s not only beautiful and very slender, but also met me in a white skirt and a black bra. Oh, and I think their was a white net covering up the bra, which is a lot more apparent in this picture than it was in real life. I liked her a lot though.

Here are some pictures of the Tretyakov art gallery we visited and Tostoi’s estate I checked out the other day.




And I found some really neat graffiti right after my last post, so here’s some of that, including some really well done matroishkas.





Also - our resident director, Alex, took Allison (the redhead in the picture with Julia) and I to his friend, Sergei's English class. They'd only been learning English two weeks, but they were really far along (because they've been so exposed to it all their lives, &c.). We each got to be in one of their groups and we did exercises and creating a short fairy tale skit, verb conjugations, and singing from a song book that included classics from "Barbie Girl" by Aqua, "I Want It That Way" by the Backstreet Boys to "Yellow Submarine" by the Beatles and, the one we sang, which was some random song he said was from Trainspotting - which I thought was odd.

And, lastly, I got to see the new Harry Potter AND I finished the series yesterday. Which doesn’t really have anything to do with Russia, but….it was perfect. Perfect.