Take 'Em All! Take 'Em All!

One of the reasons I'm really excited to move to Seattle is that I get to be in a city with an MLS team. One of my goals in life has been to live in a city where I can get season tickets for the professional team. I was able to go to some Zenit matches in St. Petersburg, but, I didn't really have the money to go to all the home games and I didn't join any supporters organizations because most of them are nationalistic, hate foreigners, and regularly clash with police. After doing some cursory research on the Emerald City Supporters and the North End Supporters, they look pretty great, aren't nationalists, and no have no recorded history of tearing up chairs and throwing them at police. In fact, there's a group (Gorilla FC) that prides themselves in being decent human beings and have raised money for aid to Haiti and other causes. Another thing I'm excited about is that most of these groups have several indoor and outdoor teams which would be great way to get plugged in up there. If the missus lets me get some tickets, look for me in the Brougham End in the future. Take 'em all, Sounders!

Ch-ch-ch-changes: Turning and Facing the Strange

Now that I'm home from Russia, I've been wondering what to write about on here. I started writing here because life was changing. Drastically. Life is about to change again. Drastically. And I wanted to keep those interested up on what was going on. So, I'll start with the biggest one: I'm engaged to marry a wonderful young woman, Elizabeth. We met in September, started dating in February, I decided I was going to marry her in April, I landed in America June 2nd, bought a ring June 3rd, and proposed June 7th. Happily, she said yes and we're looking to get married in April.

We're going to be getting married up in Seattle and I'll be moving there, Lord willing, in late July or early August. This is going to be exciting, folks. I really fell in the love the Emerald City on my trip earlier in the month and I can't wait to be a denizen there. I'm not worried about the rain, but I am worried about traffic. Maybe I'll just use public transport. Somehow, I think my experience on Seattle's public transport will be a marked improvement from St. Petersburg's; hopefully, I'll be shouted at a lot less.

It's Time for Me to Get on a Plane...

Best Russian moments of the last few weeks:

1. The Urinator

Elizabeth and I were walking along the Griboedova Canal on a beautiful, sunny Sunday afternoon and decided to go poke our heads in a souvenir shop in a courtyard just off the street. As we entered the courtyard, we noticed the man five feet to our right was urinating (a not altogether unknown sight in most courtyards/hallways/elevators/any-place-you-can-stand). We kept walking, unsure of how to respond. We poked our heads into the shop, didn't like it, and walked back towards the canal. Our friend, I. P. Freely, was still, somewhat incredibly, heeding the call of nature, nonplussed.

2. Papa Gets Thirsty

We walked past The Urinator back on to the street, and before we could even process Mr. Freely, we were confronted with another sight. A huge, shirtless, deeply sunburned man (with a man purse slung over his shoulder, by the way) stopped in the middle of the sidewalk with his baby and baby stroller, chugging cognac straight from the flask bottle. After some deep swallowing, he let out a sated "Ahhhhhhh..." and then placed his liquor in the diaper bag of the stroller.

3. Breaks and Shortages

The other day I went to go get some food over at a little lunch place across the street from the school. I walked in and was informed they were on their lunch break and I should come back in 5 minutes. Lunch break? They are only open 4 hours out of the day!! I came back in 10 minutes, and saw they were still coming off their break, so I went to the little shop next store to get a coke because the lunch place doesn't sell beverages. Come back in 15 minutes, I was told, they were on their break... Ok, I thought, no big deal, I'll just get myself a little pizza and drink water. I went into the lunch place and asked for a pizza (like I have done once a week for the last 10 months). Sorry, the lady said, no pizza today. This failure of restaurants to have what they advertise on menus is very, very common in Russia. Very common; so common, in fact, that later on that night, when Elizabeth and I went out to Georgian food on Nevsky, both of our first attempts to order were stopped cold by the waiter promptly informing us they didn't have that today.

4. Can't You Help a Brother Out?

There's this attitude that men have here, that may be a left over from Communism, that if you need to buy a beer or cigarettes and don't have any money, then a total stranger should buy them for you. So, while waiting in the metro today for a friend, I thought, since I had a few moments, now would be a good time to put some money on my cell phone account, as I was running pretty low on minutes. As I was in the process of doing this, a boozy gentleman approached me, tapped me on the shoulder, held out his public transport card, and asked if I could help him out and give him some cash so he could put some metro rides on his card. The card he was holding aloft as proof of his noble intent was the one that costs about $50 to put money on. If he really was stranded, he could pull out 22 rubles (about 60 cents) and buy one trip. He wanted money for booze or cigarettes; I have drunks ask me for money about 3-4 times a week, and this attitude that I should give him money for his beer and cigarettes made me go to the trouble of being smart aleck. Here's the exchange that followed:

Supplicant: Can you give me some money so I can charge my card?

Me: (in exaggerated American accent) I... don't...understand... Russian.

Supplicant: (unperturbed) 10 rubles (which is about 30 cents), just give me 10 rubles.

Me: Listen, I'm poor. I NEED those 10 rubles.

Supplicant: Come on, it's 10 rubles, just give me 10 rubles.

Me: You need to to understand, I NEED these 10 rubles. You know what? You should give ME 10 rubles, I'm so poor.

Supplicant: (less confident) Just 10 rubles...

Me: Yes! Just 10 rubles. I NEED 10 rubles. Please, give me 10 rubles. Help me, please.

Supplicant: I... uh...

And with that he turned to walk away.

"I love [Russia] in the springtime, I love [Russia] in the fall."

Elizabeth and I went to the world famous Mariinsky Theatre on Wednesday to watch 3 famous Russian ballets: Petrouchka, The Firebird, and Scheherazade. It was fantastic and we had a great time and enjoyed the ballets and the experience. It's interesting that the presumably extinct dramatic art of black face is still alive and well in Russia.

It's warmed up and we've had some great weather the last few weeks. Lately the dandelions have been springing up and the city has finally shaken off the shackles of winter. It's been warm; one day it even got up to 80 degrees F. It's funny when it gets this warm here because the wardrobes of most Russians, particularly guys, are a little limited for warm weather and you see some strange fashion choices (and a lot of sandals with socks).

The majority of Russians also seem to have some sort of aversion to deodorant. This, coupled with an understandable lack of AC, makes for slightly more uncomfortable rides on public transport. You know it's warmed up here when you can smell the metro 20 meters before you enter it.

Summer here also means White Nights. Because we are so far north, the sun doesn't go down until around midnight and then there are 2-3 hours of dusk before the sun rises again. After a 5 month long winter, people here go a little crazy in the summer and will stay up all night walking around the city, soaking up every last drop of UV rays they can absorb. Interestingly, the Russian verb for "to tan" is the same as "to sunburn." I guess Slavs don't differentiate between the two. It's a little disconcerting to be out around 11 PM and the whole city is as busy as it was during the 11 AM (busier, in fact).

Drivin' That Hot Rod Lincoln

The other day Elizabeth and I went to dinner with Jared and his family. Jared's dad, Kevin, has been here since '96 and is something of a legend. I don't know where to begin to describe him. I'll start by saying he has a car. Having a car means having to deal with the traffic police. Usually when one gets pulled over, the policeman comes up to the car and asks you to step into his car where things can be worked out "unofficially." This is usually the best option, if not exactly the most honest one, because a bribe will be cheaper and would cut down on the bureaucratic nightmare that comes with a ticket. Now, there are a lot of stories about Kevin dealing with the traffic police, but my favorite is this one: After being pulled over for an illegal u-turn, the traffic cop approached his car and told him he was going to confiscate his license. This was a ploy to make Kevin afraid and encourage him to pay him a bribe. Kevin responded for him to go ahead and take it. He then jerked his thumb at his wife in the passenger seat and said he wished his license WOULD get taken away because SHE was always making him drive when he didn't want to. PLEASE take my license, he said. The traffic cop must have decided that making Kevin drive was punishment enough, so he let Kevin continue on his merry way.

All of that was just a setup to what happened the other day. Elizabeth and I went with Jared and his family to dinner before going to the school's drama performance. On the way there we got stuck in traffic, and Kevin did what any Russian would do. He made in illegal turn on to a one-way street to zip around the congestion. Unfortunately, there was traffic cop waiting for someone making just such a maneuver. He pulled Kevin over, approached the car, and asked for Kevin's documents. He asked Kevin if he wanted to step into his car to take care of this matter, but Kevin said for him to just write up the ticket and that he would wait right here for it. The traffic cop seemed a little disappointed with this response and went back to his car to write up the ticket for the next 45 minutes. He finally returned and started explaining to Kevin what he needed to do. It was something of a comic scene with Kevin, who didn't want to make us late for the play trying to hurry him, repeatedly trying to grab the ticket out of the policeman's hand and the policemen snatching it back and keeping it just out of reach while he finished explaining. Towards the end of his spiel, Kevin asked him if he just wanted to show him mercy and let him go. The policeman started laughing and said that he tried but Kevin told him to just give him the ticket. Kevin said, well, ok, let's take care of it right now. The policeman laughed and counted all 5 of us in the car and said there were too many witnesses. Kevin assured him that we didn't speak Russian and we all laughed, bang on cue, thus ruining Kevin's gambit.

Catching a Car

There's a lot of ways to get around St. Petersburg, but the strangest to me is catching a car. Russians call them "unmarked taxi cabs." Basically, any private car is an "unmarked taxi cab." So, to catch a car, you stand on the side of the road and hold out your arm in a 45 degree angle and see who stops. A car will stop and you ask if he's going your way, negotiate a price, get in, and away you go.

My colleague John had been giving me a hard time about having never caught a car. You have to do it at least once before you go, he said. My hesitancy to do so in the past can be put down to two factors: my clumsiness in using large numbers (and thus my inability to negotiate a price in Russian) and the potential awkwardness of riding in complete stranger's car, not knowing the proper etiquette for the situation.

So, the other day, John, Jared, and I decided to go hang out after school at Petrogradskaya (a different district of the city from the school) and the fastest way was to catch a car. Jared grew up here in St. Pete and is a veteran of catching cars; John has been doing it since the mid-90's. In order for me to get the proper experience, John only held out his arm to try and catch one of the old beat up Ladas. Within about 2 minutes an old beat up Lada Zhiguli stopped and the driver opened up the door and asked where we were heading. John told him and agreed to 300 rubles (about $9). The front passenger seat wasn't bolted down and gave John a bit of a start when he got in; the windshield was on it's last legs after sustaining some pretty extensive cracks; no seat belts in the back seat. In short, a proper Zhiguli, a proper experience for the first time catching a car. The driver occasionally spoke on his cell phone, but never spoke a single word to us. At first I didn't know if it was rude to speak in English with John and Jared, but it became apparent that we were nothing more than cargo, so we went for it. Apparently, it's completely normal to not exchange a single word and completely normal to have your ear talked off.

Catching a car really wasn't that big of a deal. In fact, it's main significance was that it was one more thing to cross of my things to do before I leave Russian at the end of May. The only thing left on my list is to see a ballet at the Mariinsky Theatre, but I'm going to take Elizabeth on the 19th to see some Stravinsky and Rimsky-Korsakov pieces.

The Metro

Were the Moscow metro bombings a big deal for you? They were here. Last Monday, I woke up and checked the news like I always do and saw that there had been an attack on the metro in Moscow during rush hour. Having been on the Moscow metro during rush hour, I could only imagine the chaos; it's the 2nd busiest metro system in the world with something like 9 million people riding it ever day. I turned on my TV to see what the Russian channels were saying about it; nothing. If you wanted to know what was going on in the Moscow metro you had to have BBC or CNN International. No interruption of programming for the whole day.

I was on the St. Petersburg metro that afternoon and there wasn't any sort of extra police presence or anything like that, but I noticed everyone was a little jumpy. At one stop, I noticed nobody was coming into my metro car. I looked at the doorway and saw why: a bag of trash was lying in the doorway. From my view I could see it was just a few empty beer bottles, but from the outside it's a suspicious bag and better just move on to the next door.

The next day, I noticed there was an increased police presence. Apparently, word had finally filtered down from the top that there needed to be some sort of response to show the people. I read this from a Russian pundit, "It's not enough that the authorities treat us like cattle, but now we must die like cattle too." So, a show of more police officers and detainment of anyone entering the metro who looked like they might be from the Caucasus region happened. Now, I'm normally not the biggest fan of Russian police, but, full credit to them, they looked like they were taking their jobs seriously and wanted keep the public safe. This week, however, the police officers assigned to metro duty are a little less vigilant (they sit on benches and text).

So, while the metro might be a place of fear, being crushed like cattle, and racial profiling, it does have it's moments. The other night I was coming home late so it wasn't too crowded. While walking to my platform I passed an old lady selling flowers. Normally this place smells of stale beer, cigarette smoke, and body odor, but that night it smelled like a florist's shop. To complete the scene, there was an old man serenading passersby with Russian folk songs on his accordion. In her better moments, that is Russia: the scent of flowers and the sound of music.