Из России/From Russia: Pulling into Russia's Driveway

I've only been to three foreign countries so far; Canada, Finland (I was there for about an hour, so I'm counting it), and Russia. From there experiences, I can compare entering a foreign country to entering the house of anyone you don't know really well or at all. You arrive at their address, look around and record what you see. Most of us judge what we see immediately and begin to assume that the outside is a foreshadowing of what is to be found once we cross through the front door. So here is my tale of "pulling into Russia's driveway."

I'm cruising down Baltic Avenue in a very stylish, neat Finnish airplane:

My ride.

To my left is Finland, very nice place. Very clean and quiet. To my right are Estonia and Latvia. I don't know them very well, but they look cool from the street. Then I come up to Russia's address. It's wet, looks like they were just watering the lawn. And there are several cars parked outside, old and new. I pull into the drive way, a big sign reads: Добро пожалавать в Россию! (Welcome to Russia!). That's nice, I think. I gather my things and check my papers (I've been told that Russia likes to make sure all of her guests are there for good reasons). I open my door and step outside. I can see a bit clearer now, after leaving the fogged up, wet windows of my car. I notice a strange dichotomy in Russia's front yard. There are old sculptures, magnificently built, but alongside them are also more modern pieces.

If you missed the metaphor, this is the "old" sculpture...

And here's the "new" one.

It strikes me as odd, but I continue forward. Their sprinkler system just activated itself again. I step up to the front door. There is a small window to my left that reads Паспортный Контроль (Passport Control). I present my documents and an officer looks them over and lets me in. Russia is very precise about her security. The door opens in front of me and I walk in...

The very first thing I noticed about Russia was the smell. As soon as we stepped off the airplane, the smell of cigarettes hit my nose quicker than I could say Россия (Rossiya/Russia). My American nose was stunned for a few minutes and I had to resist the urge to grimace. But there was something going on that trumped all the smell of cigarettes; the language. Everyone was speaking Russian and all the signs were Russian! YES! I am finally in Russia. In addition to the smell, high heels were another image that struck me immediately about Russia. All the women (well, it seemed like all of them) were wearing heels. And were not talking one size of heels or the same style, I saw every kind of heel imaginable, color, style, size, etc. And this is just the airport! Even some of the women immigration officers and полиция (politsiya/police) had heels. Now I've worn and walked in heels before.

To add to the humor, this is a school
sponsored activity.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

One word: Ouch

They aren't fun to walk in. In fact, it hurts, a lot. Regardless, Russian women (not all of them again, but a lot of them) wear heels all the time. Even in winter apparently, but I haven't experienced winter in Russia yet, so I'll get back to you on that. Enough with the heels.

After the incident at passport control (see previous post), I met up with the rest of the group (who were wonderful and got my luggage while I was changing from a women to a man). We left security and passed through customs (only one person had something to declare so that part went very quickly, ура!) into the main airport. I was surprised at how small the airport is. We came into Пулково 2 (Polkova Dva). There is a Пулково 1 but I'm not sure how big that is. Пулково 2 though was small considering its the airport for St. Petersburg. I just Googled it and it is a bit larger than I the part was in, but still, not that big. Google it yourself and check out the pictures. We waited in the main area of the airport for a bit and met with one of the program assistants who organizes our group activities and host family arrangements. She's Russian, so she was the first Russian I've met in Russia. We then made our way outside where it was raining. Luckily, a bus would soon pick us up. While some may think, its too bad it was raining when we got to Russia, I think it was good. It set the mood for our stay here. The bus arrived and we made our way into the city with a short land mark tour along the way.

As I mentioned in the driveway metaphor, Russia's (specifically St. Petersburg and I would venture to say the bigger cities in general) landscape is a mix of buildings that were built sometime between the city's founding and today and every year in between. The mixture is very telling of the struggle present throughout Russia's history and present between the old and the new.

As we left the airport and made our way onto the highway into the city, the struggle became more and more evident. Large department stores were everywhere. Ikea, chains from Finland, a Russian home depot equivalent, and some big Russian stores. The industrial outskirts of Soviet times are nearby, but not certainly like they were. The roads are dirty and the smell of exhaust is everywhere. Cars are nearly flying down the highway and roads, its a miracle there aren't any crashes. Our driver knows what he is doing and maneuvers this maelstrom of metal and gas. It's wet everywhere. Buildings that have stood for hundreds of years through wind, rain, snow, and war look worn and many are under restoration. Soviet monuments stand as they have since they were built, reminding the people around them of past deeds and promising a bright future.

People are everywhere, coming in and out of shops, dashing across the street before a car or truck goes whizzing by, a breath away from the pedestrian. I'll talk more about Russian driving in a later post because truthfully, it deserves its own post. But my first impressions of it were "Wow, this is nuts." Not much has changed, but I understand it a bit better now. We didn't die on the bus, so that's what counts.

I was thankful for the bit of sleep I had gotten on the plane, because I was not drooping on the bus. That is not to say that I was completely cognizant. I was still running on little sleep, staring at Cyrillic letters, recovering from being labeled as a woman (ok, maybe it wasn't the tramatizing), and attempting to believe that I was in freakin' Russia at the moment and not just dreaming. These streets and buildings were places I had only up until now read about and seen in pictures. Now, I was here. Lenin's statues were just outside the bus window, the Moika was under us as we crossed a bridge, and we just turned onto Nevsky Prospect. Is this real? Yes. It is.

As we head to our hotel, a realization comes to me, Russia is not glamorous. I don't know if I expected it to be or not, but that is the impression I am getting more and more. They say St. Petersburg is a beautiful city and it is. The canals and bridges and rivers, the buildings, and the people all make this city what it is. No one can deny that Спас на Крови (Spas na Kravi/Church on the Spilled Blood) or Исаакиевский Собор (Isaakievskii Sobor/St. Isaac's Cathedral) are nothing but pure beauty. Yet they do not make Piter or Russia glorious. It's the people that do. The people are (for me at least, you are welcome to disagree) the ingredient that I have loved so far. When we got to the hotel and had some time free from other obligations, I just walked up and down the streets. Hearing Russian being spoken freely and as if nothing was out of the ordinary (for indeed, we're in Russia, so of course speaking Russian isn't unusual!). And going into stores and being able to use words that I've only really used in exams. Отлично и прикрасно!

At this point, its only natural that I describe some Russian mannerisms. You may or may not have heard the rumor that Russians do not smile. Well, it is only a partial rumor because they do in fact smile, just not in the same places that Americans do. I should also preface this that I've only really been on the streets of one major U.S. city and that's Chicago. So my experience with American urban centers is very limited. For those of you familiar with the east coast, this may not seem out of the ordinary. Back to Russia. I've only been here for five days, but from what I've observed, if a Russian is smiling on the street, it is not for the rest of the pedestrians around him/her. It is for the person they are with or talking to on the phone. This should not be taken as Russians being grumpy towards the rest of society. They are simply using their emotions on people who they trust to care about them. That is my theory on Russian emotions, you will know them if they know you care about them. I guess I should add that this applies mainly to happy emotions. If a store clerk is tired and a bit grumpy, you will notice. Especially if you don't understand the ruble system (Yep, I'm referring to myself right now...). But Russians are very friendly people and hospitable. Once you are a guest in a Russian's home, be ready to be stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey. Cause that's what's going to happen. And if you stay for awhile, it's going to happen at every meal. That's a fact.

I'll share a bit later about our hotel that we stayed at for a few days before heading to our semester housing. I mentioned earlier that my nose was hit with the smell of cigarettes head on when stepping off the plane. Well, that didn't change much once we got into the city. Granted, there is a lot of stuff to cover up the smell of people smoking (курить "kuureet") but don't be surprised to see lots of people smoking, even on-duty police officers. And at the restaurants I've been to so far, the whole place is a smoking section. But after awhile, you get used to it. Эта Россия. After walking around on the streets for a bit, I came back to the hotel and as I climbed the stairs, the whiff of smoking came to my nose and I smiled a bit. Welcome to Russia.

A Russian stop sign. It works. Most of the time...

To sum it all up, my lesson so far has been to not judge Russia by its cover. As cheesy at it sounds, its true. A Russian's soul is not on the outside of him/her, its inside. And the best part of a building is not the crumbling exterior, but cozy room inside, the comfy bed, the table full of food, and friendly smiles and conversations.

That's Russia.