Part Two, a little bit louder and a whole lot worse.

My English speaking and writing skills are deteriorating. When speaking to the Russians, I use the simplest words I can, and when speaking to my classmates, I speak in broken English with a horrible Russian accent. Between the two, I can barely spit out my thoughts anymore without fifty like's or stuff's. "Like, this stuff is really.... good. You know? Or something?"

So I was going to write about Krymov and Opus No. 7, but I just saw another one of his shows and I have way too much to say about him right now, so I'm going to let that topic simmer (and then baby, you got a stew goin') and instead talk about St. Petersburg.

Saaaaaint Petersburg.

St. Petersburg is built on bones.

See, that's the problem with everything. I spent two days getting a crash course on St. Petersburg and the only fact I left with was this:

St. Petersburg is built on the bones of serfs.

The city is located on a river, and when Ivan the Terrible or Peter the Great or Huey the Frumpy or whichever Tzar was in charge at that time decided it would be a pretty nice idea to turn that large tract of swampland over there into a buzzing, cultural metropolis, guess who got to carry the giant boulders and stack them on top of one another over the course of three years? If you guessed smerfs, you would be me at four in the morning trying to decode our tour guide's accent. You would also be confused, but hopeful, because a world with boulder-stacking smerfs is light-years away from uninteresting.

Anyway, over the course of three years, many of the city-building serfs died because the conditions were god-awful. Rather than drag all the bodies 100 yards to the left and bury them in the same material, the other serfs kept on stacking, making their comrades part of the foundations of one of the three keys of Russia.

I personally think this fact is just as important as all the beautiful history we learned in the Hermitage and Catherine the Great's summer palace. St. Petersburg is haunting and eerie, and it sticks to you like campfire smoke. I can't get it out of my head. The lighting, the quiet, the eyes, the excited butterflies in my belly like when Harry was going into the Chamber of Secrets for the first time (just get the series. If you didn't get that reference, just get the series now and do us all a favor)... it was nothing short of bewitching.

We took a Harry Potter overnight train, which was fun for about three hours and then sucked because those cabins should NOT hold four people, especially if two of them are gassy boys and two of them are not. No one really slept; instead, we watched what little we could see of the towns and country outside our window. It was a little snowy, and JUST like in the books and movies.

We got in really early in the morning, breakfasted at a place that considered macaroni and chicken noodle soup breakfast foods (not condemning, just noting), and began our bus tour. It was still dark out because Saint Pete is so far north (there is one day of complete light and one of complete dark every year), but even with the dim lighting, we could already sense how beautiful the city was. The architecture is more European than Moscow, partly because Petersburg is a lot younger than Moscow (St. Petersburg was founded in the 1700's. The first reference to Moscow is in manuscripts dating back to 1120, meaning it's probably even older than that). Petersburg is a grid-based city, so the streets are pretty easy to navigate (UNLIKE MOSCOW. As our Lenin-loving Moscow-bus-tour-lady said, "Streets running OUT? From Kryemlin. Like RAYS? Of suuunshine." Poetic, but frustrating).

Our hostel was really nice. The NIU students were all sharing a room, and we enjoyed a night of bonding. No one was going for the throat, no nastiness... just like a family. I split off from the group to find a vegetarian restaurant called "The Idiot"( like Dostoevsky's novel, not like, "You idiot, why are you a vegetarian?" I know how you people think...) and to see if I could fool anyone into thinking I was a local. It's a game I like to play until people come up to me and talk in English without my saying a word. That's just indescribably depressing.

I had the best time walking around. The air was crisp and the sky was pearly-grey, like the pretty part of November, before overcast loses it's charm. I think I'd like to live by water. There's something about having a river in the middle of a city that feels good. Reminds you how silly all your tiny little problems are, though I can't explain how or why.

Found the restaurant, enjoyed the Rooskie-intelligentsia/bohemian decor and complimentary shot of vodka as well as an awesomely slavic dinner of potatoes and onions in a mushroom sauce, topped with more potatoes and served with bread (nothing greener than a heavily boiled brussel turned up in that meal), and headed back to the hostel. As I was about to go up the stairs to my room, I heard this eerie music coming from across the courtyard. So I followed it, like Harry in book four when he finds the mer-village and tries to rescue Hermione but Krum gets there first (the first part of the seventh movie comes out next week, so I hope you bear with me. My mind is elsewhere). And what was it? Was it a ghost band comprised of the souls of angry boulder-smerfs? Nope. All-girl Russian a cappella group singing "Chili Con Carne." The coolest. I really missed the Troubadours in that moment. I miss singing a lot, especially in harmony. The best I can do is sing Disney songs quietly in the shower, and even then people comment on it.

The next day, we headed out OH. And day one we went to the Hermitage. That was between bus tour and dinner. I forgot. The Hermitage was IIINSAAAANELY cool. It's an art gallery slash palace and was one of the buildings first overthrown by the Bolsheviks during Red October (which actually happened in early November, right around the time we were there. They used to use a different calendar- NO FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS. You should probably just google it). Saw SO many famous paintings. The Hermitage is one of the world's biggest galleries, if I understand correctly. I think the only thing I would have added was more gold leaf, or maybe a few extra marble pillars here and there.

We turned from the gorgeous, gilded, heavily lit and windowed ballroom into a long, dark corridor (imagine the Ministry of Magic, Department of Mysteries but instead of being black marble, it was brown and tan) and suddenly, everything changed. I had a weird vision of myself as a Bolshevik, running quietly down this hallway, terrified and excited, ready to kill if I had to. After it happened, I thought, "Wow, this actor training must be really good. My imagination is never this vivid," but several other people in the group had a similar experience. DID I MENTION HOW WE WERE THERE AROUND THE SAME TIME OF YEAR? And the bones thing? And did I mention the charge? I actually didn't. We later found out that the hallway we were in was one the revolutionaries had charged, and the room at the other end of it had seen some bloodshed. Eh? EH? Convinced yet?

The next day, we went to a little town called Pushkin. Real Pushkin, poet Pushkin, had no connection whatsoever with this town. The Soviet leaders loved slapping celebrity names on things. A Russian joke is to sign a letter with the name "Gorky" at the end of it, because all sorts of places, theaters and cafes and the like, were being re-named, "Gorky Theater, Gorky Cafe" during the 30's-60's. So... people would... see what they did? It's a joke.

Anyway, the summer palace was unbearably lovely. There was an entire room decorated in amber. Breeeathtaking. It was sunny, which is rare for St. Petersburg area this time of year, and we got to walk around the grounds. Anastasia, our wonderful event coordinator, sang us Russian folk songs as we walked through the dry fields to the lake. I recorded her singing them later, so anyone who wants to can listen to them.

Nana, I think you would have loved the whole thing. St. Petersburg in general was a very Nana city for me, because it was so calm and classy, so tastefully ornate. Someday, you two should go! And I should like to join you!

I have about five new events to add to the recent events trilogy. It might become a seven-part series. BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS BETTER IN SEVEN PARTS.

Our workload is increasing, so writing may be infrequent and long-winded.

Everyone? Everyone. There is a place here called Taramok. It serves pancakes filled with pretty much anything you want. It. ROCKS.

Love you.

Recent Events: An epic trilogy (By Amalia Markovna)

Part One: The Kapusnik.

Kapusnik, which roughly translates to "cabbage party" and was nicknamed "cabbage patch" by the Americans, is an annual MXAT tradition started by Stanislavski and Nemerovich-Danchenka (Nemerovich-Danchenka, the counterpart to Stanislavski, is completely overlooked by the west for reasons which I believe involve party affiliations) as a parody show. It's been singled out as one of the beginnings of American cabaret, because the host, who was a wholly untalented dramatic actor but charming and unparalleled improvisor/impersonator, eventually fled to America and became a well-known night club personality. 

The roast was originally held during lent. It poked fun at the establishment's running productions, as well as famous directors, actors and even politicians until that became really dangerous. Since it was illegal to sell tickets during the lenten fast, Kapusnik started out as an invite-only troupe party. In just a few years, it was the hottest ticket in town. Don't ask me how it somehow became okay to sell tickets. Maybe it was always just an invitation thing. I don't know. Point is, we got to take part in it, which was an awesome experience for us but probably annoying for the Russian students who had to share their cool history with a bunch of ungrateful foreigners. Our bit was cheesy, and ended with a cover of R-E-S-P-E-C-T that included the phrase, "'Ya hachoo' to be like you!!" which translates to, "I want to be like you" and was embarrassing for even the most unpatriotic of us. 

My friend Cara, who is a really clever parody songwriter, started making up a song called, "Dasvidanya, Anya," which translates to, "Goodbye, Anna." In English, the song would have consisted of the lyrics, "Goodbye, Anna. Yes, yes, yes, yes, no, no, no, no, thank you, you're welcome, thank you, you're welcome," and then a freestyle section which included, "Where's Anna? Where's the toilet? I'm allergic to fish. May I? Scarf. Traditional Russian slipper. Good morning." I played guitar and sang with her, and it was a lot of fun for us, but our bit was the only self-generated bit in the American section. One of the resident American students very strictly wrote out the whole thing because apparently we Staters tend to tank offensively when left to our own devices for cabbage patch. The point of Kapusnik is to poke fun at yourself, and we did that until the last section, which was about the shows we've seen here. No one laughed or made any sound, and they started the music for R-E-S-P-E-C-T really early, as if to cut us off. Yikes. Maybe we're just destined to tank. 

The Russian cabbage patch performances were great. The show was hosted by the third years, who are known throughout the school as being pretentiously artsy and intellectual. Each class has a different personality because each class (or, actually, they're called courses here), each COURSE has a different headmaster who casts them, trains them, and usually invites them to work in his (unfortunately, no "slash her" here... only seems to be men) company. So they hosted the show in the style of a high-fashion board meeting. They all wore thick glasses and looked incredibly glamorous. They opened each section (the order went: second course, art students, us, production students, fourth course, and finally first years, because the roast doubles as an initiation for them) with either an incredibly dry list of statistics about Russian theater or a dramatic reading of fact sheets/schedules. Even though the show was almost 100% in Russian, we understood much of what was happening through context. My favorite opening was a list of the upcoming Moscow mainstage shows, which four of the third years put to song. It was hiiiillaaaarious. It started out with a schedule pulled up on screen, where you could see the lists of upcoming shows. Incredibly repetitive. Imagine the same thing for Broadway shows... 

The Lion King

The Lion King

The Lion King 

The Lion King

---

...for several pages, every so often interspersed with...

Cirque Du Soliel (One Night ONLY!)

The Lion King

The Lion King

So the repeated show was "Monte Cristo." One of the guys, who we're all incredibly attracted to because of this event alone (he's just completely unattractive physically) started reading, "Monte Cristo. Monte Cristo. Monte Cristo," in a really dry voice. Then he started kind of shimmying and sped it up, suddenly forming an aaaawesome beat. "MOON-tihCREE-sto. MOON-tihCREE-sto," to which the others added other things, using either the name of the theater, the ticket price, the date, or the additional shows (which were scatted intermittently over the top). Then, changing theaters, they suddenly had a sad Russian ballad using pretty similar lyrical material. Then an uptempo Euro-pop song. It was GREAT.

The first years had a good section, too. First, they had several people get up and talk about what they loved in MXAT, which was clearly touching. One of the kids from a really small Russian province (we learned later) talked about how he never thought he'd leave that town and come to Moscow, especially to the best acting school in the world. It really is amazing to get cast here... for every one available slot, five hundred students audition. There are twenty slots. Twenty times five hundred. 

But his was cute and some of the guys talked about how girls liked them more now, and during one of the more nervous student's speeches, we heard the word, "Americanskii" and then several seconds later, "Hyelloh. My name is Brrrian." We all realized immediately what had happened. One of our classmates went on an introduction RAMPAGE the first few days here and apparently made an impression on this boy. I guess the guy wanted food in the cafeteria and someone was holding up the line, and then suddenly the someone turned to him and said, in English, "Hello, my name is Brian," which is really only funny if you know Brian. Mom and Dad, please try to picture this.

The first years ended their set with one of the best parts of the show. The skit involved a third year coming out in a priest costume with Stanislavski's autobiography and doing a whole revival meeting. They read passages and "saved people" from bad acting and sang gospel songs and then, from the back of the room, three gorgeous third year girls came out in full-out vogue clothes with a bag of glitter, a pot of red paint, and a basket of rose petals. The lights got colorful and weird ambient electro music came on, and the BAPTISM BEGAN. The red paint girl painted a seagull on all the freshman's foreheads (the seagull is the emblem for MXAT), and the glitter girl blew a cloud of glitter at them and the petal girl sprinkled them (until the end, where she started dumping clumps of petals on people very forcefully). Loved it.

SO THERE'S THAT. Stay tuned for part two and three, otherwise known as Opus 7 and St. Petersburg.

P.s.: Dad. My acting teachers keep calling me Amalia Markovna because I told them your name. Patronymic middle names are a Russian tradition... Konstantin Alexsandrovich Stanislavski, Vladimir Illyich Lenin... et cetera. Yours works a lot better than some of my classmates. Markovna/Markovich are relatively common patronymics for people of my generation because the name trend when people of your generation were being born was distinctly western. Now, it's back to old school eastern European names like Ruslan and Fedyenka. So there will be little kids with the name, like, Boris Fedyenkovich Samvarskilovichsky in a generation or two.

Love you.