Хорошо! Хорошо! (sob)

My dear family and friends;

This will be my last post from Russia. I don't want to have to sum up my thoughts and feelings the day before we go because that will be too painful, so I'm going to tell a few more stories, poorly assemble a few more puns, and pretend that I have months left.

I have a friend here named Irina. She has wonderful taste in music. She has gone with me and some of my friends to three concerts here (one was accidental, because it's where we met, but it still counts) and I've loved all of them.

The first was Leonid Fedorov and Vladimir Volkov. ASTOUNDING. THE BEST (and Little Misha approved, so you know it's good). I'm a big Chris Thile fan, but this concert knocked some Thile shows out of my top five. Leonid Fedorov is a middle-aged, baby-faced guitar player, singer, songwriter, and all-around fascinating guy. He fronts a band called Auktyon, which is a  cool project that's been playing for a pretty long time. They're Petersburg based and have this eerie, magical sound (see previous post), a difficult feat to achieve with the instruments they use. They were initially hired by the, get this, the KGB so that the government could monitor the youth scene. Because of that, their lyrics had to be either really tame or nonsensical. According to the NPR interview I heard, they opted for nonsensical. I can't understand ninety-nine percent of their lyrics anyway, so that's not an issue for me. However, something I CAN understand is the anger, desperation, and confusion that's blaring through their rhythms, melodies, chord progressions. So... even without the lyrics, they were able to express what the youth were REALLY feeling.
But I've digressed. Fedorov and Volkov were GREAT. Youuuutuuuube! Go.

Next band we saw was Kolibri. When Irina described them to me, she called them, "three girls who sing harmony in front of a rock band." I was picturing cute little pixie chicks with pink and purple hair and enormous tattoos, but instead... well, see for yourself.

колибри

They were great, though. Scratchy voices, kind of creepy sound (Guess where they're from? Also, guess where Regina Spektor is from? EVERYTHING MAGICAL), and completely at ease onstage. They cried, they screamed, they pretended they were killing each other... very theatrical and wonderful. A guy from Siberia who was at the Leonid Fedorov concert told me that he thinks if someone is truly talented, they're not just good at one thing. Every Russian group I've seen here consists of people that I'd like to watch onstage in ANY situation... acting in a play, playing music, sitting and talking to friends... just very charismatic people. And all older!

The other band was called Megapolis. Again, the main core of the group was past forty. They started the concert by telling us that because they'd sold their album online instead of producing physical CD's, they'd made much more money than expected and decided to release the album on vinyl AND buy clothes from their favorite store for the fans who pre-ordered it. Irina told me that the lead singer was a really good man who often helped younger artists get started and supported many charities. He was quite charming.
There were four of us at this concert, and we were standing behind a young couple who had brought their little girls to the show (all of these concerts have had very demographically diverse audiences comprised of middle-aged couples, families with children, and young hipster twenty-something's). The girls were OFF THE WALLS. They started their own private mosh pit for a while, and then took to climbing their parents like trees and dancing like... um... well, it was more of a rhythmic flail than anything... the littlest got tired first, but the older one kept going strong until the band played a song about a father dying and his daughter forgetting what he looked like. Irina was translating for me as the song went on, and it was amazing to watch the little girl's progression. She stood up really straight after about the second verse and stared at a spot on the floor, swaying slowly back and forth for a while, and then stopped moving all together, and then reverently walked over to her dad and grabbed his leg. And that's where she stayed for the rest of the concert.

On the third floor, where our acting class is, there's a receptionist that I really like. I try to speak to her in Russian. She teaches me words and grammar and likes to laugh at me when I try to speak on my own. Today, when I was getting my coat from the coat check, she tapped my arm and motioned for me to cup my hands together, then reached under the desk and pulled out a bag of these really good pretzel circles with poppy seeds that everyone eats here. She smiled and poured about three-fourths of the bag into my hand. Then she delicately placed my coat on my arm and said, "Vkoosna," which is the Russian equivalent of "tasty." It was one of the most touching things anyone's done for me. It means a lot because the receptionists only share their food with the professors or famous MXT actors, and usually only a piece or two pieces. Later, I got her a flower and she hugged me and I said, "I really like you," and she corrected my grammar and said, "I really like you, too." It was a great moment. Very emotional.

By the way, forget all those stereotypes about cold, grumpy Russians. Maybe it's partially because I'm here in a group, but I feel so welcome and supported. I have innumerous stories about Russians going out of their way to help me find someone, somewhere, or something I was looking for, or just coming up to talk because they heard English and wanted to practice. Culturally, the people don't smile constantly like in America, but when they do smile, it means so much more. It's not a mask or a defense mechanism. You know when they like you and when they don't. No guessing. I prefer it.

Someday, I'll come back here. I hope I'll speak the language and be able to study the amazing art, history, and mentality of this rich culture much more deeply.

Closing thoughts:

The Russian words for "peace" and "world" are the same. No judgments of any sort to offer, but it's very interesting.

Tvorog. Socially acceptable cream cheese. You can eat it plain. By you, I mean me. Every day.

There are flower stands EVERYWHERE. People buy each other flowers all the time. I like this tradition.

It's a very good place. Visit, if you can.

Love you. See you soon.

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.

Just call me Mila.

So, Sunday.

Things are getting cramped. "Things" being healthy egos and strong personalities. We all knew this would happen eventually, but I think it's a bit sooner than most of us had hoped. The fact is, when you pile a bunch of hormonal, self-actualizing artists on top of one another, problems arise. 

So far, there seem to be two ways of dealing with homesickness/stress. One is to be with someone at all times. The other is to be as far away from anyone as often as possible. Ironically, the ones who need people seem to mostly want the company of those of us who've taken to hiding in the bathroom for twenty minutes just so we can read a few chapters in quiet. The boiling point is nearing.

So, Sunday.

We had a rescheduled Cinema History class Sunday (normally, Sundays are free), and since we were out and about, some of us decided to go to Moscow's apparently famous Underground Mall. It's a mall. It's underground. Imagine any mall you've ever been to. Now imagine it underground. Point made, I'm sure. 

My friend and I were really not in the mall-ing mood, so we snuck off after a painfully trendy forty minutes. We had unspecific dreams of visiting a Russian banya (an aggressive blend of steam bath and massage that involves hitting your pamper-partner's back with a bundle of twigs), but first we wanted to check dates for Little Misha's show so that we wouldn't miss it. Shows here may only run twice a month, so you gotta be on your organizational A-game.

During the course of our floundering linguistic foray, a young man who spoke some English came into the ticket booth. He was amused by our terrible Russian and translated for us. We left feeling love for humanity and vowing that if we ever were able to, we would translate the hell out of conversations. About a minute into our walk towards the banya, the boy caught up with us. He said he was going to see a play at eight (it was about five) and had nothing to do until then, so would we like a tour of Moscow? We enthusiastically replied in the affirmative, and our adventure began.

At first we just walked. He said his name was Phil and he was a third year acting student at another training school in Moscow. It was a very Harry Potter moment. For those of you who don't know the reference, Harry is taken aback when he finds out there are other witch/wizard academies. Also, for those of you who don't know the reference, WHO ARE YOU? How are you my friend slash family member if you haven't read Harry Potter enough to get obscure book four references? Do I even know you? My point is, it never occurred to me. Phil also studies jazz and puppetry. 

He knew a lot of trivia about Moscow WHICH I WILL NOW SHARE! SEGUEY!

Stalin was supposed to sign off on a blueprint for an apartment building that was to be built in downtown Moscow. Two blueprints were laid on his desk, and apparently he was in a hurry, because his signature was split between the two. So what did the architects do? Did they ask him which he meant to sign? No. They built half of one and half of the other.

The architects who built St. Basil's were blinded after it's completion.

Around the turn of the century, it was popular for young men to walk up to young women at parks, produce a pistol with one bullet in it, and say, "Kiss me or I'll shoot myself." The women invariably said no, and the men shot. It was a philosophical movement. If the shot didn't kill, the men walked away. Sometimes they died. When I said, "That's completely sick and stupid," Phil responded with, "No. It's poetic and beautiful. It shows that there is no god, only fate." This is a big Russian philosophy; what happens, happens. Nothing to be done, no one to blame. I kind of like it. It helps me justify why the people here are so much quieter than me.

At various points on our walk, Phil would make phone calls. I figured it had something to do with us because I kept hearing the word, "Amerikanskii," but assumed it was something along the lines of, "Sorry, I can't come to lunch with you, I'm hauling these obnoxious Americans around. They thought the changing of the guard was funny. What idiots." Instead, he was finding us tickets for the performance he was going to. 

And that's how Cara and I wound up at a Russian hip-hop opera, or hip-hopera, as one might lovingly call it.

We met up with one of Phil's friends at an unbelievably awesome underground cafe, where I wish I could live, and another at the theater. They were sweethearts. I didn't realize what a novelty we were until after the show when we were all saying goodbye and one of them said, "American girls! The American dream!!!" and insisted that we write our e-mails on his arm (even though we had paper) because that's what Americans do in the movies. 

The show was So. SO. SOOOO. Funny. 

"Cops On Fire," which is what the name translates into, was about a team of four blundering cops trying to catch the mac-daddy of drug-dealing supervillains. A perfect blend of The Sting, Starsky and Hutch, Batman, and Office Space (set to a thumping bass beat and rapped out by short, white guys), "Cops On Fire" took place in a large, American-ish city in the 70's. The lead characters were Yablonsky, Krazowski, what we SWORE was CharlieCop (until we later learned that it was ChernoyCop, which means "black cop..." guess who was the secret bad guy...), and, inexplicably, Pee-Pee. Pee-Pee was a constant source of amusement for Cara and I, for both obvious and acting-related reasons. You know the Mac commericals? If not, you know the adorably nerdy computer guys from Best Buy? That's Pee-Pee. Remember, these guys rapped the whole show. Pee-Pee was the goofy OTHER cop, who hadn't quite graduated to REAL cop status yet. The main theme of the show, which translates to, "Who is it? It is I," sounded like, "Eta kto? Eta YAH. Eta kto? Eta YAH." The characters would pop up with their names during openings and closings of scenes/the play. So we have, "Eta kto? Eta yah. Eta kto? Eta yah. Eta kto? Eta yah. Eta... YABLONSKY! Eta kto? Eta yah. Eta kto? Eta YAH. Eta kto? Eta YAH. Eta PEE PEE," whereupon Cara and I would dissolve into fits of giggles. The show was translated for us by one of the boys, who was kind of shy. His translations only made the show better. After a long, active song and dance number, he would lean over to Cara and say something like, "They said that they are very cool and very dangerous."

On the whole, the show was quite neat. The special effects were comic book-y and inventive. Like, when people got shot, a stage hand in all black would run on and hold an oversized bullet wound, framed in yellow, over the place where the character had been hit. All of the props were oversized and made of cardboard... hairbrushes, coffee mugs, steering wheels. The stage had two giant, octagonal columns on either side that spun, which was effective during car chases and neighborhood raids. The stage hands would spin them to illustrate speed and the passing of time.

After the play, we met Phil's friends from the show, one of whom was American. Everyone was so nice. As he left, one of the boys yelled back, "I'll remember you forever!" We're going to try to see them again next Sunday. Maybe vintage Soviet clothes shopping.

Closing thoughts:

The coat I bought at the Underground Mall looks like fashionable Elmer Fudd. I bought it because we're kindred spirits, me and the coat. We're just farmers pretending to be trendy.

While walking home, Phil somehow got on the topic of American Westerns. He mimed pulling guns out, swaggered a little, and threateningly said, "This city is too small for us two." Guess some things just don't translate...

Pet names are HUGE here. Not like, "pooky" or "baby," but Misha and Masha and Katya for Michael and Maria and Kathryn. According to my new friends, both Amalia and Molly shorten to Mila, which means "cute, nice and adorable." Cara, unfortunately, is a foreign name that doesn't shorten. It means, "attack." I win.

Love you.

Love you, Margie. Happy birthday. If I were there, I'd buy you something that I wanted for myself and eat a lot of your birthday candy, as tradition dictates. So proud to be your annoying little sister. Specifically for you: I have a special relationship with a sign-holder. She passes out fliers outside a high-end clothing store. One day, she (she's pretty old) looked really sad, as though no one had been taking the papers, so I took one, and she smiled soooo big. So now I take one every day and she is weirded out but I love her. I would have texted you this, but... 

My new friend SAAAASHA!

Everyone is sick except for me and my roommate. 

Anna (roommate) and I started a game called Buddy Points in O'Hare and the fact that neither of us is sick means that we're awarded ten points each. 
You see, the world-famous buddy system was enforced by our professor (who, incidentally, is Anna's old man) to keep us in check during the behemoth of a flight over here. Anna and I quickly found ourselves docking and awarding points for good buddy behavior. Buddy Points is a very basic concept. We feel that we didn't even invent Buddy Points; Buddy Points was bestowed unto us. We are keepers of the sacred points, and we must grant them carefully. It's total coincidence that Anna and I are complete champions. As one might expect, our domination is a conflict of interest. We kept BP under wraps for as long as possible to avoid the inevitable jealousy our group-mates would feel when they realized they could never win, but people caught on surprisingly quickly. 
All joking aside, I assumed that the class would be mildly irritated but basically unfazed by our strange numerical outbursts. I was completely wrong. Buddy Points is a hugely inflammatory game that has spurred some fights. Two teams got downright mad when they were informed of their disqualification due to buddy abandonment. Another keeps trying to take points away from our team for insignificant reasons, which means that they get points docked themselves. There have been actual verbal arguments about this, mean-spirited ones that have ended in bruised egos. I just sit back and giggle while this happens. Occasionally, I'll make a mental note to add a point or two for wit.

I've seen two shows here. 
First was Little Misha's, and (unbiased) it was maybe the most interesting and impressive piece of theater I've ever seen. He mixed the five labors of Hercules with Soviet-era poetry, a fact that completely escaped me at the time, since I was pretty sure Don Quixote was involved. The cast was comprised of five tall, muscular, and frequently shirtless men, all of whom had attended MXT. The set was genius. The stage was lit with simple, warm light and scattered candles. It was crowded with antique colors, musty books, a fantastic black steel ladder that was creatively multi-functional, and a whole cast of fascinating forgotten objects, such as typewriters, canvas suitcases, and busted-up boom boxes. In the center of the stage, someone had constructed what I can only think to call an invention. The whole effect was one of pulsing reverence... a holy, bohemian smorgasboard. The story is difficult for me to retell, but the transitions between the stories were enthralling. Each of the five guys took a turn being the hero, and while he was leading, the other four were constantly moulding his surroundings. They seemed to be moving freely and spontaneously around the space, but then you'd realize that all four of them were in chairs and moving their legs in a very precise rhythm, or that they had somehow created what I now recognize to be a many-headed hydra. They had an almost tangible connection and washed the audience in their energy and passion. Several of my classmates and I want to go back, so if anyone wants a more detailed description, let me know. There's so much more to say. 

The ending was one of the most powerful parts. The five walked behind the beige drop curtain that was serving as the back wall, and the lights dimmed. Then, a ghost light (ghost lights are the metal poles with a single light bulb on top that are usually left on when a theater is empty. They always give me chills) came on behind the curtain, illuminating five shadow figures sitting in a semi-circle, still telling stories. The light panned around the little group, distorting and stretching their bodies on the cloth. Misha later told us that this represented the words of the poets, lying in waiting until someone finally understood them again.

The second was King Lear, and a complete contrast. While Misha's was produced in a small, independent theater, Lear was at Satiricon, one of the biggest and most famous stages in all of Moscow. If Misha's was meaningful and heartfelt, this was the opposite. The actors were tired, the show was pointlessly grotesque and showy, and the Lear was sixty and incredibly agile. His name is Reiken and he's supposed to be the best actor in the country. I personally was not blown away by him, but Russian standards seem to differ from my own, and he was COMPLETELY MISCAST. The show was very pretty to look at, but it's gratuitous use of unnecessary performance art (Edward bathing in glue and rolling on paper, Lear doing a shoulder stand during the storm monologue, the apparent sodomizing of Glouster as his eyes are gouged out) really ruined it for me.

Today, the other girls and I are going on our first solo exploration. We want to go to the Pushkin Art Museum and a beautiful monastery, which most of us have already seen because LITTLE MISHA TOOK US ON A FIELD TRIP. We're going to spend our semester working on Chekhov's Three Sisters in acting class, and since the three girls lived part of their lives in Moscow, Misha took us around to see the streets they would have walked and some old houses and estates that they might have lived in. He also showed us his favorite parks and churches for when we get too overwhelmed.  

I apologize. I'm sorry that I'm using this post to gush about how cool my cute Russian acting teacher is, but you're all going to have to deal with it.

The African-American kids here are a novelty. Today, I went to an open air market with a girl named Jackie and people wanted their picture taken with her. It was actually kind of scary. She didn't know how to feel, because no one was being mean, but they were still treating her like "the other," some weird animal from another planet. 

Also, recently heard a Frenchman's imitation of a fat American woman. I was grabbing a Russian/English phrasebook from our communal bookshelf and our darling Anton, first year MXAT student and toast of the fifth floor, yanked it out of my hands and started reading in a terribly loud, high-pitched squeak. "Leahn Russian! Leahn haw to say hyello, gootbye, and MACH MACH MAARE!" He flipped the book open and launched into an energetic reading that lasted for fifteen minutes. I was crying with laughter. He was so loud that several people down the hall popped their heads out to listen. My friend Zack yelled, "Have him read Ivanov!" And Anton yelled back, "I don WANNA read Ivanov! I wanna talk to my new friend SASHA!" Which was, for some reason, incredibly funny and is now a class motto. 

In cyrillic, the word for "restaurant" looks like "pectopah" and the word for "bar" looks like "bap." So we've been looking for a good pectopah-bap. Also, Hannah Montana looks like Xahha Mohtaha. A waaaaay better stage name, if you ask me. Other favorites include Gary Potter, Spanch Bohb, and Weenie Pooh.

Love you.

News from the Red Planet

This week up and flew by. The weather has slumped into the promised forecast of cold and drizzly, but I don't mind.

Last night, we went to a honey festival. I was picturing a scene out of "Pushing Daisies," with cute little cottages, honey flavored food and bee-themed souvenirs, but instead, the metro deposited us in industrial West Moscow. The festival delivered what it promised; there were about three hundred honey kiosks, but in typical Russian style, things were down to business. The honey ice cream and honey-glazed peanuts were sadly absent. Every booth had a few jars of their best honey available for testing, and you could try as much as you wanted, but you had to try it plain. As appealing as unlimited honey sounds initially, I can assure you that after booth four, it was losing it's charm. There were also honey beverages, ranging from honey vodka to honey beer to something that might have been honey water. I planned on buying a jar of actual honey, but I spent my last eighty rubles on a bottle of mead (which, by the way, will be the name of my first country/russian-folk fusion album). The mead was hands-down the best drink there. If it lasts more than a week, I'll bring some home. It tastes like liquid flowers. The beer tasted like liquid tree bark.

We performed our first scenes in acting class yesterday. 

We have two acting professors, Big Misha and Little Misha. Little Misha is twenty-five and about 6'4". Big Misha is ten inches shorter and forty years older.

Little Misha has done an impressive thing. Within one day of meeting him, five of us fell madly in love and swore that he felt the same. We were picturing our futures with him in Russia: cute little Russian flats and going to the Russian theater in our fuzzy Russian coats, holding mittened hands... and then we found out that four more people felt this way. Our hearts were broken. THEN we found out that our Russian love was already married. For the second time. The following class was icy, to say the least. 

Little Misha is the next big thing in the acting world (he and Patricia Skarbinski). He graduated from MXT at twenty-one (this isn't abnormal, since most incoming first-years are between sixteen and eighteen), but stayed on to get his masters. After THAT graduation, the MXT staff decided to keep him. He has two productions running in Moscow right now, which is truly a feat for someone so young, especially since they've been running for several years. To launch a show as a student director and have it stay afloat is hugely impressive. We may get to see one of them.

Sometimes, when he's giving us examples in class, he acts them out. It's brilliant. 

Big Misha is Russian Dumbledore. He gives me lemon candy and tells us that beauty is all he has left. When he sees me, he sometimes says, "Amaaaalia. My beautiful, my daaaarlink Amaaaalia," so... big points for Big Misha. He is a lovely, sweet child at heart. He's also a sharp acting professor. Big Misha is, of course, a legend, and has changed many acting lives for the better. He loves his students, but isn't afraid to be blunt. I truly respect both of our professors.

We just got back from a four hour bus tour of Moscow. It was supposed to be two hours. The tour guide was a future Rachel Dratch SNL skit. She spoke really slowly and seductively and kept repeating certain Russian buzzwords: "THEES? Is Lyeneens tomb. Eet is NAME? for Lyeneen. ALSO? Lyeneen square. It is NAME? for Lyeneen also." My friend Zack is preparing a skit for when we get home. As soon as we reached the dorms, he grabbed a frying pan (we all swarmed the kitchen because we hadn't expected to be gone very long and were SO HUNGRY when we got back) and goes, "THEES? Ees frying pan. It was MADE? In time of Lyeneen. It is LYENEEN? Frying pan." Other favorite quotes from the tour: "To your left, University of Moscow State. To your right, green plastic toilets. You have five minutes," and, "We come to this memorial to celebrate Day of Victory, Day of Moscow, and Day of Pancakes." Apparently, Day of Pancakes is a big holiday here. How it hasn't caught on in the states, I'll never know.

Favorite Russian wives' tales: 

If someone sneezes after your statement, это правда! It's true!

If you stumble, someone is thinking about you.

Women who sit on cold floors will become barren.

Butter is good for you.

Happy 21st to Brittney Frohn on October 5th! 

I have taken pictures. Hopefully, the next entry will be a visual one. 

Also. Little Misha has a fledgling mullet. My only love sprung from my only hate! 

Love you.

Notes from the Underground

Dear family and friends;

This is in the event of my untimely ...(COUGHCOUGHCOUGH)... excuse me, my untimely demise. I am in the middle of a dangerous love affair with the streets of M...Moscow... just a second... (HAAACKHACKHACK)... As I was saying, Lady Moscow is a cruel mistress. She is enticing and exotic, but she absolutely REFUSES TO JOIN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY IN TERMS OF CIGARETTE CONTROL. MUSCOVITES: THERE ARE LESS OBNOXIOUS ADDICTIONS. I SUGGEST CAFFEINE.

Aside from the barrage of second-hand smoke I inhale daily, I am falling in love with the city. Yesterday, we took the underground to a less populous neighborhood in search of the original MXTters. The cemetery was surreal. The sky was clear and the wind could barely scratch the first autumn leaves along beside us as we walked through the rows; nothing overwhelming, just gentle breaths. 

Some background:

The founders of the Moscow Art Theater were true revolutionaries. Before their technique took to the stage, Russian theater was available in two sizes: big and bigger. It was common practice for a well-known performer to stop a scene, walk towards the house, and bow profusely while the rest of the action onstage froze. Theater was commercial and stagnant, a poisonous drug that the Russian aristocrats swallowed blindly to secure their standing as members of the elite. Konstantin Stanislavski, a handsome young actor born into a wealthy pre-revolutionary Russian family, saw this artistically empty shell as an opportunity. He dedicated his life and fortune to restoring the theater's dignity. He was joined by other well-known visionaries, such as, most importantly, Anton Chekhov, the resident playwright. While Stanislavski was fighting for truth in acting, Chekhov was writing the first honest, slice-of-life plays the stage had ever seen. Their company changed the theater forever. 

In a profoundly beautiful show of devotion to the ensemble and their ideals, the founders of MXT bought themselves a grave plot. Instead of being buried with their ancestors, they were buried together. They were a family and MXT was their posterity. 

So far, we've had every class except stage combat. Russian cinema is taught by a woman that really reminds me of my aunt Gloria. Her specialty is early Russian film, so (as those of you who know my taste already have guessed) I'm in heaven. Here's my favorite so far:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIC0Sb6pLvI 

Our first week is over. The dust of unpacking is starting to settle and things are finding a rhythm. Soon, this will be life. 

I love the park by our building. I'll take and post pictures when I get the chance.

Closing thoughts:

Roads here are just guidelines. Parking spaces doubly so. The common practice is to drive up on the curb (as far as you need to... some cars only get two wheels up) if street-side parking isn't available. I have nearly been hit several times while walking in the middle of the sidewalk.

When making a purchase, it's impolite to hand the clerk your money. You must set it down on the register or counter. The clerk will then pick it up and replace it with your change.  Otherwise, you're a jerk.

Love you.