Play Review: The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

This afternoon, I got all dressed up to go to my first play in St. Petersburg, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - a short story about a man who is about to commit suicide, but has a dream that changes his mind. I wasn't sure what to expect, because I wasn't familiar with Dostoyevsky and had only ever seen one other one-man show (a comedy). The actor in the show is a very famous Russian film and stage actor named Leonid Mozgovoy, and I knew it was gonna be cool to see such a famous person's work, but I really had no idea what I was in for.

Instead of being taken to a theater, we were led to an old apartment building, just like all the other buildings in the city. We were quietly led up five floors to the top and were greeted by an intensely-spirited woman dressed as a maid, who took our parkas and sat us in a tiny candle-lit room. Chairs lined almost the whole circumference, and it was clear that this would not be a normal theater experience. I quickly grabbed a seat next to a set piece of an old trunk and the maid came in just a few seconds later to inform us that the play was starting. As she said this, I felt a strange presence next to me. Someone was in the trunk. The maid suddenly disappeared out the door, blowing out the candles and leaving the audience in pitch black. The trunk next to me opened, and out popped Mozgovoy. 

Mozgovoy was very impressive. Not only did he memorize the whole story, but he was one of the best actors I've ever seen. He fearlessly interacted with the audience, touching our arms and staring into our eyes, and he embodied the character so well. He held a candle through the whole performance and you could see wax that had dripped all over his hands, and he was so spontaneous in such as small space. The show was reminiscent of a haunted house, with glow-in-the-dark props, two-way mirrors, and maniacal laughter from behind closed doors. After the show, Mozgovoy posed for a photograph with all of the students that came. It was a surreal theater experience that I will never forget!

My Neighborhood

Yesterday was the coldest day I have ever experienced in my life. It was also gorgeous outside. Give and take. I decided to take my camera for a stroll around my neighborhood to share my surroundings with you guys!

This is my lovely apartment building. On the first floor we have a little bar (that I have yet to go to) and a dry cleaners, or something like that. It's not modern, but it's cozy, and I have a really good-sized room.

100 feet from the entrance to my apartment is Bolshoi Prospect, a big street with lots of high-end stores and other lovely expensive things. On the corner we have an Italian restaurant (pictured) and a Japanese one just beyond it. At the end of the street is an even bigger one, Kamennoostrovsky. 

This is Truffle, my new home of sugary goodness. It's two blocks away and not too expensive considering its surroundings. 

A little farther along is Be Free, the cute cute CUTEST clothing store. It's right next to our bus stop and everything is just barely out of my price range. 

At this point on the excursion, I took a detour and grabbed a chocolate muffin. I enjoyed this muffin. 

The next stop on our tour is Reeb Gosh. It's Sephora on steroids. Russian women are known for always having perfect hair and makeup, and this is because their beauty stores are enormous. There's a cafe in it, I don't even know what to say. 

I've been wanting to buy a couple pillows to make my bed here cozier, so I decided to stop into the furniture store right across the street from my house. Little did I know that pillows on Bolshoi Prospect are $200...I decided to keep exploring my options on a later day.

It started getting dark now, so I made my way back up the street (having gone in a loop). The sky was still beautifully blue and it made my soul sparkle. 

With my camera out, it really made me start paying more attention to my surroundings and how beautiful the buildings here are. I felt very posh walking around such marvelous buildings with fancy clothes in them. 

My last stop before heading home was a record shop a the block next to my house. It seemed kinda boring until I found this and just had to share it: "very strange music." Hmm...

Anyway, that's my neighborhood! I really like it here so far, and I'm sure there's much more to explore! 

Weekend Happenings

I suppose the weekend wasn't terribly exciting, but it wasn't boring, either. On Friday night, I went to see Swan Lake at the Mihailovky theater with some of my classmates. It was really fun to dress up pretty, and it was fairly inexpensive. It wasn't the best thing I'd ever seen, but the black swan was really good. After the ballet, I went out with my friends and came back really late. On Saturday, Rachel, Evan and I went to lunch with my dad and then Rachel and I spent some time wandering around in a park 15 minutes from our house. We found a really cozy coffee shop that we loved, and they had delicious cheese cake and muffins! On Sunday, our program had a scavenger hunt, and the winners get tickets to an opera. I had high hopes for this activity, but it was kinda a let down. It was slightly helpful for finding stuff, though, and at least I got exercise!

 

Transportation Woes

These past few days since getting back from Novgorod have been all about walking around the city and seeing new neighborhoods. It's so nice how little homework we get at school - in Eugene, it doesn't matter, because there's nothing else to do anyways, but here it's awesome because there's a million other things to do. Every day after school we've been going to the mall, restaurants, churches, or just walking around with nothing to do at all, and it's all awesome. 

Since I've been here for two weeks now, I'm finally starting to realize what I like and don't like about the city, instead of just seeing it's majestic beauty. And what I don't like is how much time public transportation takes. We leave our house an hour and 15 minutes before school starts, which isn't that significant, but then when we do that and also end up on a terribly-crowded minibus with 70 people in it, it's bad news. And then after school, we'll be hanging out across town, and we have to decide to go home an hour before we predict that we would like to be home - what? By the time we are home, it's actually 30 minutes past when we wanted to be home. Yesterday we even had to take a taxi because we predicted really poorly and were exhausted before we could even catch the right bus. But that's what's awesome about taxis! 

Other than all that, everything is going really well! I'm going to see Swan Lake tonight at the Mihailovsky! More pictures to come soon.

Novgorod

Novgorod was definitely an interesting excursion, to say the least. This town is old, guys, like 12^th century old. So old that basically the only things there are churches. TONS of them. On our tour, we stopped in a field with seven beautiful old churches in it - apparently the story goes, that field was once a huge market with 2,000 different vendors, and it ended up getting so serious that some vendors wanted to build warehouses in the field. But, the archbishop wouldn’t let them build warehouses because only churches were allowed to be built there, so the vendors built warehouses that looked just like churches! To relieve their sins a little, the vendors would go to the tops of them to pray, making them pretty functioning, in reality.

Novgorod also has its own Kremlin, which is a big fortress that houses the oldest church in Russia, the Church of St. Sofia. I thought St. Petersburg was old and full of history, but Novgorod is filled with even more. Our tour took us to a monastery and an outdoor museum of old wooden structures, and the snow was up to our knees! When not on our bus, my friends and I enjoyed the all-you-can-eat goodness at the hotel and had a lot of fun just talking, joking, and laughing. I even made a new friend, Sasha. I wish we all lived closer together in St. Petersburg. And in America, for that matter. 

Advice

Back in America, when I would tell people that I was going to Russia, I got a lot of different responses. Most were a strange mix of happiness for me and questioning of my choices in life. 95% of them were accompanied with some sort of advice, the most popular including "it's really cold there," "watch out for Putin," and "don't let anyone steal your passport." All equally useless to me, although I appreciate the effort. Here are some better pieces of advice, for next time: “coffee is ridiculously expensive there,” “don’t expect restaurants to have the cider on the menu in stock,” and “if you enjoy looking at cute guys on the street, Russia is not the place for you.” Other than these minor inconveniences, my first week in St. Petersburg has been pretty great. School has been going well, and my classes are challenging me. I’ve also really loved after-school adventures with my new friends. Yesterday (Thursday), I went to dinner with Rachel, Evan, and Erika, and today we went back to the Hermitage for Rachel and Erika’s first times there. My poor map is getting worn out from all the folding and unfolding it goes through all day - I would love to memorize the layout of the city for when my map does become a bunch of scraps at the bottom of my bag.

It has been a struggling trying to get internet at my house so far. I bought a terribly expensive modem, told that it was basically the best modem in the world and was fast as hell. Too bad it hasn’t been working too hotly in my totally cement building. I’m getting enough spots of internet to post this and a Facebook status, but it sure does disappear exactly when I need it. This weekend, I will (so I am told) have wifi at the hotel that we’re staying at in NOVGOROD! Will do my best to keep all you loved ones in-the-know : )

Exploring

I'm definitely starting to get into the groove of Russian life. My sleep schedule is finally normalized (I hope), and I already understand the metro pretty well. Buses are another story. I don't think anything exists that tells you which bus to take where. If it does exist, I must find it because there are SO MANY buses. My friends and I were trying to get home and got on a bus going the opposite direction. Once we got to the outskirts of the city, we finally decided to just metro home in case this bus never ended up looping around and just drove on to Moscow.

Being without stable internet is really hard,  but I'm hoping to get home internet up and running within a week. I went to a cafe this morning to try to Skype everyone, bought a $5 coffee, and the wifi didn't work. And now when I'm finally at a cafe with internet, everyone is asleep.

School is going really well, I'm in the highest language group, and I'm definitely being challenged there, especially in grammar class. Our electives start next week. I love going to school in such a beautiful, old building, and spending time with friends walking around the historic heart of the city after classes. There's so much more to explore!  

Getting Comfortable

These first few days have been crazy, but today is our first day at school and I think things are going to start figuring themselves out. We had a bus tour to start learning the layout of the city, and it was so beautiful to see everything for the first time, especially after hearing so much about the city. On Sunday, we had a quick tour around the Hermitage, which was so out of this world - definitely going to go back multiple times.
Getting ready to go to my homestay was a little nervewracking, we all sat in a ballroom and waited for our names to be called like the Hunger Games. Turns out, it wasn't that scary at all. My host mom, Marina Zenovevna, is a nice little grandma. The house is really small, but my room is cozy and it's nice to not be living out of my suitcase. There are several students who lives in my neighborhood, and one girl named Rachel that lives in my house, right downstairs from me. I'm excited to get to know people better and explore the city!