Burnt by the Sun

About 8 or 10 years ago my sister was in a used movie and cd store near downtown Dayton, Ohio, where we are from. She was scanning through all of the movies which lined the walls there, mostly stocked at that time with VHS, DVD having not yet rendered them obsolete. She would in that patrol of the shelves reach up with her hand to read the back of a Russian film with a curious title, “Burnt by the Sun,” which had recently won an Oscar for best foreign film in, I believe, 1993. Feeling satisfied with the summary of the film on the back and the exoticism of a Russian film, which at that point was rather unexplored territory in our family, she would proceed to buy this movie and show it to me, her 17 year-old, basketball-playing and rap music-listening brother with only a mild and latent interest in art or literature or really thought of any stripe.

This movie, while admittedly just a very good movie and nothing more, has completely changed the course of my life. After watching it at my sister’s apartment those 8 years ago, it became the brightest image in my mind of Russia and this image stuck with me as something very different and distinct from America, something romantic and complicated. It seemed a whole different world, which, unlike Europe which always seemed so clearly stereotyped (snobbish, pretentious French, drunken, genial Irish, etc) and understandable, and unlike Asia whose people looked and seemed so uniform and culturally flat (admittedly, this was a completely uninformed opinion), Russia was full of interesting, intelligent, emotional people and beautiful nature, and seemed to promise much more that was still unknown.

The world I think had become a bit stale to me already. It is strange for a 17 year-old to be so world weary, but, in short, some unfortunate things happened in my family when I was young and these things instilled in me a hefty amount of skepticism. As the years passed and I went on to study Russian language in university and finally, this year, to live an entire year in Siberia, I never completely understood why the sudden interest in something so foreign and far away. Something that I had no particular ties to. And this was a question that was posed to me possibly more than any other– why are you studying this? And my answers, while generally seeming to satisfy the listener, always felt to me rather incomplete and rote. After already devoting 5 years of my life to this area and changing completely my career path and other things, I finally understand how I ended up here. While there were several more logical reasons, such as my deep appreciation of Russian literature (in particular, the writers Dostoevsky, Gogol, Nabokov, Chekhov, Turgenev, Blok), the main underlying impulse was precisely to explore that unknown world and to leave the one which had become so familiar and unpromising to me. And if I hadn’t watched “Burnt by the Sun” that cool summer night in my sister’s old apartment, I might never have had that bright image of a beautiful, far away world that held some promise for me.

The movie “Burnt by the Sun” is something remarkable, not just relative to the Russian film industry in which it germinated– an industry that is, when compared to American and European film traditions, a bit undeveloped and weak in my opinion–but as something that can stand alone as a beautiful encapsulation of a crucial moment in history. The idea of the film is truly excellent and was very topical in the 1990s, following the fall of the USSR. And who better to make a film of such epic proportions which re-evaluates the nuances of that system and that life than a real Russian muzhik like Nikita Mikhalkov, a man who had a long string of successful films behind him and who was widely respected for his bravado and depth as an actor and director? It all came together perfectly, the idea, the script, the imagery and metaphor of people being ‘burnt by the sun of the revolution’ and the great song of same name, which is played and sung throughout the film. All of the characters are flawed, everyone is guilty except the 6 year old daughter in the film. There is no hero. The general and the NKVD spy both have lied and betrayed out of necessity and at the end all you can do is empathize with everyone and lament that people ever had to live in such a way.

I have at times felt that I too had been burnt by the bright sun of Russia. I’ve regretted at times that I’ve given up a career as a programmer to pursue this academic field. I’ve regretted at certain moments that it’s pulled me away from a serious relationship, my friends and family, and that I’ve spent one of the primest of my prime years living in a country that is uncomfortable and foreign in many ways. But unlike the characters in Mikhalkov’s masterpiece, I don’t think this world will lead to my ruin or failure. This year in Siberia, while turbulent, has impacted me in a big and positive way. And although I may end up some professor analyzing contemporary Russian films or living in the obscurity of untranslated Russian poetry, these things really do continue to be for me that beautiful, unknown world I dreampt about all those years ago.

A few reflections on Russia and America

As there are almost infinite things I could write about from the past year, I’ll just talk about something off the top of my head. It’s futile to try to summarize at this point. Russia… I love it and I hate it. I scoff at it and I revere it. I want to stay and I want to leave. I’m not going to start talking about how Russia is a goddamn mystery inside a riddle inside an enigma, and how you can’t understand Russia with your mind, you can only feel it with your soul. Maybe these quotes (*cough* cliches) hold some water and maybe they don’t. But really, I’ll just say I feel a lot of ambivalence toward Russia. But I feel that towards America, towards most people, etc., so I wouldn’t say it is a terribly critical thing to say, coming from me.

In all honesty, I don’t want to live here. That is one certainty. Mainly, I have a family in Ohio and I can’t just leave that behind for some language or aesthetic reasons. Or even for career. Maybe I could leave temporarily, but I couldnt do it for too long of a period.  I’m not that type of person.

But also, Russia is, well, a much less comfortable, luxurious country to live in. This is something I wouldn’t say to a Russian in conversation because any comparisons with America automatically cause most Russians to see red. But objectively, in terms of amenities, there a lot of areas where America blows Russia out– food, clean streets, good roads, cultural options, i.e. subcultures, music, films– with the exception of classical art like ballet, opera and symphony which Russia does very well– service in restaurants and cafes, even cost of living seems a bit lower in America relative to people’s pay. And it’s my country, where I understand people more or less inside and out, and I can feel what they’re about, where they’re from, etc.

And of course, even though our economy is pretty awful at the moment, we’re still an economic powerhouse and our standard of living is remarkable. People have it so good, in fact, that they complain about how good they have it. And being here has reminded me about how stupid that is, what a luxury it is for people to whine about all sorts of things that they whine about, and that I am guilty of it as well.  Russia also struggles with developing its democracy, which is all of 15 years old and rather undeveloped compared with the US, where censorship is comparatively non-existent, and people are *so* free (in media, in speech) that they are even prone to constant criticism and dissatisfaction. It’s like democracy on steroids. It’s not a utopia, but I think most of the real flaws are cultural problems, not flaws in the infrastructure and the system itself.  It’s a pretty great system relatively. And I have to mention that I think our country is at a real low point and if Obama is elected will improve significantly in the next few years (economically, foreign policy, etc.).

But Russia has a lot of very good things as well. Hospitality, warmth, generosity, openness, real raw emotions. There were moments here when Russian people did a bunch of really nice things for me without any good reason and I thought about how calculating and logical I and other Americans are in our personal interactions. I’ll do something for you and then I expect you to do something for me. If you don’t, I think you’re self-absorbed or using me or maybe greedy.  Russians, if they like you, will do all sorts of crazy things to help you, will give you all sorts of gifts with money they don’t really have, will even sometimes smother you with offers to the point of being overbearing. In my case, a little of this was probably because I’m an exotic (or helpless) foreigner. But I can more or less separate the foreigner-worship from the genuine gestures of friendship and there was plenty of the latter.

I love that Russians, for instance, really value simpler aspects of life. And a lot of this is probably out of economic necessity. But nonetheless, it is the way it is here and it’s better. People will meet in a park and just sit for hours and talk. People meet and walk around the town for hours, through parks, through streets, just takling. People will go over to each others house with a bottle of beer and sit in the kitchen and talk or joke around. That’s the whole event. No going to a restaurant, no movie theatre, no watching tv, no sports event, nothing. Just plain talking, no distractions (except beer, which really helps things along in my opinion). We really lose sight of how important this is in modern America I think, we’re too caught up with everything.  

So who’s better– Russia or America? Just kidding.

I suppose my interest in Russia is about the same as it was before I came. It’s a separate and very different country, far away from us, and I will continue to think of it as that. But it is also more than a mere intellectual curiousity for me now, it is something that I lived for a year, I know it, more or less, I came over for dinner and heard all the family stories and stayed the night in the spare bedroom. I feel a real fondness and understanding of it. And the better aspects of life here, the openness and generosity, the appreciation for simply interacting and connecting with people, are things I’d like to incorporate into my life back home. Not to mention I’d really like to build a Russian banya in America. They are god damn amazing.

I’m still here, barely

I am rather sure that no one reads this anymore and with good reason. In recent years I’ve had various blogs, all of which I haven’t really kept up well, with the exception of the blog I keep in Russian at livejournal. Of course, to most people who know me this is pretty worthless because they don’t know a word of Russia, or maybe just one or two words– my dad, for instance, has mastered ‘privet’ and ‘do svedaniya,’ but you get the idea. A clever and Internet-savvy user might have tried copy and pasting my Russian journal entries into a damn text translator (there are tons of these websites), so for anyone who really wants to have some sort of account of the past year is advised to give that a try.

It’s too bad I failed to use this blog for its stated purpose–to have an account of my impressions and experiences this year in Russian in English–because there were many many impressions and experiences that I could have written about. As it stands, they exist only in my head and I hope that I don’t forget. The unexpected thing is that I think the most important experiences I’ve had here had very little to do with Russia, but were in thinking about myself, my life and goals, how I feel about things in the past and different people, how I feel about America. It was a year spent largely in reflection. Of course I experienced many visceral things in Russia that were very much Russian and I appreciate that. I just feel that the changes I’ve gone through have been even more important.

The year is essentially over, I leave for home in 5 days. It’s a bittersweet feeling, as changes usually are for me. I’m mostly happy to go home, but there are some other feelings of wanting to stay and knowing I will miss things. There’s a certain helplessness and futility to these sorts of feelings– a sort of feeling sad in anticipation of feeling sad. Hmm. I am sometimes a bit too melancholy as a person, I’ve been told that, and this is a damn good example of that. I wonder if other people have this.

So as the year is over, I might start using this as my all-purpose blog. Or I might not. We’ll see. I don’t have a personal blog (in English) anymore and I miss that. The whole idea of blogging is something I am ambivalent about, but by and large I’m ok with it and find it worthwhile.

Big Russian Soul and an update

Someone in my Fulbright group sent out a link to this amazing, funny website – Big Russian Soul - which I wanted to pass along.

Other than my recent post of a poem by Aleksandr Blok, I haven’t written anything on this blog during my time in Russia, which is now approaching a full 4 months. I could write a novella about my life here so far, my impressions, musings, but I do not have time, nor do you have time to read it. So for now, I will just give a somewhat brief, functional update, with only minimal editorializing. This journal is often in the back of my mind as I’m moving through my daily life and ideas for articles come into my head not infrequently. I don’t want to let this year get away without better analyzing life here and without documenting these things in a better format than my sporadic emails to friends and family, so I hope to write more often. (I have also kept a semi-regular Russian journal for writing practice, which you are welcome to read, but its analysis is limited by my Russian language ability).

I left Ohio at the end of July, sadly parting with my few remaining good friends there and especially my family, whom I did not expect to see for an entire year. I flew to Moscow and spent the entire month of August there with a group of 13 or so other Fulbright grantees. We lived in an authentic Russian dormitory (authentic, in this case, means really run-down, probably equivalent to welfare housing in the U.S. ) at Moscow Gumanitarnij Universitet (MosGU), listened to presentations about teaching English at Russian universities, went on a few excursions to museums and interesting places, and, somewhat half-heartedly, took classes in Russian language.

The Petrograd Sky Was Blurred by Rain

Someone recommended this Blok poem to me recently and last night I translated it into English. Really beautiful. Translation feedback is welcome.

 

Петроградское небо мутилось дождем…

Петроградское небо мутилось дождем,
На войну уходил эшелон.
Без конца – взвод за взводом и штык за штыком
Наполнял за вагоном вагон.

В этом поезде тысячью жизней цвели
Боль разлуки, тревоги любви,
Сила, юность, надежда… В закатной дали
Были дымные тучи в крови.

И, садясь, запевали Варяга одни,
А другие – не в лад – Ермака,
И кричали ура, и шутили они,
И тихонько крестилась рука.

Teaching English to Russian College Students

Over the past month I’ve compiled a short list of teaching ideas that I will try to implement come September when I start teaching English at Novosibirsk State Technical University. This is what I’ve come up with so far, but I’m looking to improve upon, eliminate, and add teaching ideas…

1. On the first day of class, pass out a questionnaire asking students why they’re in the class, what they hope to achieve, and a couple of personal questions.

2. Bring in pictures of yourself, family, America to show class on first day as an introduction.

3. When students make mistakes in English try to correct them on the spot if it won’t disrupt their train of thought.

4. Sometimes jot down notes of the mistakes you hear during class, then at the beginning of the next class pass out examples of sentences that were spoken and ask students to look for the mistakes.

5. Make students give presentations. I’ve heard Russians tend to love to speak, particularly in front of people. They may be reluctant at first but over time they will likely open up and get into it.

6. Make them recite a poem in English in front of the class. I’ll break the ice by reciting some poems in Russian first. Pick out some poems to assign as defaults, but allow students to pick their own if they wish.

7. Show good American movies or cartoons, or at least some clips (depending on time).

Give me your hand comrade, friend. Let’s forget ourselves again.

This is a great poem by Aleksandr Blok. I attempted to translate it below, but had some trouble, feedback appreciated.

Миры летят. Года летят. Пустая
Вселенная глядит в нас мраком глаз.
А ты, душа, усталая, глухая,
О счастии твердишь, – который раз?

Что’ счастие? Вечерние прохлады
В темнеющем саду, в лесной глуши?
Иль мрачные, порочные услады
Вина, страстей, погибели души?

Что’ счастие? Короткий миг и тесный,
Забвенье, сон и отдых от забот…
Очнешься – вновь безумный, неизвестный
И за’ сердце хватающий полет…

Вздохнул, глядишь – опасность миновала…
Но в этот самый миг – опять толчок!
Запущенный куда-то, как попало,
Летит, жужжит, торопится волчок!

И, уцепясь за край скользящий, острый,
И слушая всегда жужжащий звон, -
Не сходим ли с ума мы в смене пестрой
Придуманных причин, пространств, времен…

Когда ж конец? Назойливому звуку
Не станет сил без отдыха внимать…
Как страшно всё! Как дико! – Дай мне руку,
Товарищ, друг! Забудемся опять.

2 июля 1912

Russian words and phrases

Here is a list of Russian words and phrases I’ve picked up over the last few months for anyone looking to improve their Russian vocabulary.

надменный – arrogant

эгоистичный – egotistical

начальник – boss

спаржа – asparagus

глубокий – deep

чужой – foreign (other, different)

так себе – so-so

сотрудник – employee

коллега – co-worker

кормить грудью – breast feed

матч – match (as in football match)

подростки – teen-agers

нет выбора – no choices

In Limbo

My time left in America is steadily ticking away. It is May 14, I leave July 30th or 31st. 77 days left. I’ve got a little over a month left of work in Cincinnati–I am really looking forward to the end of 2.5 hours of driving a day. At the end of June I’m going to Washington D.C. for a Fulbright orientation conference. July is my last month in the country so I’ll be packing, getting ready, and spending a lot of time with family and friends.

I’ve been trying to speak, read, and listen to Russian as much as possible lately so I’m ‘in the groove’ when I get there and can hit the ground running. Finding time isn’t easy, particularly with work and driving all the damn time, but I’ve been able to meet with my Russian tutor Natasha once a week, watch a few Russian movies, write some letters to my Russian penpal, and religiously read the always useful Learn Russian community. I also work out from time to time with a guy from the Urals named Azat @ the Bally’s near my house, and we’ve got plans to go for a beer some night this week. I suppose if I keep up this pace from now until August my Russian should be in acceptable–not great but acceptable– shape when I touch down.

Fulbright and other ways to Russia

Many Russian enthusiasts at some point wish to live in Russia. The question is how. For students at the undergraduate and masters levels, there are several options worth exploring. I have been occupied with the questions of how best to move to Russia and in what program to participate off and on for the past couple of years. In that time, I’ve applied for Russian graduate schools, English teaching positions in Russia, a translation job with a science journal in Russia, research and travel grants, and computer science jobs in Russia. I’ve also applied to a couple of summer language institutes in America as a way of improving my Russian language skills. For anyone on a similar quest, I hope that my impressions of these various options are useful and will save you some time.

First, a bit about myself. I’ve been studying Russian language and culture for about 4 years. I double-majored as an undergraduate in Computer Science and Russian language and managed to graduate on time after many late and unhappy nights of studying. While in college I always considered Computer Science my pragmatic degree and future career, while Russian was more of a hobby and passion. I enjoyed Russian language and culture more, but at that point had no sense of any real-life opportunities in Russian-related careers, so resigned myself to computer work. After graduating, I took up work as a computer consultant, but continued to study Russian language and culture in my free time and to speak with Russian friends and co-workers. Over time I began exploring possibilities in Russian-related careers (which is a topic deserving of its own post). Just recently, a year after graduating and having started work as a computer consultant, I received notification that I was selected to receive a Fulbright grant to live in Russia for the coming year. In August I’ll be moving to Moscow for a month of training, and then on Novosibirsk for the rest of the year where I will work as an assistant to a professor of English at Novosibirsk State Technical University (click here for the Russian version).