From the Pearl of Siberia with Love
The time between the last installment of the “With Love” series and this one has been significant, as have been the events of the past week and a half. I will attempt to update and perhaps, entertain all of you.
This past week the group of Middlebury students in the program took an extended trip to Lake Baikal. To assist us in this journey was an interesting character, Captain Alexander Burmeister. To summarize the captains contenance is a truly difficult task. He is a stout, jolly, truly Russian man with a prominent gold tooth. He was a fine person and took us all the way around the Lake assuring us every day that the weather would be better tomorrow and we would travel to a “klassny” part of the lake. His favorite saying was “Klass, klass, klass!” (Roughly translated: “Cool, cool, cool.”) We spent the entire week on his ship travelling the length of Baikal. There were other crew members on the ship, including the cook, Yuliya, who is well on her way to becoming a real Russian babushka. She overfed us until our eyes bulged, so that each of us would become “Pretty,” in preparation for the cold Siberian winter.
The idea behind the trip was to take an expedition to the spiritual center of Shammanism, Olkhon Island. In reality, it was more a trip around the lake on a boat with many trips to the banya. We only spent two hours on Olkhon.
To start off the trip, we drove four hours through the Siberian countryside. I was surprised at how quickly the city life of Irkutsk faded away into nothing. I really am in Siberia. It was truly stunning to drive to the lake because all of the trees were a lovely shade of gold. (Trees here don’t light on fire the way they do in New England, but the effect is still breathtaking.) What I found most amazing was that there were places where the forest was dense (not because the trees are tall and wide…they aren’t. The Russian winters keep them skinny and repressed.) The forest would then unexpectedly give way to stepp, rolling hills and fields of grass. It was just like driving through Idaho at times. We stopped at a Buryat restaurant to eat pohzi, a Buryatski dish (the Buryati are the indegenous people to the Irkutsk region.) These delectable meat filled doughy lumps are eaten with your hands and you have to carefully bite into them and drink the meat juice out. (After all, you would not like to play the fool, like Gorbachov did when he took a big bite and juice gushed all over him.) We also sampled the local vodka made from milk (sorry Mom and Dad - cultural experience.) It really is not that bad, although definitely made from milk.
We sailed to a small island not far off from Olkhon, where there was a monument set up with Shamman spiritual texts kept safely within. Prayer flags waved from trees and candles flickered in the wind. If I were going to meditate, I would pick to do it there…despite the cold winds. Next stop was at the captain’s dacha, where we used his fine banya a number of times and tried the salty dried omul (even me) … it was gross, everyone else loved it. There the mountains were visible and covered with snow. Also at the banya, we sampled the legendary perevochka (vodka with hot peppers)…cultural experience…I realized why they drink it here: it burns your insides. We went berry picking in another region of the lake, where the views were stunning. The berries were also very tasty, small, seedless, tart, cherry-like berries, unique to Siberia. Unsuccessfully we searched for Nerpa seals on a small island, where I lost myself and let my hyperactive imagination run away with itself after finding broken egg shells and piles of feathers. (Think the birds, but being lost in the woods and alone.) We set sail towards geo-thermally heated pools on the eastern shores of Baikal, where we sat and soaked up the mineral water and the pungent fumes.
It was a fun trip, but the amount of time on the ship and the continual rubbing of elbows caused cabin fever to run high and I had a row with the guy from Williams. The beauty of Baikal, however, can cancel out most negative experiences otherwise. I took three rolls of film in an attempt to capture a tenth of its beauty, but most likely failed. The water is crystal clear and the terrain varying. There aren’t enough words, nor am I talented enough to describe it accurately. So, in true Russian fashion, I will end the segment on Baikal with a quote from a Severyanin poem:
Я так и не знаю Байкала:
Увидеть не значит узнать.
(Poor un-poetic) Translation: I really don’t know Baikal:
To see it doesn’t mean to know it.
In other interesting news: my host mother’s daughter arrived last Friday. The first impressions are great. She is a language student as well, so she understands the difficulties and frustrations of learning a new language, so different from your own. Tanya seems eager to show me around, take me to discotecas, introduce me to her friends, and make me look fashionable. I cannot deny that I am relieved that she has arrived, since loniness and culture shock have taken their toll on my morale. I was beginning to replace human contact by diving into as many American novels as possible. The optimistic “a-little-hard-work-gets-you-through-anything” themes of American literature appeal to me right now. (The image of the Little Engine That Could comes to mind whenever I feel down.)
My involvement with the choir has paid off, since now I have more than one friend. It has become a tradition to hang out with some of the members of the choir after rehersal in the park. They are all quite friendly and impressed by my knowledge of Russian rock music. One of my new acquaintences, Dima, is in the middle of writing his chemistry dissertation and applying for a grant, which he must do in English. He has asked me to proofread his annotation for grammmar errors. To my horror, however, I don’t even know most of the words in English! For example, I don’t even know how to pronouce: alluminiumalkulhalogenides. He writes quite well in English, despite some punctuation errors and pronoun misuse.
Finally, my never ending search for a place to sweat off the insane amounts of butter I consume here may have come to an end. My first attempt to find a pool was thwarted by renovation and an untruthful sign, which said that the pool would be open 4 months before the actual openind day. Tanya helped me search on the internet for a pool and we had success. I have also been given the location of a team, with which I may swim…after a tryout. I’ll do anything at this point; I have definitely become “Pretty.” Hopefully, I will be able to resume Olympic training soon.
Sorry for the long one this time.
Loving and thinking of each of you uniquely,
Colleen
P.S. Word on the street is that snow should (Should!) stick by the 15th. It already snowed on the 15th of September, so I don’t doubt it.
P.P.S. I have found two mainstreams. Wish me luck!
P.P.P.S. One of the girls in the group (the one that bothered me) had to unexpectedly leave. Nobody knows why.
This past week the group of Middlebury students in the program took an extended trip to Lake Baikal. To assist us in this journey was an interesting character, Captain Alexander Burmeister. To summarize the captains contenance is a truly difficult task. He is a stout, jolly, truly Russian man with a prominent gold tooth. He was a fine person and took us all the way around the Lake assuring us every day that the weather would be better tomorrow and we would travel to a “klassny” part of the lake. His favorite saying was “Klass, klass, klass!” (Roughly translated: “Cool, cool, cool.”) We spent the entire week on his ship travelling the length of Baikal. There were other crew members on the ship, including the cook, Yuliya, who is well on her way to becoming a real Russian babushka. She overfed us until our eyes bulged, so that each of us would become “Pretty,” in preparation for the cold Siberian winter.
The idea behind the trip was to take an expedition to the spiritual center of Shammanism, Olkhon Island. In reality, it was more a trip around the lake on a boat with many trips to the banya. We only spent two hours on Olkhon.
To start off the trip, we drove four hours through the Siberian countryside. I was surprised at how quickly the city life of Irkutsk faded away into nothing. I really am in Siberia. It was truly stunning to drive to the lake because all of the trees were a lovely shade of gold. (Trees here don’t light on fire the way they do in New England, but the effect is still breathtaking.) What I found most amazing was that there were places where the forest was dense (not because the trees are tall and wide…they aren’t. The Russian winters keep them skinny and repressed.) The forest would then unexpectedly give way to stepp, rolling hills and fields of grass. It was just like driving through Idaho at times. We stopped at a Buryat restaurant to eat pohzi, a Buryatski dish (the Buryati are the indegenous people to the Irkutsk region.) These delectable meat filled doughy lumps are eaten with your hands and you have to carefully bite into them and drink the meat juice out. (After all, you would not like to play the fool, like Gorbachov did when he took a big bite and juice gushed all over him.) We also sampled the local vodka made from milk (sorry Mom and Dad - cultural experience.) It really is not that bad, although definitely made from milk.
We sailed to a small island not far off from Olkhon, where there was a monument set up with Shamman spiritual texts kept safely within. Prayer flags waved from trees and candles flickered in the wind. If I were going to meditate, I would pick to do it there…despite the cold winds. Next stop was at the captain’s dacha, where we used his fine banya a number of times and tried the salty dried omul (even me) … it was gross, everyone else loved it. There the mountains were visible and covered with snow. Also at the banya, we sampled the legendary perevochka (vodka with hot peppers)…cultural experience…I realized why they drink it here: it burns your insides. We went berry picking in another region of the lake, where the views were stunning. The berries were also very tasty, small, seedless, tart, cherry-like berries, unique to Siberia. Unsuccessfully we searched for Nerpa seals on a small island, where I lost myself and let my hyperactive imagination run away with itself after finding broken egg shells and piles of feathers. (Think the birds, but being lost in the woods and alone.) We set sail towards geo-thermally heated pools on the eastern shores of Baikal, where we sat and soaked up the mineral water and the pungent fumes.
It was a fun trip, but the amount of time on the ship and the continual rubbing of elbows caused cabin fever to run high and I had a row with the guy from Williams. The beauty of Baikal, however, can cancel out most negative experiences otherwise. I took three rolls of film in an attempt to capture a tenth of its beauty, but most likely failed. The water is crystal clear and the terrain varying. There aren’t enough words, nor am I talented enough to describe it accurately. So, in true Russian fashion, I will end the segment on Baikal with a quote from a Severyanin poem:
Я так и не знаю Байкала:
Увидеть не значит узнать.
(Poor un-poetic) Translation: I really don’t know Baikal:
To see it doesn’t mean to know it.
In other interesting news: my host mother’s daughter arrived last Friday. The first impressions are great. She is a language student as well, so she understands the difficulties and frustrations of learning a new language, so different from your own. Tanya seems eager to show me around, take me to discotecas, introduce me to her friends, and make me look fashionable. I cannot deny that I am relieved that she has arrived, since loniness and culture shock have taken their toll on my morale. I was beginning to replace human contact by diving into as many American novels as possible. The optimistic “a-little-hard-work-gets-you-through-anything” themes of American literature appeal to me right now. (The image of the Little Engine That Could comes to mind whenever I feel down.)
My involvement with the choir has paid off, since now I have more than one friend. It has become a tradition to hang out with some of the members of the choir after rehersal in the park. They are all quite friendly and impressed by my knowledge of Russian rock music. One of my new acquaintences, Dima, is in the middle of writing his chemistry dissertation and applying for a grant, which he must do in English. He has asked me to proofread his annotation for grammmar errors. To my horror, however, I don’t even know most of the words in English! For example, I don’t even know how to pronouce: alluminiumalkulhalogenides. He writes quite well in English, despite some punctuation errors and pronoun misuse.
Finally, my never ending search for a place to sweat off the insane amounts of butter I consume here may have come to an end. My first attempt to find a pool was thwarted by renovation and an untruthful sign, which said that the pool would be open 4 months before the actual openind day. Tanya helped me search on the internet for a pool and we had success. I have also been given the location of a team, with which I may swim…after a tryout. I’ll do anything at this point; I have definitely become “Pretty.” Hopefully, I will be able to resume Olympic training soon.
Sorry for the long one this time.
Loving and thinking of each of you uniquely,
Colleen
P.S. Word on the street is that snow should (Should!) stick by the 15th. It already snowed on the 15th of September, so I don’t doubt it.
P.P.S. I have found two mainstreams. Wish me luck!
P.P.P.S. One of the girls in the group (the one that bothered me) had to unexpectedly leave. Nobody knows why.