There Is No Theme: June 2015

Nearly two years without a blog post... and just when you thought this blog had taken its final dying breath, BOOM! The power of the motherland not only resuscitates it, but makes it stronger and more stony-faced than before, while putting a gold cross necklace on it.

Lightning round of catch-up questions.

Where am I? Vladimir, Russia.
Is the city named after Vladimir Putin? No, and that's not a dumb question because there are statues of Putin in some parts of Russia.
What should I know about Vladimir (the city)? It's super old. The Wikipedia page says it was a medieval capital. Some think it was founded around 1000 AD. Others think it was closer to 1100 AD. Either way, it's beautiful and there are several surviving structures that are nearly 900 years old. People from all over Russia come here as tourists.
Why are you in Vladimir? I'm studying Russian as a participant in the Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program.
What's CLS? It's this cool thing funded by the US Department of State that allows US citizens who study at universities the opportunity to study "critical languages."
What's a "critical language"? There are currently 13 languages that the US Department of State feels are critical to the future of the USA, but not enough Americans speak them. Languages include Hindi, Bangla, Urdu, Mandarin, Punjab, Arabic, Korean, Persian, Azerbaijani, Russian, and some others that slip my mind at the moment.
Wait, are you telling me that you're still a university student? Well no; I just finished my MBA. To be eligible for CLS, applicants must be enrolled at a university at the time of application, which was last November. I'll start work in the fall.
How long will you be in Russia? Until August 19th.
Are you allowed to leave? Not until August 19th. Our visas are only good for a single entry.

Now that everyone is up to speed, let me tell you what's happened during the time I've spent here so far (1 week).

We have Russian class Monday through Friday. Two hours before lunch and two hours after lunch. Lunch is paid for, and it is delicious.

I was so excited for lunch, I ate almost all of my salad before I realized I should photograph my meal!

There are 26 of us here in Vladimir in the CLS program, but we don't spend all day together. We've been broken up into four groups for the purposes of classes. These groups are loosely based on fluency and familiarity with Russian. When we have lessons on folklore or traditional cuisine, we are divided into two groups instead of four.

Learning traditional dance moves

Here is a photo from when we had a lesson on Russian blini and blinchiki (which are different things, we learned!)

The Russian way is not to smile in photos, or, more generally, not to smile for insincere reasons. This is a topic unto itself.

It has rained every single day we've been here, for hours on end and sometimes with extreme force. And Russia is not exactly known for its drainage systems. It's been pretty rough walking about town. In fact, the rain was so bad this past Saturday, our excursion to a neighboring town was cancelled due to a storm warning! We'll make it up next week on Tuesday/Wednesday.

In general, we will have excursions on Saturday, but this past Saturday was freed up on account of the bad weather, and the upcoming Saturday has been freed up to allow us to go to Moscow (on our own), if we so desire. Everyone so desires.

Because Saturday was kind of wide open for me, I accepted an invitation to go to my friend's dacha. For those who don't know, a dacha is a small home in the country where people grow their own fruits and/or vegetables and/or raise animals. A lot of Russians and Ukrainians have them. I learned today that the name comes from the Russian word дать (dat'), which means "to give", because during the Soviet Union, citizens were given the opportunity to purchase for a pittance parcels of land beyond the city limits. And there they built little houses!

Anyway, it was raining when I left Vladimir for the dacha, but at the dacha it was not raining--at least for a while. It was picturesque there (at least to those who like the country).

My friend's grandmother, grandfather, aunt, uncle, and cousin were there too. We had a great time getting to know each other and eating food and drinking alcohol that the grandparents had produced themselves. Later, the uncle's car got stuck in a muddy rut and I helped push it out.

Then I was quite dirty, so I went to the banya, which in this case was a small structure that functioned as a sauna. The dacha doesn't have running water, but the banya has a tank of heated water and a tank of unheated water, and they can be mixed and used for bathing. Unfortunately, I didn't bring a second set of shorts, so the rest of the time, I had to walk around in my pajama pants, even outside. But I'm glad I could help push the car out, seeing as how the family was so hospitable to me! Some kind of insect bit my leg during the process and it burns, but it probably won't kill me. I'll keep you posted.

Also, we (by which I mean the grandmother, primarily) baked pirogi and bulochki, which basically means savory buns/rolls and sweet buns/rolls. Here are some photos.

Today the other CLS participants and I purchased train tickets to Moscow. It's about 2 hours away. We plan to be there from Friday evening until Sunday evening. I'll give you the highlights in my next post.

Miscellaneous photos: