The Real Russia

3/13/08

By Shandi Barclay
Travel Correspondent

I’ve traveled to Russia twice now as part of the school trips with our social science professor, Alexandre Strokanov. I went, most recently this January with a group of eight other people.

In America we see a certain image of Russia; how cold and uninviting the culture seems or how they have poor health care, etc. However, all of those ideas have no merit at all when you actually have a chance to experience Russian culture firsthand, which most Americans will never get. They don’t get to see the yelling of jokes across delicious and massive dinners, nor do they see the beautiful buildings, the rich historical districts, or the country’s advancing modernity.

The LSC cadre consisted of our teacher and leader Dr. Strokanov, his good friend and our driver, whom we dubbed “Alexandre Two”, Katie Gilbert (LSC alumni), and fellow students; Jennifer Driver, Caitlin Murphy, Amanda Winter, Avery Williams, and Aimee Bathalon.

We did some of the usual tourist sightseeing; the Kremlin, St. Basil’s, a couple museums, but for the most part, every night we had an experience with the Russian culture and different people.

One of our first nights we had a dinner planned with Alexandre Two’s brother-in-law, a Russian Muslim and former military general. We got there and sat down for dinner and drinks; and the food never seemed to stop coming. As the evening progressed everyone loosened up and soon we were all laughing, joking, and telling stories. We asked the general questions about his life in the military, how he met his wife, and about why he was a vodka-drinking, pork-eating Muslim (to which he jokingly responded “the Communists make me do it”). Toasts were made every five minutes with each toast taking double that time to announce and translate. Five courses and about a dozen toasts later we had to tell the general’s wife to stop cooking because we couldn’t eat anymore. We made final toasts to them being such wonderful hosts and they responded back with one about how great we were as guests. We learned that night that Russian hospitality was much more generous and warm than most Americans can ever know.

The next morning we visited a beautiful church, where the highest archbishop in the region took an hour of his time to guide us through the church and described to us the significance of every fresco, icon and story behind the church’s history. We went out that night to a giant mall complex for a very ‘traditional’ Russian dinner and activity of pizza and bowling. There were hundreds of stores and a huge arcade. This seemed like the epitome of modernity, that as Vermonters, we don’t even really see in the United States. Once again, the view some Americans have that Russia is a very poor and collapsing place, void of any luxuries, was completely disproved.

For our next stop, we drove on back roads for a long time until it seemed like we were on a narrow, snow-covered logging trail. Our cabin was one of probably seven houses on the entire road, only two of which were inhabited year-round. It was very rustic with electricity that only worked when the wind wasn’t blowing. Despite that, we just reminded ourselves that very few people get the opportunity to do what we were experiencing, and had a great time. Our hosts cooked us a large dinner and before long we were all around the table singing, eating, toasting, joking, and telling stories; very reminiscent of our dinner with the military general in Vladimir. During our stay there, we learned quickly that singing was a large part of their culture. They sung folk songs often and everyone would join in. The next day we played some traditional Russian winter games, which gave us a look at how some of the more village-style people live during the harsh winters. That day was also their Christmas Eve, so to celebrate we went into the nearest small village. There was a talent show going on with different local people singing and dancing on stage. Their version of Santa Clause was giving out “presents” to different audience members. Later they got a bunch of us up on stage with them, dancing with St. Nicholas and gave each of us different traditional Russian instruments to try. It was fun and proved once again how energetic and exuberant their culture was. We got back that night and our hosts had set up fortune telling for us. Christmas Eve was special in that one could find out who their future husband would be. It was interesting and we got a chance to learn about some Russian superstition and practices, which we otherwise wouldn’t have had the chance to experience.

We had our last dinner at Alexandre Two’s house in a suburb outside of Moscow, where we toasted to a wonderful trip with a lot of cultural understanding and many memories. As a group, we learned a lot about Russia and its people. As I said before, the culture we experienced there was far different than what a lot of Americans perceive it to be, mainly because they’re lacking that firsthand knowledge. I feel that many Americans would have a very different image of Russia if everyone was just able to spend some time in their culture and have a chance to experience what we did this January.