Scene of the Crime

St. Petersburg has suddenly become a very depressing and dangerous place. Apparently, some young student (his last name begins with an "R", but I forgot what it is) just murdered a poor old pawn broker and her half-sister. Everyone's been talking about it, and nobody's really sure what the motive for the murder was. Anyway, they're sending Mr. R to Siberia. We'll see if that will teach him a lesson.

Whoops! Wrong Petersburg experience! However, I had the great opportunity yesterday to see the cozy apartment where this all began.

Dostoevsky's old abode is fairly near the center of town, and it's much larger than any other Russian apartment I've seen yet. Although I have always claimed to worship the ground on which Dostoevsky stands (stood), I can now say, without hesitation, that I literally have.

Another funny thing happened yesterday. No, this time it was not murder-related. I was walking around the neighborhood when I realized I didn't feel quite right. And then it hit me: for the first time during my stay in Russia, I was hungry. No, I haven't had any stomach difficulties while I've been here, and my appetite has been just fine. It simply occured to me that I had probably gone over an hour without anyone requesting that I eat heavy Russian cuisine. Hence the now-foreign feeling.

But I promise I'm thinking about my studies as much as Dostoevsky jokes and my stomach. For example, I was a smash hit in class the other day. During our grammar session, we students were taking turns "filling in the blanks" for sentences, choosing to use either an imperfective or perfective verb in the sentence. (Basically sort of kind of, an imperfective verb signals an incomplete or in-progress action, whereas a perfective verb represents a more finite activity or something that occurrs only once.) It was my turn, and I had to complete a sentence that was something like "They went back to their friend's house to watch a videocassette that night." My task was—besides laughing at "videocassette"—to choose the right verb for "watch", and I chose the imperfective verb, the incomplete action. My professor told me this was incorrect because it's likely that the group of friends finished the movie, but I argued that we have no way of knowing that this was possible.

"A videocassette, Dasha? I would think they'd watch the whole movie," she said.

"Okay, but let's say the movie is Gone with the Wind."

Worst joke flop of my entire life.

In my conversation class, I got a vocabulary quiz back. This quiz had also presented the fill-in-the-blank challenge, and one sentence I had to complete was "People need to use the comod in order to ____." I learned the hard way that comod is not, despite its striking resemblance to the English word "commode" (and, of course, its bathroomly connotation), the ceramic object I belived it to be. No, comod is a dresser. Therefore, my completed sentence was a major success. "People need to use the dresser in order to go toilet."

Ashamed of my mistake, I quickly tucked the quiz into a folder and decided instead to put the whole matter aside, attempting to rid of my frustration.

"But Dana/I'm-so-excited-because-I-get-to-stop-calling-you-that-stupid-Dasha-name-in-less-than-a-week Dasha," you say, entirely befuddled, "I really thought you have the sense of humor of a five-year-old. Didn't you laugh? Even a little bit?"

I'm angered by this assumption. "Of course not. Don't be ridiculous. I am a very mature young lady."

And by "Of course not. Don't be ridiculous. I am a very mature young lady", I mean "I sniveled so hard and so much in class that I started crying." It's a real shame that nobody in my class has as much of a sophisticated sense of humor as I do. I cackled alone, though my professor sincerely thought this mistake was very funny as well, thank goodness.

Tonight I'm going to see the final "Harry Potter" movie. I am going to watch this movie because 1) I can brag about how I saw it in Russian, 2) I can brag about how I saw it before everyone else because it comes out two days earlier here than in America, and 3) friends are going. I've only read through the fourth book and I'm really not a fan, but I assumed that since I would have no idea what was going on in the movie if I saw it in English, it would be fine to see it in Russian instead.

I don't know what happens in the final book--though I asked a friend for a "brief" summary--but if Harry ends up killing a pawn broker and her half-sister, I'll at least know that this is a special "St. Petersburg-dubbed" edition of the movie. He's a genius wizard, though, so I doubt he'll be punished for his actions.

From the Cupboard under the Soviet Union,

Даша/Dasha/Dana

Dickens in Russia: "Low Expectations"

HERMITAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That pretty much sums it up.

The palace is filled with so much gold that it nearly blinds each visitor. I joked with a friend that if everyone in Russia took a nearly microscopic piece of gold from the Hermitage, every single one of the country's 139 million citizens would have constant access to hot water. My friend then reminded me that this was pretty much the basis on which communism was founded. I begrudgingly abandoned my dream of becoming a Russian Robin Hood and instead settled on heading to a gallery to see some of Leonardo da Vinci's greatest paintings.

After spending a lifetime at the museum (an amazing lifetime, too), I went with some friends who wanted to go to a small Belgian waffle restaurant near the city center. "The Wizard of Oz" was playing on a TV inside the restaurant. We ordered our food just before Dorothy hit her head, and my bite-sized waffle arrived as the Wizard awarded the Cowardly Lion his Medal of Courage. I'm not quite sure how this was possible since, if I'm correct, waffle-making is a nearly instantaneous process, but I'm not sure why my expectations were high or, rather, why I had any expectations at all.

I walked around a fair afterward and stepped inside The Literary Cafe, the joint where Pushkin ate his last meal after dying in a duel. Knowing history's tendency to repeat itself, I quickly cancelled my duel scheduled for later in the evening.

Apparently Pushkin dueled against a man he believed was sleeping with his wife. Turns out his wife was actually faithful. Still, had his wife been unfaithful, I'm not exactly certain a duel would have been the best way to settle things. It's hard to fathom that one of the world's greatest writers would have absolutely no common sense. But like the Waffle Incident, I'm not sure why my expectations were high or, rather, why I had any expectations at all.

As I mentioned, living in Russia has been pure ecstasy with a large dose of challenge. My "pure ecstasy" bubble will burst this evening, however, when Vasinka returns from his stay at the dacha, or summer cottage.

But if I have very low expectations, I know that our interactions will seem nothing but friendly.

Maybe is, of possibility to see you in land of Americanation next, week,

Даша/Dasha/Dana

I Love You, You Love Decent Utilities

Dobriy vecher,

I used to watch Barney and Friends on TV when I was little. Of course, singing songs with the purple and green dinosaur was always a blast. I distinctly remember a tune about running faucets. "I never let the water run. No! I never let the water run." While this song may do a nice job of encouraging young kids to be environmentally friendly, Russia seems to have taken the message a little too far.

So why am I awake now? Lesson learned: should you ever ask why Russia has overdone the Barney Approach, do not expect to go to bed any time soon.

After all, as Tanja put it, "It's Russia."

Signing off from Petersburg Desert,

Даша/Dasha/Dana

The Nose

Dobriy den',

Things here are same old, same old. For example, I was describing the street I live on to someone and was about to say, "It's the one where all the buildings look the same," then remembered that this description would be entirely unhelpful.

Well, okay, but for the architecture, everything is new and exciting. And frankly, I'm one of those weird people who thinks stepping into a Soviet apartment building is basically the coolest thing she's ever done. I get goosebumps every time the elevator doesn't work properly.

But seriously, "living" in Russia (yeah, only for a month) has been an incredible experience. I hate to say it, though I truly feel I'm lucky to be learning about Russia from afar as a student instead of as a citizen. Tanja changed nationalities and technically became a citizen of Russia yesterday, though. She lost her passport and received the new one, which is a passport for the Russian Federation instead of the Soviet Union, the one she had had since 1980. To quote the Shakes-master:

Q: "What's in a name?"

A: "That which we call political turmoil."

In other news, it's currently raining here and I'm seriously considering running outside with a bucket. Whatever's falling from the sky is surely cleaner than whatever comes out of Russian faucets.

Yesterday we went to the Russian Museum, which displayed some of the world's greatest art in some of the world's most poorly lit rooms. I saw some of my favorite Gonchorova works, an Anna Axhmatova portrait, folk art, icons and, most importantly, a small statue of Prokofiev.

I was thrilled to see this statue and, as we passed by it, two friends of mine—who are both Russian—touched the nose of the Prokofiev sculpture, which was shorter than eye-level. Being the bright young lady that I am, I assumed that touching Prokofiev's bronze nose was a necessity and perhaps a good luck charm, so I gave his nose a good pat as well. All was well until a minute or so later when our group had moved into the next room with our tour guide (a member of the Smolny faculty who conducts all our tours in Russian) when I was tapped rather harshly on the shoulder by the pudgy finger of a babushka.

For the record, I was tapped rather harshly on the shoulder by the pudgy finger of a BAH-boo-shkuh, not a buh-BOO-shkuh. If you told me you would like me to bring you back a buh-BOO-shkuh (or even BAH-boo-shkuh) from Russia, you would literally be telling me to bring you back a grandmother instead of the kerchief worn by half of Russia's population—a pluh-TOHK. BAH-boo-shkuh doesn't usually mean "grandmother", though. It is unfortunately a term used to describe any annoying elderly woman people most often find amusing, though the word has somewhat less of a negative connotation than it might in America. Russians don't mind using it in almost every sentence. For example, I went to St. Petersburg State University with some Americans as well as Russians to have a look around, and one of the Russian students said, "You'll need to have your student ID's ready before entering the building because there will surely be a babushka." Babushki (plural of babushka) serve as guards because they have a far more threatening presence in Russia than "typical" buff security personnel might. And, as I learned yesterday, they can even be terrifying.

In any event, once tapped on the shoulder I turned around only find a furious babushka yelling at me in Russian. The Smolny program staff had told us at orientation that, should we ever get arrested or have trouble with the Russian police, we should never speak Russian and instead demand an English translator or remain silent. I understood every word the babushka said but pretended I didn't speak any Russian for fear that I would be exiled to Siberia if I did. Instead, I directed her to the Smolny staff member/our tour guide, who spoke with her. I learned that if I ever want to grab the attention of an entire gallery, all I need to do is engage a babushka in conversation and perhaps rub a few statue noses.

In the end, I decided that my exile to Siberia wouldn't be so terrible since it would be a very convenient way to extend my stay in the country. Whenever I have a discussion with other students and they find out I'm not staying another month or even another semester, they say, "Oh, wow. That sucks." As you might imagine, I neither find these words comforting nor believe that going back to America will "suck", but I'll admit that I couldn't agree more with the rest of their reassuring words: indeed, leaving Russia will suck. Heck, I haven't even officially been here a month yet due to the fact that I spent at least two full weeks getting completely lost. And I know for sure that I'll be coming back to the Motherland for a longer period of time and will try as hard as I can to set up my apartment in the middle of the Russian icons exhibit at the Russian Museum.

And again from old to new. I was walking around a shopping area yesterday when I heard Simon and Garfunkel's "Sound of Silence" on the loud speaker. Although there wasn't anything particularly strange about a store playing this song, it's a little surreal to walk into a store on the other side of the Earth and hear your favorite music.

Tomorrow is the Hermitage. You're going to the Hermitage tomorrow too, right? Wait, you're not? Oh, wow. That sucks.

Somebody please tell Russian restauranteurs how to make ice cream cones properly,

Даша/Dasha/Dana

In Soviet Russiacountry, America Independence Find You!

Peoples of Americacountry,

First of all, I hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July. In this country it’s called, as a friend put it, “Russian Day of Annoyance.” I would make some cheesy comment about pride in red, white and blue, though that might accidentally come off as pro-Russian instead of pro-American.

To celebrate the holiday yesterday, Smolny served us “American” food at lunch, including cherry strudel and veggie burgers that were comprised of a bun, slice of cheese, slice of cucumber, and no patty.

It’s hard to believe I’m now typing on the Internetmachine—complaining about shared flag colors and nonexistent burger patties—when I was literally on a dirt road in middle-of-nowhere Russia a couple days ago. I probably won’t have time tonight to write all about the weekend trip and the last two days, but here’s a brief summary:

We left early Saturday morning for Pskov, toured the town for the day and spent the night there, then went to Izborsk on Sunday, returning home very late Sunday night/Monday morning. What an unbelievable trip.

Yesterday! Yesterday we were all exhausted from the trip, and after classes I played a game of Russian Scrabble and won all by myself against…Russians. Heck, I can’t even win Scrabble when I play in English. The last three years spent slogging through Russian grammar were, honestly, worth it just for this one victory. Also, a shopkeeper told me today that I speak Russian very well, and I’m going to pretend that she made this comment because it’s entirely true and not because she wanted me to buy a garish and overpriced skirt.

As for the rest of today, I went with a friend/excellent figure skater to a big rink at the other end of town where the St. Petersburg hockey team practices. I was hoping to appreciate every second of slipping along the breeding ground for Russian skaters who have been cheating since the beginning of time while, obviously, clinging to the wall of the rink for dear life. Unfortunately, the rink was closed for today and probably will be for a while. Also unfortunately, buildings in Russia often close without warning. I suppose this is because the idea of a world that even mildly caters to the consumer’s needs is pretty new in Russia, so nobody really cares if you walk across Siberia only to find that a skating rink is closed for no apparent reason. And now I’m sitting in Café Dubai again, which is a wi-fi oasis. Pun intended?

More to come soon--just thought I'd give a brief update to let you know I haven't been shipped off to Siberia yet, especially since there aren't even open skating rinks there. Miss you all and, of course, hope you enjoyed the holiday.

Love from Leningrad,

Даша/Dasha/Dana

Curtain Call and Cream for Cat

When I predicted that I would be in heaven after seeing Eugene Onegin at the Mariinsky Theatre last night, I grossly underestimated the quality of the performance. I know I’m into the whole “it was the most beautiful ___ I’ve ever ___” lately, but if you had heard the velvety voice of the Russian bass who played the role of Prince Gremin, I truly doubt you would have felt differently.

Because I failed to frown at any point during the opera, I had to compensate for my un-Russianly demeanor in other ways. The classy snack area sold very cheap tarts of red caviar. I bought one, of course, and it was delicious, though I told myself I couldn’t really start nibbling on it until the performance began again if I truly desired to blend into the crowd.

Opera houses in Russia function more like ballparks than other modern opera houses I’ve seen. You are welcome to bring in all kinds of food and alcohol, take as many pictures and videos of the performance as you like, whisper loudly to your neighbor whenever you feel the need (or even just for fun), and text on your glowing cell phone in the middle of the dimly lit room. I had expected that the Mariinsky Theatre would feel a thousand times more extravagant than the Metropolitan Opera in New York, but it was just the opposite. You can dress fairly informally if you like. We had the “nose bleed” seats but still a great view, and our tickets were just about as cheap as it costs to watch a live HD movie theater broadcast of a Met opera. And at the Mariinsky Theatre! I’m dying to go again considering the tickets are dirt cheap compared to the average American opera ticket. The Mariinsky felt so much more accessible to the masses and less of a high-society activity. No, you don’t need to wear diamonds and fur to feel at home at the Mariinsky or to justify the need to speak loudly to your neighbor in the middle of an emotional aria. All are welcome. That is, as long as you buy inexpensive caviar tartlets.

I was fortunate enough to see Eugene Onegin about two and a half years ago with the Amherst Russian Department. It was absolutely incredible, and I’m thrilled to say I’ve probably seen two of the world’s greatest productions of one of my favorite operas. But this production had a really special quality. It seemed more like a story than a piece of music. The choreography, costumes and sets in particular were stunning. More importantly, the voices were...well, you already know how I feel about the voices. The Russian pronunciation and feel for the music was incredible. My hypothesis is that this is because Russian music was sung in Russian by native Russians, though I could be completely wrong.

And what I loved about the chorus was that the group was a very large one, and the choir members blended so well together.  What bugs me about opera sometimes is that several people with operatic voices and obnoxious vibrati are thrown together and clash as a result, but this felt like a very cohesive chorus.

My favorite part of the opera was definitely the opera, though there was a real highlight. At the end of the highly dramatic scene when Onegin cradles Lensky’s dead body (after shooting him in a pointless duel, by the way), the music beautifully cadenced and the curtains began to draw, signaling the end of the act. Unfortunately, Lensky and Onegin were accidentally too far upstage, and it was clear the two characters were going to meet their curtainly fate. As the curtains closed in on them, some doofus behind the stage tried to push the curtain over Onegin’s head but failed miserably, so the curtains puffed out and Lensky and Onegin still ended up getting caught in a mess of fabric. The audience roared.

Naturally, I thought this was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. A friend sitting next to me had to calm me down. Thank goodness an intermission followed the act.

Today in my Afrikaans (stale joke) conversation class, my professor asked us how the opera was last night. The first comment most of the students in the class made—and there are only five of us—was about the whole curtain shebang.

I came home very late from the opera last night and ate dinner because I had not yet eaten that evening. I sat down to have a bowl of soup, and Tanja insisted I eat it with smetana, or sour cream. If you’ve never tried this culinary combination, you’re missing out.

Vasinka sauntered into the room, and Tanja told him what a good cat he was. He looked up at her with kitty eyes, so she said, “Oh, Vasinka! Would you like some sour cream too?” She then put a large scoop of sour cream on a large spoon and fed it to Vasinka. I have less than 30 seconds of training in veterinary sciences, though I was correct in assuming that this sour cream splurge would lead to some kind of feline abdominal distention.

About two minutes later, as Tanja and I were eating, I heard loud meowing coming from the bathroom. I asked Tanja if everything was okay, so we went inside the water closet and found Vasinka howling by the toilet. She said he was fine and that he would use his litter box next to the pot if he needed to go to the bathroom. We sat back down, and then I heard several loud noises again. I asked Tanja, a second time, if everything was alright. “He’s just going to the bathroom,” she said. “He’s just going to the bathroom” in Russian translates almost directly into English as, “going toilet, just going toilet.”

If you’ve never tried not to giggly spew mushroom soup while eating mushroom soup, you’re missing out.

My relationship with Vasinka continues to worsen. Never in my life have I met a cat who is so jealous, brainless, sly, brilliant and needy. He wants me to pet him whenever Tanja’s looking, and literally as soon as she turns away or leaves the room, he bites me. Pouncing has happened a couple times now. He was resting on the small balcony attached to my room yesterday and, not yet knowing he was there, I pulled back the curtain to go onto the balcony. He snarled at me, baring his fangs. I thought I was imagining things and that maybe he was angry about something else, so I foolishly closed the curtain and reopened it a few times to see if I would get the same reaction. Sure enough, I did. I guess I know more about veterinary sciences than I thought, and I could probably write a dissertation on cat snarls.

I was discussing my house pet misfortunes with a friend over an apple-filled pastry and (you guessed it!) a glass of milk the other day at a ridiculously overpriced café near Nevsky Prospect. She told me that it’s funny I’m staying with a cat named Vasinka; she knows a student who was also on the Bard-Smolny program a couple years ago who was upset because he was a rising senior in college and had excellent language skills but had to change his Russian name, Vasya, because he was staying with a cat named Vasya/Vasinka. When I got home that day, I asked Tanja if this student had stayed with her. Lo and behold, the student had lived here. She absolutely raved about him. I asked her if he liked Vasinka, and she said that he certainly did because he just loved everything. I eventually brought up the Vasinka issue with Tanja yesterday, but she reassured me that he’s loving and can just get snippy sometimes. Tattle tailing wasn't worth it.

Misery loves company, even if you’ve never met the company.

“But Dana/I-think-it’s-cute-you-want-me-to-call-you-Dasha Dasha,” you say, “I didn’t agree to read your stupid blog so I could hear about some cat every day.”

“But Boredfrustratedperson,” I reply. “Every American in history has had some sort of Russian foe. Mine just has green glowing eyes and a sensitive stomach.”

If my biggest enemy in Russia is a queasy cat, maybe life here isn’t so bad after all.

As for everything else, I’m really enjoying myself. A couple days ago was the first time I understood every ad in the metro station. (They’re not always the same ads, so I totally demand that you not think this was easily done.) I’m initiating conversation with natives and, yes, I’m still terrified to speak at times. My Russian skills feel like a muscle. I exhaust it every day and it’s sore every night. I then ice it with some blogging, talking, or e-mailing in English, the safety net that is my native tongue. The muscle continues to strengthen, and soon I’ll hopefully be able to actually construct half of a grammatically correct sentence. 

I still can't believe I'm here. I've been infatuated with this stupid landmass for years, and now I finally get to meander around Peter the Great's masterpiece every day. Being in Russia is a tremendous thrill.

This is probably my last blog post until at least Monday. Tomorrow night I’m going to an Italian restaurant with other students and then to the Gogol Bordello concert, and I’ll be in Novgorod and Pskov all weekend. Boohoo. Sounds awful, no?

It’s nighttime but very light outside. I know I’ve mentioned it before, but the view of the Gulf of Finland from my window is stunning. For years my friends have joked that, due to the overwhelmingly pre-professional nature of my majors in music and Russian, I will be singing on a Russian cruise ship for the rest of my life. Given that several of these large boats are visible from the balcony, I’m positive the apartment's location on this side of the building—or at least the apartment view—is some kind of cruel joke. 

An American (Lounge Lizard) in St. Petersburg,

Даша/Dasha/Dana

We All Live in a Yellow Marshrutka

If you’ve seen the movie “Little Miss Sunshine”, you might recall an ancient, crumbling, sunshine-yellow van a loving and somewhat dysfunctional family piled into every day. With every few feet the van drove, the family members held their breaths and prayed it wouldn’t collapse in the middle of the street. The average American parent, upon seeing the outside of this van alone, might advise his or her child to stay far away.

For the past two days, I have taken such a vehicle to Smolny. It’s called a marshrutka, and it’s one of the most popular and effective means of transportation in St. Petersburg, if not in Russia or even Eastern Europe.

Marshrutki (plural of marshrutka) operate like buses, sans even remotely sanitary conditions or any concept of personal space. Here’s how it works: you stand by a bus stop (or, frankly, anywhere you like) and flag down the marshrutka you would like to take, which will have a sign with a “K” followed by a specific number. You then slide open the rusting door of the van so that you can quickly hop inside and find upwards of fifteen complete strangers staring directly at you. You find the nearest seat available and, if there are no seats left, you crouch by the door of the van, extend your arm, and grab onto a handle near the roof of the van, allowing everyone in the vehicle to smell your armpit. If you’re said passenger and traveling to work/school earlier in the day, this shouldn’t be too much of a problem. If you’re taking the marshrutka on the way home, everyone will hate you.

And if you’re thirsting for a good Soviet experience to and from work or school, the marshrutka is surely for you. Instead of depositing money into a meter or even handing a fee to a single person as usual on a bus, you give your 30 rubles to someone who is sitting near you but also closer to the driver than you, and then tell them, in polite Russian, to pass on the money. They will then keep handing the money off until it reaches the driver. In the event that you provide more than 30 rubles, the driver will then pass your change back to people, who will pass on the money back to you. Kind of like a game of Soviet monetary “telephone”. You can always cool down the 21^st century Russia with a little marshrutka teamwork. 

When you want the marshrutka to stop, you yell “STOP, PLEASE!” at the top of your I’m-American-but-desperately-trying-to-speak-Russian lungs, and then the marshrutka pulls over as soon as possible, allowing you to relieve the van of your armpit scent and depart. If you’re having trouble getting out of the van, this is a good thing; you’re supposed to have the sensation that you and the billion others crammed into the car are going to be smuggled into Belarus. I’m not sure why Russians would want to be smuggled into Belarus, but that’s the feeling I got.

A native Russian I know inquired about my rash yesterday. I had discussed with her and several others my experience on the marshrutka earlier that day, and she said it’s possible I was having an allergic reaction because people from Azerbaijan make the marshrutki very dirty.

Besides enjoying an exhilarating commute to school, struggling to diffuse tension between myself and a certain cat (whose name begins with a “V” and ends with an “asinka”) and inadvertently inhaling massive amounts of secondhand smoke, I’ve been doing a few other things in St. Petersburg. One of these is not getting lost again.

Yesterday we went to St. Isaac’s Cathedral, which is also one of the most beautiful buildings I’ve ever seen. If you spend a lifetime hiking up the cathedral’s stairs, you’ll see a gorgeous view of the city. The church is more in the Western European style than the Russian style, so it will be really interesting to see Russian-style churches on some of our other excursions.

I made a giant list of activities I’m really dying to do before I leave the city. I accomplished three of these activities today. After school, I went to Dom Knigi, Teremok, and to a grocery store I had heard was great but apparently no longer exists. Dom Knigi, or The House of the Book, is St. Petersburg’s best and biggest bookstore. 

It’s a must. But Dostoevsky begs to differ.

I went to the bookstore to look around for a few hours, but the ultimate goal was to buy a collection of Anna Axhmatova poetry and Dostoevsky’s The Double, both of which I would like to put myself through the pain of struggling to read in Russian. The Double is one of my Russian literature favorites, and my inner (and outer) nerd got more and more excited at the prospect of finding it at the store. There were plenty of Anna Axhmatova collections, but The Double was nowhere to be found. I was concerned I wasn’t reading the Cyrillic correctly or that it was buried somewhere under all the Crime and Punishments. I asked a saleswoman to help me who, after scanning the shelf I had been staring at for a good long time, said, “No, I don’t think we have it. It looks like The Double is in this big book of other books if you want to buy that, but it’s kind of heavy and expensive.”

Meanwhile, in the bookstore basement I found an entire section on gastroenterology.

Russia excels at making life far more difficult than necessary. Want to buy your favorite Russian book ever in Russian by Russia’s greatest literary hero of all time at one of Russia’s greatest bookstores? Absolutely not! Expecting water to come out of that sink faucet anytime soon? Fat chance! So you don’t want the elevator to stop at several completely random floors on your way down to the first? No way! Looking for the non-smoking section in the restaurant? I don’t even know what that is…

Russia is great at some things, though. For example, the emergency system is spot on. Just dial one number for fire, another for ambulance, another for police, and another for gas leak.

Whoops! How could I forget? The most important emergency number is for…”suspected” наркоман or, as it both translates and transliterates directly into English, ”suspected” narcoman. No, I’m not making this up. Yes, it is what you think it is, and you may do your research if you like.

I imagine the following conversation happening (heaven forbid):

Man (after dialing narcoman emergency): Please help! There’s a fire!

Woman: Allyo? Who’s calling?

Man: Please send fire trucks immediately!

Woman:  Firetrucks? Pauses, then giggles. Oh, silly! I think you have the wrong number! By the way, any narcomen around? If so, send ‘em on over! 

I finished the day with amazing honey bliniy from Teremok, which is like a fast-food Russian crepe stand. Well, I guess the day's not finished yet. I have to finish preparing a presentation/monologue for my conversation class on shopping and consumerism. Looking forward to ranting about The Double at Dom Knigi.

Oh, sorry. I almost forgot. This week promises to be incredibly dull.

The lineup: Eugene Onegin at the Mariinsky Theatre on Wednesday, snazzy Italian dinner and Gogol Bordello in concert on Friday, and trip to Novgorod and Pskov on Saturday and Sunday.    

If there’s a heaven, this is it.

Let’s keep this on the hush-hush and not tell Dost'y,

Даша/Dasha/Dana