In the last post I wrote about Sakha language and a bit about the language situation, especially in the city. It's appropriate then, that I talk a little about the villages here, where Sakha language is especially alive and active and where I've had the most opportunities to speak Sakha language. There are, in fact, people living in the villages who struggle with Russian. They speak only Sakha language with friends and family and have reason to speak Russian only at school, where all are of course expected to learn it and indeed take most of their classes in Russian. It happens though, when all the pupils are Sakha and all the teachers Sakha, that many of the classes are effectively taught in Sakha language and so even teenagers will be shy about speaking Russian.
A week and a half ago I had the opportunity to visit the village of Borogontsi, which is just a 2 hour car trip away from Yakutsk. Some of you may have already noticed the pictures in the slide show from my trip. I accompanied my Sakha language teacher, Stepan Konstantinovich [first name + patronymic is the polite from of address in Russian, like saying Mister or Ms. in English] to the 135th anniversary of Muru school number 1, where he studied just one year. Being 135 years old, however, this school is one of the oldest in the whole region. Schooling only became widespread during the Soviet period, in the 1920's, so when Muru school number 1 was opened in 1873, it was unique indeed. As far as I could tell, almost all the graduates who had the means to come came (there were even representatives from the class of 1930!) and organized reunions by graduating class.
My trip began in Yakutsk on Friday afternoon as my teacher and I, in his car, stopped by the bus station to pick up passengers so they could help pay for the gas to get there. We managed to find 3 people to fit in the back seat, who covered the cost of our trip for significantly less than it would have cost them to take the bus. The road there, like all roads after you leave the center of the city is unpaved. It still being winter, it was better than it is in the summertime as the packed snow makes a relatively smooth driving surface. Where it takes 2 hours in the winter to get there, it can take up to 4 or 5 hours in the summer. To get there, we first drove through the hills around Yakutsk and the coal-mining operations that extract the valuable mineral from them until we reached the banks of the Lena river. It still being winter, we then drive down onto the river, where there is a road cleared on the ice. When I've been with other people, religious or not, superstitious or not, they typically give an offering to the river for luck on their trip. Depending on the person, the offering can be a bit of juice, some bread, candy, cigarettes or alcohol. But typically something consumable. However, my teacher is either scatter-brained and forgets to do such things or simply doesn't care and so we didn't stop.
We arrived in the village earlier than expected, around 5:30, dropped off the passengers at their various destinations and proceeded on to Stepan Konstantinovich's younger sister's house. Since we showed up so early, the family had not yet come home from work, but anyway, Stepan Konstantinovich walked right in without knocking and began to make tea, etc. This is something that continually surprises me here and which I'm only starting to get used to--for close friends and family (even distant relatives) homes are always open. They come for dinner or lunch or just to hang out for half an hour, but are always expected to simply walk right in and make themselves comfortable. Furthermore it's not unusual for relatives to raise each others' children or for them to stay for long periods of time at one another's houses. Just one other example--last summer, my teacher's "nephew" lived with him in Yakutsk while he was going to college. I only just found out that the way they are related is that my teacher's grandmother is his great-grandmother's sister, which makes them quite distantly related indeed.
Anyway, the sister and her husband eventually arrived home and their 20-something son, Kolya came in soon after. We were a long time getting dinner on the table and didn't start eating until well after 8pm, but in the meantime chatted and played with their granddaughter, Diana, who is just 9 months old. I'm proud to say that I hardly spoke a Russian word all evening, managing to participate pretty actively in the conversation using only Sakha language and to follow most of what was going on. After dinner, Kolya disappeared, but the rest of us sat drinking (as usual, the men vodka and the women wine) and chatting until late in the evening. And as usual, I was put in my own room while everyone else split up into the other two bedrooms.
The next day I was able to see a bit of the village. The village is situated on the banks of a big lake, called Lake Muruu, hence the name of the school. When I asked my teacher what the name of the lake was, however, he whispered it, explaining that Sakha never say the names of bodies of water loudly. The village has a population of around 2000 and is the administrative center of the "ulus" or county of Ust-Aldan. As such, a lot of people there have jobs in government offices (like S.K.'s brother-in-law), or banks (like Kolya) or other such institutions and don't necessarily do a lot of farming, as they do in most other villages. However, almost everyone has a good-sized garden and a sizeable portion of residents keep animals. S.K.'s relatives, for instance, have quite a few horses and a hen house full of chickens.
Some of the buildings in the center of the city, for instance the school and the government buildings, are built from stone and/or synthetic materials, but almost all of the other buildings and houses are made of wood. And indeed, most people build their houses themselves. Like everywhere outside of the biggest cities, there is no running water in the town and so all the houses have outhouses for toilets and a bucket positioned over a sink to wash your hands. Instead of showers, those who can afford them have bathhouses, which are effectively saunas. Once a week or so, they heat them up and everyone goes in one by one and scrubs themselves silly, using the cleansing powers of sweat to help.
S.K.'s sister's house is situated some distance from the center of town, on the edge of a large field where they grow hay for their horses in the summertime. Just beyond that field is the forest, where everyone gathers berries and mushrooms in the summertime. As the weather was getting warmer, Sunday morning the women all went for a walk in the forest while the men stayed back at the house grilling "shashlik" or shish-kabobs--a favorite springtime activity here. By that time, S.K.' sister's daughter (the mother of the 9-month old) had also arrived from Yakutsk, bringing with her some of her brother's friends and we all stood around, chatting and enjoying the spring day, before S.K. and I left for the city that afternoon.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Language
Sorry all for the long break, but I've had intermittent internet problems and have been very busy anyway. As a general update I can say that things are going quite well...I've been especially concentrating on learning Sakha language and have been making a bit of progress finally, after a total of 5 months studying (three months last summer and 2 this winter/spring). I am beginning to be comfortable holding short conversations even. In honor of that, I thought I'd write this blog post about Sakha language--first a few words about the language itself and then some about the language situation in the region.
For those of you who don't know Sakha language is the indigenous language of people who live here. It has Turkic roots, so is more closely related to the languages of Central Asia (Kazakh, Kirghiz, etc.) and to Turkish. As an example, one Turkish friend of mine here who has never studied Sakha language can typically understand quite a bit of what is going on when people are speaking Sakha. Sakha is also incredibly complicated, grammatically speaking and the logic of the language is quite different from English which makes it super complicated to actually speak despite knowing a lot of words. The verbs, for example, always come at the end of a sentence--which, for an English speaker creates a logical problem since we're used to thinking about verbs first and then objects and direct objects later. On top of that, they have about a hundred different affixes that they add to nouns and verbs in order give meaning. For instance, instead of using an extra word, e.g. "yet" in "I have not yet eaten." The verb is conjugated differently--the incomplete present tense. Furthermore, instead of using a word like "not" to show negation, they conjugate the verb differently. So, instead of saying "I do not eat vegetables", they would conjugate the verb "to eat" in the negative form. It makes it super complicated that they do not have a simply translated "yes" and "no"--when someone asks you, "do you like Yakutia", for instance, instead of saying "yes" you have to repeat the verb in the positive form, "I like." "Instead of saying "no" you have to repeat the verb in the negative form: "I don't like." And there are a million other complicated things about the language that I won't bore you any further with :)
As far as usage of the language goes, it is varied. Despite the fact that during the Soviet period official language policy actually promoted the use of the language, to some degree, in schools, especially those in the villages, most people I talk with seemed to feel a lot of pressure to use more Russian and to give up their native language. They talk about being embarrassed to be Sakha speakers and feeling like using the language in public in the central cities of the Republic was even taboo. However, since the collapse of the Soviet Union speaking Sakha has become much more popular and you can hear people speaking it everywhere. There is quite a bit of pride, in fact, in being able to speak "their native language" and Russian-speaking Sakha now are more likely to feel ashamed of their inability to speak Sakha. Nevertheless, most kids growing up in Yakutsk, at least, don't end up speaking Sakha at home and therefore end up as Russian speaking. Even some that speak the language at home, but go to school only in Russian, feel more comfortable speaking Russian.
One example of this is the family of my Sakha language teacher. He is a Sakha teacher and his wife is a "culturologist", studying mostly Sakha culture. They have 3 children, 26, 17, and 12. With each other, my teacher and his wife almost exclusively speak Sakha and before their 3 children started school, they all spoke almost no Russian at all. When they started school, however, their teachers reported to the parents that the children had to be held back because of their bad Russian and therefore, they had to be made to learn Russian as quickly and completely as possible. So, they switched to using Russian at home, not imagining that their children would lose the language entirely. The oldest son was lucky because he spent every summer with relatives in the countryside, so continued to speak Sakha. The younger two daughters, however, stopped speaking entirely. The 17-year old now has absolutely no interest in the language and, while she understands some when people speak to her, she makes no attempts to speak herself. The 12-year old I think has picked up more of her parents' sense of shame that she can't speak and wants to really badly. But its really difficult for her and, being 12, doesn't really have the self-discipline to make herself learn.
And so, you have this sharp distinction between city Sakha and village Sakha--city Sakha, being largely Russian-speaking, and village Sakha being Sakha speaking. For this reason, people continue to emphasize to me that if I want to really learn Sakha, I have to go live in the villages (or at least in one of the smaller cities). Indeed, this is what I intend to do, when I go to the city of Nyurba at the end of April.
This past weekend, my teacher took me to a village, Borogontsi, where many of his relatives live. Indeed there, they really do speak Sakha. Everyone could speak Russian, but predominantly, even with me, spoke Sakha. We visited the school there, which was exclusively a Sakha language school (with the exception, of course, of Russian language and literature). To help facilitate my use of the language, my teacher would tell people that I didn't speak Russian, forcing them to have to speak with me in Sakha. I was a little embarrassed by this at times, especially since I have worked so long and hard to learn Russian, it was difficult to sit there and say, yes, yes, I don't know any Russian. But, surprisingly people responded astonishingly well. One woman even bowed before me upon being told I speak Sakha but not Russian. Of course, I think she was joking, but it's still indicative of the feeling that some have that their language is being smothered by Russian. For a foreigner to come here and speak Sakha and not Russian, for a lot of people, is a huge compliment to their language and its usefulness in the world.
For those of you who don't know Sakha language is the indigenous language of people who live here. It has Turkic roots, so is more closely related to the languages of Central Asia (Kazakh, Kirghiz, etc.) and to Turkish. As an example, one Turkish friend of mine here who has never studied Sakha language can typically understand quite a bit of what is going on when people are speaking Sakha. Sakha is also incredibly complicated, grammatically speaking and the logic of the language is quite different from English which makes it super complicated to actually speak despite knowing a lot of words. The verbs, for example, always come at the end of a sentence--which, for an English speaker creates a logical problem since we're used to thinking about verbs first and then objects and direct objects later. On top of that, they have about a hundred different affixes that they add to nouns and verbs in order give meaning. For instance, instead of using an extra word, e.g. "yet" in "I have not yet eaten." The verb is conjugated differently--the incomplete present tense. Furthermore, instead of using a word like "not" to show negation, they conjugate the verb differently. So, instead of saying "I do not eat vegetables", they would conjugate the verb "to eat" in the negative form. It makes it super complicated that they do not have a simply translated "yes" and "no"--when someone asks you, "do you like Yakutia", for instance, instead of saying "yes" you have to repeat the verb in the positive form, "I like." "Instead of saying "no" you have to repeat the verb in the negative form: "I don't like." And there are a million other complicated things about the language that I won't bore you any further with :)
As far as usage of the language goes, it is varied. Despite the fact that during the Soviet period official language policy actually promoted the use of the language, to some degree, in schools, especially those in the villages, most people I talk with seemed to feel a lot of pressure to use more Russian and to give up their native language. They talk about being embarrassed to be Sakha speakers and feeling like using the language in public in the central cities of the Republic was even taboo. However, since the collapse of the Soviet Union speaking Sakha has become much more popular and you can hear people speaking it everywhere. There is quite a bit of pride, in fact, in being able to speak "their native language" and Russian-speaking Sakha now are more likely to feel ashamed of their inability to speak Sakha. Nevertheless, most kids growing up in Yakutsk, at least, don't end up speaking Sakha at home and therefore end up as Russian speaking. Even some that speak the language at home, but go to school only in Russian, feel more comfortable speaking Russian.
One example of this is the family of my Sakha language teacher. He is a Sakha teacher and his wife is a "culturologist", studying mostly Sakha culture. They have 3 children, 26, 17, and 12. With each other, my teacher and his wife almost exclusively speak Sakha and before their 3 children started school, they all spoke almost no Russian at all. When they started school, however, their teachers reported to the parents that the children had to be held back because of their bad Russian and therefore, they had to be made to learn Russian as quickly and completely as possible. So, they switched to using Russian at home, not imagining that their children would lose the language entirely. The oldest son was lucky because he spent every summer with relatives in the countryside, so continued to speak Sakha. The younger two daughters, however, stopped speaking entirely. The 17-year old now has absolutely no interest in the language and, while she understands some when people speak to her, she makes no attempts to speak herself. The 12-year old I think has picked up more of her parents' sense of shame that she can't speak and wants to really badly. But its really difficult for her and, being 12, doesn't really have the self-discipline to make herself learn.
And so, you have this sharp distinction between city Sakha and village Sakha--city Sakha, being largely Russian-speaking, and village Sakha being Sakha speaking. For this reason, people continue to emphasize to me that if I want to really learn Sakha, I have to go live in the villages (or at least in one of the smaller cities). Indeed, this is what I intend to do, when I go to the city of Nyurba at the end of April.
This past weekend, my teacher took me to a village, Borogontsi, where many of his relatives live. Indeed there, they really do speak Sakha. Everyone could speak Russian, but predominantly, even with me, spoke Sakha. We visited the school there, which was exclusively a Sakha language school (with the exception, of course, of Russian language and literature). To help facilitate my use of the language, my teacher would tell people that I didn't speak Russian, forcing them to have to speak with me in Sakha. I was a little embarrassed by this at times, especially since I have worked so long and hard to learn Russian, it was difficult to sit there and say, yes, yes, I don't know any Russian. But, surprisingly people responded astonishingly well. One woman even bowed before me upon being told I speak Sakha but not Russian. Of course, I think she was joking, but it's still indicative of the feeling that some have that their language is being smothered by Russian. For a foreigner to come here and speak Sakha and not Russian, for a lot of people, is a huge compliment to their language and its usefulness in the world.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Mister Yakutia
Thursday night, the Austrian girls and I were given free tickets to go see the annual "Mister Yakutia" competition, in which 24 of the most beautiful male Yakutians are brought together to demonstrate their talent and beauty. It was surprisingly entertaining.
The show began with the men being paraded onto stage, shirtless with traditional Sakha peasant (slave?) pants, following a man dressed as a wealthy toyon, or Sakha noble man, drums beating in the background. They performed a short dance/ceremony for us and then each came forward and introduced himself in his language of choice--about half spoke Russian, half Sakha. Most were university students, between the ages of 18 and 24 and many did not necessarily fit what you might imagine as the stereotypical beauty contestant participant. Some were tall and thin, others short and hefty, some super fit, others a little pudgy. There were stern, stoic faces and big, silly smiles. Most were Sakha ethnicity, but there were a few Russians in there as well.
After introducing themselves, they left the stage to change clothes and we were shown film clips from the previous days' sports competitions--almost all traditional Sakha sports like wrestling, pulling a stick (two contestants sit opposite one another, holding a horizontal wooden stick and try to pull it from the other's hands), long jumping and then, hopping on one foot.
When they came back on they were dressed as soldiers in the army, marched around the stage in a few formations and then one by one came forward and showed a little dance/kung-fu like move. Some were quited talented break dancers, others just did something silly. The best thing about the evening was that they all seemed to be taking the contest light-heartedly and even making fun of themselves a bit. The next number was a costume show--they each picked some kind of costume that showed off their style and sense of self. A couple dressed as traditional Sakha warriors, others dressed in sillier outfits--like a pirate, a sad clown, a doctor, a snowboarder, etc.
Finally, the "jury" left the hall to discuss the final results of the evening. We were kept waiting an hour or more and with the anticipation building, they came back in to announce the winners. First, each of the jury members chose one man as their choice--kind of as a runner up prize. Then, the top 3 were announced. The winner ended up being a young man from one of the provinces of the Republic who studied in the institute of physical education. He was given a hunting rifle as a prize (almost all the men in Yakutia are active hunters) and the opportunity to go to Moscow to compete in the Mister Russia contest.
All in all, the whole evening was surprisingly relaxed and fun, everyone enjoying the silliness of the beauty contest. Some of the men had their support groups in the audience cheering for them, but everyone was just up there having fun.
The show began with the men being paraded onto stage, shirtless with traditional Sakha peasant (slave?) pants, following a man dressed as a wealthy toyon, or Sakha noble man, drums beating in the background. They performed a short dance/ceremony for us and then each came forward and introduced himself in his language of choice--about half spoke Russian, half Sakha. Most were university students, between the ages of 18 and 24 and many did not necessarily fit what you might imagine as the stereotypical beauty contestant participant. Some were tall and thin, others short and hefty, some super fit, others a little pudgy. There were stern, stoic faces and big, silly smiles. Most were Sakha ethnicity, but there were a few Russians in there as well.
After introducing themselves, they left the stage to change clothes and we were shown film clips from the previous days' sports competitions--almost all traditional Sakha sports like wrestling, pulling a stick (two contestants sit opposite one another, holding a horizontal wooden stick and try to pull it from the other's hands), long jumping and then, hopping on one foot.
When they came back on they were dressed as soldiers in the army, marched around the stage in a few formations and then one by one came forward and showed a little dance/kung-fu like move. Some were quited talented break dancers, others just did something silly. The best thing about the evening was that they all seemed to be taking the contest light-heartedly and even making fun of themselves a bit. The next number was a costume show--they each picked some kind of costume that showed off their style and sense of self. A couple dressed as traditional Sakha warriors, others dressed in sillier outfits--like a pirate, a sad clown, a doctor, a snowboarder, etc.
Finally, the "jury" left the hall to discuss the final results of the evening. We were kept waiting an hour or more and with the anticipation building, they came back in to announce the winners. First, each of the jury members chose one man as their choice--kind of as a runner up prize. Then, the top 3 were announced. The winner ended up being a young man from one of the provinces of the Republic who studied in the institute of physical education. He was given a hunting rifle as a prize (almost all the men in Yakutia are active hunters) and the opportunity to go to Moscow to compete in the Mister Russia contest.
All in all, the whole evening was surprisingly relaxed and fun, everyone enjoying the silliness of the beauty contest. Some of the men had their support groups in the audience cheering for them, but everyone was just up there having fun.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Men's Day (or Susan becomes a celebrity)
In Russia, the 23rd of February is men's day. Well, officially, it's "the day of the defenders of the fatherland" (den' zashchitnikov otechestva), but since most men serve in the army, it has become kind of the analog of March 8th (International Women's Day--international in the sense that all the former communist countries celebrate it). Anyway, they have big celebrations all over the country in honor of all the men, whether or not they served in the army. On a frozen lake, near where I live, they had music and other kinds of performances all day long, people gather together with friends and family, women buy their fathers, brothers, sons and husbands/boyfriends small gifts, and, in the evening, young people go out to the clubs, where a whole set of events are staged in honor of men.
My friend, Masha, is a kind of event coordinator in the city, so I had the opportunity to go club-hopping with her as she went around to different places to MC the festivities. First, we went to a restaurant where a group of doctors/medical students had a party. Masha had men volunteer to take part in various games--for instance, who can braid a girl's hair the fastest, who can blow up a balloon until it pops the fastest, who can tie up a girl the fastest so that she can't get out, etc. After a number of these games, she tells them she has a present for all the men. An American young lady has come all this way to congratulate them, and not just in Russian but in Sakha language! And she calls me up on the stage, insisting that I say a few words in Sakha--which for me is still quite difficult. I was mortified as I stumbled through a greeting. and she kindly apologized saying that I was shy... And then, later, after the final game, the prize turned out to be a dance with this same American girl...
A word of explanation: Americans very rarely end up in this part of the world and so I end up as a kind of celebrity at times. America, by virtue of its endless outpouring of hollywood movies, appears as the center of the world, a land of milk and honey where everyone is beautiful and everyone eats in restaurants all the time. So, to simply be from this world is something fascinating for people here. And then, that I can speak Russian and a little Sakha language on top of that gives me far more social capital than I deserve.
Anyway, the night went on and we ended up at a club called "Sporthouse" where further men's day events were being staged--here this included a belly dancer to entertain the fellows. and of course another greeting from the American guest. Fortunately by this time, I had figured out what I was going to say and so no longer looked like a complete fool. Sporthouse is one of the more popular clubs in Yakutsk (although the most popular is without a doubt "Dragon"--a 3-story European style club that has different kinds of techno music on different nights-drum and base, house, etc.). Sport house is two stories--the first floor being the discotec and the second floor for billiards. (I was surprised to find out that Russian billiards is actually played quite differently than in the States--there are no colors and no stripes, any ball can be hit into any other ball. Just one ball is orangey-yellow and is worth more points than the others if you can manage to hit it into the pocket.) After the main festivities, we were introduced to the owner of the establishment who turned out to be overjoyed at the presence of foriegners in his club (at this point some girls from Austria that I knew from the dormitory had met up with us as well--America is not the only place with prestige). We were showered with free drinks and invited to sit and eat various Siberian delicacies with them while we were there. In addition, the idea was proposed that we be given free passes to Sporthouse in order that our presence would somehow give the place greater prestige.
We finally extricated ourselves from our host's hospitality around 2:30 am and headed home. No limousines showed up, but anyway, such was our night of celebrity...
My friend, Masha, is a kind of event coordinator in the city, so I had the opportunity to go club-hopping with her as she went around to different places to MC the festivities. First, we went to a restaurant where a group of doctors/medical students had a party. Masha had men volunteer to take part in various games--for instance, who can braid a girl's hair the fastest, who can blow up a balloon until it pops the fastest, who can tie up a girl the fastest so that she can't get out, etc. After a number of these games, she tells them she has a present for all the men. An American young lady has come all this way to congratulate them, and not just in Russian but in Sakha language! And she calls me up on the stage, insisting that I say a few words in Sakha--which for me is still quite difficult. I was mortified as I stumbled through a greeting. and she kindly apologized saying that I was shy... And then, later, after the final game, the prize turned out to be a dance with this same American girl...
A word of explanation: Americans very rarely end up in this part of the world and so I end up as a kind of celebrity at times. America, by virtue of its endless outpouring of hollywood movies, appears as the center of the world, a land of milk and honey where everyone is beautiful and everyone eats in restaurants all the time. So, to simply be from this world is something fascinating for people here. And then, that I can speak Russian and a little Sakha language on top of that gives me far more social capital than I deserve.
Anyway, the night went on and we ended up at a club called "Sporthouse" where further men's day events were being staged--here this included a belly dancer to entertain the fellows. and of course another greeting from the American guest. Fortunately by this time, I had figured out what I was going to say and so no longer looked like a complete fool. Sporthouse is one of the more popular clubs in Yakutsk (although the most popular is without a doubt "Dragon"--a 3-story European style club that has different kinds of techno music on different nights-drum and base, house, etc.). Sport house is two stories--the first floor being the discotec and the second floor for billiards. (I was surprised to find out that Russian billiards is actually played quite differently than in the States--there are no colors and no stripes, any ball can be hit into any other ball. Just one ball is orangey-yellow and is worth more points than the others if you can manage to hit it into the pocket.) After the main festivities, we were introduced to the owner of the establishment who turned out to be overjoyed at the presence of foriegners in his club (at this point some girls from Austria that I knew from the dormitory had met up with us as well--America is not the only place with prestige). We were showered with free drinks and invited to sit and eat various Siberian delicacies with them while we were there. In addition, the idea was proposed that we be given free passes to Sporthouse in order that our presence would somehow give the place greater prestige.
We finally extricated ourselves from our host's hospitality around 2:30 am and headed home. No limousines showed up, but anyway, such was our night of celebrity...
Lost in Translation
An embarassing, but yet funny enough story that it must be shared...
Since I arrived here, I have been plagued by static electricity--wearing heavy winter clothes all the time in a rather dry climate creates a lot of it. As such, every time I take off my hat, half of my hair stands up on end. So, since I've arrived I've been thinking of trying to find some kind of hair product that would help with that--in particular mousse, I thought, would be just the thing. Of course, how to say "mousse" in Russian--I hadn't yet figured out. Well, the other day, as I was taking a shower, I noticed that one of the other girls who uses the same shower had a bottle of something called, in Russian, "moos." and then something about hair, but I didn't look too closely or pay too much attention, assuming it must what I was looking for.
Well, a bit later, again frustrated by my hair, I decided she wouldn't mind if I took just a touch of it. I sprayed it onto my hand, and indeed it looked like mousse, so I put a bit in my hair to just flatten it down. The first thing I noticed was that it smelled absolutely terrible. Thinking, what kind of strange Russian mousse is this, I tried to pull a brush through my hair so that it spread through a bit more. But I couldn't even pull the brush through my hair--it seemed to have become completely like straw. Still not thinking it might not actually be mousse (I never use hair products at home, so I'm not used to what the results ought to be), I washed it out of my hair--I had to wash it three times and my hair still smelled a little.
Next, when I was brushing my hair, I noticed that my lap became covered with small pieces of hair--I thought, that's odd but was in a hurry by this time and didn't really pay attention. Later that evening, I was telling the girl who's bottle it was about her strange mousse--she looks at me with this pained expression on her face. "You put that in your hair?" she says, "Susan, that's not mousse..." It turns out that rather than mousse, it was "moos dlya ydaleniya volosi"--meaning, cream for getting rid of hair--that is, the stuff like Nair, that you put on your legs to dissolve your leg hair instead of shaving. So, not only was it not helping my hair to lay flat, it was actually dissolving it!
Fortunately, I didn't use very much, so it could have been far far worse. As it is, I'm still brushing small pieces of hair out whenver I brush my hair and, if you look closely you can see that I've got quite a lot more shorter hairs, flyaways, but it's not really noticeable to anyone but me. Of course, the static has actually gotten worse because of the top layer of short hairs that all stand up straight when I pull off my hat. But, they will grow long again and I've at least got a funny story to tell...
Since I arrived here, I have been plagued by static electricity--wearing heavy winter clothes all the time in a rather dry climate creates a lot of it. As such, every time I take off my hat, half of my hair stands up on end. So, since I've arrived I've been thinking of trying to find some kind of hair product that would help with that--in particular mousse, I thought, would be just the thing. Of course, how to say "mousse" in Russian--I hadn't yet figured out. Well, the other day, as I was taking a shower, I noticed that one of the other girls who uses the same shower had a bottle of something called, in Russian, "moos." and then something about hair, but I didn't look too closely or pay too much attention, assuming it must what I was looking for.
Well, a bit later, again frustrated by my hair, I decided she wouldn't mind if I took just a touch of it. I sprayed it onto my hand, and indeed it looked like mousse, so I put a bit in my hair to just flatten it down. The first thing I noticed was that it smelled absolutely terrible. Thinking, what kind of strange Russian mousse is this, I tried to pull a brush through my hair so that it spread through a bit more. But I couldn't even pull the brush through my hair--it seemed to have become completely like straw. Still not thinking it might not actually be mousse (I never use hair products at home, so I'm not used to what the results ought to be), I washed it out of my hair--I had to wash it three times and my hair still smelled a little.
Next, when I was brushing my hair, I noticed that my lap became covered with small pieces of hair--I thought, that's odd but was in a hurry by this time and didn't really pay attention. Later that evening, I was telling the girl who's bottle it was about her strange mousse--she looks at me with this pained expression on her face. "You put that in your hair?" she says, "Susan, that's not mousse..." It turns out that rather than mousse, it was "moos dlya ydaleniya volosi"--meaning, cream for getting rid of hair--that is, the stuff like Nair, that you put on your legs to dissolve your leg hair instead of shaving. So, not only was it not helping my hair to lay flat, it was actually dissolving it!
Fortunately, I didn't use very much, so it could have been far far worse. As it is, I'm still brushing small pieces of hair out whenver I brush my hair and, if you look closely you can see that I've got quite a lot more shorter hairs, flyaways, but it's not really noticeable to anyone but me. Of course, the static has actually gotten worse because of the top layer of short hairs that all stand up straight when I pull off my hat. But, they will grow long again and I've at least got a funny story to tell...
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
At the Market
Last Sunday I went shopping--which always seems to be an adventure here. I was trying to act as the tourguide this time, however, as 3 Austrian girls had just arrived in Yakutsk and didn't know their way around. Of course, despite having spent a considerable amount of time in the city, I managed to put us on 3 wrong buses before we got on the right one and found our way to the market we wanted to go to, that is "krestyanskii rynok" or "peasant market". I wanted to go here in particular because it's one of the larger markets and has a wide variety of both food and other products. Half of the market is outside, while half of it is in a large 2-story building. The cheaper products are, naturally, all outside, while the more expensive things are inside.
Sunday, of course, happened to be one of the coldest days yet since I've been here--well below -40 degrees, a fact discernable by the thickness of the fog the enshrouds the city. Below -35 or so there is a thin fog and it gets thicker the colder it gets. So, Sunday we could hardly see 5 feet in front of us, meaning that it was likely around -47,-48, which partly accounted for my inability to actually get us to the market. Despite the cold temperatures, all the outdoor merchants had their little shops set up. No one, however, was there shopping. Perhaps out of boredom or perhaps to keep themselves active, they all decided to harass the foriegners--as we obviously were. So, before we even got to the indoor 2-story building, we had to pass through the gauntlet of outdoor merchants standing in front of piles of frozen rabbits, squirrels, fish and moose meat. They had no problem grabbing our arms to lead us to their stands. Initially, the interest was in getting us to buy products from them, but soon they stopped caring about that altogether and poured an onslaught of questions--where are you from? why are you here? what do you think of yakutia? aren't you cold? how old are you? what is your name? I have a cousin in America! Do you know Brittany Spears? And one man, who was very proud of his limited English speaking ability, decided to demostrate with repeated declarations of "I love you baby," accompanied by attempts to hug and kiss me. It gets to feeling a little like being an animal in a zoo sometimes.
Having frozen ourselves fending off the outdoor vendors, we made our way inside the two story, brick building. On the first floor is where they sell fruits and vegetables (during the summer this is all outside as well, but understandably can't be in the winter). These are all in one large room. There are about 4 or five kiosks there, selling potatoes, onions, carrots, cabbages and even oranges, grapes, apples, tomatoes and bananas. The latter group are extremely expensive, however, (grapes were $6 a kilogram) and not the best quality. So I find it best to stick with the root veggies. All of the vendors sell precisely the same products for precisely the same prices--I can't for the life of me decide how people decide who to buy from because I simply don't see a difference in quality, price, or selection. I choose randomly typically.
Passing through the fruit and veggie room, you get to a corrider that winds around a large staircase. The corrider is lined with various shops selling assorted products like toiletries or movies or simply socks or handbags. On the second floor of the market is a much larger room where meat and dairy products are. Again individual vendors sell much the same products, lined up one after another in front of little refrigerators showing their butter, cheese, ground beef, large chunks of beef, horse, etc. and even intenstines, tounges and heads of various animals. They call out as you walk past "what are you looking for?" "here, take some cow toungue--the highest quality! I'll give you a discount, special for our visitors (priezhie)."
Also on this floor are small stores similar to those that are everywhere in the city that sell a wide range of groceries. Like in other stores as well, all the products are displayed behind the counter and you have to ask the cashier to grab things for you. However, shopping in the market is generally much more pleasant than elsewhere as you can wander around and look at what all the different vendors are selling and think about what it is that you want to buy. Some will even barter with you a bit if you push them to--"those are so expensive, you can't give me a discount?" Although, bartering culture is not super highly developed here as in other places I've been--the posted price is generally a fair price, so that you're not expected to haggle and if business is good, the vendors won't go any lower. I often give it a try, because things are not cheap here--I think because of the cost of importing things, oftentimes some products are even more expensive than they would be in the US.
Sunday, of course, happened to be one of the coldest days yet since I've been here--well below -40 degrees, a fact discernable by the thickness of the fog the enshrouds the city. Below -35 or so there is a thin fog and it gets thicker the colder it gets. So, Sunday we could hardly see 5 feet in front of us, meaning that it was likely around -47,-48, which partly accounted for my inability to actually get us to the market. Despite the cold temperatures, all the outdoor merchants had their little shops set up. No one, however, was there shopping. Perhaps out of boredom or perhaps to keep themselves active, they all decided to harass the foriegners--as we obviously were. So, before we even got to the indoor 2-story building, we had to pass through the gauntlet of outdoor merchants standing in front of piles of frozen rabbits, squirrels, fish and moose meat. They had no problem grabbing our arms to lead us to their stands. Initially, the interest was in getting us to buy products from them, but soon they stopped caring about that altogether and poured an onslaught of questions--where are you from? why are you here? what do you think of yakutia? aren't you cold? how old are you? what is your name? I have a cousin in America! Do you know Brittany Spears? And one man, who was very proud of his limited English speaking ability, decided to demostrate with repeated declarations of "I love you baby," accompanied by attempts to hug and kiss me. It gets to feeling a little like being an animal in a zoo sometimes.
Having frozen ourselves fending off the outdoor vendors, we made our way inside the two story, brick building. On the first floor is where they sell fruits and vegetables (during the summer this is all outside as well, but understandably can't be in the winter). These are all in one large room. There are about 4 or five kiosks there, selling potatoes, onions, carrots, cabbages and even oranges, grapes, apples, tomatoes and bananas. The latter group are extremely expensive, however, (grapes were $6 a kilogram) and not the best quality. So I find it best to stick with the root veggies. All of the vendors sell precisely the same products for precisely the same prices--I can't for the life of me decide how people decide who to buy from because I simply don't see a difference in quality, price, or selection. I choose randomly typically.
Passing through the fruit and veggie room, you get to a corrider that winds around a large staircase. The corrider is lined with various shops selling assorted products like toiletries or movies or simply socks or handbags. On the second floor of the market is a much larger room where meat and dairy products are. Again individual vendors sell much the same products, lined up one after another in front of little refrigerators showing their butter, cheese, ground beef, large chunks of beef, horse, etc. and even intenstines, tounges and heads of various animals. They call out as you walk past "what are you looking for?" "here, take some cow toungue--the highest quality! I'll give you a discount, special for our visitors (priezhie)."
Also on this floor are small stores similar to those that are everywhere in the city that sell a wide range of groceries. Like in other stores as well, all the products are displayed behind the counter and you have to ask the cashier to grab things for you. However, shopping in the market is generally much more pleasant than elsewhere as you can wander around and look at what all the different vendors are selling and think about what it is that you want to buy. Some will even barter with you a bit if you push them to--"those are so expensive, you can't give me a discount?" Although, bartering culture is not super highly developed here as in other places I've been--the posted price is generally a fair price, so that you're not expected to haggle and if business is good, the vendors won't go any lower. I often give it a try, because things are not cheap here--I think because of the cost of importing things, oftentimes some products are even more expensive than they would be in the US.
Valentine's Day in Siberia
Today is Valentine's Day and, indeed, the people of Yakutsk have embraced this holiday and all the Hallmark traditions. Young children give me small cards with short messages like "we go better together" and recieve heaps from their friends at school. Teenagers and young adult couples go out to restaurants or to the movies. Even the old ladies greet you with "happy valentine's day!"
Today, I visited a grade school (the city lyceum), where they were having a giant valentine's day celebration. As I walked into the main hall, it seemed the whole school was gathered in front of the stairs, while two girls, wearing red heart pins to hold up their pig tales spoke into microphones, music playing in the background--announcing the results of some kind of contest. Once I got through the crowd, I was greeted by the teacher who had invited me there and she led me to her class where Russian children were learning Yakut language. Today was to be the day that the students recited poems in Yakut language for the teachers and me (as the distinguished guest from America). So I sat and watched as student after student got up and recited a few lines.
People here love contests. At school, the students not only compete for grades, but often are competing for awards. The awards include "best reader of poems in the 5th grade", and other types of honors. As an oddity, I am often invited to come watch or sometimes even to participate as part of the "jury"--which is always an odd place to be. I always thought that our culture is very competitive, caught up with ranking people, etc. and I always had difficulties grading students papers for that reason. But, here, I am asked to rank students constantly and I'm not even their teacher. I want to simply say, you all did a great job and leave it at that but I am often pressed to say who is the best out of all the students. I think that these kind of awards and rankings are in a way more meaningful for people than are grades. But yet, at the same time, they don't take them as seriously as I sometimes think people do in the states, i.e. getting a low rank doesn't seem to bother them. But then again, perhaps I am projecting my own complexes onto all American people =)
Today, I visited a grade school (the city lyceum), where they were having a giant valentine's day celebration. As I walked into the main hall, it seemed the whole school was gathered in front of the stairs, while two girls, wearing red heart pins to hold up their pig tales spoke into microphones, music playing in the background--announcing the results of some kind of contest. Once I got through the crowd, I was greeted by the teacher who had invited me there and she led me to her class where Russian children were learning Yakut language. Today was to be the day that the students recited poems in Yakut language for the teachers and me (as the distinguished guest from America). So I sat and watched as student after student got up and recited a few lines.
People here love contests. At school, the students not only compete for grades, but often are competing for awards. The awards include "best reader of poems in the 5th grade", and other types of honors. As an oddity, I am often invited to come watch or sometimes even to participate as part of the "jury"--which is always an odd place to be. I always thought that our culture is very competitive, caught up with ranking people, etc. and I always had difficulties grading students papers for that reason. But, here, I am asked to rank students constantly and I'm not even their teacher. I want to simply say, you all did a great job and leave it at that but I am often pressed to say who is the best out of all the students. I think that these kind of awards and rankings are in a way more meaningful for people than are grades. But yet, at the same time, they don't take them as seriously as I sometimes think people do in the states, i.e. getting a low rank doesn't seem to bother them. But then again, perhaps I am projecting my own complexes onto all American people =)
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