Highlights: Week of the 16th

Moscow Museums:

One thing I definitely picked up from my parents growing up was a love for history. Because of that, and since visiting museums always made up a big part of our travels growing up, I've been looking forward to checking out some of the museums here in Moscow. Luckily, one of my roommates is also into that sort of thing, and agreed to do a "museum day" with me. The two we got to were the Museum of Russian Contemporary History


("CCCP" is "USSR" in Russian. Notice the very soviet-looking worker on the sign--the old Soviet propaganda throughout the museum was really interesting)

and the Gulag Museum

("The Gulag" was the government group that was in charge of sending people to labor camps--the most well-known of which were in Siberia).

Something interesting about these two museums was how polar opposite they were from one other. I'd never really thought of museums as being able to biased, really, until now: the first museum presented almost all of Russia's history w/ a positive twist, only briefly touching on the unpleasant parts, while the Gulag Museum, for obvious reasons, was much more negative.

For instance, here is a picture of Stalin that was in the Gulag Museum:



There definitely wasn't anything quite like this in the Contemporary History Museum. (Another big disparity between the museums was how much government funding each clearly received--knowing the spin on Russian contemporary history each gave, I bet you can all guess which was which.)

Anyway, both were very well done, had packets in English explaining the displays (so nice!!), and gave me a much better sense of Russian history. Knowing the history of a place definitely increases one's ability to appreciate being there.

A funny translation on a sign at one of the museums:


Institute Talent Show:
After our day of museums, it was a nice break to walk over to the institute to watch a talent show! Since going to the International Branch means that we don't really meet too many Russian members, being the only American YSA's there (other than some missionaries, I guess) among this big group was very interesting and fun.

Dyevuhchika Oocheet Puhrooski:

Before it started, Whitney and I had fun looking through the Russian hymn book and, using our small but developing Russian vocabularies, guessing what song each one was. No, we weren't allowed to sight read the music.

For instance, since we know our colors and the word for "far," we picked out "There is a Green Hill Far Away" pretty quickly. Its been fun being able to understand more and more little things here and there.

My Russian Boyfriend:

Since I've been here, several people back home have asked me whether I'd found a Russian boyfriend yet. While the answer to that is still a no, this YSA/serious Russian bodybuilder I met at the institute talent show is probably the best candidate I've found so far.

In case you were worried, he's the one on the right. His name is Nikita. And his arms are I think twice the width of my head. For his talent, he just stomped onto the stage, held this 50 pound weight out at various angles for a few minutes, and then sat back down. It was pretty intimidating. After the show, he for some reason came over and started up a conversation with me. Most of which he spent telling me about his work out schedule: "I wake up. Eat breekfust. Then for two hours, think. Pree-pare for work out. Then go to gym." If you read that w/ a Russian bodybuilder accent, you'll know how it went. Funny stuff. This is me trying to lift Nikita's weight off the ground.


Ochin ploha.

Kremlin at Night

After the talent show, Whitney and I got to experience Red Square at night for the first time.

The bridge near the Kremlin


The Gum


MSU
The pictures pretty much speak for themselves--so beautiful!

My Birthday!

When I first realized that I'd be celebrating my birthday in Russia, I was for some reason kind of bummed. However, it turned out to be one of the best birthdays ever. :) In the morning, I got to GoogleChat w/ my family, which was the greatest. At school, the kids all sang to me during opening. And then that night at the apartment, we had a little partay.

Gluten-free blondies:

My mom bought me this mix right before I came, and it has been patiently sitting on my shelf in the cabinet, waiting for my birthday. We'd all been anticipating it very much. While the mix smelled and looked like runny cardboard, it was very delicious. Hurray for arrowroot flour and xantham gum!


The "22" is written in the little bit of frosting Sarah had left from what she brought from the states. They don't sell pre-made frosting here.

Presents!:

I couldn't have asked for better gifts this year. One was some cough medicine from my roommates. Or, what they assumed was cough medicine, since the picture on the front had a picture of a man with an arrow pointing at his throat. Whatever it was, it was highly disgusting and effective. Put me right to sleep. Hmmm. While the meds were great, the best present was probably this little blue car. After the kids sang Happy Birthday to me at school, Alex ran up to me, handed me this little car he'd obviously just brought to school that day and whispered to me that it was for my birthday. It was so sweet. Gosh I love these cute kids.

Other quick highlights:

KROSHKA KARTOSHKA!



Yes,the happy look on my face here is pretty ridiculous. Your face would look like this too though, if, before learning the Russian word for "potato" and discovering this wonderful stand, you were living on Bounty bars and bananas whenever you were in the city. For the Celiac traveller, these are the greatest discovery ever: huge, warm, delicious, gluten-free kartoshk(ee?) smothered in whatever the heck you want for under 70 rubles. Genius. My favorite is the "kapoosta" (cabbage) topped ones--oh wow.

Russian UW Fans?!



My roommate Whitney can attest to the fact that I totally freaked out when I saw this car magnet as we walked down a street in Moscow. Crazy, huh?! Part of me really wanted to just stand by it until its owner came out to ask questions, but we had places to be.