Recounting Rus

A Minor Update

2008-03-16T23:58:00.001+03:00

This little update is to let you know that I have moved my little journal over to a wordpress address: http://recountingrus.wordpress.com/ This page will remain as a memorial but all new posts will be at the new address.

I also promise that this week will see a major update chronicling my adventures to Jerusalem, Yaroslavl and more.

A scrambled post

2008-02-28T23:41:00.012+03:00

So one thing I've noticed is that egg shells here in Russia are harder than what I'm used to. The woman I lived with said it's because they're brown eggs which I hadn't thought of. Besides that I can't remember the last time I broke a brown egg in America. So if any of you in the land of the free feel like testing a brown egg and letting me know...

In other observations, I have been disappointed by the so-called winter here in Moscow. I thought it was promising when we had the first snow in October but since then it's all been a wash which has turned into a mudslide. The snow has been minimal - there hasn't been one time that it has been up to my knees - and a far cry from any image I previously had of a Russian winter. It has been quite cold a few times but no colder than the coldest parts of Chicago's winter. And now it seems the winter is over. For the past three or four days the snow has been melting to reveal the piles of poo that will probably be there until summer. I do have to say, however, that when I've been outside of Moscow the snow appears to be more prevalent.

If anyone hadn't heard I've been working as an editor for an English language magazine and news source. I'm now on my third week at the office and going strong...

So you (self-centered) Americans probably didn't know that last Saturday was Day of the Defenders of the Fatherland here in Russia. Originally it was the day for the Soviet army but all that's done away with now. Besides being another day for those who serve in the armed forces it is a day for men in general (of course everyday is men's day but this day particularly so). So last Friday afternoon at work the women in the office, of which there are about 20, had a small party for the 5 men in the office. On Saturday my ever attentive fiance took me to a concert in honour of the day and Patriarch Aleksey who's names' day was coming up.
So here's the program of the concert which was appropriately called "Defenders of the Earthly and Heavenly Fatherland" (contrary to the picture, however, it was not in that church)

The performers ranged from a few choirs which sang church music to traditional Russian folk music to orchestral compositions.

To my surprise when I was looking at the program it seemed to me that one of the soloists looked like one of the men in the choir at St. Antipas where I go to church. When said performer entered the stage my eyes proved not to have been tricking him. Moreover also in the small choir in which he performed turned out to be two more members of the choir at St. Antipas. On top of that, the choir director deserves some recognition...imagine Neo (except in light brown) doing the robot dance and you have the choir director:

For those of you who don't really believe I'm in Moscow or that I attended such a concert I will present photo evidence for your doubting eyes to see:

For more pictures (of the concert, not of me at the concert) click here.

While you are all particularly self-centered I think you all know that an election is coming up in the ole RF (Russian Federation that is). I have to say that I am pleased with the lack of advertising such that can be seen in the US of A. (Of course, I don't watch tv so I don't know what goes on there.) But one interesting bit of spreading the word I noticed conveniently printed on a metro pass:

The observant viewer will probably notice that this is simply an exhortation to vote in the elections with no mention of who to vote for. You may say that there really that there really isn't much of a choice of who to vote for but for me that's neither here nor there.

Now, in the consumer crackhaven that is consumer America no crackhead is surprised by seeing a comment card at your favorite crackhouse. Russia, on the other hand and probably for a short time being, is approaching the consumer cooler. Where else but in the window to the West would we be likely to see this cooler warming up? Observe:

For those of you deficient in the art of reading I will translate to the common: Dear guests! We work for you, therefore your opinions and wishes are important for us. Please answer our questions and express your thoughts about service in our restaraunt.
For those of you whose memory has not been completely cracked you will remember my post about my upcoming wedding and the paperwork involved. I now present you with photo evidence of a certain paper exhibiting (even for the deficient) the handwriting that caused so much trouble:

It's the handwriting that counts

2008-02-19T22:25:00.007+03:00

This fabulous piece of crapitecture houses the "Palace of Weddings"

I believe my regular readers know that I have proposed marriage to and been accepted by a certain resident of Moscow. You residents of consumer friendly America probably think that there couldn't be much of a simpler thing to do considering anyone of you could be in Vegas within the day and marry the citizen of the opposite sex (for the time being) of your choice. Well in Russia it's not so simple considering its unfortunate bureaucratic Soviet past. During Soviet times, and remaining unchanged to date, "marriage" became the act of signing a marriage license at ZAGS (registry office).

Soon we will be this happy couple signing "the document."

What is most unfortunate is the great pomp that is now the modern Russian "marriage." It is comical how so many modern Western traditions have been imported into the Russian wedding (limos, receptions, &ect.) but that all the real substance is the signing of a document.

Soon my bride and I will ascend these majestic steps to the above seen "desk of destiny."

Once again you may say that signing a few papers is not so difficult. I would agree with you but then you have to remember that I am a foreigner and almost everything is more difficult for foreigners. First of all the foreigner must have an approved statement ($30) from the American embassy stating that they are not currently married. Next this statement must be approved ($4 and one week wait) by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the RF (Russian Federation). While waiting for this the foreigner should have their passport translated and notarized ($20 and next day service). Having gathered all these requisite documents my Russian bride and I made our way to "the palace of weddings no.4" to submit our paperwork.

As upon visiting almost every office to do with the government one needs to be ready for a long wait. Surprisingly the day we went there wasn't a huge line so we only waited for probably 30 minutes. After being admitted and declaring our intentions our papers were checked and scrutinized. After a few adjustments to my declaration of not being married my passport translation was checked. And thus began the problems... The silly translators translated "Given Names" as "Name, Patronymic" and proceded to state my first name as "Name" and my middle name as "Patronymic." Disregarding the fact that my declaration of non-marriage had just been illegally modified this slight mis-translation couldn't be accepted. Once again, never mind that other government bodies often call middle names "patronymics." So only thing left to do was go back and have the translation fixed. One consolation, however was receiving the paperwork and bill ($8) in advance.

Thankfully the translators were nice enough to fix their mistake but, however, when I arrived at 4 or 4.30 on Friday the notary had already left for the day. So all that was left to do was leave it for the next week. Having picked up my translation on Tuesday we once again set out for the "palace" which one, thinking it not be so busy on such a day, would be wrong. This day we waited at least an hour while 6 other couples either filled out declarations of marriage or divorce.

Having been given a marriage form on our last trip we filled it mostly out in advance but had a few questions before completing it. So the ZAGSer glued our receipt to the back and examined what we had done so far and told us how to fill out the rest. Well my lovely fiance had filled out my part as I don't have pretty hand writing. So once she was all done the ZAGSer noticed that she was filling out my part and started saying it would have to be re-written by me. (Don't forget that with such official papers there is the space for a signature which I, of course, would write.) I must remind you that this same ZAGSer had all but 2 minutes ago examined this paper which had the exact same handwriting all over it. So now the ZAGSer proceeded to rip off the receipt that she had just glued to the first sheet and glued it to a new one (once again disregarding the obvious that it would be much easier to fill out the paper without glue smeared all over the back of it). Once the paper had been thoroughly filled out the ZAGSer compared all three of my documents and my passport to one another for the third time.

At this point I, of course, have to tell you the kicker. One of the questions we had asked about filling out the document was which address to put as place of residence as both my fiance and I live at places other than where we are officially registered as living. (On my declaration of non-marriage I had accidentally put my as well as my fiance's actual place of residence.) It turned out that such details are of no importance but what is really important is penmanship.

The other thing that makes Russia different from Vegas is that one has to wait 31 days before the marriage document can be signed. So on March 20 we will be "married."

To see more photos of so-called weddings click here.

A picture post

2008-02-01T23:22:00.000+03:00

Peter "the Great" piloting the storm cloud he brought over Russia.

A strange statue to find in any case and especially among old Soviet statues: Archbishop Makarios of Cyprus.

Memorial sculpture of sorts for those who were repressed by the Reds.

Snow at long last

2008-01-21T15:09:00.000+03:00

Moscow has finally had a good snow after what seems like at least a month of cold with no consolation of snow; hopefully it will last through the rest of winter. I bought ice skates yesterday after contemplating on the subject for a while. Last weekend I had gone to a mall and skated on their little rink with the poor skates they rent and decided that I want to skate more as it is an excellent workout. In several parks around town the sidewalks are iced over and made into a type of skating rink so last night I was invited to a birthday party for which we first skated at one of the said parks.

In other news I quit my teaching job about a month ago. As that was the case I had to move again since the company I worked for was renting my apartment. After searching with no luck I have been able to stay with a neighbour of a friend of a friend. She has been kind enough to allow me to stay until I find another place.

In that regard I had found an advert at St. Tikhon's University for a room which I decided to check out. So a friend and I set up a time to visit and set out... When we arrived we rang the flat as normal people do but no one answered. There was someone else entering the building so we went in with him and decided to call using the telephone. So we eventually got through and went up. When we made it to the flat we also rang like normal people do. Answering the door was a middle aged woman who had about the same appearance as Gollum from lack of light. When we came into the flat there was one light on in the hallway which was probably about 20 watts. She invited us to look at the room which was a very nice spacious room with a balcony (this room actually had about 2 or 3 lights on). We then returned to the hallway and my friend and I noticed in the bathroom a sign over the sink reminding everyone to turn off the lights and water. My friend starting asking the woman what it meant and who controls the light and water. In short the flat belongs to the woman's parents who live most of the year in some village. Said parents only wanted their children staying at the flat and evidently check the bills to see what's going on (the phone is completely off limits...). The parents come to town in turn - one in the summer, one in the fall - for a few days or a few weeks so at that point the unauthorized occupants have to vacate. (If I wanted to live there I was only to bring the most necessary items for ease of vacating.) So this woman's brother also lived there, evidently, but she would not let us meet him even though he was in the neighbouring room. Upon my agreement to live there I could have met the brother (I have a feeling he was probably something like Sloth). On top of hiding the fact that I would be living there from the parents the neighbours also shouldn't know that I would be living there. When asked how this was possible we were told that I would have to leave after the neighbours had left and arrive after they had arrived. The woman was even nervous and perturbed at the possibility of the neighbours knowing that someone had even visited the flat. So considering my lifelong fear of being chopped up into tiny pieces and fed to homeless dogs I declined the flat...

Here is Christ the Saviour under snow:

And a good reminder for all:

(On the streets of the capital live about 30000 homeless dogs. "We are to answer for those we have domesticated." Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

You didn't think it possible but the horrible truth is true: Moscow has become completely Westernized:

Some more random pictures:

It's hip to write graffiti in English - even if it makes no sense (it's also hip on clothes).

A type of chapel to mark the spot where a man died in a plane crash: (There is a full size chapel down the road a few hundred feet)

St. Petersburg in the winter

2008-01-15T14:45:00.000+03:00

As I said I went to St. Petersburg for New Years and Christmas (yes, they're in that order here on the correct Julian calendar). I'll let you know now that all my pictures (231) are here (I will only post a few here in the course of my re-telling the story).

St. Aleksander Nevsky
I set out with a friend on the morning of the 29 on a train. We arrived about 8 hours later in a surprisingly not so cold St. Petersburg. We had planned on staying at the St. Aleksander Nevsky Lavra hotel (for pilgrims) located at the monastery. Upon arrived we were told that although we had reservations we didn't arrive during the receiving hours (which, posted on the wall, said receiving hours were until 7 (it was about 5:30 or 6 at the time...)). It seems that the security guard felt like giving in as he called whoever was in charge of receiving and they allowed us to come up. Once we were received by the hostess and my friend had paid for our four days there we were told that foreigners had to pay over twice the rate as Russian citizens... In the end we decided to stay for two nights and try to find a better place to stay (we had a friend to stay with but that wasn't supposed to be until sometime past the four day limit). We ended up staying those two nights and being able to move to our friends place a little early. However, he was out of town and didn't exactly know that we were coming (it was agreed through a third party about that third party staying (who didn't end up coming, so we took their place).

When we had dropped our stuff off we decided to try to visit St. Ksenia of Petersburg's chapel to receive her blessing. We weren't sure that the cemetery where her chapel is would be open but we knew that it would be beneficial that we had tried (with plans to go when it was open). We made it to the cemetery which happened to still be open but the chapel was already closed (by this time it was after 8).

The next day we attended liturgy at the cathedral of the Lavra which turned out to be the place where Metropolitan Vladimir was celebrating his 45 years as a bishop. For the first half of the service I was wondering why 28 mitred priests, over 30 other priests and 5 deacons were serving... At the end of liturgy and a moleben various representatives of church institutions and government bodies congratulated the metropolitan with long letters and flowers. At this point it was past 1 pm (liturgy had started about 9.30) so we ducked out before the final end...

I'm having trouble remembering the order of all the events of the following week so I will give summaries of said events.

Monday afternoon we went back to Smolensk cemetery to St. Ksenia's chapel where we venerated her relics and prayed an Akathist. As it was approaching evening we stayed at the cemetery and attended New Years Vespers at the Church of the Smolensk Icon of the Theotokos which St. Ksenia helped to build.

For New Years we decided not to stay up all night (which was necessary if we wanted to go to someone's gathering as the metro isn't open all night) since we wanted to utilize the next day going somewhere.

The next day I believe we went to Tsarskoe Selo (also known as Pushkin) where we walked around the palaces and went looking for churches. In one of the churches we met a very nice man who told us all about the different icons in the church. When he found out that I was generally from Chicago he was very excited and started talking about St. John of Tsarskoe Selo/Chicago and gave us directions how to get to the church where his relics are. Unfortunately St. John's relics are in the altar so we weren't able to venerate them but there was this icon:

After visiting this church we visited, after many detours while trying to find our way, the Fyodorovskaya Icon of the Theotokos church by the time which it was quite dark and getting colder.

We visited Vyritsa, which is about an hour and a half by train, the next day as far as I can tell. In Vyritsa are the relics of St. Seraphim of Vyritsa whom you can read a little about here. By the time we arrived at the church it was quite dark but we found that the chapel was open and that it is never closed. There also was a service for St. John of Kronstadt in the church for which we stayed. Afterwards we hazzarded to ask someone for a ride to the railway station who in turn offered to take us all the way to Tsarskoe Selo where we took a bus back to St. Petersburg.

At some point we took an excursion around the city on a bus which drove around downtown with a guide talking about different places. This was a good way to see the city as a whole and get some bearings.

At some other point we went to St. John of Kronstadt's monastery where his relics are entombed.

And at a third point we went to Sts. Peter and Paul Fortress and walked around for a short time in the cold. Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral is where almost all the tsars from Peter the first are buried. They say that the relics of the Royal Martyrs (Tsar Nikolas and family) are here but it is not true...

On Saturday night we went to the Optina representation church for vigil. The church was packed and when the lines started forming for confession I was about freight-trained by a frantic babushka. The church is in the process of restoration (inside and out) and is quite amazing. It seems like the interior was whitewashed at some point and now they are clearing it away. As well an excellent all-male choir sang in what I believe was something like obikhod.

On Sunday morning we planned to go to liturgy at the church within the Academy of Art... Firstly it took us a lot longer to actually get to the Academy and then we went searching for restrooms which set us back another 20 or more minutes (there seemed to be only 2 restrooms in the complex which was about 1/4 of a block). So we finally arrived at liturgy about 7/9 of the way through.

As this was Christmas Eve and we would be staying up very late that night we went back and rested in the afternoon and early evening. We decided to go to The Kazan Icon of the Theotokos Cathedral for Christmas service as we were told it wasn't extremely crowded and there was room to breathe. This is the main cathedral in St. Petersburg so Metropolitan Vladimir was serving and the service was televised - unfortunately I can't find a source for the video. You can see one picture here though.

We didn't do much the next two days... We did go to a small Christmas party at a home on the edge of the city where we heard some traditional folk singing, did some singing ourselves and ate plenty of meat.

And I almost forgot, we saw the sequel to Irony of Fate - a classic of Soviet cinema - which is shown every year on New Years. It was quite a similar story to the original but updated and slightly revised for a modern audience.

The return trip was uneventful.

That's the story of my trip to St. Petersburg...

Merry Christmas to one and all

2008-01-10T12:30:00.000+03:00

Well it's the fourth day of Christmas here in Moscow and I just returned from St. Petersburg late yesterday. Soon I will have a more complete update with pictures and all. I just wanted to let you all know that I haven't been caught by the militsia yet...

A helping hand

2007-12-20T23:41:00.000+03:00

As Moscow is a pretty friendly place people often "help" each other on and off the metro. By help I mean compact people into the metro or expend them out like a balloon releasing air. So the other day I did my duty and "helped" a young man onto the train (it wasn't completely my idea to help him as someone was helping me as well). Upon my helping I was met with protest which if I understood correctly was something like "what's with you" and a dirty look. He continued to stare at me and push around a little in protest but it was pretty easy to ignore him as I found the whole thing a little comical besides not really having anything to say to him as I'm still not too quick on my Russian feet.

In other news I celebrated the feast of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker at his church in Pizhakh where there is a Myrrh streaming icon of Tsar martyr Nicholas which you can read about here.

Miyazaki on the metro

2007-12-14T00:27:00.000+03:00

So I've been seeing a lot of fur (or otherwise similar) coats lately...the other day when I entered the metro I came upon a rather large woman in a long fur coat bending over to do something for a child or something...well all of the sudden I realized that she looked just like one of Miyazaki's bumbling bears...so now every time that I see such a coat I think of bumbling bears...

In other news I spotted either 4 or 6 deaf people this week...it seems that deaf sightings only come every few months as it was probably October or even September the last time I spotted this rare species. It made me think about how amazing it is that they can communicate so much with just gestures.

Zvenigorod

2007-12-10T11:57:00.001+03:00

As my Saturday class was cancelled I went on a little trip to Zvenigorod which is about an hour and a half from Moscow. Outside the town is the monastery of St. Savva Storozhevskii who was a disciple of St. Sergei of Radonezh. On the way to the monastery there is a spring and a little church with mosaics which Andrei Rubloff painted but unfortunately only a few indistinct outlines remain. This is also where his icon of the Saviour which is now in the Tretyakov Gallery was found.

The spring:

View of the monastery from sometime in the late 1800's:

St. Savva:

Even in Russia they like to park old cars in their yards:

One of the houses at the local Sanitarium:

Singing a new song

2007-12-08T09:23:00.001+03:00

So I started some singing lessons yesterday...I found out that I have a "low bass" - maybe one day I can record my very own basso profundo cd...

A Patriarchal Приглашение

2007-12-06T23:46:00.000+03:00

I attended recently the annual celebration (this time celebrating 15 years) of St. Tikhon's Orthodox University where various speeches were made, gifts were given and choirs sung. Patriarch Aleksey was present and spoke about the university and various other topics about which you can read here. You can see the official pictures here and view my very own below.

Fr. Vladimir Vorobyov the rector of St. Tikhon's (about whom you can read here) presents Patriarch Aleksey with some gifts.

A few "interesting" pictures:

I believe you will remember this Dostoevsky statue in front of the Lenin Library...

...well now Dostoevsky not only has Lenin to keep him company but wonderful American materialism in the form of a garmongous "Christmas tree" or "New Years tree" as it's called here.

And Lenin himself with his proletariat rushes to greet the New Year's tree...

The latest news

2007-12-05T00:48:00.001+03:00

So since the last update I have officially resigned from my position as teacher-intern. My last day of teaching will be the 22 of December after which I'm not quite sure what will happen. I'm looking for a flat and new job at present.

Speaking of Old Believers...a girl in one of the English classes I visited, for whom it was hard to believe that I wasn't Russian, thought that I look like a "raskol" (schism)-the informal name for Old Believers-also where the name Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment comes from.

At present I can't remember all the exciting things I had planned on saying...

A long overdue update

2007-11-24T17:58:00.001+03:00

I would like to say that many exciting things have happened in the last two weeks but I can't... However, I will bring you, my dear readers, up to date with a few select happenings.

As I said I was forced to move to a new apartment and in with two other teachers. I lost the tranquility of living alone as well as my good internet connection and now have to suffer with an inconsistent wi-fi connection. My new apartment is about an hour and 15 minutes from both of the schools I teach at so, obviously, I'm not excited about that; it is a nicer apartment, however.

After my move I finally went to see the Tretyakov Gallery with a friend of mine. We decided not to rush through so we only looked at the icon galleries and the church. I had read that there was a church in the gallery but I though it just meant a part of the gallery that is set up like a church but I was wrong. It turns out that there was a church right next to the gallery which became part of the gallery when it was re-opened. It is a bona-fide church with several priests and daily services (in fact a wedding was taking place when we went in). So we spent about 2 or 3 hours at the gallery and I saw the originals of many icons which I have seen in books and prints, including, of course, the Trinity and Vladimir icon's of Rubloff.

I was put in contact with a man who was looking for an English speaker to tutor his two children so last Saturday I tried that out. This family lives in an exclusive little subdivision outside of Moscow so a car was sent to pick me up for the hour trip. On the way I actually spotted the indoor ski hill which is being built in Moscow (see here). So when I arrived I had breakfast with the children (ages 4 and 7), their father and someone who I had assumed to be their mother (turns out it was their nanny). I was told that I would just be playing with the children and trying to speak English with them so that's what we did while playing with some Lego sets. We next spent some time playing outside in the snow. I was at a loss of what to actually do as I originally thought that there was only one child and that he already spoke English but just needed practice. After a joyous time in the fresh snow we returned to have lunch (where I met the children's real mother) after which I was driven back to Moscow.

Last week was another week of teaching... I started a new class which will be a challenge. That's all I'm going to say about that.

We went again yesterday to the Tretyakov to continue where we left off and saw about 20 rooms (only 30 or 40 more to go). I saw many famous paintings including the ubiquitous ones of Dostoyevsky and Pushkin.

In other news Moscow has been under snow for about 2 weeks but in the last few days it has warmed up a bit so a lot has melted creating many dirty and unattractive streets.

St. Basil's in the snow.

The Kremlin in the snow:

St. Tatiana's, where I have been going to services.

Relocation

2007-11-21T01:09:00.000+03:00

I was forced to abandon my apartment last Friday so I just now was reconnected to the interweb so I will soon have a comprehensive update...

Of pizza deliveries and dances

2007-11-13T23:21:00.000+03:00

So I came home the other day and when I was entering my building a pizza delivery man yelled at me asking about where the first building was...I told him that it was farther down the road... When I went in I realized that I don't even know where I live...

I bought some cucumbers and tomatoes at my local food market the other day. When the transaction was finished and I took my produce and money and the vendor smiled and said "thank you"...I just looked at her and smiled... I went back to the same place today and the woman talked to me a little more asking me where I was from and what I was doing in Moscow. She then told her fellow vendor how and American has come and bought from her twice...

I went last Sunday to nice little church where an English friend attends called St. Antipas; it even had a trapeza afterwards like good ole American churches.

Today we had the second major snow fall of the year; there is something like an inch or inch and a half on the ground.

On Sunday night MP had its second annual Russian Ball which I attended: (there are not too many pictures as I was "dancing" most of the time) We danced various traditional dances, some waltzes and some other that I don't remember.

Yes, even the whigs were in attendance.

Of hotels and Old believers

2007-11-09T23:13:00.000+03:00

Even in Moscow Holiday Inn is leavin' the light on for ya'.

There are also people in Moscow who like such strange decor in/on their car.

So that Gabe would be jealous I stopped by this Old Believer (I say "Old Believer" and not "Old Rite" specifically because they're not in communion.) church today. There happened to be a service going on at the time so we stood for a while. There were about 4 women in attendance and then 3 or 4 women singing at the kliros. The singing (which they didn't do very much of at a canon was being read) sounded like a mix between Russian and Greek chant. The church inside was mostly frescoed but there were a lot of smaller, about 8x10, icons hanging on the walls and there were no electric lights.

Videos from folk concert

2007-11-08T23:10:00.000+03:00

Here are some videos from a folk concert on the 4th.

The Lavra (Sergeev-Posad)

2007-11-05T23:24:00.000+03:00

Went today to the Lavra with some friends to venerate the relics of St. Sergei. As it was a holiday there were many people there for the same reason so we had to stand in line (most of the time in the snowy weather) for about 40 minutes. After I had venerated the relics my friends were leaving out another exit and I didn't know what that meant but it turned out that they were letting us into another reliquary. So in this lower church and reliquary there were more relics of St. Sergei and relics of other saints of the Lavra as well as a whole part of the arm of St. Stephen the first martyr and many other relics (I simply can't remember all of them). These were the biggest relics that I've ever seen as usually they are the tiny particles in cases. (Of course God can work miracles through all alike...) We had a dinner in the monastery trapeza and then found out that a friend who works at the monastery was having a birthday party at the moment so we joined and spent some time singing songs and conversing.

The pilgrims in the wonderful snow.

We celebrated a birthday under this icon of St. Sergei.
The monastery trapeza's very own cup.

Major update

2007-11-03T23:23:00.000+03:00

At long last I have my own internet connection so I have uploaded all the pictures from the past month. However, I posted them somewhere else as to not have to upload each picture individually; in short, go here: http://picasaweb.google.com/hazzard.duke

02-03.11.07: So I met a friend of a friend before MP today who refused to believe at first that I’m not Russian and don’t have parents or grandparents who are Russian... Later they said that I look siberian...

I met a friend of a different friend, an Englishman who is here teaching English and has been here a year and some months. He encouraged me concerning teaching as he’s had a very similar situation.

I met with my boss again yesterday and they decided to change my schedule as another is leaving - so I’m getting one of their old classes and one of my roommate’s classes whereas he is getting one of my classes (and my best class at that...I get his worst class in exchange). They’re also making me teach at a company early in the morning two days a week and another individual student.

So I stopped by a church which was never closed during commie times near where I have my individual student today. It had a lot of late 19th century icons which weren’t particularly wonderful but it also had some older icons that were very nice; plus all the woodwork was very nice. I was able to venerate relics of the Three Hierarchs, the 40 martyr’s of Sebaste, St. Seraphim and the Cross. At one point while venerating an icon I almost broke my nose and threw my neck out as the glass was a little to polished...

Went to the Detskii Dom again today for a few hours and played some games with the children.

October in Moscow

2007-10-30T14:55:00.000+03:00

So as to not bore you all I've decided to cut out all the details of teaching and just share memorable moments.

28.10.07: On Friday I happened by a church (All Saints I believe) in the East of Moscow and found an icon of Blessed Augustine which contained a relic of his, so of course it was wonderful to venerate such an icon. The church itself appeared to have fairly recently been redone-the icons were traditional and one section contained icons of the new martyrs of Russia. In the evening I went to a concert of Nikolaj Emelin who sings songs about Orthodoxy and Russia and war. Afterwards with some friends that were there I danced some traditional Russian dances in the parking lot... On Saturday I was blessed to visit the graves of Elder Sampson, Archimandrite Sergei and Archimandrite Zechariah. Elder Sampson was an Englishman who came to Russia

I also stopped by the monastery where St. Matrona of Moscow’s relics are but there was a line that would take several hours to pass through; I was planning on going to confession that afternoon so I didn’t have the time. One of the priests at St. Tatiana’s speaks English so I spoke with him a little in the afternoon and then at the vigil was able to confess so I was blessed to receive communion today. At Novo-spassky monastery there was a moleben in the afternoon after which there was a gathering of MP where I met even more people and did some more dancing.

Various thoughts: So at one point at MP I was talking someone and said a word in English to clarify or for some odd reason. A girl standing near by turned around and said something like it seemed like a foreigner was around...not realizing that I was actually a foreigner... Once again most people I met asked if I am any part Russian because they all think I look Russian; so of course this is always a compliment. Thank God I have also not yet been stopped by the militsia and maybe that’s the reason (although I’m not sure how much they really look out for foreigners-I think it’s mainly terrorists).

I’ve been wondering lately that since everyone thinks I’m Russian what they think when I speak... Some people also think I don’t speak that terribly (one even said that I speak without an accent) so I wonder if they think I’m maybe some sort of fool...

In teaching news Wednesday was my last class with the children; thankfully the problem child didn’t show up the last two classes so everything went fine. However, now I will be getting another sort of class about which I now know nothing.

There’s just something nice about being in liturgy and seeing through the window the towers of the Kremlin...

And another week...

2007-10-23T10:10:00.000+04:00

16.10.07: I spent a good deal of time trying to figure out how I was going to stretch out my high school class in discussing The Godfather. I compiled questions for the reading sections and also for the movie sections; as the fill the the blanks dialogues didn’t go over so well I skipped those. I was very worried about not having enough stuff to do but in the end it worked out ok. I had them write as usual in the beginning and then we discussed some, watched some, discussed some, watched some and read another chapter. Now I hope I can just stretch it out over the next four classes... Evening class went pretty well - I had two trial students and one regular was missing. I feel kind of bad for anyone who has tried to join this class because the people in the class are pretty strong for their level and everyone so far who has sat in has been somewhat behind. The two girls that were there tonight had actually covered the chapter we were doing before but thankfully it had been a while and they didn’t remember that much. I had planned on calling my boss to talk about the elementary class but in the end decided to give it one more chance...

17.10.07: Once again I wasted an hour or more preparing a pointless lesson plan as the observer simply didn’t show up for class...and I was that close to telling her after she didn’t show up before that I refuse to waste more of my time. So that is it - no more lesson plans, ever. And once again the elementary class was “hell on wheels” (from the belt buckle of my new upper intermediate student) Although I had them somewhat under control for small portions of the class (I had them doing a lot of writing) it was a disaster. So I am from this point refusing to teach the class as long as said child is present. In my next class I yet again had a new student; now it is my biggest class - 5. And in my evening class the same two people were missing - so again we got through a lot of material but class just dragged on and on...

18.10.07: So my would be observer messages me saying that she wasn’t able to make it because she “got lost” and her “phone died” which was no consolation. I also was sent a message by the boss of my branch saying that she was coming to observe my advanced high schooler class. So considering that I modified my lesson plan - I found a few other things to do before continuing with the Godfather. I didn’t know what she would say about watching 20 or 30 minutes of a movie... But I am just going along with what other people have told me to teach... She only stayed for about 45 minutes or so (the first 20 were a writing exercise). She also informed me that her and the other boss want to meet with me next week for some odd reason. I also informed her that I don’t have the ability to control the elementary class; that I’ve tried everything I can do and it’s useless. She told me that they were thinking of stopping the class (which I highly doubt as they’re making at least something for paying me a pittance to babysit these children for 2 hours). For my evening class only one girl showed up so I started with going over the homework then something from the last lesson after which we ended up simply talking for the rest of the class. It turns out that she is Orthodox (before when we talked about it I didn’t realize that they probably wouldn’t know that word...). So we talked about various topics concerning marriage and saints. She doesn’t seem to attend services regularly but says that she believes...

19.10.07: My day when I try to push all thoughts of teaching out of my head. However, today I very much wanted to talk to someone about my past week and everything teaching so far. I was to meet someone that evening to go to a concert but she had the afternoon off so we met after lunch and walked around a bit downtown and spent several hours at a cafeteria talking. We went a little concert of traditional Russian peasant singing that evening after which we walked around a bit with a few singers from the show and other young people after which we ended up back at the cafeteria of that afternoon... I almost forgot to mention... When we were walking around in the afternoon my friend took me by the church where the relics of St. Alexei Mechev of Moscow who was a widowed priest who was blessed by St. John of Kronstadt to be an elder in the city. His son, St. Sergei, was also a priest who was martyred by the Bolsheviks.

20.10.07: Had my second lesson with my individual student. It was a little easier today as his parents didn’t sit in and I had an idea of what they wanted me to do with the boy. We looked through the book he uses at school and reviewed the stuff he just studied then reviewed the material I gave him the week before and then a little bit of a new lesson and that was it...fairly painless...and today they served me tea and cookies. Afterwards I saw a church so decided to go visit it...it turned out not to be a church but from that place I spotted another church...that turned out to have been a church but now was an iconography studio (could also still be a church but if it was it was not open-which would be a little strange as most churches are open everyday). So spent a few hours back at the flat before meeting a friend to go to a gathering of folklorists of the type we saw sing the night before (who were having a celebration for Pokrov). The place was rather hard to find and so my friend, wanting me to practice my Russian, had me ask every person that I was willing to for directions. So while speaking (especially using new phrases) I often forget what I’ve already said so about every time I would misspeak and end up using some other phrase that probably sounded quite abrupt (though I was trying to use polite phrases). The worst came with the last people I asked-two elderly women sitting outside their building. It started out poorly because I almost laughed when I went up to them as one of them looked like the other had recently punched her and given her a black eye. While I was trying to spit out the question the other who must not have heard started asking what we wanted and mumbling things. While the other was trying to explain she was beginning to understand where we were going and while we were leaving exclaimed “А дом творчества!” When we finally arrived we found out that there was also another folklorian happening that night so not so many people came. For a little while we sat around a table and they sang some songs and passed a common cup toasting to different people. Once more people arrived the balilaika was brought out and the dancing began. We danced some not too complicated dances so I picked up most of it. I think the dancing went on for about an hour maybe less and it was time to end. However they ended up singing until everyone was kicked out of the building then continued singing outside for a while...

21.10.07: Went this morning to St. Tatiana’s which I visited a few weeks ago. In the bookstore I bought another little book to try and read-this one is letters from the 50’s and 60’s from a priest to his spiritual children. Afterwards a friend and I went to Izmailovsky Park as there was another celebration for Pokrov. We spent some time in the kremlin (a reproduction) at the park and sat in for about an hour on a children’s concert during which we heard/saw Agni Partheni, Bless the Lord O My Soul, a few dances and a folk song. Next it was off to a church downtown where an akathist to Sts. Peter and Fevronia of Murom was being sung. Afterwards there was a regular gathering of young people with the priest during which they discuss various topics over tea and snacks. Tonight’s topic was freedom but before that the previous topic, problems in relationships, was rehashed.

08-15.10.07 - Another week in Moscow...

2007-10-16T14:23:00.000+04:00

Sorry for the lack of updates this past week. I've been going into the office as little as possible so therefore haven't had much access to this interweb. (Now I have even more pictures that will eventually be uploaded...)

08.10.07: After preparing the day before I didn’t have a lot to do today. I went in to the office in the morning though to work on preparation for my high school class. The teacher trainer I had talked to about this the other day turned out to have gone to St. Petersburg... So I talked to another one and she gave me some good advice and suggested that we watch The Godfather as it might go well with having them read a little ahead and then watch some. So I read ahead some in the book and worked on questions to ask. Hopefully this will keep their interest for the next 7 classes... When I arrived at my school the security guard (who finally recognizes me-I’m thinking it’s because of the wallet ordeal of last week) stopped me when I went in...at first I thought there was a problem but then he gave me some booties for my shoes to put on...(I assume because it was wet outside) So about everyone in the building was wearing blue booties and the place looked like a hospital. (I wonder if they’re going to be handing these out all winter as well...) My elementary class went well again today...the child who likes to act up was gone again. The atmosphere is much more relaxed when he isn’t there and an hour of class went by without me really realizing it. Next class went well also; one student was gone so I didn’t want to work to far ahead so I had the other two students talking for most of the time and we went at a relaxed pace (I’ve decided that it really doesn’t matter if we cover all I planned as long as they are talking and hopefully learning something). And the next class went well...

09.10.07: I was around the flat most of the morning preparing for classes and then went into the office to prepare some more; to talk to someone to get some ideas about how I was supposed to present the movie. I found a script online and selected several dialogues and took out some words for the students to put back in. All this preparation took a surprisingly long time so I again rushed off to class, not as early as planned but not late. The students were a little late as usual so I had time to get everything ready. I started out this class with another writing exercise; this one I had a picture of a dwarf that was in the Moscow Times today... We did a little discussion about The Godfather from the text they read and I tried to have them do a roleplay but it didn’t work the best...it wasn’t a total flop though. So we started watching and I had them try to fill in missing words but I hadn’t so much considered how difficult all the Italianesque accents are to understand. So after the first dialogue I realized that they needed to see the subtitles; at that point it was a little pointless to fill in the blanks as one of them pointed out. So we just watched another few scenes and then I had one dialogue in which I had left the list of words to fill in after they had seen the scene and that worked better... Now hopefully the next 7 classes will go as well. In my evening class one student didn’t show up so there were only two so I didn’t really want to do a full lesson. We did some reading and they ended up talking a lot and I decided not to stop them (the fact that they are dating helps the class to go pretty smoothly). So we discussed the topics in the book and then went off into other topics; by the end of the class we were talking about literature and movies...

10.10.07: I finally made myself get up at 7; it was the hardest thing I’ve had to do since I’ve been here... The problem was that it looked like it was still about 5 in the morning and I had just previously woken up and had looked outside and thought I had a few more hours to sleep... So with my extra time I simply prepared a little more for class and was going to go into the office to do a few things. When I got on the metro I decided to go ahead and drop my money off for the trip I am supposed to be taking on Sunday (to Kolomna a town outside of Moscow). So I had been to the church one other time (when I first arrived) but couldn’t remember exactly how to get there from the metro. I had looked at the location on a map a few times so generally knew which way to go so once I got coordinated from the metro station I figured it out. Thankfully when I went in I ran into a man who was patient enough to listen to me and direct me to the woman at the candle stand who took my money. So I had planned the day before to visit a friend’s English class again but ran by the office beforehand to check my email and make some copies. I had also “lost” my flash drive the day before (I thought for sure on the metro) but thankfully remembered to ask at the office and it was there. So I rushed off to St. Tikhon’s and my friend had procured for me a document that says I’m some sort of teacher and have permission to go into the building... So this time at the lesson my friend wanted to discuss the book where they were at at the time. The class was more talkative this time and I think they’re getting used to hearing an American talk... We discussed technology and at one point when Victoria said that she didn’t love technology I was tempted to bust a rhyme like Kip... So after class I had a little lunch with my friend and ran into my fellow American Thomas and talked a little bit about my teaching so far and other some such. So off to class... The woman who runs the franchise I work for, Maria, had told me the day previous that she was coming to my class to observe my discipline problem (which I informed her hadn’t been present but she came anyway) and sat in on class for about an hour. Class went pretty well as lately it has been. After class Maria talked to the students and asked them about the class and said some things about how they should act in class (such as not pulling the girls pony tale [which he hadn’t done before, I think he is starting to like her]) and told them not to speak in Russian, which I’d been trying to control unsuccessfully. Maria gave me some ideas of a few things to do and told me about the child that I will be teaching on Saturdays. Next class went well, however, after we finished the current chapter I turned the page and realized I hadn’t even looked at the next chapter... So I read the first thing and tried to have them talk a bit while I was trying to look ahead... I stumbled a bit but overall I don’t think it was bad. I think they’re used to my mess ups. Thankfully the vocabulary part took up the rest of the class after we had read a little story at the beginning of the chapter. In my next class I was giving a test so there wasn’t a whole lot to do. I did review the homework at the beginning so as to wait for one student, who never showed up. So the test and grading it took up the other hour and a half of class.

11.10.07: Spent a lot of the morning preparing questions and script excerpts for The Godfather. I went to the office around noon and spent some time copying exercises for next week and looking over materials especially for the new student I’m supposed to have on Saturday. I’m supposed to give a diagnostic test first and then give a sort of diagnostic lesson so we’ll see how it goes... I also was informed that next week I would have an observation of one of my classes. So it will be my upper-intermediate class on Monday. The teacher who will be observing me asked if I had a lesson plan and I was shocked...I haven’t made a lesson plan since about the 2 or 3 day of teaching... I found it pointless as even when I had one I forgot to go by it...or if I tried to I only got confused with having to refer to the lesson plan, the student book and the teacher’s book all at the same time. Basically I now just go by the student book in which I’ve made notes and refer to the teacher’s book if I hadn’t written all the answers in the student book. So now I’ll have to spend several hours writing up a pointless lesson plan... So my advanced group went pretty well today. We discussed the clip we had watched the previous class and also the reading which they had done. All four students showed up (one had missed basically the previous two classes-so all of The Godfather so far). However, this said student read over the text fairly quickly and I had the other students retell the story to her so she caught up pretty quickly. We watched about a 10 minute section and then I had them go over some of the script which I had prepared but after we had gone over it I realized that they were not very excited about doing this so I asked them if it was of any use and they said it wasn’t really... So I said we could just discuss the film which we did for the remainder of the class (about 40 minutes). I didn’t really have enough questions to ask so thankfully two of them argued for awhile about some things... The other two I kept trying to involve in the conversation but didn’t have much luck. My next class went well as usual. In the metro station at my school I was awaiting the train and watching it arrive when I spotted a friend whom I had met the first weekend I was here so I ran down to the car he was in and we rode together to my next stop. By another chance when we were transferring we ran into several other people from MP. While they were talking (I couldn’t make out half of what they were saying) we heard several small crashes from the hall behind us so we looked to see a man yelling at an older woman to “get out of here” and proceeded to kick her things (she was trying to sell two kittens). So my friends went over and I followed... There was already the man, the woman and two other men standing there arguing. I couldn’t make out anything but one of the men was between the yelling man and the other and the woman was standing there looking on; one of the girls we had met was between “ole yeller” and the woman. ...Evidently “ole yeller” was standing opposite the woman in the hall (many people sell things in the halls of the metro) but I didn’t understand why he decided to push around this woman. I asked my friend what happened and he just said something about like “such it is in Moscow”...

12.10.07: I had planned on visiting Butovo Polygon (the place where many people were killed under the communist yoke; and where part of the reconciliation services between the two halves of the Russian Church were held) today so I headed to where I thought I would find it...I was wrong that I would find it. I went to the end of the line of the Butovo district and thought that I might spot it from the metro but no such luck. I did see another church so after looking around a bit and realizing it was a waste of time I decided to ask at the other church. There was a funeral ending when I arrived (and a sign not to enter) so I walked in the graveyard for a while before returning. I spent a few minutes in the church waiting for the attendant to have some spare time when I went up to wait an old woman had also come up so I waited until she was done. So I listened in on what she was asking... she was buying some icons and had first asked for one of St. Nicholas and looked at several. Then she asked about the Theotokos and about the different ones of those; at that point the attendant said asked if she had one of the Saviour and that it was necessary to have one of the Saviour as that’s where it all begins. So she spent some time looking at the different sizes and contemplating about a book; finally she purchased the lot... So the woman didn’t really know the exact way to the other church but told me which bus. So I found the bus stop but there was no where to buy a ticket (for such buses one needs a ticket before getting on). I walked a ways looking for a ticket book but the one I found wasn’t open... It was also very cold by this time (a few snowflakes had fallen when I was on the way to the first church). So I decided to give up the search for another day and headed back to the metro. I had wanted to go to Tsaritsyno next but decided I was not dressed appropriately so I went on a pointless trip to Izmailovsky park where I walked around the booths and bought a cup of tea. (I thought Izmailovsky park might have something different than 2 years ago but I was wrong...) So I loitered around awhile as I was supposed to meet a friend later to go to an art exhibition. So we went to a group of art galleries that are on the grounds of a former factory (appropriately named “factory”) and looked at 5 different galleries. So we didn’t actually go in the first one-it didn’t look that interesting from the outside. The second one had really big prints (probably 4’ x 6’) of people with down syndrome-they were mildly interesting because of the size and the backgrounds. The third one had an exhibit of photos from Australia which were also mildly interesting. And the fourth one had paintings that were in what I might call the “stream” effect (picture paint running down a canvas) with general shapes of objects. A few of these were mildly interesting for the texture. And finally (we actually almost missed it) what we had come for-an exhibit of movie posters from the 20s and 30s. These were the most interesting (it didn’t take much) as they were originals and one could see the pasted letters overlapping the hand drawn pictures. So after this I had time to make it to the MP meeting where a bard singer (Aleksei Kirillov) was going to be playing. So he played for about an hour-an hour and a half. Aleksei has played and organized a lot of festivals for Orthodox since he was baptized (if I remember right about 15 or 20 years ago).

13.10.07: So waking up with the thought of the new student I was to teach was not fun. I prepared a little before and tried to make my silly lesson plan for Monday’s class. I met someone from the office at a metro to be taken to the flat of the boy. The flat was about 10 minutes away (though it took a little longer as we had to find the way). I was prepared for an awkward situation but it turned a little more awkward when the parents (who spoke English, and very well, to my surprise) wanted to sit in on the lesson. I told them that I was going to give him a test and see where I think we should start. So at first they didn’t join but after a while they came in. We ended up doing the test together as he didn’t totally seem to understand it. I really don’t know why they’re having a private instructor as the parents are well capable of teaching him and he seemed pretty advanced for his age. I returned to my flat after this and prepared a little for the next week and went to the vigil for Pokrov at my local Church of The Annunciation. I had a pretty good spot to stand but when it came time for the annointing the church became like a rush hour metro (packed like a can of overcrowded sardines).

14.10.07: Today the awaited trip to Kalomna came; the first time outside of Moscow (and the farthest from Moscow so far). We left on a coach about 7 and made the approximately 100 kilometer trip to this town which is something like 30 years younger than Moscow. We arrived for the liturgy at the Pokrov Church at Novo-Golutvin Holy Trinity women’s monastery. The church was packed as to be expected but not overcrowded. The singing was by the nuns of which there were about 30-40. After liturgy we had a small tour of the other churches and a look at the monastery camel. They were kind enough to feed us a little lunch after which we listened to Abbess Ksenia give a talk and a question and answer session. A friend sat next to me and translated different parts of the talk so that I got the just of what was said. Next we walked to the local cathedral which is just outside the monastery and then a little bit around the old part of town. After this we got back on the bus and headed to the seminary/monastery where Fr. Iosaph (the spiritual director of Voskresene) attended and had a tour; this monastery was founded by a disciple of St. Sergius of Radonezh. We stopped at a local church near the monastery which was built in the Byzantine style and is currently being restored. Among other great things this church does is give rides on four wheelers to children after liturgy. We were then off to the other side of Kolomna to visit a men’s monastery opposite the river Oka from the women’s monastery. At this monastery we sang an akathist to the icon of the Theotokos Feodorovskaya. We had a short tour of the two churches and then made our way back to Moscow. My friend had mentioned earlier in the day that traditionally Pokrov is when there is the first snowfall which “covers” (pokrov). It turned out that the Covering is still over Moscow as when we were heading back we came across several centimeters of snow covering the ground.

04-06.10.07 - The weekend

2007-10-08T10:37:00.000+04:00

04.10.07: I decided to get up early and go in to the office so as to find my materials for teaching next week so that I wouldn’t have to on Friday. I didn’t get there as early as hoped so other people were there coming in and out and in general distracting me from my task. I was also trying to figure what I needed to do to make my high-schoolers interested in the lessons. I talk to my teacher trainer and she gave me some good ideas such as watching a movie in parts and discussing it, reading “graded readers,” and showed me a book that has activities. I used one of these activities today and it went very well. Thankfully all 4 people were in attendance so I was able to have 2 groups. I also had them start doing a writing exercise at the beginning of the lesson which I think they all enjoyed. I read the most creative one to the class after their break. I had given them a picture of a middle aged man examining a high heeled shoe and told them to write about it whatever they wanted. Three of the four said such things as that the man was the owner of the store or of a shoe manufacturer but the fourth decided that the man was Lenin resurrected... After the break I realized I didn’t really have much to do so thankfully I had brought along an excerpt from a graded reader (The Godfather) so I started them on that and said that we would read some every class. I found out today that this class ends on November the 6th so I’m happy about that, however, unfortunately it may continue as an exam preparation class (before the end of the class the academic director came and talked to the students about the exam class and told them to talk to their parents about it and that she will call them on Monday...hopefully the parents won’t want to dish out the extra money...). The problem is that I will be done with the book next week so then I will have about 7 classes for which I will have to totally make up lessons. I was told the other day that I would be starting to teach an eleven year old boy in his home on Saturdays starting on the 12th. So now, even though I won’t for sure work on Friday, it will be the same as working 6 days a week as I will still probably have to go into the office on Fridays to prepare. I will be teaching said child for and hour and a half right in the middle of the day...and it will be at least an hour trip from my flat. To make matters worse the academic director at the school I taught at today asked me, “Do you like children?” I responded asking her what age children meant and was told eleven or twelve; so I assume from this that I will be given a new class of little brats. My evening class went well as usual other than a few hairy questions on quantifiers (if you remember the last time I “taught” quantifiers was the worst experience yet). We didn’t get through all the lesson, which I don’t mind, as we started a little late and got a little off topic some. I ended up asking the class about kefir (not totally unrelated as the chapter is on food) and they said that they like 1% better...

04.10.07: As we would have a training session on Saturday I decided that I wasn’t going to do anything involving work on Friday. (I write this on Sunday and somewhat regret not doing anything...but only somewhat.) So I had picked out a few places that I wanted to go and was off... I went to the All Russian Exhibition Center (VVTs [that’s “tseh” not “t’s”]) first which is only a few stops from my flat. This facility was built to show off the cultural diversity of the CCCP and had different pavilions for the different regions. Now shops of all sorts, offices and eateries occupy these pavilions. The grounds are very nice to walk on as it has a park setting. I spent a few hours here including having a little lunch at a cafe (I had my second bowl of borshch). I next decided to search out a church that I had spotted the previous week from Kolomenskoe. It had taken me some time to find out anything about this church as I had only seen it in the distance and Katja didn’t know anything about it. However, with my trusty map of churches in Moscow and my book about the same I found it and how to get there. As I had a lot of time I ended up walking from the metro to the church which was probably 5 or 6 kilometers. When I got there it turned out that the churches weren’t open... I did go into the bookstore for about 5 minutes but that was it... So back to the metro... I next decided to go to Danilov monastery, the headquarters of the Patriarchate. On my way to the monastery there was a shop of theirs where various goods are sold - I decided to try some Kronstadt bread. The first thing I came across at the monastery, through an outside entrance into the fortifications, was a little church of St. Seraphim where there was a bookstore so I spent a few minutes inside. Then came the monastery proper; there weren’t a lot of people around so I sort of followed someone who looked like they knew where they were going... I came across a church in which there appeared to be a service so I went in. An Akathist was being prayed so I spent about 15 minutes there and decided to see if the other church was open. In the other church Vespers was finishing up so I spend another 15 or so minutes in that service. Before I left I got in the queue for venerating the relics of St. Daniel. I sat down for awhile on a bench in the courtyard, as I had been walking all day, and watched people come and go and especially the security guards who were dressed uniforms of the early 20th century (I think that’s what I want to do when I grow up). I was supposed to go to Tsaritsyno that night with a friend but they had to cancel so I ended up going to the meeting of MP where they were discussing various plans (I only understood about a quarter of what was said so I just followed the gist). Afterwards a few people went to eat at the nearby mall type facility where I had another bowl of borshch.

05.10.07: Had planned on getting up early and doing a few things before training but that didn’t happen... The training was a little more relevant but we didn’t talk that much about children so at the present wasn’t that helpful (plus it could have been compacted into about an hour instead of almost 2 hours). As I was to meet people from MP at 2.20 to go to a children’s home I loitered around the office for a little while after which I decided to change some money as there was a good rate. Well, when I gave my $40 she asked for 40 rubles (to give me a 1000 ruble bill). She obviously wasn’t calculating according to the advertised rate so I tried to explain but she wouldn’t have it. After I got my money back I figured I would try the other one nearby... Their “rate” was only 5 kopeks lower so it was negligible. It also turned out that their rate was actually about 15 kopeks lower than the previous place so I just went with it... In the end I lost about $2 which in the land of plenty isn’t much but when I can buy 4 loaves of wholesome bread for that much it hurts... So about 10 or so from MP went to the children’s home and played some games, did some activities, ate some snacks and watched part of a Bible movie with the children. One of the children, Ilia, took a liking to me and called me his dad and gave me some small models of various animals and a plane (see below). He also told me that he wants to be an icon painter when he grows up and showed us all, and later gave us, some of his drawings (see below). Later several others took an interest in me when they realized I was American and started asking me various questions. Overall it was a very rewarding experience (as some of my fellow teachers wished me) and I hope to be able to go back soon. Please pray for Ilia and his fellows that they will continue to stay close to the Church. We spent about 3.5 hours at the home and headed home... I stopped at Arbat street to go to Dom Knigi and ended up buying a map of Moscow (I was really looking for a small metro map but none were what I wanted) and a book on Russian verbs. On the way I stopped by a church (see here) which was still open after vigil and venerated the icons.

06.10.07: I went to liturgy at the Church of the Annunciation down the street today. (It was hard getting out of bed at 7 when it was still slightly dark but I made myself). I was able to position myself somewhere from where I didn’t really have to move about until the end of the service (plus there were slightly fewer people there than on the feast). Afterwards I did a little shopping at our local product center. As I hadn’t done any preparation on Friday or Saturday I decided that I really needed to so the rest of the afternoon I prepared this weeks classes (except for my advanced high schoolers for which I need consultation to start planning lessons). I drank about 10 cups of tea which I think gave me a headache...that or looking at those dang books for so long in poor light. As I prepared all that I felt necessary I started studying my verb book and finally looked at the Orthodox news papers I’ve had a few weeks... Saw some ads for iconography and restoration schools...maybe I’ll go be an iconographer...

Note: I have about 150 photos from this weekend so it's going to take some time to upload them all; hopefully over the course of the week they will all be posted, keep checking back.

Ps. The order of the pictures goes from bottom to top.

Happy shiny people

Another...(with great texture)

Another pavilion

The pavilion for Karelia (one of the few that has any wooden parts)

Detail so you can see their smiling faces

More happy proletariat

The Soviets did have a good taste in texture...

More detail

Detail

Another grandiose building.

"The Man" himself.

Forget about Roswell - here is the real deal.

The happy proletariat with their bountiful bough of wheat.

The grand entrance to the VVTs

01-03.10.07 - The third week of teaching? (It seems like an eternity)

2007-10-04T12:36:00.000+04:00

01.10.09: In several of my classes last week we didn’t get through all the material I had planned so for today’s classes I didn’t have to do a lot other than familiarize myself more with the material. While I was at the office the teacher trainer’s put a sign on their office door announcing that if anyone needed help and or advice they were there to give it. I had talked to both of them before about my elementary class and they had given me some pointers but I once again mentioned it and they decided to come out and observe a lesson. I was kind of nervous about this as I knew that my teaching methods would be criticized but what can you do... So at the beginning of the lesson the kids were pretty good, probably because she was there (as well as the Russian teacher whose room I use who had to fill out her class journal; she also didn’t want me to erase her German on the chalkboard so I was only able to use about half the board...). I think the children were a little nervous as at the beginning they made mistakes that they normally wouldn’t. After a while they were mostly back to their bratty selves. I was given the suggestion before class to institute a marks system whereby each student has four marks which will be erased as they misbehave. The only problem I have with this is that erasing these according to normal standards no one would be in the class after the first half an hour... The other problem was that as I was threatening to erase them and erasing them the children kept saying that nothing would happen when they were all erased. Towards the end of class the boys both had one left and both were acting up about the same amount so I was not quite sure what to do... But thankfully class was soon over... The teacher trainer went ahead and left after class and said we would talk the next day; I was surprised to hear that she thought I had a good lesson but there were just more suggestions on classroom control. My next lesson went pretty well; it was about fashion in a class with three high school/university girls but they weren’t quite as keen to talk about fashion as I thought they might be. In my evening class I had a trial student who I think will join the class so that should make the class work better as there will be pairs.

02.10.07: It’s getting harder and harder to get up in the morning as I know that once I do I have to start preparing for teaching that night... I looked over my lessons for today at my flat for most of the morning then went into the office to talk to the teacher I had observe my elementary class. She said my lesson was well planned (all I had done was follow the book) but that I didn’t move between the lessons points quick enough (because I have to remember what we’re supposed to be doing). She gave me more suggestions on discipline so hopefully they will work. I then prepared a little more for my other classes and listened once again to some people giving me suggestions on what to do with my teenage class that doesn’t like talking very much. The lesson today in that class was about the future and predictions that didn’t come true so I had found an outside discussion that I thought might be interesting. Class started out pretty well with a little game of taboo. When the one female student in the class shows up she’s usually about an hour late and today was not an exception. Now that she was there I could have them (in theory) discuss in pairs but they weren’t too keen on this; they would maybe say a few things and one group of them would start speaking Russian and the other one wouldn’t talk to each other... So I decided to crack down on Russian speaking as I had been pretty slack; the only problem is that there isn’t really any punishment...they don’t do their homework anyway so I can’t give them more homework. In the end when they didn’t want to talk to each other I resorted to asking them questions and trying to get everyone to say something which worked for a while... Once again I forgot that this group likes a break so they reminded me... After the break we had about 40 minutes in class but it was pretty obvious that no one wanted to be there anymore. The girl (who at that time had only been there about an hour and 15 or 20 minutes) thought the class ended at 6:45 so started complaining... I had them read an article that I thought was pretty interesting but they all seemed to think it was boring... I then tried to discuss a grammar section at which point I almost had anarchy so I let them go about ten minutes early... (Update: I realized that the class does end at 6:45...) My next class went pretty well as usual but I found out that one of the students isn’t going to be there for the next month - so now with only two people in the class I’m going to have to work a lot harder to prepare and find lots of outside material. Thankfully we got off topic and discussed various things, including our personal outlooks (we found out that we have one atheist, one christian and one orthodox...), so the lesson was stretched out a bit. The students in this class seem to be fit for a higher level class so I don’t feel like I’m really teaching them that much (and feel bad for the fact that I’m simply using the book which they could study on their own).

03.10.07: As I had all the materials I was going to use for class I stayed at the flat until it was time for work. I finally made it there with time left to stop in at the church which is right by the metro. I’m very glad I finally stopped in as it is a wonderful church. This is the one church I’ve seen so far where almost all the icons and mosaics match. True they were done in a 19th century style but not they are not the worst example of such iconography; there was one icon of St. Seraphim which I particularly liked. (Of course the the iconography is helped by the fact that many multitudes of faithful have prayed before them.) The girl in my elementary class was the first to show up today so I went over with her the homework. As she is a bit behind the others I hope this will help her. The next to show up was the boy who is the strongest student and to my surprise (and secret joy) the problem child did not appear today. So this was the best lesson we’ve had yet... They actually worked together and the boy explained things to the girl when she didn’t understand. My next class went pretty well but I had made a mistake when I had gone over the grammar point so that created several minutes of confusion. (I thought I had done really well explaining the point and then such a thing happened...) Once that was cleared up things went better (other than me feeling like a total fool and wondering what the students think of their “teacher” now). (Speaking of “quotation marks,” I explained the use thereof in a derogatory fashion; I don’t think they were amused). My next class went pretty well also. However, when I got to the metro with my fellow teacher the “fun” began... She realized that she had not her wallet (and was afraid that it had been stolen) so we went back to the school and tried to get in to no avail. She called our boss to see if we could get a hold of the security guard but was told that she would have to call in the morning. So back towards the metro when she got a call saying that the security guard would let us in; once inside the wallet was found in her classroom. So then it was back to the metro an hour later and more stressed on the part of my colleague. In other news a friend last weekend told me that I should try a higher percent kefir as it was better, sweeter. I told her that I had been told the opposite...so of course she was right; I bought some 3% and it is sweeter, however, I still like the 1% as well.

26-30.09.07

2007-10-01T11:01:00.000+04:00

26.09.07: I got up as early as I could make myself which turned out to be 7:30 and started planning my lessons. I had to make myself get up a little early as I promised a friend that I would come to their English class to converse with the students. Thankfully I had planned enough the days before that I didn’t have a lot to do during the day. I still went in to the office and found a few activities. One of the teacher trainers was there so I talked to her a little bit about my teenage class. Like the other teachers, she said that I should work more with discussion topics and not so much strictly out of the book. She gave me a few books that have some pre-made discussions in them so I am going to try them out next class. I met my friend around noon and went to where they teache, St. Tikhon’s Institute, and spent about an hour and a half with their students. The building where the school is, as with most buildings, has a security guard. When we were entering my friend explained that I was a guess for class but he didn’t want to let me through. So my friend started pleading with him and eventually asked me if I had any sort of identification about my work so I pulled out my same pass that I would use to get into the building where Language Link is and he was pleased... At my friend’s class I mostly talked about my conversion to Orthodoxy and such history and my schooling. They asked me various questions about my impressions of Russia and what American’s think of Russia and I as well asked them what they think about Russia (particularly the position of the Orthodox Church therein). I enjoyed talking to and hearing from them so hopefully I will have time to visit again soon (it would especially be good for them as my friend said that they have never spoken with a native speaker before). I was escorted back to the metro by the class so on the way they asked more questions and told me about various things. I had planned on leaving for work by 145 to be a little early and get set up for class but didn’t leave until 2 so I was very worried about being late, however, I made it to school about 2 minutes before class was to start and found none of the students there. They showed up about 10 minutes late and the “fun” began... So I decided to start out with an activity today hoping that it might get the energy out of them and calm them down. We played “action charades” where they had to act out simple activities like brushing teeth. Some of them didn’t turn out to be so simple as they didn’t know such phrases as “comb hair”. Things went pretty well for about 10 minutes but then they decided to start writing on the board when they got up so I decided to cut it short. I had them complete a little revision test in the book which they actually worked pretty diligently on (except for the one who always acts up); but he was at least pretty quiet. I really wanted to let them go on forever working but they did finish so I had to check in... They did pretty well overall so maybe I have taught them a little bit... The rest of the class was pretty calm considering past classes. After the usual 30 minutes my next class started and thankfully we had a third person show up. Everything went pretty well and it seems I even managed to spark a slight interest in history for the girl who said she always hated history. We had a chapter which included some readings about Henry the VIII and his wives so that kept them fairly interested. And 15 minutes after that class... (actually it turned out to be about 25 as I waited a few minutes for the last person and checked someone’s homework) Everything went well in this class other than getting a slight headache...

27.09.07: I got up early today (not as early as I had planned, however) to go to the liturgy for the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross at the church by my house. I was about 15 minutes late by the schedule for the start of the liturgy but they were still doing the 3rd hour so all was ok. As on Saturday and Sunday the church was packed and I had to squeeze through people to get to a spot (I still, however, often had to shift as people are most of the time shuffling by). I hadn’t particularly planned on staying for the whole service as I thought that I should do some more planning for my lessons. However I got sort of stuck towards the front of the church and didn’t feel like squeezing back through everyone; besides, I thought that it was only about 10 o’clock...it turned out to be almost 11. This wasn’t a problem in the end as I realized I didn’t need to go to the office today and could just make copies (which was all that ended up needing to be done) at school. So I got something to eat at my favorite little shop in our local food/anything market and spent a little leisure time at the flat. I left early for work as I though I would walk around the neighbourhood near the school and I had looked up to see if there were any churches nearby. I had forgotten to write down the address but ended up on the right street (turned out that the church is on the same street as the school). When I went in the church I noticed a few people up towards the front on the side and thought there might have been a service recently and it turned out there had been...a funeral. There was a +recently reposed babushka surrounded by what must have been her family. So I bought a few candles and lit one especially for her. I headed back to school thinking that I had plenty of time as my class didn’t start until 4:45...well I got there, made a few copies, talked a bit to the secretary, headed to class and found two of my three students. I told them that they were rather early, as it was only 430, and proceeded to prepare for class...I started class about 4:50 when the last student arrived and only then when I took my register did I realize that that class starts at 4:30... My Mon. Wed. classes are the ones that start at 45 minutes past... Class went fairly well over all but I’m pretty sure it’s painful for the students as they’re probably very bored. I tried one of the discussion topics I was given but it didn’t arouse much interest. My evening class went very well other than again having a very difficult grammar question.

28.09.07: We had a training session today on methods of teaching a class which is preparing to take an English proficiency test so my day was interrupted by this pointless activity... I went into the office but hadn’t gotten up as early as planned so I only had about an hour to look for materials for next week. I described this training as pointless as 2 weeks ago we had almost 4 hours of training on the makeup of this proficiency test; at this days session we simply were told of some books to use and more activities. Before this session I saw one of our other teacher trainers and asked about my passport which I hadn’t seen for a month... She said that they should call me when it was ready but that she would check into it. She sent me a message a short time later that said it was at the main office...who knows how long it had been sitting there...other people that arrived when I did had received there’s about a week and a half earlier. When I returned to the office after our training I found the rest of my materials but was not able to do completely everything I wanted as everyone else decided to come in and just hang around... Afterwards I checked out a little cd shop by the metro to look for Alisa cds but didn’t find any. I ended up buying the first set of cds from a band called DDT as a fellow intern had said they were good and at the first birthday party I was at they sang one of their songs and I liked it. I shouldn’t have believed the intern or gone by what was sung...out of 7 disks I have only liked one so far... I next went on a search for Fr. Arseny (the book) so I went to one of the Orthodox shops in Moscow - Pravoslavnaya Slova. They however didn’t have the book either so I bought a book by Fr. John (Krestjankin) to try and read. I walked around the neighbourhood some and came upon another church so I stepped in to see if they had the book. They’re in the process of re-painting the interiour so it was interesting to see them at work. I asked the woman at the bookstand if they had what I was looking for and told her that it was about a 300 page book but she looked through her whole stock of tiny booklets looking for it... I felt bad for having her do this so I decided to buy something; I bought a book that has short histories of all the churches in Moscow and a small calendar for next year. I met a friend later at Vorobyovi Gori and we walked around the park there and along the Moscow river.

29.09.07: I had planned on preparing more for teaching the following week but again didn’t get up as early as I had hoped. After half heartedly looking over the books I decided that as it was Saturday I didn’t need to be working since I would be preparing all my weekday hours anyway... I received today while I was home a telemarketing call; I didn’t know that they would exist in Russia... So I had decided to make a trip to the South of Moscow to the Optina Pustyn Podvore. This was the one other place where I thought I might find Fr. Arseny and I was correct - although I almost overlooked the book as it was shelved with Literature and not saint’s lives. I visited the three separate shops they have in the Podvore and also the church. Last time I was at the church the relics of the Optina startsi were out but this time they were in a part of the church that was roped off. On my way out of the grounds I was harassed by what appeared to be a gypsy child of 6 or 7 begging with his mother; I gave him my pocket change (about 15 rubles) and he started following me saying something I couldn’t understand; he must have realized that was all I was going to give so he ran off to follow after his next victim... I walked around the neighbourhood and a little into Bitstevsky Les and then picked up a few pirozhki and a yoghurt for a late lunch. I later met a friend downtown to go to their church, St. Tatiana, for the vigil. This church is on the old campus of Moscow State University (right across from the Kreml), which I had seen before but didn’t realize that it was a church (it looks like a university building other than having on the front “The Light of Christ Illumines All,” which I thought strange...). After vigil we went to McDonald’s where we waited in line for about 20 minutes...more because we were talking and not forcing our way up front...and ate outside the Kreml in Aleksandrovsky Sad. We spent some time eating and talking on various and sundry topics. At one point a woman approached (she looked German) and asked in English how to get to Red Square. I was thrown by the fact that she just decided to talk to some stranger in English so it took me a second to respond.

30.09.07: I met the same friend again this morning to go to St. Tatiana’s for liturgy. After the liturgy my friend introduced me to a few of their friends (2 of whom were also Aleksanders...). I was also introduced to several of the priests and the deacon, all of whom speak English so now I have someone to whom I can go for confession. We then walked over to Christ the Saviour as I hadn’t been there yet. This being the main cathedral in Moscow, and all of Russia, of course is beautiful but a lot of the iconography in the lower church I like better than what is normally seen by people and associated with the church. I met another friend, whose birthday party I had been at a few weeks previous, at Kolomenskoe, one of the summer homes of the tsars, in the afternoon and we walked around a few hours. We visited the church of the Kazan Mother of God where there had just been a wedding, was another one going as well as a baptism... After walking around for a while we returned to the church and stayed for a bit of Vespers and an Akathist. When we were leaving we coincidentally ran into a few people from MP who were going for a walk.

I had not expected to have a Fall in Moscow but we're having a "Baba Leto" (when it get's cold and then warm again)

The road...

Random Russian child

What appeared to be a private house in the middle of the park...

The same

The implements

This isn't your backwoods outhouse...

The similar

Near the graveyard there is a big apple orchard (I was slightly weary of eating the apples so I didn't try one)

The orchard (notice the man in the tree)

Detail of the gate to the graveyard at Kolomenskoe

The graveyard at Kolomenskoe

The graveyard at Kolomenskoe

After trecking up a big hill to the other church Katja and I found it closed...

Detail of main church at Kolomenskoe

The bell tower and some other building at Kolomenskoe

A view of Moscow from Kolomenskoe

The main church at Kolomenskoe (still under repair)

Detail of door in gateway

One of the gateways to Kolomenskoe

Detail of one of the buildings at Kolomenskoe

The Church of the Kazan Mother of God

The Kazan Church

A chapel spotted on the way to Christ the Saviour

Dostoevky statue

Dostoevky ironically outside the library by the name of Lenin (a man who would be his arch nemesis)

Lomonosov, the founder of Moscow State University

A "structure" at Bitsevsky Park

Detail of the "structure"

More Beautification

More Beautification

Someone loves Yasenevo

The entrance to Bitsevky Forest

Bitsevsky Forest in Yasenevo

Yasenevo district (seems that the people are trying to, understandibly, liven up the atmosphere)

Optina Podvore

Optina Podvore

Optina Podvore

A fantastic building...

A fantastic building detail...

St. Mitrophan's

St. Mitrophan's

St. Mitrophan's

St. Mitrophan's

St. Mitrophan's

22-25.09.07 - Second week of teaching

2007-09-26T11:07:00.000+04:00

22.09.07: As I hadn’t found my materials on Friday for teaching the next week I went in to the office for a few hours and was able to find most of what I need. I still don’t have much of a plan for my teenage class - hopefully I’ll have a revelation. Part of the problem with going into the office is that usually other people are there and they have only 4 computers (all in varying degrees of poor condition) and the other people there are usually distracting. So it was nice to have gone in and no one else be there. When I was arriving at the office there was a guy working on his car in the parking lot who started to talk to me as I was approaching. I could tell that he wanted some help but I only understood his hand motions and when he said “open the door”; so he was working on the turn signal and wanted me to test it... I met a friend who lives just down the street to go to the vigil at the Church of the Annunciation which is also just down the street. I had not seen this church as the two times I have walked around the neighbourhood I went in two of the opposite directions... It is a very beautiful church of wood but very small inside-we often had to shift around for people passing by. After the service we walked around through a park and ate at a pizzeria.

23.09.07: I went to the Church of the Annunciation again today for liturgy at 8. It was as packed as the day before but wonderful nonetheless. This was the first church I’ve been to that there was only one priest and no deacon-a deacon served at the vigil but not at liturgy. So Fr. Andrei had a lot of work to do - especially considering how many people there were for confession-he even came out before communion for that purpose. When it came to the homily I actually understood about the first third of it but then got lost... After church I had a look at the church’s bookstore (earlier I had decided that I should find a copy of Fr. Arseny in the original to try and read). I was in luck and they had a copy but I had to go change some more money, however, when I returned about 30 minutes later the book was gone. So I was told to come again soon and there would be one... At 1.30 that afternoon I met a friend to visit Park Pobedi (Victory Park) which commemorates WWII. We were going to go to the historical museum but it was closed for a meeting of some political party so we walked around the park looking at various statues and machinery from the war. In the park there is also a mosque, a synagogue and an Orthodox chapel (which we stepped in for a few minutes of Vespers). As the history museum was closed we decided to go to the museum for the war of 1812 but that turned out to have closed about 10 minutes previous. So at that point after having seen a lot of the park we gave up. I met a friend and their dad (who is quite serious about his table tennis) in the evening for a few rousing rounds of table tennis at an exercise center near my flat after which we walked around another park in our neighbourhood. In other news I finally bought some kefir to try; a friend had told me to try the 1% as it’s not such a big shock to the system. So I bought some 1% and a box of cornflakes and have already grown to like the kefir.

24.09.07: I realized this morning when I started looking over my plans for the week that I wasn’t as prepared as I thought I was. I looked over my books and notes for a few hours and thought that I was pretty prepared but when I got to the office I realized how much copying and cutting of papers I had to do that I didn’t get to school but 10 minutes early. At that point I was told that I was in a different room that day (a room which I like better as the door actually closes and it’s at the end of the hall). On the way from the metro I realized that I had forgotten my audio tapes at the flat, however, they had extra’s of the one’s I needed except the one for my elementary class. Once again the elementary class was a disaster-no matter how much I plan something has always gone wrong. I implemented some of the suggestions from other teachers upon the one boy who usually starts disrupting class such as not letting him have a seat, making him stand in the corner, taking his books away, having him stand in the hallway... but none of them helped. When he was standing in the hallway the class went normally but I didn’t know how long I should make him stand outside so I let him in after a few minutes. Once again the other boy in the class forgot his book so I, not remembering that I could make copies, let him use my book which was a mistake as not having a book made me confused as to where we were supposed to be in the lesson... So towards the end of the class when things couldn’t get much worse I decided to skip ahead and play bingo... I had found a great website which makes bingo cards so I printed out one with animals and one with shapes, which had names of colours on them. What I realized after I had given out the shapes card they simply started colouring on them (after I had tried to explain what they were supposed to actually do...) At that point I realized that all the cards were the same so everyone who listens correctly would get bingo at the same time. I decided to ignore this fact unless if the children realized it - well, they did realize... I did have a backup bingo card that was blank so I told them to list off some animals which they would put on their blank cards. They listed off a bunch but by that time the class was over... After this disaster I had my new upper-intermediate class which was supposed to be of four people; however, only two showed up and ten minutes late. For a first class it went very well, the two students are friends and so didn’t mind doing silly exercises just to be talking. The only problem was that we went through the lesson really quickly so I had to add a writing exercise that I hadn’t planned on doing. On top of that we played adjective/homonym dominoes, which, thankfully, took about twenty minutes. And fifteen minutes after that class was my intermediate class... There was a new, trial student in class whom I hope stays as then we would have two pairs of students (so as to do the all-important pair work). This class went well also, other than getting through the material quicker than I had planned. I had a past perfect activity which took some time and we played dominoes at the end, which I hadn’t planned on doing. I still don’t know exactly what I’m going to do with my teenagers...

25.09.07: I did not want to get out of bed today...however I made myself and started preparing for my classes. I decided simply to go with the book for my teenage class. So after much suffering I figured out what to do and it actually went pretty well. I again only had three students at first; the fourth showed up about an hour late. So after this class I had my 30 minutes to prepare for the next class which I thought would suffice until I found that I would have 2 trial students and had to make a bunch of copies; I also had forgotten to make copies of worksheets so had to do that as well and then find the place on the audio tape (yes, audio tape) for the lesson. I gave the students some review sheets of prepositions and present perfect vs. past simple when I realized I still needed a few copies so I let them work while I made copies. I happened to see the security guard by the office so he started talking to me. All I was able to understand was saying his name, something about southern america, something about fish, something about my beard, asking how old I was and the name of the other security guard. However this conversation took several minutes... So I returned to class and the rest of the class went pretty quickly. We actually didn’t cover all of the lesson that I had planned (which is not so bad as now I don’t have to plan quite as much for Thursday).

The Church of the Annunciation

The Church of the Annunciation

The Church of the Annunciation

The church bookstore

The Church of the Annunciation

The Church of the Annunciation

The Church of the Annunciation

The promenade of Park Pobedi

St. George the defender of Moscow

Monument to other nations that fought against Hitler

Artifacts of WWII at Park Pobedi

A big cannon and I

Artifacts of WWII at Park Pobedi

Park Pobedi

Chapel at Park Pobedi

Same

Same

Overlooking Park Pobedi from a hill

Cross in memory of WWII on hill at Park Pobedi

Overlooking Moscow from a hill at Park Pobedi

Statue of Kutuzov (General during the war of 1812)

20-21.09.07 - The end of the first week of teaching

2007-09-21T23:49:00.000+04:00

One of the schools where I teach (the other one looks very similar).

20.09.07: So I thought I was pretty familiar with what I had planned to teach this day... I went in to the office to find some additional activities and realized as usual I was not at all prepared to be teaching. I thought that the lesson I was going to teach for my high schoolers would be pretty interesting but one of them was not there so with three students it was impossible to get discussions going. I also hadn’t calculated my teaching time as well so had a lot of time at the end; I had planned on playing “Irregular Past Tense Bingo” but again it didn’t take up as much time as I thought. I had the students write about something that interests them for next class so hopefully with that information I can plan some better lessons. In the time between classes the teacher that regularly teaches in my classroom came in; she is the school’s English teacher. I talked with her a bit about teaching and such and she as well wanted to hear me say something in Russian for some reason. I said a few things and then she asked me where I was from and she conveniently has a map on the wall so I was able to show her. She asked me a few things about the weather and somehow turned to the subject of communists. (I think she said something about lots of Americans being communist.) So I told her that I wasn’t and she said that communists are sh** several times and a little quieter said that the head of the school is a communist. After this conversation I started looking over the next class’ lesson and realized that I was hardly familiar with the material... I had about fifteen minutes to review. Thankfully these are my best students so it wasn’t a huge problem. However, I had to try to explain the difference between the present perfect and present perfect progressive which I failed to do. I did remember to go to the examples when I was faltering but I still don’t know if they understood the difference (I still don’t know if I understand the difference for that matter). A new girl joined the class tonight so I was happy about that-now we can have pair work. She seems a little behind the others in comprehension but I think part of the problem was just nervousness. After class I ended up walking to the metro with the new student so we talked a little bit about what she does. One week of teaching down - 30 some more to go...

21.09.07: Today was a day that I was to have planned all my lessons for next week. I got quite a bit done-general outlines of what I’m teaching-but it took all day and I still need to find activities and “warmers” as they call them (games for the beginning of the class). I also still have no idea what to do in my advanced teen class. The first problem is that the book I have to use is different than the ones we used in training and than I have for every other class except elementary. The book is mostly based on reading with little grammar points thrown in every chapter. One of the teacher trainers showed me a webpage where there are topics for discussions so hopefully that will help. I finally had a list of all the grammar points I am to teach next week and a general idea of all the lessons so I went in to the office to find materials but only had about an hour before I was to meet a friend to go to Red Square. I found a few good activities but have to go in on Saturday to finish. So the exchange rate for dollars has been really low all week so I had been waiting to change money until it went back up, but it hadn’t by yesterday so I took some money to exchange at a place by the office which usually has the best rate. Well, the odd thing about changing money is that they usually won’t accept bills that have any sort of marking on them-the bills I had that day weren’t in the best condition (I had planned on changing those particular bills at a place by my house which had accepted such bills before). I went to three different exchanges and a bank and no one would take them... One of them offered to accept them for a lower rate (which doesn’t make sense to me...). So back to Red Square... I met my friend after these shenanigans and we walked around the square a bit and in a few neighbourhoods around there for a few hours looking at churches and various buildings.

A Church on the corner of Red Square.

The Historical Mueseum.

As close as I will get to Lenin's body...

A Baptist church.

A Baptist church.

The Church to which Konstantine Kinchev, the leader of the band Alisa, attends. (He lives around the corner in an apartment complex from which we were chased out of by the security guard.)

The same church.
The same.

St. Basil's, of course.

18-19.09.07 - The early days of teaching

2007-09-20T11:44:00.000+04:00

18.09.07: So I taught at the other location which is also an elementary school. Today was the day that I got my first experience with teaching teenagers...it wasn’t so bad, yet. This group is “advanced” and can all read pretty well and converse pretty fluently. So the problem will be keeping them interested in what we’re talking about. There are only 4 people in the class so it’s hard to get a lot of discussion going. In training we always had classes of at least 6 so we weren’t really prepared for getting smaller groups of people to talk. After class I had about 30 minutes to get ready for my next class (which I had hardly prepared for during the day). This class only has three people but they all seem to be good students. The lesson went really well considering except that I had some trouble clearly explaining grammar points and not getting myself mixed up. It is far too easy to get mixed up when trying to explain anything in English grammar... I had planned on working on my lessons for the next day when I got home but it was already almost eleven and I was very tired so I ended up falling asleep amid the books.

19.07.09: So after my first few days of teaching I realized that really being familiar with the lesson I’m trying to teach is more important than trying to plan out each minute of class, however, I do need to calculate how long I’m going to spend on each part as my lessons today went a little short). I read over my materials several times to figure out exactly what grammar what being taught (tefl books are difficult to understand for a native speaker like me...). I went into the office to find some activities but didn’t find as much as I had hoped. This office is the only place that has all the reference books for teaching but the problem is that it is also the place where teachers go to use the internet, and there are a whopping 4 computers to do this). So it’s often very distracting at this office as can be imagined. I happened to see one of my teacher trainers so I asked her for an activity for teaching the difference between “will” and “going to” (a difference that I never knew existed). She told me about a “great” activity of imagining a party where the students decide that they are “going to” bring something (a “plan”). Then you ask who “will” bring something they didn’t mention (an instantaneous decision). In theory I guess it works... Well, I thought I was mostly prepared for class but it turned out to be a nightmare. I have absolutely no control over the children who will listen for about 3 seconds and then act up in someway. Two of the students I think would be ok but the third student almost always is the initiator. I’d been told to get the secretary if I’m having problems and she will talk to the students. On Monday, before I’d decided to have her come over, she must have heard them so she gave them a talking to (as well as after class in the hall). This day she came over twice... The students would be good for about 2 minutes and then start acting up again. I met the teacher whose room I am using and she had to come in one time during class for something; while she was in the room the students were perfect...so I have to figure out how the Russians discipline the children. After dragging that class out for an hour and a half I had 3 hours before the next class so I went over my lesson several times and went for a walk in the park near the school. For my next class only 3 students showed up so I hope that I hadn’t scared the other 2 away... This class went pretty well, other than not always giving the best directions all the time or not explaining something in an understandable way. We’re supposed to be teaching with “The Communicative Approach” but it is almost impossible when there are only 3 students. For some activities I have paired up with one student but then I can’t “monitor” what the other pair are doing. Once again I hadn’t calculated my time correctly so I started my “Irregular Past Tense Bingo” to early and after playing a few rounds had to return to an earlier grammar point (which I thankfully had another worksheet for). I decided that was really going to work on my next day’s lesson plan when I got home and I actually did read over all the stuff but realized that for my teenagers half of the stuff in the lesson doesn’t apply to them...

First day of teaching - 17.09.07

2007-09-18T15:26:00.000+04:00

17.09.07: So I had some really weird dreams last night which I believe to be caused by the strain of my new job. I went in to the office early to prepare for my afternoon and evening classes but didn’t end up really planning that much. I mostly familiarized myself with the lesson and found a few activities. In the end it all worked out: I had only three students in my elementary class so I had to adapt all of my activities anyway. I was to meet one of the directors of the franchise for which I am working at 1.45 at a metro station and was early as usual (I haven’t gotten a feel of calculating metro travel times yet). While waiting I realized that I didn’t know what they look like and didn’t know if they knew what I look like so I almost went and asked some woman who had been standing around the same place as I whether she was waiting for me. The building that I am teaching in is a school during the day but moonlights as a language course, In my elementary class are two boys and a girl who for their level seem to know quite a bit. The boys, of course, were difficult to control even when I made one sit by the girl. The problem was that only one of them had a book so I had to loan mine out so I couldn’t separate all of them. After class, which actually did go fairly quickly, I did a little preparation for my next class at 7.15 and then walked a little around the neighbourhood and bought a shawarma sandwich and “Old Miller” beer to have in the park. The neighbourhood is quite nice with several parks, is fairly quiet and has slightly older and better looking buildings that most other neighbourhoods I’ve been in on the outer stretches of town. My next class went fairly well also so it was a successful day. There are six people in the class and only five showed up tonight so that made it more difficult as most of the book material is based on pairwork (which, of course, works better with even numbers). Susie, a girl from my same group of interns, works at the same school so we finished about the same time and made our way back to the metro.

15-16-09.07 - Weekend

2007-09-17T09:31:00.000+04:00

15.09.07: I stayed around the flat most of the day as I wanted to look over the books for my classes. Monday I teach an elementary group of children who are supposed to be around 12 yrs. old. Now that we have finished training I don’t really feel that much better about being in charge of a class for several hours and teaching them something... I’m planning on going in to the resource center early on Monday to plan. My intermediate class Monday night is actually at the same lesson that we taught on Friday so hopefully that will go well, however, I only taught one third of the lesson so we’ll see how the other two thirds go. In the afternoon I went for a walk around our neighbourhood and in a park that goes along a small river. I met a friend at Novospaskii monastery for the vigil at 5 pm. So that was the first service where I’ve seen someone pass out... I’m actually not sure what happened but some guy fell down several rows of people in front of us and was dragged out, however, he returned after a few minutes. After the service we stopped in at a cafe for some tea. When we got to the metro I misheard where my friend told me to go so ended up getting on the train going South instead of North and didn’t realize it for about 3 or 4 stops...

The park near my flat.

16.09.07: My friend John from Chicago, who is going to Alatyr’-a city a days journey southeast of Moscow, was in town so I met him and his girlfriend at St. Katherine’s for liturgy. Afterwards we searched for a good place to go for lunch and ended up at Yolki-Palki, a chain restaurant that serves traditional Russian food. I met some friend and my roommate Doug in the afternoon to go to the Kreml. We ended up waiting for another friend of theirs by which time it had thankfully quit raining. The Kreml was quite busy as it was a weekend and there were lots of tour groups. Nonetheless it was great to finally see the complete picture of churches I had only seen over the walls. Several buildings were closed but we were able to see Uspenskii and Arkhangelsii Cathedrals. The last few weeks there has been some sort exhibition of armed forces from different countries so we saw a Russian military band perform for military that appeared to be from Scotland, Georgia and somewhere in the East. After the Kremlin we had a bite to eat in a nearby cafe.
My ticket. Me with "Tsar the bell" as it was translated on the map. The biggest bell in Russian history. My friends very excited by the kilts and had to be photographed with them. Novospaskii Monastery

My flat (the row of windows on the third floor).

The abandoned truck in the front lawn.

13-14.09.07- The end of training

2007-09-15T09:54:00.000+04:00

13.09.07: More training; how to teach children and teens. Turns out to be apropos as today (14.09.07) I received my initial teaching schedule and will have both children and teens along with two adult classes. There will most likely be more added as that is only about half of how many hours they can have me teach. After two hours of training we stopped so as to plan our lessons. They had changed our groups and what we were teaching as well as divided the lessons up for us which I thought was a great idea. So I ended up teaching the Intermediate group which has been the best class to teach. All the teacher trainers helped us plan our lessons so I thought I had everything covered but it turned out that I hadn’t read one of the trainers notes correctly so I didn’t follow the directions how she wanted... it went well other than that (and a few other minor things). After class I observed an Elementary level class to see how it’s really done so that was helpful. We were to have a test the next day so I tried to study a little when I got home but I couldn’t motivate myself so well.

14.09.07: I got up early again to work on a lesson plan so I searched the internet for some materials but didn’t really find much so I went again to the resource center. There was another intern there studying when I arrived so I figured I should do a little of the same (especially as we had time later to lesson plan). So we had a general grammar and phonetics test on which I did better than I thought. After the test we were free to do our lesson plans and thankfully another teacher trainer helped me with mine. I received my schedule in the afternoon and found that I will be teaching at 2 different locations on the North side of Moscow. For now I will be teaching Mon., Tues., Wed. and Thurs. so hopefully when they add classes it will be on those days as well. So my lesson today went the best of any so far. I taught the same class as the day before so was already pretty comfortable with them and could refer to the previous lesson. After class some of the teachers and the interns went to the restaurant/bar next door so I joined them for a while. About half of the interns are going to St. Petersburg so they wanted to have some sort of send off. After about an hour I headed to the MP meeting but when I got out of the metro I ran into a few people and found out that it already ended; but I talked to them for a while and ended up going to a nearby cafe with another Marusist. On my way home, as before, I was confunded when I transferred because the other line is just across the platform and not up or down some steps and/or elevators like at other stations...

12.09.07

2007-09-13T09:14:00.000+04:00

12.09.07: Once again went in early to find stuff for lessons. I found a few things and thought I had some good activities; even asked one of the trainer’s about it and she said it was great. However, the lesson did not turn out so well. I’m very bad at giving instructions and that was the start of the problem. It went on to the fact that I never really explained what I was trying to teach to them - it ended up being just several random activities which they didn’t really do as was supposed to be done. After I failed to explain the difference between “every” and “all” I basically gave up and rumbled through randomness. Right after class I went to the resource center to find things for my next lesson; they, however, close at 8 so I only had about half an hour to look. I did find several things which if I teach them correctly should last for 45 minutes. Tomorrow we have the Pre-Intermediate class which has been the worst class to teach as it is very difficult to get them to talk. One slightly good thing about tonight’s class was that they actually talked quite a bit; too much a lot of the time. Two more days of training and I’m supposed to be actually teaching everyday...

Having come in early, once again, I found out that we are changing our teaching groups today and our lessons. I will have the Intermediate class that, so far, went the best. Also we will have some extra time during the day to prepare and with extra help. (It looks like they can see that we're struggling...)

Training Week 2

2007-09-12T09:51:00.001+04:00

10.09.07: Went into the office early today to prepare my lesson; didn’t do any good as I totally went down in a ball of flaming corn. Maybe tomorrow will be better... I’m still being told that I’ll be fine but I’m starting to have a hard time believing it. There was actually a problem on the metro today (the first one I’ve seen). There were delays for some reason on the circle line which is the busiest line. When I arrived on the platform the train had been there for at least 7 minutes (totally unheard of when trains normally go through every minute or so in rush times). There were probably several hundred people waiting for the next train (since this one was filled to the brim) which I did manage to squeeze onto. I shoved in (literally) and thought that there couldn’t possibly be any more people when another guy refrigerated on and about killed some poor woman. So then we were all on....and stood there for probably 5 minutes...and when we finally left we stopped at one point before the next station (thankfully I only had to go one stop) and stood there for probably 3-5 minutes. After my transfer all was back to normal... That’s about it for today.

11.09.07: Went in early again today to work on lesson planning. After going to bed the night before with an idea of what I was going to do I arrived at work having forgotten... I looked over my stuff for a while and found a few exercises but didn’t think they would do so I finally asked one of the trainers what she thought and she said that it was great and should work fine. So that’s what I planned on doing. More training and I thought most of the day about what I was going to do. After the previous nights failed attempt I was quite downcast for another performance but in the end everything worked out fine. They group we taught was the best group I’ve seen so far. All the people will talk on their own and they understand very well. So my lesson went as planned and even a bit over since they were having so much fun. However, I teach another grammar point next which doesn’t look so hopeful unless if I can find some great activities... I ended up meeting a friend from Chicago who’s in town after work and we ended up going to McDonald’s (my first time in Russia). They food was the same but here in Russia they are a bit more of a classy joint (at least this one was...).

(Don't forget to see the new pictures and video added to the last post.)

7.09-9.09 - Weekend

2007-09-10T10:18:00.000+04:00

7.09.07: Training as expected. We will be teaching everyday next week so we received the lessons so we can start preparing. We will be teaching Pre, Upper, and regular Intermediate classes. Yesterday I heard that we had to totally make up our lessons only using the book that is usually taught out of as reference, however, today our trainer said she did that with the last group but may not with us. (She may have been punishing them for being late en masse last Saturday as they all went out Friday and drank the night away....) Saturday, you say? Yes, we have training tomorrow: how to give an exam. I attempted to work on my lesson for Monday after training today and think I have a good idea... I have plans all weekend so hopefully I can fit some preparation in. Tonight I went to the first meeting of MP for the school year. They talked about options of things to do. For instance, they go to orphanages, nursing homes, on pilgrimages and help rebuild churches. I understood about half of what was being discussed and every once in a while I had my neighbour translate into comprehensible Russian. After the meeting I accompanied said neighbour and another friend on a leisurely trip back to the metro and headed home... In interesting news today I had the longest yet conversation with the woman at the kiosk where I usually buy lunch. I was a buying cookies and had to describe the particular ones and she had to climb up and get them to ask if they were right and then find another one from somewhere in the bowels of the kiosk...usually kiosk people are pretty short but maybe she’s warming up to me. Also today was the first day when I’ve been on the metro when it is more than packed. Of course it’s not a huge problem as a new train comes every minute. Tonight I made plans to go visit the Kreml in a few weeks... 8.09.07: Training again. We learned how to “teach to the test” as they say; the test for different certificates in English. Some of these tests are even hard to complete for native speakers... We went through each part and did a little to see what it’s like and some parts are very tricksy. We did finish a little early so that was a relief but since it was still the middle of the afternoon it didn’t really make much difference. Plans had changed to go to a friend’s dacha instead of the futbol match but as the dacha is over an hour away I ended up going to the match with another friend. I met them at a metro station as usual and as I was waiting new groups of militsia appeared with every train. Some stayed in the metro and wandered back and forth on the platform but the majority, and additional hundreds, were met near the stadium. Near the stadium there was a line of army personnel who made a gateway through which everyone had to pass. After that when we entered the stadium fence we had a bag search and upon entering the stadium itself there was a metal detector, pat down and bag search, and at the door to the seating area there was another bag search... So we finally got to our seats after having a little cup of coffee to warm up (it was cold all day). The game started out well with a goal for Russia within the first 5 or ten minutes. After a fierce competition Russia scored 2 more goals in the last 10-15 minutes. In other news it appears that I have a shin splint or somesuch that hurts my shin muscle very much. And the final score:

9.09.07: I attended Liturgy at the Church of the 40 Martyrs of Sebaste but arrived about an hour late as I though it started at 10. It is the church where Father Maxim who leads MP serves. It was raining a little bit when I went in and after service it started raining more. I was supposed to meet some people at 2 in the afternoon so I decided to find loiter somewhere which turned out to be a terrible idea. I decided to find a Citibank to make sure my account worked (which it did) so I went downtown. At first I didn’t get very wet but the rain started picking up and since I was on the streets for about 2 hours I was almost completely drenched. In my wandering I did, however, come upon a marathon... I also went into an underpass which turned out to be a changing station for all the finished runners; when I came out on the other side I was encircled by various fences and a bunch of very wet runners. By the time I started heading to the metro to meet people, as I said, I was very wet and my schplint (what I’ve decided to call my shin ailment) was throbbing. What was worse was that my feet didn’t dry all day even in the warm metro. So I met various people in the afternoon to go to a birthday party which turned out to be in Mitischi which is a suburb of Moscow. This party was similar to the previous one in a lot of ways except without the guitars (there was a balalaika, however).

2.09-6.09

2007-09-06T20:20:00.000+04:00

I haven't had a chance to post this week until today as I haven't found a place to buy a splitter for the internet connection. So here is this exciting week:

2.09.07: I went this morning to All Saints church for liturgy (see here) where the few Americans that I know attend. After liturgy I had lunch with one of them and two of his children after which we went to Detski Mir (children’s world) to buy some school supplies. Detski Mir is a giant toy store comparable to, I’m guessing, Macy’s. Inside there is a quite old carousel complete with lions, horses and balloons. I walked around downtown for a while after that. A lot of parts of downtown are still blocked off after the festivities yesterday and there were still hundreds of militia around. I had planned to meet a friend in the early afternoon at a certain metro station (common locations for meeting people) and it turned that there was a birthday party. I met more people from Young Rus (MR) and we celebrated until late into the night. The celebration included eating and drinking, playing the guitar and balilaika and singing, walking around Izmailovsky Park and playing badminton and volleyball. I gave many interviews so was able to practice my Russian a lot; only a few people know very much English at all (and they don’t often use it) so I was forced to use my brain. There was lots of communal singing through which, it seems, I became a member of the group, a “Marusist” (the combination of Molodoy (young) and Rus). I’d heard from various people over the years that I look very much Russian but it was reinforced many times tonight (so hopefully I won’t have to worry too much about hassle from the militia). Another comforting fact is that when I asked someone what it seems like when I try to speak Russian he said that it really doesn’t sound too bad and that it doesn’t blatantly show that I’m American (which, of course, could cause problems).

A few pictures from the party:

I forgot that I had video capabilities until the end so this was all I got:

3.09.07: So today was the first day of teacher training. We first had an introductory session in which we did the typical games for getting to know each other and the basics of what our work will be. The teacher trainer basically gave us material as if she were teaching so in this manner we went over various points of grammar and teaching. For part of our training we have to observe 3 different classes and write a small report on how the teacher taught. I was scheduled to do one of mine that day after our training and as I was supposed to actually teach the next day I was happy about that. However, when I went to the classroom I was to observe the teacher informed me that she was giving a test so there wouldn’t be any teaching involved. So the other teacher that was to observe and I simply left and walked around the neighbourhood for a while figuring the different directions out. I headed back to the apartment and decided to walk some around the neighborhood. Getting a grip of neighbourhoods in Moscow is difficult as the blocks are generally very large. So I walked down a street away from my apartment and thought I might go around the block. Well the next street turned out to be 1km away... So when I got there I thought I might as well keep going so I turned and walked probably another kilometer when I came to the next street which ended up curving away from my apartment; I realized then that I could either walk a really long way around or turn around so I simply turned around. When I got back my flatmate and I ended up watching the Simpson’s movie (not particularly good) and I worked on my Lesson Plan for the next day.

4.09.07: As I had to teach this day at four o’clock that was what I thought about the whole day. Of course, I was nervous about teaching but more nervous about being able to stretch out what I was supposed to be teaching to 45 minutes. All I had to do was a listening exercise, a game and a writing assignment. The good thing was that our trainer actually went over everything with us and helped us plan our lessons. We taught in groups of three and split up a short chapter of a book, one section based on reading, one on grammar/pronunciation and one on listening/writing. We had another teacher trainer sit in and review our teaching who in the end said we all did alright considering we know nothing about what were doing. The hardest part in mine ended up being what I hadn’t thought much about because I thought it would be the easiest part: the game. One person was supposed to have picked a job and the other person was supposed to ask what they were required to do for this job such as “Do you have to get up early?” The problem is that one could as such questions all day without figuring out some obscure job that someone picked... Then with no guesses or solutions it was a bit awkward trying to move on to the next part... But over all it went well and I think the students actually learned something. After our teaching the trainer gave us feedback and then I had my first observation. I observed a teacher that has been teaching in Russia for many years so that aspect was good, however, he was teaching a pretty high level which I don’t know if I will even be teaching. We were first introduced to the class and said something about ourselves which for me turned out to be a hassle as the girl next to me latched on to the fact that I had studied literature (she skipped the part that it was Russian literature) and was writing me notes asking about American literature during the lesson. (A common occupation during class is writing notes or text messaging...) After the second question I wrote that I would tell her later about what American lit. I actually had read so she wrote back saying it was so boring simply going over the grammar questions... The teacher included the other intern and myself in his class by having the students use us as resources; they were discussing idioms and puns so they asked us when they had problems.

5.09.07: More training today...grammar and lesson planning. The next day I would be teaching so I started reviewing the lesson: the third conditional. I spent several hours after training in the teacher’s lounge trying to work on my plan but it was pretty much useless as the other teachers were talking and distracting in general. It wasn’t really a problem though as I was there more to waste time before meeting someone from MP that evening. So I met up with said Marusist at 7 and we walked around several boulevards and talked (I had to get used to talking Russian again as I hardly had since the weekend). On the way home I randomly saw through the window in the next car a fellow intern... I also saw three deaf people...quite interesting.

6.09.07: Training... So we had a very good explanation of the conditionals, which was quite apropos as I taught the third conditional today; well it didn’t turn out the best when I taught it. As before, there was too much “TTT” as they call it “teacher talking time” and not enough “SS < > SS” (student to student talking). However, it when pretty well I thought. We had out review by another teacher right after class so that is always helpful. We are supposed to teach everyday next week so I should learn how to do this teaching thing. Nothing else interesting except that Saturday I’m going to the futbol match of the century (so it’s not really, I just want to make Colonel K and Parmajon excited).

Recap

2007-09-01T22:11:00.000+04:00

Here are my journal entries for the last four days:

29.08.07 (written 30.08.07): Arrived in Russia a few minutes late (about 5). On plane from Warsaw the woman sitting next to me was a Russian who has lived in England for 25 years; talked to her for a lot of the trip and when we arrived in Russia. My bags were some of the first to come off, though I didn’t realize it for several minutes, so I packed them up and went to wait for the driver. Waited probably 20-30 minutes and was getting worried but then he turned up (standing right behind me). The driver’s name was Vladimir, who also seems to be a repair guy for Language Link (when we got to the apartment he fixed Doug’s bed). There was a lot of traffic on the way to the apartment but Vladimir and I talked a good deal. It started to rain but not too bad and there was a rainbow (радуга). Vladimir was quite pleased as it was a complete rainbow and not just partial (there turned out to be two right next to each other, the second one slowly appearing). He was so busy looking at it that we almost rear ended another car; had I not said “whoa” there would have been an авария. When we arrived at the apartment I met my apartment mate Doug who turned out to be from Rockford and had gone to IMSA. I spent most of the night talking to Doug and later unpacking. Hopefully I won’t be moving as I unpacked most everything and don’t know how I would be able to fit it all back.

30.08.07: Woke up about 7:30 local time and fixed some tea and ate some cookies. I looked up the local churches (there are two within close proximity of my apartment) and stopped by one on the way to the metro. I met a Language Link representative at the metro by the main offices about 11:30 and had a tour of the 3 separate offices they occupy. Afterwards I had a bite to eat on the street and headed home.

31.08.07: After lying in bed for at least an 45 minutes last night I finally drifted off to sleep (I have to get used to all the traffic right outside the window). I spent all day at home waiting for a representative from the internet company to call...who it turns out got my roommate’s cell phone number somehow... So now I will have a certain amount of access in my apartment (we don’t have a router so can only use one computer at a time; they also said there was a charge for having 2 computers connected which doesn’t make sense). I was able to get in touch with someone I met on an internet forum for “Young Rus”, an Orthodox young persons group, so I met with him this evening and met 4 other members. We met at one of the ubiquitous St. Nicholas’ which is located across the river from the Kremlin. We had some tea and cookies and I was asked many questions which I tried my hardest to answer coherently. The spiritual director of the group, Igumen Ioasaph, was there so he let us up to the bell tower of the church, which also houses a bell-ringer’s school, for some views of downtown. Igumen Ioasaph wanted to take the oppourtunity to have an international tournament of badminton so we played a few rounds (will provide pictures once I get them). With two of the members I walked around a bit downtown; we were going to walk on Red Square but it was closed off for the celebration tomorrow of “Day of Moscow” (the anniversary of Moscow’s founding, 860 years).

1.09.07: Spent the morning lolly-gagging around the apt. waiting to go by a mobile phone. To be able to get a SIM card for a mobile phone one needs have a registered passport which I don’t at this time so my roommate went with me. The nice thing about mobiles here is that one can buy any phone anywhere and then buy a SIM card anywhere else and buy cards which have money amounts anywhere else. In other words, the phone is separate from the provider. If one doesn’t like a certain phone company then one can simple buy a different SIM card. Calls and texts are a certain amount of rubles (for me it seems that texts are 11 rubles and calls are between 1.65 and 2.99 rubles a minute). This afternoon I met a few people to go to St Nicholas Ugreshki monastery which is in a town right outside of Moscow. It has the largest church in Moscow district next to Christ the Saviour. We walked some around the grounds and then attended the last part of Vespers and Matins.

Tiny Salt: a gift from the Poles:

The airport where I arrived:

My welcome kit:

My apartment:

Sobor of St. Nikolaj Ugreshki monastery:

One of the monastery cats:

Arrival

2007-08-30T13:59:00.000+04:00

After 24 "hours" I arrived at Sheremyetovo airport yesterday. My driver was stuck in a traffic jam so I had to wait around about 20 minutes or so. However the consolation was that I did not have to wait for my bags, they were about the first ones on the conveyor. I also met a nice woman on the plain with whom I was able to visit. I was taken to my apartment on the northeast side of Moscow and met my roomate and got situated. (I will post photos once I find a wireless connection). Today, Thursday, I was met in the morning by a teacher and shown around to the different offices and had my documents taken care of. That's all for now...

Departure

2007-08-28T09:19:00.000+04:00

After much ado, gatherings, farewells and anxious waiting I will be flying from O'hare today at 5:25 pm Central Time and arriving in Moscow Wednesday at 4:20 pm local time.