Celebration of the new year. Holidays according to old Russian calendar: Christmas, New Year, Epiphany. Book: Oblomov.
New Russian anthem. Library of Foreign Literature. Studying (French, Access). Tretyakov Gallery. Mother's plans. Political news. Time magazine. Books & films
WEEK 1 (1 - 7 JAN.)
Monday (1). Celebration of the new year was nothing extraordinary. My sister was having a cold and she stayed upstairs with Father. I was downstairs, at my mother's: a bit of eating and drinking (mother's wine), watching TV (it was boring, I kept switching to the video). The "new old" anthem they played at midnight was awful: so much bravura, I could hardly hear the words. The anthem is empty, spiritless, it didn't move me at all.
That night I slept from 1 to 5 a.m. (I wasn't sleepy); the rest of the night I spent with the computer.
During the day I read Oblomov, used the computer (I'm studying Access now) and watched the film Barber of Siberia on TV with my mother. I enjoyed it again, it's a pity that the ending is so sad.
Mother said that the anthem in the film, Bozhe tsarya khrani... ("God preserve the Tsar") was better than our present anthem. I agree with her.
Tuesday (2). I made up for the previous night and got up late. I've been reading Goncharov again, studied Access and French.
Goncharov's Oblomov is a very engaging reading. I haven't been so moved by a book for years! What a masterpiece! The book is very useful for everyone, because there's an Oblomov in every person, not excluding me (alas!). Goncharov's thoughts on love and friendship are very profound too.
Wednesday (3). Before noon: French and Traffic Rules. In the afternoon: Access. So far I've read 200 pages of the book on Access (of 350), but as I read I understand it less and less. I do not see the forest for the trees. I'll try to buy another book. I read a book on Access in Sweden; it was in Swedish, about the same size, but written much clearer.
Thursday (4). I read books at home as usual, also went to Moscow.
In Moscow I was in the area of Moscow called Zamoskvorechye (south of the Kremlin behind the Moskva river). I went on foot between these metro stations:
- Polyanka (Molodaya Gvardiya bookshop, very crowded, there I bought a new book on Access)
- Tretiyakovskaya (I bought honey and visited an English bookshop Shakespeare & Co. which is as sleepy as it was two years ago)
- Paveletskaya (I went to look at the cinema where I used to see English-language films, now it's closed "due to technical reasons").
From Paveletskaya I went by metro south to the food market and then home.
In the evenings from Wednesday I see a Russian film in five parts War and Peace on TV. This film, made in 1967, is famous in Russia, and probably the most expensive of all Russian films. I like the acting very much, but I am not so fond of the film director's (Bondarchuk) style: too much smoke, clouds, and bird's-eye views.
Weather: temperature is slightly below 0 C.
Saturday (6). I went to the Tretyakov Gallery. This is the world's biggest gallery of Russian paintings and icons. This evening I made a short visit and had time only for paintings. I saw mostly the 2d half of the 19th century: Kramskoy, Perov, Surikov, Aivazovsky, Kuidzhi, Vereschagin and many others. So many talents we had at this time! The paintings are so realistic and forceful!
In the queue near the entrance I had a chance to speak French with a couple of girls, students from Paris.
The double price system is still in place: Russians pay usd 0.4 - 1 (price list in Russian), while "foreigners" are charged 10 times more (in English)! I wanted to pay for the discriminated French girls, but I couldn't find them.
I wonder whether people from e.g. Ukraine or Belarus should pay 10 times more than Russians? Or only those who do not speak Russian? Is there any other country with such a system?
Sunday (7). It's Russian Christmas today (Russian church calendar is 13 days behind).
Mother's plans. Most of the day I spent with my mother discussing her plans to join a new community of settlers in Smolenk region. The settlers will purchase land in a quiet wooden area, 230 km. from Moscow, build houses, a school and a hotel. They are going to live autonomously (as much as possible) from the state and the current economic system. They will cultivate ecologically pure produce and also teach children according to new, creative methods worked out by Schetinin, a Russian school director (in his school children teach each other and even learn 10-year program in one year!).
Mother wants to live in an ecologically unspoiled area with spiritually close people. It's not possible in our village, she says that here she can't be happy. I'm a bit sceptical about the idea, but it's worth trying.
She may also try to exchange her 2-room flat (I now live in it, she lives on my space in the house) for a smaller flat in Moscow. Both she and I would like to go to Moscow more often (to visit places and meet people), but one gets so tired of commuting! The trains are often late, dirty and crowded, not least by dubious characters.
Buying a car is out of question. I won't drive here, I'm not tired of life yet, and buying a toxic box on wheels is a total waste.
WEEK 2 (8 - 14 JAN.)
This week I've been studying French harder. I'm now at lesson 27, the textbook will soon be finished. I have a few more textbooks with cassettes, also dictionaries, grammars, readers, etc. - everything for autonomous studying for a few months. Still I want to speak French with someone.
The driving course is over, I need to retake the theory exam. The I'll take exams at the traffic police office.
Friday (12). I've been to a cinema and saw "Dancer in the dark" (in English subtitled). Interesting, but I don't think that it's a masterpiece. I didn't like shaking and unfocused camera, but dances in Selma's dreams were wonderful.
Sunday (14). We had another New Year Eve yesterday - according to the Russian church festival. First I celebrated a bit with my father and sister, they even had Italian champagne, which they'd kept one year, it was very good.
Then I went to my mother's part of the house which is downstairs. We drank tea with pancakes and she tried her bronze pendulum on me to find out things about my personality. Then we watched TV: a New Year concert and a lovely Russian film "Formula of Love" with songs and dances. Mother had a new TV antenna installed yesterday, so now she has not one channel as before but about 15 (all Russian). I told her to choose from the program only the best for 1-2 hours per day.
The film ended at about 2 a.m., I shouldn't watch TV so late again - I've overslept. Today I've been studying French and Access, but not much.
WEEK 3 (15 - 21 JAN.)
This week I went to Moscow twice: on Monday and Friday. I sent faxes to Canadian embassies (in Moscow and London).
On Tuesday and Wednesday I helped mother to moved furniture in her part of the house. On Tuesday evening we saw news on TV: Putin, Lukashenko and Luzhkov making speeches and decorating each other with orders in the Bolshoi Theatre. Disgusting.
On Friday it was Epiphany in Russia (Krescheniye) which is celebrated by the Orthodox church as the baptism of Christ. In Russia people sanctify water in churches. Some people, my mother for example, believe that water comes sanctified from taps at night before Epiphany. Also on the eve of Epiphany there is a old tradition of finding out one's fortunes from coffee dregs, experimenting with mirrors and candles, etc.
Sunday (21).
French. I'm studying the last lesson of my French textbook (Cours de Francais) today. The course ends with the subjunctive mood: various phrases with que after which it should be used (will I ever keep all of them in mind ?). French grammar is more complicated than English or Swedish.
Since the course was published in Sweden, all grammar explanations and word translations are in Swedish, but it didn't make the course more difficult, instead I had a bit of practice in Swedish too. The texts are excellently written and recorded, they contain all useful everyday vocabulary. The grammar and drills are quite difficult sometimes, the notes are written in a very detailed way with lots of references. Fortunately, I had studied two other French textbooks with good grammar explanations, without them it would've been hard.
Now I need to improve are speaking skills and pronunciation. The pronunciation course which I ordered at the library still hasn't come. The librarian said it's better to buy it elsewhere (usd 25), because they have only one and it's constantly lent.
Next I'll take another French course with texts about France. Now I'm also reading a book about France from the same library, so far I've read about French geography and history (until 18th century).
Library. It's so good that there are French and American centres at this library (financed by the respective countries). Before these centres were set up and computers bought (by Soros Foundation) in the early 90s, the library was in a miserable condition. It seems that now it's the only modern library in Moscow and probably in the entire Russia.
A new Russian film I saw on TV: Strana glukhik (The Land of the Deaf). The main characters are two women, one of them is deaf and other one is hiding from bandits, who live together in a sculptor's studio. They make a living by prostitution and (the second woman) as by working as a hearing assistant to a deaf businessman. The film was about these two women's relations with men and bandits. Quite interesting.
WEEK 4 (22 - 28 JAN.), WEEK 5 (29 - 31 JAN.),
The rest of January I didn't have much news, and I was also ill.
French. I started a new French textbook, but after studying the first 5 texts I decided to do it later and chose another one - Le nouveau san fontieres. In the first book I was just going through texts and drills, because the level is easy. I continued to read the book about France as well.
Film. Two films I saw on TV: Some Like It Hot and Cleopatra. The films were shown in full version for the fist time in Russia. The previously censored parts were marked with the symbol of scissors.
I had seen these moves before and liked them, but I didn't enjoyed them much this time. In Some Like It Hot the newly added parts were dubbed much worse than the rest of the film, it made an unpleasant contrast. Cleopatra was very long even in the abridged version, now it got about 1/3 still longer, so my patience lasted only for the fist half.
Media. Main items of the Russian news this month:
- apprehension of Pavel Borodin in the USA (I was pleased);
- Media Most conflict (Ted Turner proposed buying Most shares);
- continuing energy crisis in the Far East;
- Western lenders forced Russian government to reconsider its refusal to pay the Soviet debt;
- partial withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya;
- Congress of Human Rights Activists.
As before I learn the news mainly from Radio Svoboda broadcasts. I also read Izvestia and Argumenty i Fakty to which my father and mother subscribe.
My 40-week subscription for TIME magazine has finished and I decided not to renew it. For one thing, I lost interest to the content, quite removed from Russian reality, and I got bored with the advertisements (Swiss watches, Marlboro cigarettes and other stuff which doesn't interest me at all). Another reason was the cost: while in Sweden it was only sek 8 (usd 0.8) per issue, here in Russia it's usd 2 - a price for expats. The Russian news magazine Itogi sells in the retail for 30 cents. on top of that, here I get TIME 2 weeks late. Now I'll be reading it on-line instead.
The rouble/$ exchange rate stayed around 28.4 this month, which is almost the same as the year before. However, the inflation in 2000 was 22 % - both dollar and rouble lost 20 % of their value. The inflation only in January 2001 was 2.3 %.
Books
Fiction
Goncharov. Oblomov - Moscow: Detskaya literatura, 1982; 560 p.; in Russian
Non-fiction
Cours de Francais - Linguaphone Institute - UK, 1970s
Neibauer, Alan. Access 97 for busy people - SPB: Piter, 1997, 368 p.; in Russian (read 200 p.)
Films
Russian: Voina i Mir, Formula Lubvi, Strana glukhik;
Foreign: Dancing in the Dark, Some Like It Hot