My former fellow student. Exhibition about the tsar family. Antiwar meeting. Books

1 Feb., Thursday
I was in Moscow: market, post office and also visited my former fellow student.

He was in the parallel group (French/English) of the linguistic university and graduated together with me in 1994. I last saw him before going to Sweden -- two years ago. He was still living in the student hostel. He was allowed to live there for his work as the hostel cleaner. It was very difficult to for him to find a normal job, because he is from Ukraine, without Russian registration. Also he didn't have a phone. He worked only a briefly in a bank and as a salesman.

Now he still lives in the hostel and apart his cleaning job (salary usd 25 per month) he doesn't have anything. Since his first foreign language was French, I was going to ask him for a French speaking practice, but now I see that he has almost forgotten foreign languages. He's room was getting dirtier and dirtier each time I visited him, now it's a den full of empty bottles. In the past I offered to him to collect the job offers on my phone, but he then didn't look for a job much. Now his chances are still smaller. He's 38 already, without a family, of course, only poor mother in Ukraine. It's a pity that his higher education and 6 years after the university have been wasted. It may have been better he had worked in Ukraine instead.

(P.S. I visited him again a week later. We talked about the course in management that he is now taking. I suggested making an Internet homepage for him, now he is gathering the materials )

12 Feb., Monday
I visited the Historical Museum. I was there only once or twice long ago. The museum faces the Read Square, it stands where columns of demonstrators as well as military vehicles (tanks, rockets, etc.) entered the square for parades. Rallies are still held on the Red Square, usually by disgrunted communists. As for the vehicles, the passage is now blocked by two newly reconstructed tower gates.

On that day there were three exhibitions at the museum: O.T.M.A. and Alexei, Everything in Its Own Time, Orthodoxy and Culture, as well as the permanent exposition (History of Russia until 1917).

The exhibition which I saw in detail was O.T.M.A. and Alexei, which is about Nicolas II's children. Nicolas II Romanoff was the last Russian emperor. He, all his family members and close servants were executed with by Bolsheviks in Yekaterinoburg in 1918.

O.T.M.A. were the initials of the four young princesses in order or their ages: Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia; the girls used this word e.g. to sign postcards. Alexei, the successor to the throne, was the youngest child.

The exhibition, the first of this kind, displays photographs, clothes, toys, books, drawings, paintings, etc. The displays were collected from numerous museums, many items were, in the words of restorers, in "ruinous" condition.

The toys are beautiful: dolls, doll's clothes, rocking horse (originally the gift of Catherine the Great to her son Paul), chariot in the form of a swan, Alexei's toy soldiers and battleships. There many children's books on display and many of them are in English.

The children had school classes from Monday till Saturday. The timetable shows what lessons each child had: Russian, French, English, German, Singing, Dance, Music, Divinity (Zakon Bozhiy). A number of written assignments and a teacher's report can also be seen.

The photographs are very interesting too - very thoughtfully composed in an old-fashioned manner, like paintings.

The tsar looks as an intelligent, gentle man, not as a ruler. It seems that he lived within the world of his family and court, that he was barely aware of the living conditions of the masses and the course of the developments in the country. His wife looks much sterner, probably she dominated him.

The majority of photos portray the children. Playful at young ages, the children get more serious and thoughtful as they grow older.

These painstakinly restored exhibits evoke, in addition to aesthetic pleasure, a poignant feeling of sadness, an awareness of irrepairable injustice and cruelty committed by the Bolsheviks.

The exhibition runs until the end of March. I encourage all residents and visitors of Moscow who might be reading my notes to visit it.

23 Feb., Thursday
Antiwar meeting. Yesterday I went to an antiwar meeting at Pushkinskaya Square held by Yabloko and other democratic organisations. The motto of the meeting was "No to the War, Yes to the Talks". Among the speakers were deputies of the State Duma, such as Kovalev and Yushenkov, and leaders of the human rights groups. They spoke about the crimes of Russian troops in Chechnya, about the indifference of the government to needs of the families of the killed soldiers and the passivity of the population in general. Only about 200 people came. The orators spoke bitterly of "the people who preferred to sit in the nearby McDonnald's or to watch films". An additional reason for the poor attendance was the anouncement of the Radical Antimilitarist Association to hold the antiwar meeting in the same place next day, 23 Feb., to mark the deportation of the Chechens by Stalin which started on 23 Feb. 1944 and also the so-called "Day of the Defender of the Fatherland" which is marked in Russia on 23 Feb.

There were lots of reportes, mostly Western, and people distributing the democratic newpapers and flyers. I picked some their literature and I think I'll join one or two of these groups. I really sick of this war and the government's propaganda.

Teaching French to Mother. Today I've been learning French by myself and helping my mother to learn it. After all she decided that she needs French, not English. I've translated for her the first two lessons from my 30-lesson textbook, and today we sat with her an hour and practiced saying French phrases. So far she's been studying for a week following a special method in which, as she says, she trusts.

28 Feb., Wednesday
Job offer. I got a call on my answer machine, I was offered a translation job. I'll go and see the place tomorrow.

Russian traditions. The past week was Maslenitsa ("Butter Week") - Russian season of pancakes and festivities. Now Velikiy Post (the Lent) will be going on for 40 days, although my family and I as well as the people I know here do not observe it.

Weather. During the two last days of winter it has been snowing heavily: about 30 cm. of snow, the record snowfall of this winter. The day temperatures about - 10 C.

Fiction:
Booklets in easy French. Moscow: CLE/Mass Media, 1995.
Renaud, Dominique:
- Enquete sur un bateau-mouche, 30 p.;
- Aventures dans les musees de Paris, 30 p.;
- Gare au fantome, 46 p.
- Le secret du professeur Micron, 46 p.
Simon, Yoland:
- Le teatre du college, 48 p.

Non-fiction:
Le Nouveau san frontiers 1 - Paris: CLE International, 1988; Livre de l'eleve - 224 p.
Bruchet, Janine. Objectif Enterprise - Paris: Hachette, 1994; 238 p. + audiocassette.