While I'm not an Englishman, nor am I in Moscow, Sting's song seems appropriate for this post and the question of how does one fit in or adapt to a culture or setting that is different from one's native culture? Is it even possible to fit in, or are your forever doomed to stand outside - obvious to everyone around you that you are somehow different? I don't have the answers, but I do think somehow I must be fitting in. After all, I ate an ice-cream bar on the way home from the library the other day and I had a Baltica #3 with my borscht. The Mormons in Dunkin' Donuts mistook me for a Russian and tried to speak to me about God/god in Russian, and I have had several people try and offer me coupons for the English language learning center 'Big Ben.' So at some level I must be at least blending in.
On the other hand, I will clearly never blend in completely, nor could I hope to only spending 6 weeks at a time in Moscow. Things are just different and you have to be comfortable being out of your comfort zone to handle living in another country for any significant amount of time. Now that I am at the point where I will soon be leaving I feel like I have adapted pretty well. Nevertheless, there are things that I miss about the United States, obviously. Have I mentioned air-conditioning yet? As a result of this homesickness, I did a completely American thing the other night - I went to Chili's. I had no plans to do this and in fact I was on my way to the book store to look at Russian language history books. But as I walked by I saw ceiling fans and large, cold beers. There was simply no way to avoid it, really. So the next thing I know I am sitting on the veranda at Chili's on Novyi Arbat drinking a large "Chili's brew" (that's what it was called on the menu) and eating a cheeseburger. Not exactly "Cheeseburger in Paradise," but it was damn close!
I also did a very Russian thing, and in a very Russian way. I went to the opera on Wednesday evening and saw Verdi's "La Traviata." The very act of going to the opera is a very Russian thing, but the negotiation of the ticket price with the cashier was also a very Russian experience. They charge different prices for foreigners than they do for native Russians and other people from former Soviet territories, but the lady that I was with would have none of this and "negotiated" my price down to the Russian rate. She also managed to accomplish the same feat for a ticket to Swan Lake, which I had no plans of seeing, but it seems I will be doing so on Saturday evening. The lady who did this for me is a friend of my hostess and I have never known anyone quite like her. She is in all senses of the word, a character.
Imagine hurtling through Moscow streets, at rush hour, with a 70 year old woman who apparently thinks she is Richard Petty, and who is simultaneously weaving in and out of traffic and talking on 2 different cell phones. Unfortunately the brakes on my side of the vehicle did not work, but I quickly understood why the other lady who was with us offered me the passenger seat. Did I mention that for Muscovites the lines on the road, which in theory would divide the traffic into lanes, seem to be completely optional, like advice you can choose to follow or not? I've never been so happy to get out of a car in my life.
The orchestra and the singers of the opera were very good and I truly enjoyed the evening out. The theater was beautiful and very comfortable. But the show itself was not what I expected. I should first state that I know nothing about opera and maybe this is the way that it is usually shown, but since it was written in the 1800s and is set outside of Paris, I was expecting the stage and sets to depict that time period. However, this was a modern portrayal and the men were dressed like Russian/Italian mafia and the women were......well let's just say at one point there were strippers on stage. But this is Moscow so there could not just be female strippers, we must have male strippers too. And so there were. Makes me curious about the upcoming Swan Lake ballet that I will see on Saturday evening.
On the library front everything is going very well and sadly tomorrow will be my last day there. With any luck I have accumulated enough research to finish my dissertation. I close with a view of the street where the music library is and a few other random shots from around the city. Until then remember as the songs says, "be yourself no matter what they say."
art-nouveau style building
monument to victims of repression at the Art Park
side street to the music library
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