In Which Cars Explode

26.11.2008

I remembered something I wanted to say on Monday. I was recently informed that the bridge I cross like six times a week to go to Bobrinskij is the bridge off of which Sonya jumps, in "Crime and Punishment." I thought about this as I traversed its icy surface on Monday, nearly SLIPPING and FALLING into the river, myself. WELL, AT LEAST I WOULD BE IN GOOD COMPANY.

Today was somewhat halfway decent, I suppose. Nothing out of the ordinary. Professor Vertkin invited us to his house on Saturday for a Thanksgiving dinner. Which is kind of strange, I guess. He was talking about how he remembers what professors would do for the international students when he was abroad and such, so I guess he wanted to do similar. But I'm not sure how he's going to cook an entire Thanksgiving dinner by himself... We'll see how that goes.

Oh, and I asked him about the Russian cultural perception of being polite to those you hate, and he said it's not as universal as it is in the US, and entirely depends on the person... That is, some people act overly friendly and polite to those they hate, others act indifferent, and still others react violently towards said individuals. So I basically have no way of knowing if Andrei Vladimirovich doesn't like me.

He also had something interesting to say about the unsmiling nature of Russia. He has a theory that it's a Soviet holdover (much like everything else that is entirely unpleasant in this country), from when basically everyone was miserable and no one had much of a reason to smile. He said the rising middle class and the changes Russia is undergoing is changing this cultural phenomenon. That is to say, those who are doing better off than before are smiling more often, while those who are still miserable don't smile. OR MAYBE IT'S JUST THE PROLIFERATION OF AMERICAN CULTURE THAT IS FORCING A REGIMEN OF DAILY SMILES ON THE LOCAL POPULATION?!

Something that I find particularly ddisturbing... I have heard nothing about the car explosion in St. Petersburg in the news, here. I just happened to stumble across it on the BBC today, and then heard a few of the Americans say that their friends had contacted them to see if they were doing alright... And none of the Americans knew about it before they were contacted, either. I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean. I know if something like that happened in America, the news would be all over it, and that would be the only damned headline for over a week. I don't know if the government just doesn't want people to know about it, or if it's .. just ... not a big thing for St. Petersburg? I mean, nothing like that really happens here very often. Granted, it's thought that it was a mistake, and not a terrorist attack or anything, but again, MISTAKES like that don't seem to happen very often, here.

I spoke with Yura, today, and I'm trying to convince him to go with me to Finland and the Baltic states. He seemed interested, so, there we go.

I was watching MTV Russia, just now, and they have a bunch of strange specials going on before the Russian Music awards... Well, the one I just watched was juxtaposing a few of Russia's major top hits with really old American (and I think one French) songs, showing that these new Russian artists basically ripped off old songs tune for tune, and wrote their own songs to fit them. And then this Russian music producer went on a rant about how these artists were horribly unoriginal, and how they shouldn't be popular and junk. Which is bizarre, because I can't imagine a music producer saying this, on MTV nevertheless. But maybe they're trying to sway the music awards vote. Somewhat interesting.

Plans for the next week:
-Thursday: Thanksgiving Dinner at Bryan's
-Friday: Hermitage for MAYBE the last time, then a walk down Nevsky
-Saturday: Thankgiving Dinner, Take Two, at Dmitry Vertkin's, then Central Station
...
-NEXT Thursday: Shopping Trip! I would go this Sunday, but Christmas sales are popping up everywhere and that means absurd amounts of people everywhere.