This Saturday just been, we all went walking in a nice reserve in Moscow's outer suburbs. There were some historical buildings dating all the way back to Peter the Great and beyond - some of which had even been used by him - and so that was really interesting. (It was interesting to me because I was in the middle of a fantastic biography on Peter the Great by Robert K. Massie.) Then we went shopping in some huge mall where I found cheap pirated CDs, and later that night we all went to an Indian restaurant.

The Russian authorities buggered up my passport, and so today it had to be sent back. Apparently they wrote in the wrong address for which the demanded another several hundred dollars from my school to correct. It could be another few weeks or more before I get it back again. This is a hassle when it comes to travelling and stuff (and, unfortunately, it meant that I missed out on a trip with everyone else to St Petersburg).

On Friday night I came home after a tad of vodka drinking and found that someone had kicked in my door and been through my stuff. Thankfully, they didn't take or damage anything important, except for a broken lamp and a damaged plug (I later discovered that a cheap, old, and useless mobile phone had also disappeared); and then of course there's the door. To my utter relief, all my CDs and books remained safe, and they missed my stash of money by several drawers. Curiously, they stole my land-line telephone (?) - perhaps to stop me calling the cops. I decided against calling the cops anyway, as they're a lot of trouble and bloody corrupt in Russia. They're feared more than common crooks.

I think that probably it was two teenage boys, and that where one was keen to make off with some things (like my stereo), the other talked him out of it. That would seem to explain things. Another explanation is that they were chased away, but then I think I would have heard from my neighbours on that one. (Or were they also weary of the police?)

Otherwise, everything's going well. I spent the weekend in the centre of Moscow with a friend. I now have one of those big and bushy Russian hats. On Sunday we went to the Pushkin Gallery. Very impressive.

I like all my students and classes, and so teaching here is a pleasure. All my students have responded well to my strict but fun teaching style. I have found that my success as a teacher rests mainly on classroom management - the way I control my classes and get the students working together - rather than on materials or direct methodology, etc. It's about having the leadership and motivational skills to get them successfully working together in groups and learning much of the language for themselves. My students all work very hard and they approach every task I give them with determination and enthusiasm. When they are all working together well and responding to my lesson, it is very rewarding.

After three months, I can happily say that my classes have indeed worked out. It is quite true that I like all my students; including my teenagers - who are no less apathetic than other teenagers the world over. With them, I sense that we like one another quite a lot as people, even if our teacher-student relationship could be better. They often hang out before and after class just to chat, and I can't blame them if in the middle of their busy academic lives they sometimes lack enthusiasm for grammar and theoretical discussions. I try to keep things as directly creative as possible (meaning visual and kinaesthetic creativity over something that is creative in theory), and by sticking to the book less and to games more, things are going about as well as can be expected.

With my other classes, I am extremely satisfied. Working with kids again has been a special surprise. Kids liked me when I was younger, and because of this I did very well when leading at children's camps, but I wasn't sure whether this connection with children would continue into my adult years. Thankfully, it has. It is nice to see so many happy and intelligent faces at the start of my day, and it is flattering when they pretend to cry at the end of class. I am a touch embarrassed that half my eight-year-olds can spell better in English (being their second language) than I could when I was eleven or twelve, but this is made up for by the feedback that I have had from their parents. Apparently some parents had wondered whether my classes were chaos when they heard general uproars and mayhem through the classroom walls. Upon seeing my classes for themselves during an observation day, I am told that the consensus was that I "must have had a lot of experience with children". The parents wondered where I had learnt "these new techniques". The truth is, I feel, that I learned these techniques largely from the students themselves. For them, everything, including writing, is a game if we make it one.

With my feelings regarding children making me wonder whether I should one day teach them in state schools back in New Zealand, I am also very happy with my adults. They have an excellent approach to education and they work well within the classroom environment and according to modern second-language learning theory. They are always ready to have fun and to work hard, and because of them I feel very satisfied at the end of every day. They are the reason that I love my job, as I learn so much off them.

When I was in Poland, I also thought [in reference to a friends comment] that I was honing my vodka drinking skills - I'd tell people that I was "in vodka training for Russia" - but unfortunately the reality doesn't quite match the stereotype.

Russia these days considers itself to have a major problem with alcoholism, and the educated types that I'm inclined to meet at work and play go pretty far to avoid vodka. Very few of them actually drink it, and only then on rare occasions, and so I'm left thinking that all my training was in vain. (Maybe the bulk of Russians, being from harder backgrounds and lower economic classes, still conform to the common Russian stereotype; but the upper-middle-class Russians that I have met stand in stark contrast to their counterparts in Poland, and even in New Zealand and elsewhere. Few educated peoples in Poland, NZ, Australia, England, or Ireland, etc, would think it terribly wrong to have an occasional bash, but it seems to have rather strong taboos amongst my Russian friends.) Thankfully, however, I did meet a group last Friday who were getting into it, and so I predict that there will at least be a few fun nights from time to time (as, indeed, there have been, and which is quite vital for my sanity).

A new law, which came into effect as of the 1st of January this year, now completely prohibits drinking in public (ie. on trains or in the streets, etc). As I understand it, this is the government's latest initiative in its war on alcoholism. Along with many of my Russian friends, I believe that this is a positive thing. I also believe that this will soon produce a significant change in the way Russian people entertain themselves. Drinking at home will naturally continue, but the hordes who previously took to street corners will now spell bigger business for many fledgling bars and clubs. Already a couple of places have opened up in Zelenograd (thank God!), and I predict that more will come. This is definitely the way that I would like things to go. [19.01.'05: Not to be. See: Veto.]

It snowed here on Tuesday [the 16th of November] a little, and then on Wednesday and Thursday even more. Already it is over half as deep as the deepest it got when I was in Poland, and I think that maybe it will soon beat that by far.

The snow hasn't gone since it originally fell, but with the temperature often sitting around zero, it has frequently gone from snow to slush and back again. Every couple of weeks, or so, on cloudless days, what warmth there is escapes into the atmosphere above, and the temperature pushes minus ten. When the clouds next come over, we can expect a fresh dump of snow; and even after three white winters this never fails to impress me with its beauty. I think that overall I prefer extremes in cold to extremes in heat... as at least when it's cold I can snuggle up with a beautiful woman.

I had a fantastic new year's eve! I went out with everyone (colleagues who have become friends, and a few Russian friends as well) and we counted down to 2005 in Red Square (also being my first time there). We really only made it with five minutes to spare. It was quite an experience being literally shoved into the square by a small army of police, and then being herded out again forty minutes later when the authorities decided they had had enough of us. (At this, I felt a trifle disappointed, as I had looked forward to remaining there for half the night; but we all conceded that it was fun from a cultural perspective to receive this treatment.) Additionally, our champagne only narrowly avoided being confiscated because we had brought it in plastic coke bottles (glass was a no-no). Still, it was a very nice atmosphere and we all had a great time. I met some Chinese and surprised them by giving them New Year's greetings in Chinese (Xin nian hao), and then we went back to someone's house for renewed partying. I hope my photos come out.

Firstly, I wanted to make a few brief observations regarding the Moscow Subway and catching rides in cars. The Moscow Subway has the nicest interior of any subway that I have ever seen, with murals (often of Lenin and members of the proletariat) abounding. I was told that the man who took responsibility for the project exceeded his budget rather considerably, and that he feared that Stalin would have his head. If I am correctly informed, he came through okay. The subway is also fifty or a hundred metres deep in many parts, and I understand that this is so that it may double as a nuclear bomb shelter for Moscow's people.

Catching these cheap rides with locals can be fun and unpredictable. Generally, it's safe, but making it home depends on a range of factors - including having enough petrol, and assuming that the driver is not hauled away by the police for either having the wrong papers or for being intoxicated. I say this from personal experience.

I also feel compelled to comment on Russian workmanship and ingenuity. My experience of Eastern Europe makes a mockery of any suggestion that anything but an exceptionally small minority of trades' people might work up to or beyond the standards of workmanship generally expected throughout more developed nations. I laughed along with my friends when we saw Tom Hanks in The Terminal playing a man from a fictitious country of supposedly Russian speaking credentials who proceeded to show the American trades' people how to really do their jobs. Could this be the beginning of such a stereotype for the blue-collar workers of the former Eastern bloc? Politically correct - certainly! Good for Eastern Europeans who are trying to make it abroad - absolutely! But realistic - not a chance!

My flat in Zelenograd exemplifies what I have seen throughout both Poland and Moscow so far. For a start, I live in the new part of Zelenograd, which is in itself a new town. All the buildings in number fourteen district, where I live, are no older than about thirteen years - having been built after the collapse of the USSR - but I would expect higher standards from a New Zealand house of sixty year vintage, even if it had never undergone renovations. Blistering wall- and ceiling-paper, and approximately thirteen years' dust behind all the heavy furniture, don't help my flat's cause. Then there are the windows - typical of Russian windows everywhere - which, despite having to shield against one of the worlds coldest climes, produce chilling drafts so severe that people throughout the nation take to plastering the gaps with tubes of polystyrene and rolls of insulation tape as soon as the temperature threatens to drop below zero. I did this myself a few weeks ago, and my flat is five or ten degrees warmer because of it.

There is also a kind of Russian approach, I notice, to general ingenuity and fix-it know-how. It seems to follow the principle of whatever works for the least amount of effort and cost in materials, despite what the penalty must be in aesthetics and professionalism. My old door, having been kicked in soon after my arrival, was simply pulled and levered from its braces, and, without any touch-ups or cosmetics, the new metal door was glued and bolted over the top. I'll wager that it will never be kicked in again - for that would be to kick half the wall down which supports it - but I wouldn't be surprised if I one day came home to find it lying flat on its face from falling over in the opposite direction.

Other observations supporting my analysis include bent screws and nails in the place of door latches, and the cable to my door-phone - part of which has been fed along the rungs of an old calendar, which is itself supported only by a single hook. On top of all this, every lift's a lavatory (with a stench to rival half the loos in China), every letterbox is a rubbish bin, and the snow is a blanket covering the fact that Russia is in general a rubbish tip for the duration of the winter. But I make these observations not because they depress me, nor because they make me feel any less impressed with Russia. It is all just a part of this massive country, and I only want not to ignore the bad as I record the good.


Whilst on the theme of Russia's bad points, there is one more thing that I cannot possibly ignore. Racism seems to be a real problem here. Attacks on Asian or Black peoples are frequently recorded in the press (or at least in English publications), and I have heard a few first- and many second-hand accounts testifying to this problem. I am sure that Asian people, especially, get a hard time.

Some comments that I have heard about black people have left me quite in doubt about how to continue, as I cannot at this moment determine whether it is outright racism, or merely the realities of language barriers. For example, in China I had to drill my Chinese students not to use a certain word as an um-word that to us sounds rather like n*gg*r. This was a problem for Southern Chinese especially, whose accent made it all the more noticeable. They would use it as we might use um or arh to fill in the gaps in our speech, but when they used it in English it produced alarming results: "Hello ... n*gg*r ... I would like a Big Mac and ... n*gg*r ... two large fries..."! Don't produce that sentence to a black man at McDonald's, I warned them.

And so it may have been a similar case of language confusion when some of my brighter and more educated adult students produced this very same word in class. The Russian word for Negro is, I am told, similar in pronunciation to this problem English counterpart, but I am not sure whether it carries negative or neutral connotations in their language. Also, English language learners should be forgiven if they initially make the mistake of using certain words that are otherwise in common usage in hip-hop music. They might not be aware of the modern double-standard where it is acceptable for black people to reclaim a word that is completely out of bounds to non-blacks. (Freedom of speech for minorities, but not for majorities!) Still, I got a little cross when I was showing some photos of me and some of my black friends (namely, Michael and Jon - friends from China and Poland, respectively), and some Russian friends jokingly referred to them as the word in question. I made it very clear to them that this is wrong in English, that people would normally think this were racist, and that they should never use this word in my presence again. [racism-2]


On a much more positive note, I also have something to say about Russian TV, as I find it an excellent cultural source - a look at the way Russians see Russia.

For one, I find certain translations amusing: 'X-Files' becomes 'Secret Material' in Russian. Also, there is a variety show that is played at around midnight where a couple of presenters hang around shopping malls and try to get people to do silly things. One game involved getting a guy to lie down fully clothed in a filthy oil- and acid-ridden puddle in the middle of a car-park building. Another game, in the shopping mall, had a guy running up to random strangers and asking them to squeeze his horn. Under his pants at his crotch was an old fashioned bicycle horn - the kind a clown might carry - which produced an evocative bulge. Many strangers gave it a squeeze, and laughed when it produced the desired honk.

The game that amazed me most was where two guys stood in their undies (one in gruds, the other in boxer-shorts). They then had to put on other pairs of boxers, rip them off, and repeat this process as quickly as possible ten or twenty times. There was absolutely no censorship of their scrota or penises whenever they showed - played on national TV and making me feel wheezy, along with many other people, I'm sure. Still, I think it demonstrates a rather reasonable sense of humour that might challenge a few stereotypes.

Russians love everything and anything Russian-related, including the worst programmes from abroad. For a start, there is their love for the James Bond movies - evil Russians and bad KGB agents and all. Also, Katharina die Gro? recently played, where Catherine Zeta Jones portrays someone approximately resembling Catherine the Great. Never mind; as none of this was as bad as the recent screening of Police Academy: Mission to Moscow. Next time you see something from America or elsewhere depicting stereotypical and unbelievable Russians, remind yourself, before rejecting it completely, that it will be recycled in Russian programming for years to come. If TV and media have an effect on culture, then how, I wonder, will these foreign perspectives on Russia affect the Russians themselves?

Also based on Russia, but this time largely from Russia, are daily comedies, dramas, and especially periodical thrillers depicting revolutions and wars from St Petersburg to Siberia. Many plots focus on the lower classes and on soldiers, with three or four Russian documentaries playing every night. Again, the subject matter is typically on revolutions, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, and on the wars and civil wars that make up so much of Russia's colourful past. Archived video footage is constantly drawn upon.

Pornography has a contrasting place on Russian TV, and I am particularly surprised by how much more prolific it seems to be during this New Year / Christmas period (remembering that the Russian Orthodox Christmas comes after New Year on January 7). Late night ads get almost to the point of full female exposure (with nipples and clitoris in silhouette), and after midnight every third or fourth channel is playing soft porn (if in the guise of appalling story-lines). Now that it is the festive season, lesbian plots and full vaginal shots make it past the censors, to be played on national TV for all to see. I find this to be quite exceptional, which is why I offer this observation.

Finally, I have nothing much more to say in re Russian TV, except that I love the zero-to-five seconds' worth of credits played at the end of every foreign movie; and my favourite beer ad - as if to spite all other efforts to combat alcoholism - shows a hunk defeating a nerd by skulling a full beer in one tremendous gulp, and thus winning the attentions of the sexy Russian vixen available at hand.


These observations about the New Year / Christmas period and sexy Russian vixen induce me to offer further insights about same. Regarding the former, I have already said that Christmas doesn't come until later (again, January 7), but I haven't said that to many Russians, as they tell me, New Year is more important by far. If I understand correctly, gift giving happens on this day, and Christmas day, having taken a battering during seventy-four years of communism, is only observed by some. Regardless, the festive decorations that have been in place for about a month are enough to tell me that it is Christmas, and with fireworks still going up five days into the New Year, the word that this is Russia's biggest party season seems substantiated.

For some reason, I didn't think too much of Russian women when I first arrived (aside from my beautiful Russian colleagues, of course). It seemed quite the reverse of Poland, with Russia having fairly fit looking men, but apparently few beautiful women. I argued this point with a few friends when we visited Tver, as they thought they had seen some beautiful girls, but it took them half the day to point any out to me, and at that time my argument seemed confirmed.

I don't know why it was (maybe I wasn't psychologically ready to look for new girls after coming out of my last relationship) but thankfully my thoughts have since changed. Whenever I go out for a few drinks, I usually manage to meet a few nice girls, and this has done much for my opinion of Russia. Indeed, I see many very beautiful women all about the place these days. The only problem is that they tend to be the most expensive girls to get to know that I have ever met. When in nightclubs, they tell me they like martinis before they even tell me their names. A friend and I recently got caught up with two girls who fleeced us for a lot of money on drinks and the like, and it was no small blow to our self-esteem when they later deserted us as quickly as our money had.

(16.01.'05: In these next paragraphs, I refer only to those young women who might see themselves as being a part of the 'trendy' scene.) When I was in Germany, my friends were quick to point out Russian woman based on their clothing; and my Polish friends spoke of this also. It is true that many Russian women dress in a way that is seen by some more superficial people as belonging to a lower class. Such judgements are quite wrong, of course. Girls in Russia are merely conforming to local fashion trends, as is everyone else, and it is a cultural fallacy to judge the appearance of people from other countries without an understanding of their values and practical needs - as in the case of high-boots with the leggings tucked in during winter. However, given that some people would consider the style of many Russian women to be "back in the '80s" (as indeed their haircuts often are), it might help other less superficial people, who are nevertheless aware of this image, to appreciate my description. As partly stated, I see about me many young women wearing tight, tapered jeans or pants that are tucked into their boots. Their boots are often very feminine and they frequently come up to their knees. If wearing trousers tucked in to boots is practical in winter, their stelletto heels are definitely not! Their coats are also very feminine, covered sometimes in frills, belts, buckles, buttons, furs, jewels, and the like, and often in light shades of pink or white. Their hairstyles and cosmetics are usually up-to-date, if a little heavy in the application, but some haircuts are so definitely '80s that even I can't help noticing.

But despite my caveat that this is just a difference in tastes, my description above will continue to appear negative to those who cannot overcome their fashion prejudices. For this reason, I will attempt another assessment from an alternative view, even though I promised nothing more in the first assessment than to give a subjective comparison between contrasting fashion values. Essentially, the end result of the boots and the frills and the feminine tones strikes me as a pleasant blend of something contemporary, something '80s, and something Russian. Few young Russians are overweight - indeed, many women have fantastic bodies! - and so these tight-fitting pants are flattering in ways that they might not be for some women in other parts. Truly, some Russian girls look absolutely devastating the way they dress; and if it happens that I might get me one, I won't be complaining in the slightest.

16.01.'05: Several Russian women-friends, having read the above, have questioned whether this is an unfair and negative portrail. My comments are complicated, but I do feel that careful reading makes for an over-all positive impression, and I reinforce that these are only my opinions for the moment. I am otherwise happy to acknowledge that others have raised a protest, as it can only add to the objectivity of my site.

Finally, I think that Russia is fast becoming my favourite country over-all - as I thought it possibly would. Where there will always be something very special and irreplaceable for me in every other foreign country in which I have lived - the magnificent variety available in Australia; the exotic, challenging and historically stimulating lifestyle in China; the beautiful people and amazing friends in Poland; and the multi-culturalism, intellectualism and forward-thinking in Germany - I think Russia has about the right combination of all these things combined to win me over completely. I love Russia already for the variety about the place, even if Australia won me over for its selections of peoples and foods. Russia is as historically rich as I could desire, even if China were ten times more culturally removed, and more exotic and challenging for it. I love the people here, even if it's unreasonable to expect them to measure up to the friendliness and warmth that was extended to me by my Polish friends. Perhaps Russia cannot hope to compete with Germany's forward-thinking, but I love her for trying. She is a different country with a very different history, and there is a long road ahead of her. For me to be sitting here in Russia (at this moment and writing this) must say something about her recent changes for the better. All up, Russia may be the winner. I am thoroughly enjoying being immersed in this culture - so steeped in history, so rich in traditions, and so dynamic and globally significant with regards its future.

From here, proceed to Russia II