Sundays don't exist in Russia.

The Big Melt. Back into my daily routine and my days are filled trying to avoid falling clumps of snow and icicles - especially after my mother was kind enough to scare me with a story of someone in Moscow getting killed by a falling icicle...

I realised that all the snow was actually covering a lot of grime and gunk around the city: I learnt this the hard way when I decided that it was time for the first outing on my scooter and arrived to meet my friend for coffee with the back of my legs covered in dirt. But this is a sign that the worst of the winter if over and is accompanied by rapidly increasing daylight hours, not only allow for more time to appreciate my surrounding environment but also mean I have started to come out of hibernation and really take advantage of everything going on in the city; mainly more trips to concerts at the St. Petersburg Philarmonia, which is in the centre of town and has something going on in both halls every day of the week. The Russians are known for playing classical music to a very high standard and the musicians I have met here and concerts I have been to are no exception, and having to get up at 6:30am in order to a secure a practise room - not out of pleasure I can assure you - as arriving later 7:15am means you are out of luck assures me that the next generation will be no different. On Sundays, I normally take the day off, however, last week I thought I would go in to conservatory for a couple hours in the afternoon just to play around. It's a Sunday, I thought. No one will be around on a Sunday, I thought. People will be at home relaxing, going for walks in the sunshine or drinking coffee with friends, I thought. How wrong I was. Just as busy as any other day - if not busier. Then I realised... everything is always open on a Sunday: shops are opens and transport runs with the regularity of any other day. Sundays simply don't exist in Russia.

In terms of composers' music being performed, the 'Greats' are played to an extremely level of precision and discipline, which is of course something to be commended. However, I have been more disappointed by the contemporary music, whether it be classical or popular, coming out of the city. There is a small community of people trying to create original, new music yet there seems to be a huge lack of an audience for it and any interest I have shown, during my lessons, in playing contemporary or modern music has generally been met with confusion and disinterest. A friend was playing in a concert of conservatory students' compositions at the Philarmonia and, still frustrated by the feeling of being too stuck in the past and full of curiosity and hope, I decided to go along. Most people will know and agree that student compositions can be a bit hit-and-miss, pushing some boundaries that aren't necessarily meant to be pushed. However, I was pleasantly surprised and filled with relief by how much I genuinely enjoyed the concert - even if the hall was half full and a number of people left far before the end.

I was particularly struck by the reactions to an electronic, sound design piece involving a string quartet hooked up to microphones and playing very minimal, soft sounds on their open strings, which were then projected into the hall. I was filled with anger as I watched people start to laugh, chat to each other, look at the time and consider having a toilet break. Such close-minded people who laugh at an artist who has the courage and audacity to do something original, interest and different in an otherwise quite stifled, restrained musical environment. Well the composer got people's attention, that's for sure. It reminded me of the reaction people originally had to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring the first time it was performed in Paris. Just don't be so rude!

Unfortunately, this conforms with a close-mindedness - particularly among the older generation but not completely absent among the younger generation - that I am increasingly coming across and can be hard to handle at times. The lack of multi-culturality that is so decisively present in European countries such as England and Germany and, so, the lack of exposure to other ways of doing things and other ways of thinking means that I find people generally more close-minded and more argumentative. Especially among the Soviet generation: all people had a similar quality of life and a steady daily routine in the place where they had always lived. How could they possibly know any different. This came up in conversation today with my flatmates; my flatmate having gone to visit his grandmother outside of the city centre and having been congratulated for having shaved his beard (not that it was particularly long prior to his visit). My other flatmate explained that, to his grandmother, it was a sign of laziness - in Soviet Russia, everybody would work from 8am - 6pm and then would have time in the evening...to shave, of course!

Surprise surprise, I am off to a concert at the Philarmonia...

Lots of love xxx

View from a practise room at 7am

Escape to the dacha round 1

The big hall of the Philarmonia

Escape to the dacha round 2

My new love - Soviet Russia interior design

Moscow welcomed me with open arms

Hips-ta-ta.

Everybody assumes that coming to Russia to learn the language is a walk in the park for me considering I am half-russian and my mother speaks Russian at home. However, we hugely underestimate the percentage of language and cultural references that we automatically learn from school and everyday life outside the home. There are huge gaps in my vocabulary - different kinds of meat, for example, as my parents are vegetarians - and slang of the "younger" generation presents me with words I have definitely never come across before. 'Hips-ta-ta' is a prime example. What does it mean? It means 'hipster'.

However, my flatmates have been more than helpful and trying to catch me up to speed and I can now (at least, kind of) sustain a one-on-one conversation in Russian so I do have some hope of making friends. At least I might then be able to ask some of the burning questions on my mind that have sprung up from various cultural differences I have noticed.

The metro here is quite different to the tube in London. Firstly it is very, very far underground because Peter the Great decided to build his city on a swamp, and so the metro needed to be built with the slightest chance that it might not sink. After your five minute journey on the escalator down to the metro you normally arrive in a wide, very open hall with options of going to the platform on the right or left hand side, depending on which direction you need to go in. In this hall (note - not on the platforms) are benches placed all along the walls and without fail they are always many people sat chatting with friends, reading books or sat having a cup of tea. My question is WHY? The trains are unbelievably frequent - I don't think I've ever waited more than one min for a train to arrive - and I can think of nicer places to sit and read with a cup of tea. Or maybe the excitement of a train arriving and disposing of load of people who rush past in a race to be the first up the escalator creates an adrenaline rush for some that I simply cannot understand.

Also metro related; at the bottom of every escalator is a woman (normally mid 40's/50's) sat in a cramped glass box, looking like she would be anywhere else but there, surrounded by a couple screens displaying images of the escalators she is already sitting next to. WHY? What is her purpose? WHAT was in her job description? I have never seen them leave this mysterious box or even stand up from the chair they are sitting in.

Unsurprisingly, many of the films shown in cinemas here are not originally Russian films. Normally, when showing a film to a foreign audience, you have two options here: keeping the film in the original language and adding subtitles or dubbing (re-recording the actors' voices in the foreign language). Russians have managed to come up with a third option. Nor does it involve adding subtitles or really dubbing (in the sense of the word) but instead they have decided to simply add another voice (the same one for the entirety of the film) that translates what is being said over the top of the film a couple seconds after the actor on screen. I call it on-screen, pre-recorded, cinematic interpretation. Surely this isn't the solution? It just makes for rather superficial, detached viewing of some very beautiful, touching films.
A nice thing about many cinemas here, however, is allocated seating. The earlier you buy your tickets, the better seats you have (you can choose them or leave it in the capable hands of the cashier) thus eliminating the worry of arriving late and leaving with a sore neck from being stuck on the front row and having to crane your head upwards.

In the world of Russian gastronomy, entire sections of the dairy aisle are dedicated to an ingredient called 'творог' (pronounced: tvaw-rug), which people generally translate as 'cottage cheese', although I would say the cottage cheese we know (in England and in Canada) is closer to a lumpy yogurt than the slightly moist, crumbly, dairy product sold in the shops here. Coming from a culture where we are taught to limit dairy intake, I find it hard to understand the obsession with it here. My flatmates swear by it and one will often eat a big bowl full after going to the gym, claiming that it's packed full of protein.
Having witnessed two elderly Russian woman arguing over the best brand to buy, I followed suite and purchased an elegant, little package found on the bottom section of the творог section. I was confused, yet intrigued. Is it cheese? Is it chocolate? Is it cream? Is it sweet or is it savoury? I made myself a cup of tea and slowly unwrapped the silver foil. What was it? I hear you ask. I STILL DON'T KNOW. It was basically like soft cheese  - similar in texture to what I imagine Philadelphia and Wensleydale if they were mixed together - which is ever-so-slightly sweet and encased in a thin layer of slightly darkened chocolate. My flatmates rage about it - "you can only find it in Russia! it's so great"... Make of it what you will.

Carrying on with the food theme (might as well as I'm sat writing this in one of the best cafe/restaurants in this city - Café Zoom...a bug problem in our flat meant I have to be out of the house for a few hours while the man does his thing so I thought I would treat myself), I find it interesting that restaurants here feel the need to not only have the prices listed in the menu but also the portions sizes (in grams) so you really can calculate value for money. Once you roughly know what 200g of boiled potatoes look like, you can efficiently order enough that will fill you up without having any left over and therefore also means you don't endure the stressful time between ordering and receiving the food wondering if you should have got that extra side of chips.
Another great restaurant-related trend here is the 'столовая' (sta-law-va-ya), which essentially takes your typical school/university canteen, improves the quality of the food somewhat slightly and offers a quick and very cheap way of getting a hot meal at basically any time of day. With a bowl of soup or salad for the equivalent of 35p (72¢ - at today's rates for my Canadian readers) and an entire meal for £1.50, it doesn't cost much more than making it yourself at home. That's assuming that your Russian is good enough to understand what everything is...I'm still making my way out of the pointing and grunting stage.

Over the past six weeks I have probably been to more operas/concerts than my whole three years at Bristol. If you know what to say, concerts can be incredibly cheap for students - a friend of a friend went to buy tickets during the day and, having pleaded with the woman at the box office saying he was a very poor student, he managed to get 4 tickets for the grand total of 200 roubles (£2). (I don't know how much the full-priced tickets were but I would hazard a guess at around 1000 roubles).

Going to all these concerts has only confirmed that while St. Petersburg is very culturally active and forward-thinking, I find that music practice here is still very (overly) traditionally and conservatively taught. As a result, unfortunately the jazz concerts I have been to have left me far from inspired by the musicians who are too concerned about taking their eyes off the page, playing a wrong note or - God forbid - cracking a smile.

I admit, it is maybe a slight exaggeration and maybe I have been spoilt by Thursday evenings at the Gallimaufry in Bristol where the saxophonist plays every note like his life depends on it. The 'jazz' musicians here are definitely technically very able but they just didn't seem to have understand the kind of music they were playing and how it needs to be played... The sheet music is a guide but then you should make it your own and just play from the heart.  The classical music, on the other hand, they can definitely play. When I think of names such as Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky who all also studied at the same conservatory, whose walls I now grace with my presence, a mixture of fear and excitement manifests itself inside my body... I have a lot to live up to. I'd better get cracking.

Lots of love,

A xx

This is why I love Café Zoom 

Is it sweet? Is it savoury? Who knows.

хачапури и вино (khachapuri and grenadine) wine with flatmates and classmates

My flatmate runs cooking classes.
She needs to try out her food at home first.
I don't complain.