Red Inklings

                If nothing else, I’m certainly making progress on paving the road to hell…so many good intentions for how to spend my first business-free weekend in Moscow since I’ve gotten here. (I’ve popped into Moscow a few times already this fall, once for a Fulbright orientation gathering in September, once for the All-Russian Sociological Congress in October.) Disclaimer: I didn’t even set foot in any of the public libraries, though I readily agreed to my research supervisor’s assumption that I was going to Moscow to research. Didn’t quite turn out that way…

                I did accomplish a few practical errands—bought some seriously warm winter boots and a stack of advanced Russian language workbooks to ease my I’m-not-fluent-enough! fears. An especially fortuitous find—a textbook and CD set intended for foreigners studying sociology in Russia. Perfect for me as I scramble to explain and discuss sociological concepts that I have only an undergraduate’s handle on. Can’t help feeling a little irritated that I’ve been sweating over verbs of motion and 19^th century literary texts for the last two months, instead of focusing on strengthening my sociological vocabulary. As a friend and fellow newbie sociologist often reminds me, it’s okay. I’m just a beginner, and I am going to make mistakes—I’ll slip up on my grammar, flub up parts of my research, and inevitably commit cultural faux pauses. Doing it wrong the first time, at least for me, seems to be the price of personal progress…

               So let’s get to the art!

Премия Кандинского, or the Kandinsky Prize at the Central House of Artists

                Muscovites are flocking to the Central House of Artists this month to see a show of contemporary Russian artists competing for the Kandinsky Prize. Alex and I joined them, waiting in line for tickets on the duct-tape-edged red carpet at the museum’s entrance and enduring verbal abuse from the elderly women working the coat check for lugging my suitcases and grocery bags into the museum. (“It’s like everyone’s headed straight to the train station from the museum today!” one grumbled. “But I actually am…” I meekly mumbled in reply.)

                Those moments of unshakable Sovietude upon entering the museum—slap-dash repairs and reluctant, if not hostile, service—were the precursors (turns out word choice gets tougher the more you sink into a second language…) to a show in which many of artists boldly commented on life in contemporary Russian. (As the Moscow Times piece explains–link below–many of the bolder pieces were supposed to be shown in Paris earlier this year, but Russia’s Culture Minister refused to let such provocative works leave the country.) The first piece to strike visitors’ eyes was a 6’ high lightbox by the KG Group. The collective is known for creating provocative pieces; the burka-clad Statue of Liberty is most memorable for me. The PG Group’s piece in the running for the Kandinsky Prize was obviously related to that image of Lady Liberty-less, though its setting was Russia: the office of a non-descript, suit-sporting businessman or politician, with a window overlooking Red Square. Nothing spectacular, right? But Red Square is flooded in a sea of Chinese bamboo hats, and a gigantic Chinese dragon is choking the towers of St. Basil’s. The scene inside the room had its own stereotypical Chinese chaos—a Chinese man eating a dog, another painting bold Chinese characters over a map of the Russian Federation. No subtlety or political correctness here.

I’ll spare you my literary interpretations of the rest of the artwork. Here’s the Moscow Times article about the show; the winners will be announced on December 9.

Disclaimer: This is one of those lazy posts where I ask my readers to answer a question I pose. Because I still don’t have Internet at home, and I haven’t gotten around to writing anything profound yet.

Since I’ve already been here two months, I’m going to start writing about my life in Novgorod in media res. But before I share the juicy details, like my lesson in borshch-making or TV interview about the results of the U.S. presidential election, riddle me this–what do Americans nowadays think about Russia, Russians, life in this enormous post-Communist country? It’s a question I get nearly daily, and I can’t for the life of me think of how to answer. Sure, vodka-vodka-vodka (and yes, it does always appear when there’s a holiday to be celebrated!), but what else?

Ah, yes, bears. The Russian assumption is that we all think there’s bears roaming the streets. Which to me is particuarly funny, considering the closest contact with bears I’ve had is spotting them in Canada while on vacation, or observing zoologists test and tag a young brown bear in Minnesota. (We have a family friend who works for the DNR.) And then I stumbled across this bear fantasia in the New York Times in a special section on the best children’s books of 2008. So clearly, it’s (North) Americans who have the bear obsession, not Russians!

I’m curious to hear your responses, and I’ll be sure to share them with the Russians.

As for Russians’ ideas about Americans, I’ve met up with the idea that we’re all chubby and MacDonald’s-fed, but I think Alex and I both visually disprove that stereotype pretty quickly. Regarding other stereotypes, people might just not say things to my face. There are definitely different responses to Americans though–my most unpleasant moment was a woman brusquely declaring that I, as an American researcher, would automatically come to a negative conclusion about the situation in Russia and the effectiveness of the mother capital initiative. Luckily, that comment was a singularity. Other than that, I’ve found younger Russians are eager to hear about life in the U.S., my tastes in music and movies, my impressions of their town. But here I go, writing you a blog entry, when you’re supposed to be telling me what you think about this country I’ve resettled in for the year!