My Impressions of Russia

Below is a paper I wrote for my civilization class last week. We were asked to write on our impressions of Russia and read it to the class. I decided to take a different approach to the paper than most people. Enjoy!

My body swiftly glided through the streets zigzagging to avoid the various obstacles - automobiles, people, and puddles. I squeezed myself into the crowd hustling towards the doors of the metro station. Luckily the stench (a combination of old sweat and vodka) of the greasy man with his beer/vodka belly pressed up against my backside was overpowered by the sweet smelling perfume of the woman whose body completed the human sandwich I was enveloped by. This was the envelope of Russian intimacy. From this angle, I could tell quite a bit about my co-commuters. Her hair was not absolutely perfect from where I stood – with my face surrounded by her sleek locks. She probably spent an hour every morning blowing it out and straightening it to get the mess of imperfect curls out. I had spent three minutes and it showed as my attempt in having bangs began to frizz up. What is it about appearances and the Russian culture? Or at least a woman’s appearance for that matter. Was it so crucial that a woman be perfectly put together for work or class each day? I wanted to reach my hand into my backpack and pull out my lip gloss to make up for the fact that my lips were dry and un-lipsticked. Had Russia changed me? The girl who used to go to class in her pajamas before with a picture of a scuba cat plastered on a yellow background. The girl who used to spend three days in a row working on a project in studio, catch an hour or two of rest in the basket chair and then continue to work in her smelly sweat shirt and pants. She who used to wear hippie skirts and crocs and dance in the mud? Now she felt out of place when she didn’t wear heels. Why was it so important for her to fit in? Did Russia change her perception of herself. Or maybe this girl waddled through this mess in the metro station during rush hour because she was trying to figure out where she belonged, what her identity was, and understand her own past.

I think it’s time I explain a little bit about myself. Ethnically I am a mutt. However there are two sides to my family. My mom’s side, where I can fill in many of the immediate past blanks since even my grandparents were Americans and my mother grew up in Queens, New York. Then there is my dad’s side which gets to be a little bit more complicated. I think this “mystery” is what compels me to find out about my past. Some days I don’t know why I search because I don’t really feel that I’m missing a part of me in my life, however the drive to understand is still there. My Russian yoga instructor Yana asked me why I was here, why I choose to study in Russia. I told her it was to find out about my family history. I don’t know why but I also feel like this is one of the reasons but not the complete truth, though I still haven’t figured out the whole truth even for myself.

My father, Konstantin Maximilianovich was an immigrant from Kragujevac, Serbia. He was born and raised there with his father, mother, brother, and sister and they immigrated to the United States when he was fifteen. He barely knew any English but spoke fluent Serbian and Russian. However, when I was growing up I only heard my father “govoreet pa-russky” with my grandmother or at Russian Orthodox masses or at the cemetery, never at home. My father never really talked about his past, only about politics and American injustice. He rarely spoke about his father and the one thing that I have from my grandfather is an old hammer wrapped in duct tape that he gave my father when he was growing up. Most of the details I do have I’ve learned from my mother. It’s up to me to fill in the details if I ever want to learn about my ancestral history.

My grandfather was born in the Tula region of Russia, located to the south of Moscow, and his family’s estate bordered that of Tolstoy’s Yasnaya Polyana. His name was Maximilian Josefovich and he was born into a noble family, educated at home, and only spoke French around the dinner table so that the servants could not understand them. He was sent to the Military Academy in Saint Petersburg for his upper classes and became an officer in the Czar Nicholas II’s cavalry. He was out of the country when the Revolution began and was living in his family’s country home in Nice, France. Most of his family was killed and their estate was taken over by the Soviets. After a while he moved to Yugoslavia where many White Russians had settled and set up their own school and church. He opened up a restaurant and married my grandmother when she was eighteen. I never met my grandfather because he died over forty years ago. I remember my grandmother telling me about my grandfather’s drinking problems. It all makes sense now! And apparently, it’s common here not to have a grandfather! It’s the women who take care of the family. Similarly, it was even my mom who was the bread bearer of the family and came home at night to figure out the financial and school matters. My father played the role of the housewife. He raised me and my sister, cooked dinner, and worked in the garden and made house repairs. Like wise, in my host family, I only know my babushka and her adult children. My babushka is retired and cooks, cleans, and goes to church very often. Rumor has it that she is married but her husband is off building a new Dacha 700 km away.

Every time I visit a new place here in St. Petersburg I wonder if my grandfather stood in the spot I am standing in. What did it look like when he was there almost a hundred years ago, before the Soviets and Germans destroyed the countless architectural treasures of the city? Did he gaze across the Neva at night

to the Winter Palace lit up in all of its glory? Did he stroll through the gardens of Pavlosk

and Tsarskoye Selo as I have? I wonder what Maximilian Josefovich’s date wore to the Winter Palace balls. I like to picture my grandfather in his early twenties riding around the city in horse and buggy with the snow on the ground and the lights from the buildings providing a soft glow to the black night sky. Will I ever dress up and attend balls as magnificent as he did? Did we touch the same monuments? Or did what he touch later become devastated? I don’t know. But what I have come to realize is the incredible restoration St. Petersburg has undergone. This is one of my greatest impressions of Russian resilience. I remember visiting Catherine’s Palace in Pushkin and seeing the pictures of what the rooms looked like after World War II, and I could not believe that the room I was standing in was solely due to the tireless efforts of all the historians, artists, and restorationers. It is absolutely incredible. Every day I walk past mansions and palaces whose facades are constantly being restored. On the other hand, I wonder why Russia spends so much money on its image, but not necessarily on its people. Is the opinion of visitors to the city more important than the livelihood of those who live in the broken down interiors?

My father lived in Moscow for a few months in 1986 and it had always been his dream to go to St. Petersburg State University as his own father did. My mom believes I’m fulfilling his dream. Moscovites told him that he had a St. Petersburg accent which he believed to be very prestigious and was always proud of. I hope one day to speak Russian like my father. He passed away almost four years ago from skin cancer, and life has never been the same since. Not that life should ever remain the same, but I do wish I could call him up right now and tell him all about my life and discuss all that I’ve learned, even in the last two months alone. I wish I could speak in my broken Russian with him. It’s a very good thing I’m such a spiritual person.

My grandma Radmila also passed away last year. I don’t think she understood that I was going to study abroad in Russia the following year because at this point she couldn’t communicate very well. She started to speak to me only in her own language – Russerbian – what I call her combination of Russian and Serbian. I could never understand what she was saying; I would constantly tell her I didn’t speak Russian. This also brings back memories of when she would come back from the kitchen telling me a story and speaking in Russian to me. She wouldn’t even realize that she wasn’t speaking in English. I would be like, “grandma, grandma, English please.” Living in Russia helps me understand her crazy meat pies, love of pelmenies, and kasha that I grew up eating with tons of butter and bacon! Kasha to me was always kasha “grechnaya” or buck wheat kasha. I found it strange when people would ask me, what kind of kasha? To me there was only one kind. I also understand now why my grandma would cook a ton of food for me. And even when she herself wasn’t really hungry would lick the plate clean, afraid of wasting food. I understand why she would walk the hour to church on Sundays, even when she had pneumonia. I understand how she spent all day making her family famous walnut cake that all the grandchildren would receive on their birthdays. But the best were her kuliches. I tried others that her friends had created and I was definitely partial to hers. But I didn’t always have to wait til Easter (Pascha) to enjoy my kuliches, because like all babushkas, mine spoiled me all throughout the year. But she also gave me slippers, complained that I was too skinny (I was actually skinny up to two years ago), never thought I bundled up enough and got mad when I only had a light jacket. She lectured my dad when my sister and I didn’t want to wear skirts for Easter Mass. (Hmm, I remembered that when I went to mass a few weeks ago at Kasansky Sobor.) She also cooked kolbasy quite a bit. (The meats in Russian don’t seem so foreign to me – sausiscky this, sausicky that.) One last thing, my babushka also told me never to let any boys touch me; I’m waiting for my host babushka to say the same.

So in the end all I have left are the few stories my dad told me growing up, and my grandma’s stories about my dad getting lost, all her children dying, and my grandfather who had a drinking and smoking cigar problem. Other than that I base my searches on what my mom recalls my father telling her and my own studies and experiences. It’s been a very interesting journey along the way and my life at home begins to make so much more sense. It’s funny because although I’m American I really do feel I don’t fit in with the typical stereotyped American upbringing. I was raised by an American mother and an Eastern European immigrant, and only now, after over two months of living in St. Petersburg, do certain things begin to make sense. I begin to understand my father’s apparent aloofness to outsiders, but good friendships and love towards those he was acquainted with. A couple of other parents used to think he was quiet and shy, until they officially met him, and got involved in hours of conversation with him. My father really used to talk for hours, and hours. He also was the type of person who would go up and give the warmest hello to his friends at the gym. He would introduce me to guys that he worked out with, or conversed about sports with and tell me that they were such “sweethearts”. Hmm, sweethearts, I didn’t know such language was used by manly men.

In the end I have to say I’ve had my share of impressions about Russian culture. Am I shocked? Not so quite. I think I’m the most shocked about corruption and how lazy people can be. But with everyday matters, the experiences I’ve had begin to explain a lot about my own life and upbringing. However, my perception has been changed a few times since arriving. I believe it to be a combination of my mindset as well as constant contact. The more I get used to something, the less I notice its affect on me. If I wrote this paper two months ago, a week after I arrived it would have been a very different – half in awe, and half in frustration. But now, I write in a way of understanding. The attempt of understanding the past of those that live around me and my own past that happened in the same city, but in a very different time period.