You don't know Russia until you've been to a Russia dacha. Only out in the country, surrounded by a bountiful garden and in the company of friends, can you really experience Russian hospitality, cuisine, and culture. A dacha is a country house, and usually these are places that people visit only in the summer, although some people live year-round at their dachas. Dachas are the compliment to small apartments that are home for most Russians; a dacha is a place to be outside, grow fruits and vegetables, and relax with friends. 

This weekend, my host family had guests in town, and we all went to see a great play at the Vladimir Drama Theater on Saturday night, and then we came back to our apartment and laid a great dinner party with lots of great food and conversation. Then around noon today we went to the dacha of one of the family's good friends. I promised to make chili, so we brought all the ingredients to the dacha and cooked in the kitchen (I wanted to cook chili on the wood stove outside, but it would have taken far longer to get the soup boiling). The chili turned out quite well, although it wasn't nearly as good as mom makes, especially because what I thought was chili powder was actually cayenne pepper (in my defense, the label said "чили," which would suggest that the spice inside would be chili powder). After I had added five palm-fulls--my approximate way of measuring out a tablespoon--of this spice, I tasted the soup and nearly spat it all over the kitchen. I don't mind hot food, but this was nearly inedible. So I skimmed a lot of the pepper off the top and added a lot of water. I also used some amazing tomatoes that my host family had preserved--way better than the Delmonte canned stuff. The resulting soup was quite tasty, albeit a bit too watery. Next time I'll read labels more carefully. 

Anyway, all this is to say that we had a great time at the dacha. In addition to chili, we had salyodka pod shuboi (Herring under a coat), which is delicious salted herring covered in finely chopped potatoes, beets, onions, and mayonnaise; we also ate the classic Russian potato salad olivye and pork chops. All this was accompanied by fresh vegetables, fruits, and herbs (there is cilantro in Russia!) from the garden and was washed down with vodka and wine. After the meal, I went to the neighborhood well with the host, hoisted up a bucket of pure, cold water, and then fired up the classic wood-fueled samovar. When the water boiled, had some amazing tea--the teapot was filled with tea leaves, herbs, and apple wedges. 

All this food wasn't for any particularly special occassion, that is, they didn't go all out because I was there. And really, food isn't the centerpiece of any Russian occassion (although it is hard to understate the passion with which Russians approach food). The most important part of any Russian get-together is the company. Stories, anecdotes, long quotes from Pushkin and Yesenin, singing, and drawn-out toasts are the staple. All in all, it's a perfect way to spend a Russian Sunday. Here are a few pictures: 

Today I was eating my brunch after coming back from the gym, and I heard what sounded like water pouring from a broken pipe. My host family wasn't home at the time, and the thought of having to call someone (and I have no idea who) and trying to explain that a pipe in the apartment was gushing water all over the place roused me from my lazy TV watching and munching on eggs and salmon (a breakfast of champions).

Fortunately, it turns out that nothing was broken, and water was not inundating our apartment. This gushing and gurgling sounds I heard were coming from the radiators. Today, the central heat plant started sending hot water out to all the buildings in Vladimir, and what I heard was the radiators filling up. Russian cities are mainly heated by big central heat plants, and the hot water is distributed around the city by a system of big pipes that mainly run above ground. This system is very efficient compared to each building having its own small boiler, but individual apartments don't have any control over how much heat they get, so your apartment is whatever temperature the central plant decides it should be и всё! Also, the giant pipes snaking through the city aren't the most attractive things.

I'll take this as a sign that the cold winds of Russian winter are just around the corner. Fire up the heat plant and break out the ushankas...

Here's another hit from Russian radio. I must admit I actually like the song a lot, although I have no idea what it's about. But, then again, few Russians do either. I always like when it comes on the radio at the sportzal

Nothing like a good old Lada. I love these little old cars, which are still quite common. I can't say for sure how old this car is because Lada (the main Russian automaker) made this same car with very few modifications for 30 years (production of this model ran from 1982 until this spring). There are many other models of Lada out there, but this one--the Lada 2107--has been the face of the Russian car industry for decades. 

Some technical specifics. The Lada 2107 is equipped with a 1.6-liter, 76 hp gasoline engine that can propel the sedan to a blistering maximum speed of 109 mph. Also, it is not equipped with power steering. I'm sure these cars don't meet any US emission standards--they have a characteristic unburned-fuel smell when they drive by, and on rainy days it is always amazing to see the little river of leaking oil that comes out of them. 

On the whole, the Lada 2107 is not a fancy car, but it is a workhorse; these cars have transported whole generations of Russians (and Soviets before them). I really do like these quirky little cars, and I would love to buy one and ship it back to the USA. I'm positive I would never see anyone else with another Lada. 

Here's one for the hilarious Russian sign collection. There tends to be a lot of signs everywhere in Russia; I actually have a book that is all about this phenomenon. These signs range from pronouncements of love (there is a huge graffited sign on a wall near my house that says "I love you Zhenya!") to announcements for work ("Excavator needed--call Ludmila 91-64-89") to all sorts of funny prohibitive and warning signs (there is a sign in the shower room at my gym that says "Wash yourself more accurately please!"). I always wonder what the provocation for these signs was. This sign, for example, was in the bathroom of a museum in Suzdal. It says, "Do not stand up with your feet on the toilet!."   

Today the whole American Home staff went on a trip to the ancient town of Suzdal, which is about 15 miles from Vladimir. In it's time, Suzal was one of the most important cities in all of ancient Russia--much more important than Moscow or Vladimir. There were 13 or 15 monasteries in this little town, and people like Ivan the Terrible and the prince Dmitri Pozharski (who united Russians to rise up against the Poles and Lithuanians during the time of troubles in the 16th Century) have strong ties to Suzdal.

Today, we visited the main monastery, a convent, the ancient kremlin (fortress), and a little village of wooden buildings that have been rebuilt to show different times in styles of Russian wooden architecture. We got a perfect fall day for this trip--around 55 with lots of sun. The leaves are all turning colors and falling off the trees, and it definitely feels like Halloween could be right around the corner. Here are some pictures of our trip to Suzdal.

Wow that was a busy week! I didn't get around to keeping this blog updated like I wanted to; I was swamped with grading journals for all the Dashas and Pashas, correcting quizzes, having office hours, and teaching classes.

On Monday and Tuesday I hit my classes with the first bit of really new information. I think some students had been kind of bored in the first week because we were just reviewing material that pretty much everyone already knew. Then came before and until, and oh the looks on my students' faces when they realized that these two very important words commonly translate to just one Russian word. I got a lot sentences like, "Max brushes his teeth until he goes to bed." Talk about gum recession....

So I had several students come to my office hours on Wednesday, and I'm happy for it. This was the first time I could really see how much people were "getting it," and I identified a few extra points to hit in my classes on Thursday. In those classes, I reviewed the difference between teach and learn (I got a lot of journals with the sentence "Teachers learn students"); we talked about uncommon plurals, such as policeman-policemen and salesperson-salespeople; and I gave them some practice on articles, which is always a tough point for Russians because Russian doesn't have articles. Trying the explain the difference between "Barack Obama lives in the White House" and "my parents live in a white house" without resorting to using articles as the defining part of the description is tough.

So after that week, I turned in early last night and slept like a rock. Today, after a delicious brunch of kasha (oatmeal), blini (crepes), buterbrodi (one-bread sandwiches with cheese and sausage), coffee, and compote (my favorite Russian drink--it's a really fresh-tasting juice made my boiling fruit and adding just a little sugar), I'm heading to the theater with my host family. The Vladimir Drama Theater is hosting a all-Russia theater festival this month, and theater companies from all over the country are doing plays here. We'll be seeing Waiting for Godot, which is being performed by a theater company from the far-northern city of Petrozavodsk. This sounds like a play I might not really understand in English, so we'll see how it goes in Russian....

One funny little episode happened at the sportzal yesterday morning. I was in the locker room after my workout, and my phone rang. It was my host dad asking if I wanted him to make me a haircut appointment for this weekend, and so we spoke Russian. There were two other guys in the locker room, and I'm on handshake terms with both of them. But here I am speaking--as one of my fellow teachers calls it--ugly Russian, and to top it all off, I was wearing my Cleveland State basketball jersey. I was the token foreigner. The second I hung up the phone, one guy asked me where I'm from. So now the morning sportzal crew knows I'm American, which I guess is fine--at least now they won't think I'm asshole for not being able to really banter with them in between sets. 

I spend a pretty sizable chunk of my day riding the bus. I live the farthest away of all of the teachers from the American Home. Fortunately, Vladimir is a small enough city that everyone is pretty close to everything, but my commute is still about 40 minutes each way; that's about 10 minutes of walking and a half hour of bus riding. Also, the buses in Vladimir run very frequently. I rarely have to wait more than a few minutes for a bus, and because I live basically at the end of the line for a lot of the bus routes, I can take almost any bus to get to and from the American Home.  

As a former CABS bus driver and fully licensed commercial driver (not that that means anything here), I notice a lot during my daily bus commute. For starters, there are two bus companies in Vladimir: BigAvtoTrans and the city bus company. BigAvtoTrans runs most of the buses and serves the biggest area. One ride costs 14 rubles (about 45 cents). These are diesel buses, mainly from Germany, which means that all the instructions and emergency procedures inside are written in German—pretty useless for me and the average Russian. The bus drivers are like Russian drivers in general: insane. They do things (like cutting off other buses, using the turn-only lane to go straight and pass slower traffic, and generally drive really fast) that even the most hard-pressed and careless college bus driver wouldn’t attempt. So they immediately had my respect and admiration.

The city bus company runs the trolleybuses, which are electric buses that use overhead wires. My first time in Russia, I thought electric buses would be smooth and quiet, but that is the opposite of the truth. Trolleybuses are the slowest and most uncomfortable way to get around—if they go too fast or take a corner too wide, they fall off the wires. So trolleybuses crawl around the city, jerking in and out of drive mode. The buses themselves are often ancient; a lady who lived here 20 years ago said the trolleybuses are the exact same ones from back then. Because of all these disadvantages, a ride on the trolleybus costs 12 rubles (38 cents). 

In both companies, you pay a conductor on the bus, who gives you a little ticket and a nasty look for using your worthless kopecks to pay your bus fare. 

It’s kind of hard to believe that 4 months ago I was in college and driving a bus. Time flies and situations change (fortunately I love this situation). But I can always be an East Residential bus driver at heart, screaming into stops and pushing my somewhat-trusty steed of a bus to its limits to make up a little time before the 5:30 class change.

Cheating is clearly a cultural thing. Yes, we definitely have cheating in American schools and universities, but it is nothing like in Russia. You see, in Russia, cheating doesn't carry much stigma, and even good students who know all the answers will look at their neighbors' papers "just to make sure." The bad students take cheating to a whole new level, and they are insanely creative about it. I know that my students can get creative and cheat on all my quizzes and exams, and actually I don't care all that much--they are the only ones they are cheating. If they really want to carve words into the pencil (and don't laugh--that's a real story that has happened here in the past), they are truly desperate--this is a non-academic school that exists to teach language. These cheaters are only depriving themselves of knowledge (and wasting money).

But I will combat--and aggressively--obvious cheating. For example, today I gave a quiz, and some of my teenagers were so blatantly cheating that it was laughable. One group of girls made absolutely no attempt to disguise their group thinking, so I just strolled up and took their quizzes. I told them--in Russian--that I though they were finished because they were talking. Oh the looks on their faces! At least I gave them the points they had already "earned;" next time I'll just give them a zero and make them come in and take a different version of the quiz in front of the secretary at the American Home, and she can be quite strict if she wants to.

It's strange though--the kids who cheat don't score any better than the ones who don't. Actually, there is one girl who is quite smart, but she is part of this brain trust that I busted today. And the funny thing is, she would have done a lot better if she stuck to her own answers. She crossed out several correct answers probably as a result of consulting with her girlfriends, and she almost failed the quiz as a result.

Maybe this whole cheating culture is rooted in the deeper Russian self-doubt and inclination toward group work. The girl who had the right answers and crossed them out probably saw that her friends thought something different than her and immediately doubted her answers. This, coupled with the traditional Russian distaste for overly self-confidant people, certainly casts cheating in a whole new light. Cheating is like insurance. As one of our Russian teachers put it, people cheat here not because they don't know the answers, not because they aren't smart, and not because they don't respect the teacher but because they want to make very sure that they make themselves and their group look even smarter than they are.

I must say, a year ago I certainly didn't think that I would be battling cheating Russian teenagers! Life's interesting like that. 

С днём города Владимир! That's happy city day Vladimir for the non-Russkiis out there. I think city day is a celebration of the city's birthday, although I'm not sure how anyone knows exactly what day Vladimir was founded because in fact no one knows even how old the city is exactly (there are two main variants--Vladimir was founded in either 1108 or 968). I guess the real date is inconsequential; suffice it to say that Vladimir is a really old city.

We celebrated city day first by having a games at the American Home in the afternoon. We teachers were a bit afraid that no one would show up, but actually about 25 people came, and we played outdoor games like frisbee and football (Russians were very confused about how to throw and catch a football) and indoor games like scrabble, durak (the classic Russian card game), and mafia.

Then, after polishing off a bowl of pelmeni and close to a pound of chicken sashlik, we headed into the center. The streets were closed to cars and packed with people. It was sort of like a county fair mixed with a street festival, and there were performers, carnival games, and concerts. At 10pm there was a really good fireworks show above the 12th-century cathedrals in the city center. Here's a picture of the festivities:

Today is City Day (день города) here in Vladimir. It's a day of concerts, parades, parties, and other events. I'm off to the American Home for a game day (it's our first Saturday event for the students), and then I'm sure we'll find something to do here in old Vladdy. I'll take some pictures, too. 

I'm busy grading quizzes and responding to journals again, so this will be short. Being a teacher is a lot of work. Here is a picture of some very Russian cartoons on a vacant house near the center of town. The top cartoon contrasts the evils of money with the nobility of hard work (money and the pursuit of wealth is traditionally regarded as dirty and sinful in Russian culture). The second cartoon says "Whoever smokes, drinks wine and beer is the devil's helper." And the third advocates for supporting young people again drinking and smoking. I like the very direct style of these pleas, left on this house by an unknown and well-meaning person.  

Oh the life of a teacher. I have a stack of 63 journals to correct and respond to, a stack of 63 quizzes to grade and record, and a lesson to plan for tomorrow. It's gonna be a long night. In lieu of a long post, here is a song that plays in the sportzal and that is currently stuck in my head. It's in Spanish or Italian or some other definitely non-Slavic language. Unfortunately, the girls in the video also have not yet put in an appearance at my little gym....

When I woke up today, I noticed that it was September 11. While I rolled out of bed, I reflected a little on that ominous day and expected that my 30 seconds of thought would be all I heard about 9/11 here in Russia. And I was wrong. My host mom asked me how I felt on this anniversary of the tragedy, and then when I got to the American Home this afternoon, we were told that a TV news crew wanted to interview us.

The crew was from the Vladimir branch of Rossiya--one of the main TV news channels. We placed flowers on a rock sculpture that was left by someone--no one knows who--right 9/11. Immediately after the attacks, Vladimir residents showed their condolences by placing flowers on the porch of the American Home; right after the attacks, the whole porch was piled with flowers. Then, the crew interviewed us around the kitchen table.

I didn't expect this level of attention about 9/11 today, and it heartens me to know that, despite our differences and political squabbles, Russia sympathizes with us and remembers this tragic day. Here is the clip that played on the evening news here in Vladimir:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ah3YGctT5k&feature=player_embedded

Holodets (холодец)--it's one of two Russian foods that Americans very frequently dislike. I've heard horror stories about it, actually. The other food is salo (seasoned lard), and, because I like salo, I wasn't too hesitant to chow down when my host family offered me holodets for breakfast Sunday morning.

What is holodets? You know those jello creations that have carrots, fruit, or some other food-like substance entombed in jello? Holodets is sort of like that. Except the food-like substance is meat, and the jello is concentrated meat broth that has been allowed to become gelatinous. To make holodets, you take a large quantity of meat--usually several different kinds (we had pig and duck)--and boil it with carrots, onions, and spices for many hours. This softens and cooks the meat, freeing it from the bones, and it makes a strong broth, which you further boil down until it becomes thick. You then put the cooked meat into a pan, pour the broth over it, and put the whole creation into the fridge overnight. The broth thickens into a clear jello-ish concoction that encases the meat.

I think the hardest thing to get past is the texture, and that's probably why Americans typically shy away from this Russian dish. We like all sorts of slimy jello creations, but I guess the idea of jellied meat is off-putting. I had to give myself a little pep talk, but it turns out I actually really the stuff. And why not? It's everything a man could want--meat with meat jello. Think of the protein! And it's probably actually fairly healthy; boiling separates fat from the meat, and all the ingredients are simple and healthy. Add a little Russian mustard and you're set. Приятного аппетита, as the Russians would say.  

Today I woke up to discover that it's now fall in Vladimir. After the string of cold days, the leaves are starting to change, and some trees are almost bare already. I'd say that in about a week, it will look like mid-October in Cleveland, with all the trees in full color and leaves on the ground. Also, fall is apparently a very rainy season in Russia, and there is a commercial on TV now advertising boots that claims that you can "happily meet fall" while wearing these fashionable rain boots. I'm imagining slogging through monstrous mud puddles covered with birch-tree leaves. Time to break out the boots. Here's the view out my window, showing the beginnings of Russian fall:

 

Teaching for 5 hours straight is more work than you might imagine! Yesterday, I had three classes, starting at 4:00pm and going until 9:00. I had 15-minute "breaks" between each 90-minute class, but most of that time was taken up by collecting nametags, erasing and preparing the board, passing out new nametags and materials, and answering questions from my eager students. I brought a banana in hopes that I would be able to have at least sometime to tide me over, but I never had a free moment to even eat a banana.

Because I have five groups of the same level, I will teach the same lesson five times each week, so by the last group, I have that lesson totally memorized. That's nice because it frees me to really pay attention to my students and assess whether they actually understand what I'm saying. I try to teach as much as possible in English, and I told my classes that their job is speak English as much as they can, but I frequently had to give directions in Russian during my first classes. It's nice that I can do that, but I have to be careful that my students don't get lazy and expect me to translate everything.

Craziness aside, I really enjoyed teaching my first lessons. I have two groups of teenagers, and the rest are adults. The teenagers groups are fun to teach because I can joke around a bit more with them, and both groups are pretty active and already speak decent English (of course it's far easier to learn a language at a young age). My adult groups are also good, and they were active in class too. The adult groups, however, seemed to struggle a bit more with grammar and pronunciation than the teenagers, and I have a few adult students who might not be ready for this level. The adults took a more serious approach to the first lessons, though, and so it will be interesting to see how the different groups react to different activities.

It's pretty cool to think that I'm the first American that most of my 63 students have ever met. Some of my adult students said that they were so happy that they could understand almost everything I said, which is an accomplishment; I know from learning Russian that there is a huge difference between listening to a foreigner and listening to a native speaker. It makes me feel good to know that my effort to keep my speech simple and clear--without making it too stilted and awkward--worked.

Being that this is the last weekend for a while when I don't have a mountain of journals and homework to grade, I went with a few of the other teachers to the American Home's annual inter-city basketball tournament (just to watch). Then, we walked around the central city park, listened to a rock concert in the park, and had some delicious sashlyk (shish kebab). Here's a picture of the basketball tournament--note Misha, the mascot of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

Wow. I'm exhausted from teaching my first classes today. But, more than that, I'm really happy at how they went. I taught two classes today, one from 4 to 5:30 and one from 7:30 to 9. The main goal of the class was to get students talking and meeting each other, so I went light on the grammar, and it was all review. My first group was 13 teenagers, and I have to say I was nervous for how the class would go and whether I would have to deal with behavior problems. My fears were totally unfounded; the group was very well behaved and most of the students were active and knowledgeable. They breezed through the activities and grammar practice with little trouble, and I was able to add some cultural tidbits, such as the difference between what we Americans obsess over from August until February and what the rest of the world knows as football (and what we call soccer). It was fun, and I couldn't ask for a better group.

My second group was all adults, ranging in age from maybe 30 to 50. This group was a little more chatty between themselves, and so I can already tell that I will have to be a bit of a taskmaster to keep lessons moving. They knew all the material as well, although it was a little harder extracting it from them. There are a few very conversational students in the group, so it was tempting to just ask them all the questions, but there are also a few weaker students, so I have to make sure that I don't neglect the quieter students who tend to suffer in silence and need the practice.

My second lesson was bit tougher because I was teaching in a different room; my first lesson took place not at the American Home but at the nearby Vladimir Institute of Business, and there I was in a big classroom with plenty of space. Two groups had already had class in this smaller room at the American Home by the time my 7:30 class started, and the room was stiflingly hot and stuffy. I tried to turn on the air conditioner, but my students immediately protested--Russians have an intense fear of cold air and drafts. There is a saying "heat doesn't harm" (жара не ломает), and indoor temperatures can be unbearably hot in this country. I'm not sure how many more sweaty, airless classes I can do though; my students might have to embrace the American culture of air conditioning if they want to have an American teacher.

I am lucky that I only am teaching one level this semester, so I will present the same lesson three times tomorrow. By 9pm on Friday, I will know this lesson by heart!  

I'm preparing for my first lesson tomorrow, so I'll keep this short. Here is a picture of a cute Russian tradition. When people get married, it is common to fasten a lock to some structure--bridges are very popular--as a sign of permanence and dedication. In some places in Moscow, pretty much every available fence railing has at least a few locks on it, and the tradition exists here in Vladimir too. This is a picture of a few locks on a bridge near the center of town. The lighter red lock says Anya and Andrei; the darker one says Anton and Irina.

It's almost here. We teachers have introduced ourselves (through a very goofy skit) to our students, and now the clock is ticking, counting down to the first class, which is at 4:00pm on Thursday. I'm nervously excited. My first group will be 13 teenagers--I think 9 girls and 4 boys (the student body at the American Home seems to be about 75% percent female). I've been told by the previous level teachers that these teenagers are a good group as far as teenagers go, but still I'm expecting to have to lay down the law a bit, especially at first. I don't want to have to deal with blatant cellphone use and chatter in Russian (if they want to talk to their friends in class, it had better be in English). If all else fails, I can yell very loudly, and I've been told I can be pretty intimidating. But I'm hoping it won't ever come to that. 

Out of my five total classes, two are teenager-only, and the rest are mixed with young people and adults. It will be interesting teaching people 20 or 30 years my senior, but I'm told that Russians have unquestioning respect for any teacher. That's definitely a cultural difference: I've been in several university classes where older students have questioned and even argued with younger teachers, as if they assume that, by being older, they have more authority than the teacher.  

Material for the first lesson? Mostly, the goal is to get students talking, having fun, and dusting off their English. I know that when I was studying Russian, I could barely speak at all after a long summer bez Russkovo (without Russian). So, we'll play some getting-to-know-you games, go over introductions and greetings, quickly review possessive pronouns and contractions, and introduce vocabulary related to countries and nationalities (Pasha is from Russia. He's Russian [note the nice use of the target grammar there]). I hoping for enthusiastic students who aren't afraid to talk. My worst fear is not a rowdy class but a disinterested class, the kind of class that glumly finishes an activity in three minutes that you had planned for 20 minutes. If any of my future students are reading this--and you are awesome if you understand this after studying English for three months--just talk, use gestures, and make tons of mistakes. That's way better than being silent because you don't remember what the past participle of run is. Don't worry--most Americans don't know either.   

 

It's mushroom season! We have been getting rain pretty much every day, and it turns out that rain brings more than giant puddles and soaked shoes. Mushrooms have sprouted all over central Russia, and people are descending on forests to pick them. Mushroom gathering might seem strange to a lot of Americans, but the fact that we don't head to the forest after a big rain to pick nature's bounty seems equally strange to Russians. My host family was surprised to learn that I have never been mushroom picking (I'm hoping to go sometime soon). This past weekend, they headed out to the forest near my host dad's village to gather mushrooms and pick potatoes, and they brought back a huge amount of little white mushrooms, which are considered a delicacy.

So what to do with pounds and pounds of mushrooms? For the Russian cook, there are several options. You could boil them with potatoes and onions and make a tasty soup (I took some of the mushrooms and potatoes to work today, and one of my fellow teachers and I made a big pot of soup and treated everyone to lunch). Or, you could can the mushrooms in a marinade, which is what my host family did with a lot of their take; they filled 11 big mason jars full. These marinated mushrooms can then be brought out on a dark winter night, bringing back memories of warmer days. My favorite variant, however, is mushroom caviar. To make this, you run the mushrooms through a meat grinder to make a puree. Then you boil them with garlic and herbs until you have a savory spread that is perfect to put on a slice of hearty black bread. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

On a totally unrelated note, I saw my absolute favorite ESL error the other day. It was a response to a question about plans for later in the day. The student wrote: "Tonight, I will go home and serf the internet." I thought serfdom in Russia was abolished in 1861--I guess it still thrives on the internet. Here's a picture of some mushrooms:

Vladimir isn't a big city. But, then again, it isn't a small city either: About 350,000 people live here. The city, however, takes up only 47 square miles, which is less than the size of two Ohio townships (36 square miles each). Vladimir is also a long, skinny city--it is strung out along the Klazma River, and so the city is about seven miles long by one to three miles wide. And, in contrast with American cities, Vladimir really does just end at the city limits. There aren't really any suburbs, and most of the city is surrounded by forest or farms, which are protected from development by Russian zoning codes (I have to give thanks to the folks I interned with last summer at the Institute of Urban Economics in Moscow for my understanding of Russian land-use laws).

Anyway, enough dry description; that's what Wikipedia is for. Yesterday, I decided it was time to get out and explore my new city. A few of the other teachers and went for a progulka around Vladimir. What's a progulka? It comes from the difficult-to-translate Russian verb gulyat, which means to walk around, hang out, relax, stroll, to spend time in fresh air. Gulyat, however, is not a verb of motion, so you can't use it to say you went somewhere, and that is the point--gulyat is to walk without a destination, to walk for the sake of walking and relaxing. Ask a Russian teenager what they like to do and you will likely get  the response "walk with friends," which is an attempt to translate gulyat into English. But, really, Russians do love to walk, and a good progulka can take hours.

On our progulka, we wandered the backstreets of the historic center of Vladimir. We were a few streets removed from the bustling main drag, and it felt like a totally different city. Small wooden houses, gardens, quiet parks--it didn't resemble the city of high-rise of apartments that I call home. Here are some photos: