Yesterday I got some real benefit from the several excursions I have been on in Vladimir and Suzdal. One of the other teacher's family arrived in Russia on Thursday, and they wanted to see the ancient city of Suzdal, which is not far from Vladimir. Their son, however, had to teach yesterday, and it looked like they might not be able to go. I was free yesterday, so I said I would be happy to be a guide for a day.

We took a buses to and from Suzdal, which was a very Russian experience. The first bus was an old PAZ--a Russian mini-bus--and the second bus was running late because of mechanical problems--it looked to have a pretty nasty coolant leak. We got to see a side of Russia that a lot of tourists don't.

But once we got it Suzdal, everything was great. Suzdal has an unfathomable number of old churches, and we poked around, bought souvenirs, and visited some of the historic sites. Of course, you could spend several days there and not see everything. I think everyone really enjoyed it, and I had a lot of fun being the guide and translator.

On our way back, we stumbled across a choral concert on Vladimir's main square. The choir is a famous group from Moscow, and the performance was part of a big festival of Orthodox Christian culture here in Vladimir. Here are two pictures of the scene. Note the guys dressed up as knights in the second shot.

It's hot here in Vladimir. The highs have been around 30C, which is 86F, and the humidity is really high. In reality that isn't all that hot--Cleveland, which is by no means a hot-weather city, regularly gets highs in the mid-90s in July and August--but I think I've lost some of my heat tolerance after the long winter. I get drenched in sweat walking to the bus stop in the hot sun and sitting on the stifling bus (air conditioning on buses is non-existent here). The return trip on the bus is quite unpleasant; even at 10pm, it's still sultry, and everybody's deodorant--assuming they even wore any--has worn off long ago. Russia in the summer can be a smelly place.   

After 11 months aboard, I feel pretty disconnected from America and American culture. I only know what's what's happening and what's popular in the US because of Facebook or my occasional reading of the New York Times of Cleveland Plain Dealer websites. I wouldn't saw that I'm a pop-culture follower in the US, but now I really don't know what songs are popular, what movies are coming out, what TV shows are big, and what clothes are in style. I get a strange flow of songs and movies that come from the US, but I suspect many of them were popular about six months ago or were never all that popular at all. Here's a few American songs that are really popular in Russia right now:

I Follow Rivers by Lykke Li

Thrift Shop by Macklemore

Get Lucky by Daft Punk

I have no idea if these songs are popular in the US right now or ever were all that popular. But they constantly play on Russian radio stations. 

I have been riding my bike to work a few days a week lately, and I often get rides home from friends and students, but I still ride the bus quite a bit. As a former bus driver and driving-starved young man, I notice two things while I'm riding the bus--the way the driver does his job and all the cars that whiz around the plodding bus.

I drove buses for Ohio State University's Campus Area Bus Service for a year and a half, and of course first I had to get a class-B commercial driver's license. That involved taking a written test at the BMV to get a temporary CDL permit that allowed me to drive a bus with a trainer, 50 hours of in-bus training, and a road test that included a detailed pre-trip inspection ("the front windshield is clean, clear, not cracked or damaged, and the windshield gasket is secure and not damaged"), a maneuverability test (straight-line backing, offset backing, parallel parking, and alley docking), and an hour-long road test that included highway driving, crossing railroad tracks, emergency stopping, hill climbing (they found the one decently steep hill in Columbus, Ohio), and general city driving. I really enjoyed my time as a bus driver, and I was a little sad when I dropped off my last passenger and pointed my bus back toward the garage.

Now I compensate by critiquing other bus drivers. I have to say that most Russian bus drivers would get fired very quickly by an American transit agency. They are actually very capable drivers, but they don't have much respect for the law. I felt like the king of the road behind the wheel of a bus; these guys are the tsars of the road. Buses constantly cut off other cars, drive in two lanes at once, and sometimes don't come to a full stop when picking up or dropping off passengers. The drivers talk on the phone while driving (that would get you fired at CABS), smoke (no one even tried that while driving), and let people on and off away from designated stops (also not allowed by CDL regulations). They don't use four-way flashers, don't signal turns, and pull out and turn directly in front of oncoming traffic. Sometimes it can be a little harrowing if you let yourself think about it. I've seen more than a few accidents involving buses here in Vladimir--mostly fender benders and side-swipes. Also, buses don't have CB radios, so there is no way for buses to communicate problems to the dispatcher talk or to each other and space themselves out when traffic gets bad (maybe that's what the cell phones are for). Talking on the CB radio and listening to all the other drivers was one of my favorite things about bus driving. Finally, drivers don't have uniforms, so they wear whatever they want, which, now that it is hot, usually means a wife beater and athletic shorts. Professional.  

Anyway, this is all to say that I would love to climb behind the wheel of a bus when the driver is out for a smoke break and see how it would feel to pilot a 40-footer again. Something tells me the police and the bus company wouldn't find that very funny though.

A Vladimir bus

One of Ohio State's two hybrid buses--I drove this one quite a few times 

Yesterday was the summer solstice, which results in the longest period of daylight for locations in the Northern Hemisphere. For central Russia, that means a really, really long day. In fact, here in Vladimir the sun barely set last night--it was still greyish twilight at midnight, and the sun was already coming up at 3am. In more northerly cities like St. Petersburg and Murmansk it never gets dark during the few weeks around the summer solstice. Fortunately, I'm not bothered by the fact that is brilliant daylight at 4am (my roommates in college were always amused that I slept with the curtains open and the sun blasting in on my face), but it does kind of mess with your body clock. You look outside and notice that it's still daylight and assume that it's still early, but then you look at your watch and realize that's it almost 11pm and you have to catch the last bus home--this has happened to me a few times. The super-long daylight hours facilitate lots of partying at dachas and strolling with friends in the city, and it definitely is a nice treat after the long, cold, dark winter (when it gets light at 10am and dark at 4pm).

The stretched-out daylight has facilitated more than just partying and relaxing, though. In 1941, Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union at 4am on June 22, opening WWII's brutal eastern front. Last night, I went with some friends to Victory Square here in Vladimir, where there was a little ceremony. Unfortunately it was raining and pretty chilly, so there weren't many people, but it was moving nonetheless. Here's a picture I took:

 

Here's a great song that sums up the value of being away from home for a little bit (or a longer bit). As much as I miss everything back in the good old US of A--and I do yearn for some time back in America--living abroad is a tremendously valuable experience. Brad Paisley says it best:

Here's a tribute to the little-celebrated Lada. I actually love these cars, which surprises my Russian friends because Ladas really are terrible cars as far as the whole getting-you-to-where-you-need-to-go-in-a-reliable-and-decently-fast-manner thing goes. Most Ladas have engines rated for less than 100 horsepower, and a lot of them don't have power steering or air conditioning. Also, emissions control is definitely not a big concern; there is a very distinct unburned-fuel smell that accompanies the impressive site of a Lada driving by. Even more reassuring is the lingering smell of gasoline that often is present in the passenger compartment. Many Ladas don't have fuel-injected engines, and so the driver manually operates the carburetor choke, which results is lots of very smoky starts in Russian winter weather.

Despite all these shortcomings (and that's really just a partial list), Ladas have a special place in my heart. I would buy one and import it to the US if I could afford it and the laws regarding car importation weren't so impossibly complex (a Lada would never pass US customs safety inspection anyway). I am a real fan of the totally gaudy and overdone customization jobs that guys do to their Ladas here in Russia. All kinds of alloy wheels, stadium-worthy sound systems, low-rider packages, window tint, exhaust systems, and neon-light packages can be found on Ladas cruising the streets of Vladimir (by cruising, I mean dodging potholes at breakneck speed). It is a distinctly Russian version of the sport-compact-car movement. Here are some pictures of pimped-out Ladas:

 

On Wednesday's Russia Day holiday, my friends and I drove to the little town of Yuryev-Polsky, a little town north of Vladimir. It's an old town--founded in 1152--and there are some old churches and buildings in the town. Unfortunately, we got there too late to go inside the kremlin or any of the churches, although if you've seen one small-town kremlin, you've see them all. In case you're wondering, "kremlin" means fortress in Russian, so there are kremlins all over Russia. The one in Moscow is the capital-"k" Kremlin. Anyway, here are some pictures from our trip:

Today is a national holiday here in Russia. It's Russia Day (День России), which celebrates the 1990 Russian declaration of sovereignty from the USSR. Most people, however, call this holiday Russian independence day, which isn't exactly accurate, but who am I to judge. The important thing for most people is that this is day off from work and school, and very few people really do any Russia-Day-connected celebrating on this holiday. I get the feeling that a lot of people have a disparaging attitude to this day, perhaps because it is a holiday that is trumped up by the not-so-popular government and that doesn't have any real grounding in Russian culture. It most certainly isn't anything like America's Independence Day.

In Russia, of course, a holiday is an excuse for many people to do a lot of drinking. Vodka and beer retailers are doing an even brisker business than usual today. An interesting thing about Russia is that all alcohol sales in stores stop at 11pm and don't begin again until 8am. That is actually a federal law, and mostly it's enforced, at least in big cities. You have to plan out any beer runs because, after 11:00pm, you can't buy anything alcoholic. I know no such law exists in the United States, at least not on the national level, and I remember my friends and I were once surprised by the fact that 7-11 in Columbus refused to sell us a 6-pack of some classy beer at 1:00am--they claimed it was store policy not to sell beer after midnight.

Back to Russia, I guess the motivation for the law was to reduce the supply of alcohol available in an attempt to reduce alcoholism and alcohol-related fights and other problems, but the result is that there are big lines of people racing to buy their booze at 10:50pm, and 11:00pm looms as a stark boundary by which you have to have bought your alcohol for the evening. Also, Russians believe that a good hangover cure is a beer in the morning (it doesn't really make you feel any better--it just makes you feel...drunk again), so there are also lines at stores at 8:00am waiting for the harried cashiers to open the locks and shades that cover the shelves with beer and vodka.

Anyway, I'll try to avoid the alcohol mania here in Russia like I usually do; a drink here and there is fine, but I can't get slammered every weekend like a lot of people here do. On an unrelated note, check out this video of traffic in Ho Chi Min City:

 The Most Dangerous Traffic Circle In The World?

This last weekend I was in Moscow for a friend's birthday, which was a great time. I had some time to kill yesterday while waiting for my train back to Vladimir, so I strolled around the center of the city. I found some very cool neighborhoods of Moscow that are a little off the beaten path and that defy the stereotype that Moscow is a big, loud, dirty megalopolis. One of my favorite things about Moscow is finding little out-of-the-way neighborhoods, parks, and cafes. I even found a burrito place, which, despite the use of a strange cheese sauce on my burrito, was probably the closest thing to Chipotle in Russia. After being in Vladimir, Moscow felt like the cultural center of the world. The people on the street are diverse ethnically and in their style of dress, and the buildings are gorgeous compared with the standard Soviet-era buildings in Vladimir. Here are some pictures from my wanderings in Moscow:

In a lot of ways, I live a pretty luxurious life for a college graduate. A lot of my peers have jobs with inhuman hours (like 9-5). They have to get up before--well--9am. Gross. My work schedule is still pretty college. My work day starts at noon, and I work until 9:30pm. That's pretty late, but did I mention that I only work three days a week in this six-week summer semester? Ya, that's pretty nice. My Tuesdays and Thursdays are free, although I usually find myself going in to work at least for a little bit.

It will be a little bit of a rough change to go back to a regular, adult schedule, but I have a little time before that happens. I've told a lot of people but never written it here on the blog that I decided to stay and work in Vladimir for one more year. So, I guess I could change the name to Vladimir for Another Year. Or not. I really enjoy being here, although I miss home and America like hell. I plan to come back in May of 2014, which will make for a whopping 20 months outside of the United States. I do sometimes think, that, under the original plan, I would be going home in a month, and I have to say that sounds pretty good (I could get some food with flavor!). But I know that this next year will be a new set of opportunities, challenges, and adventures, and, in the grand scheme of things, two years isn't very long. Shoot, I back in college considered joining the Peace Corps after graduation, and that's 27 months in a place that likely is a lot more remote than Vladimir.

Anyway, I have a difficult day off consisting of a work out and then--well I haven't decided what comes after my work out yet. Ya, life's rough. 

Being a foreigner is always humbling. I speak Russian well, and I like to think I'm pretty capable of getting around and getting done what I need to get done, and often it's pretty cool being the token American (it's the best pick-up line ever), but it can sometimes be tough and frustrating to be a foreigner. It gives me a lot of respect for all the immigrants I know in America.

For example, my bike has been giving me some trouble lately (Chinese parts + 200-pound me + Vladimir's crappy roads = all sorts of problems), and, if I were in America, I would be able to go to my local bike shop and tell them that the threading that holds the sixth cog in place in the rear cassette is stripped out and is causing that cog to disengage and is making all the gears wobble. All those technical terms and descriptions, though, are a lot harder for me to do in Russian. And this is Russia, of course, so you have to be ready to stand up for yourself and call out people's BS or you'll get cheated left and right, but that's a lot trickier for a poor foreigner. If the Pasha working at the bike shop tells you that there is nothing he can do because he doesn't have the parts, and, even if he did, it would just break again because of A, B and C, and that his "expert" opinion will run you 500 rubles, I need to be able to tell him that I won't stand for that and describe the problem again and give a suggested fix--in Russian. That unit wasn't in my high-school Russian textbook.

Specifics aside, it is always fun to watch people's reactions when I unveil my foreignness. People tell me that I look Russian enough that no one would really suspect that I'm an American when they see me walking down the street or riding the bus. But, when I open my mouth, I always see people's thought processes start up. When I'm talking on the phone on the bus, for  example, I love to watch people giving me sideways glances and trying to listen to me talk--and that happens whether I speak English or Russian. Just today, I was in a market here in Vladimir killing a little time looking at some clothes and shoes before a haircut appointment, and I got into a big conversation with one of the sellers about prices and trends in America. I started off by asking him the regular questions about prices and sizes, and I could tell he knew I wasn't Russian. He finally asked where I'm from, and the conversation started from there.  

My advice to anyone living as a foreigner--don't worry about it. Be sensitive to the home culture and try to learn the language and appreciate and respect the traditions, but don't try to hide your foreignness. It's virtually impossible, and it's unnecessary--only a spy needs to be mistaken for a local. And, anyway, it's kind of cool to be a foreigner, even if it's tough sometimes. 

I'm not usually one to make split-second decisions, but sometimes I surprise myself. Yesterday I was working out in the morning like I normally do, and one of the normal morning crew workout guys told me that yesterday was the last day of an amazing membership deal at another gym in the neighborhood. This gym had just recently reopened after a big renovation, and it is really nice and new and a whole lot better equipped than my current gym. I stopped by on my way to work, got a tour, and told the administrator that I really liked the place and would like to join but didn't have the money for the year-long membership with me at the moment. The whole sum for a year is 8,000 rubles ($250). Fortunately, I have been able to save a fair amount of my paychecks for the last few months, so I had that amount in cash in my apartment (Russia is very much a cash economy). So, today I stopped by and bought my new membership. The advantages are hard to ignore: 8,000 rubles there versus 18,000 for a year at my current gym. Also, while this new place is no RPAC (the insanely monsterous recreation center at Ohio State--one of four rec. centers there actually), it has more than everything I need, and it has air conditioning, which is a rare luxury here in Russia. Here's a link to its website--check out what $250 can get you in the world of Russian gyms: 

http://planet33.ru/formula-zdorovia (in English, the gym is called Formula of Health)