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)