Let your memory be your travel bag

Nottinghill Carnival 2009

2009-08-30T13:06:00.000-07:00

We went to the Nottingham Carnival on the family day (Sunday, Aug 30) with one of my good friends from work, Maryam.

The carnival was overwhelming with lots and lots of people. We got a bit of west Indian food and walked around the area to find a sound system with good music. Along the way, we had to find a toilet and waited for over 30 minutes in line to pay a few pounds to use someone's bathroom in their house!

It was a cool experience with some good dancing but a long day with too much to look at!

Something Fishy in London

2009-08-22T11:17:00.000-07:00

Early Saturday morning, Hyeran dragged us out of bed at 6 AM to get the freshest catch at Billingsgate Fish Market in London. She was in search of a couple of good fillets of Dover Sole for a homework assignment from culinary school. On our way we found a bag full of very fresh shrimp and the tastiest monk fish ever!

Getting to Billingsgate Market, we took a bus from Vauxhall (our new flat) to Liverpool street and another to Canary Wharf. This part of town is really interesting because we walked past the five or six biggest banks in the world with huge glass towers down around the bridge to the fish market. It sits in the shadow of the banking giants. The contrast is striking-- not only in architecture but in social and economic class--fish mongers, chefs, service staff working just down the road from the CEO's of our financial institutions.

By the time we had picked out our catch of the day, it was almost 8am and we headed home via the same bus route but this time with a smell (but fresh!) bag of fish.

Hyeran has found her Dover Sole!

Giant King Prawn/ shrimp

Crabs

Red Snapper

Eels in a bag...

Negotiating for a good price for monk fish

Move to London

2009-08-15T08:49:00.000-07:00

We moved to London in August to a beautiful flat in Vauxhall (south side of London). We are living with another couple-- Mel and Hyeran- who are also Americans. Mel is studying at LSE and Hyeran just graduated from chef school! One of the many reasons we had to find a place with a nice kitchen.

Our flat overlooks the Thames River and is just down the way from the London Eye and across the river from Big Ben. It is an amazing location and we have a beautiful sunset almost every night.

Hyeran and Mel

The Kitchen

Dining room

Living Room with door to balcony

Balcony

View from the balcony

Most Mira Youth Festival in Bosnia

2009-05-21T16:40:00.000-07:00

Check out our photos from the festival:

Guy Fawkes Day

2009-01-09T08:08:00.000-08:00

Guy Fawkes Day is celebrated on November 5th in England by holding bonfires all across the country. The celebrations usually burn an effigy of Fawkes (a wooden man), have a huge fire, and set off fireworks.

Guy Fawkes is the infamous Brit who in attempted to blow up the British House of Parliment using barrells and barrells of gunpowder. He was stopped, caught and hanged but now lives on every year on Guy Fawkes Day as an excuse to tramp around outside in the cold and rain to see a HUGE fire and a some fireworks.

We went to the bonfire in Oxford on the Saturday after November 5th. I apologize for the late posting of pictures.

Enjoy!

Thesis Defense

2008-04-18T11:02:00.000-07:00

After a year and a half working on this research project, I finally have a completed draft of my thesis. I wrote my Circumnavigators paper in the fall on each country and community I visited. In this paper, I have expanded the theory section to include sections on both civil society theory and civil society and Islam; I also expanded my comparisons and conclusions and added a part on global civil society. I will be defending my thesis on April 24th at 5pm (Case Hall, rm #336).

Feel free to download the PDF file and let me know what you think. You can either email me comments, questions, or suggestions or save them for defense! I hope those of you who have followed my travels or helped me with my research will be able to read some or parts of my thesis and come to my defense.

http://nickmicinski.googlepages.com/micinskithesis1.pdf

Conference Presentations

2008-04-13T20:16:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, April 5th, I presented this poster at the Midwest Political Science Association in Chicago. I was able to speak with several other conference goers about their research and they gave me input into my research.

Monika and I had a beautiful day to explore the city. We also met up with Jason Ardanowski (a former Madison grad) for lunch and Chicago style pizza. It was very good.

On Friday, April 11th, I made an oral presentation of my research at the University Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum (UURAF). I prepared this powerpoint presentation and answered several interesting questions afterwards about connecting my research with literature on African Diaspora and networks. I found out a few days later that I received first prize for my presentation!

Please look at both my poster and my powerpoint presentation and leave questions or comments for me to answer.

Marquette presentation at NMU

Advertisement outside Uncle Bill's store

Poster at MPSA Conference in Chicago

Presentation at the Circumnavigators Club in October

Circumnavigation make MSU front page!

2008-03-15T10:26:00.000-07:00

MSU has caught on to my research, travel, and adventures plastered me on top of the main MSU webpage!

Exciting stuff-- I think they really like my t-shirt.

Check out the article.

Signs...of the World

2007-11-17T09:02:00.000-08:00

After an entertaining week in Finland with my excessively funny/goofy sister, I began documenting the signs of the world-- some are familiar, some are instructive, others are indecipherable. Enjoy!

"Follow me," Norway

"Oh!," Finland

"Oh, my!," Finland

"Walk carefully in circles," Finland

"Doggy box," Finland

"100 Meter Dash," Russia

"Nyet..." Russia

"Don't...walk off buildings"

"Don't...drink while leaning on a lamppost"

"Don't...cross-country ski on the grass"

"Don't...miss the trash can by a few inches"

"No speedos."

"Caution!," Russia

"No anchoring on the highway," Russia

"Put something where?" Dubai

"I'd like a table near the creek," Dubai

**

"No sitting on grass. No playing on grass. No climbing trees with jacksaws," Dubai
**Note violators in bottom right corner.

"Our flights cover the entire Middle East...minus one," Dubai

"Please..." Dubai

Sticker on the back of an auto-rickshaw:

"Try the potato salad," India*
*See Delhi and Mussourie posts.

"No marching" or "No crossing the line," Singapore

"No Mohawks," Kazan, Russia

"Dangerous pruning ahead!" United Kingdom

"...unless able to walk on air." United Kingdom

Graffiti...of the World

2007-11-16T08:38:00.001-08:00

Street art can come in many different forms. Here are just a few...

São Paulo, Brazil

São Paulo, Brazil-
These stickers were custom made by a group of young Brazilian (about 10-15 years old). They were sticking them on all the signs and posts around town. I attempted to talk with this group near the MASP.

Reykjavik, Iceland

Bergen, Norway

Bergen, Norway

Kazan, Tatarstan, Russia

Mussouree, India

McDonald's...of the World

2007-11-15T08:20:00.000-08:00

During my trip I took pictures for a series of photo collections that I'm calling "...of the World." These are pictures of some of the McDonald's I saw during my travels. Although I tend to side with individuals against the 'McDonaldization' of the world, I will admit to appreciating a reliably clean bathroom every once and a while.

São Paulo, Brazil

Bergen, Norway

St. Petersburg, Russia

Kazan, Tatarstan, Russia

Moscow, Russia-
The largest McDonald's in the world with about 15 cash registers, tons of seating, and free wireless internet.

Singapore

India Video Post

2007-09-28T20:26:00.000-07:00

Indian Dancing:

This is from a performance at Kalakshetra Academy, Chennai, India. The dance is done in the Bharatanatyam style which originated here in the south of India.

Indian Dancing 2:

This is another part of the performance. The dancers and the school were incredible to visit and welcomed us to their campus.

Indian Food

2007-09-27T21:12:00.001-07:00

This food was amazing and I couldn't get enough of it. Sushweta cook most of the meals just for us!

Thumbs up: Coke times 10

Diet water?

Singapore

2007-09-27T19:28:00.001-07:00

I realized that I hadn't posted my Singapore pictures yet. Here are the good ones.

While I was in Singapore for only a few days, I was there during National Day. National day marks Singapore's independence on August 9th and there was a big celebration downtown. I tried to get into the thick of it but most of the streets were packed with people. At one point a bridge got shut down because so many people where crammed on to it that no one could move. I watched the festivities from one side of a river/bay.

The next day (August 10th) I flew back to the U.S. with a layover in Hong Kong and Chicago.

Check out more pictures below.

Crowded streets

The National Day Parade

Overcrowded bridge

Fireworks at night

Giant balloon jellyfish

More jellyfish

Delhi and Mussoorie, India

2007-09-26T10:50:00.000-07:00

I spent around five days in Delhi after my time in Chennai. My plan was to take a flight in the morning and meet Monika and her family in Delhi in the afternoon. They had arranged night flights and my flight was at 7:30am. I waited for my driver, who was 45 minutes late, until Monika's father’s brother, Gautam, told me to jump the fence and jump into the zooming driver's car.

At the airport, I discovered that my airline had been bought out and would not honor my ticket. If I wanted on the flight, I needed to buy a new ticket and then get reimbursed by my travel agent. So, I waited in line behind another angry customer who monopolized the sales counter until after the gate closed. I went back to the check-in counter, again, and handed my ticket to a different man. He typed in a few numbers, made a call, printed out a ticket, and grabbed my hand. He said, “Quickly, we’ve got to catch your plane.”

We ran through the Delhi airport (the VIP security lane, of course) and up the escalators. Finally, we approached the gate and the attendant told me, “Please don’t run, sir. We’ve been holding the plane for you.” As I walked down the aisle, a plane of eyes followed me to my seat. I have never felt my white privilege more before in my life. It is hard to imagine that a plane full of Indian businessmen could be held fifteen minutes because of an American college student running late, but white, American privilege is everywhere. I experienced it in Russia when my translator expressed disbelief because we were meeting with high-level people without appointments or credentials. I experienced it in Dubai with taxi drivers and in Singapore on the subway. I enjoy these privileges in the U.S. as well, but outside of the U.S. it is more accentuated and, to me, more troubling.

After arriving in Delhi, I made my way to the hotel and ate a big lunch. Almost immediately, I went back to my room and was sick, really sick, for the rest of the night. I had made it almost two weeks without getting sick from Indian food. In fact, I was gorging myself every night on the wonderful food until this meal. From then on, I ate more cautiously and will much less of an appetite. Bad luck, though, because I love Indian food and could have spent the rest of my time there eating and eating.

One day I was so sick I couldn’t get out of bed, so I had to cancel my interviews for the day. Unfortunately, I only had a few days in Delhi and thus did not get nearly as many interviews as Muslim organizations in Delhi deserve. The groups in Delhi were very impressive in number and in their work. The groups were increasingly intellectual and one of my interviews was with a man who is both a doctor at a research center and the General Secretary of a very active organization.

After Delhi, we went north to Mussoorie by jeep. It was about 8 or 10 hours climbing up to the foothills of the Himalayas. They ride up was both beautiful and nauseating because of my carsickness. The winding road (yes, long too…) felt like a roller coaster but we were riding in a car that had the ability to pass and take the curves extra hard. Mussoorie is a city perched on the side of the mountain. It is about five or six big switchbacks of thick city, clinging to the hillside, hoping the rain won’t was it away. And, oh, did it rain.

While we were in Mussoorie, BBC was reporting that the UN had declared this year’s monsoon to be the worst flooding in living memory. Because we were at the top of the hills, we didn’t get any flooding—it just ran past us—but in lower parts of India (closer to Calcutta) flooding was very bad. Gorky, Monika’s cousin who just finished college in Indiana and will be starting grad school this fall in D.C., said that when he went to Delhi while we were in the mountains, there was water shooting up on both sides of the car. Fortunately, he made it back up the mountain and we didn’t come down until the flooding had receded a bit.

Gautam and Sushweta, Monika’s uncle and aunt, were so kind to me my entire stay in India. We were able to talk several times about my research and I felt like I had several deep break-throughs there. Gautam and Sushweta run a non-profit called The India Foundation that works to preserve traditional Indian performing arts. They supply scholarships for young artists to continue studying, pensions for retired artists, and run study abroad programs for international students to both share and pay for the rest of their organization. What they have done is incredible and I was able to sit in on several lectures given by leading professionals in India. Their program goes through every aspect of India from economy to government to all the Indian performing arts to the environment and each lecture is presented by their leading experts.

You will also see in my next post what a wonderful cook Sushweta is… I was in heaven once my stomach finally settled down.

Photos:

We were taken to an amazing restaurant in Delhi and given a shot cooking lesson!

A small market I found my first day in Delhi before my stomach revolted on me.

Mussoorie (pronounce: "Moo-soo-ree")

Rickshaw in the fog

Monika gazing at the mountains

The Himalayan Mountains

Reading the final Harry Potter book together...

Sushweta cooking a wonderful meal!

The house in Mussoorie

Monika trying to check her email from the foothills of the Himalayas (made possible by a cellphone card)

Gorky and Shelby (Gorky's girlfriend from Colorado)

In Mussoorie

Sweet shop

Village boys trying to sell us greeting cards

Pushad's General Store, literally everything

'Round the World Video Posts

2007-08-17T18:17:00.001-07:00

I have been uploading many video clips from my trip on to Youtube.com. To see them, you don't need to register for Youtube but you will need a fairly fast internet connection.

I have placed the video blogs in their chronological order but you can find them by following these links:

Russian Video Post

Finland Video Post

Circumnavigation Complete!

2007-08-12T18:23:00.000-07:00

On August 10th, 2007, at 10pm I landed in Detroit Metro Airport, completing my circumnavigation of the world. Groggy, jetlagged, and tired from the 18 hours of flying (not including layovers), I gathered my bags and met my girlfriend, Monika, and the next day the rest of my family. It is good to be home and wonderful to have completed my voyage. My research is not quite complete-- I still must arrange interviews in Dearborn, Michigan, and then begin to sort through and analyze all of the information I collected.

Over the next few days I will be updating my blog on the places I have missed and the topics I did not cover. I also hope to post several video clips now that I have a very quick internet connection.

Thank you to everyone who helped and supported me on my adventures this summer. Thank you to the Circumnavigators Club for making it all possible. Thank you to the many organizations and interviewees who welcomed me to their communities. Thank you to my family, friends, and translators who showed me around their beautiful countries. Thank you to my professors and adviser who have continuously guided and pushed me. And thank you to my girlfriend and my family in Michigan for understanding when I miss phone calls, when leave weeks of gaps in between blogs, and when decided to take on the small project of traveling around the world.

My pack before:

And after:

(Note the extra bag and bulging seams)

**Note: The title of this post was previously "Mission Complete" but I have revised it after one of my readers wisely pointed out that my mission is not over by simply circumnavigating the world. Not only do I have more interviews and much writing to do on my project, I also hope to continue my goals of further understanding, greater inclusion, more collaboration long after my paper and thesis are complete. Some may see similarities to my post's former title and our President's "Mission Accomplished" banner, but I have revised my title in an attempt to learn from mistakes.

Chennai, India

2007-08-02T14:19:00.000-07:00

Pictures now, blog to come...

A Day (or two) in Dubai

2007-08-01T15:06:00.000-07:00

Pictures for now, blog to come...

Russian Video Post

2007-07-28T19:53:00.000-07:00

Here are a few glimpses of Russia through the few video clips I took while traveling.

Fountains of St. Petersburg:

Russian Wedding Celebration:

The couple just toasted to their happiness (I think that's what they toast to...) and then broke their glasses on the pier. This was just one of about ten couples near the water, each breaking their glasses in turn.

Georgian Food:

This is my bubbling dish at a Georgian restaurant in St. Petersburg. It was so spicy (hot spicy!) and I ate it with some amazing cheese bread.

Russian Rapping:

We walked up on a few rappers performing in the street. I think they were entertaining as advertisement for a cell phone company.

Russian Break Dancing:

In addition to the rappers, the cell phone company also had these awesome break dancers.

Moscow in Pictures

2007-07-27T03:01:00.000-07:00

The former Soviet Union's capitol as seen through my newly purchased Canon camera:

The largest McDonald's in the world (it really is big)

Soviet space achievements

The Red Square in day light

And slowly the sun sets...

The Red Square at night

Research in Russia

2007-07-25T23:34:00.000-07:00

My research in Russia has been so similar to the rest of the world but I have also had several personal breakthroughs. In Russia, I found strong Muslim organizations all centering around the mosques and the Muslim administrative boards for each area. The administrative boards are the next generation after boards from the Soviet Union. During communist time, the boards were used to control the Muslim communities by focusing authority at the top and close to the party. After the end of communism, the administrative boards were separated from the government but are still very strong and very much in control. I spoke with both the administrative boards in Moscow and Kazan to give me the general picture of the Muslim community in both cities. At each meeting it felt like I was talking with government officials and it was very obvious I was getting the official tagline about the communities. These ‘rosy’ pictures are similar across boarders and within each country I’ve visited. In Russia, it was interesting that I found individuals who told of their frustration with the strong administration. They complained about the difficulty small groups had in maintaining their operations and the pressures put on them by higher authorities. Although, this was clearly not government pressure, it was probably a result of the climate created under the Soviet Union and the structure of administration still in place.

Because of these restrictions, I did not find as many groups in Moscow that were willing to talk with me. It is important to note that there is a lot of literature on how underdeveloped civil society is in Russia. This assumes that there was no civil society under the Soviet Union or that the traditions established before Soviet times have no activities that resemble civil society. I am suspicious of both assumptions and have found evidence to the contrary. In 1917, there was the First All-Russian Congress of Muslims held in Moscow that debated social issues of the time (this was pre-Revolution) both within Islam and in society. The Soviet Union definitely left its mark on civil society in Russia—either by repressing or reshaping it—but it did not kill it.

The main concern for Muslims in Moscow was articulated to me again and again that they needed more mosques for the large Muslim population in the city. For over two million Muslims just in Moscow there are only five mosques. It is thus impossible for all Muslims to gather for prayer at mosques every Friday and many requests to build new mosques have been turned down by the government. When I visited the main mosque in Moscow, they had just begun construction of a new mosque right next to the older building. They were happy to tell me about the new project but said it was not nearly enough to solve the problem.

The strong administration may not be as good at allowing smaller organizations to grow but they were very good at international conferences and bilateral relations. Because there is just one umbrella group for all Muslims in Russia, it can claim to speak for Russian Muslims. It works in collaboration with many groups in Europe and the rest of the world to take stances on international issues. They also work closely with the Russian government to address issues they identify as important to Russian Muslims. While the benefits for a strong administration are clear, I’m not sure they out weight the work that can be done by smaller, grassroots organizations. Smaller organizations do not have the financial resources or political might of official boards but they can see solutions to community problems more clearly and can be mobilized quickly.

I spoke with several very active, very exciting organizations in Kazan that do just this. One of the organizations I spoke with worked to address Muslim women’s issues in Russia. They used their organization’s newsletter, knocked on people’s doors, and spoke with the mayor to get obscene billboards removed from their highway. This is the type of action that would be difficult to get out of a large administration. Bureaucracy is useful only in the power it may yield but it is not match for the agility of individuals working together on issues that affect them most.

Another organization I visited claimed to have almost every Muslim woman in Tatarstan as its member. I don’t know how active every woman is but with a constituency that large a lot of work can be done. The list of activities and services offered goes on and on but some of the interesting ones include summer camps, radio programs, a matchmaking service, and ‘Miss Muslim’ pageants (think Miss Universe contests without the materialism). I was so impressed with the organization that the interview lasted for over two hours.

Near the end of the interview I asked the president’s opinion on feminism and her answer surprised but confirmed something for me. The organization’s goal was to do work for the causes the Muslim women of Tatarstan cared about. She did not agree with, in fact, was turned off by, feminism. Her role, she said, was as the mother of her children and wife of her husband. She needed to be good at both and then help her community. But she did not want her husband’s job or another man’s job—that was not what she wanted. This is the difference between feminism and the global women’s movement. I thought after the Women and Power class I took last semester that I understood the difference. It wasn’t until I was sitting in front of this woman, who was adamantly denying the tenets of feminism I believe in, that it was obvious that these were my tenets, not hers.

The Global women’s movement does not attempt to transplant Western concepts in the hearts of women everywhere. It seeks to build solidarity, find commonality, and help everyone move towards their own goals. For me to ask this woman to deny her goals and her chosen life would be to impose my standard of values and my lifestyle on her.

Traveling has allowed me to step out of my Western perspective but speaking with this woman put a human face to the issue. It’s easy to fall into the trap of imagining a helpless woman in a hut somewhere that needs empowerment from the West but it’s more difficult to maintain this stance when the woman is sitting in front of you speaking very eloquently and frankly disagreeing. It was not a matter of education; she had two bachelor’s degrees and a master’s degree. It was not poverty; her family was obviously comfortable. When you advocate for empowerment and the right to make your own choices, you have to accept the choices people make—a lesson traveling half way around the world could only teach me.

Photos:

Anna (my translator), Dr. Shvedona (a colleage of one of my professors, Dr. O'Sullivan See, at MSU), and me in Moscow

Russian Food

2007-07-13T08:35:00.001-07:00

I apologize in advance for the number of pictures here but I am working against the stereotype that Russian food is very bland and consists of only borscht. Here is a little bit of what satisfied my taste buds in Russia:

Russian crêpes with meat and sour cream

Cabbage salad

Borscht! It is really good, trust me!

Meat stew

Beef and cheese, potatoes

Cabbage salad II

Tatarstan pizzas and tea (lots of tea in Russia)

Fruity juice

Kbac ('kvass') is the peculiar national drink of Russians. It is made out of bread but is rumored to not be alcoholic. I liked it for the first two seconds and then a burnt bread taste comes in at the end to kick you in the butt.

Meat pie

Dinner at the Azerbaijani restaurant. The food was excellent.

Mutton and rice

Georgian cheese bread

Spicy and hot! Georgian dish

Baltica #5... They make from 1-7. I tried to sample them all.

The Russian Hair Cut in Kazan

2007-07-07T04:34:00.001-07:00

The train ride to Kazan was long—27 hours long. It may have gone faster if anyone in my cabin spoke English or if I could speak any Russian. Instead, the first two hours consisted of all three of my cabin mates starring at the wall straight ahead of them—the perfect Russian stoics. I spent the rest of my time catching up on the news from podcasts I had downloaded and finishing some of my reading. The next morning the quietest of the boys in the cabin broke the silence and told me he was in the military and was going home for his July vacation. Suddenly out came the photo album pictures of his entire family and all of his friends. It was good to talk but difficult because he had very little English.

Alsou, my translator in Kazan, met me at the train station and we took a bus to my flat. I rented a flat for my week in Kazan because the city is not a tourist destination like St. Petersburg or Moscow and a hotel would have been very expensive. It was also nice to get out of the youth hostels and stop sharing a bathroom with twenty other twenty-somethings. The flat was a small two room, one bathroom apartment on the first floor of a very large building. Immediately, I knew that I was in Tatarstan because above the door was a cartoon drawing of a mosque and Arabic calligraphy of a verse from the Qur’an. There were several other similar drawings scattered around the living room/bedroom.

Tatarstan is a republic within Russia but has traditionally been very independent from the Russian federation. A little over half the population of Tatarstan is ethnically Tatar and Tatars are traditionally Muslim. There was a strong nationalist movement in Tatarstan after the end of the Soviet Union. The status of Tatarstan is a murky subject and the 1990s must have been an interesting time to be in Kazan. In 1990, Tatarstan was declared independent; in 1992, there was a national referendum that supported the republic’s independence. In 1994, a treaty was negotiated that made Tatarstan an associated state; in 2000, Tatarstan amended its constitution making it subject to Russia again. The people in Kazan identify national foods and customs with Tatarstan, not Russia. Tatar is spoken in the countryside but Russian is spoken in the cities. Most young people speak Russian and Tatar is spoken by the elderly.

The reason I visited Kazan and Tatarstan is because Tatars are ethnically Muslim and within the Russian Federation, Tatars are a clear Muslim minority community. In reference to my research, I am assuming Tatarstan as part of Russia and looking at Tatar Muslims in relation to the rest of Russia. I had been looking forward to visiting Kazan because I wrote part of a research paper this spring on Muslim women’s groups in Russia and most were based in Kazan. I will fill you in on my extremely fruitful interviews in my next research post.

You may have noticed in the recent pictures but I was in desperate need of a hair cut. While I’m not afraid of long hair (you should have seen in a year ago), I did not want to have shaggy hair in the hot weather of Dubai and India. The first day in Kazan I mentioned to Alsou that I needed a haircut and that if we had time I would really like her help. So at the end of a long day of interviews, we went in search of a salon. The first two places Alsou took me were closed but we finally found one with our last try. I was beginning to think that not finding a place was a sign that I shouldn’t get my haircut. I told Alsou this, but it did not translate well.

Alsou had me describe to her and to the Russian hairdresser—who did not speak any English—what I wanted and then left, as it was getting late in the day. I waited in line for half an hour and a different hairdresser called me to her chair. I sat down tentatively and described again what I wanted—this time with hand gestures to indicate length. She nodded her head and then went to work. I wasn’t sure if she understood anything I had said or even if she was going to take my opinion in to consideration. After a few moments, I could tell she was a pro with the scissors and I relaxed a bit, putting my fate in her hands/ scissors.

The other hairdressers in the shop began discussing with my hairdresser something in very fast Russian. The entire time my hairdresser did not look up. Finally, they came to a conclusion and one said across the room to me: “Enjoy?” I said, “Da” (Russian for yes) and smiled. They all giggled and went back to what they were doing. I noticed then that the whole time I had been getting my hair cut I hadn’t really felt the scissors on the back of my neck. I watched for a bit and although my hairdresser was good, her scissors did not graze the bottom two inches of my hair. Suddenly terror struck me: I was being given a real Russian hair cut, a mullet.

My hair was not long enough to make it an extremely noticeable mullet. But all the same, I think I would have blended in with every other Russian male who has at least a two inches tail in back. I quickly told the hairdresser (in hand gestures) that I did NOT want a mullet and watched as she begrudgingly trimmed up the back. I had to gesture several more times because she was so reluctant to cut away something so stylish.

My overall experience was good but for a moment I imagined the teasing that would ensue if any of my friends back in the States had only one picture of my temporary haircut. To add to that, I would be meeting up with my girlfriend, Monika, in a week, who I haven’t seen in over a month and a half and I did not need to be sporting a new style to impress her.

Pictures:

Leaning tower in Kazan

The dragon is the symbol of Kazan

Alsou's cousin who showed me around town my last day

Lenin statue

Russian style chubby-bunny

St. Petersburg

2007-07-07T04:34:00.000-07:00

I arrived in St. Petersburg on Wednesday (July 27) and checked in to my hostel at about 11:30 PM. But first I had to get from the train station to my hostel. I had the choice of taking an extremely expensive taxi ride and not knowing how to explain to the driver where I actually wanted to go or I could attempt to navigate the subway at a relatively late hour. As budget traveler, I rose to the challenge and had my first lesson in Cyrillic.

The subway in St. Petersburg is very similar to those in other cities I’ve visited on the trip but it is deep underground. The first escalader took me almost three stories into the ground; I felt like I was entering Peter the Great’s secret dudgeon. At the bottom, I had the choice of Cyrillic name number one on the right and Cyrillic name number two on the left. I choked for a second until I found the name of the station on the map and located the name of my destination on another. Eventually, I followed a crowd into a car and proceeded to be starred at until my stop—apparently, the big backpack with flag patches from all of the countries I have visited sewn on screams “FOREIGNER!”

I found switched lines by counting the number of stops. Then boarded another train and got off at the correct stop by using the counting method, again. St. Petersburg is a very busy city, not on the level of crazy Cairo, but walking to my hostel the streets were still filled with people. My hostel was situated in the back corner of an alley and as I approached it, I considered not even going inside. The hallway to the stairs was so run down that it looked like I could be entering a crack house. I summoned my courage (and budget traveler intuition) and climbed up to the third floor.

To my surprise, the hostel was small but hip flat decorated in a very modern style. The inside of the flat and the entrance to the building were polar opposites and I later found out that there was a reason the stairway was so neglected. I’m told that after the end of communism all of the flats were privatized but the government never gave anyone ownership of the stairwells. Now, no one feels responsible for their maintaince and the government logistically cannot take responsibility for every stairwell in the country.

In St. Petersburg, I got to most of the sights in the city including St. Isaac’s Cathedral, Peter and Paul’s Fortress, the Church of the Spilled Blood, Kazan Cathedral, and Lenin’s former office. I also spent a rainy afternoon inside the Hermitage viewing its huge art collection.

I also have a bit of advice for anyone visiting an art gallery alone, any time soon: take an Ipod. I was against the tuning out of the environment, the lack of conversation, and the extreme individualization of people that can come from frequent Ipod use and abuse, but the only way I have the endurance to go five hours on my feet and wondering the halls is with a little Billy Joel. I apologize to centuries of brilliant art that may be offended by the Piano man [and also to the coinage section, which some how I missed altogether], but at least I was able to make it to the third floor Picasso exhibit and enjoy it.

Taking public transportation has forced me to learn how to blend in with the locals. At first, the mini-buses of St. Petersburg were a challenge. Instead of taking a normal city bus, or a taxi, or a tram, I often used the minivans because they were cheap and went the direction I was going. The minivans are flagged down by sticking one’s hand out perpendicular to the road. Note: perpendicular; I spent almost an hour unsuccessfully trying to get a minibus by raising my hand straight in the air. Then, after boarding, you find a seat or stand in the back area and pass your fare up to the driver, who makes change while weaving in and out of traffic. I never learned the word for ‘stop’ in Russian but managed by following behind any Russian getting out close to my stop. Last—and this is the most important part—the sliding door must be slammed behind you. Don’t even try to do this gently; it does not work.

In the past, I have been accused of being a wedding crasher. The following does not help in my defense. St. Petersburg, it seems, is the Las Vegas of Russia and in the high season for marriages. I was walking from the Hermitage to the fortress and saw a group of very well dressed Russians. The closer I got the more white dresses I could see. There were at least five wedding groups near the water posing for pictures with the fountains in the background. I watched the crowd for a while and began to see a Russian tradition. After all of the photographs, the bride and groom drink a glass of champagne together and then throw the glasses at one of the large stone balls near the water, shattering everywhere. Then the crowd shouts something that sounded like “Polka!” and the couple dances until the band stops playing. I watched this happen five times and even saw one group release two white doves.

Because I was in Russia, I decided that I would see an opera or a ballet. Of course, the show with the most performances (and thus the cheapest prices) was Swan Lake. I bought my ticket the day before from the box office and was surprised that it was only $15 for the show. I didn’t really think much about it until I got to the performance that night and realized I was watching a kid’s production of Swan Lake! To their credit, they were really good Russian kids—probably in high school— who will probably be the stars of Russian ballet in a few years. But as they were, they still had a couple of centimeters to grow.

Navigating in Russia has been more of a challenge than other places because English is not widely spoken. Of course, in a few tourist stores and other places it is required but not in really helpful places like, say… the train station. I went to the station armed with directions about what ticket I wanted to buy written in Russian (the staff at the hostel helped) and waited in line for the ticket counter. As I handed my paper under the window, I swear I saw the woman’s upper lip twitch and she shouted almost immediately, “NYET!” shoving my paper back under the window. I looked around a little shocked and pushed it back asking (almost begging) in English for her to look again. This was promptly followed by another, “NYET!” In the universal traveler sign language, I asked the woman if there were any tickets on another day. “NYET!” What about a lower class? “NYET!” Maybe a higher class? “NYET!”

Finally, a man behind me who spoke broken English came to my rescue. And I do mean rescue, because he went back and forth in a verbal battle with the woman. A truce was called and compromise made that I would take a higher class ticket and pay double the price I had expected to pay. Feeling like I could not turn down this hard fought (and expensive) prize, I handed over my passport and paid the price. Upon seeing my American passport, my new friend and the woman had another conversation, which I would have paid [even more] money to know what they said.

You may notice a difference in my pictures from here on out. While at the ballet, I dropped my camera, which landed some dirt on the camera’s sensor. I took my camera to a repair shop in near the fortress but they needed at least three days and a bit of money to fix it and I only had 6 hours before my train to Kazan. Luckily, I found a Canon camera store on the main street of St. Petersburg and purchased a similar model but with more mega-pixels. Hopefully, you can see the difference and appreciate the no dirt look in the pictures.

Photos of St. Petersburg:

The Admiralty

St. Petersburg Mosque

I thought the look on this guy's face was interesting...

Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood

Inside the church

Our-Lady-of-Kazan Cathedral (Russian Orthodox Christianity)

Inside Kazan Cathedral

St. Isaac's Cathedral

Inside the cathedral

The Hermitage

Inside the Hermitage

Painted lions outside the Hermitage

Peter and Paul's Fortress

St. Petersburg bridges at 2 AM

Communist stained glass from the Political History Museum

Russian countryside, as seen from my train to Kazan