As the saying goes: “Better late than never”

First of all a rather practical announcement: we have put the Russian post to the test and with a bleeding heart I have to say the results are everything but satisfactory. More than three weeks ago the mother of the girlfriend of my brother (van’t café van achter den hoek van op’t plein van de kolonie…sorry) went to the Yellowish post office and asked how long it would take to send a letter via special airmail to Moscow – “only 4 days ma’am”, the friendly postman answered full of confidence. Well, not if the Russian post gets a say in this! 3 weeks later the letter arrived, after having been stamped by 11 different post offices across Russia. Anyhow, let’s take a rosy view of it all: it did arrive and thus the following address is the correct one:

Сара Вандекрейс
Жилищный комплекс МГЛУ
Комсомольский пр-т д.6/2, комната 321Б
119021, Москва
Russia

Another delay that has been dealt with last week: our (Myself, the Russian and German girl) television. In the beginning of our stay here we went to the dorm’s director and asked for a new television, as ours wasn’t working and according to the contract we are entitled to one. “Not my problem”, the lady said. 2 months later a bunch of Italian girls arrived and immediately they were given a new one. Does the combination Russian-German-Yellowish seems to be one to mess around with??? I don’t think so! So we went back and claimed our right to a TV: “I’ll see what I can do”, the lady said. And what do you know, when I came back from class a smelly dirty man was fixing us a new television. Yeah, finally I could start following the Russian news… Ehm, good intentions, but as was to be expected I ended up getting caught up in the new Russian series “War and Peace”, based on Tolstoy’s book.

On Wednesday I dressed up in red and joined the communist demonstration. ( For those who are interested: on 7 November the October Revolution 90 years ago is commemorated. However, it is no longer an official holiday since Mr Putin replaced it by the so-called “People’s Day” on 4 November. ) Standing amongst thousands of communists with red flags singing all kinds of old propaganda songs and political leaders stating their manifestos was unbelievably cool. I was even filmed and made sure my beloved country was mentioned on the late news that night…

Last weekend was not much different from the other “last weekends”. I went to the cinema, bought tickets for theatre, went to the market, wandered about in town and wrote another one of those English essays. Talking about which…please make way for me and my “swollen head”. On Monday was another one of those dreaded classes, English Writing skills, even more as the teacher was going to give us the corrected essays back. To be honest, I was not at all very happy about the work I had handed in, seeing I couldn’t find the time to write about 10 pages, and so I was expecting a sound lecturing. But no no, apparently she did think very highly of my essay. Allow me to quote the nice lady: “I will now read Sarah’s essay at loud in order to show every one of you – the other Belgian girls as well as my own students – how its hould have been done ”. ***Blush***

On Sunday it was Cedric’s birthday but, considering he was in Saint-Petersburg that weekend (I kindly declined as the group existed of almost 20 students with different interests and I decided not to spend my money on a city I have already seen), we had to postpone things a little. He returned on Monday but unfortunately he didn’t really feel like partying as his wallet was stolen the night before. He lost quite a lot of money, bankcards, ID and all the things one usually keeps in one of those things. However, it is a blessing in disguise that he still has his passport and registration documents. After a good night’s sleep we all decided it was time to cheer him up and so we threw him a surprise party on Tuesday. Here you see Cedric with his imaginary friend, Marcus:

Putting more than 30 youngsters together in 1 room can obviously amount in a whole lot of noise. And yes, security agreed with me on that. Around 12pm one of them opened the door and shouted: “Everyone out of the room right now! And Belgian girls, (I hope the term does not directly include Yellowish girls) I will ask for you to be separated into different rooms!”. Obviously, half an hour later the party was continued in another room…

When I woke up on Wednesday and opened the curtains I couldn’t believe my still very sleepy eyes: all was white. And I do mean all, as in at least 10 cm of snow. After class me and my fury friends went for a long walk in the snow. I myself was surprised of how happy the snow made me feel and I thus took a ridiculously huge amount of pictures. A few examples, enjoy:








BTW, the biggest one is the University (Linguistic faculty).
Noticed the Lada covered in snow? How Russian can it get, right?!

One of these pictures (the last one to be precise) almost cost me my right of freedom, though. While I was taking it 6 militiamen ran up to me and shouted it was strictly forbidden to take pictures of the building. Considering I don’t even know what the purpose of the building is and there were no signs whatsoever indicating it is forbidden to photograph it, I was rather surprised. I just said sorry and tried to move on. But no no, as they had nothing better to do that day (as all days) they thought it necessary to ask for all my legal documents. Wasn’t I lucky…after what happened to Cedric I decided to leave my passport and stuff at home (notice how I already call my miserable Russian room “home”) and from then on I would only take copies with me. I consider myself blessed for not understanding all Russian terms of abuse, because I don’t want to know what exactly came out of that boy's rude mouth. Anyway, after he calmed down he started writing down all my details and I kindly asked him why the hell he was stealing my identity. His answer: “You will be put on our list”. So I am now officially part of Moscow’s black list of most wanted spies. Ha, what a laugh! However, I must admit I was still rather lucky, compared with the girl who took a picture of Putin’s car (not even sure he himself was in it) last week and was forced to erase the entire memory of her camera. Let’s hope we don’t get poisoned and will still be able to leave the country… Well, I’m sure I’ll be fine, I might just have to reconsider that career as a spy for the Yellowish government…

Right, I think it is about time I got ready for the predicted -12 and snow storm this weekend. Wish me luck!

A diversity of Russian culture

Newsflash: Lenin will finally be granted the opportunity to die properly. To leave no doubt; the chap has already been dead for quite a few decades now, please don’t be mistaken. But instead of burying the poor guy, they made of him a tourist attraction by exhibiting his embalmed corpse in the mausoleum on Red Square. But a few days ago was decided to, in order to let the man rest in piece, find him a final resting place within a few years. So we, being cultural geeks and all, thought it was the last chance to pay our last respects and we thus visited him in his glass coffin. Weird, seeing one of the most famous historical figures lying there, being all death but looking so much alive. It gave me the creeps…

Another sort of Moscow culture: libraries. I visited another 3 this week and can assure you that nothing is as exhausting as spending a few hours in such a place. When entering one first has to meet someone of the directive staff in order to, as always, fill in some unnecessary pieces of paper. The next stop is the metal detector which here in Russia is preset to beep every single time, just so that the Moscow militia has something to do next to getting drunk. “Please ma’am, empty all your bags” (in Russian that is) and I then say “Sorry, I do not understand any Russian” and then the answer is always the same: “Move on”. Russians hate people who don’t speak their language, you see, and thus I more than once tend to take undue advantage of their laziness. Can you blame a girl? Then one has to queue for half an hour because some grannies, who should in fact already be retired for quite a few years, need to put away all coats and bags. Then, what do you know, another metal detector. When one finally succeeds in entering the actual library one’s first reaction is: RUN! In a ridiculously big room one sees a thousand huge cabinets with a million small drawers with a trillion cards on which author and title are handwritten. So what needs to be done: first of all one has to know in advance which books are required, then one has to start an impossible search for that one tiny card (you need to be lucky with the handwriting as well), then one has to queue again to order the books, then one has to sit down and read the d*mn thing at once as one cannot take any books home and if it concerns old books 1 copy costs €3. If you ask me the best thing one can do is to pitch down a tent in the library and camp there for a week. But sorry, that’s even for this cultural geek a “no-go”.

On Wednesday I visited the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. I was so very proud of wandering around in there, being a “Vlamingske”, as almost the entire first floor was stuffed with paintings of famous Flemish painters. People looked at me as if I were some kind of freak because I couldn’t help smiling all the time and I wanted to inform everyone there on the fact that MY country (Flanders – no, I am not a proponent of the separation of Belgium) had produced such a bright souls.

And then on Thursday I had another one of those pleasant days: class from 8am until 7pm. Illegal, I tell you!!!

After class on Friday me and the Russian girl went to “Shoe centre” as Moscow forecasts promised us lots of snow and minus 5 and I thus needed to get ready for the Russian winter. Just as was the case with the libraries, my first reaction again was: RUN! A trillion shoes under 1 roof, even I cannot handle that. But already after half an hour I saw my leather beauties and I immediately knew we were meant to spend Russian winter together. Fur on the inside and an extra layer of antiskid on the outside… Together we will bear all weather conditions!

On Saturday I first took the metro+bus to Moscow’s biggest and cheapest supermarket, and was almost killed by a couple of grannies who were desperate to secure a seat at the bus. Take my word for it, you have never seen anything like that before. Next time I will take my camera and film the whole event. Just brilliant!
In the evening we decided to go clubbing again and in the end we managed to gather as much as 18 girls to come with us. LADIES NIGHT! First a pre-party in one of the rooms and around half past 12 we took off. And guess what time we were allowed in: freaking half past 2! We had to wait outside for 1.5 hour, in the freezing cold and snow (Fortunately me and the leather beauties were already inseparable and thus my feet were covered in fur). Then we finally managed to get in (after another metal detector, obviously) and OH MY GOD I had never in my life seen anything like it before. That place was way beyond eccentric! Russian carnival songs and disturbed, unbelievably drunk people was all the place had to offer. When arriving a few boys and girls were performing a strip act, which appears to be normal in Russia, and already a whole lot of drunken people were sleeping wherever they could lay their heads. Girls really had to watch their bags in there as before you know it some randy cow would grab you from behind. Just disgusting! Boys were wandering around, kissing one girl with their hands already under another one’s top and when that was done they moved on to another pair of sluts (excuse my language). Although I felt disgusted beyond believe, I had more than a good laugh in there. Bed time: 6.30pm, way better than last time.





On Sunday I mainly slept, to be honest, and on Monday I did my laundry, studied, went to the market, cooked and in the evening went to the cinema again with a few Russian students.

Near future plans:
- Writing essays, translating, studying, visiting some more bookshops and libraries gathering material for my thesis,…
Now the more exciting prospects:
- Going to the cinema to watch the film “1612” which is a huge subject for discussion in Russia at the moment and I thus wouldn’t want to miss it.
- Celebrating 90 years of Revolution; Moscow will turn into one hell of a party (and communist manifest, I'm afraid). So watch the news on Wednesday; I'll be saluting...
- Going to see the football match (Moscow-Germany).
- Going to the world famous theatre “Master and Margarita”, based on the book written by Bulgakov.