I must comment on Austrian elections!

Austria is a small country, I know, but I never thought that other countries considered it that “unimportant”. It seems that Austrian elections are non-existent here in Russia. I have just talked to a Russian friend and he didn’t know that elections had just taken place in Austria. (But around five minutes ago, he was vividly talking on the phone about ANGELA MERKEL. I know Germany is a lot bigger than Austria, but I still have to get used to the fact, that Austria (or especially Austrian politics are) is not “too” important for Russia(ns).)

Acutally I think that it hasn’t really been in Russian news. I don’t know Russian that well yet, but I couldn’t find any prominent entries on homepages of Russian newspapers about elections in Austria.

Also on the ORF-Homepage, in a review of foreign newspapers writing about elections in Austria, no Russian newspaper was quoted or mentioned.

It is funny that, we (Anna, Andrea and I) just talked about newsworthiness in Russia yesterday. Russian newspapers are mainly writing about foreign countries, if Putin or other statesmen are visiting this country. A pity for the citizens over here, especially the ones who are not able to read foreign news online.

But nevertheless, the internet is working in Russia and there is no censorship on homepages as far as I know. I can read whatever I want to read and I can keep track of the happenings in Austria. – And no, I shouldn’t comment on the outcome of the elections in Austria – it’s ridiculous

(carina)

Take care, Russian toilets!

Very short but important: Toilets in Russia are differnt:

1st case: If they look horrible, they are mainly ok.

2nd case: If they look normal and nice, they are not.

I just experienced the 2nd kind yesterday night, when we were going to this club Грибоедоф (Griboedov). Before we went to the club, we had some food in a small bar close to the club and as I really had to pee, I went to the restroom there. When I entered the really small “restroom”, that was actually quiet nice (it seemed to be clean and ok), I didn’t expect anything special. Actually, I was even surprised that it was that nice looking. The minute I sat on the toilet seat, the whole toilet started to move and it seemed like it would “fall on me” any moment. I instantly left the room and for the future I know that I have to expect cultural differences anywhere.

Dancing at day and night

Call me a masochist: every fibre of my being causes me pain today, but I still really happy, because I took my first dance classes here in St. Petersburg yesterday and my sore muscles keep on reminding me of that.

Russian Standards
The studio only offered Jazz and Modern Dance classes for Beginners, so I was not sure whether that was exactly what I was looking for, but I thought I might just give it a try. It was quite an experience. I don’t know what kind of BEGINNERS the dance classes were meant for, but definitely NOT for dance beginners!!! Maybe Jazz, respectively Modern Dance Beginners with a CLASSICAL background, because it was really challenging.

Jazz class was fun and I was very happy that I understood the “dance vocabulary” at least. The stretching at the end of the class was not only very exhausting, but also surprisingly successful, because all of my muscles were totally warmed up, I managed to the splits on my “bad” side as well. I can do the splits on both sides. Yeah, yeah, yeah!

Knots in my body and my mind
I was really excited about Modern Dance, because I love, love, love modern dance. The thing about modern dance is that very often movements are explained and also somehow related to pictures. The choreographer explained quite a lot and I only got bits and pieces of it. She was explaining all kinds of things that your left and right arms and legs should do. I was trying my best to understand. At the same time, I tried to “copy” those movements she was showing us. In the end, I felt that there were knots in both my body and my mind.

Dancing all night long
At night, we went out to Грибоедов club. It was a really cool club and we had a lot of fun. We had to stay out long (respectively come back home early in the morning), because brigdes disconnect over night and so we can’t get to the island on which our dorms are located just like that on the one hand and because we can’t enter the dorms between 1 and 6 am on the other hand. It was really nice to have a coffee and a little chat taking a coffee at Кафе Хаус at 5 in the morning and then go back home by one of the first metros in the morning. We are really curious about discovering even more of St. Petersburg night-life in the upcoming weeks.

(anna)

Balleri(an)na

Those of you who know how much I enjoy dancing might understand how excited I am about my afternoon activities: I will try out a dance studio. I have no idea what it will be like, but I am going to take a Jazz Dance and a Modern Dance class.

The day will start with dancing and end with dancing, because we will finally start going to a club this night. More on dancing, clubbing and our weekend activities soon.

Stay tuned!

(anna)

Yes, we ARE also studying!

We have already been asked whether we were here for studying or partying. So we better tell you something about our student life (the pictures will come soon, but usually we don’t have time to take pictures at the university as we have to study).

As we finally have all of our regular courses, also a regular Russian language course and from next week on also some additional Russian tutorial, we are really happy and really start feeling like partying. But now it is all about studying (at least this entry).

“Russian as the Austrians do”
Altogether we have five lectures in English on different aspects of Russia itself and its media environment. Today we also had a look at the schedule for regular Russian degree students. From next week on we will try out a lot of different lectures, actually in Russian – expect a lot of new blog entries. This week we have already been to one lecture in Russian. That was actually funny: After our class we had two pages of new words to look up in the dictionary.

“English as the Russians do”
On Thursday it was our first time at the English Club of the Faculty of Journalism and it was on “Theatre”. A very nice Russian student called Oxana talked about Russian Theatre in general and compared it with the European Theatre. It was really nice to be there, meet Russian students and get to know the extracurricular activities of “Жур-Фак” students.

Now, we have to finish our entry as we REALLY have to do some homework.

(carianna)

Lost in ANYTHING

Warning: The next post is going to be about my recent problems with my non-existent Russian. I just HAVE to write something about it.

In the beginning two very nice students from the “Жур-Фак” (appreviation for Faculty of Journalism) – Дима (Dima) and Егор (Egor) – helped us a lot with all the organisational stuff. Since they know English very well and also quite a lot of German, all our communication was in English. As Eгор also helped us with registration, taking pictures for all of our cards and a lot of other stuff (see also Привет из Ст. Петербургa), we didn’t have to pay attention to Russian that much in the beginning.

Lost in Pronunciation
I mean we tried, but as we obviously pronounced words in such a horrible way that nobody understood them, so we would mainly speak English. Some letters which I really had (and still have) problems to pronounce correctly are ы, н, ш, щ, ж, ч.

Concerning pronunciation I really must say that there are a lot of nice people trying to help you, e.g. our neighbour Mиша (Mischa), Егор (Egor) and also a lot of other nice Russians. But it is really strange to sit in front of them and keep repeating the same letter. One day I was on my way home in a Maршрутка (Marschrutka: actually another difficult word). Quietly but still audible for others I kept saying Маршрутка Маршрутка Маршрутка Маршрутка Маршрутка. I just couldn’t stop trying to twist my tongue enough to make it sound more Russian.

My best Russian classes
The best time to learn new vocabulary and the correct Russian pronunciation is at night. The best place to learn Russian is our flat or the room of our neighbour. The best people to study Russian with are friends and friends of yours friends. It’s just easier to study if there are other Russian people you can talk to and ask what means what and how it should be pronounced (even if usually this repeating thing starts then).

Lately I really at least start understanding the pronunciation of words whereas this doesn’t mean that I understand the MEANING of the words. I know it sounds a little confusing. (For the ones coming to Russia in order to study the language: You will see what I mean.)

Hopefully “unlost” in the End
Even though other people probably enjoy my wild gestures, random speaking, funny pronunciation and absolutely non-existant Russian, I am looking forward to speaking better. I know that it is possible. That’s my goal and I have still three more months to achieve it.

(carina)

Uno at the Seaside

Happenings of today were kind of strange: Firstly, we couldn’t get the internet to work (again), secondly, we felt sick for the first time because of our first vodka night (we had to drown some sorrows and frustration) and thirdly, we were invited to join some Russian guys playing UNO (an ITALIAN game), although the game is hardly known over here.

Actually, we just wanted to enjoy the wonderful weather by taking a nice walk at the seaside that is right behind our dorms. We ended up in this really nice “like-to-be” cafe, where we had tea first and then accepted the invitation of four Russians to play Uno with them and learned the “real rules” as they called it.

We had a great time: One of the guys was even a colleague of us (he was a lawyer and also a journalist for the Россиская Газета (Russian Newspaper)). As they were driving Mercedes Convertibles, wearing big, bling-bling gold rings and necklaces and were really nicely dressed, we were a little superstitious in the beginning.

After having even more tea with them and a few games of Uno, we had to rethink our prejudices.

Another funny thing was them bringing their own food along. Every new person arriving (and we must say that in the end we were around 12 people instead of 6) brought a big package of cookies with him (no her because there was just one more woman, who didn’t speak much. We had something in common with her, although her Russian must have been a lot better than ours)

Now we are tired again, not from writing but overwhelmed again by the impressions.

Good night девучки, as our room mate Mischa would say!

(carianna)

Peterhof

We haven’t really done any sight-seeing in St. Peterburg itself, but on Saturday we did our first excursion to see one of the many summer palaces: Peterhof. It is one of the best-known. Andrea from Canada and Varpu from Finland, who are exchange students at the journalistic faculty as well, and Heather, a Canadian student of Russian and Fine Arts, came with us.

Peterhof has fantastic gardens that are really huge. Although we did really quite a lot of walking, it was not possible to discover all the corners of the parks. The fountains at Peterhof are very well-known and we were lucky that they were still turned on. They were really worth the trip. It was very nice going there and we finally experienced what we had been told before: as a foreigner you have to pay different prices than Russian people for both the park entry and the palace entry. It is the same with tourist spots everywhere – you are asked to pay for everything, even for the toilet.

In the palace, you weren’t allowed to walk around by yourself, but you had to join a group. We didn’t even have enough time to ask for an English tour, but we were instantly required to come along and thus ended up in a Russian tour. We enjoyed the walk through the palace and we were happy about the words we could understand, but once more we realised that we better start taking Russian classes soon!

We went back to Petersburg by ship. We missed quite a lot of it, because we fell asleep, but a few glances of the city from the sea were enough to realise that Petersburg offered a lot of beauty and charme. We really want to get started discovering the city.

(anna)

Привет из Ст. Петрбурга!

Finally

… the very first blog entry from St. Petersburg, we are sending a big hello from the library of the Journalistic Faculty.

It is colder here than back home: not only outside, but also in all the rooms, since the heating, which is centrally regulated by city administration, has not been turned on yet. This might also explain our Russian IKEA picture, just in case anyone of you wonders about it. We haven’t had time yet to do sight-seeing, but have already been to IKEA to get BLANKETS, plates, glasses, candles and lots of Swedish cookies and Christmas tea.

Cultural Differences

It might seem as if we weren’t here for studying, but that’s not true at all. We have already had classes and got an impression of Russian lifestyle. We still have to get used to some cultural differences – boys just won’t shake hands with us. But it’s good to know that is not only us, but that in general, they only like girls for “cooking and making kids”. Let’s just give it another spin: it might just be that GIRLS don’t want to shake hands with boys. We’ll try to figure that out …

We still have to get our registration fixed this afternoon. After that, almost all organisational issues are settles. Now we have documents and cards for everything: we have SIM cards, student cards, university entrance cards, dorm entrance cards and we are pretty sure that there are still more cards to come.

We don’t want to promise anything, but for some of you we might even get postCARDS.

(carianna)