Random Thoughts About Shopping

Some interesting observations about shopping in Russia:

I have been wondering why in Russia there are a lot of stores where you first have to tell the lady behind the counter what you want (to look at) and just then can look at. Today I had “some” idea why that might be the case: Maybe as in Soviet times (and probably also before) there wasn’t that much choice (and maybe also not that much money) people would just go to the shops when they already knew WHAT they had to buy. So they would just exactly tell the lady behind the counter: “Please give me that and that!” and it wouldn’t take to long.

For me it’s interesting though because for us (Austrians) it’s just normal to go around the shops and just to look at the products but here I sometimes have the feeling, that I kind of have to buy the things, if I go in such a shop with a counter.

Anyways, another interesting thing is that there isn’t really any such phrase in Russian as “shopping” or “to go shopping” or to shop. There is this phrase “ходить по магазинам”, which means something like “walking around the shops”.

Funky Places to Situate a Shops
I already wanted to close this blog-entry but then I remembered that it might be quiet interesting to know, that in Russia, a lot of shops are just situated in the strangest places, where you wouldn’t at all expect a shop to be. You are walking along the street, might be on your way to a friend of yours, you enter the backyard through an iron-gateway (that might even need to be opened with a special numeral code) and then in the backyard you find a beauty salon, or a small 24-h-shop or anything else. A lot of shops are also situated in cellars – that might or might not be accessable or viewable from the main street.

Russia and its shops are just great I love them: They are open 24/7 and they sell anything you can dream of but hardly any Russian products.

Contacts, Contacts, Contacts

So many things have been going on lately, that I don’t really know where to start, but I have to share some thoughts, experiences or rather ongoings with you.

1st Work Experience: Lesson – Russians and Their Networking
Today we have talked to Vadim, the head of the English departement and also one of our two coordinators, about a PR-internship. Quickly he hooked us up with a very nice “девушка” (translated as girl or better to say young lady but actually Russians use the word “девушка” for speaking about any female, whether she is five or 99 years old, selling fruits in a shop or still playing with her dolls). Enesch, thats her name, again instantly hooked us up with another guy (Actually I think it is her boss).

Half an hour later she already called to tell us that she had talked to her director and that we just need to call him to negotiate with him ourselves. Well, tomorrow we are gonna do that. I am excited and also a little “scared” because of talking Russian on the phone with this guy. But it will work out just fine, I’m sure (That’s how I keep motiviating myself). I will keep you updated on that one. By the way this internship would be at an PR-agency called Agency Information Resources.

2nd Work: More Prospective Work
We have another internship option. A lady from the PR-departement of our Faculty would help us with. We have an appointment with her tomorrow.

3rd Interview: PR in Russia
I am excited because tomorrow I am gonna “interview” one of my teachers about PR in general and PR in Russia. The result you will find on this blog soon.

4th Language: Happy Just Because of Simple Russian Language Skills
I have the feeling that my Russian is improving any day. I am soooooo very excited. The downfall: It seems that my Italian and Spanish is just disappearing as quickly.

(carina)

Туфли or better boots?

There is this cliché that women think of shoes a lot. With us this is definitely the case at the moment. We are now sharing our observations with you – can you find some answers to our questions?

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who has the highest heels of all?
No matter how old they are, no matter in which shape they are, no matter where they are, no matter which weather, what Russian women have in common are their shoes. Sometimes it seems as though they were competing for the “highest high heel in the country”. Sometimes we really admire how ALL of them can walk in these shoes.

Do you fancy my funky shoes?
The choice of shoes is really huge, some pairs are really super-funky. We have already found a lot of shops with funky shoes, but everyday that there is even more funk around.

How do high-heels affect architecture?
For weeks we have been wondering why the stairs in our faculty and also in other buildings are so flat – with sneakers you can easily take three at a time. As Carina was wearing high-heeled shoes today, she suddenly understood that they must be high-heel friendly stairs.

Umbrella or high-heels?
Today it is raining cats and dogs. One reason for wearing high-heels could simply be the rain and the pot-holes full of water. High-heels serve as stilts and women can walk over the water.

Any more questions?
We still have plenty and have already planned the next shoe project.

(carianna)

Paaaarty!

We were at a great birthday party here in St. Peterburg last night. Our friend Maria from Salzburg turned 24. We met Maria and Julia in our first week at the registration office. We heard them talk “Austrian” and just introduced ourselves to them. That was a good thing to do.

We were a cool bunch of people celebrating Maria’s birthday. Maria, Julia and the two of us from Austria, Marina and Mischa from St. Petersburg and Sara, Iva, Merle, Joanna, Hilmar and Daniel, who are from Germany.  We were invited for dinner. It was delicious. We just looooooveeee curry. Yummy! We had a lot of fun. We were really curious about seeing their appartment and it is very nice indeed. It is interesting to see how exchange students live here in St. Petersburg if they don’t stay in a dorm. What a luxurious bathroom they have – with a state-of-the-art toilet!

It was very interesting that we ended up talking about cultural and language differences between Austria and Germany. We had quite some discussions going on and tried to teach each other different specific “Austrian” and “German” words. Although we are in Russia, we also learned some new aspects about one of our neighbouring contries.

However, “partying” seems to be a universal language. We didn’t plan to go out that night, but sometimes, if the feeling’s right, you just have to obey. Going out in St. Petersburg, in our case, has two “catches”:

1. The bridges disconnect (and this will be the case until the end of November), so there are no connections between the mainland and the islands. You can party like Cinderella and make sure that you take the last metro and get back home around midnight.

But even if it wasn’t for the bridges, there is another reason for going out really long, respectively coming back home early in the morning.

2. The dorm is closed from 1 to 6 am. So if you decided to go out clubbing, you better party all night long.

So if I tell you know that we went to the Griboedov club, you might as well guess that we had to stay out all night long. It was not an all too hard thing to do.

Thanks again, Maria, for the invitation – we loved the food (!) and partying with you. Anytime again

(anna)

The Water and Us Being Austrian

We have already written so much about our weird/crazy/exciting experience with the “big water in the dorm” but we wanted to have an own entry just to say thanks to all Russians and sorry for being so Austrian.

After all of this drama we have really seen that we must have seemed stupid and we actually somehow were stupid or our behaviour was, but to us there were just some an exceptional circumstances coming together: Being in a foreign country, not understanding the language and not knowing anything about how situations like that are usually handled over here/there – so we just behaved how we probably have to/or would behave in Austria. We got our stuff and waited outside – might not have been the best idea.

When we came back inside we saw all these people (or most) working, cleaning up and so on and we had just been waiting outside. Really stupid of us, that’s also how we felt like, but also grateful and thankful for all the help we got from great Russian people (You know who we mean, don’t you).

(carianna)

The Water and Journalistic Thoughts

Just some thoughts that crossed my/our mind while this whole water thing was going on here in our dorms:

Communication Theory
It is a pretty interesting fact, that the feeling of safety and security kind of came back, when I realized that we actually had internet again. So it reminded me a lot of some of our lectures at FH: Like the thing with the “ZiB” (the Austrian news) that you actually feel safe just because of the fact that you can see the news at night. It doesn’t even matter which news there is, but you feel safe, because you see that there is news and that the broadcasting is working.

Sensational Stories
Now I know why (journalists) people are like they are. For the first time in my life I have experienced this (in German it would be “Sensationsgeilheit”, in English it might be something like) yearning for sensational stuff. When we were outside the building I just felt the feeling of wanting to go in there, taking pictures, asking people crazy things and publishing all of the stuff just in a few minutes. No, even better – seconds. Actually, I am doing something like “citizen journalism” at the moment because I am blogging (for you guys) – even though you probably don’t read it soon enough to be considered as news (or maybe yes?).

Being the First One to Publish
Andrea our neighbour also captured a video and we were talking to her about putting it on our blog (to be on here tomorrow because we couldn’t organise a cable today). It’s just so funny, the need to be the first one to publish something is really crazy. Also the fact that we are blogging at the moment is somehow like that (but that might also be a psychological thing: We just want to release stress by telling other people what we have just experienced).

Being attached and Not
When we were on our “stress-release-mission” (see also entry of Anna) we were talking about another interesting thing. It might have been easier for us to leave the dorm as for others – even though it is our home – we are still not (yet) as much attached to the dorms as other students might be. Yes, we are living here/there and we are considering the dorms our home but we still know that it’s not gonna be longer than three months. For other people it is their home – and so it might not be that easy for them to move out as it was for us. It was hard for us to to grap our most important things and we want and we do feel home here but it might not be as important for us since we actually know that in three months we have to DEtach again from here. Anyways what I wanted to say is: Either – Maybe people here just didn’t run away because they just couldn’t as it is there home. Or – Maybe we are just crazy and scared and FOREIGNERS (see entry The Water and Us Being Austrian).

(carina)

Finally Rush Hour

Finally we experienced how Russian metro is during rush hour. Honestly, really crazy.

A whole bunch of people is standing in front of this comparably small metro building with just two or three “small” doors leading into it. Actually there are so many people that you cannot see the stairs anymore let alone space in between people. But the doors are opening and closing rapidly, as people keep rushing inside. This cluster of people is actually moving pretty fast and if you are once somewhere in the middle, you can’t move as you want to but you have to follow the will of the masses. It is really crazy but it somehow works.

People flooding into the station

You are standing there, maybe next to an old grandma with a small girl on her hand and then there might be a not too good smelling man in front of you. If you are with a friend, you are for sure gonna lose him/her. When you finally reach the building and pass the door, it is ok. You can breathe again and you can move as you want to. Also in the metros, you will find more space for yourself than you did before while queuing.

It’s crazy and a lot of fun at the same time. If you have the opportunity you should definitely go for it.

- maybe written in a confused way but it is like I felt today -

(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.

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)