On swimming pools and Soviet mentality...

Long before Instagram, I used this blog to unleash my random thoughts onto the world.  Facebook is not very conducive to long posts.  So I am resurrecting this, even though I thought I'd kill it just a few months ago.

Lessons learned from going swimming in a Russian pool (or, you don’t feel Soviet until it smacks you in the face):

1. I attempted to learn to swim in this exact pool circa 1981.  Unfortunately, it was February, and I got pneumonia almost immediately and never went back.  What I DO remember is chipped tile, dim lighting, and learning to hold my breath under water by holding onto a big stick stuck into the deep end while being yelled at by the coach.
2. I saw a tail end of a teen swim team practice.  Coach yelling is still a constant.
3. Until some time this century, the pool was called Khimik - which means Chemist - because it was built by the local pharmaceutical company.  Now it’s a private gym called Aquatica.
4. Since 1981, they have added a wading pool, a yoga studio, a small gym, a necessities shop, and a cafe.
5. They also retiled the pool and changed the traffic patterns from the changing rooms into the pool area.  However, the changing room layout is more illogical than ever, and the wall mounted hair dryers, while new, are exactly in the same awkward spot in the hallway.
6. Russia still has some bizarre notions about health norms.  You may not join the pool without a medical release.  There’s a medic on staff.  She does a visual inspection for skin disease, and signs the release if you show her the following items:
1. One pIece swim suit.  This requirement did not stop at least 3 women today from wearing bikinis.
2. Swim cap.
3. Flip Flops.
4. Towel.
5. A bar of soap - not body wash, but old fashioned bar of soap.
6. A sponge.
7. Fortunately, all of the above can be had at outrageous prices at the necessities shop.
8. Lockers are assigned with little numbered keys on rubber arm bands.  I saw more than one person wearing theirs on the ankle.
9. You are required to take a shower with soap and sponge before entering the pool.  Have you ever tried to put on a dry one piece racing suit on a wet body?  Good freaking luck.  I considered showering in my suit, but other women were giving me some side eye already, i did not need more.
10. Did I mention it’s a communal shower?  I felt to be back in high school.
11. In this pool, Russian women of all shapes, ages and sizes believe in total and complete depilation - that was a little jarring…
12. So open swim only happens 3 times a day, for 45 min at a time.  Which means that everyone is there, supposedly, to take advantage of the short time.  Except for the 2 women who came to chat while clinging to the lane divider mid-lane, the two teens who are getting swimming lessons, and the one middle aged dude in my lane who insists on chatting up the two ladies in bikinis hanging on the lane divider...
13. Yes of course I will do it all over again, it’s the closest pool to my house AND it was only $10 for the month!

April 25. Wagner.

I had a chance to see a dress rehearsal of Wagner's The Flying Dutchman yesterday.  The production had stunning scenery, lighting and quite astonishing musically.  The rest of it was ok.

However, the whole time I could not shake this weird feeling of musical deja vu.  I am not very familiar with Wagner, but as the female chorus filed on to deliver the Spinning Song, I realized I was watching every collective farm chorus from every 1930s Soviet Collective Farm musical comedy.  There are at least a dozen films, scored by Isaac Dunayevsky, which quite freely borrow from the sweeping, picturesque tunes of Richard Wagner and (a bit later) Richard Strauss.  They all celebrate the achievement of the collective farm workers of different ilk - harvesters, milk maidens - in expansive, marching and quite catchy tunes.

I present to you, the Spinning Chorus from The Flying Dutchman.

As well as "Helmsmen, leave your watch"

And while I've been unable to find the exact female chorus I was reminded of, I present a Chorus from 1937's The Wealthy Bride.

1940's The Bright Way - note that these are modern spinners...feel free to skip to 1:00 mark, the song doesn't start until then.  This film stars Lubov Orlova, who has been long held as the most beautiful and most sonorous star of all of Soviet cinematography.

and 1949 The Kuban Cossacs.

Now I'm all nostalgic.  Damn.

March 1

So I am sitting at Beehive, and I notice a very familiar bottle on the shelf. A bottle I haven't seen in at least 20 years, but one that was always in our home growing up. It's Riga Balsam, and it was only available when someone traveled to Latvia and brought a present. We usually put in in coffee, like you do with cognac and brandy. And the crafty people would turn the bottle into a vase to gift.

So I tell all that to the barkeep, and he makes a lovely experimental drink with it. It tastes like the woods and the sea. Turns out he doesn't know why the bottle is there, he's never seen it before. We all learned something new that night, and I will definitely be back for a funky Riga Balsam again.

Stuffed Animals

Imprisoned in Siberia

So there is a zoo here.  I've been to it, once, about 20 years ago.  I have only horrible memories of that visit, animals in filth behind bars, smelly, lonely, cold.  For some reason I thought that things might have changed in 20 years.  Not so much.  They only got worse...

These two statues are really the best part about the zoo, and even the lions seem to be apprehensive about what lies ahead.

It's rather impossible to photograph through bars and steel cages.

I think the bears had it the worst - tiny cages in the sun, no respite from the heat save for a stream of water, shot at the poor animals by some zoo workers

He is only 4.  He doesn't have a name, like the tigers in the Bronx.  He is alone in a cage.  He is simply beautiful.  Last year, the zoo called for a drive of 800,000 roubles to buy him a bride.  Obviously, the drive was in vain.  Mind you, the zoo is a municipal institution.

The lynx did not want to be bothered.

Sweet Escape

 

Current Russia is filled with little cafes like this one.  No, it's not exceptionally cozy, but fairly cheap and convenient.

 

My mom and I had a latte and a milkshake, in addition to some extravagant sweets:

 

But the most interesting part was the flyer lying on every table, advertising "New Sweets for the Spring 2010" produced by the largest confectionary company in Tomsk - Antonov Dvor, which conveniently listed its website on the back - if you can read a bit of Russian, you can find even more cakes on their website.

I've decided to share some of these with you - if anyone is interested in the cake descriptions, I can translate those, but just the names are worth it:

Don Quixote

Dark-skinned Girl

Bolero

Sweet Almond

Pani Eva

Raspberry Bells Ringing

For Two

Almond in Chocolate

Liza

Summer

Puzzle

Graffiti

Waltz

Chocolate and cream-cheese

Amusements in Siberia

 

 

 

Travels in Russia I

I found this "vignette" in a store just beyond the security check-in at the Domodedovo Airport. There were many other fine stores lining this corridor, but this one struck me as something you display specifically for a foreign tourist - look how mighty Mother Russia is! Oddly enough, all the gates through this security check point led to internal flights to Siberia and such. Which basically means there are enough rich Russians who might buy this crap.

I originally thought this was just a display, but there is a price list that reads:

Rug “Bear” 250,000 (roughly $8,333)

Rug “Wolf” 90,000 (roughly $3,000)

Hat “Winter” 40,000 (roughly $1,333)