As I’ve mentioned in other blogs, I’ve made friends with a family in my dvor (apartment complex). This week the mother of the children I play with has invited me to dinner almost every night. I’m finally eating properly! While my host family was a relative disappointment, with awkward conversation and bad food (and not enough of it), I’m really lucky that the other families where I live have opened their homes to me. My first night, after dinner, I sat with Oksana (the mother) and we drank coffee and talked about love and life until two in the morning. I’ve gotten to see her children in their home and learn how the youngest is learning to talk (sometimes we even make the same mistakes). Her food is wonderful, and there’s a lot of it, thank goodness. I honestly couldn’t have asked for a better cultural experience. Last night, I even got my moment with Oksana’s husband and really, for the first time in St. Petersburg, got to experience some of the culture here. Her husband is actually Ukrainian, so you could say I got some Ukrainian culture in there too. Yevgeniy, Oksana’s husband, sat down with me over a salt cured fish, yes a whole fish, and shared with me, told me how to eat it. I’d never seen anything like it in my life. Over the fish (and beer, out of a mug, because that’s how beer is drunk with fish according to Yevgeniy) he asked me about american culture and tradition, all of my answers were poor, but fortunately he was comfortable enough talking. Then he told me anecdotes, which is the common form of humor in Russia. A lot of them had to do with Moldovans, whom he really enjoyed making fun of. Interestingly enough, he told me that old Soviet anecdotes aren’t funny anymore, they’re just “stupid.” He explained to me why Russians (but mostly Ukrainians) are so resourceful and explained his opinion on politics, Kiev, and a host of other things. I can’t say I understood everything, but I understood a lot. I am coming to realize that the Ukrainian accent is harder to understand for me. I didn’t speak very well, these were all topics for which I have little vocabulary, but I listened a lot. Honestly it was a little startling at first to just have Yevgeniy start peppering me with questions so intensely. In class I rarely got that kind of questioning, and I’m used to the subjects that I talk about with peers. This was a different generation, and older, more soviet generation and it was visible. I really felt like I was interacting with real Russians for the first time. Interestingly enough, Russian is Yevgeniy’s second language and he would sometimes ask Oksana how to correctly say something. The whole evening was an incredible window into how people live here. This family has opened up their home to me, fed me, let me play with their kids. Yevgeniy told me that he used to eat fish and drink beer with his father, and then he did so with me. I felt so honored and so welcomed. It was unlike anything I could have ever imagined and I’m so blessed to have had the random chance of meeting these people. I’m so glad I’m returning for a semester in the spring. Two months is not long enough, and I only just started to get to know this family. It takes time to build friendships here, and I’m fortunate that the friendships that I’ve had the chance to build aren’t going to end on August 9th.
But that isn’t all. After my evening with Oksana and Yevgeniy, I and a few friends went to the Present Perfect electronic music festival. As far as Russian culture, it was another experience entirely. The festival was held in the outskirts of the city on the property of an old factory. It was the young people of Russia, the weirdos and the hipster rave crowd all gathered into one place. St. Petersburg is a relatively progressive place in Russia, there’s a large population of hipster youth, and it was really cool to be able to see the hub of it. My friends and I stayed out all night dancing and experiencing the deep underground nightlife of St. Petersburg. Honestly, I didn’t think that I was going to enjoy the experience that much, but it was really fun. Dancing all night and actually having a crazy youthful moment right after my finals was a really fun way to spend a weekend. The counterculture is rich here, and for a night I was part of it. 