Posts Tagged ‘Lenin’

If they made shirts that said “I <3 Chita,” I would buy one and wear it all the time. ‘NICE’ & ‘TRAIN’. Two words that up to now I hadn’t considered being utterable in the same sentence. Nevertheless. The train was nice (that is, from Ulan-Ude to Chita). Relatively speaking, of course. Yes, the Russian [...]

Russians have a word (“trevoga”) for the spiritual qualms that you experience before traveling until you’re safely seated on your train/plane seat. I call it stress. Whatever it is, I feel it. The day of our departure, I went straight from classes to my internship, and then straight to choir rehearsal, leaving early around 8 [...]

Since the holiday began a many year ago when, of course, men defended the country and women stayed home to have babies and cook, I’ll save the discourse on sexist discrimination for another day. The abbreviated history: the day was started under Lenin to honor those in the Red army, but once “the Fatherland”/USSR fell [...]

Jan 5. State power day. Woo! Filled with a late breakfast (usually the broiled potatoes Ryan had made, long-overdue Honey Nut Cheerios with milk and OJ–simple delights I hadn’t had in months), I arrived at Kremlin walls just after 12 noon, where the line to see Lenin’s Mausoleum (free) was being told that they probably [...]

The grand finale of 6 days in Buryatia, which unfortunately left a bad taste in my mouth. . . . Wednesday, Sep 30: Returning to Familiar Sights Our fears were confirmed, meaning that the strong west wind from the night before hadn’t let up and didn’t show any signs of stopping, our hike to the [...]