13.11.11
I made a few connections today. The first came after I spotted another castle not far from Prospect Mira. By the way, I just call them castles, I'm not sure if that's a standard title among Russians. But these buildings all look like each other. They are large, ornate, and I think were built under Stalin. For Stalin.
I was walking towards downtown from the ring metro station on Prospect Mira. I had just visited a small bookstore at the olympic complex, and wanted to make my way towards the Lubyanka station, which I knew was somewhere in the direction of the Kremlin, when, as I was crossing a street, I caught a glimpse of the top of a tall building not far to my left. I recognized the castle concrete, but what gave it away was the soviet star on the building's pinnacle. I was torn, since castles often stand near large squares which have metro stations, and the location of metro stations is always good to know. There might also be some bookstores, or a place that sells almonds for cheap.
I wanted to visit Lubyanka because a map on the fridge in my apartment indicated that there was a big bookstore there. Yet I had wanted to explore another area, which, after thinking a bit, I estimated to be in the direction of this castle I found. The map said that there was another Ashan in that area, a French chain store, sort of like Costco, where they sell some audiobooks, roasted almonds, and other things at a good price. What if that castle, not far away at all, ended up being what I meant to be the day's final destination, wouldn't it be better to go that direction first, and worry about Lubyanka later?
I turned towards the castle, and after a few minutes of wandering through some side-streets, where large buildings on either side blocked my view in almost every direction, I suddenly found myself next to the soviet relic. They had turned it into a Hilton Hotel. I crossed the street to look for a metro station and gather my bearings, went under a bridge, and I was suddenly struck with dejavu. I had been there before. Not since my most recent arrival, but within the past few years. I then realized that I had reached the Kasanski train station, where I'd arrived on a bus from Rostov a year ago last August. At that time I had two giant suitcases with me, and probably was carrying my big blue backpack filled with books; all I wanted to know after getting off the bus was where the nearest metro station was, so that I could get to my hostel and not have to carry my luggage around with me. Yesterday, however, I had time to look around. The Kasanski train station is located on Komsomolski square, which is the home of not only one, but three train stations, including Lenegradski (for trains to St. Petersburg) and Yaroslavski (for trains heading towards Yaroslavl).
Komsomolski is an interesting word. It's an abbreviation of Kommunisticheski Cayuz Molodyezji - The Communist Youth Union, I guess sort of like the Hitler Jugend, but on the other side of the front. Honestly, I have no right to compare the two, since I don't know anything about either one. It's only my first impression that they might be similar to one another, basically propoganda machines aimed towards the most susceptible members of society. Either one sort of reminds me of a party organization out of 1984.
I continued in the same direction to see if I would come across the Ashan that I suspected lie in my path. I saw a sign for it, but decided not to continue walking that way. I might have walked a long way along a highway before reaching anywhere, so I gave up on Ashan for that day and turned in a direction I thought might lead me back to Lubyanka. It didn't. Instead I found myself approaching a corner I had crossed two weeks prior (this was the second 'connection' of the day, the first being the Kasanski train station at Komsomolski Square). I was dismayed to find myself there, still rather far from downtown, but the sun hadn't set yet, so I bought a few bananas at a cushy grocery store, devowered them and continued walking. I passed the street that I had taken last time to get to a castle at the "Red Gates" metro station, and this time continued straight ahead, convinced that I wouldn't go too far without landing somewhere in the center of town. Soon I saw a sign for the China Town station, only three kilometers ahead. The streets became livelier the further I went, and eventually I reached the entrance to the metro station, only I didn't recognize where I was, maybe because the sun had already set. I was at a large intersection. There was some sort of monument at the end of a park to my left, a large building across the street in front of me and extending to my right. There was no way to cross the street but by the underpass which led to the metro entrance.
I wasn't discouraged about not making a final connection that day. I could've explored a little and found a spot I recognized, but I was tired. Honestly, I think the China Town metro station is one of the most expansive in that it has many different exits rather far from one another. I entered the underpass and noticed some relatively ornate tiling on the walls and pillars - oriental I guess. I chose not to explore the underground passageways to find a tunnel I recognized, but I entered the metro and headed home.

14.11.11
I wonder if there's anything analogous to the Komsomol or Hitlerjugend in America. Some church organizations come to mind, but that's not as connected to the government as the Soviet and Nazi organizations were. Maybe that's the only difference. In America, there is still a separation of church and state, where as in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany there was no church, there was only the state, or maybe it's more accurate to say that the two were combined into one.
Speaking of 1984, I up and bought a book of the same genre yesterday, called "We" by Evgeni Zamyatin. It supposedly was one of the first antiutopian novels around and inspired Orwell's later novel. I started it last night and read a little more this morning before preparing for work. It's very interesting. So far the protagonist is explaining his society to a member of our normal world, a world that hasn't yet been cleansed of the virulent concept of freedom. He's not belligerent though, rather sympathetic. I expect his views might change. He might become a rebel and realize that freedom isn't such a bad thing. Or maybe only the reader will come to that understanding.
I also bought a collection of Hemingway novels in Russian. Usually, I like to read things in their original language if I can, but this book only cost a dollar, so I figured why not. I probably wouldn't be able to find any one of his novels in America, outside of the ones I might find at home, for such a good price, let alone a whole collection. I had seen a Woody Allen movie, called "Midnight in Paris" that same afternoon. Hemingway plays a supporting role among other famous artists from the past. He came across like an American Remarque, the author of "All Clear on the Western Front" - a war-torn romantic who's convinced that civilian life has no meaning outside of booze and women. I like Remarque, so maybe I'll like Hemingway too.

15.11.11
I felt like crap this morning as one of the school administrators took me to my first lesson at a local business. I don't like teaching at businesses. Two years ago, when I was working in Rostov, I taught someone on the top end of the business hierachy at the central Sberbank of the Rostov region. The student was nice, but I didn't like having to commute out there every week to give her a lesson at her time and location of choice. How demeaning!. My current arrangement is not much better in that it's not at a time or place I would really prefer, but then nobody asks me what I would prefer.
Nor should they. I honestly shouldn't complain, since I'm still working under-hours, and everything is being done according to the contract. Furthermore, the student I had today was a nice guy, and he told me he wasn't as interested in business English as he was in general English, which I find often much more interesting than business English. Also, if the weather isn't too bad, I won't have to take public transportation there, the office is a nice long walk from my home, and I enjoy long walks! So I can try to make the best out of a new situation, even if deep down I still wish for one work location without to much commuting.

I bought that collection of Hemingway novels at the end of a nice Sunday. No, the weather wasn't too nice. It was cloudy and cold, but any weather you can walk in is good enough. And walk I did! I started at an unknown station outside the metro ring that encloses downtown Moscow. I've only started a few of my trips outside this ring, but as I become more and more familiar with the city, I'll probably start further and further away from the center. I was looking for another Ashan market in the south-eastern part of the city, on the yellow metro line. Upon exiting the station, I couldn't find any directions to Ashan, which is surprising since it is a pretty big attraction for anyone living in the area. I did, however, see a sign that said "To the House of Books," - a local bookstore chain with many branches in the Moscow area. So even if I didn't find Ashan, I figured, I might get lost in a house of books, and that will certainly make the trip worthwhile. Unfortunately I couldn't find either store after reaching the street. I walked down one way, hoping to find the bookstore, passed a movie theater I had heard of before, stopped inside to look at the schedule and prices, left, and eventually came to the mall that contained Ashan. The bookstore was nowhere to be seen.
Ashan is so big though, that they also sell many books, both printed and audio. I browsed through the audio section, found some collections of radio dramas, which I often listen to on the way to work and back, as well as some stories by Hemingway. This was the first time of three that day that I would encounter this man. I didn't buy any literature, only roasted almonds, raw peanuts from China, and some roasted pumpkin seeds, which I thought might go nicely in my breakfast. (They don't - they need to be shelled first!)
I left Ashan and set off in the direction that I thought the Kremlin lie, and wasn't mistaken. Moscow highways are constructed in an interesting fashion, with three rings of highway going around the city, one circling downtown and two more each further outside the city, and several highways going to and from the center of Moscow in different directions, each situated about thirty or forty degrees from one another in a complete circle. The ring highways have a few names, some as simple as the first, second or third ring (also known as the MKAD), while some of the radial highways are named after the cities they are directed towards, similar to the trainstations: There's the Kiev highway, the Yaroslav and Leningrad highways. There are other highways too, with names from historical figures or events, but I don't know all of them yet.
After leaving Ashan, I walked towards what I concluded was the second ring highway. I went under it along one of the radial highways and continued in the direction of downtown Moscow. The walk wasn't very pretty. I was happy that there was space for me to walk a bit away from the highway, where the air was a little fresher. Soon I came to a metro station which confirmed I was headed in the right direction. It was the Ploschtad' Il'icha - the Square of the Son of Ilya. I don't know who Ilya was, but this was his son's square. There wasn't much to see, as far as I could tell. Or maybe I was walking too quickly. I was encouraged by the sight of a castle in the distance, so there was no holding me back. I wasn't too far now!
You have to be careful with those castles, because there are quite a few of them, I'd say ten throughout the whole city. If you're far away, or among tall buildings, you're liable to lose sight of the one you want, and you might get disoriented if you unexpectedly spot another one. Was that the one you had wanted to reach? From the Square of the Son of Ilya there was a rival castle visible far down one avenue, and I wasn't sure if that was the one I had seen when approaching the square. I turned a corner in the opposite direction, just to be sure, and found my original target, closer than before.
As I continued towards this castle, I recognized some of the ornaments near the top. Of course there was the Soviet star on top of a long spire, but also four ovular shaped bulbs, like eggs, with ribboned stone wrapped around them. Furthermore, I could also see one of the four sub-structures standing at one of the central structure's corners. Neither the eggs, nor the substructures are universal among the Moscow castles. What I had before me was the castle just south of China Town. It was a chinese weekend, I guess.
After reaching the castle, whereby I made another connection as I crossed a road I had gone along two weeks before to reach the Kurski train station from the south, I had twenty minutes left to make a three o'clock movie at a theater on the other side of the Kremlin. I figured it would take me ten minutes to get to the red square, and then ten minutes to reach the theater from there. It ended up being about twenty minutes for each of those two legs. But it turned out that the movie I had planned on seeing started not at three but at two, so I wouldn't have made it anyway, but, as luck would have it, I was just in time for Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris."
I had first heard of this movie when I was in San Francisco on the day I picked up my visa. I could have seen it then, but for some reason chose another movie instead. That was a good choice, I guess, because I got to see Allen's film on the flight to Moscow. Was it worth seeing again in Russian? Sure, why not. I figured that I had walked a lot and could use a breather, as well as a little food: I had just bought some popcorn at Alexander's garden, next to the Red Square, with the intent of watching one movie or another.
It's a good movie. There is a thought-provoking story with interesting characters, including artists from the past (the main character travels through time), among whom are none other than Ernest Hemingway, who plays such an interesting role that the viewer almost can't help but want to read one of his books.
I left the movie theater satisfied with what I had seen, with fresh legs, ready to walk some more. I mosied along Tverskaya boulevard towards Pushkin square, where I turned toward the Kremlin to reach a bookstore that I frequent every once in awhile. I often go there to check out audiobooks, but on my lastest visit I had found a rather large used-book section. This is where I had first noticed Zamyatin's "We," and as the thought of reading the novel still interested me a week later, I thought I might finally buy the book if it was still there. I often give myself a week's security before buying things I don't really need, so that I don't get carried away with whatever might catch my eye. The book was still there, I noticed that it also contained another story I had heard of many times, called God's Whip, or maybe the Whip of God, so when I glanced through a few random pages and confirmed that I understood enough to spark my interest, I bought it for two hundred rubles (almost seven dollars).
I left the shop and walked towards the Kremlin. I didn't pass it, but turned down a very European looking street which starts with two theaters, one of them for students of drama, as well as several restaurants featuring all sorts of international cuisine. This street goes in a quarter circle around the center of Moscow, that is, the Kremlin, which is aprroximately five hundred meters away, for about a kilometer before running into the former KGB building at an intersection with Prospect Mira. Along this cobble-stone street, after the restuarants, theaters, some expensive clothing stores you'll reach stores of more useful things, among them two small branches of the House of Books, one of them for pedagogs, the other, further down the street, featuring foreign literature. I suppose both should be right down my alley, and although I glanced in each one, I found the foreign one much more interesting.
I started studying Spanish (again; for the first time since high school) last summer. My study isn't very well rounded, in that I haven't spoken nor written much of anything in Spanish, I have only been reading and listening to whatever comes my way. The only Spanish audio I have which is simple enough that I might understand a few words is the first Harry Potter novel. Written literature, on the other hand, is much more plentiful, even in such a far-off place as Russia. You wouldn't think that Spanish is very popular here, and you would be correct, it's not! The nevertheless somewhat broad selection of Spanish material available in Moscow is testament to the breadth of what you might find at the House of Books. They had a Spanish edition of some of the most famous Russian authors, like Dostoevski, Tolstoi, and Pushkin, as well as Spanish classics by Servantes and others. I had already been struggling through a collection of short stories by Chexov in Spanish, and at this branch I found another small collection of his stories that I might retrieve if it passes a few weeks' security test, and if I finish the first collection I have. I left without buying anything, but I will certainly return, if not for my own sake, then for family members who might also be interested in certain languages and/or looking for original works of foreign authors.
I followed the European street to the KGB building, which is coincidentally located right next to the Lubyanka metro station. I had been trying to get there all weekend! I found two bookstores nearby, and quickly explored both of them. The first one didn't have much to explore. It was a small room with used books stacked all over the place. I walked around, not sure if I would spot anything interesting, when I ran into Hemingway yet again. There were two collections there, both in Russian, one of his short stories, but also including a novel or two, another primarily of novels, but including also a few of his short stories. After reading a few paragraphs and finding the writing understandable, I took the novel one. At 35 rubles (about a buck), it was just meant to be. I continued into a much larger bookstore nearby, perused the audiobook section, but didn't get anything. I got on the metro at Lubyanka, and went home.

16.11.11
I had another lesson at the same business today. Turns out, I'll be working there four days a week, twice a week individually with two different students. Today's student doesn't speak as well as the one I had yesterday, whom I won't be teaching at all, unfortunately. But whatever she lacked in proficiency she made up for in enthusiasm. It was refreshing to see how much she wants to learn. We got to know each other a little bit before talking about a few verb tenses. I didn't ask her about literature, she asked me. I was delighted with her question, told her about my favorite genres and authors, and she then told me about her favorite author: Ernest Hemingway. Incidentally, she is also a fan of Remarque, as well as European art of the early twentieth century. I told her she should go see "Midnight in Paris."