«Жить в России - быть героем» [‘To live in Russia is to be a hero'].

Once upon a time, back in the time of the turbulent 90’s, there was a political party called «Народная партия» [‘The People's Party'] in Russia. I do not know anything about this party, all I know is that it no longer exists, except for on the sticker on the picture above. It’s on one of the doors in my dormitory, and I’ve walked past it every day for over two years, always nodding and agreeing with the message written on there. But let’s take a look at the word «герой» [hero]. It ends on the letter «й» which can cause some trouble for the foreigner when putting it through the rough reality of six Russian cases. The key is to remember that the vowel «е» is in Russian actually not just an ‘e’ but «йе», thus making it two letters in one. The same also goes for the following vowels in Russian language: «я» which is really «йа», «ю» which is «йу», and «ё» which stands for the sound «йо». Now that kind of massive information may make your head spin - it’s happened to the best of us! - so let’s take a look at what the j+vowel rule does to the word «герой» and hope it’ll clear some things up.

Nominative: «Мой дедушка - герой Социалистического труда» [My grandfather is a Hero of Socialist Labor.]

Accusative: «В прошлом году я на дне Победы увидела настоящего героя битвы в Сталинграде» [Last year I saw a real hero of the battle of Stalingrad on Victory Day.]

Dative: «Трудно честному герою в наше время» [It is difficult for an honest hero in our time.]

Genitive: «Но в наше время же нет ни одного истинного героя!» [But there isn't even one true hero in our time!]

Locative: «Что вы думаете об отрицательном герое этого романа?» [What do you think about the villain (lit. ‘negative hero') of this novel?]

Instrumental: «Быть героем можно и помаленьку и потихоньку - по будням и во всех возможных условиях!» [One can be a hero both little by little and quietly - on weekdays and in all kinds of possible conditions!]

Post from: Russian Blog

These are not Russian passports. These are American, Japanese and Swedish passports… in Russia.

In Russia, as it was back in the days of the country that should’ve had websites ending with .su, national passports, or internal passports if you may, do in fact work very much in the manner of id-cards in other countries. In Russia you have a «паспорт России» [passport of Russia] and a «заграничный паспорт» [international passport], more often called «загран паспорт» or even just simply «загран» in every day speech. The Russian passport is used for travel within the borders of Russian Federation, but also when you get married or have children or entry the military, as these events are included into your passport. Russia is surely something else, isn’t it? The international passport works like the passports we’re used to, thus allowing for crossing of international borders, and do not bear any stamps related to marriage or child birth or military service what so ever (as far as I know?).

Whenever I go to my local Beeline office to get a new SIM-card, they’re always baffled at my Swedish passport. It’s been three years, and I’ve been coming in with it every six months, yet they’re still baffled every time they see it. That should give you an idea as to exactly how rare a foreign passport is in the Urals. My Swedish passport creates all sorts of trouble for me in this country. Mostly because it is in, yes, you guessed it - Swedish. In Russia it is very important to always state the serial number as well as the usual number of your passport, especially when getting a new SIM-card. Swedish passports lack a serial number. But most essential of all is to write, in Russian mind you, «кем и когда выдан паспорт» [by whom and when the passport was issued]. This causes constant pain for me. How would you translate “Polismyndigheten i Västra Götaland“? By what it means in Swedish or by how it sounds when pronounced in Russian? The good people at Beeline solved this last year by stating in their official records that my passport is «выдан милиции Голландии» [issued by the police of Holland]. Thus every time I show up to get a new SIM-card I always have to answer the same question - why did you get your passport in Holland? And is that a European Union thing; can you get a passport in any EU country of choice? In the beginning this annoyed me. Now I’m cool with it. After all, I have come to the conclusion - after many years of wandering not only Russian soil but other soils as well - that my Swedish passport is magic.

When Mayakovsky wrote his «Стихи о Советском паспорте» [predominantly translated as "My Soviet Passport"] he could not have known that the day would come when a simple citizen of Sweden would prove him wrong. Or at least put his words to a certian degree of a test. And I did so by writing my own version of his poem:

My Swedish Passport (after Vladimir Mayakovsky’s “My Soviet Passport”)

I couldn’t be kept

                     spit at all your borders

                                            fill in a form without respect.

But look!

Will you be so kind to…

                      be collected and controlled

                                            will you stamp mine this time?

Yes, that is my picture, that is me.

                      Why are you here?

                                            Where are you going?

Eyes stare but

                      no one can stop me

                                            no other country can deny me.

Geographic borders

                      cultural chocks

                                            like a bomb I will blow.

Because I have

                      my Swedish passport

                                            with a picture of the three crowns

I could not be stopped

                      hiss in all your languages

                                            break laughing through the customs.

Envy!

                      I am

                                            a Swedish Citizen!

Post from: Russian Blog

«Опасная зона!» [Danger Zone!] This sign reminds me of what some of my Russian friends here in Yekaterinburg said when I told them I was offered this job as a blogger in English about Russia - «Ты будешь всякие пакости про нас миру рассказывать? Осторожно!» [Are you going to tell the world all sorts of obscenities about us? Be careful!]

To say the least, this year wouldn’t have been even close to what it has been without you guys! I’ve tried my best to write here about the Russia I know, about the Russia I’ve come to know and love, even after living four years in three cities from Saint Petersburg till Siberia. And I hope that you enjoy what I write. Even though I realize that I’m far from as shocked by Russian Federation today, as I was, say, in 2004 or in 2005, there’s still much I don’t understand [and deep down I know that I'll probably never get many things in this country]. But that first spark of love, of interest, of fascination, that was lit in my heart a long time ago in a country far from here [yeah], remains within me till this very day, and if it hasn’t gone away after all I’ve lived through then… I think it’s a life-time sentence! And it means a lot to me to be able to share this country with other people who think the same - well, not about everything [which is a good thing, right?] but can agree at least on one point; Russia sure is something else!

A year ago, in November 2007, I was deep in thought in a snowy landscape somewhere in the Urals. This year, in November, I am also deep in throught in a snowy landscape somewhere in the Urals…

And in a way of celebrating this year, and everything that I’ve learned this year, from you and just from the Russian blogsphere in general, I will here post my first ever article. I wrote it in September 2005, when I was 20 years young and lived in Siberia, and was more ‘shocked’ by Russia. I offered it to Moscow Times, but they demanded a couple of changes, before publishing it [it was also published in Swedish in my hometown's biggest paper in December 2005]. Here it is, a tiny historical document of times gone by to never come again [judge me gently, remember, I was almost but a child when this was released from my pen...):

«Записки из Другого дома»

[Notes from Another Home]

by Josefina Lundblad, September 2005, Omsk, Russia

 Sometimes when I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror over the common wash stand in the rundown dormitory where I live, in the dirty Siberian town of Omsk, I gently ask myself: “Is this woman really that same girl, who moved to St Petersburg just a year ago, with eight pairs of high heels but no book of Russian grammar in her bags?”

   One year has passed; I spent three months in St. Petersburg then left that stunning town, after being seriously ill (I had mono for over a month), for Siberia. But why? No normal person would move to Siberia - but I never pretended to be normal - I am the last romantic in the world. I moved to Russia overflowing with idealistic love and dreams of vodka based conversations, inquiring Soviet buildings and understanding the classics in Cyrillic, arming myself only with courage, faith and a smile.

   Obvious as it is now; I should have brought something more.

   I have tried my best to unravel the Russian enigma, in my spare time, when not busy falling in love with a Russian Officer during three days on a train, applying to university in Omsk to see him again, getting stuck in the sluggish bureaucracy, arriving in minus thirty just to find him already married, getting over him and then baptized into a Siberian Sect (though thinking it was a church), falling in love with a Russian poet, learning to write bad poetry in Russian with him for three months, surviving two weeks of steamy hot camp in the woods while half eaten by bugs, leaving the sect and settling for a private prayer once in a while, living with twenty Chinese boys, getting a job as a teacher of Swedish at the University (but losing the same job, right before starting, due to lack of education, of which they knew I lacked when they hired me), translating the museum of my hero and true love [Fyodor Dostoevsky] from Russian to English, then finding out that it is forbidden for foreign students to work - yes, my real occupation in Omsk is that of a student studying Russian language…

   So then, have all this help my disentanglement? Did I find what I came for? Have I sorted out Russia? Made all my naïve dreams come true? Do I understand this country, which I selected to be my new home after reading Crime and Punishment, exclusively and basically? What, are you crazy?! If I had, why do you think I would have to write an article like this? And I have to write this - as a Swedish writer living in Russia, as a human being in a place where human beings weren’t intended to live.

    I confess: I am writing a book about Omsk - like all the other foreigners here (all three of us) - with the goal of redeeming the town since that last, infamous, book about “him”. Although I struggled, my notes remind me more and more of its predecessor, [Fyodor Dostoevsky's] Notes from the House of the Dead. Perhaps not even communism or 150 years of time can change the simple truth; life in Russia is bad, but the people are good. Russian life gives character, it makes one willing but impassive, strong tough emotional; Russian life makes me cry. The first time I cried in Russia was after Beslan, which happen on my third day here, since then my tears have wet the Mother soil countless times.

   Russian life frustrates me, the slow pace of a modest provincial town like this makes my nerves curl and my blood jumpy, if it wasn’t officially acknowledged, I never would have estimated Omsk to have twice the population of my home town [Gothenburg]. Russian life confuses me, when Russians regularly tell me not-truth (nepravda) as their substitute for disagreeing or the cruel facts. Russian life taunts me while buying Argument i Fakti in a kiosk, constantly being misunderstood and mocked by the lady behind the glass, only to find out that my vocabulary sadly is not sufficient for reading the paper… Russian life embraces me when a sudden drop of rain touches the tip of my nose on a hot day, while walking in Park Pobedy.

   When I lived in Sweden I was too Russian, in Russia I am too Swedish. My logic is constantly proved illogical, and I turn to dreams, instead of pretending to be richer than I am, while I walk down Lenin Street in a poor and polluted city like this. Russia is simplicity - don’t try too hard and everything falls into place - I wonder what its people could strive for more? I have found the Russian soul to be hidden in the most unexpected, like a bridge built to be monumental but left more or less unused, though it is sometimes concealed with shame by the cheapest Western knock-off. I only wanted a country to call my own, my home; I sought Russia, but ended up with not a country, but a loving land populated by millions of yet-to-be-friends.

   The Russian enigma can’t be understood; it can only grow in, a very annoying development.

   I answer my gentle question to the mirror with a definite conclusion: “No, this woman is certainly not that girl anymore. I changed my high heels for sneakers, never lost neither faith nor courage - now  I actually like grectha, and I finally overcome my fear of tvorog (give me a year and I’ll be eating potatoes and drinking kvass, too) and is known to strike up conversations with cultivated strangers in libraries. Not even finishing three books of Russian grammar could wipe out that gorgeous smile of mine…

Post from: Russian Blog

But within Barack Obama’s name there is a strange task for the Russian system of cases - his first name is masculine, ending as it does on a consonant, while his last name is feminine, ending on the vowel a. In Russian thus Барак Обама. According to the rules of Russian grammar, we must decline his first name as a masculine noun, but his last name as a feminine one. This can and will surely mess with your mind in the way of «Дядя Ваня пришёл» [Uncle Vanja came] or «Врач Смирнова пришла» [Doctor Smirnova came] can and do. Such are the fine and finite rules of Russian grammar - here the ‘hidden sex’ of the words is what counts, not what letters the words actually end on. The problem that arises because of this does so not because we, ambitious yet simple mortal learners of Russian as a foreign language, are unintelligent and think that just because he’s uncle Vanja, then all the verbs connected with him should also end on -a, no! The problem is caused by our brain and its burning desire to make things make sense. And what makes sense to the brain in this case is to follow the rule as presented in the noun, masquerading itself as being feminine, and change all other words according to it - a little phenomenon called «согласование». The problem has the same ‘parents’ as the immediate impulse that makes us want to say «там были много людей» just because it feels right to say the verb in plural when talking about more than one person, forgetting all about the fact that a noun in genetive demands verbs in third person singular: «там было много людей» [many people were there].

So let’s take America’s new president on a virtual walk through all the Russian cases:

Nominative: «Барак Обама - президент Соединённых Штатов Америки» [Barack Obama is the president of the United States of America].

Accusative: «Я не голосовал за Барака Обаму» [I didn't vote for Barack Obama].

Genetive: «Вы слушали последнюю речь Барака Обамы?» [Have you heard Barack Obama's last speech?]

Dative: «Первое время Бараку Обаме будет тяжело» [The first time will be hard for Barack Obama].

Locative: «У меня нет мнения о Бараке Обаме» [I don't have an opinion about Barack Obama].

Instrumental: «Я бы пошла на свидание с Бараком Обамой, но ведь знаешь, он женат!» [I would have gone on a date with Barack Obama, but you know, he's married!]

Post from: Russian Blog

Hello gorgeous! Шесть свежевыпеченных сметанников (из магазина) [six freshly baked 'smetannikis' (from the store)] and the celebration of November 4^th can begin!

This morning when I woke up late there was but one question on my unglossed lips - how should I celebrate today’s beautiful holiday? «Сегодня всё-таки “День народного единства”!» [Today is after all The Day of (People's) Unity!] It used to be something else before, having to do with agreement and reconciliation, but as the Russians reconciled with the fact that it was just another name for the Day of the October Revolution, they agreed to find another day in November to commemorate instead. They didn’t have to look far - the victory from back in 1612 on this very same day was a clear as 70 years of Soviet Power to most citizens. (Forgive me my extremely dry Swedish sarcasm.) As drinking can sometimes, even in a land like this, become more of a tiring process with less than desirable results than leisure with pleasure, I have come up with suggestion of how to celebrate it differently. This suggestion will be not only liked, it will certainly be loved by each and everyone, people of all ages and nationalities. I suggest that we name the 4^th of November «Единый день народных сметанников» [United Day of People's Smetanniki]. This day can be celebrated where ever these heavenly baked goods are sold or made or just found, which is, coincidentally, mainly within the borders of Russian Federation. No one is surprised, I assume, as «сметана» [sour crème; in it's Slavic version] is first and foremost a Russian thing.

Few things are as lovely as what’s pictured above: «Чёрный кофе со сметанником» [Black coffee with a smetannik]. It might not be better than sex, but it is a strong and worthy runner up…

Of all the tasty pastries offered by the wonderful Russian kitchen (and there’s a lot of those!), nothing has ever hypnotized me in quite the same way as the Smetannik did. I first met the Smetannik when I moved to the Urals. I don’t know how popular it is in other regions, partly because I am not far too experienced in the area of «сладкое» [sweets], though I’ve tried my best. In Omsk I never saw any smetannikis. In Yekaterinburg I met my first Smetannik and ever since then all other sorts of sweets became… bleak. Tasteless. Uninteresting. Boring. Nothing could match the joy I experienced when I put my teeth in a soft Smetannik, which is basically two big cookies stuck together by a layer of sweet and sugary smetana. Sometimes it is covered in coconut, which is not really kosher, and that’s why I call those kinds Exotic Smetannikis. This Exotic kind is sold in the «столовая» [dining hall] at Ural State. They’re okay, but far from the best in town. The best kinds of smetannikis to be found in Yekaterinburg are sold by a little bakery located in the house of the local government. There they bake «для своих» [for ‘their own'] but if you walk in pretending like you’ve got some important business there and just happened to be in need of 8 smetannikis, it’s alright. There they have one woman who does them, when she’s not there - no smetannikis. She doesn’t work on the weekend. And she’s got almost a whole month off during the summer. Such things must be kept in mind.

There was a time when I could eat two or even three smetannikis per day. This was not very good. A smetannik contains almost only sugar and fat, and if you don’t count protein from the smetana, it almost completely useless to the human body as nutrition. That’s why I had to stop for a while, even though it made the world… colorless. Since today is the Holiday of Smetannikis (I’m writing a long letter with this suggestion to the president as we speak, mind you!) I think I will splurge and treat myself to two smetannikis. Three smetannikis often lead to all of them ending up in… you know where. Which is identical to the result of celebrating with alcohol, and that is, after all, not my intention when I suggest an alternative.

If you’re not in Russia, and nowhere near a Russian store or bakery, you could make them yourselves. I’ve never done it (I can’t cook and I’m very ashamed of this fact), but I’m sure they’ll be great - the beauty of the Smetannik is that you can never go wrong with it! It’s what is called something for eternity; one of the few things in human life made to last forever

Post from: Russian Blog

By the time everyone guessed right - to which I must say «молодцы!» - my Korean roommate counted just how many new words she’s been learning a week, and fixed it in the following manner: «160 (сто шестдесять) новых слов за неделю!» [160 new words a week!]. Now is there anyone out there prepared to be even more ambitious?

Tomorrow is the 4^th of November, a day which was known as «День согласия и примирения» [The Day of Agreement and Reconciliation] the first time that I was blessed with an opportunity to celebrate it in Russia (in Saint Petersburg back in 2004). It became my favorite Russian holiday, and because of this often I joke in the following way: «В том году я так примирилась, что голова потом три дня болела!» [That year I reconciled so much that my head hurt for three days afterwards!] Russians find this comment very funny. I do too, and though I did ‘reconcile’ back then primarily in combination with alchol, the back lash of too much ‘agreement’ only lasted half a day… Since then a lot of water has passed under many bridges, and the day is now called «День народного единства» [The Day of (People) Unity]. I wonder in what way I should celebrate it? With sleeping in, that’s a given… but then what? I’ll be back!

Post from: Russian Blog

My Korean roommate put up this piece of paper on our wall about a month ago. Only a few days ago did I realize that it is not a correct message in Russian grammatically speaking; no matter how great and ambitious it may be generally speaking. And so I was forced to accept the bitter facts of real life - that I am a foreigner here and that Russian is my third language after all, because I seriously for a whole month could find nothing wrong in this sentence: “100 new words a week!”…. стыд и срам!

Anyway - I will leave it to you guys to discover what’s actually ‘wrong’ in the picture above. [If Russian is your native language, then извините и простите; don't ruin the fun for the rest of us!]

Post from: Russian Blog

For a moment I thought I was drunk when I saw this - a Christmas tree in October standing right outside of WTC in Yekaterinburg - tonight. But then I realized that I wasn’t; that it wasn’t me at all, but just general seasonal drunkenness ahead of itself.

The imperfect verb «пить» has a couple of possible perfect ‘friends’, as I like to call them (because calling them ‘comrades’ would be making a political statement that I’m not likely to make any day soon, though I must confess that my fingers ache to do so). For example «попить» [to drink some; to drink a little bit (of something)] in a sentence like: «я бы водички попила»  [I would like to drink some water] and «допить» [to drink up something; to drink all (of something)] like for example in: «он быстро допил стакан чаю» [he finished the glass of tea fast]. Others that are useful are more or less involved in the process of drinking alcohol specifically; and are, so to speak, synonyms to the verb «пьянствовать» [impfv. to drink too much; be frequently drunk]. which is a bad thing and largely to blame for the average Ivan Kuznetsov dying at an average of 55, in the prime of his life, leaving children and wife Masha to curse the national «потеха» [fun; amusement]. And rightly so. Another one of these perfect friends is «выпить» from the commonly known phrase used rather frequently «он не дурак выпить» [‘he likes to drink; he can hold his drink]. This verb has another imperfect friend - «выпивать».

Other words that share a common root with this verb are, for example:

«питьё» - drinking; drink, beverage.

«годный для питья» - fit to drink.

«питьевой» - drinking (attrib.).

«питьевая вода» - drinking water.

«питьевая сода» - baking soda; bicarbonate of soda.

Indeed, as a foreign student in Russia I am expected to try at least one new brand of vodka a week and wake up with my head under a toilet in a stranger’s bathroom every Saturday morning. If not, then how in the world can I claim to be getting the full Russian experience? Today I will admit to something that’s both shameful for me and for my country of origin - yes, Sweden; it just had to be the one country in the world where alcohol is sold only in state stores on weekdays between 10 am and 7 pm - I have never drunk as much in my life as I did when I used to live in Saint Petersburg and spent my days almost solely with other Swedish students. I’ve never seen such drunkenness as I saw back then during the fall of 2004. Nothing I came across since has ever even managed to come close to it, and that’s not to say a little - look, I’ve been to random parties with even more random men and women in tiny villages in faraway Siberia and you can trust me. Russians know how to handle the «градусы». Scandinavians - not so much. Perhaps at home in Stockholm they can - because it would be too expensive to let oneself go completely - but as soon as they step out of the plane on Pulkovo Airport they’re out of control. In Russia alcohol can be bought anywhere at anytime by anyone. This can cause quite the shock for the innocent Scandinavian. Such a society is not something we’re used to. I’m speaking from experience. The first time I realized that I could go to the kiosk across the street at 2 am and get a beer I was so happy that I was almost ready to trade in my European Union passport. Almost. Then morning came, the beer was finished and I realized that was just brief moment of madness. It happens. To the best of us. At first here in the Urals I was very disturbed by seeing kids on their way to school with a beer in hand before 8 in the morning. But then I noticed how many adults were doing the same thing on their way to work and I realized that me being disturbed wasn’t really going to do anything about it - to make a difference; I’d have to go to the root of the problem. Which is most likely going to turn out to be a place where I don’t want to go.

To make a long story shorter - in Russia I’ve met many different ways of dealing with alcohol. But one thing I’ve noticed here is that people are acutely aware of the shady side of drinking too much; also they are more forgiving to people who tend to drink too much. Russians judge less. Accept more. That’s one of the traits in Russians I love so much - their merciful dealing with human weakness. Perhaps that’s because I feel that I am too - deep, deep down inside - just like a character in the best of classical Russian novels; a weak human being with too high ideals, who keep trying to reach them but just fails and fails and falls down again and again. Russians forgive me this. Because they’re a people that understands weakness, that has the gift of «сострадание» [compassion]. That might even be one of my favorite words - «со» [with] and «страдание» [suffering]. Dang, I should’ve picked that for word of the week… well, too late! And the road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions…

Post from: Russian Blog

Just how much do I love my little pink iPod? Find out here!

Post from: Russian Blog

I found this two weeks ago. I guess the little linguist in me can’t help but to love the funny use of sounds and words in this one…

Post from: Russian Blog