Moscow!

Greetings once more:-)

The field-trip to Moscow for the 10-12th grade history and literature students has come and gone. And oh what a trip it was.  It started off with an 11:00 p.m. train from St. Petersburg Tuesday night and another train heading back to St. Petersburg at 1:00 a.m. on Sunday.  Needless to say, it was a long trip, but also a very good one.  We were able to visit several amazing places as well as watch our students compete in a basketball tournament. A four day field-trip that involved over 20 students for the last part is a tiring experience, but our students did an outstanding job of behaving themselves and being with them was a true pleasure!

Our trip started off with literature/Russian sites on Wednesday.  Amanda's English class is reading Russian literature this semester and Dasha, our friend and one of IA's Russian teachers (as well as my Russian teacher), is reading Dostoevsky with the advanced Russian class. We started the day off by touring the apartment museum of Mikhail Bulgakov.  Bulgakov wrote The Master and Margarita, arguably one of the best novels of the 20th century, in a communal flat over many years during the 1920s and 1930s.  The novel is a mixture of biting social commentary, satire of the Soviet system, magic, and religious reflections.  We had an excellent tour which should provide a solid foundation for Amanda's students as they prepare to read The Master and Margarita later on this semester.

After the Bulgakov museum, we went in the afternoon to the childhood home of Dostoevsky.  Dostoevsky lived in Moscow until he was 16.  After returning from Siberia, he spent most of the rest of his life in St. Petersburg, but Moscow has still managed to filch quite a few pieces of Dostoevsky memorabilia even though none of his writing was done there.  It was interesting to see the conditions in which he grew up and to hear the story of some of his childhood experiences as well as to see first editions and handwritten notes for his novels.

Wednesday was history day.  Two years ago I had the chance to help lead a field-trip to Moscow in connection with the Russian history class I was teaching, and I am glad that I was able to do so again.  We went to the Novodevichy Cemetery in the morning, which is the final resting place of a number of famous Russians.  Great writers like Nikolai Gogol, Anton Chekhov, Mikhail Bulgakov, and Vladimir Mayakovsky can be found there, along with historical figures like the anarchist Peter Kropotkin, Russian president Boris Yeltsin, and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. It was a cold day and there was quite a bit of snow which made finding some of the graves a bit difficult, but it was still a fascinating experience.

In the afternoon we went to the State Historical Museum on Red Square for a tour.  This was my third time in the museum and I still keep finding new things that I don't recall having noticed before.  We had a short tour that provided an overview of some of the most remarkable objects in the Museum and then spent some time letting the students explore other parts of the museum on their own.  Seeing a number of ancient manuscripts that we have read parts of for class was a personal highlight for me.

That night our 9th grade students and a few middle school boys who are on the basketball team came down on the train, along with a few more teachers and parents, to join us for the basketball tournament at the Anglo American School on Friday and Saturday.  Having a group of 33 (adults included) created a certain number of logistical issues, but we managed to handle them with about as much patience and flexibility as could be reasonably expected.

Our basketball team, the Cossacks, is in the midst of a rebuilding year after having a great season last year.  Our best players from last season have either graduated or not at IA this year, which means that we have a very young team without much basketball experience.  Even though we were easily the smallest school and youngest team at the tournament and could only enter the junior varsity division of the tournament, our students played extremely hard against larger schools with much bigger players.  Although we went 1-4 over the course of two days, we had several close games and our students and parents cheered hard for our players.

After four days of field-trip and two days of sore backsides from sitting on bleachers, we caught our 1 a.m. train back to St. Petersburg and arrived back in the city a little before 10 this morning.  It was a very good trip, and something that I know the students will look back on with many fond memories.

We (mostly Amanda!) took many pictures from the trip, so you can see a bit of what we did this past week:

A statute of Koroviev and Behemoth, two characters from The Master and Margarita, outside of the Bulgakov Museum.

Inside the kitchen of the apartment.  Bulgakov lived in a communal flat with 18 people.  The tension of this experience provides an important backdrop to the events of The Master and Margarita.

The apartment was decorated with silhouettes of characters and scenes from the novel.

In the stairwell leading up to the apartment is all sorts of graffiti left by readers of Bulgakov.  The graffiti began back in the 1970s, well before the apartment was a museum, as a way to pay homage to Bulgakov and his work.

Behemoth, a cat, is a key character in The Master and Margarita and was a popular subject for the graffiti drawings on the wall.

Dostoevsky's desk, taken (in my opinion stolen:-P) from St. Petersburg and on display inside of the Dostoevsky's childhood home.

A photograph of Dostoevsky from the museum.

Dostoevsky's signature and pen.

A wooden statue of Dostoevsky alongside me (with a wicked case of hat-hair!)

The entrance to the Novodevichy Convent, a 16th century convent that is adjacent to the cemetery that we visited.

Anton Chekhov's grave.

Mikhail Bulgakov's grave.

The large and rather gaudy grave of Boris Yeltsin. I got to play the tour guide in the cemetery. The students all stood in rapt attention as I rattled off unprepared comments on the people whose graves we were seeing.

The grave of Nikita Khrushchev.  Khrushchev is the only Soviet leader buried in the cemetery.  All of the others are buried next to the Kremlin.

The ceiling of the main entrance in the State Historical Museum.  This depicts all of the rulers of Russia as a family tree going from the 900s all the way up until Alexander III (ruled 1881-1894), who was the tsar when the museum opened.

Another angle of the ceiling with part of the wall.

Our students look at some specimens of birch-bark writing.  Some of the earliest written artifacts from Russia were written on pieces of bark from birch trees.

This was the special prayer space for Ivan IV ("Ivan the Terrible").

This enormous globe was purchased by Peter the Great during his travels in Europe.

A beautifully illustrated manuscript.

Many of the rooms in the museum had examples of clothing and furniture from different eras of Russian history.

One of our seniors does battle with a lion in the museum.

We met up with the second wave of IA students at Starlight Diner, an American-style diner chain with several locations in Moscow. A good time was had by all:-)

The teacher table at Starlight.  From left to right are Jeff (head basketball coach and computer/ESL teacher), Jarod (assistant basketball coach and 6th grade teacher), Lena (the world's greatest secretary), Amanda, myself, Dasha (Russian language teacher), and Jim (Bible teacher).

The fans and the team waiting in the stands before a game.

Our Cossacks prepare for the upcoming challenge.

Playing defense against a team from Kiev.

Amanda brought the game You've Been Sentenced, easily the most fun game ever made that deals with grammar, to help pass some of the downtime at the tournament.  To our delight, the students really loved it.

Number 24 is probably our best player this year and put in some serious playing time this tournament.

These four girls were the best cheering section any team could ask for.  Their enthusiastic yelling, made-up cheers and songs, and high energy level made every game fun.

The main gym at Anglo American Moscow.

The tip off in the game against Anglo American.

One of our 9th graders pulls down a rebound.

 Saturday night it was Dasha's turn to entertain the students with a fun game. This one involved moving cups in a specific rhythm.

The hostel that we stayed in was behind this Catholic Church.  The Church operates a hostel for visitors and pilgrims.

A group shot of the team, students, teachers, and parents who made the trip to Moscow to cheer on our team!

It was a great trip, and we are glad to be back in St. Petersburg to settle into a more normal routine for the rest of the quarter!

Thanks for reading,

Matt

Happy New Year!

Happy 2013 Everyone!

It's the first day of the new year:-) I thought we'd ring in the new year with a short post to start the blogging year off on the right foot. As we've written about before, New Years is the biggest holiday in Russia so last night was an epic celebration for most people in St. Petersburg.  Our celebration was a bit more low-key, but still fun.  We spent New Year's Eve with some friends, playing games, eating pizza, and watching a movie, before heading out to walk around our island a bit and see what sort of celebrations were going on outside.  

We walked out to the edge of the island by the gulf and were able to see many of the firework displays going on around the city.  We could even displays from nearby towns and from Kronstadt looking out across the water.  There were plenty of people nearby who were setting off very impressive displays of fireworks as well.  I assumed that they had to have been professional judging by the quality and sheer quantity of the fireworks, but closer inspection revealed it was all the work of various individuals who had obviously invested some serious money in firework displays.  We weren't anywhere near the professional fireworks displays being set off towards the center or at the big gathering on palace square, so I can only imagine the level of merrymaking and pyrotechnics that were taking place there. It was great walking along the streets and seeing people out, all the while listening to the reverberation of fireworks echoing off of the buildings.  It was certainly a spectacle that would rival any Fourth of July celebration in the U.S.!

Here are a few photos from last night, as well as a few more from a hockey game we went to a few days ago.  Enjoy!

SKA, St. Petersburg's hockey team, was getting in the mood for New Year's as well.  The cheerleaders formed a clock on the ice and one of them even dressed up as a New Year's tree:-)

SKA was playing Slovan, a team from Slovakia which is new to the KHL this year.  We won 1-0 thanks to a goal scored by NHL star and current SKA captain Ilya Kovalchuk.

We were behind the fan section for this game, so we saw the usual flag waving, chanting, and singing of team songs.

The SKA bench.

Between the first and second periods a youth hockey team came out and played a short game.  It was fun to see these tiny little boys playing, complete with there Santa hats attached to the helmets.  Do not let their small size fool you- these kids could really skate!

Perhaps these kids will be the future stars of the KHL or Russia's Olympic team:-)

Me and our friend Jarod standing out by the edge of the island and looking back towards the city.

Someone nearby unleashed an impressive barrage of fireworks that lasted probably close to 10 minutes.  The next few pictures were from it.

Walking along the streets we saw all sorts of people setting off their fireworks as well.  This was in impressive explosion that we witnessed.  The air was full of the smell of sulfur!

Happy new year,

Matt

Tallinn for Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Our semester came to an end on December 19th with the completion of final exams. This was the first year that we have had a mandatory final exam week and overall things went well.  We still have our grades to do since finals were the last week before break, but it was nice to be able to use all of the days leading up to the end of the semester instead of trying to cut things off early in order to get report cards out before the end of the semester.

Two days after the end of the semester, we headed off to Tallinn, Estonia!  As you may possibly remember, we went to Tallinn during our Christmas break in 2010 and had a wonderful time.  We had been hoping to be able to go back and things worked out this year so that we could.  We were able to spend Christmas day itself in Tallinn and to take in the snowy beauty of the old medieval town. We were able to see several things that we were unable to during the first time we were in Tallinn, as well to enjoy doing certain things again.

What follows are a selection of our photos, beautifully chosen by Amanda:-), to document our trip:

This picture was taken while we sat on a bridge quite literally between Russia and Estonia. The bus we took crossed the border at the cities of Ivangorod (Russia) and Narva (Estonia) where a river divides the two countries. After passing through the Russian side of the border (which had some unwanted excitement when the border guard refused to believe that Amanda's terrible old passport picture could possibly be of the woman who was standing at passport control, but thankfully everything worked out), we rode across the bridge and then passed through the Estonia side of the border.

The Christmas market!  Tallinn is well known for its annual Christmas market that runs from the end of November into the second week of January. We arrived somewhat late our first night so many of the vendors had already closed, but you can still see the lights and beautiful tree in the square of the Old Town.

We went to Kiek in de Kok, the largest of the medieval towers in the Old Town of Tallinn. Tallinn has 20 towers and around 2 kilometers of walls still standing from the late middle ages.  Some of the towers you can visit.  In this one there was a floor dedicated to torture and punishments, so Amanda and I each took our turn in the stocks.

A painting of the crucifixion in Kiek in de Kok that shows the Blackheads under the cross. The blackheads were an organization of bachelor merchants who also played a role in the military defense of Tallinn. This painting commemorates their role in a battle against Russia during the Livonian war in the late 16th century.

The Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, the largest Russian Orthodox Church in Tallinn, seen through one of the windows of Kiek in de Kok.

Tallinn's old town is built up around Toompea hill, a natural place to build a fortress. A series of man-made defensive bastions run alongside the hill, and under the bastions is a series of tunnels. We took a tour of the tunnels. Above is a picture looking through a glass pane that shows the part of the tunnels that have yet to be restored. As you can see, this section is still filled with water in many places.

We climbed along the city wall in a number of places and went up the various towers that are open to tourists.

One thing that I had especially wanted to do last time we were in Tallinn but didn't was to visit the puppet museum. Tallinn has a well known puppet theater and attached to it is a museum of the many puppets that have been part of its history. This is one image of a room filled with puppets!

No trip to Tallinn is complete without a trip to Olde Hansa, Tallinn's premier medieval restaurant.  We went there our first time in the city and knew that we had to go back (we actually ate there twice this time). Here I am about to enjoy a meal of duck leg with saffron sauce, gingered carrots, onion jam, sauerkraut, and barley.

A shot of the candle-lit hall that we dined in.  The restaurant does its best to provide a medieval atmosphere and serve food that would have been available at that time.

The Niguliste (St. Nicholas) Church. This is one of the many old churches in Tallinn. Several of the churches are still in use, although this one is now only a museum.

Inside the church you can find the wooden coat of arms of many noble families from Tallinn's past.

A massive altar stands at the front of the church.

The church is perhaps most famous for being the location of the Danse Macabre, Tallinn's most famous painting. Completed in the late 1400s, it is uncertain as to how large the original painting was. The current painting contains about a dozen figures, but it is known that the artist also painted a similar work for another church that contained over 40 figures.  The figure portrays the dance of death, showing society in descending hierarchical order (starting on the right with the pope, then the emperor, then king, then queen, then cardinal, etc.) with an image of death in between each figure. The dance of death was a common medieval art theme, reflecting a world that was still being periodically ravaged by the Black Plague.

This photo with me in it gives some sense of the size of the surviving part of the painting.

In the square in the Old Town there was a stage set up for various Christmas-themed performances.  We saw a group of folk dancers one day. It was bitterly cold, making their performance even more impressive.

The Cathedral of Saint Mary the Virgin, known as the Dome Church. Like many of the churches in Tallinn, it was originally a Catholic Church that became Lutheran after the Reformation.

The organ in the back of the church.  We got to enjoy a Christmas Eve concert in this church which was a wonderful experience.

The main altar, with Christmas trees guarding either side.  On the walls are coats of arms of local nobility dating back to the 17th century.

We also went to the Estonian History Museum.  I took advantage of a display that allowed you to try on some models of medieval soldiers equipment.

The upper area of the history museum.  Estonia has a long and interesting history.  Settled thousands of years ago, it first appeared in European history with the Danish conquest of it in the early 1200s (giving Estonia its connection to the Viking age). German crusaders conquered Estonia later on in the 1200s in an effort to convert the pagan Estonians. The Germans were overthrown by the Swedes by the 1600s who in turn were driven out by the Russians when Peter the Great conquered Estonia in 1710. Estonia was part of the Russian empire for the next 200 years.  After the Russian Revolution Estonia fought against Russia from 1918-1920 to gain its independence and form a republic. However, the Soviet Union occupied Estonia again in 1940 and remained in control until the collapse of the U.S.S.R. in 1991. As a result of all of this, as the history musuem noted, Estonians have only ruled their country themselves for about 40 of the last 800 years.

People left letters to Santa Claus (or to Ded Moroz, Tallinn's population is nearly half Russian) on the tree in the Old Town square.

The Holy Spirit Church is a church we visited the first time we were in Tallinn but its beautiful wooden art drew us back again.

The gorgeous altar, made by Bernt Notke, the same artist who painted the Danse Macabre (and also made the sculptor of St. George and the Dragon in Stockholm that we posted a photo of over the summer)

St. Catherine's Passage- a narrow walk way through part of the Old Town.

Another view of Tallinn from a different section of the wall.

On Christmas we walked about Toompea Hill. It was very, very snowy which made both of us happy. One of the towers on Toompea Castle, which sits on the hill above the Old Town.

A view of Tallinn from one of the scenic lookouts on top of Toompea hill.

Amanda holding the spire on the tower below.

We also walked out to edge of the town along the Baltic Sea. To get here we climbed slippery steps leading up to the top of Tallinn's old theater hall (now empty). The building won an architectural award when it was built.

Fat Margaret- the round cannon tower that marks one end of the Old Town. We had never been out to this end of the city before and the name of the tower was particularly appealing. :-)

For our last night in Tallinn we saw The Hobbit and then headed back to Olde Hansa once more.  This picture is of some of the musicians who performed medieval music for the hungry diners.

Our trip was a lot of fun and great way to take a break after all of the labor of the previous semester.  This new semester will have its share of new activity as well.  In fact, the second week back we will both help lead a high school field trip to Moscow. This will be similar to the one from two years ago. Since I am teaching Russian History this year and Amanda is going to spend a semester on Russian literature with her 10-12th grade class, we are going to Moscow for several days to see some of the historical/literary sites.  As before, this will also tie in with the annual basketball tournament hosted by Anglo-American school in Moscow that IA usually participates in. I'm sure we'll have photos and more about this trip in the future!

Thanks for reading,

Matt