samizdat

Music

2011-05-18T21:08:00.000-07:00

I remember hearing somewhere that the music that we listened to in high school would be the music we would love for the rest of our lives. After a stressful day of work and a bike ride in the rain, I knew i just wanted a hot shower and to listen to some Jewel- she was one of the first concerts I went to, at red rocks even! I guess I've found this to be true as I have never felt as starstruck as the night my babysitter's friend told me that she had seen jewel play live at a coffee shop while Jewel was still living out of her car.

The music we listened to in high school was the music that would shape the rest of our lives because we listened to this music in our most care-free self-expresive days. Life as an adult gets rough, but when we were in high school with few responsibilities we could get away with the daunting fashion experiments, raging opinions with no anxieties. I guess that's why I've come to love the writings of the Style Rookie, she loves all the films I loved in my angst-filled high school years and has found a way to express those in high fashion- mixing my current ideas of what is stylish with my personal guilty pleasures that still linger. Crushes on Leonardo DeCaprio in Romeo and Juliet, gseeing Garbage in concert, and late night coffee/or ice cream shops with deep conversations with friends. The music that we love the most is that which transports us back to this place.

10 PM

2009-06-08T02:41:00.001-07:00

, originally uploaded by laurichka.

This is what 10pm looks like during white nights on a rooftop.

pedalcab

2009-06-04T10:43:00.001-07:00

pedalcab, originally uploaded by Patrick Finn.

Adams found this picture of me on Flickr yesterday. What a fun summer that was.

Bodies in Urban Spaces (Pro Arte)

2009-05-31T01:39:00.000-07:00

On Friday the St. Petersburg art institute Pro Arte celebrated its tenth anniversary at Peter and Paul fortress. The event included a choir singing soviet-style patriotic songs about Pro Arte, video installations by students and the visiting US artist Billy Viola, and one of the best performance art pieces I've seen: Bodies in Urban Spaces. The performance was exactly what the title implies. Photos below:

(we were incredibly impressed by this girl- she was so compact!):

Drainpipes galore!

These kids added to the performance and yelled "no! we're not part of it" to me when i snapped their picture, just in case i was confused:

And Only a Month Remains... or I (heart) SpB

2009-05-31T00:47:00.000-07:00

I pasted hand-drawn calendar pages on my dresser a month ago to make sure I'd get everything done before i leave. Tonight I'll cross off the last day on page one, which means I'm well into white nights, but have little time left in Piter. Leaving in summer is tricky, but the way to go in Russia. Everyone has thawed from winter and is taking full advantage of light past midnight. City walks are warm and the breeze blowing accross the neva carries that refreshing water smell that brought Peter to build this city 306 years ago (yesterday was the celebration of the city's birth, so we're all counting).

Here are some things I've been up to since the weather has gotten nice:

spending time in parks with friends
performing feats of strength

Sasha turned 22 so we had a party for her here at the apartment. We made a bunch of food including some American treats- ants on a log, banana bread, and salsa (to go with recently found tortilla chips!):

The spread:

we bought this pie and then forgot to serve it during the party:
we ate some of it for breakfast the next day, but it was a lot more beautiful than it was delicious, so the guests didn't miss out on too much.

2009-05-07T12:57:00.001-07:00

, originally uploaded by laurichka.

way better than any balcony

2009-05-07T12:56:00.001-07:00

way better than any balcony, originally uploaded by laurichka.

This afternoon Olga and I climbed through a mess of stairs and sat up on the roof of her school. I love a good view of St. Petersburg rooftops. We enjoyed the sunshine as the threat of rainclouds were collecting on the horizon. I took a lot of pictures today and put them up on my flickr page.

rooftop romance

2009-05-07T11:41:00.001-07:00

rooftop romance, originally uploaded by laurichka.

Kostya's Dacha

2009-04-29T00:56:00.001-07:00

Kostya's Dacha, originally uploaded by laurichka.

Yesterday we spent the day at Kostya's Dacha, having a cookout and enjoying some time away from the city. You can see pictures of it on my flickr page.
The pond next to Kostya's dacha was full of frogs mating- we heard a choir of croaking (more convincing than my nokia ringtone!) and saw about a hundred frogs mating all together and laying huge piles of eggs.
Spring is in full swing after waiting out a long long winter. I know that it's officially spring now because the fountains around the city have been turned on, all of my water heaters have been shut off, and restaurants all around the city are building their decks for patio seating. To make up for 4 hrs of sunlight in the winter, the days are long- sunshine lasting past 9 o'clock. Syd has a few more days here in Petersburg with me so I have to run to do more city touring. We've been having a fantastic time enjoying the new feeling of spring on this city.

signs of spring

2009-04-23T00:51:00.000-07:00

Judging by the hemline on the skirt the girl (above) is wearing, spring is officially here. Syd and I spent all of yesterday walking around soaking up the sunshine. There was a huge military parade (rehearsal?), we weren't entirely sure what was going on. Yesterday was Lenin's birthday, but a soldier we asked said the parade had something to do with victory day (May 9th).

Soldiers, Soldiers everywhere:

We walked past this bus just before it unloaded. The little sailor boys all blew kisses at Syd and me. We were cracking up:

We caught up with Peter the Great:

Then watched the last remains of winter float away down the Neva:

Everyone was walking around on Nevsky, this guy was posing with his bike

Bright spring coats!

Darth Vader? I guess everyone is starting to flock to Petersburg now that it's spring.

The prettiest girl at prom:

2009-04-20T02:12:00.001-07:00

was my little sister. That one sure does clean up nice! I'd like to thank Facebook for making these pictures available to me. Unfortunately Mark deleted his page, so he'll be harder to track down.

2009-04-20T01:49:00.000-07:00

And again, i lag far behind.

Petersburg is starting to bud into spring. We've had several days over 50 degrees F and the rollerbladers are out in full form. I've switched from my long coat to my short jacket (even though i've had a couple of chilly walks home, i refuse to wear the winter coat anymore!) I've even been able to ditch my boots most days and walk around in my sneaks. Yuri said he has an old soviet bike in his apartment that he'll let me borrow for the next two months so that i can really enjoy spring/early summer in this city.

I finished binding together my Boy With the Red Balloon book. I'll send you all gorgeous pictures soon! Syd just got in to Petersburg this morning after a rough trip on the overnight train from Moscow. She's recovering by sleeping in past noon, and i'm in the kitchen enjoying sampling the selections of coffees she brought me from the US (Stumptown thanks to my old housemates in portland, and a giant bag of Metropolis coffee from Chi-town) and dipping apple slices into a fresh jar of peanut butter for the first time in months. Hopefully i'll take it easy and let the stuff last a while. I recently found Hummus in this city and I've been gorging myself on it whenever I'm back in my apartment.

Syd and I met here in Petersburg- she was a Bard student studying at Smolny for the summer program and for the second semester. We traveled all through Europe together at the end of the year. After so many adventures together we hadn't seen each other in two years, having failed to meet up in states in the meantime, until she got here early (6 AM!) this morning. Syd, Kostya and I sat in the kitchen drinking tea and eating fig newtons (syd didn't have any, fruit disgusts her) just like no time had passed. I'll keep all you anxious readers up to date on our excursions over the next two weeks. Knowing Syd they'll be far beyond the Russian "normal."

Abbie and her friend Jessie came through two weeks ago and stayed for a week. We all shared my bed and were lulled to sleep by Abbie's orchestrated snoring lullabies. These fine ladies got to come with me to see the printmaking studio and meet Yuri. We also saw a ballet at the Marinskii, saw the peacock clock go off at the Hermitage, heard a great funk band play and other things I failed to keep track of. Most memorable were the delicious dinners we put together- curry, italian style veggie bake w/ meat sauce, and a whole dinner of party finger foods Mermaid's style (you know, the movie with Cher winona ryder and a young Christina Ricci). All in all, a wonderful week!

arting around in petersburg

2009-04-05T05:56:00.000-07:00

Now that there's little time left in Russia everything has sped up- I can hardly believe that it's been nearly 3 weeks since that last post. Sorry folks.

I've finished printing all the pages for my book, I've made a cover, now all I have to do is sew the whole thing together.

This last week was lots of printmaking and art openings.
First up: Pyotr Bely- the artist that shares the St. Petersburg Printmaking studio with Yuri had an opening at the Comic Art Gallery. He constructed spaces out of rubber, lights and color. i remember one day he walked into the studio playing with a big slice of rubber declaring that he'd fallen in love with the stuff. The gallery was super crowded so it was hard to get a good view of any of hte pieces in the front room:

but i really liked these spaces set up in the back. Still, they reminded me of renn fayre projects.

The Hermitage just opened a show about books in their collection- a mixture of artist books, rare antique books, and book objects. Yuri got me an invitation to the opening because one of his books is featured in the exhibition:

clock books:
I'm looking forward to going back again and actually getting a good look at the works- when i was there it was full of camera crews and photo journalists:
Everyone went off to drink champaigne and toast the event but I wandered around some of the hermitage interiors and found this hilarious wax bust of peter the great!

The Printmaking Studio

2009-03-14T03:41:00.000-07:00

Here are some shots of the St. Petersburg Printmaking Studio:

The door (the sign to the left of the doorbell says "sportclub")
This is Yuri:

Here's Yuri pulling a print (didn't quite turn out, but a neat photo!)

Here's a photo Yuri snapped of me working away:

Here are some pictures of the illustrations I'm doing for my book based on The Boy with the Red Balloon:
(this second one is my favorite so far):

The balloons in this print look so great!

I'm using a technique called "dry point" to make all of these- etching, scratching and gluing on old linoleum floor tiles. I'll take some pictures of the plates soon too.

2009-03-14T03:31:00.001-07:00

Last night we had a skype conference with some of the Reed College Russian classes. It was really fun to see a couple of familiar faces...

After the conference Kostya let me give him a haircut. I'm getting better with every snip.
Now he looks like the Russian Zoolander!

i dentity (theft) crisis.

2009-03-08T07:16:00.000-07:00

Honestly, anyone who knows me should know that i don't need anyone else to try and help me spend my money. I'm good enough at doing that myself. Now, if someone wanted to help me make some....

It's happened again- all of my bank information was stolen. I'm a poor poor girl for another week and a half. Luckily, USbank caught the perps before they got off with any of my fulbright bucks. Zhenya (my Reed prof) will be out here the week of the 14th and will be bringing me and EB new cards (her identity was thefted as well). I'm suspicious our wireless network has something to do with all this mess. Looks like it's back to the ol' ethernet cable.

I found out about all of this on Friday, but managed to borrow 1000 rubles (and spend nearly all of it in a night) so that i could go see Stereo Total play at A2. After having an emotional time on the phone with the bank and then with Ryan, i was more than ready to dance out all of my anger. Fueled by my frustration, and gin and tonic in a can, I danced so fiercly, that i got to go up on stage, dance with the group, cracking up the girl from Stereo Total and earning 3 kisses on the cheek.

train rides

2009-03-05T01:49:00.000-08:00

what bit my leg??

2009-02-28T11:52:00.001-08:00

what bit my leg??, originally uploaded by laurichka.

I've gotten bug bites on and off this entire year, but this is by far the most alarming. It's itchy as the dickens, but thankfully my roomate came to russia armed with cortizone cream so i've been attacking this one all day. I'm holding a penny in the picture so give you an idea of the unsettling large size of this bite. Help!

2009-02-26T07:48:00.000-08:00

This was the view out of the train window this morning as i rode back in to Petersburg. Everything was covered in frost and turning rosy in the morning light.

I'll write a real post soon, i promise.

2009-02-13T08:50:00.001-08:00

Click the button for unicorns and rainbows. Thanks Vanessa!

2009-02-12T03:04:00.001-08:00

2009-02-11T14:06:00.000-08:00

There is nothing worse than bug bites on your foot because your feet itch all over again when you put your shoes on. I wonder what keeps biting me in this apartment! it's making my skin crawl (not to mention itch and swell in bites!) I've looked into it a bit and decided it's not bed bugs- and it's never regular enough to be concerned of an infestation. I'll call these two spider bites and do my best not to itch them anymore.

I bought a ticket to Yekatarinburg today to go and visit my dear Abbichka. I'll leave Monday evening and get in Wendesday morning. 36 hours on a train! I'm kind of cringing at the thought of such a long trian ride, but it's an experience I should undertake before leaving. And it's weaksauce compared to the transiberian ride my friend David had to take back to Vladivastock. Lucky for me, i'll be riding out with fellow fulbrighters Elizabeth and Anna. I'm hoping for beautiful snowy Russian landscapes to decorate our views as we spend a cozy lazy day in the plotscar.

Buying the train tickets was a reminder in how one simple task in Russia takes up an entire afternoon. Russia has taught me patience, if nothing else. After waiting in unmoving lines we noticed a new window open up and hustled over right behind a woman ordering a ticket. As the woman was almost finished another Russian lady pushed her way through us and mumbled something about being there before the ticket window went on break. Ok, that's annoying, but typical we all thought. Next, a SECOND lady budges in front of us. She argues with Anna about her place in line, and proceeds to purchase tickets for an entire excursion group!!! We had to wait while she negotiated and signed for 11 tickets. The whole ordeal took over 3 hours, so we decided that to indulge in a sushi lunch. after all, the dollar seems to be kicking ass and taking names over here so it's not the splurge it used to be.

two quick things to share

2009-02-10T01:30:00.000-08:00

First off, I have a new roomate! EB (Elizabeth) moved in last week upon her return to Russia. She's studying at Smolny this semester and does a much more consistent job of updating her blog. So if I go for another month without updates you can hear about me through the eyes of EB. So far she's a stellar roomate.

second thing: last week I went to a Nina Karlson concert- she's a cute singer/songwriter from piter who sounds a lot like fiona apple.

2009-02-09T01:00:00.000-08:00

I finally busted out the new electric toothbrush I got for christmas. This is my second attempt of switching over from manual to electric, so let me know if you think my teeth stay cleaner this way. (i guess that goes for you, EB, since you're the only one in Russia who reads this)

The weather in Petersburg is incredibly mild- it's 34 degrees today and rainy. The grey overcast sends my thoughts spinning about the economic crisis and its effects here in Russia. The Russian Federation is getting hit hard as international investors pull out and the price for gas and oil drop. When I got to Russia in September the dollar was good for about 25 rubles (which made all the conversion math swimmingly simple- 100 rubles= 4 bucks!). Now the ruble has dropped to 36 to the dollar. My rent has dropped dramatically. I was paying $580 when i got here. Even with the landlord raising it another 2000 rubles, EB and I are paying approx $414 each. Although it comes as a relief to my bank account (especially after a gluttonous trip around europe) I can't help but worry about the fate of the economy here and how bad things will be for my dear friends out here in the future.
Bryan (the director of Smolny) was over the other day telling us about the horrors of Russian life in the 90's. After hearing him describe the shortage of food, how power plants in siberia would break down leading to whole towns freezing to death, and the incredible amount of inflation- it's not hard to see why Putin has so many supporters. The picture that Bryan painted of Russian life in the 90's is hard to imagine against the glamourous comsumer culture that Petersburg paints for itself nowadays. There were no ladies in stilleto boots clinging to their sugar daddies on the way to one of many sushi restaurants in town. When inflation was at its worst, a loaf of bread would cost more than a worker's salary in a month.
I'm going to get my hands on some more reading materials to better understand how Russia's economy changed so drastically and how the oligarchs took power. It seems this story is about to take a historical twist while I'm living in it.

peterburger pie

2009-02-06T02:20:00.000-08:00

A real life parody of Sweeney Todd has broken loose in the media here in Petersburg. Apparently two 19-yr old goth/emo kids kidnapped and killed a 16 yr old girl and cooked her up in a pie! This is horrifyingly absurd. Here's the st. petersburg times article on it. I knew those emo kids were a breed not to be messed with. These streets are dangerous.

2009-02-05T06:16:00.000-08:00

The amount of blogging I have to catch up on doesn't even come close to the amount of laundry that needs to be done. I'll start now- now that all my guests have finally left and I have some down time before the semester and my work takes off again....

The Banya

I am slightly embarrassed to admit that I finally had my first real banya experience only two nights ago. The Russian banya is a tradition I had only experienced vicariously through tales of other Americans abroad. I could never convince Sashen'ka to take me as she believed that the banya boils your brains. I was hosting fulbrighter David and his (American) friend was visiting from Paris and needed an education in Russian life. We recruited a group: Sasha, David, Daniel, Anna, Carrie, Olga and me and headed to soak in the culture.
The banya is the Russian sauna- you beat each other over the back with soaked birch branches and take breaks from the heat by jumping into a pool of water (or snow if you're doing it right and banya-ing out in the countryside). You do this in cycles of three- three rounds in the banya, three breaks in the cold cold water. We only had time for one troika in our group and it was so much fun! The shock of the cold water feels amazing after sitting around and sweating.
The banya cleansed all the vacation out of me, and petersburg has gotten cold, as if to say "the time has come for more serious work, to sit inside and read and write."

Obamica

2009-01-24T10:07:00.001-08:00

Flickr-68.JPG, originally uploaded by laurichka.

We went to the Jewish Museum in Berlin the other day (unfortunately we got there only a couple hours before close and didn't have time to see everything) and i found this amazing Obamica.

2009-01-12T03:02:00.000-08:00

Well, I've been quite lousy at keeping up with my blog so far in 2009 and i'm hoping to change that soon.

New Year's Eve in Petersburg was worth the early flight home. After a feast and games at Olga's house we took our party group to the streets where everyone was out- there was a girl in a Father Frost costume handing out clementines, groups of people dancing, setting off fireworks-all of petersburg was running around on Nevsky shouting "С НОВЫМ ГОДОМ!" to each other.
I posted some pictures from the night here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurichka/

and then everyone was on holiday until yesterday.

I met with Yuri a few days ago and we outlined goals for the rest of the year. He and Pyotr pulled out a bunch of printmaking journals and suggested i submit the article that I wrote to more specialized journals.

On Friday some of my fellow fulbright friends arrived: Abbie, Jason and Matt. The four of us plus Olga (five total) are heading out on a trip throough parts of Europe tomorrow. I've already been to the countries we're visiting- the netherlands, germany and czech republic- but it'll be just as exciting to go back and spend more time in these places and nothing beats wonderful travel company.

We've been having a great time together so far- seeing places like the Nabakov museuem (complete with his butterfly collection!), the Hermitage, an opera: The Magic Flute, and the Russian Museum. The opera, as it turns out, was not in the Marinskii, but the music hall of the marinsky. We were worried that we were going to be late when we got to the theatre and rushed to buy tickets without realizing that they were tickets to Swan Lake. Oh no!
Luckily, our fluent friend Olga was able to save us all. She told the lady at the ticket window that her friends don't speak Russian and that we wanted to see the magic flute. She switched our tickets and we got seats for the Magic Flute right on the stage!

so much more i want to write, but so much needs to get done today. I'll catch up soon!

2009-01-05T16:18:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year Sasha!, originally uploaded by laurichka.

Holiday Pictures now up on Flickr!

2009-01-05T16:09:00.001-08:00

, originally uploaded by laurichka.

2009-01-01T14:55:00.000-08:00

more animals
Matroshka Kittehz wishin' you a happy new year!

Copper Mountain

2008-12-25T16:17:00.001-08:00

Copper Mountain, originally uploaded by laurichka.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Yesterday Mark, Ryan and I went snowboarding/skiing at Copper. No life lines and half a foot of new snow! What a great day.

2008-12-23T21:58:00.001-08:00

Petersburg, originally uploaded by laurichka.

2008-12-19T10:57:00.000-08:00

I'm back in Colorado these days and amazed by all the sunshine and blue skies!
Another one of my restaurant reviews was published today in the St. Petersburg Times. You can read it here.

Published

2008-12-13T02:32:00.000-08:00

I've been looking for this link for days, and it's finally up! Here, at long last, is the article I wrote for the St. Petersburg Times about artist books.

2008-12-08T06:59:00.000-08:00

A whole week has passed and I've failed to finish this blog entry- mostly because trying to organize this many pictures is a royal pain. But here it is!:

Thursday night Sasha and I hopped on the overnight train to Moscow planning to spend Friday in Moscow and head to Rizan, where her babushka lives, Friday night.
I have a strange relationship with Moscow, as half the time I see the city I'm exhausted from not sleeping well enough on the train ride there. This time Moscow was surprisingly warm compared to peter, 7 degrees (that's C not F) in the face of our fresh snow! Sasha's friend, Lera, met up with us, and the three of us spent the day walking around Moscow- and we were sure to check out the newest American chain to make it to Russia: Starbucks. That's right, Moscow now has a Starbucks, and it's completely bizzare to walk in because it looks exactly like any american- except that everything is twice as expensive! A medium drip coffee is around 4 bucks, anything fancy is 8 dollars or more.

Sasha and Lera in a park in Moscow

Below: Sasha and Lera pointing to the bright gleeming future, Sasha modeling her knowledgeable chopstick skills at the sushi restaurant

Next- Sasha and I missed the express train to Rizan, and ended up having to take the bus. This was the longest busride of my life. The first two hours were fine- we were so exhausted from walking around all day in a groggy mess that we passed out as soon after settling into our seats.
I woke up from my nap to find our bus stopped and stuck in traffic, not far from where we had started. I became claustraphobic- the bus wasn't moving and the highly loathed Humour FM radio station was blaring. It was a mix of tacky jokes, obnoxious advertisements, cheesy russian synthesizer pop songs interrupted every now and then by the station's tagline: "Humour FM, laughter in the face of the crisis- sending the crisis back to America!" Great.

Sitting in the seat, I knew that after a couple more painful hours I would be off that bus- I knew the ride, no matter how painful, couldn't last forever; but sitting in my seat gritting my teeth through the sounds of horns blaring and laughtracks, there was no end in sight.

When we did finally make it to Rizan, the whole bus ride had been worth it. Sasha's grandmother let us in and welcomed us with big hugs and a table full of food! You will never know what overeating is until you've spent a weekend as a guest to a Russian babushka!
I also found this amazing picture of little Sasha at the beach in her glamorous sunglasses holding her friend monkey!

The next day Elya and Natasha met up with us!

More pictures from the weekend:

rolling out

2008-12-04T08:00:00.000-08:00

Sasha called me a couple of hours ago asking if I'd like to go with her to Moscow tonight and then on to Рязин tomorrow to visit her Babushka. I thought, why wouldn't I? So now i'm packing my bags and skipping town for the weekend. I'll catch up with all of you on Monday!

update on the water front:

2008-12-03T03:19:00.000-08:00

We have hot water once again!!! It just came on about 20 minutes ago. Clean dishes, and now, after a good scrub down, a clean me!

empty pipes

2008-12-02T15:24:00.000-08:00

Our hot water has been shut off all day. I can't shake this greasy, stinky and gross feeling. I considered for a second boiling a bunch of water for a bath... but that would take far too long. Oof, i hope we have hot water tomorrow, but if not, at least I can shower at the gym.

Endless nights

2008-12-01T04:51:00.001-08:00

It's nearly 4pm here in Petersburg and the sky is already dark. Not a dramatic change from the grey clouds hanging over our heads all day. Night only becomes noticeable by the brightening interiors accross the courtyard contrasting more sharply with the outside walls. The nights are disorientinigly long. I find myself up until 4 am some evenings drawing, reading, writing or out with friends, not even noticing how much time has passed by. I end up sleeping in and missing the first few hours of daylight "sun". Colorado's promise of 300 days of sunshine a year will be the most jarring difference when I head home in two weeks.
Today i woke up with an onset of a cold. This means echinacea tea, a pot of borscht, mandarin oranges and theraflu for the day while i get through a good chunk of White Noise. Hopefully I'll kick this cold faster than the last one.
I saw a band from California, The Rubies, play this weekend at Achtung Baby. They were having a lot of fun playing in Russia to the shouts of "I love you!" in Russian accents from teenage boys. I talked to them after the set and they asked me how to explain "I'm a vegetarian but i want to eat more than just this dry plate of vegetables" in Russian. They gave up and said they were only here for two days anyway- one in petersburg and one in moscow- so they figured they would survive.
Kostya is back in Petersburg now after traveling around Russia. Vanessa, Kostya and I went dancing with a couple of people that work at SPtimes. Kostya is the most fierce dancer I've ever encountered. Next time i'll tape his dancing and post it on here because i lack words to describe it.

"But Charlie Brown! It's Thanksgiving!" "What's that got to do with anything?"

2008-11-27T03:07:00.000-08:00

Luckily that's not the case for me today.
I'm headed out to make Banana Bread and square pumpkin pie (there are no pie dishes anywhere in this country! Maybe ikea, but that's a 2 hour trek there and back!)for the TWO thanksgiving dinners today. The first with a group of fellow fulbrighters at 6, then 9:30 at Bryan Billing's annualy Smolny thanksgiving mess. Last time Sam brought a bucket of KFC, we'll see if we're all that lucky this time around.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Good luck to Mom, Dad, Mark and Megan in the Turkey Trot.
Here are some bits of Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving:

kicking it middle school style...

2008-11-24T13:23:00.000-08:00

I met up with Vanessa today as she was getting her hair chopped off at the salon Toni and Guy. I sat down and chatted it up with her as the stylist was finishing up. This place was classy- they served an americano as I kept my americanka company during her big chop chop.
On our walk back we went hat shopping- having no hair in snowy petersburg is pretty chilly. We didn't end up finding Vanessa a hat, but we did find Freeman's Cucumber Peel off Mask at Rive Gauche!

We pampered the 6th graders inside of us by treating our faces to this cucmbery delight. I forgot how fun it is to peel this gluey stuff off your face, and how much it sucks when it's stuck in your eyebrows.

2008-11-23T14:40:00.000-08:00

Look who's taking after her big sister:

a lazy cozy sunday

2008-11-23T14:19:00.000-08:00

Sasha spent the night after missing her marshrutka home last night and we woke up this morning to find the windowsills covered in snow! A real storm this time- a good five inches. We went to the store to stock up on food so that we could hibernate and have a Kill Bill marathon all day. We ate: ham+cheese grilled sandwiches, mandarines, apples, gingerbread cookies covered in chocolate, fresh-baked banana bread, pretzels and tea.
I went out to try to get a webcam tonight but the computer store was already closed. I called Megan last night through Skype and it was so fun to see everyone and give Sasha a tour of our house via skype! By now all the snow has turned into dirty slush. Walking around tonight I was so happy to have my new boots. They were impenetrable! I walked straight through slush puddles and kept warm and dry. All of this for just 1000 rubles (40 bucks!) what a deal after so many days of awful rain and wet feet.

Alarm Will Sound

2008-11-23T02:27:00.000-08:00

Last night I went to the Alarm Will Sound concert- the ensemble played two covers of Aphex Twin songs- an electronic group. Pretty incredible show, give it a listen:

2008-11-20T15:20:00.001-08:00

, originally uploaded by laurichka.

beautiful.

bubbling over

2008-11-20T14:35:00.000-08:00

Petersburg feels smaller and smaller every day. Yesterday Andre invited me to go to the Sound the Alarm concert tonight. Then, Sasha called me earlier today to invite me to the same event! I showed up and ran into Frank, Maria and another Andre I know, after having just run into Piper on the street on the walk over.
There's an American music festival going on right now featuring contemporary classical composers. The show tonight was pretty incredible- a free show at the Hermitage theater, a rather small venue with amazing acoustics. I hadn't heard of Sound the Alarm before and they blew me away. The ensemble will play again Saturday, so I might have to go.
Whenever i talk about Russia and all the time i spend here, I always explain it as a love-hate relationship. It had been an abusive one for a while now, but right now I can genuinely say that I love it here. Superstition is making me pretend to spit over my left shoulder three times now as i type this (the traditional equivalent to knocking on wood here), but these last two weeks have just come up roses and here's why:
First off, I have really amazing friends here, it's humbling to be able to develop really close genuine friendships despite language bariers, and keep those friendships going over these past few years when i've been in and out of Russia.
Also- this week has been full of so many fun things that i've been rocketing off into happy moods in spite of ever shortening dark cold and wet days. The mouse on mars concert and this sound the alarm concert were fabulous, and I've been meeting so many fun people this last week.
Having this article due for the St. Petersburg Times this weekend really made me kick my butt into shape with the research I'm doing. I scoured the articles I'd brought with me and read throught the OT'TiSK print journal that Yuri leant me and typed up a 4 page overview of artist books in Russia from the Futurists to artists working in contemporary Petersburg. I'm really satisfied with how it turned out! i can't wait to see it in print in December. I didn't realize how much I actually missed working on my thesis until I started writing up this report. I love nerding out over a research project. Anyway, I learned Monday that I'd have to turn in any images to go along with the article on Wednesday (yesterday), so Tuesday I had to scramble around finding what I could. Tuesdays I meet with Yuri at the printmaking studio to work on my own book project, but this time we just discussed the Petersburg art scene. He gave me some Jpg's of his works to include with the article and let me photograph a bunch of books that he has on hand. The art community in St. Petersburg is really wonderful because it truly is a community. Yuri has a rich collection of hand-bound books from contemporary book-making artists which were all given to him because all these artists know each other and collaborate together. We were looking at "book object" works by Pushnitskii on his website and I said they'd be great for the article, Yuri just popped open his phone and his cell number handy. Yuri has just been a magnificent help in working on this project. From the first time I discussed it with him he has been nothing but enthusiastic and excited to talk about artist books and arrange for me to meet with everyone working in the field and always encourages me to grab books of the shelf "anything you need" he offers, to read and write away. He even assembled a light for me after Piotr refused to let us borrow his worklamp for 10 minutes so i could shoot pictures of artist books for the magazine. By assemble don't mean that he just screwed in a lightbulb, but he actually assmebled a light- hooking up wires and all!

alright, i know i'm gushing and sounding overly sentimental, but I have to overindulge in feeling so much at home here because it's been so rocky for so long. Things didn't start out so great when i was bumming around for the first month waiting for Yuri to get back in town and wondering how to work out my project. I hung out with friends a lot, i caught up on a good chunk of the TV that i missed out on over the last four years (having internet at home acts as such a vacuum sometimes) and I wondered how these next ten months would look.

also, i'm extremely thankful to have wonderful supporting parents who are willing to lend me some money via western union as I wait for my bank stuff to get sorted out. It took me three trips to Western Union before i got the money (the first time i didn't have the code i needed, the second they had just closed 15 minutes before) but if it were effortless and convenient, it wouldn't be Russia.

Quite a get-up for the grocery store...

2008-11-19T12:39:00.001-08:00

Quite a get-up for the grocery store..., originally uploaded by laurichka.

So hard to stay fashionable in this town.

Season of Giving:

2008-11-19T06:46:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone! As we approach the end of the year, even in the recession, it's nice to look for those tax-deductible donations. Here's a great one where even 5 bucks will make a huge difference.

My friend Devin is working for Teach for America and looking to create a graphic novel library to channel the enthusiasm of his students into reading material they'll dive right in to. If you'd like to chip in, click HERE.

2008-11-19T00:03:00.000-08:00

Sticking snow!- the sidewalks and rooftops and trimmed in white this morning! I'm drinking my morning coffee and after reading a quick roundup of the news on NYtimes, i find myself indulging in some thanksgiving food porn: that is, looking at recipes and photos of delicious Thanksgiving dishes. Thanksgiving is a hard holiday to miss; i remember during my year abroad that was one glum day until Bryan's late-night Thanksgiving get together. I guess I should probably be set after enjoying two Thanksgiving feasts last year- one Denver style, starting with the turkey trot and ending with our annual get-together with the Kinsellas, and a second one Kansas style- featuring my first fried turkey and getting to see relatives i hadn't seen in a good long while.
This year I'll join a group of fellow Fulbrighters for turkey day. I've promised to bring a pumpkin pie so I'll be baking away next Thursday.
Yesterday I met with Yuri to talk about contemporary Artist books in Petersburg. He introduced me to the book object works of Pushnitsky, and let me photograph and flip through a bunch of the books in his collection. I've gotten a lot done in this past week for my research and it's opening up more questions and ideas of topics to write about while I'm here.
Now I'm off to edit down these images I took yesterday so I can submit them, along with my final article, to the editor at the st. petersburg times. Oh! While editing the Times on Monday Politkovskaya's name popped up in the news again. They'll allow journalists to the trial of the suspected murderers- originally the journalists had been denied access because one of the suspects has some kind of military rank and the military court is a closed court. Read more here.

first snow.

2008-11-17T04:16:00.001-08:00

This morning i woke up early, made some coffee, and looked out the window to see little flakes falling from the sky. It's too warm still for anything to stick around, but exciting to finally see some snow!

warm holiday wishes from st. pete

2008-11-14T23:03:00.000-08:00

"Merry Christmas!!" shouted Frank, a German friend studying film here in st pete, as I answered the phone on Thursday. He invited me over to his Christmas Party- Christmas on the 13th of November.Frank decided that since the Russians celebrate Christmas on a seemingly arbitrary day- the 7th of January- that he would follow in suite and throw a party in November. Everyone came in their holiday finest. We listened to horrible rock-renditions of Christmas songs until we were fed up with pop-punk covers of White Christmas. Catch up America! I hear that they're not even playing carols in the supermarkets yet. Russia has already started putting up fake trees all over for the New Year. I guess we could use the extra holiday cheer since the sun sets at around 4:15 these days.
I heard there was a beautiful snow storm in Denver yesterday. I'm jealous- we haven't had any out here yet. According to Google weather we'll see flakes on Monday! I'll be sure to snap pictures and put them up on Flickr with everything else that I'm soon going to put up.
I'm still sorting things out with the bank, but I'll be getting a new ATM card soon. Good news as my money stash is dwindling.

... plus I gotta keep enough lettuce to support your shoe fetish!

2008-11-10T13:41:00.000-08:00

I decided in my time of trouble to listen to the sage advice offered from beloved Fergie, formerly of the Black Eyed Peas: "If you ain't got no money take your broke ass home."
I'll be flying home December 16th to visit the family for Christmas. I'll fly back on the 28th, just in time to ring in the New Year in St. Pete. And hopefully my money will be returned to me soon. For those of you who don't already know- I must have used an ATM with a virus in it because after I withdrew money for rent some crooked thieves decided to withdraw all the rest of my money after stealing my account information. At first I thought it was a computer error- I was checking up on my account and noticed that it was about 400 below what I had predicted. The statement said that I had drawn out 400 two times when i had just done it the once. The bank had to wait till the next day to clear it up because the charges were still "pending". After learning that Obama will be our next president (yay!!) I decided to make sure that my account was back in shape. To my horror- I had a negative balance. Thieves.
Luckily I had set aside some extra cash at the start of my trip "just in case". Turns out this is that case- i'll have to wait at least another week to get a new ATM card, which is a pain because Petersburg is mostly a cash-and-carry city. It's going to be a thrifty couple of weeks.

In other news- I'm finishing up my article on artist books for the St. Petersburg Time's winter magazine! I'll be sure to post the link and save copies when it's published.

2008-11-05T04:27:00.000-08:00

This morning is filled with relief, happiness, pride for my country and hope for the future.
I woke up this morning after a restless night of unsatisfying sleep; between coughing fits and election nerves it was hard to sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time. I would wake up every few hours and reload CNN and Pollster to catch bits of progress as the results were tallied up. This morning I fixed myself a cup of coffee and settled down to watch Obama's victory speech on CNN and was tickled when two minutes into it there was Aunt Tracy nodding along to what Obama was saying!
I've been thinking back to my experience at the DNC throughout these final days of the election. It is so satisfying that Obama will take the office. It feels like finally hope is going to be restored to a post-911 apathetic America. Pedicabbing for the DNC was an amazing experience. It kept me in the thick of down town crowds where I got to watch protesters, the iraq veterans against the war demonstrations, art projects, lobbyists working away, and even drive newscasters in full make-up to their camera-shot destinations. I was able to get in to the private Death Cab for Cutie concert for enviromental lobbyists, and a free Rage Against the Machine concert- never had their music felt more relevant than it did during the concert which turned into a march in support of Iraq Veterans against the war. The entire week stirred up an energy and passion for activism that had been subdued in the midst of college apathy. Obama and this election has brought that back, and brought back hope that change can and must happen in America.

***
on an entirely different note- my bank is getting me down. Yesterday i noticed that i was charged twice for an ATM withdrawal i made when i took out money for rent. I can't afford to pay rent twice!! The orders were still pending on my online account status, and I thought everything would be fixed up by today, but to my horror things have only taken a turn for the worse. I currently have a negative balance on my account because somehow there are 3 or 4 false withdraws from my account! I have to wait a few hours before i can call my bank to sort these things out. I have my debit card, so it wasn't stolen and I don't understand how anyone could have access to my account.
ugh. this is so stressful.

Adventures in sickness continue

2008-11-02T12:39:00.000-08:00

Halloween was Friday, an unremarkable holiday for Russia that is not really celebrated in places other than Americanized clubs. My friend Olga organized a party at a cafe (I was feeling to under the weather to try to go out that night) and said that the common misconception of halloween here is that it's suppoed to be a very dark and goth holiday. The DJ wanted to play Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson all night and Olga's Russian friend was confused when Olga put on the halloween classic Thriller.
I spent most of the weekend sleeping, watching movies, drinking tea and cooking up soups and stir frys in an attempt to fight this cold off. Today was surprisingly sunny so i bundled up and went for a walk through the parks behind the Russian musuem and ate sweet cinnamon roasted almonds while watching kids run around bundled up like little cabbages.
Sasha called me last night and invited me to go with her and Elya to the Michael Nyman concert today at the philharmonia. We got there and found out that ticket prices were pretty steep. Usually tickets are around 300 roubles, but for tonights affair they were running from 800-2,000 rubles ($32-80), with no chance of cheap student tickets. We waited until all three of the bells had sounded and the crowd had shuffled off to their seats to try to plead with the Babushka checking tickets to let us in to stand in the back and listen. Our first attempt was thwarted, not by the Babushka who was kindly going to let us in if we bought two tickets for 300 rubles (12 bucks) each, but by a man with a clipboard and a guestlist, who grabbed my arm and told us sternly that we would have to pick which TWO of us were going to go. Sasha kindly avoided a "sophie's choice" situation by stating that either we were all going to go, or none at all. We waited out near the coat check hoping that the man with the clipboard would disapear. After about ten minutes we mustered up our courage to try again... and success! The Babushka sold us one ticket for 300 rubles and let us all in!
The philharmonia building was beautiful- large chandeliers and marble posts making up for the gloom of most grey Petersburg days. For the first half we sat on the top level and i was immediatly drawn in by the music: wonderful horn sections! beautiful piano notes tinkering above low saxaphone notes blown until the musicians face couldn't turn any redder- I was so happy that Babushka let us through! and also happy that i had picked up some cough drops on the way so as to not add a hacking percusion section coming from offstage left.
After the intermission we snuck down to the first level because we had spied so many empty chairs there. We sat in the second row and were able to see the composers goofy striped socks as he played the piano. Nyman was joined by an Australian opera singer who accompanied her vocals with dramatic face and arm gestures that were too overwhelming to watch at times.
At the end everyone bowed several times, walked off stage and back on, and after it all Michael Nyman came back out and played a piano solo. He was very nice, bowed and stood and posed a moment while a girl in the front row took his picture. He stayed around and signed autographs, so i had him sign a page in my planbook. (That's him in the photo to the left, you can read an interview with him and the SPB times here)

A great night for 100 rubles a piece.
Now i'm back to tea, a movie and some sleeping, and hoping this cough goes away soon.

2008-10-30T04:50:00.000-07:00

Woke up again still feeling crummy- a friend called and woke me up at 10 am- doesn't sound early to those of you abroad, but to those of us here in Russia, especially those like me who usually get up at 11, an early 10 am phone call is disorienting.
I had a dream last night that I met Barack Obama. He was out here in St. Petersburg, and they had opened an American style coffee shop with big to-go cups of drip coffee (I always dream of big cups of coffee when i'm here, Stumptown, i miss you so...) and we were both standing in line. "Excuse me, but aren't you Barack Obama?" i asked. "Why yes! What a surprise running into another english speaker in this country. I bet you come to this coffee shop all the time. What are you doing out here anyway?" "Well, I'm here on a Fulbright. Can I shake your hand?" "Of course!"
That's when the croaking of my phone interrupted the dream and woke me up. I'm sure that Barack was well on his way to hire me as his foreign policy advisor for Russia....
Speaking of Obama, I just watched his 30 minute ad campaign spot on YouTube. I'll admit it- I was choked up when he talked about his mother's battle with cancer and insurance. It'll inspire you to vote more than Ben and Jerry's offer of a free scoop when you show up with your "i voted" sticker. Too bad they don't have a branch out here... I'd already qualify for my scoop of phish food or cherry garcia.

Kaloo Kolay, no work today...

2008-10-29T15:34:00.001-07:00

I spent most of today drinking tea in bed. I woke up with a bad head cold and only left the apartment today to grab supplies for chicken noodle soup.
Yesterday Yuri and I started working on my book. I prepared all my materials and started drawing sketches of the illustrations as Yuri and Pyotr covered the studio tables with a much needed new layer of wood. "And next, we'll build a new Russia!" Yuri declared while tightening down the screws.

final product

2008-10-26T17:05:00.001-07:00

final product, originally uploaded by laurichka.

Here's a photo of a print I made last weekend. I put it up on my flickr page: www.flickr.com/photos/laurichka but didn't post it here. The print was based off of a photo of a miner from this great book of soviet photographs from the 70's. I love the image mixed with the color printing style because it reminds me of propaganda posters.

2008-10-26T16:30:00.000-07:00

I've resolved that next year I am going to live someplace sunny. Enough of this perpetual rain. I always hear objections when i complain about constant rain, "but i love the rain" someone will chime in. And you know what? I did too, back when i drove everywhere. But when you're stuck to biking (*sigh* i miss my bike) through the rain or trying to tame an ornery umbrella while walking on a particularly blustery and rainy day, you get pretty fed up with rain. However, it does pose a good excuse for sitting at home at night and feasting on my pot of minestrone soup while watching episodes of Mad Men online.

***

Tuesday put me in such an amazing and wonderful mood! I met with Yuri (who is finally back in town) and I finally realized that my project is going to happen. Discussing the logistics of the project and getting set up with contacts made everything I had been imagining start to become realized. It was the same feeling I had when I knew I had finished my last thesis draft and all i had left to do was fix a few typos. I'm going to start coming in to the studio on Tuesdays to work on creating artist books with Yuri, along with the regular Saturday classes with Smolny students. This Saturday we worked on figure drawings for the first half, and started with dry point printing for the second half. You can see examples of Yuri's dry points here in his illustrations of Kharms stories
I think I will be using dry point for the first book project that I'll be working on. I have a picture here of Ryan and Me when we were really bitty that my grandpa took of us. My Mom sent it out as a Christmas card years ago and i stumbled upon some extras while hunting for an envelope. I remembered the photos he took of Ryan posed as "the boy with the red balloon" and i was thinking of illustrating a version of the story. Thanks to youtube I was able to find the film and sketch out some ideas. Mine will take place in Petersburg instead of Paris, so hopefully the boy with his balloon won't mind all this rain.

... and so much more to come

2008-10-20T15:57:00.000-07:00

There's a lot to catch up on, and I promise to do so soon. This weekend was a whirlwind of wonderful art activity so here's a list of things you can look forward to hearing about:

-Yuri's warm-welcomed return to the printmaking studio, and a meeting tomorrow to discuss my project in depth
-color monotypes
-proposal for St. Petersburg Times article
-found hipster mecca.ru at the "art parade" at Etazhe this weekend
-Vanessa returned from America
-voted today!

Sorry family that I didn't give you guys a call this weekend! I promise to do so soon. Megan- i want to hear all about NY, Marko- don't worry, Barack is rumored to make a cameo on SNL that will surely outshine Palin's.
Love,
Lauren

Make it Work!

2008-10-20T15:28:00.000-07:00

Today was straight out of Project Runway. Olga and Yana decided to put together an art show in the gallery space at Smolny, and they decided to do it all in one day. The class that I'm auditing, "The Contemporary Exhibit," gives us each a chance to curate a show in the Open Studio based around one of the strategies discussed in conference. Last week Olga and Yana gave us the requirements for the project, but everything came together today. The concept behind the show is "site specific work relating to the gallery space". All of us participating student artists showed up in the morning, presented our ideas, snagged a piece of wall, and went to work. The idea behind the project was inspired by the show "Rooms" at P.S. curated by Alanna Heiss.

I've posted a few pictures of my piece, you can see the rest of the works on my flickr page here.

The collage:

Close up views:

The gallery space feels more like a hallway- it mostly gets used as a way to get from the main building to the library. I wanted to replicate this idea of people walking through the space without paying attention to it. The figures are all drawn on translucent paper and none of them are facing the viewer.

The show came together and looks great, and best of all, no one was "auf'd"!

Published, credited.

2008-10-17T01:39:00.001-07:00

The St. Petersburg Times printed my first restaurant review today!

You can read it here.

Mid-day Matinee

2008-10-13T07:27:00.000-07:00

Today Zhenya, my roomate, had a rare day off of work so we decided to go to a movie together. We checked out the newest Russian blockbuster to hit theaters: Admiral. The film takes place in 1917 and features Admiral Kolchak and his fearless leadership of the white army, along with the best set of mustaches to hit the screens since Burt Reynolds. The wife of the General falls madly in love with the Admiral, and in a move that would make Anna Karenina proud, she leaves the General at a train stop to become a nurse and follow her beloved Belomorkanal-smoking Admiral Kolchak all over the frozen landscapes of Siberia (even though he has a wife and son hiding out in Paris).
In a twist from your typical Eisenstein portrayal of the revolution, the white army is led by heroes who refuse to quit fighting even as the Germans are blowing the legs off of their sailors. The revolutionaries are portrayed as disorganized mutts, muddling with the infrastructure of Russia as the military officers try to focus on the war against ze Germans. The film was highly patriotic and mother-land loving; not a surprise, of course, as it was funded in part by the Russian government. Zhenya and I squirmed in our seats during gruesome explosion scenes and when the General gets his frozen toes sawed off by the doctor. Blech.

Zhenya has never seen Zoolander, so the next film we watch together will be much more light-hearted.

I'm at the St. Petersburg Times office now waiting for pages to come off the printer to edit. It's that time of the night again- Tobin's turned on Eye of the Tiger. Stim Table at Reed College has forever destroyed this song for me. It brings back the smell of burnt coffee, matte, the sticky peanut butter mystery messes all over the library lobby and that feeling of late night paper writing. Good luck to all you readers who are still there.

2008-10-11T07:35:00.001-07:00

AND since i can't post enough today... Three things that i've been raving about:

first off, Vanessa cued me in to this hilarious story earlier today on JEZEBEL

I finally looked up what the heck Noodling is (click the link and watch the video. it's awesome)

and lastly, if you haven't listened to the new Girl Talk album, you really should. I've been playing it a lot lately.

as promised...

2008-10-11T07:17:00.000-07:00

Here's the new 'do. I'm making a face in the picture that says "Yup, it's pretty short!" but by now i've recovered from the shock and i love it.

Still, it's not quite as amazing as Sasha's sweet hair last night:

Fall in St. Petersburg

2008-10-11T07:08:00.001-07:00

This fall has been pretty dry up until now. We had wonderful days of sunshine and I spent two of those days at Krestovskii Ostrov admiring the amazing autumn colors. Here are some photos i took.

These are from the second day there, Olga and I went for a walk and came across this fitness class:
We drank Carlsberg tallboys while looking out across the gulf of Finland.

Karavanaya 24,6: apartment tour

2008-10-11T06:51:00.000-07:00

So, I decided, since the rain has kicked in and I need an activity that can keep me in bed drinking tea, that I'd post a long overdue tour of my apartment through photos! I took these weeks ago when the weather was much more flattering.

Here's the street that I live on:

And here's my building! Darling Karavanaya 24/26:
(I'm on the 3rd floor- the middle window is mine along with the one to the right of that)

Moving along inside: Here's our kitchen!
My bed, you can imagine me sitting there now with my computer on my lap (although, i'll admit it's not quite as tidy...)
This is the view I can see from where I'm sitting now, with a lot less sunlight coming through the windows.

My piano/bookshelf View from the table:

Told you my room was huge. Here are some details of our wallpaper for full affect:

Kitchen

Hallway

Bedroom

That's the apartment. Now come visit and see it for real.

Published, but not credited.

2008-10-10T04:53:00.000-07:00

I picked up the latest edition of Pulse a couple of days ago. There they were! All the translations I did for them printed in the magazine. Unfortunately, my name is nowhere to be found in the publication. Drats.

2008-10-06T14:25:00.000-07:00

Awful. The neighbor is at it again. I can't figure out if it's the flat above mine or the one next to my bedroom wall, but whoever it is keeps on coming home at around 1:15 am only to blare their horrible russian synth pop/smooth jazz. Cars drive by and honk, others let their car alarms scream out into the dark. The echoes of the bucket-drum circle on the other side of Nevsky penetrates through my windows. To add to this bizarre chorus are the sound of horse hooves as one trots down Karavanaya street every night at around this hour. Every once in a while you'll encounter someone riding a horse through downtown st. petersburg. I'm always tickled by this and laugh about it, especially when it's one of the miniature shetland ponies.

A lot has happened this last week and I've failed to write about any of it. I started an internship with the St. Petersburg Times, and the most exciting part: I get to write reviews of restaurants! This means I get to dine in fabulous spots around the city, write 500 words about the food, atmosphere and experience with the lovely paper footing the bill. Swanky. I treated my friend Kostya to a meal at a place that advertises itself as the "first photo-portrait themed restaurant in petersburg". The first photo-portrait themed restaurant to pop up anywhere as far as I know.

I also spent a good deal of time translating some articles for the Russian and English magazine Pulse. Their usual translator is vacationing in Germany where someone stole his laptop with all his work on it. This happened around 4 or 5 days before the magazine was supposed to go to print, so the people at Pulse were scrambling for help. They share an office with the Times, so I offered to help. The articles they sent me mostly featured restaurant and business news. One article was excruciating to translate, not because of the vocabulary, but because of the subject: ski vacation destinations in Norway. I was practically drooling over my keyboard transfering descriptions of endless slopes of powder from Russian to English.

I'm running out of hair these days. Mine has been chopped short! It's chin length now, and this wasn't quite intentional. One night while out with some friends this guy asked if I wanted a free haircut because he was in search of some hair models. I figured, why not? I love free stuff! He told me that he wouldn't cut very much off, it would look the same just a little shorter. My interpretation of "just a little shorter" is one inch- especially when my locks had just been cropped a fair amount this summer, so there wasn't an excessive amount to work with. Unfortunately, his idea of "just a little shorter" was around three inches. After three hours of labour (i've never seen anyone cut hair so slooooowly) I left the studio in a state of shock just thinking "it'll grow back, it'll grow back."
Sasha reassured me and told me that it looks really great! It's not a bad cut, pretty cute even. I'm just still in shock about it. I'll put a photo up tomorrow so that you can see for yourself.

anyway, the neighbor just turned off the music, so i'm going to get some shuteye.

Prints

2008-09-28T03:05:00.000-07:00

This first print is a linocut block print. The lighting is off; it's really all black and white.

The next three are monotypes. Monotype printing is my favorite technique- combining etching, painting and drawing you can really create amazing images. It's quick, spontaneous and doesn't require cutting out pieces of plastic with metal tools that eventually slip and jab into your hands. However, it does leave your arms stained with ink for the next two days no matter how hard you scrub your skin.

I'm pretty sure my cow print was inspired by my run in with this lovely scene at the Sennaya Market the other day:

yup, that's a cow snout just plopped up on the counter.

2008-09-27T12:58:00.000-07:00

Out of the last 25 days that I've been here in Petersburg, only 7 have been sunny. 5 of those occurred within the last week, so it's been tough to anchor myself down and record anything in my blog. My hot water was turned back on long ago, followed by heating! Last week was brutal; in a sense it was the coldest time of the year. The temperatures dropped to the low forties, yet the city-controlled heating hadn't caught up. At home I sat huddled up under blankets, drinking copious amounts of tea and re-reading A Moveable Feast.

This morning I went to the printmaking studio and we worked on Monoprints for three hours. I'll put some photos up soon of the work I made today. After suffering from what Adam called "art block" all last week I was relieved to be productive in a studio again.

I met with the editors of the St. Petersburg Times last week and on Monday I'm going to start coming in and help edit articles before the paper gets sent to the press. After spending last year writing about Anna Politkovskaya, I've been anxious to learn more about the state of journalism in Russia. I'm hoping that this editing gig will help put me in a mindset to frame what I'm learning about for my project into articles to submit to the paper.

On that note, I went to a really great artist talk last week. Pavel Shugurov spoke to us about his project 33 plus 1. Although he is regularly employed to paint murals on buildings, in restaurants, cheesy pool backgrounds, etc.; his personal art ranges from installations to ceramics, drawing, painting, video art and artist books (!). After causing too much confusion by trying to explain to his friends why he couldn't narrow down his identity as an artist ("I'm a painter," or "I'm a sculptor") he created a web-based artist community featuring a cast of fictional artists each representing one aspect of Pavel's portfolio. Pavel showed us the matrix he had drawn up organizing which parts of his own persona belongs to each artist. He mentioned that his project has caused much confusion- such as the time 6 of the artists in the 33plus1 community were invited to do a collaborative installation tour and having to explain why he only needed one of the 6 bus tickets reserved for him.

I finally received my "golden ticket" to Russia- my student ID. The photo this time around is great, entirely due to the fact that the woman working at the Kodak store on Nevsky made sure that I went to the mirror and properly preened myself for my ID picture before she would take it. So far I've gotten a discounted gym membership (nothing beats post-soviet style aerobics), a balcony ticket for a symphony concert for 30 roubles ($1.20), and free admission to the Hermitage. What a country.

dog show.

2008-09-22T15:02:00.001-07:00

dog show, originally uploaded by laurichka.

Walking down Nevsky on my way to the Bobrinskii palace for an art lecture, I spotted the leather-clad lady you see in the photo with her one-woman dog show on the street.

water water everywhere but not a drop in my sink.

2008-09-14T02:36:00.001-07:00

These last few days have been disciplining me in the ways of convenience appreciation. About four days ago I woke up and made my way groggily to the bathroom to turn on the shower only to find that the faucet could only summon the equivalent of a "dry heave". Our hot water had been shut off. I wasn't about to risk taking a cold shower- even though the temperature outside has dropped the heating hasn't been turned on city-wide yet. I awoke a couple days later to find the same sound coming from the cold tap as well. Luckily that only lasted a day.
Our water's been shut back on and I'm fresh and clean, but still waiting to hear back about my computer. Last week my computer went through an identity crisis and decided to wipe it's memory out and start over anew. I would switch on my mac only to find a folder icon popping up on the screen switching between icons of a question mark and a finder face. Luckily through the spread of globalization and popularity of the ipod a bunch of re:stores have popped up around the city and they directed me to someone who is certified to fix computers.
I've hardly thought about everything that's been wiped out by this computer mishap. Thankfully I saved my senior thesis to my external harddrive- that would be a lot of re-typing if I ever wanted to print that out again.
Anyway, that's why I've been behind on email. Anyone know of a good program to rip music from your ipod onto your computer? Let's keep our fingers crossed that i'll have a functioning laptop in a couple of days....

Pictures of the apartment and Petersburg are coming soon. Also- i had my first printmaking session on saturday! We made linoleum cut block prints. I'll throw a picture of that up on here soon too.

2008-09-04T23:02:00.000-07:00

Living downtown St. Pete is so bougie. I live right off of Nevsky Prospect- made famous by itself and in a story by Nikolai Gogol. He writes something along the lines of "Nevsky is better than any phone directory one could purchase, someone living on one side of Petersburg will run into an acquaintance they haven't seen in months living on the other side of petersburg." I always find this to be true and last night ran into my darling friend Yana while wandering the streets with my American friend, Vanessa. In this last summer she's become a regular down at Dacha, Fidel and (there's another one, but the name escapes me now. They all blend into one another) and everyone there knows her name. The Produktii* on the corner even sells her and her boyfriend vodka after the curfew of 11.
As for me meeting people- I might have to change my name as it's hard for anyone to understand me. "gloria? Nice to meet you. Gloria! " "No, no, it's Lauren. LOREN, LO- Ren." Maybe I'll just start telling people that I'm another Masha. People either mishear me, or when my Russian friends introduce me they're confused such as Vova last night "Lauren, that's seriously your name. Why did your mother call you that?" "Oh, well, I'm american." "Oh, American? I see."

Yesterday as I walked to the Bobrinsky Palace to meet up with administrators I only knew through emails I saw a stray cat sitting in the entrance of a courtyard. Standing next to the cat was an old man wearing a basball cap with "cat" embroidered on it. It was like walking by the punchline of some kind of joke I'm not sure I understood...

*convenience store

made it.

2008-09-03T00:29:00.000-07:00

I've arrived in Petersburg safe and sound, and everything so far has been a jetlagge and deja-vu inducing chilly blur. The rain and autumn chill has already set in here in Petersburg- so much for any hope of a Russian summertime.
When you fly a lufthansa flight there's a period after they've served dinner trays and before they start the movie when you're subjected to an in seat exercise video. The star of the film is the most awkward and uncomfortable looking computer generated man in a sea foam sweater and matching socks. Maybe you've seen this. I'm always worried that between bending over and sitting up that the little man is going to pass out- apparently these are tough movements for him as his eyes are always bugging out of his head and the designer decided to emphasize his breathing. I can't watch it without feeling a bit queasy.
On the plane they played a movie with "Dr. mcdreamy" (i forget the actor's name) as the lead role. As far as i could tell it was a remake of My Best Friend's wedding without the charm of Julia Roberts and that lobster restaurant scene everyone loves. A bad movie for sure, made entertaining by my faulty sound system that was playing the soundtrack for another film on some of the channels, and the right soundtrack a half hour ahead of the movie on others. The flight attendent revealed to me an empty seat in the front row with plenty of leg room next to a couple with a darling baby who shockingly didn't cry at all. Even a shorty like me was feeling cramped in the back!
A short layover in Munich (i've spent too many hours in the Frankfurt airport by now so I try to avoid it if I can) and then a plane ride i slept through to Petersburg. When we landed i was reminded that Russians always applause when the plane makes it safely onto the ground, and that they're ferocious about cutting in line at passport control.

***

I was able to get in touch with my roomate Zhenya as I arrived and headed straight to my new apartment. Zhenya and I live right on the corner of Caravanaya and Nevsky Prospekt- an amazing location. I am in awe over the size of the room I'll be living in. My room is too big for one person, it's pretty much the size of Ryan and Greta's Denver apartment and has two шкафы (that's wardrobe for you non-russian speakers out there).
I'm at Smolny now taking care of registration. All you Smolny alumni will be thrilled to know that everyone's favorite blonde cafe worker is still here. I saw her coming out of the bathroom when i got here this morning, where i'm sure she didn't wash her hands (i caught her walking straight out once, not even pretending to wash her hands!)
Anyway, Bryan Billings wants to get a snack from the smolny cafe. I'll probably opt for something that comes in a wrapper.

From a mile high to a city built on a swamp.

2008-08-31T09:09:00.000-07:00

Welcome friends, family and all you internet addicts who have navigated yourselves to my blog! This is where I will track my adventures through Russia on my Fulbright-funded year abroad. As for a note on the title- Samizdat refers to the process of self-published literature throughout the period of Soviet censorship in Russia. The word is made up of two components: "sam", which in Russian means "self" or "by oneself" and "izdat" a shortened version of the word izdatel'stvo meaning "publishing house". So samizdat can be translated into english as "self-published".
The Samizdat movement took form not only to pass along poetry but political ideas and art as well. In this way the movement is relevant to the project I am embarking on- to study the tradition of the Russian artist book from the period of the avant-garde through contemporary Russia. I'll post a condensed version of my project proposal next.

As for now- I've got plenty of packing left to do so I will hop on that as I fly out of here tomorrow at 2pm! au revior Denver.