Zombie Pushkin will eat your brains in blini

Friday, 11:30 pm. I’ve kind of given up on the day-to-day post for this week, based on the stunning realization that I really haven’t done very much of interest. The last month of the semester seems to be divided by a series of milestones: the ball, Pskov, Victory Day, our last [insert last event here], and then going home. Between the ball and Pskov, another week of classes, another orchestra rehearsal, another evening at the Times. I’ve found out that there will not be another orchestra concert while I’m here, so I’m considering bowing out of the last rehearsal or two to go do something different. I somehow doubt it’ll be a serious problem; it’s not for a grade, after all. :)

Tuesday evening, about fifteen of us made our separate journeys to Vladimir Nabokov’s unassuming apartment for a screening of the Stanley Kubrick movie of “Lolita.” Normally, if I’ve read the book, I’ll certainly be interested to see the movie…though I may make an exception and watch “War and Peace” before finishing the book. :P Hanging out here with two literature majors who can’t let the subject of Lolita drop, I’ve taken more than a passing interest in this book. Matt told me the tagline for this movie—“How could they make a movie of Lolita?”—and I can’t help but feel that it fit. Nabokov himself wrote the screenplay, but the transformation from first-person-singular diary-like novel to a movie, which really can’t be first-person-singular, was a little shaky. Being able to actually see the narrator, even, was somewhat disorienting. No disrespect to Nabokov, or to Kubrick, but Matt, Erica and I are all going to try to forget we saw the movie and go read the book again.

One other discovery from Nabokov’s apartment-museum: the man knew his stuff about butterflies. Granted, they were pinned and preserved under glass, but the collection showed his obvious connoisseurship and respect. (Also, Word has just informed me that I can’t spell the word ‘connoisseur.’ I’m slipping.)

Wednesday after classes, we tramped down the bank of the Moika (river? canal? Not sure) to Pushkin’s apartment-museum, where, as it turned out, he lived for the last eight months or so of his life, then expired. The museum was very inspirational, certainly, and the pictures of Pushkin’s wife and four children lent a charming domesticity to the otherwise bardic image of the poet. We saw the very couch on which he died, and replicas of the pistols with which he and a minor nobleman whose purpose is largely lost to history conducted the fateful duel.

May 9 will be Victory Day, the celebration of the 65th anniversary of the end of WWII, and the city’s been buzzing for weeks over this celebration. The square outside the provisional government’s offices, right next to Smolny, is now hung with red and orange banners, and assorted military divisions have been practicing in Palace Square for weeks now. (On my way to orchestra rehearsal, I texted Ella at one point before the ball, ‘The navy trying to march sort of looks like our group trying to waltz.’ Thankfully, they seem to have gotten their act together.) Victory Day also involves breaking out all the old Soviet army jeeps, loading many of them with missiles that appear to be at least as old as the jeeps, and…sitting along the bank of the Moika blocking pedestrian traffic. I’ve become convinced that they were strategically positioned there because of rumors that Pushkin would soon be stalking the streets of Petersburg as a zombie (never mind the fact that he’s buried not far from Pskov). ZOMBIE PUSHKIN WANTS YOUR BRAINS. (Note to self: look up the Russian word for ‘brains’.)

I appear to have digressed again. Wednesday evening turned out to be my last English class, actually, which was both exciting and sort of bittersweet. Listening to the seven students I’ve been coaching and joking with all semester delivering their final oral exams, I felt probably more of a sense of accomplishment than I deserve, but accomplishment all the same. All the topics we covered in that class sometimes made no sense, but they made for fascinating conversations, and I’ll never forget talking about Shakespeare with Sergey, marriage with Ksenia and Natasha, Rome with Alesia and Anastasia, snakes with Elena, or Paris Hilton with Nikolai. Not to mention trying out my Russian with Olga Vladimirovna. :)

In between articles on police corruption and airline losses due to the ash crisis, I was chatting with Sebastian and his visiting brother Richard at the Times this evening when the subject of Pskov happened to come up. Toby called across to me, ‘you know the Kremlin there burned down today, right?’ Well. As a matter of fact, no, I had not known. Sebastian hopped onto his computer and pulled up a RIA-Novosti article stating that, in fact, two of the seven towers of the Pskov Kremlin caught fire, thanks to the restaurant located inside one of them. This happened in the small hours of Wednesday morning, and the main concern voiced in the article was why the fine imposed on the restaurant was so small. I understand the damage wasn’t serious, but it’s still a lovely omen, coming right before we’re supposed to leave for Pskov. Just another demonstration of the fact that you can’t plan in this country, I guess.

Morning comes very quickly indeed, so I’m going to put up this post and go to bed. We’ve been told that the hotel in Pskov does not have internet, so I’m not going to bring my computer along. I have four novels from the CIEE library, my grammar book, and my camera…to keep me busy over seven hours of rough roads. Expect a long post on Monday after we return! :)