Beginning to see and feel things differently

29/09/09

Dearest Mum,

I have been in Russia for a month and I am now beginning to see and feel things differently. My friends are continuing to play the game of poker that I have just lost. Sitting at the table is James, a witty English man who can make a joke out of anything; Oscar the Mexican, who smiles and nods his way through everything and somehow is successful; Nadia from Latvia, who is over analyzing her first poker game; and Felix from Chile, who I think lied when he said he has never played poker before. Felix has been here for a couple years now and the res of us are new. There are many new faces in the dormitory this week, the new school year officially starts today, even though we have been in classes for a couple of weeks. It’s odd – its Russia. Many people are returning and a few are brand spanking new, like me.

I have moved rooms. I now live on the top floor – sixth – with a Mexican named Oscar. Oscar plays the trombone. Oscar knows very little English. It’s fun trying to make sentences or trying to be understood - for both of us. Oscar’s friend Maria, whom we had dinner with and made the wonderful toast, says she had the same problem last year with her Japanese roommate, she says it wont be long before we will be able to be perfectly understood and have great philosophical conversations Russian. I have a hard time accepting that that day will come. My Russian is coming along, I guess. I am able to string a couple more words together this week and I have a bit more vocabulary. Vocabulary is nice to have but, when all you know are words like fridge, tree, road and lamp, it can be hard to understand the clerk at the clothing store telling you that your visa card is not working for some reason – don’t worry, I was able to find a cash machine and bought a lovely sweater.

I was sick last week. Not deathly ill but it made practicing a bit difficult. I called it the Russian cold, I was coughing and stuffed up and so was everyone else. I noticed that all the new people got sick; our bodies were finally beaten by Russian nature. I felt guilty for not practicing, but I got a few good naps out of it.

My lessons are getting better. My teachers approach makes some sense. I know that I am trying to never make the same mistake twice. Etudes that would have taken me a month to learn and still have mistakes in them are now pretty much there in only a few days. My flute teacher at UVic, Lanny Pollet, taught me to never make the first mistake. When you are playing something for the first time play it slow enough to get each note right and work up from there. You will find that you wont make mistakes. He is right - it works. I can play faster and more confidently if I just start slower- the simplest lessons take the longest to learn.

I went to a symphony concert on Thursday night. The St. Petersburg philharmonic played all Prokofiev to open their season. It was one of the best orchestra concerts I have ever seen. The sound was so mature, very present and very comfortable. This was definitely a Russian orchestra playing Russian music. It was a sold out house, I had never seen so may people listening intently to the music. There was also a good cross section of society. Children, teens, families, couples, singletons all getting something out of the music. The bolshoy hall of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic is really just a big square box. Crystal chandeliers, beautiful ornamentation, and a large organ are the main attention grabbers when you first walk in. Since we bought cheap tickets we had to stand, not so bad, I had a marble column to lean against and I was able to see over the couple of Chinese girls in fort of me. I saw many familiar faces from the conservatory and was introduced to a couple new people during the intermission. I was met one of the French horn players from the orchestra, Sasha from Moldova, he just graduated from the conservatory and cannot be any older then I am. Such great talent, so young. I was jealous.

I ran into Sasha again on Saturday. He remembered I was from Canada and was interested to hear about how are two official languages work. So funny story. Somewhere in soviet education they praise Canada on having two official languages Russians think it is neat and people from former soviet satellite countries think it is amazing. Many of these countries have a big problem with language. Estonia and Moldova, for example, would like to only work in their native languages but they have large populations of Ethnic Russians who wont learn a new language. Canada is used as an example of how a country can get along just fine with two languages. The funny thing is, people here think that all Canadians are fluent in both English and French. Many times I have said I am from Canada and that I can only speak English, I will get a funny look and they will say, “oh, I thought Canada was bilingual, you can speak French too right?” In every flute lesson my teacher mentions Canada’s dual language and is shocked that I can’t speak French. I think I have disappointed a few people by being monolingual. (sorry Canada).

Things are looking up, I am getting over my cold, I have found a couple cheap places to eat and I feel like I am making significant progress in my music. Every once in while my mind flits to me standing in front of a band class teaching the concepts I am learning here, in the future I think music education will be the right way to go, but right now I am living in the fantastic moment, studying and working hard and playing poker with my new friends.

And waiting for it to get cold.

Love you and miss you,
Toby.

Unbelievable is a good word to describe this whole adventure.

18/09/09
Dear Jacky and Don,

Unbelievable is a good word to describe this whole adventure. A year and half ago I set my mind that I was going to come here to study music. All last year I had the application form pinned to the wall beside my alarm clock so it was the first thing I saw each morning, I read biographies of Russian composers and for a while I even listened exclusively to Russian music. Now, to be living my dream, its totally and utterly unbelievable.

It is going very well here. I am slowly becoming accustomed to Russia. You see the clothes and the foods that seem to be ubiquitous on this planet Earth, but the similarities stop there. It is hard to describe what it is like to be here. I am different - I walk different, I talk different, I hold myself different and I look different. Being different in Russia is very fine, but I have to put up with stares on the metro and laughing when I fumble over my very few basic Russian phrases. It is also cold here, I have equated university with the weather of Victoria, and now I have to deal with school and cold, we keep beer and vodka between the window panes because we don’t have a fridge in our room – its only September. It is a ‘wet’ cold like Victoria, but the shivering wind off of the Gulf of Finland makes me wish I were man enough to wear scarf. I am happy that the cars are on the proper side of the road - I was almost killed several times in Ireland – however I now have a mini terror when I’m halfway crossing the road and am confused about which side the cars are on, but I am sure that will pass. Russian drivers are generally good, they will wait for pedestrians and they stop at lights, but it is perfectly acceptable to run a red if you are honking the whole way through.

My first few days here were terrible. I had never been homesick before. I was alone, confused, and nervous for my audition - It was terrified mixed with depression. I almost did not audition, I only wanted to be at home on the farm with mom and dad where everyone spoke English and the fridge was full of food. It was a few days before I met other English-speaking people and that was when things started to get better. Talking with them I discovered that we all had (and still have just a little bit) these feelings, culture shock is really that, shock. Now the dormitory I am living in filled with students. This dormitory is for international students only; I have met people from China, Korea, Mongolia, Japan, Indonesia, Estonia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Belgium, England, the States, Mexico, Ecuador, Brazil and Chile. It’s fantastic to be around so many different cultures. People mostly converse in Russian and English when we hanging out it a big group, but hearing about three for four languages is common, people are constantly translating, the same thing will be said three or four times so that everyone will understand. We have had a couple of big pot-luck type dinners, although for the last one Maria from Mexico did most if not all of the delicious cooking. She prepared a wonderful carrot cream soup, beat balls in a tasty Mexican sauce and, my favorite, rice pudding. Before the meal we had a tost, Maria stood at the head of the table and thanked everyone for coming, told that she was excited for everyone to be together again and welcomed all the new faces, she did this in Russian, English and her native Spanish , it was s beautiful way to kick of a beautiful meal. Needles to say - it’s very cool. With 20 hours of classroom Russian Language a week I will soon be able to join in on the Russian conversations. – and who knows, maybe pick up some Estonian or Turkish as well.

On Russian: People here don’t speak English. Everyonce in a while you will run into someone who can speak only a few words of English or French but Russian it is and if you cant speak it then tough luck! My flute lessons are in Russian, I have no idea what is going on most of the time, there are a couple students in the class who can speak some English and that helps, and there is one girl, Alisa, who speaks rather well. If Alisa is in the class she ends up teaching me, however she gets her negatives/positives mixed up and I will play something I think she is asking for but in reality it was the thing I was doing wrong. There is lots of frustration and the students will laugh at me. I have been told that this is very normal. Lessons are already pretty rough and the language barrier is just one more obstacle.

My lessons: I am from the west, everything I know is wrong. Period. My teacher sees it has her responsibility to break me into my component parts, crush those parts, and build me as a stronger, better, incredibly musical, Soviet flutist. Just imagine an eighty-one-year old woman yelling at you in Russian, “Nyet, nyet nyet!” while smacking a pen against her desk for dramatic impact. You work your ass off for the next lesson I tell ya! She expects five times as much work in a third of the time I am used to. Exhausting - anything worth having is worth working for.

At the moment I am in the Predatory program at the Conservatory. To have a seat in years 1-5 of the conservatory you have to pass a Russian language test (similar to the LPI in in BC) I have my degree so if I pass the Russian and Flute exams at the end of this year I may be placed into Second or third year next year. It’s a confusing system here, I am still not too sure how it all works.

I am keeping up to date with CBC.ca. It’s scary to hear about the H1N1 virus hitting the reserves on the island. First time I have read about Hotsprings Cove in the news. I have faith that it will not be as bad as what happened in Manitoba. I have not heard or read anything about H1N1 in Russia, but that maybe because I don’t understand the language yet.

Please come to Russia, I also want to do the trans-Siberian railway someday. I have been told that the train is not the best (basically a glorified commuter train.) I have heard this from students, and maybe there is a better more luxurious, more costly train. I also hear driving is better. But driving in Russia, like living here, would be an adventure!

It is great to hear from you. I shall keep in touch.

Toby.