Peace Out, Sweden!

My twenty days in Sweden is up. Today I’m getting on a flight [actually two flights] back to Russia. And how am I feeling? I think I should at least be feeling something. And I don’t know what to write. I could tell you, as if only by the way, that I found out that my love, that flawless professor of Russian literature at Gothenburg University, is married to some Russian chick who’s also a professor of something that begins with “Russian”. When I realized that I also realized that there’s no chance I can ever compete with that and that was that. My love disappeared like a bottle of wine on a Friday night. He borrowed me a book, I listened to his seminar on Russian symbolists and then I went for coffee and “semlor” [holla to all my homies – the Swedes!] with Artyom. Last year I don’t think I had any time to eat semlor before I split and went back to Russia. Last January I was home for only two weeks, if I remember things correctly, so I guess I almost beat that with a week this time. What have I done with this time? Do I feel like I have spent it wisely? Or is there anything I didn’t have time to do? Something that I skipped or something that I missed?

As I wrote upon my arrival, I had three points on my list. Yes, three whole points. And check, check, check – I finished off all of them. I did really send out seven copies of my book to publishing companies. As of yet I haven’t hear a single word from anyone and the stress is eating at my insides. It’s awful. I don’t know what to do with myself. I can’t take much more of this suspense. If it’s a yes, I want to know NOW. If it’s a no, I want to know YESTERDAY. Though there’s nothing I can do about it. Publishing is a slow business. Furthermore I did pass all of the exams [almost – gulp!] that I could pass at university here in Sweden. Maybe things there didn’t go as well as I had planned, but considering that I haven’t really studied [ever] or focused on my studies [period], I must confess that I’m content with the results. Could’ve been better, sure, but sure as hell could it have been worse. That’s my outlook on life – take things as they are, laugh about them if you can, and cry if you can’t laugh. Or maybe just cry and laugh about everything that comes your [my] way. That’s the spirit. Also I did send off all the papers for that scholarship thing I crave so badly.

Let me put it this way – if I’m back in Sweden in August, you’ll know things didn’t go my way. If I’m home next January, then you can be sure that I got what I wanted.

Anything else that I might do in the future [ending up in prison in Turkmenistan, being a bartender on Ibiza, finishing second in a Japanese fishing contest, or stripping to the world famous music of Spice Girls at a discount bar in Indonesia] I would prefer to call the grey zone.

What did I like most about this time that I spent in Sweden? I don’t like to say it, I don’t like to be this honest, not with anyone, not even with myself [for crying out loud!] but sometimes you got to bite the dust. I liked the fact that I had money this time. I haven’t had money for so long. And I’m not talking about huge sums. No. All I had was a little bit of money, and my grandmother also chipped in, and my mother allowed for me to live in her apartment for free which in the end made it possible for me to buy all the things that I needed. Yesterday I bought my first mp3-player! Yes. And it’s not going to be with me forever [it was so cheap, and it’s so cute, that I almost feel like I robbed the store] but only until I can afford a pink Ipod. I could’ve bought an Ipod, but then I wouldn’t have had the money to buy three pairs of shoes and lots of other stuff that I needed. I also bought that huge book [it weighs more than my laptop] about Russian Literature that’s amazing, even though when I think about how much I paid for it – my face constantly takes on a strained expression. So that it’s then, huh? That’s how I, a deeply religious woman, a spiritual poet, a thinking individual, a considerate writer, chose to spend my precious time in my native country? Shopping? And feeling good about it too? I don’t know. All I know is that I was cleaning my bag [that’s broken and so old and has been all over the world with me – twice] is that I thought that making a reality show about my life would be so boring. It would be the most boring show on TV. Which should be an amazing accomplishment since everything on TV is boring. “Look, I’m cleaning my bag again!” And then they could put in some footage from the last trip, when I did it that time also. And then – flash – a few seconds of me explaining why my bags gets so dirty and then – flash – footage of me towing my bags through town after town. I like to walk. I hate to take taxis. I’d rather tow my bags through 50 minutes of minus 30 than take the cab and pay the extra 100 rubles or so. Does that make me cheap? Or does that make me a healthy Scandinavian? All concerned about the global warming thing and other things of the sort?

I should be sad. I’m leaving my family – again. I’m leaving my friends – again. But then again, it feels like I’m too used to this to get sad. The world is full of traveling. Everybody leaves sooner or later. Life is motion. We need to get on. We need to move. The world is out there and the only way to see everything is to open your eyes and get out of your door. Yes, I’m poor now and I don’t know what will happen if I don’t write some articles, get them published and pay my rent. I have no idea. But you know what? I don’t need to know. Because somehow, I don’t know how, I just have a feeling that I’m going to be alright. I have some knowledge and I have made it through before. I’m maturing. I’m growing up. Every time I leave I loose a piece of myself, but at the same time – I gain a bigger piece from something [someone] else. Believe me, I don’t like traveling. I hate getting off and on to different vehicles. I hate to fly. I can’t stand it. Flying is very unnatural. But I fly anyway. And I go even though I know I will never be able to go back to this moment, to this day, to this place. Everything, everybody, changes. I do not feel any need to let things stay the way they were. I think too much could be gained in order for us to preserve something, no matter how good or bad it was. We need new things in our lives. We need to challenge ourselves. And that’s what I’m setting myself out to do now. I have many things on my list [more than three, promise!] to do when I get back to Yekaterinburg. Every day that I live here on Earth and get to meet people and hear things and see things, I realize that I know nothing at all. And I like that feeling – I know nothing. I’m living here in order to learn. I want to see everything, I want to hear everything, I want to hold the entire planet in my hand. I’m just a kid and I’m just getting started. I don’t know where I will be in a year from now, hell I don’t know what I’ll be doing or feeling or thinking a week from now! And I don’t want to know. I want to create. I want to write. I want to work. I want to tell the world what I’m seeing and I don’t care if they’ll agree or disagree. Anything is better than silence. Well, okay, sometimes silence can be good too. But the point is – dare to be brave. Dare to be strong. Dare to be free.

Or like Weird Al would put it – dare to be stupid.

It’s all the same. There’s something out there for me too. Maybe I’m not the smartest nut in the basket, but I’m pulling my act together. Maybe I’m not the prettiest flower arrangement in the shop around the corner, but I’m going bloom sooner or later. Maybe I’m not the nicest Playboy bunny of the year to ever come out glorious nation Sweden, but I’m smiling for all cameras without a doubt. Maybe I’m not the weirdest nerd looking for that last copy of some rare Anna Politivskaya article in the bin outside your office that has intense business relations with Putin’s oil company [Russian Federation], but at least I’m not stretching it. I am who I am. And I’m okay.

Close But No Cigar

Annie & me enjoying the Western World in all its glory.

Last week I thought I was in love. This week I know I’m in love. After all these years of searching for the right one, after what seems to be an eternity of looking for that Mister Right, the guy of my dreams, the Man with the big M, the gentleman I can take home and never let out again – I have finally found him. Yes, I knew it already a year ago, when I heard people talking of him at the faculty of Slavic Languages at Gothenburg University and saying Russian literature was his religion. I knew it in my heart already then, although I kept inside of me as if in unconsciousness for more than a year. Then I saw him again this year and he in all his great glory smiled at me and my heart started to beat like I had taken more than my regular daily dose of cocaine. He came up to me and I stared and I drooled and then I said something stupid in Russian like: “Hello”. He, being as he is perfect in every way, told me: “Welcome. Your Russian is amazing!” My faced was instantly flushed like those automatic Japanese public restrooms at airports and I mumbled: “You say that after hearing only one word!” And he shrugged his shoulders like any man who has read all the books you’d ever want to read would do and invited me to sit down in his office. Then we switched to Swedish and after one hour of conversation I thought I was in love. That was last week. A week later we met again. At first I was a total geek and hung at the university for two hours on Tuesday trying to get a hold on him but he proved to be as busy as a phone line on New Year’s Eve. So I sat there and read a chapter from a book in Russian and then I split and went to my sister’s school to pick her up.

Oh. That’s beside the point of me being in love like the nerd I am with my professor, but it’s a funny story that could be told. It’s actually more of a tragic story that should be told. My sister is now in the seventh grade at the same school which I left at the age of 15. That was roughly six years ago. On Tuesday I went there and I walked around looking for the classroom where my sister was and since I couldn’t find it, I asked a teacher in the hallway. He looks at me and says: “Are you late?” At first I’m stunned – Oh No He Did NOT! He did not just mistake me for being a teenager in the eighth grade or something! He blinks once twice thrice and I realize that he’s actually just mistaken me for being a kid. I clear my throat: “No, I’m here to pick up my younger sister.” He looks like he doesn’t believe a word that comes out of my mouth, but helps me out anyway. I only spent 20 minutes or so at my old school, but I happened to manage to run into my old teacher. At first she thought I was a student (damn this eternal youth thing I’ve got going on) but then she screamed: “Oh my God, it’s you! YOU! I can’t believe it! Are you here for your sister? Your sister is so talented, you know, and your brother too, and what are you doing nowadays? Are you working as a journalist in Murmansk? I’ve been reading your articles, you know!” I smile and tell her that yes, I know my siblings are talented and no, I’m not a journalist in Murmansk but actually a student of Russian literature at university in Yekaterinburg. Then she hugs me and shouts: “That’s my girl, that’s a good girl! Good girl! You know, I only have one year left now!” And then off she goes as fast as she appeared. No more questions, no nothing, just a smile before she goes down the hallway looking just like she did almost a decade ago when I first met her. She was my class teacher and I only had her in one subject – art.

Back to my burning passion for that impeccable man who works as a professor of Russian literature at Gothenburg university. I didn’t manage to meet him on Tuesday, but had better luck on Wednesday. He was in his office and I was scared. He has the world’s best office – three walls covered of books about Russian language and literature. I had been scared all night before and all morning because I had left two translations I made for credits in his box the day before and I was scared that they were both horrible and I had therefore fallen off his ladder of people worthy of respect. But as I read in the brilliant book “An American Dream” by Norman Mailer – “that which you fear most is what you must do.” Yes, he’s right and that’s the way to go about things. There are very few things which I fear in this world, in fact I could count them all on one hand, and one of them is having people tell me what I already know but would prefer if other people didn’t know about at all. I was aware of the fact that the translations were bad and that I really don’t know how to translate things since I haven’t really been studying this past year but writing my book in two languages and my articles in three. However, I knew I didn’t want him to know this. I would’ve liked things to stay as they were a year ago, when he didn’t know anything about me and still thought I was all about my studies and not about anything else. All it took was sitting down in his office for me to know I was way off track – he took out my translations and three thick dictionaries and then it all began. I felt as if all of my dreams of ever becoming a professor of Russian literature came falling down all around me – bang, crash, dang, smash, dong. It was like a nuclear bomb of correct grammar going off from his finger directed at my forehead full of mistakes. After going through some things which I possibly couldn’t have known, since I’m 21 and only own two dictionaries, he says: “I’m sorry but all I can give you is a G [which is a 3 or a C, depending on your country of choice. In Sweden at university you can not receive anything higher than VG (4/B)] and I haven’t even looked at the paper you wrote at that exam last Thursday.” Gulp, is all I can think or say. If anything at all. Did he just give me G? I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Did he just crush me? Did he just kill me? Yes, he crushed me and he killed me and he just made me love him even more at the same time. He was so mean and yet so sweet and cute and adorable that I couldn’t stop thinking that my parents had the worst timing in the world, with forcing me to be born 40 years after him and everything. He then takes up the exam papers and starts flipping through them. Oh no! He Did NOT! The horror! And what do you think I did? Did I just sit there and try to keep my cool and pretend I was so above everything that nothing could matter less to me than what he found to be faulty with my Russian? No. Oh no. I buried my head in my hands and started to moan. I did in fact moan rather loudly. I guess one part of me hoped that he would take pity on me, while the other half wished he would start whipping me harder and harder until I started to bleed. The moaning seemed to him as me telling him: “Please, do continue.” And so he did. He went on and on and on, he talked about some words, tried to make me translate them on the spot, and, to make a long story short, he said: “Well, I’ll have to look at it closer later, I can’t tell you anything right now, just that you’re in a tight spot.” [In Swedish he said: Nu lever du allt farligt!]

Boy, did I know I was in a tight spot. I buried my head in my hands again and moaned again. I think I have never moaned so loud in my life. If anyone would’ve been standing outside the door, their first guess would NOT have been that he was taking a closer look at my exam papers, but – yeah, you know what I’m talking about. The sound I made was worse than a teenage prostitute with hair dyed blue, pierced nipple and low cut fake Levi’s from some idyllic small town in northern Uzbekistan would make when faking an orgasm for one of them Moscow millionaires with beer bellies making their way through third world countries on a so called “business trip”. Then I realized that I only had one hour alone with him and I couldn’t waste it looking at the floor and moaning about all the things I wasn’t and all the things I hadn’t done. So I looked up and told him about some literary things that he asked me to check up for him, then he told me about this book about Dostoevsky he’s bringing me from Stockholm next week and I was pretty happy. After that the conversation seemed to take off rather far and fast and before I knew it he asked me: “But why don’t you become a writer?” I was stunned, tried to escape and so my answer was slippery. I thought to myself – No He Did NOT! He did not just tell me I should be writing books instead of wasting his time at the faculty, putting up a front of being a serious student when I’m just faking and really all I want to do is come up with novels? I don’t remember how I saved the situation, probably it was saved when I told him about why I was translating Pushkin and that I had used a quote from Eugene Onegin in the beginning of my Russian Dogs. Then he was all like “Wow” and I was like “Yeah, I think Tatiana is the first full female heroine in Russian literature and she’s stronger than Onegin” and he’s all like “Yeah, you’re right and you know, there are very many strong female characters in Russian literature during all of the 19th century” and I’m like “I know!” and he smiled. After that he gave me a couple of articles he had written about Dostoevsky during the year and I realized that I had to wrap things up fast if I was to make coffee with Katharina at lunch. Wrapping things up fast with professors when you’re totally in love with them is not really wrapping things up fast at all. I made it out the door fifteen minutes before I had to be on the other side of downtown and missed the tram with three seconds. However, for some reason, maybe because God is always on Katharina’s side, I made it there just in time.

The first thing I told her was: “I’m in love with my professor!” And she said that’s nice and then I talked about him a tad too much and therefore I switched subject and talked about God and why a good man is so hard to find these days. She said I should ask if he had a son, but then she figured that his son must be around forty, so she said I should go for a grandson instead. She then talked about some guy she might have had a crush on if he hadn’t blown her off for being too damn religious. And I said yes, a hard man is so good to find. And she knew I was trying to talk nonsense and so she talked some more about love and life and that it’s amazing how much Buddhism reminds of Christianity. Uh-uh. But then again, I don’t need no man in my life to have a good time and get my kicks. By the way, I tend to fall in love with everyone and anyone and no one all the time, on a daily basis. I guess that’s why people think I belong in High School and shouldn’t be able to flash an ID card which proves me to as legal as legal can be. Last Thursday I grabbed coffee with a Russian boy after taking that exam at which I probably failed and I did the same thing with him on Wednesday night this week. Artyom is his name. He’s from Perm but has lived for the past 12 years in Sweden. In March he’s coming to Perm again for some time and I’m going there to visit him one weekend since I have never been in Perm and since he is a very nice person. We went to Java again and last week he saw his ex there and then she sent him an angry sms saying: “You’re pitiful!” by which she meant that he is pitiful for dating under aged girls. The funny twist to this tragic fact is that people thought I was about 18, 17 or 16 when I was 14, and I can still wear all of the clothes that I wore when I was 14. Sometimes the clothes that I wore when I was 16 are too big for me now. Am I shrinking? Or was I just going through a fat-phase when I was 16? This is one of those eternal questions which the entire world ponders on every now and then.

On Monday I went downtown to meet up with Annie and Angel, but as it turned out only Annie made it there. We hanged out for almost six hours together, roamed through town and spent a lot of cash in al the right places. I bought two pairs of shoes – one pair of red lace up ankle boots that will go perfectly with my red trench coat and be perfect for studying late nights at the library. The other pair was 4 inch high heels in brown leather with a cute bow in front and round toes, which will be worn while I defend my first essay at the Ural university in May. I also bought a book with which I can masturbate until I retirement – “The Cambridge History of Russian Literature” and I got it for almost half price. It made my day. And probably fixed my sex life. I keep it in my bed. Seriously! But enough about me and other things of disturbing nature and let’s talk about Annie instead. She’s a doll. She burned the latest Weird Al disc for me, “Straight Outta Lynwood”, and I’ve been listening to it non-stop ever since then. Maybe not many people know this about me, that I am a hardcore Weird Al fan. Yes, comrades, I can not and will never get enough of that Alfred Yankovic. Yes, I take great pride in knowing all of his songs by heart. Yes, comrades, I do collect his videos and songs and have even made a doll that looked like him when I was about 15. Another fact that people probably don’t know about me is that I was trained by a doll maker in my childhood and can make dolls that look like famous people or just normal non-famous people, pick your choice. I love Weird Al. I love him. He is the sexiest man alive. I must confess that no man has formed the image of the ideal man in my mind as much as Mr Yankovic from a Los Angeles suburb. I just can’t let go of those glasses, that nerdiness, the hair, the voice, just everything… And he’s just brilliant! He’s like the Dostoevsky of music. And no, I’m not stretching it. [Even though it would be better for all of us if I claimed Johnny Cash as the Dostoevsky of music, but then again, Johnny doesn’t really have all the depth that Weird Al has plus Johnny doesn’t really allow for laughter to come through the tears, and Dostoevsky, since following in the steps of Gogol and all, is after all kind of funny, if you really think about. Yeah, think about it! Really think!] I truly am of the opinion that nobody can live a full life without owning at least one Weird Al album. He brightens my life. And let him brighten yours too. In the honor of him I will post the lyrics to the best [in my opinion] song on his latest album [except from “White & Nerdy” of course!] here:

“Close but no cigar”

Jillian was her name
She was sweeter than aspartame
Her kisses reconfigured my DNA
And after that I never was the same

And I loved her even more
Than Marlon Brando loved soufflé
She was gorgeous, she was charming
Yeah, she was perfect in every way

Except she was always using the word "infer"
When she obviously meant "imply"
And I know some guys would put up with that kind of thing
But frankly, I can't imagine why

And I told her, I said
"Hey! Are we playing horseshoes, honey?
No, I don't think we are!
You're close! (Close!)
But no cigar!"

Then I met sweet young Janet
Prettiest thing on the planet
Had a body hotter than a habanera
She had lips like a ripe pomegranate

And I was crazy like Manson about her
She got me all choked up like Momma Cass
She had a smile so incredibly radiant
You had to watch it through a piece of smoked glass

I thought after all these years of searching around
I'd found my soul mate finally
But one day I found OUT she actually owned a copy
Of Joe Dirt on DVD

Oh, no! I said
"Hey! Are we lobbing hand grenades, kiddo?
No I don't think we are!
You're close! (Close!)
Oh, so very close! (Close!)
Yeah, baby, you're close! (Close!)
So close!
But no cigar!"

(Oh, yeah!)
(Oh, no!)
(Oh, yeah!)
(Oh, no!)
(Oh, yeah!)
(Oh, no!)
(ALL RIGHT!)

[Hand claps, trumpet solo]

Julie played water polo
She wore a ribbon on her left Manolo
She had me sweating like Nixon every time she was near
My heart was beating like a Buddy Rif solo

And she was everything I've dreamed of
She moved right up to #1 on my list
And did I mention she's a world famous billionaire
Bikini supermodel astrophysicist

Yeah, she was so pretty she made Charlize Theron
Look like a big fat slobbering pig
The only caveat is one of her earlobes
Was just a little tiny bit too big

I said
"Hey! Are we doing government work here?
No I don't think we are!
You're close! (Close!)
So very, very close! (Close!)
Aw, baby, you're close! (Close!)
So close!
But no cigar!"

Missed it by that much! (No cigar!)
Ah, yeah! Ah, right! (No cigar!)
Really, really, really close! (No cigar!)
But no cigar!

(Once again I have made an impossibly long post which no one will ever read to the end.)

Swedish Snow

I spent the weekend at my father's house on Brännö, an island outside of Gothenburg. And on Saturday, I kid you not, it started to snow! The first official snow this winter in Sweden. The unofficial snow was the one I brought in from Russia on my boots.

This is me getting the paper [Göteborgs Posten] in the morning, where I had my first article of the year 2007 published. It should've been a pleasent suprise but it wasn't, since reading it made me realize that I need to start writing better. No matter how much my relatives may praise me!



My sister and our dog Zappo in the snow when walking back from the store where we bought candy for everyone - except the guineapig Snow.

Gothenburg- A Love Story

My mother's fridge.

I have never tried to cover up the fact that I hate Sweden. I hate my home country, the native lands which have nourished me from birth till the age of 19, that country they once called “the best society ever created”. However my home town, my native grounds, that little city by the sea, has never been a part of that hated country. Gothenburg. Taste it. Yes, taste it! If you have to live in this country, then this place is it. It is the only place where one can live in this country. Of course I can’t hide the fact that it feels like I’ve outgrown this city more than just a little bit – come on, there’s like one big street and three stores?! [No not really, but when you’ve been where I’ve been and seen what I’ve seen, that’s what it feels like…] Gothenburg. Close your eyes and picture yourself this – all trams and busses are blue, the houses are cleaned, the streets are straight, all around the architecture feels like every house tries to look good for its neighbors’ sake. There’s so much beauty in this town. The wind blows sometimes, and the rain comes on one day out of two, but can you really beat a place like this? I grew up here. I feel like this town is like a friend of mine, like an old friend that’s always there for me no matter what. An old friend that refuses to grow up with me, it wants to stay a child forever and just play with me the way I used to play with it back when I was 10 years old. I used to love to take walks alone in my city. My parents were brave and we lived in the city center, so that was a possibility for me that I long took for granted. Now I know that not every kid grows up the way I did, not every kid gets that kind of freedom. I think that has made me the way I am today, the way I’m not scared. I’m can get nervous, however, but scared? Never. Sometimes I think my lack of fear is because I don’t have anything that can be taken away from me, I have nothing to loose. What I have is inside of me, and in Heaven [I presume], and nobody can rob that or destroy that. I like the idea of collecting all of my treasures in heaven. I like the image of it. It’s like a big bank with lots and lots of stuff, not only my own stuff, but the stuff of others. Which means it’s not like a bank here on Earth, where mine is MINE and yours is YOURS but… everything belongs to us, to us as the human race.

Which brings us straight to the subject of my latest novel [got ya!]:

When I left for Sweden I had three points on my plan: 1. Finish my book and send it to as many publishing companies as possible. 2. Collect all necessary documents for the scholarship and send it. 3. Pass as many exams as possibly in Russian language at the Slavic languages department of Gothenburg University.

I have worked off two of these points today, but let me tell you, it wasn’t easy. Not at all! And therefore, don’t you ever believe that anything comes easy, because as it happens – NOTHING comes easy. Not even breathing. I spent almost every night the past five days worrying about my book, trying to toss it out the window or just spill coffee on my notebook so that it would die and… Nothing worked. I was afraid to sit down with it even, since I figured that it wasn’t even half of all it used to or should be by now. On Friday I pitched it to a publishing company via e-mail and they wrote back in ten minutes that they wanted the first three chapters. So off I sent it. Then later that same day I get a letter back saying that they don’t like the beginning, that it’s an old trick and also that I use way too many adjectives. All in all, they told me they weren’t interested, so I answered them: “Id you don’t like the beginning, fat chance you’re going to like the rest. I’ll send it to someone else instead.” [or maybe fill in an application for the AAA - Anonymous Adjective Abusers?] Then I got yet another e-mail from them, saying: “That’s the spirit! We bet you’ve got a lot to give!” [but not to us…] Well, that saves me one copy of the 178 page script anyway. This morning I took the tram out to my father’s job and we printed out all the stuff and… 178 pages are very heavy. We maybe seven copies for seven publishers and it turned out to be seven small packages. Very neat and professional looking. Oh God, at least I hope so! Never before have I sent any of my books to more than two publishers, mostly since I on my own don’t have the money for ink, papers and postage. I’m very happy that my father’s magazine is taking care of all the expenses! If I get it published he will of course make it into the “Thank You” section. Then he copied one of my Russian language certificates from Omsk and my application for a scholarship to stay another year in Russia was done. I want, I want, I want! But I don’t know if I’ll get it. I don’t even know what I’ll need to do to get. But my professor Magnus of Russian language at my university in Gothenburg told me…

This brings us straight up ahead to point three [got ya again!]:

On Saturday I passed my first exams out of three at the university. It was pretty easy, almost too easy, it was the base course and it gives me a whopping 9 points. At the moment I have 41 points of Swedish university credit. 40 is one year, 20 is one semester. And that may not sound very special or like anything I should brag about since I’ve studied for 2 and a half year in Russia, but the thing is that I’ve only attended once class at university in Sweden. One class! In February 2005. On Monday I passed a very tricky exam, by far the trickiest ever so far – spoken Russian C (there are four levels, A-D). I thought my teacher, Svetlana from Chelyabinsk, was going to cut off my head at any given moment. I thought I messed up bad. And I felt like I just wanted to go hide under something and forget I ever tried to speak Russian in all of my life. And then this woman lifts her head up and says: “VG [it’s the highest grade, but there are only three – IG (not done), G (done), VG (well done)] but with a minus. With a BIG minus.” Then she enlarges the minus that she’s already written next to my mark. She looks at me: “You need to learn more words. But you speak well so I don’t want to give you anything lower. You want to be a professor? Then you’ll be seeing me a lot in the future and you better shape up.” I sat there and listened to her while she went on for a few minutes about her work on Nabokov and my mind was blank, as blank as it usually is when you’ve just emptied all the information you ever thought you owned. Yes, I’m a nerd and not just a nerd – I’m white and nerdy! [Everybody with a soft spot for Weird Al – lift your hands up!]

On Tuesday I went to the university to meet with my professor of Russian literature – Magnus. We talked for about an hour and now I’m convinced that I love that man. I fell in love with him already last year I think, but it’s not until now, today, that I realized just how great he is. He is very, very serious and very, very married and more than twice my age – the best men out there are! I gave him the book about Dostoevsky that was published at Ural State University and he was all like: “Did you know I collect books about him? I have 50!” And I smiled: “Now you have 51.” I copied the disk with the book about Dostoevsky in Omsk that my old boss at the museum there wrote onto this computer and he seemed to be very happy that I could help him out with that. I just can’t resist as man who sits in an office where three walls are covered with books and still doesn’t know how you open a file on the computer! Also I can’t resist a man that’s read all the books I want to read and has my dream job. I told him plainly – I want your job. He laughed. Then he gave me some articles that he’s written during 2006 about our darling Fyodor. I’m the luckiest girl in the world – I have to do three translations for my credits at the exams and I’ll give them to him in one week. So I have a reason to drop by his office and talk some more to him. But first I have to find three texts and sit down with them for a couple of hours and translate today. That’s why I’m trying to keep this short today, but as always, that may not be possible. I’m the word-waster that’s always dragging things on that should be cut off, disposed off or better yet – never talked about! After I’m done with the translations today I’m going to go over to my friend Katharina with a bottle of red wine and have a nice evening. She’s studying to become a priest in the Swedish State Church and we met two years ago – in church, of course. We sat next to each other and sometimes I think that it was God that brought us together. At other times I think it was Katharina herself, since she always sits in front and I then, that Sunday, sat in the back, and she joined me. Well, that may be that, the important thing is what she gave me for Christmas this year – she baked a gingerbread house, put it together and decorated it with candy and frosting! I was speechless on Sunday morning. I just couldn’t open my mouth. Nobody ever did that for me before. I have already eaten it all. My mother and sister helped out. A little. So what can this be – is it love? Will I become the future wife of a priest?

That’d be fun. I’d like that.

Yesterday I met Daniel and Klara, my good friends from a long time back in those days of raw youth. They were the way they’ve always been, just a little bit more grown up every time I see them. Daniel looks more toned now, I swear, even though he tries hard not to show it. I bet he knew that if he showed it off too much, I’d start to sweat. Klara is so pretty, the sweetest thing and she might actually be the only one out of us girls who keeps getting more and more stylish with time. Me and Annie and Angel, we’re just stuck in old train tracks. Well, maybe not Annie. And maybe not Angel, she did go from black to pink. But what about me? My sister has stolen all of my cool clothes so I’m stuck with the same items that I wore when I was her age. So no – I have not grown up. Not yet. Don’t think I ever will. And by the way, I don’t think human beings were ever meant to grow up. I blame science for everything! EVERYTHING!

Act Your Age

The view from my plane leaving the international airport in Yekaterinburg for Frankfurt at 6 a.m. on Wednesday.

A couple of days ago I went to a liquor store to buy some vodka for my mother [yes, I have that kind of a mother] and was faced with a question: “Excuse me, but are you really 18 years old?” I looked at Midori, who was standing right next to me, and Midori looked at me with the exactly same perplexed look on her face. I looked back at the cashier and realized she was not kidding me. This I did not only realize on her very serious, very I-don’t-sell-alcohol-to-minors-look, but because she posed yet another question: “Do you have a passport or some other document that you can show me?” I was stunned but took up my Swedish identity card which proves that I’ll actually be turning 22 this year, and therefore it’s impossible for me to at the same time be 17 [at least I would think so, but then again I know nothing about maths, I’m the artsy one you know]. The cashier looked puzzled but said “Ok then” and let me buy that 40% fluid by the name of Nemiroff made in Ukraine which my mother loves so much and can’t be bought in Sweden yet. Later on that same day I stopped by the sale at Mango with Midori and came across a super cute ruffled miniskirt at half prize. I tried it on and realized that in such a skirt even thinking I was 17 would be an overstatement. But what the heck, I thought, if people can’t tell that I’m an adult [a woman?] in ordinary clothes then why can’t I let them have it their way? Midori also approved of me buying the skirt.

And I traveled back to the Mother land wearing this skirt. I must admit that I had gathered the cutest outfit for my homecoming yesterday – the Moscow sweatshirt by Adidas, the Mango miniskirt and those knee-high lace up boots [my most expensive pair of shoes ever – both real leather and real fur, of course made for a winter wonderland that soon will be a part of the past]. What ruined my outfit was the weather in Europe – it turned out to be 15 degrees and sunshine in Frankfurt and then what the heck was I to do with my long knitted pink scarf, my sturdy gloves and light purple hat? Not to mention my thick black coat that I bought upon my arrival in Siberia almost two years ago? I had to do my best at keeping all the warming accessories under control during the four hour long wait for my plane to Gothenburg. I’m almost a professional at traveling. But only of traveling between Russia and Sweden. And back again. And once again. And then yet again. That hit me when I was sitting and reading “An American Dream” by Norman Mailer [thanks to Aaron who sent it to me as a Christmas gift] and eating my last piece of Russian chocolate – I’m tired of only seeing the same places over and over and over again. I want to see something new now. I want to travel a new road! I wish I had money. If I had money I would be able to travel and see so many new things that returning home [censured – Sweden or Russia – pick your choice!] would be interesting once again. There are many places I would like to go, mostly within the former Soviet Union – Minsk, Irkutsk, Vladivostok, Alma-Ata, Magadan… Yesterday I got all my Christmas gifts and my mother had bought two of the worlds best books for me – a tourist guide to the Soviet Union from 1964 [that’s going to keep my company for a long time to come, promise] and a thick, big book with many pictures about the different native peoples of Siberia and Mongolia from the 80s. Last year I bet that would’ve made me long for the Russian Federation, but this year it only made me smile, since I know I’ll be going there soon again. And again! The places in the other world that I would like to visit, I mostly want to do so because of my friends that live there – I want to climb mountains with Malin on Madeira, take long walks in France with my French husband Lionel [yes, I have a French husband! But it’s a secret, shhhh, even though he’s my favorite husband, way better than my Chinese old one…], talk all night long about literature with Ann in California, see Aaron’s Portland and the Minnesota of Betsy and Jennifer, visit Hanti-Mansiski Independent District with Gulnara’s cute cousin Shamel…

Yesterday I had my first encounter with Sweden. Start the counting, ladies and gentlemen! I was sitting outside of the flight to Gothenburg waiting for boarding. And then it hits me, it throws itself in my face, spits all over my cute clothes, starts to itch in my eyes with sharp needles, wanting to climb under my skin and just sit there and be… and be… and be Swedish! I listened to spoken Swedish for the first time in over four months and I realized that I truly hate my home country. Not only do I hate the country, I also hate the people. God, forgive me. I know it must be the biggest sin in the world to hate your home. And I truly wish I didn’t hate it so much. It’s just… It’s just the way my people are – the way they talk, dress, think, conduct themselves, and… I guess most of it is they way they breathe. It’s not as bad as it was when I came back last time, in July, when I totally broke down on the train from Borås. No, I’ve grown up since then and if I ever break down on a train from Borås again, you have the right to slap me real hard in my face and yell from the top of your lungs that I need to get a grip on things our you’ll rip out my intestines and beat me bloody with them [my mother used to scream like that at me when I was a kid and it has proven to be the one thing in my upbringing which helped me in becoming a responsible adult]. No, I didn’t cry this time. And maybe that’s not better. I should’ve cried. At least that would’ve given me a positive effect of clearing out all those tensions inside of me. But no, no I had to sit there and get mad. I was very mad at my nation when I boarded the plane. Then I don’t remember if I was angry anymore since I fell asleep for the first time in two days and slept until the plane touched ground in a rainy Gothenburg.

Last night I fell asleep again at six o’clock at night, after giving and getting gifts and eating chocolate and my mother’s cooking [it’s good to be home!]. I woke up at six in the morning and I’ll try to be up on my legs until at least nine tonight. I need to turn my day around again. I hope things will work out for me. My family seems to be alright. My father is the same as always, even asking me: “So what are you doing over there now again? What are you studying?” I told him and then I completely lost him when I started going off about my academic works and the possibilities I have there in the future. I guess I’m the first one in my family who thinks a career in scientific studies and university teaching is the best thing that could ever be given from God. My sister is taller than me [not much of an achievement though] and has black hair and looks like someone who was too cool to be my friend back when I was 14. And she’s the coolest person at my old school. We’re very different but I hope that we’ll find the way back to each other. After all I have myself to blame – I’ve spent the past 2,5 years in Russia and she’s grown from 11 to a teenager… What was I thinking would be waiting for me when I got back home? That same little sweet girl? No! But on the good side, at least I know that if she’s this way now, she’ll just be getting better and better with the years. It’s all in a good start. Which is why not too much should be expected of me – I started out bad and I take pride in getting worse by the minute.

On the airport I improved my makeup together with this classy lady from the USA going to Malaga in the public bathroom [no, not Russian standard but amazing Euro standard!]. She also improved her makeup and we talked about traveling and living and the need of looking good when going from dot A to dot B via a couple of hundred minor dots in between. I was impressed by her and she was impressed with me, after I told her about my Russian adventures and the fact that I want to live and work there and not giving away anything but hope in my voice. So we prolonged the conversation and our makeup procedure for as long as possible. Then when she left I was convinced for almost 30 minutes that she had been a hallucination. Because in a way she was just the kind of woman I would like to be when I get to live through yet another 50 years. At 70 I too want to be classy, traveling all over the planet, going from one bottle of cooled champagne to the next. So I tried to convince myself that it had actually been a visit from myself in the future. It was a fun thought and it took my mind of thinking about the book I was reading, which was very sexual and strange yet oh so inspiring. Then I realized that in 50 years people will probably not be flying anymore, since we have to quite flying in 25 years or we’ll have a temperature too high for us to live here. But then I threw all the logic out the window and decided that maybe the future me was traveling by train or by foot [though it would be hard to travel by foot in the kind of footwear she had on, but then again, if I can handle it now, who says I won’t in 2057?] and for the sake of meeting the 20 something me, I had chosen to pretend to be flying. I like myself for doing that for me. Because most of the time I have no faith in the future and I just think everything’s going to be over in about an hour or so. Damn, now that I come to think of it, I should’ve asked her how many books she’s published. Actually I got very little information from her about anything. Only that her son-in-law is Swedish. Well, on the bright side, at least that tells me that I’m going to have a daughter and that she’s going to get married.

There’s a good side to everything. Even the madness. Actually the madness has three good sides…

Russia On Ice

Following the trend - me on ice in Tobolsk, Siberia.

Earlier this morning [more correctly, at 11 a.m.] I arrived with the train to Yekaterinburg after staying eight days with the Zaynutdinov family in Tobolsk. It’s not the first time I’ve been spending time with my friend Gulnara and her family [mother, father, sister, grandmother] during those first fragile days of the year, no, I did it last year too, before hitting the road as the traveling stranger that I am. It was a lot of fun. In many ways. We talked late at night and then I slept until none every day and so did she. Most of all, of course, I enjoyed spending time with my closest friend in Russia, whom I hadn’t seen since June, before she went to the USA and I went to Sweden. We talked a lot, walked a lot, went out with her friends and her cousin Shamel [from Hanti-Mansisky!] and all in all we had a good time. Her cousin Shamel came on the second of January and after spending five days with him, it feels like he’s my cousin too. He’s a blast! I’ll maybe post a picture of him on my website soon, next time that I update it, just to show just how cute a seventeen year old tartar swimmer from the far far far North of Russia can be J Also I was pampered with food and shelter without having to lift a finger for the past week, which I love, so now I think I’ll have a hard time getting used to taking care of myself again… Gulnara’s mother is an amazing woman, and she gave me cherry jam, which means that she has my heart forever!

On New Years Eve, which is by far the biggest holiday in Russia, I noticed a trend that has passed me by unnoticed. Well, it’s not that hard for trends to pass me by unnoticed, since I spend all of my time reading or writing or studying and never even have time to check up the news other than on the internet in the morning. It seems that the entire nation is on ice. I don’t mean figuratively speaking, I don’t mean it like a metaphor, and I’m not speaking to you in pictures that show one thing but really mean another – no, seriously, all of Russia is on ice! Back when I was a kid, my father used to take me and my brother to see a show every winter called “Disney on ice”. I loved it. I also loved to skate back in the days. But I grew out of it about at the same time as I grew out of my skates. Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, I realize that I used to be crazy about skating. I used to go skating all the time, at night or early in the morning before school, when I was around 10-13 years old on a lake that was located not very far from the house that we lived in back then. I liked the speed I think, and the fresh, cold, sticky air against my blossoming cheeks. And the fact that all ice skaters seemed to be from another world, the world of eternal winter, where real shoes were for the mentally retarded. Now I live in that country. And I’m the mentally retarded one! I’ll show you what I mean – first of all, there’s the show “Stars on ice”, in which famous actors and singers team up with famous ice skaters in pairs and do different numbers together. It’s kind of like the western “Idol” show, just that it’s on ice and that there’s just as much glamour about the ice skaters as it is about the singers and actors. Which could only happen in Russia! Another thing that could only happen in Russia is where they taped the final episode of that show – they built an ice skating rink in the middle of the Kremlin! In the heart of Moscow! Can you believe it? I was shocked too. And as if it’s not enough with stars on ice, they have another, just as popular show, called “Dance on ice”. It’s pretty much the same concept as the western show “So you think you can dance”, only that it’s on ice, because, well, it’s Russia. These were the two most popular shows on Russian television during the fall 2006, but no, no, that’s not everything – hold your breath and I’ll tell you. In Russia, after midnight, on New Years Eve, there’s a show called “The Blue Light” that’s an old Soviet classic. Every year the most popular Russian famous people do cover versions of their own songs or other people’s songs and then perform them in a glamorous and glittery manner of which only a citizen of the former Soviet Union could ever come to think of. I saw it last year and I had to turn away several times to save my eyes from the overly made up, shiny, beautiful people on the screen obviously having nothing in common with me and my bleak existence in Siberia. This year it was all that it was last year – on ice.

What’s next? Putin on ice? I don’t know if Putin was on ice when he gave his yearly speech to the nation at five minutes before midnight on New Year’s Eve. They only showed his face. Probably he was on ice too. It would make sense. I wonder, though, what the ice stands for? I mean, it’s not just ice and it’s not just skates, it’s a storm of people skating away, in the middle of the warmest winter we’ve ever had. What does it stand for? What’s it trying to hide? What are these stars telling us, you and me, when they put on skates in stead of leopard skin high heels? Are they telling us it’s all right, or are they telling us the opposite? I wonder, and I’ve been wondering for quite a while, over a week now, but I can’t seem to break it down. Maybe I’m just a party pooper, always trying to get down deep into things that are as shallow as a blow up pool for kids. But that’s my problem, and let me deal with it. Another fun fact – it’s widely known that in Russia only 20% of the population knows how to skate. Fifty years ago that number was 60%. Maybe it’s all a part of Putin’s plan to get the Russians to make more babies? I mean, he went on and on about that in his speech. And we all know, dear comrades, that nothing is as romantic as a date on ice.

Speaking of romantic – I had a moment with a man before I went to Tobolsk. Yes, I know, you’re all surprised and going “what the…!”, but give me a minute and I’ll explain it all to you. So two days before hitting Siberia I went to the Mega mall where IKEA is outside of the city to buy the Christmas gift for my sister [I don’t think she’ll read this, but I won’t take any chances, so I won’t be mentioning any names] and it was complete chaos there. It was one of my life’s worst experiences; I was almost choked several times by people trying to get their hands on that bottle of champagne and that box of chocolate with a pink pig on it. Then I get back home, and tell my mother all about the gift, and she says it’s not the right size. Therefore I had to go back out there again the next day. I dreaded it, and promised myself, that if I miss the bus, then I’ll go home and change it after Tobolsk. I did miss the bus. And as I was turning around to go home again – bump – I run into Egor. Egor isn’t just any man, no, he’s my teacher at the student theater and he spent the first five years of his life in Magadan. Only that little tiny fact makes him super sexy in my eyes. So he told me he had to go out there to buy stuff for the New Year play and party at the theater, and I decided to help him out, since he’s a man and since he had never been out there before. I figured that if I let him go on his own, I might never see him again. And he’s a very pretty sight to see, so that would of course be unfortunate… Well, we didn’t just have a “moment” at the mall; we had an entire six hours there together. And we got to know each other so well that I joked with him about being my husband after a while, and then he just smiled. After all the shopping was done, and I had changed the gift, he treated me to dinner at IKEA [romantic?] and gave me a teddy bear [romantic!]. I don’t think I’ve mentioned Egor here before, since he’s been a very small part of my life in Yekaterinburg. I’ve only met him three of four times a week, when I’ve been at the theater, and we’ve only spoken to each other a few times. He has what might just be the best hair at our university. I mean it. And while I was being silly in the car back to the university at night, talking about Lada cars and Kalashnikov guns and the bad play I’m writing, he put up with me! I was very surprised. Not very many men can put up with me when I’m being silly and telling them all sorts of crap that I know men can’t stand to hear women talking about. But he actually laughed. And he’s a sweet man. When we said goodbye, he hugged me twice, once for me going to Tobolsk and once for me going to Sweden, and I felt all giggly inside. I don’t know what this might be, dear comrades, just a temporary crush that’ll fade by the time I see him again on the first of February? Or maybe something else? I’m trying very hard not to fantasize about the time when he’ll be a director of his own theater in Saint Petersburg and I’ll be the scenarist… I sent him an sms on New Years Eve, and he sent one back, a very sweet one, telling me all about how he’s longing to see me in February. I don’t know. I don’t want to have yet another “high profile” boyfriend. Aleksey, my fling in October, was known by all and none, and so is Egor. It would look strange that two of the prettiest, most well known boys of the Ural State University choose the same Swedish blonde… in one year. Anyway, maybe he’ll find someone else during the time that I’m gone. I don’t want to build any impossible plans with him like I’ve done in the past, that just ruins everything when you realize that it will never come to be. Maybe Egor is my guy for the year 2007, maybe not, that’s no important. What’s important now is for me to pull my act together! And with a boy mixing up in all the stuff I’ve got to get done, things would just be way harder.

Today is Saturday. So the calendar told me when I woke up on the train after yet another bad night of sleep on a strange bed – I can’t wait to get home and sleep in my own sheets! When I arrived in Yekaterinburg and made my way out of the train station to catch the bus home, I almost started to cry. And why? I realized that I’m not going home, like I used to feel when I returned to Omsk after being away. I don’t like this city. I’m coming home, but not to the entire town of Yekaterinburg, only to a small part, which consists of my friends and those two rooms in the dormitory. I feel like a prisoner in this city. I hate it here. Not all of it, but quite a huge part of it. And I must overcome this feeling. I must stay here. I have no other choice. I can’t let this town get the best of me; I want to give it the best of me. It’s sad, yes, that I didn’t feel anything when coming into the city. Not like I felt when I saw Omsk at the horizon – oh, how I used to smile… Today I only felt a little sting in my heart when we passed by the university – I really love my university. And I really must love it, since I dreamed about it no less than three times during the time that I was in Tobolsk. I dreamt about my teachers and my friends and everything… I must be a mad woman. I know I’m a mad woman.

On Wednesday morning I’m flying home for three weeks. I’ve already got four things planned with the university in Gothenburg – three exams and one meeting with my professor of Russian literature, Magnus. I’m excited about seeing him again, it feels like this year that has passed since we met he has finally begun to trust me and my ability to control the Russian chaos. He even asked a favor of me – can you imagine! – that I take a picture of a painting at the Omsk museum. Even though I myself can’t go there, I asked Gulnara to do it for me and then mail it to me. I’m proud that he asked me. Maybe I’m not a lost case? I’m planning a gift for him too, I want to give him one of the books on Dostoevsky that have been published at the Ural State University, but they’re hard to find and I don’t know which one he would think was interesting. Anyway, I’ll figure it out. I’m excited about going home, actually, though I didn’t think that I would be. I’ve got good gifts for everybody, and that always helps putting me in the mood. And I have other things that I need to do when I get to Sweden, I need to post all the documents for the scholarship that I’m applying for, and, oh, almost forgot – send the final [fourth] manuscript of my Russian Dogs to five publishing companies…

In other news – in Tobolsk I finally got to see two movies that I’ve been wanting to see for a very long time – “The Devil Wears Prada” and “Borat”. Both dubbed in Russian, but that didn’t spoil the fun for me, since I have realized that my Russian is almost as good as my English now. Strange, ain’t it, comrades?

Me and Gulnara - on ice.