Лёгких путей не ищем

Me and my «синий диплом с отличием» [blue diploma with honors]. Usually Russian diplomas with honors (with over 80% – I think – ‘excellent’ grades) are red. All of my grades are ‘excellent’, but because my BA from Gothenburg University is white – oh, the horror! – Ural State University couldn’t give me a red diploma. In retrospect I’m glad I didn’t tell them that my Swedish diploma is also twice the size of the Russian: then I don’t think they would have been able to give me anything…

On days like this one all I want to do is scream “to hell with science and screw higher education!” and instead find myself a good man, get married and start reproducing. The problem is that a good man is so hard to find… and that a hard man is so good to find; but nobody marries the hard man, unfortunately. Anyway, comrades, let’s kill that fantasy in the bud and return to my diploma. Not only is it blue [but still nice and actually kind of cute] – I knew it would be all along – but there are TWO mistakes in it. On the front page it states that I started the MA program in 2009 and finished it after two years of studies in 2010; now that sort of confusing information makes my diploma very Russian and absolutely absurd. On the other side – after the list of classes and my grades – it states that I studied at a ‘high-speed program’. I was not aware of this fact, nobody even told me this was a possibility – and the reality is that I DIDN’T. Both the dean of my faculty and the principal of our university promised to fix these mistakes next week and send me a new one as soon as possible; straight to Berkeley, they both pledged as they shook my hand. My day wasn’t completely ruined, even though I found out some unpleasant things some higher level males at the university have discussed about me without my knowledge until this day [mainly that I have awesome boobs; of course, I can’t disagree with that, yet – I’d like it if my boobs weren’t to play such a large role in how I am remembered by them], for my real friends here in Yekaterinburg did so much today to show me how much I mean to them. Three of the girls in my MA group – Katya, lovely Anna Mikhailovna and Tanya – wrote this on the ground outside my dorm last night:

Джозефина – we send all our love to U!

Tonight – my last night in the dorm – I should probably reflect some on my six years of living in Russia in this my probably last post before leaving the country. I’m not sure if I have it in me, though. Reflection takes time and effort and should be done with care, if done at all. It goes without saying that I had a good time here, that I enjoyed almost every single day [except for the days when this country was horrible to me and I sat somewhere alone and cried and cursed everything about the Russian Federation] of my Russian life and I must admit that I was more sad earlier to leave than I am right now. I cried at the defense of my thesis, but since then I haven’t cried. I almost cried today, but that was because of the above-mentioned issues that arose – and not because I was sad to leave. The truth is that you can never re-live your youth – and anything you get in life, you get only once, thus every moment should be precious and handled with care – and I’m happy to have had the opportunity to spend my youth in Russia. I’m happy to have had the possibility to meet and get to know so many amazing people here – talented, funny, kind and caring – and to know that they will remain in my life wherever I am and wherever they might find themselves. I do not regret anything. I got to know myself in this country just as much as I got to know this country. Here I learned the imperative lesson of taking responsibility for my own actions, the importance of always being one step ahead and the strength of being who you are – even when everyone else is the opposite. I proved a lot of things to myself in Russia. I proved that I can be independent, but also that I don’t have to be ashamed to ask for help. I learned not to take anything for granted in life while living in Russia. During my six years here I have come to realize that nobody and nothing – not the state, not any country, and least of all my native country – owes me anything. All that I receive I accept with gratitude, but without forgetting to never expect it. All the while always being prepared for anything! I always knew that the most important thing to me in this life is freedom; but only here did I fully come to experience what it means to be free. I’m in control of my life; I’m the ruler of my personal actions and the mastermind behind all of my – sometimes not so smart – decisions. Not only did I gain a lot in Russia – work experience, higher education, great friends and amazing memories – but I lost some things also. I lost my national identity; my passport still says Swedish – and probably always will – but that’s only one of the many places on this Earth where my heart is. I lost the equivalent to a native language; I still speak Swedish [though I rarely get the opportunity to do so here], but I don’t always think in that language. Some things I can explain better in Russian, some in English, and then there’s always a part of my identity that can only be articulated in Swedish. But the sense of belonging to a certain country is gone. I suppose this is something that I share with many other people of my generation who have taken globalism into their hearts and made it their way of life. Is it a bad thing? Not necessarily – but it sure isn’t a result of our modern society’s mobility that people often talk about.

The truth is that I don’t know what’s coming next. On Monday morning I fly back to Sweden. I was supposed to have my interview at the US Embassy in Stockholm on Tuesday morning but I found out two days ago that it got cancelled. So now I will make a quick stop at my professor M.’s house in Stockholm during the day on Monday and take the train to Gothenburg in the afternoon on the same day. When will my interview be? I don’t know. When will I get my US visa? I don’t know. When will I arrive in Berkeley? I don’t know. I have to be there by the 16th of August – and I pray that I’m going to make it. In the mean time while back in Sweden I will dedicate myself to seeing family and friends and spending as much time as possible outside. Oh and I’ll work on my book on Dusty, too, of course for I have only one year left before it will get published… Such a large part of my life has been spent waiting for something or other to be over; and in a way I can’t wait for my life in Russia to be also over. I’m exited about the next chapter – and terribly frightened.

Norsk karaoke

Me and my ‘oldest’ students of Swedish language: can you believe these wonderful people [except for Yuri and Sasha not in the picture but present at our party tonight in my communal kitchen] have put up with my teaching for three years [since the fall semester of 2007]?! From the right: Anya, Marina, Nadya, yours truly, Andrey, Pasha, Zhenya and Lena. Good times indeed!

Tonight we drank a lot of wine, ate even more food and played norsk karaoke [Norwegian Karaoke]. If you don’t know what that is – google it! It is a lot of fun, I’ll tell you. And they all gave me such precious gifts that right now I don’t even know what to say… Так не хватает слов на прощание… I’m not much for saying good-bye. But tonight was an excellent good-bye party together with people whom I am proud to call not only my faithful students, but also my friends. It feels so nice to be able to leave and to know that you’ll always have an army of intellectually gifted and creatively talented people to come back and visit. We also played another game and it was amazing to see just how much we all loved the theme of «Пионеры и смерть» [“Pioneers and Death”] for this particular game… Who knew that’s something we ALSO have in common?

Шаламоведение

Молодые шаламоведы (или «шаламоведки», как они сами себя называют) в Вологде 18 июня 2010 – день рождения великого русского писателя. Well, okay so a translation in English then: young Shalamov scholars in Vologda the 18th of June 2010 – the great Russian writer’s birthday.

Early on Wednesday morning I flew from Yekat to Moscow. For some reason the flight took not two hours – which is the usual distance by air between the Urals and the Russian capital – but three. Did we make a quick stop-over for coffee and cookies in Nizhny Novgorod? Who knows? Anyway, I arrived at the Swedish Embassy almost in time for lunch to turn in my students’ visa applications and have det goda samtalet with some of the excellent people working there. The funny thing about the Swedish Embassy in Moscow is that almost everyone there already knows who I am even before I introduce myself – and after I have given a name to my face they all tell me they’ve read my articles about Russia in the Swedish press. One of them even said he read what my lovely professor M. had published about my recent thesis in Stockholm… That was rather surprising. Anyway, the world of Swedish Russophiles is tiny and everybody practically knows and keeps track of everybody pretty much automatically. I had lunch with Lidia and after this I took the metro to Red Square where I stood in silence for a while and took in the breathtaking greatness of this marvelous country with which I am helplessly in love still after all these years. On Wednesday evening I went out to dinner and wine with Sofia, who is currently working at the embassy and is the author behind this blog [and also this one]. After dinner we went to a bar and had a drink and talked about everything – Russia was only one of many topics covered during our many hours of deep conversation. Sofia is great! I slept in the embassy’s guest apartment [who knew this was possible?] and woke up very late on Thursday. Then I went to meet up with Anya – who is one of the young Shalamov scholars with whom I went to Vologda in January this year – and together we visited the Bulgakov museum. After the museum she had a present prepared for me: together with Mitya we went to a seminar at a university and listened to a presentation on Shalamov by one of the leading scholars in the world. I even got to introduce myself to her! Her presentation was absolutely wonderful. I can’t wait to write to her and ask for a digital version of her presentation in Thursday…

On Thursday evening we went by train to Vologda. We were in Vologda for almost three entire days: we arrived early in the morning on Friday and left on Sunday evening. The whole weekend spent in Vologda together with three other young fans of Shalamov this time was simply excellent. As always, the days spent together with Anya and the others were so intensive and gave birth to so many ideas that I don’t even pretend to be able to do them all justice here on the blog right now. Anya and I slept for two nights next to each other on a sofa and each of these nights was almost entirely consumed by talking, discussing and thinking out loud about everything concerning the future of шаламоведение… We have so many plans! And even more dreams! On Friday we celebrated Shalamov’s birthday at the museum. On Saturday we traveled by bus early in the morning three hours north of Vologda to the small town of Kirillov, and from there another 20 minutes by taxi to Ferapont, where we visited a monastery that has 13th century frescos and is on UNESCO’s list of world heritage. The whole outing in the Russian north was lovely – I know I use the word ‘lovely’ a lot, but this is because I think it is only worth writing about here about good things, and almost all of the good things in my life are simultaneously lovely…! On Sunday we discussed and made plans for next summer’s international Shalamov conference in Moscow and Vologda. After this we visited some sights in Vologda and finished our trip with a visit to the banya and after that with beer and vodka – for beer without vodka is money in the wind!

On Monday we arrived back in Moscow early in the morning by train. And everything was great until I went to the embassy, where some trouble awaited me. It was a terribly stressful day yesterday. Now everything has been solved, luckily. My afternoon flight back to Yekat was cancelled and my ticket re-booked on the midnight flight. It made me mad at first, but in the end it made it possible for me to spend another lovely evening together with Sofia – eating dinner, drinking red wine and talking Russian literature.

This is my last week in Russia – the end of six years in the country… And I have so much that I need to do this week that I think my head will explode any minute now due to overload. Thankfully I have already shipped all of my books to the states: a total of 35 kilos or seven packages. Tomorrow my professor Aleksey is taking me out to dinner to discuss the publication of my book on Dusty and to say a final good-bye. On Wednesday evening I’m going out to a restaurant with my oldest group of students to celebrate the end of three years together. On Friday evening I’ll go out once again to a restaurant – this time with the other girls in my Master’s program group and celebrate our graduation. On Saturday evening I’ll receive my diploma at a theater here in Yekat together with the other students graduating with honors – the rumor is that the principal himself will be handing out our diplomas. And then… Then is Sunday: my last day in Yekaterinburg. That’s when I’ll say good-bye to my room in the dormitory and spend the last evening in the country together with Katya. After that I’ll be in Stockholm – as in Sweden… I don’t think I’d even wish upon my worst enemy to move from one country [Russia] to another [USA] via a third one [Sweden]. Right now all I want is for it all to be over so that I can catch up on my work and feel like I’m actually earning my pay-check. And to sit by the ocean in Gothenburg and do nothing but look out at the water…

Главное: не стесняться говорить по-русски!

What would Freud say?

«Смотришь на банан, думаешь о клубничке?» [You look at a banana, think about strawberries?] Now it should be added that «клубничка» [diminutive of ‘strawberries’] is an old Russian allegory among men [hey, Dostoevsky used it!] for making sweet love to a woman… I feel sad for Freud not having lived long enough to analyze the wondrous world of advertisement in this country.

In other news Marina flew into Yekat yesterday and joined me in the Swedish class today – and almost all students showed up! Her Swedish is so awesome now. She can have an informed conversation and I’m enjoying hearing her speak so much I don’t think life gets better than this. And earlier today I went to her place to have coffee and talk about everything while her washing machine washed my clothes. It will be weird indeed to start a whole new life where there’ll be no need for me to hang out with my friends and wash my clothes simultaneously.

Skenet bedrar

A photograph of me taking a photograph [by M.] this Saturday in Mikhailovsk. I intend on using this as my “Before” picture. I’ve already worked out three days straight after this picture was taken! Yay for me!

Today I wore a very sexy – bordering on slutty [I’m not kidding, comrades! a girl won’t get away with looking like that in any other country than Russia, I’m telling you as it is] – outfit: paired my newly bought hot pink ballerina flats [they have cute bows on them!] with my most 1950’s black skirt [complete with a very marked waist] and a second-skin-tight type of tank top which has a plunging neckline both front and back. As I was walking down the street in downtown Yekat – and fighting off rather pleasing «девушка, можно познакомиться?» with my usual «нет и мечтать вам не приходится» - I saw another girl on the street dressed like me. She smiled at me and then nodded and that’s when I realized that this girl studies at my faculty. There’s really no need to have any kind of дома терпимости in my town when you have the philology faculty’s physically agreeable girls giving away the milk for free without even allowing for you to dream of buying the cow. I will miss thinking I’m going to cause any kind of stir with a new mini-skirt just to turn up at the university to find everyone else’s skirt is shorter than mine… Sometimes I’m highly aware of the fact that young male students pass through my faculty only to have a sneak peak of which body part it is currently fashionable to publicly display в институте благородных девиц. But seriously, the philology department makes the girls of Moulin Rouge look like timid nuns. And I like that because it doesn’t make me stand out. As a matter of fact, I’ve acquired more than simply higher education during my four years of studies here. I used to dress like a librarian before I enter the Master’s program. Last year when I was in Sweden a man even approached me on the street and complimented me on my most impressive librarian look and offered to take me out on a date there and then. Said and done and we did and found we had little to nothing in common. Something that is bound to happen when you choose a girl on the street solely based on her looks.

Yesterday I think someone snapped at me. I was over at M.’s place – only to later in the evening find out that I have utterly forgone my drinking skills due to almost no intake of alcoholic beverages over the past semester – to discuss further details about shipping my books to the US and also some other people were there. We discussed mac computers and I said to one woman: “In Sweden all the intellectuals have macs. Is it the same in Germany?” She answered: “I don’t know. I don’t know any intellectuals”. Wasn’t this an unambiguous snap if ever, comrades? But it was probably my own fault anyway. I have spent so much time with Katya making fun of the working class – I think it all started when she congratulated me on the 1st of May and things after that just got carried away – that I rarely take into account that most other people live in a very different world. One person asked if I had read the impressively large amount of Dusty books that I’m shipping and I made the mistake of answering: “Yes, many times”. I think that my professor back home in Sweden might have done a little too good a job with repeating “never lower yourself in order to reach their level” over and over again. In the world I come from you don’t ask for the source when a person quotes something or someone obscure; you go out the next day and check out the quoted book from the library and quote it yourself the next time. In my mind this kind of question – paired with my answer – would be followed by another informed question dedicated to investigation of just how well I had read and re-read the books in question. Instead of this happening I was mercilessly revealed as the annoying intellectual who can’t make polite conversation. But the evening wasn’t completely ruined, for we started discussing customs which could be a problem involving money when shipping my books. To this concern M. said: “She [meaning me] won’t have to pay any customs. She’ll just show up with a mini-skirt and a smile and no one will make her pay anything”. Sadly enough, this is a quite correct statement. I thought about this a couple of days ago when I was running a red light right in front of a couple of kind police officers here in Yekat. Of course I’ve heard of other people getting fined for this, and I know that in Russia it is illegal to cross the street at a red light, but the police officers always smile at me and tip their hats whenever I do this. Maybe I should sing along with the last track “Vanity” on Christina Aguilera’s latest disc when she proudly proclaims: “Thank you mom and daddy because I turn myself on”? I also think about that 30 Rock’s episode “The Bubble” and wonder if maybe there are a ton of things that I think I’m good at but I’m really not but because I’ve spent the most part of my life ‘in the bubble’ then I can’t tell for sure and may never actually find out? But then again, I’m not really THAT pretty. Even though when I was younger and there were times – for some reason, principally in the USA – when I didn’t have to pay at restaurants, I would always make sure to tell my sister that this is not something one should take for granted. Unfortunately, I think my sister is in for pretty much the same ride in the future that I’ve been on for some time now. And as she also intends to dedicate her life to serious studies and make her living through science I shouldn’t forget to mention that in this field all previous perks of being pretty are turned to disadvantages. Because even though it is all very flattering, one day I’ll be old – or simply oldER – and I’d hate it if I was remembered for the looks of my youth instead of for the splendid academic work I performed.

I think an excellent indication of this is that all male students in my beginners group of Swedish have now fled the field – when they realized that I was actually not pretty but pretty serious about them taking the class seriously.

Нет места роднее Урала

When M. & I arrived at the tiny Ural town of Mikhailovsk and got on top of ’Crow Mountain’ we gazed out at this view and he asked me: “Aren’t you going to miss this?” Of course I’m going to miss this, comrades. Unfortunately the view from my window in my Yekat dorm doesn’t look anything like this…

Today M. took me for a day trip by car in the Urals to visit a couple of smaller towns out in the countryside. We drove without any proper goal or purpose, simply roamed the roads in order to get out of Yekat in the 30C degrees heat and see some refreshing nature. We discussed the future and M. decided to give me a hand with shipping my books to the US. After I defended my thesis I began trying to find a forward company here in Yekat that’ll ship about 50 kilos of books there. It was starting to get depressing, for every company turned me down due to that a) my shipping is too small; b) my shipping is not commercial; or c) Yekaterinburg is not Moscow… He promised me that he’d get my stuff shipped via the German Consulate [that’s where he works] so all I need to do now is get myself a big enough metal box that’ll hold everything. This is one of the last items on my ‘List of Things To Do Before Leaving Russia’. I’ve bought flight tickets to Sweden – check! I’ve booked my interview at the US Embassy in Stockholm – check! I’ve signed a lease for a room at a graduate house at Berkeley – check! Getting this room was without a doubt the most difficult thing I’ve had to do – except for getting accepted to this university in the first place – and there’s still some things that need to be done before I can proudly proclaim: “I have a place to live in California”. I’ve also bought flight tickets to Moscow and I’m flying there on the 16th of June. On the 17th I’m going once again to Vologda with almost the same people that I went there with in January this year. I’ll be back in Yekat for the last time on the 21st. Oh how sad doesn’t that sound: “for the last time”… M. is proud of me for getting into Berkeley, without a doubt, but he also said: “Maybe you should try and get your degree faster because by the time they’ll let you out of there you’ll already be 30 years old and you won’t have worked a day in your life”. Now I don’t think that’s entirely true. I’ve done plenty of work in my life. It is true, however, that I’ve never had the kind of job where I’ve had to be somewhere from 9 to 5 on a work day. I told him about my ‘secret’ plan [up until now only I and the people at my Swedish bank have known that I’m saving up enough money each month to be able to buy a house with property by the age of 35], but he wasn’t all that impressed with it. He even calculated how much money I will have to spend each month on rent, food and such as well as how much I will pay in taxes in the states and came to the conclusion that my parents will have to send me money or I will starve to death in California. I’d rather starve than depend on my parents grace once again. Not to mention the fact that my parents will not find any grace to support a grown woman who holds two academic degrees. I didn’t inform him of how much I spend here every month on essentials. I know he wouldn’t have believed me had I told him that my biggest expense every month currently is stockings… There’s just no pleasing some people, comrades. I know I’m not rich in any sense of the word, but at least I can buy six flight tickets within a week and not break the bank in any way. He got me thinking I should perhaps look for a job during the month that I’ll be back home in Sweden… But that’s madness! I’m going to Paris with my sister instead. And at the end of the day it is not about how much money you made, but what you made with them.

Since I defended my thesis I have not done much of notice with my life. I haven’t even worked for the ‘work blog’ though I should’ve. That’s what I intend on spending tonight and tomorrow on. I’ve decided to continue teaching Swedish all through out the month of June [and that’s a job too, right?] and I have done some meager efforts to start working out. I desperately want to get in better shape for the summer. Unfortunately, the summer is already here… So starting tomorrow I will start running for at least one hour each day. And try not to think the day after each runt that “ah, I ran yesterday – today I can stay in bed and read…” That’s so not constructive behavior.

Also I need new shoes. Surprise, surprise!

Also M. smoked cigars during most of our road trip today and this left my hair smelling like it had been in a 19th century saloon for the better part of this Saturday. But I bought new razors and a new scrub so tonight – after all the work is done – I will indulge myself with a long shower. Did I tell you they turned the hot water back on two days ago? Washing hair that’s long enough to almost cover my boobs in cold water was NOT a fun way to spend my evenings. I love Russia.

Post-Culmination

Professor Bykov posing an informed and intelligent question [hence the big smile on my lips] after I’ve given my speech at the defense of my Master’s dissertation today at Ural State University’s department of philology.

My dissertation and I spending some last quality time together with Maxim Gorky [in who’s honor our university is named] before the defense – after which we parted ways forever as I gave it to my ‘kafedra’… You can read what my professor M. has to say about my dissertation in Swedish here.

When I woke up this morning I knew that I was going to cry today. And I started to cry not once, but twice – after I had given my defense and was waiting in the corridor outside of the auditorium to find out my grade. I cried because I looked at this well-known, cozy environment and all these familiar, kind faces around me and suddenly it became too painfully clear to me that this was indeed the last time that I’m standing here – in this very spot – as a student… When I will return to this department in the future – and I will undoubtedly return over and over again – I will be a visiting scholar or, perhaps, a guest lecturer, but never again a student. After the defense the head of our ‘kafedra’ of Russian literature said: “This is an excellent beginning to your academic career”. Not surprising that he used the word ‘excellent’, for that’s exactly the grade I received: «отлично» [that’s A in English or MVG in Swedish]. Before the defense I spent a few hours roaming the university together with Katya; she had just passed an exam in the morning [and also received ‘excellent’] and we drank coffee while I read the funniest note in my thesis out loud to her… She laughed and even blushed! The defense was at 14.00. I read my speech. I received a couple of questions from the commission; only one did I answer – so Aleksey says – rather poorly. Then my opponent Melissa read her review of my thesis. After that I answered her comments and thanked everyone. It was pretty much exactly what the standard procedure demands in cases like these. Melissa keeps calling me “a graduate student”, even though I’m not yet – but I can take the compliment. After the defense Katya and I went to have coffee once again together with her. They left and I waited for two hours in agony and tears on my own to find out my grade. After finding out my grade Aleksey took me out to dinner to celebrate at a fancy restaurant where he treated me to wine and red caviar – very Russian! We discussed many things, among others how to publish the theoretical reference part of my dissertation as a book. I would of course like to publish more of it, but he says we should make three articles of those chapters instead and publish them separately. Anyway, I’m academically spoiled enough already because at the moment I don’t even know how many scientific articles I have published…! 11 I think, including the 4 that will be published in collections from the conferences that I attended during this spring semester. I gave Aleksey two big photographs of us together and a bottle of expensive cognac – he gave me 6 volumes from the new complete collection of Dostoevsky’s works currently being published in Petrozavodsk. Now I have 8 volumes out of the 15 that will eventually be published; he promised to mail the rest to me in the future. And I promised to donate my current collection of Dostoevsky’s works – in 12 volumes – to our ‘kafedra’.

This is freshly baked Magister Lundblad signing off – for the very first time, and – probably – for another four years to come… Then you can call me Doctor Lundblad!