Volgograd - I'm on a boat

Hi Folks,

One thing you'll notice about Russia, if you haven't already, is the amazing propensity for women to pose for photos in suggestive, sultry, playful, or downright creepy manners. One thing you'll notice about Volgograd is that it's on a river, the Volga, one of the world's longest. (fun fact: it's the longest city in Russia) When you combine the two, and add a pleasure boat, you get amazing results.

Note, this post is best viewed with The Lonely Island's hit parody of Jay-Z, "I'm on a boat," in the background. Find it at: http://www.thelonelyisland.com/video/im-on-a-boat

So, meet you on the river during World Cup 2018, and we can be on a boat, together.


- city's main factory
- I'm not trying to make any larger statements about Russia with this photo, it just feels that way.
- father and son ponder (what I assume is) a WWII memorial.


- for best results: have mom take the photo and dad give creative directions

- we shared the boat with some excited institute grads



- Stalingrad battle museum with ruined mill

- the riverfront, quite a nice place for a stroll

Volgograd - the oblast'

- Bright colors and benches: you know you're in rural Russia.
- fabulous hay-containing shtuchka
- gaishnik and future gaishnik
- Lenin surveys Pokrushenko from the Dom Kultury
- kopyor
- kopyor
- beer? check. fish? check. other stuff? check.


Not only was fun time had by all within the Gorod-Geroi of Volgograd, but we also ventured deep into the greater region - oblast' - for a taste of rural Russian quietude. We traveled to the tiny little hamlet of Pokrushenko, where my friend Aliya spent summers as a girl. Perhaps "hamlet" is not the correct word. More like "former cossack stanitsa, haven for free-wheeling, law-shirking horsemen." However now it is indeed quiet, calm, and growing more and more forgotten as the population shrinks and shrinks. The slow decline of rural towns is a world wide phenomenon.

We camped a few nights with Aliya's friend, her husband, and their friends. Both guys work as traffic cops, i.e. "gaishniki" in Russian. I learned several things about traffic cops on this weekend, such as: "gaishnik day" is July 3, just before our national holiday, and is celebrated assiduously by those in the trade; gaishniki enjoy doing things that would be grounds for arrest on other days, like drinking beer behind the wheel, in a car of six people drinking beer, where max capacity is probably only three to begin with; that "den' gaishnika" is best spent spread out during three days of copious celebration; and that if a gaishnik's campfire is deemed illegal by the local forest patrol, he may offer to one day look the other way during a traffic stop. Such are the agreements and understandings that help weave together close-knit communities.

Other interesting factoids: in this part of southern Russia people "hekhat." That is, instead of pronouncing their G's they make them H's, just like in parts of Ukraine. So for instance, although we celebrated den' gaishnika with real gaishniki. In fact, we also celebrated den' haishnika with real haishniki. There are other assorted cossack vocabulary: khutor for small town, and kopyor for little stream. So one might say we spent the weekend at the kopyor near teh khutor of Pokruchenko. And one would be exactly right.

Volgograd's Rodina-Mat'

Hi Friends,

July 4 saw me head down south to Volgograd - formerly Stalingrad - the scene of one of the twentieth-century's most important and bloody battles. The city was almost completely obliterated and was reconstructed immediately following the war. The highest part of the city, Mamaev Kurgan, was the most strategically important and after the war was turned into a huge park and memorial complex. Perched on the very peak of the hill is the statue, Rodina-Mat' Zovet, (or the Motherland Calls), which forms the culmination of a series of reflecting pools, other monuments, the Eternal Flame, and a series of ramps and staircases. It might all seem over the top but it is all quite fitting given the monumentality of the battle and the losses. To remind you, it was here where the Soviets started turning back the Nazis, and almost 2 million people died. This truly is a humbling place to visit and completely jaw dropping.

If you've been to the former Soviet Union and seen any of the myriad WWII statues, you're often left wondering why they must all be uniformly grandiose and somber. Somehow they fail to impress. Whether its their distance from the actual battle, your knowledge of their ubiquity, or that the Almaty statue likely resembles the Yakutsk statue, or that they kind of look like every other Soviet statue....one is left ruminating how the Soviet Union was so often a place of uniformity, even among its monstrosities. But this is totally different. First, the statues are moving and quite unlike any other Soviet sculptures I've seen in terms of real pathos and creativity, even within a restrained vocabulary. And second, even if they strike that somber, grandiose note, it's utterly fitting here. It's the only correct note. So let's salute a little known statue, and its little known artist, E. V. Vuchetich, and its main engineer, V.N. Nikitin. When it was completed in 1967 it was the world's tallest statue at 67m.

More soon to come from the Volga.

Dacha and Football

- some of the Loko toughs.
- Annie and the guy with the scarf-buying problem
- that sort of night for Lokomotiv
- no shortage of energy
- sort of like stationary, drunken, mass yoga.
- the happy family na dache
- local Russian girl on a bike
- the entry to Sveta's neighbor's dacha.
- shahlyk grilling on the open fire, fresh well water waiting to be fetched...
- all Russian girls must know how to distribute the potatoes.
- peonies: check.

Well, Sveta was in town from London, and so of course we had to hit up the dacha and the football. As the photos reveal, Sveta's family dacha is a little sanctuary only 50km from Moscow, but it feels much farther than that. Plus the three hours of traffic helps increase the sense of distance! Shashlyki, Russian salads, fresh produce from the garden, and some good old fashioned physical labor, just enough to remind this city-dweller what "work" feels like.

Also stopped in to visit Lokomotiv - aka Loko - formerly the Railway Ministry's soccer team, with Sveta's cousin Sasha and my friend Annie. Unfortunately we neither participated in nor witnessed any fights, nor outbursts of xenophobia. In fact the only law-breaking going on was amongst the four of us sneaking beers in the park before the game. Loko was soundly defeated, but fun was had by all.

Rostov - it's Velikii! Still!

Charles-as-Russian-girl




And more....