Informal Economy

Had fun walking around Irkutsk today, watching people selling things. I bought some things- a big square plastic bag-thing to use instead of a suitcase on my trip (I have no idea what to call this item- it’s the kind of bag street peddlers carry their wares in, and it’s sort of like the bag I use for laundry at Middlebury, but not nearly as big), and Mongolian leather, fleece-lined gloves in the Chinese market, and tapochki, finally, from this Chinese guy with whom I talked about how neither of us really speak Russian, and some Christmas presents. It was fun bargaining for things, but mainly it was fun watching everything: the pretty glass jars of bright red berries and frost set out on tables near the Central Market, the old Chinese men yelling at people to buy their leather coats, the interesting section of sidewalk lined with women giving away dogs and cats, the huge section of the square outside the market now covered with tables of venders of garishly-colored stuffed animals for New-Years-presents season, all the old women selling their knitted knee-socks, etc. After that I ran into Natasha and Joseph and some Russian acquaintances of Natasha’s, and we went to the square and looked at the ice sculptures and slid down the huge awesome ice slide. Then we, minus the Russian acquaintances, went to the Posnaya (Posi restaurant) and met Ivan and Eddie and Leonya and Anya. Sat there for a long time. Came home and ate cabbage dishes and drank tea with V.P.

Walking around the ice-sculpture-covered square, just having slid down the awesome unregulated ice slide a few times, among the laughing Russian kids and teenagers splayed out everywhere in the snow at the bottom, I was feeling great love for the city of Irkutsk, when right in front of me a little girl of about five accidentally tripped some man walking through the square. He didn’t fall, or even almost fall, she just cut him off, I guess- anyway, he yelled at her and asked if she was drunk or something. And then my appreciation for Irkutsk was brought back to a realistic level. I think the culture of alcoholism in Russia is enough to keep me from ever loving this country in anything more than a very qualified way. It doesn’t even have character- these are no honky-tonk heroes, they’re just blank-faced, lanky young men hanging around the city drinking beer from paper bags. Many of them wear the exact same hat- light gray, with a thick dark gray strip around the bottom, and their short, thin, dirty-blond, hair is the same, and they have the same smooth, round faces. They remind me of the little rocks at the bottom of creeks, ground to a perfect, glossy, impersonal smoothness. These kids’ fathers have lost that look, and instead of the tight cotton caps of the lanky boys wear shaggy-looking fur hats that better match their weathered faces.

Spent a lot of time in KnigoMir, or whatever that second-floor bookstore near the Centralniy Rinok in called. First I looked at Spanish textbooks for a while, until I realized that nostalgia for subjunctive mood was not all that rational. Then I looked through the sizable collection of English literature, mostly annotated for Russian English-learners. I had read a very small proportion of the books on the shelf. I felt very uneducated. I don’t get it: I have spent a fairly large portion of my life reading literature in English. Why have I read about 2 out of 40 of the books judged worthy for cultural and linguistic export? I can’t decide to buy some of these books or not. On one hand, I should be reading in Russian. On the other, I have a lot of time to read, and it seems like I’m wasting an opportunity to read up a bunch of classics of English literature, I rather like English, and I’m afraid I’m forgetting how to speak it.

Dec. 16

I decided to go to Subway today, on my last day in Irktusk for a while. It was pretty awesome listening to Russians approaching the counter and having the concept of Subway explained to them. There were multiple vegetables, none of which were cabbage or cucumber and only one of which was tomato, and they could put as many as they wanted on their subs. For free. I assume they already understand the concept of a sandwich with more than one piece of bread when they arrive, but maybe they just hide their surprise.

Was commanded to go to another play today, in the same Electrical College as the battling-wives play but by another theater company. I was not very happy about the whole thing, as I was stressed out about getting everything done I had to for my trip, and in general I don’t like being told how to spend my time and money, but it was a good play- a Vampilov (Soviet playwright of whom only residents of Irkutsk have heard as far as I can tell) play that isn’t performed too much because, according to the director, it’s too hard. It was one of those artsy affairs beginning with the death of the main character and from then on following a very confused chronology and interspersed with odd metaphoric choreographed scenes outside the plot entirely, but I eventually forgave it. The basic plot line: young handsome man has charmed life, very nice wife, good job, friends with whom to do a lot of drinking and singing and joking, his own apartment (a big deal 50 years ago when the play was written), multiple affairs with beautiful women. And it’s all very funny and like one of those beer commercials playing to male fantasies. And then his wife is increasingly miserable and has an abortion and all the women leave him except this 17-year-old girl who is in love with him, but by then he’s a big mess and involves her in a drunken scandal in front of all his friends, and his jovial male friendships aren’t that helpful and he jumps off the balcony of his all-important apartment. Very cheery, all in all.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned how small children are pulled about in sleds here. Like instead of pushed in strollers. They’re these little tiny padded sleds, and when the parents get to a place with no ice they just pick them up and carry them like it was just a kid wrapped up in a blanket. There are also larger sleds for pulling around boxes of merchandise of various kinds.