Post Written Some Time Ago

There’s a Morse code for Cyrillic. Of course there would have to be, but it never occured to me.

Victory Day was really cool. I’ve never seen so many people in Square Kirova, and they all had balloons or flowers or ice cream. The weather was nice, and the parade was jolly, and the military salute was fairly cool (the announcer-person would say, “Comrade pilots! I congratulate you on the 63rd anniversary of the glorious victory in the Great Patriotic War!” and the pilots would say “oorah!” in a gruff chorus, and then the military jeep would carry the announcer on to the corrections officers, or the navy (why is the navy even in Irkutsk? There’s not really anyone to fight on Baikal), or one of the other numerous uniformed groups), and the veterans all had lots and lots of metals, such that there was barely room for shirt, and the crowd pushing to put their flowers around the eternal flame was more courteous than your typical pushing crowd, and overall the impression was of great civic festivity. I like how in Russia you are considered a veteran not only if you served in the military during the war, but also if you worked in a factory, or were generally helpful in some other capacity (a “veteran of labor”). This means, as far as I can tell, that everyone who was of working age during World War II is a veteran, including women, and there was many a babushka proudly sporting her metal-covered dress jacket. The only detractions to the prideful but joyful solemnity were a) this weird, long performance by a special operations group of some kind at the end of the military salute, choreographed to “It’s the Final Countdown,” involving breaking beer bottles against their heads, pretending to shoot each other, pretending to kill each other with shovels, some slow shadow-boxing segments, jumping through burning hoops, etc., and b) the sort of retro, campy feel to some part imparted by all the communist symbols. I mean, it makes sense to have the communist symbols, as the war was after all fought by the USSR, and I’m really arguing that they be removed, but I’ve gotten pretty used to seeing that hammer and sickle on teenagers’ t-shirts, an alternate to rhinestone-covered Che Guevara’s, and it was sort of hard to take the same symbol seriously as a political and military rallying point.
Joseph has a pretty picture of the eternal flame with flowers all around it, but I think you will have to wait until we’re both back in America and I can steal it from wherever he posts it on the internet before you see it. Danya has a video of the beer bottles being broken on foreheads.

In the tail dive of my Russian experience, I have entered a period of being completely enamored with the country and everything in it. Before this, there was a brief period of being happy with everything I was doing and seeing but being fully aware that this happiness was tied to the fact that I was leaving in about a month. But now, while I am rationally aware of such a connection, I don’t really feel it.

I went with Valentina Petrovna and Nastya to Listvianka in the silly little red car today. I have long been curious about V.P.’s activities in Listvianka- she goes there all the time, and seems to like it a lot, but I’ve never been able to figure out what she finds to do there. Apparently the answer is that she drives around and drops in on all the eccentric artists who live there. So Nastya and I did that too, and it was pretty cool. I wish I were an eccentric artist. I think I could do the eccentric, but unfortunately, I think that for people to put up with you, you have to demonstrate actual artistic talent. But anyway, it was a sunny day on Baikal, and, what’s actually most important here: Baikal has turned back into a real lake, with water, at least at its southern tip. It was a pretty startling contrast from two weeks ago, when it was a vast expanse of mushy ice.

Other news: did you know that you can eat blini with lettuce and ketchup? You can. If you have lettuce, which is unlikely; I’d never seen it in our apartment until today.

I’m about to break my vow never to eat posi again. There’s a batch cooking in the kitchen in this odd device that V.P. got at the 40th anniversary concert as a present from the alumni; I’ve stalled as long as I could- running, showering- but I think I’m about to be summoned. Yep, there was the summon. It will be the sixth meal of the day.