Sunday with Paul/Лебединое Озеро

I spent a good chunk of Sunday, September on a quest for internet with Paul. It would have been a simpler matter if I hadn’t, by some weird mishap, forgotten my adapter plug in the Foreign Languages Cathedra (actually the Foreign Languages Subdepartment, but the literal translation, “cathedra” sounds way cooler and more medieval) the day before. Typical. My first thought was that the охранник who handles all the office keys might let us through so I could get my plug out of the cathedra or, alternatively, use the internet in the International Connections Department, but it turned out that offices had to stay closed as a matter of protocol on Sundays.

So we marched across the foot-bridge and on down Serebrennikovskaya Street to Megas, the Western-style mall by the river. All the while, Paul was stopping and taking pictures, which is a hobby of his, and I was encouraging him to practice reading Cyrillic by asking him what different signs said along the way.

I’d noticed two things at Megas before that might potentially save our bacon on a Sunday when we needed internet: 1. a big electronics shop, which might, just might, sell adaptor plugs, and 2. a café in the middle of the central floor that advertised wi-fi. Neither of these delivered the goods. The shop was closed til 10:00, so we decided to grab a cup of coffee at the café in the meantime and see if we could use what was left of my battery. While we were there, though, we noticed that a) the café had no electrical outlets anyway, and b) a 200 mL cup of coffee cost the equivalent of four dollars. So screw that. At the electronics shop, we asked a guy at the repair desk, who was nice enough, but unfortunately could only show us three different things that were incompatible with my laptop or cord in three different ways. We asked one of the younger staff out on the floor if we could buy laptop cords separately from the laptops, and he seemed pissed to be asked such an impertinent question and couldn't or wouldn't tell us where we could get one. Thanks, buddy.

Despite these discouraging developments, my good opinion of the helpfulness of strangers in Russia was restored by the end of the day. Back out on the street, we asked a friendly-looking, dapper old guy in a white suit if he knew where there might be an internet café. I didn’t hold out much hope, because he looked like he was about 75 and not likely to be entirely caught up with recent trends in communication.

That’ll teach me to be age-ist. He suggested asking at the sushi restaurant a little farther up, saying they might have internet, and if they didn’t, they’d know where to find it. He was spot on. The waitress there told us they had wi-fi but not computers, and if we wanted a computer we should check at the Traveller’s Coffee by the Globus…

On this advice, we headed to the enormous glass globe-shaped Traveller’s Coffee right outside the Globus Theater, still decorated in the Interra rubber band motif. There's a picture at the top of this post.

Paul is a good photographer.

And we finally tracked a computer down right where she said it would be: as it turned out, it was a big, shiny, white Apple computer with internet access, the only desktop Mac I believe I’ve seen since coming to Siberia.

While Paul was catching up on work and e-mail, it occurred to me that he might want to see something at Novosibirsk’s famous Opera and Ballet Theater a few blocks away. I gather that the companies performing at the Marijnskij and Bolshoj are slightly more prestigious, but if you happen to be in Siberia anyway, Novosibirsk is the place to go for ballet. He was leaving on Wednesday, so our time was limited. I suggested going to see what was showing at the Opera and Ballet Theatre before then. When we got there, I saw that there was a performance that night there wouldn’t be another one until Thursday, which meant we had one option. When I got close enough to read it, I saw that it was Swan Lake.

I’m really not wild about Tchaikovsky, but I didn’t want Paul to go back to Moscow and have people asking him why the hell he’d gone to Novosibirsk and missed the only thing worth seeing there (poor fools don’t know what kind of charm they’re missing). So we decided to ascend to the heights of cliché by watching a Russian ballet company perform Swan Lake. I admit I was a little disappointed that it was the only thing left, and when we arrived back at the theater three hours later, I was bracing myself to be patient for a few hours.

But…

Twenty minutes into the first act, it was already obvious that this theater’s reputation was well-deserved. I saw the Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet at the Mariinskij in 2007, but I don’t think it was a match for the kind of grace and coordination I saw on stage that night. According to the program, the leads had won all kinds of major awards. The woman who played Odile was amazing... Actually, everything I saw on stage that night was stunning. (Also, the woman in the seat next to mine smelled nice…)

I’d say the only drawback of the evening was the seats. If you’ve been to stage theaters in Russia, you might recall that the seats are not the most ergonomic. Basically, you’ve got a couple of straight, flat boards (one is the seat, one is the back) with a circle of velvety cushion on each that doesn’t do much in the way of cushioning. The same is true in Novosibirsk. It’s truly a testament to the quality of the dancing that I got absorbed enough to stop noticing the ache in my lower back and butt.

So I ended up enjoying myself way more than I thought I would. By the end of the first act, it was truly impossible not to be impressed, and when the curtain went down on the fourth act, I was actually bummed that it was over. Wanting more ballet is an entirely new experience for me. When Paul and I left the theater, and started the half-hour process of walking off the numbness in our caudal regions, we agreed it had been a really good idea. I’ll have to go back one of these days.