A “turkey drop” is apparently a favorite technique among Moscow robbers that exploits a foreigner’s sense of chivalry. The procedure is to drop a bag or wallet full of money in front of a well-meaning naïf, wait for him to pick it up to return it to its owner, then go back to claim it. Another guy comes up, saying he’s a militia officer and asking to see your wallet to make sure you haven’t taken any of the other guy’s money, and maybe demanding to look at your documents into the bargain. Amounts are discussed, your wallet gets passed around, they hand it back, and you leave only to realize two minutes later that your own wallet has been cleaned out and the nasty thieves are long gone.
I’m glad I learned this the easy way last Monday, and I guess that’s the kind of thing in-country orientation is good for, even though I won’t be in Moscow, and I’m not sure the turkey drop is a popular technique out my way. For all I know, the Siberian thieves have their own tricks for unsuspecting marks like me. I also learned a lot about the Russian economy while I was there. They gave us a lot of general background on conditions in the RF… and that was very interesting, but I’m also not sure how or if any of it will help me adapt to life in Novosibirsk.
Actually, it’s a little absurd to call the three hours I spent in the U.S. Embassy last Monday “orientation” after the five weeks I had already spent negotiating the tortuous straits of class-scheduling, tutor-locating, Russian pedagogical method, and so on at home (that is—Novosibirsk). As I explained to a few people in Novosibirsk who asked what my conference in Moscow was about: “It’s called orientation, but in my opinion I’ve already oriented myself pretty well here” (sorry for the clumsy translation… actually, it probably sounds just as stupid in my Russian).
Anyway, I was in Moscow for two days before the actual meeting. As soon as we got word of the date (October 5th, a Monday), Helen (the ETA in Krasnoyarsk for you outsiders) put the word out on facebook that she wanted to fly into Moscow early and spend the weekend there. She invited any and all ETAs to join her. I didn’t have to think about it too hard. Helen is an Oberlin alumna and… uh… even cooler than that normally implies. She was also one of my winter term students a-way back in 2006, and probably the one who made me feel best about my teaching.
Four other ETAs and I would eventually decide to meet up early with Helen and stay at the same hostel near Kitaj-Gorod. I’m glad now that I jumped on that bandwagon, because the weekend in Moscow turned out to be exactly what I needed. That’s not to cast aspersions on Novosibirsk’s irresistible charms. As I’ll explain in the next post, I was just feeling discouraged about my work there, and it was good to get a break.
It’s hard to say what, in particular, felt so good about this break. We didn’t see much (or, frankly, anything) outside the normal tourist spots, unless you count the inside of the U.S. Embassy. In fact, I’d be sort of surprised if everyone there agreed with me about how enjoyable it was, so don’t take my impressions as gospel. But that exhilarating feeling of being so close to so much history came back when I was in Moscow… it’s one of those things I miss from St. Petersburg that’s lacking in Novosibirsk. I liked the bustle in the metro, which just makes Novosibirsk look sleepy. It was also great to finally see (I know that’s a split infinitive, sue me) the old Tretyakov Gallery, which lived up to the hype (I didn’t see the new one, but that wasn’t a top priority).
I saw Lenin in the mausoleum. One of the other ETAs told me he’s submerged in a chemical bath of which one of the ingredients is paraffin every eighteen months… which I just confirmed on the incontestable authority of a book about mummification on google books. He’s probably more wax now than flesh. So did I really see Lenin, you may well ask, or just a big Lenin-shaped candle? A question for the philosophers…
And it was good to compare notes with the other ETAs in person. I’m not, as it turns out, the only one feeling discouraged about the pace of my progress in speaking Russian, or finding that most of the written material I’ve tried using is way beyond my students’ level (even with supposedly advanced students), or concerned about my ability to motivate them, or trying to answer two different departments’ demands/requests simultaneously, or subject to spells of loneliness (although those have gotten rarer as the lecture hours, class visits, English club hours, Russian homework, and so on have accumulated on my schedule).
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