Volga River Cruise, Part I: “Spakoynee Noch, Anton”

Hey guys! I hope you all are having a good October so far. I had such an amazing time on the Volga River cruise. I’d been feeling a little depressed in Moscow so the cruise was the perfect remedy. It was about 60 or 70 everyday, beautiful and sunny, and I can honestly say I can’t remember the last time I’ve laughed so hard or for so many days in a row. My ribs actually hurt.

On Thursday, October 2nd, we were set to leave at 11:30pm from the Kurskaya train station. Because we were leaving so late, we still had to go to class that day. I live an hour away from school, so I decided to bring my huge, obnoxiously blue duffel bag to school with me to save time after school. Way to be inconspicuous. After school, Paige, Erika, Kat, and I started coming up with some “goals” for the trip. Goal number one was who we wanted to pursue, if you will, during the cruise. Paige was pretty adamant about hers being the RD for St. Petersburg, Nathan. He’s 31 and pretty funny and pretty cute. However, he is a very hip dresser and perhaps a little too metrosexual, and Erika and I we kind of hinting to Paige that he might me gay. She just said that was an extra challenge. Our other goals ranged from reenacting as many Titanic moments as possible before it got to obnoxious, buy and wear some scrunchies (they are still very popular in Russia. The women even match them to their outfits.), make numerous sailor/seamen jokes, and getting Jon (our RD) to smile. I think this list of goals really set the tone for our trip.

After finishing the list, I followed went with Kat to her apartment, which is pretty close to school, to put my duffel bag there until we left. When we got to Kat’s apartment, her host mom / babushka greeted us. She was SO cute! She was so friendly and happy to see Kat and incredibly nice to let me drop off my stuff in her house (Russians are very protective of their homes and personal space, and for good reason). She gave me some tapochki (house slippers) to wear, but as I slipped them on, I realized they were WAY too small. Maybe a size 4 to my size 7 ½ size feet. She asked if they were ok, and I lied, luckily my jeans were pretty long so they covered up the fact that my heels were hanging a good two inches off the back. I was waiting in Kat’s room for her to pack, and I noticed several pictures of a college-age looking American boy hanging from the frame of her dresser. For a minute I thought it was a sibling of Kat’s, or her boyfriend, but then it dawned on me. “Kat, that’s not Chris, is it?” She looked up from stuffing clothes into her bag and replied, “Now you know what I have to deal with.” Kat is always telling us about how her host mother goes on and on about Chris, a former host student she had from Boston and apparently the second coming of Jesus. Chris did this, Chris did that, Chris made SO many Russian friends when he was here, Chris could bring about world peace, etc. So not only does Kat have to hear about the famous Chris at every meal, but he now stares out at all the time, his cheesy senior class photo grin silently mocking her while she sleeps.

We returned to school for Russian-American club, which we have every Thursday. Most people went home to have dinner and pack, but because I couldn’t, Kat and I decided to go out to dinner nearby school. Kat saw Nastya, one of the Russian girls from Russian-American club and a tutor, smoking outside school, standing by her suitcase. Kat whispered to me that Nastya probably wasn’t going home either before the cruise and we should invite her to dinner as well. I had a sudden feeling of awkwardness because Natsya doesn’t speak English, and my Russian is terrible, but I am SO glad Kat invited her. She said yes, finished her cigarette, and we headed off to the restaurant. We ended up having a two hour dinner speaking in Russian and learning a lot abut Nastya. She likes all the same bands as Kat and has as much trouble with English as we do with Russian. I felt like I’d accomplished something after that dinner. After dinner, the three of us walked back to Kat’s apartment, Kat and I needed to get our stuff and Nastya didn’t want to walk to the metro alone. When we got to the platform at the Kurskaya Metro, we were a little early. As more and more people arrived, we quickly realized Jon was going to be late (of course). While we were waiting in our large group, these two drunk Spanish-speaking men were coming up to everyone and trying to talk to them in Spanish. It was really creepy and they sought Carlos out because they heard he spoke Spanish well. One of them gave Carlos his business card and proceeded to go into this elaborate handshake with him, presumably because Carlos is black and the Spanish-speaking man thought that’s what you do with black people. Jon finally showed up and asked us if we knew those guys, and that’s when they finally went away. On the way up the escalator from the metro platform to the train station, a different creepy man stood next to Paige and started harassing her. “Big Ben” (we have two Bens, so we have to differentiate them. Big Big Ben is 25, has dark hair, is from Canada and likes to say a lot of old man phrases, and Little Ben is blond, from Wisconsin, and really enjoys talking about Germany and Mark Twain.), anyway, Big Ben was standing on the stair right next to Paige and didn’t do anything. We gave him crap for that. Of course, AFTER Paige got harassed, Jon made an announcement to watch our things and to tell people off if they are harassing you. When we got to the train station, I really wanted to buy something to drink. I went over to the vending machine and put in 35 rubles. When I pressed to number I wanted however, the machine didn’t register that it was still in stock. I thought I was going to lose my money, so I quickly pressed the coin return button. In Russia, there are 1, 2 and 5 ruble coins. For some unknown reason, the machine decided to return my 35 rubles in the form of 1 ruble coins. The coins came spitting out onto the floor and quickly filled up the coin return, so much so that I couldn’t get my hand in to take them out. Grey came over and helped me get all the change out, all 35 coins, which I then had to redeposit one by one in order to actually get something to drink. And that is life in Russia for you.

We finally got on the train to Nizhny Novgorod at 11:30. We had gotten seats/beds all in the same train car, but interspersed were random Russians who varied in temperament from civil to crabby. For those of you who have never been on a Russian train before, or for those of you who had enough sense to pay for a coupe, riding in the plat car is certainly an experience. There are six beds per little area, four on one side of the aisle, like two sets of bunk beds, and then another two on the other side of the aisle, also set up like bunk beds. Although imagine bunk beds without ladders which also have to double as storage space and seats as well. You pull a grimy “mattress” (thick comforter) off the top shelf above the higher bed and put that on your “bed,” with your blanket being a sheet. On the way to Nizhny Novgorod I was in a “cabin” (not like it has doors, more like a section) with Anton and Allison, my classmates, blond Nastya (friend of the other Nastya that I went out to dinner with and also a tutor), a random Russian girl, and an old Russian man. Before the train took off, blond Nastya kept making out with her boyfriend, which was super awkward because I was sitting next to her and Anton and Allison were sitting on the bed/seat across from them. At one point the boy stopped kissing Nastya, stared at Anton and said in Russian, “What are you looking at.” Unfazed, Anton, just replied in his deep, slow voice (in Russian) “Nice suit.” The Russian boy begrudgingly introduced himself. I thought he was coming on the trip with us, but he left before the train took off and ran alongside the train outside our window as it rolling away from the station.

Once the train took off, I decided to change my pants. I was wearing jeans and it was practically a sauna in the train, as the windows don’t open and there are over 60 people in the car. I got out some boxers that ended up being a lot shorter than I remembered, and decided to change on the top bunk of one of the beds. Anton even moved over under where I was so he couldn’t see me while I changed. Somehow I thought it would be a good idea to have my legs facing the aisle. Allison gave me her jacket to cover up while I got my jeans off. I had finally wriggled my jeans off and was about to put on my boxers, when at that moment, the perfect storm of awkwardness hit. The old Russian man was trying to set up his bed, so he brought his wife in from the next section to help, along with the Russian girl who was already in our cabin. The conductor came through to take our tickets at the same time the woman selling tea came by. At that moment, the old man asked Anton to put one of his bags on the shelf above where I was lying, without pants. So the next few seconds went something like this: Allison sees what’s about to happen and gets this pained look on her face, I see what’s about to happen and just brace myself for the most awkward situation ever, Anton lifts the bag above me, sees that I am without pants, makes some sort of startled expression, but continues to shove the bag up on the shelf so it doesn’t fall on me. Because of his exclamation, the ticket collector, the tea seller, the old man and his wife, the Russian girl, Nastya, and Allison all look up at me. And then time stood still. Gradually everyone peeled their eyes off me and I put my boxers on. But when I tried to get out of the bed, I fell out due to the lack of ladders, and finished my stumble into the public aisle with the stance gymnasts do after completing a floor routine, hands raised in a “thank you, thank you” manner. We weren’t even on the cruise yet and eight people had seen me in my underwear. Quite an achievement. When we went to bed that night, I ended up sleeping on a top bunk across from Anton. Before this trip I’d never really talked to Anton, but now I definitely felt bonded. Before I went to sleep, I said, “Spakoynee Noch, Anton” (Goodnight, Anton). He looked over for a second, got a small laughing grin on his face, and said spakoynee noch as well.

We arrived in Nizhny Novgorod around 7:30 am. Tired and greatly in need of a shower, we were all herded onto a tour bus by Jon. We got a tour of the city in Russian, seeing important sites and parks. After our bus tour, we were brought to this recreation of Nizhny Novgorod as it was in the 1200s. Nizhny Novgorod is famous for its old wooden villages, the kind you would picture when you think of ancient Russian life in the forest. It was beautiful in the outdoor museum, as I guess you could call it. It’s the height of fall now, so all the trees were beautiful reds and yellows, yet it was sunny and warm outside. The tour guide at the village brought us into all the big wooden houses and explained to us (obviously in Russian) what each room was used for, showing us old tools and decorations. She was super into it, and explained everything down to they very last wooden spoon. The whole time we were talking around, Jon was surprisingly not paying attention, and started playing with a kitten while his wife looked on. We were all shocked. There was Jon, crouching in the leaves, using a stick to get the kitten to play with him. At one point Julia uttered “Oh my God, Jon has a soul.” It was bizarre. Meanwhile the tour guide woman was getting pissed because we were all watching Jon and not her. After the forest house museum thing, they brought us to another museum within the city. This museum was extremely pointless, as it had all the same things the forest museum had except under glass. We were all really hungry and progressively more and more tired. After the pointless museum, the tour guide from the bus decided she needed to point out important buildings around the city. I was so dizzy and exhausted, if looks could kill, that woman would have been dead twice over. We finally made it to a pizza place, slava boga, and then proceeded to the kremlin of Nizhny Novgorod. In Russia, when you get married, it’s a tradition to visit 5 or 6 important sites in your city and take your wedding photos there. I guess Nizhny doesn’t have that many memorials, because everyone and their brother was getting married at the kremlin. Russian brides tend to favor dresses large enough to fit a small army underneath and bridesmaids dresses so tacky even a hooker would have to say, no thanks, I’ll pass. At one point, Matt, Mikel, and Annabel, who are all in a small class group together at university and somewhat known for their hijinks, were walking down these winding stairs when a wedding party came by to get their pictures taken on the same stairs. Rather than move out the way, the three of them stayed in the photo, smiling from ear to ear as the wedding photographer took their pictures. All of us below the staircase clapped for them, proud to know these American wedding crashers. The wedding party thought it was funny too. I think having tourists in your wedding photos is pretty common here. As we all looked out from the kremlin walls, getting a panoramic view of the city, I saw a huge cruise liner coming into to shore. I joked that it was our boat, expecting us to have some remodeled soviet-era tugboat, when Jon announced to the group that is was our boat. It was a miracle.

We were finally allowed on the boat. Kat and I had somehow been roomed together, and in a beautiful double room that had a ton of space and a view of passengers getting on and off the boat (perfect for knowing if we would be late getting off the boat for our daytrips of not). The room had a closet and a refrigerator and our own bathroom and shower. The bathroom was interesting. The showerhead was in the middle of the room, so when you wanted to take a shower, you pulled a curtain around half of the bathroom, blocking off the toilet and door from the spray of water, but inclosing the sink and mirror in with you, with the floor having a grate in it. It was kind of creepy having a mirror while you showered, but also kind of fun when you could brush your teeth and shower at the same time. Annabel and Julia discussed the possible trifecta of going to the bathroom, brushing your teeth, and showering all at the same time, but sadly, I don’t think it was ever accomplished. We got dinner served to us in the lovely dining room, sharing the room (and the boat) with elderly German, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, and American tourists. The mean age for the two groups (us and them) was 20 and 70, so the dynamic on the boat was quite interesting. The young male Russian deckhands were psyched, as we were the youngest group they’d had all season. We were on the cruise not only with the Moscow group, but with the St. Petersburg and Vladimir group that we had met at orientation in DC, as well as Russian tutors, a dance teacher, and various teachers, including our geography and phonetics teachers. That night we all brought out the beers we had purchased in Nizhny (per Jon’s advice) out on the dark deck of the ship, and gathered around tables, talking and watching the stars and laughing and getting to know each other. For one of the first times in Moscow, I didn’t feel so alone. It was only the first night, but it was pretty fantastic.