Rotaract Moscow International is now Official

On what was Thanksgiving weekend in the U.S., I had the honor of becoming one of 20 Charter Members of Rotaract Moscow International. My host club in Russia, Rotary Club Moscow International, sponsored the creation of this Rotaract Club, which includes students and young professionals originally from Russia and several other countries including Bulgaria, Colombia, and with me, the United States. The language of the club is English. The Rotary District Governor (who is from Sweden, as this District is a joint Swedish-Russian District) attended to make the club official and presented each of the newly inducted members with Rotaract pins. Also in attendance to help celebrate the occasion were fellow Rotaracters from other clubs in Russia, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy, as well as Rotary exchange students from Canada and Taiwan, who are currently living in Siberia. Our guests had the opportunity to see some of the attractions of Moscow as well as visting our club’s service project, an orphanage for deaf & blind children in the town of Sergeev Posad, which is about 60km from Moscow.

I am quite new to the club, and so have not yet done much service, as all of the work in creating the club and determining its first project was completed before I started participating in October. I’m very pleased to be part of such an energetic and enthusiastic club, and hope to contribute much while I am here. It has also provided a way to get acquainted with like-minded people of my own age, many from Russia, and helps me integrate into life here. For example, at the social evening on Friday, in which we welcomed our fellow Rotaracters from other clubs, someone was asking the Canadian girl if Americans and Canadians make jokes about each other. The Canadian hesitated, since I was at the table, but a Russian girl from my club said, “Oh don’t worry about Steve as he is Russian for this year.” Another case concerns two Bulgarian guys who are in my club. We have commiserated over the difficulties of learning Russian, as although Bulgarian is a Slavic language, they found many aspects of Russian quite difficult before they achieved fluency, such as the case declensions (which Bulgarian doesn’t have), and they have been encouraging me in my struggle. When they discovered that I knew a little of the Macedonian language (which many consider to be a dialect of Bulgarian), they were very pleased, and were happy to hear me speaking a language so close to their own. They then taught me a Macedonian dance that we performed for the gathering (representatives of each country were doing some skit or performance indicative of their culture), making me sort of an honorary Bulgarian for the evening.

More on Real Estate and Finance

I wanted to give a little more information about Real Estate here, as it is somewhat different than in the U.S. The majority of apartments here, whether low or high cost, operate similar to condos in the U.S. While in Seattle you can just look for an apartment building in the area you want, and see if they have vacancies, here the owners of apartments in each building are all different. This is why it is more effective (although more expensive) to go through an agency, which works with many different apartment owners, from individuals to firms. I tried to contact individual owners directly, but only a few want the hassle of fielding inquiries and handling everything, so the amount of apartments available direct are limited. However, I'm sure there are some avenues I'm missing, just from being new in the city. Until last month, often when a builder was putting up an apartment block, it was often financed by future owners, rather than banking, as financial services in Russia are still developing. Because of some high profile scandals where builders just collected money from people and never completed the buildings, the law was changed to limit such financing tools. In some ways, finance and banking are quite advanced here; you can pay for most utilities and cell phones, cable tv, etc. through ATMs with debit or credit cards. Most banks offer debit and credit cards, as well as automatic payroll deposit. However, mostly only western firms use the automatic deposit, because a lot of people here have two salary figures: an official one that is booked at the firm, and another that is on side, not booked, to avoid taxes. This makes it hard for people to gain credit in order to buy an apartment or car; usually they have to convince their employer to provide them with a letter that explains their full salary, which banks here generally accept in lieu of payroll
documents. On the less developed side, when I tried to pay for my university tuition, I had planned to just use my Visa debit card, however the bank my department uses only takes MasterCard. This is particularly ironic since I'm studying in the Department of World Politics and the bank is called International Investment Bank.

Concierge

I should clarify my mention in the post "Location..." below of a concierge in my building. The word conjures up an image of a guy behind a shiny desk with a snazzy uniform. However what I have is different; it is a little room off to the side of the entryway, very Russian-style, staffed by guys who are dressed for dirty work, so my assumption is that they are more like "supers" than a concierge. I still need to find out what they do for the 250 Rubles (about $9) a month. So far the apartment is working great, except my landlady has the flu, so I haven't been able to get her to sign the document I need for the university and immigration authorities. Hopefully this week; well, it has to be by the end of the month, if I want to stay legal.

Red Tape

No pun intended. Something I haven't written a lot about is one of the stereotypes we may have about Russia, and that is the beauracracy. It ounds terrible, I know, but sometimes stereotypes start for a reason. Add to the
Russian system that I'm dealing with a university, and you can imagine the extent of the entanglements. For example having to go to three offices to deal with what to me seems like one transaction. Usually one of your visits will be to someone who does nothing else but put an official stamp on paperwork someone else has completed. I've been working on extending my visa through to the end of the academic year, and since I had the bright idea to move during this, it has gotten more complicated. Every foreigner has to register with the local police in Russia. I had a registration for my last place, and now I have to have my new landlady sign a form that I must give to my university, who will then extend my visa and run the paperwork by the police. I guess my landlady has never rented to foreigners before, because she is very confused about this, and understandibly uneasy about putting her name on a form that will go to the police. We're meeting this weekend; I will show her my previous registration and hopefully this will help her understand.

Then there is trying to get the student-price subway/bus ticket. I had been
purchasing my bus/tram tickets through the department where I had Russian language lessons, and this was very easy. However, now that I'm not a student in their department any more, they naturally don't want to sell me a subsidized ticket. So I asked my new department about this, they said I had to go to a particular metro station to apply. The metro station told me I had to get documents from the university first, and then go to a different metro station (even though I have a friend that told me the first metro station is where he got his student ticket). Ask a question five times and you get five different answers.

When I first arrived in Moscow, my friend Kirill helped me buy a metro card
(subway) and told me the three month price is the best deal, which he was exactly right about. However, this is a price for the general public and the student price is even cheaper, so I want to obtain one if I can. Even this great card, which you just pass over a detecter at the turnstyle to get into the subway, has its drawbacks. Sometimes it will refuse to work, so it is necessary to carry with you a receipt that shows how long the card is valid, so you can show it to the attendant and they will open a gate for you. The card is designed so that it can't be passed between friends all getting on the subway at the same time, so once you use it, it doesn't work again for 7 minutes. Logical, yes, but sometimes for no reason it won't work, even though you haven't used it for hours. If this happens, you get an entirely
different kind of beep at the turnstyle, so showing your receipt will not get you in. Sometimes you get a nice lady monitoring the turnstyle who will let you pass, when she sees that you weren't trying to use it twice. Other times the lady will make you wait there for the full seven minutes and try again. Alas, all part of daily life in Moscow.

Location, Location, Location

I just moved to a new apartment. For those that don't know, the first month I was here I lived in a dormitory at the main building of MGU (pictured below in a post from July). While interesting from a historical and architectural point of view, it wasn't the most comfortable. And once the semester started and all the students who were away for the summer returned, it got quite noisy. There was also the daily humiliation of having to show your pass or "propusk" to guards twice before getting into your dorm. And if they were bored you would have to produce your passport and student ID as well, and answer some questions. And guests are only allowed if they are also MGU students. So I rented a room from a Russian guy looking for a flatmate. However, it wasn't in the most convenient location to the university, and I prefer to live alone anyway, so I found an apartment closer to MGU. The real estate market here is really bad; it is difficult to find something for a reasonable price, and you have to use an agent, the pleasure of which will cost you one month's rent as commission. After looking for three weeks with no result and then becoming worried I would have to subject myself to the dorm again, an agent turned up a nice apartment for me. It's a little pricier than I would like, at $550 per month, but it is quite nice, I'll post pictures of it soon. It is a large one-room apartment, which here means in addition to kitchen, bathroom, and entry-way, you have one room that doubles as living room and bedroom. So not quite a studio and not a 1 bedroom. I have a washing machine and the building has a concierge. I'm not sure yet what they do, but I have to pay them 250 Rubles a month for it. I've been there just a few days, but so far it is nice. A good home is important, of course, and with around seven months still to go on this adventure, it's good to have a nice home to come to at the end of the day. Now if I can just sort out the complicated mission of registering my place of residence with the university and the police, I'll be all set.

Bill Murray and Jim Jarmusch are Geniuses

Although slightly of the topic of this blog, I saw the film Broken Flowers last night, and had to remark on what a great film it is. It was Russian friends who suggested seing it, so I guess it's not totally unrelated to my blog theme.

If you liked Bill Murray in Lost in Translation, or Jim Jarmusch films such as Dead Man or Stranger Than Paradise, Broken Flowers is a must see. Jim Jarmusch captures the poetry of everyday life, something absent from most films, which create artificial reality. For example, seeing wrinkles on the back of someone's suit coat, because they had been wearing it all day; normally everyone's hair and clothes are perfect in films. He also brought out performances of stunning realism and subtlety from every actor, down to those without even any lines to speak. Bill Murray was simply brilliant.

If you see this film and like it, try to find a movie called The Razor's Edge, starring Bill Murray. It was made back in the 80s, and didn't do well because despite a brilliant performance, people just weren't ready to see the SNL alum in a serious role.

Roundabout

Remember the Chevy Chase movie European Vacation? Although overall pretty
weak, there were some great moments in it. I am thinking of the part in
Paris where he was driving and got stuck going in circles in a roundabout
for several hours, because the other cars wouldn't let him over. That's how
my Russian language is at the moment. I studied it for three years in
college, and had some interaction using the language from time to time since
then, but I am far from fluent. Russian is considered a difficult language
for English speakers to learn, and because of this you can raise your
eligibility for certain US Government jobs if you can show proficiency in it
(or in languages like Arabic, Farsi, and Urdu). This difficulty has been
commented on by other foreign students here, and these are people that can
speak three languages fluently, and are frustrated by the slow rate of
progress in their Russian studies. Every time I think I'm making progress, I
am presented with something new that changes everything, or someone on the
street or in a cafe asks me something that's all pops and buzzes to me.

I am often told that I speak Russian well, but people are referring to my
accent, which is minimal. They then go on to ask if I am a spy. However, I
would get caught pretty quick, as people can usually tell that I am a
foreigner after a few moments as I often say things that sound odd in
Russian, because I have not used the appropriate construction. This is the
reason I am finding it difficult - the way thoughts are expressed in the
language; you cannot simply translate the individual words and apply correct
grammar and sentence structure (unlike German, there is no rigid sentence
structure, in Russian eventually you just learn by experience what order
sounds the best according to the situation). A very simple example is job
titles. I have a Russian friend who is in banking - his business cards have
Russian on one side and English on the other. In English, his job title is
Account Manager; in Russian it is something like Manager for Work with
Individual Clients. Another example is that my Russian teacher told me the
other day that I can't say "I worked for a ballet company" in Russian. I
have to say "I worked for an organization which is occupied with presenting
ballet performances." But that is not precise, as it implies that the
organization only presented performances, and did not perform itself, but
since it is a troupe of dancers, I must use another sentence to say that.
Usually I just say it is an organization like the Bolshoi Ballet, which of
course everyone knows here and understands what it is and how it works. Then
a Russian friend told me that I can say it how I originally did, that
teachers just like to make things more difficult. But it will be some time
before I can tell the difference

There is an old language student joke: Man, those guys have a different word
for everything. I have glimpses of future fluency while sitting in lectures
like Theory of Law and Government and every so often I'll understand an
entire sentence. If you want to know what it's like to learn by immersion,
try watching the Antonio Banderas movie The 14th Warrior. I forget the exact
plot of the film, but there is an episode where the hero is traveling north
with a group of Vikings, whom he is going to help defeat some enemy. At the
beginning of the trip he doesn't know their language, but over the course of
the journey he learns it, and the way the filmmaker showed this process was
quite good. For now I'll just keep on keepin' on.

Homeless Dogs

There are many stray dogs in Moscow. It is interesting that the same word
"homeless" in Russian is used for both people and dogs. A Russian friend
said that they used to send dog catchers out, but since most of the caught
dogs ended up being put to sleep, people felt bad, so they stopped doing
that. I see people feeding the dogs sometimes, and they hang out in certain
places, like a particular part of the MGU campus. They are generally quite
friendly, unless something disturbs them. A friend told me he saw a couple
of dogs sleeping in the grass and then a bicycle went by and they got up to
chase it. I was having a snack before class the other day, just standing on
the sidewalk, and a couple stray dogs came up to me and very politely looked
at me, smelling the food, and gave me looks of "Hey man, can you help a
fellow out?" I saw a big dog in my subway car the other day. She was just
lying on the floor taking it easy. I wondered if she knew where she was
going.

Rotary

I haven't explained much in my blog about Rotary, so I will try to correct
that. As this whole trip is under the auspices of Rotary (thank you
especially to Rotary Club University Sunrise http://www.usrotary.org/ in
Seattle, and District 5030 www.rotary5030.org, which sponsored me), in
addition to university study, I have the pleasure to be involved with Rotary
in Moscow. There are eight Rotary Clubs in Moscow, and my host club is
called Rotary Club Moscow International "RCMI" (www.rc-mi.org). Its
membership is mainly expats, and the language of the club is English. They
are very active and involved in many great charitable projects. The first
time I attended a club meeting, the president came up to me as soon as I
arrived and said, "OK Steve, you're at Rotary now, you can relax." This club
is also chartering the Rotaract Moscow International Club. Rotaract is
designed for young people, college students and people early in their
careers who otherwise aren't ready to become regular Rotarians; as a Rotary
Ambassadorial Scholar, I am automatically eligible to join a Rotaract Club.
This club is also very active, and once their charter is official in
November, they will already be doing good things; they will be offering
support to a school for deaf and blind children in Sergeev Posad, which RCMI
is also quite involved in. Once they are chartered, I will post a link to
their website.

Studies

This is the building at Moscow State University where my department is located and in which my classes take place. And I have to take back my comment in a previous post about clean public restrooms; the restrooms in this building are terrible - and it's byotp.