I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas and will have a
very Happy New Year to come! This is my last full day in Russia for about two
weeks – tonight I head to Istanbul for an extended weekend trip, then I come
back to Moscow to ring in the New Year with my friends at a holiday party. New
Year’s Eve is the equivalent of Christmas in Russia, due to the Orthodox
calendar being on a different time frame than the Catholic calendar. Instead of
our traditional December 25th, families exchange gifts and celebrate together
on New Year’s Eve, then they celebrate church Christmas on January 7th.
The national holidays last from January 1st to January 8th,
during which I will be taking my first trip to Germany to visit some Mankato
friends, who are currently living near Frankfurt. I’m very much looking forward
to some sightseeing combined with rest and relaxation over the next two weeks.
I hope you all have an equally enjoyable holiday break.
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| Festivities in Red Square |
Although it was hard to be away from home for
the holidays again, I realized how much I enjoyed being in a foreign country that
celebrates Christmas again. In Korea, Christmas was a nominal and artificial
holiday, as most of Korea is traditionally Buddhist. But in Russia traditions
are similar to Western traditions, the colors and decorations are the same, and
though the dates are different, the spirit of Christmas is still prevalent.
There were lights up all around the city, Starbucks had holiday drinks, and
most of the stores had beautiful holiday displays to admire. I ventured to the
city center a couple of times throughout the month to see and enjoy some of the
festivities in Red Square.
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| Fabulous fur coats |
Another part of the Christmas spirit was experiencing a
proper winter again. Though we weren’t nearly as cold as most of the Midwest
this month, we still had significant amounts of snow and below freezing temps.
One of my favorite winter activities has become admiring the beautiful and
extravagant fur coats that the ladies have started wearing, complete with
matching fur hats, stoles, gloves, you name it. I don’t believe I will ever
wear one but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying them. Every time one of the
teachers comes into the school with their fabulous fur coats I start petting it. Don’t
tell PETA.
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| Skating success! |
In addition to fur coat spotting, this winter I’ve made a
comeback to one of my favorite cold weather activities from childhood: ice
skating. On the first day of December, I finally broke my seven year
streak and got back on the ice with my proudest ever purchase: a $12 pair of
ice skates from my local grocery store. A group of us – two Canadians, a fellow
Minnesotan, and a Tennessean – all got together for the evening skating session
at Gorky Park, the largest skating rink in Europe. You can guess which one of
us was on the ice the most. But she improved significantly by the end of the
evening.
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| Skating at Gorky Park |
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| Gorky Park by night |
Gorky Park was fantastic – some of the walking paths have
been flooded and iced over, so it’s more like going for a stroll instead of
skating around in a circle. At night it really is something special, with all
of the colored lights on the trees and lining the trails. There was live music
and recorded music playing, and one of my favorite parts was to skate directly
over the lights they had installed underneath the ice before they froze it.
There are a few cafes and even a restaurant that you can skate right up to walk
inside, then sit at a table still in your skates to take a coffee break or have
a meal. After we ate dinner at the restaurant the crowds thinned out
significantly, though the ice was choppy. That was the only disadvantage to
coming on a Sunday evening – there were so many people that it didn’t even
matter if you could skate well – you just had to skate enough to keep from
either crashing into people or keeping people from crashing into you. Kind of
like bumper cars…but on ice and with skates. The skate rental is free, with a
deposit, and the ticket prices are the most expensive in the evenings on the
weekends, but for the experience we all agreed it was worth it. And with an
added bonus of a light snow falling, it made for a perfect winter evening. We
ended up going again two weeks later, and although I think it gave me a cold
because we were out for so long, it was probably worth it.
As we did for both Canadian and American
Thanksgiving, we also had an expat Christmas party this past Sunday, where we all
contributed some of our favorite holiday foods, and had a lovely potluck and
gift exchange. Most of us will be spread out among the European continent and
the States for the next two weeks, having experiences which will be fun to hear
about once we all return and get together again.
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| Expat Christmas 2013 |
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| Santa came to visit! |
As indicated above, I worked on both Christmas Eve and
Christmas Day, but because all of the students and teachers knew they were
holiday days for us American teachers, plus it was just before a two week
holiday, we all allowed lessons to slide a bit. Who really gets anything done
the last week of school before holidays anyway? Instead, we had visits from ‘Santa’
(they have a rough equivalent they call Grandfather Frost, but the biographies
are a little different for these two characters. No chimneys or reindeer for
Grandfather Frost), we played Christmas games, and topped off the week with a
Christmas movie and some cookies.
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| Christmas Eve Church |
On Christmas Eve I headed straight to the city center after work to join some friends for a 10:30 pm church service at an Anglican church in the city center. It was definitely an expat gathering, as I heard English spoken all around me in a variety of accents, and the pastor performed a traditional English church service. It was wonderful to sing Christmas carols and read the scriptures - and by the time the service ended it was officially Christmas! On Christmas Day I only had to teach two classes, then headed to the center again to spend some time in Red Square with some friends and enjoy the beautiful lights and Christmas markets.
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| Snowy St. Basil's |
So, despite having a busy and stressful December due to
graduate school application materials (now finished!), and of course being away
from home for the holidays, I also had a fun month enjoying the traditional
Christmas spirit. Although being with the people you love is the most important
part of the holidays, also being surrounded by at atmosphere of joy, beauty, anticipation,
and generosity is an aspect to realize and appreciate. My moments drinking
Peppermint Mochas at Starbucks, singing Christmas songs at church, or walking around Red Square to admire the
giant Christmas tree allowed me to have my own private Christmas cheer, because
these things reminded me of home. And now, I’m so thankful that my Mankato
friends have agreed to host me next week in Germany, as being with familiar faces
at this time of year will be exactly what I need.
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| Merry Christmas from Red Square! |
Once again, I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are
looking forward to your New Year’s celebrations, wherever they may be. Best
wishes for a fantastic New Year!
