Creepy Old Guys and The Many Faces of Sergei

Now for Sunday...

Susan and I decided to complete our monastery/convent/cemetery weekend with a quiet trip the the Novadevichiy Convent, the most famous convent in Moscow. There are a lot of very interesting stories behind it which, along with its splendor and cemetery, ensure that it is in every “Top 20 Places to Visit” list for Moscow. Like most old cathedrals, it was breathtaking. It is surrounded by a massive wall which overlooks a frozen pond (ice-skating, woohoo!). The snow gives it an almost creepy, but hushed air which is quite appropriate considering its history (yes, I am going to make you look its history up for yourself). But I digress, since I cannot find the appropriate words to describe it.

On our way to the convent from the metro, we were stopped in the street by this old man. He asks us if we speak English and then where we are from. Upon my answer of “S.SH.A” (USA), he immediately goes into this rant about how there is no way that I am from America. Why you ask? Well, apparently because I am a “negro.” And, of course, as a “negro,” I must be from Africa. Like my “negro” president. How happy those “negros” must be, he tells me, that they have their “negro” president from Africa. Americans are so stupid, he tells me, because they have a “negro” president from Africa. (And yes, I will continue to put quotes around the word “negro”). Well, Americans are stupid anyways, just more so because of their president. At this point, Susan breaks in and tells him that, no, actually Obama was born in America and, in fact, grew up in Hawaii. He then turns to Susan and asks, “Do you completely understand my English. I speak the English very correctly, yes? It is completely understandable, my English? Completely understandable?” We assure him that, yes, we understand what he is saying. He then turns back to Susan and tell her that her English is not “completely understandable” and that she needs to learn to speak English correctly. Yes, a Russian man told my British roommate that she needs to learn to speak English correctly. The man – who came to be known as Uncle Solo – starts grabbing my hand and then my hair (I had it in pigtails – stupid, stupid idea) and continues in his attempts to make admit that I am a negro from Africa.

This continues for about 10 minutes until Susan tell him that we are late to meet some friends. “Where,” he repeatedly asks. “Over there,” she replies, thrusting her finger in a random direction. He tells her that she is pointing incorrectly, but gives us his phone number with our assurances that we would call him if we needed anything and lets us on our way. We finally make it to the Novadevichiy Convent, heartened by the fact that our one weird incident per day quota has been met.

We make it to the convent and walk around for a while. We go in to one of the cathedrals where there was a church service going on and promptly turned around and left. We found the grave of Denis Davydov, a Hussar and poet slain in 1812 and later immortalized by Pushkin and Tolstoy in “War and Peace.” We looked for but were unable to find General Orlov's grave, the man who accepted the surrender of Paris by Napoleon. As we were having such a great time finding the gravestones of all these cool, dead people we decided to head for the Novadevichiy Cemetery, the second most prestigious cemetery in Moscow, second only to burial within the Kremlin wall. So we take off wit my trusty guidebook and go looking for the likes of Mayakovsky, Gogol, Chekhov and Yeltsin. My guidebook indicated that one must pay a small entrance fee to get into the cemetery, so once we arrived I start walking around looking for it.

I finally find this small little hut that looks promising and try to go inside. This old lady comes out yelling at me about tours or something of the sort. I tell her, “no thank you, I do not want a tour, but may I please buy a ticket,” only to get sent to the bathrooms. I go into the bathroom to hide for a bit and get out my guidebook again. Susan and I decide just to walk around without paying, since it seems that my guidebook was incorrect, and head out of the bathroom. Right outside the door are these two young security guides who look at us, point towards the cemetery, and say “GO” repeatedly until we follow them towards the graves. A couple of minutes into the walk and I have figured out that they are both names Sergei, they work at the cemetery as guards, and they want to show us around. Sergei #1 (the most talkative of the two) grabs my guidebook and starts asking me who I want to see. They pull us deeper inside the cemetery until I am so lost that even if I wanted to make a run for it, I would probably end up in the casket along with Khrushchev before I found my way to the entrance. So, for the next hour and half, Sergei and Sergei show us around the cemetery, randomly pointing to a gravestone and asking me if I knew who that way. “Oh course,” I say, acting offended that they would even ask while asking Susan under my breathe if she has any idea. My camera died half-way through (actually, it froze), which seemed to royally offend Sergei #1. Sergei #2 was just happy with his cigarette and, I presume, a chance to get away from the crazy lady at the gates. Eventually, Sergei runs out of cool, dead people in his attempt to woe me, and admits that he has no idea where either Mayakovsky or the Tretyakov brothers are buried. By this point, I have learned his whole history, a few new Russians words, and came away with the knowledge that Russians find anyone who laughs absolutely hilarious (and I don't mean “haha” hilarious). By the time we were able to escape, we had seen Gogol. Checkov, Levitan, Bulgakov, Molotov, the air-crash victims, Prince Kropotkin, Scriabin, Chaliapin, Khrushchev, Yeltsin, Nikitan, Raisa Gorbacheva, and many more. We still were unable to find Mayakovky and the Tretvakov brothers. It was interesting, but kinda disappointing, so Susan and I promised to go back another time...once we found me a wig and fake mustache...

After that, we walked around for a bit on the frozen pond outside the convent (it was snowed over, so we couldn't skate), got terrible, instant NesCafe cappuccinos from a kiosk, and headed back to the metro. I had a luncheon/seminar with the director of the SRAS program, my boss, and some other students on the SRAS. We ate Georgian food (ah, Georgian food), drank wine, talked, and got serenaded to by this old Georgian guy...repeatedly. I made some new friends, forced Jason to promise to go on one of my exploration days with me, learned some stuff, and just had a nice evening. So, that way my day. Now, I have 4 more days to live through before the next weekend. I may do a lot of museums, or just pick a random metro. Stay tuned!

Oh, FYI, I figured out the banana ordeal and still haven't gotten my room-thing worked out. The big freeze the weathermen promised never happened and it has actually started to warm up. I think it got just above freezing today. That's all. Loves to all!