Language Learning as Lifestyle Choice

I remember talking to a high school debate coach once about his latest success story: a new debater who was cleaning up at novice debate tournaments. He acknowledged that she was talented, but said that she would never be a great debater.

“Why?” we asked, since she was already obviously successful.

“Because she doesn’t debate in her everyday life,” he said, going on to explain that truly successful debaters are people who are constantly discussing issues and crafting arguments even when they are just hanging out with their friends. They unconsciously practice debate everyday. The coach considered his new recruit intelligent, but intellectually complacent.

I feel like a very similar principle can be applied to language learning. Just like initial success at a debate tournament doesn’t guarantee long-term success, success in learning a foreign language in the classroom doesn’t necessarily translate to success in the real world. Both require everyday outside reinforcement.

This is why I see language learning as a lifestyle choice. I can’t count the number of times I have memorized verb charts for a test only to forget them within a week. If you want to really master a language, it needs to be something you do in your free time. Classes and homework aren’t really going to reinforce the necessary knowledge. You’ll forget the vocabulary and verbs after a few months if you don’t do something about it. You need something extra: reading books in the target language, watching soap operas, listening to music, whatever works for you. And if you don’t want to spend your free time practicing the language...well, that’s a good sign you don’t consider it really worth learning.

Thinking about language learning got me thinking about learning other subjects. Why should history (or any other subject) be so different from language learning? If you really want to be knowledgable about a subject, then it just makes sense that you would seek out ways to learn more. I’m not one to pick up a history textbook for fun. [Some who have known me may dispute this!] Nevertheless I do find myself gravitating to books and podcasts that refresh my knowledge on certain historical subjects that I am interested in. I also find that traveling, even if it is to a place 30 minutes away from where I live, also helps me get excited about new things and reinforces what I already know.

I think the mentality that “learning = school” is pretty deadly for actual learning. It has certainly led to many a disillusioned foreign language student studying a language for four years in college and then wondering why they still can’t understand people. I think the best teachers give us a firm foundation in a topic, and then inspire us to figure out what we want to build on that foundation.

[Note: I wrote this while I was supposed to be doing my daily Russian reading. Curse you, blog!]

McDonald's

It took traveling to the former Soviet Union for me to figure out why McDonald’s is so popular all over the world.

Don’t get me wrong, I have read The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan and am fully aware of the evils that industrialized food have wrought upon America and the world.

Nevertheless, much to my own bemusement, I often find myself eating at McDonald’s when I am doing research or study trips to the former Soviet Union.

Part of the appeal of McDonald’s for me is that when I am abroad, I’m eating local food three times a day, every day. After a while you can definitely experience cravings for American-style food. I’m not against Eastern European food, but eating it day after day is tiring for someone who likes variety. Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of delicious dishes in Russian/Ukrainian/Moldovan cuisine. I just had grilled peppers and eggplant yesterday, which was quite delicious. Nevertheless, your average housewife here doesn’t really season food. Instead they load it the food up with either sour cream or dill, which in the long run does not satisfy my tastebuds. So after several weeks or months of this I just want some salty fries with ketchup, gol’ darn it! Even though I shudder to think of McDonald’s as American-style food, realistically it’s the best substitute I am going to get given that I don’t cook for myself here.

Putting that aside, there are other advantages of McDonald’s in Eastern Europe that are not always obvious at first glance. The Soviet Union had a very poorly developed restaurant culture. People either ate at cafeterias or ate at home. Your average (non-rich, non-Westernized) person who grew up in the Soviet Union does not eat at restaurants except for special occasions like birthdays and weddings. As a result, the restaurants are a total mixed bag. Some of them are expensive but good because they cater to a tourist crowd. Many are just bad, with indifferent staff and poor quality food. You can’t just walk in to any restaurant and expect to have a good meal. And if you’re looking for something “cheap and cheery,” as the Brits like to say, you’re usually out of luck, unless you’re a big fan of pizza with toppings like ketchup or mayonnaise. (For some reason, inexpensive pizza with very un-Italian toppings is not hard to find.)

The people who run McDonald’s realize that there is a demand for food that is consistent and served with a smile. McDonald’s here are new and clean. The bathrooms are not gross. The prices aren’t cheap for locals, but they’re not extravagant either. Perhaps most importantly, you always know exactly what you are going to get for your money. That McFlurry that you like is going to be the same McFlurry every time! No unpleasant surprises, no inflated bill at the end of the meal. 

You've got to admit, this McDonald's in Sevastopol is pretty classy.

Sometimes McDonald’s main advantage in the former Soviet Union is that it is simply the only game in town. If you’re up extremely early or extremely late, McDonald’s is a godsend. Plus, McDonald’s are the only restaurant where you can bring in something like a backpack or a suitcase without getting weird looks from waiters. As a result, they are a haven for travelers. When my train arrived in Odessa at the absurd time of 4:50 in the morning, I had no idea where to go. Then I saw a dozen people standing around McDonald’s like zombies entranced by the glowing lights. It was 5:15 and the McDonald’s was opening in 15 minutes. The crowd grew to two dozen, and I happily joined them. I think I was never happier to see a McDonalds. I knew that waiting for me through those doors was a hot meal and delicious brewed coffee, which is difficult to find here in the land of instant coffee. At 5:30 in the morning after a long train ride, it was a godsend! 

Of course, there are exceptions to this rule. Some places like Georgia and Armenia are blessed with delicious local cuisine that you can quickly get addicted to. Furthermore, with success comes competition. In many parts of the former Soviet Union, local fast-food chains are giving McDonalds some good competition. If they make a tasty, consistent product, I say more power to them.

Overall, my experiences in Eastern Europe have given me a more positive view of McDonald’s. To me it just goes to show that you can’t immediately assume that American cultural products, be they fast food or Lady Gaga, have the same meaning in other cultures that they do for us at home. I almost never eat at McDonalds in the States because 99% of the time I have a better option, but here sometimes McDonald’s really is is the best you can get.

Fun at Border Crossings

When the Soviet Union dissolved and 15 independent nations laid claim to their territory, one of the early tasks was to set up miles and miles of borders. Thus, it’s somewhat ironic that in the age of globalization, it actually became much more time-consuming and tedious to travel within the former Soviet Union. Today, border crossings in the former Soviet Union are pretty uniformly irritating. It usually takes at least an hour to cross the border in a bus, and sometimes much longer.

For some reason, I always seem to get stuck with the bus driver that the border guards have decided to punish. On the way to Odessa from Chisinau, we discovered, much to our dismay, that the driver’s passport was expired. Let me repeat that one more time: THE DRIVER’S PASSPORT WAS EXPIRED. It was truly the height of incompetence. He claimed to have “grabbed the wrong documents” on the way out the door. The border guards said that this driver had tried to cross with expired documents before and they weren’t letting him through.

When the middle-aged women standing next to me heard this, she uttered the Russian curse word пиздец. When the middle-aged ladies are swearing, you know you’re screwed. So, we the passengers were left to try and figure out what to do. I should add that it was extremely hot and humid, which didn’t help anyone’s mood. People started arguing with the driver, who steadfastly refused to take responsibility for the passengers whom he had just stranded at the border. Understandably, people started swearing at the driver. Meanwhile, other passengers started working things out with the border guards to get their documents stamped so that they could hop on other buses that were going through the crossing. About half of the passengers figured out how to do this. None of this was actually organized and half of the conversations were in Moldovan, so I was quite confused and starting to seriously worry.

After two hours of sorting out this ridiculous situation, finally the border guards decided they had punished the errant driver enough and decided to let him go through the crossing. The guards on the Ukrainian side weren’t as assiduous as the Moldovan guards and let us pass without any trouble. We arrived in Odessa two hours late. Situations like these that remind me why neither of these countries are major tourist destinations yet.

On the way back, I had even more entertainment on the border. In Odessa I made the mistake of getting on a bus that was going to Chisinau through Transnistria. 

For those of you not familiar with the historical/geographical/political oddity that is Transnistria, it is what we in the biz like to call a “frozen conflict.” Transnistria actually was incorporated into the Soviet Union in the 1920s (instead of after World War II like the rest of Moldova) so it was and is culturally, economically, and politically different from the rest of Moldova. It was more industrial, more Russophone, more ethnically-diverse: in a word, more Soviet. Basically, the authorities in Tiraspol, the second-largest city in Moldova and the capital of today’s breakaway state of Transnistria, decided they didn’t like where the country was heading when Moldova became independent and decided to set up their own country instead. The Russian military division stationed in Transnistria decided to help out, and after a brief and bloody conflict, the Moldovan authorities in Chisinau lost control over Transnistria.

Considering that Transnistria is in the north and I am in the south, it hardly ever affects my life in Moldova. Except, of course, when I travel to Ukraine and accidentally get on a bus going through Transnistria. Transnistria is smack-dab between Chisinau and Odessa. The main problem is that you have to go through two Transnistrian border crossings on the way from Odessa to Chisinau. In Transnistria, they’re still much more egregiously corrupt than other border guards in the former Soviet Union.

I was pretty nervous about going through Transnistria. It’s generally not a big deal, but it is known that if you get into trouble in Transnistria, the U.S. Embassy has no pull in this pseudo-country and cannot help you. I kept fussing on the border about every detail, and the other people in the bus were actually very nice about helping me out and telling me not to worry too much.

So, what ended up happening was that I got solicited for bribes twice. On both the entry and exit borders, the guards made me get off the bus, go into their sketchy office, and then tried to tell me that I didn’t have the correct stamps for entering Moldova (because I crossed through Transnistria...duh) so I would have to pay a “fine.” At the first border crossing the guy in charge told the guard who was giving me trouble to cut it out so I was free to go. (I’m guessing the Transnistrian authorities have sent out the word that guards shouldn’t be quite so overtly corrupt anymore.) 

At the second border crossing I had a more involved conversation because this time there was no boss around to tell the guard to give it a rest. After being asked to pay a “fine,” I pointed out, with that devastating logic I learned in high school debate, that it made no sense for me to pay a fine for “breaking” a Moldovan “law” in Transnistria, which is (from their point of view at least) a different country. I was able to wiggle my way out of a bribe in the end. I’m guessing that most of this guard’s foreign tourist marks haven’t taken 6 years of Russian, and he decided it wasn’t worth arguing with me.

When I got to the Moldovan side of the border, the guards asked to speak to me again. They told me I hadn’t broken any Moldovan laws, but I should register my passport with the authorities in Comrat to avoid any trouble. They asked if I had paid anything in Transnistria and were happy that I had avoided paying a bribe. In general, I have a positive view of Moldovan border guards, as they seem to be pretty decent human beings. 

The bus ride through Transnistria was pretty underwhelming. They are known for hanging on to all the old Soviet monuments and slogans. I did see some Soviet throwback stuff, but Comrat has a statue of Lenin, so that stuff hardly knocks my socks off. Other than that, it’s the same as any other poor Moldovan region. The most exciting thing, I suppose, was seeing the Russian tanks that guard the Transnistrian border against Moldovan aggression. Now I get to tell people that I've been to Transnistria, which for some reason is cool among the Eastern European backpacker set.

So, in conclusion, “frozen conflicts” cause headaches and travel delays. On the upside, I now know that the right strategy in a bribe situation is to stand your ground and show that, despite your American passport, you can actually speak Russian and thus are not easily cowed. All in all, it was much better than the time that we were stuck on the Armenian border for hours and I had to fend off the romantic advances of an Armenian border guard for a good 40 minutes (at 3:00 AM!) while my friends tried to convince the border guards to let us through. But that’s a story for another blog post.

Dnepropetrovsk

After I left Odessa, I headed east to Dnepropetrovsk, where my friend and fellow ASU Russian alumnus Derek lives with his wife Katya. Dnepropetrovsk is a city in eastern Ukraine. If you know anything about eastern Ukraine, you probably know that there are a lot of Russian speakers and factories. Both of these are quite accurate descriptions of Dnepropetrovsk. During the Soviet period, Dnepropetrovsk was a closed city, which meant that due to the strategic and military importance of its industries, it was closed to foreigners. I got a very thorough tour from Derek and Katya, which I'll attempt to reproduce for you through my pictures.

Dnepropetrovsk was originally named Yekaterinoslav in honor of Catherine the Great. The Bolsheviks put the kibosh on imperial names and renamed the city in 1926 after one of the most prominent Bolshevik revolutionaries from Ukraine, Grigory Petrovsky. Despite being an old Bolshevik, Petrovsky managed to avoid being purged in the Terror, and the city still bears his name.

Derek and Katya running to catch the tram to the industrial district.

We took the tram past the main factory district, which for some reason felt like a ride on the monorail though a dystopian Disneyland. I believe this factory makes pipes. I find industrial wastelands endlessly fascinating. It's like the ruins of ancient Rome.

The factory's Hall of Fame, with pictures of the very best workers. I wonder if we could get one of these in Mesa. Dad, get on it.

Keeping with our Soviet theme, this decaying building was at one time something of a workers' palace. Now it's falling down and nobody has the money to just tear it down. I wonder what's inside...

Lest you think it is all gloom and doom in Dnepro, there is a very nice island in the Dnepr River that was once called Komsomolskiy Island (after the communist youth league) and now is named Monastirskiy after the newly-built monastery. There is a even a nice sandy beach. Derek and I took a break from our tour to enjoy a cup of cold kvas (a fermented, carbonated beverage that tastes like liquid bread) on draft. Swimming is prohibited...so of course the beach is packed.

Playing chess in the park.

Derek lives in a part of town that used to be an independent village but was absorbed into the city as Dnepropetrovsk grew. I found the patchwork nature of the city quite charming.

No city in the former Soviet Union is complete without an odd circus building.

Me and my friends Винни Пух и Пятачок (Russian Winnie the Pooh and Piglet). Thanks, Dnepropetrovsk, for a great visit!

Trains!

Chisinau Train Station

While I wouldn’t describe taking a train in the former Soviet Union as a particularly luxurious experience, it does have a certain charm. The compartments are almost invariably creaky and old, but nevertheless fairly well-designed. Plus, there is something undeniably charming about the fact that the trains come equipped with water heaters especially for making tea. I find that the best music for watching fields fly by through the window is Akvarium’s Russian Album, which I would urge you to listen to on YouTube while reading this post to get the full effect. (Plus the lead singer's beard is epic.)

Sleeper trains in the former Soviet Union usually have three different kinds of wagons: coupé (купе), platzkart (плацкарт), and “sitting” (сидящий). The first one is a private compartment with bunks for four people. All my previous trips in the former Soviet Union were in coupé compartments. Your typical coupé is a somewhat spartan, but well-equipped. They are particularly excellent if you can buy up the whole compartment and then throw a party with your travel companions. I once had a particularly fun time in a coupé on a trip from Nizhny Novgorod to Kazan which involved an intoxicated recitation of “Kubla Khan” by Coleridge. However, if you can’t buy up the entire compartment, you are better off taking platzkart as you never know what creepers you might end up with.

Two of my travel companions in a coupé on the Nizhny Novgorod-Kazan train

Our coupé party feast

Platzkart from Odessa to Dnepropetrovsk

Since I was traveling alone in Ukraine, I decided to take platzkart. In a platzkart compartment there are sleeping berths, but the entire wagon is open. The main advantage of platzkart for the solo traveler is actually the lack of privacy. You’re unlikely to be bothered by anyone because the entire wagon is open and there are old ladies and family around to defend you. It is pretty weird that everyone sleeps in full view of everyone else. Walking down the wagon to the bathroom always involves dodging people’s feet hanging off the top bunks.

My friend Derek once suggested that in order to graduate with a degree in Russian, you should be required to travel platzkart across the former Soviet Union. It would definitely be a good way to test if you really know Russian, as you do certainly rub elbows with a broad range of people. (Or, as Derek called them, “гопники и быдло,” which roughly translates as “gangsters and the unwashed masses.”)

Guy selling salted fish to train passengers.
This is the sort of thing you only see here.

Platzkart is not exactly for those with delicate sensibilities. There are definitely moments when you look around and ask yourself questions like, “Is that family really going to drop trou right now in front of everyone?” (The answer is yes.) The trains aren’t air-conditioned, so men generally go shirtless, which means you get to check out a broad range of army/prison tats. Additionally, you have to make sure to avert your gaze if there are any libidinous couples sharing a bunk.

Sometimes you get the pleasant experience of talking to a babushka, which is always entertaining. On my way to Ukraine I had a top bunk, which meant it was rather hard to find a place to eat the snacks I brought with me. An old lady let me sit on her bunk. I tried to talk with her, but I think she was speaking in surzhyk (a combination of Russian and Ukrainian) because I couldn’t understand around a third of the words. (That or she just mumbled everything.) The one problem with being surrounded by old ladies, however, is that at night they saw logs like nobody’s business.

Occasionally you get a good chance to people-watch. I saw a mother-daughter pair play cards for hours, which made me wish I was traveling with my own mom, who once traveled with me in a coupé from Chisinau to Kiev. Instead I read Master and Margarita and Nabokov’s memoir Speak, Memory for hours. I’m convinced that with a fully-loaded Kindle and iPod, even the Trans-Siberian Railroad would pass in a wink.

Overall, going platzkart was a great way to cross the enormous football field that is Ukraine, certainly much better than a cramped bus. I’m a big fan of trains in general, and I try to take them whenever I can. For those interested in traveling by train anywhere in the world, I highly recommend the site The Man in Seat 61, which I depend on for all my train adventures.

Photo of me taken by my mother in a coupé from Chisinau to Kiev

Crimea: First Impressions

As I'm writing from a hostel computer, I'll keep this brief, but I wanted to record my initial impressions of Crimea. I hadn't thought much about Crimea before coming here, really, but it has definitely exceeded expectations.

Crimea doesn't feel like the rest of Ukraine because it wasn't really part of Ukraine historically and culturally. The Crimean Peninsula was historically pretty multicultural, and in ancient times the Black Sea was home to Greek settlements. Later on, it was the home of the Crimean Tatars, the remnants of the Mongol Golden Horde that terrorized the Slavic population for centuries. Russia conquered this area under Catherine the Great, who wanted to draw on Crimea's Greek roots to legitimize her claim to being the heir of Byzantium (and her designs on Ottoman territory). The Russian Empire devoted a great deal of resources to building up and Russifying these valuable new imperial possessions on the Black Sea, which they called "New Russia."

All of these historical factors are felt in Crimea, and particularly in Sevastopol. You don't immediately feel like you are in a former Soviet city because of the lush vegetation and sea breezes. The architecture here is very neoclassical because of the Russian Empire's efforts to portay itself as ancient Greece's successor, and the white columns for some reason match perfectly with the beautiful bay views. The city is full of Russian tourists, so I'm not the only shutterbug around. It is a great place to walk around, people-watch, and take in as much ocean air as your lungs can hold.

Another legacy of empire is the presence of the Russian Black Sea Fleet here. Catherine the Great ordered the founding of Sevastopol in order to be the main Russian fortress on the Crimean Peninsula. In the early Soviet period, Crimea was part of the RSFSR (Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic) and thus not included in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Khrushchev transferred the territory to the Ukrainian SSR, and thus the territory became part of independent Ukraine when the USSR collapsed in 1991. The Russian government now has an agreement with Ukraine to keep this base open for about the next 25 years. As a result, the city has a very Russian feel, with lots of Russian flags flying and plenty of Soviet monuments commemorating the heroic defense of Sevastopol in the Crimean War and World War II. The presence of the Russian language is definitely more felt here than in other parts of eastern Ukraine. Maybe the military presence also explains why this place feels more orderly and clean than, say, Dnepropetrovsk.

During the summer there is a great beach-town atmosphere in Sevastopol. This evening I strolled through the gardens on the edge of Sevastopol Bay and had a great time watching people enjoy themselves. I stumbled across a band playing one of my favorite Russian songs, "Videli noch'" by '80s cult favorite Kino. The band's version of the song actually sounded more like the cover by the Moldovan group Zdob si Zdub. Old people, middle-aged women and children were dancing like crazy. The lead singer was bantering with the crowd. A guy was passing around a frying pan for donations. I would have stayed another hour but the sky was starting to get dark so I headed back to the hostel.

That's all for now, but I'm hoping to have some picture posts up in a week when I get back to home sweet home in Comrat.

In the Footsteps of Catherine the Great

So I won't be posting regularly for the next week and a half or so because I'm in Ukraine! I have spent the last weekend hanging out in Odessa with Harvard and ASU folks. Odessa is even better than I remembered it. It remains the perfect combination of neoclassical architecture, cafe nightlife and seedy beaches. And, wow, have German tourists discovered Odessa.

This afternoon I'm heading to Dnepropetrovsk to visit Derek, another ASU Russian alum, and meet his Ukrainian wife. Very exciting. I've been told that honey wine and blood sausage will be served. Eat your heart out, foodies.

Then the three of us are going to Crimea to check out the Crimean Tatar city of Bakhchisarai and the Russian neoclassical city of Sevastopol. My trip has unintentionally turned into a tour of "Novorossiya," which was the name for the territories, mostly in present-day Ukraine but also including Moldova, that were acquired from the Ottoman Empire during the Russo-Turkish Wars of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. (I hope that fact is right since I haven't taken Imperial Russian history since 2006.)

So, I won't be blogging much, but I hope to post pictures on Facebook.