Reminded of “Requiem,” but not quite as poetic.

September 2nd:  a discourse on two typical Russian phenomena, which are not mutually exclusive—namely, waiting, and standing in lines.

To put it bluntly, I had the most awful day.  Yesterday, September 1st, was a holiday—The First Day of School, on which all the school children and students don their finest, that being enormous bows, cute jumpers, and mini tuxes for the little ones, and fish nets and leather for the older ones. Old women selling flowers stood outside every metro station, surrounded by (surprise, surprise, enormous LINES).  In the morning, everyone under the age of 21 is carrying at least one bouquet, a gift to their teacher/professor, and in the evening, instructors can be identified by the dozen of bouquets that they are struggling to keep hold of on the metro.  It’s a festive holiday, and, of course, although it’s specific purpose is to celebrate the BEGINNING OF THE SCHOOL YEAR, many students and teachers skip class.

Unfortunately, this extends beyond September 1st into the beginning to the month.  My class yesterday was cancelled, and I was able to go home early.  Today, I had two classes (six bloody hours) of Russian Art History that I was planning to attend.  First class:  waited for an hour, no one shows.  Apparently no class.  As a result, I had four and a half hours to kill, so I got myself a migraine and didn’t get anything done.  By now I am skeptical, tired, and want to go home.  Go to classroom two, students have gathered and my hopes rise, but alas, after another hour of waiting people start leaving, giving up on our no-show of a professor.

It’s culturally accepted that professors don’t have to show up to class, especially in the first week, and even more common for students to not show up at all, ever.  Nevertheless, I found it exhausting and discouraging; an entire day I could have spent out doing something interesting in the city (the whether was uncommonly gorgeous) or getting a little bit of work done (prohibited by onset of migraine) wasted.
In a depressed, tired state, I dragged myself back to the metro station at rush hour, and observed gloomily the flood of people crowded outside the three entrances.  I joined the crowd, and proceeded to wait, for what felt like the hundredth time that day.

As I stood in the crowd, breathing down the neck of a leather clad teen, and a Babushka shoved against my back, I suddenly recalled Anna Akhmatova’s Requiem, in which she describes waiting in line, day after day, with hundreds of other women, for a chance to give notes and small gifts to security guards at the prison for their sons and husbands, contained as political prisoners.  Talk about waiting on disappointment.  Talk about a waste of time, discouragement, and exhaustion.  I thought about the former bread and ration lines—disregarding personal space to receive mere scraps of food.  Waiting has always been a part of Russian culture—this doesn’t make it less tiresome or disappointing when the results are negative or worthless, but it does make one accept them, and live to wait another day, hoping that eventually you’ll be rewarded.
Time moves slowly—part of this is just city life, and part of it is Russia.  Granted I walked and took buses a lot at home in MA, more than most people, but my awareness of the process of going somewhere seems stronger here.  The blocks in St. Petersburg are LONG, and the subways, due to the marshy ground, are DEEP.  While the subway ride itself is only five minutes, it takes five minutes to get down one escalator one, and five minutes to get up another.  As I go up, I stare at people, and they stare at me.  If you don’t have anyone to talk to/mack on, staring is the thing to do.  That’s one thing I love about Russia.  None of that confusing “who do I smile at or acknowledge of the streets, and when do I start smiling.”  Here you just don’t smile, eliminating that very confusing and uncomfortable social phenomenon that we experience in the states, and staring, hey, it’s no big deal, what else are you going to do while you’re waiting in line?

Line multitasking is also very popular.  Often, the woman in front of me in the line for the cashier at the supermarket will tell me “remember me, I’ll be back in a minute,” which essentially means that she’s going to start doing her shopping, and she’ll be back with her purchases when I’m about to reach the cashier.  She probably has also reserved places in all the rest of the lines (if there are any, despite the number of cashier stations often only one or two are open), and, when she’s done shopping, she’ll go taker her place in the line that’s moving fastest.

I’ve never been a very efficient person, but I like to have a rhythm.  Right now, unexpected disappointments and fruitless waits are throwing me off, but I expect that as time passes, these will simply become part of, to quote that wonderful middle school chorus song, THE RHYTHM OF LIFE (puts a tingle in your fingers and a tingle in your feet, oh the rhythm of life is a powerful beat).

That’s all for now, but I plan next to discuss the fascinating subject that is RUSSIAN FASHION (aka, the unfortunate prevalence of the MULLET and knee high stiletto boots—reasons why Cathy is automatically identified as an American on the streets) and perhaps divulge the super exciting tale of “How 300 old women saved Cathy from being crushed by a bus door.”