Collecting myself after a weekend of excesses, Part 1 (Pirates of the Caribbean), July 13, 2006
Four major points of interest need to be covered in this entry or subsequent entries: 1) Watching Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Man’s Chest in Russian, 2) Visiting Staraya Russa with the study abroad group, 3) dedicating the better part of Saturday night to discotheque dancing, and 4) enjoying the calm of a friend’s aunt’s dacha and the purifying heat of her banya.
Let’s begin (davai).
On Thursday night, at 8:00 PM, Omar, Jared, Brad, Brad’s host brother Ruslan, and I hit up the Kinocenter for one of the premiere showings of the new Pirates of the Caribbean sequel in Russia(n). After seeing, and not fully grasping the slow, natively Russian plot, of the film Paragon last week, I was not sure what to expect.
The first contrast to my previous film experience in Russia was people—i.e. other people seeing the film, considering no one else was in the theatre watching Paragon except for my fellow study abroaders. In fact, the theater was packed this time around. And the packing started early on in the lobby. After we bought our tickets at the box office, which is affixed to the lobby but separated by a locked door from it, we proceeded into the large waiting space to, well, wait for the doors to open. We had the option of buying the stereotypical candy, soda, or… beer, but instead we opted to simply wait… and wait… and wait. As the hour approached, the Russian patrons slowly joined us in the rapidly warming theater lobby.
The theater workers waited until nearly every row x, seat y was sweating and fidgeting in pseudo-lines behind the rear entrances to the screening room. Finally, moments before 8:00 PM, the doors opened and we all managed to file in. I found my assigned seat (assigned!) in the third row and settled in, anticipating entertainment and a lot of unintelligible Russian dubbing.
We (everyone in the theater) sat there through a number of previews—the addition of which being the second contrast with my previous film experience. Then came the feature film; and with it, the first droplets of sweat caused by the mounting inferno that was a roomful of hot bodies downing beers all in close proximity.
The final contrast with my first Russian film experience ended up being… continuous entertainment. The Pirates sequel was visually compelling and more than sufficient in its ability to tell the story in pictures, allowing me to worry less about the torrent of foreign words zipping meaninglessly past my ears. I won’t reveal any of the plot, especially the details—considering I don’t know them—but I will say that the play on “davy jones’ locker’ is exceptionally clever from a creative angle and that once the movie is over the best way, by far, to debrief is by finding the exit and getting plenty of cool Russian air inside your lungs and blowing across your glistening neck.
In between Thursday’s movie outing and Saturday’s field trip was Friday’s walk with my Russian friend from America, Katya. I arrived at the city square in front of (mister made-of-metal) Lenin, thinking that we would be hitting up a club or something. But when I saw her coming toward me dressed in jeans, I knew something else was going down. Apparently, the French exchange teacher staying at her home wasn’t interested in clubbing, so she just felt like walking this evening.
Together, we headed into the Kremlin and over the walking bridge next to Yaroslav’s Court—a path I now knew quite thoroughly and thoroughly enjoyed. We chatted on random topics and I learned more about her year as an exchange student in Brighton (the suburb of Rochester, NY).
After looping around the west side of the Volkhov, we headed back to the Kremlin and ran into Michael, John, and Jared knocking back beers alongside the beach, near the gate in the Kremlin wall. We walked and talked with them a bit, and waited while they all used the natural bathroom of bushes underneath the small gorge-crossing bridge on the west side of the Kremlin.
It started getting late AND dark, as it tends to do after 11:00 PM, so I naturally volunteered to walk Katya home. At the door to her building she told me to call her the next day about doing something once I returned from Staraya Russa. With a quick goodbye, I took off running for the nearest bus stop to catch the last number 16 of the day back to my apartment.
The next morning I had to be downtown by 9:00 AM in order to jump in the van to Staraya Russa. It was a 2 hour trip, though original approximations ranging from 1 to 4 hours had been floating around before we set out.
To be continued…
Let’s begin (davai).
On Thursday night, at 8:00 PM, Omar, Jared, Brad, Brad’s host brother Ruslan, and I hit up the Kinocenter for one of the premiere showings of the new Pirates of the Caribbean sequel in Russia(n). After seeing, and not fully grasping the slow, natively Russian plot, of the film Paragon last week, I was not sure what to expect.
The first contrast to my previous film experience in Russia was people—i.e. other people seeing the film, considering no one else was in the theatre watching Paragon except for my fellow study abroaders. In fact, the theater was packed this time around. And the packing started early on in the lobby. After we bought our tickets at the box office, which is affixed to the lobby but separated by a locked door from it, we proceeded into the large waiting space to, well, wait for the doors to open. We had the option of buying the stereotypical candy, soda, or… beer, but instead we opted to simply wait… and wait… and wait. As the hour approached, the Russian patrons slowly joined us in the rapidly warming theater lobby.
The theater workers waited until nearly every row x, seat y was sweating and fidgeting in pseudo-lines behind the rear entrances to the screening room. Finally, moments before 8:00 PM, the doors opened and we all managed to file in. I found my assigned seat (assigned!) in the third row and settled in, anticipating entertainment and a lot of unintelligible Russian dubbing.
We (everyone in the theater) sat there through a number of previews—the addition of which being the second contrast with my previous film experience. Then came the feature film; and with it, the first droplets of sweat caused by the mounting inferno that was a roomful of hot bodies downing beers all in close proximity.
The final contrast with my first Russian film experience ended up being… continuous entertainment. The Pirates sequel was visually compelling and more than sufficient in its ability to tell the story in pictures, allowing me to worry less about the torrent of foreign words zipping meaninglessly past my ears. I won’t reveal any of the plot, especially the details—considering I don’t know them—but I will say that the play on “davy jones’ locker’ is exceptionally clever from a creative angle and that once the movie is over the best way, by far, to debrief is by finding the exit and getting plenty of cool Russian air inside your lungs and blowing across your glistening neck.
In between Thursday’s movie outing and Saturday’s field trip was Friday’s walk with my Russian friend from America, Katya. I arrived at the city square in front of (mister made-of-metal) Lenin, thinking that we would be hitting up a club or something. But when I saw her coming toward me dressed in jeans, I knew something else was going down. Apparently, the French exchange teacher staying at her home wasn’t interested in clubbing, so she just felt like walking this evening.
Together, we headed into the Kremlin and over the walking bridge next to Yaroslav’s Court—a path I now knew quite thoroughly and thoroughly enjoyed. We chatted on random topics and I learned more about her year as an exchange student in Brighton (the suburb of Rochester, NY).
After looping around the west side of the Volkhov, we headed back to the Kremlin and ran into Michael, John, and Jared knocking back beers alongside the beach, near the gate in the Kremlin wall. We walked and talked with them a bit, and waited while they all used the natural bathroom of bushes underneath the small gorge-crossing bridge on the west side of the Kremlin.
It started getting late AND dark, as it tends to do after 11:00 PM, so I naturally volunteered to walk Katya home. At the door to her building she told me to call her the next day about doing something once I returned from Staraya Russa. With a quick goodbye, I took off running for the nearest bus stop to catch the last number 16 of the day back to my apartment.
The next morning I had to be downtown by 9:00 AM in order to jump in the van to Staraya Russa. It was a 2 hour trip, though original approximations ranging from 1 to 4 hours had been floating around before we set out.
To be continued…
posted by Erhardt at 10:25 AM
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