Prof. Nepomnyashchy's "blog" from her journey from Berlin to Beijing
June 13, 2014
Dear Friends,
As many of you know, I don't often post on facebook. However, tomorrow my daughter Olga and I (along with 14 Columbia students, my co-professor and our teaching assistant) start off on an extraordinary intellectual journey. We will be studying cities of Eurasia by traveling there. We are currently in Berlin and will travel from here to Moscow, then on to the TransSiberian Express through Siberia to Ulan Bator, Mongolia, then on to Beijing. Olga and I will than take a side trip to Seoul before returning home. We have already biked for 5 hours through "Cold War" Berlin in preparation. We will not have email access for much of the trip, but will try to update when possible. All the best, Cathy
June 14, 2014
Dear Friends,
Well day one in Berlin is coming to an end. We have moved from the Kempinski to a nice youth hostel (fourth-floor walk up) in East Berlin. Our program was launched by a lecture on comparative socialist and modernist cities in East Europe by a German scholar. Ironically, given our trajectory, there is a Korean restaurant right next to our hostel. We stopped at Berlin's main department store KaDeWe (with a fabulous food hall on the sixth floor), but ended up eating Korean in the East. Our trip is off to an auspicious start. Up early tomorrow, so good night!
June 21, 2014
Dear Friends,
I am sorry to have been offline for several days (despite good intentions), but out schedule has been incredible. Since arriving in Moscow, we have seen much of the city (most of it from the traffic jam from the airport). We have met with post-doctoral fellows from the Strelka Institute who have presented to us their visionary projects about how to make Moscow a more livable city. We have hiked more miles than I can count through city streets and up to the Sparrow Hills and Moscow State University. We are all enlightened and exhausted. More soon, Cathy
June 23, 2014
Dear Friends,
Today is our last day in Moscow. After midnight tonight we board the Trans-Siberian Express and will be without email access until about July 1. So just a few short words about our adventures. The weather has ranged from gorgeous if cool to near flood conditions. That made our trip to the writers colony outside Moscow on Saturday to see what life outside the city was like to better understand the city "atmospheric." Our sodden walk back to the electric train station to return to Moscow after a tour of Pasternak's house (which included seeing the writing desk where he wrote Doctor Zhivago and the window out of which he looked from that table, the window that inspired the famous window at Varykino where Zhivago hears wolves howling as he writes down his poems in his last days with Lara) was worthy of a verse or two from the poet himself. Sadly we also saw the new construction of Russian-style McMansions which has covered the field made famous in the last line of Zhivago's poem "Hamlet"--"Living life is not just crossing a field." We truly got drenched, however, when we got back to Moscow for a Georgian feast with Columbia College alumnus Paul Sonne, who currently works for The Wall Street Journal in Moscow. On Sunday we made the obligatory (for some of us) excursion to Izmailovsky Park (of course) to see the still vast market of souvenirs and eat shashlik from the grill. The market was put in intellectual context for us by Dasha, a architect linked with the Strelka urban studies institute, who lectured for more than three hours as we saw the transformations Moscow underwent under Mayor Luzhkov, much of which Dasha labeled "fungus." Her vivacious lecture style and extraordinary knowledge (along of the luxury of seeing Moscow by bus rather than treading through streets and up hills--the Sparrow Hills--for miles on foot in recent day made that afternoon was a highlight of the trip. But we weren't done yet. After a quick change of clothing we set off back to the Kremlin to see a performance of Swan Lake at the Palace of Congresses. While it was far from the best performance of the ballet I have ever seen, the experience was truly (post)Soviet. Our trip trip to the war memorial scheduled for yesterday morning was rained out, but at least we finally managed to pick up our train tickets--and felt much better having them in hand at last. Much of the day was taken up with getting ready for the showerless (although we will go to a Russian bathhouse in Ekaterinburg) Trans-Siberian. We did, however, have the great pleasure of meeting with Vladimir Voinovich, whose novel Moscow 2042 the students are reading for the course--and then dinner at Mu-Mu on the Old Arbat. As you can see we are really keeping busy. It will be good to sit on a train for a LONG time. Before we board the train, there will be an official presentation of the book Three Days in August which my friend Nadya Azhgikhina and I co-authored. I will only get to see the book myself tonight as will Nadya, whose birthday is today. A great birthday present and a great farewell to Moscow. One final observation about Moscow. One of the things I have learned about the city (largely from seeing it on buses) has been the "fantastic" quality that buildings seem to move from place to place depending on the vantage point from which you see them--especially the still stunning Stalin "wedding cake" buildings. There is something magical--and frustrating--about Moscow. I hope to come back soon, but now onward!
June 30, 2014
Dear Friends,
It is hard to believe that our first day in Mongolia (starting with our exit from the Trans-Siberian Express at its terminal station Ulan Bator at 6:30 this morning) is coming to an end. After six days of no internet, no shower, virtually no running water, and classes held in cramped train cars, the dorm room (really apartment) Olga and I are sharing feels like a five-star hotel. We have traveled a lot of ground both literally and metaphorically in the time since I was last able to post. Among the highlights (with which the time was crammed) was our day off the train in Ekaterinburg--including a wonderful tour of the constructivist city beginning with Uralmash (Ural Machine Factory), Stalin's first great construction project, still functioning, but due to be torn down next year and ending with the (not constructivist) recently built church on the blood marking the spot occupied by the Ipatiev House where Tsar Nicholas and his family were murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1918. Another unquestionable highlight was a late night visit to a Russian bath house (my first time, shame on me) before our 4am reboarding of the Trans-Siberian. I got to be whipped by my students with bird branches, and my whole conception of Russian culture was overturned. Instead of being some weird form of Russian "suffering" this bath house ritual turns out to be something more on the order of a spa treatment! Thanks to our Dima Moskvin, Alisa Prudnikova, and the head of the Russian Railroad who made this amazing stop in Asian Russian possible. Back on the train for another four very white nights we managed to hold classes by dividing up students into different compartments and to watch films. At one particularly magical moment, as we were watching Konchalovsky's Siberiad, we realized that the landscape in the film exactly matched the night landscape outside the window behind the computer screen. It is easy to lose track of time and space on the train, not only because of the vastness of the Russian landscape with endless birch trees flashing by outside, but because the train stays on Moscow time as you move five time zones to the east. This caused particular confusion when we wanted to make sure not to miss Lake Baikal (which, as it turned out, would have been hard, because it stretched alongside the train route for half a day). Still the conductress insisted that we would arrive at the Lake stop at 5:19am plus 5 hours for local time, but we still had trouble figuring out by that point what time it was in Moscow since our iphones did not agree either on Moscow time or on local time where we were. I finally figured I had solved the problem by setting my iphone-alarm clock back to Moscow time according to the conductress's clock and setting the alarm for the time we were scheduled to arrive according to the schedule. I woke up to bright sunlight (which accompanied us most of the way day and night) only to be told by the same conductress that it was only 3:19am in Moscow, so back to sleep for two hours. I still can't figure out what spoiled my plan, but my co-professor went by and knocked on doors at his first glance of the lake about two hours later. Unfortunately it was a hazy day--moreover the lady from Irkutsk selling souvenirs in the dining car (with whom I had had one of those soulful Russian conversations) had assured me I had to come back "in season" (July) to see the lake when it was golden and emerald--still the lake stuns by its vastness, at points you cannot see the opposite bank. Our last day on the Trans-Siberian began with Lake Baikal and ended with almost five hours of border crossing--first passport control and customs on the Russian side of the border, then same on Mongolian side. Particularly hard because the one bathroom on the car is locked at all stops and the heat that had dogged us during the latter part of our journey through Siberia pursued us to the border. It is striking that even before the border the birch forests and flat landscape of Russia gives way to rolling green hills and even snow-covered mountains that seem to presage Mongolia. We had a wonderful tour of the Mongolian National Museum by a professor specializing in Mongolian imperial history and walked through the central square of Ulan Bator (Ulaanbaatar)--Chinggis or Sükhbaatar Square. As the competing names of the square suggest, on one side, in front of the parliament building, an enormous statue of Chinggis (Gengis) Khan confronts across the square the statue of Damdin Sükhbaatar, father of Mongolia's 1921 revolution. Rumor has it that the latter statue, like so many other statues of socialist leaders, will be displaced next year, leaving Chinggis Khan to reign over the square unchallenged. I had one final adventure this evening. I still have no Mongolian money and so decided to take the risk of using an outside ATM across from our dorm. The machine promptly swallowed my card. With little hope, I appealed to the man at the security desk at our dormitory, with whom I shared only a few words from different languages. He called a woman with more English, who accompanied me to the bank, talked to security guard into letting us in after hours, and a bank employee actually went and retrieved my card. The woman told me I was lucky because it was the end of the month accounting and bank employees were working late, but after only one day in Mongolia I can say that all the Mongolians we have met have been remarkably helpful and generous with their time. And it is, for me, time now to sign off since we are leaving early to visit a nature preserve all day. More soon time and internet willing.
July 1, 2014
Dear Friends,
Today was a relatively "gentle" day. We set off at 8am for Gorkhi-Terelj National Park, about two hours outside of Ulan Bator. (Горхи-Тэрэлж in Mongolian, very unnerving that Mongolian is written in cyrillic due to its seven-decade past as a Soviet satellite. As I read the signs on the street, I keep thinking I should understand the words, but Mongolian is, of course, very different from Russian. So far we have come across few people who speak Russian, although people in restaurants and tourism speak serviceable to good English when you can find them. Disconcerting to be in a country where I can't even "fake" the language...) We were driven to the national park in minivans, so it gave us a great opportunity to see the outskirts of Ulan Bator (where often one can find gers (yurts), the traditional Mongolian movable dwelling, in the courtyards of houses, a compromise between city and "non-city" life, since apparently now some Mongolians, rather than changing location four times a year with the seasons, winter in houses.). There was a plan for us to spend a night in a ger in the national park, but fortunately it was scrapped. We have been moving around so much, it is good to have three nights in one dormitory, to which we returned at the end of the day. At the national park we rode Mongol horses--although ours clearly were "tourist" horses. Mine kept wanting to return "home" to the posting place (reached the "short tour" point three times and each time turned back), while Olga (only her second time on a horse) got farther than I did, but then found herself galloping back to the starting point (with my horse behind). Olga stuck to her horse (good thing Mongolian saddles have a place to hold on) and now is keen to ride more. On the other hand, rather than wanting to ride the two-humped camel (apparently transplanted from the Gobi Desert), Olga sat petting him out of pity for the stake through his nose. The tourist trade is clearly taking a toll on the animals here. Also at the park we saw (and our students, who love to climb things, climbed up) rocks in which there were caves in which monks hid, with support from the local people, during the Stalin-era purges in Mongolia. For me the high point--literally and figuratively--of the trip was a challenging trek up a mountainous hill to a Buddhist monastery. The longer way was marked with signs containing words of wisdom (of the way?) in Mongolian and English and ended with a long flight of steps up to the monastery. It was a hottish, sunny day, so the climb was a challenge. However, as our guide from the university, who is a very interesting man and accompanied me up to the monastery, said the reward at the top is the view. (I will try to post a picture shortly.) It is indeed beautiful, and our guide said that that is the view (perspective) one acquires when one achieves enlightenment--truly the "big picture" which allows one to see things "in perspective." On the rocks above the monastery were painted Buddhist mantras, and we passed a yoga retreat on the way up. The monastery itself was ornately decorated with images of the Buddha, as far as I could tell from what remnants of Buddhism I remember from a freshman-year college course. It is striking how much places of worship in all religions are both peaceful (at least in my experience), but also contain symbolism accessible only to the believer or the scholar of the faith. I chose to descend from the monastery by a shorter, more direct path and managed to slip on some pebbles. Minimal damage to to my knee, but Andrew, one of our students who is a veteran and always at the ready, patched me up with his first aid kit. Our guide and I then proceeded to discuss how the longer way we had taken up and the shorter way we were taking down were like the two paths to Buddhist enlightenment--the longer, but surer path and the shorter, riskier path. We followed our trek to the monastery with a lunch of Mongolian food, which is largely meat and dough (dumplings, noodles) with few vegetables and almost no spices. And I drank "Mongolian milk tea," that is, tea with mare's milk. Unfortunately we did not get to eat in a ger restaurant as hoped, but did get to see the inside of a ger, at least one that can be rented at the park like a hotel room. Gers always face south so that the inhabitants can tell the time from the movement of the sun. (Time pieces, it would seem, are very much "of the city.") The left side is exclusively for women and the right for men. The entranceway is low so that one (especially guests?) must always bow on entering. A family and guests occupy the ger together with no partitions. After returning to Ulan Bator in the early evening, Olga and I finally ventured out to eat near the hotel. We were in search of Korean food (there are many Korean restaurants here, apparently because there is much business with Korea). On the recommendation of one of the students, however, who had found the nearest Korean restaurant closed by 9:30 the day before, we went to an Indian restaurant. The food was excellent and remarkably inexpensive, but the waitress insisted that it was a non-drinking (alcohol) day in Ulan Bator. Hard to know if it was really true, but so much for my glass of wine with dinner. I collapsed into bed as soon as we got back to the room (around 10pm). There was a summer thunderstorm outside and it was dark. The weather continues to be changeable as we travel east. I suspect we will miss the intermittent cool temperatures when we reach Beijing. Now off to start our last day in Mongolia, but one last observation before signing off. We left earlier for our trip this morning than planned because of the apparently horrific rush hour traffic in Ulan Bator. Indeed traffic here is chaotic. Cars “tend” to drive on the left side of the road, as in Britain, but it is not clear that that rule is firm, and steering wheels can be on either the left or right side. Apparently some Mongolians buy cars in Japan (where the traffic is also on the left) and pay a premium to move the steering wheels to the left for no reason I can understand. Crossing the street can be a hair raising experience, because there seem to be no rules, but cars do apparently stop for pedestrians—albeit, it seems, reluctantly. And so, for now, thanks for reading!
July 9, 2014
Dear Friends,
Well, I spoke a bit too soon about being on facebook in Beijing. I now have access again, but have a good deal of catching up to do on all the adventures and challenges we have faced since we have arrived here. I'll try for at least a brief update by tomorrow morning Beijing time. It's so hard to believe that our incredible journey (not counting Olga and my follow up vacation in Seoul) will be over in 4 days.
July 10, 2014
Dear Friends,
Well, it has now been almost 10 days since I was last able to post, since email access is sketchy at best in Beijing. I am only able to gain access to facebook through a VPN (I figure anyone who understands the technology will already know the acronym). It's hard to believe that our incredible journey will be over in two days (not counting our vacation in Seoul). I can't possibly do justice to all the things we have seen and done on our last day in Mongolia and our week in Beijing in the time and energy I have left tonight, so I'll give some highlights and try to catch up in the next few days. First let me correct one mistake and modify one perspective from my last posting on Mongolia. Vehicles do drive on the right (rather than left, not a value judgment) side of the street in Mongolia (although it's sometimes hard to tell), although because many cars are bought from Japan steering wheels are often on the right as well. However, as far as perspective is concerned, the chaos of traffic in Ulan Bator pales in comparison with the CHAOS of traffic in Beijing, with cars, trucks, buses, bicycles, motorbikes, motorized rickshaws (about any form of moving vehicle) seeming to compete for space in no particular order--when they can move. When I asked one of our Chinese acquaintances about traffic rules and how to cross the street, I got the response "there are no rules." But before moving on to Beijing, I will just say that we were fortunate on our last day in Ulan Bator to have a briefing from US Ambassador Piper Campbell, who gave a very cogent talk on the challenges and rapid changes taking place in the formerly rural/nomadic country that has urbanized at a dramatic pace especially since the weather phenomenon (dzuud) of extremely low temperatures (even by Mongolian standards) in 2009 that froze cattle and drove people from the countryside to take up residence in Ulan Bator. Also on our last day in Mongolia, we visited the war memorial on a hill high above the city that features an extraordinary circular mural depicting the history of Soviet-Mongolian friendship constructed in such a way that it incorporates a view of the city below. (Pictures will follow, I promise.) Our flight to Beijing was uneventful (July 3), but the most stunning first impression I had (and most of our group) of Beijing came when we realized as the plane was descending to land that the fog outside the windows was not fog, but smog. Of course, we had all been warned about Beijing air quality (or lack thereof) and a number of our group came with masks, but actually seeing steel gray air was something you really do have to see to believe. And, as it turned out, the air quality was indeed "hazardous" (the most dangerous level on the scale used here) on the day we arrived. Only today (unfortunately on a day when my co-instructor and I were confined to quarters seeing students and leading class discussions) did we actually see really blue sky with fluffy white clouds. Another surprise was going through passport control. I have never gotten anything like the big welcoming smile the young woman checking our passports gave Olga and me as we were going through. Only after was it explained to me that there is a button for people to push regarding the "service" they get going through, and of course no agent wants to get the button pushed for a "frowny" face rather than a smiley one. Beijing is, in a word, overwhelming. It is a city "in transformation" facing enormous challenges and with equality enormous ambitions. The climate (90s plus smog while we've been here) seems even more extreme than Moscow and the expanses to be covered vaster. Metro stops tend to be over a mile apart, and taxis are very inexpensive but hit or miss to find. I hate to end at this point, but we have a long day tomorrow starting with a trip to the Bird's Nest (which have have passed many times including on the way from the airport), but expect to see up close tomorrow. Once again to be continued and thanks for reading, Cathy
July 12
Dear Friends,
Our last day in Beijing is drawing to a close, and I really can't believe what one of my students just called my "crazy dream" is really over, closed by a group hug and MANY goodbyes--since no one wanted to say the last one. It is indescribable what it is like to share such an intense experience with a very diverse and exceptionally talented group of people, forged together into something larger than the sum of its parts by sharing grotty showers and thin walls in the fortunately probably inimitable Prosto Hostel (Simply a Hostel) where we stayed in Moscow, cramped train compartments on the TransSiberian Express, and adventures from West to East across Eurasia. Tomorrow Olga and I leave for our last, vacation leg in Seoul, where we return to the world of regular internet access. Since I have to get up early to finish packing (how can I love traveling so much and hate packing so much, a seemingly constant necessity during the past almost five weeks), I will merely share the photos already promised of the steps up to the Buddhist monastery at the Terelj Preserve in Mongolia and the view (true perspective of enlightenment) the monks attained at the top. I will be trying to put this extraordinary adventure in perspective as Olga and I "chill" in Seoul and promise to share the highpoints of Beijing and the conclusions from our course (mostly questions, but "richer" questions than those with which we started) as I try to work through them. Best wishes, Cathy
Dear Friends,
As many of you know, I don't often post on facebook. However, tomorrow my daughter Olga and I (along with 14 Columbia students, my co-professor and our teaching assistant) start off on an extraordinary intellectual journey. We will be studying cities of Eurasia by traveling there. We are currently in Berlin and will travel from here to Moscow, then on to the TransSiberian Express through Siberia to Ulan Bator, Mongolia, then on to Beijing. Olga and I will than take a side trip to Seoul before returning home. We have already biked for 5 hours through "Cold War" Berlin in preparation. We will not have email access for much of the trip, but will try to update when possible. All the best, Cathy
June 14, 2014
Dear Friends,
Well day one in Berlin is coming to an end. We have moved from the Kempinski to a nice youth hostel (fourth-floor walk up) in East Berlin. Our program was launched by a lecture on comparative socialist and modernist cities in East Europe by a German scholar. Ironically, given our trajectory, there is a Korean restaurant right next to our hostel. We stopped at Berlin's main department store KaDeWe (with a fabulous food hall on the sixth floor), but ended up eating Korean in the East. Our trip is off to an auspicious start. Up early tomorrow, so good night!
June 21, 2014
Dear Friends,
I am sorry to have been offline for several days (despite good intentions), but out schedule has been incredible. Since arriving in Moscow, we have seen much of the city (most of it from the traffic jam from the airport). We have met with post-doctoral fellows from the Strelka Institute who have presented to us their visionary projects about how to make Moscow a more livable city. We have hiked more miles than I can count through city streets and up to the Sparrow Hills and Moscow State University. We are all enlightened and exhausted. More soon, Cathy
June 23, 2014
Dear Friends,
Today is our last day in Moscow. After midnight tonight we board the Trans-Siberian Express and will be without email access until about July 1. So just a few short words about our adventures. The weather has ranged from gorgeous if cool to near flood conditions. That made our trip to the writers colony outside Moscow on Saturday to see what life outside the city was like to better understand the city "atmospheric." Our sodden walk back to the electric train station to return to Moscow after a tour of Pasternak's house (which included seeing the writing desk where he wrote Doctor Zhivago and the window out of which he looked from that table, the window that inspired the famous window at Varykino where Zhivago hears wolves howling as he writes down his poems in his last days with Lara) was worthy of a verse or two from the poet himself. Sadly we also saw the new construction of Russian-style McMansions which has covered the field made famous in the last line of Zhivago's poem "Hamlet"--"Living life is not just crossing a field." We truly got drenched, however, when we got back to Moscow for a Georgian feast with Columbia College alumnus Paul Sonne, who currently works for The Wall Street Journal in Moscow. On Sunday we made the obligatory (for some of us) excursion to Izmailovsky Park (of course) to see the still vast market of souvenirs and eat shashlik from the grill. The market was put in intellectual context for us by Dasha, a architect linked with the Strelka urban studies institute, who lectured for more than three hours as we saw the transformations Moscow underwent under Mayor Luzhkov, much of which Dasha labeled "fungus." Her vivacious lecture style and extraordinary knowledge (along of the luxury of seeing Moscow by bus rather than treading through streets and up hills--the Sparrow Hills--for miles on foot in recent day made that afternoon was a highlight of the trip. But we weren't done yet. After a quick change of clothing we set off back to the Kremlin to see a performance of Swan Lake at the Palace of Congresses. While it was far from the best performance of the ballet I have ever seen, the experience was truly (post)Soviet. Our trip trip to the war memorial scheduled for yesterday morning was rained out, but at least we finally managed to pick up our train tickets--and felt much better having them in hand at last. Much of the day was taken up with getting ready for the showerless (although we will go to a Russian bathhouse in Ekaterinburg) Trans-Siberian. We did, however, have the great pleasure of meeting with Vladimir Voinovich, whose novel Moscow 2042 the students are reading for the course--and then dinner at Mu-Mu on the Old Arbat. As you can see we are really keeping busy. It will be good to sit on a train for a LONG time. Before we board the train, there will be an official presentation of the book Three Days in August which my friend Nadya Azhgikhina and I co-authored. I will only get to see the book myself tonight as will Nadya, whose birthday is today. A great birthday present and a great farewell to Moscow. One final observation about Moscow. One of the things I have learned about the city (largely from seeing it on buses) has been the "fantastic" quality that buildings seem to move from place to place depending on the vantage point from which you see them--especially the still stunning Stalin "wedding cake" buildings. There is something magical--and frustrating--about Moscow. I hope to come back soon, but now onward!
June 30, 2014
Dear Friends,
It is hard to believe that our first day in Mongolia (starting with our exit from the Trans-Siberian Express at its terminal station Ulan Bator at 6:30 this morning) is coming to an end. After six days of no internet, no shower, virtually no running water, and classes held in cramped train cars, the dorm room (really apartment) Olga and I are sharing feels like a five-star hotel. We have traveled a lot of ground both literally and metaphorically in the time since I was last able to post. Among the highlights (with which the time was crammed) was our day off the train in Ekaterinburg--including a wonderful tour of the constructivist city beginning with Uralmash (Ural Machine Factory), Stalin's first great construction project, still functioning, but due to be torn down next year and ending with the (not constructivist) recently built church on the blood marking the spot occupied by the Ipatiev House where Tsar Nicholas and his family were murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1918. Another unquestionable highlight was a late night visit to a Russian bath house (my first time, shame on me) before our 4am reboarding of the Trans-Siberian. I got to be whipped by my students with bird branches, and my whole conception of Russian culture was overturned. Instead of being some weird form of Russian "suffering" this bath house ritual turns out to be something more on the order of a spa treatment! Thanks to our Dima Moskvin, Alisa Prudnikova, and the head of the Russian Railroad who made this amazing stop in Asian Russian possible. Back on the train for another four very white nights we managed to hold classes by dividing up students into different compartments and to watch films. At one particularly magical moment, as we were watching Konchalovsky's Siberiad, we realized that the landscape in the film exactly matched the night landscape outside the window behind the computer screen. It is easy to lose track of time and space on the train, not only because of the vastness of the Russian landscape with endless birch trees flashing by outside, but because the train stays on Moscow time as you move five time zones to the east. This caused particular confusion when we wanted to make sure not to miss Lake Baikal (which, as it turned out, would have been hard, because it stretched alongside the train route for half a day). Still the conductress insisted that we would arrive at the Lake stop at 5:19am plus 5 hours for local time, but we still had trouble figuring out by that point what time it was in Moscow since our iphones did not agree either on Moscow time or on local time where we were. I finally figured I had solved the problem by setting my iphone-alarm clock back to Moscow time according to the conductress's clock and setting the alarm for the time we were scheduled to arrive according to the schedule. I woke up to bright sunlight (which accompanied us most of the way day and night) only to be told by the same conductress that it was only 3:19am in Moscow, so back to sleep for two hours. I still can't figure out what spoiled my plan, but my co-professor went by and knocked on doors at his first glance of the lake about two hours later. Unfortunately it was a hazy day--moreover the lady from Irkutsk selling souvenirs in the dining car (with whom I had had one of those soulful Russian conversations) had assured me I had to come back "in season" (July) to see the lake when it was golden and emerald--still the lake stuns by its vastness, at points you cannot see the opposite bank. Our last day on the Trans-Siberian began with Lake Baikal and ended with almost five hours of border crossing--first passport control and customs on the Russian side of the border, then same on Mongolian side. Particularly hard because the one bathroom on the car is locked at all stops and the heat that had dogged us during the latter part of our journey through Siberia pursued us to the border. It is striking that even before the border the birch forests and flat landscape of Russia gives way to rolling green hills and even snow-covered mountains that seem to presage Mongolia. We had a wonderful tour of the Mongolian National Museum by a professor specializing in Mongolian imperial history and walked through the central square of Ulan Bator (Ulaanbaatar)--Chinggis or Sükhbaatar Square. As the competing names of the square suggest, on one side, in front of the parliament building, an enormous statue of Chinggis (Gengis) Khan confronts across the square the statue of Damdin Sükhbaatar, father of Mongolia's 1921 revolution. Rumor has it that the latter statue, like so many other statues of socialist leaders, will be displaced next year, leaving Chinggis Khan to reign over the square unchallenged. I had one final adventure this evening. I still have no Mongolian money and so decided to take the risk of using an outside ATM across from our dorm. The machine promptly swallowed my card. With little hope, I appealed to the man at the security desk at our dormitory, with whom I shared only a few words from different languages. He called a woman with more English, who accompanied me to the bank, talked to security guard into letting us in after hours, and a bank employee actually went and retrieved my card. The woman told me I was lucky because it was the end of the month accounting and bank employees were working late, but after only one day in Mongolia I can say that all the Mongolians we have met have been remarkably helpful and generous with their time. And it is, for me, time now to sign off since we are leaving early to visit a nature preserve all day. More soon time and internet willing.
July 1, 2014
Dear Friends,
Today was a relatively "gentle" day. We set off at 8am for Gorkhi-Terelj National Park, about two hours outside of Ulan Bator. (Горхи-Тэрэлж in Mongolian, very unnerving that Mongolian is written in cyrillic due to its seven-decade past as a Soviet satellite. As I read the signs on the street, I keep thinking I should understand the words, but Mongolian is, of course, very different from Russian. So far we have come across few people who speak Russian, although people in restaurants and tourism speak serviceable to good English when you can find them. Disconcerting to be in a country where I can't even "fake" the language...) We were driven to the national park in minivans, so it gave us a great opportunity to see the outskirts of Ulan Bator (where often one can find gers (yurts), the traditional Mongolian movable dwelling, in the courtyards of houses, a compromise between city and "non-city" life, since apparently now some Mongolians, rather than changing location four times a year with the seasons, winter in houses.). There was a plan for us to spend a night in a ger in the national park, but fortunately it was scrapped. We have been moving around so much, it is good to have three nights in one dormitory, to which we returned at the end of the day. At the national park we rode Mongol horses--although ours clearly were "tourist" horses. Mine kept wanting to return "home" to the posting place (reached the "short tour" point three times and each time turned back), while Olga (only her second time on a horse) got farther than I did, but then found herself galloping back to the starting point (with my horse behind). Olga stuck to her horse (good thing Mongolian saddles have a place to hold on) and now is keen to ride more. On the other hand, rather than wanting to ride the two-humped camel (apparently transplanted from the Gobi Desert), Olga sat petting him out of pity for the stake through his nose. The tourist trade is clearly taking a toll on the animals here. Also at the park we saw (and our students, who love to climb things, climbed up) rocks in which there were caves in which monks hid, with support from the local people, during the Stalin-era purges in Mongolia. For me the high point--literally and figuratively--of the trip was a challenging trek up a mountainous hill to a Buddhist monastery. The longer way was marked with signs containing words of wisdom (of the way?) in Mongolian and English and ended with a long flight of steps up to the monastery. It was a hottish, sunny day, so the climb was a challenge. However, as our guide from the university, who is a very interesting man and accompanied me up to the monastery, said the reward at the top is the view. (I will try to post a picture shortly.) It is indeed beautiful, and our guide said that that is the view (perspective) one acquires when one achieves enlightenment--truly the "big picture" which allows one to see things "in perspective." On the rocks above the monastery were painted Buddhist mantras, and we passed a yoga retreat on the way up. The monastery itself was ornately decorated with images of the Buddha, as far as I could tell from what remnants of Buddhism I remember from a freshman-year college course. It is striking how much places of worship in all religions are both peaceful (at least in my experience), but also contain symbolism accessible only to the believer or the scholar of the faith. I chose to descend from the monastery by a shorter, more direct path and managed to slip on some pebbles. Minimal damage to to my knee, but Andrew, one of our students who is a veteran and always at the ready, patched me up with his first aid kit. Our guide and I then proceeded to discuss how the longer way we had taken up and the shorter way we were taking down were like the two paths to Buddhist enlightenment--the longer, but surer path and the shorter, riskier path. We followed our trek to the monastery with a lunch of Mongolian food, which is largely meat and dough (dumplings, noodles) with few vegetables and almost no spices. And I drank "Mongolian milk tea," that is, tea with mare's milk. Unfortunately we did not get to eat in a ger restaurant as hoped, but did get to see the inside of a ger, at least one that can be rented at the park like a hotel room. Gers always face south so that the inhabitants can tell the time from the movement of the sun. (Time pieces, it would seem, are very much "of the city.") The left side is exclusively for women and the right for men. The entranceway is low so that one (especially guests?) must always bow on entering. A family and guests occupy the ger together with no partitions. After returning to Ulan Bator in the early evening, Olga and I finally ventured out to eat near the hotel. We were in search of Korean food (there are many Korean restaurants here, apparently because there is much business with Korea). On the recommendation of one of the students, however, who had found the nearest Korean restaurant closed by 9:30 the day before, we went to an Indian restaurant. The food was excellent and remarkably inexpensive, but the waitress insisted that it was a non-drinking (alcohol) day in Ulan Bator. Hard to know if it was really true, but so much for my glass of wine with dinner. I collapsed into bed as soon as we got back to the room (around 10pm). There was a summer thunderstorm outside and it was dark. The weather continues to be changeable as we travel east. I suspect we will miss the intermittent cool temperatures when we reach Beijing. Now off to start our last day in Mongolia, but one last observation before signing off. We left earlier for our trip this morning than planned because of the apparently horrific rush hour traffic in Ulan Bator. Indeed traffic here is chaotic. Cars “tend” to drive on the left side of the road, as in Britain, but it is not clear that that rule is firm, and steering wheels can be on either the left or right side. Apparently some Mongolians buy cars in Japan (where the traffic is also on the left) and pay a premium to move the steering wheels to the left for no reason I can understand. Crossing the street can be a hair raising experience, because there seem to be no rules, but cars do apparently stop for pedestrians—albeit, it seems, reluctantly. And so, for now, thanks for reading!
July 9, 2014
Dear Friends,
Well, I spoke a bit too soon about being on facebook in Beijing. I now have access again, but have a good deal of catching up to do on all the adventures and challenges we have faced since we have arrived here. I'll try for at least a brief update by tomorrow morning Beijing time. It's so hard to believe that our incredible journey (not counting Olga and my follow up vacation in Seoul) will be over in 4 days.
July 10, 2014
Dear Friends,
Well, it has now been almost 10 days since I was last able to post, since email access is sketchy at best in Beijing. I am only able to gain access to facebook through a VPN (I figure anyone who understands the technology will already know the acronym). It's hard to believe that our incredible journey will be over in two days (not counting our vacation in Seoul). I can't possibly do justice to all the things we have seen and done on our last day in Mongolia and our week in Beijing in the time and energy I have left tonight, so I'll give some highlights and try to catch up in the next few days. First let me correct one mistake and modify one perspective from my last posting on Mongolia. Vehicles do drive on the right (rather than left, not a value judgment) side of the street in Mongolia (although it's sometimes hard to tell), although because many cars are bought from Japan steering wheels are often on the right as well. However, as far as perspective is concerned, the chaos of traffic in Ulan Bator pales in comparison with the CHAOS of traffic in Beijing, with cars, trucks, buses, bicycles, motorbikes, motorized rickshaws (about any form of moving vehicle) seeming to compete for space in no particular order--when they can move. When I asked one of our Chinese acquaintances about traffic rules and how to cross the street, I got the response "there are no rules." But before moving on to Beijing, I will just say that we were fortunate on our last day in Ulan Bator to have a briefing from US Ambassador Piper Campbell, who gave a very cogent talk on the challenges and rapid changes taking place in the formerly rural/nomadic country that has urbanized at a dramatic pace especially since the weather phenomenon (dzuud) of extremely low temperatures (even by Mongolian standards) in 2009 that froze cattle and drove people from the countryside to take up residence in Ulan Bator. Also on our last day in Mongolia, we visited the war memorial on a hill high above the city that features an extraordinary circular mural depicting the history of Soviet-Mongolian friendship constructed in such a way that it incorporates a view of the city below. (Pictures will follow, I promise.) Our flight to Beijing was uneventful (July 3), but the most stunning first impression I had (and most of our group) of Beijing came when we realized as the plane was descending to land that the fog outside the windows was not fog, but smog. Of course, we had all been warned about Beijing air quality (or lack thereof) and a number of our group came with masks, but actually seeing steel gray air was something you really do have to see to believe. And, as it turned out, the air quality was indeed "hazardous" (the most dangerous level on the scale used here) on the day we arrived. Only today (unfortunately on a day when my co-instructor and I were confined to quarters seeing students and leading class discussions) did we actually see really blue sky with fluffy white clouds. Another surprise was going through passport control. I have never gotten anything like the big welcoming smile the young woman checking our passports gave Olga and me as we were going through. Only after was it explained to me that there is a button for people to push regarding the "service" they get going through, and of course no agent wants to get the button pushed for a "frowny" face rather than a smiley one. Beijing is, in a word, overwhelming. It is a city "in transformation" facing enormous challenges and with equality enormous ambitions. The climate (90s plus smog while we've been here) seems even more extreme than Moscow and the expanses to be covered vaster. Metro stops tend to be over a mile apart, and taxis are very inexpensive but hit or miss to find. I hate to end at this point, but we have a long day tomorrow starting with a trip to the Bird's Nest (which have have passed many times including on the way from the airport), but expect to see up close tomorrow. Once again to be continued and thanks for reading, Cathy
July 12
Dear Friends,
Our last day in Beijing is drawing to a close, and I really can't believe what one of my students just called my "crazy dream" is really over, closed by a group hug and MANY goodbyes--since no one wanted to say the last one. It is indescribable what it is like to share such an intense experience with a very diverse and exceptionally talented group of people, forged together into something larger than the sum of its parts by sharing grotty showers and thin walls in the fortunately probably inimitable Prosto Hostel (Simply a Hostel) where we stayed in Moscow, cramped train compartments on the TransSiberian Express, and adventures from West to East across Eurasia. Tomorrow Olga and I leave for our last, vacation leg in Seoul, where we return to the world of regular internet access. Since I have to get up early to finish packing (how can I love traveling so much and hate packing so much, a seemingly constant necessity during the past almost five weeks), I will merely share the photos already promised of the steps up to the Buddhist monastery at the Terelj Preserve in Mongolia and the view (true perspective of enlightenment) the monks attained at the top. I will be trying to put this extraordinary adventure in perspective as Olga and I "chill" in Seoul and promise to share the highpoints of Beijing and the conclusions from our course (mostly questions, but "richer" questions than those with which we started) as I try to work through them. Best wishes, Cathy
Steps up to the Buddhist monastery at the Terelj Preserve in Mongolia
The view from the Buddhist monastery at the Terelj Preserve in Mongolia
July 13
Dear Friends,
Well July 13 has finally arrived, and our "kollektiv" has dispersed to home or further travels. (Although the course is not over yet. Papers are due in three weeks.) Olga and I began the morning early, finishing packing yet one more time (thank goodness, only one more to go on this trip!). Although we have had to travel relatively light and have accumulated fewer souvenirs than usual, we were still pushing the weight limit despite numerous attempts at repacking and rebalancing. After turning in our cell phones and routers to Edward Tyerman (who has been our teaching assistant throughout the course and now takes on the role of my junior colleague as an assistant professor in the Barnard Slavic Department) and our room keys to the relevant guy at the hall desk (not sure what to call him since we never shared a language, but he and a number of other people seemed to share responsibility for the rather random housekeeping) we said farewell to the Peking University Shaoyuan Guest House (don't ask me why it's not Beijing University), which has been our home for the past ten days. We had plenty of help wheeling our luggage out to the street, since empty cabs were supposedly not allowed on the grounds (even though my co-instructor Charles Armstrong had somehow miraculously managed to order a cab by phone for his departure late the night before). We were still hugging and saying goodbye as luggage was being loaded into the taxi. Despite the traffic, even on a Sunday in Beijing, we got to the airport in good time. We had a rather bizarre experience when, as we got out of taxi, a man with a luggage cart came over and started loading our luggage on and wheeling it over the two streets from where cabs are allowed to stop. At the entry door he stated "money" (one of the few English words I've heard from someone Chinese in the "service sector" and said he wanted 100 yuan--about what we had just paid he taxi to bring us all the way to the airport (roughly $37, an exorbitant sum by Chinese standards). He quickly "negotiated" down to 20 yuan and had to settle for 14, which is all I had left in small bills. He did exhibit a degree of enterprise we had not particularly seen in Beijing. Our fortunes turned brighter when we reached check in at Korean Air and saw the familiar "Sky Priority" sign. I whipped out my gold medallion card and after much typing and discussion (I finally asked the check in agent if there was a problem) she said she had upgraded us to business class--a good thing for many reasons, but in part because despite all my efforts both Olga's and my suitcase were a bit overweight. So we traveled in luxury the hour and a half to Seoul, where we were greeted first by a beaming and very welcoming passport control agent. (By the way, the woman at passport control in Beijing had struggled rather unsuccessfully to muster a smile and was not particularly prompt, but at least it gave me time to look at the buttons: very satisfied, satisfied, and I think the last two were unsatisfied and very unsatisfied, the first two with smiley faces and the latter two with frownies. I decided to give our agent a satisfied, because at least she let us leave China.) And Korea only got better after this auspicious start. We were met at the airport by my (former) student Yujin Chung, who graduated from Barnard with honors in May as a Russian regional studies major. She drove us into Seoul, took us for a lavish Korean feast at a lovely restaurant with cascading waterfalls in its outside court, and dropped us at our hotel. Olga and I greatly enjoyed the food (barbecue, buckwheat noodles, and soji) and especially the lively chat, catching up with our adventures and Yujin's, since she has done some impressive traveling since I last saw her as well. We were met by the same service (and excellent English) when we checked into our hotel, where we have a comfortable, apartment-like suite. Tomorrow will be a "chill" day to rest and take stock, but one final observation. For the two semesters of our course, "Socialist and Post-socialist Cities of Contemporary Eurasia" (we left out references to socialism in the summer title of the course out of concern that it might not sit well with the Chinese authorities) we have indeed been trying to figure out whether using this paradigm to study cities is useful or not. What, after all, defines a city as socialist or post-socialist? As I indicated yesterday, we may have ended with more questions than we had when we began our Odyssey (the hallmark of a great liberal arts education, I believe) or as Charles A. quipped: "I began confused and now I am confused on a higher level." Still I have to say that I don't think I have experienced the degree of culture shock I felt arriving in Korea today since I found myself mesmerized by the sight of oranges at a fruit stand in Paris after my first six-week trip to the USSR in 1970 (where oranges were a rare sight indeed). Whatever it might have to do with socialism, at least since Berlin, in our journey eastward we have rarely experienced the level of service, efficiency, and welcoming of foreigners afforded us since we arrived in Korea. It is like returning to another world. And, especially after Beijing, Seoul (despite its own smog problems) literally seems to glisten with cleanliness, most noticeable in its spotless glass skyscrapers. Thanks to Yujin, we got a good view of the city on the way from the airport, and it is quite stunning and even, I would say, graceful and far more sprawling than I imagined. Olga and I really look forward to spending real vacation days here (including seeing some of our co-journeyers from the last month who are here as well), a lovely transition. I will try to have some deep thoughts on Beijing tomorrow after a good night of rest. Thanks for reading, Cathy
Dear Friends,
Well July 13 has finally arrived, and our "kollektiv" has dispersed to home or further travels. (Although the course is not over yet. Papers are due in three weeks.) Olga and I began the morning early, finishing packing yet one more time (thank goodness, only one more to go on this trip!). Although we have had to travel relatively light and have accumulated fewer souvenirs than usual, we were still pushing the weight limit despite numerous attempts at repacking and rebalancing. After turning in our cell phones and routers to Edward Tyerman (who has been our teaching assistant throughout the course and now takes on the role of my junior colleague as an assistant professor in the Barnard Slavic Department) and our room keys to the relevant guy at the hall desk (not sure what to call him since we never shared a language, but he and a number of other people seemed to share responsibility for the rather random housekeeping) we said farewell to the Peking University Shaoyuan Guest House (don't ask me why it's not Beijing University), which has been our home for the past ten days. We had plenty of help wheeling our luggage out to the street, since empty cabs were supposedly not allowed on the grounds (even though my co-instructor Charles Armstrong had somehow miraculously managed to order a cab by phone for his departure late the night before). We were still hugging and saying goodbye as luggage was being loaded into the taxi. Despite the traffic, even on a Sunday in Beijing, we got to the airport in good time. We had a rather bizarre experience when, as we got out of taxi, a man with a luggage cart came over and started loading our luggage on and wheeling it over the two streets from where cabs are allowed to stop. At the entry door he stated "money" (one of the few English words I've heard from someone Chinese in the "service sector" and said he wanted 100 yuan--about what we had just paid he taxi to bring us all the way to the airport (roughly $37, an exorbitant sum by Chinese standards). He quickly "negotiated" down to 20 yuan and had to settle for 14, which is all I had left in small bills. He did exhibit a degree of enterprise we had not particularly seen in Beijing. Our fortunes turned brighter when we reached check in at Korean Air and saw the familiar "Sky Priority" sign. I whipped out my gold medallion card and after much typing and discussion (I finally asked the check in agent if there was a problem) she said she had upgraded us to business class--a good thing for many reasons, but in part because despite all my efforts both Olga's and my suitcase were a bit overweight. So we traveled in luxury the hour and a half to Seoul, where we were greeted first by a beaming and very welcoming passport control agent. (By the way, the woman at passport control in Beijing had struggled rather unsuccessfully to muster a smile and was not particularly prompt, but at least it gave me time to look at the buttons: very satisfied, satisfied, and I think the last two were unsatisfied and very unsatisfied, the first two with smiley faces and the latter two with frownies. I decided to give our agent a satisfied, because at least she let us leave China.) And Korea only got better after this auspicious start. We were met at the airport by my (former) student Yujin Chung, who graduated from Barnard with honors in May as a Russian regional studies major. She drove us into Seoul, took us for a lavish Korean feast at a lovely restaurant with cascading waterfalls in its outside court, and dropped us at our hotel. Olga and I greatly enjoyed the food (barbecue, buckwheat noodles, and soji) and especially the lively chat, catching up with our adventures and Yujin's, since she has done some impressive traveling since I last saw her as well. We were met by the same service (and excellent English) when we checked into our hotel, where we have a comfortable, apartment-like suite. Tomorrow will be a "chill" day to rest and take stock, but one final observation. For the two semesters of our course, "Socialist and Post-socialist Cities of Contemporary Eurasia" (we left out references to socialism in the summer title of the course out of concern that it might not sit well with the Chinese authorities) we have indeed been trying to figure out whether using this paradigm to study cities is useful or not. What, after all, defines a city as socialist or post-socialist? As I indicated yesterday, we may have ended with more questions than we had when we began our Odyssey (the hallmark of a great liberal arts education, I believe) or as Charles A. quipped: "I began confused and now I am confused on a higher level." Still I have to say that I don't think I have experienced the degree of culture shock I felt arriving in Korea today since I found myself mesmerized by the sight of oranges at a fruit stand in Paris after my first six-week trip to the USSR in 1970 (where oranges were a rare sight indeed). Whatever it might have to do with socialism, at least since Berlin, in our journey eastward we have rarely experienced the level of service, efficiency, and welcoming of foreigners afforded us since we arrived in Korea. It is like returning to another world. And, especially after Beijing, Seoul (despite its own smog problems) literally seems to glisten with cleanliness, most noticeable in its spotless glass skyscrapers. Thanks to Yujin, we got a good view of the city on the way from the airport, and it is quite stunning and even, I would say, graceful and far more sprawling than I imagined. Olga and I really look forward to spending real vacation days here (including seeing some of our co-journeyers from the last month who are here as well), a lovely transition. I will try to have some deep thoughts on Beijing tomorrow after a good night of rest. Thanks for reading, Cathy
