More From Moscow!

Now that I’ve left you hanging for a couple weeks (I warned you and apologized in advance, in my defense), I’ll try and deliver a report of my life here! Moscow, the Moscow Art Theatre, and the people I have met here are indescribable on paper (or in blog)…nothing I can say here will do any of it or them justice! I have been kept busier than ever since my last entry, allotting no time to reflect or process what is happening. If I had the time to think or write, it would be at the expense of a. eating, b. sleeping, c. rehearsing, or d. showering (but usually it’s e. all of the above!). I can already tell that this will be all I talk about when I get home, since I haven’t the time to do it now. At least there’ll be a change of subject from my trip to Africa or summerstock!

Since arriving, it has been a whirlwind of “getting to know you.” By “you” I mean the city, the language, professors, the school, fellow American and Russian students, the metro, and so on and so forth. After almost a month, my feet are finally hitting the ground. At first, all 30 of us were running on a constant supply of adrenaline for the first week, ending in catastrophe when all of us came down with Russian colds. Entering 30 degree weather (Farenheit, of course) without any leeway to fight off our jet lag, I guess the cold epidemic was inevitable. Regardless, we started a full time schedule of class 6 days a week from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., usually viewing a professional Russian theatre performance (yes, in Russian unless it’s purely a movement piece), in the evening – really making the days last from about 8:30 to 11:00. MXAT is about a half hour walk from the dorm down Tverskaya street, the Muscovite equivalent to Broadway. So far I think I’ve seen more shows than the average person (well, non-theatre person) sees in a lifetime, from Chekhov’s The Seagull and The Cherry Orchard to a Russian version of Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, all amazing, to a horrible attempt at the American musical – based on The Count of Monte Cristo (think Les Mis meets Starlight Express meets Phantom, but all written by Meatloaf on the electric guitar -- pre-recorded of course. Also I’m pretty sure Meatloaf himself was one of the leads, or at least it may have been his Russian doppleganger). Oh but I digress…

On our first day of class, still weary from the flight and on a completely opposite time schedule, we were introduced to the staff of the American Studio, a wing on the 6th floor of the MXAT school building where we take the majority of our classes. This area is devoted to our studies, as are our translators and of course, the Russian “Angels.” At the end of the day we each presented monologues to the Russian faculty. That evening, we were divided into 2 acting groups of 16 and 14 students. My acting class is taught by Sergey Zimstov, the Dean of Acting at MXAT, and also by Igor Zolotavitsky, a leading actor at MXT, whom I have now seen perform twice! Colleen Lucey, a Barnard alum, is our interpreter, and also runs the American program. She is an unbelievably talented translator – it’s fascinating to listen to her work so quickly. Acting is the only class that we have 6 days a week for 2.5 hours. We take ballet twice a week with Larrissa Borisovna Dmietriva, a former prima ballerina at the Bolshoi! She is in her seventies and speaks only few words of English, but somehow none of that seems to prevent her from making each and every one of us leave her class dripping in sweat. She is the most adorable person I have ever met, particularly while screaming directions in Russian and broken English. She is allowing me to take the barre en pointe eventually so we’ll see how that goes!

Three times a week we have Russian movement class with Vladimir Sazhin. This combines techniques of Droznin, biomechanics, Mikhail Chekhov, acrobatics, and a pinch of pure fear. It is an intense class – but we’ll all be very strong after 3 months, I have no doubt. Some of the exercises at first are extremely difficult – bordering cruel and unusual (kidding) – but are so rewarding when I improve. It is exciting to recognize specific movements used in the professional performances.

Also three times a week is Russian language class with Yelena Lisina. So far, it has not been a challenge thanks to having taken an intensive Russian course at UCLA at the beginning of the summer. I really wish there were more emphasis on language here, but I knew from the get go that this wasn’t a language inversion program. Often I end up thinking and speaking in French or Hebrew on accident. Often I’ve communicated with my Russian friends in French!

Additionally we take History of Russian Cinema, Costume Design History, Set Design, Singing, and Russian Theatre History. Russian Theatre History is taught by Anatoly Smeliansky, the Dean of MXAT. I immediately recognized him our first day of class, since I had seen him speak at the Baryshnikov Art Center in New York last February. He is unbelievably eloquent and funny in English, and his lectures are always so rich with his experiences – here’s a man who is a close friend of Gorbachev”s and who knew and was close friends with so many famous names at the Moscow Art Theater. I don’t understand how he makes time to teach our class – he won’t be available for our next class because he’ll be receiving the highest honor of national recognition at the Kremlin!

There is so much more I want to say about my classes….to sum it up for the time being so that I can be up in time for them tomorrow, my classes are incredibly interesting and engaging. The balance between being up on my feet and sitting in lecture is perfect!

Outside of class, there are Sundays and of course, Saturday nights. On Sundays we try to squeeze in as much sightseeing and cultural excursions as possible. So far, I’ve taken a guided bus tour of all of Moscow (so many pictures! Like the one that is up on the heading of this blog – I took that), a boat tour on the Moscow River, shopped at an outdoor clothing market, toured churches, cathedrals, and convents, and today I saw some very famous graves at a beautiful cemetery – I paid my respects to Stanislavski, Chekhov, Danchenko, Kruschev, and Yeltsin among many others. Saturday nights are the time to have some fun – our dorm maintains a strict 1:00 a.m. curfew, at which point the doors are locked until 6:00 a.m. Our solution to this obstacle two weeks ago was simple: leave at midnight, and come home at 6:00! The weekend usually goes by way too fast! I’m most looking forward to our trip to Saint Petersburg on the 25th – we are taking an overnight train a la Anna Karenina, and visiting the Hermitage! Cannot wait…

For some final updates, here are some miscellaneous highlights (please excuse the bullet point format), plus some lists of likes and dislikes. I’m missing the States but having the absolute best time, making friends and working really hard on my craft everyday!

Enjoy!
-Gilli (aka Galina Stepanovna Messer)


Highlights:
• Turned 20 on September 30th with a cake at midnight! Went out to a wonderful dinner at nice restaurant with a bunch of friends
• Fasted for Yom Kippur and went to an Orthodox service at a Russian Synagogue
• Voted for Obama at a Democrats Abroad event at the Hard Rock Café – my first presidential election
• Saw an unbelievable set design exhibition by senior MXAT design students – pictures to come eventually
• Went to the Armory Museum inside the Kremlin with my History of Costume Design Class and saw Catherine the Great’s wedding gown among tons of other treasures!

List of things I love here:

Fabrigé eggs
Russian dumplings
New Russians in stiletto heels
Packed houses at every performance
Russian kids bundled up in winter clothes
The drinking age, and indirectly, Russian vodka
The metro
How clean everything is
Superstitions
Matryoshka dolls
Things that remind me of Israel
The familiar
The unfamiliar
Blinis
Blinis
Blinis
Blinis or pastries of any kind
Russian chocolate
Stray dogs
Old babushkas
The architecture
Culture of gift-giving (mainly chocolates and flowers)
Classroom decorum (standing up when the Professor enters the room, addressing people by their patronymics)
Ballet class
The Grishko ballet store
My ballet mistress Larrissa
The color red
The architecture
Expats in Moscow (saw so many when I was voting!)
Walking everywhere
Saying hello to everyone
The immense sense of history (let’s face it, the oldest thing in Los Angeles is from like the 1950’s)

Things I have trouble with:

Not eating too many blinis
Reading military time (18:00 o’clock??)
Walking in heels
Not petting stray dogs
Calculating the exchange rate (roubles look like monopoly money!!)
Missing everyone at home and at school
Not speaking good Russian
Not being tall (all the women here tower over me)
Russian mojitos (aka mouthwash in a glass with a straw for 250 roubles)
Having my documents on me at all times
The crazy schizophrenic homeless woman who attacked me and tried to steal my food
Not talking loudly or singing in public
Subway doors that close really fast and don’t open again until the next stop

From Russia With Love

I’m here! In Moscow! Alive and well, just a little bit cold but surrounded by wonderful comrades. This being my first entry, I must admit I was always a bit wary of blogs. But then I realized that most everyone here is keeping one – they just don’t talk about them! Usually I feel like blogs should have a specific purpose – for example, this morning while walking to school, I thought perhaps I’d dedicate this “Study Abroad Blog” to documenting how many leopard-print articles of clothing I see Russian women sporting (I noticed 6 on that occasion alone!). But after living in this overwhelmingly amazing city for a mere 3 days, I’ve settled on creating a good ‘ole fashioned blog for you numerous readers whom I miss so much already (hi Ima! Aba! Romi? Maybe?). I’ll preface all of this with the concession that my entries may not be that well written, or even interesting, but if you are reading this perhaps you like me enough to ignore that…and I apologize in advance for not writing often enough.

So much has happened in less than a week! For those of you who don’t know, I’m spending the semester studying at the Moscow Art Theatre, aka MXAT, here in Mother Russia. My journey began last Sunday, at the Eugene O’Neill National Theatre Institute campus in Waterford, Connecticut. There I spent less than 48 hours “orienting” myself with my fellow 29 actors who come from colleges around the nation. But this was no time for rest before a long trip – there we spent our days rising early for tai chi, yoga, or theatrical movement, watching Russian films, and most of all, talking about our trip in preparation. The topics of these talking sessions ranged from cultural superstitions we would be expected to observe – for example, as a woman, I should never sit on the floor or on a cold bench as it will inevitably “freeze” my womb and prevent me from bearing children, or whistle indoors as I will soon become bankrupt – to how to discuss politics with Russian acquaintances who may not view Americans in the best light, especially these days. It wasn’t long before all 30 of us, plus a former NTI Alum who now lives in Moscow and who escorted us here, piled onto a bus and headed to the airport in Hartford.

The trip itself was really a blur; on our first flight we made friends with some of the stewards, who invited some of our group to the back of the plane for champagne – there’s no drinking age in the sky! Then we spent 3 hours in Amsterdam, mainly admiring wooden Dutch shoes in the Duty Free and eating Sbarro pizza. Boarding the final flight to Moscow, it finally hit me that I was really doing this…you know, studying abroad! As we landed in Russia, I expected to see city, city, and more city that is the most expensive city in the world (according to the Economist), but instead was greeted by dark Slavic forestry, which later disappeared as we took yet another bus, which delivered us into the heart of Moscow at our new dormitory.

After exchanging my dollars for rubles and kopecks (I know what you’re thinking -- just like in Fiddler on the Roof, right?), all of us headed to the market to stock our kitchens, which by the way, are much nicer than the one I had in New York last year. This was really our second challenge as “an ensemble;” the first of which was to pick our own rooming arrangements at the dorm. With 10 singles and 10 doubles, this task seemed daunting at first, but actually worked itself out quite smoothly. I am rooming with a friend of mine from Barnard in a lovely, enormous double with lots and lots of closet space! As one of the few students who had taken Russian Language prior to the program, I thought I might be at an advantage at the supermarket. Yet though I can read Cyrillic very well, I don’t know what 99% of it means! This makes grocery shopping a little bit difficult, especially when you have just stepped off an international flight and have not slept for two days. Luckily we had two of our “Angels” to guide us, Olga and Polina. They are first year students at MXAT who speak excellent English, and who help us immensely! Tomorrow they are taking us out dancing and yesterday they helped us buy cell phones. There are many more Angels who are assigned to assist us helpless Americans…not only are there 30 of us here from NTI, but there is also a group of 10 students from Northern Illinois University. Along with the Angels we have our wonderful Marianna, who lives with us and cares for us like our mother. She wears a leopard print robe every night (must add to my tally every single evening) and makes us feel very safe. For those of you who went to Pali – think Ms. Gunn except so adorable and way nicer.

Anyhow, I haven’t even touched on the most interesting parts – actually being here! But I must go to sleep so that I can be ready to give my all in class tomorrow (I have to portray an object….). More to come later!

Dus Vidanya,
Gilli

Here are some pics of the NTI Campus, and of course my hardworking "team" that helped me pick out a winter coat!