Needless to say, last week was really hard for me. Besides the strict emotional drain of having to deal with the loss of so many of my valuables, there were aftereffects. For instance, I had to pay to have the locks on our apartment changed, even though there was nothing in my purse that could link it with my address, only the Nevsky Institute. Also, I had to get a new ID card for the Institute, which took several days, so for most of the week I had to beg apologetically at the front desk for the ladies who monitored the entrance to let me in and out. Understandably, I was in a funk for the rest of the week - the necessity of replacing several of the most important items that were in my purse brought back all of my worries about money. In addition to this, my parents were (understandably) concerned about the possibility of identity theft - my mother kept inquiring over Facebook about what the thief could possibly do with the information he had about me; in my confusion, I couldn't remember whether my social security number had been in my wallet, or exactly what information he would have been able to glean off of copies of all of my documents, my driver's license and the information card that had been in my wallet. To make matters worse, one of the professors, Professor Blank from Princeton, kept confronting me about everything that I would need to replace, and her manner was very brusque and unsympathetic - very typically Russian, but not what I needed at the time. I feel that Stas, our other professor, would have tried harder to understand; and on top of it all, Professor Blank insisted on speaking to me in Russian, which was just about too much for my poor frazzled nerves. Several times on Tuesday I burst into tears, and Professor Blank frantically tried to calm me, but she wasn't very effective. As childish as it may sound, I was scared and upset and what I really wanted was my mother. The fact that my phone had been one of the things stolen was icing on the cake: not only was I already several thousand miles away from home, I couldn't even call and hear a friendly voice.
Finally, some sense came out of the confusion: we decided that it was most necessary that I replace my phone and my keys: the rest could wait. So, on Tuesday I went with Nadia, one of the program's coordinators, to get me a new cell phone. We went to the store nearby and she asked for their cheapest model, explaining that I would only be in the country for another 2 weeks, so quality wasn't a big issue. They replied that the one they had came in black or white - then one of the salesmen added that they also had pink ones. On a whim, I replied - "I want the pink one." When it came out, it was every bit as hideous as I imagined; I hate pink, as a rule. Yet somehow the ludicrous appearance of my phone cheered me up more than anything else had been able to do yet. As an added bonus, the store clerk said that the phone might be able to work in the States with another SIM card, and when I inquired about Germany (I'm planning to do a similar, though shorter, program next summer in Germany), he responded that it was even more likely. So perhaps my purchase isn't for naught, after all. Also, I paid only 1040 rubles (about $35) and got 350 rubles on the SIM card, which, at the tariff rates over here, should be more than enough to last me the remaining two weeks, so at least I won't have to invest any more money in the phone.
To make matters worse, the heat wave continued with gusto this week: Saint Petersburg hasn't had weather like this in 40 years, so of course air conditioners are in short supply. Why would you need them when a typical year sees about 30 days of sun? Our classroom at the institute was the worst - there is only one room that has an air conditioner in it, and even that doesn't help much, but the other is absolutely unbearable. They tried bringing fans in, opening the windows and door to encourage a draft - nothing worked and we could hardly pay attention for the heat. Latalia and I are quite fortunate with our apartment - it is larger and much cooler than most, but the heat eventually permeated even there, and I was having an incredibly difficult time sleeping for the heat and the humidity. (I've never been able to sleep in a hot room - at Princeton it was nearly half a semester in the fall before I could sleep underneath even my sheets.) I eventually put myself on a voluntary hot-water strike (hot water in the city is mostly centralized, a relic from Soviet times, so many neighborhoods in the city lose hot water for a two-week period in the summer so that the pipes can be cleaned - however, since we have our own hot-water heater, we are spared this inconvenience), taking freezing-cold showers every evening before bed in a desperate attempt to lower my body temperature and allow me to sleep, but to little avail.
The other torment of St. Petersburg, by virtue of its being a city built on a marsh, is the abundance of mosquitoes. I thought they were bad in Maine, but here they have an entirely different breed. I swear they are at least twice as large, and in my 8 x 25 room I can hear them buzzing no matter where they are. They particularly seem to enjoy the damp climate of the bathroom; every time I went in there I would hear the ominous high-pitched whine. It was especially torturous to take a shower. It is a stand-up shower with sliding glass doors; hearing the buzzing start up upon closing the shower doors is like a little piece of hell. And these mosquitoes take no prisoners: in Maine, they might buzz around you for a bit before landing. Here, they literally dive-bomb your face. I am not exaggerating: World War III nearly broke out in my apartment last week as I made a full-scale attack on the little monsters. Every night, before I would go to bed, I would close my door and make up my bed, then lie awake and read my Bible, waiting for their inevitable attack. Once I spotted one, I would follow it around the room until I was able to exterminate it, sometimes hunting for up to twenty minutes for a single mosquito. But it was worth it; on the nights when I neglected this duty, I might wake up with as many as four or five bites on my face, arms, and legs, not to mention being woken up at ungodly hours by the buzzing in my ear.
The bright spot of my week was Wednesday. I met my other new Russian friend, Ksenia (Ksyusha for short) and we went on a boat tour of the canals and rivers of St. Petersburg. The bridges were beautiful, but made me miss my camera even more sharply, and since the tour was in Russian, I only understood about 30%. However, Ksyusha lent me her camera and promised to email me the pictures, and the tour probably wouldn't have been all that interesting anyway (who actually cares when all of the bridges were built?) so it wasn't that bad. After the tour, Ksyusha asked me when I would next be free and then told me that she would get in touch on Friday about plans for the weekend. After the sporadic or nonexistant communication from my previous Russian friend, this eagerness to hang out came as a pleasant surprise. In addition, Mom called me on Wednesday evening and assuaged my fears about money and such. It was wonderful to talk to her again.
But, most of my week went more like this. The combination of the heat and the emotional stress of the recent events made everything seem like a bigger deal than it actually was. Tatyana didn't come home on Sunday night, which was actually quite a common occurrence (I believe that, were she not hosting Latalia and I, she would spend much more time at the dacha than she currently does); we made ourselves supper and thought little of it. However, when she still hadn't returned by Monday afternoon, we began to wonder, especially since the food supply in the refrigerator was running low (it seems that Russians go shopping much more often than Americans and leave less in the fridge; I know that at least in my family the refrigerator and freezer are always over-full). Finally, Latalia got a call from Olga, explaining that she had tried to call me several times with no success (for obvious reasons) and that she would be over in about twenty minutes to cook us supper. I was relieved, especially since I wasn't sure whether anyone in the family yet knew about what had happened with my purse. As I suspected, Olga didn't know, and was shocked and sympathetic when I told her. I heard her talking to her mom on the phone later that night, letting her know, so at least that problem was solved. She then assured us that T.T. would be home the next afternoon, which news Latalia and I received gladly. In hindsight, there was nothing to worry about in the situation, but at the time I was nearly in hysterics, not knowing where my host was or whether she knew what had happened.
Other little things were also easily blown out of proportion; the new lock, changed on Wednesday, doesn't work nearly as well as the old one. Instead of automatically latching when the door is closed, it is necessary to use the key to lock the door behind yourself; and if the lock isn't put in exactly the right position it becomes impossible to open from the outside, even with the key. However, I finally received a new set of keys on Thursday morning, for which I should be grateful, since it relieves Latalia of the burden of making sure she is home when I need to get into the apartment.
Also, the problem of finding a camera for Moscow has turned out to be quite an ordeal in its own right. It's very important for me to have pictures to commemorate my time there - in all probability, I will never return to this country, much less that city. Emily, one of my traveling companions, graciously offered to share her pictures with me, but I tend to have (thanks to Nikola) a rather unique taste in photography, and I really want to be able to take my own pictures. It seems that disposable cameras are a rare thing in this city - no one seems to know where I can find one. I search the souvenir stands each time I walk by; occasionally I see batteries, but have yet to find a disposable camera. I've tried camera stores, as well, and was told that while they carry them in general, the particular outlets where I inquired didn't have any. I debated asking Mom to send me one from the States, but was eventually convinced that the cost of shipping would outweigh the value of the camera, and the uncertainty of receiving it in time made it completely not worth anyone's while. I even considered buying a good-quality new digital camera here, but quickly discovered that it would be significantly more expensive than in the States, and I have no wish to make such a purchase hastily. I've heard rumors that the souvenir store at the Hermitage has disposable cameras; at this point I am willing to pay the exorbitant prices that I am sure I shall find there, just to have a camera.
On Thursday we had another of our infamous "excursions." We have had several of these field trips throughout the program; they usually consist of a tour of some museum or palace, and tend to be less than entertaining. Last week was a walking tour of the neighborhood where the action of Crime and Punishment takes place. We spent more than two hours wandering the streets of one of the dirtiest and poorest neighborhoods in St. Petersburg, hearing about how it was in this very building that Raskolnikov, the main character in the novel, did such-and-such, or how we needed to get into the spirit of squalor and depression that characterized the neighborhood in Dostoevsky's time. We got into the spirit, all right - the tour was hot, tiring, too long, and none too interesting. I inconveniently kept remembering that all of these places we saw were where fictional characters carried out fictional actions and therefore nothing had ever really happened "in this very building." :P
However, on Friday the weather finally broke. The sky clouded over and thundered and threatened all day, although the actual rainfall was little and the storms were nothing like the fury of those of a few weeks previous. Also, I finished The Jungle last week - I'm sure that that most depressing of books was not helping my mood any, and no longer having an iPod to distract myself with meant that I read even more than I might otherwise have done. In addition, I had an unusually long and interesting conversation with T.T. after supper on Friday, discussing our various beliefs and opinions (although such conversations always leave me a bit frustrated and unsatisfied with my limited Russian vocabulary). So, the week wasn't all bad. On top of this, Ksyusha texted me on Friday and we made plans to visit the Wax Museum, one of the items on my list of things to do before leaving St. Petersburg, on Saturday. So I also had something to look forward to for the weekend. It's a good thing, too - being depressed always drains the energy out of me, and it's very difficult for me to maintain a bad mood for very long. :]
