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55 Things I Love (to Hate) about Moscow.1) In Russia, it is often necessary to address people with their first name plus a patronymic. For anybody who has trouble remembering just one name, this is a daily challenge 2) over usage of the English phrase "Of course" 3) the money exchange clerks who like to give away 1,000 ruble notes, yet many store clerks cannot find change for 50 rubles 4) snow in April 5) snow in September 6) museums that charge extra for foreigners 7) kiosks that charge extra for foreigners 8) Moscow drivers 9) dinner dates who assume that every American owns an oil company and then order the most expensive dish on the menu 10) Americans in Moscow who own oil companies 11) the cost of clothes 12) the cost of everything 13) fatty Russian salads 14) the Metro at rush hour 15) foreigners who complain about Moscow 16) the obsession with superstitions 17) did I mention Moscow drivers? 18) the heavy artillery that Muscovites call 'fireworks' and launch non-stop from December 31st until mid-January 19) the group of teenagers that hangs outside my window until 4 a.m. 20) the neighbors above me 21) the neighbors below me 22) the neighbors beside me 23) the brother-in-law who always complains about my Russian-speaking abilities 24) bad vodka 25) good vodka 26) Russian rappers 27) the danger of falling ice 28) the danger of falling on the ice 29) ice fishing 30) the guy who sweeps my sidewalk at 5 a.m. 31) the fear of losing my passport 32) McDonald's in Moscow 33) pay toilets that should pay me to use them 34) slow waitresses 35) fast waitresses 36) dark winters 37) bright summers 38) rowdy queues 39) trying to roll my tongue to pronounce the Russian 'rrr' 40) people who laugh when I try to speak Russian 41) people who correct my English 42) mobile phone abusers 43) plastic bags 44) plastic bags that rip 45) getting my visa registered 46) the cost of an airline ticket to America 47) jokes that have to be explained 48) litter in parks 49) lack of respect for western superstitions, like opening umbrellas in-doors 50) people who mistakenly dial your phone number and then yell at you for it 51) face control 52) people who park on the sidewalk 53) people who drive on the sidewalk 54) broken car alarms 55) when people ask: why do you live in Moscow?Texts for extra reading A. The State Symbol of Russia and the Emblem of Russia The state symbol of Russia is a three-coloured banner. It has three horizontal stripes: white, blue and red. The first to use it was Peter the Great, who on January 20, 1705 ordered to raise this flag on all Russian ships on the Moskva, the Volga and the Dvina rivers. In those times the lower red stripe symbolized the Earth, the blue stripe -the sky, and the upper white stripe meant the world of God. At the same time, according to the Russian tradition, white color meant nobility, blue - honesty, red – courage and love. Later, in the XIX-th century, the three stripes on the flag were thought to embody the commonwealth of three Slavonic nations - Russian, Ukrainian and Belorussian. The emblem of Russia is a two-headed eagle. It is the most ancient symbol of Russia. It originates from the heraldic emblem of the Ruricovitches. Appeared in Moscovia, in the XV-th century, two-headed eagle remained the symbol of Russian Monarchy and Russian State for more than four hundred years. There are different interpretations of this symbol. The most common version says that two heads of the eagle symbolize that Russia consists of two parts - European and Asian, and they are of equal importance for the country. B. Moscow's Places of Interest Moscow attracts tourists from all over the world. It is known for its beautiful old cathedrals, churches and monasteries. Some of them date from the 15th to the 17th centuries. Before the revolution of 1917 Moscow had 350 churches, but many of them were destroyed after the revolution. Moscow is also noted for its art museums. The most popular of them are the Tretyakov Gallery and the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. The Tretyakov Gallery houses unique paintings of Russian artists. Almost all famous Russian artists are represented there. The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts contains a vast collection of antiquities and well-known paintings by modern foreign painters. The oldest part of Moscow is the Kremlin. This is the main tourist attraction in Moscow. The Kremlin stands at the heart of the city. The word «Kremlin» means «fortress» and the Moscow Kremlin used to be a fortress. Twenty towers of the Kremlin wall were constructed in the end of the 17th century. By that time Moscow had already ceased to be a fortress. The towers were built for decoration and had no military significance. Five of the towers were gates. The Tainitskaya Tower had a secret passage to the Moskva river. The Spasskaya Tower is the symbol of Russia and Moscow. It has a famous clock; one can hear its chimes on the radio. The clock that we can see today was installed in the middle of the 19th century. The buildings inside the Kremlin wall were built between the 15th and the 17th centuries. There are the Bell Tower of Ivan the Great (16 с), and a famous group of churches. The Uspensky Cathedral is the largest one. It was built in 1479; Russian tsars and emperors were crowned there. In the Archangel Cathedral one can see tombs of Moscow princes and tsars. Among them are the tombs of Ivan the Terrible, his sons Ivan and Tsar Fyodor. Blagoveshensky Cathedral was built in 1484. It is noted for its frescoes by Andrei Rublyov. Granovitaya Palata is another masterpiece inside the Kremlin wall. Moscow tsars held magnificent receptions in honour of foreign ambassadors there. The Tsar Cannon (16 century) and the Tsar Bell attract crowds of tourists, too. Outside the Kremlin Wall there is the famous Red Square. Tourists can look at the magnificent Cathedral of Vasily the Blessed, the monument to K. Minin and D. Pozharsky. C. How should foreigners call us Everyone who knows even a little Russian knows that a male person from Moskva is called a moskvich and a female person is called a moskvichka. You might think that this would be a pattern for, say, all cities that end in -a. You would be mistaken: A man from Odessa is an odessit and a woman is an odessitka. A man from St. Petersburg is a peterburzhets and a woman is a peterburzhenka. In short, there is no rule at all. Russian has an incredible wealth of endings for such nouns and no apparent pattern for how they are applied. A man from Kursk is a kuryanin. No one can tell you why he is not a kurchets, but Russians will double over laughing if you ask them. A man from Astrakhan, on the other hand, is an astrakhanets, and could not possibly be an astrakhanin, for some reason. Moreover, many of the -ets nouns are irregular themselves. A man from Yaroslavl’, forinstance, is a yaroslavets, with the unpronounceable final ‘l’ dropping out. A man from Ufa is an ufimets, and a man from Baku is a bakinets. The female forms are astrakhanka, yaroslavka, ufimka and bakinka. As if that weren’t enough, -yak is also a common ending. A Siberian is a sibiryak (as opposed to a man from the Caucasus, who is a kaukazets, or a man from Kamchatka, who is a kamchadal). Likewise, a man from the beautiful town of Penza is referred to by the unenviable word penzyak and one from Perm is a permyak. The feminine forms sound even worse, at least to my ear: sibiryachka, penzyachka and permyachka. Now here are some of the strangest tidbits of all. It probably comes as no surprise that a man from Nizhny Novgorod would be called a nizhnegorodets. But who would have thought that a man from Arkhangelsk would be called an arkhangelogorodets? Apparently the term harks back to the time before the city’s name was shortened from the original Arkhange’lsii gorod. But the pair that really takes the cake is Minsk and Pinsk. A man from Minsk is a minchanin, while a man from Pinsk is a pinchuk. While a woman from Minsk is obviously a minchanka, no one can tell me whether a woman from Pinsk is a pinchushka, although everyone laughs when I ask. Russians themselves are at sea when it comes to that topic. I ask a group of colleagues what people from Vladivostok are called. After considerable debate and a visit to the library of the Union of Journalists and a call to the world-famous Russian-Language Institute in St. Petersburg, the best answer they could come up with was vladivostokets. And, most strange of all there seems to be no feminine form. Just say zhitel’nitsa Vladivostoka (female residents of Vladivostok). D. Are Russians superstitious? Russians are a mystical, religious, superstitious people at heart. I recall a poet seriously counseling me once never to go back to my apartment for something I had forgotten because it was bad luck to return and to have to leave a second time. A well-educated lady instructed our family on having all members of the household sit for a moment of silence before anyone departed on a journey; evidently a holdover from religious practice, for when she rose, she said, ‘Go with God’. Other were careful not to mention the precise destination of trips so as not to attract the attention of the evil eye. We knew other Russians who, like Orientals, put their faith in the zodiac names of the years. Still others, including intellectuals, swore that leap year is unlucky and attributed all calamities to that cause. The coming of anything so precious as a child invokes all manner of precautions. It is bad luck to pick a name in advance, bad luck to buy a present ahead of time, even worse to discuss the likely date. Russians also regard it as a bad sign, perhaps more out of conformity than superstition , if a child is left-handed. The moment they catch it starting to eat or draw with the left hand, they ‘correct’ it into right handedness. Russians do not knock on wood so much as we but they spit figuratively over their left shoulders for the same purpose. Thirteen persons is bad luck at a table though Russian engineers do dare to put 13th floors in their buildings. What intrigued me was that Monday is so widely regarded as inauspicious for launching a new undertaking. Not until some friendly journalists put me wise did I understand why trips for foreign correspondents so often began late Sunday rather than Monday morning. Any cat, not just a black cat, is a bad omen crossing one’s path. But when you get a new home, Russians said, a cat should be the first creature to enter. If a bird flies in a window, it is a very bad portent of impending tragedy, possibly death or jail. The roots of many of these superstitions seem to lie in the countryside, like the Russian fondness for proverbs or their belief in folk remedies. City people as well as peasants often prefer medicinal herbs and grasses or mustard plaster over modern drugs for simple ailments. An American friend was advised to apply a copper coin to reduce swelling. We saw Russians wearing garlic cloves around their necks to fight off a cold. So strong are the inhibitions against shaking hands across the threshold, for fear that it foreshadows a quarrel that I came home to America hesitating to reach my hand through an open door. Ex.1. Answer the following questions. 1. Do you really think that Russians are superstitious? 2. Would you prefer not to return to your flat if you happen to forget something? 3. Do you take your zodiac name seriously? 4. Do you also think that leap years are unlucky? 5. Would you buy things for your little one before it is born? 6. Should your child happen to be left-handed will you fight against it? 7. Do you keep the tradition of spitting over your left shoulder against the evil eye? 8. Do you mind inviting thirteen guests? 9. Do you ever start a serious undertaking on Monday? 10. Are you upset by a cat crossing your path? 11. Do you believe in folk medicine? 12. Do you ever shake hands across a threshold? 13. What do you think of the custom to sit down before starting on a journey? 14. Do you find the author’s opinion of superstitions in Russia accurate? |
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