Суд времени...

The great thing about individual one-to-one lessons is being able to tailor the classes to the needs of my research and focus of my work. Its been a stimulating couple of weeks, though the challenge of dates and academic language as a couple of the key topics covered has required some serious mental effort on my part. It was nice to end on something even closer to home, Katya having pulled out a political-history discussion program from YouTube that featured a debate over the events and historiography of the Soviet-Finnish War.

Time allowed for only a short dip into the full duration of the program, so I've posted it here for future reference and the hope it will be a useful resource down the line for hearing - and not just reading in the archives! - aspects of the war from the perspective of Russians today.

С Новым Годом!

Today was a good day. I came to my final visit to the archive and spent the day productively, transcribing from the documents collected yesterday and beginning to form some of my ideas about the material I'd found so far. There is still an element of frustration that I can't be here long enough to continue my work, but it means I'm motivated to be back as soon as possible. Anyway, I left on a positive note and even took the time to thank the archivist (who has been such a great help and very patient with my imperfect language skills) with a box of biscuits and a 'Happy New Year' ( С Новым Годом!).

In order to facilitate my day in the archives today, Katya kindly agreed to move my class to Saturday morning. I'll have just enough time before my pick up for the airport. Since that leaves me with little time tomorrow outside class (and homework to finish) I headed home via the supermarket to stock up on a few gifts for Christmas.

I've definitely got into the Christmas 'spirit' - bad pun intended - as you can see (though a couple of the purchases need to stay a surprise so aren't pictured here!). What made the occasion extra sweet was the fact that on being asked if I was old enough to buy alcohol (slightly tongue in cheek I think) I didn't miss a step, understood and responded with my passport. It really is these little victories that help me to feel like my language skills are improving.

It comes back to this idea of being able to survive in day-to-day scenarios and that's certainly something I've been more focused on with this trip. I've tried to be less of a tourist (I've seen none of the usual sights and haven't stepped into a museum or gallery!) and get into a routine that will serve me well whenever I'm in the city and time is against me for my research.

Seeing the fruits of my labour...

After a tough introduction to academic language and terminology in class this week, I felt the need to test my day-to-day language skills out in the real world. I confessed to Katya that my preoccupation with academia and archival research has stunted my ability to speak and understand when out and about. She was sympathetic but confident I wasn't too far off the mark.

I took her confidence out on a mission to gather together some things for dinner and a couple of cards (and stamps) to wish loved ones 'С Новым годом' (or a Gledelig Juhl and Merry Christmas for the benefit of those who expect presents on the 24th and 25th of December). 

The time spent on numbers this trip (even in the context of dates and time) has really helped my navigating shops. Weights and measures are essential at the market where I can buy quantities more suited to cooking for one during such a short stay. Being able to anticipate costs and deal with roubles in the hundreds - particularly given the exchange rate of about 50 roubles to the pound - offers the opportunity to hand over something closer to the exact change at the counter and avoid the risk of returning home with pockets full of coins.   

I still get lost at times and I'd love when that happens to be able learn from what I've not understand immediately, rather than simply draw a blank and have to muddle along regardless. Patience is a virtue, but I think I've already mentioned that service doesn't always come with a smile in Russia. This isn't a place where 'the customer is always right' is culturally embedded. The Soviet legacy lives on. I do get a positive response a lot of the time I try, but I guess its frustrating for both sides when something just isn't understood.

The long and short of it is that the better my language skills get, the better I eat. Or at least the more control I have over the variety and quantity of food I can purchase. It helps when I'm sticking to a limited budget and want to diversify a little without incurring waste or extra expense. Anyway, dinner is served...

A path to victory...

One of the things I have Russia to thank for is my return to playing competitive basketball at university. When last in Moscow three years ago, I was lucky enough to be gifted with unseasonably good weather through September and October. This allowed myself and a group of fellow foreign historians working in the archives (mostly from Canada and the US) to spend some of our free time playing basketball on an outdoor basket just down the road from one of the archives (GARF).

We also managed to find the opportunity to watch a couple of live games played at CSKA's home court. It was a return to the sport after an absence of quite a few years and if there's one thing I'm missing while in Petersburg, its being able to practice on any court - indoor or out!

Having a free day from lessons on Sunday I decided to track down a game for local team Spartak. I found their game schedule online through the official website - helpfully translated into English - though stopped short of buying a ticket at this point. From my experience of Moscow I assumed I could manage to pick-up tickets on the door fairly easily, though did check the price and seating plan on the website.

It meant a trip on the metro up to Krestovskiy Ostrov on the purple line (M5). I can't actually remember the last time I travelled on this section of the metro and its bit of a pain connecting from the green line (M3) that runs from Primorskaya. I left plenty of time though and it seemed pretty clear where I was going from Google maps once I got there.

Rather than a road from the metro to the arena - or 'basketball complex' and its designated on the maps - it's a long pedestrianised avenue through 'Maritime Victory Park' (checking with a local taxi driver, the directions of "go straight, straight, and straight" were simple enough even for me to decipher!). The whole length of it seems to be under construction of some sort. I also discovered a pretty substantial looking theme park, evidently closed for the season, as I began the trek to the game.

The theme of 'closed for repairs' seemed to continue when I got to the end of the path. Fronted by a statue of our old friend Kirov, was the huge stadium sharing his name, surrounded by cranes and building works. However, just to the left was a pretty new and swish looking 'Cyber Arena', the home of Spartak basketball.

The facilities inside were similarly impressive and the game offered a great show. A shaky start from the home team before a tightening of the defense and improved ball movement saw them open a ten point lead in the second half. This wavered a little as the game reached its closing stages, but was eventually tied up after a well timed three pointer from one of their American squad members who was clearly confident shooting from the NBA regulation distance.

It wasn't exactly a packed out arena - in fact I was tempted to think it a good idea I'd bought a 400 rather than 200 rouble ticket as the outer seats looked pretty empty - but the atmosphere was good,  the chants lively and the cheerleaders easy on the eye. Paying 100 roubles for a bar of chocolate (a Twix!) at half time was a bit of a shock to the system, but it was generally value for money (I would actually consider buying the cheaper ticket next time as people seemed pretty flexible with moving to seats closer to the action once the game began).

Я играю по-русски...

I like this. This gets me motivated to train hard in the cold, ice and snow, surrounded by crumbling buildings and shoddy infrastructure. Working with whatever is available. No I don't have a sponsorship deal with Nike. No I don't currently plan on swimming in the frozen waters of the Neva, but yes, I do know how to play Russian!

Changeable weather...

I can't keep up with the changes of weather and temperature at the minute. Yesterday the snow began to thaw after a return to positive figures and this morning any sign of the earlier wintery weather had disappeared!

I came expecting snow, lots and lots of snow. Its almost the middle of December. I suppose I should enjoy it while it lasts, but I can't help feel this is the quiet before the storm...

*****

Update: Mystery solved. Apparently the snow has moved to...CAIRO!

I understand this is the first time snow has been seen in the Egyptian capital for 112 years. I'd love to know when the last time they had snow and we didn't! Watch this space for breaking news of hell freezing over.

The innocence of youth...

There was a fresh layer of snow across the city today that slowed my return to the archives. It was disheartening to see the night sky persist at 10am and realise that when I emerged at 4pm it would be fast approaching once again. I was focused on my goals as I marched along, though took care to dodge sludge and dirt that still bubbles to the surface as temperatures persist around the threshold of freezing.

The archives were kind to me today. We can have good days and bad days. Today was a good day. I arrived to find my name at the front door - registration evidently successful - with a pile of files (дели) rich with documents (prepared from my order sheet on Monday) immediately brought to my desk.

My first question mark was over the state of the declassification process. I had tested the water by ordering files that were both explicitly declassified in the catelogues (описи) and ambigiuous in their status. This was further complicated by a number that were indicated to me by the archivists that had been successfully requested by another research a year ago. Since all those files I ordered arrived, I'm no clearer to knowing what is or isn't available. Such is the game we play!

More questions followed. Probably more than answers. I was dealing with materials related to the military department in Leningrad during the Soviet-Finnish War. Issues of recruitment, education and mobilisation mixed up with popular responses to the war and the management of its public presentation.

My thoughts are still forming and will continue to over the course of these two weeks. It already appears that I'll need more time to properly interrogate this archive's holdings. A healthy position to be in and I'm already excited at the prospect of returning to Petersburg in the New Year.

For now I'd like to share one document that emerged from a file of collected letters sent to Red Army forces from the public. It was opened with a glowing report on the popular mood by a Party official that insisted on both the abundance and uniformity of public support for the troops. The temptation is to see this as a careful engineered propaganda initiative. However, I feel the documents require a closer reading than this.

In fact, what helped steer my assumptions away from this simplistic view was a small handwritten letter tucked away in the middle of the file. A note from a child, a young boy named Nikolai, studying in the fourth class - a point of clarification I need to check but, perhaps, around  9 years of age - and eager to elicit a response from any Red Army soldier that might read his appeal. He innocently stresses the fact he never receives poor marks (only good or excellent grades) and hopes any reply will provide both a name and age of his new found comrade. What is striking though is his adoption of official rhetoric to describe the enemy - the White Finns (белофинны) - while at the same time offering an insight into how this langauge penetrated his speech after he admits to reading about the progress of military actions in the newspapers.
 
Here was yet another view of the war to add to my expanding collection of personal responses, this time through new, much younger eyes that are free of any political agenda. Combined they help build a picture of conflict that becomes ever harder to generalise, something that I believe is one of my projects great strengths, if it in fact undermines any effort to offer a coherant story in the process.

Before leaving the archives today I took a few moments to explore and photograph a exhibition in its entrance hall. Again, following the theme of youth and the joys of childhood, it offered a glimpse of festive celebrations through the last hundred years or so of Russian and Soviet history. Decorations and trinkets, postcards and New Year greetings, they were of course exploited by the Soviet state to sow their particular political message, but remain reminders of life often lived independent of global affairs and the preoccupations of the ruling regime.

A short history of Britain...

There really is nothing more painful than dealing with Russian numbers. Whether faced with dates, measures or basic quantities the endless changes of case that follow - not to mention the digits themselves - provide an exhausting mental workout.

Today's lesson was built around a continuation of yesterday's work with the history of early Russia. However, the aim was now for me to reciprocate with a short introduction to British history. Timeline in hand - heavily weighted towards those important episodes I could remember from the course of my undergraduate degree - I faced the task of reproducing endless dates and historical periods in the best Russian I could muster.

The end result you can see above. All credit to Katya, not only for her drawing skills, but also the unswerving patience she had to display as I tripped over my attempts at correct grammar. The work it involved was enough for me to joke that maybe I should scrap the doctoral thesis and just hand in this as evidence of my 'advanced' knowledge of history. It certainly made the prospect of writing a few thousand words in English seem like less of an arduous battle.

An expensive hobby...

Having been plugging away at doctoral research for the last two years without any external funding, I've taken to calling it an expensive hobby rather than a viable career option. Of course I'd love to do history for a living, but times are tough and I'd rather appreciate the time I have now to do something I'm passionate about, than be overly concerned about prospects for a day job at the end of it all.

This trip is however, a step in that direction. Having successfully secured my first ever travel grant - from the kind people at CEELBAS - my time in St Petersburg is designed to be both a development of my language abilities and a return (at last!) to the archives.

Like some modern day Machiavelli I can once again 'speak to the ancients', returning to the very same building where I ended my last period of research. The weather is strikingly similar, as is the limited time I have to explore their holdings, but it does appear new material has been made available since I was last here.

I'll power on as best I can over the next couple of weeks (though the reading room is only open Monday, Wednesday and Thursday). This trip will at least allow me the chance to see the time needed to properly explore the holdings here in Petersburg, before I consider moving back to the Russian capital. I know the genuine excitement I feel digging through dusty documents is lost on most people, but I have never found it better put than by that misunderstood Italian: 

"When evening has come, I return to my house and go into my study. At the door I take off my clothes of the day, covered with mud and mire, and I put on my regal and courtly garments; and decently re-clothed, I enter the ancient courts of ancient men, where, received by them lovingly, I feed on the food that alone is mine and that I was born for. There I am not ashamed to speak with them and to ask them the reason for their actions; and they in their humanity reply to me. And for the space of four hours I feel no boredom, I forget every pain, I do not fear poverty, death does not frighten me. I deliver myself entirely to them."

Memory matters...

For the last three years I've been fighting a losing battle with my university faculty to get them to appreciate how important proper language development is for any researcher studying outside the limits of their native tongue. Unfortunately there is neither the money nor interest in providing access to more than a token couple of hours teaching a week. For anyone that has tried to learn a language, this is not enough.

To meet the shortfall, one of the most useful and surprisingly intuitive systems I've come across online is the website: memrise.com

Its a fantastic vocabulary builder, designed around the science of memory and learning. I've been using it for the last couple of years and if today's first lesson was any indicator, it really has helped me retain a decent sized dictionary of Russian verbs, nouns and adjectives.

I came away feeling pretty impressed with how well I was able to string these elements together and explain myself almost exclusively in Russian. Obviously the grammar I've learned over the years is essential to putting any vocabulary into a proper form, but its made me a lot more confident about how much I've retained during the last three years. Granted, it still takes time for my brain to process exactly what I want to say, but the pieces are there and when faced with a teacher with limitless patience, those planted seeds are allowed to blossom.

Up and running...

The snow was starting to fall again as I woke this morning. I didn't let that stop me. The plan was to exploit this (relatively) warm weather - I should say that anything warmer than -10 at this point in the year is good - to run and explore an ingenious looking outdoor gym I'd spotted on my walk to the shops yesterday evening.

I managed to stretch the legs for a good fifty minutes with the usual array of funny looks from the locals. I think I've mentioned on this blog before that when the cold weather really turns up, I'm generally forced inside, running up and down the apartment block stairs. Healthy body, healthy mind and all that.

The gym itself is a nice little setup. I'll have to take a photo and post it up later in the week. They're your typical range of weight machines from any gym back home, though they exploit body weight and have no adjustable parts that could be broken or stolen. Simple stuff. With any luck I can grab a few 5 litre bottles of water and up the weight by 5-10kg.

I've typically found indoor gym facilities in Moscow and Petersburg either difficult to find or prohibitively expensive. Nothing you could reasonable use during a short visit. This seems like a commendable (and free!) alternative. Probably more suited to the summer, but like I said, I'm not going to let winter get in the way.

It's not the destination, it's the journey...

What an adventure! Fifteen hours of travel, seeing the inside of four separate airport terminals, frantic messages across a continent and a battle against time to avoid a night stranded the wrong side of the Neva...

Still, I'm here. Back in St. Petersburg after three years away from the Motherland, spending the interim buckling down with my studies and hoping, above all, that my language skills hadn't dwindled away to nothing.

I left Oxford in the early hours of yesterday morning. The bus trip to Heathrow followed without a hitch. The problems started when I discovered the air traffic control network in the UK had completely shut-down. Lesson learned, do not try and book connecting flights with Lufthansa with a window of half an hour.

To be fair I've never been stung before and this was to be my first real 'airport adventure'. It felt a little like some bad Christmas movie; desperately trying to get home to see the kids and willing to pursue every possible mode of transport, change of route and means of communication to secure that aim.

I arrived in Munich an hour after my connection had already left. At that point I faced a wait of seven hours and a flight that would get me to Petersburg at 1am, or a further transfer to Frankfurt and then on to my final destination, aiming to arrive for 11pm. To be fair to Lufthansa, their personnel (both in the air and on the ground) were incredibly helpful throughout the whole process. The option to connect to Frankfurt seemed, at least initially, a step too far until I made contact with Bart (the language co-ordinator here in Petersburg) and realised a 1am arrival would leave me stranded at the airport with the metro closed and bridges opened to allow water traffic along the Neva...блин!

So it was off to Frankfurt, another wait, more clock watching and a much needed meal voucher to refuel and prepare for the final leg of my journey. Having by now long missed my pre-booked airport transfer from Pulkova airport to the apartment in Petersburg, I was going to have to go this one alone via taxi.

And so things got to end on a high note of sorts. Bart was the other key piece in this organisational nightmare, providing invaluable support as I navigated the various options at the airport and helping to ensure I arrived at the apartment in one piece and not too out of pocket. Thanks to him I had an idea of what I would expect to pay for a taxi (1500 roubles) and the confidence I'd be able to find my way to a warm bed at the end of it all.

The interaction with a taxi driver, in Russian, and even a passing joke about the weather might seem like such a little thing, but at the end of the day that's why I'm here. My aim is to feel like this language, though an ongoing journey, is one even I can navigate, while the ultimate destination, however distant, is also one that I might eventually reach.

A 'Proper' Historian...

Its amazing - and somewhat frustrating - to think its been over two years since I was last in Russia. After the completion of my master's program I immediately jumped into my doctoral studies.

The intervening years have in many ways been a case of treading water; reading, developing my research with available sources, while beginning the process of turning myself from a 'student' into an 'academic' (i.e. turning history from an 'expensive hobby' into a potentially viable career choice!). Conferences, seminars, teaching and, at last, my first published paper. These have been the tasks I've set myself until I can return to the archives. I hope it proves to be time well spent.

I have little sense of whether this blog still draws much attention for the story I've been trying to narrate. The focus has always been on my language development, which is difficult when away from Russia. Nevertheless, just in case anyone would like to see whether that the hard work has paid off, below you'll find something I'm very proud of...

 http://ojs.lib.ucl.ac.uk/index.php/Slovo/article/view/137

Spencer, M. L. G., 'Signals from Stalin: The Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union in the Midst of the Soviet-Finnish War, 1939-40', Slovo, 25, 1 (2013), pp. 48-64.