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April 02, 2005
various
I hear I make lots of typos in my posts. Do point them out to me so I can correct them for the benefit of non-native speakers reading the blog.
Two shots of the New Arbat. Though I've never been to Atlantic City, it reminds me of what I imagine it to be like. The pictures don't do justice, though -- you need to see it at night with all the flashing lights.
I've been asked to comment a bit on the cultural anthropology of food in Russia. There's a lot one could say, but allow me to mention a few random thoughts:
- Russian bread is denser and less rubbery than bread in the West, so those of us who spend any amount of time here and then go to the West are disappointed in what you find there.
- Restaurants and cafes never bring the bill until you ask for it, so you can sit there forever.
- Eating out is not as common in Russia as the west because it was frowned upon in the Soviet days as a bourgeouis, and the relative cost of eating out is still kind of high.
- Soviet Russia was known for its system of grocery stores where everything was behind the counter and you had to ask for it. Actually, what you would do is figure out how much it would cost, then go to the cashier, tell them the price and the counter number, pay, and then take your receipt back to the counter. But these are gradually being replaced by stores that work like in other countries.
- There are standing markets here (not farmers' markets that happen once or twice a week) where at least a portion of your food shopping is done.
- American food brands aren't particularly common—after all, even food brands in the US are quite local—but foreign expressions like "pasta" and "dressing" are increasingly used in normal speech.
- Dishes, especially in cafes, almost all have foreign names that most likely didn't exist in Russian 20 years ago. For example: Airish kofe [Irish Coffee], Long ailand aisd ti [Long Island Iced Tea], Chizkeik [Cheesecake], and Kaliforniiskii rol [California Roll]. We do it too, after all: tiramisu, sushi, fettucini, etc. I guess it makes it easier when traveling the world, and it means that foreigners stopping in their local Moscow coffee shop (such as Kofe Bin [Coffee Bean] or Kofe Khaus [Coffee House]) can communicate with the waiter without speaking Russian. Lots of menus are in English in addition to Russian.
- Picking mushrooms in the forest to eat is a Russian pasttime.
- Vodka is ridiculously cheap by American standards.
If you're looking to kill some time, check out the Wikipedia entry on Russian jokes.
In other news, have you heard about the new completely serious book from an emeritus Princeton philosophy professor called On Bullshit? When critiquing Republicans' distortions of the truth, I think we should stop thinking in terms of lying and instead think in terms of bullshitting.
Posted by kshawkin at April 2, 2005 09:12 PM
Comments
I'm going to have mushroom soup for dinner today. It's made of mushrooms I personnaly had to pick up last summer and then dry =) To my Russian mind, picking up mushrooms is far from being pasttime.
Posted by: Nadya at April 3, 2005 01:47 PM
Hmm. You know, the word "pasttime" to me doesn't mean something that is no longer done. It just means something that people do traditionally. Semantic drift at work!
Posted by: Kevin at April 4, 2005 12:34 PM
I got it! It's not a semantic drift, it's just that the word is spelled with one t ;) We pass our time picking up mushrooms :)
Posted by: Nadya at April 4, 2005 02:12 PM
Huh. I'm smarter than I thought ... except that I didn't realize there should only be one "t".
Posted by: Kevin at April 4, 2005 10:31 PM
Kev, buddy, how's about bringin' back a bottle of that Vodka ;-)
Posted by: Jou at April 6, 2005 01:20 AM
Much obliged, Kevin. And I'm willing to bet that this post is 100% bullshit-free.
Posted by: shana at April 6, 2005 09:02 PM