Privyet! Ya ni gavaritia pa-ruskie!

I am in St. Petersburg! Whoo hoo! And let me tell you....I am in love with Russia! So much to see and so much to do....I don't think that I am going to be sleeping much the next few days!

Last night, we had a very long pre-port meeting. Now pre-port meetings are very critical for everyone on the ship to attend as at those meetings, a great deal of logistical information is given out about the city and country that we are about to visit. Last night, for a lot of people on the ship, was a bit scary. Bergen, Norway does not prepare the psyche for entering a land completely foreign to you--customs, language and even the alphabet. Russians use the Cyrillic alphabet, which is pretty easy to pick up and many of the letters in Cyrillic are of Greek origin so for anyone who was part of a fraternity of sorority, a lot of the symbols are easy to pick up. While in Bergen everyone spoke English and Bergen was a sleepy fishing town, St. Petersburg is the exact opposite--and I don't think that our students were prepared for that.

The first thing that was discussed was pick pocketing. It is huge over here and if you do not speak fluent Russian in public, you quickly become an easy target. There are also gypsies that use their children to pick pocket as well.

The second thing that we discussed was that there is a great deal of racism occuring in Russia, particularly in St. Petersburg, where there is a growing skin head movement. We were told that anyone that looked a bit foreign or had a different skin tone could be a target for the police and for skinheads. Many of our students of color were very concerned about this and rightly so. Many Russians believe that people with darker complexions could be Chechens, from Chechnya. As you may know, Russia is still embroiled in a bitter fight with the Chechens, which has been raging since the displacement of Chechens after World War II.

Anyway, enough about the "concerning stuff;" here is the fun stuff. I am slowly learning very basic Russian, which is a pretty amazing language. The faculty and staff held Russian lessons yesterday and my friend John, who is a professor on the ship, was leading one of the classes. John is the youngest professor on the ship at the age of 30 and lived in St. Petersburg for a year. He pals around with the Resident Directors and the Global Studies TAs, as he is better able to connect with us than his faculty colleagues. John taught a great class....let me share some tidbits that I learned:

Ya ni panimayoo (I don't understand)
Dah! (yes)
Neyet (no)
Mi ya zavoot Kristyn (My name is Kristyn)
Dobre Dien! (good afternoon!)
Dobre utra (good morning)
Dobra Vachar (good evening)
Stolka stoit? (how much?)
Yi tambia aroshkenkaya popechka! (you have a nice ass!)

Okay, fabulous! Enough of the English vocabulary. St. Petersburg is the second largest city in Russia and it did not exist three hundred years ago. Built on swamp land in the Baltic Sea, St. Petersburg was erected on the backs of serfs by none other than Peter the Great. Now known as the "Venice of the North," St. Petersburg is home to an extremely intricate canal system, which is amazing feat of architecture and engineering. St. Petersburg has been a city ransacked and destroyed through revolutions and invasions, including an invasion by the Nazis during World War II. Home to over 4 million people, St. Peterburg is considered the cultural capital of Russia, while Moscow is the hub of government and ever-changing cosmopolitan.

We arrived in St. Petersburg at 800 hours this morning and the weather was absolutely gorgeous. A sunny, cloudless sky was perfect; this has been the best day of weather since we embarked in Halifax. We arrived at 800 hours and it was amazing! I was very excited to get off the ship and on my way to the city.