Rewind a few weeks back to Pesach...Remember all those glasses of wine, the dayenu's, and the delicious (bleaugh) matzah...
now add to that picture the backdrop of a cold, emotionally suppressed culture in Russia.
Now the scene is set.
I traveled to Russia with my good friend, Amy, to lead 7 Passover Seders in the course of 6 days. We went as two representatives out a group of 16 HUC students that led Seders in the Former Soviet Union: Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine.
To start off, I want to first say that this was my first Passover without my family. I usually celebrate with my parents, sister, and grandparents, either in Pittsburgh or Florida, and through the years, Passover has come to be my favorite Jewish holiday. Why is it my favorite holiday? Probably the association with family, friends, ritual, food, and the deep sense of Jewish pride that stems from re-telling the story of our ancestors. I definitely missed being with my family this Passover- I especially felt it during the first Seder-it didn't feel quite like Passover without them. Having said that, my experience in Russia is one that will stay with me for the rest of my life. Each year as I dip my bitter herbs into the salt water and sing Dayenu, I will think of the people that I celebrated with this year and be reminded of my once in a life time Pesach experience in St. Petersburg and Tver.
The Journey:
Amy and I landed in Russia after our five hour flight, very late in the evening, and were met at baggage claim by Alex, our translator/body-guard/tour guide/chauffeur/personal slave for the coming week. We immediately took a liking to this very tall, smart, quirky, and sweet man. Alex is in his mid-thirties, works in IT, and lived in Colorado for a few years, therefore, speaking wonderful English. We spent a lot, I mean, A LOT, of time with this man over the course of the week, so learned much about him. Including the fact that he eats about 6 apples for breakfast in the morning. Guess he doesn't believe in the phrase, "everything in moderation."
We checked into our hotel, (which was really a bed and breakfast), run by a nice Russian woman who spoke not a word of English (like 99 percent of Russians that we encountered). We affectionately nicknamed her "Helga." Helga prepared and delivered our breakfast every morning, which consisted of 2 scrambled or hard-boiled eggs, a cup of dark lipton tea, a yogurt, a small wrapped chocolate bar, and a plate of butter. We never did figure out what the butter was intended for...There was no bread because she was told we were keeping Passover. Now, the chocolate bar: This curious breakfast food tasted like a mini chocolate mousse bar to me. Although, Alex claims that it is a cottage cheese bar. At first we were repulsed by them, but soon after, they came to be our favorite treat- quite tasty.
Day 1 in St. Petersburg started off with some sight-seeing. We were lucky to have mostly sunny (but still freezing!), beautiful days. We went to take in the sights at the Peter and Paul Fortress. We're walking around, admiring the architecture and magnificent Cathedral, when suddenly, we hear a loud "BOOM." It scared the bee-jeepers out of me! I screamed. Loudly. And we found ourselves in the middle of an amazing changing of the guard routine with about 40 Russian soldiers accompanied by a 30 piece marching army band. They did all sorts of cool formations and tricks with their guns. It was wild. The marching soldiers were all tall, thin, and looked the same, while the short, stocky guys, played in the band.
We walked along the water, to Vasilevsky Island, saw many monuments, and spent several hours in the Hermitage museum.
Hermitage Museum The Hermitage occupies six magnificent buildings situated along the embankment of the River Neva, right in the heart of St Petersburg. The leading role in this unique architectural ensemble is played by the Winter Palace, the residence of the Russian tsars that was built to the design of Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli in 1754-62. Put together throughout two centuries and a half, the Hermitage collections of works of art (over 3,000,000 items) present the development of the world culture and art from the Stone Age to the 20th century.
The place is massive and you would need a month to get through the whole thing. We focused on the 2nd floor palace rooms of the Winter Palace of Peter I: grand ballrooms, drawing rooms, libraries, incredible statues and artwork. It was phenomenal. Really inspired me to come back in my next life as an 18th century Russian Tzar...I want royal treatment like that! Whew, talk about living in luxury.
On our walk back to the hotel, we passed through Millionaire's Row, a string of palatial homes of the rich and famous for hundreds of years. We walked over to the synagogue to meet the Rabbi, Stas, (one of 6 Reform Rabbis in the whole FSU) and discuss our role in the Seder that night. The Seder had about 25 or 30 people. In most of the Seders at the synagogue, Amy and I introduced ourselves, had a few teaching moments, led the songs, and added some fun singing at the end.
Words learned in Russia. Note: the language is so difficult that it took us a week to master these 4 words:
Straz-vu-eet-ye- Hello
o-chin-pri-yat-ne: nice to meet you
Dos Ve-dan-ye- Goodbye
Spa-ci-ba- Thank You
Observations of Day 1:
-Russians don't eat or smile, only drink and smoke.
-Don't take pictures with flash at the Hermitage, unless you want to be yelled at by the moley, moustached, mean, Russian female guard.
-Russian women need lip waxes
-no one (slight exaggeration) speaks a word of English. Not even "Hello".
-I learned good survival skills from the Nirens: when in a foreign country, always head immediately to the grocery store to buy bottled water and edible snacks.
-portions in restaurants in Russia are small
Day 2
We took a train with Stas to go lead Seders at a school with a Jewish program for a small portion of the student body. We had many realizations during our transport ride on the train:
Mainly that Russians appear miserable all the time. They don't smile, they don't acknowledge each others presence, they don't speak to one another, rather they read their books in silence. There was a cute little boy sitting across from us and even he didn't smile once. He wouldn't even look at us in the beginning but then he stared a little out of curiosity I suppose. It's a bizarre culture.
At the Jewish school we attended, we led three modified seders - with the rabbi - for kids ranging in age from 5th through 11th grade. The 5th and 6th graders knew all the words and sang their little hearts out. They were excited to be in the Jewish program and learning about their Jewish heritage and you can see the difference at starting schooling at a rather young and impressionable age. Their knowledge and excitement was tops of all three classes. But then again, they started in the Jewish program when they were in 1st or 2nd grade. The seventh and eighth graders were like all 7th and 8th graders - way too cool for anything we were offering. But there were two tables in particular that were participating and once the chocolate was offered we were able to bribe the other kids into semi-joyful participation. The 9th, 10th and 11th graders were really interesting. They had some good questions for the rabbis, some thoughtful responses to our questions and they were willing to participate. Plus there was the table in the back of the room with the geeky computer kids so there are some universals in high school across the world. That was a fun, engaging (and very tiring) experience. The kids were excited to have us, the teachers wanted us there and these kids in this Jewish program were really interested in learning about their Jewish heritage. I don't know whether it got them out of something else but you didn't have to argue with them about the merits of Jewish school - they wanted to be there and it was pretty obvious. (Except the 7th graders who needed chocolate to exhibit any emotion. Forgot to mention that other universal - 7th graders are so too cool for anything...) *this paragraph written by Amy*
The school resembled a jail- the bathrooms were atrocious. It was nice to be with these kids- they were smiling and laughing and goofing around- they renewed my faith in Russian children!
We had another Seder back at the Synagogue that night for ex-pats so there was a little bit of English in that one.
Day 3
Alex picked us up by 11 and we re-visited the Peter and Paul Fortress because most of the stuff was closed during our previous visit. We went into the Cathedral- built in 1712, a Baroque masterpiece with green and pink corinthean columns and over-arching vaulted ceilings. (I did learn something in AP Art History in high school!) It was a far cry from Traditional Russian orthodox church. Inside were tombs for almost all of the Romanovs. We also visited a prison in the Fortress which mostly held political prisoners who objected to imperialism.
Next up- my favorite-The Blood Church. This is one of the most magnificent churches I have ever seen. The title stems from the story that Tzar Alexander II was killed on the spot where they built the church in March 1881. Somebody threw a bomb under his carriage and he got out and walked over to a banister where he bled to death. They installed the actual banister in the church- I searched and searched, but I didn't see any blood stains. (j/k ) The banister is located directly underneath the mosaic of Jesus' crucifixion.
It is a large Russian Orthodox Style Church filled with mosaics on every single wall. The whole church is covered in mosaic! Amazing. Scenes from the Old and New Testament. The best part of the church is the outside- it looks like it could be in candyland- a delicious castle made of ice cream and frosting with blue swirly globe-like candy canes. So cool. Every time we walked or drove by it during the week, I got excited...Alex, Amy, and I had a nice pow-wow in the church- some deep theological discussion about the roots of Christianity stemming from Judaism, etc.
After the church, we walked over to a Russian cafeteria style restaurant, which they refer to as "bistro" style. Amy and I loved this because we could actually see the food and point to what we wanted. Food was quite a challenge throughout the week. Amy is allergic to nearly all food, and I am just picky and not a fan of Russian grub, so as you can imagine, we were a HANDFUL for Alex! He was quite a sport...Anyway, the bistro made everyone happy. Amy had her borsch (which apparently has no "t" at the end), and I had AMAZING kasha and salmon.
We then headed to St. Isaac's Square for the 3rd Cathedral of the day. We walked all the way up to the bell tower (220 steps to be exact) for a great view of beautiful St. Petersburg. You can also see the Gulf of Finland from up there. Very lovely. Inside that church were frescoesPeter the Great envisioned the new capital of Russia, in 1703, to rise from the marshes at the edge of the Gulf of Finland. Peter’s wish had been to create a Russian Versailles or Venice – only greater. He was making the statement that Russia had arrived and was every bit as magnificent as Europe was. Despite the lasting effects of the political turmoil that Russia has seen through the years, St. Petersburg is a magnificent city complete with beautiful panoramic views, high culture and revolutionary architecture. The inside of the church was very formal and opulent. It was like a Cathedral form of the Hermitage. There are 48 massive columns surrounding the outside of the building which have some visible dings from Nazi bombings during WWII.
We helped lead small Shabbat services (about 15 people) that night at the Synagogue followed by a nice dinner at the Rabbi’s apartment.
Day 4
Saturday morning we helped lead another Seder in the afternoon at the Synagogue and then took an overnight Soviet-era train to T’ver, a small town near Moscow. We killed some time waiting for the train, buying snacks (of course!) in the grocery store under the train station. We were excited to find a real grocery store because most food/convenient stores are Soviet style KGB controlled, as we referred to them. You can't touch anything. All of the products are behind the counter and must be handed to you by the cashiers. Weird. I need to browse, and touch...and touch some more before I buy something...The train was really old, and our little car was tiny. We had a nice, stylish, Russian room-mate with round, pointy, severe, finger nails. We got her to smile a few times.
Day 5
We got in at 2 in the morning and checked into our ghetto hotel for some sleep. We were met the next morning by Yulia, a volunteer at the synagogue in T'ver. 24 years old, very cute, Chemist, decent English, friendly and she smiled a lot! She gave us a walking tour of T'ver. They claim it's a small version of St. Petersburg, because apparently the same architect was brought into Tver to have a dry run at constructing the city. Things were much more rundown, but the pedestrian walkway down the center of the street was pleasant and we did have some nice weather for meandering throughout the city during the day. It was nice to walk around and take in the sights. There were tons of people out and about.
The Synagogue building was taken by the govt. a while back and just a few years ago was given back to the community. It's a nice space- parts have been recently refurbished. The building is shared between the Orthodox and Reform communities. We led our 7th Seder of the week here! There is no Reform Rabbi there so it was just Amy and I. We were told there would be 15 people, so we were surprised to see a big room full of 100 people. 100 Tver-ians who spoke not a word of English. We abridged what we had planned, went with the flow and looked out into a sea of non-expressive faces. I felt that only a small portion of them were actually interested and engaged in what we were doing/saying. However, when we started singing songs during the last 10 minutes people were more enthusiastic and perked up a bit. Some even came up to request favorite Israeli folk tunes. We led a stirring rendition of Josh Nelson's Hava Nashira- always gets 'em going. People were singing, clapping and ... smiling!! Well, even if they weren't American-style smiling, they no longer looked like they wanted to kill us. For Russia, we'll consider that a smile. At the end we got some requests, had a lovely singing of Hatikvah (the Jewish National Anthem) and a couple of other Israeli folks tunes. The seder was conducted by Amy and I, with major assistance by Alex, the translating genius, and there I felt like we were really needed. We really made an impact. This was a community seder and the whole community was there.
We took another over-night train back to St. Petersburg and crashed, back in our familiar bed and breakfast.
Day 6
Monday was our last full day- sightseeing! The weather was beautiful-sunny and crisp. We went back to our favorite bistro style restaurant for lunch and visited the Yusupov Palace. You could see a Palace every day for months in Russia and still not see them all! We had a blast at this palace. I used the handy English guided tour and I was in heaven with the explanations/art history lessons. Especially loved the British accent of my tour guide. (I became an expert at imitating her) They were big fans of "drawing rooms"...there was a green drawing room, a blue drawing room, a red drawing room...they must have done a lot of drawing...
We visited the Marinsky Theater (unfortunately there were no ballets playing that night and no opera worth seeing) and walked by the Rimsky Korsakov Conservatory. We visited the Choral Synagogue, a beautiful 100 year old Orthodox Synagogue complete with an awesome bridal room. It reminded me of the Synagogue in Florence...
We did some browsing and shopping on the jam-packed Nievsky St. the main artery of the city-bought some souvenirs, chocolate, gifts, and had some Baskin Robbins for an afternoon refreshment. Also popped into Gostiny Dvor, the oldest and largest dept. store in St. Petersburg. We met Allah (program director for the Synagogue) at a cafe on the 3rd floor of a massive book store- we had a gorgeous view of an old monument and bustling Nievsky St. below us. We had a wrap up meeting, said our thank yous and goodbyes. Alex, Amy, and I had our final dinner together and we went back to the hotel to pack our bags because we had a morning flight back to Tel Aviv.
Amy's food/tv impressions:
"The food left much to be desired. They are certainly not a salad culture. Or I should say not a lettuce culture. There were plenty of salads - but most of them had mayonnaise and ham in it. Not my kind of salad.
Russian TV is awful - and they dub all American programs. And the American programs they have are never-heard of ones like The Invisible Man - apparently a remake of the original series that ran from 2000-2002 and Destiny's Child concerts from 5 years ago. Really?? This is the first place I've visited that has such little english. I am accustomed to being able to get by on english, even if people look resentful. Not so in St. Pete's. If we hadn't had Alex, we would not have been able to do 1/5th of what we did."
What did I learn/take away from the experience?
1.) "In Russia, it's not easy to be a Jew and most of the Jews didn't grow up with a strong sense of Judaism or connection to Jewish roots. There is a gap of two generations - at least 50 years - where communities could not freely hold their seders. Where synagogues were taken by the state and turned into Ministry of Agriculture - Pig Department buildings. (That really was what happened to the Synagogue in Tver.) The young people are starting to get really excited about learning their Jewish heritage. The older people are still visibly cautious about demonstrating too much Jewishness and the middle generations are somewhere in between. There isn't the same outward sense of pride in being Jewish that we in America have the luxury of having, or not having for that matter. The point is that we as Jews in the United States have that choice and we have virtually always had that choice. I would sum this up by saying I have never celebrated a seder where there isn't a collective memory of Pesach." (written by Amy Goodman)
My summary of this paragraph would be that I learned to appreciate what I have- to not take for granted the Jewish customs and traditions that I grew up with.
2.) I feel like I made a contribution to these Jewish communities. Amy and I were excited to sing passover songs (over and over and over again) and play guitar and talk about Passover. We were able to provide them with smiling, happy faces, enthusiasm, our own Passover stories, and pretty music. What more could one hope for?!
3.) I was reminded on this trip how important it is to go with the flow and keep a positive attitude in all situations. Often times things don't go as planned or you don't receive information as early as would be expected and you just have to roll with it and smile!
4.)I learned a lot about Russian culture. Personalities, body language, human interaction, food, art, architecture, music. It's very different from any other culture that I've been exposed to. It's easy to see the firsthand effects that its political history has had on the people and the culture and I'm convinced that that will always be a part of Russia. It's ingrained in them.
5.)I learned that it is nearly impossible for me to be without phone or internet for a week. I am so connected on a daily basis with multiple forms of communication that I was having major withdrawal! I had to check my e-mail a few times at the Synagogue, but no phone...that was tough!
In wrapping up this long post (Mazel Tov to anyone who made it through the whole thing), I am very grateful for this experience. Thank you so much to all of the donors who supported me financially to participate in this outreach project. It would not have been possible without your generosity.
I'll always have memories of this year's Pesach in Russia!
"From Russia with love"
-Leslie
