I’ve successfully reached the end of another week, and this
time it’s gone even faster than the weeks before. I haven’t had chance to stop
and take a breath since I last wrote on Wednesday, but I’m happy that way; being
busy is what I do best.
A group of us had planned to meet at the local café Кафеин on Wednesday evening to watch some live Jewish music that
was meant to be going on there, according to Stanislav, the saxophonist we’d
met at the jazz concert the previous Thursday. However, when we got there it
turned out to have nothing to do with Jewish music and was more of a general
jam session for musicians and poets – a surprise, but not an unwelcome one. Amongst
the musicians was Stanislav himself on tenor sax and sometimes on piano and couple
of guitarist-vocalists. The music ranged from jazz standards to traditional
Russian folk music, and the poems, which were written by the speakers
themselves, were (from what we could tell) profound and often political. When Stas
asked our group if we knew any English poems to recite, we were all horrified
and said no, of course we didn’t – all apart from Ed, that is, who confidently
went up to the mic and recited the whole of
Jaberwocky by heart. After the musicians had drifted off at the end of the
night, Stas came up to chat again and soon discovered that Ed and I were
musical. Within minutes, Ed was impressing us all on the piano and I was having
a go at singing anything Stas could play that I vaguely new the words to. He said
that we should learn something and come and join the jam next time.
On Thursday I went to another musical event, this time at completely
the other end of the spectrum. The chamber orchestra concert for which Lyudmila
had reserved tickets was that evening, so at 6pm we went to the end of the road
to meet Sean, as arranged. It was 6pm on the dot when Lyudmila began to
complain about Sean’s lateness, and by 6.05 she was indignant, declaring that
it was ‘unacceptable’ for a man to keep a woman waiting. Not wanting to further
upset Anglo-Russian relations, I suggested that we begin walking in the hope
that Sean would phone as soon as he realised we weren’t there, as his mobile
was constantly engaged. However, as we were approaching the crossing, who
should appear but Sean himself. Turns out, he hadn’t understood when I’d said “meet
at the памятник,” and had just assumed I meant the kiosks at the top of
the road. Never mind, crisis had been averted and within minutes he was
charming Lyudmila into forgiving him.
The concert hall was smaller than we’d expected but
nevertheless a decent-sized theatre and large enough for the concert, with
tiered seating and a large stage. The décor was ornate but subtle, and everyone
was dressed up for the event, making it seem like a proper occasion. At first
there was a long string of presentations to the Yaroslavl musicians, as it was
the opening night of the Yaroslavl philharmonic season. Just when we were
beginning to wonder if the concert would ever begin, the Moscow Chamber Orchestra
and its famed conductor were announced, and they launched into a lively piece
of Mozart. The programme, which included a cello concerto played by the
talented conductor, was varied and interesting, and in the second half even
included two vocalists, who sang solos and duets in German and Italian.
After the concert, Lyudmila and her sister were beaming and
it seemed the night had been a big success. Now, to top it off, there was to be
a free open-air concert at the bandstand in the street outside. Lyudmila and
her sister left as it was getting late and there was a chill in the air, but
Sean and I were intrigued. After a few more awards, various motley crews of
musicians took turns to take to the stage and play Russian folk music to an
enthusiastic crowd. The music was mostly in the lively Soviet style, and the way
the audience clapped along was strange, on the first and third beats, almost
military-style, just as during the Chamber Orchestra concert their applause had
been a steady military pulse and not at all like the general applause we give
in England. It had been all I could do to stop Sean chanting, “Soviet Union”
and “Lenin”.
The next day was yet another busy one. That afternoon a
group of us visited a typical Russian state school with pupils ranging from six
to seventeen years old. When we arrived, three resolute-looking
twelve-year-olds were waiting to give us a tour and practice their English,
which was dishearteningly accurate compared to our Russian. We soon learnt that
children here often started English as early as nursery-age – so it was no
wonder that these girls could speak it to such a high standard. We were then
led into a classroom where groups of anxious-looking students were to meet us
and to ask and answer questions in English. Most were very shy to speak, but
all were enthusiastic about English culture and seemed desperate to be able to
go there and experience it for themselves.
After that we were led into the dining hall, where we were ‘given’
tea and cake which we were then expected to pay for – but the Year 10 Russian
girls who had come to chat to us quickly footed the bill without us realising. We
exchanged phone numbers with the headmistress and promised to stay in touch, in
the hope that we might be able to come and help out there. The girls took us
back to the маршрут, a method of transport that can
only be described as a really crap bus. It’s a private transport system on what
is essentially a converted minibus with standing space, where everyone pays 18r
and can dictate stopping points along a designated route.
We discovered on the way that the girls had come out of
their way especially to be able to spend time with us, so it felt rude to say
that we were in a rush to get ready for the hockey match and didn’t have time. We
managed to squeeze in an hour and a half and walked with them along the banks
of the Volga, which a lot of the English people hadn’t seen before. The girls
were really enthusiastic to try out their English and seemed really interested
in everything we had to say. When the time came to part ways, we swapped
numbers and said we would definitely meet up again.
An hour later we were on our way to the ice hockey match at
Arena 2000, where the newly-reformed Yaroslavl Локомотив (Locomotive) team was up against the formidable Moscow Спартак team. Our seats, which we had managed to get last minute,
had been expensive by Russian standards (500r, £10), but were front row and
right next to the Locomotive team bench. The atmosphere in the arena was
incredible, with only two stands of heavily-policed Moscow fans and the rest filled
with enthusiastic home fans there to give their new team some much-needed
support. Before the match began, a memorial song was played in memory of the
team who had died in the plane crash the year before. After the national
anthem, the game began – three twenty-minute blasts with fifteen-minute
intervals in between. The ice hockey is a huge event here, with loud music and
cheerleaders between plays, dramatic lighting and huge screens showing the
match and the words to the chants, which the fans passionately repeat. The end
result was 4-2 to us, and the atmosphere was explosive. At the end of the game,
the word молоцы (well done) appeared in huge letters on the screens
and was shouted eagerly by all the home fans. Finally I had found something the
Russians were able to get excited about.
After the game we found Yana and Akob, who took the
trolleybus (a bus-metro hybrid) with us to the centre of town, where we met the
others from the university at Cocktail Bar. Just after midnight we all headed
over to Мёд (Honey), an elite club on
the Volga, where Yana and Akob had secured us free tickets. It was another amazing
night and we left at 4am – the perfect end to the week.
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