Hang in there kitty

I have a lot of time to read while I'm sitting on the metro here, and I just finished reading a novel completely in Russian (it was hard for me, so that was my bragging moment). I chose to read The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov. The process of reading this novel was, for the majority of reading time, more interesting to me than the novel itself, but I did manage to gleam a few great ideas out of it by the end. The basic plot of the book is that Satan (Woland) comes to Moscow with his merry crew of hooligan demons Begamot, Koroviev, Azazzelo, and others. While in Russia, the group raises hooliganary among Muscovites including a beheading, a black-magic show, and a witch’s ball. There is a dual plot of the condemnation of one Yeshua Ha-Nozri by Pilate. It includes Matviey the Levite—the somewhat insane, but devoted disciple of Yeshua. I don’t want to ruin the story for any of you, but at the end of the book, I finally was able to grasp some of the deeper themes of the novel. The book puts a twist on familiar stories: the first on Faust, the second on the Gospels.
The first is a conversation between Pilate and the Levite in which they are discussing the already dead Yeshua. Keep in mind that this novel challenges what we may consider as black and white, and doesn’t really apply to religion (in my mind anyway) at all. Pilate says:

"You, I know, consider yourself a disciple of Yeshua, but I tell you that you have acquired nothing of what he taught you…Remember—before he died he said that he blamed no one…You are harsh, yet he was not harsh."

I often see this ultimate flaw in myself and others through self-proclaimed beliefs that are not lived, and ultimately artificial(again, not intending to restrict this conversation to religion). Where bigotry is spoken against, it shows its face in some warped form. Where equality is preached, it is not found. Humans are often so weak in resolution. Yet, there is a dual side to everything as is explained by Satan himself later in the book, again to Matviey:

"What would your good be doing if there were no evil, and what would the earth look like if shadows disappeared from it? After all, shadows are cast by objects and people. There is the shadow of my sword. But there are also shadows of trees and living creatures. Would you like to denude the earth of all the trees and all the living beings in order to satisfy your fantasy of rejoicing in the naked light?"

Thoughts? I have some, but this is getting too long.

Wintertime

In a recent scientific study on complex weather patterns, experts have come to some groundbreaking conclusions about Moscow's enthalpy in what experts are calling "quite chilly," or alternatively, "pretty cold."

Scientists are confused as to the source of the sudden drops in temperature, but most assert that Tāwhirimātea, the Maori god of weather, has again unleashed his mighty and unholy wind on the earth. This theory seems to be most correct since it fits the majority of given data. However, experts are still baffled as to why he has chosen to shift his anger on Moscow. This is likely due to a local student named Helen, who reports say "just gets on my (the weather god's) nerves." Apparently, Muscovites are in for a long battle with the almost juvenile judgement of Tāwhirimātea.

Taxidermy, or Conspiracy Theory Unraveled?

Thanks to Helen for the photo.

I went to the Darwin Museum recently, and I had a great time...until it dawned on me that all of the fun animals I was observing were now dead and stuffed. Their skins were peeled off, and altered in unnatural ways for our amusement. The majority of viewers were under 12 (this is possibly the trigger that made me start to wonder about the exhibit). Just imagine little Sasha running up to her mommy, "look mom, a baby penguin. how cute." "I'm sorry I have to tell you this honey, but you need to know...the baby penguin is dead. They found it in the engines of a cruise liner, and used its carcass for a display. I hope you learned a lot from the ultimate sacrifice that little Scamper made." Have we really evolved all that much in all this time? Yes, yes we have...I learned that from the stuffed monkeys in the museum. We stuffed them because we're smarter. Put one down for the human race.

Speaking of Scamper the penguin, it's a cartoon from my early childhood. Out of curiosity I found it online and was shocked at what I found. It was initially a Japanese-Soviet production! The Russkis got to me before I could even speak English. Only, in their version, he's called Lolo. It's all a viscous plot to promote the Soviet way of life, and when little Scamps got out of hand, it was to the Darwin Museum for him. The perfect crime...well I won't stand for it. Check it out for yourselves...or if not for yourself, do it for lil' scamps.

“In America you can always find a party. In Russia the party always finds you.”

Below I have listed reasons that I love living in Moscow. They are some less obvious reasons that I have found this to be a uniquely interesting city to live in. If any of my fellow Muscovites can think of other reasons this is a great city, please feel free to add to my list.

1: I am desperately in love. Lena works at a local bakery, and her work is...well it's beautiful. I'm pretty sure she loves me too, and I told her before Christmas break that I can't live without her. She pretends like its just a joke, but I think we're going to run away together someday. We'll bake beautiful bread together. I don't care that she's twice my age plus some, that's not what love is about. Love is about fresh cinnamon rolls, warm baguettes, and those little doughnuts filled with творог (tvorog, it's sort of like a mixture of cottage cheese, cream cheese, and what I think are the tears of a Siberian tiger).

2: Spreadable cheeses. They come in various flavors such as pesto, bacon, basil and tomato, parmesan (¿spell check is telling me to capitalize that?), and cucumber to name a few. They're so ghetto, but I love them so.

3: You'll want to sit down for this one. Several people have commented that I'm a good dancer. No, it's still me, Bryce, writing-I know, I was just as surprised as you. I have gone to a few clubs while I've been here (again, it's still Bryce, just a bit out of character), and at one of them, a photographer took a bunch of pictures of me and the girl I was dancing with. My suspicions are that it was sort of an "Elaine from Seinfeld" situation, where I just dance so terribly that it had to be documented.

4: Drinkable Yogurt mixed with the cereal подушечки (podushechki-little pillows, I can't describe them). I am addicted to this breakfast...I just ate a whole thing of podushechki. I also just realized that three of the reasons are trivial foods. Yet, I will not edit this list.

5: Running in the forest near my house. While Moscow is the biggest city I've ever lived in, it still has great running. I run in the forest-park near my home almost every day, and I'm still not sick of it despite a playful attack by a rottweiler there. I also thought I would hate running in the winter here, but it's actually great. The crunch of snow under my feet, the cold wind running down my jacket cools me. I can also freely wear just running tights here. It's not that people don't glare at me for it, it's just that they glare at me anyway, so I might as well be comfortable, and give them a little something to brighten up their day at the same time. That little something is my попа in tight spandex.

Hopefully this list has engraved images of my stuffing my face with cheese while wearing tight spandex and dancing. If not, then you can enjoy this little clip.

Україна, я тебе кохав i до цих пiр кохаю

This was at the Mendosa's house in Zaporizhye.


For the holidays I decided to visit Ukraine. My original plan was to visit Kyiv, Zaporizhye, and Sevastopol (actually, there really wasn't a plan, I bought the ticket to Ukraine a few days before I went with absolutely zero planning). For those readers who know, I served an LDS mission in Ukraine several years ago, so this was largely a trip to visit some of my old friends (for those of you who don't know, I was sent to Ukraine by a secret organization to infiltrate a local drug cartel...I became one of them- I fell in love with the business, and left my home and studies in Moscow to pursue my lifelong dream of smuggling things across various borders in fun new ways).

I ended up coming into Kyiv early on Friday morning (within minutes of missing my train) without a plan whatsoever of what I'd do except a phone number of a random friend of a friend and wikitravel's Kyiv page printed out. I bought a map, and wandered around all day. I ended up hitting most of the great tourist spots, and a few less known things. After wandering around all day Friday, I got in touch with the one contact I had, and she turned out to be super chill. We hung out that night, and she let me stay at her palace of a flat. Saturday night, some friends from Moscow showed up in Kyiv and we spent the day together, after which I hopped a train to Zaporizhye (within a few minutes of missing my train).

I got to Zaporizhye early Sunday morning, and slept the rest of the morning out in the train station with a hobo that I call Jean Luc. I spent my time getting in touch with old friends, dining on high class Ukrainian cuisine like borsh (definitely different from Russian borsh, it's a beat based soup with various ingredients depending on the chef), blini (sort of like crepes), salo (raw pig fat with the skin still attached...it's not as bad as it sounds), dumpling soup, and various mayonnaise salads (when did I start to love these so much!). Unfortunately, I started to get sick in Zaporizhye so I decided to cut my trip short and just came back to Moscow for New Years.

New Years in Moscow was so great. I was invited to a super artsy party (there was a poetry reading at one point, and it felt like everyone there except me had some sort of deep artistic talent) that ended up lasting until 6:00 am. Not my normal scene, but an interesting one to say the least. There were fireworks going off all night all over the city, and there was such a great energy in the air. When I finally did end up going home, there was a heavy snow falling...so appropriate for a New Year in Moscow.

Anyway, if you've made it this far you deserve a treat. Enjoy my Ukrainian crush, Ani Lorak singing I become the sea.