As if this summer hadn’t been difficult enough, with the heat and the illnesses in my group, we have a new problem to deal with: forest fires, peat fires, and all the smoke from those fires.  The city is covered in a thick blanket of smoke for most of the day.  This started a bit before we left for St. Petersburg last week, but we all but forgot about it while we were out of town.

Our trip was really nice.  The train ride was about 12 hours, and luckily we had air conditioning.  We rode in 3^rd class, which was a first for me.  I normally ride 2^nd class, which has 4 beds per compartment: two lower and two upper.  3^rd class has that, without doors on the compartments, plus a row of beds running along the corridor.  This means the beds are a bit shorter, and narrower in the hallway.  I had an upper, side bed, which was really small.  On top of that, we had a snorer nearby.  At least we didn’t get in until 10 am.  When you come from Moscow, the trains usually get in around 6 or 7 am, which is just uncomfortable, and nothing is open in the city.  We had a bus to take us to the hotel, and after we checked in we had a couple hours before lunch.  I took my first hot shower in a few weeks (not that I take cold showers, it’s just that you can’t call my bathing process a shower), and enjoyed Russian television.
They show back-to-back episodes of sitcoms during the day, and I have to say the quality has improved over the years.  Part if it could be because they take ideas from other shows: there is a Russian version of The Nanny, Married with Children, Everybody loves Raymond, Scrubs and Ugly Betty (ok, that one we ripped off too…).  There are also some really funny sketch comedy shows, and some home-grown sit-coms.  Sometimes it’s just nice to sit back and realize that I can watch these shows for an hour, and find it relaxing, not straining or mentally taxing.  I even watched a stand-up comedy show and found it really enjoyable! (And no, it’s not all Yakov Smirnov.)

The first night in Petersburg we went to see Swan Lake.  Our seats were in the balcony-type rows going around the theater, so they weren’t the best seats in the house.  It was hot in Petersburg too, but it was a really wonderful performance.  I am partial to Tchaikovsky, so the music itself was a treat.  After the ballet, I wandered around with a few students trying to find a café where we could sit and rest before heading home.  Everyone else was really tired (I took a nap before dinner), so it probably would have been better to just go home.  We had a 15 minute walk to the metro, which included a few moments of panic when the underground passageway to the metro entrance was closed.  Fortunately, those passages close earlier than the actual metro, so we still made it home.

In the morning we had breakfast at the hotel.  The café at the hotel had air conditioning, which was a real treat.  Even better was the unlimited supply of hot dogs and macaroni.  My favorite Russian hotel breakfast, especially with some ketchup.  They also had rice and buckwheat kasha, carrot salad, beet salad, cabbage salad, cold cuts and cheese.  Only instant coffee, but at least real milk.  We didn’t have any excursions planned for the students, so I sat in my room and worked on my syllabus for the fall.  I had lunch plans with a friend from Princeton who is in Petersburg for the summer.  We went to her favorite Georgian restaurant and had delicious eggplant, cheese-bread, and shish-kabob.  Afterwards, I explored a massive 24-hour bookstore (Russians LOVE books) and bought a couple new detective stories by my favorite author.  I probably should be reading something less low-brow, but like the sit-coms, I like to get some relaxation from the book instead of feeling like it’s work.  After dinner back at the hotel, we had a bus excursion of the city at night, despite the rain and thunder.  We went to the only castle in town (I always knew it as the Engineer’s House, so that was a nice surprise).  Our tourguide was really interesting, and knew a lot of history.  I’m always so impressed at how they keep all those facts in their heads!  We also visited a small statue of a bird that will grant you a wish if you toss a coin onto its ledge, and visited the Aurora.  There’s an old legend that in order to marry well, a girl must tug on the ribbons of the hat of a sailor who works on the Aurora.  The poor guy working that night was a really good sport about it, and even offered to let us tug on his ribbons.  Then it turns out that you will marry someone from the city the sailor he’s from, and by the same name.  Next we visited the sphinxes, which were brought from Egypt.  On that embankment, there’s also a griffon who will give you money if you hold his tooth and stroke his ear.  You can tell him how much you need even.  Finally, we saw the bridges go up.  Large boats come through the city’s waterways at night in the summer, and the drawbridges get raised.  The best was the bridge we were standing next too.  It was like the whole street was at a 90 degree angle when it was done.  Very surreal.

After the bus brought us back the hotel, one of the students had a bad stomach ache.  He felt very nauseous, and the teachers who came on the trip with us suggested “washing out” his stomach.  We boiled a lot of water (nearly a gallon) and let it get cool enough to drink. (You have to boil the water in St. Petersburg because of the giardia in the water.)  I went to bed, because I was feeling a cold coming on.  But after drinking the 3 liters of water, he vomited up whatever was making him sick.  And we learned a new Russian home remedy.

The rest of the trip was spent looking at palaces: first a “civilian” palace in the city on Friday.  This is where Rasputin was poisoned and shot, but we didn’t get to see that room.  I’ll be coming back here with Jordan, so at least I figured out that there’s only one time per day they do excursions for foreigners.  I was feeling so ill I went home right away and went to bed at 9.  On Saturday, we went to Peterhof, where Peter the Great built his palace.  We went on a tour of the palace with an amazing tourguide.  Unfortunately, they would not let her speak Russian to us.  Only the local guides speak Russian, and only Russian citizens can have a local guide.  So we had an English excursion, but our guide was SO funny and entertaining!  Afterwards we had some time to see the fountains, which are really the main attraction.  Then off to lunch, and the train back home.  We got in at 5 am on Sunday morning, and took taxis to our homes.  I stayed up for a couple hours, then slept until 1.  I finally felt like I slept off my cold.  The other RD in town invited me out for sushi to thank me for getting her out of the scary hospital.  My first Russian sushi experience was pretty good.  If only they could make better gyoza.

I woke up Monday morning around 5:30 to the smell of smoke.  The city was enveloped in smoke that had blown in from the peat fires.  It smelled like a campfire, which is much better than a chemical fire, or even cigarette smoke.  Unfortunately, like the heat, there was no escaping the smoke.  I shut my windows, and hoped for the best.  The students were pretty miserable at our weekly meeting and some already thought we should be getting evacuated.  Instead of finishing my syllabus and getting back to my article, I spent the day talking to DC about what to do, contemplating an evacuation, and talking to students who were affected by the smoke.  Tuesday was even worse, unfortunately.  I spent the day spraying water in the classrooms, and trying to find surgical masks for the students to wear.  The 4^th pharmacy had some, so I bought a whole box.  With the worst timing in history, my friend who was working at another program came to stay with me for a couple days until his flight out of Moscow.  We braved the streets to get some watermelon and beer to help fight the heat.  I also made my favorite summer dinner: cold Lithuanian borscht (saltibarsciai).  A couple students spent the evening at my apartment in front of my fan and out of the smoke.  I spent the evening on email and Skype, and around 10 pm I started trying to get those who were the worst off into a hotel with fans or air conditioning.  After they got checked in, my friend and I had a beer at the hotel bar, and then I went back to work for another hour or so.  In the morning, I had to write up a lot of emails and call the hotels again.  The smoke was a lot better, which was a relief.  My friend decided he’d be better off at a hostel in Moscow, since I had so much work to do.  It was nice to have company for a change, but it was also nice to not have to worry about offending someone as I completely ignore them.  The day was a little easier, but I was starting to get really frustrated with the situation.  On the one hand, yes, the smoke was greatly unpleasant, and my eyes were stinging and my head was hurting.  On the other hand, it wasn’t a life-threatening situation.  Not everyone was having severe symptoms.  Those who were had the option to stay home from class, or even to withdraw from the program for medical reasons. 

The biggest factor for me in handling this situation was to take tips from the locals.  In the end, this is why we come abroad for long periods of time: not just to learn the language, or the history, or observe the culture, but to live in the culture.  When the Russians are sweating in the heat, we are sweating with them.  If they say “don’t drink cold beverages, you’ll get sick”, we at least try to hide it from them.  When there is no hot water and you have to bathe yourself from a large pot, you do it.  And you deal with it.  And when there are other natural, uncontrollable events, you can’t expect to be treated differently because you have a different passport.  The worst situations we had were students with asthma who couldn’t breathe with the smoke, but the host families were suffocating in the heat.  Who gets to decide whether the windows are opened or closed when neither party can breathe or be comfortable?  Is it more dangerous to breathe in the smoke, or to suffer from heat exhaustion?  Whose needs get priority?  Russians are very hospitable, and willing to do a lot for their guests.  Some of the host families had difficulty understanding how sensitive some students were to the smoke.  I worked with our host family coordinator to talk to the families about it, but there’s only so much that can really get through.  It’s a very unique case, and a good lesson about patience and understanding for everyone.

I arranged to have someone from Moscow come visit us on Thursday, partly on behalf of the embassy to observe the conditions here, and partly to give the students another person to voice their concerns to.  We had a group meeting, and everyone got to have their opinion heard.  I was emotionally exhausted, because until then, it felt like I had too much responsibility for whether or not we evacuated the students.  In all honesty, it wasn’t so dangerous that we needed to evacuate.  And for those whose health was suffering, they needed to do something about it.  It is unfortunate that they were staying just so they could get their certificate of completion.  If it had been a more serious health situation, like some that other sites have seen this summer, I don’t think the certificate would have been an issue.  That’s been the worst part about this all: it’s all in the gray, not black and white. 

By Thursday evening, I got the word about a compromise from the State department.  They’re allowing the students who leave to complete the program by writing a 10 page essay in Russian after they leave.  Now begins the next phase of work: finding plane tickets, finding hotels, renting buses and taxis to get everyone to the airport.  In the meantime, the smoke is starting to clear, and the peat fire closest to us has almost been put out.  Thankfully, the worst parts of the fires were not that close to us.  While we’ve been suffocating in Vladimir, in Voronezh and outside Nizhny Novgorod, thousands have lost their homes and everything in them.  Around the country, 50 people have died in the fires.  For me, it makes it a little bit easier to bathe without a hot shower, knowing that at least I have my life, my worldly possessions and a roof over my head.

Pictures soon!  The situation is winding down, so hopefully I'll have some free time this weekend.