I have to get my last thoughts in before taking off...

Having been horribly spoilt by a week and a half of gorgous, sun-soaked weather, I've gone into a bit of a funk with the return of wind, clouds, rain/snow, and temperatures closer to 0 than to 20. It's a bit odd because I can say, "It's absolutely Baltic outside." and mean it (unlike anyone living on the west side of the North Sea). But enough of the jibba-jabba. Let's get down and dirty:

- There's a really awful show on TV here called "Дом-2" (or "House-2"). It's more or less the Russian equivalent to Big Brother, except there seems to be far less point to it and nobody wins anything. You basically witness a group of couples and singles living in a complex together and, aside from a fist-fight between two of the girls on the show a few weeks ago, it's a rediculously mundane program...much like it's American and British cousins. I think the thing that makes me hate the program the most is the rampant product placement. Whenever the people on the program are drinking juice or the stylist comes to do their hair, the juice box/salon product/whatever is placed in such a way so that the cameras can always get a perfect view of the product (and, of course, the brand logo). You'd think at times you were watching a commercial. I was watching a couple days ago and, apparently, some members of the show go out on what seem to be PR tours where they do concerts (attended mostly by pre-adolescent or early adolescent children). The fact that the singing sounded dubbed is beside the point. If you watch the way they film the people singing, you'd think you were watching a fashion show. The camera always pans from the head down and people walk as if they were on some sort of runway. I've seen a lot of concerts televised and I've never seen camera work like that before. It's enough to make you puke sometimes. Television is a powerful tool. In the hands of a government it's dangerous. In the hands of capitalists it's downright disgusting.

- Which brings me to the subject of money, power, and the idea of "freedom" in this country. If you've lived in the US or Canada your whole life (and probably Britain as well), you're almost garunteed to be shocked by what life is like here for most people. Most people have nothing...or almost nothing. The disparity between the rich and poor is as great as I've ever been witness to. A handful of individuals who happen to own natural resource companies and/or are bed-fellows with high-ranking government officials make billions and billions of dollars per year. The average pensioner makes around $100. Those who lived in Leningrad during the 900 day siege (in which roughly 1,000,000 people died) are entitled to more, but it's still not what anyone would consider a living wage. This leads to a lot of disgruntlement on the part of some people. It was quite amusing when I went to the Zenit match and the PA announced some advertisement about Gazprom (the natural gas giant that seems to have a strangle-hold on Europe, but can't seem to manage to get gas to the smaller cities and villages in Russia). I think the intent was for people to give a big cheer for Gazprom, but the reaction was, at best, mixed. At worst, quiet discontent. The same happened when Valentina Matviyenko, the governor of St. Petersburg, came to a match on the weekend. As soon as her name was announced, the crowd reacted with that flat, piercing whistle that most football supporters reserve for the referee or for members of the opposing team. The unfortunate thing is that most Russians have no money, which means no power. The oligarchs have so much money and are able to sway the government and media with relative ease. The last time regular people tried to take to the streets to voice their concerns, they were branded extremists by the goverment and media and were dealt with by armed police. They are marching again next week. And good on them. This all can be summed up by a small talk one of my teachers here gave us about the difference between life now and life in Soviet times. She said that she's sure all elections are fixed because if they weren't, the Communists would be back in power. Many of my teachers have said that under the Soviet Union, life was better. There was no traffic (and when I say "traffic" i mean some of the most erratic driving I've ever seen en masse), there was no petty crime, people were kind to one another, and money meant nothing to people. As one teacher said, "Sure, in the Soviet times we didn't have freedom, but now we have freedom and what good does it do us? Nothing." And don't try and convince me that this isn't a good point because you can't really compare both from a purely theoretical perspective. It's interesting, to say the least.

- Friends of mine here had a teacher who said right from the get-go that she would always be honest with them in her opinions of Russia and the government, etc. She was always very open with her opinions about how corrupt the government and business is here (a friend of mine told me that the amount of money involved in bribes, kickbacks, etc. counts for 30% of the GNP). Three weeks ago she ended class with, "See you next week." Students came the next week to find a substitute who said that the original teacher was "on vacation". They came back this week to find another substitute who said that next week they will be getting a new teacher for that class. The word on the street is that she was forcibly removed from her position because of her "unorthodox" opinions towards the government. I can't say I'd be surprised if that was the case.

- But it's not all gloom-and-doom here. Last Saturday I went to see the Neva River Rockets. They are a local rockabilly band and they are surprisingly good. The only songs I recognized were "Movie Magg" by Carl Perkins, "Ooby-Dooby" by Roy Orbison, and "Everybody's Moving" by Glen Glenn. I was quite pleased and would go see them again any day.

- My hair is getting a bit on the long side these days and I have to style it in order to keep it managable. I came home one evening and the administrator was in the lobby, she looked and me and said, "Как Элвис Пресли!" Which loosely translates as, "You look just like Elvis Presley." Needless to say, I took it as a compliment. Much more of a compliment than when the beggar-woman I gave change to told me I looked just like Aleksandr Sergeivich Pushkin (which I don't).

- I head to Helsinki on Easter Sunday morning. Before that, my friend Kat and I are going to attend a midnight Easter mass at an Orthodox church. They take Easter very seriously here and I'm looking forward to seeing what that holiday is like here.

I've probably babbled enough for the time being. I've posted new photos if anyone wants a gander. See you in a week or so.

And, of course, Go Twins!