Academe

One of the perks of this lifestyle if that sometimes you get to travel to conferences. 

Today I set out for the UK to participate in a Slavic and Eastern European Studies conference in Cambridge, where I'll be presenting a paper titled "On Wildness and Civilization: Ruslana's Wild Dances and the Pursuit of Ukrainianness." (Or at least that's the title I settled on this morning, but still subject to change.)

This is part of the reason why you haven't been hearing too much from me this week and probably won't for the next week or so. But once I'm back in Simferopol, armed with my new digital recorder and a variety of curries, I plan to start interviewing Tatar musicians in earnest. So stay tuned. 

 

Black Ears, White Ass

I am posting this on Monday because I haven't had internet access for the last few days, but the bulk of this entry is from Saturday. I made a quick and dirty recording of the first Crimean Tatar song that I learned on Saturday as well. If you like, you can listen to it here.

Today, Monday, overly generous people at the University praised me to high heaven for my performance of this and one other song last Wednesday for Navrez (which was also, apparently, shown on the Tatar television hour - and they're including it in tomorrow's newspaper! And, I've been invited to sing again tomorrow between acts of the "Miss Beautiful Tatar" contest at the University.) 

People especially liked to flatter my accent-less delivery of Tatar, but truthfully, I say the vowels kind of funny. And I can't get the "k'h" sounds to be quite severe-but-still-somehow-delicate enough. And maybe I can't just take a compliment either. Anyway, you get the idea of how a beautiful Crimean Tatar song sounds when accompanied by a mediocre banjo player.

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Saturday, March 22

Misunderstandings abound. In less than eight hours spent in the coastal resort town of Yevpatoria today, I managed to get into more than a day’s share of misunderstandings, stuttered questions, clumsy exchanges, and even outright spats.

I even lost my temper today! It happened in the car that drove me from Simferopol to Yevpatoria. I had allowed the cab driver to believe that I was a student from Western Ukraine - which he had assumed when he quoted me the very fair price, less than a mashrutka, because he was eager to go and had already lined up three other passengers that he was overcharging. And then, in keeping up the charade that I was from L'viv, I smiled when they asked me if I was «orange». The car full of strangers seemed to scowl in unison. (I swear.) Then followed a 35 minute sermon from the man in the backseat about the stupidity and incompetence of the Yushchenko administration, and anyway, all hail Russia, aren't they smart for figuring out how to keep Putin in charge, and did you know that in Russia everyone has a microwave and Russians this and Russians that and now the world will fear Russia again and soon they will all have Land Rovers and I bit my tongue and bit my tongue and then I bit my tongue and then the I saw red and I YELLED AT HIM VERY LOUDLY. ABOUT CORRUPTION. AND SOULLESS OIL CORPORATIONS. AND KGB AGENTS REVAMPED AS PRESIDENTS AND THEN PRIME MINISTERS. And about how I am a reasonable person who thinks that a brighter future rests on having a representative democracy in Ukraine because that seems to be the best option we've got and really, I just hope that soon we'll have a democracy that represents me too (in the USA, cough cough tee hee). And though I agree that the law that mandates that all movies be subtitled or dubbed in Ukrainian is not good for Russian speakers (and yes, I know you're the majority in Crimea) and agree that it might just polarize Eastern/Western Russian/Ukrainian factions more, I don't think it proves that Ukraine is a bust and we should all salute the Russian flag just yet. And yes, I think those t-shirts at the L'viv bazaars that say «kiss me, I'm not Russian» are not helping anyone. But neither are all the folks in Crimea who spit on the floor and sneer or laugh when they hear Ukrainian. I looked intently out the window at the sea.


And then I asked him to change the subject. The cab driver and the backseat man's waifish lady-friend asked me neutral questions about my imaginary life in L'viv. When I hopped out of the cab later, the man in the backseat reassured me that it would all be ok and that he's sorry if his words seemed harsh. I said goodbye in Russian.

They had dropped me of at the Dzuma Khan Dzami mosque in Yevpatoria, where I was fortunate to be able to tag along on a free tour that had just started. I was pleasantly surprised to follow my tour guide Refat’s compassionate logic as he explained about the misunderstandings of the term “jihad”, the historical reasoning behind Muslim sanctioned polygamy, and how wisdom lies in being able to enter every human interaction mindfully, to ask every question respectfully. 

When the tour ended, I stuck around to ask him some questions. We were interrupted by an elderly pale-skinned man – an ethnic Ukrainian, it turned out – who wanted to know what time the tours were going to be give on Sunday. He explained his interest in Crimean Tatar history and in trying to untangle Soviet and contemporary propaganda from objective truth. Refat engaged him in what he called his “subjective truth.” And then ensued one of the most informative dialogues on which I have ever had the privilege to eavesdrop. They covered the Golden Horde, the Tatar Khanate, the Crimean War, the Romanovs, Catherine II, World War II, the deportation, the Black Sea Fleet, and the Russian Empire's historical obsession with strategic ports. The gentleman would thank Refat for his stimulating and well-balanced opinions and then apologize to me for the interruption, but then he would ask another question and the dialogue would start up again. You wish these two men could debate in a public forum - on Ukrainian television, let them debate in Russian, hell! – as they were both so knowledgeable about historical facts and discrepancies and finely tuned to the many reasons why Russians, Ukrainians, Tatars, Jews, etc are historically positioned to be suspicious or hateful of one another. They talked for almost an hour, looking to me every few minutes to see if I seemed to mind that my conversation in broken Russian had been co-opted, and I assured them that this was much more interesting. (It made me realize that my Russian comprehension is quite good at this point, but my self-conscious spoken impression of Russian is a struggle.) They talked about the damage and utility of generalizations about physical anthropology/physiognomy and accompanying cultural behavioral stereotypes, why and how to protect difference without allowing it to breed misunderstanding. 

(And, this was not nearly the most profound point made, but I found it particularly interesting, somehow: the Turkic-language term “white ears” – used mostly for Slavs, but also Europeans – is an inversion of the Slavic pejorative for the indistinguishable huddle of those Caucasian and Central Asian and Tatar “black asses.” Did you know that?)

After the impromptu meeting of minds outside of the mosque, I followed the recommendations of Refat and Milara-odzha and visited three other sites in Yevpatoria.

The first, the old gate to the stariy gorod, where a museum of Tatar culture and a highly recommended kofeyina is housed, was closed for renovations.

The second was the site of my most frustrating misunderstanding of the day: the Tekye Dervish Museum, where a very elderly Tatar woman banished me from the premises of the ethnographic museum. Even now, in tranquil recollection, I am not sure what I did that was so criminally wrong to provoke the blind rage that it apparently did in this woman. My crime: I didn’t ring the bell as the tiny little sign outside the big (and open) wooden doors instructed visitors to do. I didn’t see the sign. And, since the museum doors were open, I entered. The woman was gardening on the other side of the yard so I smilingly said, «Селям Алейкум!» and waved and then, all of a sudden, she was threatening to sic the guard dog on me. She approached me hollering, yelling at me to get back on the street, and literally pushing me out the doors. The large tour group of schoolchildren assembling outside the museum doors found this amusing, and their teacher tried to mediate between me and the old lady. The old lady told her I had been climbing up and down the floors of the museum, poking around disrespectfully. («Not true.») As the teacher told her pre-teens smoking outside the doors to the museum that they «were not normal» and to come inside, she shrugged her shoulders at me. There's too much respect for elders – even ones apparently teetering on the brink of sanity – to challenge their authority in the Tatar community, so I watched the door close and decided not to push it. I'll go back some other day and make sure to ring the bell. Two sites down, one to go.

My final stop included the clumsiest and most random interaction of the day. I visited the beautifully restored site of the 15th century Karaite Kenasa, where the man at the door assumed I was Polish and began telling me facts about our Polish poet-hero Mickiewizc before I even recall opening my mouth.


After strolling the grounds, I decided to have my late lunch at the Cafe Karaman before catching the elektrichka back to Simferopol. All the tables at the small café were occupied, so I asked a rather sophisticated middle-aged woman sitting alone if I could join her. She kindly said «yes, of course» then asked where I was from. She spoke half a sentence in English, and then switched into very fast Moskovskiy Russian. She told me her story. Ira is a retired Russian journalist who is one of the «refugees» - as she put it – from Putin's Russia. She didn't vote in the recent Russian election. She supports Kasparov's «Other Russia» which was, as you may know, blocked from participating. Her growing disgust at witnessing Putin's «authoriarian hold» on «a country of information-starved people» and the «xenophobic attitudes that she witnessed daily on the streets of Moscow», led her to decide to sell her apartment and move to Yevpatoria. She had moved two weeks ago. She ended up walking me to the train station, talking almost the entire way in her smoky rapid-fire Russian. I concentrated hard on listening.

So though I did not get to see two of the main four sites of Tatar and indigenous Crimean culture that I had come to see, I sure did get some information - many stories from an array of strangers. On the elektrichka back to the strange little city where I find myself now, I thought about how those people in that much smaller town will probably never get to talk, to hear each other's stories. But what if the man who believes that life is so much better in Russia could hear Ira's story. (Would he believe it?) What if the cab driver, who nonchalantly dismissed the Tatar squatter's plots as mafia corruption, could hear Refat's subjective truth. What if that old woman had just let me speak. What if all those superior little ears of ours just opened up for a while to listen.

Oy, I'm getting sentimental.

Наврез Байрамынъыз Мубарек Олсун! Or, Happy Vernal Equinox!

Or most literally, Happy New Day!

I'm all set up in my new solo digs in Simferopol. Now that I'm a 20-minute-or-less walk to every place I need to go, I get phone calls advising me to be somewhere in 20 minutes or less. For example, yesterday morning, I got a phone call about a protest that was quickly picking up steam. I jogged over with my camera and witnessed a sight which was eery and disorienting, all the more so once the sun-shiny early morning calm suddenly switched into an eery windstorm.

Aydir called to say that a protest was going on at the Crimean Autonomous Republic Verkhovna Rada, where Crimean Tatars set up tents a few weeks ago to protest the government's stalling in legally registering land claims made years ago.

I arrived to witness two simultaneously occurring protests: the first protest was the "Russian nationalist bloc" protesting the February law that mandated that all movies shown in Ukraine were now to be either dubbed or subtitled in Ukrainian (and not Russian). Many Russian-speakers - the majority in Crimea - are strongly opposed to this law.

But their protest was impeded by the clang of trash cans being beaten. The Crimean Tatar protest, much bigger than the Russian-bloc, was making quite a bit of noise to call attention to their cause. They were tired of being ignored, one participant told me.

I didn't stick around to see the Crimean Tatar protest tents get taken down later in the day by militsia with riot gear, but the word was that it wasn't pretty.

Later yesterday evening, when I was briskly assisting Milara-odzha in the making of late dinner chebureky, she would periodically dart out of the kitchen - despite not having eaten all day - to shake her rolling pin at the television screen for providing "disinformatsia" on the nature of the Tatar protest.

The reason we were feverishly making fried-dough-and-meat dumplings late at night was because the Navrez performance at the University ran for three hours. Navrez is not a religious holiday, but it's celebrated by many Muslims on the vernal equinox as the New Year. Yesterday, the Azerbaijani diaspora in Crimea hosted a Navrez performance at the University, and I was invited to sing two Crimean Tatars songs with my banjo "as a gift" (to whom?) from the Tatar Literature Department.

It was hard to compete with the other many booty-shaking acts, but the auditorium's worth of students was attentive enough and the two American friends I planted hooted for me at the end of my all-Crimean-Tatar performance. I delivered a short introductory word in Crimean Tatar that was more nerve-wracking than any performance I can recall since I was a teenager playing stormy Teutonic sonatas in competitive situations. Next time I might just lipsynch and strut around the stage instead, I think. 

Yesterday was a great example of the kinds of days I have been experiencing more and more in Simferopol - jammed full with conflict and confusion and sadness but also a heavy dose of absurdity and humor. Amidst yesterday's kitchen discussion of exactly what motivates the kind of "disinformatsia" that Milara-odzha objected to on the television, her older daughter observed that I had managed to coat my nose in flour. I told her this was all the rage on the streets of New York, so she smeared her nose with flour too.

Well, the phone just rang, but I don't have to be anywhere until the morning.
 

With a Little Help from the Friends of My Friends

I am moving into a cozy - every real estate's favorite euphemism - but centrally-located apartment in Simferopol tomorrow afternoon. Feeling daunted by the Russian-language newspapers advertising apartment rentals, the few phone calls I attempted solo that ended with an abrupt and jarring dial tone after I tried to explain why an unmarried 27-year-old woman needs her own place ("I don't plan on inviting in people off the street, no, not the types that will steal your forks, I promise"), and a frustrating story of an apartment found-and-lost from a friend Peace Corp Volunteer, I activated the chain of friends of friends and - voila! Nabbed the first apartment I saw. It makes up in location and amenities for its size, and it's the right price for the grant money I'm surviving on. Thank god for the friends of your friends' friends.

In other big news, I have been awarded an IREX-IARO to pursue my dissertation research further, so it's looking like I will return to the States for the month of August and then return to Ukraine until - eep - May 2009.

The internet has been down at home which makes this blog unmaintainable. More once I'm relocated and settled in my new pad.

A Week of International Women's Day

International Women's Day hasn't technically commenced (but it will very soon, on March 8th), yet I've been celebrating it nearly since the moment I touched Simferopol soil yesterday morning after my whirlwind but wonderful jaunt to L'viv and Kyiv. The festivities, by all accounts, had begun in my absence, and I'm booked through Monday.

(Let me just say that I would write a sonnet for L'viv if only iambic pentameter felt less contrived, and Kyiv is all the better when you have an old friend with a cozy apartment to visit. Returning to Crimea emphasized how diverse this country is - I felt more as though I had arrived in another country entirely - especially once the questions about whether I'm Polish began to arise every five minutes again. In L'viv, people usually assume I'm German or Canadian.)

On to International Women's Day. My presence with banjo was requested at the Turkic Lang & Lit celebration at the University yesterday afternoon, so I hopped on the marshrutka and arrived in time for about 5 toasts before I gave my (first) one. Milara-odzha wrote out what I should say in Crimean Tatar and I botched it, but then I think I redeemed myself by playing "Ay yaruk' gedzhesinde" and "Angel Band" accompanying myself on the banjo. "Mashallah" was used generously. I felt glad about that.

Then the dancing began. I couldn't help but imagine what it would be like if 1) Columbia Music Department parties featured professors dancing and 2) if Columbia Music Department parties were called to celebrate the beauty, mystery, and (ahem) biological utility of the females in our department - in addition to their brains. 

International Women's Day, much like the Soviet tradition of awarding females who bear 10+ children with "Mother Hero" medals - was a revolutionary gesture in nature, meant to extoll and encourage the achievements of females who, especially at the time, were seen as second-class citizens. The principle of awarding a medal to women who bore so many children was rooted in the premise that socialism needed more workers, especially after a decade of Stalinist exterminations and the massive losses of the Red Army in World War II. Big families were encouraged, mothers who could produce them were advancing the socialist cause, and were therefore heroes. "Hero"is a word traditionally saturated with masculine virtue, so this was, undeniably, a revolutionary move. (Veniamin Makarov was the only male - out of 430,000 Soviet awardees - to get the prize. He adopted 12 boys. Thanks, Wikipedia!) Yet the obvious irony is that a woman raising ten or more children is not going to get very far from the kitchen, as the rhetoric goes. She is probably not going to finish that dissertation. Or even start it, more importantly. So while it's called "heroism" to mother an enormous family, the mother's ability to be emancipated from the shackles of the homestead is destroyed. 

International Women's Day contains some of these same ironies. While the gesture is certainly benign - I can't complain about being gifted chocolates and jewelry boxes for being female - its manifestation gets more complicated (especially if you like to overthink things and risk sucking all the joy out of them, teehee). Here in Crimea, the holiday seems in many ways to double as a second Valentine's Day. Instead of emphasizing the achievements or advancement of women in male-dominated or traditional spheres, such as politics, business, and speech-giving, feminine beauty gets privileged. Many women are serious about looking their best for International Women's Day. (You could argue that this is for their own self-esteem, but I think it also has something to do with appealing to the other sex.) My host mother, who runs a small salon, just told me that the two weeks leading up to March 8th are two of the worst weeks of the year for her, with 13-hour days booked months in advance in which she provides manicures and depilatsiya in preparation for the holiday. The only other time it gets this bad, she said, is leading up to the New Year. 

Today, I attended the International Women's Day tribute concert at the Crimean Tatar theater in Simferopol, which featured many, many acts and speeches. Some of the acts were terrific, some were confusing to both my eyes and ears. Nine female violinists in what appeared to be wedding dresses played twice, both times accompanied by a synth-y backing track. Pop divas gave dramatic (lipsynched) interpretations of love songs. Many dance troupes featuring children of all ages offered a variety of traditional dances to music ranging from scratchy folk music recordings to Crimean Tatar hip-hop. (My favorite dance was Tum-tum, which is connected to a legend about the Khan's daughter that I plan to get the details on soon. The music, also, was incredible.) The display of feminine beauty was indeed staggering. And beautiful. On the flip side, women who have done good deeds or productive work in the community were also honored on the stage. Most of what was said about them went over my head, though the woman sitting next to me was kind enough to translate when I asked, so I got the gist.

After three hours of variety show with Milara-odzha's younger daughter on my lap and snapping photos with my digital camera, I joined a group of women going out for coffee. The night before, I had attended a dinner with eight women from the lit department. Tonight as yesterday, I noted that I was in a group of women who had left their men at home, treating themselves to a night out. Going out with girlfriends and paying for myself is such a normal part of my life in the States that I would never stop to think about it, but for women with husbands and children in a more traditional society, I began to understand how such acts carry the fragrant whiff of revolution.

In conclusion, I'd like to defer to the philosopher who met me at the door when I got home tonight. I think it helps us understand how confusing everything is: 

"The beer is the beer.

The people is the beer.

The world says the trees." (Thanks, Pasha!)

Happy International Women's Day!