First, a couple of weekends ago we were invited to my host dad's parents house for dinner. Excited to get out of the city for a bit, we headed to the "suburbs" of Kazan. Upon entry of their apartment, the grandfather said: "Oh! Foreigners!" and proceeded to kiss my hand. My host sisters, roommate, host mom, and myself crowded into the living room to enjoy some borsch that had some weird beans in it/ odd looking chicken. I tried paying attention to the conversation that was going on but it went back and forth between Russian and Tatar and my poor little brain just couldn't handle it so I resorted to watched some weird Russian game show on tv.
Secondly, this weekend Tatarstan held a festival called Sabantui. Apparently it has been celebrated for centuries... so of course we had to go to experience this celebration where people climb poles, wrestle with pillows, and do egg races...Sounded to me like it was going to be field day in the 5th grade all over again.
Oh but it was sooo much more than that.
But of course to keep the suspense going, we had to make a side trip to a museum of a famous Tatar Poet, Gabdula Tukai. He was supposedly the "Pushkin of Tatarstan." The museum tour wasn't the interesting part... the interesting part was when 2 MEN WITH NO PANTS ON came into the museum to ask our tour guide a question. Just when I thought I had seen it all. I guess I had a look on my face because one of the pantless men looked at me as if to say "what, haven't you seen a pantless man in a museum before?" Well the answer to that pantless man is no, I have not.
Me with Gabdula Tukai:
Finally we arrived to the festival. Immediately I felt as if I was in some wacky 80's music video gone-wrong. Crazy outfits (that far surpassed the Russian "tacky" norm)... weird dancing, men climbing on poles, people throwing pillows at eachother... the list goes on. My friend convinced me to do the egg race--(where you put an egg on a spoon and put the spoon in your mouth and run until the egg drops).. Well the person who was running the game figured out we were American (what gave us away?was it my Scooby-Doo t-shirt? Or my friend's college apparel? Or maybe our sneakers?) Anyway he started shouting "America! America! America! oooh the Americans are going to play our game! America!"
As soon as I put the spoon in my mouth I knew it was a bad idea. It was...slimy. Ick. But I came in third and won a fan:
Totally worth it...
I was happy to make it out of that place alive... our 3 hours spent there was 2 hours and 50 minutes too many. But I'm glad I got to experience it.
On another note: My host mom went on a 10-minute tirade about how I don't eat enough food. Just as I was putting my dirty plate in the sink she grabbed another plate out of the cabinet and put more food on it. ТЫ ПЛОХО КУШАЕШЬ МАША!! (YOU EAT BADLY MASHA!) I had to finish the food before I was allowed to leave.
... I don't know how many more overly-buttered potatoes I can eat. I guess I'll have to start doing the flush-it-down-the-toilet-when-she's-not-looking routine again.
Hope all is well in the States and that you're staying out of the heat!
Who would have known museums would be that much fun there? Okay, okay, I digress. As always. Glad to hear you had a trip home. I enjoy the blog. Thank you so much for sharing it. And who would have known you could get over educated on Little Mermaid in Russia? Im getting educated. Thank you Mary. Oh, nice teeth! ;) Traci
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