Mullets, Metro, and the Mute button
More random musings on Russian life today...
- The preferred hairstyle for Russian men is the mullet. These American guys have nothing on Russian men. Riding the Metro, you see a string of them--blond, dark, red, you name it. I want to pull out my camera and start taking pictures...I will one of these days. The best I've seen so far was long, curly and jet black on a guy that could have been Jose Canseco's twin brother. Amazing.
- I've never used the mute button on my remote control so much in my life. Russians don't do subtitles--they dub everything from the movies to American television shows. So we can see "Lost" and "Vegas" on our tv, but the English has been totally wiped clean in favor of bad Russian voice-overs. Since we can't understand more than a word here and there, we tend to watch tv on mute.
Luckily, we have three sports channels, so they have kept me occupied. I was able to watch the FIFA Under-20 Women's World Cup and the FIBA International Basketball Tournament, both of which I can't imagine got much airplay in the States. In basketball, we finished a disappointing third place, which is amazing considering the dominance we once displayed on the world stage. But far more devastating were the two crushing defeats in soccer, where the bad guys, North Korea, won it all, and the US placed a disappointing fourth after losing to both Brazil and China in penalty shoot-outs. We sat with the parents of those players when they were here in SPB, and I could just see them comforting their distraught daughters after those games.
My favorite sports channel thusfar is a local Russian one, VestiSport. They show sports that you would never find on tv in America. So far this week, I've seen: jet-ski racing, women's water polo, competitive darts, rugby, and women's fencing. Now maybe you could find a couple of those late at night on ESPN, but to find all of those one on channel, in prime time, in one week? I'm just waiting for sumo wrestling, and then I'll never get off the couch!
-Jumping back to the Metro for a second, Washington's WMATA could take a few lessons from the efficiency and reliability of the rail system here. The escalators are ridiculously fast and they always work, which is good because the Metro here is much deeper than in Washington. But the best part is the frequency of the trains: they run every two minutes, day or night, rain or shine. There are no delayed trains, no elevator outages, and no sick passengers ruining the commute. While it's not as beautiful as the Moscow Metro, which has stations that are more like museums, the stations are spotless and free of bums.
If Dvostsvaya Ploschad (Palace Square)--with the Hermitage, Admiralty, Alexander Column, and proximity to Nevsky Prospect--is the Dupont Circle of SPB, then we live in the Cleveland Park. We're exactly two Metro stops away, and our neighborhood is more residential but with decent restaurants and excellent shopping. We use the Metro constantly--at only 50 cents per ride, it's the only thing us poor volunteers can afford!
- The preferred hairstyle for Russian men is the mullet. These American guys have nothing on Russian men. Riding the Metro, you see a string of them--blond, dark, red, you name it. I want to pull out my camera and start taking pictures...I will one of these days. The best I've seen so far was long, curly and jet black on a guy that could have been Jose Canseco's twin brother. Amazing.
- I've never used the mute button on my remote control so much in my life. Russians don't do subtitles--they dub everything from the movies to American television shows. So we can see "Lost" and "Vegas" on our tv, but the English has been totally wiped clean in favor of bad Russian voice-overs. Since we can't understand more than a word here and there, we tend to watch tv on mute.
Luckily, we have three sports channels, so they have kept me occupied. I was able to watch the FIFA Under-20 Women's World Cup and the FIBA International Basketball Tournament, both of which I can't imagine got much airplay in the States. In basketball, we finished a disappointing third place, which is amazing considering the dominance we once displayed on the world stage. But far more devastating were the two crushing defeats in soccer, where the bad guys, North Korea, won it all, and the US placed a disappointing fourth after losing to both Brazil and China in penalty shoot-outs. We sat with the parents of those players when they were here in SPB, and I could just see them comforting their distraught daughters after those games.
My favorite sports channel thusfar is a local Russian one, VestiSport. They show sports that you would never find on tv in America. So far this week, I've seen: jet-ski racing, women's water polo, competitive darts, rugby, and women's fencing. Now maybe you could find a couple of those late at night on ESPN, but to find all of those one on channel, in prime time, in one week? I'm just waiting for sumo wrestling, and then I'll never get off the couch!
-Jumping back to the Metro for a second, Washington's WMATA could take a few lessons from the efficiency and reliability of the rail system here. The escalators are ridiculously fast and they always work, which is good because the Metro here is much deeper than in Washington. But the best part is the frequency of the trains: they run every two minutes, day or night, rain or shine. There are no delayed trains, no elevator outages, and no sick passengers ruining the commute. While it's not as beautiful as the Moscow Metro, which has stations that are more like museums, the stations are spotless and free of bums.
If Dvostsvaya Ploschad (Palace Square)--with the Hermitage, Admiralty, Alexander Column, and proximity to Nevsky Prospect--is the Dupont Circle of SPB, then we live in the Cleveland Park. We're exactly two Metro stops away, and our neighborhood is more residential but with decent restaurants and excellent shopping. We use the Metro constantly--at only 50 cents per ride, it's the only thing us poor volunteers can afford!
posted by Matt Fieldman at 10:37 AM
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