Alexey Smirnov's blog

My sister, her husband, and their 2 babies arrived to Domodedovo airport at around 2PM. The moment when we met was by far the happiest in my entire vacation – we have not seen each other for more than 5 years! We went to the train station and got on the train to Dzerzhinsk, our home town. At around 11PM we arrived there. Quite surprisingly, the children were awake which is probably because of the unusual environment. So, after we got home, we decided to have a dinner, even though the time was around midnight. We drank some wine, ate some food, and talked for a while. Obviously, after not being together for 10 years there are many things you can talk about…

Even though my vacation was coming to an end, there were still 3 days that I could spend with my family. So, we decided to invite as many guests to our house as possible. On Tuesday we had a visit from my aunt’s family. Then on Wednesday we went to a children’s park where my sister’s family had some fun. Then, in the evening my cousin Natalia visited us. I brought a lot of green tea from Taiwan of various kind, so we had a tea ceremony. In our family we enjoy this kind of activity a lot.

Thursday was my last day at home. In the morning I went shopping to get some souviniers for my Taiwanese friends. Then in the evening my cousin Slava visited our house, and we had a farewell party for me. On Friday morning I got on the train to Moscow, as the plane to Hong Kong was scheduled to leave in the evening.

What can I say about my vacation? It was not vacation at all. I did not have a single day of leasure – either travelling or throwing parties for friends and relatives. But I think this is how it should be – you gotta see your friends and relatives every now and then, and since I spend most of my time abroad I should use every day while in Russia for visits. So I am feeling rather happy about my vacation, which was no vacation at all.

After two busy days we had some more time to sleep on Sunday, as our departure was scheduled for 10:30 AM. However, the whole day was shaping to be as exciting as previous two. We were heading toward Izborsk, a 14th century stronghold. Right now the inner part of the castle is closed due to repair works going on, so we only briefly walked around its walls.

In addition, we went hiking on a short trail through the fields. The nature is really beautiful in this part of Russia. For some reason, it seems to me that it conveys optimistic high-flying spirit, because this is the place where Russian state originated from about 1000 years ago. There is a special place named after Truvor, one of the early rulers of Russia.

Then, after lunch we proceeded to Pskovo-Pechersky Monastery, a very important place in Russian Orthodox culture! This is the only monastery that stayed open through Soviet era. This was partly due to the fact that it was located in Estonia after October Revolution, until Soviet Army invaded Estonia in late 1930s. Then the WWII broke out and the monastery went under control of Nazi forces. They did not close it either. The following Soviet rulers tried to close it, but all of them failed.

I expected to see monks in the monastery, but I only saw hundreds of tourists! I spent about 10 minutes staying in the middle of the main square, and saw just 1 monk far away. Apparently, they do not like to mix with tourists, this is too distracting for monks. Another problem was that only 1 church was open, the others were closed due to construction works, or for some other reasons.

Then we headed back to Pskov, to catch the evening train to Moscow. I arrived to Moscow the next day at 6:30 AM in a rather cheerful mood. This was because on that day I was going to meet with my sister and her family. I have not seen them for more than 5 years! Now I finally had a chance to see my two little nieces, the first time in their lifetime. So we met with my mom and with uncle Sergey at Kursky railway station (my mom arrived from home), and all of us went to the airport to pick up my sister and her family.

Every day of my vacation was different from previous ones, and exciting in its own way. I will keep posting about my vacation!

During the second day of the tour we went to Puskin resort, a large natural reservation which included the farms called Michailovskoye and Trigorskoe. They are located 120km from Pskov. First we arrived to Trigorskoe, a farm that belonged to friends of Pushkin, which Pushkin visited numerous times. Unfortunately, taking pictures inside the buildings was not allowed. The farm house includes a number of rooms, each of which has a specific purpose – a dining room, living room, etc. Of course, there are hand-written manuscripts of Pushkin in almost every room, so that people who like Pushkin can really appreciate this kind of artifacts.

Then we went to Michailovskoye, a farm that belonged to Pushkin predecessors. It has rather modest houses, as those people were not very rich. Still, Pushkin is remembered not for his richness, but for his verses. Our tour guide could cite lots of Pushkin’s poems by heart, and this made it possible for us to feel the true spirit of Pushkin. Indeed, he wrote many famous poems in these farm houses.

It is really amazing that great, long-lasting things can be done in such a modest environment. In Russian langauge there is a proverb “A single warrior cannot win in an open field”. Pushkin proved the opposite – most of his greatest poems were composed while he was walking through alleys of the nearby forest. Then we had lunch and proceeded to Svyatogorsky monastery where the poet’s tomb is located. It is located right next to the main cathedral, meaning that Pushkin died as a true Christian, even though the cause of his death is an attempt to kill some other person. Sometimes, a single minute of sincere remorse can transform a great sinner to a rather benign Christian.

Pushkin died with a huge debt left, which Tzar Nicholas I took care of. His entire life and death is a mystery. But it makes it clear that by writing verses you can make a huge impact to culture, you can truly transform the world around you. It is not just money that keeps this world running….

Then we came back to Pskov. It was a lucky coincidence that city’s birthday was celebrated during that time. There were lots of markets throughout the city where one could buy nice souveniers. One thing that people there are good at is making souveniers – there were so many of them! After making my way through market I went on to explore the city a bit more and walked for about an hour. Then I came back to hotel and fell asleep.

Today is the first day of work after vacation, and yes, it is time to write a trip report. Overall, it was a very exciting vacation, with lots of travel, and most importantly – we had a family reunion after not being all together for 10 years.

So here is how it went: I arrived to my home town Saturday morning, and then spent some time at home. On Thursday I went to Pskov region – an exciting tour through northern parts of Old Russia. Upon completing this tour on Monday, we met with my sister and her family in Moscow airport – and went home all together. Then we spent 3 wonderful days at home, after which I went back to Taiwan.

So I will start with a report about my trip to Pskov region. This tour included 3 days of sight-seeing: Pskov itself, then Pushkin natural park (including a visit to his tomb), and finally – some other Old Russian landmarks – Izborsk and (last but not least) – Pskovo-Pechersky monastery.

To get to Pskov I had to take train from Moscow. It was a convenient journey – we left from railway station in Moscow at 6PM and arrived to Pskov at 7 AM. Then we had a breakfast. Our group consisted of only 8 people, so we traveled in a small bus.

After breakfast we went to the bank of Velikaya river, the main river in Pskov, and looked at city’s most important landmark – the Kremlin (Krom). It is a very remarkable construction – the length of the walls was over 9 km, by far the longest Kremlin wall in Russia. Apparently, Pskov was a very prominent city during medieval time – on par with Moscow. But most of the buildings were destroyed during WW II, including Krom, so what you can see nowadays is a newly built stuff which of course resembles the old construction.

A Trinity Cathedral is located inside Krom. Local people claim that this was the first Trinity cathedral in Russia, first version of which was built in 10th century. Indeed, the next Trinity cathedral known to us was built in 14th century by Sergius of Radonezh. So, Pskov is also important from the religious point of view. Indeed, St. Olga of Kiev was born in a village not far from Pskov.

There are so many beautiful churches in Pskov! They are designed in either Pskov style or in Novgorod style. Both styles are quite different from what you can see in other parts of Russia. For example, the shape of the bell tower is quite unique. It is interesting that many churches have survived the WW II, including Mirozhsky monastery, which contains frescoes of 12th century – the only place in Russia which contains pre-Mongolian frescoes which survived nearly intact. I visited this monastery later during that day, thus fulfilling one of my deams – I saw the gorgeous frescoes! It made me wonder how those “old” people could do such amazing things! Apparently, they were very educated and very skillful. Nowadays, we have lots of opportunities for educating ourselves in various disciplines, but people spent 1/3 of their lives sleeping, then another 1/3 entertaining themselves by watching TV, playing computer games, or just eating

What I can see from those examples of early Christianity is that those people had real passion to build for ages. We, the modern people, do not have such passion. Do we have any passion at all? The problem is that whatever we do is not supposed to last. We lost our passion, we lost of creativity. We are just nuts and bolts of the global economic machine.

After the bus tour through Pskov we went to the Pskov museum which has an amazing collection of medieval artifacts. In particular, I was impressed by precious items made of silver, and also by collection of icons – again, painted in a unique Northern-Russian style. Then we had lunch and that was it for the 1st day. Still, there was plenty of time, so after checking into hotel, I went to Mirozhsky monastery on my own. Luckily, I was able to join a guided tour, from which I learned a lot about the history of this monastery, as well as the meaning of the frescoes. Obviously, they are drawn not in a random order, they actually tell a number of Bible stories, including both New and Old Testament.

The painters of these frescoes were so skillful that they took into account the location of windows inside the cathedral, to make use of the beam of light that is casted by the sun. For example, here you can see the figure of Archangel Gabriel highlighted through the window. After visiting the monastery I spent some time exploring the city, and then at around 9PM I came back to hotel. I was rather tired, but very very happy! I saw many unique ancient churches, icons, and frescoes, those things that constitute Russian culture, that every Russian must see!

But it was only the first day. More exciting things were waiting for me during the next 2 days of the tour. What an exciting and joyful time it was!

This is an amazing book, but it is available only in Russian. It is written by two prominent linguists/journalists, one of whom worked as a translator for Russian presidents – Gorbachev, Eltsin, and Putin.

Despite the fact that those people are connected with the highest ranking officials of Russia, the book is written in a humorous style and is fun to read. The authors even dare to crack jokes about presidents and claim that during international meetings it is the translator who owns the world, not the world leaders.

The book presents interesting facts about world languages. The most surprising thing is the complexity of language. It turns out that the more complex the language, the fewer people there are who can speak it. For example, some minor language of Caucasus region has 16 noun cases, 17 verb tenses, and 10 verb moods. On the other hand, English has just 3 cases, 6 verb tenses, and 3 moods.

So how come all those ancient languages are so complicated? The authors suggest that earlier people put a lot more sense into each word depending on circumstances because they thought that words have magical power. These days, people often don’t pay attention to what they are saying. Gibberish is the norm of our society. But earlier people were frowned upon when they used a wrong word even if they did not intend to offend anybody. For example, today we can always use Mr/Mrs. to greet somebody. Earlier, greeting depended on the social class the person belonged to.

The authors try to explain why the old languages are so complicated. Their answer is that there is a master mind behind language design, that primitive people simply could not design languages of such complexity. However, as the time went by, people dropped features that looked unnecessary to them. It is interesting that not only theologists share such views.

Then the authors jump to a natural conclusion that there was a common predecessor of all human languages, a so-called pre-Babel tower language. So the Bible story is true, according to these prominent linguists. The authors claim that it is possible to track down evolution of language but unfortunately it takes a lot of learning to do that. One of the authors can fluently speak 30 languages, and apparently he was able to identify many similar roots in those languages. When people ask him, how many languages he knows, he typically answers that he knows just one language – the language of human beings.

Even present-day languages can put some influence on its speakers. When the authors who studied foreign languages in university worked in student labor camps, they were divided into groups based on which language they studied: “German” students, “French” students, etc. The authors say that German students were the most diligent, French were fighting for human rights all the time, etc. Time was passing by, generations of students were changing, but this rule was always true.

Then several chapters discuss the current state of Russian language, and how it transforms due to influence of Internet. The authors claim that it is not possible to artificially augment language with new words, the language will pick up what it needs to survive. In other words, the authors treat language as a living creature, not as a set of rules.

The speed of evolution is different for different languages. For example, Russians can read Pushkin (200 years ago), but they cannot read what was written 500 years ago. It was a totally different language. On the other hand, traditional Chinese language has not changed for several thousand years, and people can still read nowadays manuscripts written in B.C. era.

In Chapter 7 one of the authors describes his childhood. He was born in a small town in Moscow region in the family of teachers. From early childhood he discovered passion for foreign languages, and at the time of graduation from high school he could speak 5 languages. He says there was no particular incentive to learn languages, as in Soviet Union the travel abroad was strictly limited. Still, he says he often found the dictionaries of some esoteric languages in the town’s bookstore, and he was the only customer. But through these unusual books he was able to pick up valuable knowledge that happened to be very useful throughout his professional career as the Translator of President.

Well, this review is getting too long. I can only suggest that everybody read this book. It provides a fresh look at linguistics and can encourage you to learn more foreign languages.

Last week was Chinese New Year which means a whopping 5 working days off at our company. Adding weekend and a couple of days of the following week presented a good opportunity for me to visit my home in Russia. I left Taipei Monday night, arrived Moscow Tuesday morning, and reached my home town Wednesday. My flight back was scheduled Tuesday evening, so I only had 6 days to spend in my home town. Boy, what a crazy trip it was!

During my stay I decided to visit as many friends and relatives as possible. So here is a list of people who I visited:

• My physics teacher from high school. In fact, this year is 15 years since our graduation from high school. When I walked into the classroom I noticed that many things have changed – new furniture, new computers. This teacher is lucky as he gets some financial support from Intel Corp. Yes, it sounds funny, but Intel supports Russian high schools. For which reason? I donʼt know.
• Then I visited music school to which I went to learn piano somewhat 20 years ago. When I walked into the building I had a feeling that I just travelled in a time machine. So little has changed in 20 years. Same old piano I used to play when I was a child. Same portraits of composers. Same atmosphere. In our rapidly changing life, classical music is one thing that is not changing.
• Then I visited my sister-cousin who has 3 little babies. She has been unemployed for several years, so many of their relatives are trying to help them out. Raising 3 children is a huge task.
• And more relatives and friends. Everybody is advancing in their careers, so as a whole our bigger family is doing rather well.

Overall, I had a feeling that Russia has frozen in time. While walking around Sadovoye ring in Moscow I sometimes had a feeling that I am in 1990s. The outside temperature was pretty cold, around -20 centigrade, so quite often I wished I could drop by a coffee shop. Then I realized that there is no convenience store chain in Moscow. Is not this amazing? I was looking for 7-11 but I could not find it. Also, there are so few taxis in Moscow!

But probably I got used to change. In Taiwan they are always building new roads, houses, etc. Can I say that Russia is loosing its modern look? Well, maybe. It is pretty clear, though that it is very divided, more than ever, into reach and poor, new and old, polite and rude. Which part of Russia do I belong to? Thatʼs one question that I cannot answer anymore. After visiting Russia this time I feel less like Russian.

This is another model that I have built: Church of Transfiguration in Pereslavl Zalessky. It is a very interesting building due to a number of facts. First, it is the oldest stone church in Russia that survived intact. It was built in 1150 and during the 900 years it exists it submerged into the ground by almost 1 meter. But it still looks gorgeous. Second, it is located near birth place of Alexander Nevsky.

I have never been to this place, but this town in fact belongs to the so-called Golden Ring of Russia – a collection of old cities known for their heritage. I checked Google Earth briefly and found out that most of those monuments are not present, which is just a shame. Many people spend a lot of time modelling concrete skyscrapers, which are ugly, and pay no attention to the truly gorgeous Old Russian architecture.

This church is pretty simple. It is mostly composed of archs and spheres and there are no polygon-shaped surfaces which can have lots of tiny twists. And those archs and spheres are what makes this church really beautiful. The more I look at it the more I realize the true value of Old Russian architecture. To me it looks like all the parts of this church are very well inter-connected, in other words, one side naturally flows into the opposite one. There are no disjoint parts in this architecture, and this is what makes it beautiful. The building that brings together every part of itself should bring together people around it. Sometimes I think that architecture reflects what is on peopleʼs minds. During those old years, Russians desperately needed unification, and this is what they were craving for.

During later centuries, buildings started to have sharp corners, attachments, and fewer spheres. Thatʼs because poor people became attachments to richer compatriots. But I don’t complain, I do not say those buildings are not beautiful at all. They start to provide different functions to different people: this part is for nobelity, this one for ordinary people, this for men, that one for women, etc. Only that old church unifies everybody coming inside under its archs.

I went to sleep at 4 AM on the New Year day. However, I woke up rather early at around 9AM. After spending some time at home, I went to the office. It was Sunday, still, there were some people. This is funny. After making Skype call to my parents, I finally got a chance to do what I really like, but for what I have virtually no spare time: 3D modelling.

This time I decided to build a model of a new church in my hometown Dzerzhinsk, Russia. Here it is.

I spent around 6 hours building this model. I enjoy Sketchup modelling so much that sometimes it seems to me I can do it during entire day without feeling tired. Anyway, with this exercise the day went by surprisingly quickly. I wonder if the whole 2012 will also create this kind of feeling. We will see.

I have read Notes from Dead house of Dostoevsky. While reading it I kept thinking of Gulag Archipelago of Alexander Solzhenitsin written somewhat 50 years after Dostoevsky wrote his notes. Both novels describe life in prisons in Russia. Historically, 50 years is a rather small time span. But the two novels are drastically different, as if they were written in two different worlds. Obviously, Russia has changed a lot between end of 19th century and the beginning of 20th century.

Solzhenitsin’s novel is a lot more brutal. Therefore, while reading Doestoevsky I kept wondering how it was possible for Russia to change so much in such a short time. October revolution changed not only the elite of Russian society, it changed absolutely everybody. Somehow, I thought that lower classes, the common people are more resilient to the destructive change. Dostoevsky often called ordinary people the true bearers of Christian values. But from the novel of Solzhenitsin it is quite obvious that the revolution blew those values away from people’s minds rather quickly. Comparing these two novels indicates it very clearly that common people are very vulnerable to the ideology forced on them from above. If you teach them Christianity then people will become devoted Christians. If you teach them the rule of force then people will start eliminating each other.

Our current generation was raised in post-Soviet era, which was also rather brutal. Empty shelves in supermarkets and hunts for even most basic food are still vivid memories of most adult people in modern Russia. So our mentality is a lot closer to what Solzhenitsin describes in Gulag Archipelago novel than to what Dostoevsky describes in his novels. This is why I thought it is interesting to take a look at what a prison in Siberia looked like according to Dostoevsky.

Both Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsin were political prisoners arrested for their political views. Both of them belonged to a somewhat upper level of the society, as Solzhenitsin was a successful mid-level military commander when he was arrested, and Dostoevsky was a nobleman. Therefore, they were feeling like strangers after being put to prison. However, Dostoevksy mentioned that so many people came to help him get used to living in prison. One guy started serving him without asking for reward, as if Dostoevsky was still a nobleman. When Dostoevsky asked him why that guy was serving them, he replied that that’s the way Russian society worked: noblemen are Fathers, and commonplace people are Children, and the latter should help the former, like in a big family. What a spirit of camaraderie it was!

It is possible to trace this kind of relationship among Russian people throughout Dostoevsky’s novel. For example, whenever the prisoners were marching through a town, ordinary people tried to give them some money or food, as if those prisoners were their brothers.

The life inside the prison was pretty close to life in today’s summer camp. Prisoners were cooking food for themselves, they had their own bakery which produced the best bread in the town, it was even possible to bring in wine from the city markets to the prison. In the prison they had theater, whereas in the city they did not have it, so many people visited the prison only for the purpose of seeing the theather’s performance. People from many parts of Russia were brought into the prison, including people from Caucasus and Poland. There was even one jewish guy who was the only jeweller in town, so he was dealing with noble people very often and apparently got a lot of reward for that. In short, the prison was the cultural center of life in a Siberian town in the end of 19th century.

Dostovesky’s prison was anything but evil place. Solzhenitsin’s prisons were hell on Earth. And the central question is – why it happened. In a Russia where everybody was a brother to each other, how such a thing as October revolution could have happened? How could a civil war get started in a country where people could share their foods and shelter with strangers? Can you imagine anybody who lets some unknown person stay in his house without any pay nowadays?

But somehow USSR managed to win the World War II which obviously required lots of commitment and unity from Russian people. People were mutually suspicious during their normal lives, but at the most critical moment they acted in a unified fashion. And this is exactly opposite to Russia of pre-revolution days.

Normal life and life on the brink of collapse. Brotherhood and survival of the fittest. These topics are central to getting to understand what happened in Russia in 20th century and these two novels provide an insider view of this interesting question.

As my trip to Russia comes to an end I was able to visit a few places that belong to traditional Russian culture. We have made a trip to Serafim-of-Diveevo monastery with the help of a travel agency. Then a couple of days ago when I was in Moscow a visited another monastery – Novodevichiy Convent. Also while in Moscow, I went to a theater performance, this time a pretty good one which included a Russian tenor singer star.

Tourism is very popular in Russia. Apparently, Russian people like to explore the world, including people of all levels of income. These days, almost everybody with a decent level of income has visited Greece or Turkey or Egypt, to enjoy Mediterrenean sun and sea. It is funny that I have not been to any of these countries.

Bus tours within Russia are also quite popular. Recently, a lot of monuments of Russian history have been renovated, so there are places worth visiting throughout Russia. They are mostly related to Russian religious life. In the past centuries there were plenty of monks who have established lots of monasteries here and there. I don’t know whether there are many truly religious people among Russian population, probably there are not that many, but visiting old monasteries is still lots of fun. They are truly gorgeous.

We have booked a tour at a travel agency and got on a bus at 6AM on Saturday. First we went to Arzamas, a town at the south of our region which a few centuries ago played a major role in our state, but nowadays it is a small town. There are many historical buildings in this town, including a number of major cathedrals. They are due to a prominent history of this town. It is nice to see that the cathedrals are being constantly renovated. There are lots of money being put into them. I wonder who is doing this and why – currently in Russia people are investing only in profitable business, and church is seemingly not any kind of business. Who knows.

After a three hour ride we arrived to Diveevo, a place where Serafim of Sarov has lived. I have been to this place 10 years ago. During these years the place got renovated and improved. It is a very popular destination of religious people as well as some very rich people. I guess it received lots of funding because many top Church officials visit this place quite often. We have spent a few hours here, rushing from one church to another. There are many places worth visiting here. They have some folk art shops here as well.

During last week I went to Moscow to pick up my visa. I had a few hours of spare time before my evening train. I went to a renowned monastery founded during 1400s. There are a number of churches within the walls of the monastery. One of them is actually a museum, I guess due to its gorgeous frescos. Recently I have been reading a book called History of Painting in Russia, so I tried to compare what I saw in the book with what I could see in this cathedral. I was impressed. Ancient Russian wall paintings are so gorgeous. Then I went to an exhibition of paintings of churches located in the same monastery.

In the evening I went to Stanislavki-Nemirovich-Danchenko theater, one of the best theaters in Moscow. It is so easy to get a ticket. People are not that interested in theaters, I guess Moscow has lots of modern ways to spend time in the evening – night clubs, etc. I have watched Queen of Spades opera. I was lucky to see a star tenor – Dmitry Polkopin. Watch this video – he has a gorgeous voice: