A Radio Interview and a Brawl

Some weeks ago the other Holocaust Center volunteer and I were invited to speak in front of students at the Moscovian university of foreign languages. The lecture dealt with Antifacism in Germany and mostly students studying German attended this event. A couple of days later I recieved a message by a young Russian journalist who currently works at the Russian radio station Голос России (Russia’s Voice) and who also took part at the lecture, because she wanted to organise an interview with us for one of their German speaking programmes. As far as I know this weekly programme is called „Foreignern in Russia“. So, we went to the radio station last week and we recieved special cards to pass security and then we entered the recording studio. I had not imagined the studio to bet that modern and it was really interesting to see how radio station work and look from inside. Before it was our turn to have the interview they were about to finish the German news for this day. The interview was taking place in a tiny room and we sat behind two microphones together with the journalist who was interviewing us. Another lady was sitting behind a window behind a computer to record, cut, and edit what we were saying. I was really nervous, however, it was better than I had thought. You can listen to the final result when you click on this link: http://german.ruvr.ru/radio_broadcast/26178531/35307980/
My voice sounds awful and what I am saying is really not the most intellectual of all things. I also do not really look good on the picture. But it is nevertheless, or perhaps just because of that, kind of funny.

On Friday I was having dinner with a friend in a Japanese restaurant and it would have been a normal evening out if it was not for a brawl to start. We do not really know how it began but at some point there were two relatively young drunken men throwing chairs at a 40 year old man who was with his girlfriend. The older man was also really agressive. They were kicking and beating each other really brutally in that restaurant. They also threw down most of the furniture and at the end there was so much blood on the floor, because the older guy and one of the younger ones had open wounds. Overall, it was really frightening and it showed that some Russian men still try to impress women by being agressive, especially once they are drunk. The police came thirty minutes after the fight was over. Normally they are everywhere, but when you need them they are late.

Finally, I would like to say that last weekend it began to snow in Moscow, but today it is only raining. On the picture you can see my favourite place in Moscow: Patriarshi Prudi.

The Beautiful Sides of Moscow

In the last two weeks I was exploring Moscow a little bit more, because I felt that I haven’t seen a lot yet. I wasn’t really fond of Moscow until then. Only big buildings and everything seemed to be grey. Butit was obviously true that I hadn’t seen much up to this point. In the last two weeks I’ve seen so many beautiful and interesting places in Moscow that I much more enjoy living in this city. I’ve been to several museums, abbeys, churches and parks and I walked through beautiful streets with lovely historic buildings. I especially liked the Gorkij Museum, which is situated in the last house of this famous Russian writer before he died. This house and its interior were built in the East European Art Nouveau style and the stair case in the house is supposed to be the prime example of this style. My favourite place in Moscow, however, is a small lake in the center of Moscow. It’s called Patraiarshi Prudi, and this place is so beautiful, because this lake is surrounded by trees and then by tall and old buildings and it’s really quiet there. And this is really an exception in the center of Moscow, because normally it’s always noisy. So, definately my favourite place to relax. At this place Mihael Bulgakov also wrote his famous novel „The Master and Magarita“ or the novel starts at the Patriarshi Prudi. I can’t really remember anymore. I guess I should just read the book. On the picture you can see the Cosmonaut Museum, where the Russians proudly demonstrate that they had been the first people in space and not the Americans and not the Europeans (That's what a Russian mother told her 5-year old son, when she showed him the first man in space on a picture in the museum). Alyways very interesting to listen to such conversations.

Maybe some updates on my work. At the Holocaust Center I‘m rearranging the book compartment and I’m starting to look for interesting books on the internet, which might suit our library. My Babushka unfortunately has a member of her family staying over for the winter. Therefore, I have to wait until my organisation finds a new Babushka for me. Until then I’ll just work one day longer at the Holocaust Center. I hope that I can start working in the Refugee Center next week, because I miss doing some social work as variation for my office work.

Saint Petersburg and Selenograd

One week ago I went to Saint Petersburg for the weekend with two other volunteers from Moscow to visit the volunteers in SaintPetersburg. I was really excited, because I had heard so many good things about Piter (Russians usually refer to Saint Petersburg as Piter). We went to Piter by night train, as this is the cheapest and most useful way to travel in Russia, because you usually save a lot of time. When we arrived in Petersburg we were picked up by our friend, who lives in the city centre of Petersburg right at the Nevskij Prospekt, Piters high street and also Putin’s favourite street as I was told. We then started a tour through Petersburg and this city is really really beautiful. A lot of old buldings in the historic center, various bridges, and the city is beautifully situated at the water which reminds me of Amsterdam and there are so many sights to visit. Among others we have seen the Mariinsky Palace and the Church of the Saviour on Blood. On Saturday night we also went to a party, but unfortunately we slept to long on the next day so we could’t go to the famous Hermitage museum, which is the biggest art museum in the world. Hopefully next time. On the way back to Moscow I only slept one hour, because it was unbearably hot inside the train. We arrived at 4 o’clock and had to wait until 6 o’clock at the station to take the first metro train.

Maybe as a contrary example to Saint Petersburg I’ve been to Selenograd, a suburban municipality of Moscow. After a 40 minute train ride one employee at the Holocaust Center, the other Holocaust Center volunteer and I arrived in Selenograd. The name does actually mean „Green City“, but I have to say that I’ve never seen an uglier and greyer city than this. Of course I haven’t seen everything of the city, but what I’ve seen was just pure uglyness. There were only huge skyscraper apartment building and big streets. Everything was grey and dismal. Our job in Selenograd was to visit a school and to present our organisation and teach pupils about the Holocaust. Surprisingly, it was a really great school, which organsises several events (much more than my school in Germany) and is very very active. Also the school children seemed to be very interested in the topic. Some school girls told us that they hate studying German, but they liked that volunteers from Germany and Austria came to their school.