The Longest Day of the Year

 I would make a terrible princess.  I was born several centuries too late, so it's a moot point, but I can trace my ancestry to Edward III, and from him basically to most of the royal families in Europe, so I'm calling it a near miss.  I could have been a princess, and I would have done a shitty job of it.  I can pull off poise when I want to, and occasionally I can manage diplomacy (veeeeery occasionally), but I'm stubborn as hell and over the years I've come up with a shortage of fucks.  Don't like my cleavage?  Think it's horrible that I would invite my newly graduated students who have been slaving away for me several months to lunch in my apartment???  Sorry, I'm all out of fucks to give...I used them up on things that matter.  Like doing my damn job, or women's rights.

However, I DO have a taste for some of the finer things in life.  Good food, music, art, traveling...I could do with a princess' income, or her digs.  So I braved the swarms of tourists to visit the Winter Palace yesterday.

The Winter Palace (officially the Hermitage, but I'm a wannabe princess today, not an art teacher) was the home of the Russian emperors and their family.  Since 1917, it's been a museum, and although it did undergo some..."renovations"...during Soviet rule, it's been restored for the most part.  Some of the rooms were absolutely breathtaking.  I think the library was my favorite, although the smoking room made me regret my lifestyle for a while - there are times when (perhaps) I want a house, so maybe I could dress it up with all the treasures I've collected during my years abroad.  Orientalist-style smoking room?  Bitch, please - you should see my belly dance studio.

Okay, so I lied about not being an art teacher today.  The building itself was ostentatious, but the art collection was killer, too.  Look at this - it's a freaking room of Rubens!  Every painting in the room was by Rubens, with the exception of a few by his school.  When I went to the Louvre, they had a roomful of Rubens as well, ones that Marie de Medici commissioned for her husband, the king of France (which one?  I don't care.  Look it up yourself if you care that much).  When I saw those paintings, I may have cursed Marie a bit...why couldn't she have told Rubens to throw a few naked men in there for good measure?  This room of Rubens answered that question for me.  The central figure in the painting on the right?  That's not one of Rubens' trademark voluptuous women; it's Bacchus.  And voluptuous just doesn't look that great on a man.

I'm a little ashamed, but I didn't see the whole Hermitage.  I should be able to spend more than three hours in a palace/art museum, but my feet were swollen with museumitis, and the crowds - egad, the crowds!  There were just too damn many people there (for the record, if you're going to do this, I think afternoon is better...there was no pushy-shovey line to get in when I left around 2, and at least some of the tourists were on their way out by then.  Definitely buy your ticket in advance if you go in the morning).  I did some more wandery around-ish stuff, including hitting Starbucks and going to pick up my tickets for the ballet that night.  Extra super special performances at the Mariinsky Theater are part of the White Nights lineup and since I LOVE the ballet I had to go.  Well, I say I love the ballet.  I've been re-evaluating that statement since last night.  I think what I actually love is passionate dancing and men with nice muscles wearing tights.  The dancers last night were spectacular, and I liked the stage design and the costumes, but Jewels (the show I watched) was a little meh.  I actually had to work to keep myself awake (admittedly I was a little jetlagged, but still), and I found myself thinking about how much more I would enjoy it if they were all belly dancers, so I guess you shouldn't be surprised that I left at the second intermission.

Part of the reason why I left was the fact that it was Scarlet Sails night.  Initially I heard that Scarlet Sails - which is a St. Petersburg thing - took place in May, but when I started walking around town I saw signage for it that said it was taking place last night, so I was SUPER excited.  I walked along the Neva embankment under the twilit sky, and got to Palace bridge around 10 o'clock.  I actually wanted to go further up the river, but the police had blocked the street, so I found a place as close to the side of the bridge as I could and waited.  And waited.  And because I'd been on my feet ALL DAY, they hurt, so I found a place to sit down and pulled out my Nook.  Which wasn't working.  Somehow, between getting to the ballet and sitting down on the bridge, my e-reader had unregistered itself, right where Harry Dresden was about to confront the ENTIRE White Court of vampires.  WHAT THE HECK, NOOK???  So I sat and waited some more, albeit with less patience than I would if I were reading.  At which point it started raining.  It was chilly - did I mention the fact that I was wearing sandals and a skirt?  That factors into this fiasco, thanks to the ballet - so I put on my hoodie, but finally around 11:30 I was fed up and said, "##%# this *&$@@!, you *@&!" and left the bridge.  But my night was far from over.  Thanks to the barricades, I couldn't head back to Irina's the way I had been going (which involved a lot of walking but I didn't think I'd be able to get a taxi) and because I was cold and wet and alone and my feet hurt when I finally DID come across a taxi on the other side of St. Isaac's, I let him talk me into paying about $20 to take me home.  And it was the best $20 I've spent yet.

You Can Take the Kids Out of Japan...

Although school has been out for two weeks and three days, and I have been back from Khuvsgul for one week and two days, I am still in Mongolia.  At the time when my ticket home for the summer was graciously booked by the school, I had no clue how long the trip was going to take, so I made my best guess.  I knew I wanted to be home for my birthday at the end of the month, and I knew I didn't want to make myself "eligible" for the amazing fudge cluster that is Obamacare (I'm not considered a US resident if I'm out of the country more than 330 days out of the year), so I'm flying tomorrow.  While this hasn't been the most exciting week of my life, it has had its advantages:

1. Rosewood's Pop-Up Burrito Shop:  When I got to the internet oasis (aka, Murun airport), Wild Ass had tagged me in a UB Foodies post.  The evil genius behind Rosewood had a new plan for global - well, or at least local - domination...short term locations serving "street food" specialties.  They're doing three of these this summer, and this first featured tacos and burritos.  If - like my father - you're an armchair traveler, you can't really understand how hard it is to get good Mexican outside of the Americas.  Mexikhan is the closest we've managed so far, but they don't quite hit the mark.  However, the burritos and tacos at La Rosa, by the fountain outside of Central Tower are fantastic.  Enjoying them in the shade of a perfect 75 degree summer day (free of bugs and humidity)?  Absolutely sublime.  They should be there for a couple more weeks.

2. Shopping:  One does not appear before one's nieces and nephews empty handed.  Today I bought gifts for the Princess (I was very tempted to buy Dirt Devil his very first bow and arrows, but I'm pretty sure that buying a three year old pointy projectiles would make me persona non grata with my family).  I got her a genuine Mongolian princess dress, boots, and hat, and ordered a book from Barnes and Noble about a real Mongolian princess.  Summer's a good time for shopping here - Naadam is next week, which means big-time tourist season, so you can find some good stuff.  And it was neat to note that there was a sort of flea markety thing going on around the fountain between the State Department Store and the Circus. 

They're sheep anklebones - I had to actually look at this one from the correct place to figure it out.

3.  Street Art:  I don't know if the Alliance Francaise did their street art festival this year or not, but summer means sprucing up the city, and as part of the campaign this year students from the Mongolian University of Arts and Culture and Ikh Zasag University painted 3D perspective paintings around the downtown area.  There's 35 of them altogether, and they might be a little like Pokemon (ie, you gotta catch them all - I wish I could say I came up with that one, but actually it's Blondie's line).  And (finally) speaking of Pokemon...

Not taken at the event, but made an appearance.

4.  Japanese Pop Culture Day:  Kids love anime - it really doesn't matter where you are in the world.  I mentioned back in May that spending my days with teenagers has resulted in me "going native" by developing an addiction to anime.  At first it was revisiting just one show that I watched in my college years.  Then it involved a bunch of Studio Ghibli movies - Princess Mononoke hearkened, again, back to my college years, but I watched quite a few of those films that month.  Probably because I was going/went to Japan.  That's what I told myself, anyways.  But on May 16 I began watching Fairy Tail, and one month later I had seen the entire series, including the OVA's and the movie (and I may have started another series since then...)

I would like to be able to say that I'm doing this strictly to develop as a professional - since I teach teenagers I will always have students who are interested in anime, therefore it behooveth me as an art teacher to become knowledgeable.  Unfortunately for my already-shaky status as an adult, that's probably not the case.

So I went to Japanese Pop Culture Day at the circus, and while I am loath to admit this, in spite of the fact that I'm apparently going through my second adolescence I didn't stay for very long.  I was there long enough for my students to see me and say hi, and to have a look around the place and snap some photos.  I was totally jealous of the kids - ever since making Dirt Devil his Jake the Pirate outfit I've had a strong suspicion that perhaps under the right circumstances* I could get into the whole cosplay thing.  It looks fun.  And the day had potential, although if the drawing contest was what I think it was, I wish I'd known far enough in advance to get my students involved, because they would have rocked it.  See, five grand prize winners of the day's events get free trips to Japan, lucky bastards.  But the thing is...well, stuff.  For starters, I tripped going over one of the shin-high barriers around the circus.  It was actually not a bad fall, but it ripped up my arm which was FINALLY healing, and there were no less than four Mongolian men who very persistently tried to help me up, in spite of the fact that I needed to sit a moment.  Then there was the fact that - excuse the expression, I HAVE been hanging out with Blondie this week - hot as balls in the Circus. And finally, perhaps I might have felt a little out of place.  I must have been twice the age of pretty much everybody there, and I was alone.  Normally I don't have a problem with that, but under the circumstances I felt like a weirdo, so I high-tailed it out of there in search of coke.  And at that point I realized that I was missing 60,000 tugrugs out of my purse.  I'm not sure if I left it at Nagomi (yes, I had sushi - it may be the last time I have it for the next month!) or if it fell out when I tripped or if someone helped themselves to my purse in the confusion of the circus.  Whatever the case may be, I was done.  I needed to finish cleaning the APT, I had a hot (literally) dinner date with Blondie (in which we tried not to set the building on fire grilling in honor of the Fourth).

There are other things going on this month.  July is a great time to be in Mongolia.  Last night we went to the ballet's "Night of Modern," which featured some amazing guest soloists from the Boston Ballet (Engrish, you missed a goooood one!) and there's a sculpture fair which will, sadly, be over by the time I get back.  But I can't be too sad because, hell, I'm going to 'Merica, bitches!  Shopping to do, niblings to spoil - life will be good, and I'm sure in three weeks or so I will be ECSTATIC to be back on the steppe.

*Halloween might be the right circumstance this year.  I might have an idea.  We shall see...

Soviet City

(Or, alternatively: Back in the USSR)

Last night we got to see an amazing performance at the State Ballet by the Stars of the Russian Ballet.  I haven't seen men in tights since May or so, when we went to Don Quixote, which is clearly too long!  My only complaint is that the best pas de deux, in my opinion, was the second performance of the night, which made the rest of the very spectacular performances kind of a letdown.  I think I liked that one so much because it was just so different - not only was it set to Regina Spektor's "Après Moi," which made a nice contrast to the classical music that all the other performers danced to, but there was also such passion behind this dance, that it really just killed everything else for me.  I wanted to see more modern ballet like that!

Well, I wrote about the ballet already last year, but while last night's performance was the reason why I didn't sit down and blog yesterday, it also makes a good introduction to my topic for this week.  When reading about Ulaanbaatar you will not be able to escape the description of its ugliness, and how it has such a Soviet-era feel to it.  This is absolutely true, on both accounts.  UB is not going to win any beauty pageants for many a moon, but there is good reason for that.

If you look closely between the two ridgelines, you can see Zaisan Hill, where the above monument is now located.

Here's a photo of Ulaanbaatar from 1913 - a hundred years ago (you can see it and more like it in this post from Wall to Watch).  There's not a lot there, but that's what happens when you have a nomadic population.  You pull up tent stakes - or in Mongolia's case, ger posts - a few times a year, which means there's not much permanent development. 

That all changed when communism came to town.  Mongolia has a history with Russia, and while you might not jump off a bridge if your friend does it, when Russia jumped off the communism bridge, Mongolia decided they should, too (the looming presence of China might have had something to do with this).  And while communism might be long dead in Outer Mongolia, the friendship with Russia lives on, as does its communist legacy.

For starters, there was a Lenin statue downtown up until last fall.  I've heard that in Russia you'd be hard-pressed to find either Lenin or Stalin, but although this statue was removed and sold, there are still remnants of him scattered around.  A building on east Peace Avenue, less than a block away from my favorite Indian place has "BИ ЛЕНИН" spelled into its side in bricks.  And the monument whose picture started this post, the Zaisan Memorial, has him pictured next to Sukhbaatar.

You'll see sculpture in the city made in the Soviet style.  Even if you know nothing about art, you should be able to pick on the not-so-subtle nuances in this photo and the top one of Zaisan.  Not only do they show epic themes of the people and the military, but the squarish, stylizes figures absolutely scream communism.

While you can't read too much into t-shirts in Asia (my favorite being one I saw in Korea, "A call to all chunkily penised men to do her and do her well"), in Mongolia it's a pretty fair bet that they know what the hammer and sickle mean, even without CCCP printed underneath.  In case you didn't know, CCCP is USSR in Cyrillic, and until the recent past there was a Russian restaurant by that name in town.  I may be wrong, but I have a feeling not even the hippest hipsters back home would be caught ironically wearing a communist t-shirt.

And I haven't even gotten to the architecture yet.  As I said earlier, just about everything in UB has been built since the beginning of the communist era, under the influence of Soviet style.  Well, the Soviets were definitely more about function than form, which is unfortunate, but since everything up here on the hill has been built in the last 8 or so years, we don't have to look at it (since mostly what I see out my window is construction, I'd probably prefer the ugly communist apartment blocks, but what can you do?)  But there is at least one nice aspect of these buildings:

Mosaic murals adorning the walls.  Many buildings have these taking up one whole wall on the outside, and again you may notice the sharp-edged figures, but the scenes are so nationalistic, featuring the Mongolian people and scenes from the countryside that you have to love them.  And while its communist years might not have been Mongolia's finest hour, their relationship with Russia not only saved them from being absorbed by China, it continues to reap benefits such as gorgeous visiting cavaliers from the Russian ballet.  All countries should be so lucky.