I saw Swan Lake this evening at the Miikhailovsky Theater and it was pretty darn enjoyable. Come the end of the second act I was getting pretty tired though, being continuously excited for an hour and a half was just a little too much for me. I will admit that I was not blown away by the performances, but there were sections that were near the realm of “wow!” and, overall, the choreography was beautiful. Some of the tablets (I think that is what they are called) that were setup were SOOO pretty. I also really loved a lot of the “swan’s” gestures because they were so accurately swan-like and pretty. Sitting in the first row and the fact tights really do live up to their name did make certain parts of the show distracting, BUT after a while I was able to avert my eyes from those areas and notice the rest of the show. All in all, I had a great time and I cannot wait to see the Tsar’s Bride on Sunday with Laura. I am also very excited for the White Nights tour with the Arizona group tomorrow night. I plan to drink some bubbly and good, old-fashioned, Russian vodka…we will just see how that one turns out for me Saturday morning. Although, it is not very often in my life that I get to drink a little on a guided bus tour around St. Petersburg, Russia, so why not enjoy it a bit!
But on an extremely contradictory note, Tuesday’s lecture with Leonod was certainly interesting. It was in response to a few of my classmates’ and my request to hear more about the demographics of St. Petersburg and/or Russia. While the lecture mostly covered the ethnic history of St. Petersburg, Moscow, and just a bit of Russia as a whole, he did make the decision to show us a news report in order for us to gain a bit of insight on contemporary views of ethnicity in Russia. The video dealt with the story of “Russia’s Obama.” I cannot recall his name, nor do I have the energy to look it up, but he was a black man who wanted to run for public office in the Southern region of Russia. The news reporter followed the man on his campaign around the city as he talked to his potential supporters about his campaign platforms. Although the man views himself as a Russian, he and his family all have Russian citizenship and he claims he “cannot even recall the last time he spoke his native language,” many people in the area were in opposition to his choice to run for public office due to the color of his skin. Now, I should have expected this outcome given the video footage of Neo-Nazis beating a Central Asian man to death and what little I know of tolerance for minorities in Russia, but it was still very jarring. I see and read about these sorts of things on occasion when I am home, but being in the country where a man was recently beaten to death for something as minute as his skin color is different. It is still as shocking, but not as surprising. Being here, I can somewhat feel to atmosphere of tolerance that exists, to a certain extent, for things of this nature. For example, during my time utilizing the Metro I have noticed that only people of Central Asian decent are the ones being stopped in train stations, on the street, and in other dense pedestrian centers. No one seems to stop and stare or notice in a way that implies that they know why they were stopped and it was not because they look suspicious. Yes, America is by no means perfect in this and many other regards, but at least people will begin to notice patterns of this nature and feel empowered enough to say something. It is just very sobering and leaves an extremely bitter taste in my mouth to experience this sort of environment. I understand the history of interaction these two ethnic groups/cultures/nations have, but it is still very disconcerting to see such blatant racism in person and to experience racism outside of what you know from your own country.
