{"product_id":"russian-journalisbn-9780812976656","title":"Russian Journal","description":"“A subtly crafted reflection of both the bleak and golden shadings of Russian life . . . Its tones belong more to the realm of poetry than journalism.”\u003ci\u003e –The New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt age twenty-five, Andrea Lee joined her husband, a Harvard doctoral candidate in Russian history, for his eight months’ study at Moscow State University and an additional two months in Leningrad. Published to enormous critical acclaim in 1981, \u003ci\u003eRussian Journal\u003c\/i\u003e is the award-winning author’s penetrating, vivid account of her everyday life as an expatriate in Soviet culture, chronicling her fascinating exchanges with journalists, diplomats, and her Soviet contemporaries. The winner of the Jean Stein Award from the National Academy of Arts and Letters–and the book that launched Lee’s career as a writer–Russian Journal is a beautiful and clear-eyed travel-writing classic.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[Lee] takes us wherever she is, conveying a feeling of place and atmosphere that is the mark of real talent.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e–The Washington Post Book World\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A book of very great charm . . . [Lee] records what she saw and heard with unassuming delicacy and exactness.”\u003cbr\u003e–Newsweek\u003cb\u003eAndrea Lee\u003c\/b\u003e was born in Philadelphia and received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Harvard University. She is a former staff writer for \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e, and her fiction and nonfiction writing has also appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e. She is the author of \u003ci\u003eRussian Journal\u003c\/i\u003e, the novel \u003ci\u003eSarah Phillips\u003c\/i\u003e, and the short story collection \u003ci\u003eInteresting Women\u003c\/i\u003e. She lives with her husband and two children in Turin, Italy.Chapter 1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Arrival\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    AUGUST 3\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The tower in which we will live for most of the next ten months is one   of the landmarks of Moscow, an absurd thirty-two-story wedding cake of   gray and red granite, set above the city in the Lenin Hills. This   titanic building, the main dormitory of Moscow State University, is a   monument of the pompous and energetic style of architecture nicknamed   “Stalin Gothic.” Seen from a distance, it suggests a Disney version of   a ziggurat; its central spire, like the Kremlin towers, holds a   blinking red star. Inside, as in a medieval fortress, there is   everything necessary to sustain life in case of siege: bakeries, a   dairy store, a fruit and vegetable store, a pharmacy, a post office,   magazine kiosks, a watch-repair stand—all this in addition to   classrooms, and student rooms, and cafeterias. On the outside, it   bristles with a daft excess of decoration that is a strange   twentieth-century mixture of Babylonian, Corinthian, and Slavic: there   are outsized bronze flags and statues, faïence curlicues, wrought-iron   sconces—even a vast reflecting pool decorated with metal water lilies   the size of small cabbages. As I climb the endless stairs and negotiate   the labyrinth of fusty-smelling hallways, I feel dwarfed and   apprehensive, a human being lost in a palace scaled for giants.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I came to this odd new home with my husband on a summer evening two   days ago, when exhaustion from long-distance travel gave every new   sight the mysterious simplicity and resonance of a dream. I had my   first glimpse of the Soviet Union as we broke through a cloud barrier   near Sheremetyevo Airport, and found ourselves flying low over a forest   of birch and evergreen, dotted with countless small ponds. There was an   almost magical lushness and secrecy about this flattish northern   landscape that I found powerfully attractive; suddenly I remembered   that my earliest visions of Russia were of an infinite forest, dark as   any forest that stretches through a child’s imagination, and peopled by   swan maidens, hunter princes, fabulous bears, and witches who lived in   huts set on chicken legs. Tied to Russia by no claims of blood or   tradition, I still felt, while very young, an obscure attraction to   this country that I knew only from its violent, highly colored   folklore; its music, through which ran a similar vein of extravagance;   and the dark political comments of adults. It seemed to me to be a   mysterious counterweight to the known world of America—a country, like   the land at the back of the north wind, in which life ran backward and   the fantastic was commonplace.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Our disembarkment and passage through customs at Sheremetyevo were   standard chaos, involving a long, dazed wait in a crowded room   traversed from time to time by hot breezes smelling sweetly of cut   grass. Only one memory remains with me from those hours: the sight of a   Pioneer* excursion group of twenty small girls who seemed, by their   Asiatic faces and straight black hair, to be Siberian. They all wore   the blue shorts, white shirts, and red neckerchiefs that I had seen in   pictures, as well as ornately curled hair bows that gave them a queer   geisha look, and as I studied them with the dreamy precision of   fatigue, all twenty stared back at me with an avid, unadorned   curiosity. Standing beyond the customs barrier was a young man who   introduced himself in English as Grigorii, a journalism student sent to   meet us by the university’s office of foreign affairs. Grigorii was a   dark-haired young man in his twenties, with very small eyes behind   enormous round glasses and a pinched, rather gnomish body in a large,   baggy suit; the impression he gave was that he had melted down slightly   inside his clothing. He led us outside to a black Volga, a Soviet car   that looks like a cross between a Rambler and a Plymouth. A   short-legged driver, wearing a checked cap pulled down very far over   his ears, stowed our bags, and soon we were speeding down a road with   the vaguely horrifying sense of freedom one feels only when going   through absolutely strange territory in a strange car. It was dark by   now, and the smell of fields and forest rushed in through the windows.   Grigorii had discovered that we both spoke Russian, and had grown   garrulous. “So you are a student of Russian history?” he was saying to   Tom. “I myself am extremely interested in American history—especially   in your Civil War. Two years ago I even wrote a paper on the Great   Barbecue.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “The what?” asked Tom.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “The Great Barbecue—the turning point of the Reconstruction period.   Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of it!” (Grigorii pronounced the word   “barbecue” with the gleeful relish of a Frenchman saying “Marlboro.”)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “I haven’t,” said Tom, and as the car slid through the darkness,   Grigorii illuminated for us this lost part of American history,   mentioning feudal remnants, the industrial bourgeoisie, and the   struggle of the working class. Listening to his small, dry, pedantic   voice mention names and places I’d never heard of, I wondered what   Marxist looking-glass we’d stepped through. Where on earth were we? Was   he talking about the same America we had just left?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    When the monstrous silhouette of the university tower appeared on the   skyline, Grigorii paused to point it out proudly. “Impressive, isn’t   it?” he said. “It’s the most luxurious dormitory in the Soviet   Union—every year hundreds of tourists come to visit it. It’s a city   block in circumference; some other time I will give you the figures on   its height and number of windows. I’m sorry that we won’t be passing   the reflecting pool tonight, but there is a very handsome giant   barometer that I will show you. I feel very lucky to live there. We’ll   be neighbors, so to speak!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Hurrah!” I whispered to Tom, and he dug his elbow into my ribs. Then   we sat silently as the black tower grew larger against the sky.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Our arrival meant passing through a gatehouse, climbing a great many   stairs, crossing a chilly marble hall, and threading through a maze of   corridors on a path that led at last to a long ride in an elevator, and   some kind of fuss with an old woman over a key. Although it was only   about nine o’clock in the evening, a charmed stillness seemed to reign   in the dormitory; we saw very few students. Instead, there seemed to be   inordinate numbers of babushki—old women—in semi-official posts,   knitting and nodding in dark corners like watchful beldames out of a   Grimms tale. The babushka of the keys, a tiny creature with a fierce   squint under a cowled white shawl, watched us struggle with the door to   our room and then turned to whisper portentously to a still smaller   companion, Ischo Amerikantsy—More Americans.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    When Grigorii left us, we flicked a switch, and in the sudden bright   light, faced our living quarters for the year. They were what Russians   call a blok—a minute suite consisting of two rooms about six feet by   ten feet each, a tiny entryway, and a pair of cubicles containing,   between them, a toilet, a shower and washstand, and several large,   indolent cockroaches. The two main rooms were painted the dispiriting   beige and green of institutional rooms around the world, and furnished,   rather nicely, with varnished chairs, tables, bookcases, and two single   beds. (I’ve since discovered that our rooms represent great luxury,   since Russian students in the same building often live four and six to   such quarters.) Each room held a radio that tuned in to only one   station—Radio Moscow—and at this particular moment, news was being   broadcast by a woman with an excited, throaty voice. “Today,” she said,   “the Party Government delegation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam,   led by Comrades Le Duan and Pham Van Dong visited the Kirovsky factory   in Leningrad . . . In front of the monument to V. I. Lenin in Factory   Square, there took place a meeting of Soviet-Vietnamese friendship . .   . The Leningraders arrived at the meeting with flowers, red flags, and   signs in honor of the unbreakable friendship . . . The people gathering   together greeted the emissaries of the heroic Vietnamese people with   warm applause . . .”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The news went off, and on came a medley of Komsomol songs delivered   stalwartly by what sounded like an entire nation of ruddy-cheeked young   patriots. “You can’t turn this thing off,” said Tom, fiddling with the   radio knob. Indeed, like one of Orwell’s telescreens, our official   radios could be turned down to inaudible, but never turned off. I began   to giggle hysterically, and to calm myself, walked over to the window,   from which I could see, illuminated by a spotlight on one of the   pediments of the building, a gigantic bronze flag.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    A bit later, in one of the fits of witless energy that sometimes   replace exhaustion, we decided to take the metro into Red Square.   Everyone describes the Moscow subway system, so I won’t, except to say   that it is as clean and efficient as they write, and that it is   awesome, for an American, to see the veins of a city lined with marble,   gilt, and mosaic instead of filth and graffiti. It was in the subway   that night that I first endured the unblinking stare of the Russian   populace, a stare already described to me by Tom and by friends who had   been in the Soviet Union before. “You will never not be stared at,”   they told me, advising me to stare back coolly and steadily, especially   at the shoes of my tormentors, since the average Soviet shoe is an   embarrassment of cracked imitation leather. When we got on at the   University metro stop, the scant group of passengers included two   minute, humpbacked babushki; a pretty fresh-faced girl of eighteen or   nineteen, who opened her mouth to yawn and revealed two aluminum teeth;   a fat young mother in a minidress and platform shoes, who held a baby   tightly swaddled in a ribbon-bound blanket; a group of stylish young   men dressed in greasy American jeans and vinyl snap-front jackets. They   all looked us up and down with undisguised fascination and whispered   comments to their neighbors. Although we were dressed in what we   thought was a neutral, inconspicuous fashion, the clothes we had   on—cotton pants and shirts—now seemed infinitely newer, crisper, better   cut than anything anyone else had on; my sandals, also, seemed to   fascinate everyone. So we sat, practically riddled with stares, in the   dim light of the rocking subway car, breathing an atmosphere heavy with   odors of sharp tobacco, sausage, and perspiring human flesh. Tom drew a   deep, happy breath. “It still smells like Russia,” he said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    We got off at the Lenin Library stop, and walked up the street to Red   Square. My first view of that expanse of architectural marvels—the   rolling redbrick walls of the Kremlin, with the angular mass of Lenin’s   tomb directly beneath them; the Victorian birdcage that is GUM,   Moscow’s largest department store; and, at the far end, St. Basil’s,   the preposterous, sublime fantasy in cartoon color and buoyant   plaster—made me reflect a bit enviously that whatever deficiencies   there may have been in freedom and economic well-being throughout   Russian and Soviet history, the people have always had compelling   symbols. I have often found in myself a surprising, childish hunger for   patriotic pageantry. How easy it would be, I thought, to summon up a   blind surge of chauvinism if one could draw upon this vision—the sacred   enclosure of Red Square, where Lenin lies preserved like a Pharaoh.   Except, perhaps, for the Statue of Liberty against the steep rise of   lower Manhattan, there is no emblematic scene in America with   comparable drama. Facing the Kremlin, I realized for the first time how   unfailingly chaste and low-key are America’s national icons; it is at   once our weakness and our great strength to be bad at symbols. Our   emblems seem designed for the measured response of rationality, while   Russian monuments—like the Stalinist monstrosity where I am to   live—evoke raw emotion.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It was a warm, humid night, and small groups of Soviet and foreign   tourists were roaming the square. When we stopped to see the   goose-stepping soldiers change the guard in front of Lenin’s tomb, we   found that we were standing in the midst of a group of men from Soviet   Uzbekistan. Brown-faced, wearing embroidered skullcaps and long quilted   coats, they stared in mild amazement at this spectacle that must have   seemed as alien to them as it did to us. Behind us, babushki\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    in black dresses and shawls were sweeping up cigarette butts from the   cobblestones.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Later we walked over to have a glass of gaserevenaya vada, carbonated   water flavored with fruit syrup, from one of the dispensers that   apparently take the place of drinking fountains in Moscow. For two   kopecks, a glass is filled with the fizzy drink; one swallows it, and   then replaces the glass, to be washed by a cold spray of water for the   next drinker’s use. (Hearing the amount of coughing around me even in   August made me decide already that I wouldn’t make a habit of this.) We   didn’t have the two kopecks for the machine, so we asked a passer-by, a   tall, mournful-looking man wearing creased dark pants and a bright   nylon shirt. He gave us a whole handful of change, and refused our   ruble. “You’re Americans, aren’t you?” he asked us in a low voice,   tugging glumly at the ends of a dandyish mustache. “Then keep the   ruble. I can’t do anything with it. It’s not money. They tell me it’s   money, but look in our stores and tell me what I can buy with it.   Nothing!” He spat on the ground and vanished up the street.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    We took the metro back to the University stop, then walked up\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    toward the dormitory along an avenue lined with apple trees. We passed   through the tiny gatehouse in which the old woman who was supposed to   check our identification was sleeping, her face a puckered mass of   wrinkles, her feet resting on a rag rug where an equally ancient dog   slumbered. In the courtyard was a clump of trees, and from this small   grove came strains of guitar music and laughter. A girl’s voice sang   snatches of “Makhno,” the poignant song from the Russian Civil War that   I had heard once back in America; in her thin, tipsy soprano, however,   the song sounded merry rather than sad, the voice of any student when   there are still some drinks left and some time left in the evening and   in the summer. Outside the grove, in the stone courtyard itself, a   teenage boy and girl were chasing each other around and around, in and   out of the light of the big iron lamps. They were clearly Russian, but   both were dressed in jeans. When the boy neared the girl, he would try   to grab her, but she dodged him each time with a shriek of laughter,   her long braid streaming behind her. Their voices and footsteps echoed,   faint but definite, against the walls of that monstrous folly of a   building, as if they were lightheartedly defying a hostile authority.   Watching them, I felt disarmed and curiously moved; I realized as well   that nothing this year would be predictable or easy to fathom. In a few   minutes we were climbing the steps to our own small space, and our   first night in the tower.","brand":"Random House Trade Paperbacks","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46299930001637,"sku":"NP9780812976656","price":21.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780812976656_f06d1daf-9d19-473f-9484-23d3fa80c420.jpg?v=1730743092","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/russian-journalisbn-9780812976656","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}