August, 2000. Professor James Webb’s office.
Professor Webb: Are you planning to start your language requirement? Other than that, your schedule looks good.
Karen: I probably should. What fits?
Professor Webb: You took some Spanish in high school. How about French? Or Italian?
Karen: How about something totally new? Like Arabic or something. I’d really like to learn a new alphabet.
Professor Webb: Well, Russian fits. Every day at eleven. For three semesters. Is that going to work?
Karen: Sure.
I had no idea what I was getting into. Before I knew it, I was sitting out in my hall long after my roommates had gone to bed, tracing letters like a preschooler. I felt stupid. After a week, though, I had the alphabet down: atom, banan, vodka… Soon enough I was learning cases, writing sentences about Ivan and Anya, and attending Russian dinners and table discussions in my “spare time.” By the end of my sophomore fall I had signed on to be a Russian minor, which meant I took some literature and history classes alongside five semesters of language. Once those five semesters were over, though, I kept taking Russian. Classes were small; the department had started to feel like a little family. Plus, I was reading Chekhov, Pushkin, and Tolstoy in Russian. If I kept going, I could read Anna Karenina, too. I’d come this far. Why stop now?
I even dug myself in a little deeper when I signed up to tutor beginning students. I help them trace their letters, learn their “a,b,v’s” and conjugate verbs. I learn so much from teaching them. I correct oral reports and teach concepts that I had not understood the first time around. Tutoring Russian has been one of the highlights of my Colby career.
For my senior honors thesis in history, I am researching the Russian Old Believers, a group of monks who refused changes proposed by Archbishop Nikon in the 1660’s. I have the opportunity to use original Russian sources, and am slowly developing a “Russian religion” vocabulary. I hope that this same vocabulary will be useful in conducting interviews with twenty-first century Russian women.
October, 2000. Phone call to my parents.
Karen: So, guys, I kind of have this crazy idea.
Dad: Okay. What is it?
Karen: I want to go to Russia.
Mom: No.
Dad: Lin, hush. Is there a program or something?
Karen: Yeah, Colby’s Russian department has a January Program in Saint Petersburg, and through this loophole, I can go. I’d be living with a host family and everything. And I’d be taking a class on Russia’s economy with university professors, and taking extra Russian language classes. You can call the program director if you want…
It took me longer than that to sell my parents on my going to Russia, but eventually they bent. As usual with the Russian Department, I had no idea what to expect. Before I really knew what was happening, Christmas was over, and I was on the plane to Russia.
I have to admit I was a bit alarmed once I discovered that my host mother and father did not speak any English. My Russian mother excitedly showed me the only English she knew: “Von, two, tree, four, five.” My Russian father left me to my own devices. Dinner table conversation consisted of disjointed conversations in which I pointed to things around the house and asking, “Shto eto? (what’s that?)” My vocabulary grew and by the end of the month, I could speak something that resembled conversational Russian.
Because my skill with Russian grew, I started to ask my host mother questions about her family. Although my Russian was limited at the time, I managed to find out about her history and what she and her husband had been able to do during Communism. Talking to her in the evenings was far more enjoyable then going out to a bar with the other Colby students. She had so much information that she was willing to share with me, and I did my best to take full advantage.
January 2000. Classicheskaya Gimnazia. (conducted in English).
Karen: Marina, I have a question. Is it okay to just walk into churches?
Marina: How do you mean?
Karen: If I just walked into a church, not a cathedral, but a church, would anyone be offended?
Marina: Probably not, no. Remember to wear a hat.
Karen: A hat?
Marina: Yes, it’s very impolite and improper for a woman to go into church with her head uncovered. But as long as you wear a hat, and it’s not during a service, do. Go ahead.
Once Marina, the woman who looked after the students on the Colby program, told me it was okay, I started wandering around the city in the afternoons, going into churches. Near the Gimnazia, there was a small yellow church on a street corner. For me, this church stood for real faith—no ornamentalism, just one tiny, little onion dome at the top. It was probably the most unpretentious church in all of Saint Petersburg. I started dropping in every morning before class, just to have a quiet, warm place away from the traffic and the snow to pray and collect myself before school. Each day, when I would come in to light a candle or just stand, I would notice the same three or four women. They all looked to be about sixty or seventy, and they all came in every single day to light candles, kiss icons, or pick up holy water. I started to wish I spoke enough Russian to talk to these women and ask them why they were so faithful. I desperately wanted to get inside their heads, or just sit down with them for a chat over tea. I knew I had so much to learn from their faith. I also wondered what their stories would add to the narrative of Soviet history.
March, 2002. Athens, Greece.
Karen: So being Romanian Orthodox really means a lot to you, huh?
Miruna: Yes, and it’s Lent right now, so everything is even more important.
Karen: Do you think, that on one of our free days you and I could walk around the city and go into some churches? I would love to look around, and it would be a cool chance for you to pray and light some candles.
Miruna: That would be amazing. When can we go?
My friend Miruna and I ended up spending that afternoon wandering around Athens and going into churches. Greek Orthodoxy and Russian Orthodoxy have many facets of their theology in common, so I felt at home in the Greek churches. For the first time, I looked closely at icons which had been a part of Russian Orthodoxy that I had never understood. Why did people think that these pictures were direct connections to God? As I walked around the churches, I began to understand what they meant. As I looked into an icon’s eyes, I felt something. It was not as though the figure of Saint Paul was actually talking to me, but through his eyes, I could feel some kind of connection. It was as if he were saying, “It’s going to be okay; peace is with you.”
Orthodoxy is one of my favorite religions to study and I have spent a good deal of time educating myself about its beliefs. Whenever I have the chance now, I look at icon exhibits. One of my Russian professors gave me a book of Russian religious art and one of my best friends gave me an icon of Christ and Mary for my birthday. My background in Orthodoxy is strong enough to be able to understand religious allusions that might come up in my interviews.
May, 2002. I-95, South.
Emma: So what’s going to happen at this service?
Karen: We’ll go in, and they’ll sing a lot. Then the priest will come to the front and read out of the Bible. He’ll use incense and wave the censor at the icons. It’ll probably feel like mass, except you can’t sit down, unless you need to.
Emma and Miruna: What?
Karen: The Russians don’t sit down, unless you’re older. Sorry, guys.
Emma: Okay, so then what?
Karen: At midnight, they’ll shut off all the lights, and we’ll all light candles. And they’ll chant some more. Then we’ll go outside…
We shuffled out of the Alexander Nevsky church into the cold, May night. With all the other Russian Orthodox of Richmond, Maine, a Catholic, a Romanian Orthodox, and a Christian Scientist carried candles and walked in circles around the humble green church with a tiny onion dome on the spire. Walking through the muddy grass, my candle lit up my smiling face. I knew what would happen next and I could not wait to share it with my two friends. After we had circled the church three times, the priest stopped at the door. He banged on the door a symbolic three times and called to the risen Christ. The doors flew open, and he yelled, “Khristos Voskres!” (Christ is risen!) The choir sang; everyone smiled, laughed, and hugged. We spent the next half-hour rejoicing over the Easter gladness. Christ had risen.
I have never forgotten that night at Alexander Nevsky. I was welcome in their community, and felt so much love for the church and the Russian Orthodox way of life. Something about the ceremony helped me feel a unique connection to God, and to the Orthodox Church. These traditions have cemented the lives of so many people. The smiles of the congregation and the sense of community I felt made me think back to Russia. Did the Russian women I’d seen feel the same warmth that all of these people had shining through them on Easter night?
That night, on the way home from Richmond, I formed a theory about the women I had watched at the little yellow church by the Gimnazia. Perhaps it was the tradition, the order of the service, and the peaceful look of the icons that gave these women the strength to get up in the morning. Even if they had to wait in line for hours or work as a typist and then clean their house, these familiar images could help them cope, and give them hope. Their faith, while being tested, might have been what helped them stand their ground through Communism.
