Every time that I sit down to write a blog post it is becoming increasingly more difficult to find the words to express how I feel about Russia and what I am experiencing here. It’s not that I don’t have lots to say. I have so many ideas floating around my head but I simply don’t know how to express them in a way that accurately conveys them. When I first got here it was really easy to write about how new and different everything felt. Now that I have been here for two months things don’t feel strange; they feel normal. Russia doesn’t baffle me in the same way that it did before. I understand her more now. Everyday occurrences seem normal. People’s actions, attitudes, and logic seem pretty normal to me. I am beginning to understand these things about Russian life, about what it means to be Russian (beginning being the operative word). It’s frustrating because no amount of words can do these realizations justice. What I am realizing can only be understood through experience, not by anything that I can write here. There is such a gap in understanding between America and Russia, and now I see why. Stereotypes that Americans hold about Russians (and vice versa) are, for the most part, misunderstandings. It takes learning and understanding the language, living in a Russian home, daily trudging through snowy streets with the rest of the city, or sharing a drink with a friend to break through these misunderstandings. I really believe that Russia can only be understood through things such as these. I look back to before I came here when I thought I understood Russia, and I realize how I had no idea. And I’m sure years (or even months, weeks, days) from now I’ll look back at this blog post and realize that after only a few short months in Russia I still had no idea who Russia was/is. Understanding is a process. Even though I feel like my words about my time in Russia seem inadequate, I’m gonna keep on trying, and maybe every once in a while I’ll be able to convey the reality of my experience.
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