Short Stay in Suransk

(Suransk's Flag)

Have you been wondering what Jenevieve's been up to? I guess it depends on if you enjoy Jeremy's blog as mush as mine, but if you hate reading a computer monitor for so long, we had a little trip north in Suransk, which is about halfway between Moscow and Samara. Our train trips, which I'll explain in my next post, left much to be desired, but our time in Suransk was extremely pleasant albeit exhausting.
Like Tatarstan, Suransk is the capital of the "independent" republic of Mordovia which has a smaller but significant Muslim population. We arrived in Suransk around 5 am and promptly went to the university's guest house for a short but much needed nap before beginning the day. After a rather greasy breakfast where we learned Mordovia has their own special bliny pancake which tasted like a donut more than a pancake ( I told you it was greasy), Jeremy and I separated for most of the morning as he and Ludmilla, our good friend who will accompany us from time too time on future visits, went off for lectures and I was escorted to different classrooms for impromptu talks about whatever interested the students. Both classes that morning were on the small side,about 20 each, so this lent to an easy question and answer forum for both me and the girls (neither class had a male student). It was nice to see so many sparkling eyes that morning, since most of the students seemed to enjoy themselves and made my first experience in Mordovia quite positive.


Then after another large greasy meal and a meeting with the vice rector where we received some goodies, we toured a bit of the city with a young teacher named Olga who also took some pictures for us since we forgot our camera- thanks Olga! A recent addition to the downtown was this gigantic cathedral. We got a chance to go inside where we were assailed by an extremely large amount of shining gold. The icons though were a treat to see as they reached from the floor to the ceiling and Jeremy remarked as a priest opened the door to one to walk through, it was like a gigantic German advent calender. Sorry, like mosques, no pics could be taken. I also got to whimsically hold hands with Pushkin before heading back to the university for another discussion session and dinner. Then, with our main hostess, Natalya, we went for a final night stroll in the city where we ended up meeting her very sweet husband too before crashing for the night.

After a pretty good amount of sleep (the grease had gotten the better of Jeremy), we did a bit more of the same with lectures and discussions. After lunch though, I had a chance to take a rest while Jeremy presented to small lectures. I was glad for the respite since I finally got my hands on a copy of "The Master and Margarita" and I was itching to read it the last few days. Incidentally, although I haven't finished it quite yet, I believe it will definitely fit in my top ten list of all time best books to read. Go read it! You won't be disappointed. Plus, I'd like to talk to you about it. Ok, where was I? Yes, after lunch, Katya, a young teacher showed us the art museum in town. I especially liked meeting Katya because she found me some vanilla which had seemed to elude me since coming to Russia. Back to the museum though, We had a nice tour of their permanent collection of a native Mordovian/Russian named Stepan Erzya. Now unfortunately, I have been looking through out the internet to give you an idea of this man's genius because his work is quite astounding, but very few things can be found about the man. Supposedly he is well known in Europe, but I could only find info on him in Turkish and Russian. However, I did find one of his most fantastic works, Moses. You would gasp if you saw it in person, but this will have to do.




It was really a lovely way to end the two days in Suransk. After a light meal, we boarded a van and then a train, waving good-bye to Sergei and Natalya our new Suransk friends.