Thursday, July 10, 2003
Money.
Cold, hard, currency; ignore it at your peril. Because, even in places like Kathmandu, Bangkok and my current home-away-from-home, Saint-Petersburg, where the buying-power of the Rubble or Baht may be difficult to define at times, cash and coin is essential to even the craftiest person's survival.
In today's world this should be obvious, right? One shouldn't have to be standing on a street corner staring into their empty wallet to grasp this key concept of nearly every society in the world. But, sadly, and perhaps completely obvious by now, that's exactly what happened to me a little over a week ago.
On the first day I arrived in St. Petersburg, a confident cash manager and shrewd dealer, my personal finances were exactly where I had planned them (except for that unfortunate overage on my Russian visa.)
Now that I think about it, that visit to the Russian Embassy in Copenhagen was quite stereotypically Russian. When the steely visa agent discovered that I was not in fact Danish, but American, she let out an 'I'm going to enjoy this' kind of sigh and indulged in explaining to me that because I carry a US passport I must fill out three additional pages of forms and instead of the standard twenty dollars, it would cost me one hundred and twenty. Without taking a breath she looked directly at me and suggested that if I am unhappy about this I should find out how difficult it is to get a visa to the US. I chalked it up on the 'Russian in Denmark who knows that she can do whatever she wants with you because you need her two stamps and three signatures on your documents before you can enter her country' column. No worries, always happy to see the other side of the coin. More on the wonders of the Russian visa system another day.
After two months in Russia I look back on that experience and think of how lucky I was that I didn't have to bribe her with an additional twenty dollars just to make sure she didn't 'accidentally' misplace the application for a few weeks. But, then again, she was in Denmark, where that sort of thing probably doesn't fly as well as it does here.
Where was I? Ah, yes, no money. Now some of you may remember that I am teaching English here. It's true, I make some money at it, butI'm charging Russian rates. Beyond my few paying students, I'm teaching for free at a few social-justice organizations also. But, even in the best-case scenario, a beginning salary for an entry-level K-12 teacher in America would be at least triple what you could conceivably make here teaching English.
I had a bit of a wake up call when I arrived here because the place I wanted to teach English at was a complete slum run by a few unapologetically underhanded people. Forget the leafy and inviting pictures from their web site; they must have traveled hours from their 'building' to get those shots. After the first week I decided that I wouldn't go teach at an institution, but teach one-on-one instead. Many of my friends at that time expressed an interest personally or had friends that might be interested. At one time I had five students with about two or three lessons a week each at anywhere from five hundred rublesthousand Rubbles a lesson.
But that was then. The cute couple who wanted to work on listening and speaking before their trip to England are most likely practicing their English in an English pub now. The eccentric and unpredictable rich guy who had just mysteriously received US citizenship would throw around one thousand Rubble notes like candy. He knew next to no English at all. At one time he suggested continuing our lessons through until the end of December. After explaining that I would be traveling through the Netherlands, Italy, and many places in the US at that time, he interupted me, and with a smile he said, "Okay, Ya taksha!" (Okay, I am too!), like he thought a traveling English lesson would be just the thing for him. So funny. Can you imagine me wandering around Europe with a wealthy Russian running behind me complaining about the dust on his loafers? I don't think he appreciated my answer of, "Spaseeba, na nyeh spaseeba" (Thanks, but no thanks), because I have't seen him since. Two months into a three month stay and I have two regular students. A total of maybe five two-hour lessons a week from paying students. Not a huge income.
And then there's the expenses. The dormitory said that it would triple its prices (normally sixty dollars a month) for July and I was debating whether to pay the jump in price or to spend just a little more and get an apartment of my own or a room in one somewhere. Only a few days into my deliberations there was another killing by the skinheads outside of the student dorms (for a total of two in my short time there); I moved into my apartment the next evening. It wasn't cheap at three hundred dollars a month, but it was available and much closer to the Metro station.
In response to these converging financial flukes, I've decided that I will not spend any more of my travel funds in Russia. I've cut myself off. What would I do in New York if I spent all my travel money in St. Petersburg? So, I will only spend what I make here, and, hopefully, have some money left over to get through Finland and Estonia. On a weekly wage of maybe fifty dollars this is a challenge.
I've (successfully) begged for free pizza from my friends who work at the local Italian restaurant, and scammed free chai at the student bar. We'll see how it goes, simply living life as it greets me.
Cold, hard, currency; ignore it at your peril. Because, even in places like Kathmandu, Bangkok and my current home-away-from-home, Saint-Petersburg, where the buying-power of the Rubble or Baht may be difficult to define at times, cash and coin is essential to even the craftiest person's survival.
In today's world this should be obvious, right? One shouldn't have to be standing on a street corner staring into their empty wallet to grasp this key concept of nearly every society in the world. But, sadly, and perhaps completely obvious by now, that's exactly what happened to me a little over a week ago.
On the first day I arrived in St. Petersburg, a confident cash manager and shrewd dealer, my personal finances were exactly where I had planned them (except for that unfortunate overage on my Russian visa.)
Now that I think about it, that visit to the Russian Embassy in Copenhagen was quite stereotypically Russian. When the steely visa agent discovered that I was not in fact Danish, but American, she let out an 'I'm going to enjoy this' kind of sigh and indulged in explaining to me that because I carry a US passport I must fill out three additional pages of forms and instead of the standard twenty dollars, it would cost me one hundred and twenty. Without taking a breath she looked directly at me and suggested that if I am unhappy about this I should find out how difficult it is to get a visa to the US. I chalked it up on the 'Russian in Denmark who knows that she can do whatever she wants with you because you need her two stamps and three signatures on your documents before you can enter her country' column. No worries, always happy to see the other side of the coin. More on the wonders of the Russian visa system another day.
After two months in Russia I look back on that experience and think of how lucky I was that I didn't have to bribe her with an additional twenty dollars just to make sure she didn't 'accidentally' misplace the application for a few weeks. But, then again, she was in Denmark, where that sort of thing probably doesn't fly as well as it does here.
Where was I? Ah, yes, no money. Now some of you may remember that I am teaching English here. It's true, I make some money at it, butI'm charging Russian rates. Beyond my few paying students, I'm teaching for free at a few social-justice organizations also. But, even in the best-case scenario, a beginning salary for an entry-level K-12 teacher in America would be at least triple what you could conceivably make here teaching English.
I had a bit of a wake up call when I arrived here because the place I wanted to teach English at was a complete slum run by a few unapologetically underhanded people. Forget the leafy and inviting pictures from their web site; they must have traveled hours from their 'building' to get those shots. After the first week I decided that I wouldn't go teach at an institution, but teach one-on-one instead. Many of my friends at that time expressed an interest personally or had friends that might be interested. At one time I had five students with about two or three lessons a week each at anywhere from five hundred rublesthousand Rubbles a lesson.
But that was then. The cute couple who wanted to work on listening and speaking before their trip to England are most likely practicing their English in an English pub now. The eccentric and unpredictable rich guy who had just mysteriously received US citizenship would throw around one thousand Rubble notes like candy. He knew next to no English at all. At one time he suggested continuing our lessons through until the end of December. After explaining that I would be traveling through the Netherlands, Italy, and many places in the US at that time, he interupted me, and with a smile he said, "Okay, Ya taksha!" (Okay, I am too!), like he thought a traveling English lesson would be just the thing for him. So funny. Can you imagine me wandering around Europe with a wealthy Russian running behind me complaining about the dust on his loafers? I don't think he appreciated my answer of, "Spaseeba, na nyeh spaseeba" (Thanks, but no thanks), because I have't seen him since. Two months into a three month stay and I have two regular students. A total of maybe five two-hour lessons a week from paying students. Not a huge income.
And then there's the expenses. The dormitory said that it would triple its prices (normally sixty dollars a month) for July and I was debating whether to pay the jump in price or to spend just a little more and get an apartment of my own or a room in one somewhere. Only a few days into my deliberations there was another killing by the skinheads outside of the student dorms (for a total of two in my short time there); I moved into my apartment the next evening. It wasn't cheap at three hundred dollars a month, but it was available and much closer to the Metro station.
In response to these converging financial flukes, I've decided that I will not spend any more of my travel funds in Russia. I've cut myself off. What would I do in New York if I spent all my travel money in St. Petersburg? So, I will only spend what I make here, and, hopefully, have some money left over to get through Finland and Estonia. On a weekly wage of maybe fifty dollars this is a challenge.
I've (successfully) begged for free pizza from my friends who work at the local Italian restaurant, and scammed free chai at the student bar. We'll see how it goes, simply living life as it greets me.
