25 September 2004
Fellow Russia-trippers,
Here is the tentative schedule we have worked out so far with our contacts in Moscow, Irkutsk, and St. Petersburg. Of course, things can change, but our own expectation is that alterations to this plan will be minimal. In a couple places we ask for suggestions from you.
Where available, in the schedule below we have attached links to relevant English-language sites. A list of the sites follows at the end of the schedule.
July 7 Arrive in Moscow. We’ll be at the airport to pick you up. Try to arrange for
flights that arrive before 7 pm. Keep in mind that we still need visas to travel to Russia and your entrance visas will be dated for 7 July.
July 8 After breakfast: tour of the Kremlin and the Armory Museum. After lunch: time to recover from jet lag & to get to know each other better. Introduction to the trip subject matter. Evening bus tour of Moscow ending with champagne on the Sparrow Hills Overlook.
July 9 After breakfast: walking tour with Anna Dotlibova through Bulgakov’s Moscow, with a visit to the “No-good Apartment” (see Master & Margarita). After lunch: excursion through the Tretiakov Gallery of Russian Art or theater or circus.
July 10 After breakfast: free time to wander Moscow on your own or with one of the group’s guides along routes arranged to group-members’ interests. Late afternoon transfer to Sheremetovo-1 flight to Irkutsk.
July 11 Arrive in Irkutsk. Breakfast, rest after all-night flight (5 hour time difference with Moscow). Afternoon visit to the Sukachev House for introductory lecture on settlement of Irkutsk, local traditions. Optional: tour of Sukachev Art Museum. Evening tour of the Trubetskoi House-Decembrists’ Museum, concert of early 19th-c music from the salon of Decembrist wife Maria Volkonskaia. Later evening (for anyone with the energy): stroll along the Angara River.
July 12 After breakfast, depart for Listvianka. Excursion to the Tal’tsy open-air museum of wooden architecture; lecture on the ethnic composition of the Baikal region and Russian settlement of the territory. After-lunch tour of Russian Academy of Sciences Lake Baikal Limnological Museum & Aquarium. Overnight at “Breeze,” a privately owned B&B on Lake Baikal: home-cooked dinner, bonfire, Russian sauna. Opportunity to talk to local residents about life on the lake.
July 13 After breakfast, depart by boat for Olkhon island (7-8 hour boat excursion of the southern half of Lake Baikal, lunch along the way). Arrive at Khuzhir settlement, where we will spend two nights in wooden cabins w/outside facilities. Evening: dinner, campfire, Russian sauna.
July 14-15 Meet with 9th-generation hereditary shaman Valentin Khagdaev for lecture & question-answer session on shamanism and performance of traditional rituals. After-lunch tour (either by auto or boat) to “Sacred Sites of Olkhon Island.” Dinner. During one of these two days on Ol’khon we also hope to be able to offer the chance to go fishing and to swim in the lake.
July 16 After breakfast, return to Irkutsk by boat with lunch along the way. Following dinner in Irkutsk board overnight train to Ulan Ude, the capital of Buryatia. (The return boat trip offers us time for discussions of reading and what we’ve seen so far.)
July 17 Arrive in Ulan-Ude, breakfast at hotel. Bus to Ivolga Buddhist Monastery: tour and talk with monks. Local cuisine for lunch. After lunch we will either travel to the settlement of Atsagat to spend the rest of the day visiting another Buddhist datsan and spending time with a Buryat ranch family or view the East Baikal Region open-air ethnographic museum outside Ulan Ude.
July 18 After breakfast bus Old Believers in Tarbagatai: visit the cultural center, view & participate in performances of local rituals. Lunch with Old Believer families. Return to Ulan Ude. Free time, evening dinner with concert by local musicians. Overnight train back to Irkutsk.
July 19 Fly to St. Petersburg. Free time, late-evening walks along the Neva Embankment (catch the end of White Nights).
July 20 After breakfast: tour of highlights of the Hermitage Museum (those who want are also free to wander the museum on their own). After lunch: bus tour of St. Petersburg, including the St. Peter-Paul Fortress, where the last Romanovs are now interred. Free time. Evening canal tour of St. Petersburg.*
July 21 After breakfast: walking tour of literary St. Petersburg (esp. Gogol, Dostoevsky). After lunch: Russian Museum & Yusupov Palace. Theater tickets, if available.*
July 22 After breakfast: bus trip to St. Petersburg suburbs: either to Peterhof (palace & fountains) or Pushkin [Tsarskoe selo] (Catherine Palace with its Amber Room) and Pavlovsk), by consensus of group: or if we get up really early and aren’t concerned about seeing inside the Peterhof Palace, we do Pushkin before lunch and arrive in Peterhof to stroll the gardens and see the fountains afterwards
· Whenever possible, we will try to get tickets for performances, but in July most theaters are not open at all. When needed, we may shift evening activities to accommodate theater performances.
Russia 2005 Trip: “Double Faith”
Sources for encounters along our travels: the long list
When available on–line we have provided links. (Translations on-line are not always the most readable, so print sources also are cited.) None of this is required; all of it is interesting. At this point we know for sure that we’re including in the list:
PRIMARY SOURCES
Hagiography & Fairy Tales
Holy Fools,” “St. Basil, Holy Fool,” “The Lives of Blessed Peter and Fevronia,” and Russian fairytales: “Sister Alyonushka and Brother Ivanushka”; “Vasilissa the Beautiful”; "Firebird"
19th-Century Russian Literature in Translation
Pushkin, Aleksandr. The Bronze Horseman (alternative translation: Bronze Horseman)
*Gogol’, Nikolai. “The Nose” and “The Overcoat” in The Overcoat, and Other Tales of Good and Evil. Translated w/ introd. David Magarshack. NY : Norton, 1965, c1957.
Dostoevsky, Fedor. The Double. Trans. Constance Garnett. [on-line].
Idem. Notes from the Underground. Trans. Constance Garnett. [on-line]
Idem. Notes from Underground. The Double. Trans. w/ intro. Jessie Coulson. Harmondsworth, Eng., Baltimore: Penguin Books [1973, c1972].
20th-Century Russian Literature in Translation
Bulgakov, Mikhail. The Master and Margarita. Trans. Diana Burgin & Katherine Tiernan O’Connor. Notes & Aftwd. Ellendea Proffer. Dana Point, CA : Ardis, c1995.
Erofeev, Veniamin. Moscow to the End of the Line [From Moscow to Petushki.] Trans. H. William Tjalsma. Evanston, IL: Northwestern U P, 1994.
Baikal & Buryatia Legend Sources
Zheleznova, Irina L'vovna. A Mountain of Gems : Fairy Tales of the Peoples of the Soviet Land. NL: Fredonia Books, 2003.
http://www.culturecenternorthernasia.org/pages/MAP.htm
http://www.buryatmongol.com/mythology.html
http://www.berzinarchives.com/kalachakra/exploitation_shambala_legend_mongolia.html
Visual Art, Film,
Aletti, Monica, et al. Shamanism a Universal Science. videorecording. Films for the Humanities, Princeton, NJ, 2003. BL2370.S5 S53 2003
Allione, Costanzo. Nadia Stepanova, Buryatian Shaman. Where Eagles Fly: Portraits of Women of Power. New York: Mystic Fire Video, 1995. 299.785
Billington, James. PBS Special & Website: Faces of Russia, 3 pts. Especially pt. 1: The Face in the Fire. Companion Book: Billington, James. The Face of Russia. NY: Harper Collins, 1998
---, Mystic Fire Video Inc., and Fox Lorber Associates. Moon Heart the Magical World of Tuvinian Shamans. videorecording. Mystic Fire Video : Distributed by Fox Lorber Associates, New York, NY, 1997
Ptashchenko, Vladimir. The Hermitage: A Journey in Time and Space. St. Petersburg: Studio Master Video, 2004. [There are two versions of this film available: one 60 minutes (NTSC-US standard), the other 90 minutes (PAL-standard).]
Sokurov, Aleksandr. The Russian Ark. St. Petersburg: Lenfilm Studios, 2002.
Secondary Sources
Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam. Shamanism. Sharpe, 1990. BL2370.S5 291.62
---. The Semiotics of Self, Gender, and Spirits. Anthropology & Archeology of Eurasia ; V. 32, No. 2. Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 1993.
---. Shamanic Worlds : Rituals and Lore of Siberia and Central Asia. Armonk, NY: North Castle Books, 1997. BL2370.S5 L35 1997 Also available as: Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam, and NetLibrary Inc. Shamanic Worlds Rituals and Lore of Siberia and Central Asia. 1997. http://www.netLibrary.com/urlapi.asp?action=summary&v=1&bookid=24553
Billington, James. The Icon and the Axe: An Interpretive History of Russian Culture. NY: Vintage Books, 1970. Esp. pp. 16-43.
Blain, Jenny. Nine Worlds of Seid-Magic : Ecstasy and Neo-Shamanism in Northern European Paganism. London ; New York: Routledge, 2002. BF1622.S34 B57 2002 293
Chilson, Clark, and Peter Knecht. Shamans in Asia. London ; New York: Routledge-Curzon, 2003. BL1033 .S43 2003 291.1/44/095
Forsyth, James. A History of the Peoples of Siberia : Russia's North Asian Colony, 1581-1990. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992. DK758 .F67 1992
Geraci, Robert P., and Michael Khodarkovsky. Of Religion and Empire : Missions, Conversion, and Tolerance in Tsarist Russia. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001. BL980.R8 O36 2001
Gray, Andrew. The Last Shaman--Change in an Amazonian Community. Providence, R.I.: Berghahn Books, 1997. F3430.1.M38 G75 1996 v. 2
Harvey, Graham. Shamanism : A Reader. London ; New York: Routledge, 2003. GN475.8 .S44 2003
Hudgins, Sharon. The Other Side of Russia : A Slice of Life in Siberia and the Russian Far East. 1st ed. ed. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2003. DK756.2 .H83 2003
Hutton, Ronald. Shamans : Siberian Spirituality and the Western Imagination. London: Hambledon and London, 2001. BL2370.S5 .H87 2001 291.144
Kan, Sergei. “The Orthodox Church, Lamaism, and Shamanism among the Buriats and Kalmyks, 1825-1925.” In Of religion and empire: Missions, Conversion, and Tolerance in Tsarist Russia. Ed. by Robert P. Geraci and Michael Khodarkovsky. Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2001.
Kaplan, Jeffrey, and Heléne Lööw. The Cultic Milieu: Oppositional Subcultures in an Age of Globalization. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press, 2002. BP603 .C835 2002
Kelly, Catriona. “Popular Culture.” In Rzhevsky, N. (ed). The Cambridge Companion to Modern Russian Culture. NY, Cambridge: Cambridge U P, 1999. Pp. ???.
Levin, Eve. "Dvoeverie and Popular Religion." In Stephen Batalden, ed. Seeking God: The Recovery of Religious Identity in Orthodox Russia, Ukraine, and Georgia. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 1993. Pp. 31-33.
Lewis, I. M., and NetLibrary Inc. Ecstatic Religion a Study of Shamanism and Spirit Possession. Netlibrary. 3rd ed. ed. London ; New York: Routledge, 2003.
Massie, Suzanne. Land of the Firebird : the Beauty of Old Russia. NY: Simon and Schuster, c1980. [Especially chapters 12, “The Old and True Ways”; 17, “The Babylon of the Snows”; 21, “Ice Slides and Easter Eggs: Russia Celebrates”]
---. Pavlovsk : The Life of a Russian Palace. Blue Hill, ME: Hearttree Press, 1990.
Matthiessen, Peter, and Boyd Norton. Baikal : Sacred Sea of Siberia. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1992. DK771.B3 M386 1992
Mote, Victor L. Siberia : Worlds Apart. Westview Series on the Post-Soviet Republics. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998. DK761 .M68 1998
Peskov, V. (Vasiliĭ). Lost in the Taiga : One Russian Family's Fifty-Year Struggle for Survival and Religious Freedom in the Siberian Wilderness. Trans. Marian Schwartz. NY: Doubleday, 1994. (stockpiled for group in Moscow)
Reid, Anna. The Shaman's Coat : A Native History of Siberia. New York: Walker & Company, 2003. DK758 .R45 2003
Steeves, Paul D. The Modern Encyclopedia of Religions in Russia and the Soviet Union. Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press, 1988. BL940.S65 M63 1988
Thomas, Nicholas, and Caroline Humphrey. Shamanism, History, and the State. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994. GN470.2 .S53 1994
Thompson, Ewa M. Understanding Russia : The Holy Fool in Russian Culture. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1987. BX485 .T45 1987 305/.9219/0947
---. Imperial Knowledge : Russian Literature and Colonialism. Contributions to the Study of World Literature, No. 99. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2000. PG3011 .T447 2000
Thubron, Colin. In Siberia. 1st U.S. ed. ed. New York: HarperCollins, 1999. DK756.2 .T48 1999
Weiss, Peg, and Wassily Kandinsky. Kandinsky and Old Russia : The Artist as Ethnographer and Shaman. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995. ND699.K3 W42 1995