YA YKRAFTOVALA

UPDATE. JEREMY KRAFTOVAT POSTED LE VIDEO.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150090488773025&comments

BLAM!

The Jeremy Kraft Project

So there's this kid on my trip, Jeremy Kraft.

I'm going to go ahead and let the above phrase stand as its own sentence in order to help you understand the myth, the man, the american.

Jeremy Kraft is a 28 year old Russian Studies grad student at the University of Arizona and he's a delightful person to experience St. Petersburg with. Seriously, i would have it no other way. Jeremy Kraft (who must be called by his given and family name at all times) is the guy who's gonna get into a club for free, dance without embarrassment or self-censorship, hook up with a russian chick, and then buy everyone a free round (i've seen it, its awesome).

So the entire time we're in russia, he shot film for his "final project" which was most of our grade in one of the classes and we saw the final result last monday.

Now, i'm not entirely sure what i was expecting. Half the class thought it would be a really epic and well-edited interpretation of a sweeping russian classic, the other half had their money on a porno.

I can only describe the result as a quirky mix of the two. So he did his own take on White Nights (short story by Dostoyevsky about...like...the same stuff Russian Lit's always about, use your imagination) and he got some russian girl to be in it (Read as: why we thought it was going to be a porno) and it was waaaay to long, like the amount of time when nothing. fucking. happened. put Lost in Translation to shame.

But that's all well and good i suppose.

But it was shot in first person.

Yeah.

First person shooting is always a bit odd, but with the dialogue from white nights?!?

shit son.

So here's the scene -

Jeremy Kraft (not pictured, holding camera) as our protagonist walking around in a graveyard saying the following to the girl, who, by the way, is answering him IN RUSSIAN:

"Do you know what a dreamer is?"

"I'm a little shy around girls"

and, this, this is comedy gold:

"I'm a little bit of a freak"

...oh yeah Jeremy Kraft?

Anyway, i know he took it really seriously and put a ton of work into it, blabity blah, but the end effect was like, those commercials for girls gone wild that air at 2am. You know what i'm talking about, some guy holding on a camera is walking around at some party being like "Oh yeah baby, you a freak? why don't you show us your titties?"

and the next thing is like GIRLS GONE WILD, YOURS FOR $9.99 A MONTH.

And then the prof broke out the champagne and it was all good again.

Cussin' Russkii Style

If the Russians know how to do one thing, it's cook without any flavor. Seriously, they actively pursue the eradication of flavor (on a side note, georgian food has a ton of flavor...too soon?)

If they knowhow to do two it's banish flavor and curse in the most colorful, cutting, and visually evocative manner imaginable. As a special treat, our prof held a cursing class on the last morning. Here are some of my favs.

We say:

It's beyond useless.

They say: (the russian equivalent of)

It's like giving a drink to a cee-you-next-tuesday.

We say:

Bullshit

They say:

Stop talking from your snatch

And this, this is my absolute favorite,

We say:

Go fuck yourself.

They say:

Go take a flying leap and land on a dick.

colorful, evocative.

will TOTALLY get you bitch slapped if you use it in english.

...

still totally worth it

and the russian teacher is totally hitting on this kid nathaniel.

nope, that's about it.

FUCK...ITS ALL IN RUSSIAN

This may not shock you as much as it shocked me, but fucking EVERYTHING is in russian. like everything. They eat, sleep, and take cyrillic shits. I was not prepared. You seriously cannot be prepared for this after only a few months of interaction with slavic letters.

Example: i know how to say "My half brother wants to eat the sourcream covered fried potatos, thank you." (in fact, i think i might have said just that while trying to ask directions to the metro) but i can't for the life of me order a sangwich at subway (the arrows on the S and Y don't work out as well po-russkii)

It was terrifying. You try to distinguish between and pronounce your choice of three seeming identical breads while a russian is breathing down your neck to get to the chocolate cookies. it's totally intense.

in other news the white nights here are also crazy. it's as light at 11:30 pm as it is at 10am. i know this of course because i woke up after a nap at 6 one night at what i thought was 8:30 am, rushed to get a shower and get the hell out the door to class before 9:30. i got there without a minute to spare, but the door was locked. i called another girl in my class and the convo went sorta like this.

scratch that, exactly like this...

me: dude, do we have class today??
alyssa: you mean tomorrow?
me: uh, no, i mean RIGHT NOW
alyssa: ...it's 9:30 pm...

the soup for breakfast makes so much more sense now

Julia-ism of the Day

"Try to refrain from Joking. No jokes in a foreign language"

-Julia Titus, skeptical russian professor

UNDAHPANTS/OVERSHARE

So i'm out of clean clothes. Actually that's an understatement. 

I am so clean out of clean clothes i already wore my bikini bottoms and bought hipster undies from american apparel. 

But here i was, moved into my nice comfy (fairly, dare i say it, clean) house thinking that hey, i've gotta leave for russia tomorrow and laundry doesn't take that long so i'll just do it tonight.

DUMB THOUGHT. 

The heavyweight's dryer doesn't work.

Again, i know. I KNOW. I should be shocked and awed that a house full of guys even has a dryer, even knows what a dryer is. Still, i was less than happy dragging the bag of laundry to saybrook...in the rain. 

but the thought of clean undie-pants is there,

 man. it's there urging me to push on, the light ahead that draws me ever the closer. 

Seriously though.

 I never want to have to wear these things again...