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