let's try to catch up

I think I left off with the Dagestani dances and Russia day.



Cast your minds back two weeks or so. Josef and I met at Red Square, or as close to Red Square as we could get. The whole thing was barricaded by the Red Army, basically. We had heard that there were going to be fireworks, so we stuck around and amused ourselves by thinking of all the ways we could sneak into Red Square. I think our best idea was to kidnap some of the babushka-janitors and hijack their reflective vests, brooms, and dustpans and just march right in there.



We didn't put any of our plans into action, considering the thin ice on which we are treading by just being американцы in the Russian Federation. Instead we wandered a ways away from the military blockade towards a fountain that we thought might look cool at night. As we got closer to the fountain, we saw a small mob of people cheering, whistling, yelling and clapping their hands with all their might.

Sorry the video is a little dark. But it was some of the gnarliest dancing I've ever seen. It was like the part in Strictly Ballroom when Fran's dad goes crazy in the ghetto and dances it up. A little bit after this video a bunch of them all ran into the center of the circle and got crazy, and right then the fireworks went off.

The whole experience only intensified my interest in the region to the east of the Black Sea and the west of the Caspian Sea, what connects the mass of Russia in the north to Turkey and Iran in the south-- the Caucuses. The people dancing here were from Dagestan, a small republic within the Russian Federation right next to Chechnya. I think the whole area is fascinating-- Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and TONS of other ethnicities clustered in the southern bit of Russia. The people are musical and their dances are awesome. I want to go there some day.