Our excursions this week were to a museum and the opera, both really fun.
The museum was something like the Museum of Soviet Life. It was basically this room full of old stuff from the Soviet period; clothes, shoes, toys, etc. I played some really old games, and some people from our group sang and played the guitar. It was really interesting; by far my favorite museum in Kazan.
We were lucky enough to get tickets to the Opera on Friday; it’s the end of the summer season, so tickets are pretty hard to come by. Everyone got dressed up, and a bunch of us met before hand to have a semi-fancy dinner. Then we took a bunch of pictures before going in to the theater.
The theater was really pretty. Chandeliers, marble staircases, gold leaf, and so on. I had really nice seats; ground floor, 7th row, right in front of the stage. The opera was Turandot. The singing was in Italian, and the subtitles were in Russian, but I got the basic plotline from my friend so it mostly made sense. The singing was amazing though; really beautiful. I’ve never really been to an opera before, but this one was great. Quite an experience.
Culture Shock 