by Terri Dixon
Part XI
“One of the most courageous things you can do is identify yourself, know who you are, what you believe in and where you want to go.”
– Sheila Murray Bethel
I woke before my alarm that next morning. I was shocked given that it was eight hours earlier back home. I was certain that it was the excitement of the adventure. The first night in the dorm had been okay. I was surprised when I met our resident assistant. She was from India and her name was Anji. Somehow I thought that the people we would meet would all be from Russia, and so far I hadn’t met a single Russian.
After following directions to the student cafeteria, we got out the maps that Anji had given us and made our way to our first day of class. I couldn’t wait to get started. I was going to school in Russia. I was at Moscow State University. My life was just starting. “Tsars; Life, Myth and Legend” here I come.
When we found it, the classroom was more like something that I’d sat in during high school than what I pictured at Moscow State. I had this vision that our class would take place in one of the fancy auditorium styled rooms instead of a regular boring old classroom. The tables had white laminate tops and wheels on the bottom to move them around if necessary. They were the same kind that we had in most of the classrooms at Manchester College. I guessed I’d have to settle for the fact that the boring old classroom was in Moscow.
Tania and I found two seats next to each other and sat down. Each place at each table had a book. I hadn’t used a textbook in a while. Most of my classes were done with Chromebooks. I quickly decided that it would be fun to work with actual print material.
“It’s a textbook!” Tania exclaimed quietly. She giggled a little too.
“I think it will be fun,” I replied.
“Could be. I can’t remember the last time I had a print textbook in school. I hope I can remember how to turn the pages,” Tania giggled.
“You are so bad,” I said.
We were early for the class. It was hard to get used to the time. The fact that it was almost 8 am and it was still dark outside wasn’t making it any easier. It did finally look as though the sun might come up if the thick gray clouds would get out of the way. I had been warned that Russia in the winter time was cold, snowy and dark. I guess that the people who wrote that online knew what they were talking about.
Despite the dark and the cold and the fact that the textbook concept was a little outdated, I decided that it was going to be a great experience. I hadn’t flipped through a textbook in years, so I opened the book up while we waited on the other students and Dr. Zemecki to arrive and started to get a feel for the book.
I’d forgotten how cool it was to be able to leaf through a book at school. I flipped through and looked at a lot of the pictures. The book seemed to cover all the Tsars from Ivan through Nicholas II. It was going to be a great class. There were pictures of the palaces, the portraits of the Tsars, the robes, the cathedrals. I turned haphazardly to page 186. It was in the section about Catherine the Great. She was the Tsar that I was most curious about, because she was the one that I was named after. Stacie was short for Anastasia, which came as no surprise to me was the name of one of the daughters of the last Tsar, Nicholas II. Anastasia was my middle name though. Catherine is my first name, and I was never fond of it. That’s how I ended up being called Stacey. Stacey was the best nickname that anyone could come up with for Anastasia.
I was compelled to read that page, because it was about the time that Catherine’s troops conquered the Crimea. It had been late in the empress’ life when that had finally happened. It had been a goal of Russia for a long time, and she had been the one to finally make it happen. She’d managed to finish what Peter the Great had started so many years before. I smiled at the idea that maybe it took a woman to get the job done.
“Good morning!” Dr. Zemecki said as he entered the classroom with a messenger bag and a cup of Starbucks coffee. “I see we all found the room and the books. My apologies for using a textbook, but the material in this book is better than anything that I’ve found in digital sources. And, let's be honest. History doesn't change. Now, let’s see if everyone has made it. I think so looking around, but I’ll check.”
Dr. Zemecki rooted around in his bag for a minute while we all looked around the room at one another and got used to the view that we would be seeing for the next few weeks. Dr. Zemecki pulled a piece of paper out of his bag and looked at it.
“All righty then,” he began. “I hate doing roll calls, but I want to make sure I have the right people.” He put on glasses. “Abigail Archer of Florida State at Miami.”
Abigail answered and he continued down the list. It was a pretty big class of 22 people. Most of us were from the United States with some from India, UK, Australia, and New Zealand. We all came from English speaking countries. Apparently the fact that Tania and I spoke Russian didn’t matter at all. I sat and listened to all the names and where they all came from. It was a varied group, but all from out of the country. Still I had not met a single Russian.
“Tania Turin,” Dr. Zemecki called.
“Here,” Tania replied with a smile.
Dr. Zemecki smiled back at her, grinning from ear to ear. I definitely got the impression that he was interested in her. Wow, this could get weird.
“Catherine Zerbst,” Dr. Zemecki called.
“Here,” I said. I noticed Tania staring at me. “What?”
“I thought your name was Stacey.” Tania said.
“Anastasia is my middle name. That’s where Stacey comes from.”
“Catherine Anastasia Zerbst?”
“I know. I told you my family was Russia crazy.”
“I guess.” Tania went back to staring at Dr. Zemecki and shook her head.
I realized that Tania wasn’t the only one that perked up when they heard my name. There were a few students who turned around and looked at me. I hated my name. It was so dramatic and long. Throughout my life I had spent a lot of time wishing that my name had been Ann Marie or something else simple. I felt everyone’s eyes on me, or at least I thought I did. I didn’t want to look back at them staring at me, so I turned my attention back to the book.
I turned the page as I read about Catherine the Great and the Crimea. I was already hooked on this class. I was going to learn all about the people that my grandma had left out. I knew all about Brezhnev and Khrushchev and Stalin and Lenin and Gorbachev, but I didn’t know about the Tsars. This was going to be interesting.
There was a picture of Catherine the Great on page 187. It was as though I was meant to notice it. My hand landed right next to it as I turned the page. There it was. My ring was in the picture. Catherine the Great was wearing it. I stared at it for a moment. I compared the rings. It was small in the picture, but I was pretty sure it was the same. Why would my grandma have a ring that looked like one that belonged to Catherine the Great?
I didn’t think about what I was doing, but soon I realized that I had held my hand up and was looking at the ring. Then I looked back to the book. I did this a couple of times, wondering if there was some real connection or what. It had to be some fake that tourists bought. How else could my grandma have gotten it? The idea that it was a souvenir had occurred to me. That had to be it. They probably sold copies of the ring all over the country.
I realized that Dr. Zemecki had been talking the entire time that I was staring at the ring, and I had missed everything he said. Great, I would be behind already. I shook my head and looked at Dr. Zemecki to refocus and get into the class. When I looked up he was looking at me. It wasn’t the playful look that he kept shooting at Tania. It was a serious deep soulful stare and it was obviously meant for me. His gaze cut straight through to my soul and gave me a creepy shudder such as I had never felt before. With every word he uttered about the syllabus and tests, he remained locked on me. I was uncomfortable. Why was
he staring at me?
Fortunately, class was almost over. I didn’t realize that I had spent so much time staring at that picture in the book and thinking about how much it looked like the ring on my finger. Dr. Zemecki dismissed the class. Tania and I packed up our backpacks and I nearly ran for the door with Tania right behind me.
Dr. Zemecki met us at the door. “Stacey, can I talk to you for a moment?”
I stuck the hand with the ring on it into my coat pocket. “Sure,” I replied warily. I just wanted to run and I wasn’t even sure why.
Tania stood with me.
“Tania, you can go if you like,” Dr. Zemecki said.
“Is it okay if she stays?” I asked.
Dr. Zemecki didn’t answer. He motioned to both of us to go back into the classroom. We did and he followed. He shut the door when we were all in the room.
“So, what’s up?” I asked, trying not to hyperventilate. He made me so nervous.
“Stacey, how much do you already know about the Tsars?” he asked me.
“Not much,” I replied. “My grandma always talked about the Soviets. She always wanted to teach me more about the Tsars, but she died before she had a chance I guess.”
“So, you’re really here to learn about them,” Dr. Zemecki said. “You don’t know about any of this.”
“Any of what?” I asked. “I’ve seen and heard some weird stuff since I got here. It’s only been one day.”
“What kind of weird stuff?” he asked.
“Like the protesters at the airport. The airport that we were diverted to because of protests.”
“So?” he asked.
“So, those signs weren’t protesting anything,” I said, starting to get upset. “They said, ‘Welcome to Russia.’ Why did they say that?”
“I see,” Dr. Zemecki replied. He sat and stared at us for a moment, but didn’t answer my question. “What did you see in the book? You were staring at it for most of the class.”
“Just some interesting material,” I replied.
“What’s on your hand?” he asked.
I didn’t want to show him. I was starting to get scared.
“Can we go now?” I asked.
“I’m not trying to scare you, Stacey. I want to help. Please, show me your hand.”
“I believe him,” Tania said to me. “Go ahead and show him.”
“Fine,” I groaned.
I pulled my hand out of my pocket and showed the ring to Dr. Zemecki. He studied it for a moment before he spoke.
Dr. Zemecki took my hand and examined the ring. “Dear God, the stories are true.”
“What stories?” Tania asked.
“Catherine the Great had a ring. It was a gift from her last boyfriend, Grigory Zubov. She handed it down to her family. It disappeared during the revolution,” he told us.
“So what?” I asked, getting more upset.
“No one ever told you about the ring?” Dr. Zemecki asked.
“No,” I replied.
“Just before Catherine the Great died, she made a formal decree, and it’s never been rescinded. The direct line family member who holds the ring is the Tsar of all Russia,” he explained.
“But all the direct line Romanovs are dead,” Tania said.
“There are a lot of people who don’t believe that,” Dr. Zemecki said. “Besides, how did Catherine Anastasia Zerbst end up with The Ring of the Queen?”
“I have to call my mom,” I said.
I didn’t wait for a reply from either one of them. I ran out of the room. What Dr. Zemecki was saying couldn’t be true. That was the single craziest thing I’d ever heard. Maybe I shouldn’t have come to Russia.
The Ring of the Queen
