Reading Week Fun 10.11.13

Today marks 10 weeks of being in Russia, having just had our reading week, with only another 6 to go. Time is flying, but fun is being had. Of course we took this week to disperse around the Motherland hitting Kazan, Moscow, St.Petersburg and Novgorod between us.


Because I'm spending next semester in St.Petes, I decided to join Olivia, Sophia, Amy, Jenny and Ally in Moscow on Wednesday morning after one hell of an experience that my first journey on a sleeper train was.


It started off with me standing in the rain at the train station trying to figure out where to go. Once I finally plucked up the courage to ask one of the guards, I was directed to walk over the tracks and in between a couple of trains to a platform further away. Then I had to queue to get on the train along with other passengers and people waiting to wave to the departing train. Once your friend/mother/daughter is on the train you should move away and make room for others, the train most certainly doesn't need to be waved at. But alas, they waited anyway and I pushed my way through and handed my ticket and passport over to the attendant. I'd been severely mis-informed that the attendants are nice, but this one was horrendous. She yelled двадцать at me at least двадцать times and I thought she was talking about a different carriage so I started to walk away only to have двадцать yelled at me again until I got on the carriage. Turns out that this was my seat number; I'd been looking at the train number as my seat. As I boarded the 100 degree heated train I wandered up and down the aisle a couple times until showing someone my ticket and doing my "please pity me and show me where my seat is" face. I'd chosen a kind gentleman at the end of the corridor who even offered up some English and chose this moment where I was sweating my brains out and stressing that I was on the wrong train, to practice his English with me. I was next to some babushka who kept me filled up with lemon/limey sweets and the problem of etiquete approached. Am I allowed to sit on her bed until it's a reasonable bed time. How do I get up onto my bed? Will she be awake in the morning for my to get my case from under her chair? How do I make my bed? Where are the toilets? Why did I already eat all my food? Why is she knitting socks with 6 needles?


Luckily there was no time to think about these problems as my new friend, Yurai, came back to speak to me. And by speak, I mean that he very kindly made my bed and did a rendition of Don't Worry, Be Happy for my oh-so troubled soul. Then he called me his English girlfriend and assured me that I'd get his phone number in the morning. Oh and would I like to go back to his sleeping quarters with him. I played along, saying I'd love to get his number until he'd made my bed and then feigned utmost interest in my sudoku book. He's 41, from Petrozavodsk, but lives in Moscow as a grinder. Either that or he wants to grind me. I snuggled closer to my newfound babushka friend for support from unwanted advances to the foreigner. He left me alone for a bit, but returned after a stop smelling of alcohol and offering me magic "tea" and "coffee," whilst asking me if I had ANY questions, ANY questions, ANY questions. I assured him I had none and quickly escaped up to my bunk. Worst decision potentially ever. I lost my phone in the delves of my backpack and on the top bunk there's no room to sit up. Or move. So I'm freaking out, messing up my nicely made bed, unable to get down. Hating life. It's also really high and bumpy. Yurai returned one final time to tuck me in, and that was the last I heard from him until he ventured over, hungover, in the morning to force upon me his mobile number, e-mail address, full name, and promise of a future encounter in this "small, small world."


When I arrived I somehow managed to navigate my way to the correct train station. A taxi driver tried to offer me a £20 fare for 2 metro stops that cost 60p. I gave him some Russki sass in return. The hostel we were staying at was basically an apartment that some guy's put in a whole bunch of bunk beds. No signs, no nothing. Impossible to find. It was called "Nomad" and rather nice apart from the lack of signage. Not too busy.After getting a little settled in we ventured out to the Red Square/Kremlin region to meet Maddy who had a day-layover in Moscow.

St. Basil's Cathedral

Red Square fun

Turns out they close Red Square for a day to reposition their cavalry randomly, and places like seeing Lenin is only open certain days on certain times so it definitely would have been a good idea to make sure of all this well in advance for better planning, but we didn't seem to have too much bad luck. Everywhere is cheaper with a student card so it was only £2 to get into St.Basil's Cathedral, £2 for the Kremlin and £3 for the Pushkin Museum of Arts.


St.Basil's is really cool. You can stand and look out onto Red Square and make stupid faces that will be in countless tourist's photos if they zoom in enough. We did this for a couple of minutes until we realised that the windows are tinted so no-one can see what stupid things you're doing inside. Probably for the best.
The Kremlin is a massive grounds and you can venture into the various cathedrals or pay more and see exhibitions of some sort. Of course they've employed police and guards to cover every square inch of the place so we were very well-behaved.

The view from inside of St.Basil's

Cathedrals inside the Kremlin grounds

Kremlin canon

All the Kremlin canons

This guy was guarding this pedestrian crossing in case people forgot how to cross the empty road

GUM is also really nice. It's a shopping centre right off Red Square. The only problem being how high class it is. I've never felt such a feeling of non-belonging. It's all high class shops, mostly Western but even more expensive than they are back home. There was an amazing shop dedicated to Sochi with everything imaginable printed with the Olympic logo. If you have £28 for a pair of gloves that is.

Sochi luggage for the skier within you

Hipster bikes lined up, not for sale, don't touch, just look and be amazed by our culture

The Pushkin Museum of Arts is astounding if you don't look at the signs. It was befuzzling how Russia had come across so many statues in their Greek collection, only to discover that it was all plaster casts. Not impressed. They make up for it by having real mummys in the Ancient Egypt bit and a whole floor full of art and fashion. It was odd. We went upstairs for some old Italian paintings to be met by manikins dressed in some exquisite dresses. Weirdly they were from 12/13 collections so what they were doing in a museum was oddly curious, but I'm a sucker for a bedazzled ball gown so no complaints.

Scaaaary mummy

Ally looking all artsy and educated

This was fake

This was fake (and of a curious nature)

This was also fake

Fakeness

You get the picture

Pushkin Museum of Fakeness, I mean arts

Another place worth visiting was the Arbat street. It's lit up with cute, fake lamps at night and chock-full of tourist shops. I was surprised that there weren't as many as I originally thought there to be by Red Square as that tends to be the focal point for tourists. The Arbat most certainly hit the spot though and I spent a fair bit on useless memorabilia for la famille et les copains. The only thing they lacked in was stuffed bears saying "I love Moscow" or something similar on; normally a must-have for tourists/5-year-olds. We walked up and down that street a thousand times trying to gauge prices and strike a good deal. So much so that one lady got far too excited that she'd seen us in her shop already that week.

OMG I look as scarier than the bear in its ridiculous get-up

Arbat

 Our hostel was pretty good in the form of some weirdos, but not too many creeps, apart from Kesha who we met on Thursday night. He pipes up into our conversation stating that he's not Korean, but he is from Siberia. He wasn't. Clearly having more trouble with holding a Russian convo than we were. Of course when he said his name was Kesha I had to sing tik-tok, and get it up on my kindle, and taunt him mercilessly. He protested and got his revenge for our taunting by poking Olivia while she was trying to get to sleep. I forget that bullying of strangers isn't good when you have to sleep in the same room as them. At least he wasn't sleeping on my bottom bunk. Poor Olivia. Not soz. He wasn't particularly the sharpest tool in the box. We easily got him to believe that Olivia is Italian, despite her protesting, and that Amy studies at Hogwarts. Not only did he believe that she is in Ravenclaw, but that she IS Ravenclaw. Maybe the whole Harry Potter concept is lost on him but I almost fell off my bed from laughing so hard. Lies. I definitely fell off Ally's bed from hysterics.

Overall it was a great week and I got a bottom bunk on the sleeper back which eliminated all my issues by the sheer level of comfort and access to table space. In the 5 days I've been gone, daylight has disappeared for all but a few hours of the day. It was still dark outside until 9:30 and I'm presuming night will return by about half 4. Naturally we're all very deficient in vitamin D by now.


For the next 6 weeks we have a different timetable with some oral lessons being replaced by a Russian news lesson of some sort and the vegetarians are taking a stand against the usual lunchtime eatery. Choice of food there is cheesy toast, draniki (fried potato cake) or pizza. Sigmund Freud is a must if you ever find yourself in Petrozavodsk as a veggie. They have a whole page dedicated to no meat and a calming atmosphere. Of course, by calming atmosphere, I mean that it's pitch black, less for a few lamps, so you can't see a thing and hence fall asleep.

Lenin library where pigeons flock to sit outside every day

Museum of the house where Gorky lived

Puuurettttyyyy