In the literature lesson today we talked about Gogol's 'Shinel', and after the break read through a piece of paper about essay-writing technique. I will always be a lazy student, and spending evenings doing essays is one thing I cannot stand. After classes I asked Lyudmila Giorgevna if four of us could be excused from lessons tomorrow. Maybe another weekend road trip will shake some of the lethargy away - we have found a town, but have no idea where we will be staying while we are there. Some of Yulia's friends came to visit this evening. Vitalii knew everything about [View Full Entry]

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There is no word in the Russian language for 'privacy'. It's surprising considering the closed nature of people while they are outside, but the idea of tact doesn't really exist in a personal context. I was having a casual breakfast this morning - breaking off the last square of Babaevskii chocolate and singing along to the latest Russian pop song that is in my head all the time - when a small old woman with teeth missing appeared in my appartment. I suppose she is one of the obshezhitie administrators. She was in the kitchen almost before I heard the knock [View Full Entry]

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Another quiet, and perhaps slow, day. Tuuli and Jonathan became Oksana and Aleksei for the first lesson. We sat at the front of the classroom in our roles as pretend television researchers and asked the class our questions. In fact I have been thinking about looking for a job somewhere in the Moscow media when I return to Russia. At lunchtime the unknown woman was still listening in, as I talked to Natalia from the obshezhitie reception phone. She said "allo?" a few times again - didn't answer me as I said "allo" back - then there were some loud clicks [View Full Entry]

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Lyudmila Giorgevna taught us this morning. We went to a different room to watch the news for half an hour, then talked about our newspaper articles for the rest of the lesson. Karin and Linda are back from their trip to Lithuania. On the way the militsiya threw them out of the train in the middle of Belarus for not having the right type of visa. Not even Linda's 20 euro bribe saved them, they had to be driven to Minsk to register before they could cross the border and arrived in Vilnius a day late. A funny story to look [View Full Entry]

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I had more luck at the market this afternoon without Yulia to distract me. On the street it was much colder than yesterday, and there was a strong wind blowing wet snow into my face. The sky has turned dark grey again which makes everything seem more unhappy. I turned right at the end of the rows of tables and stalls, into one of the parts of the market that is just for clothes. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a black corduroy coat with a wool trim, and asked the man in the stall if I could [View Full Entry]

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Yulia took me to the market at lunchtime to help me find a spring coat, now that the temperature is steadily just above zero. We walked around for an hour, yet none of the thousands of items of clothing caught my eye. In the clothes section there was a row of tents on both sides of the road, with everything from children's waterproof sports' jackets and woolly hats to ladies' fur coats. Yulia's eyes lit up when she found the jewellery tables, with dozens of beautiful necklaces and earrings. An afternoon at the market doesn't isn't all about shopping for her, [View Full Entry]

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Our friday excursion this week was something slightly different. We walked in double file half an hour from the obshezhitie, to the Z.A.O-Hleb bread factory on ulitsa Chaikovskovo. Industry is a huge business in Russia; every type of juice, milk, meat or bread that is not imported arrives in supermarkets from factories in little-known industrial towns, many in Siberia and to the east. First we went upstairs to leave our coats and bags, and to get kitted out for the trip to the factory floor. No blue plastic-bag shoes were needed this week, but each of us was handed a light [View Full Entry]

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Three hours of Zhanna today, so at 2 o'clock when lesssons finished my mood was awful. I sit like a statue in her classes, not saying much. The very best thing about being in Russia is feeling so tiny next to the greatness of the country, but feeling small in a classroom is a different matter. I went for a walk with Yenu, Christa, Anna-Maria, Haidie, Tuuli and Maya after classes to clear my head. The temperature on the street is quite a few degrees above zero so I was sweating in my winter coat. The Volga has started to thaw; [View Full Entry]

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Aleksandr Ivanovich taught us this afternoon. I'm not looking to become a translator - why spend days huddled over a book and a dictionary when there in Rossiya outside your window? - but it's obvious that I will get nowhere without at least some of the skills, and his lessons have the best structure to them. With all the snow turning into puddles in front of my eyes it's impossible even to walk to the end of ulitsa Zhelyabova without getting my trousers wet up to the knees. I ran out of clean clothes today, so I had to go to [View Full Entry]

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My season-sickness had died down to to a head cold this morning, so I was well enough to go to classes. Zhanna talked with us about hobbies and how we spend our free time. I realised at some point in the middle of the lesson, that when I taught little Anya in Yaroslavl I spoke to her at the same level as Zhanna does to a class of people in their twenties. In the break Natalia called the hostel reception telephone from Moscow, for her weekly Tver 'check-up'. As we were talking a lady entered the conversation, I have no idea [View Full Entry]

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