Bloke on the water.

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My alarm was set for 8 to allow for a lie-in before the day started. I kept pressing the snooze button every ten minutes for two hours, so exhausted after yesterday that even my thin mattress on top of wooden boards felt cosy.

When I eventually lifted myself up and went to the bathroom for a shower I arrived at the first problem of my stay. Our tap water is stagnant; by the time the scum from the tank had run through all I was doing was washing the foul smelling water off my skin with slightly cleaner stuff. I will have to keep my eyes and mouth tightly closed from now on. Cooking, making coffee, even brushing my teeth will need to be done using bottled water.

Myself Tamzin and Michael went for a walk around Tver at 10. The international hostel, obshezhitie, is a cream building in a corner of the university courtyard. The university itself is in the centre; a larger, mint green building with icicles hanging from the window sills and where the paint is crumbling in parts. Тверской Государственный Университет has been chiselled above the entrance in an ornate white script. The courtyard is very picturesque.

Ulitsa Trekhsvyatskaya (Tr'yokh-svyàts-ka-ya) seems to be the centre of our part of town. We walked along it towards the river as far as Ploschad' Lenina. In the square stands the statue of Lenin, left hand clutching the lapel of his jacket and a scroll in his right.

It's still bitingly cold; the river Volga is frozen over and covered in snow. We crossed the bridge to the other side of town, then on the way back myself and Tamzin followed the footprints down the bank and across the frozen river. If I had thought to bring a fishing rod I could have joined the fisherman, sitting alone in the centre of the ice, patiently peering into the hole at his feet.

We warmed up at Café Ryba, and watched a long distance skiing race on the television in the corner as we drank our arabic coffees. As I tried to pay the 160 rouble bill I was sternly told off by the waitress for offering her two one hundred rouble notes. What was I expecting, change? The underground restaurant where we had lunch was called Kasablanka and had fish tanks on three walls. The thought came to me that maybe the two places could swap names.

At about 4 we walked back to the obschezhitie along ulitsa Trekhsvyàtskaya. At the opposite end is a modern shopping centre - Olimp - with a supermarket on the ground floor. It has borrowed Coldplay's 'Trouble' for its' jingle, a hint to how european the mall is. Foods that barely exist in Yaroslavl such as pasta and pizza have their own aisles. There is also a well-stocked Yarpivo freezer!

I'm comfortable here already; my Russian is good and feels relaxed when I speak, and the people of Tver haven't react badly so far to a trace of an accent. The low buildings and small shops give the town a slightly more quiet atmosphere than Yaroslavl although I miss the grandeur of the churches. I stayed up until very late in my kitchen drinking coffee, talking about the world with Michael until he went to bed, then listening to the radio.

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Photos

Ulitsa Trekhsvyatskaya.
A quiet street between the university and the river, where the local market is at weekends.

Ulitsa Trekhsvyatskaya.
And a beautiful Tver building.