Blogs from Russia, Europe - page 295

I woke up this morning feeling low. The last week has been hard with so many difficult feelings filling my head, and I took the day off lessons to try and think clearly again. When I got back to my flat from the post office at half past three my lap-top and mobile phone had been stolen. My phone wasn't on the kitchen table where I left it, and when I looked up my computer wasn't there either. A man walked out of the appartment as I was walking along the corridor - as I didn't know anything had been taken then I thought nothing of it. Stupidly it didn't occur to me to ask him who he was, or even notice what he looked like. If he wasn't stopped by the woman in reception it ... read more

I can't remember what Zhanna's lesson was about this morning. In the afternoon Aleksandr Ivanovich taught us translation, stopping for a while in the middle of the hour and a half to guess our star signs. My last piece of homework came back with a lot of red pen on it - there weren't so many grammar mistakes, but I need to learn the proper writing style and be more accurate in the meaning of the sentences I translate. It was a beautiful evening so I went for a walk on my own, through the empty market to ulitsa Radischeva and along Tverskoi Prospekt as far as the bridge, then home across ulitsa Trekhsvyatskaya. Just three weeks after I swapped my thick winter coat and scarf for a lighter jacket it is almost 'just jumper weather'. ... read more

Natasha, a girl who we met at the event on friday, invited myself and Michael to a café this evening. She is very modest and easy to talk to. It was sweet how she worried so much trying to find a kofeiniya that was comfortable enough for her guests! We met up with Sonia and Arianne from Switzerland and sat around a low table lit by lamps, drinking cocoa and eating ice-cream. Michael told the story of how he bought some new shoe laces earlier in the day. When he got to the front of the line in the shoe repair shop the lady asked him what type he wanted. He replied 'black ones'. But which length? He said that he wasn't sure, at which point the woman behind him barged in front and said to ... read more

The train journey from Exaterinburg to Irkutsk takes a full two days and by the end Nicola, Matt and I are bordering on cabin fever! However, Nicola and I are fortunate to have two more nice Russians in our cabin to accompany us. One is Anna, who is a middle-aged lady with a lovely smile, no English but excellent sign language. The other is Olga. She has limited spoken English but sits close to Nic on the bottom bunk and they seem perfectly able to swap basic wedding details and she explains that she is 24 and recently married to an army offcier. She borrows our guidebooks which intrigue her. We also meet Eva, an Italian communications student, and she joins Nic, Matt and I in the restaurant car as we pass the time reading and ... read more

Getting the train from St.Petersburg to Moscow gave us an insight to what our TransMongolian cabin would be like, and it's very claustrophobic! Four bunks crammed into a cabin, with a tiny table and window, it was great fun trying to converse with the local Russian lady who shared with us. We got picked up at the station by a driver for the hostel, in a beat up Lada car whose doors wouldn't open, then wouldn't close, and had to start by rolling. Brilliant! Blaring dodgy German 80s pop music while breaking red lights on our way, we got a great feel for Moscow. Did the usual sights, Red Square with St.Basils Cathedral, the Kremlin with the Armoury and Cathedral Square. One of the highlights was queuing to see Lenin's preserved body in the Lenin Mausoleum. ... read more