Blogs from Russia, Europe - page 296

Well, moscow is deffinately very different than Saint Petersburg. We had a great time exploring the Kremlin. in one of the museums, i met a businessman from Vladivostock (near Japan) who was describing the differences between moscow and vladivostock. it was interesting to listen to a russian's opinion of the differences in cultural areas (very similar to the differences in different parts of the US). we went to a cathedral where i also met a young russian named Vladmir, who gave me his number and a cassette of russian church music to remember him by. i have yet to meet an american man who was so sweet andfawning- keep that in mind, boys!! ;) we also took a tour around sergeiv passat. this is an active orthodox monestary where we got a private tour of the ... read more

We discovered that a night out in Riga is not a good idea, if you are facing a 14hour journey to St.Petersburg the following day. Especially not when you have to face dour Russian guards and the Russian border control at midnight that same evening who have no English, and throw random forms at you to fill in, which are completely in Russian. Thankfully, a very helpful Russian man who had been on the bus with us managed to translate for us, and we somehow managed to make it through without being arrested or deported back to Ireland. He even went out of his way to bring us to the correct metro station for our hostel (which wasn't on his way) and came out of the station to point us in the right direction. Blessed, we ... read more

The second university 'event' started in the building opposite the obshezhitie at 2.15. I sat at a table with four students from the history department, another boy called Roma and three girls. They were much easier to talk to than the students from the last party and we got on really well. The scripts that the presenters read out made quite a few people laugh. They turned Zhanna's patronising text into a parody, especially the part when Michael pretended to be ill from fear of being in Russia. The way Yenu fussed over him while he resisted her help defensively was just like a scene from 'Sasha and Masha', a sunday evening comedy on channel one. Each group of students spoke about their own country and taught the rest of the room their national song. When ... read more

We talked about Gogol's 'Revizor' in the literature lesson, and read a page about essay-writing techique in the afternoon. Ulitsa Trekhsvyatskaya is thawing so much that the middle part of the road is a river. The weather is warmer - plus 6 today - but it is dark all the time because of low grey clouds. A heap of snow the size of a car tyre crashed to the ground from the roof of a building twenty yards in front of me near bar Kalinin - I count myself extremely lucky that I bumped into Tamzin in reception before leaving the obshezhitie and chatted to her for a few seconds. There are a group of Uzbek gypsies that gather where Trekhsvyatskaya meets ulitsa Radischeva. The men have black beards and wear scruffy suit trousers and leather ... read more

...and I feel fine! Hey ihr daheim! Ich bin endlich angekommen. Auf dem (ersten) Ziel meiner Reise. In Vladivostok. Nachdem ich vor einigen Tagen in Novosibirsk los bin, habe ich nach ca. 35 Stunden in Irkutsk einen kurzen Zwischenstopp gemacht, bin zum Baikalsee und dann weiter nach Vladivostok. Aber ich habe ein wenig die Reiseumstaende verbessert. Ich bin naemlich mit einem extraschnellen Zug gefahren und habe auch noch die Variante ueber der schlechtesten genommen. Also nicht mehr in diesem Waggon mit 60 anderen meist Betrunkenen, sondern in einem Abteil fuer vier Personen. Weiterhin hat die Reise auch nur knappe 80 Stunden gedauert. Also, alles in Ordnung. Nun was kann man sagen ueber so eine Zugfahrt. Es ist langweilig. Man befindet sich staendig in einem Zustand zwischen wach und Schlaf. Man liegt quasi die ganze Zeit. Der ... read more