The Lie-in, the Witch and the Bathtub.

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This is my first diary for a fortnight, because on the night that my last one was published I suffered concussion while Ana and I were moving to a new flat, and since then I have been too ill to write.

At 4 the next morning we finally arrived at Jared's apartment in Livoberezhna. I was told by a traumotologist to rest in bed for the next ten days and to sleep as much as possible, but a sequence of events led to Ana being put in prison for a night, and a woman planning to kill us. Since then it has been hard to close my eyes at all.

My next two diaries will explain everything, but they need time and energy to be written properly.

Three days of peace gave me some time to think about where else I have stayed during my travels through the Russian-speaking world. To check my memory after the concussion I scribbled a list of all the places where I have slept since my travels began in September 2005. It is a 'stop-gap' until I'm ready to put the last two weeks into words.


Places where I have spent the night during my travels, so far:

• Prospekt Tolbukhina, Yaroslavl, Russia, with an old woman who cut my towel into pieces and once fed me cat food. (4 months)
  
  
• Ana's friend Lena's flat in Nagornaya, south-west Moscow.
  
  
• Ana's auntie Sveta's flat on the 23rd floor of a housing block in Moscow.
  
  
• A hotel room in Nagornaya.
  
  
• Ulitsa Bolshaya Oktyabrskaya, Yaroslavl, with a woman who tried to cleanse me of evil spirits, slept in a bed full of empty vodka bottles, and who once locked me in the dark. (a month)
  
  
• "Yartek" language school, Ulitsa Nekrasova, Yaroslavl, once on a classroom sofa and once on a desk.
  
  
• A hotel room at Hotel Fatima, Kazan, Tatarstan. (2 separate weeks)
  
  
• The floor of a yellow minibus driven by a Tatar witchdoctor.
  
  
• A hotel room in Moscow with six friends, Christmas 2005.
  
  
• On bunk beds of dozens of sleeper trains.
  
  
• The same bed as a man called Sergei, Kyiv, Ukraine.
  
  
• A chair in Ana's auntie's flat in Lugansk, Ukraine until her cat licked me awake.
  
  
• A hotel room in Lugansk.
  
  
• A fold-out sofa at Ana's parents house in Popasnaya, Luganskaya oblast', Ukraine.
  
  
• The youth hostel at Tver State University, Tver, Russia. (3 months)
  
  
• An 'international house of friendship', Yaroslavl.
  
  
• A flat on Ulitsa Butlerova, Kazan with some Finnish friends. (a week)
  
  
• The corner of my friend Helen's bed on Tsvetnoi Bulvar, Moscow.
  
  
• The floor of an internet cafe at a 5 star hotel in Moscow.
  
  
• The bathtub of a hotel in Kyiv after my 21st birthday.
  
  
• A beautiful apartment on Vulitsya Pushkinska, Kyiv. (a week)
  
  
• The apartment of an African diplomat, Vulitsya Shota Rustaveli, Kyiv. (a week)
  
  
• With an acquaintance of Ana's parents on Prospekt Radyanskoi Ukrainy, Vinohradar, Kyiv. (6 weeks)
  
  
• A sofa in the home of two American missionaries and Puppy the cat (where I'm still supposed to be doing nothing apart from rest) Livoberezhna, Kyiv. (2 weeks and counting...)

Next diary: Diary of a Madwoman.

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