Out with the old.

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Another sunday, another minibus journey. But this one was much more comfortable and only took us 80 kilometres, to Rostov. Half of our group went for a day trip and Katya came with me.

Rostov is a very old town with wide streets, dozens of churches with bold grey domes and shop signs in an archaic cyrillic script. We almost had the place to ourselves because weekends are so quiet. There was a lot more space than in Yaroslavl and no large buildings; it really felt like being in the provinces, with a strong cold wind to remind us that winter is approaching.

Inside the kremlin (fortress) there were three museums: the first for ceramic ornaments, the second for miniature bells and the third dedicated to ancient Rostov. They were quite dull but the last one was interesting in parts; there was a map of Europe in the 13th century and a journal where guests could write their own Russian proverbs.

We went to a restaurant for lunch. I had my first glass of kvas, a drink made of yeast, honey and hops that tastes like honey on cold toast. Katya had blini: seeing as Tamara Aleksandrovna always gives me too many every morning I should start sneaking them out of our flat for her! While the group climbed a bell-tower, we walked around town for a couple of hours. We found a hotel and stayed for a drink - black coffee for me, a cocktail for her.

There were no minibuses back to Yaroslavl so we took our first Russian train. Rostov station has three platforms but no bridge, so to get to platform two we had to scamper over the tracks as quickly as we could and jump back onto the concrete waiting area. When it arrived the train was old but comfortable, and while it was still light there were great views of the forest and countryside villages slightly below us. While Katya slept on my shoulder (listening to English most of the day made her tired) the Yartek group talked about what the English language must be like to learn as a foreign language. It only has two cases to Russian's six, but how do you explain why we pronounce 'the' in different ways according to the context, or why 'a' becomes 'an'?

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