Restless.

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Eleven new Finnish students arrived at the obshezhitie today. I've been saying quick privets and scampering away from them, not wanting to introduce myself while looking and sounding as under the weather as I do.

I went to a café with Anya in the evening - partly because I had eaten nothing in three days and had an omelette craving, partly so that my diary wouldn't continue to be just a list of symptoms.

Something always seems to be troubling her. Like a lot of young Russians Anya is bored in her home town and can't wait to find a job elsewhere. Many want to move away, to Petersburg or especially to Europe. It must be even harder for her as she has already studied in Paris for a semester but had to come back home for university. Her English and French are both excellent and I'm sure she could find a decent job in either country when she is older, but Russian students don't have as much time and money to play with compared to their european counterparts.

At 18 girls already carry the weight of the world on their shoulders; they must already know how to cook and look after their family, on top of school work that never seems to stop. If a woman is unmarried in her mid-twenties she already worries that she will never find someone. Young people become adults much earlier than in Britain, even though their parents are more protective of them.

If Anya's resumé needs something extra, she can construct a Kalashnikov rifle in 25 seconds.

After we left the café we threw snowballs at Claire's window to get her to come down to see us (the third window I hit was hers), then we watched television in obshezhitie with some of the new Finns. The two boys are Kristoff and Johani, Yulia's new room-mate is Liisa, the eight others are still a mystery!

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