Blogs from Tver, Centre, Russia, Europe - page 8

Today I took to staring out of the window in lessons to pass the time. It is snowing again. First it started to fall very lightly, and the strong wind blew some of the snow from every roof up into the air. At 11.30 it got heavier, big flakes that settled on the fir trees on ulitsa Zhelyabova and at 1 it became lighter again, almost drizzle. After classes there was a blizzard outside. A blanket of snow a foot deep has covered the streets again. It's officially the second day of spring but the town still looks wintery. Anya called in the afternoon to invite me to Belaya Chashka, the Tv.G.U canteen. It's on the ground floor of the main building, where the Russian students have their lectures. The bar is almost a Russian take ... read more

The lesson this morning with Lyudmila Giorgevna, the lady with grey hair, was good. We gave short presentations that we had prepared about a piece of news from this weeks' papers. I spoke about an article on the 'day of the defenders of the fatherland' and how it was celebrated in Tver, from yesterdays' 'Tverskaya Zhizn''. In the afternoon I went for another walk on my own through Tver. The temperature was minus 10 and the air was clear blue and very still. I am learning which street leads to which square which makes finding my way across town easier. Walking around Ploschad' Sovetskaya I found a part of history. Written on a plaque on the side of the elegant red building on the western side is: "In 1917 this square was the place of a ... read more

The first time I have ever been to lessons on a sunday. Or done any work on a sunday, for that matter. Zhanna taught us literature in the first para. We read a passage from Stantsionnyi Smotritel' by Aleksandr Pushkin and discussed it. The lessons have been very disorganised so far but reading made me concentrate, which put me a bit more at ease. In the break there was just time for a cup of coffee from upstairs, then I had to hurry down for our writing class. We spoke about different types of dictionary then took one each from a pile and gave a small presentation about it. I flicked through an encyclopaedia of mythology, then spoke for about five minutes about the ancient Egyptian, Greek and African heroes I had read about. The ice ... read more

Yesterday's bad mood had gone when I woke up today. I was still tired, so I got up late and stayed in the obshezhitie for most of the afternoon. I watched the Swedish ice hockey team beat the Czech Republic with Karin and Linda, eating smoked cheese and cookies.... read more

Finland reigns supreme in the hostel. The girls talk Finnish amongst themselves but Yulia, Yenu, Kseniya, and Natasha also have Russian as a second mother tongue. I speak in Russian with everyone apart from Michael and Tamzin. Christa, Tuuli, Linda and Haidie are also from Finland, Claire is from France, Kolya is French Canadian and Karin is from Finland and speaks Swedish too. The hierarchy is much like the winter olympics that everyone spends their evenings watching in the lounge: Finnish and Russian are going for gold, English is acknowledged but firmly at the bottom of the pecking order! Zhanna's class this morning was a waste of time. The native speakers are taking a specialist translation course, the rest have all been pushed together. Those of us that have lived in Russia before should be taught ... read more