Kazan: saturday.

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To serve me right I woke up exhausted today. I remembered that I'm here to relax and not just to sight-see, so I made today as quiet as possible.

There was a little boy of about five in reception as I left this morning, I think the son of the woman who works there. When I walked past him he called to me "Hello!". I said a cheerful "Hello!" to him back, then he continued in Russian: "you're English, aren't you?" I said yes, and his eyes lit up and he started to giggle. I rested my elbows on the desk and settled in for a chat. When he asked me what I was doing I said I was here for a break and that I study in Tver... um... a town near Moscow. What do I think of Kazan? I really like it here. What do I think of Tver? Well, it's quite boring but hard to explain why.

I strolled around with my camera all day. There is always music coming from somewhere on the main streets and Kazan has good taste in what to play, the best european pop that made me feel as if I wasn't quite to far away from home as I am. I went to a supermarket to buy some juice to quench my thirst; by the river where there are thousands of cars at rush hour the air can be very humid and stuffy.

Apparently I entered the shop through the wrong entrance, and the lady on the till told me off and pointed to the right gates. By that time I was already in the juice aisle, and my 'foreign but articulate' charm was almost working on her - until she called for a security guard to escort me out of the shop, to the right door around the side. Once inside for the second time, perhaps more understandably, I was told off again for taking a photo of a tank of live fish near the meat aisle and made to show the member of staff that I had deleted the picture. Russians love putting people in their place; in fact I enjoy the quick rush of adrenaline as a strict but whiney voice comes from behind my back "molodoi chelovek, nel'zya..." - young man, that's not allowed. I don't go around trying to break rules, but wherever I am I still hear it five times a day.

Kazan is a literary town. There are dozens of bookshops, and everyone who is sitting on a park bench is reading something. The street names are almost solely dedeicated to authors and poets - Gorkii, Dostoevskii, Pushkin and so on.

Liisa, Kaisa and Ella went out in the evening with a girl called Albina, who they met while buying jeans, and her husband Oleg. Again I preferred a quiet night.

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