A New Era Begins

And so, as most of you (especially those of you who saw me in Durham last week) will have worked out by now, I am no longer in Russia. Nor am I planning on returning, at least not for the next year or so. My plans for the rest of my Year Abroad read like this:

3rd February - 31st May: British Council Language Assistantship in Vienna.

5th - 26th September: Language Course in Bamberg

The sharp-eyed amongst you will have noticed that my British Council Language Assistantship actually begins today. Yes, that's right, in approximately 14 hours' time I will be sitting on a plane on the way to Vienna where a week of frivolity and sightseeing awaits before I begin teaching on 14th February. Currently I have very little clue what I will be teaching (other than the obvious - English) to whom so hopefully my meeting with one of my Betreuungslehrerinnen (teachers in charge of looking after me), Betty, on Friday (that would be tomorrow then...) will enlighten me somewhat. I do know that I am teaching at two schools, the BRG Fichtnergasse, which is a state Gymnasium, the German and Austrian equivalent of our old grammar schools, and the Schule St. Ursusla, which is also a Gymnasium, but a private Catholic one. Hopefully I won't be asked any awkward questions about my religion....

After a long session of online flat-hunting, involving many complicated e-mails, Skype conversations and rejections, I have finally found somewhere to live for my four months in Vienna. I'll be living in the 7. Bezirk, which is quite close to the centre, the student district, and...the red-light district... But it's near where I stayed last time I was in Vienna, and despite the numerous sex shops, it's a nice enough area. Plus it comes equipped with double bed, piano and friendly roommate, Charlotte, who has already promised to show me around the city. Wish me luck!

(Note - I will be continuing to document my travels from this blog, at the same address, however I am trying to think of a new title for the title bar. Suggestions welcome!)

Christmas, Community, and Cancellations - The Long Journey Home

As I spent most of the two weeks before I was due to fly home complaining about leaving Russia, you would have thought that I would have been grateful to see that due to the problems at Heathrow, I might have to stay. Not so. The possibility of not getting home made me realise how much I wanted to be there, and so I spent most of the two days before my flight anxiously refreshing the British Airways and Heathrow websites in search of some concrete information. I was wasting my time. As far as I could tell when I left for the airport, my flight was scheduled as normal. Actual meaning – not cancelled yet!

After several hours of delays, a free ‘meal’ from TGIs (actual meaning – a sandwich and some chips), and mild confusion as to why our gate was changing every five minutes, the pilot appeared. The appearance of the man who was meant to be flying our plane in less than half an hour’s time was never going to be a good sign, and sure enough the flight was cancelled. However, in typical Russian fashion, the airport staff assured us that we would fly as soon as Heathrow was willing to receive us. When the pilot protested, saying that surely the people scheduled on the next day’s flight would receive precedence, the BA manager for Pulkovo stared at him as if he was insane. “But this is their plane! When it flies, they fly!” Er, alright then – no complaints here.

British Airways continued to cater to our every whim. Four star hotel with all-you-can-eat breakfast? Check. Free shuttle bus between the airport and the hotel? Check. Pilot and cabin crew on site to harass at will? Check. As I relaxed in a room the size of my flat in St. Petersburg, pictures flashed up on the news of people sleeping in Heathrow and Charles de Gaulle, and I had a ‘there but for the grace of God go I’ moment. Only a moment, though – I was still facing the prospect of spending Christmas in a country which doesn’t celebrate Christmas…

Over breakfast the next morning, we gathered a small crowd of ‘flight refugees’ – a nearly-deaf Australian whose four days in London were diminishing rapidly, a young Australian couple on a round-the-world tour, a Mancunian woman who had been in St. Petersburg for a wedding, a Russian woman wanting to get home to her kids in England, and a Cambridge student who spent most of the morning working on an essay. We swiftly became united in the common goal of irritating the cabin crew, so when we were informed that only one flight was leaving that afternoon, and we wouldn’t find out who was on it until we got to the airport, we were rather distressed at the prospect of separation. Luckily for us, though, the Russians were true to their word, and people booked in for that day’s flight were being turned away to make room for us. Even holding the boarding pass in my hands didn’t quite convince me that I was going home, but it seemed to be happening, and we had a small celebration every time we got one step closer to the plane.

After coming so close the day before, nothing short of arriving in Heathrow was quite going to convince me that it was real. Noticing the captain walking down the aisle mid-flight inspired a mild panic attack but it was real and we arrived in London, with all of our luggage, only ten minutes late. Plus or minus twenty-four hours… 


(First published for my column at www.thebubble.org.uk)

History, Hangovers, and Hospitality - Visiting Vologda

My last days in Russia could have been spent in any number of ways - not least packing my two giant suitcases - but instead Tom and I decided to do something special, to end the trip with a bang. Given that Tom had already received an invitation to a birthday party in Vologda, it took the minimum of effort (at least on my part) to get myself invited too.

Vologda being twelve hours away from St. Petersburg, this trip involved that great Russian cultural experience, the overnight train journey. These journeys always involve a variety of interesting characters including, invariably, the man (or woman) who snores incredibly loudly. On the way, we had the misfortune to be in the bunks opposite him, not that it made much difference, as he succeeded in keeping the entire carriage awake. Everyone. Including the 'train monitor' who had her own locked cabin at the end of the carriage. On the way back he had disappeared. But we couldn't relax just yet, as he had been replaced by another train stalwart, the Drunkard. We inadvertently gained his approval by slugging cheap supermarket brandy in an attempt to get to sleep on a train which seemed to feel the need to remind us that it was a train every five minutes by tooting its horn loudly. (It was also able to decide whether it was day or night by switching the lights on and off accordingly - according to the train night began at 10PM and ended an hour later). This meant that I spent half an hour listening to incoherent Russian rambling (luckily very few responses were required) and shared a cigarette with him in the freezing cold smoking area (literally, there was ice on the walls!). I was only rescued when the 'train  monitor' appeared and started threatening to call the police if he didn't go to bed. Quite how the police were going to get to the train I wasn't sure, but I was grateful for the assistance.

Vologda was in many ways similar to Novgorod, small, ancient and beautiful - it was even favoured by Ivan the Terrible until a brick falling from the ceiling of the Sophia Cathedral nearly killed him. Nikita, whose flat we were notionally staying in, gave us a guided tour and Julia, Tom's best student, provided a translation when required. Highlights included the town museum (featuring: some more stuffed animals, do Russians ever put anything else in their museums?); the completely frozen river which was being used alternately for skiing practice, ice-fishing, and as a camping ground; and the two inches of solid ice covering every surface on which one might wish to walk. After I had fallen over for the third time, Julia suggested that Tom hold my arm to keep me upright. When he refused, she showed him just how colourful her English vocabulary was, before telling him that chivalry was dead. Looks like the Russian perception that an English gentleman is more like Colin Firth than Hugh Grant could be changing soon...

But while chivalry may have been dead in Vologda, hospitality certainly wasn't. Nikita welcomed us into his home, where we met various members of his family including his mother, who practically force-fed us Vologdan dairy products (the region is famed for its dairy products because "we have cows, and near to cows are factories") and home-cooked delicacies such as borsch and potato bread, and his dog, who purred like a cat (prompting Tom to say "that dog is either being irritated or sexually pleasured") and had a slight problem with peeing all over the flat. Its reaction to being told off for this particular misdemeanour was to drag itself around the living room by its front legs, essentially wiping its bum on the cream carpet.

He also welcomed us into quasi-workplace, the 'Palace of Creativity', where we were 'treated' to a two-hour dance class. It was a confusing, tiring and sweaty couple of hours, but nonetheless enjoyable, and I might even have picked up a couple of steps. We also got to watch some shows put on by the youth group there, which were excellent, not least because I managed to understand nearly all of it, including the jokes.

The final part of Nikita's hospitality was that he welcomed us into his friendship group, and the only night that I actually spent sleeping in Vologda was on the sofa-bed in some unidentified person's flat. I'm sure that I did meet said unidentified person, but the problem is that I'm not sure which of Nikita's twenty or so friends they were. We were there for Pasha's birthday, Pasha being another of Nikita's friends, identifiable mostly by the fact that he spent most of the night in his pyjamas. The reason for this wasn't entirely certain, although it was probably alcohol-related. Alcohol (including the rather strange mix of fortified wine and coke) was certainly in abundance, as at any student party and I played my very first Russian drinking game, 'Buffalo'. This involved holding your drink in your non-writing hand and downing it if you were caught doing otherwise - a fast ticket to drunkenness, as well as to learning the informal imperative of the verb 'to drink'. Learning aside, it was an excellent party, I: got very drunk, insisted to everyone that I absolutely could speak Russian, had an odd tri-lingual conversation (English, French, and Russian) with a girl named Katya, and swapped my belt for another girl's earrings. This last was due to an interesting Russian tradition whereby if you compliment someone on an item of their clothing, they feel duty-bound to hand it over - I suppose I should be grateful that it wasn't her dress!

Visiting Vologda was the perfect ending to my time in Russia, reminding me of everything that is good about this breath-taking country and giving me a reason to come back - and hopefully, a place to stay!

Riots, Revels and Rasputin - The Final Week

Unsurprisingly, my final week in Russia was a week of lasts. The last Тесто Место Monday (in which we were deprived of our usual sugar-eating contests by the lack of fruit tea), the last few lessons, the last shopping spree in Gostiny Dvor, the last meal in Cafe Zoom (predictably delicious!) and the last meal with Vera (predictably not!). But there were also a few firsts:

The first time that a teacher other than Natasha gave us presents.
Natasha also gave us presents of course, homemade cabbage pies which we were urged to eat there and then (maybe she knew that we wouldn't eat them otherwise!) but Irina and Roman went all out, throwing us a tea party on our last day of lessons. It was not quite an old-fashioned English tea party, consisting of little more than tea (in plastic cups), a box of cream cakes, and presents, but we also got to talk to Irina and Roman properly for the first time, which was really interesting. They told us that it's very difficult for young people like them to leave Russia, even for a year as a guest teacher in Durham, as the British authorities won't grant them a visa until they can prove that they've got something to come back for (i.e. a husband/wife and kids) - and I thought that getting my visa was hard! They also told us (and this is something I've been hearing a lot recently) that they don't feel that Russia can be a proper democracy, at least not in the foreseeable future. Naturally, Tom and Alex turned this into a joke, as a reference to Georgia sacking their police force prompted a remark that Alan Sugar would surely be up to the job if Russia decided to do the same...

The first time that I saw Rasputin's penis.
And no, I'm not joking. Although the actual provenance of the penis is uncertain (the display claims that it came back to Russia via a complicated route involving several European countries) the Museum of Erotica claims that its main exhibit really did once belong to Rasputin. And well they might, no-one would visit their museum if all they advertised was 'A Large Hairy Penis'. Other than the obvious 'attraction', the museum, housed in a venereal disease clinic, featured a range of sex-related exhibits. Perhaps not the first museum I'd recommend to a visitor to St. Petersburg, but it was certainly a talking point!

The first time that the Пик Centre was closed.
This last first was rather annoying, especially as we'd already purchased tickets to 'Voyage of the Dawn Treader' at the cinema there. But, if we were going to waste 300 roubles, at least it was for an interesting reason. As we stood by the doors to the centre, trying to work out why no-one was being allowed in (and giggling at the Russians who insisted on pushing past the large crowd who had been refused entry to the centre...to be refused entry to the centre!) there was a commotion behind us and we saw a large crowd running away from the metro station. That was when we noticed the riot police. And the journalists. And the television cameras. After we had spent a good half hour hanging around trying to get on the Russian news (and trying not to speak English too conspicuously in front of the police) we went home to see what all the fuss was about. As it turned out, we'd got caught up in the St. Petersburg version of the Moscow race riots (for more information see http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/1-000-detained-in-Russia-to-prevent-ethnic-clashes-900342.php ) and the police had had to commandeer what looked like a normal bus to hold the 60 prisoners taken. Most of them weren't even rioting, it seemed that they were just arresting everyone of non-Russian origin who got off the metro. So, an interesting last first for my time in Russia!

Museums, Musicians and Minus Temperatures - The Beginning of the End

Firstly, an apology. My last couple of weeks in St. Petersburg were fairly manic, as were my first couple of weeks back in England, and so I've only just got round to updating. But I do have at least three entries to come, starting with this account of the second-to-last week.

The museums featured mainly in our celebration of Helen's 21st birthday on 11th December. As we wanted to make a day of it, we decided to visit the Oceanarium and the Arctic and Antarctic Museum before moving on to our favourite Wetherspoons-substitute, SPB. The Oceanarium was home to all manner of crazy fish but my personal favourites were the rays, who we were lucky anough to happen upon at feeding time. But, this being Russia, feeding time couldn't possibly be normal. Instead the rays, who were kept in a very low-walled tank, were goaded by the keepers until they flapped against the walls, causing a veritable tidal wave of water to slosh over onto the floor. As they became more and more aggravated, they began to flap without any prompting, and one of them just flopped down on the wall, looking like it might have died, until one of the keepers pushed it back into the water with a big stick. Dying during the show is clearly frowned upon. Mind you, the cleaners would probably have preferred it if they had died, judging by the grumpy expressions they wore as they mopped several gallons of water off the floor...

The Arctic and Antarctic Museum was marginally less exciting but contained some beautiful photos and some paintings which would have been beautiful were it not for the somewhat unneccessary addition of Soviet warships. It was also home to the few stuffed animals which hadn't made it into the Zoological Museum - including arctic foxes, polar bears and lemmings. However, before too long we began to develop the little-known condition 'museum knee' (name copyright Rachel Kitchen 2010) - those familiar with this painful condition will know that it can only be cured by the consumption of some kind of beverage - which in this case turned out to be strawberry beer. Six hours later we stumbled onto the metro, having sampled a large number of SPB's finest (or cheapest) beers, played numerous games of Cheat (and thus learnt that Tom knows how to swear as he got more than a little competitive), and compiled a list of quotes from the trip on Helen's phone. All the best nights finish before 11pm here....

The previous Thursday, Tom and I had attempted to visit another museum, the Museum of Railway Communications (ie. our university's museum) only to discover that when the cash desk closes at 5, turning up at 5 on the dot isn't a good plan. Instead we headed to the Yusupov Gardens to fulfil a lifelong dream. Like all the best lifelong dreams, it had actually only been a lifelong dream since we arrived in Russia, but it was a good one - to walk on a frozen lake! To begin with we were slightly terrified and would only put one foot on at a time, but after walking to the island in the centre and back we relaxed a little (those who think that this is an impressive achievement should Google the size of the Yusupov Gardens - it was about 12 strides) and decided to have a bit more fun. A small crowd of children had gathered to go sledging and after debating for a few minutes over whether we could ask them for a go (as the best Russian we could come up with was "Can I for five minutes have that?" we thought that the answer would probably be "No.") and then decided simply to join in their game of 'Let's slide on the frozen lake'. I failed spectacularly at this, falling over almost as soon as I'd stepped onto their 'sliding patch' (a 100m run of incredibly slippery and no doubt hazardous ice), but Tom managed to get about halfway along it, albeit with rather comical arm-movements. By this time, I had regretted leaving the house without a hat or gloves, but it was worth it, even if I couldn't walk properly for the next three days!

For my final 'm' I chose musicians due to the amazing concert which I saw on 13th December - Elton John (and Ray Cooper)! For this I was mocked mercilessly by Tom, who seems to be labouring under the delusion that Elton John's greatest hit is entitled 'I'm Elton John' and runs to the tune of nothing in particular. Or at least that's what you'd have thought if you'd listened to him in the days leading up to the concert... However, the morning after it I was forced to disappoint him, as it may surprise you to learn that Elton John has never recorded a song with that particular title. He has, however, recorded numerous other songs, many of which he played, accompanied with crazy light shows and some rather interesting back-up from Ray Cooper. I knew nothing about Ray Cooper before the concert, but apparently he is one of the world's greatest percussionists. He certainly made the night interesting when he suddenly appeared behind Elton John banging drums and cymbals with huge amounts of enthusiasm. This enthusiasm soon spread to the audience, who gathered around the stage proffering bouquets of flowers and begging for autographs. Not bad for £20 tickets....

Snowstorms, Skating and Sillyness - 24 Hours In Tallinn

As you can see from the title, it's now got to the point where I'm having to make up words (not to mention repeat them) to make the alliteration work. I suppose it's not exactly surprising though, given that I've made my way through 14 weeks' worth of titles, that the inspiration is wearing a little thin. But, while the inspiration may be lacking, the adventures certainly aren't, starting with last weekend's trip to Tallinn, Estonia.

It started with a bus journey, a six hour bus journey to be precise, which along with the six hour journey back meant that we spent 12 hours on a bus for 24 hours in Tallinn. Still, Tom and I were determined to make the most of it - actually, I'd originally planned to catch up on some sleep, but Tom had different ideas, and seeing as he was sitting next to me, I was powerless to resist!! It started when he discovered the 'in-coach' magazine, and, as I'd been telling him about Vera's annoying habit of pointing at all the cats on the TV and shouting 'koshka!', decided to thrust an advert for some kind of pet insurance into my face repeating "Do you want to kiss the koshka?" over and over. The TV at the front of the bus kept us entertained for at least another hour, first by informing us that not only did our seats recline, but the aisle seat could also be slid out into the aisle, leaving a small gap between the two seats. Of course I had to test this immediately, it was just unfortunate that it happened to coincide with us turning a rather sharp corner, leaving me fearing my imminent death. We were also amused by the music videos, featuring an array of people in successively stranger costumes - culminating in Cher's 'Turn Back Time' video, in which she seemed to have neglected to put on any clothes whatsoever! Tom then took it upon himself to make up as many inane games as possible, including 'I went to the Harry Potter market and I bought...' (which generated such amusing quotes as "What are you going to do with a Quick-Quotes Quill? Quote people to death?" and "Oh shit! Uncle Vernon isn't the only important character whose name begins with a 'V'!" and an awful lot of controversy over whether or not you could buy people) and 'How many fish can you draw?'. But the favourite had to be the 'drawing things with your eyes closed' game, if I ever get round to scanning them in, I may post some of the results of this game as they were utterly hilarious. All of this madness was fuelled by the combination of sleep-deprivation and unlimited free espresso with sugar from the in-bus coffee machine. Has anyone seen the episode of Outnumbered where Ben drinks a double espresso with five sugars and says he feels 'zingy-zangy-zongy'? I know how he felt...

Even if the bus journey hadn't been quite so hilarious, the 24 hours in Tallinn were well worth travelling for! Tallinn is, despite being a capital city, as small as Durham (at least in the Old Town, from which we didn't bother to stray), with beautiful architecture and a really Christmassy feel. The heavy snow (literally so heavy that we could barely see through it, and it looked like polystyrene balls falling from the sky) and the Christmas market were probably mostly responsible for this - I was feeling nostalgic for the Durham Christmas Market, but not any more! This was more modelled on the German markets, with little cabins in the snow surrounding a giant Christmas tree, hot mulled wine and carols blaring from the loudspeakers. Tom and I used the pretence of warming up our feet (and in our defence they were freezing) to do a crazy little dance down the street. We then spent an hour ice-skating, on an open-air ice rink near the town hall (I was appalling, but tom and Rachel helped me, and by the end I could manage a wobbly circuit without holding onto the side) before more shopping and dinner. Dinner was our first taste of spicy food since arriving in Russia, which was amazing, in an underground restaurant decorated with hundreds of Santa Helena wine bottles, and was followed by a cider in the Hell Hunt pub. The seats were a little strangely-situated, next to a spiral staircase which people kept disappearing down, perhaps never to be seen again, but the cider was good!

The next morning we had another walk around the town, some lovely food in Matilda's Cafe, and an encounter with a crazy woman in a shop. As we were staring at the swing which she had erected in the middle of her shop, she explained to us that it was there because she has a dearth of customers for most of the winter, so "from Mondays to Fridays I swing". Then, when Tom attempted to collect his change (which happened to be in 100 crown notes) she decided to tell him an interesting story about the woman on the notes, who is, apparently, a 'poetrest'. Good for her.... We also had a couple more encounters with the locals, thanks to us two incredibly friendly Estonian ladies now think that we call Denmark 'Norway' (in our defence, both countries are located next to Sweden), and Tom has broken my heart irreparably by informing a shopkeeper that we will never be together. If you are reading this, Tom, my heart is broken!! Broken!!

The journey back to St. Petersburg was somewhat less exciting that Saturday's bus trip, although it did allow me to sample the bus's excellent mochachinos. It also allowed Tom to test-drive some new games, notably 'How many fish can you draw on your visa?' and 'What would happen if you ripped the corner off your visa?'. Unsurprisingly, they didn't catch on. And so (despite a mild trauma at the border when my visa was feared to be lost forever and Tom delighted in telling me that I would have to take up residence in one of the 'border houses') we returned to St. Petersburg...

Shopping, Sushi, and Snow, Snow, Snow - Winter Arrives With A Vengeance!!

So, after a long dark November, in which even the Russians began to wonder when the snow would arrive, it's finally here! And, as if to make up for coming late, it's decided to come in abundance. For the first week, it snowed without stopping, not even for an hour, and although it's now slowed off slightly, we're still yet to have a snow-free day. Unfortunately, the Russians are adept at dealing with snow, and so we've had no cancelled lessons, no snow deep enough to wade through, and there are men shovelling the snow off the streets while it's still falling (see http://www.thebubble.org.uk/columns/life-in-the-big-ger-city-snow for more on how the Russians refuse to let snow faze them!). But, with temperatures of -15 C and falling, the river completely frozen over except for a small path carved out of the middle, and reports of the first death by falling icicle, I think I'm still being treated to a true Russian winter.

It's unfortunate that this weather came just as I'd decided to treat myself to a new pair of boots, which are far too lovely to wear in the snow - while it may not be at wading level, a wonderful mound of slush develops at the point where you step off the pavement to cross the road, perfect for ensuring wet tootsies if your footwear is unsuitable and destroying lovely new boots. But anyway, I was very pleased to get these boots, as I've been looking for a while. Russian women are extremely well-shod (well-clothed in general in fact, enough so to make me feel like a slob every time I look at them!) but seem not to cater to any shoe size much above a European 40 - as I'm a 41 going on 42, this has caused a slight problem for me. After scouring the out-of-town (or at least out-of-city-centre) shopping mall 'Mega', which is not quite as huge as the name might suggest (I'm not sure it's even as big as the Oracle in Reading, although it does contain an Ikea and a French supermarket!), and finding nothing, and trying on what felt like every pair of size 41 boots in every shoe shop in St. Petersburg, I finally came up trumps. They are knee-high, fur-lined, and with just a high enough heel to satisfy my feet (seriously, they demand heels, it's a problem!) while still being low enough to make walking possible. And they even got the Vera seal of approval, although she did feel the need to point out the two other pairs of boots in the hallway of my Russian home - if she could see the number of pairs that I left behind in England, she'd probably have fainted.

Well, that would be the snow and the shopping taken care of, which just leaves the sushi! Recently, it's become a Friday tradition for most of our Russian class to go for sushi in the shopping mall in Sennaya Ploschad. I think we've become a bit of a standing joke with the staff there, as the waitress was definitely hiding a smile behind her hand when we turned up today and started messing with the seating plan - if you only provide tables of four and five people come in, what else do you expect? I'm slightly amazed by the Russian love of sushi (in the food court where our favourite haunt is situated there are two sushi restaurants, and several more surrounding Sennaya Ploschad), mostly because it's so different to most Russian food - low on carbs, low on grease, and high on vegetable products. However, it does have the advantage of being mostly raw fish dishes. Russians do love raw (or at the very least cold) fish....