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The voyagers journeyed forth;
Unto the wind they went.
Tides of change battered them sideways;
No anger t’ward them was meant.
Arriving at foreign stations,
The voyagers held their breath.
Greeting them were kind new faces,
On some mouths a whisper of meth.
With care they spied their new homes,
Words fumbling and tripping from lips.
Looking forward to a new life in Russia,
Coats sealed up tight with hardy zips.
That was in fact not a classic piece of Russian poetry like you are all thinking, but a little poetic, in a nutshell description of our journey here.
To be or not to be? That is the question.It isn’t the question actually. That is a stupid question. The question is how did we get here? And what have we been up to in our first week in Mother Russia?
On the 6th March we all met up at Heathrow airport, kitted up to the teeth with thermals, bulging bags, rosy faces and hearts and minds full of anticipation. We checked in and caught our plane and flew to Moscow – the flight included a hot meal. Arriving at Moscow airport, you must walk through – after collecting your bags – to the train station area (just follow the signs). From there you buy a cheap ticket for a forty minute trip into the centre of Mosow (as the airport is a way out of town). Your stop will be the end of the line at Pavletskaya staion. When we arrived in Moscow, a thick sturdy snow laced the land and made for a very pretty train ride. We chattered, relaxed and stared out the windows at the brown, grey and white painted landscape flashing past us.
Arriving at the large Moscow station, you must go inside, through the barriers and into the central concourse that leads to the outside. Here, those of the group that previously booked the Moscow-Voronezh train must leave out of the front of the building, walk round outside to the left and find the room/office/area (I didn’t go myself) – passports and e-tickets in hand – where you can collect the paper tickets. This done we navigated left luggage – which is downstairs under the main concourse, near the toilets – and grabbed a kebab and baltika.
Our overnight train was a familiar affair after having journeyed from Moscow to St. Petersburg in the first year. Those of you who have done this will find it more or less the same – a small купе of four beds and a little table. The lady comes round, you show your tickets, you can order some lovely tea with lemon and honey and then you relax…for 11 hours. It got hot and clammy due to the closeness of our bodies, but we didn’t mind. We stared out into the night, with the lights turned off – staring at the bleak, muted white landscape that we crawled through. The occasional light or lamppost sending a fuzzy ball of illumination into the scenery. Then, with bumps and shunts and the clackety-clack of the train, we tried to sleep.
Our wake up call came at 7:10 in the morning (March 7th) – we had set off at 8:50 the previous night. Pulling into the station at about 8:00 we saw a huddle of Russians and Silvia – a Bath student who came, with Sean and Laura, in February. The first feeling, the first gut wrenching, soul gnawing feeling, was ‘I don’t want to get off the train, let’s stay on until Odessa and fly home’. It all felt in that instant, too big for us. It was like we had bitten off more than we could chew and then shoved more in our gobs because we had to. There was excitement too however. This excitement got us off the train and we met Katya – our lovely Russian fixer – and our families warmly. We all left for our homes.
Quick accommodation note: I am living with a lovely middle aged lady called Svetlana and her son Sasha who is 19. He plays piano and guitar very well, and speaks English. Svetlana speaks no English. I, at the moment, am also living with an American called Dirk. There is a group of Americans here, all from West Point military academy. They are all fantastic. My rent is 11,500 rubles, which comes to about £230 sterling. My flat is cosy and warm and comfortable. I have running water, although don’t drink from the taps. I have a good shower. I have two dogs – Chip and Dimok to keep me company. And I am very happy here. If you are interested call 5-5-5…well it sounded like an advert.
After a morning shower we all went to the theatre to meet Katya. She handed back our passports that we gave her at the train station and we walked into town. With her help we all managed to buy simcards. We then walked en masse to our part of the university – the international section. We were greeted by our Bath friends, the Americans, some Estonians and Chinese, and treated to a very surreal party consisting of blinis, tea, and speeches and plays put on by the students. Everything was followed by holding hands and circling round a burning effigy of a blond haired girl outside. Bearing in mind we were still drunk with lack of sleep we didn’t really get it or understand it. Went to a bar – Спартак (Spartak) – got to know the Americans and had some pizza. Walk home, sleep, dinner, sleep.
Quick Russian meals note: These mothers eat a lot. On an average day my landlady will make for breakfast of omelettes, blinis, and cheese on toast things with a cup of tea/coffee; for lunch nothing usually as you are paying for breakfast and dinner, but she’ll probably cook you something; and dinner a large bowl of soup, then a plate of meat and something carbohydrate and a separate bowl of salad – sometimes finishing with a dessert. On paper it sounds great, but it’s just so much food! However, Russian tradition is to leave a bit/some food on one’s plate. Finishing everything implies you have space for more. Also don’t be afraid to, early on, tell them what you do and don’t like.
March 8th – Not much happened. Had a walk round Voronezh, stood on the river which had frozen over – there were men out in the middle fishing! Ate a burger in MacDonalds (a cop out, but easy) and had a drink in Spartak. In the evening we went to a strange three floor Russian club. One funny thing about Russian clubs is ‘face control’. I hope it doesn’t mean, ‘is that really your face? Hahaha, no, no you can’t come in my club. Piss off ugly.’ It probably means if you look scruffy or messy they won’t let you in. Sean was hit by a taxi a couple of weeks ago and damaged his knee, so he is on crutches at the moment and as a result they wouldn’t let him in the club. Geoff, one of the Americans, who is also more or less fluent in Russian due to living in Belarus for 12 years, then went in the club to reason with them stating ‘his face is fine, it’s his legs’, but it was to no avail. He went to a bar with a few people, and we went into the club.
March 9th – Sasha invited me to play some tennis with him at a school. ‘Of course’ I said. I play tennis. It was everyone sharing one court, but hey, I could do with a couple of hours exercise. We were there for five hours. He drove us there in his 21 year old Lada, picking 13 year old Constantine (Константин) on the way. The premise, after meeting Nikolai Ivanovich the trainer, is that the one unmarked court is shared between everyone and anyone who shows up. They were mostly young; the youngest was 13. The oldest was maybe 65. We had a Vadim, a Dima, an Ira (a girl our age who is amazing at tennis), a Natasha and a Nikita all taking it in turns to play doubles. Because I was the first English person to ever come along, and probably a bit of an oddity, they kept making me play. They were overly keen to let me keep going. Happy to keep giving in that oh so Russian way – I ended up playing about 6 sets in a row. We drove home through a dingy, gloomy part of the town, quite a way out from where we live. Home through corridors of grim, grey blocks of soviet flats and broken roads. Everything bleak and desolate. Russians doing Russian things; getting on with life despite the lack of beauty. It might look better when the greenery is out in the oncoming spring, but for the moment I found a kind of beauty in the complete non-beauty and depressing surroundings I was being driven through.
March 11th – We all went to meet Viktor, the dean, at the University at 10 o’clock. He introduced everything to us in Russian and then went round each one of us, asking some basic questions to test our language. Easy things like where you live, brothers and sisters etc. I was made pseudo-leader of the group. Then we had a long, boring, grammar aptitude test. In the afternoon we met the very motherly Lyuba, Ann White’s chum, at the English department to chat about things – how we are getting and suchlike. Then we went with Katya to get our photos taken for our new visas – just a bloke in a camera shop with a 5.1 megapixel camera and a computer – it made me giggle. Massive dinner at home, followed by a lot of reading and music listening – you’ll do that quite often.
March 12th – Go to University, split into two groups, have a practice lesson. Go to ‘The Irish Pub’ for ‘lunch’. I had to wait 40 minutes for seven crap chips. Use the internet. Nat, Tom and Tasha come to my flat and we listen to the first half of ‘War of the Worlds’. Go home; ask my landlady how to make ‘Russian garlic cream’ (chopped garlic, cream cheese and mayo). Svetlana then showed me her old photos; old, frayed, black and white soviet time photos of her and her family. It was really, really…well…nice, and you could cut the nostalgia with a knife. Ended the evening by watching a badly dubbed film with Dirk…it was shockingly bad, you hear the Russian and the English at the same time (one male dubber for all the male characters and one female dubber for all the female characters…all emotionless) and almost at the same volume, so as a result, you understand near to nothing.
March 13th – Had our first classes today, but due to the length of this already gargantuan first blog, I shall save the academic information until the next installment.
March 14th – Tom and I conclude listening to ‘War of the Worlds’
