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Withered they walked along,
Along dusty paths covered with dirt,
Dirt that clung to them, to their sweat,
Sweat on their arms and faces,
Faces hot from the heat,
Heat, choking heat, and high temperatures,
Temperatures almost too great for this gang,
Ganging up on the heat they revolted,
Revolutions of sun cream, sandals and flip-flops,
Flapping brochures and cold drinks to help,
Help stop that horrid hot feeling,
Feeling horridly hot.
I realize that looks a lot like Byron, but it’s not, I swear…
The last fourteen days have been rather ok, with the wall of boredom (currently) a mere foot high shadow of its former self.
Small news items include: Helen, in a disgusting attempt to make us all feel bad, going back to England for a week and a bit; watching Indiana Jones and Prince Caspian in Russian; many of us printing off and handing out questionnaires that we created in order to help us with our essays; purchasing a new dictionary in the hope that it would inspire me to crack on with work; and saying goodbye to the one last remaining American.
The question tiptoeing around all of your lips, I’m sure, is why is it that it is £6.99 for a good bottle of Spanish Rioja, but the word green doesn’t rhyme with pernickety? I can’t answer that, I really can’t, I’m not qualified. Another question might be what have I been up to? That I can deal with.
We have recently had a period (about a week) when the temperatures have been oscillating around the 30° mark. This is obviously a dreadful state of affairs (quoting a certain Alan Partridge – ‘It’s hotter than the sun!’). Mankind wasn’t designed to endure temperatures above 25° during the spring time along the Thames. Fact. It’s just not biology. So we have been, collectively, blasted and scorched by the vicious power of the sun from the 19th of May through to the 25th. Mix the heat itself in a ghastly cocktail with the seemingly gratuitous lust that Russian roads possess to be dustier than the Sahara, a distinct lack of short trousers, a few headaches for banter, a flat that (conveniently) at the same time has decided to have no hot water for two weeks – leading to copious bucket showers – and you have I hope a glimpse into what I believe Dante was going on about in the 6th circle of hell. It’s there, read it.
Eurovision, Eurovision, Eurovision. That was what Tony Blair said.
It is crap, but we love it. Every year all the rubbish countries get together and sing rubbish songs, give each other obvious points and generally have a blast. Britain is there, sighing to herself, wondering why she even bothered coming. Good song or not, nobody likes her anymore. Her only saving grace, apart from the marvelous language she speaks, is her companion and partner in crime Terry Wogan. As all the rubbish flitters by the stage – ballad, camp, quirky and rock ‘songs’ – Terry, in the name of Britannia, drinks. He gets more comfortable in his charming Irish skin and basically rubbishes the rubbish. This is why I watch it, why we watch it, and why, here in Russia, we watched it and had Tom’s mum send us text messages with quotes from the great man himself back in England. Classics such as: (As soon as it started after the introductions and speeches) “This is going to be a long night” and (referring to some dancers) “a couple of gyrating eejits”.
After arriving at Natalie and Natasha’s house we watched some Austin Powers, then, out of the large windows, we gazed at a massive thunderstorm that had been brewing outside and had decided to put on a show for us – all accompanied by “Ooohs” and “Aahhs”. Eurovision started so we cracked open some drinks and crisps and settled down. Britain performed second with a good song, that got no points, and Latvia was twelfth. I mention Latvia because that was where we got to in the proceedings before we were all (about seven extra to the two that live there) kicked out of the house. Not by the landlady and landlord, who were at the Dacha for the weekend, but by the ugly, arrogant, troglodytic boyfriend of the daughter (who didn’t mind our presence) of said landpeople. We left, in the rain, and grumbled about why they couldn’t be more like the English and not be a bunch of rude arseholes etcetera etcetera. A couple of hardy people went elsewhere to watch the end voting, but most of the group dissipated and went home. So that was Eurovision 2008. Apparently Wogan might stop doing it. If so, we’ll stop watching.
Brief Birthday Note: It is customary on the birthday – in most countries – of whoever it may be, that the guests buy the birthday girl/boy alcoholic drinks carry out orders/goads in the hope that said birthday girl/boy ends up inebriated.
It was my birthday on the 28th of May – apparently the best day of the year according to the internet and many leather-bound books. I had a salad for lunch with some of the girls and they bestowed me with a selection of presents and cards, then in the evening I booked a table at restaurant called Eurasia, which was a bit of a disaster. Everyone got their food and enjoyed it; however my ‘steak’ (in a ‘honey and mustard sauce’) took an hour and a half to come and was literally a mangled looking minute steak with a piece of lettuce. On asking the waitress where the sauce was, she replied that it was fried in the sauce/flavour. I was suitably incensed due to the lack of any real, discernable taste on the meat, but instead sat there and grinded my teeth, stuffing the poor waste of cow into my chops. After the meal we went to a pub, where I was bought a few beers and then many, many shots of vodka. The last shot (number 8 of Russian sized shots) had a sugar lump in it. I was in such a state that I didn’t twig that the guys were lying to me when they said they had ordered a sweet & sour shot. Drink it, eat the sugar and suck on the lemon they said with cameras at the ready. I drank it, ate the sugar, sucked on the lemon and felt remarkably unwell the next morning.
I mentioned in the last blog about punching a hole through the wall of boredom with a trip to Moscow. I did this, and nearly destroyed the whole wall itself with the good time we had there. We left on the evening train on Thursday the 29th and ended up returning Tuesday morning on the 3rd of June.
29th – Четверг/Thursday
After recovering from my birthday antics I packed my bag, watched a couple of films upstairs in Helen’s flat with a large bottle of water and watched the time tick tock away until the evening. At eight o’clock I leapt gazelle-like onto the number 120 bus and met Sean and Tom at the station. Sean had bought some supplies; chocolate, crisps and beer. We found our mile long train and trudged down to our carriage – number 22 of 22.
On Russian trains you either travel in a coupe or something called платкарт (platkart), which is basically open booths of four on the left part of the train with an extra two beds (one above the other) folded up along the other side. Our travel companion in our four person area was a nice young guy called Nikolai. He was a student traveling to work in America, taking a flight from Moscow. We gave him a beer, chatted with him and decided to play chess. A few games went by culminating in an hour and a half battle between me and Nikolai. The game ran into the night, the lights went off (apart from the dim security lights providing a little illumination), our lids became heavy but I finally managed to take the victory. I’m not very good at chess, so I imagine he wasn’t great either, but it was still the sort of conflict worthy of middle earth.
30th – Пятница/Friday
Our train lumbered into the station at 7:50 in the morning but Sarah, the Bath student we were going to stay with, had thought it was later and sent me a text saying to meet her at a different metro station. We bought our ten journey metro cards in the horrendously busy metro station and met up with her at the allotted location. She took us back to her flat where we showered, unpacked, and prepared to go back out into Moscow. We took the metro down to Красная Плошадь or Red Square, and met up with Kelly (a Bath student who had gone there two days earlier), Nate and Kirby (two of the Americans from Voronezh who had yet to go back to the US) and a girl called Emma Lyle (later dubbed ‘that Lyle character’, she was a girl Kelly and Tom knew in Germany who was studying in St. Petersburg). We perused the square’s sights, admired the panorama of spires, walls and domes that made up the perimeter horizon along the tops of the buildings and rejoiced to be out of Voronezh. I made a solo trip with my camera into St. Basil’s Cathedral (for the stupid among you it’s the famous one with the onion domes); solo because the others didn’t want to pay. It was 100 roubles (£2) to go in and around, and £2.60 to take photos. I, being stubborn, believe the right to take a photo should be free, so I promptly paid for my standard, non-photo, entry ticket, shoved it into my trousers and walked in. I showed my ticket, walked round the other side of a pillar out of the sight of the lady who sat at the entrance nonchalantly ripping tickets in a bored manner, and started taking pictures without the flash. I walked through the cathedral taking photos in a confident manner and probably looked like the kind of person who had paid extra for the photo ticket. No one stopped me. So I didn’t pay extra. Bite me.
We had a beer, and then, after finding one already full, managed to have dinner at a T.G.I Fridays. Civilization! Steak! Tastiness! Blissfully expensive! This is the life!
31st – Суббота/Sunday
I woke up early and walked Sarah’s massive lassie dog while the boys snoozed. They snoozed till midday, so I watched ‘There Will Be Blood’ on her plasma TV until they got up. When they got up we watched ‘The Bank Job’, went for a walk, took the metro round, and ended up having cocktails in another T.G.I Fridays. On the way home we met – I say met, we perchanced upon – an interesting character. He was stomping, like a giant, through the metro tunnels and corridors by himself. He was about six foot four and very broad. He had long black hair going down past his shoulders, tied up, and a bushy beard on his chin. He sported a black t-shirt, black jeans and a black leather waistcoat. From the shoulder pads of the waistcoat were artificial ferret tails – one on each shoulder that jumped up and down as he bounded along. Now the strangest thing of all was the thing round his waist. A leather belt, with a holster attached. In the holster was a large black revolver. We were first shocked, but tailed him to learn more. On closer inspection we saw it was a good plastic replica. Strange chap. Scary and strange.
1st – Воскресенье/Sunday
We (me, Tom, Sean and Sarah) went for a walk around Old Arbat street in the afternoon and then proceeded to Hard Rock Café for a nice, civilized lunch (pulled-pork sandwich for those in the know). We stayed there a bit too long and had to get our skates on were we to catch our train. We left and went to the metro station. However, almost at the station doors, we glimpsed something irresistible. Like a moth to a flame, a pedophile to a play park, a mosquito to an arm on a summer’s day, a fat kid to a cake shop and a know-it-all to a smack round the head we were doomed. It was there, shining, welcoming and magnificent – The John Bull Pub. In Voronezh we had been dreaming of going to a pub so just one look wouldn’t hurt. We went inside and nearly died. It was a very good representation/replica of a nice English pub. After much jiggery pokery with what to do we decided to stay in the pub, buy a new ticket and go home the next day. I bought a strongbow (a cider in Russia!) for a hilarious £5.20 and the boys bought almost equally expensive beers. Sean managed to pawn off a five pound note to the barman for 250roubles. Tom then tried to buy (without avail) an ipod off the barman with a collection of pounds, euros and Swiss francs to the sum of fifty quid.
After a wander around old Arbat at night, Sean nearly buying a kitten for 200roubles, and a fruitless attempt at finding any decent food at 12 o’clock we went home.
2nd Понедельник/Monday
After lunch we went and bought our new tickets to get home and then decided to split up and let everyone do what they wanted for a few hours. I decided first to go and see the main and frankly outrageous building of the Moscow State University (МГУ), which is actually a skyscraper (one of the seven sisters – Stalinist skyscrapers) in a sort of soviet kitsch-Empire state building style. Interesting fact: It was the tallest building in Europe until 1990. I then took the metro to see the Church of Christ the Savior, which is the largest cathedral in Russia and quite a sight with its expansive, chalky-white walls topped with sparkling gold domes. Lastly I went to the massive bookshop called Biblio-Globus, where I purchased a Bill Bryson book for posterity. We rushed back to Sarah’s flat, met her, packed, said goodbye and went to the station. We bought a couple of drinks, a kebab, boarded the rather empty train and set off back to Voronezh.
This blog has somehow gotten quite long.
On arriving back in the flat, Svetlana, exasperated as she had to go to work, explained to me that another American student called Taylor arrived at 2 o’clock in the morning and needed to be taken to a meeting place at 11 and could I do it. I did it, met the new Americans and finally allowed my new position of translator/helper sink in and thought with a slightly ironic smile, it’s good to be back.
I know I’ve moaned about Voronezh and I know I’ll moan more but that’s human nature and it can’t be helped. I have a pretty good feeling about these last three and a bit weeks. Maybe it is because I get to go home soon, maybe Moscow revamped my faith in this country, or maybe I just don’t really mind Voronezh that much at all, and it, in a strange way, has become a form of ‘home’. Who knows? Who cares? I’m here and I’m not going anywhere yet. Better just shut up, knuckle down and enjoy the last stretch of probable Russian madness.
