The Russian experience

Hows everyone doing? Has it snowed yet?

We're been in Russia now for just over a week and survived Moscow and St Petersburg. We arrived very early after our over night bus journey to Moscow, confused and slightly overwhelmed, since Im suppose to know a bit of the language. We managed to navigate ourselves into the centre and leave our bags somewhere which was a big relief! Next mission- find food! It turns out most food is terrible but we are bias as we have mostly eaten street food, but there's also not much choice in the supermarkets either. Although, we did find an old soviet style coffee shop which sold coffee with condensed milk and donuts :P

Our first day there the snow was pouring down and we thought this was the beginning of winter, apparently still autumn. We visited the Red square, St Basils cathedral and Nevsky Prospekt on the first day and then went to find our CS. We stayed with a woman called Zhenya who taught English at the university and also translated so didnt have too much time for us. Also, inside every russian building its about 30 degrees! We weren't too late to bed after our disrupted bus sleep. The following days we were up early with our host, managed to buy the rest of our russian train tickets to Irkutsk, registered our visa ( which you have to do in every city you are in over 72 hours.. but we haven't been checked once!) and saw the standard st Petersburg sights - vodka museum, which was a one room tour and a gift shop. The Hermitage was a life saver, it is one of the biggest museums ever and apparently takes 11 years to look at everything in detail. But it was free for students and warm. Our last day we visited Pushkin and a palace, but it was quite over priced and we were getting a little bored of the gold! Our final night before our train we met up with lots of CSers in the area for drinks. It was quite cool to meet real people who could tell us about russia.

I was a little worried about what we had let ourselves into buying third class tickets all the way across russian, Harri's already done this in India so its nothing compared to that. We had a carriage that was made of doorless compartment each containing 3 pairs of bunkbeds. We had 2 upper bunks which is slightly annoying as you cant sit up. But the journey went quickly and we arrived more prepared in St Petersburg.

Our host, Ilya met us for lunch and helped us buy a russian sim card- so much cheaper than uk. He lived in another Communist style block and only had 2 rooms. Its very expensive to live in Moscow. We lazily spent the rest of the day planning our time there. In Moscow we visited all the sights.. just write 10 ten things in Moscow and we propably saw them. Some of the building are so big and impressive it gives the city alot of attitude. Our host had a party the second night we stayed, but not one drop of vodka was drank! It was a little surreal with all the russian being spoken, broken English, lots of singing, guitar playing and twister! And lots of cake and fruit! We fell asleep before the end only at 4 am. In the morning they took us up to the roof which turned out to be a pretty nice day. Russia doesn't look as grey in the sun. We spend that day walking around the parks and Olympic grounds, which was one of our best days and its not even in the guide book. We visited Sergiev Posad which is a holy place in Russia, our guide book said it was worth a visit even if your all churched out.. we found out we are officially all churched out! Our final day we went to the university as guest of our hosts Mum, Mia, to talk to the son of the dean, but he got stuck in traffic jam, so we just chatted and had coffee with Mia. It was nice to talk about the UK and life.

We prepare ourselves for our 24 hour journey by stocking up on add water noodles and mashed potato. The train departed at 3pm and we got on and spent a good half hour trying to explain who we were and where we were going to the people on the carriage. Then everyone went to sleep! It was funny during the stops to see babushkas selling food at the stops along the way. But Harri's paying for it now, no further comment.

We are now in Perm, the last European city staying with Guzal and Max, cat and puppy. We were treated to a Banya last night too, its the cleanest Ive been the whole trip! The real russian experience.

Very sorry for the length again.. if its too boring just look up banya and have a laugh!

Lots of love, missing home a little now, Lauren and Harri xx

written by  harripix on November 4, 2010 from Perm', Russia
from the travel blog: harripix's Travel Blog
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