Time for a very overdue blog I think!
All is well in Russia! It is getting very cold and we’ve had a few flurries of snow, but nothing major yet. I have no doubt that the snow will hit us hard soon though. Really hoping it doesn’t affect my flight home, because last year the guys flying home from Russia got stranded in Moscow airport for three days. If that happens to me this year, it will mean I have to spend Christmas eve, Christmas day and probably boxing day in the airport- so fingers crossed this does not happen as I think this might deflate my soul.
Anyway, I’ve got this week off school for a well earned break. So Amber, Fiona, Zoe and I decided to organise a two day trip away. Our plan was to visit the towns of Kastroma and Plios. For a really good price, we managed to book a minibus to take us to these places. The driver turned out to be the absolute lad that is Sasha- A plump man with a minor mullet going on. He was not impressed with anything at all and driving us around seemed like the last thing he wanted to be doing.
I have to include the first notable event of the holiday, which occurred prior to boarding the minibus. At 9am, the four of us were minding our own business, waiting outside the theatre to be picked up. All of a sudden, my attention was turned to a pretty much intoxicated man striding towards me with a look of sheer insanity in his eyes. Unfortunately, even at this time in the morning, this was no mirage. He just came right up to me, placed his hand on my shoulder and tried to hug me. In disbelief and slight terror I escaped his drunken embrace and thankfully we spotted the bus and legged it fast.
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| The Moose Whisperer |
The journey to Kastroma gave us the privilege of another Andrei-style car experience (See blog #2). With tinted windows and the bass blaring, I felt reassured that this was going to be another truly Russian trip. I cannot explain how terrible the roads are here. The final road to the moose farm we were going to, was just full of huge holes and generally unsurfaced muddy tracks. After a sufficient amount of being thrown about in the bus, we arrived at the farm. It was good fun and we had a good guide, or moose man as I prefer to refer to him. The ladette that is Polly, very appropriately captioned one of my pictures of him as ‘the moose whisperer’, which I will post on this blog for everyone to appreciate. So we walked around the farm, patted loads of mooses, debated about the plural of the word moose, I personally discovered that mooses yell like men (See youtube video ‘bear yells like a man’), commented on how thin mooses’ legs are and also fed them carrots. Fiona also bought some rather special moose coasters.
we had a guided tour of the town of Kastroma, where we saw the spectacularly decorated monastery and some other landmarks and generally had a nice day. We then went to our hotel which was just outside the town. Then, we ran into a slight issue. Russia has this big policy of ‘registration’, which unfortunately I still don’t fully understand. It’s something along the lines of you have to be ‘registered’ when you’re staying somewhere in Russia. And if you move about, for example, to spend a week in Moscow, you have re-register in that place (a procedure that can usually be done for you by the hotel you stay in). So we arrived at the hotel and the receptionist asked us for passports. Then we realised that this was not enough, because they needed to see our actual visas, which three of us had left at home because we had been told to never take them out with us. It’s illegal to be somewhere without being registered, and you get fined. So with the receptionists basically telling us we couldn’t stay in the hotel, we stood there like four sad foreign puppies and were running through scenarios like how we were going to get back to Yaroslavl that night because we couldn’t stay in Kastroma. Luckily, after a lot of discussion and shuffling around, the hotel people ‘did us a favour’ and let us stay for the night.
That evening, we had a nice dinner and then hired out the pool, sauna and steam room for around just £8 each. I was sceptical about the sauna, because I have always stuck to my theory that sitting down and sweating your face off cannot be enjoyable. However, as the sauna (Banya) is as traditional and popular in Russia as vodka, I decided to give it a go. I have to admit, it wasn’t as fabulous as everyone tells me it is, but I did feel quite healthy after it.
The next day we travelled further to the town of Plios, which I have to say, was absolutely gorgeous. We were pretty much the only people in the town on that day and it was so peaceful and quaint. By the Volga, Plios had beautiful trees and cobbled hills (which I was not finding gorgeous at the time because I am very anti-cobbles and anti-hills.) After some walking around chilled out Plios, we went up to visit the Russian izba. An izba is a traditional Russian log house in the countryside. We went inside and had a talk from the izba lady, who was wearing full traditional dress and I was particularly approving of her two gold teeth. Couldn’t look at anyone else when she broke into song (it was only the four of us in there) because I didn’t want to offend anyone’s culture. She gave us some porridge which I usually hate, but all credit to the izba..this was the best porridge ever, with sugar and honey. We then had a mini tour of the outside izba museum from the man who I have named ‘guide of guides’. He was quite old but we all admitted that we had a tiny crush on him because he just emitted this aura of Russian amazingness and knowledge and was wearing an overcoat and flatcap. He looked like he’d just popped out of a Russian book and we all agreed that he had very kind eyes. Yes, we are all losing the plot here. Anyway, he was explaining to us all about the traditional culture and showed us a load of artefacts. Zoe got to sport a fetching poncho as well.
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| Rabbit/terrier/duster |
Now to the final stage of our trip – arrival at ‘Romanov Les’. ‘Romanov Les’ is an eco-hotel situated in the forest. It says ‘hotel’, but really it’s a collection of log cabins of different sizes. It was so Scandinavian and beautiful. We had booked to stay there for one night, but at the end of the trip we did not want to leave. I was sharing a ‘standard’ cabin with Amber. I can honestly say, I have never slept in a bed that big before. It was the lushest place I have ever stayed in. After spending seven weeks living in Yaroslavl’s mafia district, I was absolutely in awe of this whole place. Surrounded by birch trees, our warm and luxurious log cabin seemed like the best thing on earth! On further exploration of the forest, we found two ostriches/ emus (still don’t know the difference), a rabbit, another rabbit which we mistook for an extremely small terrier dog and Fiona diagnosed with myxamotosis, a wide selection of chickens and a BEAR!!!! Oh my god, it was so amazing there..i feel like weeping. The other three girls booked themselves in for a massage and we spent a little while debating whether it was weird that Amber’s masseuse half stripped off during her massage.
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| A log cabin in Romanov Les |
So that’s the main gist of the trip, which was very very relaxing and lovely. But it went too quickly, as it always does, and here I am back in Perekop. Natasha made a pizza from Mayonnaise and other questionable ingredients the day BEFORE I went away. And she was trying to give me the same pizza when I returned yesterday. I pretended that I was enjoying the cabbage too much to eat the pizza. Every time I go into the shop under my flat, the woman keeps striking up conversation with me. Cannot understand what she’s saying, and also at the moments she chooses to speak to me, I really don’t want to be thinking of anything apart from the snickers that I want to buy. The other day, one of the cats pooed in the bath and Natasha practically picked it up by its head and started telling it off. The cat that is, not the poo. Things are weird here, but poo is not animate. But generally, I have a lot of love for Natasha at the moment, because I feel like I’ve known her for a long time. Really having a wonderful and bizarre time here, but not going to lie- I think about coming home every day! Cannot wait till I am back in England!
Sorry for the length of this blog, it is full of drivel I know. Hope everyone is alright!
Over and outski
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A simply charming read. Thank you :) xx
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