Halloween, The Great Escape, Stray Dogs and Ukraine

In about 5 hours time I will be in a taxi on the way to the train station to start my very long journey to Kiev, Ukraine. I thought that since I’d be without internet for the rest of the week, I’d write a little update now. If anything, it gives me something to do with all of my excited/nervous energy!!

First on the agenda is a little bit on what I promised I’d write about in my last post (Expect; free meals, girly sleepovers, early Halloween, bar friends):

Free meals - We are really lucky in the fact that not only does one of our lecturers from Manchester University come to visit us to check how we’re all getting on, but UoM also pay for us all to go out for a meal. I researched the best restaurants and Joe went and booked us a table at Fortuna, which is an excellent restaurant about a 5 minute walk away from our accommodation. I couldn't wait to make the most of getting a feast, especially since I'd had eggs and spinach for dinner for two nights on the run before.The food in Fortuna was excellent, topped only by the company. It was the first thing we’d done just as Manchester students and it was lovely to have a catch up with everyone.

My starter was Жюльен на тарелке which translates to
Julien on a plate. It's not as impressive a name in English.
It was chicken and mushrooms with mozzarella in a
white wine sauce, wrapped in puff pastry.

Main - Beef Stroganoff 

Dessert - Mille Feuille (ish)

Girly Sleepovers - Stefka and I were lucky enough to get invited to Kristina and Frances’ flat for the sleepover of the year. It was a genuine girly sleepover, but this time with alcohol. We dragged our mattresses into their flat, because even though we live about two metres away from them, it’s not a real sleepover unless we actually sleep over. We watched films, drank champagne, ate caviar like true Russians (vom) and danced to our treasured 90s pop. We also made up a dance routine, which we now proudly whip out in clubs. The locals think we’re amazing dancers. They don’t say it, but we can see it in their eyes...

Sleepover snacks

Kristina made us 'Special Breakfast'.
They are the only ones here with a
toaster, this was such luxury.

‘Early Halloween’ - One of the occasions where we whipped out the dance routine was at Horoshii Povod. On this occasion we were going for our friend Robin’s birthday. We didn’t realise that Horoshii Povod was celebrating Halloween a week early though so we were a little underdressed. However, good old Tver had us covered by the way of a face painting station. Drunk and like a fool I got my face painted (I also slept in it and scared Stefka when she woke up harhar). It was a brilliant night. I even asked the DJ if I could dance on the big speaker...which is funny, because I am an awful dancer. I have no idea why Russia was celebrating Halloween early, but I was happy about it. Especially since real Halloween was a bit of a letdown (see below). 

Facepaint with the Finns

Speaker dancing with Rachael

Bar friends- I woke up after ‘Early Halloween’ to find that a lady called Ekaterina had given me her number and written St Petersburg on it. I was wracking my brain to figure out who she was and what I’d arranged to do in St Petersburg(?!). Then I remembered that I was sat next to a couple of Russian women who I decided to become friends with. They didn’t speak English so I delivered my best drunk Russian and eventually, after befriending these ladies, I agreed to teach Ekaterina English once I move to St Petersburg and she’ll show me around the city. I have no idea if this will happen, but watch this space.

My friend managed to snap this picture without me noticing.
That's me in deep conversation with my new Russian friends.
Ekaterina is out of the shot, but that's her neighbour, Olga.

Second on the agenda is Halloween:

Soo Halloween fell on a Thursday this year which was excellent for us, because we always have Friday’s off, so Thursday is always our going out night. A lot of people had planned their costumes in advance, but I was rubbish and thought I’d just decide on the day. I thought that if all else failed, I could wear all black and do some crazy make up of some sort. We found this amazing shop, which is a bit like a Russian version of TK Max.. but with a lot more fur, lace, spandex etc! I should take some sneaky pictures of Russian fashion to upload onto here at some point, because, man, it is something!

I originally picked up black leggings and a baggy black top, but then I passed this red dress which was only £2 and it claimed to be Vera Wang, so I couldn’t resist it. I decided that I’d be a ‘zombie bride’ type creature, compete with a bouquet of dead roses (thanks Russian uni halls for having dead flowers in vases everywhere, it’s not creepy at all). We came home and started on the makeup and the champagne. I then decided to customise my ‘dress’ which wasn’t the best idea when tipsy. On reflection there was definitely a bit too much boob on view!

The night was a bit of a shambles really for the following reasons:

1.     We somehow got locked on the university campus and had to break out.

I threw my bags on the ground and decided to
roll under the gate. 

This is me, enjoying freedom.

The Great Escape: Tver 

2.   Russia doesn’t really celebrate Halloween, so wandering around all dressed up did make us stand out as foreigners and it also stopped us getting into a few places. (Mainly the boys though, because some of them decided to go as stereotypical 'Gypsies', so they were wearing sweatpants.)

Stefka, Kristina, Frances (deceased pin-up girls) & Me

3.     We ended up in Chicken House once again.

I got in trouble for taking this photograph.
"Photography is forbidden in Chicken House!"

The thing I love about the clubs/bars here is that they all have free cloakrooms. This means that if we are wearing going out clothes then a ‘beer jacket’ isn’t required, we can take actual jackets!!  Being cheeky Brits, we take advantage of this. Over my little dress I had tracksuit bottoms, ugg boots, a ski jacket and a rucksack to put them all in once I got to the club. This did mean stripping off around the corner from each club though, which was a bit awkward. I got caught putting my tracksuit bottoms back on after our group got rejected from Zerkalo (low point) and a beautiful French man thought that I was going for a wee on the street. So he stopped everyone from walking past me, telling them all that I needed privacy!! I was like, I’m not that bad!! Hahaha!!

Since then we’ve been enjoying the start of reading week. I’ve been out to lunch with some great friends and explored around the Volga. 

Stefka, the Volga and a stray dog that adopted us. If you're looking for a word to describe the expression on Stefka's face, it's terror.

It was a troubling time. We thought Chenkov (I named him) was going to be with us
forever.

We went for a spontaneous night out to Horoshii Povod on Saturday night, which was amazing at first, but it ended quite badly and didn’t show Russia in a brilliant light. It’s probably best that I wait until I am back in England to write about that though. I’ve decided to play it safe.

Third and finally we have Ukraine:

I am seriously excited to go to Ukraine. Like I said at the start of this post, we leave in about 5 hours and then we’ve got a two hour train journey to Moscow, where we’ll be meeting our friends from Yaroslavl’. We’ve then got a 9 hour train journey to Kiev! I can’t wait! I love sleeper trains. I’ve packed all of my books and snacks (even though I did ‘accidentally’ start eating them before, m’bad).

We’ve booked to go on a day tour of Chernobyl on Friday as part of our trip. This is the thing that I am most excited about, but the more I think about it, the more nervous I’m getting. I’ve spent the last few nights researching it and it has proved quite difficult reading.  I know that it will be incredible to see an abandoned city and I can’t wait to learn more about it, however, I also know that it will probably be a very emotional and thought-provoking tour. I’ve been told that the radiation we’ll be exposed to should be no more than that of an x ray or transatlantic flight and we get checked for radiation multiple times during the tour, so all should be well on that front. (I hope!!)

Wish me luck!! Hopefully I won’t return with an extra limb or glow-in-the-dark skin or anything.

XxX

Moscow 10th-12th October

I thought I'd have a go at recording a video blog instead of writing a post this time. Before I tried this, I didn't realise how difficult it actually is to vlog!! I now have a renewed respect for anyone who vlogs.

I've tried to keep it brief, but it's still about 13 minutes long, so pour yourself a brew and get cosy.






Obviously, a lot has happened since then! Yet again, I have left it too long between updates -sorry! I will make sure I upload a new post this week to fill in all the blanks! Expect; free meals, girly sleepovers, early halloween, bar friends and more.

XxX

Why we've stopped eating at the canteen..

My meal

Every now and then we decide to take advantage of the university canteen and we nip over there for some cooked food. I always like to play it safe with mashed/puréed potatoes of some sort and occasionally I go for some meat. Below you'll see pictured my potatoes and a ball of meat, accompanied by another slab of meat with cheese on top. The ball of meat didn't taste too bad, but it had these thick white chunks in it. I pulled one out to study. It looked like a strip of chicken.. it was fat.  And the slab of meat was pork, so tough that it bent our forks hahaha!

Please note the white chunks you can see in the unidentified meat ball

-"Stefka, could I please try your soup?"
*watches Stefka pick the bone out of her mouth
and then picks the rest of them out of her soup*
"...Actually, never mind!"
(Stefka's photo)

Marikki's food remains. Marikki chose a fish option which came complete
with a huge section of bones, photograhed on the top left hand
side of the plate.

How to Keep Busy in Russia

(Sorry, I realise that I haven’t posted about anything other than food in almost four weeks! Now is definitely the time to catch you all up. I’ll try to keep it as brief as I can! I was going to record a video blog, but since I spend most of my time here makeup-less and looking like a foot, I thought I’d spare you that ghastly sight for the moment.)

PUB CRAWL

I’ll start off way back on 13^th September when the International Office organised a pub crawl around Tver for all of us international students. The pub crawl was such a good idea, because it gave us the opportunity to get to know some of the other international students. We had several challenges to do during the pub crawl but the only one we managed to do was to drink a shot of vodka. Now, I absolutely HATE drinking straight vodka!! I used to occasionally do it in my teen years and the memory still sends a shiver down my spine. Also, a shot here is 50ml. Therefore, it probably goes without saying that it took me about 4 attempts to drink it and I then had to sit still for about 5 minutes afterwards to make sure that I wasn’t going to vom. We got off lightly though, because we were actually challenged to order this mystery vodka, which turned out to be horseradish vodka! Luckily our pub didn’t have any, so we had to make do with plain vodka (there is a God).

Most of my lovely pub crawl group!

Unisex door sign, it kind of speaks for itself
really.

My vodka shot with a
white wine chaser

ZERKALO - Night Club
After the pub crawl, some of us decided to go to Zerkalo, which is a club in town. I’d never been before so I was definitely up for it.  It was about a 15 minute walk, during which we were stopped by a homeless man who wanted money off us to buy weapons...! Crazy Russia.

Once we got to the club, we walked past a plant pot, with a pair of legs coming out of it and a sign on it saying, ‘Y нас есть Face Control’, which means, ‘We have Face Control’. Basically, Russian bouncers use a thing called ‘face control’ to limit who gets into the club. If they don’t like you/don’t think you’re attractive enough/don’t think that you’re dressed well enough then they will just turn you away and say, ‘Face Control’ in a thick Russian accent. It’s usual for this to happen in the big cities like Moscow and Petersburg, but I didn’t really expect it to happen in Tver.

Entry to the club was £2 and the drinks were fairly cheap too! Zerkalo itself is a pretty modern club with a good mix of English and Russian music. They even played Ricky Martin and The Spice Girls. That being said, they got points deducted for remixing The Spice Girls. You do not mess with perfection, Russia.

I’ve noticed that in Russian clubs, men definitely rule the roost. They will shove women out of the way without a second thought. If you’re stood in the way and a man wants to get past you, move or be moved. I’m definitely not used to this and it’s not something that I care for. Also, something that I’m not used to is the number of pole and cage dancers around the club. They don’t even get any attention. They just blend in with the flashing lights and rest of the furniture, it’s quite sad really.

This was one of the standard Zerkalo club night games that they do. The week before they had a 'hard-on' competition
where men lay on the floor and women had to come up and give them a lap dance, and the girl who was the first to give the guy a hard-on won. None of  us understood the game in this pic, the guys just started lifting up the girls' skirts while we all just awkwardly watched on. It just felt so out of place. The lack of respect for the women was disgusting and I couldn't help but cringe.. and heckle. 

TOILET VOCABULARY

I was really disappointed to discover that a huge section of much needed vocab seems to have been missed off my Russian learning so far! Toilet vocab. Girls kept speaking to me in the ladies and I had absolutely no idea what they were saying. Not a clue! One woman started talking to me, so I did the very polite British thing that we do when we don’t hear what someone’s said, I just did a little laugh and hoped she hadn’t asked me a question! Her response to this was to ruffle my hair and say 'Молодец!' which means, ‘Good for you!’... even now I can't figure out what we were talking about and why she ruffled my hair. It made me laugh though.

ICE-HOCKEY

The following day we went to an ice hockey match. This also cost £2 with a student discount card, thank you Russia! I’ve never been to an ice hockey match before and the atmosphere was amazing. It was Tver vs The Titans. We lost at penalties, but it was a great match.  Tver even had their own ‘cheerleaders’, who I thought seriously lacked enthusiasm. My main highlight was probably when a cheerleader fell over and dropped her pompom during a routine and had to jump up and continue with only one pompom. I laughed a lot.

MY BIRTHDAY!!
The following Friday (20^th Sept), I reluctantly turned 22! I awoke to find that the flat had been decorated in ‘Happy Birthday’ banners and before I’d even woken up properly there was a glass of champagne in my hand! By 11am I’d already been through two bottles... but I shared them with Saidi and Stefka (sort of).

Tiger cake time

The craziest, musical cat card I've ever seen

Then all of the students on my floor came in to my flat with a cake and sang happy birthday, while I sat at the table slowly getting more drunk and more glittery. We then went to the cinema, where I fell asleep during the film (thanks champagne!) and in the evening we all went to Zerkalo again (I know, we need to try other places!!). I had such an amazing day. I was completely overwhelmed by the effort that everyone went to and by the birthday wishes and beautiful gifts that I received. I’m not really one for soppy messages, but I couldn’t have asked for a better day! Thank you all for being a part of it ♥

The majority of  the lovely people who made my day super special!

And of course huge thanks to Stefka xx

MOSCOW

Last Sunday (29^th Sept) I went on the organised trip to Moscow to see the ballet. We went to the Kremlin and saw the Nutcracker -it was absolutely incredible. I fell asleep during that too though. I have no idea why! Apparently sleeping at inappropriate times is just something that I do now?! Anyway, it goes without saying that Moscow is a beautiful city. The architecture is stunning and the amount of western shops did make my heart squeal a little after a month away from them. I’d been looking forward to going to Krispy Kreme for my much-needed doughnut fix for weeks leading up to this trip (as I’m sure anyone who follows me on twitter will know). Sadly it was not to be. Svetlana, our tour guide, hadn’t allocated dougnnut time into the schedule for some unforgivable reason. I had to leave doughnut-less and with a broken heart. I’ll be going back to Moscow this weekend though, so don’t worry about me. I will be dozen deep in heavenly little nuts of dough soon enough!

Saint Basil's Cathedral, Red Square, Moscow

THE MUNDANE MADE INTERESTING

I’ve done some more everyday tasks which would be boring, if they weren’t so Russian. Here are a few:

- Purchased a blender. Ordinarily that would be a hugely uneventful task, yeah? Well not here. Locating the store was easy, locating the blender was also easy, buying the blender.. easy. The difficulty lay in taking the blender out of the shop. There was a man on the door, checking receipts like they do at Costco. He checked our receipt and then called over a young man who took our blender away. The young man then came back three times with different blenders, before they all realised that it was the first blender that we were supposed to have all along. Who knew?.. WE KNEW, THAT’S WHY WE BOUGHT IT! Then walking home the most surreal thing happened. I was with three of my female friends, one of them carrying the big blender box as we walked home. Then five big, hairy, leather jacket wearing, moustache sporting men walked past us. They were probably aged 50-60 and looked like they’d climbed out of The Godfather. I just so happened to glance over as they walked past, in time to see one man lift his hand from his side, stretch out two fingers and go ‘shoooooop’ straight for my friend’s vagina. (He actually made the shoop noise!!). Well why not? I mean, she had both hands full carrying the big box. She’d left her ladyparts unguarded; of course you’d go straight for a through-the-jeans-finger. FFS RUSSIA. She managed to jump to the side and the men just walked past as if nothing had happened. We all just walked home like. What. The. Fuck. Just. Happened. That’s the thing about Russia, it’s not just in Zerkalo where men rule the roost, but I’ll save that for another post.

- Second and final mundane task was going to the market. It’s on every weekend and it’s the place for everyone to get their fresh fruit, veg, meats, kittens etc. Yes. I said kittens. And puppies too. Chickens, hamsters, turtles! I only managed to get one picture of the some of the kittens, because the Russians don’t take too kindly to photography! It took all of my self-control not to buy them all.

One of many boxes of kittens at the market

The meat section of the market is something out of the ordinary too. We walked in to see men wandering around with huge axes ready to chop the carcases that were just lying around on big tree trunks. We saw horns coming out from under a table...a cow's head. It felt like we were in an abattoir! I would have taken pictures, but judging by how the Russians with kittens responded to my camera, I didn’t want to anger those with axes.

If you’ve made if this far, well done and thanks for sticking with me. I’m almost done, I swear!

This weekend has been a rather reflective one. I’ve had the flat to myself since Stefka went to Veliky Novgorod for the weekend and Saidi to Moscow. I watched Eat, Pray, Love and it made me realise how little I’m actually experiencing here in Tver. If anything, I’ve almost completely lost my passion for food and I’ve lost that all-important wanderlust. Over the past few weeks I’ve felt pretty out of touch with myself which is completely the reverse of what I was hoping to get out of this year. I just currently have a huge amount of want in me and I’m waiting for Russia to deliver. I want more. So I’m going to have to start looking for it. Whatever it may be.

XxX

Food Update

I've worked out that my staple diet here is cheese sandwiches.. this post doesn't reflect that. But I have found lots of interesting things..

Russian potato chips. Russians seem to
love sour cream and onion or some
kind of variation of that. Finding other flavours
has been a challenge. I think these are pretty much
the Russian equivalent of Quavers.

No idea why Ice Age have their own brand of crisp,
but these are salt flavour. And salty they definitely are. 

Very similar to Crunchy Nut Corn Flakes

Ketchup. Decided to be adventurous and not buy Heinz.
We also decided not to read the packet, this one contains
meat pieces. Strange!

Bacon Lays and (unsurprisingly) sour cream and 'greens' Lays.

I bought these in the uni canteen. I was going
to have them with either rice or potatoes, but
the lady just handed me my plate and moved on
to the next person. The steely look in her eyes told me
not to interrupt her. I think(/hope) I'm right in saying
that these were fish. In Russia when it comes to
meat etc, ignorance is bliss.

Closer shot of the fish cake balls

First cake that I've had that was actually
quite nice. Pastry with vanilla cream and nuts.

Excitedly bought these thinking I'd found
doughnuts. Technically they were doughnuts, but
they had nothing in the middle. They were just dry
balls of bread in the shape of doughnuts with a
scarce sprinkling of sugar. It broke my heart.

Once again, the 'faux-nuts'

 

Decided to give the hot dog sausages a try. They're hugely popular here.

Hot dogs again, but this time with the traditional plain pasta.
Last time I was in Russia, I was given these sausages and
plain spaghetti for breakfast almost every morning, so this took
me back!

The Sausages - 'Dad can!'

Cheese triangles! Manages to make toast in the oven today
(no toaster and no grill in our flat) and have this cheese
on it for lunch, not bad!

I'm too fussy to have pâté here, but Stefka bought some.

Stefka also bought Smetana, which is sour cream.
This is served on almost everything.

While I waited for the pics above here to load I went shopping
I bought 2 bottles of Baltika (70p each), 1 bottle of
Stolichnaya vodka (£5.40), 1 bottle of Kalinka vodka (£5.40),
1 bottle of Mirinda (£1), 1 bottle of fresh fruit juice (£1.50),
1 half loaf of bread (£1) and a Magnum/Russian version called Magnat
 (80p) which is not photographed because obviously it got
eaten on the way home from the supermarket.. in the rain.
When a 500ml bottle of branded beer is cheaper than a loaf
of bread, you know you're in Russia.

Managed to find a doughnut that actually had a filling. Sadly, it was an
over-sugared strawberry paste/jam.

Canteen lunch. Chicken, potatoes, chocolate milk (because I am 5)
and a sugared bread roll filled with poppy seeds.

Quick soup. Very salty.