From tropical Goa in India where Leah & I are sunning ourselves for a few days whilst we wind down to our return home.
I last left off in Spain at the point we were heading to France. Our reasons for traveling in France were threefold:
1) Watch as many of the AB's pool games as I could get tickets for
2) Finish off a pilgrims walk we started two years ago
3) Have a holiday with Hilary & Dave, our good friends from Winchester
I will deal with the walk first. The French camino (or GR65) is one of four that runs through France. They were ways used by Pilgrims from all over Europe from the early Middle Ages to get to the tomb of St Jacques (James the Elder) in Santiago Northern Spain. One route sort of originates in Tours & acted as a focal point for pilgrims from the Low Countries. The second started from Veselay in central France & attracted pilgrims from Germany, Poland & the like. The third started at Le Puy and served as a point of reference for pilgrims from Sthrn Germany, Switzerland & points east eg Austria. The final route went through Arles in Southern France & picked up pilgrims from Italy, Provence etc. The Le Puy route is by far the most popular & it was the one that we had begun 2 years ago. This time we picked up the route from a small town called Figeac. Small but beautiful. We walked three days to a town called Cahors, a very historical place & then took three days off in a small village near a town called Limoges.
Our diversion to Lautrette resulted from meeting a French couple (Vincent & Claude) in ULaan Bataar. They very kindly invited us to their parents house in Lautrette when we were in France. We happily did so & had a really marvellous time. It was country life with french families at its best in an old farmhouse . Vincent's parents were there as were his sister, brother in law & three children. We were made to feel part of the family & did a heap of interesting things. Like visiting the local market, going for long bike rides (they were very patient with us slow coaches), having family dinners & checking out the local Pate suppliers etc etc. We particularly enjoyed the night when the local mayor came for dinner. The wine & conversation flowed very freely that night. We loved having lunch etc in the garden at the back of the house - a very civilised process I can tell you. Hard to say "we have to go now" . It was also interesting that their house is right on the pilgrims route which comes down from Vezelay.
Anyway (sadly) back on the march from Moissac to Condom. Highlights of our walk included:
1) Night in a big convent in Moissac run by half a dozen nuns. I was the only guy there!!
2) Walking alongside a large canal. Very flat so really easy day.
3) Brand new gite in Auvillar which was as good as a 4 star hotel. And only EU 11.00 ea!!8)
4) Singing the Yellow Polka Dot Bikini song with Dannielle in Auvillar. How we got onto that I will never know but it was a lot of fun.
5) Therese our hostess in Miradoux. What a lady - she had us singing all these pilgrims songs, she took us up to the local church where we sang a few more songs, she plied us with food & wine and got me to walk her dog. Actually it wasn't a dog - it was a small horse!! The B .... thing was so big it dragged me everywhere. Especially whenever it saw a cat, which seemed to be quite frequently. So my pilgrims days almost ended in Miradoux.
6) Monestary in Lectoure where we met the local priest cum poet. He wrote his own hymns & graces & took great delight in getting all we innocent pilgrims to sing along at dinner. As dinner was free I guess we couldn't complain too much. And we had to clean up afterwards.
7) Walking thru fields of sunflowers (fantastic), picking all the wild plums, grapes, figs, apples & the like. And I still managed to lose weight!!
8) Defending the AB's chances when talking to all the french followers. Maybe I put the hex on them.
We arrived at Condom (still find it hard to write that name without wondering how it ever came about). I did notice a lot of children in the town so obviously the import of the name has passed the locals by. Or are they trying to make a point?
Anyway we met our very old friends Hilary & Dave from Winchester UK there. They wisked us off to a week in the country back near Figeac. A small stone cottage in a small village called Ambeyrac. It was right on the banks of the Lot river - a really picturesque location. We had a fantastic time. Travelled around the area a lot, did some walks (are we tigers for punishment or what?), visited local markets (the one at Villefranche was great), toured the local castle & enjoyed the guide ("now I repeat the number of people who walked thru this gate was 30,000,000; do you understand, I repeat again the number of people who ....") all in a classic deadpan french english accent, and visited St Cirque de Popie, a cathedral town built on the side of a cliff overlooking the river. A spectacular place steeped in history. Also got our bit of culture in with an evening of music in a local cathedral. And the food & wine flowed c/o of our master epicurean Dave. So an amazing week & thanks so much guys.
But all good things come to an end & it was back to Condom & continuing on our pilgrimage. We were heading into Basque country now - rolling countryside with the house painted a white & red colour. Very pretty in its own way but I think that I prefered the earlier stages (more to eat along the way!!) However we struck it lucky one day when we passed a producer of pates. He gave us three tins of Pork pate gratis which was very much appreciated I can tell you. So much so that Leah actually ate some. Not too many other highlights & some lowlights. I some how contracted shingles which I thought at first were some sort of bed bug bites. I didn't get them diagnosed until we did our final week of spanish - english teaching at Avila. They ended up being a real pain & spread over a big chunk of my chest.
As I said not too many highlights but we did see some Basque dancing in a square beside our Gite one night. Very loud but very enjoyable. Also stayed in an ancient church (built & invested by Charlemagne in 777). It had been flattened a few times since then but still retained that feeling of history. A lot of the smaller towns in this part of France were known as bastides. They were fortified villages ie a castle (or fortified church) with a big wall all around. Usually built on the top of a hill. The english held this area for many hundreds of years & there are still many reminders of that occupation around eg watchtowers, castles, chateaux etc. So historical interest wherever you looked.
We finally arrived at St Jean Pied de Porte the town we left from 5 years ago on our Spanish walk. People everywhere - the pilgrimage is now big big business & numbers have increased incredibly. In 2003 (our year) 16,000 passed thru St JPdP. Last year (2006) 23,500 started the pilgrimage there. And this years numbers will break all records.
We left St Jean next day to travel to Avignon. We used that as a base for the first AB game in Marseilles. Afterwards it was off to the French Riviera. We spent time between St Raphael & La Lavandou - the area including St Tropez. The Riviera is sort of part of Provence & was truly great. Weather fantastic, beaches great (so Leah says - I am not an expert) & the sky such a wonderful blue colour. I can see why it is such an inspiration for painters & the like. We spent a day in St Tropez & no I was not approached by BB or a film director. I guess that a long haired aging hippy dressed in scruffy tramping gear dosen't quite cut it any more. St T was very nice with heaps of million euro boats & cars. The town was in some ways just a little too good to be true. So very neat & clean, buildings all in perfect condition, paint immaculate - everything was in its place etc etc.
We had a great night at our camping ground at La Lavandou though. The owners put on an end of season party for all the campers. Food, wine, a one man band (who sang continuously for 5 hours +) & dance. We let our hair down & had a great night. We enjoyed shopping there also at the big Supermarkets. Our regard for price efficiency was well & truly satisfied. 16 Pottles of yoghurt EU2.20, tin mackeral EU0.94, 1 litre Wine EU .90, bread EU0.50. So no prizes for guessing what we ate. Also had a day at a town called Bormes La Mimosa. It is inland from LL. An historic town which has been really well preserved. Built on the side of a hill it has all the narrow streets, quaint houses, old churches, the compulsory chateau, vines, flowers & herbs growing everywhere, wonderful smells and a special sort of ambience. The place felt a little more natural than St Tropez. Highly recommended!!
Now for the hard part. The All Blacks. Need I say more . I watched the Toulouse (Roumanian) & Marseilles (Italy) games. Both a walk in the park for the AB's. Very enjoyable for we spectators, but the Italians & Roumanians were not remotely competitive. The stadiums were terrific & I had good seats in both. But once I learned that we were up against France in the 1/4 final I had a sinking feeling. The French had a lot to prove, not the least to ensure that they played a semi final in Paris. Also they had hard games against Ireland & Argentine so they were probably more mentally tuned to Cardiff than the AB's. I also have always had reservations about Henry's rotational policy. There never seemed to be a top 15 on view & I think that can be demotivating for the players. Lots for the "wise men" to think about over the next 4 years.
I learned of the AB French result in Khatmandu. Quite put me off my Dahl Bhat meal I can tell you. And India & Nepal is another story.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Russia, Spain & France
I don't think that I covered the cities of Moscow & St Petersberg too well in my previous epistles. So maybe I should do so now b4 heading into Finland & France & Spain.
Moscow was a big modern city. As I said we were in a hostel miles down to the southeast in a fairly nondescipt suburb. The good thing was that it was close to a market, a supermarket & the Metro. THe Moscow metro is amazing. Really efficient, the stations were works of art & the cost was miniscle. The down side was that the crowds were huge &they all moved at 100kphr. So you could not stop or slow down to admire the architecture. If you did you were swamped in a tidal wave of people.
We went to the Pushken museum (art work good but the museum was being renovated so everything was a bit disjointed), Red Square (really great as it was easy to visualise it in the days of Stalin, Kruschev, Brezshnev etc), Lenins Tomb with the great man himself emblamed for all time & the Kremlim which really is a sort of walled area. Once inside we did not have access to the soviet parliament but rather six or seven old Russian churches which have been converted to museums. They were great - in one we got some clasical russian church singing by a small group. Superb music -better than the Catholic lot who I feel tend to chant more than sing. Also the russion religious art is very different from the west. MOst of the art is based on ikons ie paintings & gilt on wood. And it is all to do with Mary holding Jesus as a young child. There is very little depicting the Passion and Mary is given a really high profile. It is her face that your eye is drawn to first. Painting is usually in red (sometimes green) & a lot of elements eg robes, halos etc are covered in gold gilt. If somewhat styilised it is still superb & I never got tired of looking at it.
But somehow I think that I have described all of this in a previous e mail. If I haven't please let me know & I will carry on. Because I am now going to skip straight to Helsinki & the story from there.
We both love Helsinki. Got there by bus from St P (8 hour trip) with no problems at the border. We stayed in a suburb of H. called Espoo about 15min by bus west along the coast. A nice hotel/hostel which had small dorm rooms. Buyt best of all it had this fantastic FREE buffet breakfast & free internet. YOu can see which we valued the most highly. So in true frugal backpacker tradition we were first in to breakfast & last to leave. We ate so much it lasted us for lunch & we only needed a small dinner. But our excuse was that the food was good & Europe is expensive (both true). I would recommend the Hotel Matinlahti to anyone but after we had finished with it I am sure they have probably declared bankruptcy. Loved the area - all the streets are tree lined, there are nice walking paths & the beaches were very atmospheric.
But all good things must come to an end & it was off to Madrid. Where we spent 3 days, arranged our Indian visas & then headed off for some voluntary english "teaching" at Vaughntown a place about 2.5 hours west of Madrid. A greast concept whereby 17/19 first language english speakers join with a similar number of spaniards for intensive english conversation (sort of total immersion on the spaniards part). So there were one on ones English/Spaniard, telephone conversations, conference calls, play acting, some mini theatre work, games, siestas etc etc. The spaniards were all top level people & really interesting to talk to. Surgeons, Nuclear regulatory people, civil servants, people from private industry - a really eclectic bunch and very nice. The deal for we anglos was free board , all meals & wine at a four star hotel. The food was great, wine even better & the rooms all high quality. We both enjoyed the experience greatly - we would not get to meet such a diverse range of people any other way. I learned more about bull fighting in one hour from Havier than I ever would have by reading books!! THe programme runs on a 6 day 5 night basis & we did two in a row, followed by a third in late September. I will definitely go again if I ever return to that part of Europe. If anyone is going to Spain & has a spare week I would strongly recommend. It is a nice part of Spain near a walled city called Avila. You get to spend an afternoon in the local village (Barco De Avila) & they put on tapas nights (or BBQ's) to wind each programme up.
So that was the major part of our spanish experiences. We spent a couple of weekends in Avila at the YHA & enjoyed exploring the old city. We caught the tail end of Avilas festival programme & managed to catch an evening of tango music.
Next stop was France & our pilgrims walk so that will be the subject of Installment 9. Unless I have missed big chunks of our time in St P & Moscow.
Moscow was a big modern city. As I said we were in a hostel miles down to the southeast in a fairly nondescipt suburb. The good thing was that it was close to a market, a supermarket & the Metro. THe Moscow metro is amazing. Really efficient, the stations were works of art & the cost was miniscle. The down side was that the crowds were huge &they all moved at 100kphr. So you could not stop or slow down to admire the architecture. If you did you were swamped in a tidal wave of people.
We went to the Pushken museum (art work good but the museum was being renovated so everything was a bit disjointed), Red Square (really great as it was easy to visualise it in the days of Stalin, Kruschev, Brezshnev etc), Lenins Tomb with the great man himself emblamed for all time & the Kremlim which really is a sort of walled area. Once inside we did not have access to the soviet parliament but rather six or seven old Russian churches which have been converted to museums. They were great - in one we got some clasical russian church singing by a small group. Superb music -better than the Catholic lot who I feel tend to chant more than sing. Also the russion religious art is very different from the west. MOst of the art is based on ikons ie paintings & gilt on wood. And it is all to do with Mary holding Jesus as a young child. There is very little depicting the Passion and Mary is given a really high profile. It is her face that your eye is drawn to first. Painting is usually in red (sometimes green) & a lot of elements eg robes, halos etc are covered in gold gilt. If somewhat styilised it is still superb & I never got tired of looking at it.
But somehow I think that I have described all of this in a previous e mail. If I haven't please let me know & I will carry on. Because I am now going to skip straight to Helsinki & the story from there.
We both love Helsinki. Got there by bus from St P (8 hour trip) with no problems at the border. We stayed in a suburb of H. called Espoo about 15min by bus west along the coast. A nice hotel/hostel which had small dorm rooms. Buyt best of all it had this fantastic FREE buffet breakfast & free internet. YOu can see which we valued the most highly. So in true frugal backpacker tradition we were first in to breakfast & last to leave. We ate so much it lasted us for lunch & we only needed a small dinner. But our excuse was that the food was good & Europe is expensive (both true). I would recommend the Hotel Matinlahti to anyone but after we had finished with it I am sure they have probably declared bankruptcy. Loved the area - all the streets are tree lined, there are nice walking paths & the beaches were very atmospheric.
But all good things must come to an end & it was off to Madrid. Where we spent 3 days, arranged our Indian visas & then headed off for some voluntary english "teaching" at Vaughntown a place about 2.5 hours west of Madrid. A greast concept whereby 17/19 first language english speakers join with a similar number of spaniards for intensive english conversation (sort of total immersion on the spaniards part). So there were one on ones English/Spaniard, telephone conversations, conference calls, play acting, some mini theatre work, games, siestas etc etc. The spaniards were all top level people & really interesting to talk to. Surgeons, Nuclear regulatory people, civil servants, people from private industry - a really eclectic bunch and very nice. The deal for we anglos was free board , all meals & wine at a four star hotel. The food was great, wine even better & the rooms all high quality. We both enjoyed the experience greatly - we would not get to meet such a diverse range of people any other way. I learned more about bull fighting in one hour from Havier than I ever would have by reading books!! THe programme runs on a 6 day 5 night basis & we did two in a row, followed by a third in late September. I will definitely go again if I ever return to that part of Europe. If anyone is going to Spain & has a spare week I would strongly recommend. It is a nice part of Spain near a walled city called Avila. You get to spend an afternoon in the local village (Barco De Avila) & they put on tapas nights (or BBQ's) to wind each programme up.
So that was the major part of our spanish experiences. We spent a couple of weekends in Avila at the YHA & enjoyed exploring the old city. We caught the tail end of Avilas festival programme & managed to catch an evening of tango music.
Next stop was France & our pilgrims walk so that will be the subject of Installment 9. Unless I have missed big chunks of our time in St P & Moscow.
Saturday, September 1, 2007
The perils of the russian train system
Just a couple more things re Russian railways that I will bore you with & then we will move to more interesting things.
Russian rail tickets are really complex. You need a degree in Ticknology to understand them. They show literally everything regarding your trip & take quite a while to set up & print out at the office. Name, passport no, train no, all the price components, carriage, bed no, Towns from & to etc etc - its all there somewhere printed in Cryllic. THe other interesting thing is that all times printed on the tickets are for Moscow. And the station clocks are the same ie set to Moscow time. So you front up at 8.00am in Irkutsk & the clock shows 3.00am. You have to be very careful about time differences. Irkutsk was 4 hours ahead of Moscow but the next station (Krasnoyarsk) was only 3 hours ahead. A bit of a nightmare as we nearly made the mistake of applying the ticket time as if it was the local time.
We found the russian people to be very friendly once you sort of broke past their initial reserve. But we had a bad experience in Irkutsk which unfortunately made it hard for the first short while. Leah had her Sony video cam stolen out of her back pack whilst on a tram from the station to our hostel. We think that she was targeted by a gang almost from the moment we got off the train. There is no other way that it could have happened. The police were not interested at all ¨don´t waste our time!¨ so that did not help as well. A great start to our russiam segment.
I did not like Irkutsk too much. It seemed a bit like Uhlan Bataar - ie lots of old decrepit
buildings, empty factories & a general air of seediness. Galina our hostess in Irkutsk taught us both a little russian. She was a lot of fun. As I have already said Olkhon Island was great.
Krasnoyarsk our next stop was much the same as Irkutsk. A bigger city but again ugly apartment blocks all over & lots of empty run down factories. We walked around the town & it was all fairly ordianry. Not a lot was open & a lot of people that we passed seemed to have a bottle in their hands. Abakan, south of Kr, was a much smaller city & quite nice. We went there to try to move on to the Tuva Republic where all the throat singers lived. However we could not find any english speakers to point us in the right direction so had to give it away. It is really hard - the locals tried to help but we just couldn´t make ourselves understood.
We met our air traffic controller on the train to Abakan. She was really nice & it was amazing to meet a Russian who had been to NZ. She gave us a couple of nice Tupperware cups (yes Tupperware has penetrated the Russian heartland) as a gift for speaking to her. Well really it should have been us giving something to her. Others on the train used her to ask us questions, mainly about NZ. So it was hard to find out too much about them & they way they lived.
We travelled on to Tomsk after our abortive trip to Abakan. Pretty straightforward but I had a bed in the corridor section of the carriage. They are so narrow it is unbelievable. As I said roll over & you almost fall out. Still & all I got a good nights sleep after my standard bowl of noodles & fruit. Leah does much better food wise - tins of fish, bread, some veges & the like. You can´t take anything on the train that might perish. No fridges & the carriages do get very warm.
Tomsk was very nice. As soon as we got there we tried to book onward tickets to Nishvy Novgorod. The queues in the station were horrific & when we finally got to the front it was ¨no pluskart beds left. Kupe only for Rb 7800 each¨. And that we had to work out as no one spoke english. Disaster - we were not going to pay that sort of money. There did not seem to be any other options so we gave it away & booked into the Sputnik Hotel. Double room with share shower & toilet. Plus free breakfast. It was here that we met Andrei. A photographer who spoke good english & who helped Leah order her breakfast one morning. He photographed young army recruits who had just signed up & were taking their oath iof allegiance to Russia. Pround mums would then buy the photo from him,. He told us quite a bit of his life. Like he was training to be a dentist? in St Petersberg & was thrown into jail for 5 years by the KGB for daring to want to marry a sicilian woman. He comes out, sets up a privately run school canteen system in ther schools around Novosibirisk. It did so well that the authorities took it over & he got nothing. So he ends up doing this photography & the only way he can maintain access to all the army bases is to pay bribes to the commanding o
fficers.
We agreed to meet him on the night that he was leaving to go back to Novosibirisk. 7.00pm we said, in our room. Well come 9.30pm & no sign of Andrei so we gave it away & Leah had a shower. Guess who then rocks up 3/4 drunk with a bottle of vodka. Yes our mate Andrei. We had to help him finish up the vodka whilst he told us about all the generals whose palms he had greased. He gave me a russian military cap which was rather nice & a great momento & also invited us down to his dacha in the Altai mountains. Dates did not suit us so we had to decline. He then borrowed 200Rb from us (I think that was the purpose of his visit) so he could get a taxi to the train station. An interesting guy - he has a daughter & son. The latter is a really good mechanic & Andrei would love to get him to the West, to a company like Volvo or Mercedes etc to give him a chance in life.
So Andrei was an interesting addition to our Russian people experiences. As was Ksenia a lovely lass we met in St Petersberg. You may remember that we met an Andrei in Mongloia. Well he offered us accomodation in his flat in St Petersberg. We took him up on that & when there found our way to his place. Which wásn´t a full flat. Rather he owned a room in a three bedroom 5th floor place. Close to the CBD?? so it was great. That is the way things work there. Many places are owned by the room. His co owners were Marsha, a worker in a hair salon & Sasha an old guy who was around most of the time. And who seemed to have lots of very strange mates who came to drink vodka with him. And a huge great Rottweiler named Misha. They all share a very small kitchen & an even smaller bathroom area. There is an interesting story about Misha. One morning the old guy went out & left Misha in the corridor guarding the front door. I came out ready to take off for the day only to be confronted by this huge growling dog. It was also slavering which was the most off putting thing. It then started lumbering up the corridor towards me. Well I broke the worlds 10m record getting back intio our room. It was really frightening, i mean that it was HUGE & I thought that we were locked in for the day. Leah began an attempt to lure it into the kitchen, with me offering full support (moral of course) but the owner came home just at that moment. He had to spend some time quietening the dog down so I think that discretion was the better part of valour. I mean he WAS big.
Ksenia was Andrei´s girlfriend & really nice. She was able to point us in the right direction sofar as sights were concerned. And Sasha wasn´t too bad once we got to know him. Leah will end up as a contributor to a Hair Salon users magazine. She was interviewed on the differences beteween Russian v NZ/Ozzie women sofar as fashions are concerned. Plus a photo of both of us dressed in our backpacker finest - we certainly will not qualify for the best dressed award & hopefully they do not think that all Kiwis dress like the two of us.
So that is the people side of things. Next instalment will be someting of Moscow & St Ptersberg & our experiences (gastronomic) in Finland.
Russian rail tickets are really complex. You need a degree in Ticknology to understand them. They show literally everything regarding your trip & take quite a while to set up & print out at the office. Name, passport no, train no, all the price components, carriage, bed no, Towns from & to etc etc - its all there somewhere printed in Cryllic. THe other interesting thing is that all times printed on the tickets are for Moscow. And the station clocks are the same ie set to Moscow time. So you front up at 8.00am in Irkutsk & the clock shows 3.00am. You have to be very careful about time differences. Irkutsk was 4 hours ahead of Moscow but the next station (Krasnoyarsk) was only 3 hours ahead. A bit of a nightmare as we nearly made the mistake of applying the ticket time as if it was the local time.
We found the russian people to be very friendly once you sort of broke past their initial reserve. But we had a bad experience in Irkutsk which unfortunately made it hard for the first short while. Leah had her Sony video cam stolen out of her back pack whilst on a tram from the station to our hostel. We think that she was targeted by a gang almost from the moment we got off the train. There is no other way that it could have happened. The police were not interested at all ¨don´t waste our time!¨ so that did not help as well. A great start to our russiam segment.
I did not like Irkutsk too much. It seemed a bit like Uhlan Bataar - ie lots of old decrepit
buildings, empty factories & a general air of seediness. Galina our hostess in Irkutsk taught us both a little russian. She was a lot of fun. As I have already said Olkhon Island was great.
Krasnoyarsk our next stop was much the same as Irkutsk. A bigger city but again ugly apartment blocks all over & lots of empty run down factories. We walked around the town & it was all fairly ordianry. Not a lot was open & a lot of people that we passed seemed to have a bottle in their hands. Abakan, south of Kr, was a much smaller city & quite nice. We went there to try to move on to the Tuva Republic where all the throat singers lived. However we could not find any english speakers to point us in the right direction so had to give it away. It is really hard - the locals tried to help but we just couldn´t make ourselves understood.
We met our air traffic controller on the train to Abakan. She was really nice & it was amazing to meet a Russian who had been to NZ. She gave us a couple of nice Tupperware cups (yes Tupperware has penetrated the Russian heartland) as a gift for speaking to her. Well really it should have been us giving something to her. Others on the train used her to ask us questions, mainly about NZ. So it was hard to find out too much about them & they way they lived.
We travelled on to Tomsk after our abortive trip to Abakan. Pretty straightforward but I had a bed in the corridor section of the carriage. They are so narrow it is unbelievable. As I said roll over & you almost fall out. Still & all I got a good nights sleep after my standard bowl of noodles & fruit. Leah does much better food wise - tins of fish, bread, some veges & the like. You can´t take anything on the train that might perish. No fridges & the carriages do get very warm.
Tomsk was very nice. As soon as we got there we tried to book onward tickets to Nishvy Novgorod. The queues in the station were horrific & when we finally got to the front it was ¨no pluskart beds left. Kupe only for Rb 7800 each¨. And that we had to work out as no one spoke english. Disaster - we were not going to pay that sort of money. There did not seem to be any other options so we gave it away & booked into the Sputnik Hotel. Double room with share shower & toilet. Plus free breakfast. It was here that we met Andrei. A photographer who spoke good english & who helped Leah order her breakfast one morning. He photographed young army recruits who had just signed up & were taking their oath iof allegiance to Russia. Pround mums would then buy the photo from him,. He told us quite a bit of his life. Like he was training to be a dentist? in St Petersberg & was thrown into jail for 5 years by the KGB for daring to want to marry a sicilian woman. He comes out, sets up a privately run school canteen system in ther schools around Novosibirisk. It did so well that the authorities took it over & he got nothing. So he ends up doing this photography & the only way he can maintain access to all the army bases is to pay bribes to the commanding o
fficers.
We agreed to meet him on the night that he was leaving to go back to Novosibirisk. 7.00pm we said, in our room. Well come 9.30pm & no sign of Andrei so we gave it away & Leah had a shower. Guess who then rocks up 3/4 drunk with a bottle of vodka. Yes our mate Andrei. We had to help him finish up the vodka whilst he told us about all the generals whose palms he had greased. He gave me a russian military cap which was rather nice & a great momento & also invited us down to his dacha in the Altai mountains. Dates did not suit us so we had to decline. He then borrowed 200Rb from us (I think that was the purpose of his visit) so he could get a taxi to the train station. An interesting guy - he has a daughter & son. The latter is a really good mechanic & Andrei would love to get him to the West, to a company like Volvo or Mercedes etc to give him a chance in life.
So Andrei was an interesting addition to our Russian people experiences. As was Ksenia a lovely lass we met in St Petersberg. You may remember that we met an Andrei in Mongloia. Well he offered us accomodation in his flat in St Petersberg. We took him up on that & when there found our way to his place. Which wásn´t a full flat. Rather he owned a room in a three bedroom 5th floor place. Close to the CBD?? so it was great. That is the way things work there. Many places are owned by the room. His co owners were Marsha, a worker in a hair salon & Sasha an old guy who was around most of the time. And who seemed to have lots of very strange mates who came to drink vodka with him. And a huge great Rottweiler named Misha. They all share a very small kitchen & an even smaller bathroom area. There is an interesting story about Misha. One morning the old guy went out & left Misha in the corridor guarding the front door. I came out ready to take off for the day only to be confronted by this huge growling dog. It was also slavering which was the most off putting thing. It then started lumbering up the corridor towards me. Well I broke the worlds 10m record getting back intio our room. It was really frightening, i mean that it was HUGE & I thought that we were locked in for the day. Leah began an attempt to lure it into the kitchen, with me offering full support (moral of course) but the owner came home just at that moment. He had to spend some time quietening the dog down so I think that discretion was the better part of valour. I mean he WAS big.
Ksenia was Andrei´s girlfriend & really nice. She was able to point us in the right direction sofar as sights were concerned. And Sasha wasn´t too bad once we got to know him. Leah will end up as a contributor to a Hair Salon users magazine. She was interviewed on the differences beteween Russian v NZ/Ozzie women sofar as fashions are concerned. Plus a photo of both of us dressed in our backpacker finest - we certainly will not qualify for the best dressed award & hopefully they do not think that all Kiwis dress like the two of us.
So that is the people side of things. Next instalment will be someting of Moscow & St Ptersberg & our experiences (gastronomic) in Finland.
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