Hi, my dear Erasmus friends,
As some of you know and some probably don’t, I have a blog which is called Pismovnik, Letter archive or Letter book in English. During this amazing semester in Strasbourg I was writing illustrated “letters” to my family and friends in Moscow. And now I went to Moscow for a week so it was some kind of a holiday in my motherland for me. After 4 months it was even like a rediscovery of my own country and my own city. Moreover, I guess it would be interesting for you to get an image of Russia from me. So I decided to write a letter the other way round, not to my friends in Moscow about Strasbourg, but to my friends from Strasbourg about Moscow. Enjoy it =)
Bur first I’ll start with my last days in Strasbourg when I had to say goodbye to everybody one by one, to very nice and interesting Finish girls, Saara and Kristiina, to Polish girls, Anna, Ewa and Anita whose way of thinking and cultural morals if I can say that turned out to be very close to mine, Russian cultural morals; to Ross, a Ukrainian-Polish very nice boy, the easiest person to communicate with. To Eliza, Joanna, Mathieu, Gabrielle, Marilyn, to Mexicans boys, Andrés and Javier, who made me really interested in Mexican culture especially after having watched the movie Frida. To Russian very smart, wonderful and openhearted girls, Sasha and Olga from St. Petersburg. And Nastia who is still here and I hope we'll see each other here and in our University:)
It was even harder to say bye to Susy with whom we were sharing our apartment and consequently we spent more time with each other then with others and became really good friends! Last day I forced her, all sad and miserable, scared about her long trip back home with a lot of luggage, to go out and have a walk. That was the first sunny and really summery day after a long period of cold days. So we walked along the river, bought a 1956 year magazine on a flea market unexpectedly opened on our street, had a dinner with French and Alsatian specialties.  |
| Several days before we went to a village of traditional Alsacian pottery craftsmen to buy souvenirs. That's what made Susy's luggage so heavy..) |
When I was seeing her off standing on the dowel while she was at the door of the train luckily caught, I was choking with tears. When the train left I spent 10 minutes seating on a bench at the dowel trying to calm down =.∫
Several days after I had to move from the apartment to a room in a residence. I have no idea how I would have survived that without Edoardo and his friends who came from Italy for a week or so. They helped me with their car to get all my stuff up to the room! Pippo, Andrea and Edo, thank you very very much!
The last 3 days before going to Moscow almost nobody was left in Strasbourg and I spent the days with Edo. We were walking in the centre, eating ice-cream, cooking Italian food, once we even went jogging and making exercises in Orangerie park.
My flight to Amsterdam through which I had to fly to Moscow was at 8 am, so I was nervous about catching the first tram to catch the first train to be in time in the airport. Edo was sooo nice to see me off at this early time and offer me his help with my heavy bag!
Well, the trip was ok, though a bit tiring, of course. I landed in Moscow at around 6. It’s a rush hour but my mom decided to pick me up from the airport. When I took my luggage she was still in the centre because of enormous traffic jams. So I took Aeroexpress (trains that connect the train stations in the centre of Moscow with all Moscow airports) to get to the centre so that my mom picks me up there. After 30 minutes spent in endless traffic jams we were still in the centre =) So I took Metro to which I was absolutely unused during these 4 months. A drunk man started talking to me and giving me pieces of advice concerning my personality. I hate Moscow metro but don’t refuse now from the idea to visit it. I hate how Russian people sometimes behave in the metro, but you can choose a good hour to see how beautiful it is.
Every station in the center is different, with paintings on the walls and ceiling, with statues with their own legend or meaning for Muscovites, with mosaics and other decorations up to big lusters like in a theater. Moscow metro is the most beautiful metro in the world. These are not my own words but a fact proven my some rating. There are two explanations to this fact. First is simple: USSR wanted to be the best in everything. The other explanation that I’ve heard just recently and that I like says that as cars were rare and were used only by big bosses and enterprises, the government wanted people to have transport that is better than a small tiny car. They wanted normal people travel in beautiful spacious palaces.
So when I finally came home, a surprise was waiting for me from my boyfriend. It says “Happy coming back” and “We missed you!” It was very cute =)
He also organized a meeting for me with my friends Natasha, Nastia and Yegor in a bar where he was supposed to perform his stand up. It was an event organized by young and unknown standupers. Some of them where really bad, a few of them were quite interesting. So in contrast with the others he was almost (Vania, don't read it, it's not for you) a star! ;)
A night before we grabbed my friend Natasha and her squirrel dog Spitz whose name is Chou-chou (it’s in French, you should know, guys, what it means after 4 months in France;) and went to my dacha (country house).  |
| Have you heard that an owner of a dog looks like his dog? :) |
It was very nice and cozy. We were watching Barber of Siberia in arbor while Chou-chou was walking around and rootling in something so that after she was all in dust and smelled with fish.
Next time we went to our dacha we had a big Russian feast with all my relatives. Vania prepared a duck that he killed when he went hunting with his father. It was “wild but nice” as my cuisine Ania defined. After a good meal we went out to have a walk and my very clever nephew Artem who entered the best mathematical school in Moscow showed us quadricopter which is flying like an alien UFO.
One night we had a bar night and we were moving from one bar to another with Natasha, Yegor and Vania on his amazing and horrific Toyota Celica of the year 2000 which is breaking into pieces though he made lambo-doors, that are actually not working correctly.
I am not even comfortable to place those two above pictures one after another..
Anyway we were driving with an enormous engine sound under tinted glass windows listening classic music of Bach, Verdi, Tchaikovsky and Mozart. It was amazing..
One day my two friends, Aneta and Masha from our “sister circle”, and I decided to go to a homestead close to Moscow. We chose Leninskie Gorki, a homestead where Lenin spent some time after his injury from the assassination attempt and his last days after an apoplectic attack. His doctors insisted on him staying in the country side. There is a long history and I am not going to retell it to you, I’ll just say that this house had been nationalized and turned into a monument of architecture and preserved area before Lenin started living there. Lenin didn’t owe this house and he never changed anything there.
Dying he saw that communism in the country is changing in a wrong way and he was trying to reassure other politicians from voting for Stalin but his letters sent from Leninskie Gorki were being intercepted by Stalin’s people and he was dying in sufferings for the future of the country. That was at least what our guide told us. She was really enthusiastic about Lenin and she warned us not to argue because those discussions are always endless.
A thing that struck us most was his winter car which he had besides his summer one. It was remade at a plant in St. Petersburg. They put skies on the front wheels and caterpillars instead of the back wheels. Actually Nicolay II had the same transport with two cars, the winter one remade with caterpillars and skies. Probably they thought it’s easier to order caterpillars at a plant than building roads, probably they knew in the future people would be traveling in underground palaces instead.
I know that in Europe the Victory in World War II is celebrated on the 8th of May. Because of the time zones lag we celebrate it on the 9th of May. We went to congratulate veterans on the streets in the city center and to give them flowers.
There are always a lot of performances, singing and dancing on the squares on that day. The main streets are closed for cars and veterans with medals go out with the help of their children, grandchildren or social workers.
 |
| Travelling kitchen |
This time I was very sad to have difficulty in finding veterans among other people. It took us around 40 minutes to find tree veterans to give them our flowers. There are less and less of those great people in the world.
In the afternoon I met Anetka and we went to Exhibition of National Economy Achievements, now it’s called All-Russia Exhibition Center. I haven’t been there more than twice, and I understood that I need to go there more often. It’s a huge territory on which there are exhibition pavilions of each USSR republic where in the past you could see “achievements” of their economies and try their national food. Of course for free, as we had Communism with a capital letter!
And finally I am coming back to Strasbourg. Now I am sitting in Amsterdam airport already for 7 hours and 2 hours are left because I missed my plane to Strasbourg. How? I overslept in very comfortable comfort seats in the airport as my plane from Moscow was very early at 5.30 so I haven’t slept at all tonight. And then there was a long queue at luggage control. So I missed it. I had to pay additionally to get to another flight today in the afternoon. I’ve already had time to be very upset about that fact but I decided to start looking for positive sides of my stupidity and look, here there are:
- I slept good so now I am not sleepy anymore
- I am writing the letter to my LetterBook for you
- I think I make you laugh or smile at this stupid situation :)
- I am seating in front of a big window coming out to the aerodrome and that’s quite interesting to watch
- I ate a good pizza
- I have time to read Martin Eden by Jack London
- I increased profit of KLM
But I was still able to see Edo the same day. He was going to Finland to see Kristiina, Saara and Susy and the country, of course, and I came to see him off. He was all nervous and weird but he is coming back on May, 22 and I am not going to miss hiss weirdness, wink, Edo;)
Sorry for this delay in publishing the letter. I left my photos in Moscow and my delivery system was very slow.)
Here it is. Susy is already coming to Moscow with me in July and I am coming to Sweden before or after that. I am also coming to see Italy and Edoardo in September if I have time and money.
See you all guys some day in our life in your or my country where you are more than welcome!)
From Russia with love,
Your Olga
