...Continued

Hello again!

After the excitement of Samara I didn't get around to mentioning some other bits and bobs from the last few weeks. I've now found myself with a spare few minutes (I'm currently sitting on the sofa in Nadia and Evgeny's flat - the couple who Dave and I stayed with when he visited - drinking coffee and eating biscuits. They've officially adopted me for my last week in Russia and so far it's working out just great) so I thought I'd write another cheeky blog.

The main thing I wanted to talk about was our visit to a local high school. Our wonderful teacher Tatiana Ivanovna pulled one of her many strings so that we could sit in on a few classes to get a feel for the education system. We were met at the tram station by two of the students, Katya and Dasha. They were both so polite, so professional and so darned happy to meet us. Katya in particular was bounding around like an excited puppy and immediately showered us with questions about us and about England and about our time in Russia, greeting every answer with impossibly wide eyes, a dramatic gasp and the Russian equivalent of "HOW COOL!" Once inside the school their enthusiasm didn't waver. They marched us straight to the first stop of the day - maths. The class was equivalent to a year 8 or year 9 lesson in an English secondary school but I'll be darned if such a disciplined and engaged year 8 or 9 class exists in England. There was no talking, no laughing, no silliness. Their hands shot rigidly into the air to answer each and every question and they were all desperate, not reluctant or embarrassed, to go up to the front to write their calculations on the board. My most prominent memory of pre-GCSE maths was locking a mobile phone in a locker at the back of the class and taking turns to ring it whilst claiming collective ignorance as to where the ringing was coming from, resulting in our teacher breaking down in tears. Not quite the same.

At the end of the class the teacher asked us some questions - Did you understand everything? (No) Are classes like this in England? (No) Do you enjoy maths? (Hahahaha!) Then she invited questions from us so we asked the kids if they speak any English, to which one young man replied "Yes! I speak English. I love Russia. I respect Russia." which just about sums it up. We then took a tour of the school and went to meet the student council. Again, I was so struck by their professionalism, their seriousness and how much pride they seemed to take in their education and their country. They asked us poignant, pointed questions about our culture and our impressions of Russia and were keen to share their opinions in return. Russian schools don't have a set uniform but there is a dress code - something along the lines of office wear. My sixth form had a similar dress code, which resulted in girls turning up in strappy tops, mini skirts, jeans or leggings. Clearly they envisaged a very liberal office. The Russian children, however, take the dress code seriously which results in them all looking very smart and clearly part of an institution but with each child able to express an element of their personality through their clothes. It was very cool. So this year I've seen both ends of the educational spectrum; Spain, where the kids run and scream and PDA in the corridors and swear at the teachers and chew gum and play on their phones and generally treat school as a social hub to hang out with their mates and Russia, where the kids are more like mini adults and stand to welcome the teacher into the room and take pride in their learning and wouldn't dare take a step out of line. I reckon England sits somewhere in the middle.

To me, the Russian education system is like a chicken and egg analogy - does their schooling instil in the children a seriousness and a boldness which develops into what we see as the Russian mentality, or is the mentality innate and that's what makes them take their schooling so seriously?

The other thing I'd wanted to give a proper mention to: my wonderful hosts. I said before that Russian hospitality is overwhelmingly generous. It turns out it also doesn't take no for an answer. After many insistences that I simply must pack up and live with them for my last week in Russia, I caved. Look at them looking all 1970's and awesome...

And Nadia and Evgeny are proving to be more and more wonderful by the day. Vodka for breakfast, green tea and biscuits before bed, trips to the forest to pick mushrooms, late nights learning to cook dumplings and translating Deep Purple lyrics. They take Russian hospitality to another level. I reckon this last week is gonna be a good'un.

X

Sunny Samara

This weekend I went on a little adventure to a nearby city called Samara (according to the interweb, the sixth largest city in the whole of Russia). It's on the bank of the Volga and is apparently making a bid to become an international tourist destination, which I think might be slightly ambitious if only for the fact that for most international tourists this would involve a 12 hour train ride from Moscow. It was a beautiful city (especially along the river bank) but perhaps not quite that beautiful. Travelling alone in Russia is a wee bit daunting but I was inspired to take the plunge by my solo adventure to Santiago in Spain and how great it turned out to be. And I'm pleased to report that going solo in Samara was an equally pleasant surprise!

I spent a lot of the weekend just wandering around and seeing where the streets would take me. It reminded me a lot of my first few weeks in Gijón - endless wandering and succumbing to the inevitability of getting lost and turning it into a little game to see how quickly I could find something familiar. This year has most certainly taught me to be a lot less of a cautious traveller in terms of navigation. I always used to be quite nervous of unfamiliar places, especially tackling the public transport, but this year I've had an epiphany that (usually) the worst that can happen is that you get a bit lost and have to backtrack and try again - you just have to be brave. So in Samara I was happily jumping on and off the various marshrutkas that came my way, no clue where they'd take me but pretty happy to go along for the ride!

On Saturday I found myself in a very large and very picturesque park. In Russia, the weekend is the time to get married so if you're out and about in a city, especially anywhere that's vaguely scenic, you're bound to come across a wedding party or two - the bride and groom leaning against a tree or sitting in a flowerbed and pouting at a camera while the rest of the group wander around, champagne bottles in hands and music booming from a nearby car radio. On a 20 minute stroll through this particular park in Samara I saw not one, not two, but twenty-seven wedding parties. Twenty seven. It started to feel like I was in a strange version of Groundhog Day. Another surreal experience took place in a little museum which had a sign outside naming it a museum of modern art. I'm quite partial to a modern art gallery, the odder the better - hours of entertainment and bewilderment. So I nipped inside. But on the first floor I found no trace of modern art. Instead, each room just had a informational plaque describing its interior design, the history of the building and its original function so I thought I must have mistranslated the sign outside. The lady who worked there came over (I was the sole visitor at the time), found out I was English and insisted on giving me the full tour. So we continued up to the second floor where, lo and behold, the modern art exhibition turned out to be. My self-appointed tour guide either hadn't noticed this minor detail or was choosing to ignore it (perhaps she's more of a traditionalist). So I found myself stood in a darkened room with a looping video being projected onto the wall of a naked man in a bathtub painting his body blue with a paintbrush, whilst the lovely little old lady persistently pointed out the light fittings (which I couldn't actually see) and the windows (which were boarded up) and told me about the Russian aristocracy. Strange.

Samara is also home to Stalin's Bunker, which was built as second headquarters for Stalin in 1942, in case Moscow were to fall to the Nazis. The bunker is 37 metres below ground and would have been able to withstand a direct hit from an aerial bomb. Stalin never actually had to use the bunker but it's still a pretty interesting piece of Soviet history and I was very keen to visit. When I found it on Saturday it was closed to the public and the sign said it would be closed on Sunday too (great logic there from the Russians) but on Sunday afternoon, on an absolute whim, I nipped back just in case and found a group from a cruise ship about to make their way inside for a tour. So I snuck in with them, on the premise that I was part of the cruise. And it was well worth it - eerie, interesting and something of a time capsule underground. Other Samara highlights include an accidental Catholic service attendance (by the time I realised what was going on, a nun had given me a hymn book and I felt far too awkward to leave), a pint of cold beer fresh from the local brewery tap, two spectacular sunsets and more ice cream than any one person should consume over the space of three days. Samara - success.

Other news this week (last week really - I've been a bit slack, sorry about that) concerns my living arrangements. The two girls who normally share this flat have come back to Ulyanovsk to start their academic year so all of a sudden I have not only flatmates but a room-mate! I'm not good at sharing... not good at all... so I freaked out a bit at first. I could not imagine sharing a bedroom with a total stranger with whom I can barely communicate. BUT (as with most things) it hasn't been even nearly as difficult as I expected. There's far less opportunity for me to do my daily One Woman Les Mis Medley and skyping is feels slightly awkward and impolite with someone else in the room. But otherwise day to day life has remained relatively unchanged! I feel very bad for the girls - to have to put up with a foreign intruder in their space - but they've been very good about it and have made a real effort to chat to me, so that's nice.

There is a lot more to write about but I've already blabbed on quite a bit so perhaps I'll make this one a two-parter. To be continued...!

X

P.S. HI JAMES