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
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