Laura’s Russian Adventures

Hey Guys!
Здравствуйте/Hello from Russia!
What a trip it’s been. I must warn everyone ahead of time, this post is going to be pretty long.

Where do I begin? So much has happened in the last week (and some)!

I was packing until the wee hours of the morning from January 22nd to the 23rd. I woke up around 7am got a shower and was good to go. Went out to breakfast (with Eric and his Dad) and finished packing. There were some last minute purchases (sewing kit + mittens) and then I was off to the airport!

[This is me once I got to Pearson's Airport in Toronto]

Once I got to the airport, I was lucky to have run into Jessi at the check in. I checked in my baggage (just made the weight limits) and waited for Dr. Pereria to escort our group to security and to our seats. I hung out with Jessi, and Erin at the airport until it came time to check into security. After security check-in and leaving Eric (my ever so cute boyfriend) we continued on to our plane gate.

[Here is the gate to Russia! Well, kind of. It's the gate to AirCanada's flight to Frankfurt, at which point we'll grab a Lufstansa flight to St. Petersburg]

We didn’t have to wait long before loading up onto the plane, but our student group (which was to have 14 students) only have 11. We were missing three people. (two of those people, Ross and Leah, have shown up since our landing in St. Petersburg, one student is still M.I.A) The AirCanada flight was fantastic, it was my first flight ever, so it was quite the experience. Once we loaded the plane and were ready for take off, the pilot advised us that there was a problem with the right wing (the one directly outside my window) and that they were going to repair it before take off (not exactly what a first time flyer wants to here. )

Here is the maintenance that was done to the plane before we left. I have been told that it was someone putting de-icer on the plane wings.

This plane flight was remarkable though, it was a relatively empty flight, I got all three of the seats beside me free (so I could stretch out or lie down if I wanted too). My intentions on the flight were to either listen to music or watch Anastasia (1997). But the in-flight movies/tv shows were interesting enough that I was kept occupied by them the whole flight.

Near the end of the flight, I noticed a really beautiful city that we were flying over. I tired to take pictures of it, but since I couldn’t put my flash on (at a window, it would only cause glare) I grabbed a small video of it instead.

[Video of Germany temporarly down]

The flight to Frankfurt was actually pretty quick. We did get there earlier than planned (by about half hour) and the flight itself was only about 7 hours long. We arrived in Frankfurt at 7am (Frankfurt time), roughly 1am Ontario time. It was funny to see the sun rise up when it had just set only five hours before.

Waiting for the plane to St. Peterburg was hard, many of us, if in Ontario, would have been heading to bed about the time, and with the sun rising, it didn’t feel natural to sleep.

Here is the ladies of our St. Petersburg trip waiting for the Lufthansa’s flight. From left to right, Erin, Jessi, Heather, Natasha.

These were not all the people on the trip, but the ones that I managed to picture without the camera crapping out on me (I really should have gotten that Canon Rebel XS! Damn OSAP for screwing me over!)

And here is our flight schedule! I took a picture of it since it re-confirmed to me that I was, indeed, going to St. Petersburg, Russia.

The flight in the Lufthansa was actually awful compared to the Air Canada flight, there was so much turbulence, and uncomfortable seating, that I am happy to know that it’s only a 2 hour ride again come May. I unfortunately did not get a window seat , and the gentleman beside me, decided to close the window shutters, so I honestly couldn’t see squat. I was pretty pissed at that. Luckily, Natasha did video the all the planes events (take off, landing, etc) so I am lucky that I can get that later (maybe even to post!)

Landing in Russia was good, but confusing. The amount of cops and enforcement people there (compared to Canada, or Germany) was really unnerving (I’m always afraid I am going to be stopped by them – and my Russian is not good enough at this point to make good conversation). We signed in to Russia with mandatory ‘Migration’ cards. One thing about the Russian woman police (or so that I’ve seen thus far) is that they wear high heels and short skirts… very interesting to see on law enforcement….

Once we got into the Russian airport, there seemed to be a problem with getting to the dorm. The campus taxi that came to get us wouldn’t leave without 14 students, and three of those students at the moment were missing, and we had no idea when they would come (if they were to come at all). After Dr. Pereria haggled with them, he managed to get us on the campus taxi and going towards the dorms.

Here is the crew in the campus Taxi. It was a really nice taxi and a comfortable ride, but the funniest thing was the head-rest covers, as pictured below.

This looks like a picture from Engrish.com. I’m not sure what exactly they were going for, but indeed, AssMann seats were quite comfortable.

Unfortunately, at this point in the day, everyone from the trip had been awake for over 24 hours and we all were dead tired. So much of the trip to the dorms was not recorded by me (but Natasha did get some good video, I’ll see if I can get that later).

When we got to our dorms, our passports and migration papers were taken to register us to the dorm. Once registered (which took a lot of arguing on the part of Dr. Pereria and the staff) we were taken up to our rooms.

At this current time, I haven’t actually taken pictures of the dorm, I think I am going to wait until this place has been cleaned up a bit. But I’m going to say right now, we definitely know we’ve arrived in Russia.

I am rooming with Jessi, which is great, and the rest of the first night (which actually spanned from the 23rd, to the 24th – due to the time difference, the flying overnight and not sleeping) was good. We had our first grocery shopping trip, which didn’t last too long since we all were really tired and ate our bounty at a social dinner like thing in the Kitchen of the boy’s room. We had vodka toasts with Dr. Pereria and ate some food (and let me say right now that the West has not tasted real vodka until they have Russian vodka – that stuff knocked me off my feet). At the dinner, we arranged to meet the next day at 11am to take the metro downtown to the Nevsky Prospect (and hit up Dom Knigi!!).

Day 2 –

Got up at 8am (the jet lag from Canada was hitting me pretty bad at this point), ate yogurt for breakfast (which wasn’t half bad) and had a shower in our odd little shower room. We gathered in the lobby and walked to the closest metro. On this walk I learned a lot, the first one was that with my bright blue and yellow winter coat from Mark’s Work Wearhouse was an instant foreigner target on my head. I got very unpleasant looks from the St. Petersburg locals as well and “tourists” muttered to our group when a local man passed us. So, I think I have resolved to double up on sweaters rather than wearing that jacket.

We took the metro (which is 20 minutes from our dorms) down to the Nevsky/ Gostiny Dvor. Lead by our professor (Pereira) he first took us to Dom Knigi! (A Romophile’s Dream)

What was more amazing, was as we were walking towards Dom Kingi, I happened to notice this cathedral down the street:

This was the first time I saw the Church on Spilt Blood in person, everything else had been photos. I was so excited, and this is the first shot I took of it. I haven’t been able to visit yet, but I am hoping to make that this weekend’s excursion.

Inside of Dom Knigi, I bee-lined it for the English Romanov books first. There were some pretty amazing books, but nothing I haven’t seen sold online. I then went for the Russian books and saw some pretty amazing finds. (I also saw the amazing 1903 Ball book!) Dr. Pereria only gave us half an hour to browse before telling us all to meet upstairs in the cafe. Which, by the way, is absolutely amazing.
We met upstairs in the cafe and had a lunch of bilini and caviar for some, bilini and chocolate for others.
I grabbed a small group picture of some of us in the cafe:

After Dom Knigi, Dr. Pereria decided to take us down to the Gostiny Dvor. The Gostiny Dvor is a huge inner shopping complex connected by an outer walkway and doors. It’s a little hard to explain without seeing pictures or being there. But it’s really amazing. The prices are really high (that’s mainly because it’s meant to be a tourist draw). But outside of the Gostiny, you won’t believe who I ran into:

She was in good company too, but I couldn’t get a picture of him. She was in the company of Yoda.

Here is a picture of the walkway of the Gostiny Dvor, I tried to take a good picture, but I couldn’t get it without a little bit of blur. Which is okay I guess, it makes the picture look more mystic.

Near the end of the trip, a couple students decided to obtain Russian Cellphones, so we went down to Euro..something.. We waited there for about an hour while people worked out contracts and then we were on our own to get home. That night, we stopped at the grocery store called the Patterson, which is across the street and a little from the Dorm. Aside from just getting some good foods, we found some funny English translation products.

Once home, all the ladies of our room conference in Jessi and I’s room to type up their daily blog entry
(yes, we still type them even though there is no internet yet)

Yes, I know, it’s dusty. Believe me, that was the least of our worries when we saw our dorms.

Day 3 –
Day three was interesting and full of events! It was the first day of classes and I had not been on that side of the city. In the morning we get a bus from the University (which picks us up at our dorms) to campus. The ride was interesting; the drivers out here are much more adventurous than us Canadian drivers. I’ll see if I can grab a video sometime. We arrived at the dorm about 40 minutes after the bus came to pick us up. The drive to campus was really interesting! I saw so many places that I want to stop at and visit (we drive by the Winter Palace, and the Double Lions, etc) I tried to take some good pictures of the ride there, but due to the rainy weather and the speed our driver was going, I wasn’t able to grab a good shot.

When we arrived on campus, I have to admit that the first glimpse of it was pretty fantastic. I am one very lucky student to be able to study here. The university that I am attending is St. Petersburg State University, but apparently all its language (and culture) courses for foreign students on exchange are held at the Smolney Campus. I took a picture of us kids walking towards campus for the first day.

The first day consisted of a Russian proficiency exam (which was an oral drill, 140 multiple choice questions – which were very hard—and a questionnaire on ourselves that we had to fill out in Russian) and a run-down discussion on the program. First was the rundown on the program, in which we were told that our Canadian HIV tests were no longer valid, and that we needed to get new HIV tests (and results) for Thursday. (Apparently, they are getting us new multi-entry visas now, and that’s why they needed a current HIV tests) The exam was really difficult, but overall, I felt good to know that I would be put in the right study level.

We had a mini-break between the program rundown and the test, so I took the opportunity to take some pictures of our group:

This is one half of the table (some of the students at the very end – pretty much anyone passed the dude in the black glasses – are not part of the group)

This is Jessi (my roomie) and Natasha (my roomie by association… ie. she’s in the room down the hall)

Here I am with Natasha.

After classes were over, we had been told by our coordinator that we needed a new HIV test and 6 black and white photos of ourselves for various IDs. So, as out group got outside to go get these done, the snow started to fall in very large snowflakes and in very wet. Bu the time we got the HIV test, and the photos done, we were all done for the night.

I took one picture as we left campus (you can see the snow) so I could show you guys part of the campus in the daytime. This section of the campus is really only 10% of the building. The building is so large and so beautiful, someday I hope I can take a picture of each part.

That night, the usual computer girls (and guy) gathered in our dorm room for the nightly blog writing.
And that concluded the first day at the Smolney Institute.

Day Four –
Today was the day that we were going to find out about our tests results (and be put into groups with the same skill level). I was sad to be split up from Jessi (she’s been my Russian course buddy since I started) but I was put in a interesting course line up.

Here is my newly revised schedule:

Monday –
9:30 – 11:00 – Grammar
11:20 – 12:50 – Literature
13:30 – 15:00 – Conversation

Tuesday
9:30 – 11:00 – Conversation
11:20 – 12:50 – Conversation
13:30- 15:00 – Vocabulary

Wednesday
11:20 – 12:50 – Russian Culture
13:30 – 15:00 – Grammar

Thursday
9:30 – 11:00 – Grammar
11:20 – 12:50 – Phonetics

Friday
Library Day (ie. Cram all your homework in here)

My first course was with Alexander Victorovich, and he was a really funny guy. I enjoyed his class and he was kind enough to go slow when I needed it. My second class was with Elena Anatolevna and she was much more difficult. I think (so far) it’s going to be the class that I don’t want to go to the most.

Outside of classes, there have been some funny events that have happened in our dorm. On Monday night the hose to our shower broke right at the base and sprayed water everywhere, including the light bulb above the sink/floor. The light bulb shattered spraying glass all over the floor. We cleaned up to the best of our ability, but many of us had to resort to using my water-resistant Dot TouchLight to get a shower. (Thanks Eric! The water-resistant ones actually did come in handy after all) . The light was fixed the morning of the 27th, only to have the same situation happen again that night (apparently a duct-tape water hose is no better) so we just got that replaced again. I’m crossing my fingers on it.

Also, this will now be the fourth day without internet. It is driving me crazy. I can only imagine how much spam and emails are in my inbox. By the time you guys are reading this, I’ll have been able to read your emails (if not reply back). But I gotta say, having no internet access since I left Canada is driving me insane.

Day 5 –
I have a feeling these blogs might not be an everyday update. Since I am now seemingly on a schedule of events, there really isn’t anything interesting happening in my day (inside of school) aside from hard homework. Weekends might prove to be interesting, as it seems that is the time when I’ll be free to navigate freely throughout the city. (Maybe on Thursday evenings as well….) but aside from that, there really isn’t much to update on today. OH! We got a new shower hose! That is actually really exciting for this dorm room. Before that we had a duct-taped shower hose that kept leaking to the point that water was spraying out on the light fixture (which ended up with broken glass). That’s it for interesting news though. Let me leave you now with pictures I have taken over the last few days:

Day 6/7 –
Apparently, It’s only taken a day and change for me to have another experience to share. First with the metro, and the other with campus departments.

Yesterday (January 29th) the American students were all pick pocketed on the way to campus (they took the metro – I take a university bus) all their papers and wallets were taken and at the moment I am unsure what their course of action is. So, with that said, our little group (Mainly just the people who are in my dorm room – we go places together) made sure our bags were ‘pickpocket’ safe before we left. I had put my wallet at the very bottom of my bag (with a laptop overtop of it) and I had put my small little cash purse on a zippered section of my bag as well. Others did similar things to make sure there bags were secure.
We walked from campus to the metro.

On that note actually, I should now say that the walk to the metro from the campus is pretty brutal. (yesterday particularly) but overall, as a person not in the best of shape, it’s a 45 minute walk from campus to metro, and then a 25 minute walk from the metro to our dorms. Not that walking isn’t good for me, I know it is, but the city is so dirty, and it has funky smells every so often that make you want to run the other way.

Anyhow, yesterday on the walk home, we passed this interesting building where a guard was standing outside. Nothing out of the ordinary there, except that he was holding a sub-machine gun. We got on to the metro and it was packed. We finally made it onto a cart and these four smaller people (could have been kids, or shorter people, I’m not sure) kept pushing us to get out of the cart (I assumed they realized that they needed to get off a little to late). After they left, the metro started moving towards our destination and Jessi told me that one of the smaller people hand their hand in her bag. She noticed it in time to grab their hand and physically remove it from their bag, as the trip continued (it’s a 20 min. Metro ride) everyone realized that we had been all been ‘pick pocketed’ for the first time. Jessi caught her thief red handed, and so did Leah. I noticed that my top zipper to my bag was undone but nothing was missing. I had felt like we had all successfully evaded our first pick pocket. With, seemingly, no casualties.

We made a few stops before we got home (photobooth for Jessi, Music store/Bank for Natasha, Second Hand store for Erin, and then the Patterson –grocery store—for others) but finally got home not too late. I had bought some Russian Porgies (mushroom), which were fantastic, and went to bed after watching some Russian TV. (The show Taxi is pretty good)

Woke up this morning to a phone call. Jessi was kind enough to go grab it, as I was so out of it when I heard it ring, that I wasn’t sure what was going on. It was Dr. Pereria on the line, and he asked her to ask me when I noticed my wallet missing. To be honest, I hadn’t. I doubled checked my bag and then realized it was missing. Luckily, whoever took it, didn’t find enough interest in it, and just left it on the metro after they thumbed through it. Now Dr. Pereria had a bad leg, but he has offered to help me go pick it up (he speaks fluent Russian)

…..time lapse…..

So I went to the metro station and I was able to pick up my wallet. The only thing that was missing was about $100 roubles. Not a loss on the grand scheme of things, I was able to get my wallet back with my visa card, so I am a happy camper.

So, now on to campus departments. When I got my Russian VISA I was aware that the visa was only good until April. This concerned me, but I knew that things were going to be sorted out by the university here in Russia, and they are…. but not without a catch. I am (along with the whole group of students) going to get multi-entry visas, which is awesome. What is not awesome however, is that the campus took our passports (gave us photocopies) and told us that we will not get out passports back for five weeks. So we cannot travel anywhere outside of St. Petersburg. I’m not quite sure what I am going to do about that. Apparently places like Tsarskoe Selo/Pushkin, Pavlovsk, and Peterhof are fair game though.

So that’s all the news from Russia for now. I’ll update next time I get a good internet connection!
Talk to you all later gators!
Cheers Mates!

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