Laura’s Russian Adventures

Welcome Ladies and Gentlemen to my humble abode!
This beautiful apartment complex is not ours, but the smaller, ugly dorm beside the nicer apartment complex is!

Here are some more shots of the building:

This is our Gostinitzsa/Гостиница! (ie. the student hotel).
Come on in the front door and see our apartment!

Once you step in the front door, this is what you’ll see.
Looking straight ahead you’re looking at our toilet room (In Russia, there really isn’t such thing as a western bathroom. In one room is the toilet, and in the other is the sink and shower. Gross for hygiene, I know). The square footage of our bathroom is probably 3 Feet wide, by 5 feet long. The toilet and plumbing take up at least 4 feet of that five foot length, leaving a few inches for you to fit your knees when you sit down. TMI, I know… but it was just such a small bathroom, I had to tell someone! The cherry on the cake for the bathroom is that the door doesn’t really fit the door frame, so if you want to have privacy in the bathroom you have to ram the door shut (which sucks when your bed almost next to the bathroom door – you wake up when people go to the bathroom) but when you want to get out of the bathroom, you pretty much have to bodycheck the door. We’ve named our toilet room ‘The Gas Chamber’… Although it sounds rather nasty, I am enjoying it all as part of my Russian experience.

To the left of the bathroom door is my (and Jessi’s) room! and right across from our room, to the right of the bathroom, is Leah and Ross’s bedroom. But before I talk about me and Jessi’s room, you may notice the other doorway to the right of the hallway (before the bathroom).
This is our Kitchen! I’ll show you guys!

Yes, I know, our stove is uuuuugly!
Well, actually, I should call it a cook-top, as they took off the knob to our oven so we couldn’t use it. At first we just thought it was broken, but when we inquired about it, they told us that they take the knobs off the ovens in the winter because they have found too many students using the ovens as apartment heaters… So…..
At the time this picture was taken, the only thing we could use to cook with was one pot and two working elements. Since then, we have since gone in together on a microwave. I never thought I would be so excited to get a microwave.

Anyhow, back to the bathroom hallway..

So this is the ‘bathroom hallway’. To the left is the toilet room that I already grossed you guys out with, and to the right is our shower/sink room.

And now… to my room!

Jessi and I were both taking pictures of the apt, so I almost got her in every shot I took of our room.

This is the messy part of the room. Much of our stuff is piled somewhere near the front of the room. We kind of split the room into two. Everything from the middle of the TV (kind of where the cubbard doors come together) and to the left of the TV is Jessi’s area, and everything to the right of that is my space. (aside from the clothes cabinet on my side).

You might notice the not so new blankets on my bed. They are made of 100% wool and are very heavy. They were the blankets that came with my bed. They can be uncomfortable, and there are unidentified hairs on them, so all my other roomates went and purchased new duvets from IKEA for their bed. I however, did not get a new duvet. I wanted to save the money for books and history trips. Nerdy I know… but I need to prioritize!

This is my side of the room. Very cozy!

And this is the final picture of my room. This is my looking through my eyes when I sit in bed. The Clothes cabinet at the end of the bed is shared between me and Jessi, and our TV doesn’t really work. It will get one or two channels a bit, but it’s all fuzzy and it’s hard to watch. But! On top of the TV, you might notice a family and Tsar! Let’s look a little closer….

Thank you so much Joanne!!!! Your generosity has followed me to Russia in many ways! I have two of the Imperial Family Ikons you kindly gave me with me for this trip.

And that concludes the tour of our little dorm room. Rooms not showcased were Leah & Ross’s, as well as Natasha’s.. mainly because that is their private space, so I don’t want to invade it with my camera and be all KGB on their butt.

So until next update guys!
♥ Laura

Ps. Post update – Since I wrote this blog out, and took these pictures a few changes have happened, I cleaned and rearranged a bit of my room and I need to get a better picture of our kitchen (now with microwave). Since I got internet now, I will try to do that sometime this week!

Laura Mabee Uncategorized