Notes from the geographical centre of Russia

Well it's almost two weeks since I got to the city of my birth (actually me and my Mum were born in the very same hospital btw.)... lots has been happening, so here are some зарисовки (sketches)...

Went to Grandma's a couple of times. Every time I come there I feel so much at home... Yesterday I was there again and Grandma fed me пирожки с мясом (pirojki with meat) with chicken broth. Then while Gleb was there studying maths with her (he is preparing for his final year exams) I sat in the next room reading memoirs of my great-Grandmother from 1983... They were Jews who used to live in Dnepropetrovsk (now Ukraine). Reading her life story - how she lived through four wars and saw her family move around during WWII - it's all very very interesting. I keep on meaning to see if I can find contact with that side of the family who have immigrated to US in the start of 20th century... but yeah - need to get off my arse. Some photos... (the first two are from the buttons on/in the lift - they're exactly the same as when I was a little kid)




Some notes from inside the маршрутки (mini-busses that form part of pub. transport):

• Тише скажешь, дальше выйдешь (The quiter you ask for a stop, the further off you'll get off... NB: in the mini-busses the driver doesn't stop on all stops automatically, so you have to yell it to him to make sure you get off)
  
• Не говори водителю куда ему ехать, и он не скажет куда тебе идти (Don't tell the driver where to drive, and he won't tell you where you should go)
  
• Книга жалоб и предложений в следующей машине (Book of complaints and suggestions is in the next car)
  

Graffiti on one of the houses nearby... Единая Россия наш рулевой (United Russia (Putin's party) is our pilot) - still left over from the recent "elections".

A couple of photos of me and little brother Gleb:



While here we also celebrated Gleb's 17th birthday in a little cosy restaurant called Терем (umm... kinda fairy-tale cute house). The music in the background was right out of the 80s, and we heard some pearls as the original 'Daddy Cool', and quite a selection from Simply Red but it wasn't loud, so me and Mum even managed to have ourselves a nice little arguement about the common Russian superstitions :)


On Wednesday I also spent almost a whole day at my wonderful auntie Larisa and uncle Yakov's. Me and Yakov even managed to down some vodka В Охотку (umm... for the little hunt) and they fed me heaps of yummy stuff. The rest of the time we spent talking about this and that, and they also showed me all of the old black and white photos. Larisa also made me a really cute warm jumper - sadly the photo doesn't do it justice because in real life it's actually an intense "salad"-green :)



Last night after a horrible play Как солдат Чонкин самолет сторожил (How the soldier Chonkin guarded an airoplane)... from which we left in the first available break, I went to meet up with my old classmates from school Dialog. This time there were 12 of us - a pretty good turn-up. The ones who were missing were either in jail (drug problems) or in the States... :) It was good to see everyone, although very interesting to see how far/not far we've all come. Most boys like to show off their successes, but girls are generally quite allright. It was still fun, and one of us even got totally trashed and tried to have a fight in the snow - very amusing. Here's a little video I made of us all:




Tomorrow me and Mum are off to OVB - Tolmachevo to pick up my wonderful and amasing and most loved hubby. Next week the five of us are off to Altai for a couple of days to get away from the grind (mainly Dad) and just to spend some uninterrupted time together.

Before and After

I'm heading off tomorrow to Siberia too, so these are the gonna be the last Wohnung related pics for a while. The bathroom is finished and I've cleaned up around the place a bit too.

Take care - catcha on the flipside...

Paints, tiles and lights

So I've been slacking off a tad lately, did nothing again last night - but over the weekend I did manage to repaint the ceilings in the lounge and hallway - I'm still not happy with how they look, but we'll have to see if I can find the energy to do them a fourth time... *sigh*

I did manage to do two coats of green in the bedroom.

And I cleaned up a little - well a lot actually, builders not being a species renowned for their neatness.

And I put the lights on in the hallway and kitchen, this left a spare bare globe arrangement so I was able to attach that in the bathroom. Now all the light fittings have at least some sort of glowing thing attached to them.

Willie was a bit slack on Friday only finishing the white tiles - but he nearly finished the floor yesterday - this annoyingly meant that I could again not use the bathroom (as the tile cement has to set). So another night without a loo :-( Looks good though so far.

Notes from pereulok Dement'eva

Today I went to visit my cousin Andrei, his wife Sveta and my little cute nephew Alesha... they were feeding me the whole day and by the end of everything I was completely full and happy. Their house looks wonderful and makes me always a bit nostalgic... they live in a small 'village-like' place just outside of main Novosibirsk... they have two pigs and a last of their rabbits - at some point there were about 40, but they all died from some mysterious illness... and now this one is the last one that's going to be dinner at some point. There are two dogs and a cat, too... here are some photos :)

Snow and shine

Polina is in Siberia at the moment, hence I think Berlin is missing her and trying to make it's weather like that in Novosibirsk - this is a problem for me as our main local transport provider is on strike for one and a half weeks *sigh*

So we're having a touch of the frosties and a whole load of surprisingly clean white snow. It did improve in the afternoon though it was still freezing cold.

Morning view:


Evening view:


I'm off to stamp through the snow and slush again - mostly filthy slush today :-(

Getting it done

Today was a day for just getting some stuff done.

Willie our ultra cool tile laying dude almost finished the bathroom walls - at any rate he got enough done so that the plumber could come, which means that sometime over the course of the weekend I can hopefully use our new bathroom instead of the gym showers (which suck hardcore).

The plumber did everything he needed to and will thus get paid and disappear from our circle of tradies - he's been there the least, gotten everything done and been very good about it price wise too, so if you need a plumber in Berlin we can sort you out with a good one.

I attached one of our funky new lamps - the other two of these that are the same are waiting for a. electrician to fix the wiring (which sparks inside the cables) on one lamp and b. me to finish painting the ceiling in the hallway - so hopefully over the weekend.

The electrician was there today and replaced all of the light switches with the ones he was too lazy to put on last time - should have just done it before eh. At least now they match the power points.

And finally I finished the red paint in the lounge room - after three coats I'm finally happy with it - the coolest thing - it matches the red tiles from the bathroom. We must really like this red.

Peace out.

Notes from the centre of Russia

It's coming up to a week that I'm here and it's been wonderful, apart from this country having a newly "elected" president. Even though I haven't been watching TV at all - it's the only thing that's been on. Anyway - this is not about politics - here are some notes on the amusing things that I've come accross...

Everyone for Mum's birthday and me with my "baby" brother. Something that one of our family friends has brought to the table are crackers which are called "Хлебцы Молодцы" (ummm... Little Bread things which are called Good Guys... kinda untranslateable)


Today I went to my old school 'Dialog' which originally Dad made with a former friend of his for their kids (me included). I have many many fond memories associated with that place and next week we're trying to organise a reunion with our old classmates. Here are some photos - the school now occupies the whole of the ground floor of the building.



My brother Gleb is actually studying there now, which is a bit of a dejavue... so I was there to pick him up after school and we went for a beer - a proper passtime for a just-about 17 year old... while sitting in a cafe Кофемолка (coffee grinder)... we observed the cars that drove past. The note on the trolleybus somehow reminded me of the commie times (it says "Novosibirsk Trolleybus has turned 50 years!") Another piece of writing advertising someone running for mayor's office Мочалин - наш депутат "Не надо ничего обещать, надо работать!" (Mochalin is our candidate "There's no need to promise anything, just a need to work").


Another little something that I found amusing... in the cafe we ordered a cheese plate and in Russian they've made a literate translation сырная тарелка.. which make it sound as a plate literally made out of cheese :)

This is a shop that's just opened on the way home. It's called "Fish 1". Every time I pass it, it gives me the giggles... I mean where are "Bird 3" and "Monkey 10" :)

Something from social advertising. It says "Zebra is the most senior animal" - in Russian, a pedestrian crossing is called Zebra...

And of course no post would be the same without my very favourite classic Russian/Soviet ice-cream in a waffel... Сливочный Пломбир в Вафельном Стаканчике