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.