A Visit to Real Russia

There was so much that happened in this last week, I've probably forgotten or left out some stuff, but bear with it, it's a good'un!

After settling down in perm and going through all the necessary adminny type stuff which I won't bore you with, albeit it to say that the Russian workers code is really interesting... we set off on our first excursion, the proper part of the trip. We were to be staying at a camp used by the university known as Predural'e for field training.

Before we left I had a nightmare with the camera meaning that I couldn't charge it and therefore have got no photos of my own of this partL.

The camp itself was really beautiful and very basic, it sort of looked like one of them American summer camps that you see in films, apart from the masked axe murderer who also appears in those films. It was situated in the valley of the Sylva River, right beneath the Transiberian railway line

We arrived into predural'e and decided that we'd like to stay with the Russian students so that we could do some 'socialising.' Everybody was incredibly welcoming and we had a sort of minor celebrity status within the camp, it was awesome. After a small BBQ with the professors, we left for a celebration of the New Year.

At this point I'd like to say that this is some really obscure and old Russian tradition, but infact, most of the other students had been here a while and had decided that they needed an excuse for a party. There was some impressive commitment with people dressed as tourists, Grandfather Frost, Mrs Claus etc. the party we had to take the obligatory 1x1023 photos with every single possible combination of students, which was all in good fun. Everyone asked loads of questions, mostly why did you come here?! Or words to that effect.

One of the main conversations was about football, everybody wanted to know what firm I was a part of and whether I was a 'Hool', apparently it's quite common, this said by a Celtic fan, which probably explains a lot. We also heard one of my favourite quotes, this is from a film in Russia and everyone loves it.

"Are you gangsters?" "No, we are Russians"

On the second day we took a general trip around the valley and along the river. That night we were invited to a party with some of the biology students. It started a little quietly then some other visitors from outside came. One guy, who was introduced to us as bear, came in, slammed down some beer and then went to town eating three whole fish rather quickly. The party moved on to the top of the hill where we carried on drinking Kalashnikov vodka until the early hours of the morning. It later turns out that we also had quite a bit of homemade Russian vodka. The vodka, although very cheap (around £5 a litre) was tonnes nicer than the British stuff and actually drinkable. We eventually staggered in at around 5 o clock, just in time to be woken at 9 the next morning in a sorry state.

Strangely, one of the highlights of the trip was our visit to a proper Russian sauna, this is seen as sort of a men's club in Russia (except from when the women go). Me and Kristian had been in a couple of times already, this last time we were to go with the professors. We were waiting outside after one round and then 6 Russian men came and got naked in the room, we were a little bit taken aback at first, but when in Rome (/Russia). The sauna was hot even by Russian standards; posing a strong risk of very awkward burns.... it was a really good experience of the sort of Russia that you don't see on your standard Russia trip. During Sauna rounds we had a couple of beers (Baltika 3 this time) and ate some fish from an endemic species of Lake Baikal (one of the professors had just returned from there).

We also had some nights playing poker with some of the guys (winning obviously), eating Russian pancakes, and generally being laughed at for some of our horrendous Russian pronunciation (not easy with my accent). We were leaving with the geographers so on the last night we had a big party. We started with the geography girls, drinking lots of cognac, which came in a huge 5l bottle, so you know it's good. We then moved to the guys room, which had been kitted out into a proper nightclub by the students, complete with security (one of the guys), strobe lights (head torches), Window dancers (window dancers) and to top it all off some banging Russian rave and hip-hop.

Our stay in predural'e was incredible, made so by all of the people that we met there and the place itself, set in a stunning location.

Oh yeah, we did a little bit of work too.

Ps. Arbus = Watermelon in Russian, learning useful things all the time