28th October: A Quiet Weekend

This weekend, with the weather being so cold and most of us in much need of a rest and a catch-up on work, we didn't make any big plans. It was a nice change just to have some time to myself and get up-to-date with my emails and work.

On Saturday I had a lazy morning getting in touch with everyone back home. Lyudmila went to a family gathering welcoming her nephew back from the army, leaving me the flat to myself. For lunch she’d left me the nicest noodle and mushroom soup – it’s called лапша in Russian – and after that I met Alexia for a bit of retail therapy at Рио, the nearby shopping centre. There was already a layer of snow on the ground but on the journey the snowfall suddenly set in again, rapidly covering the roads and falling in thick fast flakes like a blizzard. Within a few minutes, however, it was over again and we were nearly there.

We stayed at Рио all afternoon, trying on everything we liked in Zara, Pull & Bear, Stradavarius, Bershka and even a few Russian shops, where we actually ended up buying the most. When it was time to go home for dinner we managed to jump on the first маршрутка which happened to be going straight to our stop. I waited with Alexia for her bus to come (there’s nothing worse than waiting for the bus on your own in the cold) before setting off home myself. It would have been a nice end to the day had some random thirty-year-old guy on the street made a casual grab for my crotch. What is wrong with these people?

A bit disturbed by this but trying to cast it off as a bizarre one-off occurrence, I quickly walked the rest of the way and returned to a cheerful landlady who was just setting my dinner on the table. I was exhausted and could have easily stayed in that night snuggled up in front of the TV, especially as the Russian version of ‘Tangled’ was on, Russian songs and all. But I’d promised Alexia that I’d go out and I've never been one to break my word, so when I got a call at 10 o’clock saying they were at Your Bar, I dragged myself out and made my way through the cold to meet them.

It so happens that on that occasion the cold actually worked in my favour, waking me up from my dazed state. By the time I got there they were grabbing a drink and a bite to eat in the local Russian fast food place, Чикен Тун, which is actually a lot nicer than it sounds from that description. Sean was there with a girl from Dagestan who’d been staying in his flat for the last two weeks; she was leaving on Monday and wanted to meet everyone before she did. Her Russian was surprisingly clear and she was lovely to talk to, despite the fact that, having being brought up in a heavily Muslim community, she had some unusual views. I was careful not to say anything that might offend, even when she said that she found it acceptable for men to have sex before marriage, but not women. Surely you don’t even have to be a feminist to see the flaw in that statement.

By this time it was getting on for 11 and we wanted to move on to a bar, but it being the Saturday of Halloween (yes, they do celebrate it here), there were no tables anywhere and we couldn't get in. Eventually we ended up in Таро where we stayed for one drink before calling it a night. It had been a quieter night than expected but it had been really interesting to chat to Sean’s housemate and probably did me good to get out the house, as I knew I’d be in all the next day.

The following day, there was yet another layer of snow on the ground, and it continued falling thick and fast until well into the afternoon and evening. I worked most of the day as well as catching up with Will on Facebook (we've given up on Skype for the moment as it just doesn't seem to work), and by 4pm I was beginning to get a bit stir crazy. It was then that I remembered that the university choir had a rehearsal at 5, and decided to force myself to go.

I’m glad I made the effort because, even though when I got there the usual choir wasn't on, there was another huge rehearsal instead, made up of all the choirs in Yaroslavl; I've never sung in such a big choir before and the sound was fantastic, especially in the long, high-ceilinged hall of the university. It turned out there was a group concert the following Saturday which, it being reading week, I probably won’t be able to attend. Nevertheless it was great to be able to go and sing Russian songs, which I found I picked up surprisingly quickly. Not only this, but a lot of them were Soviet songs about Yaroslavl and I felt like I was part of some big patriotic movement, nothing like I've experienced in the UK. On top of this, I also met a few of the girls from the university choir, all of whom were lovely and said they’ll be at the rehearsal on Thursday.

Today was slightly different from our usual Mondays as we missed two lessons, since Roy Bivon from RLUS had come to visit to get an idea of our views about the course and RLUS in general. It was pretty much the same information that we had given the organisation last time, and we received the same response. The course was fine but we were being over-charged for accommodation (17000r a month for board, breakfast and dinner when a flat here costs only 5000r a month and food is a cheap commodity). RLUS’s argument is that the university in Yaroslavl has an agreement with the landladies, but surely they could lower prices across the board. Everyone thinks the same but unfortunately nothing seems likely to change any time soon.

That afternoon we had lunch in Чикен Тун as Ben needed to meet Natalya from the international office there, to hand in his passport to get his visa. We ended up staying there the whole afternoon as Ben had arranged to take part in an interview with some Russian students who wanted to know our impressions of Yaroslavl, and after that we had to continue on the seemingly endless research for our reading week trip. By 5pm there were yet more ideas on the table and we’d come no closer to making a decision, and I needed to go back for an early dinner in time for my exercise class (aerobics tonight). I’m hoping we’ll be able to decide once and for all tomorrow and to get some tickets booked.