Russian Language, Moving onto Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan
Saturday, July 17th, 2010
Expensive treats well and truly over between St Petersburg and Moscow - we were ready to hit the road again. We’d had no real problems in St Petersburg or Moscow with language barriers as we managed to get by on having to use very little of our very basic pigeon Russian. Jessica and AJ meantime can’t enough of learning Russian, writing and bringing lists of words with them everywhere. If we got really stuck or forgot our phrasebook - we mimed, drew and pointed - making general idiots of ourselves. No-one minded and all of the Russian people we have met so far have been lovely and friendly. There are many English speakers in both city centres (hotels and restaurants etc.) and English food menus are readily available.
Like many of the places we have been through Eastern Europe and then moving onward to Western Russia - the women are stylish, skinny, gorgeous and know how to dress - no jeans and tshirts here but the shortest of shorts and mini-skirts and high heels. We felt severely under-dressed in our travelling clothes alot of the time.
From Moscow, we checked out of our hotel on the dot at noon (squeezing every last ounce of our expensive splurge) and were proud to have navigated ourselves correctly to the vicinty of a major bookstore in town (Globus Biblico - a huge bookshop in Moscow) to buy ourselves a good English-Russian dictionary, to add to our phrase book. We squeezed ourselves into what felt like the only single car space in the whole of the city centre and were soon boxed in by another car who parked sideways in front of us. No worries - we’d made it and Andrew stayed with the car while Anne plodded off with the children by foot.
One dictionary later, plus a map of Kazahkstan and two new pens for the chilldren - we had coffees back at the car and a part-mimed chat to Alexei (the owner of the vehicle trapping us). We finally left at 4pm and then got lost in Moscow (we missed our exit, heading north to St Petersburg instead east toward Nizhny Novgorod). We commiserated at McDonalds (there are many in Moscow and we’ve had our fill of these - not normally our practice - but they are quick and easy, especially for good, clean toilets and a coffee break sometimes while on the road) and then had another go at leaving in the 6 lane traffic. We eventually made it to the outskirts of Moscow at 7pm.
Driving onto Nizhny Movgorod was no issue - roads were good and lorries still ruled - just the distance between the two places. We had planned to stop off in between at Vladimir and had also been eyeing Suzdal but, on approach we changed our minds as we needed to make up miles and lost time. Not wanting to pay another penny for expensive accommodation, we parked up eventually in a siding with some lorries.
Nizhny Novgorod
Arriving early, we were able to pull up first in the city centre for coffees and breakfast and then park a little way off, right next to Russia’s oldest Kremlin. Maxim Gorky was also born here and there is another Gorky Park (nothing spectacular though like Moscow’s) based here. The Kremlin here is perched very high up facing the Volga River and split by the Oka River which joins it. Here, we learned just how big, wide and long the Volga actually is (longest in Europe). The views from the Kremlin and most of anywhere we looked along the river were very romantic, relaxing and quite special. We were not expecting it to be a beautiful place but it was - very cosmopolitan and trendy to boot. We had a very nice day wandering around while the children played and climbed all over the several tanks, vehicles, artillery guns and spitfire on display at the Kremlin here from the Second World War. Our visit was free and much more fun and accessible for the children than Moscow’s huge tourist mecca. It has huge grounds (we forgot we were inside it at times) and Jessica and AJ busied themselves for most of the day in freedom and role play. We researched a cheap place to stay this time before arriving and had been made aware of a dual pricing warning (one price for locals, another for tourists). On enquiring about a room which we knew should cost us 750 rubles, we were told 7,500 rubles and quickly deciided we were not about to be victims (the cost quoted even more expensive than Moscow). We abandoned the idea of staying in Nizhny Novgorod but not before lunch, or discovering the beach along the riverbanks - accidently finding a long unsealed off-road track that took us to secret areas where we could have camped and bathed among the inlets and pools we reckoned. But, we were already on our way, heading out toward the motorway so didn’t stop but Nizhny Novgorod was a very pleasant place, especially after the hustle and bustle of Moscow.
We are currently in Kazan (where East meets West) and nothing prepared us for this fusion of culture and beauty - the weather even hotter here. Due to connectivity issues and needing to write up our notes - update to follow. We’ve been here for two nights, are about to move on and our Russian phrasebook is becoming more and more like a second skin. In Kazan there is English spoken but not as widespread as we have been able to enjoy so far. We are having to focus much more on using the lingo which is better for us in the long run.
Education
Spellings, Map Reading & Compass Navigaton on foot and in car. Making up and writing poems. Russian Cyrillic language learning, Using Russian currency. Logging expenditure (next willl be to manage the budget for the day). Revising capital cities of countries visited so far. Learning about Communism and Marxism including Lenin and Stalin. Learning about the functions of a kremlin and seeing different ones to make comparisons. Journal writing, maths (reasoning) and reading.
Vehicle Issues
Front side light bulb blown - fixed from spares - no issues. Noticed fuel leak in Nizhy Novgorod but we were parked downward on a steep slope. Parked upward in Kazan to test - no further issues.
Mileage/Kilometres
Location: Kazan - 10,461 Miles / 17,315 Km
Accommodaton by Type (and Number of Nights) - Total 107 (including Kazan)
Camping (42), Helpx (23), Hotels (19), Travelling/Rough Stays (18), Homestays (3), Ferries (2)
Countries Travelled (and Number of Nights) - Total 107
Netherlands (4), Belgium (0), Germany (9), Austria (5), Hungary (2), Romania (5), Moldova (3), Bulgaria (32), Turkey (11), Ukraine (9), Poland (6), Lithuania (5), Latvia (3), Estonia (2), Russia (10 so far)
On the Road Expenses
Too scared to look right now!
Bye for now!
A, A, J and AJ
XXXX
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July 21st, 2010 at 9:54 am
Glad to see everything is going well! Russia sounds great - another one to add to our list for the future. Now been back for 3 weeks from our travels in Turkey and it is all beginning to seem like a long time ago, not helped by the awful weather - dull, rain for what seems like weeks (although apparently it has been very different in the south). So, to make us feel a bit better we are off to Suffolk next week with our caravan.
All the best, Melanie and Leigh
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miss you lot…
lots of love Rana,Kayleigh,Aathiya and Aaziya x x x x
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